The Middle Kingdom

by Andrea Barrett

I shook my head no and she pulled out a stack of forms. My ears were ringing and several conversations seemed to be going on inside my head at once. ‘I can’t do this,’ I told Walter. ‘Can you?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said. I collapsed in one of the slipcovered armchairs stretched down the hall in neat rows, each one dotted dead center with a crisp white doily. Behind me, I heard the two women and Walter struggling to make sense of each other and the forms. The women spoke no English and Walter didn’t know a word of Mandarin. The women flipped through the book, pointing out sentences for each other and speaking louder and louder. Walter raised his voice, enunciated more and more clearly, separated his syllables more distinctly. ‘They don’t understand loud English either,’ I told him. Walter shot me a dirty look and struggled on, repeating my name, my birthdate, our hotel address, the reason we were here – why were we here? – and our host organization. The women nodded and smiled, nodded and smiled, understanding nothing. Walter stopped talking and filled in the forms. One of the women took them with her into another room, while I sat and sniffed at the sweet, warm smell in the hall. Soap and herbs and starch and fabric dried in the sun; nothing like an American hospital. Walter threw himself into the armchair beside me, mumbling something I didn’t catch, and then the two women reappeared and led us into the doctor’s office.

  The doctor was young and spoke very little English, relying on a bilingual dictionary and the same book the women at the front desk had used. Her office was almost bare: a desk, three wooden chairs, a glass jar full of warped tongue depressors, an ancient stethoscope and an even older blood-pressure cuff. I could feel Walter shuddering at the germs, at the microscopic cracks in the wood. The doctor waved us into the chairs.

  ‘Wo jiang de hua ni ting de dong ting bu dong?’ she said, slowly and precisely. All I could catch from that was de dong – understand. I suspected she was asking me if I could understand her.

  ‘Wo bu dong,’ I said faintly, the first phrase I’d learned. ‘Bu dong.’ I don’t understand.

  She smiled and bent over her books. Walter, waving me silent, took my phrasebook from my purse and began flipping through it. ‘Let me deal with this,’ he said. ‘How do I tell her I’m a scientist?’

  ‘Look up “occupations,”’ I whispered.

  ‘Doctor, lawyer, teacher, farmer,’ he muttered. ‘Closest is doctor, I guess. What is “American”?’

  ‘Meiguo ren,’ I told him.

  The doctor, puzzled, was turning her head between us as if we were playing table tennis. Walter straightened himself and mangled the words he thought meant ‘American scientist.’ ‘Wo shi Meiguo ren yisheng,’ he said.

  The doctor’s face crinkled in a smile. ‘Dr Amurr-ika?’ she said.

  I closed my eyes. Dr America – not far from Walter’s vision of who he was.

  ‘Bronchitis,’ Walter said loudly. ‘Bronchitis. Bronchitis!’

  The doctor shook her head and thumbed through her book, opening it to the entry for ‘Cold.’ She held the book so I could see it, and she read the English version of the first line haltingly. ‘What seems to be the problem?’

  I read the second line back to her, pointing at the Chinese version as I did. I think I have a cold, I read, but I shook my head at the same time. ‘No. No cold.’

  She took my temperature and laid her stethoscope over my chest and back, tapping me lightly with her fingers while indicating that I should breathe. Then she flipped to the next entry in her book and showed it to me.

  ‘Pneumonia,’ I read. I shook my head again.

  ‘Pneu-monia,’ she said loudly. ‘Yes.’ She pointed out the appropriate lines. Do you cough up any phlegm?

  I nodded reluctantly.

  She pointed to the next line. What color is it?

  ‘Yellow,’ I said.

  ‘Yen-no?’

  I pointed at the word in the book; she nodded and pointed again. Do you have fever?

  I nodded again. She knew that; she had taken my temperature. Maybe she wanted to know how long I’d had it.

  ‘Bronchitis!’ Walter said. ‘Tell her you have bronchitis!’

  I heaved myself over and grabbed her dictionary and her handbook. Her handbook had entries for ‘Cold’ and ‘Pneumonia’ but nothing for ‘Bronchitis.’ I found the word ‘bronchus’ in her dictionary and showed her the Chinese definition, tapping frantically at my chest and coughing, coughing. ‘Bronchitis,’ I repeated.

  ‘No,’ she said, and tapped her own chest in return. ‘Lungs full.’ She took back her handbook and pointed out a section to me. ‘Need draw blood. Chest X-films.’

  From a drawer she pulled a needle and a syringe that looked as old as her stethoscope; I didn’t want to imagine the age of her X-ray machine. Likely it dated, as did everything here, from the early 1950s. One shot from that and I’d glow for years.

  ‘No,’ I told her. ‘No blood. No films.’ She frowned and I tugged at Walter’s sleeve.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he whispered. ‘Should we leave?’

  ‘The paper I gave you,’ I said. ‘There’s a phone number on it. Dr Yu’s husband works here in the hospital somewhere, and he promised he’d help if we had problems. Call him – his name is Dr Zhang Meng.’

  ‘What good will that do? Maybe we can get this woman to give you some pills.’ He turned to the doctor. ‘Medicine?’ he said. ‘Erythromycin?’

  ‘Bed,’ she said firmly, studying her book. ‘Here, hospital.’ She checked something in her dictionary. ‘Ox-y-gen,’ she said. ‘Penicillin, by needle. Not go home.’

  Walter rolled his eyes at me. ‘I’ll call,’ he said, and he stepped into the hall. I drew my knees to my chest, trying to splint my racking cough. Trying to figure out what was happening to me. The doctor came over, syringe in hand. ‘Blood?’ she wheedled.

  I pressed my arms to my chest and covered my elbows with my hands, promising myself I’d run before I’d let her stick me.

  ‘No,’ I said firmly, and then I faded away again, caught up in a vision of the children at the model nursery school we’d visited earlier in the week. Row after row of obedient faces, singing a welcome in unison. On the playground they’d moved in neat groups like flocks of birds. ‘Chinese children very well-behaved,’ our guide, Lou, had told us, as our group of Western wives and mothers gaped in astonishment. ‘We give discipline early,’ one of the teachers said. ‘Discourage bad behavior.’ There were no children crying, beating up on each other, tearing the wings off of flies; no solitary ones hiding in bushes or dreaming alone at the top of a ladder. The scene had charmed us all but left us all uneasy, as uneasy as I was making this doctor now. I knew she was wondering how I’d been brought up, why I was so resistant to her well-meaning help. I retreated into unconsciousness, the melody the children had sung repeating in my ears, and when I came to myself Dr Zhang was there, arguing furiously with Walter in front of the silent young doctor.

  ‘She is correct,’ Dr Zhang said. ‘Wife has pneumonia, absolutely. We will admit her here. This is the best hospital in our country.’

  ‘No way,’ Walter said, so angry he was shaking. ‘No way. We have to leave tomorrow for my lecture tour.’

  ‘Yes?’ Dr Zhang said. ‘You wish her sick in Xian, where there is no good hospital? You wish to cause extraordinary incident?’

  Walter glared at him coldly. ‘Bronchitis,’ he said. ‘She’s had it before. All she needs is some erythromycin.’ He was eight inches taller than Dr Zhang, but Dr Zhang stood firm.

  ‘It started as viral bronchitis,’ Dr Zhang said patiently. ‘But it’s pneumonia now, most probably pneumococcal. Bronchitis interferes with the clearing of bacteria from the lungs. She has consolidation now in right and left lower lobes – she should not be moved.’

  ‘Walter,’ I said feebly, ‘I think he’s right. I’ve never felt this way before.’

  His face fell and he stared at me miserably. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Really? Jesus, Grace, I don’t know what to do. All the lectures are set
up and they’re expecting me, and Katherine and I have been working on this joint presentation …’

  ‘Katherine?’ I said.

  ‘Katherine Olmand,’ Walter said. His cheeks reddened. ‘The ichthyologist? You sat next to her at the banquet? We’ve been working on this thing, a comparison of British and American lakes …’ His voice trailed off. ‘But if you’re sick,’ he said. ‘If you’re really this sick – I thought this morning maybe you were just giving me a hard time.’

  I thought for a minute and then looked over at Dr Zhang. ‘You go,’ I told Walter. ‘I’ll stay here. Come back and get me when you’re done.’

  Dr Zhang, kind man, picked up his cue. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Absolutely. You stay. My wife and I will look after you here, and make sure all medical care goes well.’

  Walter’s relief was written on his face. ‘She’ll be fine here,’ Dr Zhang said, as if reading Walter’s mind. ‘Tell the people at your hotel what has happened, and have them send her papers here. I’ll speak to the hospital director and to the CAST liaison. You give your lectures, and return here when you are done. How long will you be?’

  ‘Eight days,’ Walter said slowly. He turned and touched my face, and I watched him struggling not to smile. I couldn’t blame him – hell for Walter would be eight days in a Chinese hospital nursing a sick wife. Eight days watching me when he could have been listening to applause. I wondered what he was working on with Katherine Olmand, and why he’d spoken of her. He’d dropped her name several times; he’d been dropping it all week. But Katherine was dry and wry and at least as smart as Walter, and I’d never known him to find that attractive in a woman.

  ‘You’ll be all right here?’ Walter said.

  ‘Fine,’ I told him. I had never felt worse in my life, but I knew having Walter around wasn’t going to fix me.

  ‘I’ll admit you as my patient,’ Dr Zhang said. ‘It’s irregular, but we’ll make up some reason for why you need a thoracic surgeon. Then I can watch you legally.’

  ‘Fine,’ I whispered. ‘Thank you.’ Walter and Dr Zhang huddled together and I passed out again.

  When I woke, Walter was gone and I was upstairs in an open ward, tucked into a narrow bed at the far end of a long row. There was a bandage on my left elbow where someone had stuck me after all, and a sore spot higher up on my arm where someone – Dr Zhang, I hoped – had apparently given me a shot. In my other arm an IV dripped clear liquid. The sheets were crisp and cool except directly beneath me, where I’d soaked them with sweat. They smelled of nutmeg, like the rooms downstairs.

  Walter was gone – that sunk in slowly. Walter was gone and I hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye. For company, I had nine other patients lying hot and wasted in their beds. I wondered if Walter had seen this room or if Dr Zhang had spared him. The floors in the ward were dark wood, the walls and ceilings tan, and there wasn’t a scrap of aluminum or plastic in sight, no disposable anything anywhere. No monitors, no televisions, no beeps or flashing lights, no call buttons, no drapes, no rails on the beds. On the table next to me was another copy of the English-Chinese hospital dialogue, thoughtfully placed within my reach. An orange paper slip marked the pages someone must have thought I’d need.

  ‘Admission and Discharge,’ I read aloud, and then I scanned the next few pages. There were lines for all the things I might need: food, help, the bathroom, a haircut, an enema, the telephone. All the ways I might feel – hungry, thirsty, listless, constipated, insomniac, allergic to certain foods – and what I might prefer to eat: clear soup or cream, milk or tea, cake or soda crackers. There were complaints and wishes: too hot, too cold, too noisy; open the window, close it, please; turn the heat on or off; my wound is hurting; I need a pill. And one sad little line: I am so scared. I have never been in a hospital before.

  The nurse’s and patient’s lines alternated in both languages, like lines in a play, and although they were soothing I didn’t know what I’d do if I wanted something that wasn’t included in the script. I flipped through the pages and found a dialogue in case I broke my leg, one for a pebble in my eye, another for cramps and bad periods and another for epilepsy. More and more, cancer and TB and chicken pox, hernias and ulcers and gas, even a small psychiatry section in case I went suddenly mad.

  All this – but no doctors, no nurses in sight. We were alone in the dusky ward, and when I realized that I started to panic despite my reassuring book. But just then Dr Zhang appeared, with two X-ray films under his arm. Behind him came Dr Yu, bearing a big wicker basket. I opened my mouth, wanting to say how happy I was to see them, but I’d lost my voice.

  ‘Do not attempt to talk,’ said Dr Zhang. ‘I need only to inform you of your status. Your blood culture was positive for pneumococci, your sputum showed polymorphonuclear leukocytes and cocci, your X-rays showed homogeneous density in the right lower lobe and some parts of the left. No doubt whatsoever you have pneumococcal pneumonia.’

  I opened my mouth again but closed it quickly.

  ‘So,’ Dr Zhang said. ‘You stay here for six or eight days – likely your fever will fall in about four days and you’ll begin to feel better. No talking. No walking. Penicillin twice each day, plenty of fluids. And sleep. Sleep all you can.’

  ‘Waa …,’ I croaked.

  Dr Yu stepped forward and sat down on the empty bed next to me. ‘Walter leaves for Xian tomorrow,’ she said. ‘With Dr Katherine Olmand and another scientist. Very early – too early for him to come here first. But we have made all arrangements with him. He says he will call my husband each day to check on you, and he asked me to convey to you his love.’

  I couldn’t help it, I started to cry. I knew she’d added that last part herself.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘Everything will be fine. I will sleep here in the bed beside you each night, and I will take care of all your food. See?’

  She opened her wicker basket and took out a huge thermos, some delicate cups, two pairs of chopsticks, a rice bowl, a porcelain spoon, and several lidded tins. ‘Hospital food is very expensive,’ she said. ‘Also very bad. No one eats it unless they are alone in the world. All these people here’ – she gestured around the room – ‘all these people, their families care for them, bring their meals each day, leave someone sleeping by the sick person each night. Is this like you do at home?’

  I shook my head no, unable to explain that this was better.

  She tapped the book on my bedside table. ‘Point out the line for “no food” when the nurse asks,’ she said. ‘We will take care of you. We are your family this week – me, Meng, Zaofan. Also, Zaofan sends his regards to you.’

  Rocky, I thought, and I felt my face grow hot. For an instant I saw him, felt him, smelled him. His hair had smelled slightly musty, slightly damp. Dr Yu laid her cool hand on my head.

  ‘Such fever you have,’ she said. ‘I brought you weak tea for tonight, and soup with special Chinese herbs. Please – you drink what you can.’ She took off her black shoes, stretched out on the empty bed near me, and opened the book she’d brought with her. ‘You let me know when you want liquids,’ she said. ‘I am right here.’

  ‘I will leave, then,’ said Dr Zhang, who’d been watching us silently. ‘I will return in the morning. The nurse will check you in the night.’

  Zillah’s voice moved in for good that night, burrowing through my head and rendering me deaf and helpless. No one had been on the street that morning, asking me why I lived as I did and offering to explain the world – that voice had been Zillah’s and now it settled in, strong and persuasive but blended somehow with Dr Yu’s gentle accents. Or maybe Dr Yu spoke to me as well.

  ‘My youngest sister worked at the Ministry of Culture,’ Dr Yu said – that first night? Another? The room expanded, the walls drifted away, the other patients vanished; my body lay still and hot and heavy, just beyond my reach. On the table a red flower appeared and disappeared.

  ‘The Ministry of Culture,’ Dr Yu said with a gentle laugh. ‘Ma
o named it Ministry of Ghosts. My sister, before she was sent away, called it Ministry of Truth, after your writer Orwell. You remember this? In each office is a slot called the memory hole, where all old things no longer wanted are made to vanish. My sister made people vanish from photographs.’

  Did she tell me that? Did she tell me the stories I thought I heard, while the white curtains lifted and swelled and fell back again, moving like sails in the night? ‘My grandmother had hair like swan’s down,’ she said. The black rubber stopper fell out of the IV bottle hanging above my bed. ‘The lines,’ she said. ‘Those lines – I rose at three to wait to buy some fish, and when I got to market I found a row of tiles and stones and chairs, marking the places of those who’d come earlier.’ Someone turned my pillow for me, over and over again, and in the background, fading in and out, Dr Yu spoke of her childhood and the lives of her parents and the fates of her sisters and brothers. I tried to listen to her, but more often I heard Zillah.

  Shy Zillah, strange Zillah. What was she doing here? Hanging behind my right temple, just above my ear, her voice came bearing everything I preferred to forget. Watch this, her voice said, and behind my closed eyes I saw a picture of my thyroid, nested under the skin of my throat like a small warm bird. My thyroid was a place like Mumu’s bookcase and the image Zillah sent to sit there was a shu. A shoe. A white sneaker, I saw, with a rubber-tipped toe and green stains. Along with that picture came everything I remembered of Zillah and hadn’t thought about in years. Her thin, spiky hair, hacked off in the pixie cut her mother preferred; her pale-blue glasses with the upswept corners; her broken front tooth. At the base of the gravel pit we’d huddled together, glad to be out of our strange homes and caught completely by the games we played.

  We had pranced like horses through the dry gray pebbles, whinnying through our teeth and holding imaginary reins. We had named the rocks, befriended the trees, woven tales in which our families were transformed into goblins and came to the ends we believed they deserved. We had made villages out of leaves and twigs and had always known that we were different, that when we grew up we’d be nothing like the adults surrounding us. We had a wild hunger in us, to merge, blend, connect, and although we couldn’t have put it into words we knew what we felt. We glued the feathers we found on the ground to our arms and meant to live like birds, and the broken arm I suffered the day we jumped from the crumbling cliff, our hands spread and holding our shirts like wings, did nothing to dissuade us. Later we fastened cotton wings to our clothes, as if our bones would hollow out in sympathy.