by Amy Tan
Lu Shing and I stood at the railing, supposedly keeping an eye out for whales, but surreptitiously glancing at each other. We spotted an occasional sea lion and let everyone know we had been attentive to our duty. At times, I pretended that the sway of the boat had caused me to lose my balance, and I fell against Lu Shing, who steadied me.
And then the boat did sway more forcefully. Its nose lifted and crashed, and everyone laughed, as if this had been arranged as a bit of fun. The small waves merged into rolling ones. I held my breath with each upheaval. There was no more laughter. Dark clouds blossomed above and tines of light fell onto the horizon ahead. The winds picked up and whipped our faces and turned our cheeks numb. The seagulls disappeared, and the choppy waters swallowed the flippers of sea lions. Lu Shing had wrapped his pigtail around his head and pulled his bowler down over his ears. He wore Western clothing, a thick wool jacket and trousers. I had plaited my hair at the back to match his. The wind had loosened it, and strands of hair latched themselves against my eyes.
The skipper shouted voiceless directions into the wind and nimble men jumped over to the boom and wrestled it around. A young dark-faced man handed out life preservers and assured us it was only a precaution. The boat pitched up and landed hard in the trough. He advised us to go below if we did not want to be splashed by waves. Miss Huffard and her lover were the first to take his advice and it required delicacy to ease the rotund singer into the small opening as she squealed when she missed a step on the ladder. Mr. Maubert and his sister descended next, then Miss Pond and Father. Mother followed reluctantly. Just before my father closed the hatch, he called to me, “Are you coming?”
“We’ll brave it out. I think I glimpsed a whale just ahead.”
Soon Lu Shing and I were the only passengers who remained on deck. We freely smiled at each other. It was the first time we had been alone that day. My chin was trembling and tears burned my eyes, and this was not due to love but the punishment of the wind. My teeth chattered like castanets. I imagined us standing on another boat in another week’s time, that one going to Shanghai.
“It’s so beautiful out here. I wish this boat would sail all the way to China,” I said.
He said nothing. Perhaps he knew the reason I had said that. He was solemn, impenetrable, a stranger.
”I would like to go to China one day. Perhaps I could talk my mother into it if I make it an expedition to find rare birds.” He laughed and said there were many. That encouraged me a great deal. “I imagine it’s difficult for Americans to live in Shanghai, given the differences in language and customs.”
“Shanghai has a growing number of people from the United States—also England, Australia, France, many countries. I think they live quite comfortably—luxuriously even—and in a part of the city that is like a little country within the larger one.”
I looked at him to judge the meaning of what he had just said. He might have taken me at my word—that I was thinking of coming to China with my mother. “Of course, if my mother didn’t want to come, I could come alone.”
He knew what I was thinking. He wore that same thoughtful look when I first went to the turret and lay down, unasked. “I’m already betrothed,” he said. “I have a contract for a wife, and when I return I will marry her and live with my family.”
I was shocked by his news and the bluntness in which he told me. “Why are you telling me this?” I said, feeling the heat rise to my face. I turned to the side so he would not see. “I wasn’t suggesting I would marry you. I had hoped, however, you would have given me advice on how best to arrange a visit, just as you would have for Mr. Bierstadt.”
I walked away before he could see how truly wounded I was and stood on the opposite side of the yacht, humiliated by my own actions. I hated myself for having revealed so much—and to virtually a stranger. How stupid to think a few bounces in bed would make him feel it would be unbearable to be without me. But if I now said I wouldn’t go to China after what he had said, he would think that I was indeed seeking his love and not birds. A reckless thought came to me: I’ll prove him wrong. I’ll go to China and we’ll see what he says to that! By the second, my anger and determination grew until I convinced myself that I truly did want to see China, regardless of whether he would marry another girl, instead of me. I could be independent and make a life of my own and be as different as all the people there.
The waters calmed. The wind died down. I heard a voice shout. I looked back, but it was not Lu Shing. It was the skipper. He seemed to be outlined in a cloud, floating in the salty air. He motioned with his spyglass to look ahead. Along the horizon were the peaks of the Farallon Islands. They were directly ahead. It was impossible that we had traveled this far so quickly. We had been at sea for only an hour. But then I saw that they were not peaks but the shadow outline of three enormous dragons. As I stared in awe, they became an elephant. I squinted my eyes. In another half minute, I saw a whale, which then shrank and became a yacht like ours. What was happening? Had I gone mad? I looked at the skipper. He had a maniacal look and was laughing. The crew was laughing as well, yelling the Italian words: Fata morgana. Fata morgana. A mirage.
My mother had told me she had once seen a fata morgana while looking toward the Farallon Islands. She said it looked like a ship and then a whale. At the time, I had thought she had imagined it. How strange that this had occurred right when I was thinking of going to China. This was a warning that I had seen an illusion of love. It was false and could change into many disguises. But I also considered it was a sign that I should go to China, that the life I wanted was closer than I thought. Just as I thought this, a sharp wall of wind pushed me, and a seagull directly above gave three sharp cries. The bow rose up on a jagged white crest and the boat pitched sharply to the side. We were being pushed to the mirage—or drawn to it, like Odysseus to the Sirens. This was a sign. Odysseus had to decide between vice and virtue. I had to decide between a puppet or being my true self-being. My hands were too numb to hang on to the railing, and when the bow pointed down again into the dark trough, my feet slipped, and I was shocked to find I was sliding on the deck. The blanket flew off my shoulders and my skirt ballooned out like a sail. I bumped hard into what looked like a spool of rope and tried to grab onto it, but from cold or fright I had no strength to grip it. I slid toward the railing on the other side and saw how easily I could glide smoothly under its opening and fall into the black waters. I screamed. A shout returned in a foreign language. I felt hands grab my ankles. A boy, no older than fourteen, with a Gypsy face and greasy hair, held on to me. He dragged me toward the hatch and I tried to stand, but my legs were wobbly, and he caught me as I collapsed. As he steadied me, I looked toward the horizon once more.
It was not until that moment that I looked to see where Lu Shing had gone. He was nowhere to be seen. Had he fallen overboard? I gestured frantically to the dark-faced boy. He assured me with his hands that the man with the long pigtail was fine, but he had lost his hat. He pantomimed the bowler sailing into the air. He gestured that Lu Shing was on the other side of the boat and was safe. I was furious. He was having a fine time, I was sure, unconcerned that I had nearly died. I would have gone over to him to curse him, but I was racked with cold.
As I stepped down the ladder on shaky legs, I felt the warmth rise over me, and my cheeks burned as sensation returned. The cabin was decorated like a parlor. There were divans and chairs, pots of ferns and Oriental rugs in colors of umber and ruby. Remarkably, nothing was in disarray. Mr. Hatchett said the furniture was nailed into place, all but the tea service. He pointed to a smashed teapot and teacups, and some scattered biscuits. A cabin boy was cleaning up the mess, pocketing the biscuits. My mother sat on a deep red ottoman, in earnest conversation with Miss Maubert, who lay against a fainting couch, looking green-faced, as if she might truly faint. Miss Huffard placed a mug of hot tea in my hands and told me to drink it and warm myself from the inside out. I heard Miss Pond telling Father how she had lost her sketchbook int
o the waves. Everything I heard now was meaningless. Miss Huffard rubbed my arms with her warm hands. She remarked at how little flesh I had on my bones. She turned me around and rubbed my back. She smelled of roses. “You nearly froze your little bum,” she said. “What foolish things we endure for love.”
I stiffened. What was she saying?
She patted my back. “I have done it many times, to my detriment, but never to my regret.” She sang in full voice: “The heart has no memory, when love returns to me.” Everyone clapped. She turned me around to face her again. “I have sung that many times, before a thousand admirers on the stage, and in my bedroom, terribly alone.” Her kindness touched me. She led me through the companionway to a dark berth, laid me down, and pulled an enormous fur coat over me. It smelled of roses, too.
I was drifting off to sleep when I heard great shouts from abovedeck. I jumped up and struggled in Miss Huffard’s voluminous fur coat to reach the main cabin. Two boys were carefully lowering Lu Shing down through the hatch and two were below to receive him. His face was a grimace of pain. His leg was in a crude splint.
“He’s broken his leg at the ankle,” my father said. “The skipper said it was bent at a ninety-degree angle, as if it were boneless. It happened when we were lifted by that huge wave. They had to splint his leg before they dared move him below.”
The green-faced Miss Maubert was asked to relinquish the fainting couch. All anger fled my heart. I wanted to ease his pain, give him courage through love. But many were crowded around him, assessing how to handle the new invalid. I finally pushed my way in. His face was white and he was biting his lip. I looked at his ankle as my mother unwrapped the cloth around the crude splint. The sharp end of the bone had punctured through his flesh. I saw pinpricks of light and then blackness. I fainted.
I woke to the smell of roses. I was still wrapped in the warmth of Miss Huffard’s fur coat. She stood by. Everyone had disembarked. “You slept like a baby in a lullaby crib,” she said.
“What’s happened to Lu Shing?”
“Whiskey helped somewhat to ease his pain. The men just loaded him into a carriage. The doctor is already on his way to the house. There is another carriage waiting for you and me.”
As I scrambled into my shoes, I heard Miss Huffard say in a comedic voice, “Such a pity that he broke his leg. He won’t be able to set sail for China for at least three months.”
I threw my arms around her and cried.
“I would tell you to use the time to part from him gracefully rather than increase your misery. But I’ve never been good at following useless advice like that.”
DURING LU SHING’S three months of convalescence, I proceeded with my plan without telling him. I pawned my valuables. A gold watch. A ruby ring. A gold charm bracelet. I opened the box containing the silver dollars Mr. Minturn had given me over the years. I secured my passport and visa quite easily. I chatted pleasantly with the clerk, who had asked what means of support I had in China and I told him about a made-up uncle in Shanghai, who had invited me to teach English at his American school. “A teacher at age sixteen?” he said. I said I’d be seventeen in two weeks and had been precocious, which put my academic knowledge years ahead of students my own age. I continued to put my plans in place and was giddy as I decided what I should bring. After that task was done, I pondered over how I would reveal to Mother and Father—and Lu Shing—that I was leaving for China.
Lu Shing had been placed in my room to recover. I was given the blue room, but I stayed in the turret and came down regularly to tend to Lu Shing—bringing him books, his sketchbook, his meals, and a great deal of comfort as I neatened his bed, stroked his arm, and inquired about his degree of pain. In front of others, I sympathized that he had to delay his return to China. No one suspected that I might have other reasons for being his Florence Nightingale. Without watchful eyes, we enjoyed libidinous activities whenever we wished. Out of caution for his broken ankle, sex required geometric adjustments and careful positioning, easily supplemented by fellatio. I said no more about my plans to go to China. In fact, I created a subterfuge: I talked about going to a women’s college back east and mentioned three I was considering. Thus, I allowed him to let down his guard. I talked about our friendship, which we would always keep, and I made lighthearted comments about certain coital activities that led to unanticipated surprises we might remember in the future with the old surge of desire. I told him about a fictitious young man who was courting me, and thus, Lu Shing should not worry that I would suffer once he left for China. I told him what the fictitious young man had said about my tantalizing attributes: my adventurous nature, my intelligence, the fact that I was not a virginal prude, and that I was unlike any girl he had ever met, different in a mysteriously intriguing way. Lu Shing agreed with my imaginary admirer and appeared to be relieved I had a lover waiting in the wings. He confided in me his dislike of certain Chinese customs, for example, the one that required him to marry a girl he did not love. He confessed he had doubts about himself as an artist. He feared that he lacked originality and the ability to express deeper ideas because he did not have any. He could only imitate technique. He appreciated my belief that he was wrong about his opinions about himself.
One afternoon, after tender sex and many sweet words, I lay in his arms and said that I would always remember him as my Chinese emperor. I felt him take a deep breath, and I knew he was stifling a sad sigh. How well I had come to know his body and mind. I asked that he think of me as his Wild American Girl. He replied he would remember much more than that. I added that I would not want thoughts of me to violate his vows of marriage.
“Marriage in China is arranged, in our family, and is not based on love. It is more akin to a business arrangement between old friends and meddlesome mothers. My future wife is a stranger to me. I don’t even know if I will ever like her. She might be unattractive or have nothing interesting to say.”
I pointed out that he could also visit courtesans, and he vaguely said he might. I went on: “My mother and father have a similar marriage. It does not stop my father from going elsewhere for his needs. They have an odd loyalty, based on their attachment to this house. They have been practical, yet their lives together grow hollow and they don’t realize anymore how tragic that is. Who else could have loved my mother more dearly and pulled her out of misery?”
I was certain he was now thinking of the possibility of his own loveless marriage, a house barren of true companionship. “If you had been born American, I would have wanted someone like you for my husband.” He fell directly in the logic of twin emotions:
“If you had been born Chinese, I would have wanted you as my wife.” Before he left for China, I would try to change those words to simply these: “If you were in China, I would be happy to have you as my wife.”
I had not intended to use pregnancy as the reason he should marry me. I would have preferred marriage by desire and not necessity. If he married me based on the advent of a baby, doubt would always exist over the reason we were together. Two weeks before he was scheduled to leave, I told him with hidden fear that I knew without a doubt that I was pregnant, and likely two months along. My fear was in anticipation over what he would feel and say.
He was shocked, of course. I saw him calculating in his eyes all that this meant, before he came and put his arms around me. He held me, and although there was no answer as to what we would do, I felt within his embrace protection and assuredness that we would find an answer.
“I cannot marry you and stay in the United States,” he said.
I was angry that this was the first thing he said. I did not expect an expression of joy. But I had hoped for concern. “I will not risk my life with an abortion,” I said. “And if I stay here and have the baby, I won’t be able to keep it. It will be handed over to an orphanage. That’s what happened to Miss Pond, and she’s a Freethinker. She tried to keep her baby and she was shunned. Her work wasn’t accepted. That baby was probably my father’s, and he d
id nothing for that baby. He let it go to a warehouse. That’s what would happen to our baby, and it would never be adopted because it would be tainted as half-Chinese with your blood. It would languish never feeling loved.”
“The baby would not be accepted in China any more than here,” Lu Shing said.
“Don’t you have any suggestions other than what you cannot do?” I asked. “Am I alone in finding a solution?”
“I don’t know what I could offer that would be acceptable to you. My family will not break the marriage contract, and because you’re a foreigner, they would never permit you into the house, certainly not for the purpose of visiting me. At best, I could see you as my mistress, unacknowledged by my family. And I wouldn’t be able to see you exclusively or live with you. I would be expected to have frequent sex with my wife for the purpose of producing a male heir—actually, as many sons as possible, and, if necessary, with several concubines if my wife proves incapable of having males right away. The expectations are more onerous in China than in America, and there are other complications you cannot begin to comprehend. I know that is not the answer you wanted to hear. I’m sorry.”
He had merely recited the rules of his society. He had not considered breaking them. I defied my parents. Why couldn’t he? He wasn’t willing to consider other possibilities because he was not suffering as I was. He wasn’t desperate to be rid of fear and confusion and wasn’t on the brink of losing his mind. “Why can’t you act on your own? Why can’t you simply leave?”
“I can’t explain the reason, except to say that what I think and do is lodged in my head, heart, character, and spirit. This is not a comparison to your importance to me. But no matter how much I love you, I can’t extract that part of me and change into someone who would betray his family. I can’t expect anyone could understand the enormity of my responsibility unless they were raised in China and in a family like ours.”