The Bonesetter's Daughter

by Amy Tan

  In that house, there was also a parrot, a big gray bird named Cuckoo—Cuckoo like the clock bird. At first I thought Miss Patsy was calling him ku-ku, like the Chinese word for crying, which is what he sometimes did, ku! ku! ku! as if he were wounded to near-death. And sometimes he laughed like a crazy woman, long and loud. He could copy any kind of sound—man, woman, monkey, baby. One day I heard a teakettle whistle. I went running, and the teakettle was Cuckoo rocking on his branch, stretching his neck, so delighted that he had fooled me. Another time I heard a Chinese girl cry, "Baba! Baba! Don't beat me! Please don't beat me!" and then she screamed and screamed, until I thought my skin would peel off.

  Miss Patsy said, "Cuckoo was already bad when Sir Flowers bought him for my tenth birthday. And for sixty years, he has learned only what he wants, like so many men." Miss Patsy loved that parrot like a son, but Lady Ina always called him the devil. Whenever she heard that bird laugh she would waddle to his cage, shake her finger, and say something like, "Ooh shh-duh, you shut up." Sometimes she would raise her finger, but before any sounds could come out of her mouth, the bird would say, "Ooh shh-duh," exactly like Lady Ina. Then Lady Ina would get confused. Wah! Had she already spoken? I could see these thoughts on her face, her head twisting this way, then that, as if two sides of her mind were having a fight. Sometimes she would go all the way to the end of the room, inch by inch, then turn around and walk back, inch by inch, raise her finger, and say, "Ooh shh-duh!" And then the bird would say the same. Back and forth they went: "You shut up! You shut up!" One day Lady Ina went up to the bird, and before she could say anything, Cuckoo said in Miss Patsy's singsong happy voice, "Visitors are here!" Right away, Lady Ina went to a nearby chair, sat down, took out a lacy handkerchief from her sleeve, crossed her hands in her lap, closed her lips, and waited, her blue eyes turned toward the door.

  So that's how I learned to speak English. To my way of thinking, if a bird could speak good English, I could, too. I had to pronounce the words exactly right, otherwise Lady Ina would not follow my directions. And because Miss Patsy talked to her mother in simple words, it was easy for me to learn other new things to say: Stand up, Sit down, Lunch is served, Time for tea, Horrid weather, isn't it.

  For the next two years or so, I thought my situation would never change. Every month, I went to the train station, only to find the fares had gone up again. Every month, I received a letter from GaoLing. She told me of her new life in San Francisco, how hard it was to be a burden on strangers. The church that sponsored her had found her a room with an old grandmother named Mrs. Wu who spoke Mandarin. "She is very rich but acts very cheap," GaoLing wrote. "She saves everything that she thinks is too good to eat right away—fruit, chocolates, cashews. So she puts them on top of her refrigerator, and when they are finally too rotten to eat, that's when she puts them in her mouth and says, 'Why does everyone say this tastes so good? What's so good about it?'" This was GaoLing's way of telling me how hard her life was.

  One month, though, I received a letter from GaoLing that did not start with her complaints. "Good news," she wrote. "I have met two bachelors and I think I should marry one of them. They are both American citizens, born in this country. According to my passport with the new birth year, one is a year older than I am, the other is three years older. So you know what that means. The older one is studying to be a doctor, the younger a dentist. The older is more serious, very smart. The younger is more handsome, full of jokes. It is very hard for me to decide which one I should put all my attentions on. What do you think?"

  When I read that letter, I had just finished cleaning up Lady Ina's bottom twice in one hour. I wanted to reach across the ocean and shake GaoLing by the shoulders and shout, "Marry the one who takes you the fastest. How can you ask which one, when I am wondering how I can live from day to day?"

  I did not answer GaoLing at once. I had to go to the bird market that afternoon. Miss Patsy said that Cuckoo needed a new cage. So I went down the hill and crossed over the harbor in the ferry to the Kowloon side. Every day it was becoming more crowded there as people came in from China. "The civil war is growing worse," Sister Yu had written me, "with battles as fierce as those during the war with Japan. Even if you had enough money to return to Peking right now, you should not. The Nationalists would say you are a Communist because Kai Jing is now called one of their martyrs, and the Communists would say you are a Nationalist because you lived in an American orphanage. And whichever is worse changes with each town you pass through."

  When I read this, I no longer had the worry of how to get back to Peking. I exchanged that for a worry over Sister Yu and Teacher Pan and his new wife. They, too, could be counted as enemies on either side. As I walked toward the bird market, these were the only thoughts I had. And then I felt a cold breeze run down my back, though it was a warm day. Like a ghost is right behind me, I thought. I kept walking, turning one corner, then another, and this feeling that someone was following me grew stronger. Suddenly I stopped and turned around, and a man said to me, "So it really is you."

  There stood Fu Nan, GaoLing's husband, and now he was missing not only two fingers but his entire left hand. His face had a bad color, and his eyes were yellow and red. "Where's my wife?" he asked.

  I stirred the question in my head. What was the danger in answering him one way or another? "Gone," I finally told him, and I was glad to be able to say these words: "Gone to America."

  "America?" He looked astonished at first, and then he smiled. "I knew that. I just wanted to see if you would tell me the truth."

  "I have nothing to hide."

  "Then you aren't hiding the fact that you are trying to go to America, too?"

  "Who says that?"

  "The entire Liu family. They're panting like dogs for an opportunity to follow their daughter. Why should you go first, they say, when you aren't even really her sister? Only true relatives can be sponsored, not bastards." He gave me a smile of false apology, then added: "Husbands, of course, should be number one."

  I began to walk away and he grabbed me. "You help me, I help you," he said. "Give me her address, that's all I want. If she doesn't want me to come, that's that, and you can be next in line. I won't tell the Liu family."

  "I already know she doesn't want you to come. She went to America to run away from you."

  "Give me her address, or I'll go to the authorities and tell them you aren't really sisters. Then you'll lose your chance to go to America as well, same as me."

  I stared at that terrible man. What was he saying? What would he really do? I hurried away, weaving in and out of the busy crowds, until I was certain I had lost him. At the bird market, I watched from the corner of my eye. I did not spend too much time bargaining, and when I had bought the cage, I quickly made my way back to the Hong Kong side, holding on tight to my documents that showed where I lived. What would Fu Nan do? Would he really tell the authorities? How smart was he? Which authorities would he tell?

  That night, I wrote GaoLing a letter, telling her of Fu Nan's threats. "Only you know how tricky he is," I said. "He might also tell the authorities you are already married, and then you'll be in trouble, especially if you marry an American."

  The next day, I left the house to post the letter. As soon as I stepped into the street, I felt the sudden chill again. I stuffed the letter in my blouse. Around the next corner, there he was, waiting for me.

  "Give me some money," he said. "You can do this for your brother-in-law, can't you? Or aren't you really my wife's sister?"

  For the next few weeks he popped up like that, every time I left the house. I could not call the police. What could I say? "My brother-in-law who is not really my brother-in-law is following me, asking me for money and the address of my sister who is not my true sister"? And then one day when I stepped outside to go to the market, he was not there. The entire time I was out, I expected I would see him, and I was prepared to be miserable. Nothing. When I returned home, I was puzzled and felt a strange relief. Perhaps h
e died, I allowed myself to hope. For the next week, I saw no sign of him. I felt no sudden cold breeze. Could it be that my luck had changed? When I opened the next letter from GaoLing, I was convinced this was true.

  "I was so angry to hear that Fu Nan has been bothering you," she wrote. "That turtle spawn will stop at nothing to satisfy himself. The only way to get rid of him for a few days is to give him money for his opium. But soon this will no longer be a problem for you. Happy news has arrived! I have found another way you can come. Do you remember the brothers I told you about—one is studying to be a dentist, the other a doctor? Their family name is Young and the father said a person like you can come if a person like him sponsors you as a Famous Visiting Artist. This is like a tourist with special visiting privileges. The family is very kind to do this, since I am not yet related to them. Of course, I cannot ask them to pay your way. But they have already completed the application and supplied the documents. The next step is for me to earn more money so we can buy the boat passage. In the meantime, you must prepare yourself to leave at any moment. Obtain the boat schedules, have a doctor's examination for parasites. . . ."

  I read the long list she provided, and was surprised at how smart she truly was. She knew so much, and I felt like a child now being guided by a worried mother. I was so happy I let tears fall right there as I rode the ferry home. And because I was on the ferry, I did not think to be afraid when I felt a breeze. To me it was a comfort. But then I looked up.

  There was Fu Nan. One of his eyes was missing.

  I nearly jumped off the boat I was so scared. It was as if I were seeing what would happen to me. "Give me some money," he said.

  That night, I put Precious Auntie's picture on a low table and lighted some incense. I asked her forgiveness and that of her father. I said that the gift she had given me would now buy me my freedom and that I hoped she would not be angry with me for this, as well.

  The next day, I sold the oracle bone to the second shop I had gone to all those months ago. With my savings as a maid, I had enough money to buy a ticket in steerage. I got the boat schedules and sent GaoLing a telegram. Every few days, I gave Fu Nan money for his habit, enough to put him into dreams. And then finally the visa was approved. I was a Famous Visiting Artist.

  I sailed for America, a land without curses or ghosts. By the time I landed, I was five years younger. Yet I felt so old.

  PART THREE

  ONE

  Mr. Tang was in love with LuLing, though he had never met her. Ruth could sense this. He talked as if he knew her better than anyone else, even her own daughter. He was eighty years old, a survivor of World War Two, the civil war in China, the Cultural Revolution, and a triple coronary bypass. He had been a famous writer in China, but here his work remained untranslated and unknown. A linguistics colleague of Art's had given Ruth his name.

  "She is a woman of strong character, very honest," he said to Ruth on the telephone after he began to translate the pages Ruth had mailed to him. "Could you send me her picture, one when she was a young woman? Seeing her would help me say her words in English the way she has expressed them in Chinese."

  Ruth thought that was an odd request, but she complied, mailing him scanned copies of the photo of LuLing and GaoLing with their mother when they were young, and another taken when LuLing first arrived in the United States. Later, Mr. Tang asked Ruth for a picture of Precious Auntie. "She was unusual," he remarked. "Self-educated, forthright, quite a rebel for her time." Ruth was bursting to ask him: Did he know whether Precious Auntie was indeed her mother's real mother? But she held off, wanting to read his translation all at one time, not piecemeal. Mr. Tang had said he would need about two months to finish the job. "I don't like to just transliterate word for word. I want to phrase it more naturally, yet ensure these are your mother's words, a record for you and your children for generations to come. They must be just right. Don't you agree?"

  While Mr. Tang translated, Ruth lived at LuLing's house. She had told Art of her decision when he returned from Hawaii.

  "This seems sudden," he said as he watched her pack. "Are you sure you're not being rash? What about hired help?"

  Had she downplayed the problems over the past six months? Or had Art simply not been paying attention? She was frustrated by how little they seemed to know each other.

  "I think it would be easier if you hired help to take care of you and the girls," Ruth said.

  Art sighed.

  "I'm sorry. It's just that the housekeepers I get for my mother keep quitting, and I can't get Auntie Gal or anyone else to take care of her except for an occasional day here and there. Auntie Gal said that the one week she spent with her was worse than running after her grandkids when they were babies. But at least she finally believes the diagnosis is real and that ginseng tea isn't a cure-all."

  "Are you sure something else isn't going on?" he asked, following Ruth into the Cubbyhole.

  "What do you mean?" She took down diskettes and notebooks from the shelves.

  "Us. You and me. Do we need to talk about something more than just your mother's mind falling apart?"

  "Why do you say that?"

  "You seem—I don't know—distant, maybe even a little angry."

  "I'm tense. Last week I saw how she really is, and it frightened me. She's a danger to herself. She's far worse than I thought. And I realize the disease is further along than I first thought. She's probably had it six or seven years already. I don't know why I never noticed—"

  "So your going to live there has nothing to do with us?"

  "No," Ruth said firmly. And then in a softer voice, "I don't know." And after a long silence, she added, "I remember you asked me once what I was going to do about my mother. And it struck me. Yes, what am / going to do? I felt it was all up to me. I've tried to handle it the best I can, and this is it. Maybe my moving out does have to do with us, but now, if there's anything wrong with us, it's secondary to what's wrong with my mom. That's all I can handle right now."

  Art looked uncertain. "Well, when you feel you're ready to talk . . ." He drifted off, so miserable, it seemed to Ruth, she was almost tempted to assure him that nothing was really wrong.

  LuLing was also suspicious as to why Ruth needed to live with her.

  "Someone asked me to write a children's book, with illustrations of animals," Ruth said. She was now accustomed to telling lies without feeling guilty. "I was hoping you'd do the drawings, and if you did, it would be easier if we worked together here, less noisy that way."

  "How many animal? What kind?" LuLing was as excited as a child going to the zoo.

  "Anything we want. You get to decide what to draw, Chinese style."

  "All right." Her mother looked pleased at the prospect of being vital to her daughter's success. Ruth sighed, relieved yet sad. Why hadn't she ever asked her mother to make drawings before? She should have done it when her mother's hand and mind were still steady. It broke her heart to see her mother trying so hard, being so conscientious, so determined to be valuable. Making her mother happy would have been easy all along. LuLing simply wanted to be essential, as a mother should be.

  Each day, she went to her desk and spent fifteen minutes grinding her inkstick. Luckily, many of the drawings she did were of subjects she had drawn many times for scroll paintings—fish, horse, cat, monkey, duck— and she executed them and the characters from a neuromotor memory of the strokes. The results were shaky yet recognizable renditions of what she once had done perfectly. But the moment LuLing attempted the unfamiliar, her hand flailed in synchrony with her confusion, and Ruth became as distressed as her mother, though she tried not to show it. Every time LuLing finished a drawing, Ruth praised it, took it away, then suggested a new animal to draw.

  "Hippo?" LuLing puzzled over the word. "How you say in Chinese?"

  "Never mind," Ruth said. "How about an elephant? Do an elephant, you know, the one with a long nose and big ears."

  But LuLing was still frowning. "Why you give up? So
mething hard maybe worth more than easy. Hippo, what look like? Horn right here?" She tapped the top of her head.

  "That's a rhinoceros. That's good too. Do a rhinoceros, then."

  "Not hippo?"

  "Don't worry about it."

  "I not worry! You worry! I see this. Look your face. You not hiding from me. I know. I your mother! Okay-okay, you don't worry hippo anymore. I worry for you. Later I remember, then tell you, you be happy. Okay now? Don't cry anymore."

  Her mother was good at being quiet when Ruth was working. "Study hard," she would whisper. But if Ruth was watching television, LuLing, as she always had, figured she was not doing anything important. Her mother then gabbed about GaoLing, rehashing her sister's greatest insults to her over the years. "She want me to go love-boat cruise to Hawaii. I ask her, Where I have this kind money? My Social Security only seven hundred fifty dollar. She tell me, You too cheap! I tell her, This not cheap, this poor. I not rich widow. Hnh! She forget she once want marry my husband. Tell me when he die, lucky she choose other brother. . . ."

  Sometimes Ruth listened with interest, trying to determine how much of the story LuLing changed in each retelling, feeling reassured when she repeated the same story. But other times Ruth was simply irritated by having to listen, and this irritation made her feel strangely satisfied, as if everything was the same, nothing was wrong.

  "That girl downstair eat popcorn almost every night! Burn it, fire alarm go off. She don't know, I can smell! Stink! Popcorn all she eat! No wonder skinny. Then she tell me, this not work right, that not right. Always complaining, threat me 'lawsuit in-jury, code vio-la-tion' . . ."