by Julie Wu
But your mother thought this would not look right. She sent the rickshaw to pick me up.
So here I am, back in our room. I can’t work anymore. Every day my mother comes with a bowl of herbed chicken soup for me, and then we go to Toru’s office for another injection. He says I really need three injections a day, but how can I go back and forth to his office three times a day? I have to take care of Kai-ming.
Every morning your mother chats with me, about her backaches, her stomachaches, and she says to me, “You must not tell Saburo that you have tuberculosis.”
Isn’t that strange? I asked May-ying what she thought. She said if you can’t tell your husband you’re sick, then who can you tell?
Her eyes were wet as she told me this, and I squeezed her hand. Poor girl! I didn’t mention to you that when her fiancé went last year on military service in the South, he got a village girl pregnant . . .
So now you know everything. Your mother will be terribly angry with me for disobeying her, but I don’t care.
Have you or Professor Beck heard from Senator Dickey? Please get us over soon.
The blood rushed to my head. My ears rang as though I had been slapped. What a fool I was! After twenty years, could I never learn? Here I was again, groveling to my parents, yearning for their love and approval, and they had struck me down one more time.
I put my hand to my head, knocking into the lightbulb by accident. Shadows careened around the room.
Duty, honor, respect—how much would Kai-ming respect me if his mother died on my account?
You’re just like Toru, burdened by convention. I do hope you’re happier.
I sat on my bed to read the letter again. I looked at my watch. It was early morning in Taoyuan, a perfect time to call, before my parents left the house. But the only telephone was in the lobby with Li-wen and the security general’s son.
Why had they come here? Was it to watch me? It didn’t surprise me in the slightest that Li-wen would work for whatever overseas intelligence network the Nationalists had here, but could it be a coincidence that he would be here with the very same agent I had come across in San Francisco? The fact that I had done nothing illegal did not reassure me in the least, not in the face of the Nationalists. The mere fact that I was staying in this establishment and reading its newspapers was enough for them to file some trumped-up charge against me.
I cursed Kazuo. If not for him, I would never have gone to Ann Arbor to meet Li-wen in the first place. But it was my fault for obeying my brother. Chen was right. The Americans were right. I was weak. A patsy.
I opened my door and poked my head into the hallway, still hearing the clinking of porcelain and the pompous voices of Li-wen and Kuo-hong echoing down the hall. I quietly shut the door and stepped over to my window. It overlooked a quiet alley that connected to Eighteenth Street, where I knew there was a telephone booth. I poked my head out into the steamy night and looked down, considering for a moment. About a ten-foot drop into darkness.
I climbed up onto the windowsill, pushed aside my radio, and paused, hearing the distant clattering of the Lake Street “L” mingled with the quiet sounds of the cars going by. And then I jumped.
I landed in a puddle, pain shooting down from my back to my knee, the warm water covering my ankles and splashing onto the front of my shirt. I smelled the faint odor of urine and quickly stepped out of the puddle and made my way down the alley to Eighteenth Street.
“Thailand?” the operator said.
“Taiwan.” My reflection looked back at me from the walls of the telephone booth, my face haggard and dirty. I sweated, my Japanese shirt and pants clinging to my skin. “Formosa. Free China.”
“But that’s Asia!”
“Yes, it is.”
“Sir, that’s sixteen dollars for the first three minutes. I’m afraid I can’t connect you, unless you happen to have fifty dollars in change.”
Of course I did not. That was the equivalent of a month’s rent.
“I have an address. It’s my parent’s house. Perhaps—”
“You can’t charge this call, sir. I’m sorry.”
I hung up and headed back to the alley, but when I got there, I realized my window was too high for me to reach. I looked around for a box or crate to step on, but there was none.
I made my way back up the alley toward Eighteenth Street. But just as I turned the corner, I saw them coming through the glass doors of the Formosan Club—Li-wen, the security general’s son, and a third man I did not recognize.
I quickly shrank back into the alley, flattening myself against the wall. Had they seen me?
“. . . not at all,” Li-wen was saying. “Just humiliated me in front of the Americans, that’s all. Got a light?”
There was some rustling. “Here. What were you doing inviting him, anyway?”
“I knew he wouldn’t come. Too principled, even for free food. And the Americans fall for it, see, because they don’t know how things stand at home. Whole lot of barbarians. . . Now, his brother, there’s someone to reckon with, you’ll see—”
“We’ll be late for the restaurant,” the security general’s son said. “Where is this place you’re talking about?”
“Sakura. It’s this way, but it’s far too unsafe to walk. We’ll get a cab.”
“But there are no cabs here. And it stinks of urine.”
“We’ll walk to that corner . . .”
Their voices grew even closer, and they crossed right in front of the alley. I crouched, turning to the wall. My arm moved up automatically to shield my face, and I was still, my nose pressed against stone that smelled, oddly in this city, of musty earth. I heard the screech of bus brakes and felt headlights sweep through the alley, filling me with fear, a primeval fear of discovery, of pain and punishment. And then I realized that I was in the habitual pose of my childhood, face in the dirt, bracing for my mother’s next blow.
I jumped up and turned to face the street, come what may.
The bus roared off into the distance, leaving only the glimmer and the low purr of well-behaved American automobiles within their marked lanes, gently stopping and starting at intersections. The trio of Nationalists made its way toward the opposite side of the street and into a cab and were driven away.
I HURRIED TO the glass doors of the Formosan Club, the lobby of which was now empty. What would I say to Yoshiko? Nothing about Li-wen or Kuo-hong, of course. I had to convince her that I was doing well, that I wasn’t making the mistakes she thought I was . . .
But when I tried the doors, they were locked. I felt for the keys in my pocket, but they were gone; in my anguish over Yoshiko’s letter, I must have dropped the keys on the floor of my room.
The front desk receptionist would not be in until morning.
Ah, misfortune! I was still that distracted, careless boy.
I sat on the front steps of the Formosan Club. But they were hard concrete and my back seized with the pain of sitting so low down, so I stood again. Now that I actually had no place to stay, I no longer wanted to be taken for a vagabond, and so I walked. I had no destination. I simply headed down the street.
Yoshiko with tuberculosis! I couldn’t bear to think of her, shivering and coughing, a prisoner in our bed. What would happen to me without her, and to Kai-ming? Frail as he was in her arms, he would surely die without her. I looked up into the night sky, and the lights from the city cast such a purplish glow on the heavens that it blotted out all but the very strongest stars. How unlike the sky over the streets of Taoyuan, which I had walked so many times, hand in hand, with Yoshiko. The life that I had fled so urgently seemed a paradise to me now. Yet it was my own people who had beaten me down so that I might abandon my own wife and child—my mother, my father, my brother, and Generalissimo Chiang.
My eyes ached with held-back tears. If only I could let them fall, they would sweep aside all the armies of Asia.
I walked, my toes squishing in the wetness of my socks, my shoes scuffing against the c
oncrete in the dark. My shirt stuck to my back. I approached a streetlamp, and as I passed into its aura, I saw my shoes making wet footprints on the sidewalk, the muddy hems of my pants plastered to my ankles. The elevated train approached from the west, its roaring clatter echoing through the dark, and I suddenly felt, exposed as I was in the lamplight, that those on the train would see me as I myself had once seen the Taiwanese farmer in the conical hat—head down, stepping through the flooded paddies behind his water buffalo. I had felt myself above that farmer, had felt that by flying to the other side of the world, I would transcend his rote existence. And yet here I was.
The train disappeared and I walked on, neon signs reflecting in the puddles around me in the night as the sun glimmers on the paddies: ALL-NITE CAFÉ. MOWIMY PO POLSKU. JULIO’S COCINA.
It began to rain. I walked for blocks, letting the rain rinse away the mud and the sewer smell from my clothes. I took a reprieve under the striped awning of a groceteria that was still partially lit inside. Water dripped off the edge of the awning and collected in broken sections of the sidewalk.
I got the money for you, but it comes with certain obligations.
I thought of my father dropping a red envelope into the Mainlander’s palm, Kazuo burning The Earth.
Japanese characters flickered in the puddles, neon pink. It was my mind, my memories, playing tricks on me. And then I looked up and saw the sign in a restaurant window across the street, in both English and Japanese: Sakura. The restaurant where Li-wen and the agents were eating.
Curiosity drew me, and I crossed the street.
I leaned close to the glass and spied Li-wen at the back of the restaurant with the security general’s son at his side. Another man sat opposite him with his broad back toward me. He reached out his chopsticks to grab a piece of nigiri sushi with a movement almost as familiar as my own.
Before I realized what I was doing, I had opened the door and walked all the way to their table.
“Look who’s here!” I heard Li-wen say nervously.
But I was not looking at him. I was looking at the man facing him—at the broad, round face of my brother Kazuo.
His thick lips were open in shock, and his eyes, usually cold and slit-like, were wide open. He wore a gray button-down shirt, and his belly swelled so that I could see slivers of his pale skin between the buttons.
The half-eaten piece of sushi dropped off his chopsticks, and he looked at Li-wen. “How did he know we were here?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t tell him where.”
“You look like a drowned rat,” Kazuo said to me, recovering his air of superiority. He picked up the piece of sushi that had fallen and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed, the mole on his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He looked at his plate, avoiding my glare.
My pulse pounded in my ears. I could hardly see.
We’re meeting my old classmate. Here on vacation.
So this explained Li-wen’s sly smile.
“Enjoying your holiday?” I said, a bit louder than was necessary.
“Have a seat, little brother,” Li-wen said. “Have some sashimi. The tuna is very good. Just like home. Or perhaps you’ve eaten here before?”
“I don’t eat in such expensive restaurants,” I said. “I’ve been saving money to send home.”
Kazuo looked embarrassed and took a drink of sake.
Even with the Nationalist agents there, perhaps because of them, because of all they represented, the anger surged up inside me and burst out. “So this is why my wife can’t go to the hospital?” I said, my voice shaking. “So you can come here for vacation?”
Kazuo set down his sake and looked up at me coldly. “I’m not the one who makes those decisions. It’s Oto—” He glanced at the security general’s son, who was watching us with interest while he piled pieces of sushi onto his plate. “Our father and mother. I had an opportunity of a lifetime and I took it. The amount of money is a pittance compared to what they’re paying for you. I’m only here for two weeks.”
“I’m sure it’s less expensive than a few weeks at the hospital, too.”
“It is, actually. That hospital is damn expensive.” He folded his arms and looked up at me. “Li-hsiang is getting treatment at home. She’s fine.”
“That’s not what I hear.” I glanced at Li-wen, who was looking sheepishly at his plate. He had set a piece of sushi for me on a little plate and set it out in front of me with a dollop of wasabi and soy sauce.
“Take it up with our father.” Kazuo unfolded his arms and reached for another piece of sushi. Salmon with roe on top. “It has nothing to do with me.”
I said nothing but watched him chew, the mole bouncing up and down, a piece of seaweed sticking out between his lips. I hated him at that moment more than I ever had.
But he was right. Loathsome as he was, he was no more than an instrument of our parents. I hated him because of them.
I turned on my heel and walked out of the restaurant.
“Eh, you forgot your sushi!” Li-wen called.
I turned back and saw him standing at the table, holding out the plate with its piece of tuna.
“I wouldn’t trust the fish here,” I said. “The ocean is hundreds of miles away.”
Kazuo waved dismissively. “Don’t forget about the Great Lakes, stupid.”
I STEPPED OUT of the restaurant and into the street, my feet falling ankle-deep into the water coursing along the curb. As I crossed, the rain came down hard on my head, cold and elemental, pouring down my neck and over the scars on my chest.
The sight of Kazuo dining on fine food and sipping sake while my stomach was empty and Yoshiko succumbed to tuberculosis at home enraged me to no end. But I let my resentment fall, washed away by the rain. It was my parents, not him. It had been them all my life.
A taxi pulled up next to me, splashing me from the chest down. “You goin’ somewhere? Wanna get dry?”
I looked at the driver, a thin black man wearing a beret and large plastic glasses. From what I had seen of the United States, he had surely known a lot more hardship than I had. And yet here he was, cheerful, eking out a living, helping a poor drowning Chinese man who would get the backseat completely soaked.
“Where you goin’?” he repeated. “You comin’?”
The Formosan Club was locked. The factory was closed.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m coming.”
THE WALKWAY SMELLED of roses.
Chen opened the door and watched me dripping onto his doormat. His glasses blinked as a car passed by on the street, and I saw that he had brown stains on his T-shirt. “Saburo. You’re back.” He said my name, I thought, with some derision.
“I’ve been locked out. I need to use the phone.”
“Ah. That explains it. Chinese usually flee from the elements.”
The rain fell on my head as he considered me. He had already fulfilled his obligation to Toru by inviting me in once. I had the feeling this was the most his doorbell had rung for a long time.
He stepped back and waved me in. He put a couple of folded newspapers on a dining chair and indicated for me to sit. “Why were you locked out?”
“There were Nationalist agents there.”
“At the Formosan Club? Why?” He settled into his own chair, facing me. It was as though I had never left, although I saw that he had brought the midnight orchid inside and it was sitting in a clearing between stacks of papers by the bay window. The giant white blooms had begun to open, and the room was filled with the powerful, sweet smell. The fragrance, seductive enough to ensure pollination during the eight hours the plant was in bloom per year, transported me back to the self-important parties in my parents’ great room, where I would see the Taoyuan magistrate admonishing my father to be more optimistic, where my uncles would drink warmed sake and sing one sad Taiwanese folk song after another. My stomach grumbled in remembrance of the trays of shio mai, taro cakes, fried shrimp balls—foods normally forbidden to me but at parties up f
or grabs for all comers.
“They were waiting for me,” I said.
“Why, what have you done?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Did they see you come here?”
“No. They went out for sushi.”
“How ironic.”
Once again, seeing that he eschewed courtesy, I did, too. “I’m hungry,” I said. “And I need to call Taiwan.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Let’s start with dinner.” He got up and went to the kitchen, returning with a plate, on which he’d placed rice and a leg of chicken in some kind of sauce with an unfamiliar, deeply savory smell. He pushed aside a stack of papers on the dining table to make room for the plate. “Coq au vin.”
I was so hungry that I did not argue. I ate with a knife and fork, the rich, unfamiliar flavors melting in my mouth. He set a cup of jasmine tea by my plate.
“You like it?” he said. “That’s red wine. Chinese don’t use that.”
When I was done, I sat back. He was still watching me, sipping his tea, and I was acutely aware of his penetrating gaze, of the powers of his observation, his everyday brilliance. I wanted to call home, but I knew he already knew I did, and he was waiting for something before he offered. What that was, I had no idea.
“Why did you say Toru is burdened by convention?” I said. “Why do you say he’s unhappy?”
Chen set his tea on the dining table and clasped his hands around his knee. “I’ve known Toru for a long time, since he was a young man. Always a good boy. Like you. He noticed things but kept his head down. Stayed out of trouble. A brilliant student. He had talent in math, but his parents wanted him to go to medical school, so he did. Of course, that’s not unusual.”
“Not at all.” I felt a bit defensive about the man who had saved my life and my son’s. “He’s a good doctor,” I said.
Chen nodded. “Of course. But he would have been good at many things. That doesn’t mean he would have been equally happy doing them all. But this is not the point of my story.” He took a sip of tea and wiped a jasmine petal off his lip.
“When he was in medical school, he met a lovely young nurse and fell in love with her. He wanted to marry her, but she was from a poor family. Her mother was the second wife of a merchant and had divorced her husband. Toru’s parents did not approve of the match and said they would disinherit Toru if he married the girl.”
