At the Heart of the Universe
Page 3
He shifts his weight to a more solid stance, feet apart, crosses his arms on his chest, and tilts his head, flashing a Paul Newman cocky smile. “Where’s the lush green?” he says, feigning a great yearning and puzzlement. “Where’s the green? I want the lush green—”
“Here he goes again, Mom—”
“—And all I get is dusty brown, all I get is dusty brown!”
“Pep!”
“Daddy, don’t—”
“Okay, okay.” Squinting, he looks around. “It is beautiful, in its own way, yeah. I love this light, this dusty haze—where’s my camera?” He rubs the sweat up off his brow and back over his lank light-red hair and, to his chagrin, dislodges a piece of the scab that has finally—finally!—started to form on the bald top of his head. Three days before, at lunch at a scummy restaurant in Chengdu, he bashed it against the low ceiling of what he considered the filthiest pit toilet in all of China.
“Shit,” he says, staring at the blood on his hand, “I’m bleeding again.”
He is too tall for China, and something of a claustrophobe—which has made the trip difficult. Three things you don’t want to be in China, he’s realized, are tall, claustrophobic, and invested in keeping clean—phobic to dirt. At fifty-six, you’re too old for China too. He worries that the scrape on his head from the pit toilet ceiling is brewing up rare, exotic germs that might sicken him, and he feels his sudden sweat as a fever. Thinking, Band-Aid, as well as Camera, he unzips the Citibank fanny pack that contains credit cards, passports, and airplane tickets, as well as sterile wipes and mini-packs of Kleenexes and a Swiss Army knife and a blue laser flashlight. And various pills including antibiotics and Pepto-Bismol for diarrhea and the sleeping pill Ambien to fight the week of wretched jet-lagged nights and the hot, noisy rooms and the overnight train ride from Beijing to Pingyao, wherever the hell that unheard-of city of six million was! And the pack of sterile needles and syringes in case any of them are in a car crash and need blood. All the things that Rosemary Ahern, the organizer of the trip, told them to bring.
The latest in a long line of Macys in Whale City Insurance, his business is risk. The first Macys were Nantucket whalers who settled Columbia, New York, a Hudson River town, in 1775—they are mentioned in Moby Dick. That’s what he tells new accounts, “We go back to Moby Dick”—thinking, Big shit. His work is out on that dire leading edge with morticians, oncologists, hospice workers—making a living out of disease, disaster, and death. Lately his job has been a burden—more so for his inability to think of anything without thinking of the risk to Katie and Clio. As if I’m constantly underwriting our lives. He finds a sterile wipe in his fanny pack and blots his bleeding scalp.
“Good,” Clio says. “Are we ready?” Katie has moved close to Pep, and is leaning up against him, one hand in his. “Are you all right, Katie?”
3
When Clio told Pep that China Culture Camp 2001 was a guided tour with twelve adopted Chinese girls of Katie’s age and their twenty-two American parents, a three-week tour focused on making the trip fun for the kids by visiting zoos and schools and playgrounds and Burger Kings and Pizza Huts, Pep thought it over and said, “I don’t think so, honey. You know I don’t do groups all that well. Doesn’t sound like much fun, no.”
Clio was surprised. But the refusal reverberated with other no’s that had crept into the marriage over the years—it had started with the shock, humiliation, and profound sorrow that they’d gone through when they’d failed to produce a baby of their own—what they now refer to as “a bio,” a “biological” as opposed to an adopted baby. The creep of no’s had only gotten worse as they tried to move on to adoption. At their advanced age there had been another series of hurdles—what he christened “The Adoption Olympics.” When Katie arrived, the sorrow lifted—it was no match for their joy—but as the years went on they realized that the sorrow was not gone entirely.
When Clio brought up the idea of the trip a second time, he said, “I need a vacation, a cheap vacation—how ’bout the reliable Adirondacks?”
“It has to be China.”
“Why? Maybe if Katie were interested in China, okay. But she doesn’t seem to be in the slightest.” It was true. Over the years Katie had mostly resisted Clio’s repeated efforts to keep her Chinese heritage alive in the backwater town of Columbia. Despite her talent and passion for drawing and painting, Katie rarely drew or painted anything that seemed inspired by the Chinese art that Clio had shown her. Despite their finding a tutor from the Chinese restaurant, Katie hadn’t shown much interest in learning Chinese—“I want to learn Spanish, like everybody else in my class.”
“But the trip isn’t only for Katie’s sake,” Clio went on, “it’s for all of ours. The books I’ve read, the people I’ve talked to—they all say it’s a terrific thing, to go back as a family. Age ten is about right. The timing’s perfect. We’ll leave the tour early and go back to her orphanage in Changsha—we can be there on her birthday. Returning ten years later, imagine? And we can visit the police station too.”
“What police station too?”
“Where she was abandoned. We can visit both. To see if they have any more information. We’ve got to try, Pep. To find out anything we can about her birth mother. Agreed?”
He hesitated, trying to assess the risk. “Mostly, yes.”
“We probably won’t find out anything. No one ever has. But we have to try. We need to be able to say to her—maybe now, maybe when she’s older—that we did everything we could. We followed up. Completely. For her sake, Pep. Okay?”
“Not if she doesn’t want to.” More and more lately, he felt that Clio was being too lenient with Katie, making him be the firm one, which put him in the position of the bad guy.
“You think I’d make her do it if she didn’t want to?” Clio said, surprised.
“There’s a first time for everything, Clee.”
Clio stared at him, hurt by the accusation. “Thanks a lot,” she said. “Y’know I can take your compliments, Pep, but when you turn on the charm, I go all weak in the knees.”
For a while, Clio gave up the idea. But then one night a few months later when they went in to put Katie to bed they were surprised to find that she had arranged her treasures from China in a kind of altar. Her banner with the character for “Chun” hung over her bed. Upon her big bright-red Chinese box, under a bamboo umbrella, and in front of a fan filled with the magical mountains of Guilin, several of her Beanie Babies were gathered with a small red Chinese flag, a framed embroidery of a panda, and a propped-up Katie drawing of the Disney video Mulan—and in her writing “China’s Bravest Girl.”Also, Pep’s green-bronze replica of a Tang Dynasty horse frozen at full gallop with flowing mane, Clio’s statue of Kwan Yin, and “Shirty”—Katie’s most prized possession, the soft purple-and-white-striped cotton shirt that was her security blanket. Clio took Pep’s hand, squeezed it, smiled, and led him to Katie’s canopied bed. She was just closing her book—Your Dog’s Mind—and curling up to sleep. They sat together on the edge of the bed. Each kissed her goodnight, said, “I love you,” one after the other, and she murmured, “Love you too” to each in turn, and suddenly was asleep.
The next morning, when they asked Katie if she’d like to go on a trip to China, she was thrilled, and more thrilled when they told her they’d be in China on her tenth birthday. “Cool! I’ll turn ten in China!”
“Not just China, love,” Clio said, delighted at her enthusiasm. “Changsha. Where you’re from.”
“Way cool! Thanks, Mom, thanks, Dad. It’ll be like the best birthday present ever. When do we leave?”
That night, with Clio out at a business meeting, Pep curled up with Katie to put her to sleep, as he had done when she was a baby, before she had—as he saw it—turned so totally to Clio. The whole first year he had been the one to put her to bed, and the love he felt for his tiny, bea
utiful Asian daughter astonished him. That night once again he hugged his nine-year-old gently close, feeling again her little smooth shoulder against his chest, her hair a black silk wave flowing across his face. “Hey, Dad,” she said, “remember Lion Army, Lion Army?” Once when she was small and he was cuddling her this way, she’d called out, “Lion Army, Lion Army,” and he asked, what was this army? and she lifted up her head and put his arm under it and said, “No, I mean lie on arm-ey, lie on arm-ey!” and they’d laughed and laughed. Now she put her head on his arm and he read her another chapter of The Wind in the Willows. As he read, feeling that smooth cheek against his, he flushed, and his voice cracked.
“What’s wrong with your voice, Dad?”
“Nothing.” Why can’t I tell her?
He finished, and started to rub her back—another ritual.
“Dad?” she said, after a while.
“Yes, foozle?”
“I hate school.”
“What? I thought you liked school. This whole year with Miss Witters, studying the Greeks?”
“I do, but I don’t like, you know, school? Can I stay home tomorrow?”
“Nope. It’s your job, like mine and Mom’s. You have to go.” Katie groaned. “Why don’t you like school?”
Katie paused. “Never mind.”
“C’mon, c’mon, tell your dad.”
“Like no one wants to be my friend anymore—Tara hangs out with Kissy now in recess, they don’t want me with them. I feel like I’m outsidered!” Tears came to her eyes. She felt his strong arms around her, caught the earthy scent of his skin and his nightly beer, heard him ask why, and blurted out, “I think it’s because I’m different?”
“Different how?”
“When they look at me it’s like I can feel them saying, ‘She’s different.’ Like they look at the outside of me and see I’m Chinese and there aren’t any other Chinese in my class—in the whole school!—and they don’t like me from the outside and they don’t see that inside I’m the same as them, and I just want to be friends? I hate Spook Rock—they’re all stuck up and into being popular.” She wasn’t crying now, and turned over to look at him. “Can I go to public school the rest of the year?”
Pep had never seen such a sad look on her face. She was, as always, laser-like in her intensity, and he’d seen her in tears before, but this was something else—a deep hurt, a sorrow. “I’m really sorry you feel bad, hon, but how would that help?”
“’Cause there are Chinese kids there, some of ’em are my age, like the kids whose mom and dad own the Chinese restaurant we go to? I want to change schools. Please?”
Pep was shocked. He’d known that lately, most mornings, she hadn’t wanted to go to school, but he’d never realized why.
“Mom and I’ll talk about it tomorrow. We’ll try to work something out. I’m really sorry you’re having such a hard time, Kate-zer. It’s sad.”
“Really, really sad, yeah.”
“We’ll try to help. We’ll take it gentle-gentle, like always, okay?”
“Okay, but don’t say anything to any kids or teachers or other parents, okay?”
“Of course not, hon.” She laid her head down on his arm again, and he said what he had always said to her in the old days, “Coazy-coazy! It’s so coazy-coazy!” and he rubbed her back and felt her calm down. Her confiding in him, and the feeling of being so close to her, like they once had been, brought a sudden bolt of despair. How has it happened? How have I lost this? Somehow or other, with my wife and my daughter, I’ve become outsidered too, and I’ve got no idea how to get back in. Close to tears, feeling her calm breathing, he realized the depth and intensity of his love for her—and for Clio. It made him realize how lonely he had become. Katie and Clio have their own world together now. I’ve gotten pushed out—and they don’t even know I feel it. He sighed. Figuring she was asleep, he eased his arm out from under her and got up.
“Check on me, Dad, will you?”
“Sure, hon.”
“And keep checking on me.”
“I will. Have a beautiful sleep. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
He got up, tucked her in, and left. Maybe this was why she’d had such trouble going to sleep lately. Ever since her last sleepover, at Kissy’s, when she’d called in the middle of the night and they’d had to go all the way out to Copake Falls to get her and bring her home. She said, then, that she had been the last one awake, left alone in the dark, unable to fall asleep. Alone. Left. Scared. Ever since, they’d had the night ritual of going back into her bedroom every few minutes so she knew they were there, until she was asleep. Maybe it is from her being abandoned, left alone in the dark, at only a month old. Clio’s right. In Changsha, we have to find out what we can.
The next day Katie came home from school with a gift for Clio, a Chinese-style drawing she had done—a bunch of purple grapes on a branch—and a poem:
We both have hearts.
Your in mine and mine in yours.
Even if your far away I’ll
Always carry you in my heart.
Later that night Pep and Clio talked over what Katie had said. Clio talked with Katie alone as well. Talking seemed to help, but they couldn’t send her to public school, no. Spook Rock Country Day was elitist, yes, but Columbia Public was like a war zone.
A week later, when Clio was driving her after school, Katie, from the backseat, said, “Mom, I’ve been thinking of like when we’re in China?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I bet my birth mom will recognize me, and I think I’ll want to stay a while?”
Clio was startled. The Volvo jumped toward a ditch, then swerved back. Ever since the adoption, the image of Katie’s birth mom had never been far from Clio’s mind. The woman was always a presence, always there. Almost every day Clio would be surprised to find herself thinking of her—no, not thinking, more that she was just there. Not as a vision, never as a particular image, just a sense—like from time to time she still sensed her own dead mother there with her. The sense was of a slender, pretty but worn woman of thirty-something in a peasant’s shirt and pants, poor beyond belief but proud, even elegant, both shy and strangely sure. And soulful. Like Katie—whose sureness, Clio had come to realize, was a reaction to her own shyness, her own deep soulfulness. Only rarely would Katie mention her birth mom. On Katie’s birthday they’d light a twenty-one-year candle to her birth mother and say a prayer, to remember that wherever in China she might be, she too was remembering Katie that day. The first time Katie mentioned her she was about four. They were in the car, and suddenly from the backseat came, “Mommy, I came from another mommy’s tummy, right?” Clio was stunned, but ready. “Yes, darling, in China before we met you, you grew in another mommy’s tummy and they weren’t able to take care of you because they didn’t have enough food and money, so we went and got you and brought you home.” From the backseat, total silence. Clio held her breath. Finally she said, “Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Katie said, “can I have french fries for dinner?” Pep broke out laughing, as did Clio—and Katie too, even though she didn’t know why. She screeched with laughter, like a happy bird.
And so now when Katie brought up finding her birth mother on their trip back to China, Clio said, “What a great thought, hon. But it’s a big country—over a billion people—we probably won’t even meet her.”
“Yeah, but if we do she’ll recognize me.”
“Yes, maybe she would.”
“She will. And if we have a like chance to meet her, you’ll make it happen?”
“Of course.”
“As hard as you can?”
Clio loved this in Katie, her focus, her optimism, her being so quietly tenacious. Right from the first time they saw her, at four months. “Yes.”
“Promise?”
“We’ll meet her and stay for a while! Thanks, Mom.”
Clio’s heart was beating fast, pulsing in her temples. Not so much at the “meeting her” part, but at the “stay for a while.” It wrenched her, a hand reaching in, twisting.
“China’s the biggest country in the world, right?” Katie asked.
“Yes, but India is catching up fast, and—”
“China will win. Trust me.”
“Okay. Call me if I need you.” Clio said, using their funny goodnight line.
As they drove on to Mary’s Farm, Katie was strangely silent. They pulled into the rutted dirt road leading up to the barn. The woman who ran the place was a kind of earth mother, a divorced fifty-something who had inherited a plot of farmland and kept herself going by boarding horses and giving riding lessons to the rich New Yorkers who had moved upriver a hundred miles into Kinderhook County. But lately business had been bad. A brand-new, sparkly clean upscale riding venture called Ascot Equestrian was siphoning away her clientele. All of Katie’s private school friends went to Ascot now, but Katie insisted on sticking with Mary. The “Farm” was a ramshackle place with run-down old barns and leaky fences and haphazard cages and coops. Mary had horses and goats that shared the stable, and chickens and miniature ponies that could pull a cart and rabbits and a pig and a snake and any other stray animal that wandered in. Katie loved riding, but also loved just hanging out with Mary, doing chores and talking with her. At Mary’s, Katie was in animal heaven. She’d always loved animals, especially babies, and wanted to work in a shelter some day. Twice a week here she could spend as much time as she wanted with whatever animals she wanted.
Mary, muddy and smiling, waved to them from up the lane.
Katie waved back, opened the door, and said, “Bye, Mom.”