Calls Across the Pacific

by Zoë S. Roy

  It was a short drive to their home, a two-storey house on a peaceful street with a steep gabled roof decorated in gingerbread trim, different from the block-like buildings she was used to seeing. It was the kind of house Nina had once seen in a picture book of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, surrounded by big leafy trees and a manicured garden with tidy flowers along the edge of the walkway. Eileen and Bruce lived in the house by themselves, their daughter having married and moved to another city. A spacious bedroom on the second floor had been prepared for Nina’s arrival. Here, with renewed energy and excitement, she would start a new life.

  Eileen helped Nina settle into the house, and into the country. Nina began to attend English as a Second Language classes that were sponsored by the church in the evenings and on the weekend. If I learn to speak English, I can explore this new world, she thought and remembered the awkward moments when she could not understand what people said to her. She also registered in two credit courses — math and physics — at an adult school. She would receive her high-school diploma in a year if she passed all the examinations. She had been seventeen years old, an eleventh grader, when the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966 and the education of high school and college students all over the country had suddenly come to an end. Now, she wanted to make up for everything she had missed.

  Everything in America was different. Nina had never had cold milk for breakfast, so at first she heated milk in a small pot on a stove. Then she poured the warm milk into a bowl and added a teaspoonful of sugar — the way she did in China. Cornflakes were new to her. After mixing them into the warm milk, and eating the odd-tasting hot cereal, she thought that later she would try to eat the cereal in cold milk as Eileen did. She had never had a sandwich either. Eileen taught her how to make tuna or egg sandwiches for lunch. They, too, were a novelty.

  Nina had never lived in a place where it snowed. It seemed strange to her that it could snow in March when it should be spring, but she enjoyed being surrounded by fresh and crisp snowflakes. In the early morning, she helped Bruce shovel snow off the driveway. She even learned how to use a chainsaw to cut wood for the fireplace. Like a sponge, she quickly absorbed all the new foods and customs and day to day activities of life in this new land.

  Several weeks later, on a Friday, after Nina had come home from school, Eileen entered the kitchen with two pots of flowers, placing one in the centre of the table. Nina remembered what she had learned from her ESL class and asked, “Is this an Easter flower? It’s very nice and so delicate.”

  “Yes. It’s an Easter lily, the flower of the Resurrection and of the Virgin.”

  “Easter lily?” Nina said. “I didn’t know it was so symbolic.”

  “Its specific name is ‘Madonna lily,’” Eileen replied, using a wet paper towel to wipe smudges of soil off some of the leaves.

  “It’s a pretty flower. I have seen them in China, too,” Nina said as Eileen placed the second pot on the windowsill. “Where did you get them?”

  Eileen dusted the table. “I got them from Hannaford Supermarket. Does the lily have any special meaning for you?”

  “I know its bulb can be used as medicine,” Nina said, trying to remember what she knew about the bulb’s medicinal applications.

  “Interesting. Yes, I can see that it might,” Eileen sighed as she gazed at the white buds. Her face clouded while she murmured, “Two years.”

  “Two years?” asked Nina. “Do you mean this lily is two years old?”

  “No, no,” Eileen said, shaking her head. She hesitated, as if a fish bone had stuck in her throat.

  Nina understood not to press her with more questions.

  On Easter Sunday, the family invited Nina to join them for dinner. At the table, she sat with the couple and their visitors: their daughter, Emma, son-in-law, Mike, grandson, Timmy, and granddaughter, Alicia, from Bangor, a town about 100 miles away.

  In the centre of the oval table, an Easter candle’s flames danced around the wick. A cross on the candle glistened under the light of the chandelier. Everyone around the table held hands and bowed their heads as Bruce said grace: “Dear Lord, thank you for this food….”

  Nina’s thoughts returned to a night three years earlier when she had stared at a painting of The Last Supper, which depicted Jesus and his disciples sitting at a long dining table.

  It was 1967. Nina had been looking for her shoes when she found a book under the bed. Most of the books in her home had been burned during some ransacking by the Red Guards. She had been sitting on the floor, flipping through the pages one by one when an illustration caught her eye. While she gazed at The Last Supper, she had contemplated why such an abrupt turmoil had engulfed her family. Her father, an officer of the People’s Liberation Army, had been branded as an American spy because he had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point; and her mother, a paediatrician, had also been considered an enemy of the revolution since she had no intention of denouncing her husband. With her eyes fixed on the painting, she had wondered: Why did Judas betray Jesus?

  Somehow, that painting had brought to mind the ways the Cultural Revolution in China had encouraged people to turn on their neighbours and friends, and she had felt anguish for her father, and her mother, and everything they had gone through, despairing at how their ordinary lives had been betrayed and taken away from them.

  Nina returned to the present when she heard, “Through Christ, our Lord, we pray.” She bowed her head and said, “Amen,” along with the others. At that moment, a sense of well-being filled her and as she looked at the happy faces of the people at the dinner table around her, she realized she was among friends who would not betray her, but friends who had welcomed her into their lives, and who were helping her find her own way in this new life and new land.

  Nina nibbled on the roast turkey with sweet-and-sour cranberry sauce for the first time. She thought of the turkey with a grey head and scarlet wattles that she had seen at the zoo and smiled to herself. She had never imagined such a creature could taste so good. She eyed the creamy mashed potatoes with gravy, the green beans sautéed with sliced almonds, and the hot cross buns and fruitcake, and knew that those dishes would be delicious too. A motherly smile on her face, Eileen said, “Try our food. It’s prepared in a kind of Scottish-style. I think you’ll like it.”

  After the dinner, Mike played the piano, while the others sang a traditional Easter song, “The World Itself.” Nina leaned back on the couch and mused on the lyric, “The Lord of all things lives anew.” Releasing a deep breath, she was grateful she did not die during her escape.

  Eileen and Bruce’s granddaughter was sitting next to Nina, a pink stuffed bunny lying on her lap. “Why don’t you sing with them?” Alicia asked, her hand patting Nina’s arm.

  “I’m not familiar with these songs, but I’m listening,” answered Nina. “Do you enjoy singing?”

  “I like to sing at school.” The little girl cradled the smiling, toothy bunny. “My bunny’s sleeping now. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to roll Easter eggs down the hill. Do you want to join us?”

  “What are Easter eggs?” Nina was curious.

  Alicia scampered to the kitchen and returned with a basket full of hard-boiled eggs that had been painted red, yellow, green and blue. “Here they are. We like the Easter Monday egg roll. We’ll climb to the top of the hill behind the house.”

  “Thanks for showing me.” Nina carried the basket to the table and laid it there, wondering if the eggs would be eaten after they were rolled down the hill.

  Mike was playing the piano. Emma was singing a song composed by Loretta Lynn, a country music singer:

  Dear Uncle Sam, I just got your telegram,

  And I can’t believe that it is me shakin’ like I am,

  For it said, “I’m sorry to inform you…”

  Nina noticed that Bruce and Eileen, sitting on the loveseat
, were holding hands and looking at each other with big sad eyes. Emma was leaning against the piano, singing in a deep and mournful tone, and staring into the distance.

  Alicia turned to Nina and whispered, “Did you know my uncle?”

  “No,” Nina said and shook her head. “Where is your uncle?” she asked.

  “In heaven.”

  Nina’s heart sank. “What happened?”

  “Mom said the Viet Cong killed him.”

  Nina felt a shiver run down her back. She understood now the sadness in the room and she nodded sympathetically in Bruce and Eileen’s direction. That must have been what Eileen had meant earlier when she mentioned something about two years having passed. She couldn’t help but also think of Dahai. Is he still with the Viet Cong? she wondered. She was still perplexed that he could be so convinced his mother and the Americans were the enemies. She sighed and thought, He was brainwashed. But, immersed in thought, Nina had another question: Why did the Americans go to the war in Vietnam?

  “Are you okay?” Eileen asked, coming to sit next to Nina.

  “I didn’t know you had a son.”

  “He died in Vietnam two years ago. We don’t want the war, but as a soldier, he had to follow orders.”

  Nina held Eileen’s hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Eileen said, “He’s resting in peace. We hope the war will end soon so no more sons will die.”

  Mike stopped playing the piano and looked at Nina. He seemed to have perceived the question in her head. “America entered the Vietnam War to stop the spread of communism,” he said. Then looking at her curiously, he asked, “You escaped the communist regime, didn’t you?”

  “I was raised in communism. But after the Cultural Revolution began, especially when my father was jailed, I rejected it.” Nina breathed deeply and told her new friends about her family. “In the end, my father took his own life,” she said. She had lost her father to the revolution on the land across the Pacific. Eileen and Bruce had lost their son in the war across the Pacific, too. These two realities, she felt, created a bond between them that warmed her.

  That night, Nina tossed and turned. Dahai was in her dreams. He was staring into the distance, as if he were trying to see through the world. Then he turned and said, “I’m confused.”

  Nina imagined Dahai running through bamboo-blanketed hills, a rifle in his hands, bullets criss-crossing over his head, and bombs exploding. Dahai fell, struggling to raise his blood-soaked face to ask for help. In her dream, Nina stretched out her arms but was unable to touch him. She tried to say, “You’re a lost sheep,” but she could not utter a sound. Then she watched as a lamb collapsed on the grass. Its face was stained with blood, and its feet struggled to stand. Snow-white clouds inched across the crystal-clear sky and cast shadows on the yellow-green grass.

  Her knees weak, Nina fell on the grass too, her hands covering her tear-filled eyes. Then the words of a woman from her Bible study group resounded in her ears: “God is watching our journey. If we’re lost, God will call us again and again until we’re back on the right path.” Nina prayed to God to guide Dahai and save him.

  The following morning, Nina brooded over her dream. She hoped that Dahai was well. She would not understand the meaning of her dream until years later.

  4.

  UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

  SCHOOL ENDED IN JUNE. Nina looked out her window and noticed the tree in the backyard full of thumb-sized apples. Summer is coming, she thought with relief. She was excited to have just gotten a full-time job at a potato chip factory that would help her earn tuition fees.

  On her first day of work, she arrived at the one-storey building on a second-hand bicycle. She met with a middle-aged foreman who gave her instructions and a uniform. After putting the white uniform on and tucking her bobbed hair into a net, she got her card punched and followed the foreman into a workshop. She surveyed the equipment: two long conveyer belts starting in the hall and extending into another room. Rows of seats flanked the belts. An aroma of potato chips flavoured with barbecue or sour cream or vinegar and pepper hovered in the air.

  “You work at this section,” the foreman said. “Pick out potatoes with dark spots.” He pointed at the green boxes along the conveyer. “Put them there. Simple?”

  “Yes, sir,” Nina answered, heading over to the workers already standing by the conveyer belt.

  The foreman told Nina, “Follow the others. You’ll learn quickly enough what to do.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall, turned on a switch, and the machines hummed.

  The first group of peeled potatoes on the grey belt eventually moved in front of Nina. Next to her was an African-American, introduced to her as Jasmine, who quickly picked up a potato and placed it into a green box on a stool beside her. Nina caught one but did not see any black spots, so she put it back.

  “Look! Get that one,” said Jasmine, one hand catching a potato and the other pointing to yet another potato right before Nina’s very eyes.

  Nina caught it and thanked Jasmine. She realized she needed more practice. Amazed by Jasmine’s sharp sight, Nina wondered how soon she would be able to easily spot the unwanted potatoes. Meanwhile, she tried her best to catch up with the other seasoned workers. The moving potatoes passed her like a bubbling brook. Her arms moved up and down as if she were ploughing through the bubbles, and the undesirable potatoes eventually filled the box.

  At lunchtime, Nina followed the others into a multi-purpose room. Sandwich boxes and coffee cups were scattered on the tables. Chatter filled the room. Some workers lit cigarettes. Nina sat down, and the blonde girl next to her said, “Hi! I’m Carol. Are you new here?”

  “Yes. I’m Nina. How about you?” Nina asked, smiling at Carol.

  “I’ve been here about a year,” Carol said. “I finished high school last year but have to make some money to help my family. I’m going go to college in September. Are you in college?”

  Nina shook her head and told her she was in an adult high school. “How do you like working here?”

  “Boring, but I don’t think I can find a better paying job,” Carol mumbled as she chewed on her sandwich. “Unless I have a diploma or degree.”

  “What are you going to study?”

  “Occupational Therapy, but I’m not a hundred percent sure if I can get through it.” Carol bit her lip. “My mom’s always under the weather.”

  Puzzled, Nina asked, “Do you mean she feels cold?”

  Carol chuckled. “I mean, she’s ill.” She noticed Nina’s embarrassment, and added, “Your English isn’t too bad.”

  Nina felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a woman’s voice say, “I thought you couldn’t speak English.”

  “Why?” asked Nina, turning her head.

  Jasmine stood behind her. “Aren’t you Chinese? I thought Chinese people didn’t speak English.” Jasmine gave her friendly, toothy smile, then nodded and said, “Back to work.”

  Not knowing what to say, Nina nodded and mumbled, “Nice meeting you.”

  The afternoon slipped by. All the potatoes with flaws did their best to roll away, but Nina learned to spot and catch them.

  Two weeks later Nina got her first pay cheque: $140. She was elated. She could put food on the table now. She always got an uneasy feeling when she had to line up with the elderly and children for the donated canned food and staples distributed by the church, which she brought back to the house so she wouldn’t use up all of Eileen and Bruce’s own supplies. She placed the cheque in her wallet and thought that someday she would also be able to pay them some rent for her room. After work, she got on her bicycle and rode to Hannaford Supermarket where she had been with Eileen. In the supermarket, she was always amazed at the variety of fresh and frozen food and almost got lost among the shelves fully loaded with tons of colourful packages. She picked some meat, vegetables, and fruit, and then pushed he
r buggy into an aisle of canned food. She gaped at the tins with pictures of dogs and cats. She was stupefied until she picked up a tin and understood that the food was meant for pets. She chuckled but was still astonished at the attractive pet food packaging. These cans look nicer than any cans of food for people in China, she thought.

  That evening, when Nina sat at the desk in her room, she rubbed her sore hand and reached for a grade eleven textbook from the pile of books. Visions of flowing potatoes still flashed in her head. She told herself she must try harder while recalling a Chinese myth about a young man preparing for the ancient imperial exams who had to keep himself awake by jabbing his bottom with a gimlet and tying his long hair to a beam. I don’t need to do that, Nina thought, shaking her head. She just needed to forget watching TV and focus on her studies. Her plan was to graduate from high school within the next year. She drummed her fingers on the desk and imagined the day she would receive her diploma. After receiving her diploma, she would be able to get a better full-time job, and she would be able to live a simple and much better life than the one she had lived on the military farm. Do I know what I want eventually to do? she wondered, remembering her letter to Gui’s Wife, which briefly outlined the details of her new life. She had not been able to specifically articulate what she hoped to do when she graduated and she wondered if Gui understood all that Nina hoped for in this new land.

  The text on the page suddenly blurred in front of her and her mind wandered. The past flashed in front of her, sucking her in tight and deep as though it were a dark and endless hole. She could hardly breathe. How is Mother? she thought. Did she get my letter? Is Dahai in Vietnam or in jail? Is Rei alive or dead? She was haunted by these questions and worrying about her family and friends made it difficult to focus on her reading.