"After he left California, my grandmother saw him several times—always in secret. Once in Hawaii, again in Macao, and, the last time, in Shanghai in 1929, just before Chiang started exterminating Communists. I've read my grandparents' letters—they are in the family archive." She stopped, took a small, precise sip of scotch, and smiled. "If there is such a thing as a 'great' love, they had it. My father was with them in Shanghai—he was about twenty-five and already had a reputation as a radical. Wing Soong had spent a lot of time with Dad and Kit when they were young and both of them adored him. Dad was in his thirties before he learned that Wing Soong was his father. They hadn't told him because they wanted to protect him—Grandmother had witnessed the Communist witch hunts after World War One, and she was afraid for Dad. It's ironic, I suppose—the committee that investigated Daddy never did find out that his father was a top-ranking Chinese Communist, but they hounded him to death anyway. Am I talking too much?"
"No," Hayes said, "but you are making this up, aren't you?"
"I swear I'm not," she said, "truly."
He reached for her hand, she held tight to his and went on: "My father was in the China-Burma theater during the war, as a correspondent, working with General Stilwell's staff. With Stilwell's help, he managed finally to get into the far north of China—"
"Shensi Province," Hayes said.
"Right, Shensi near Yenan, where the Communists were encamped, to interview Mao and Chou, but mostly to see his father, to tell him . . ."
"That he knew?" Hayes asked.
"Yes, and that he was terrifically pleased and honored. The way Daddy described it to me, a group of war correspondents was finally allowed to go to Shensi, General Stilwell arranged it with the help of a couple of young U.S. foreign service officers who thought we should at least be willing to talk to the Chinese Communists. There were about ten of them, in all, in the group, and they had to fly over the Hump—the Himalayas. By the time he got there he was half frozen and almost deaf from the noise, so he kind of stumbled onto the tarmac. That was when he saw this very tall, very straight figure standing off to one side. The wind made his eyes water, he could hardly see but he said he knew. He just knew. So he used the figure as a guidepost, and headed straight for it, and when he got there it was Wing Soong. 'Just the same except in an old man's body,' Daddy said, with white hair instead of the black he remembered.
"My Dad said, 'Father.'"
"Wing Soong said, 'Son.'"
"They stood together on the tarmac for a long, long time, with their arms around each other, and suddenly my father was no longer cold, and he could hear perfectly and see clearly."
Hayes was looking at her.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to cry." She smeared the tears that were running down her face with the back of her hand. He took her wet hand, held it between both of his, then put his arm around her and pulled her to him. "I know you loved him," she whispered, her face pressed into his sweater so that she could feel his heart beating.
After a while Hayes said, "Go on . . . Wing Soong. What happened to him?"
"He died at a ripe old age—nearly ninety, I think, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. It was in the papers. The New York Times even ran a photo of him, with Chou and Mao in the 1930s. He was well over six feet tall, and he towered over them— though Chou was tall, too. The Times obituary mentioned nothing of Grandfather's California years, it only said that he was father of Tsiao Jie, a top party functionary. She is out of favor and is supposed to have been banished to the countryside near the Manchurian border."
"Did you know about him?"
"Her. She's my aunt. Grandfather's pet name for her was 'China Rose.' Her mother's name was Tsiao Min, she was a peasant girl who was on the Long March, and they were living in a cave when the baby was born, that would have been about 1935. Something went wrong—the baby was crippled, and the mother died not long after. Wing Soong raised the little girl, and then she took care of him in his old age. I don't know why she took her mother's name because she and her father were devoted to each other."
"Strange," Hayes said in a weary voice. "Neither of his children, or his grandchild, took his name."
May thought about it. "I suppose he thought it would be safer for her—sadly, it didn't seem to help her in the current troubles. Daddy met Rose when she was eleven, right after the war. She would be about thirty-five now. He said she was quite small and very plain, except for the eyes—which he described to me as 'great and dark and filled with sweetness.' He said she made it possible for him to leave, that he would have been heartsick going away from his father had not Rose been there to help them both. He always hoped to go back and spend time with her. And maybe he thought I would go, too. He did insist that my birth certificate carry the name Wing Mei-jin. He really wanted to believe that one day China and this country would come to some kind of a rapprochement."
Night had closed in, surrounding them; the only light in the room was from the fireplace, and it was burning low. Hayes rose, slowly, made his way to the kitchen, and returned with a kerosene lamp. The bottle of scotch was empty.
"Should I get another?" he asked.
"This one didn't seem to help" she told him, so he threw another log on the fire and sat staring into the flames.
"Tell me about your mother," he said.
"My mother," she repeated, and sighed. "What I feel is that I have to find her, look at her face to face, confront her. I suppose you're thinking: 'Ah, she wants her mother to put her arms around her so she will not feel cold, so she can hear clearly and see clearly and feel wonderful.' I know it isn't going to be like that. That's not what I want. Sometimes I think I want to tell her off, to let all the anger I've felt all these years out, get rid of the bitterness. Like lancing a boil, I suppose. Wing Soong stayed with his son when he was young, and helped him and loved him, and when he left it was for a great cause. My grandmother understood that, and so did my father, who after all followed in his father's footsteps. But my mother simply left, walked away from a newborn baby, and all I can tell you is that I have to ask her why. To her face. And she has to look at me, I'm going to make her do that."
When she didn't speak for a time, Hayes prompted her with a single word: "How?"
She sighed. "Kit has been doing some digging for me. I think she must have a direct line into the CIA or else she has a connection with the Hong Kong tongs. She found out about China Rose being sent to the far north when no information was coming out of China. I do know that it was through Rose that Kit learned the name of the village where my mother was working as a doctor. Kit thinks that Grandfather may have seen my mother before he died, and she knows for sure that Rose visited her and, at least before these current troubles, kept touch with her. It's still hard for me to think about my mother as a living person. In a way, I've always thought of her as if she were dead."
The word reverberated through the room: It seemed to echo, to move up into the high ceilings, and fly back at them . . . dead dead dead dead.
She chose her words carefully: "Can't you please talk to me now, can't you find some words to say about him?"
He shifted, took an envelope out of the pocket of his shirt, and handed it to her. "This came on Monday."
She looked at the return address: Cpl. A. L. Diehl. She opened the letter, held it close to the lamp, and began to read in the flickering light. Andy wrote in a square, boyish scrawl:
Hey, Bro,
Prepare yourself for a miracle. A letter from the Brat. It may take awhile for me to finish it—in between mortar rounds and fire fights and all the shit that goes on out here—but I've got a lot to say, so let's get started.
I'm not going to bore you with the gory details of life in the trenches, putting up with a bunch of jerks from Kokomo, Indiana, and places like that. Actually, the guy from Kokomo isn't a jerk, but he's about the only one who isn't. Where do they get these crackers? Forget I asked, I'll only get a lecture from you on how the U.S. Army scoops up al
l the poor dumb kids who couldn't figure out how to go to college or get braces on their teeth or fake heroin addiction to stay out of this shit-kicked war, and sends them over here to catch all the fucking fire the Cong are throwing in this direction.
Time out. Chow. At least that's what they said it was, but I won't tell you what it looked like to me. God, I keep thinking of Miyo's teriyaki. I can almost smell it.
I've been thinking a lot about all of that—I mean all of us, back home. What it was like. Mom and Pop and you and me at home. About all the shit all of you put up with, with me. My being such a screw-up, I mean. I'm not going soft in the center, or make any big apologies, all I really want to say is thanks. "That's okay Andy boy," you are supposed to say now, "you were worth it." Then you laugh a har-har laugh. Got it? Just kidding.
Kidding aside, I think a lot about things we've done together. At the beach summers, taking along a shovel so we could dig all those goddamned deep holes just for the hell of digging a hole you could stand up in. Have you noticed how people always need explanations? You're the only one I never had to explain to. You're also the only one who kept helping me climb out of the holes I dug myself into. Even that last night, even when you were mad as hell at me, you helped me out. I can't figure why. I think I wouldn't have done it, but what I wanted to tell you is that if I get out of this hell hole you won't have to do it again.
Don't think I've found God or anything. This place is more likely to make you believe in hell. Lots of fire, lots of stink and sweat and stupidity. Mainly stupidity for being here where we don't belong. But I have found someone who has turned this massive mistake of mine into a massive miracle.
Her name is Le Tien An. She is Vietnamese, and she is beautiful. And very, very intelligent. She was educated at the Sorbonne, she speaks five languages, her family is wealthy and what Mother would call "historically important." They do not think me a worthy choice for her, and they are right. But—this is the miracle—she does. I still can't believe it. I tried to tell her what a fuck-up I am, but she didn't understand. Or she understood but refused to believe it. And the strangest thing is, I don't feel like a fuck-up around her. She makes me feel like a whole person. A man. This must sound pretty weird. I mean, I'd proved that a long time ago, right? Wrong.
I know it now, and that is why I need to write this letter to you. To act like a man. Pop would call it being responsible, which has never been my long suit.
An is going to have my baby. I wanted to marry her before I left Saigon, but there were too many obstacles, some of them thrown up by her family. I've got everything arranged now, all I have to do is get back to Saigon, but just in case . . .
What I am saying is, if for some reason—if you were here now, you could hear some of the reasons whistling in—I don't get back, I want you to know about An and the baby. Somebody's got to know, to help them if they need it, and you are the only somebody I can count on. This fucking war has got to end one day, and when it does I want An and the baby in the States with me. Or without me, however it turns out.
So that's it, Bro. I hope I won't need your help, I hope we'll all be back at the beach together one day, digging holes with my kid. But if I do, I know I can count on you. And thanks for the memories.
Love.
Andy
She folded the letter carefully and slipped it back into the envelope. Hayes took it from her, his eyes down, and suddenly— she didn't know why—she caught his face in her hands and made him look at her. The hurt she saw there was so palpable she heard herself make a sad whimpering sound. He pulled her to him and they lay back on the pillows, exhausted.
When she woke the first time, she found he had spread a blanket over her and saw that he was sitting in a chair close by. It was full light the next time she woke, and he was gone. She lay there for a moment, listening. Water was running in the kitchen; she could smell coffee. Her mouth was sour from the scotch, her clothes smelled of wood fire and she had to go to the bathroom.
The sun was out. She could see patches of blue through the bathroom window. Too much had happened; she pushed it away from the surface of her mind. She wanted to clean it all out, to feel fresh again. That was when she noticed the water on the floor. Hayes had showered and a razor was out, so he had shaved as well. She looked around for a towel but there was none. She stripped off her clothes, turned on the shower, and stepped in. She put her head under the water and let it course over her. She lathered herself with soap and rinsed it off, then lathered herself again. When she stepped out Hayes was standing in the doorway with a cup of coffee. He held it while she took her first sip, hot and warming, then he came back with a large towel which he wrapped around her. Tiny droplets of water fell from her hair onto his shirt. He began to dry her hair.
"I hate what happened," she said.
"I know," he answered, and pulled her to him as if he were holding on to all that was left.
They made love slowly. He touched her gently, and took comfort from the soft thrust of her hips, the smooth curve of her breasts. She lifted herself and moved onto him, pulling him into her so he could forget, thrusting in singing rhythms so he could touch the place that would give him succor . . . succor, succor . . . the word came singing into her mind as if from nowhere as she held him in her arms, and she breathed into his mouth as if to send the old ballad singing into his mind and heart:
"Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
And died to succor me!"
He began to breath deeply. It was as if he had not been able to get enough air and now he could. She felt a great, wide swelling within her and then the softest silence, pure and empty of pain. He lay in her arms then and he cried. She listened to the sounds of the ocean breaking on the shore in counterpoint to the small, tender sobs wrenching out of him, and did not think at all.
They slept, and woke to make love again, and pulled the blankets up around them and she pretended the bed was their island, lost in time.
Late in the afternoon they walked down the beach to where her car was parked, and before she left he held her close. "Wing Mei-jin," he whispered, burying his face in her hair, but he did not say goodbye.
She drove straight to my cottage. "I need to curl up on the sunporch and pull myself together," she told me with the smallest of quivers in her voice. "I feel," she said, "like a volcano when the microearthquakes begin to swarm, lots of seismic activity here," her hand cupped under her heart.
I gave her a cup of hot tea and convinced her to eat some scrambled eggs and biscuits spread with apple butter. She ate meticulously, as she had as a little girl on this old porch, then she allowed me to pull a comforter over her and within minutes she was sleeping soundly.
When you are old, routine is important. I turned on the evening news, careful to keep the sound low so it would not disturb May. I was fidgeting with the controls when I heard the disconnected words . . . we interrupt for a news bulletin . . . three are known dead, and a superior court judge is being held hostage in a breakout attempt in progress at the Hall of Justice. . . . We switch to our reporter on the scene . . ."
Lights flashed behind him as the man with the microphone spoke in hushed tones: "What we know at this point is that three black men armed with automatic weapons made their way into Judge Harrison Modar's courtroom at three this afternoon in an effort to free two Black Panthers scheduled for a hearing. One of the assailants was shot by a guard before a rain of fire left two guards and one of the Panthers dead. Two assailants and the surviving defendant took Judge Modar as hostage and attempted to escape in a black van. Police have the van surrounded at the north end of the parking lot, and are negotiating now for the release of Judge Modar."
I watched as one would a horror movie; I wanted to turn it off, but I could not. Instead I turned the sound down so low I had to strain to hear, not to waken May. At midnight, a reporter excitedly broke into a commentary
to say there had been some gunfire, a flurry of activity, something had happened . . . Ten minutes later, a solemn-faced police captain made his way to a bank of microphones to read a hastily prepared statement: "At 1133 hours this evening, when it was determined that the three gunmen who were holding Judge Harrison P. Modar as hostage would not negotiate, a unit of the SFPD special services attempted to enter the van. In the ensuing firefight, Judge Modar was executed by the suspects, all three of the suspects were subsequently shot and killed."
Twenty minutes later the names of the gunmen were released. Eli was not one of them. Until I felt the surge of relief I did not know I had thought he might be.
At four o'clock in the morning the telephone rang. I reached for it, but May had already answered. I recognized Hayes's voice. Five minutes later May came into my bedroom, her clothes thrown on in haste, her hair not yet combed. "I've got to go, Auntie," she said, bending to kiss me.
"Wait," I tried to say, "there's something you don't know," but she was already gone.
SIXTEEN
THE GOLDEN GATE was shrouded in fog, all that was visible was the yellow glow of the lights on the bridge. On the radio station she was tuned to, Dylan was singing "Tambourine Man." She could not handle Dylan's grating voice, not now, not this morning. She pushed the button for the news station and came in mid-sentence: ". . . bloodbath in a San Francisco courtroom yesterday during a Black Panther trial, Judge Harrison Modar was executed, his kidnappers slain."
Her throat went dry.
Oh God. Eli's call, close to panic, begging her to go to Hayes because he couldn't. Then Hayes's call, asking her to meet him at Ft. Point, no questions. It could not be coincidence, there had to be a connection. She turned on the windshield wipers, hoping it would help her see through the mist. She only vaguely remembered the turnoff to Ft. Point. The Presidio, that must be it.
Gift of the Golden Mountain Page 25
