Across a Green Ocean

by Wendy Lee

Michael nods, wondering if the man is trying to make some kind of discreet political statement, but Liao just walks on serenely.

  Continuing the impromptu tour, Liao and Ben show Michael the canteen, where apparently the students’ problem is that they want to conserve trees by using plastic spoons instead of wooden chopsticks, but the spoons cut their mouths. They walk by the field where the students do their morning exercises, like millions of other students all across China at exactly the same time. Then Michael is unintentionally taken past the students’ restrooms, mainly identifiable by the deep, rank odor that he is beginning to associate with Chinese toilets. It is more than a stink; it seems to come from the very bowels of the earth itself. This, he thinks, is something the students should be complaining about.

  Finally, they come to a square, five-story apartment building, all with glassed-in balconies in a row down the front. They climb three flights of stairs and enter a space that is about the size of Michael’s apartment back home, except that it has concrete floors and walls whose upper half is painted white and the lower half, pale green, as if in a psych ward. A couple of scrolls, and a calendar showing a field of flowers, hang on the walls, but otherwise they are bare.

  A young woman holding a chubby toddler comes forward to greet them. Liao introduces them as Ben’s wife, whose English name is Mary, and his son, Rong Rong. Liao’s wife, a smiling, round-faced woman, emerges from the kitchen. From what Michael can tell, the kitchen is the glassed-in balcony he saw from outside the apartment building. He can glimpse a two-burner stove on top of a low cupboard with a tank of propane next to it. The wall above the stove is peeling and streaked with black smoke from cooking. Above, crisscrossing the glassed-in space, is a line of drying laundry.

  “Would you like to wash up?” Liao asks, pointing to a neon green plastic basin and matching water jug in a corner.

  Michael declines, but asks to use the bathroom. It is a closet off the main room, and as he has suspected, contained a squat toilet. As spotless as it is, an inescapable whiff comes from it. He tries to pee quietly in the miniscule space so that his hosts won’t be able to hear him. Where, Michael wonders, do the Liaos shower?

  When he comes out of the bathroom, Ben suggests, “Do you want to see the rest of our apartment?”

  “Yes, I’d like to take a tour,” Michael replies, but Ben doesn’t seem to get the joke.

  The one room Michael hasn’t seen so far is down a short hallway. It is a bedroom with a single high bed covered with a bright pink coverlet and a matching honey-colored dresser, unlike the assorted furniture in the living room. There is a crib at the foot of the bed, and above the headboard hangs a huge framed wedding photograph of Ben and Mary, made to look like a painting. They are both in Western dress, Ben in a tuxedo and Mary in a frothy white gown and veil that seems to take up half the picture. She looks very different from the plain young woman Michael was introduced to, her face made up, her head tilted with her chin resting on one hand. Ben stands behind her, one hand on her shoulder and the other holding her free hand, in a pose that Michael recognizes from a thousand high school prom photos.

  “Was this taken at your wedding?” he asks Ben.

  “No,” Ben says. “Chinese people don’t have weddings like you Americans. This was taken in a photo studio after we got married. You can dress up in many different costumes, from the olden days, even the movies.” He strikes a pose, arms outstretched as if he’s at the prow of a boat, and adds when Michael looks confused, “Titanic. Are you married?”

  “No,” Michael says shortly. “Do you and Mary sleep here?” He figures that he can be just as nosy.

  “Yes. Rong Rong sleeps in there.” Ben points at the crib.

  “Where do your parents sleep?”

  “In the living room.”

  Michael marvels that a family of five lives in a space that is not much bigger than his own apartment in New York. He thinks about how if things had ended up differently for his father and Liao, he and Emily might have very well grown up like this, sharing a room. Actually, if that were true, he wouldn’t have even been born; Emily would have been the one child his parents were allowed to have. As alarming as that thought is, he can’t help but think that if that were the case, then his father wouldn’t have had a son to be disappointed in.

  “And where do you shower?” Michael finally asks the question he’s been dying to know the answer to.

  “There’s a bathhouse on campus.”

  “Doesn’t that get cold in the winter?”

  “When it’s cold,” Ben says, “I run there and back.” He grins. “It’s good exercise.”

  After they return to the living room, Liao insists Michael sit down on a bed pushed against one wall, which Michael guesses is where he and his wife usually sleep. It is piled high with satin quilted blankets and pillows, and proves to be quite soft, if a bit slippery. Everyone else sits on chairs or stools around the low coffee table, and Michael realizes that the bed-couch is considered the place of honor.

  The table is covered with food: a whole steamed fish with ginger, prawns encrusted in sea salt, sautéed greens with the bite of garlic, eggplant in black bean sauce, peppery egg mixed with tomato, sautéed corn with pine nuts. It is mind-boggling that so much food can have come out of that tiny kitchen. Michael knows that the Liaos must not eat so well every day, that it has all been prepared especially for him. He compliments the dishes and asks what makes them taste so good.

  Ben whispers something to Mary, and she retrieves from the kitchen a small packet of what looks like baking soda. “This is gourmet powder,” he says.

  Michael inspects the packet, wondering if he should bring some back for his mother and sister. Then he sees the English letters on the side: MSG. He hastily thanks Ben and gives back the packet, and tries not to eat so much after that, but he supposes the damage is already done, and he doesn’t want to offend his hosts, and the food is very, very good.

  They don’t talk much. Most of the sounds are made by chopsticks clinking against bowls, glasses against the tabletop, and Rong Rong’s fussing when he is fed something he does not want to eat. Everyone seems to be feeding him, not only his grandmother and mother, but even Ben reaches over at times to put a tidbit into his son’s mouth. It can’t be so bad, Michael reflects, to have three generations sitting around the table like this. Despite what Liao has been through, no matter what conditions he lived in and currently lives in, he is able to enjoy his family now.

  Now come the personal questions, mostly from the women. Michael is asked again if he is married. He replies that his sister, Emily, is. Mary wants to know if Emily is married to a Chinese or a waiguo ren, an “outside person,” which he thinks is kind of funny because, obviously, Julian is not an “outside person” in America. When Michael says a waiguo ren, Mary nods sagely.

  Michael asks how Ben and Mary met, and is told that Mary was a physical education teacher at the university while Ben was studying to be a tour guide. After they married, she quit her job and now spends her time taking care of Rong Rong and her in-laws. Liao was an English teacher until his retirement seven years before. He has a pension, but they mostly live off of Ben’s income, which is quite good, Ben adds. He is not being immodest, it is just a fact.

  They ask Michael what his job is and how much he makes, without any hint that these might be inappropriate questions to ask someone you just met. Michael supposes, like staring, these subjects are not considered forbidden here. He says he works with computers and that he doesn’t know how to convert his salary into Chinese money. It’s probably so high you can’t convert it, Ben says, and Michael does not bother to correct him.

  The women clear the table, and then Mary goes to put Rong Rong to bed. Michael can hear Liao’s wife in the kitchen and wonders if he should offer to help. But Liao and Ben just sit at the table, and he realizes that it is a time for men only. Liao goes to a cabinet and takes down a bottle of grain liquor and three tiny, thimble-sized cups. He pours some for each
of them and raises his cup.

  “Ganbei,” he says.

  The liquor sears Michael’s throat like firelight and doesn’t taste like anything, it’s so strong. But Michael nods when Liao lifts the bottle again. After a few rounds, everyone’s tongues seem to be loosened, if not burned.

  “Sometimes I think I’ll try to work in America,” Ben confides. “Do they need tour guides there?”

  “Sure,” Michael says, thinking of the people who work the tour buses in the city, although it is more likely, despite Ben’s command of English, that he would end up one of those vendors in Chinatown hawking knock-off designer bags.

  “It is very hard to go to America without a sponsor,” Liao says. “Maybe you can sponsor my son?”

  “Maybe,” Michael replied vaguely.

  Ben waves away his father’s suggestion. “Sometimes I think there’s no reason to go to America. I can make plenty of money here. There are more and more tourists every year. Look!” He extends his wrist. “A Rolex, made in China. You can get everything here.”

  Michael makes an agreeable sound.

  “Besides, if I go to America,” Ben continues, “I will have to be away from my family. Or maybe Mary can come, but we will leave Rong Rong here, and he will be raised by my parents. I’ve seen it happen. Your son grows up without you and does not know you.”

  “Things are different now,” Liao says. “Back then, it was considered a good opportunity, even if it didn’t always work out. It worked out for your father,” he says to Michael, “but then he was lucky.”

  Lucky? Michael wonders. He isn’t sure if his father was lucky or just worked hard. And then working hard became the purpose of his life, and sacrifice was all that he knew. But Michael doesn’t know how to say this to his host. He suspects this kind of personal talk is more taboo than asking how much money you made.

  “How did you find my father’s address?” he asks Liao.

  “My wife and I visited Beijing about a year and a half ago. We wanted to ever since I retired. I had not been back since I had left as a teenager. No one from my family is left there, but I wanted to see my old house, which I told you about before. Sometimes, you know, the place is more important than the people.”

  Michael nods.

  “I found it is divided into many apartments, each around this size.” Liao gestures around the room they are sitting in. “All the families are new to Beijing and do not follow the old customs. They throw trash everywhere and ruin the place. While I was there, I ran into a neighbor. Of course, now he is very old. He is the only person left there from before. He told me what happened to all the other neighbors, and that your father had gone to the States. Like I said before, he is lucky.”

  Michael thinks that immigrating to America must have been the hardest thing his father ever had to do in his life. And for what, to find a wife? To become a lab technician and buy a house in New Jersey? To send his two ungrateful children to college?

  “This neighbor, he has a very old address for your father, but I thought I would take a chance and write a letter.” Liao leans forward and pats Michael’s arm. “I wondered why I had not heard from your father. I thought the address is too old. Now I know what happened. I was very sad to hear about your father passing away. But I am also glad that the letter brought you here, so that you can see Qinghai Province for yourself. Did you enjoy the monastery and the lake?”

  “Yes, but most of all I enjoyed hearing about my father’s childhood.” Michael pauses. “Can you tell me more? What happened after you discovered that my grandfather was a Christian?”

  Liao refills his cup as if to fortify himself for what’s to come next.

  In the fall of 1966, everything changed. The schools were in a disarray. The classrooms had been taken over for political meetings, the schoolyards for public displays of humiliation, where people were made to wear dunce caps and kneel on broken glass. We weren’t students anymore, we were Red Guards. You might have thought this would be an awful time to be a teenager. Actually, it felt like being on top of the world, to be sixteen years old and the most powerful beings around. Wherever we went, we were supposed to be able to knock on anyone’s door and be given a place to stay and food to eat. In the beginning, people were hospitable and eager to do this, saying that the youth were the future of our country. Then, when the youth became more arrogant, grabbing whatever they wanted and making accusations if you tried to stop them, they became distrustful and afraid of us.

  In groups of four or five boys, we went on raids through large houses abandoned by the bourgeoisie, smashing antique vases, paintings, figurines; things that would be considered quite valuable today. Back then, though, people believed you had to get rid of the old in order to make way for the new. These destructive acts were an attempt to obliterate our old selves, so that we could become new model citizens.

  Han was in his element. He was a natural leader, charismatic and resourceful. He knew exactly when to draw back, when there was no point anymore to our wildness. Somehow, the destruction didn’t seem so bad with him around. In addition to myself, our group usually included two other former classmates: Zhao, who had always been a bit of a bully, and Xiao Peng, who was quiet and bookish. Han was the sun around which we orbited, drawn in by his confidence, his surety that what we were doing was right.

  Once, accompanied by Min—a girl whose revolutionary fervor scared us boys a little—we came upon a house that had already been ransacked to its very bones. It had belonged to a foreigner, judging by the English titles on the books that had been pulled from the shelves and half ripped apart: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Great Expectations. In a different place and time, I would have taken those books for my own, although then it would have been stealing. But here I dared not show that the foreign words on the spines meant anything to me.

  I think we were all impressed by the thoroughness of the Red Guards who had come before us. Sofa cushions had been slashed, the stuffing strewn around the floor like snow. Tables were missing legs and chairs, arms. Several picture frames had been ripped from the walls and dashed on the floor. Behind the broken glass of one I saw the image of a lady in Western dress. Irrationally, I thought about Mr. Frazier and wondered whether he had been reunited with his wife and children in the Ohio River Valley.

  “This yang guizi got what he deserved,” Han announced.

  “I’ll bet he had servants that he underpaid and exploited,” Min chimed in.

  “They should have strung him up—”

  “—like the imperialistic pig he is!”

  Xiao Peng and I just looked at each other as Han and Min took turns going on about the “foreign devil.” I could tell that Xiao Peng felt uneasy about their ramblings but could do nothing but nod in agreement, like me. From somewhere upstairs came a crash; Zhao on a rampage, probably.

  Then Zhao came down with a bottle of amber liquid. We all knew it was some kind of spirits, and that we should try it. Min found some glasses and did the honors of pouring.

  “To the great Mao,” Han said.

  “To Jiang Qing,” Min said, referring to Mao’s actress wife.

  “No!” Zhao yelled. “Her face is like the back of a horse!”

  After a while, Zhao turned to Xiao Peng. “Little Peng,” he said. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. I think there is something strange about you.”

  Xiao Peng smiled weakly. “What is that?”

  Zhao went over and plucked the photograph of the lady in Western dress from the floor, swearing when he nicked his finger on a shard of glass. He shoved it in front of Xiao Peng’s face. “Do you find this woman attractive?”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” I said. “She’s a foreigner.” I turned to Xiao Peng. “Right?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Aha,” Zhao said as if this was some kind of proof. “I knew it. You don’t like women.”

  “I do too,” Xiao Peng protested.

  “Then prove it”—Zhao l
ooked around the room—“by kissing Min!”

  Min squealed in protest and almost fell off her chair.

  “Otherwise, you’ll have to kiss old Liao here.” Zhao laughed and pointed at me.

  I scowled at him and looked toward Han to see if he would intervene, but he leaned forward, appearing interested. I doubted if any of us boys in the room had ever kissed a girl, but to me, Min was not a great prospect. She had rabbitty front teeth and slightly bulging eyes, which, when she was in the middle of a political tirade, seemed to threaten to pop from her head. But Han’s eyes were fixed on her.

  “Go on,” he said.

  Min giggled and minced up to Xiao Peng. She put her hands on his shoulders and touched her lips to his for barely a second. It was just a peck, but Xiao Peng looked like he was going to be ill.

  “I knew it,” Zhao said. The look he gave Xiao Peng was full of disgust and loathing. “You’re nothing but a—”

  “That’s enough!” Han roared. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

  As we quietly obeyed and filed out of the house, the glow gone from our adventure, I glanced at Han. He looked furious. I couldn’t tell whether he was angry with Zhao for baiting Xiao Peng, or himself for letting things go too far. Or maybe, I thought, he liked Min and wished he had been on the receiving end of her thin, chapped lips. I started to look at my old friend in a new light. He was beginning to grow apart from me, desiring things that were beyond my comprehension.

  As if he sensed our increasing distance, Han tried to include me more in the favorite activities of himself, Zhao, and the others, including struggle sessions. This was when people were put on trial for their crimes against the state and subsequently ridiculed, beaten, and stoned, because they were always found guilty. There were rumors that some people had even died afterward, although they had been old and had weak hearts, and by that time they had been dragged away, so no one saw their bodies anyhow. I didn’t like such bloodthirsty spectacles and did my best to avoid them. I knew that if you did not go, you were considered weak by the other boys and that this might somehow make its way up to the authorities, but until that winter I managed to worm my way out of attendance.