by Susan Conley
“So much homework,” Dawn says. “Sometimes two hours.” I think I detect a hint of pride in Dawn’s voice. People get pretty worked up about homework in this city. A lot of the moms never think their kids have enough of it.
“What school do the kids go to again? I forget,” I ask Dawn.
“Yew Chung,” she says.
“Oh, right,” I say. “I’ve heard it’s a hard school. It’s Chinese, right?”
I’m thinking about how Thorne and Aidan’s school has clear homework parameters: fifteen minutes a night for first graders, twenty minutes for second graders.
“Yew Chung is an international school,” Dawn says to Ken and me. “They have testing.”
There’s another woman at the bus stop—a Chinese American mother from New York City. I wave to her as she pushes her one-year-old home in the stroller. She told me last week that she pulled her six-year-old daughter, Autumn, from the American school in the suburbs. “They weren’t doing enough learning,” she explained. “They were playing too much.”
Flora is also at the bus stop. She asks me what Aidan does after school. Her English is tricky to decipher, but I know she understands everything I say. “Aidan plays with me after school,” I say. “Eight hours is a long day for a five-year-old. He’s tired.”
“What time,” she asks, “do the boys go to bed?”
“Early,” I say. I know she’ll think I’m crazy, because every Chinese mother I’ve had this conversation with thinks my kids go to bed scandalously early. “Seven thirty,” I add, and wait for her surprise. The Chinese kids here tend to go to bed late, and they’re often asleep on the bus in the afternoons when it pulls in. It’s hard to wake up from a deep sleep on a school bus at four in the afternoon. It tends to involve a lot of crying.
“Seven thirty?” Flora says and opens her eyes up wide. “Very, very early.”
“And the girls?” I ask. “What time?” As far as I can remember, Maggie is nine and Samantha is six.
“Nine thirty or ten,” Flora says.
It is my turn for surprise. “Aren’t they tired?” I ask. “What time do they get up?”
“I have to wake them,” Flora explains. “Every morning I have to shake them.”
“What,” I wonder out loud, “do they do all night until nine thirty?”
“They eat and do homework and then they pray.”
Flora is more religious than I thought. They have family prayer after dinner? Flora goes on, “On the weekends there is no homework. The girls pray all day. Pray and pray and eat. Sometimes I tell Maggie she is like a pig. All she does is pray and sleep.”
Surely the girls are not that religious? Then I realize this must be a case of the missing l in Mandarin. Play and sleep. That’s what Flora is trying to say. The girls are playing every night before bed. Finally another family that is having a little fun.
On Sunday, Sabrina and Nick come for lunch. I haven’t seen Sabrina since we took the kids horseback riding. Nick is still living in Hong Kong, commuting back to Beijing every weekend. We sit down to a buffet of cold cuts. Today was the first time sliced turkey was for sale at April Gourmet. I bought some, plus mozzarella cheese and an avocado and a baguette. It cost a small fortune to put on this Americanized version of a French lunch in Beijing. The avocado was five U.S. dollars. The cheese cost seven. I pass the tomatoes to Tony, who smiles. The tomatoes are from China and were cheap.
Nick says Sabrina is overscheduling their children. It’s part of an ongoing feud. “It’s the Chinese way,” he says. “She works the kids into the ground.”
She tries to explain why her daughter, Rachel, has three hours of homework each day. What I know is that Sabrina has her kids in piano class at 9:00 a.m. on Saturdays. Then she has them in math tutoring, English-speaking class, or Chinese writing class every day after school. “She’s behind,” Sabrina announces, then reaches for the cheese. “Rachel is way behind in Chinese.” This is difficult for foreigners like me to understand. How could Rachel be behind in Chinese? She speaks Mandarin fluently.
But the Chinese parents need more than that. Understandably, they need their kids to write the thousands of Chinese characters fluently. I try not to take sides at lunch. I say, “Our kids are just too tired for tutoring after school.”
Sabrina asks Tony if the boys use the playground outside every day. “Most days,” he says and looks at me and smiles.
“While the Korean and Chinese children are doing their homework.” She laughs.
I’m getting paranoid. Because then I say, “Well, they don’t play every day. Thorne does his homework before bedtime, and sometimes we have special drawing time together.”
Sabrina asks if I have any after-school tutors for math and reading. It’s never occurred to me. “Not just now,” I say and try to change the subject.
“It must not be that interesting for your kids here,” Sabrina adds. I don’t understand what she means. “They already speak English, and that’s what everyone is trying to learn here.”
“Oh no,” I say. “Aidan and Thorne are learning Chinese. They like learning Chinese. It is very interesting to live here. Every day they write and speak Chinese.”
“Really?” She asks. “How is that?”
“It’s Tony,” I explain. “He speaks and writes Mandarin. He makes it fun for the kids.”
“No Chinese tutor?” Sabrina asks.
“No tutor.”
Foreign Intelligence
Today is November 4 in China. I go to a treadmill at the gym and turn on CNN on the small attached TV. We’re twelve hours ahead of the States, so the voting hasn’t begun yet in Maine. Obama has opened up a twelve-point national lead, but some state races have gotten closer in the last day. Marcus stands next to the TV screen and watches with me while I run. He says, “Obama will win today. It is historic. A black man winning your presidency. He is very dark.”
“I know. I know.” I can’t think of what else to say. I’m too nervous. When I’ve done my ten-minute warmup, Marcus motions toward the abs curl. I hate this machine more than the others. I’ve never had strong abdominal muscles and I do not see the need to start trying now. Marcus begins to ask me a question about Obama, but he can’t come up with the words he wants in English. He gets out his cell phone and looks up the Chinese. Then he reads the translation to himself. “Susan,” he says, “are you in Obama’s political party?”
“Yes,” I say. “I am.”
“Oh.” Marcus smiles. He’s impressed in some way I cannot understand. Then I realize we’re having one of our misunderstandings.
“But Marcus,” I say, “our political parties in the United States are not like yours. Anybody can be in a political party. You get to choose which one you want and then you’re in.”
“Really?” He seems shocked.
“There are no interviews. No questions. You just register to vote and check the box that says Democrat or Republican or Independent or Green.”
“And then they decide whether or not to let you in?”
“No. You’re just in.” This will take a while to register for him.
“And you can change parties?” he asks me.
“Anytime. You can always change.”
“Wow.” He laughs. “Crazy.”
“But most people don’t change because they like their party. And they like the ideas behind their party. Tomorrow”—I’m panting now—“I’ll go to a big party at a hotel to watch the election results on TV.”
“We do not have anything like that,” Marcus says matter-of-factly. “You get to see if the man you like, Obama, will win. We don’t get to do that here.”
The next morning Tony and I drive to a fancy Chinese hotel ballroom where the American Chamber of Commerce has set up televisions that take up an entire three-story wall. It is 8:00 p.m. in the States and the polls are just closing. Tony and I and hundreds of other Americans eat fried rice and drink Sprite and cheer each state win. Elizabeth is here wearing a T-shirt that reads “Obama
Mama.”
She’s been one of the lead Obama organizers in Beijing—staging voter registration cocktail parties for American expats and hosting house parties to listen to Obama’s China advisors on speakerphone. Many members of the Chinese media are here, taking notes on American democracy at work. The reporters surround Elizabeth, and she finds herself giving interviews all morning. I’m impressed by how calm she sounds. How reasonable. When CNN finally calls the election for Obama, everyone around me cries.
That night Tony and I go to a birthday party in the suburbs at Anna and Lars’s house. Anna is turning forty. She wears a long black Chinese tunic and asks everyone to serve themselves tapas in the kitchen. I think I have forgotten how to make small talk. I haven’t been out to a party like this since my surgery. I feel the social jitters—as if no one here will ever understand me, even if they did speak my language.
At first, everyone is chatting in Danish, including the German couple we know from the boys’ school.
“Congratulations on your new president,” a friend of Lars’s named Hendrick finally says to me in English.
Anna’s friend Mileana adds, “I am so relieved Obama has won.”
“Me too.” I smile back and can’t think of what else to say. I did very little personally to elect Barack Obama—I gave some money and wrote a few e-mails. But I can’t take responsibility for Obama’s election, much as I would like to. In the kitchen I thank Lars for the fact that he and his friends are speaking English to Tony and me, and he looks at me as if I’m crazy. “In Denmark we are a country of five million people, Susan,” he says. “We have no choice but to speak English.”
It’s a small party, maybe twenty people—men in sports shirts and women in short skirts or wide-legged pants. Lars keeps bringing out bottles of expensive European beer—Duvel and Chimay—and pouring them in Tony’s glass. Tony is uneasy. He whispers, “When you’re the only Americans at a party, you don’t want to be the first ones drinking the fancy beer.”
Anna lights three candles in the center of the table, and during dessert her friend Pia, who’s sitting next to me, takes one and pours liquid wax in her mouth. Everyone screams, but her husband just smiles from across the table. “She did this the night I met her, when we lived in Dubai,” he explains. Then we all wait for Pia to do the thing she does inside her mouth with the burning wax. It takes a long time. Everyone keeps talking in English, but I feel like I’m missing some key piece of information—some clue to the larger conversation. What is she doing with that wax in her mouth? Is this a Danish party trick? I can’t tell if the divide I feel is cultural, or if it’s something larger, to do with the boundary lines of cancer.
Then Pia’s husband says matter-of-factly, “She can also crush ice and spit it out into cups for cocktails.” It turns out that tonight Pia has poured too much wax and scorched the top of her tongue. The wax has to cool inside her mouth before she can make it into a cube. A man who says he operates a Danish shipping container company asks me, “Did you cry during Obama’s speech?”
“Yes, I did.” I smile, grateful for his curiosity. “It has been a good week to be American again,” I say then.
“Exactly right,” the man agrees. “After your long spate of imperialism.”
• • •
The next day I buy two air mattresses and carry them up to the apartment in their cardboard boxes. Lily will land in Beijing this afternoon with her husband and their two girls. I sit on our living room floor and plug the air pump into the wall. It sounds like a loud industrial sander. The mattresses are shiny blue, and when they come to life, they remind me of inflatable rafts. I try to imagine Lily materializing in the apartment and lying on one.
At five o’clock the boys and Tony and I stand at attention in the crowded international terminal. It’s always loud in here—buzzing with the emotion of so many different kinds of separation and longing. Hundreds of people hungry for reunion push to see who will be next out of the customs doors. And there’s Lily. She’s pushing a luggage cart and has a huge smile on her face. Her long blond hair hangs down. Then there’s Tyler with his steady gait. He gives a small wave. Their younger daughter, Eloise, is next, wearing her sweet, sheepish grin, and then Calla, my tall goddaughter—who takes everything in.
We hug, and I grab Lily’s hands with both of mine. We count the bags and then walk to the parking garage and climb into the van for the drive back to the city: Thorne and Aidan with the girls in the way back, Tyler and Lily and me in the middle seat. I have to keep looking at her to make sure she’s real. I’m so hopeful for her visit. Tony sits in the passenger seat and asks Lao Wu if we can go to Ritan Gongyuan, an ancient city park not far from our apartment. Our friends are so tired from the long flight, but we need to keep them awake long enough for them to eat dinner.
Lao Wu stops outside the red gates to the park, and we walk along the path to an old altar where they used to sacrifice animals. It’s circled by a high stone wall. There are gnarled willow trees and square stone tables where loud groups of men huddle smoking over card games. Tyler has a smile on his face. “China,” he says loudly for emphasis. “I’ve been imagining this country for a long time.” Then I remember that ever since I’ve known him, he’s been fascinated by Chinese culture—hoping to get over here, turning over an idea he has for a novel set in the Chinese countryside.
Lily stares at the altar. “How long ago did they stop murdering animals up there?” She laughs. “And are those bloodstains fresh?” The children climb up on the platform and jump down to the ground. We stop at a restaurant inside the park and Tony orders the house specialty: platters of roast duck. They come with stacks of thin pancakes and saucers of sweet plum sauce. Thorne and Aidan show the girls how to wrap the duck up in the pancake and eat it like a small burrito. I smile at everyone. I’m so glad they’re here. But I’m also detached. I think it’s the fear that sometimes does this to me. I sit with my chopsticks in my hand, eating from a small bowl of rice, taking in each word everyone says, and then it’s with me again—electric blue and zinging. A kind of palpable dread. I can taste it. Not dread of cancer exactly, or the R word, recurrence, but of something else. As if I’ve done everything I could to keep the bad news at bay and I’m sitting in this restaurant eating duck to prove I’m okay, but I’m afraid the bad news is coming for me anyway. It’s nothing I can say. Not to Lily or Tyler. At least not on this, their first night in China. And I reach for my Tsingtao and lean back in my chair and try to listen to my friends talking.
In the morning we drive to the Confucius Temple in the hutong south of Houhai Lake. The grounds are empty, and the place feels like a beautiful urban secret. Ancient stone carvings dot the courtyard. Lily and Tyler and Tony and I stand in the temple where Confucius prayed daily. “It’s so quiet in here,” Lily says. “So calm.”
When we leave through the front gate, a short older man approaches us selling calligraphy scrolls. Tony says no thank you in Mandarin, but the man persists. He wears thick, Coke-bottle glasses. We gather around to look at his brushwork, and he invites us back to his house to see more.
“Lai, lai.” Come. He motions for us to follow him.
We have to hustle to keep up. “Guys,” I say, corralling the four kids in the alleyway. “We’ll need to be careful with our bodies in this man’s apartment.” His home sits inside a courtyard house in the hutong that’s been partitioned over the years into closet-sized rooms with enough space for a bed, a desk, and a chair. The children sit on his bed and the rest of us stand in the crowded doorway. There’s a white toothbrush and a bar of soap on the sill next to the door. The man walks in small circles trying to find the rest of his scrolls. He can’t stop grinning. There’s no heat, and he wears dark quilted pants and a Mao jacket buttoned to the top to stay warm. He explains to Tony that he was a teacher for thirty years at the middle school down the lane. He’s missing most of his teeth.
I remember what Hans said at dinner back in April—that Tony was inside the conversatio
n here and the rest of us non–Chinese speakers were out. I’m glad again to be married to someone who’s in. Because this old man makes beautiful drawings, and what a gift it is to be asked inside his home. Tony buys two of the small scrolls for eight dollars apiece. One reads, “To long health and longevity.” The other characters spell out “double happiness.”
The next day we head to the Temple of Heaven to see the sundial where the harvest prayers were made to the gods. And then on to the Summer Palace. And then the Great Wall. Each day is epic like this—we go to a different piece of history in the city, and the sky stays remarkably blue. “I thought China would be so different. So much more Communist and bland,” Lily says on the fifth day while she and I eat dumplings alone at Din Tai Fung. Tony and Tyler have taken the kids to a swimming pool near the apartment. “It’s so complicated here,” she says. “So much history staring you in the face. We should have planned to stay longer. My God—the girls like it here so much, we should live here!”
For one moment I allow myself to imagine Lily staying in China. But then just as quickly I let the image go. I take a sip of tea and feel the separation again. I realize I’ve hoped Lily’s visit would spring something loose for me—something to shift the cancer balance. We sit in the crowded dumpling house and I see, perhaps for the first time, that no one is going to do that for me. Not Lily. Not Tony. I smile and say, “It’s confusing to feel alone while you’re here. It’s like I’m waiting for something to happen. Waiting for you to do one simple thing that is going to close the door on the cancer.” I can say anything to her, and this in itself should be freeing. She puts down her chopsticks and listens. “It’s weird,” I go on. “I don’t get it.”
“I do,” she says then. “You’re still figuring out the disease. I can watch your mind sometimes trying to solve it—”
“I feel like I’ve stalled out. Like I’ve taken some kind of long detour and I want you to understand, but I don’t have words for this separation. It’s like I’ve gotten lost.”
