Modern American Memoirs

by Annie Dillard

  “Don’t go back,” Brave Orchid ordered her son. “Keep going. She can’t back out now.”

  “What do you want me to do? Make up your minds,” said the son, who was getting impatient.

  “Keep going,” said Brave Orchid. “She’s come this far, and we can’t waste all this driving. Besides, we have to take your cousin back to her own house in Los Angeles. We have to drive to Los Angeles anyway.”

  “Can I go inside and meet my grandchildren?”

  “Yes,” said her daughter.

  “We’ll see them after you straighten out things with your husband,” said Brave Orchid.

  “What if he hits me?”

  “I’ll hit him. I’ll protect you. I’ll hit him back. The two of us will knock him down and make him listen.” Brave Orchid chuckled as if she were looking forward to a fight. But when she saw how terrified Moon Orchid was, she said, “It won’t come to a fight. You mustn’t start imagining things. We’ll simply walk up to the door. If he answers, you’ll say, ‘I have decided to come live with you in the Beautiful Nation.’ If she answers the door, you’ll say, ‘You must be Little Wife. I am Big Wife.’ Why, you could even be generous. ‘I’d like to see our husband, please,’ you say. I brought my wig,” said Brave Orchid. “Why don’t you disguise yourself as a beautiful lady? I brought lipstick and powder too. And at some dramatic point, you pull off the wig and say, ‘I am Moon Orchid.’”

  “That is a terrible thing to do. I’d be so scared. I am so scared.”

  “I want to be dropped off at my house first,” said the niece. “I told my family I’d be home to make lunch.”

  “All right,” said Brave Orchid, who had tried to talk her niece into confronting her father five years ago, but all she had done was write him a letter telling him she was in Los Angeles. He could visit her, or she could visit him if he wanted to see her, she had suggested. But he had not wanted to see her.

  When the car stopped in front of her daughter’s house, Moon Orchid asked, “May I get out to meet my grandchildren?”

  “I told you no,” said Brave Orchid. “If you do that you’ll stay here, and it’ll take us weeks to get up our courage again. Let’s save your grandchildren as a reward. You take care of this other business, and you can play with your grandchildren without worry. Besides, you have some children to meet.”

  “Grandchildren are more wonderful than children.”

  After they left the niece’s suburb, the son drove them to the address his mother had given him, which turned out to be a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles.

  “Don’t park in front,” said his mother. “Find a side street. We’ve got to take him by surprise. We mustn’t let him spot us ahead of time. We have to catch the first look on his face.”

  “Yes, I think I would like to see the look on his face.”

  Brave Orchid’s son drove up and down the side streets until he found a parking space that could not be seen from the office building.

  “You have to compose yourself,” said Brave Orchid to her sister. “You must be calm as you walk in. Oh, this is most dramatic—in broad daylight and in the middle of the city. We’ll sit here for a while and look at his building.”

  “Does he own that whole building?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe so.”

  “Oh, I can’t move. My knees are shaking so much I won’t be able to walk. He must have servants and workers in there, and they’ll stare at me. I can’t bear it.”

  Brave Orchid felt a tiredness drag her down. She had to baby everyone. The traffic was rushing, Los Angeles noon-hot, and she suddenly felt carsick. No trees. No birds. Only city. “It must be the long drive,” she thought. They had not eaten lunch, and the sitting had tired her out. Movement would strengthen her; she needed movement. “I want you to stay here with your aunt while I scout that building,” she instructed her son. “When I come back, we’ll work out a plan.” She walked around the block. Indeed, she felt that her feet stepping on the earth, even when the earth was covered with concrete, gained strength from it. She breathed health from the air, though it was full of gasoline fumes. The bottom floor of the building housed several stores. She looked at the clothes and jewelry on display, picking out some for Moon Orchid to have when she came into her rightful place.

  Brave Orchid rushed along beside her reflection in the glass. She used to be young and fast; she was still fast and felt young. It was mirrors, not aches and pains, that turned a person old, everywhere white hairs and wrinkles. Young people felt pain.

  The building was a fine one; the lobby was chrome and glass, with ashtray stands and plastic couches arranged in semicircles. She waited for the elevator to fill before she got in, not wanting to operate a new machine by herself. Once on the sixth floor she searched alertly for the number in her address book.

  How clean his building was. The rest rooms were locked, and there were square overhead lights. No windows, though. She did not like the quiet corridors with carpets but no windows. They felt like tunnels. He must be very wealthy. Good. It would serve a rich man right to be humbled. She found the door with his number on it; there was also American lettering on the glass. Apparently this was his business office. She hadn’t thought of the possibility of catching him at his job. Good thing she had decided to scout. If they had arrived at his house, they would not have found him. Then they would have had to deal with her. And she would have phoned him, spoiled the surprise, and gotten him on her side. Brave Orchid knew how the little wives maneuvered; her father had had two little wives.

  She entered the office, glad that it was a public place and she needn’t knock. A roomful of men and women looked up from their magazines. She could tell by their eagerness for change that this was a waiting room. Behind a sliding glass partition sat a young woman in a modern nurse’s uniform, not a white one, but a light blue pantsuit with white trim. She sat before an elegant telephone and an electric typewriter. The wallpaper in her cubicle was like aluminum foil, a metallic background for a tall black frame around white paint with dashes of red. The wall of the waiting room was covered with burlap, and there were plants in wooden tubs. It was an expensive waiting room. Brave Orchid approved. The patients looked well dressed, not sickly and poor.

  “Hello. May I help you?” said the receptionist, parting the glass. Brave Orchid hesitated, and the receptionist took this to mean that she could not speak English. “Just a moment,” she said, and went into an inner room. She brought back another woman, who wore a similar uniform except that it was pink trimmed in white. This woman’s hair was gathered up into a bunch of curls at the back of her head; some of the curls were fake. She wore round glasses and false eyelashes, which gave her an American look. “Have you an appointment?” she asked in poor Chinese; she spoke less like a Chinese than Brave Orchid’s children. “My husband, the doctor, usually does not take drop-in patients,” she said. “We’re booked up for about a month.” Brave Orchid stared at her pink-painted fingernails gesticulating, and thought she probably would not have given out so much information if she weren’t so clumsy with language.

  “I have the flu,” Brave Orchid said.

  “Perhaps we can give you the name of another doctor,” said this woman, who was her sister-in-law. “This doctor is a brain surgeon and doesn’t work with flu.” Actually she said, “This doctor cuts brains,” a child making up the words as she went along. She wore pink lipstick and had blue eyelids like the ghosts.

  Brave Orchid, who had been a surgeon too, thought that her brother-in-law must be a clever man. She herself could not practice openly in the United States because the training here was so different and because she could never learn English. He was smart enough to learn ghost ways. She would have to be clever to outwit him. She needed to retreat and plan some more. “Oh, well, I’ll go to another doctor, then,” she said, and left.

  She needed a new plan to get her sister and brother-in-law together. This nurse-wife was so young, and the office was so rich with wood, paintings, an
d fancy telephones, that Brave Orchid knew it wasn’t because he couldn’t get the fare together that he hadn’t sent for his old wife. He had abandoned her for this modern, heartless girl. Brave Orchid wondered if the girl knew that her husband had a Chinese wife. Perhaps she should ask her.

  But no, she mustn’t spoil the surprise by giving any hints. She had to get away before he came out into the corridor, perhaps to go to one of the locked rest rooms. As she walked back to her sister, she noted corners and passageways, broom closets, other offices—ambush spots. Her sister could crouch behind a drinking fountain and wait for him to get thirsty. Waylay him.

  “I met his second wife,” she said, opening the car door.

  “What’s she like?” asked Moon Orchid. “Is she pretty?”

  “She’s very pretty and very young; just a girl. She’s his nurse. He’s a doctor like me. What a terrible, faithless man. You’ll have to scold him for years, but first you need to sit up straight. Use my powder. Be as pretty as you can. Otherwise you won’t be able to compete. You do have one advantage, however. Notice he has her be his worker. She is like a servant, so you have room to be the wife. She works at the office; you work at the house. That’s almost as good as having two houses. On the other hand, a man’s real partner is the hardest worker. You couldn’t learn nursing, could you? No, I guess not. It’s almost as difficult as doing laundry. What a petty man he turned out to be, giving up responsibility for a pretty face.” Brave Orchid reached for the door handle. “Are you ready?”

  “For what?”

  “To go up there, of course. We’re at his office, and I think we ought to be very direct. There aren’t any trees to hide you, no grass to soften your steps. So, you walk right into his office. You make an announcement to the patients and the fancy nurses. You say, ‘I am the doctor’s wife. I’m going to see my husband.’ Then you step to the inner door and enter. Don’t knock on any doors. Don’t listen if the minor wife talks to you. You walk past her without changing pace. When you see him, you say, ‘Surprise!’ You say, ‘Who is that woman out there? She claims to be your wife.’ That will give him a chance to deny her on the spot.”

  “Oh, I’m so scared. I can’t move. I can’t do that in front of all those people—like a stage show. I won’t be able to talk.” And sure enough, her voice was fading into a whisper. She was shivering and small in the corner of the seat.

  “So. A new plan, then,” said Brave Orchid, looking at her son, who had his forehead on the steering wheel. “You,” she said. “I want you to go up to his office and tell your uncle that there has been an accident out in the street. A woman’s leg has been broken, and she’s crying in pain. He’ll have to come. You bring him to the car.”

  “Mother.”

  “Mm,” mused Brave Orchid. “Maybe we ought to put your aunt in the middle of the street, and she can lie down with her leg bent under her.” But Moon Orchid kept shaking her head in trembling no’s.

  “Why don’t you push her down in the intersection and pour ketchup on her? I’ll run over her a little bit,” said her son.

  “Stop being silly,” she said. “You Americans don’t take life seriously.”

  “Mother, this is ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous.”

  “Go. Do what I tell you,” she said.

  “I think your schemes will be useless, Mother.”

  “What do you know about Chinese business?” she said. “Do as I say.”

  “Don’t let him bring the nurse,” said Moon Orchid.

  “Don’t you want to see what she looks like?” asked Brave Orchid. “Then you’ll know what he’s giving up for you.”

  “No. No. She’s none of my business. She’s unimportant.”

  “Speak in English,” Brave Orchid told her son. “Then he’ll feel he has to come with you.”

  She pushed her son out of the car. “I don’t want to do this,” he said.

  “You’ll ruin your aunt’s life if you don’t. You can’t understand business begun in China. Just do what I say. Go.”

  Slamming the car door behind him, he left.

  Moon Orchid was groaning now and holding her stomach. “Straighten up,” said Brave Orchid. “He’ll be here any moment.” But this only made Moon Orchid groan louder, and tears seeped out between her closed eyelids.

  “You want a husband, don’t you?” said Brave Orchid. “If you don’t claim him now, you’ll never have a husband. Stop crying,” she ordered. “Do you want him to see you with your eyes and nose swollen when that young so-called wife wears lipstick and nail polish like a movie star?”

  Moon Orchid managed to sit upright, but she seemed stiff and frozen.

  “You’re just tired from the ride. Put some blood into your cheeks,” Brave Orchid said, and pinched her sister’s withered face. She held her sister’s elbow and slapped the inside of her arm. If she had had time, she would have hit until the black and red dots broke out on the skin; that was the tiredness coming out. As she hit, she kept an eye on the rearview mirror. She saw her son come running, his uncle after him with a black bag in his hand. “Faster. Faster,” her son was saying. He opened the car door. “Here she is,” he said to his uncle. “I’ll see you later.” And he ran on down the street.

  The two old ladies saw a man, authoritative in his dark western suit, start to fill the front of the car. He had black hair and no wrinkles. He looked and smelled like an American. Suddenly the two women remembered that in China families married young boys to older girls, who baby-sat their husbands their whole lives. Either that or, in this ghost country, a man could somehow keep his youth.

  “Where’s the accident?” he said in Chinese. “What is this? You don’t have a broken leg.”

  Neither woman spoke. Brave Orchid held her words back. She would not let herself interfere with this meeting after long absence.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?” These women had such awful faces. “What is it, Grandmothers?”

  “Grandmother?” Brave Orchid shouted. “This is your wife. I am your sister-in-law.”

  Moon Orchid started to whimper. Her husband looked at her. And recognized her. “You,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  But all she did was open and shut her mouth without any words coming out.

  “Why are you here?” he asked, eyes wide. Moon Orchid covered her face with one hand and motioned no with the other.

  Brave Orchid could not keep silent. Obviously he was not glad to see his wife. “I sent for her,” she burst out. “I got her name on the Red Cross list, and I sent her the plane ticket. I wrote her every day and gave her the heart to come. I told her how welcome she would be, how her family would welcome her, how her husband would welcome her. I did what you, the husband, had time to do in these last thirty years.”

  He looked directly at Moon Orchid the way the savages looked, looking for lies. “What do you want?” he asked. She shrank from his stare; it silenced her crying.

  “You weren’t supposed to come here,” he said, the front seat a barrier against the two women over whom a spell of old age had been cast. “It’s a mistake for you to be here. You can’t belong. You don’t have the hardness for this country. I have a new life.”

  “What about me?” whispered Moon Orchid.

  “Good,” thought Brave Orchid. “Well said. Said with no guile.”

  “I have a new wife,” said the man.

  “She’s only your second wife,” said Brave Orchid. “This is your real wife.”

  “In this country a man may have just one wife.”

  “So you’ll get rid of that creature in your office?” asked Brave Orchid.

  He looked at Moon Orchid. Again the rude American eyes. “You go live with your daughter. I’ll mail you the money I’ve always sent you. I could get arrested if the Americans knew about you. I’m living like an American.” He talked like a child born here.

  “How could you ruin her old age?” said Brave Orchid.

  “She has had food. Sh
e has had servants. Her daughter went to college. There wasn’t anything she thought of that she couldn’t buy. I have been a good husband.”

  “You made her live like a widow.”

  “That’s not true. Obviously the villagers haven’t stoned her. She’s not wearing mourning. The family didn’t send her away to work. Look at her. She’d never fit into an American household. I have important American guests who come inside my house to eat.” He turned to Moon Orchid, “You can’t talk to them. You can barely talk to me.”

  Moon Orchid was so ashamed, she held her hands over her face. She wished she could also hide her dappled hands. Her husband looked like one of the ghosts passing the car windows, and she must look like a ghost from China. They had indeed entered the land of ghosts, and they had become ghosts.

  “Do you want her to go back to China then?” Brave Orchid was asking.

  “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. She may stay, but I do not want her in my house. She has to live with you or with her daughter, and I don’t want either of you coming here anymore.”

  Suddenly his nurse was tapping on the glass. So quickly that they might have missed it, he gestured to the old women, holding a finger to his mouth for just a moment: he had never told his American wife that he had a wife in China, and they mustn’t tell her either.

  “What’s happening?” she asked. “Do you need help? The appointments are piling up.”

  “No. No,” he said. “This woman fainted in the street. I’ll be up soon.”

  They spoke to each other in English.

  The two old women did not call out to the young woman. Soon she left. “I’m leaving too now,” said the husband.

  “Why didn’t you write to tell her once and for all you weren’t coming back and you weren’t sending for her?” Brave Orchid asked.