Repeat After Me

by Rachel Dewoskin

  “Weird how?”

  “How they’re everywhere and nowhere.”

  “They’re not nowhere, exactly. Just far away.”

  When the sun poured heat over us in the morning, we awoke, drank Cokes for breakfast, brushed our teeth over the edge of the Great Wall, and climbed down.

  Then Julia Too and I picked up my mother and went straight to Old Chen’s. He was sitting under a tree in his courtyard, with a thermos of tea and a book. Dressed in khakis and a button-down shirt, he looked oddly Western to me. Maybe my father looks like Old Chen now, now that he’s old. I looked over at my mom, to see what she was thinking. But I couldn’t tell. Her eyes were on Julia Too, hugging Old Chen.

  “Sit, sit,” he said to us. He stood and got a chair ready for Naomi. She thanked him and the maid went to get more tea.

  “Thank you for doing today instead of yesterday,” I said.

  “No problem. How was the Great Wall?” He used English for Naomi’s benefit.

  “Fun,” Julia Too said. “I brought you this.” She held out a rock she’d found, perhaps part of the wall, but ground down enough to have a glassy affect.

  Old Chen turned it over in his palm. “You know,” he said to Julia Too, “your father loved to sleep outside. It’s not common. Maybe you get this hobby from him.”

  Naomi and I looked at each other, surprised.

  “He was a lively person, like you. When he was little,” Old Chen continued in English, glancing over at Naomi, who had folded her hands in her lap. Old Chen turned back to Julia Too. “Maybe there are things you’d like to know about what happened? If there are, of course you may ask me.”

  “What did happen?” Julia Too asked.

  I think she asked it faster than Old Chen was expecting, and that it was a bigger question than he had anticipated. Julia Too was usually so specific.

  But maybe he’d been practicing, because he only paused for a breath before responding in Chinese: “Your baba died from heartbreak, a real illness. First it infects your heart and organs, and then your mind. In your mind, it can kill you. Just like his mother, your grandmother.”

  He continued in Chinese. “This kind of disease can be inherited. But you don’t have this kind of constitution.”

  Julia Too was looking at Old Chen as if she’d always known they’d eventually get to this point.

  “I know,” she said, in Chinese. “I know I don’t.”

  “This is the anniversary month of his death,” Old Chen said.

  “I know,” said Julia Too again.

  Old Chen took a rumbling breath and looked over at Naomi. He switched back to English. “Maybe he would like if we talk about him. Maybe we can remember some things about him now that you’re older. It’s okay for you?”

  “Of course,” Julia Too said. “It would be great.”

  “Once,” Old Chen said, smiling, “he burned our house with a cigarette.” He stopped smiling and looked at Julia Too seriously. “You should never smoke cigarettes. They’re bad for you. In spite of what everyone says.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t.”

  “Or once, when he was small, he tried to cook dinner for his mother and me. He made rice, but he added so much water, we called it congee. We said it was the best thing we had ever eaten. He was so little, maybe only seven years old, and proud when we joked that it was breakfast for dinner. His mother loved congee.”

  “Why did he go to New York?” Julia Too asked.

  I stared at the tree in Old Chen’s courtyard, wondered how old it was. It looked thousands of years old, petrified. I thought how small we all are anyway, how short-lived. I braced myself.

  “Da Ge moved to New York when Beijing was dangerous,” Old Chen said, this time both to me and Julia Too, in Chinese. I took my eyes off the tree, tried looking back at him. “I thought it would be better for him with Zhen Ming in America. Now of course I . . . Well, I thought it would be safer. I didn’t realize—” Here, he faltered. “I was busy; perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention. Perhaps he even thought it was for convenience—”

  Julia Too scratched at an imaginary fleck on her chair.

  “No,” I said in Chinese, “he knew you sent him to be safe. He told me that once.”

  Old Chen’s face lifted. “Zhende ma?” Really?

  I nodded, looked toward my mom to see if she wanted a translation, but she waved me quiet.

  “Maybe I should have let him stay here, be in the square that week, even that day,” Old Chen continued. “But you know, he might have died there. He could have died there, too.”

  “Of course,” I said in English, honoring my mom. “It could have happened here, too.” Old Chen looked ancient in the harsh sunlight, shadows of leaves over his skin. “You made the right decision—it’s what any parent with the resources would have done.”

  Naomi nodded. Old Chen shaded his eyes with his hand as the sun shifted. “He tried to contact me before he—”

  He stopped. Julia Too was watching Old Chen. Naomi was watching her.

  “He tried to call me that week, you know, but I—he tried to call me, but I wasn’t—”

  Now Julia Too stood quietly from her chair and walked over to Old Chen’s. She put her right hand on his arm. He sighed.

  “I was traveling. I didn’t hear the message until, well—”

  “Until it was too late,” Julia Too said. She said it gently, as if it were a shared regret, one for which she was also in some way responsible. She rested her head on Old Chen’s shoulder.

  “Maybe next week, on our way to Beidaihe, we should stop by the cemetery and leave some dumplings,” Old Chen said. “I like to do that on Saturdays, after I see you two. I like to feed him some dumplings. Maybe—” He made no move to wipe his eyes. My mother stood up in a graceful sweep and handed him a handkerchief from her purse.

  “Thank you,” he said in English.

  “Bu keqi,” said my mom.

  I have been to Da Ge’s grave, always alone. Julia Too has never been, because when I’ve asked, annually, whether she wants to see it, she has always said no. She says she prefers the monument in Tiananmen. Now, with her skinny arm still slung over the old man’s neck, she bravely said, “Wo gen ni qu.” I’ll go with you.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Septembers

  SO THIS WAS IT. THE LIFE THAT CIRCLED BACK AROUND INTO itself. And, amazingly, produced other lives. I was impressed even before she was born by what I sensed was Julia Too’s resilience. I asked my doctor once whether my baby would be hurt by the tragedy of her dad. “Not until later,” she answered, honestly. I couldn’t bring myself to look at my mother, who had insisted on coming into the exam room.

  “Fine and healthy,” the doctor said, measuring images of the baby’s miniature arms and legs. She looked like an unlikely revolutionary, my green ultrasound baby, with a strand of pearls holding up her face and one fist pumping angrily.

  “A little girl,” the doctor added.

  “A little girl!” my mother said, genuine bliss in her voice. My mom is a bright light, the only person I can imagine who could have beamed at that monitor, given the circumstances. I moved my eyes from my mom’s face to the monitor. I wanted to tell Da Ge about the experience of simultaneously watching something on a screen and feeling it in your stomach. He would have liked that idea: the movie of a life and that life, happening and experienced simultaneously. Maybe he would have loved our baby. This was just what Romeo and Juliet would have been like, except I wasn’t dead.

  If Da Ge had been convicted for hurting Ben Rosenbaum, he might have been deported or imprisoned, depending on what charges Ben had decided to press. For years I longed to rewind, end up with either of those endings. Ben recovered okay; maybe he would have been generous. I can’t know for sure, since I never spoke to him again. I always thought if Da Ge had just been in jail, I could at least have visited, brought cookies or tiger food. Waited for him to get out. I always thought I would have.

  Hi
s death was confirmed a suicide. My brother, Benj, offered to help if I needed a lawyer, said Da Ge’s estate had to be turned over to someone and that there was usually tension over such matters.

  “His estate?” I asked. “He was twenty-three. And aren’t you a copyright lawyer?”

  He smiled. “If there’s any paperwork, I’ll be happy to help with you with it.”

  “Paperwork?”

  “There’s a will, apparently. And he left you something. Some thing of his grandfather’s, maybe? Papers, maybe? Or books?”

  Books his Yeye had buried and dug up. He had hoped Da Ge would marry a nice girl, have a baby. Now I was the nice girl having a baby and the books were mine. It struck me as grotesque. Benj put a hand on my shoulder. “How’s your Chinese?”

  I shrugged miserably. “Not good.”

  “Well, maybe he wanted you to learn Chinese?”

  “I have a textbook for that.”

  “Maybe they had some specific meaning for his family?”

  “His grandfather buried them during the Cultural Revolution. Da Ge’s father probably wants them. He’s punishing his father by giving them to me.”

  “Did you guys ever talk about it?” He sounded hopeful that we had.

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I don’t know if we ever talked about anything, really.” No one better understands the decision not to talk about things than the members of my family. But I apologized for it anyway.

  “I should have asked him more, Benj. I should have—”

  He cut me off. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know, but it’s true nonetheless.”

  “But you didn’t really have access to each other, right?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s hard to know much about someone whose language you don’t speak.”

  I didn’t argue. Maybe Da Ge believed that even pale ink trumps memory. He robbed me of himself and left some illegible books as a way to spend time with his ghost. I hated him. Repeat after me, I used to think: My name is Da Ge. I am a newly made and dead American, my family is crippled with loss, and my fake wife rich with pages she can’t read. I am a tragic, hideous waste.

  And then there was my dictation, composed by and for the crazy teacher-wife: what am I? I am your English teacher, Chinese student, lucky benefactress of access, martyr status, and your father’s treasure, heartbreak. The one you took because you knew I’d do it.

  I asked Benj whether Da Ge would have been able to become a citizen without marrying me.

  “No.” He sounded sorry to say so. “And as you know, he wasn’t a citizen yet anyway, when he—It would have taken—”

  “I knew that.” I shrugged, but a sharp feeling in my chest had taken over my voice. “It was just a point he was making. A statement.” I thought of China again, of becoming Chinese. Replacing him. Or trading places.

  “Maybe you could talk about some of this with Da Ge’s father,” Benj said.

  “Da Ge’s father? What are you talking about?”

  “It might make you feel better.”

  “Da Ge hated his father. They were estranged. And anyway, I’d have no idea how to find him even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”

  “He’s here,” Benj said. “Maybe it wasn’t mutual, because he came to get his son.”

  Old Chen and I met for the first time at my apartment on 115th. I opened the door and saw him see the scroll, saw his face collapse and regroup before he spoke. I had agreed to see him half because I was livid and wanted to betray Da Ge, and half because I wanted to keep the case open, wanted anything left of him.

  “You are my son’s friend?” Old Chen asked, and we shook hands.

  “Yes,” I said, “please come in.” I blinked up at him, unable to believe that Da Ge could have been that angry. His father just looked like a person, stunned and ruined, not powerful or big the way Da Ge had described him.

  It’s sometimes still that first meeting, when I’m at dumplings on a Saturday morning with Julia Too and Old Chen, when I’m teaching, when I’m sleeping or watching Julia Too sleep, when I’m wishing things had gone a different way. It’s not, in my memories or dreams, usually the day I found Da Ge. It’s always the day Old Chen walked into my house, looking like a scrubbed, taut version of his son.

  “I mean you are his wife,” he said, as if testing that new word wife, or maybe just worried that I wouldn’t like to be described as Da Ge’s friend. His eyes moved to my stomach, and back up, but didn’t meet mine. He cleared his throat and there was a swinging noise in the background of my mind, rope on pipes. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “I made tea,” I said, turning.

  In my living room, I gestured to the futon. Benj had asked if I wanted him present for this meeting, and I’d said no. I didn’t want a lawyer or even a brother, just to be reminded of Da Ge. To be alone with his father. It didn’t occur to me then that Da Ge had left me his father on purpose. Because I needed one. But maybe he had. Maybe Old Chen in my life was Da Ge’s thank-you. For the citizenship, the language lessons, or for having loved him.

  I poured two cups of jasmine tea De Ge had bought me in Chinatown and sat at my table. Old Chen looked at me from the futon. I could think of nothing to say.

  “You are the wife of my son, Chen Da Xing,” he said again, this time without clearing his throat. I looked up.

  “Da Ge,” I said, baffled, waiting for whatever unbearable realization awaited me. Old Chen’s mouth was a straight line across his face. I thought of Da Ge’s scar. He set the tea down and crossed his arms across his chest. He looked stern, but I thought if he moved, each working, breathing part of him might be in discord, that they’d revolt against each other and turn him into a broken puppet. My arms ached. Da Ge’s neck flashed through my mind, snapped by the weight of the cord. I couldn’t swallow. I wondered if Da Ge’s dad would ask me what had happened. I didn’t know what I would say if he did: I tried to take him down, put him back together again?

  “Da Ge is a nickname,” Old Chen said. “It means big brother in Chinese. His real name is Chen Da Xing. Big Star.”

  “Dah Shing,” I repeated. I hadn’t even known his name. What would his father make of this? I thought of the days ahead of me, weeks, months, years. How long would it take to recover from each new secret grief that revealed itself?

  “Da Xing is dead,” his father said, incredulous, no doubt imagining his own relentless future. “My father dies just—my wife, my father—my son.” He waited for a minute. “My son,” he said again. He sat back, seemed to swoon against the futon.

  My limbs were so heavy now that I could barely lift myself up. But I did. And once I’d stood, I walked over to the futon and sat next to Da Ge’s father. Up close, his face was dark; its lines looked like they had been carved with a chisel only several hours earlier. I half expected him to bleed from his wrinkles. He lit a cigarette, and the fire smelled sharp and lively. I wanted to press the burning end into my hand, to feel anything other than what I felt.

  “I didn’t even know his name,” I confessed, my voice so low I thought maybe the old man hadn’t heard me. I said it again. Old Chen closed his eyes, and I reached out to touch his face. I couldn’t guess which of us this surprised more. But he didn’t move. I dragged my fingers down his cheek, stunned that he was warm and human. Unable to resist, I moved toward him and rested against his side. My face was somewhere between his shoulder and chest; my hair was matted against the fabric, fresh with pinstripes and dry cleaning. He patted me awkwardly.

  “Um,” he said, “you are pregnant, yes?”

  “Yes.” I did not ask who had told him. Instead, I sat up and tried to visualize us from above: an old, handsome Chinese man and a pregnant twenty-something girl, in my living room. For some reason, I was glad to be wearing earrings. I reached up and touched them.

  “He was nice to you?”

  “He cooked a lot.”

  His father’s eyes brightened. “Really?”

&nb
sp; “Yes, he made tiger food.”

  “Lao hu cai,” he said.

  “Right. And fish, chicken, eggplant, noodles. We went to the zoo.”

  “I live in Beijing,” he said, more to himself than to me. He was looking at me, with a question. “But if—” he stopped. “If—” he said again.

  “Do you want to ask me something?” I asked.

  “If I can know this baby,” he said, “your baby. If I can see the baby and tell him some things about China, will that be okay? If I know this baby, is it okay?”

  Old Chen glanced at my stomach longingly. I was wearing cotton overalls Julia had bought me, hoping to look more than four months pregnant. Tears followed one another down his cheeks. One dripped from his chin.

  “Of course you can know her,” I said. “And be her Yeye.” He looked up at me, and I smiled, proud that I had been able to remember this word in Chinese. Grandpa. Then, as an afterthought, I added, “For us, it’s okay.”

  I returned to Old Chen all but three of his father’s books. Those three, which I selected randomly, I kept for Julia Too in a trunk at the foot of my bed, with Da Ge’s and my citizenship album and all of his Embassy “Dear Teacher” essays. I don’t think she’s ever looked at the books. When she asks for them, I’ll show her. Now that she’s worked Old Chen into a frenzy of grandfatherly love, I imagine the rest will be hers someday as well. I have never wanted them myself, never planned to read them. If Julia Too ends up with that library, I’m glad it will have come directly from Old Chen. I consider it his legacy and property. Not to mention it’s as close as we’ll ever come to the presents Julia Too wishes her father would give her.

  Nai Nai died in her sleep in New York City in the late fall of 1990. When Xiao Wang told me she would take Nai Nai’s ashes back to China, I asked if I could go with her. Maybe we could wait until the Embassy term was over and go together. We were in Central Park walking through red leaves, and she stopped when I asked, sat down on a bench and put her head in her hands.

  “I cannot make this sacrifice of my Nai Nai,” she said, and started weeping.