Woman Who Could Not Forget

by Richard Rhodes

  Due to my illness the year before, I had not seen my parents for more than a year, and their poor health had prevented them from attending Iris’s wedding in 1991, so I decided to visit them in May 1992 around Mother’s Day. I arrived at my parents’ apartment in New York on May 18. Iris was already there. Iris’s trip to the East Coast was multi-purpose. She had a business meeting with Susan Rabiner at HarperCollins in New York, and she wanted to do some research at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. She also wanted to go to Boston to visit MIT, where Dr. Tsien had taught from 1947 to 1949, and to interview his colleagues as well as the librarians and archivists there. Iris also wanted to go to Providence, Rhode Island for Kathy Szoke’s graduation from Brown University, as Kathy had been one of the bridesmaids in Iris’s wedding and the two were very close. Iris had planned the trip carefully and tried to accomplish many things in one trip.

  I was very happy to see Iris, even though we had just seen each other at New Year’s and she called us almost every week. Still, she seemed to have endless things to tell me. She now was not only my daughter, but also my best friend. We could talk about anything and everything. I clearly remember the night of May 19, 1992; we spent it together in my parents’ New York apartment. We slept together and talked and talked till past midnight. She was very happy and in a good mood and told me that she and Susan Rabiner had discussed how the book would come together. It seemed like Susan had high hopes for the book, and her enthusiasm rubbed off on Iris. She also updated me about what she had found in the Archives about Tsien’s life, and about the interviews she’d conducted with his friends and colleagues (and had recorded on numerous tapes). She was a good investigative journalist, digging deep and following leads wherever she found them.

  Then our topic turned to her next book project. At the time, she had just started working on her first book and was far from finishing it, but she had already begun to think about what would come next. She even showed me a list of possible topics. Her list of book ideas varied widely, from deep-sea industrial diving to the rise of the city of Las Vegas. I told her that, quite frankly, the topics she showed me were not personally interesting to me, and I feared it might be the same for others. Then we talked about fiction. Iris told me she wished one day she could write a book such as Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind—a novel of a love story mixed with a historical war in the background.

  I told her that many heroic and love stories had happened in China during the wars of the twentieth century. I said that since she had a bilingual and bicultural background, she should write about China, which would be something new and fresh to English-language readers. There was too much competition if she wrote the same kind of stories about the West. I told her it was a pity that there were not many epic novels in English describing China in the era of the Sino-Japanese War. Then she remembered my parents’ war experience during the Japanese invasion in the 1930s. We talked about the Nanking Massacre. I repeated the story of how my mother had almost been separated from my father forever in Nanking, just a month before Nanking’s fall at the hand of the Japanese Army in 1937. She said she remembered that, and would like to do some research on that war once she had some free time. That was the beginning of The Rape of Nanking book project, although we did not know it yet. I will never forget that night—we talked so much that we almost lost our voices.

  After the trip, Iris returned to Santa Barbara. Brett and Iris immediately moved to a new apartment at 50 South Patterson Avenue in Santa Barbara. According to her description, the apartment was newer and located in a much quieter area. In front of their second-floor apartment was a swimming pool that belonged to the apartment complex and was used exclusively by the residents. She said the apartment was bigger and brighter than the previous one, and she loved it.

  On June 17, 1992, Iris wrote us a long letter updating us on her life:

  Dear Mom and Dad:

  I’ve been sending out some resources in response to some advertisements that were published in the Santa Barbara News-Press and the LA Times. Perhaps, if I am lucky, I can get a job working as a part-time “freelance editor” for a national bimonthly business magazine. I wrote to them and explained that I have a home computer system, which includes a laser printer and modem, and that I can receive and transmit manuscripts electronically, making it possible for me to work out of my own home. There are other positions about which I have made inquiries: educational video, scriptwriter, grant proposal writer, catalog writer, technical writer.

  Starting tomorrow, I will work four hours a night as a telemarketer, from 5 pm to 9 pm. The company that just hired me, Tri-County Productions, is only a block away from where I live, so I can easily walk there and back.

  In the meantime, I’ve been busy answering correspondence related to the book and pulling ahead on my research. Susan Rabiner and I write to each other through E-mail, now that she finally got a sign-on from the MIT media lab. I’ve informed a number of sources that I will be calling them between July 7 and August 7 (my month of free phone calls) and before long I will receive from Sprint a confirmation letter that the calls made on my Sprint card will be free as well (this will permit me to let Dr. Hua Di use my Sprint card number to call China to inform certain missile scientists that I will be in touch with them). In the next few days I will also be meeting with local Chinese graduate students who will give me a verbal translation of those articles about Tsien that appeared in the People’s Daily and the Chiao Tung alumni year book. And I’ve arranged for one retired scientist in Santa Barbara, Bob Meghreblian, to help me sort through the voluminous scientific papers of Tsien and to pinpoint the ones that have made the biggest impact on the field of aeronautical engineering.

  My goal for the next few months is to try to transcribe at least one tape a day. For the past few days, I have been able to accomplish that, but who knows what will happen in the next few months. By the end of June, I hope to finish most of my research for a NSF grant proposal and preliminary research for the July 7-August 7 interviews. It may also interest you to know that the Center for Investigative Reporting may fund a documentary about Tsien or the Chinese missile program, of which I would be a consultant or collaborator. I certainly have enough background material and photographs in my files.

  I’ve been cooking a lot more these days, making dishes such as cuttlefish ball soup, Chinese marinated chicken, chicken drumlets and sliced carrots, almond Jello, avocado-ham-alfalfa sprout sandwiches. . . Love, Iris

  Certainly she was pulling together all her energy to do research on her book, but in the meantime she was desperately applying for a job, although she maintained her calm in the letter. Finally, around this time, one piece of happy news arrived. She’d been awarded a grant of $15,000 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The money was given just in time to support her to go to a conference she wanted to go to very much, the World Space Congress in Washington, D.C., at the end of August.

  On August 28, Iris attended the first World Space Congress. Iris said it was the largest space conference in history. It drew a huge number of space research scientists from all over the world. She met many Chinese space scientists from China there and took the opportunity to tell them that she was writing a biography of Tsien. There was a lot of interest in her project, and many people were eager to help her. Iris was able to interview a number of prominent Chinese missile scientists in the convention center and nearby hotel. They also gave Iris many names for contacts in China if she was going to go there. Indeed, her next planned trip was to China, and the MacArthur grant helped her finally make concrete arrangements.

  One notable episode during this time showed how mesmerized she was by her research: One night, Iris called us from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and said that she was locked in the archives and could not get out. I asked how on earth that could have happened! She said she’d been reading files and documents about Dr. Tsien, and she was so focused that she hadn’t realized it was past the closi
ng time of the Archives. Apparently, the archivist didn’t realize that she was still there and had locked the entrance door when he went home. She called us from the public phone in the hallway. We told her we were in Urbana; there was no way we could rescue her, and urged her to call the local emergency phone number. Just while she was calling us, Iris heard some footsteps and said it might be a night guard passing by. She quickly called out to him and was finally let out. Another time she was riding the train from D.C. to Baltimore, and she was so focused on what she was reading that she didn’t manage to get off until she was in Delaware. These episodes were quickly spread among her friends and she became a laughingstock at the dinner table. But, joking aside, everyone agreed that Iris was working too hard.

  On October 5, 1992, Iris wrote us a detailed letter about her life and her research:

  Dear Mom and Dad:

  Enclosed please find a copy of a biographical essay about Dr. Tsien that appeared in a book about China’s leading scientists. The book was mailed to me by S. I. Pai, the fellow you had breakfast with in Taiwan. Is it possible for you to take a look at the essay and see if there is anything new? If there is, the next time we talk you can mention the page numbers to me over the phone and I’ll have a Chinese UCSB student do a little oral translation for me.

  I think it’s important for me to write more letters to you to keep a record of events. I do this regularly with my friends but not with you, because of the convenience of the telephone. After spending a year of research on this book I have learned that the best way to control how history is written is to

  (1) be a compulsive letter writer, or

  (2) outlive your enemies.

  Because as I piece together the event of Tsien’s life I have two resources: the written record and the oral record. One of Tsien’s best friends, Frank Malina, was a prodigious correspondent who, at the time of his death, left behind 40,000 documents to the Library of Congress. Although his papers have been consolidated into the Frank Malina Collection, no one to my knowledge has ever spent a great deal of time looking through it. During the 1930s, when he and Tsien were experimenting with rockets made from junkyard parts, Frank Malina wrote to his parents two and three times a week. Years later, when he was retired in Paris with plenty of time on his hands, he compiled a collection of excerpts from those letters that pertained to his days as leader of “The Suicide Squad” which have never been published. Frank Malina desperately wanted to be famous; even as a young graduate student at Caltech he was actively sending out press releases about his rocket experiments, holding press conferences with LA Times reporters or lunching with AP science writers at the Caltech Athenaeum. (Luckily for me, this has generated a lot of good newspaper photographs of Malina, Tsien, Parsons and Forman launching rockets in the desert.) In later years he wrote historical articles about the Caltech days and carefully kept records for the historian “100 years from now.” It is unfortunate he died 10 years ago . . . I think he would have liked to talk with me.

  Every night, I transcribe two or three of my tapes, and it is a thrill to see the stories come to life on the page. It’s a lot of work, but I can type very quickly now. When I stare at the words moving across the screen, in rhythm with my hands on the keys and my feet on the transcription pedal, I am strongly reminded of the piano lessons I had as a child! It is piano playing in reverse—instead of following the notes and trying to create music, I am listening to the flowing sound and putting it in symbol form back on the page!

  Brett and I estimate that we work anywhere between 50 to 100 hours a week. Brett gets up at 8 every morning, rides his bike into UCSB, rides back for dinner around 6 or 7, and then takes the car back in to the lab and works until midnight. Like Brett, I work from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep at night. Recently Brett spent a few days sleeping late because he was so tired. . . . Then I was afraid I was pregnant. That put more stress on us until it was confirmed today that I was not.

  I don’t want to have any children until I’ve spent a few years establishing my reputation as an author. Brett, too, needs the freedom to move about and take the risks required to advance his career. . . .

  I will write back as soon as I can. Love, Iris

  I was very glad that Iris wrote us in detail about her life at the time; so, as she said in the letter, her letter became a historical record. Because many materials about Dr. Tsien were in Chinese, Iris automatically sent these documents to us for our comments all the time. She had transcribed many interview tapes herself, one by one. She did not have the budget to hire others to do the transcribing for her; the practice she gained doing it herself was another reason she could type so fast. Sometimes you didn’t know that the disadvantages you had at the time would prepare you for something useful in the future.

  In January 1993, Brett finished his PhD thesis and returned to the U of I with his thesis adviser for the final oral examination. On January 11, he came to Urbana to stay with us. We were very happy that he finally had received his PhD. We invited him, his parents, and his brother Jeff for dinner after he passed the exam. Iris did not come home with him; she said she was busy with her research and the travel back home cost too much; but the main reason, she revealed to us, was that she was struggling to get money to support herself as well as the money for research for her book. Her book advance and the small amount of grant money were not enough to support her living plus her research, and both of them were living on Brett’s graduate-student salaries. This forced Iris to take extra jobs. It made her life very difficult. We did not truly know her financial situation until then.

  When Iris had first met Brett, she thought highly of herself and told Brett with confidence that her chance of becoming a bestselling book author was ninety percent! Iris might have said that she could even support Brett after their marriage. But the fact was that now, Iris couldn’t even support herself. The consequence was that Iris, always very proud and independent, was working harder to prove herself.

  However, the biggest event of 1993 was when Shau-Jin underwent heart surgery in February. Early that month, he had experienced chest pains after shoveling snow, and I drove him to the ER immediately for tests. The test results showed that he had a blockage in a heart blood vessel. The next day he underwent an angioplasty procedure (balloon) to open up the blockage, but unfortunately the procedure failed and he needed immediate open-heart surgery. I almost fainted when I learned the news—such a big, critical operation on such short notice.

  During the long waiting hours in the hospital lounge while Shau-Jin was in the operating room, I called Iris and Michael to tell them about the situation. Of course, they were shocked. It seemed like everything around me was a blur at the time. Thankfully, Shau-Jin survived, but it was a harrowing experience. Despite a severe winter storm and the huge amounts of snow in the area, both Iris and Michael immediately flew in to help.

  On March 7, 1993, Iris wrote a letter after returning home to Santa Barbara:

  Dear Mom and Dad:

  I’m ecstatic to learn that Dad is feeling much better now. It was certainly a shock when he had to have the operation.

  Brett and I are determined to eat healthier now. I have sworn off all soft drinks and fast foods from this day on. I am also determined to exercise at least once a day. Yesterday, Felice Chu invited me to her step aerobics class and it was a lot of fun. Today, Brett and I took a long walk down the beach.

  The sea had the lowest tide of the century, and tonight we had the largest full moon of the century. There were many people on the beach this afternoon. We watched some of them slice through the water with their “jet skis”—a contraption that works like a miniature motor boat and looks like a motorcycle. They leapt over waves and swerved around each other in circles, leaving behind wide arcs of foam.

  It was pleasant just to walk down the beach. When the waves washed over the shore, it made a delicious seething sound, hissing as it sucked greedily at our toes, then pulling back and smoothing the surface
of the sand until it was shiny and flat as a mirror. The sand was warm under our feet and with each step the sand seemed to dissolve under our heels, like sugar. The walk was timeless to me, transfixed as I was by all the patterns of sand—the tight ripples and slender braids and intricate convolutions.

  Many things came to my mind but all of them disappeared, like words etched in silt before a wave, and I thought: what are words anyway, but an attempt to hold still—if only for a moment—that elusive, liquid quality that is life? Love, Iris

  It seemed that Shau-Jin’s heart attack and the emergency surgery put Iris’s view of life in perspective: life is short and elusive and could disappear very quickly.

  For the next several months, I was obsessed with Shau-Jin’s physical condition, which occupied all my time and thoughts, so I did not pay much attention to Iris’s life or her progress in writing her book. All I knew was that she was busy preparing for her trip to China, using the MacArthur foundation grant. In spite of the shock and trauma of the surgery, Shau-Jin was still able to give her advice. He gave her all the names of his physics and engineering friends or colleagues in China in case she needed help. I gave her a list of things she should take with her. After all, this was the first trip she had ever taken alone out of the country. My biggest concern was drinking water, and I told her that she should not drink the tap water (even to brush her teeth) in China. She appreciated all of our love and concern. Before she got on the plane, she mailed us a joking upside-down card that read: “Don’t worry, Dad—I’ve got everything under control. Happy Father’s Day!”