“Are you sure? I—”
Baba cut him off with an angry wave and felt Jie-fu’s hard stare.
Jie-fu dropped his cigarette into a pail of water and walked away.
What an actor Jie-fu was! Of course, the best informants were the ones who seemed most benign, Baba must have reminded himself, and he wondered how the secret police had approached Jie-fu. Outside the gate? At a restaurant on one of the evenings when a group of the men went for a post-work meal? What bothered Baba most was that Jie-fu seemed so untroubled. He joked around with such ease, as if his betrayal weighed nothing.
The realization was comforting. Now Baba knew how to proceed. He would have to be like his enemy. He would have to smile when he wanted to spit, laugh when he wanted to rage. Baba set about his work with renewed determination. They would see his righteousness in his efficiency. He had once been a doctor, but today he was a man who filled buckets with nails, and he had no reason to not do this with as much care as listening to a man’s heart. And when it came time to fight, he would fight.
18
ZHEE HYAN COLLECTED BIRDS.
His reed cages filled the courtyard. Some cages dangled from the eaves; others rested on a little bench he had fashioned from scrap wood. Sometimes, I sat in my room and listened to him talk to them. All the words he no longer spoke to me spilled from his heart: his complaints about his teachers, his crush (it was the peanut vendor’s daughter, Ah Lu, as I’d suspected), his concern about the health of one of their bird compatriots.
Thirty-nine birds, most of them various kinds of buntings with brown, yellow, or red breasts and a stern little white stripe above each eye. They spoke to one another in a clash of staccato tweets. Zhee Hyan soothed them with his clicking tongue. One escaped bird sent our whole family into an uproar. First, Zhee Hyan’s shouting and flailing around the yard as he tried to capture it drew us all outside in a panic. Then, once he realized it had flown off forever, we spent days carefully tiptoeing around his sadness. “You don’t understand,” Zhee Hyan said. “That was Brownie. Will he even remember how to feed himself?” I didn’t know how he learned to distinguish Brownie from Little Bird from Blossom, but I just nodded in sympathy.
“It’s a bird zoo,” our grandfather grumbled. Yet he sat among them, smoking the opium pipe his father had passed down to him but which now held tobacco, and basked in their song.
“You are like the last emperor of China,” our grandmother said to Zhee Hyan. “I bet he had a room of birds. Only an emperor makes himself ruler of so many animals.” She saved the burned rice scrapings from the bottom of the pot for his birds.
“Why do you like birds so much?” I asked.
Zhee Hyan scooped rice into tiny trays that slid in and out of the cages. He moved down the row, cooing to his pets. He even wore a shabby hat, formerly our grandfather’s, and he reminded me of a worn old farmer who had forsaken the company of men for more trustworthy creatures.
“I don’t know.” That had been his answer for most questions recently. His voice had newly settled into a lower pitch and his words slurred softly together. He hushed the birds that fluttered around, alarmed by the intrusion of his hand into their space. “They’re pretty.”
I giggled. The idea that Zhee Hyan might find anything “pretty” was funny. The birds mostly were brown and plain: perfect for disappearing among the shadows and light of a field. At the market in town, I had seen pretty birds with brilliant colors. These birds were not pretty.
A few times a week, he went out with his net and stalked them in the field behind our house, driving them out with noise. He was not always successful, but he was patient. Every bird in the cage was a trophy. Occasionally, he had even allowed me to come along. I drove the birds out by clanging pots and Zhee Hyan would catch them in a net. He named me godmother of one, and I called it “Coffee.” It was the only bird I learned to recognize among the others.
“I think you like catching them,” I declared.
“I guess,” he mumbled. I wanted to tease him about the soft black hair on his upper lip, but I held back. Mama was not around, but Zhee Hyan might tell, and I didn’t want Baba involved. Mama’s punishments were short and sharp; Baba made me kneel or hold a bucket of water over my head until my arms began to shake and the water splashed on the ground. My arms would be so sore that I could barely hold a pencil all evening.
—
The hospital neared completion. Baba had stayed on. He rose every morning and smiled at Jie-fu. He was so friendly, and the atmosphere of the entire house shifted. Mama seemed to even take pleasure in the chopping of vegetables. It was like a fist had unclenched. I didn’t bathe for four days and no one said a word until the fourth day, but even then, the scolding ended in laughter as each person embellished the description of my odor (“Your head smells like stinky cabbage!” “No, her head smells like cabbage left in a damp pot for half a year.” “A damp pot buried in the outhouse!” “Stop teasing me!”). We were like a government slogan painted on an alley wall: Harmony of the Family. At dinner, Baba told anecdotes about work, putting Jie-fu at the center of them, and Jie-fu beamed.
“And the hoisting rope had come loose and the cement bucket started to fall, but this hero”—a nod and grin at Jie-fu—“this hero caught it! Grabbed the rope just as it finally broke free and kept the bucket from knocking out a guy down below.”
Another day: “And when the foreman asked who would go down into the hole—mind you, it was so dark I could not even see the bottom—can you guess who volunteered? My son-in-law. No fear at all.”
And this: “We heard the cry for two days, but only my son-in-law thought to look at the top of the scaffolding. And there it was: a cat. He carried it down in a sack and we all cheered when it scampered off.”
—
Then, all of a sudden, Baba was back. The Baba I had known, not the one Mama had loved or Ah Zhay had adored, or the one who had charmed us at dinner with silly anecdotes about the construction site. He came home in the middle of the day, globs of concrete stuck to his sandals, hardening on his feet, and speckling his pants. Only my grandparents were home, and my grandmother saw him approach as she tended the garden.
She called his name.
He kept walking, a hungry ghost deaf to the world.
She had a strange feeling seeing her daughter’s husband stomp home in the middle of the day with his eyes dull as a dead fish. My grandfather was napping, and she decided to not wake him. She watched Baba go around the house, then stood up and followed him. He went to the pump, rinsed his hands, and dragged water through his hair.
“Son-in-law,” she finally called.
He rubbed his hands beneath the water until they turned pink.
“Have you eaten?”
He scraped his fingernails against one another. The water darkened his sleeves.
“I’ll fix some food for you. I’ll go inside and heat some soup.”
He seemed to notice her for the first time and he glumly assented.
She watched him through the kitchen window as she prepared his lunch. Baba sat in my grandfather’s smoking chair. Only his hands were clean. He closed his eyes. All around him, Zhee Hyan’s birds, agitated, chirped as if they suspected that his dark figure so close meant they would be fed. My grandmother went to the stove. Her grandson had used the word “broken”; reluctantly, she agreed. She stirred the pot. Bubbles broke through the surface, popped, and tiny splatters stung her arm. She could not decide whom she pitied more: my mother or my father.
She had been worried since the day he had shown up out of nowhere, saying nothing about the past decade. She was reminded of the old story of the man who drank the wine of the gods during a game of Go and fell asleep for generations. He had awoken and stumbled down the hill into another world, where children tugged at his long beard and laughed at him. Everyone he knew had died. She shook her head. It was a pitiful situation.
Suddenly, my grandmother looked up. A weighty silence had settled on th
e day. She went to the window.
All the cage doors were open. A stunned look in his eyes, Baba stood before the empty cages. My grandmother exclaimed and ran outside still holding the spoon.
The bare cages swayed. Not a bird left. She surveyed the courtyard, hoping kindness had ingrained some loyalty into the wild creatures. None remained.
“What have you done?”
Baba shook his head and his eyes filled with hurt.
“Your son’s birds!” she cried. She wanted to jostle the fragments inside him until they settled into something like sanity.
“It wasn’t right,” he said.
“What’s the matter with you?”
Who was this man who had come in her son-in-law’s stead? This man who ruled the dinner table with his mood, who punished his children like soldiers, who set loose his son’s pets. What was recognition? she thought. She had recognized his face the day he arrived, but she could not say she knew this man who moved without sense.
—
The house was quiet the way it was when it was going to rain and the birds nestled together in contented silence. I looked up but the sky was blue. Puzzled, I wheeled my bicycle through the gate. Zhee Hyan kneeled in the dirt in front of the empty cages.
I dropped my bicycle and ran to him. “Zhee Hyan! What happened?”
He refused to speak. Now, he looked not so much like a farmer as a weary old man. Dust dulled his black hair.
“Go inside,” my mother ordered me.
Seven of us were in the courtyard, distaste and fear clearing large spaces between us. My grandfather had settled at my homework table and appeared to be leisurely smoking a pipe. Yet it was surely not incidental that he faced away from us, and his gaze traveled through the gate.
“Yes, Mama.” I pretended to obey, but squatted in the doorway.
“What’s your problem, old man?” Jie-fu snapped. His dark skin, inflamed with rage, appeared copper. Ah Zhay tugged at his arm. “Please, don’t.”
Jie-fu gestured toward the empty cages. “And this too?” When he turned toward my sister, she flinched. “You didn’t see him—kicking the cement bucket, shouting nonsense. Now this?”
Go to Zhee Hyan, I thought. Please, Mama. But Mama didn’t go to him. Whatever radiated from his curled figure was so intense that it repelled us. Mama took one step toward Jie-fu, then retreated. “Let’s calm down,” she said.
“Tell him! Tell your husband!” Jie-fu waved his arms violently. The energy of his frustration strained against his skin, made his muscles taut and his veins bulge; he was a beast ready to strike.
“Don’t talk about my father that way!” Ah Zhay cried. She covered her face and turned away from her husband. Her stomach heaved with sobs that sucked the breath from her.
Baba watched the scene like an awkward child in a new classroom. His arms hung at his sides, just slightly away from his body, unnatural, as if he could not puzzle out the position of his limbs. His eyes darted between his anxious wife, his crying daughter, his livid son-in-law, and his indifferent father-in-law. Then he settled on me, the neutral observer. Clarity glittered in his eyes. I saw it. I tried to smile, but had to look away. I wanted to cry.
A deeper silence came over us when Zhee Hyan stumbled to his feet and began pulling down the cages from the eaves. Though the cages were delicate, the clatter as they crashed atop one another was horrific. He swept the rest from the bench. Then he stomped on them. Ah Zhay gasped and began sobbing again. The courtyard filled with the jagged sound of splintering wood. I covered my ears and pleaded with him to stop. Tremors in my throat turned to tears. He slammed his foot down a final time and shouted, “I hate you!”
The ruins lay like brown bones picked clean and trampled. Baba held up a hand. Silence. He offered no reprimand or apology. He pushed his way through the thick sadness between us and disappeared inside, leaving us wordless.
Zhee Hyan picked up a handful of splintered wood and, with an impotent cry, tossed it after him.
19
IN DECEMBER, my mother found Baba another job—this time, cleaning a doctor’s office. Perhaps the feel of the medical equipment would dredge up the desire to work again, or sense memory would return ability. My mother was an optimist. Baba, who, after quitting the construction job, had drifted back into long daytime naps and had grown a beard, agreed to my mother’s plan with no resistance or enthusiasm.
The night before his first day of work, my mother walked him to the kitchen—where we all washed on the far side, near the back door, using a basin of boiled water and a ladle to rinse—stripped him, and forced him to bathe. On a low stool, he let her wash him. She lathered up his hair, squeezing its thick soapiness between her fingers. He bent his head and covered his eyes and she poured water over him. She scrubbed his back in wide circles, and then urged him to raise his arms. His soapy skin was slippery and a low wave rose from her belly. She slid the loofah over his neck, down his chest. An ache radiated up the sides of her own neck, tightening her jaw and flushing her cheeks. She squatted down before him and looked at his face. A long moment passed before he lifted his gaze. She slid her hand up his thigh and toward his soft, apathetic flesh.
“You’re still my husband.”
He frowned slightly, his face drawn with guilt.
Her hand was wet and warm. His nostrils flared.
“Do you remember our trip to Alishan?” She smiled gently, but her face felt tight, her skin throbbing. Her mortality suddenly pulsed alongside her desire. Sudden fear of a life of celibacy unsettled her.
His lips still pressed tight, he nodded.
“I missed you,” she said.
“I’ll do a good job tomorrow.”
“I don’t care about that.” Determination spiked her voice; her touch became more aggressive. He closed his eyes and held his breath.
She didn’t know and couldn’t have known how the days had churned away for him or how her touch singed his skin. For her, he endured it.
20
BABA BEGAN WORK at Dr. Sun’s clinic. The structured days seemed to sort out the broken bits of himself. Just past dawn, we rode to school on our bicycles, and then he continued on to work. There, he greeted patients and prioritized them by ailment. He sorted out the pill cabinet, sterilized syringes, washed rags and bandages and hung them to dry on a rack on the sidewalk out front. Dr. Sun asked my father for his advice, or a second opinion. Sometimes they lunched together, but often my father ate the lunch my mother had prepared, drew the blinds, then napped through the noon siesta with his head on his desk. The afternoon was more of the same until it was time to meet me at the school gate again.
Riding home, he told me about illnesses and diagnoses: the girl with the infected burn on her arm, the woman with shingles, the man with the warts from belly button to groin. At the clinic, the human body became nothing more than another organism, an object. He spoke about the patients dispassionately and had no qualms about referring to menstruation or penises or bowel movements. I preferred this. His focus shifted away from me, and as I pedaled behind him, his voice intermittently washed away by the wind, I could just listen.
—
The New Year holiday ended, officially, with the Lantern Festival, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. My mother and grandmother made fresh sesame paste dumplings, and then we all went to town to watch the launch of the lanterns. I had a pile of new coins—booty from lucky New Year’s envelopes from my grandparents and the neighbors—but this, the luminescent paper globes drifting in the black sky, was my favorite part of the holiday. Hundreds of messages carried up to heaven, bobbing slowly like small boats on an inky ocean.
I wrote two secret wishes in small script on my lantern. I wish I would receive a record player. Maybe some indulgent kindness would sweep over Mama and she would buy one from her own stash of savings. The other wish I scrawled on the other side: I wish Baba would be normal. Ordinary. A father who worked a real job, who drank tea and played mah-jongg with his friends
, who, indifferent to his children, cocked his ear to the radio for hours on end. We lit our lanterns, and the heat lifted them into the sky, like hot air balloons, where they floated until they caught fire and fell to the earth as ash.
—
Dr. Sun’s clinic was crowded—mothers held sniffling babies, men clutched newspapers, old women slumped in dazed fatigue—when the woman burst in, jabbing her umbrella like a sword. At first, Baba did not recognize the wife of one of his oldest friends. He had not seen her since before his disappearance.
But he knew her voice when she called him by his full name.
“You bastard! I’ll kill you!” Her mouth could barely keep up with the force of her words; spittle foamed on her lips. “Traitor! Snitch!” The clinic fell silent. She banged her umbrella on Baba’s desk, knocking over his teacup. Baba stood up so quickly that his chair fell over.
His neck throbbed. “What are you saying?” He glanced over his options. He could run through the examination room door, or perhaps push past her out to the street. Instinctively, he stepped backward and stumbled into a filing cabinet. Perhaps Baba thought his letter would not be delivered, or that Su Ming Guo would ignore Baba’s urging to return home, or that Baba would remain ignorant of whatever happened once Su Ming Guo returned from his exile abroad.
But here was Su Ming Guo’s wife, shaking her umbrella at the wide-eyed patients. “This man is a spy! A backstabber! An informant!” She turned back to my father. “Twelve years! They’ve sentenced him to twelve years! Why did you do it? What did they promise you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Baba said. He pretended he was the Dr. Tsai of half a year before: a body without heart or brain. He determined to feel nothing.
“You lied to him! He came home because of you!” Her coat was buttoned incorrectly and dark circles weighed down her eyes. Baba noticed how badly her hands shook.
“She’s ill,” he said plainly to the jury of patients. Somebody hissed in disbelief.
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