Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [170]
The cobbler comes through the gate. “Are you picking flowers for us to eat or for one of your vases?” he asks.
“I want to get the last flowers before the first frost,” Mom answers lightly. “I think these might look nice in the salon, don’t you?”
The cobbler doesn’t respond, but I know my mother’s thoughts on this. She’s talked about visiting her friend’s house and seeing the dead flowers in a vase on a table. They made her believe that Madame Hu was coming back. Mom hopes her actions now will make everyone think we’ll be gone just a few days. As with Z.G., we don’t want anyone to get in trouble after we’re gone. When the police come to question the boarders, they’ll be able to answer truthfully that they didn’t suspect a thing. They’ll point to my mother’s flowers as proof.
I make dinner. Everyone sits around the table in the dining room. We listen to the day’s gossip. One of the former dancing girls got a promotion at the textile factory. This has infuriated her roommate. The two bicker as only two women who have shared the same small room for twenty-three years can. Yes, everything is exactly as it should be. Even when Cook announces the marriage between Little Miss and the professor, no one seems particularly surprised.
“There are no secrets in this house,” the cobbler says, as he raises his cup of hot water for a toast.
My mother looks from face to face. She takes in the faded wallpaper and the art deco sconces she bought at a pawnshop. Her fingers glide along the surface of the dining table, memorizing it. I can see she’s fighting back tears. I have a momentary fear she’ll give away everything, but then she blinks, clears her throat, and picks up her chopsticks.
Pearl
A PLACE OF MEMORY
I LEAVE MY family home almost as I arrived. The boarders crowd around me in the hall, offering words of advice. They part when Cook enters. The knowledge that I’ll never see him again burns in my chest, but I say, “Take care of things until next Tuesday.” Then I address everyone. “Don’t forget the cleanliness campaign. I don’t want to come back and find—” “We know, we know,” the others sing in chorus. Then I pick up the bag I brought into China and walk out the door and down the steps into the garden. Joy carries the baby. Dun holds Ta-ming’s hand. I open the front gate for the others to pass. I don’t look back. Then together we go to the corner and board the first of a series of buses that will take us to the airport.
As a paper collector, I spent a lot of time on the Bund, watching ships go up and down the river, trying to figure out if there was a way to leave Shanghai on the Whangpoo. Even now, I would have guessed we’d take a boat or train to Canton, but Z.G.’s superiors at the Artists’ Association insisted that he, Tao, Joy, the baby, and her amah fly to Canton. Plane tickets are expensive, they told Z.G., but we’d be gone for a shorter time and they wouldn’t have to provide us with as many rice coupons. I used my money to buy additional seats for Dun and Ta-ming.
We wait six hours in the terminal. Some of us exchange worried glances. Z.G. and Tao are to give their demonstration at the fair’s opening festivities first thing tomorrow morning. What if the plane doesn’t take off today? If we can’t be in Canton by tomorrow morning, then there’ll be no reason for Z.G. and Tao—and therefore the rest of us—to go to Canton. We wait and wait. Babies wail, children fuss. People huddle together in layers of padded clothes—taking extra clothes in a way that won’t look suspicious, except it does. The acrid smell of damp humans, dirty diapers, cigarette smoke, and pickled turnips is sticky at the back of my throat. The linoleum floor is a mess of spit, nicotine-flecked phlegm, bags, baskets, and satchels. Soldiers patrol the aisles, stopping occasionally to check papers and photo identifications. The wait, the anxiety, the worry every time the armed soldiers pass is nerve-racking. Even so, pallid faces and hollow looks have