Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [62]
“We know each other a lot more than people did in feudal days. Back then, boys and girls didn’t meet until their wedding day.”
But marriage isn’t something I’ve been thinking about. Still, to stay here in what seems like a million miles and a million lifetimes from Los Angeles Chinatown, where no one knows me or my past, would be a cure for the guilt and shame I carry with me everywhere I go.
“We both want the same things—to paint, to grow crops, and to help build the New Society,” Tao continues.
“I agree, but do you love me?” I have a crush on Tao, no question about it. I can’t stop thinking about him. And the fact that he’s been forbidden to me these past weeks makes him all the more desirable.
“I wouldn’t ask you to marry me if I didn’t love you.” He grins. “And you love me too. I saw that the first time we met.”
I want to say yes. I want to make love to Tao. I want us to be together. But as sure as I am about how I feel for him, I’m not ready. I’ve just met my birth father and I hardly know him yet. Then there’s China. I’m nineteen, and I have an opportunity to do something few other girls get to do. I’d like to see Canton, Peking, Shanghai, and the rest of China while I can.
“Yes, I love you,” I say, and I believe I do. I’m sure I do. “But do you want people in the collective to think we were sneaking off together? And what about your mother and my father? I don’t think your mother is ready to have me in her house.” (This is an understatement. His mother clearly doesn’t like me.) “And I doubt my father’s ready to say good-bye to me just yet.”
“We don’t need their permission.”
“I know, but their blessing would be wonderful.”
He puts forth a few more reasons why we should act immediately, but after a while he gives in.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll wait.”
Then he’s kissing me again, and I’m happy—truly happy.
“I wish you could come with me,” I whisper in his ear. “We could see China together.”
“I want to leave this place more than anything,” he responds, sounding hopeful and eager. “But I’d need an internal passport and I don’t have one of those. Maybe your father can get me one.”
Chairman Mao introduced the internal passport just last year. The government wants to keep peasants from flooding the cities, but the new passport has barred peddlers, doctors, and entertainers—apart from those sanctioned by the government—from traveling as well. This keeps villages pure, but it also keeps them isolated. It’s one of the things I’ve liked best about being here.
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe.”
Later, when we walk back to the village, Tao says, “I promise I won’t forget you, but you must promise to come back to me.”
—
THE NEXT MORNING, Z.G. and I leave Green Dragon, walk to the drop-off point a couple of miles from here, and take the bus to Tun-hsi. From there, we go to Huangshan, where I’m inspired by the soaring peaks and the pines that jut from cliffs at improbable angles. I’m reminded—as so many artists have been before me—of man’s insignificance in the face of nature. We return to Hangchow and wander around West Lake as we did on our way to Green Dragon, only this time we stop to paint the Ten Views that Emperor K’ang-hsi enjoyed so long ago. Z.G. tells me Hangchow is China’s most romantic city, and I feel that. I long for Tao, and when I paint I feel his breath on my skin. But I also feel something opening in me … as an artist. I know I’m getting better every day.
At the beginning of November, we arrive in Canton for the Chinese Export Commodities Fair, which will last a week. The Artists’ Association wants Z.G. to represent the work that he so excels at: propaganda that sells China to Chinese and others who are sympathetic to the regime in the outside world. We walk the fair aisles and look at the merchandise: Chinese-made fabric, radios, thermoses, greeting cards, and rice steamers. I walk past 170 different types of tractors. People have literally come from all over the globe to buy steam shovels, auto parts, and fountain pens. Everything is for sale: hairnets, makeup, and mirrors. But isn’t it better