Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [84]
Z.G. and I are taking Joy to the countryside.
I imagine May in our home as she reads that line. She’ll think the worst of me. I know she will, because that’s what I would do. (And, if I’m honest, she’ll be right. This is the chance I’ve never had to be with him. Yes, Joy will be there, but who knows what could happen … I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.) May has always been easy with tears. This time I imagine them coming from a deeply scarred and tragic place. Her older sister has gotten revenge. No thrust into the heart is greater or more harmful than that from one who says she loves you the most. I know, because my sister drove that knife into my heart many times.
I’m sorry I haven’t told you about Z.G. before. Forgive me. Nothing has happened. I’m still just your jie jie, wishing I could have something of yours that I could never have and certainly don’t deserve. I will write from Green Dragon Village, our first stop, but I don’t know how good the mail service will be. I love you very much, May. Always remember that.
Joy
A SMALL RADISH
WE’RE ON THE bus taking us from Tun-hsi to the drop-off point for Green Dragon Village. Baskets of produce and pots of cooked food have been placed by the side of the road, sending the message that the Great Leap Forward has been so beneficial that people can give away food to anyone who passes. Eat! We have plenty! I see lots of small children—another of Chairman Mao’s gifts. Have babies! Have more and more babies!
Z.G. and my mother share a bench across the aisle from me. My mother has pulled her body into something small and taut, as though that will protect her from the other passengers, the chickens and ducks, the smells, and the cigarette smoke. Every once in a while, she fingers the little leather pouch that hangs around her neck. It’s identical to the one that Aunt May gave me before I went to college and that I wore when I came to China. I hope my mother isn’t going to keep grasping the pouch and acting like the end is near. I won’t let her take away my happiness, because …
We’re going back to Green Dragon and I’m going to see Tao again!
Shanghai has not been at all like what my mother and aunt described, but there’s a vitality that can’t be resisted. I loved Z.G.’s house. I liked his three servants, although they sometimes looked at me strangely and argued among themselves about things I couldn’t figure out. But apart from that tiny unpleasantness—which Z.G. told me to accept because you can’t stop servants from gossiping—this was the good life, better than anything I’d experienced in Chinatown.
My father is very important. His position—plus a few packs of cigarettes passed to the right person—got me to the front of the line at the doctor’s office when I had a sore throat in the spring, and it’s placed us at the best tables at banquets. I’ve listened to jazz bands play familiar tunes: “You Are My Sunshine,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “My Darling Clementine.” Yes, it doesn’t sound very communist or socialist. And yes, everything I’ve been doing since Z.G. and I left Green Dragon months ago is a betrayal of my ideals, but to help China I had to know more about it. The meals—whether cooked at home by Z.G.’s servants or at a banquet—have been delicious. Food in Shanghai is sweet. I remember my mom always liked sugar and she put it on the craziest things, like sliced tomatoes. Now I understand where she got that. Even the fanciest banquet comes with a platter of French fries sprinkled with fine white sugar. There have been so many things to taste, see, and learn. It’s been fun.
Except I could never escape the fact that Shanghai was once my mother and aunt’s home. I don’t want to be them, like them, or reminded of them, and yet I couldn’t avoid any of those things. Just look at the way Z.G. wanted me