A Hundred Flowers (10 page)

“But what am I to do tonight? What if I cough so much I can’t sleep again? Can’t you give me something today?”

“I’m not working today,” she said.

“Not even for me?” Mrs. Sai persisted. “With Sheng gone, it must be difficult to keep up financially. And now with Tao…”

“We’re fine,” Kai Ying interrupted. It was too hot to stand there listening to a know-it-all neighbor. The woman was a nuisance, but it was true, Kai Ying was in no position to turn down business. “Come to the house in an hour.”

Mrs. Sai smiled broadly. “You’re so good to me,” she said, hurrying off to finish her shopping.

Kai Ying watched Mrs. Sai leave. It was simple enough. She would give her some figwort root, dried monkey root, and dates for a soup to suppress her coughing and increase her yin, and then send her quickly on her way. For now, she still had to buy barley and a chicken, or maybe even a duck, courtesy of Mrs. Sai’s cough.

Kai Ying made her way to another stall when, out of the corner of her eye, she recognized the girl walking past her. It took her a moment to realize where she’d seen her before, the way the girl’s hands rested on the sphere of her protruding belly. But by the time Kai Ying turned around, the pregnant girl from the hospital waiting room had been swallowed up by the swarming crowd.

Suyin

Suyin never expected to see the woman from the hospital again. Guangzhou was a big sprawling city and people from all over Guangdong province came to the hospital. Still, she immediately recognized the woman. In that fleeting moment, Suyin hoped the woman had remembered her, too. It was what her mother would have said was an omen, and whether good or bad, fate had brought them together once more. She needed something to pull her out of this misery.

During the past week Suyin had felt terrible. Her feet and hands were swollen and every sip of water gave her heartburn. She woke up all night having to urinate. She wanted to go to the hospital, but she was afraid they would make her leave and never return. It was the only place she felt safe. Instead, she suffered through each night, her back aching from the hard ground, her belly so tight and heavy she thought it might explode. Once, the idea of giving birth was her worst nightmare. Now Suyin prayed that the baby would come as soon as possible. She preferred an immediate, searing pain that would come to an end, compared to the ongoing discomfort she was feeling each day.

It was too difficult for Suyin to stand and beg for long periods of time anymore, so she began walking to the marketplace every morning, trusting someone would take pity on her. She was too slow and noticeable now to try to steal anything, and usually, some vendor, seeing that she was so young and pregnant, relented and slipped her some wilting vegetables or a piece of fruit. The other day, one woman had given her a pomelo, a fruit she’d loved since she was a little girl. As hungry as she was, Suyin held it in her hands for a moment before she peeled through the thick, spongy skin, exposing the pieces of fruit inside, larger and sweeter than the sections of a grapefruit. She quickly ate the entire pomelo at one sitting, only to regret it when her stomach was upset for the rest of the night. Still, it was the best thing she’d eaten in months. Usually, if she had any energy left, she returned to the market before it closed in hopes of finding something left behind. Wasn’t there always something forgotten? She prowled around the empty stalls, the garbage piled high and abandoned, realizing there wasn’t much the world had to offer her or her baby.

Suyin knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer. She was exhausted. She hadn’t felt the baby kick in the past few days and worried that something was wrong. What if the baby was already dead? What if they both were to die in childbirth? Her heart began to race in fear. She leaned over and breathed in and out slowly until she was calm again.

Most days Suyin longed to be back at home, wedged in a bunk bed below her two brothers in their hot, small apartment, the voices of their neighbors seeping through the thin walls as if they were right there in the room with them. Or even back in school, the noisy, damp-smelling classroom where she had been almost invisible, except during the week before she left school. Suyin had made the mistake of telling a girl she thought she could trust that she might be pregnant. The next day at school, her classmates followed her every move and taunted her relentlessly with
Suyin has come down with the nine-month flu.
While school had become intolerable, she knew now the world was an even uglier place.

*   *   *

Suyin almost didn’t go to the marketplace that morning, but her hunger finally outweighed her discomfort. She stood amongst the crowd and glanced back to see the woman had turned around, as if remembering something too late. Was she looking for her? Suyin felt a shiver up her back. She watched the woman through the swarm of pushing bodies when she felt a sudden, sharp kick from the baby again. It was a good omen. The woman hesitated before she turned around and walked away.
I’m here,
Suyin wanted to call out.
I’m right here.
Instead, she waited a moment longer before she followed the woman from a safe distance.

Wei

Wei paused on the brick path that led back to Song’s rooms, deciding whether to continue. Kai Ying had come home from the market and was preparing Tao for his return to the hospital. Wei hadn’t planned on visiting Song; he’d stepped out to the courtyard and found himself moving naturally toward the path, just as he had done so many times in the past. Before Sheng was taken away, he and Song often sat together reminiscing about Liang and the old days. She never minced words and he enjoyed spending time with her. As different as they were, Song was the only one who understood that the past was still very much present for him.

Wei missed their conversations, but he couldn’t bring himself to confide in her about his part in Sheng’s arrest. His shame still felt like an open wound. But even more so, Wei knew if he looked directly into Song’s eyes, she would know something was terribly wrong and ask questions. And then what would he say? It seemed much easier for him to avoid her.

But something had changed since Tao’s fall—his loneliness had gradually come to outweigh his shame. He awoke this morning from a disturbed sleep with the sudden need to talk to Song. He had no idea what he was going to say to her. She would never forgive his deception, but she might understand how something like this could have happened. It was all he hoped for.

Wei knew he would find her in or around her garden, and there she was.

“Just in time,” Song called out, waving him over to where she stood near a cleared patch of earth.

As he approached, Wei smelled the bucket of manure before he saw it sitting beside her, waiting to be worked into the soil. No one could make vegetables grow like Song did.

“I don’t have the time to help right now,” he said. “We’re on our way to the hospital. I just came over to see how you’re doing.” And then he added, “It seems like a long time.”

“You never did like to get your hands dirty,” Song said, and then laughed.

She was still the strongest, most productive person he knew. All the years when he’d been hiding within the university walls cataloguing artifacts, she had been living through life’s everyday struggles.

“And if it seems like a long time since you’ve visited, it’s because it
has
been a long time,” she added.

Wei smiled and reached out for her arm as Song walked toward him. Her height always surprised him; she was a good half a head taller than Liang.

“Time at least for a cup of tea?” she asked.

He nodded and followed her.

Song looked up at the sky. “It looks like the weather’s changing.”

*   *   *

Song had put on a little weight during the past few years, but Wei thought it suited her, softened her hard edges now that she was older. Song couldn’t have been more opposite in appearance and in manner from Liang. Her emotions rose to the surface at a moment’s notice, whereas his wife was always calm and steady. Right after Liang passed away, Wei couldn’t walk down the street without seeing women his wife’s age who were alive and well. Inwardly, he despised them. Why were they alive while Liang wasn’t? It was a spitefulness he hadn’t known he possessed. And yet, he never felt that way about Song. It wasn’t until Liang had died that Wei realized how similar Song and his wife were in heart and mind, and how their mutual grief had opened the door to their friendship.

Wei looked down at his clothes and couldn’t imagine how he must look to Song now. When he was teaching, he always kept up his appearance as a professor and scholar. Now, he saw it all as just one more weakness. Wasn’t it because of his vanity that Sheng had been arrested? During the past year, Wei had lost weight, his flesh fallen away so that his clothes hung loosely on his stooped shoulders. His cheekbones protruded, leaving dark hollows under his eyes that made him appear constantly exhausted. Anyone who hadn’t seen him in a while would take one look and think he was in the midst of battling some great illness. And Wei supposed he was.

He followed Song through the doorway of her dim apartment. He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing them to adjust. During the hot summer days, Wei always found her back rooms cooler than the main house. In winter, she always wore two padded jackets against the cold, damp air. And in March and April, during the misty, wet season of the plum rains, he thought of her apartment as a warm, dark cave. In any season, there was no direct sunlight until the sun set in the late afternoon, which meant her door was almost always open, a plume of daylight leading to the kitchen. If his daughter-in-law’s kitchen smelled of medicinal herbs, Song’s kitchen was filled with the rich aromas of food that never failed to make his mouth water.

Wei stepped inside.

*   *   *

Song poured him a cup of tea and he glanced up and nodded in thanks. When she parted her lips and smiled, he glimpsed the dark space where one of her teeth had been. He once mentioned to her that she could have her tooth replaced if she wanted to. Song shook her head and had said, “What for? I’m too old for it to matter anymore. At least this way, it’s a reminder of all the battles I’ve fought to get here.” She made it a point then to part her lips, showing the empty space like a badge of honor. Song never told him how she lost the tooth, and if Liang had, it was just one more thing he hadn’t heard or didn’t remember, lost in his own world.

“What have you been doing with yourself?” Song asked. She put a plate of custard tarts down on the table and sat down across from him.

“Telling stories to Tao,” he answered. He stared down at his cup of tea.

“He’s going to be just fine,” she said.

“Yes, he will be.”

“And so will Sheng,” she added.

Wei remained silent. “What makes you so sure?” he finally asked. He could feel her gaze upon him.

She reached over and patted his hand, her touch warm and dry. “He’s a strong young man,” she said. “And he has all of you to return to.”

The words rose to the tip of his tongue and this time, he didn’t swallow them back down. “I’ve been a foolish old man. I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said quietly.

“What mistake?” Song asked. She inhaled. Her voice had softened to a quiet, serious tone, one a mother would use with a child when she knew something was wrong.

He heard the steam rising from a pot she had on the burner, the soft whistle of air flowing upward, the lid clattering. What was she cooking? he wondered. The sound filled his head and made everything around him feel cloudy and far away. The soft whistling sound in his head grew stronger and louder. Wei brought the teacup up to his lips and drank down his tea. He looked up and into her eyes. It was the least he could do: accept responsibility with what little dignity he had left. The hot liquid burned his tongue all the way down his throat. It wasn’t enough to make up for what he had done, but it was a start.

“What mistake?” he heard Song ask again.

He looked up and he was there in her kitchen as she refilled his teacup and set it down on the table in front of him. Nothing had changed. He was still an old fool. Song had no idea what was going on with him and he didn’t have the energy to start at the beginning.

“Are you feeling all right?” Song asked. He saw the look of concern that now clouded her face. “You haven’t been yourself for the longest time.”

Song didn’t know how wrong she was. He was exactly himself, a coward who didn’t deserve her friendship. Instead, Wei cleared his throat and glanced up at her.

“I’m fine,” he said.

Tao

Tao smelled smoke. Just like after a string of firecrackers had gone off during New Year’s, the smoke rising, the burning scent lingering in the air. His mother stood to the side of the hospital table where he lay and squeezed his hand tighter as the high shrill of the saw sheared through the length of the cast. He glanced down at his leg to see the white powdery residue of the plaster spring up and float through the air. The room was small and his grandfather had to wait outside for them in the hallway. The doctor told him to relax and they would have the cast off in a short time. Tao held tightly on to his mother’s hand.

Tao closed his eyes for a moment, his thoughts drifting elsewhere. The sound of the saw blurred into the buzzing of a thousand bees. His mother’s thumb stroked the back of his hand, telling him everything was all right. It’s almost over. He would never forget the time his hand slipped from his mother’s in a busy downtown area. He was four years old and was suddenly lost in a crowd of people with his
ma ma
nowhere in sight. He remembered feeling as if he’d fallen into a well, looking up and seeing only a small piece of the sky as he struggled to catch his breath and keep up the pace. Soon, he felt as if he couldn’t breathe.
“No, no, no!”
He suddenly stopped and screamed at the top of his lungs. Bodies jostled him to and fro, until a hand grabbed him by the back of the collar and pulled him to the side. His mother had backtracked and was calling his name over and over again when the man waved her over. Tao was crying by then, and when he saw her hurrying toward him, he began to cry even harder until she had picked him up and he was in her arms again.
“I’m here, I’m here,”
she repeated, stroking his back. It was a memory that still haunted him.