Bitter Winds (18 page)

B
enfu walked through the
hutong
lane and picked up his pace when his old home came into view. On the way over he’d collected a stack of old newspapers and at least half a dozen plastic bottles. Calli wouldn’t be pleased to hear of him picking up rubbish again, but every penny was needed now. He shifted the large plastic bag over his other shoulder and wished again for his bike. But he hadn’t known when he had left home that morning he’d be trekking across town.

Being back in the neighborhood was bittersweet and he waved at his neighbors as he made his way to the gate of his old house. He couldn’t deny the connection he felt to the community that had embraced him so many years ago when he was a young man without direction.

“Benfu! So nice to see you!” Widow Zu called out from across the way. She had her hand deep into a bucket of chicken feed, getting ready to sling it across her yard as her hens strutted around her.

Benfu smiled at her and held his hand up. “You, too, Widow Zu. How are you feeling?”

“I’m just finer than a four-star general on opium. Are you going to be visiting your father for a while? I’ll get some eggs ready for you to take back to Calli.”

Benfu nodded. “I’ll be here for at least a half hour or so.
Xie xie,
Lao Zu.”

He swung open the gate and walked through. He looked around at the yard and shook his head in wonder. If even possible, it looked better than it had when they’d moved away. His father had quite the green thumb, it appeared. The flowers swayed in the wind, the grass was clipped and manicured, and even the water in the koi pond was crystal clear. From one of the tree branches a wicker birdcage hung with a bright yellow bird hopping around inside.

Benfu went to the door and gave a soft knock. He hoped his father wasn’t trying to take a mid-morning nap. But on second thought, maybe it would be a good thing if the man didn’t answer and Benfu couldn’t ask the question he’d come to ask.

The door swung open. “Benfu! Come in, come in.”

His father stood aside and Benfu walked in. He looked around the large room that had been his home for decades. While the outside was neat and trim, the inside looked like a totally different house. And as expected from a bachelor, it was a bit dusty and cluttered.

“Sit down. I was just shucking some corn. You’ve got some mighty generous neighbors around here, Benfu. It’s been a year and they still keep me fed. I’m getting fatter than a swine.”

Benfu chuckled. His father was far from plump and actually still kept himself fit and dressed as if he were going to teach at the university every day. He had a suspicion that many of the widows in the area probably had their eye on him, maybe even Widow Zu. It was no surprise he was flooded with vegetables and other tasty home-cooked treats almost on a daily basis.

“I’m glad they’re taking care of you, Baba.” He sat down at the small table and picked up an ear of corn. He tore at the husk, dropping the pieces into a bucket at his father’s feet.

Letting his father move into the house was the final gesture that seemed to have melted away all the bitterness between them. It was Calli’s idea, as were most of the good things he’d done in his life. He wondered what she’d think of her little home now. Just behind his father he saw the metal bed that had replaced his and Calli’s bed. It looked small and uncomfortable, at least not as comfy and inviting as theirs had. Also gone were the colorful quilts and braided rugs from the room, leaving behind a dreary living area. But most of all, the difference was in the atmosphere. To put it simply, the house felt lonely. Benfu could only surmise it was the absence of the girls’ laughter and incessant chattering that had turned a once-vibrant home into a quiet and somber house. He felt sorry for his father.

“So I can tell by your face that you’ve had no luck getting Lily released,” Lao Zheng said as he stripped the husk from his ear of corn.

Benfu sighed. “Lily’s at home. But now Ivy has taken her place.”

Lao Zheng laid his ear of corn on the table and looked up at Benfu. “Now tell me how in Buddha’s nation you managed that?”

“I didn’t manage anything. It’s that stubborn and protective streak that girl possesses. Ivy snuck out this morning and went to the hospital without me. When I got there, Lily was standing outside and Ivy was in custody on the sixth floor. They switched places!”

Lao Zheng chuckled. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny. But I can just see Ivy sitting up all night concocting a plan to spring her sister from that hospital. That girl has spent her life protecting her sister; we shouldn’t be surprised at her latest maneuver.”

“No, I’m not surprised, either. But I put her in a taxi and sent her home; then I went up to talk to them about releasing Lily—
I mean Ivy
—but they refused.”

“Is there anything we can do at all?”

“I’m getting to that. But I’ve got one piece of good news first. They were unable to transport Ivy to the reeducation center. Each patient has to pass a physical and Ivy had a fast heartbeat and felt faint—or at least that’s what they told me. I’m not going to tell Calli about that part because she’ll worry herself to death. I supposed it was Ivy’s adventures of the morning that got her heart rate going. She was probably terrified they were going to be caught. But from what I’ve heard, she’s better off in the hospital than she would be at the reeducation center they’ve sent Sky to.”

“Well, that is good news then.”

Benfu sat up straight in his chair. It was time to come out with it. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”

Lao Zheng returned his steady gaze. “Anything I can do, I will. You know that.”

Benfu nodded. “They’ve set a fine. If I can get the funds together, they’ll release her in two weeks and won’t note her as a Falun Gong follower in her file—her sister’s file.”

“How much are they asking for?”

Benfu hesitated and took a deep breath. “Ten thousand reminbi.”

Lao Zheng’s eyebrows rose quickly and he whistled. “That’s a lot of money, Son.”

“I’ve come to ask you if I can borrow it.” Benfu waited, hoping that for once, his father would come through.

Lao Zheng stood and wiped his hands on his trousers. He crossed the room and went to the window, looking out over the yard. Finally he turned around.

“Benfu, I’m sorry to say I can’t loan you the money.” His shoulders slumped and he looked at the floor. “There’s nothing left of what your mother and I had saved. We used most of it for doctors when she got sick, and the rest of it was used to make her comfortable in her final days.”

Benfu sighed. Even though he still had some buried resentment against his mother for her actions against Li Jin, he didn’t like to think of her suffering. But everything? His parents were well-off at one time. Could it all be gone?

“Everything? Your entire life savings?”

Lao Zheng nodded. “I live off my teacher’s pension from the state now. It’s a pittance, but I don’t need much.”

Benfu felt defeated. And tired. But he couldn’t go home to Calli yet. He had to keep trying. “Well, I guess I need to go talk to Lao Gong. He’s probably in the same boat as you, but he’s my last resort.”

“Jet’s father couldn’t help?”

“No, he tried. I called him from the hospital this morning. But he’s in a different branch of the city government and couldn’t pull any strings. These officials who are in charge of keeping the streets clean of beggars and Falun Gong practitioners act like they’re untouchable. It’s so frustrating.”

Benfu stood and tried to ignore the feeling of panic threatening to envelop him.

“Wait. Before you go, I do have one idea. Please, sit back down.”

Benfu sat down, waiting. Hoping.

“The violin.”

“What do you mean, the violin?”

“It’s a special violin, Benfu. The reason we sent it with you all those years ago was because it was worth more than any of our antiques or pieces of art. At that time, the houses in Shanghai were all being ransacked by the Red Guards faster than anyone could keep up with. So many valuable items and antiques were demolished—it would have been crazy to try to hide it there. My biggest hope through our years of estrangement was that you were keeping it safe. Son, it’s very valuable. We can find someone to buy it.”

Benfu stood quickly. He couldn’t imagine the violin was worth enough to bail out Lily, but even so, he could never part with it knowing that it was his daughter’s most prized possession. For a family like theirs, finding and affording another instrument of that caliber and that held so many memories would be next to impossible. There had to be another way. “No. It no longer belongs to me, Baba. That’s Lily’s violin and it’s the only thing she has, her one link to independence. I can’t take that away from her. I don’t want her to know we even spoke of it.”

Lao Zheng held his hands up. “Okay, okay. I just thought—”

“I appreciate the idea, but no, I just can’t do that. We’ll find another way.” Benfu crossed the room and opened the door. “You can come for dinner tonight if you feel like crossing town.”

Zheng nodded. “We’ll see. My joints are screaming today, but maybe.”

Benfu left through the door and closed it behind him. Across the lane he saw Widow Zu sitting on her short stool, waving him over.

“Benfu, I have your eggs! But you have to promise me you’ll come visit more often before I hand them over. I miss those girls, too! Next time you’ll bring them?”

He headed over to make his promises. At least Widow Zu didn’t know he’d failed his family. So far they’d been able to keep the gossip contained, something important to a proud old man like himself. Widow Zu and the rest of his old neighbors still thought he was a hero to all his daughters and didn’t know he’d lost track of one. He didn’t look forward to the day they found out otherwise and lost faith in him.

I
vy felt ridiculous. She used one hand to hold up the baggy pajama bottoms and one hand to hold together her jacket over the hospital-issued shirt that gaped from too many missing buttons. To keep the cheap plastic slippers from sliding off, she shuffled along beside the nurse, barely lifting her feet from the floor. The nurse—a different one altogether from Nurse Guo—gripped her arm tightly, leading her down the hall at a pace faster than her shoes could keep up with. All around them Ivy heard and felt a sense of chaos. Obviously the rest of the patients had woken up and now many of them were vocally letting their needs be known.

“Hurry up, we don’t have all day. I’ve got to start med rounds,” the nurse scolded as she picked up the pace.

Ivy was glad for the sunglasses so the nurse couldn’t see the way her eyes flashed with anger at the way she was being pulled down the hall like an ox on a rope. She wouldn’t be transferred to the reeducation center, at least she knew that much. By some miracle she’d wound herself up so tight that her heart rate was almost double the normal, according to the nurse. When the woman asked if she’d felt okay, Ivy had lied and said she’d been faint several times. With a few chops on her—well actually, Lily’s—file, Ivy was spared from a new adventure at an unknown place because she’d failed the physical exam.

A win for her but now she was going into the women’s ward. Ivy concentrated on taking deep breaths. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to be put into the general population with a bunch of crazies, but she was thankful she was the one, rather than Lily. At least she could see and take care of herself.

At the end of the hall, the nurse unlocked another set of double doors and gestured for Ivy to come through. On the other side was another long hall with many more closed-off rooms, probably private patient rooms, from what Ivy could tell.

“Don’t start trouble with anyone. Don’t touch anyone else’s bed or belongings. Don’t be aggressive. Don’t make eye contact—oh, sorry, that doesn’t apply.”

Ivy shook her head at the woman’s ignorance but didn’t reply as she rattled on.

“Dinner will be at five o’clock. Showers are only weekly and you’ll have to get on the schedule. Lights-out will be at eight, and if you’re found out of your bed, you’ll be strapped in until morning.”

They arrived at the end of the hall and the nurse stopped in front of yet another set of doors. She reached over and pushed a black buzzer on the wall, then held her identification card up to a camera mounted over the door.

“What about visitors?” Ivy asked.

“Visitors have to be approved by the attending doctor, but he won’t have a chance to look at your file today and maybe not tomorrow. We’ll let you know.”

After a few more seconds, the doors slowly opened and instead of another hall, they stepped into a small office enclosed in glass with a view over a huge room. The attendant, a young woman dressed from head to toe in what looked like a pink running suit, jumped up and stood before them.

Ivy reminded herself not to appear as if she was seeing anything, so she looked around as far from one side to the other as she could without moving her head.

“Zheng Lily, patient 877, transfer approved by Wang Yisheng.”

“History of violence?” the attendant asked.

“No, not yet. Falun Gong.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“She’s blind.”

The attendant took in a deep breath. “
Aiya!
Now I know why you’ve let her keep her sunglasses. I was wondering if you were getting soft in your old age, Nurse, letting some teenager come in looking like a Shanghai starlet.”

They continued to discuss her as if she weren’t there, giving Ivy time to look out at her new living arrangements. Other than one small sitting area with a couch and television, and a station against the wall that looked to hold tea and water, most of the room was taken up by three rows of beds with at least ten beds in each row. Mulling about the room, and some lying on their beds, were patients dressed exactly like her, minus her jacket—though some of them wore tattered sweaters over their pajamas. It was eerie how everything and everyone looked the same.

The nurse handed over the file. The attendant set it on her desk, then took Ivy’s arm.

“Time to introduce you to your new family, Lily.”

She opened the door that led to the main room and led Ivy to the last row of beds, and the farthest bed on the end. Ivy stopped when she stopped and remained still, waiting on instructions.

“This is where you will sleep.” She guided Ivy to the bed and Ivy began to run her hands over it as if examining it.

“You can smoke if someone brings you cigarettes. Make sure to put them out in the ashtray—if you drop them on the floor, you’ll smoke no more. You’re allowed to wander around in this room as long as you don’t bother anyone. This is a low-security ward, so if you cause trouble, you’ll be transferred to a high-security area and will be isolated to your own small space.
Mingbai?
”

“Yes, I understand.”

A small, athletic woman and a tall, wiry girl approached and walked in a circle around Ivy and the attendant, examining Ivy closely. They looked like a couple and they obviously bought the blind act, for Ivy didn’t think they’d be so openly curious if they thought she could see. Or maybe they would.

“You probably feel someone around you. They’re just checking you out. Pay them no attention and they’ll leave you alone.” The attendant lowered her voice to a whisper. “Bother them and they’ll tear you limb from limb. And I won’t be jumping in to save you.”

Behind her glasses, Ivy’s eyes opened wide at the attendant’s words. The two women were definitely of the threatening, scary type and Ivy was careful not to turn her head their way.

The attendant turned her loose, and Ivy backed up and sat on the bed. The strong scent of urine wafted up from the mattress and she tried to put it out of her mind. She’d rather sleep on the floor than the soiled bed, but she would deal with that later.

Her arrival had definitely stirred things up, and as she watched without seeming to do so, others stopped what they were doing to peek from where they were, or they came closer. Across the room, one girl sat on the couch primly with her legs crossed, taking a deep drag from her cigarette while watching Ivy. She looked scary with her stringy black hair hanging in her face and her blank expression. Though her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, she didn’t appear to be much older than she was and Ivy wondered what could have brought her to a mental ward.
Was the girl really crazy?

She felt her stomach rumble and remembered that she’d missed the lunch rounds while she was in the doctor’s office. Not that the nurses on her hall had cared; they’d just shrugged and told her she’d get dinner. Ivy wasn’t sure what to expect but she knew it most likely wouldn’t be anything like Nai Nai or Li Jin’s cooking. At that thought she felt her first longing for home and the protection of her family. Turning, only slightly, she found her eyes lingering on the mesh-covered windows beyond the beds, windows that showed only glimpses of a hazy China sky and the world outside that kept right on moving, even without her in it.