Calls Across the Pacific (3 page)

Often, Nina wondered about Dahai.
How would he be punished if caught crossing the border? Has he gotten to Vietnam?
The questions were like worms eating away at her heart. She felt hollow, but she could not contact Dahai or Zeng for answers. Any letter from outside of China, to either of them, would create suspicion and cause problems for them. All she could do was pray that Dahai and Rei had survived.

Nina began to follow the Voice of America's “English 900” program on the radio. Listening to the English conversations provided her with glimpses into American society and culture. She imagined her future and felt happy. She would not be forced to read Mao's or anybody else's works; she would not be afraid of expressing a different opinion; she would not be judged by her family background and be regarded as the offspring of the revolution's enemies. She would have the right to make choices in her own life.

When, six months later, a package arrived from the American Consulate, Nina opened it with trembling hands. She had been granted a visa to enter the United States. The visa stamp showed March 17, 1970, as the entry date into the United States. Relieved, Nina could not keep her hand, which held her passport, from shaking.

“Don't go. Those blue-eyed and high-nosed people are scary.” Gui's Wife pleaded. “Stay here, with us.”

Nina raised her head and looked deeply into Gui's Wife's eyes, knowing with certainty that she could not stay. The green sheet of the paper that had unfolded in front of her, granting her asylum, looked shiny, as if a sparkling star had emerged in a starless sky.

“Don't worry about me,” Nina said.

She gazed at the visa and wished someday, somewhere, that she might meet Dahai again.

3.
DEAR UNCLE SAM

O
N A SUNNY AFTERNOON
in March 1970, a Pan Am airliner landed at Augusta State Airport in Maine.
The land of freedom and opportunity,
Nina thought as she stepped onto Uncle Sam's soil. A carry-on bag in her hand, she walked among the passengers to the baggage carousel. She looked around, her face beaming with excitement even though she felt groggy after the twenty-hour journey.

She finally spied her suitcase. It was navy blue canvas with white stripes, colours she enjoyed because they reminded her of her father's uniform. She pulled it from the carousel and placed it and her satchel in a buggy, then pushed it to the nearest exit. The interpreter at San Francisco International Airport's Customs Office had said that someone from the Catholic Church Refugee Settlement in Brunswick, Maine, would meet her. The image of a nun in a traditional habit, her solemn face under a white coif covered by a black scarf like she had seen in the movies, crossed her mind.

She eyed the crowd around her as she moved her buggy. She passed two young men in black suit jackets and noticed that one of them was looking at her intently. Her eyes met his and then widened as she saw her name printed in Chinese on his placard. Before she could say anything, the other young man turned to her and asked in fluent Chinese, “Are you Nina Huang?”

“Yes,” she answered, very surprised to hear the familiar Chinese words from a Caucasian man here in America. “Are you from the Church Refugee Settlement?” she asked.

“Yes, I'm Jim. I'm here to help with translating,” he replied, turning to his companion. “And this is George.”

George shook hands with Nina and took her buggy. “Follow us. We'll drive you to your host family.” He led them out of the airport and into a parking garage.

Nina tried to speak in English, but some words became Chinese. Jim translated for her: “I'm surprised to see snow in spring!”

George, in English, and Jim, in Chinese, replied at the same time, “I'm surprised to see you without a coat.”

Nina chuckled with them as the three settled into a dark blue Ford and George pulled the vehicle onto Interstate 95. Nina looked out the window from her back seat. Pine and spruce trees lined the road. Half-melted snow banks on the road's shoulder glistened in the sunlight. George talked about the services of the Church Refugee Settlement, while Jim interpreted for Nina. “Mr. and Mrs. Duncan are your host family. Mr. Duncan is a veteran, and his wife, a retired schoolteacher. They volunteer with the Settlement and are willing to accommodate you for free.” Jim told Nina that if she needed translation services in the future, she could ask for this at the office where they were going.

Two hours later, they arrived at the building that housed the Catholic Church Refugee Settlement in Brunswick.

George led them inside an office where an American couple in their sixties sat on a bench waiting. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Duncan.” George introduced Nina to the couple and then wished her good luck. Nina thanked George and Jim as they turned to leave, then approached the couple.

The woman smiled and said, “You can call me Eileen and him Bruce.” Nina was surprised that they would invite her to call them by their first names. In China, it was customary to call a couple of her parents' generation, “aunt” and “uncle,” or address them by their title and family name, as a gesture of respect
.
Nina smiled back.
Calling them by their first names makes me equal to them, like we're friends. Maybe this is the equal spirit of Americans.
With Eileen's help, Nina filled out the necessary forms, handed them to the secretary at the desk, and then followed the couple to their car.

It was a short drive to their home, a two-storey house on a peaceful street with a steep gabled roof decorated in gingerbread trim, different from the block-like buildings she was used to seeing. It was the kind of house Nina had once seen in a picture book of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, surrounded by big leafy trees and a manicured garden with tidy flowers along the edge of the walkway. Eileen and Bruce lived in the house by themselves, their daughter having married and moved to another city. A spacious bedroom on the second floor had been prepared for Nina's arrival. Here, with renewed energy and excitement, she would start a new life.

Eileen helped Nina settle into the house, and into the country. Nina began to attend English as a Second Language classes that were sponsored by the church in the evenings and on the weekend.
If I learn to speak English, I can explore this new world,
she
thought and remembered the awkward moments when she could not understand what people said to her. She also registered in two credit courses — math and physics — at an adult school. She would receive her high-school diploma in a year if she passed all the examinations. She had been seventeen years old, an eleventh grader, when the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966 and the education of high school and college students all over the country had suddenly come to an end. Now, she wanted to make up for everything she had missed.

Everything in America was different. Nina had never had cold milk for breakfast, so at first she heated milk in a small pot on a stove. Then she poured the warm milk into a bowl and added a teaspoonful of sugar — the way she did in China. Cornflakes were new to her. After mixing them into the warm milk, and eating the odd-tasting hot cereal, she thought that later she would try to eat the cereal in cold milk as Eileen did. She had never had a sandwich either. Eileen taught her how to make tuna or egg sandwiches for lunch. They, too, were a novelty.

Nina had never lived in a place where it snowed. It seemed strange to her that it could snow in March when it should be spring, but she enjoyed being surrounded by fresh and crisp snowflakes. In the early morning, she helped Bruce shovel snow off the driveway. She even learned how to use a chainsaw to cut wood for the fireplace. Like a sponge, she quickly absorbed all the new foods and customs and day to day activities of life in this new land.

Several weeks later, on a Friday, after Nina had come home from school, Eileen entered the kitchen with two pots of flowers, placing one in the centre of the table. Nina remembered what she had learned from her
ESL
class and asked, “Is this an Easter flower? It's very nice and so delicate.”

“Yes. It's an Easter lily, the flower of the Resurrection and of the Virgin.”

“Easter lily?” Nina said. “I didn't know it was so symbolic.”

“Its specific name is ‘Madonna lily,'” Eileen replied, using a wet paper towel to wipe smudges of soil off some of the leaves.

“It's a pretty flower. I have seen them in China, too,” Nina said as Eileen placed the second pot on the windowsill. “Where did you get them?”

Eileen dusted the table. “I got them from Hannaford Supermarket. Does the lily have any special meaning for you?”

“I know its bulb can be used as medicine,” Nina said, trying to remember what she knew about the bulb's medicinal applications.

“Interesting. Yes, I can see that it might,” Eileen sighed as she gazed at the white buds. Her face clouded while she murmured, “Two years.”

“Two years?” asked Nina. “Do you mean this lily is two years old?”

“No, no,” Eileen said, shaking her head. She hesitated, as if a fish bone had stuck in her throat.

Nina understood not to press her with more questions.

On Easter Sunday, the family invited Nina to join them for dinner. At the table, she sat with the couple and their visitors: their daughter, Emma, son-in-law, Mike, grandson, Timmy, and granddaughter, Alicia, from Bangor, a town about 100 miles away.

In the centre of the oval table, an Easter candle's flames danced around the wick. A cross on the candle glistened under the light of the chandelier. Everyone around the table held hands and bowed their heads as Bruce said grace: “Dear Lord, thank you for this food….”

Nina's thoughts returned to a night three years earlier when she had stared at a painting of
The Last Supper
, which depicted Jesus and his disciples sitting at a long dining table.

It was 1967. Nina had been looking for her shoes when she found a book under the bed. Most of the books in her home had been burned during some ransacking by the Red Guards. She had been sitting on the floor, flipping through the pages one by one when an illustration caught her eye. While she gazed at
The Last Supper
, she had contemplated why such an abrupt turmoil had engulfed her family. Her father, an officer of the People's Liberation Army, had been branded as an American spy because he had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point; and her mother, a paediatrician, had also been considered an enemy of the revolution since she had no intention of denouncing her husband. With her eyes fixed on the painting, she had wondered:
Why did Judas betray Jesus?

Somehow, that painting had brought to mind the ways the Cultural Revolution in China had encouraged people to turn on their neighbours and friends, and she had felt anguish for her father, and her mother, and everything they had gone through, despairing at how their ordinary lives had been betrayed and taken away from them.

Nina returned to the present when she heard, “Through Christ, our Lord, we pray.” She bowed her head and said, “Amen,” along with the others. At that moment, a sense of well-being filled her and as she looked at the happy faces of the people at the dinner table around her, she realized she was among friends who would not betray her, but friends who had welcomed her into their lives, and who were helping her find her own way in this new life and new land.

Nina nibbled on the roast turkey with sweet-and-sour cranberry sauce for the first time. She thought of the turkey with a grey head and scarlet wattles that she had seen at the zoo and smiled to herself. She had never imagined such a creature could taste so good.
She eyed the creamy mashed potatoes with gravy, the green beans sautéed with sliced almonds, and the hot cross buns and fruitcake, and knew that those dishes would be delicious too. A motherly smile on her face, Eileen said, “Try our food. It's prepared in a kind of Scottish-style. I think you'll like it.”

After the dinner, Mike played the piano, while the others sang a traditional Easter song, “The World Itself.” Nina leaned back on the couch and mused on the lyric, “
The Lord of all things lives anew
.” Releasing a deep breath, she was grateful she did not die during her escape.

Eileen and Bruce's granddaughter was sitting next to Nina, a pink stuffed bunny lying on her lap. “Why don't you sing with them?” Alicia asked, her hand patting Nina's arm.

“I'm not familiar with these songs, but I'm listening,” answered Nina. “Do you enjoy singing?”

“I like to sing at school.” The little girl cradled the smiling, toothy bunny. “My bunny's sleeping now. Tomorrow morning, we're going to roll Easter eggs down the hill. Do you want to join us?”

“What are Easter eggs?” Nina was curious.

Alicia scampered to the kitchen and returned with a basket full of hard-boiled eggs that had been painted red, yellow, green and blue. “Here they are. We like the Easter Monday egg roll. We'll climb to the top of the hill behind the house.”

“Thanks for showing me.” Nina carried the basket to the table and laid it there, wondering if the eggs would be eaten after they were rolled down the hill.

Mike was playing the piano. Emma was singing a song composed by Loretta Lynn, a country music singer:

Dear Uncle Sam, I just got your telegram,

And I can't believe that it is me shakin' like I am,

For it said, “I'm sorry to inform you…”

Nina noticed that Bruce and Eileen, sitting on the loveseat, were holding hands and looking at each other with big sad eyes. Emma was leaning against the piano, singing in a deep and mournful tone, and staring into the distance.

Alicia turned to Nina and whispered, “Did you know my uncle?”

“No,” Nina said and shook her head. “Where is your uncle?” she asked.

“In heaven.”

Nina's heart sank. “What happened?”

“Mom said the Viet Cong killed him.”

Nina felt a shiver run down her back. She understood now the sadness in the room and she nodded sympathetically in Bruce and Eileen's direction. That must have been what Eileen had meant earlier when she mentioned something about two years having passed. She couldn't help but also think of Dahai.
Is he still with the Viet Cong?
she wondered. She was still perplexed that he could be so convinced
his mother and the Americans were the enemies. She sighed and thought, He was brainwashed.
But, immersed in thought, Nina had another question:
Why did the Americans go to the war in Vietnam?

“Are you okay?” Eileen asked, coming to sit next to Nina.

“I didn't know you had a son.”

“He died in Vietnam two years ago. We don't want the war, but as a soldier, he had to follow orders.”