Honor and Duty (41 page)

I entered, grimaced with the gouge of two dollars American, and saw I was out of uniform: everyone looked like Jean Valjean on the run, with hair that must have taken years to grow. I was in my Rogers Peet navy Academy blazer and gray trousers, with an Academy tie. “Dig the threads,” came a mutter. I entered the dim prison, caught in a relentless cross fire of hostile stares mitigated by mean-hearted chuckles. Loud rock from competing stations seeped from under closed doors and through walls and floors, filled the spiral staircase, and boomed in latrines that housed people and dorm areas that had been used for waste. The station playing the Rolling Stones was beating the competition.

I smelled Indian incense, exotic oils, old wine, warm beer, stale vomit, a nation of armpits, scented candles, and cigarettes, and something I hadn’t whiffed since early youth: marijuana. Then it hit me. This wasn’t filth; it was the new age—Aquarius.

I found my floor and my bay. A cluster milled about as the Who sang “I hope I die before I get old.…” Eerie shadows from old, forgotten, half-gutted chandeliers and wall sconces played on walls rich with French slogans and black-light posters, creating a fixating effect with a poster depicting forms of intercourse.

A guy looked up and pointed at a bunk. “That’s free. Has crabs or somethin’. Keep your shit off my crib.”

“Right,” I said. The bunk had an active growth: greenish with a tinge of blue, and floating oil bubbles.

“Detroit,” he added.

“New York,” I said.

“You Army?” he asked.

“Got any money, man?” asked another.

“Sleep on yo’ wallet an yo’ shoes,” said Detroit.

“I said, you got any money?”

I turned to the interrogator. “Got any for me?”

The guy cackled. He wore an Army field jacket with a PFC stripe and the unit patch and name tag removed. “Fuck you, asshole,” he said to me. “Don’t give me that DI look.”

I looked at him, and he cursed and bounded up, grabbed a backpack, and sprinted out, his hair flying. Reflexively, I started after him, and stopped as the crowd surrounded me. He was a deserter in Canada. This was his country, not mine.

“Who the hell are you?” asked an Asian guy in my face.

“Kai Ting,” I said.

“Shit,” he said, “look like a narc.”

“He’s a
narc?
” screamed several guys, some hiding things as others began to move. Two more fled.

“Hey, tune in, dude. You in the Army, right?” asked Detroit.

Another group gathered gear, and a person walked out briskly. Adult musical chairs. Hate beamed at me from cold and angry eyes. I was getting tired of standing out, of being picked on. The group’s malevolence was multiplying.

“Fuck you, you asshole!” shouted a guy displaying a rusted jackknife as if it were a cavalry saber. “What you doin’—screwin’ with us? Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the baddest sonovabitch you’ll see this year,” I said, “and you got me confused with someone who gives a rat’s ass about
anyone.
I have no business with you.” I held up the two fingers that used to mean victory. “Peace,” I said. “Or, not. Your choice.”

Janie agreed to meet me at Le Cordon Berthelot on rue de Jardin. It was filled with hip-huggers, beads, headbands, bell-bottom trousers, bright, half-open paisley shirts, and white hats. I ordered an Oly.

“Quoi?”
said the bartender.

“Have any Western American beer?” I asked.

He gave me a Schlitz. “This is from Milwaukee,” I said.

“Milwaukee is west, m’sieu,” he said.

Janie and I had lived together and now I couldn’t remember what she looked like. I was nervous, skittish, like the big, simple horses that we rode on the J. P. Morgan ranch on the edge of the Academy.

I thought of Toussaint and Jack, Mike, Arch, Bob Lorbus, and Clint. Cool, confident guys. Hang in. Be calm like Pearl Yee. Lucky to be here on leave. You’re happy to see her. You’re lucky Major Noll and SGM Klazewski gave you emergency leave from the Academy.

She was in a yellow suit and matching yellow headband. I jumped up. “Hi,” I said. Impulsively, I kissed her on the cheek. I realized that this was the first time I had ever kissed one of my sisters.

She leaned away from me stiffly. “Oh,” she said.

“You look really good. Beautiful.” I beamed at her. “It’s great, just great, to see you.”

Her mouth was open. Then she smiled for an instant, dimples deepening. I remembered them. We studied each other, searching for clues of the children we had been, the siblings we had lost. She didn’t look the least bit like me: a small, delicate nose, common to the three sisters; high, pronounced cheekbones; large eyes; dark, elegant eyebrows; thick, dark black hair, more than halfway down her back. She was about five feet tall.

She patted me on my arm—the old signal to move on. (“
Kwala, kwala.
Time to go. Put down the toy—come, come.” Pat, pat.)

“I picked this place,” I said, “for the moo shu pork.” I grinned; she smiled wanly as we sat. We ordered. With flair, I ordered a French rosé. “Goes with anything,” I bragged.

“You’re just huge,” she said, studying me.

“I’m a lot bigger than when you last saw me.”

“No, really. You’re
huge.
How did you get so big? Do you take vitamins, or are you on a special diet? You’re built like the black men in our old neighborhood in San Francisco.”

“I eat anything that isn’t alive. A girl I know calls me the adorable glutton. One out of two’s not bad.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“ ‘Adorable’ and ‘glutton.’ I like the ‘adorable’ part.”

“You’re trying to be funny,” she said.

I showed my teeth.

“So Edna let you stay at the YMCA and lift weights.”

“You know, when I was little, I wanted to be with her and
she had nothing to do with me. When I became a teenager and wanted freedom, she nailed my foot to the floor.”

“She did?” she asked in horror.

“Figuratively,” I said.

“Oh,” she said.

“Janie. Where have you been? Where’d she send you?”

“Edmonton, Alberta. A Christian foster home. I was the oldest of seven, a mother again to smaller kids. Two of us were Chinese, one was Filipino, one was English, one was black, and two were Canadian Indian. It was the Stonehocker family.”

“Were they good to you?” I asked.

“They were very nice.” She looked around the dining room. “Actually,” she said, “they were wonderful.” She sighed. “Two years later, Jennifer found me, and I joined her in Minneapolis.”

“That’s super! Jennifer! I would’ve
loved
that.”

“But I didn’t have Dad,” she said. “Or you. None of my friends. It wasn’t easy for Jennifer to raise me. No money.”

“Yeah, but getting away from Edna …”

“I didn’t
want
to get away from Edna. I wanted to get her out of our home, away from Daddy—from K.F. And you. Kai, we could do that now. You’re big enough to do it.”

I shook my head. “Bad idea. Why do you call him K.F.?”

“It’s his name. He’s not my father.”

“Whatever happened, he’s still our father,” I said.

“I am not his daughter. He’s not my father. He gave me up. He’s
your
father.”

Silence. “How long were you with Jennifer?” I asked.

“Until 1957,” she said. “You don’t know any of this?”

I shook my head.

“I went to Cal. I called Dad. He and Edna visited me for tea, at International House. They said you were fine. I wanted to see you. Megan said they didn’t even let you visit
her
, but she saw you when she visited. She said that you didn’t talk too much.”

I looked at her: so grown, adult, and remote. She was a stranger. My sisters, strangers—as I was to them.

“We’re not much of a family, are we?” I said.

She laughed bitterly. “You just figured that out?” It was our father’s laugh, the sound of joy offered to the gods of woe, a laugh without a smile—the laugh of Chinese tragedy.

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s because you followed Edna’s orders.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

“You’re twenty years old and just realized ‘we’re not much of a family’? Wake up. You’re thinking like her now.”

“DON’T COMPARE ME TO HER!” I cried, blinking with the volume of my voice. This wasn’t shouting commands; I was yelling. “Sorry,” I said, breathing fast. Everyone was staring and someone was wiping up a spilled drink.

I asked about her fiancé.

“His name is Alejandro. First-generation Spanish. He’s going to be a doctor.” She was wringing her hands together. “It’s great,” she said. “He and I are so alike. Both of us have only had ourselves. I think his parents hate me.”

“Because you argue with them?” I asked.

“Because I’m Chinese,” she said.

She worked in a biology lab. She had a master’s in biology from Cal Tech. “You got my letters and birthday cards?”

I shook my head. Edna read my mail. She had said, “There are evil influences, and much of it comes through the mail.” “Janie. Edna read my mail. She even read my
outgoing
mail.”

“But you could’ve mailed a letter on your own. You could’ve written to me at school and mailed it on the way home.”

“How could I mail you a letter? I didn’t know where you were.”

She tasted the wine. I had meant to toast but had forgotten. I was going to say, “To lost comrades.”

She sat up straighter. “How’s K.F.?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. Do not say the name of your father.

She took a deep breath. She swirled the wine in the goblet.

“Does he know that you’re seeing me?” she asked.

I shook my head. I hadn’t even thought of him.

She looked to the side. Large tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. I patted her arm, but she jerked away from me, spilling her glass. I tried to be composed, and began drinking my wine as if it were soda pop. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Really sorry.”

The soup arrived, but neither of us was hungry.

She let out a big breath of air. “Did he ever ask about me, or talk about me?”

I wanted to say yes, to manufacture conversations or create comments; but there had been none, not to me. I remembered my oath and the Honor Code. It influenced all I did, in my private life and in my military duties. Minimalist social lies were
okay: “Mrs. Westmoreland, that is an
exceptional
hat.” I embraced the comfort of knowing what to do but shuddered at its cost. For a moment, I hated the Honor Code and its iron-backed inflexibility. It shackled me, weighed me down, caused me to hurt others. “The Harder Right,” said the Cadet Prayer.

“No,” I said, and I looked away as she began to weep again. I played with my lobster bisque. I watched crackers drown in the soup. She was still shaking. I looked down, awkward, out of place, utterly unsure of what to do. “Please don’t cry,” I said.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, crying. “Don’t cry! Why, does this make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t care!” she sobbed, weeping freely. “I’m not very good at accommodating people! I wish I never cried! Wish I hadn’t been thrown out like garbage! I wish Daddy remembered me!”

Daddy. When she was a girl, had she called him “Daddy”? Him? “Crying doesn’t solve anything,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “You’re a man. Men don’t cry. Well, I’m not a man. I’m a worthless Chinese
daughter.
” She wept. I cried inside. I worried about anyone seeing her as she wept.

She stopped. “You cry for Mah-mee,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Men are terrible,” she said. “You’re so—
cold.
”

“It’s important to be in control,” I said. “A platoon leader can’t weep in front of his troops if his feelings got hurt. Cry in the ring and you lose.”

I waited until she finished.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“I’m the pits,” she said. “This is a trip, seeing my little baby brother. You’re a giant—a bald giant in a suit.” She shook her head, which still produced a veil of tears.

She looked up. “So where were you?” she asked bitterly, her small, delicate mouth turned horribly upside down, her face without color. “Where were you when I left? Why didn’t you stop her?” she shrilled, making my eardrums hum as if Edna were talking to me.

“Are you nuts? I couldn’t stop her. Stop
Edna?
I was nine!”

“You were the only son! You had
power
and
status!
” she cried. Patrons were split between open gawking and savoir faire.

“You’re demented,” I said. “I had no power or status. That
woman told me when to go potty, how to go potty, how to fold the toilet paper, and how many minutes I had. She told me when to sleep and in what position, gave me no medicine, ordered me to stop having asthma, and sent me to the Christian Scientists. I only got glasses because Mr. Lew, my teacher, wouldn’t let me back in the classroom without them and confronted Edna with my eyesight. She made me Baptist until I liked it, then made me Catholic. Up until my last night at home I couldn’t watch TV, have a radio, use the phone, see a girl, or stay up past eight-thirty. She set out my underwear for my flight to West Point. Listen, Janie—I had no power. The only person I could influence was you. I used to beg you not to fight her. But you’d run straight at her. Edna wasn’t going to compromise with you. You were a kid, and she was a grown-up. You were going to lose. You
lost
and left me alone with her.”

She began to cry again. Great; I’ve won an argument with my sister, convincing her she was immature when she was fifteen.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve stopped it. I couldn’t.”

“That’s Chinese man bullshit,” she said harshly. “You sound like Edna when you yell at me!”

“Oh, God—DON’T SAY THAT!” I cried.

“Don’t say what—‘Chinese man bullshit,’ or that you sound like Edna?” she asked. “And do not yell at me,” she hissed.

“Edna,” I said. “I am
not
like her.
No way.…
What do you mean, about Chinese men?”

“Not taking responsibility. Kowtowing to status and money, spitting on daughters. You don’t know. You weren’t born in China. I was little, but I
knew
girls weren’t important. Only sons! It’s living for surface manners and face! Telling women they can’t cry—it might make a male lose face! I had one protector—Mah-mee. No man in China ever helped us. It was always the women who gave up food and shed space for us during the Run.” She sighed. “How many girls were left behind! How they cried! God, then Mah-mee died.