Throwaway Daughter (17 page)

I was hot and sweaty and thirsty, and my ears were still ringing from the bus motor. There was a soggy patch under each of my arms and I could already feel the perspiration gather between my shoulder blades under my backpack. I began to regret my choice of a light-coloured dress. I
stopped in the middle of the road. On my left a radio was faintly playing Beijing Opera. I heard people talking. Women’s voices. I followed the sound and found myself standing outside an open door. A bike was propped against the wall.

The interior of the house looked cool and inviting. Inside were a large square table and a few benches. The hard-packed dirt floor had been swept clean. No one was in sight. My hands shook as I cleared my throat and called out a greeting. A young woman about my age, with a bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other, came out of the back room. Judging from her pink blouse, black skirt, and white plastic sandals, she was a city woman, not a farmer.

“How do you do?” I said.

“Who are you looking for?” she asked warily, her mouth still full of rice.

“Who’s that?” came a shrill voice from the rear of the house.

“I am looking for Chun-mei,” I said calmly, sounding more confident than I felt.

“I don’t know any Chun-mei,” the young woman answered. “What’s her family name?” She scooped more rice into her mouth.

“Um, I don’t know.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

“Is this Liuhe Village?” I asked when she began to turn away.

“Yes. But I don’t know any Chun-mei,” she repeated with irritation. “How old is she?”

I took a wild guess. “In her forties.”

“Let me ask my mother.”

The older woman walked towards me and stopped in the middle of the room, squinting. “Who are you?” she demanded. She was middle aged, chubby and strong, her face and hands deeply tanned. Beside her, her daughter looked pale and skinny.

“I’m a relative. I haven’t seen Chun-mei for a long time. I was told she might live here.”

“You’re her relative but you don’t know her last name?” the older woman said. “And you don’t speak our dialect. Are you here alone?”

I began to get the feeling she knew the answer to my question but was reluctant to admit it. Her daughter put her bowl and chopsticks down on the table with a clatter. “Mother, if you know this Chun-mei woman, why don’t you tell her? My lunch break is over. I have to go.”

And she walked out of the room while her mother continued to look me over.

“Please, Aunt,” I addressed her in the common term of respect, “just tell me if Chun-mei
lives here. I didn’t come to make trouble for her.”

The woman kept silent, her mouth working as if she was making a decision. “Chun-mei used to live here, but not any more,” she said.

My voice cracked. “Do you mean she’s dead? Tell me!” I demanded when I got no answer.

“Come inside,” she said, glancing up and down the path, her voice less harsh, “and sit for a minute. Chun-mei left the village a long time ago, the same year my daughter was born. That’s how I remember.”

Now that the woman had decided to talk, there was no stopping her.

“She and Loyal were a good match, at least that’s what we all thought at the time. But it didn’t last long. Less than three years. It was the first divorce in the village and surely set a bad example. I never heard anything of Chun-mei since. By the way, her family name is Ma.”

Ma Chun-mei. Chinese women don’t change their names when they marry.

Her daughter passed through the room, looped the strap of her purse over her shoulder, climbed on the bike, and pedalled off.

“Now, I’ve been honest with you. Return the favour,” the woman said, leaning her elbows
on the table. “You’re no relative or you’d have known she is a Ma.”

“I am Chun-mei’s daughter, Aunt. I live in Canada. She doesn’t know I’m here. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

She stared into my eyes, as if studying a map. “You can’t—” she began. “How could—?” Her eyes widened and she slapped the tabletop.
“Aiya!
You’re the girl who they said was stillborn! The one supposed to be buried in their vegetable plot! I always knew something wasn’t right.
Aiya!
Power is a strange thing. It comes and it goes. Maybe you’d better think about what you are doing. People here always think twice before they deal with the Chens.”

Who were the Chens, and what did power have to do with it? But I got her last line clear enough. She was giving me the brush-off.

“By the look of you, your family must be rich. Everybody in your country is rich, aren’t they? So let well enough alone. Go home. Chun-mei isn’t here any more. And if Firecracker finds out I’ve talked to you there will be no peace for me or my family. Not to mention Old Chen still has influence.”

“Can’t you at least tell me where Chun-mei has gone, or the name of her former husband?”

“You mean your father. He’s here, all right. But I doubt he’ll tell you anything, not without permission from Firecracker, and he isn’t likely to get that. When Loyal married her, he lost his tongue.” She peered into my face again. “All right, I’ll tell you where the Chens live, but promise you won’t say anything about me.”

So Firecracker was Loyal’s new wife. She sounds like a real scarecrow, I thought as the woman walked me to the door. But who was Old Chen? Keeping to the shadow of her room, she pointed up the road.

“Second row from the front, the last house on the left. Next to the vegetable plot with the bright yellow flowers,” she said. “His name is Chen Zhong, Chen the Loyal. That makes you a Chen, too.”

Her words spun in my head. Was I really so close to my destination? And what was all that babble about a baby buried in a vegetable plot?

My stomach churned as I made my way along the path. A part of me wanted to stop and think, maybe go back and ask the woman more questions so that I could somehow find Chun-mei without confronting new people who certainly didn’t sound like they would welcome
me. I couldn’t have cared less about this Loyal guy, father or no father. It was clear to me that he had never wanted me. His name was not on the piece of paper Mrs. Xia had given to my parents. And Chun-mei returned alone to the orphanage a year later. But at the same time I was curious to see what he looked like.

And, I suddenly realized, I was metres away from the place where I had been born, in a little village, remote, backward, and poor. The people here had gone on with their lives after I had left the scene, totally unaware that a girl unwanted here had grown up in Canada, with a sister and two parents. I decided to screw up my courage and confront the man who had fathered me.

The houses in this part of the village were a little bigger but of similar design—two-storey brick, clay-tiled roofs, metal window frames. They reminded me of the townhouses in Milford. I was hungry and thirsty, but the orange pop and waffles in my backpack remained untouched.

Like all the houses I had passed, the one the woman had directed me to had its door open. This must be a safe neighbourhood, I thought. It was about one o’clock by then, and the whole village seemed to be napping. My heart hammered in my chest.

I reminded myself of Mrs. Xia’s advice. “There is no use being bitter, Dong-mei. What happened to you is long in the past. And remember the elbow only bends one way. A family threatened by an outsider will draw together.”

It was her way of reminding me that, as far as my birth family was concerned, I was someone else, an outsider. Not just a foreigner, but an unwanted child. Standing at the doorway, I hesitated, my courage slipping away from me. Maybe I’ll wait a while until nap time is over, I thought. I wandered aimlessly through the village, past small plots cultivated between the rice paddies and bursting with beans and cabbages, along a canal where ducks floated serenely in the sun. The
zzz-zzz
of cicadas was loud in the heat.

A motorcycle roared into the village and stopped in a cloud of dust outside Loyal’s house. A guy about my age shut off the engine, balancing the bike with splayed legs. He had a strange haircut, long on top, like some Hong Kong actors pictured outside the theatres in Toronto’s Chinatown. Behind him was a young woman, her head and face covered by a colourful scarf, tied at the neck. She wore stylish, snug-fitting jeans and her ribbed shirt was so tight it divided her plump body into rings, like a sausage.

I heard a woman’s voice. “Come on in. You must be hot. Watermelon is ready.” Her voice was rough, with an accent I didn’t recognize.

Quiet returned to the village as the two young people got off the motorcycle and went inside. I walked gingerly past the door, but no one was in sight. And then, whether from the heat, the tension, or confusion, I lost my courage completely. I looked at my watch. In a half-hour, Lao Huang would be at the threshing ground with the bus, waiting for me. I shouldn’t be late, especially if he had a bunch of passengers as grumpy as he had had earlier that day.

I decided to call it quits, at least for that day, and walked to the threshing ground. I sat on a tree stump in the shade and gulped down a bottle of warm pop. An old man walked past with a pole over his shoulder. On each end of the pole was an empty bucket.

“Good day, Miss,” he said. “Hot day, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, Old Comrade,” I replied, standing up.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

“My friend is picking me up.”

“You’re not from around here,” he said. “You speak Common Language. Are you visiting someone?”

“I came to visit the Chen family, but I ran out of time, so I’ll come back tomorrow.”

He pushed his straw hat back, revealing a shaved, deeply tanned head. “The Chens,” he murmured.

“Yes.” I tried the subtle approach. “I haven’t met Firecracker, though.”

He laughed. “Never call her that to her face, young miss. If you do, she’ll show you how she got her name!”

When I stepped down from the bus the next morning, Liuhe Village seemed a different place. There were people about, unlike the day before, and as I headed nervously to the Chen house a small crowd followed me, women and men, a few kids, a number of seniors, all yakking away in the local dialect, pointing to my backpack, my clothing, my hair.

The motorcycle guy, as I had come to think of him, was standing in front of the house. He ducked inside when he saw me approach. I stopped at the doorway and looked in. Lying on a chaise longue made of bamboo in the centre of the room was a middle-aged woman. The motorcycle guy slouched beside her, giving me a cold smile. One of his front teeth was missing
and the corner was chipped off another. Under thick brows, his narrow eyes were far apart.

He came towards me, putting out his right hand. “I am Ah-miao.”

His name meant seed. I shook hands with him. The woman sat straight up on the edge of her chair, her eyes locked onto mine, her bare feet slipping into a pair of sandals.

“My name is Dong—”

“I know who you are,” she cut me off, jumping to her feet. She had a broad face, with high cheekbones and full lips that would have combined to give her a playful look if her face was not clouded with anger. Her shoulder-length hair was tightly curled, and bounced when she moved. I heard the crowd behind me shuffle back from the door. The woman stopped inches from where I stood and said loudly, “I also know that you have been snooping around behind our backs.” Spit flew from her mouth, narrowly missing me.

I took a breath, holding back my anger, willing myself to speak slowly to avoid misunderstanding. “I am not snooping around. My name is Dong-mei and I came here to look for my mother. Her name is Chun-mei. If you know anything about her, I’d appreciate your
help. If not, maybe there’s someone else here who is willing to give me some information.”

The woman’s hostility wasn’t nearly as much of a shock as the realization that, for the first time in my life, I had called Chun-mei my mother.

Two men had appeared at the doorway that led to the back of the house. One, whom I could see clearly, was short and broad-shouldered, wearing a T-shirt that may have been white once but wasn’t any more. He stared at me, his eyes wide. Beside him, half hidden, was a taller, older man. He held one hand to his face. The skin on the back of his hand was wrinkled and deeply tanned. He quickly ducked out of sight.

Whether the shorter man wanted to say something I didn’t know, but he didn’t get the chance because the woman whirled around and lit into him. This must be Firecracker, I thought as soon as she began to shriek.

“You useless turtle’s egg! Didn’t you tell me your daughter was dead? Come on!” she barked, pointing at me. “Take a good look! Maybe she’s a ghost come to collect you and that stupid old man hiding behind you!”

So the guy in the dirty T-shirt was my birth father. Our eyes met for a second before he looked away, shaking his head. Ah-miao had sat
back down. His eyes shifted between Loyal and me. He smirked, as if enjoying the show.

“And you!” Firecracker shouted when the old man showed himself again, looking straight at me. His face was a map of wrinkles. He had on a black shirt without a collar, and baggy pants. Although his shoulders were stooped, he was one of the tallest men I had seen since coming to China. His goatee was pure white. “Stupid donkey!” Firecracker raged. “Here’s your dead granddaughter, here to summon you to hell. What are you afraid of, you self-appointed hotshot?”

The old man stared at me, ignoring the woman’s tirade, then turned and vanished once again.

I realized the old man must be my grandfather; Firecracker I knew was Loyal’s second wife. Did that make the smirking motorcycle guy my half-brother? One big happy family.

I had once asked Frank in our class how to swear in Chinese. He had refused to tell us. After we pushed him harder he sheepishly said that the worst thing you could say was to insult your opponent’s mother. Firecracker had mastered her cursing well, and even though she used quite a few local terms, I had little trouble following her.

“You wanted to see a big show for free,” Firecracker screeched at the villagers, whose number was increasing by the minute. “Then piss on all of you! And piss on your mothers!” Her arms flailed, her spit flew, her feet stamped on the cement floor in rhythm with her shouting. But she didn’t notice Loyal coming up behind her. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder, spun her around, and slapped her across the face so hard her head snapped back.