I’m going to be a yen-yen. That means you’re going to be a yen-yen too. Tomorrow I’ll go to the shops to see what’s available for me to send Joy in preparation. I’ll try to buy some powdered baby milk like the kind we gave Joy when she was born, and maybe you can send some to her directly too, as well as a baby thermometer, diaper pins, and bottles.
Will May realize what I’m saying? Even after Joy married, a part of me believed she would eventually see the light and want to go home. Now, she’ll never leave, which means I can never leave either. My daughter is here. My grandchild will be born here in the fall. The people in this house will be my companions from now on. For the first time, the prospect of remaining in China for the rest of my life doesn’t seem so bad.
I fold the letter and put
it in an envelope. I clear my throat, and the boarders look up. “My daughter’s going to have a baby. I’m going to be a grandmother.”
I let their good wishes and congratulations wash over me. I’m very happy.
THE NEXT DAY, I go to the police station. After a long wait, I’m shown into Superintendent Wu’s office. “This is not the day for your regular appointment,” he says when he sees me.
“I know, but I’m hoping you can help me. I’d like to visit my daughter.”
He rocks back in his chair. “Ah, yes, the daughter you neglected to tell me about when you first arrived in Shanghai.”
“I’ve told you before that I’m sorry about that, but I didn’t know where she was, so there was nothing for me to report.”
“And now you want to see her. Unfortunately for you, the government isn’t issuing travel permits to the countryside right now.”
“What if I go to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission? You’ve told me before that as a returning Overseas Chinese I’m allowed to travel wherever I want as long as I asked you first.”
He throws up his hands. “Things change.”
“My daughter is going to have a baby—”
“Congratulations. I hope you get a grandson.”
I’ve known this man for some time now. He’s been promoted from superintendent third class to superintendent second class. He’s warmed up a bit since we first met, but he’s still a stickler for the rules. He’ll never accept a bribe and he’ll make sure I’m punished if I offer one. So when I ask my question, he knows I’m looking for a practical answer.
“What will I need to do to get a travel permit?”
“Go to your block committee. If they give you a written endorsement, I might be able to help you. But, comrade, hear what I’m saying. Might.”
Despite his caution, I leave the police station feeling optimistic. Cook is the director of our home and is very powerful on the block committee. He’ll make sure I get a positive recommendation.
Except it doesn’t turn out that way. The two former dancing girls accuse me of being a secret capitalist. “She keeps vestiges of her decadent past in her room,” one of them tells our neighbors. “She brings home posters of herself and her sister from former times.”
“Even little pieces—an eye or a finger,” adds her roommate.
This is startling news, because it means they’ve been in my room when I’m not there. What else have they found?
“She wears clothes from before Liberation.” This comes from the cobbler. “She puts them on to teach one of our boarders English!”
“And she hides food,” the widow chimes in. “She only shares with us when it suits her.”
In my mind, I haven’t done anything wrong. After all, I strip posters off walls as part of my job, I wear my old clothes so I won’t be wasteful, I teach Dun because he asked me to, and I share food to be a good comrade. I’ve heard of others who fight back when they’re criticized, believing they’re innocent or morally, ethically, or politically right, and I want to fight back, but that won’t help me get a travel permit to visit my daughter.
Following the slogan “Leniency to those who confess,” I rush to make full disclosure: “I lived in an imperialist country, I’m too accustomed to weak Western ways, and my family was bad.” They seem fairly satisfied with that, but I’m sure I’ll be accused again. As worried as I am about Joy, I’m thankful she’s in the countryside, where she’s liked for who she is and not under suspicion for where she came from.
Of course, all this is reported to Superintendent Wu. “You have no hope of getting a travel permit right now,” he tells me when I see him. “Just wait. Behave. And maybe you’ll be able to get one in time for your grandchild’s birth.”
I’m horribly upset, but what can I do?
I WAS FOOLISH to keep the scraps of May and me I’d stripped off walls in the box under my bed, and I need to get rid of them in a way that won’t draw more attention to me. I used to knit and sew for Joy when she was a girl, and now I’ve hit on a project—making homemade shoes for her and her family—that will also prove to the boarders who complained about me that I was actually being a good and frugal socialist in gathering this particular paper and that I am arm in arm with our comrades in the communes. I have two friends in the house, and I decide to ask for their help. The following Sunday, I first approach Dun. I’ve come to rely on him for many things, and he is, as always, happy to see me at his door.
“We have a good time together, you and I,” I begin. “You’ve shown me all the places I can go for tastes of the past.”
And truly he has: to the last White Russian café in the city to serve borscht, to a little place to buy cream so I can make butter, to a flea market to buy bread pans so I can make my own bread for toast.