OCTOBER 1—NATIONAL DAY—finally arrives. It’s a golden autumn day, and I try to imagine what my daughter looks like in her eighth month of pregnancy. I imagine the commune commemorating the occasion with firecrackers, a big banquet, and the speeches in Peking broadcast over the loudspeakers. And then I tuck those images into my heart and get ready for the celebration here. Months ago, Z.G. invited me to go with him to Peking to see the festivities. He said we’d have a place with Mao on the dais to watch the parade and hear the speeches outside the Forbidden City. I admit it would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but I stay in Shanghai to be closer to Joy in case I’m suddenly awarded a travel permit. I’ll celebrate with Dun, the other boarders, and Auntie Hu.
Our entire household dresses in matching red shirts and blouses, and then we head into the streets. We wave little red flags as the parade passes us. We see seas of children in white shirts, blue pants or skirts, and red bandannas tied around their necks. Brigades of the People’s Red Army march in brisk formation. The entire membership of one commune after another proceeds along the route, fists raised or waving red flags. Floats highlighting the country’s economic and military achievements move with a dig
nified air. For everything that’s bad here, for every moment I miss my home in Los Angeles, there are times like this when I feel great pride for what China has accomplished in ten years.
Dun and I leave before the local speeches begin and meet Auntie Hu at her house, since she can’t be on crowded streets on her bound feet. We sit in her salon, and she serves us rose-petal cake.
“Auntie Hu, you always have the best pastry,” I say after taking a bite. “How do you get something like this with the shortages?”
Auntie Hu’s eyes crinkle with pleasure. “I’m always trying to find the good old days in these bad new days. Come, lean close, and I’ll tell you.” I do as I’m told, and Madame Hu whispers, “Do you remember the Russian bakery on the Avenue Joffre, where your mother always bought your birthday cakes? One of the Chinese helpers now uses those recipes to make cakes in his apartment. He sells them only to the best people, those who can keep a secret. Shall we get one for Dun’s birthday? Do you know when it is?”
She relaxes back into her chair and stares affectionately at Dun, who sits on one of the salon’s velvet sofas, reading a book and feigning indifference to the big secret. Dun started accompanying me to Auntie Hu’s a few weeks ago after I told him about her collection of books in English. Auntie Hu took an instant liking to Dun, treating him like the son she lost years ago. The way she’s embraced Dun has made me surprisingly happy, as though I’m receiving approval from my own mother.
“Do you like chocolate cake or do you prefer vanilla?” she innocently asks Dun. “Or do you prefer more exotic cakes—grapefruit, butter cream, or rum?”
“I never tasted cake until I came here, Madame Hu,” Dun answers. “Even a single bite is a treat for me.”
These days a bite of anything made with sugar, eggs, milk, and flour is something beyond a “treat.”
“I wonder if we could send one of these cakes to Joy,” Auntie Hu says. “Wouldn’t a pregnant woman love a rose-petal cake?”
“I’m sure she’d love it,” I say, but do I tell her how worried I am about Joy?
“Pearl-ah, I know you too well,” Auntie Hu observes. “Don’t keep things from me. Is something wrong with Joy?”
“Everything’s fine,” I answer brightly, trying to hide my concern. “May wrote to me just the other day to say that Joy has been writing to her and asking for the strangest things.”
“May writes to Joy?”
“Of course, all the time. And Joy answers.” And the knowledge of this is painful (why is Joy writing to May instead of to me?) and reassuring (Joy really must be all right). “Joy has asked her auntie to send Oreos, Hershey’s milk chocolate almond bars, and Bit-O-Honey. Do you know those sweets?” Auntie Hu remembers Hershey’s from the old days but not the others. “Well, this—more than anything—tells me Joy is pregnant and happy.” I’m practically quoting May’s last letter, in which she wrote, “Oh, the cravings we women have!” “May also sent a layette she bought at Bullock’s Wilshire. That’s one of the finest stores in Los Angeles,” I explain. “My grandchild will be the most stylish baby in the commune!”
Dun and Auntie Hu laugh with me. What is a peasant baby going to do with a sleeping gown, booties, cap, and receiving blanket?
“May.” Auntie Hu lets out her breath in a tolerant sigh. “She always liked to shop. What else? Tell me more.”
“May’s been taking care of my café,” I answer, happy to shift the conversation away from Joy. “She just got a beer and wine license. She says we have more customers now.”
“That’s good. You’ll go home to a successful business.”
“I’ve told you before I’m not leaving China. My life is here now, with my daughter and her baby.”
Auntie Hu frowns, and I rush on. “But May’s biggest news has to do with her own business. She’s still renting props and costumes to movie productions, but television shows are now coming to her too. You’ll never guess what happened. They want Chinese faces in their shows too! May got a job, playing a housekeeper on a doctor show. If only they knew what a bad housekeeper she is in real life!”
We all chuckle. Then Auntie Hu gets up to turn on the radio so we can listen to the speeches being broadcast from the capital. “The Chinese have changed from slaves living in a hell on earth into fearless masters of their fates,” Premier Chou En-lai tells the country. “The imperialists ridicule our Great Leap Forward as a big leap backward. But let me tell you this: The European imperialists tried to carve us up. The Japanese aggressors wanted to devour us. Now the United States is trying to isolate and exclude us from international affairs. That policy is more of a failure with every passing day. We have full diplomatic relations with thirty-three countries, economic relations with ninety-three countries, and cultural contacts and exchanges with one hundred and four countries. How is all this swift, flying progress to be explained?”
Auntie Hu doesn’t care to hear the answer and gets right back up to turn off the radio, saying, “I’d much rather have Dun read to us.”
We spend the rest of the afternoon drinking tea, chatting, and listening as Dun reads to us from Wuthering Heights—Auntie Hu’s favorite. It’s so peaceful here, and it makes me happy that Dun and I can share this time together without Cook or the other boarders watching and listening to us.
Later, even though Auntie Hu has servants, I take our tray of cups and saucers to the kitchen. Auntie Hu follows, swaying on her tiny feet. She shoos her servants out of the kitchen and then she turns to me, her gentle features filled with concern. “How worried are you about Joy?”
“Very worried. I don’t understand why I haven’t received a letter from her. Even one in which the censors crossed out every word would be better than nothing.”
“You went through this silence before when you were waiting for Joy to return to Shanghai with Z.G.,” she tries to reassure me.
“That was different. She didn’t know I was in China.”
When Auntie Hu nods sympathetically, I ask her the question that’s been gnawing at me lately. “Do you think Joy suddenly prefers May—who gave birth to her—over me now that she’s approaching birth herself? Is that why Joy isn’t writing to me?”