Dreams of Joy (Shanghai Girls 2)

“How much do you want?”

We negotiate until we reach a fair price—balancing the hazards against the value of American dollars—which May will send to him each month. Then it’s back to Canton. I’m driven to the docks, where I find a ship to take me to Shanghai, which will be faster than taking a train and cheaper than flying. I tell myself I’ve bought Louie Yun’s loyalty, but I have no way of knowing.

FOUR MORNINGS LATER, I’m on the deck watching Shanghai come into view. A week ago, I stepped off a plane in Hong Kong and was enveloped by odors I hadn’t smelled in that particular combination in years. Now, as I wait to disembark, I breathe in the scents of home—the oil- and sewage-infused water, rice being cooked on a passing sampan, rotting fish moldering on the dock, vegetables grown upriver wilting in the heat and humidity. But what I see ahead of me looks like a badly rendered drawing of Shanghai. The buildings along the Bund—the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the Shanghai Club, the Cathay Hotel, and the Custom House—look gray, neglected, and shabby. It doesn’t help that nets hang like trampolines from the façades. I don’t expect to see coolies. Isn’t this supposed to be the New China? But here they are on the wharf: barely dressed, scurrying back and forth, heavy loads on their backs.

This initial impression doesn’t dampen my mood. I’m home! I can’t wait to get off the boat and onto the streets. For a moment, I wish May were here with me. How many times have we sat together, talking about this or that café or shop, always wanting things to be as they were in our beautiful-girl days?

I, along with the other passengers, am herded into a processing shed. I hand my Certificate of Identity to an inspector, who looks it and then me over. I wear a cotton skirt and a pink blouse, because I can’t imagine entering Shanghai looking like a country bumpkin. Still, I definitely look different from everyone else. This seems to single me out for extra attention. One inspector searches my luggage, while another questions me about my reasons for returning to China, if I’m committed to giving up my capitalist ways, and if I’m here to serve the people. This is short compared with the border stop. Maybe they hear my Wu dialect and recognize me as the Shanghainese I am. Once their interrogation is finished—and I’ve lied repeatedly—one of the men pulls out a camera.

“We like to take photos of returning patriots,” he says, motioning to the framed pictures on the wall.

I hurry to the wall and search the photos, hoping to find my daughter. There she is! My daughter’s alive and she’s here! In the photograph, she stands in the middle of a group of men wearing green uniforms and green hats with red stars. A lovely smile lights her face. I ask the men about her. They remember her. How could they not? It’s not as though pretty young girls from America pass through their building every day.

“Where did she go?” I ask.

“Her father is a cultural worker,” an inspector offers helpfully. “We sent her to the Artists’ Association to find him.”

I smile for the camera. It isn’t hard. I’m happy. Joy found Z.G., which means I ought to be able to find the two of them very quickly. This is going to be much less complicated than I thought.

I pay a nominal fee to leave my bags in the shed and then hurry across the Bund and rush along the boulevards, paying no attention to the sights around me. In the Artists’ Association lobby, I approach a woman sitting behind a desk.

“Can you tell me how to find Li Zhi-ge?”

“He’s not here!” she snaps.

Bureaucrats are the same all over the world.

“Can you tell me where he lives?” I ask.

She eyes my suspiciously. “What do you want with him? You should not try to see Li Zhi-ge. This man has a black mark against him.”

That’s alarming. It seems like the inspector would have mentioned this.

“What did he do?”

“Who are you?” Her voice rises. “What do you want with him?”

“It’s personal business.”

“There’s nothing personal in China. Who are you?” she asks again. “Are you a troublemaker too?”

A troublemaker? What has Z.G. done? And please, God, tell me he hasn’t dragged my daughter into it.

“Have you see

n a girl—”

“If you keep asking questions, I’m going to call the police,” she warns.

For a moment, I’d thought this was going to be easy, but nothing in life is easy, not one single thing. And I’m not myself. This is my hometown, but I feel clumsy and inadequate in the new Shanghai. Still, I have to try one more time.

“Have you seen a girl? She’s my daughter—”

The woman slaps her palm flat on her desk and glares at me. Then she picks up the phone and dials.

“Never mind,” I say, slowly backing away. “I’ll come back another time.”

I walk out the door, down the steps, and keep going for another two blocks before I stop. I sweat from the heat, humidity, and terror. I lean against a wall, fold my arms over my stomach, and take several deep breaths, trying to bring my fear under control. Despite the effortlessness of my disembarkation, I need to remember the problems I had at the border. I must be careful. I can’t end my search before it’s even begun.