Dreams of Joy (Shanghai Girls 2)

“What are you saying?” I ask.

In the chaos around us, Chinese faces move closer.

“Where is the traitor?” another voice calls.

Suddenly, Dun shoves me into Z.G.’s arms.

“Go now!” Dun implores urgently. I look up into Z.G.’s face and watch his reaction as I hear my husband, who’s behind me, call out, “I’m right here. I’m the artist.”

As Z.G. pulls me from the room, I look back to see people close in around Dun, enveloping and trapping him. I can’t possibly leave him. I fight Z.G. as hard as I can, but he drags me out the door and into the center’s lobby. Joy, holding the baby and looking terrified, is there already. Ta-ming is at her side, white faced.

“Come on!” Z.G. says.

Again, I try to yank my arm loose. “I’m not going!”

Z.G. looks at Joy. She nods and grabs my other arm. Together they pull me through the lobby, out the door, and into a Russian-made car converted to

a taxi for foreigners at the fair.

“Drive!” Z.G. demands in Mandarin.

The driver stares at us in his rearview mirror. He doesn’t seem to understand what Z.G. said, plus he has three out-of-breath adults, a baby, and a frightened little boy in his backseat.

Joy, who grew up speaking Cantonese, says, “Take us to the train station.” The car pulls away from the curb and drifts into bicycle traffic, then Joy turns to me. “Mom, we have to keep going,” she says, switching to Mandarin so the driver won’t understand. “If we don’t go now, we’ll never get out.”

“What about Dun?” I ask.

“We can’t go back,” Joy answers. “You know that. He saved us. Don’t you understand?”

“They won’t do anything to him,” Z.G. promises.

“Your promise means nothing, if we leave,” I say. “You know that!”

“They’ve probably already discovered he’s not me,” Z.G. counters. “That means they’re already looking for us. The authorities will want me, and Tao will want Samantha.”

“Tao doesn’t want the baby,” Joy says. “She’s a girl. Tao doesn’t even like her. He calls her Ah Fu.”

“He’s her father, of course he wants her,” Z.G. responds.

“Nothing is more precious than when you might lose it,” I add.

I bend over and bury my face in my hands. The others will do as I say, leaving me with a horrible choice. My husband, or my daughter, granddaughter, and the little boy I’ve just adopted? Dun said I have to save the children, and I do. I push my emotions down into a little ball, and then I sit back up.

“Dun has our papers,” I remind the others. “We can’t leave by train now.”

In all the excitement, apparently Joy forgot this, and now her body deflates. “What will we do?” she asks, panicked.

I put a hand on her arm to calm her as I speak to the driver. “Please take us to Wah Hong Village.”

He gives me a contemptuous look in the rearview mirror: don’t you know what you want? I give him the directions I remember from my visit three years ago. The driver nods, makes a U-turn, and continues down the crowded roadway.

“I told Tao that Wah Hong was Grandfather Louie’s home village,” Joy says nervously in Mandarin. “That’s the first place the authorities will look for us.”

“Yes, it is,” I agree. “But it will take them a while to get that information. Tao doesn’t speak Cantonese, after all. So yes, the police will go to Wah Hong, but we’ll be gone by then.”

“What are we—”

“We’re going to stop in Wah Hong for a few minutes, so we can get some provisions and leave a false trail,” I explain before she can complete her question. “After that, there’s only one place to go—Yin Bo, my natal family’s home village. Hopefully someone there will be able to help us. Superintendent Wu knows the name of my home village, because I’ve told it to him every month for years now, but it will take the authorities a while to track down that information. We’ll be out of the country by then,” I finish, trying to sound confident.