Dreams of Joy (Shanghai Girls 2)

As the sun rises, we see two trucks on a roadway in the distance. When they stop, we crouch low so we can’t be seen. Then I hear my father’s voice calling, “It’s us. It’s time.” He’s brought with him a man—Hop-li, a cousin. We’re given food to eat. My father hands Joy some liquid to pour into Sam’s bottle to help her sleep.

“You don’t look right,” Hop-li says to Z.G. “You look funny.”

And he does, with his too short pants, his white ankles showing above his sandals, his soft, pale hands, his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Here, let me fix you.” Hop-li picks up some dirt and rubs it into the parts of Z.G.’s skin that show—his face, neck, hands, ankles, and feet. Hop-li stands back to survey his work—an artist working on an artist. He shakes his head, steps forward again, takes off Z.G.’s glasses, and tosses them into the field. Then he rubs dirt around Z.G.’s eyes. Yesterday I thought Z.G. looked like a bald goat. Now he looks like a blind and bald goat.

“Much better!” Hop-li exclaims.

“But I can’t see,” Z.G. complains.

“But you look a lot more like my brother,” Hop-li says.

“In our commune, only men drive trucks,” my father explains. “Your two cousins go everywhere together. The younger cousin—”

“Comes with me on every run, and the border guards are used to him. They think he’s jittery because his eyesight is so terrible. Now his nervousness can be a disguise for you.”

The cousin gives Z.G. an identity card. When I see it, I understand why the cousin was so particular in getting Z.G. ready. It’s not a particularly good physical match, but then I remember Sam’s papers to get into America. He didn’t look much like the boy in that photo either. The American inspectors didn’t catch the discrepancy until many years later, when the photo was used as part of the proof of Sam’s illegal paper-son status.

“What about us?” I ask.

“You’ll ride in the back of the truck. We’ll hide you when we get close to the border.”

“Will it work?”

My father blinks. “Maybe. I hope so.”

We cross the field to the trucks. Both have open beds with wood slats on the sides. The bed of one is filled with pigs wrapped in straw matting and separate baskets of piglets. The other is piled with barrels, jars, and bulging burlap sacks. We climb into the back of the second truck. My father and Hop-li drive. I worry about Ta-ming’s stomach, but he seems all right, staring out through the slats as the countryside rolls by. Soon, we turn onto a paved road. The sun stays to our left as we head south. I wish Dun were with us, and I pray that he’s all right. Fear and sorrow have me in a merciless grip. I take Joy’s hand and we hang on to each other.

The closer we get to the border, the more traffic there is—wheelbarrows; pushcarts; donkey-, mule-, and water buffalo–pulled wagons; bicycles piled high with merchandise; trucks of every size; and people with baskets of produce strapped to their backs, slung over their shoulders on poles, or balanced on their heads. Our two trucks turn off the main road, head down an alley, and stop.

My father comes to the back, and we all jump down to the ground. The men pull one of the barrels off the back of the truck. My dad pries open the top. It’s filled with dried sea horses. He scoops out the top layer to reveal a hidden compartment, and then he leans down to Ta-ming. “You need to get in the barrel and you need to stay very quiet.”

Ta-ming looks up at me and begins to shake. He doesn’t have his violin for comfort as he did when he had to hide in the trunk of Z.G.’s car. But that’s not our only problem. Samantha is to be put in a basket with some piglets and driven across the border in the pig truck.

Joy shakes her head. “I’m not putting my baby in a basket with a bunch of baby pigs.”

“You’ll have to if you want her to get across,” my father says, as obdurate as my daughter.

“Then we’ll stay,” Joy snaps back.

I put a hand on her arm. “As mothers, we sometimes have to do things that are really hard, really against our natures,” I tell her.

“I won’t put my baby in there,” Joy repeats.

“The guards at the checkpoint don’t like to inspect live animals, because they’re smelly and dirty. And, if the baby starts to cry, they’ll be less likely to hear her if she’s with the pigs,” my father says, trying to be helpful, but these are about the worst things he could have said.

Once before I heard Joy and Z.G. talk in a way I didn’t understand. I turn to him now, needing his help.

“Joy, do you remember a few days ago when we were in the studio and we talked about the differences between love for a country, the love you feel for a lover, and all-encompassing love?” he asks.

Joy nods, but she’s so damn stubborn I don’t think she’s really listening to him.

“But what about the love you feel for yourself and for your child?” he asks. “Don’t you owe it to her to see her to a happy future?”

We watch Joy’s face as she considers this. She’s just where I was yesterday in the taxi. I didn’t want to leave Dun, but I had to.

“Can I at least be in the truck with her?” she asks at last.