Old Town (25 page)

The three children were scared out of their wits by their mother’s grief. It was quick-thinking Baosheng who saw the letters in his mother’s hand. He went up and very carefully and gently took them from her. He saw a line of writing: “Is Baosheng still naughty?”

This was Daddy’s letter!
He raised the letter in front of Pastor Chen and his wife, saying, “Here’s a letter from Daddy!”

Mrs. Chen helped Second Sister get up and, seating her comfortably, began combing her hair. She didn’t stop her from crying. “Go ahead and cry, Mrs. Lin. In the bosom of God draw from painful experience and give free vent to your tears. You are an unusual woman. You have ‘supported the old and led the young by the hand’ and endured irredeemable disasters one after the other. O Lord, thank you for leading her through the valley of the shadow of death. Let her rest by the grassy banks of the stream. Let her husband safely return so that united, husband and wife will never be separated.”

A few days later, that same postman, for whom Second Sister had once so eagerly waited, appeared, his whole body dripping sweat. He had heard here and there that Mrs. Lin was living at the church and now he placed in her hand a letter from Dr. Lin, postmarked “Shanghai.”

1.

T
O ENTER INTO
my grandmother’s stories is to leap across space and time. All those long-ago events come gushing out, just as if they were my yesterday. On the other hand, the reality of today, the age I live in, then becomes something fuzzy and chaotic.

It’s only after a long string of words comes from Beibei on the telephone that I come back to my own space and time.

“Ma, where are you now? How come I hear train sounds?”

“Uh, you’re right—I’m on the train.”

“On the train going where?”

“Back to the old home in Old Town.”

“Where’ve you got the time to take a train to Old Town?”

Beibei doesn’t wait for my answer, but immediately moves on to other things. She doesn’t care about Old Town. She had lived there only for a while when she was quite small. Later on, at home in Beijing, when she answered telephone calls from Old Town, she’d report these to me in the voice of a complete outsider. “Your uncle called. Someone from your old place is trying to get in touch with you.”

Your
this…
your
that. None of it has anything to do with her. At that time, she considered herself nothing less than a real Beijinger, and though to this day she can speak fluent, American-style English, being a Beijinger is what she’s proud of.

Her father is also “
your
”…“
your
former husband.” I’ve corrected her by saying that he and I have not divorced. Her little mouth is a curl of disdain as she says, “
Hai
! So how’s it any different from being divorced?” I congratulate myself at having made the big and wise decision early on to raise Beibei by myself when I got back from America; otherwise, for her I would have only been “the woman who gave birth to me.”

I took over raising Beibei when she was four years old, the year that I returned to Old Town. She didn’t recognize me. She just hugged the legs of my cousin’s wife and wouldn’t pay any attention to me. My cousin’s wife said to her, “This is your mama. Your mama has come to take you back with her.” Beibei suddenly turned and climbed up on the bench and from the counter took out a framed picture. “My mama’s in here.” There was a heartrending black humor in this adorable, childlike logic.

These past two years her perception about her father has deepened. I’ve noticed the change in how she refers to him. She now calls him “The Artist,” rather than “The Bum.”

“School vacation starts in two days and The Artist said he would drive me to the Grand Canyon. Also, two young overseas students will be going along with us.”

I haven’t told Beibei about my predicament. Business hasn’t been profitable and I can’t pay for her study at the private high school anymore. She loves that school so much that even on the weekends she can’t bear to change out of her uniform. It is like the mark of aristocracy and she walks along the main road wearing it, her chest swelling with pride and proudly accepting the admiring glances that come her way. I really can’t find it in me to disappoint my daughter and I think of discussing this with The Artist, but I know what he’ll say. From the very beginning, Chaofan didn’t at all go along with the idea of Beibei attending a private school. He wasn’t happy with a lot of other things about Beibei, not just that. There had been ten years of separation between father and daughter before the two of them managed to reunite. He’s a stranger to Beibei and Beibei is a stranger to him. They probably can never bridge the vast gulf between them.

Let Beibei discuss tuition with her father. Perhaps this will produce results. Just as I am on the verge of saying, “Beibei…” I change my mind. It would be better to hold back on the bad news. Wait until the last day and then tell her.

Beibei seems to sense something. “Ma, it sounds like something’s bothering you. What’s up? Has someone in your family in Old Town gotten ill?”

I hesitate for a moment, then decide to reveal a bit of the news to her. “Beibei, your ma has had some problems at work.”

“Anything serious?” Beibei’s raised voice betrays her disquiet.

“Yes, maybe something serious.”

“So, just how serious?”

Visualizing my daughter’s anxious expression, my heart melts. “Don’t get too worried. At the most, I won’t be the boss.”

“Do you mean that your company…has gone bankrupt?”

“Just about bankrupt. But there’s still some hope. It’s not that there’s no hope at all.”

“Hmmm…” Beibei pauses for a second. “I’ve got a classmate whose father did something at the bank and two weeks ago got arrested. She managed to get through this semester, but doesn’t know what she’ll do for the next one. She’s really pathetic. Ma, you haven’t done anything illegal, right?”

“No. Our operations are very normal. Don’t even think such silly things.”

“That’s good.”

As always, before hanging up we exchange our usual icky words: “I love you.” “I miss you.” “Here’s a hug and a kiss.” Putting away the phone, I lean against the connecting corridor between the passenger cars, basking in great happiness and feeling deeply touched.
My daughter is sixteen years old. She’s getting big now and understands the way things are. She knows about loving her mama.
I’ve always complained to the high heavens while bringing her up. Only now, though, do I know that being a mother doesn’t just mean paying out. I see that all that laborious plowing and cultivating produces a rich harvest. In the midst of these reflections, the phone rings again.

“Ma, how come I feel uneasy? Are you very sure there’s nothing wrong?”

“Dearest daughter, you really are thinking about this too much. Ma’s OK. If you don’t believe me, call and ask Auntie Chrysanthemum. It’s just that the company’s finances have met with some difficulties. It’s not the end of the world. At the worst, I’ll have to go back to work. Right now, in fact, I am helping someone with a job.”

“Ma, if there are problems, next semester I’ll transfer to public school. I can still get The Artist to give me a bigger allowance.”

Surprised, I’m a little choked up. “Beibei, you love your school so much, and Ma is still making a big effort. I wouldn’t lightly make you give up your…”

“It’s no big deal. Haven’t I been studying here for two years now? I know all about the top schools. It’s been enough.”

I’m sure that she is shrugging her shoulders and crinkling her nose at the other end of the phone, the way she acts when showing total disinterest.

“Dearest daughter, no matter what, Mama is grateful for your understanding.”

Does Beibei feel depressed by all this? Would she still be able to have a good time during this vacation?

While I am trying to figure out whether Beibei might become depressed, I myself am extremely depressed. My thoughts wander and I question the reality of the whole situation. Not so long ago, the company’s splendid prospects had dizzied me and that light-headed, walking-on-air giddiness still hasn’t left me. Several big-name brands signed letters of intent with us and we might have earned fantastic profits. Just how we could have spent all the money by the year’s end is something that’s kept Chrysanthemum and me awake nights on end. We had plenty of opportunities to prevent the crisis. If we had just exercised the slightest caution about that man, if I myself had asked how our customers were doing…if, if, if…

I realize that I have gotten myself into a dead-end alley. Since my proverbial rout from the city of Mai,
³²
I frequently get trapped in this kind of no-win situation.

So, think about Grandma’s stories again. Think about her, that woman, the mainstay of the whole family, standing in the ruins of the Lin mansion, with everyone gathered around her. Now
that
really was a time when the sky collapsed and the earth caved in.

Maybe I’ve become like the man of Qi who feared the sky would fall. Beibei learned in her sixth-grade textbook this saying: “The man of Qi worried about the sky.” From that time on, “The man of Qi worried about the sky” became her fall-back line. Whenever I grew anxious about her schoolwork or her behavior, she would just give a merry laugh and say, “Ma, there you go again, the man of Qi worrying about the sky.” Beibei grew up under my very eyes, but many are the times I’ve realized I don’t understand her. I wouldn’t admit that I was getting older, but the generation gap between us was plain to see. When she was very small, she had this kind of disinterested temperament. She never allowed herself to show she felt embarrassed. Whenever she got into some awkward situation, she’d always find some consolation. Once, when she only got 70 percent in mathematics I asked her why. She laughed in a self-mocking way. “The teacher gave me only 70, but I wasn’t the worst. There were a whole lot of people who did worse than me.” When I was young, once even I slipped up and, quite coincidentally, also got a 70. I was so ashamed. I slunk off to bury myself in my quilt and dampened the pillow with my tears. For a long time afterward, I never dared raise my head and look anyone in the eye.

My young staff members were like Beibei too: they didn’t care about anything. They never tried to connect with the boss in any personal way. All they cared about was their pay. If I wasn’t prompt in awarding a salary increase to good performers, they might vanish from the office at any time. They are a generation of wide-awake pragmatists and, I admit, more than a match for me.

The image of Beibei smiling disdainfully appears in my mind. The relaxed sound of her voice lingers in my ears. “Hey, Mama, aren’t I doing all right?”

I laugh with relief just as the conductor patrolling the coaches passes by. He’s surprised but grins courteously at me.