Beautiful as Yesterday Page 34

  “But if you don’t like your job, why don’t you change?”

  “What’s the difference between this job and that job? I’m not like you. You still have a dream. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, I dreamed of becoming someone like Madame Curie, but now my focus is my family.”

  “Sister, I hope you don’t mind me asking. But do you get along well with Bob? I mean…really.”

  Mary puts the oven racks in the sink and runs water to wash off the dust and soot. “Love is like a plant. You must take care of it, remember to water and fertilize it regularly. I used to complain about him spending little time with the family. The truth is that I didn’t spend time with him, either, to listen to him, to understand him better. I just ignored him, pretending everything was all right. There is one thing I didn’t tell you before. I went to see Han Dong. Remember him? My first boyfriend. You even told me that he was very handsome. He was in Berkeley for business training.”

  Ingrid nods and stares straight into Mary’s eyes.

  “You look like you don’t believe me. In your mind, your sister must have been an old-fashioned, boring, and dull woman.”

  That’s what Ingrid thinks, but she denies it so as not to hurt Mary’s feelings. The effort makes her blush. “No, not at all. I just didn’t know Han Dong was in Berkeley. Did you tell Bob? Did he forgive you?”

  Mary shakes her head. “You thought I slept with Han Dong? No, I didn’t. But maybe I’m just fooling myself. What we did wasn’t much different from having sex. Sharing intimacy starts in the mind. The body follows. We came close, very close. My thoughts were a betrayal. I can’t deny it, even if it wasn’t—how should I say it?—consummated. I didn’t dare tell Bob. I didn’t even tell Mingyi, afraid that she’d think I was a bad woman, an unqualified Christian.”

  “Mingyi isn’t like that. She’d help you.”

  “Yeah, I know, but still…You know what? She seemed to have sensed my problem. She asked me a few times if I was all right and if Bob was all right. Well, I just didn’t know how to start. I guess I was afraid of losing her as a friend. And I haven’t decided if I should confess to Pastor Zhang or not after I go back to the U.S. Nothing is worse for a Christian than not to confess her sins and ask God for forgiveness. God knows what I have done, and it’s up to Him if He will punish me or forgive me. I don’t know.” Mary walks over to the window and rests her hands on the sill. She breathes deeply. “Bob and I have been working on our marriage. I do love him. Maybe that’s why it’s so difficult to face him and Alex.”

  Ingrid walks over and stands beside her sister. “You’re a good mother, a good wife, and a good sister. Everyone makes mistakes. I don’t believe God is as perfect as you Christians claim. If He was so perfect, why did he create human beings who are so imperfect? He could have made Adam and Eve perfect all the way through, couldn’t He?”

  “You don’t know about God and His love.”

  “I surely don’t, and I’m glad you don’t try to convert me.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  “Aha, not in a million years. I don’t trust your God. Just look, the Crusades, the Reconquista, and many, many other religious wars. If there is a God, He seems quite volatile and egoistical to me. I’d rather be a rotten sinner.”

  “Ingrid, you…” Mary pauses, shaking her head, smiling, as if saying, “I’m not trying to convince you, someday you’ll talk with God yourself.” Then her smile subsides as she remembers something. She hesitates before speaking. “I’ve never told you this, but Bob has stopped going to church.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “We talked in Sonoma, during the retreat. He said he sometimes had a hard time understanding God’s ways, and he didn’t find churches or pastors particularly inspiring. He asked me to give him some time to think.”

  “Isn’t it better for him to live his faith in the real world?”

  “I’m not sure about that, but I’m praying for him, hoping one day he’ll return to God.” After a brief silence, she goes on. “People are vulnerable by themselves.”

  “I think people are stronger than you think.”

  At this moment, a piano begins to play on the floor right above them: Schubert’s Serenade. The music goes fast but unsteadily, as if the player can’t wait to finish it. Then a woman’s harsh voice interrupts. “I’ve told you one hundred times to play it slowly. You don’t listen! Where are your ears? Just yesterday the teacher said that you had to play this song slowly, with emotion, while imaging beautiful forests, wide rivers, fragrant flowers, and a blue sky where birds are flying. Why can’t you do that? How often must I ask?”

  “I’ve never seen beautiful forests and a blue sky except in movies.” a little girl cries out.

  “Stop arguing! If you don’t play well today, there won’t be ice cream for you after dinner. Your ba and I have saved hard to pay for your piano classes.”

  The piano plays again. Though the music is much slower, it is flat and unemotional.

  “Good! Just like this. Slow, slow, slow…one…two…three…” The mother sounds excited now. “Play for your ba when he gets back. Then you’ll have ice cream.”

  Both Ingrid and Mary laugh, covering their mouths. They walk back to the sink. Mary gestures up to the ceiling. “Poor kid! She reminds me of Alex. Now I see that I’m no better than this mother. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Bob said that the clivias are blooming. Also, there’s some news about Niuniu, the cat. You’ve seen her in our backyard. Bob said that it was raining heavily one evening so he opened the garage side door to let her in, as we always do when it rains. She paced back and forth outside under the awning, meowing, but didn’t dare come in. Bob stood in the garage, calling her name and luring her with food. It was like that for ten minutes. Just as Bob was about to give up and close the door, the cat dashed into the garage. The funny part was when Bob pointed at the door and urged her to go out, the cat meowed loudly as if protesting, as if she understood that he was just playing a game with her. The same night Bob bought a litter box and a cat bed for her. Next morning he went to the garage and saw the cat sleeping comfortably in the bed. She had also used the litter box. Now, she goes out during the daytime and sleeps in the garage at night. When I get home, we’ll take her to the vet and adopt her officially.”

  “Why don’t you go back to the U.S. earlier?” Ingrid suggests. “I can stay one more week. There’s no need for both of us to be here. I can handle the rest.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sister, trust me this one time, okay? You have a family there. I don’t.”

  “How about your job with KQED? That’s a good job. You don’t want to lose it.”

  “I already talked with the team. The real work won’t start for another month. So everything is fine.”

  Mary smiles and nods, her eyes fixing on Ingrid with a strange mix of affection and concern—only briefly—then she looks away and begins to wash the oven racks vigorously. She blushes as if she had betrayed a deep secret, but she seems happy.

  Ingrid smiles—she too feels a strong kinship at this moment. “Let’s finish the cleaning and then we’ll have a nice meal,” she says.

  Three days later, after sending Mary to the airport for the two p.m. flight to Shanghai, where Mary will catch her connection to San Francisco, Ingrid returns to her parents’ apartment and climbs into bed to take a nap. Since she arrived in China a week ago, she hasn’t had any good rest. Unaccustomed to sleeping on wooden planks padded only with a thin cotton blanket—her parents didn’t have a mattress—her back hurt the first few nights. Now she is so exhausted that as soon as her head hits the pillow she passes out.

  She doesn’t wake until five a.m. Not being able to fall back to sleep, she sits in her father’s wicker chair and browses a few old magazines she found in the living room. She is restless, waiting for daybreak. Whenever she hears a sound from the street, she gets up to see what it is. It occurs to her that she is like a first-time tourist who cannot wait to explore a new city; in
her case, it’s the city of her birth, where she spent her childhood and adolescent years but hasn’t visited for almost ten years. When Mary was here, they were both consumed by practical matters, mainly concerning their mother: Whom else should they notify about her death? What paperwork must be completed for the local police and her mother’s factory? Should they keep or sell the apartment? (Their decision was to keep it for one year and then discuss the matter again.) They also had several long conversations about each other’s views on relationships and religious beliefs. Whereas before they had both been quick to ridicule the other’s opinions, this time they listened carefully, avoiding arbitrary judgments.

  Now, alone, Ingrid can put practical matters aside temporarily and experience the city. At five thirty, she sees several street sweepers in straw hats pass by, riding a rickshaw filled with bamboo-handled brooms, shovels, plastic buckets, and other cleaning tools. The sight of them fills her with happiness, for they remind her of her childhood.

  Then come the early-shift buses. With green lights all the way, they drive so fast that when they have to stop at the station near the apartment to pick up one or two passengers, their tires skid.

  She also hears the family upstairs getting up, their shoes making slight yet audible sounds on the wood floor. She knows that they are the couple running the tiny dim sum and noodle restaurant on the ground floor—she and Mary ate there once. In a short while, the couple’s quick steps resonate on the external stairs, then the iron chain lock of the restaurant is opened. Ingrid imagines that they start to work immediately and with their usual efficiency—one chops the meat and vegetables and mixes them to make the stuffing for baozi or hundun or other dim sum items, while the other makes various wrappings with corn flour on a big table.

  From somewhere comes a man’s voice: “Junjun, you’d better go to bed! You fell asleep at your desk again.” This must be a concerned father, Ingrid speculates, and Junjun must be his only son, who is about to take the college entrance test. Years ago, when she was preparing for the test, Ingrid remembers, her father used to get up after midnight and check on her, making sure she hadn’t fallen asleep at her desk. He wanted her to be diligent but was afraid that she would catch a cold if she fell asleep without a blanket to keep her warm.

  Ingrid takes a shower and then goes downstairs to the dim sum and noodle restaurant for breakfast. While eating, she hears the garbage collector’s chanting.

  “Do you have old newspapers and magazines to sell? Do you have iron and steel products to sell? Do you have old fridges or TVs or washing machines to sell?” The garbage collector hollers repeatedly in the Nanyi dialect, his voice drawling. This man has been collecting garbage in this neighborhood since the early eighties. In Ingrid’s memory, rain or sun, holidays or normal days, he rode a rusty rickshaw from one street to another, advertising his business with his characteristic chanting. Before Ingrid went to the United States, his chanting hadn’t included electric appliances—they weren’t common at that time. No one knew where he lived, and people called him Young Wan. Whoever had something to sell would open his or her window and shout, “Hi, Young Wan! I have something to sell.” And the garbage collector would stop his rickshaw and look up to see where his client was. “Sure, I’m coming!” he would say happily and proceed to complete the transaction.

  Ingrid looks out the window and watches the garbage collector, who is parking his rickshaw under a tree waiting for business: she remembers that swarthy face, though it’s now wrinkled. She wonders if people still call him Young Wan or if they’ve changed to the more proper Old Wan since he’s now in his forties. She tells the restaurant owner that she will be back shortly to finish her food. She rushes back to her parents’ apartment, and after gathering old newspapers and magazines, she pokes her head out the window and hollers in the Nanyi dialect, “I have something to sell.”

  “Coming!” Young Wan or Old Wan looks up and replies. Then he adds, smiling, “I’ve not seen your mother for a while. She always sold me newspapers on Mondays.”

  Seeing the man’s cheerful face, Ingrid decides not to tell him about her mother’s death—he’ll figure it out sooner or later, or one of her mother’s neighbors will share the news with him.

  After completing the trade, Ingrid finds herself in a lighter mood, as if this simple act has proved that she was a local.

  There is more chanting on the street. Different accents, different rhythms, different volumes, different offers of items for sale.

  “Tea eggs! Big tea eggs. Sixty cents each. Two for one yuan.”

  “Tofu soup! Sweet or salty!”

  “Gas canisters!”

  “Efficient pesticides! Kill your rats, cockroaches, flies mosquitoes, and other insects.”

  Ingrid is familiar with all this chanting—she grew up listening to these messages. She cannot help but wonder if time has reversed or if she’s just dreaming.

  After breakfast she strolls to Progression Park nearby, which is new to her.

  The park is crowded. People, mostly the elderly, are engaging in various activities: practicing tai ji or qi gong, dancing folk or social dances, playing chess or poker or just watching others play, doing sports like jumping rope, kicking a Hacky Sack, or playing badminton. Bird owners hang their cages on the tree branches, listening to the birds chirping in the morning light. Some people jog on the gravel pathway along the river, rolling their heads, shoulders, and arms without stopping, and a few shout at the top of their lungs now and then as some type of qi gong. In certain parts of the park are narrow paths specifically designed for foot massage, where colorful small pebbles are aligned nicely, their smooth edges protruding above the surface. Following a few elderly people, Ingrid takes off her shoes and walks on the stones barefoot, feeling the pebbles with her soles, getting the sense of a massage.

  Ingrid continues to roam, listening to people chatting. She hears two old men talk about the Long March, which they participated in when they were in their late teens; they miss the camaraderie they experienced then and keep saying how cold people are to one another nowadays. Near a huge flowerpot, a man in a white short-sleeved shirt is using a giant brush to write calligraphy with water on the concrete. Ingrid recognizes the sentences from one of Chairman Mao’s poems: “The rivers and the mountains are so gorgeous that they impress numerous heroes.”

  The orange sun is glaring. Though it’s only early June, it feels as though real summer has arrived. Cicadas stridulate loudly and monotonously in the trees, and the concrete under foot seems hot enough to melt shoe soles. It’s dry too. When cars whiz by, they stir up the dust, visible in the sunlight like little shiny metal particles. Ingrid cannot recall a June this dry, this warm.

  She is now in the Ten Mile Street neighborhood, one of the city’s oldest, where her mother and her sister used to go grocery shopping. Women in flowery pajamas and oversize flip-flops walk to the food stands to buy breakfast, their hair uncombed, their faces unwashed. After giving the vendor a handful of coins or a few crumpled bills, they rush home with a plastic bag of warm mantou, meat-stuffed baozi, or fried Chinese noodles—they hurry because they must wake their husbands and children. Amid the newly built apartment buildings is a spread of dilapidated bungalows scheduled to be torn down soon, to be replaced by an entertainment center with a shopping mall, a movie theater, and restaurants—a big sign on the roadside says so. From those dark, dingy houses, a humpbacked old woman emerges magically, holding a wooden night stool, limping toward the public bathroom. Before she reaches the bathroom, she coughs and spits. Small stores are now open for business, and the owners turn on their radios, listening to the morning news from the central broadcasting station; it will be the Official Word, true or not.

  By seven a.m., every street is turning into a river of bicycles, cars, motorcycles, and pedestrians. Bikes swerve like small fish between cars that keep honking to warn bicyclists and pedestrians against getting too close. Among the fearless bicyclists are young women in expensive-looking dresse
s or tight suit skirts and high-heeled shoes. They pedal fast, seemingly unaffected by their formal attire. To avoid getting tanned, they wear wide-brimmed straw hats decorated with fake flowers and gloves covering the exposed areas on their arms. As for the older women, most wear foldable fabric hats, plain but functional, sold at small shops for three yuan each in a wide selection of colors. Some male bicyclists are afraid of sunlight too—they hold the handlebars with one hand, an umbrella with the other.

  It’s time for young parents to send their children to school. The children, each an only child in his or her family, sit on the backseats of their parents’ bikes. They are nicely dressed, some with red scarves, and their cheeks are pink and healthy. Some are half asleep. Eyes closed, they hold their parents’ waists with both hands, their heads against their parents’ backs, their legs dangling on both sides of the seat.

  Standing at a busy intersection, Ingrid watches the city of her birth awakened by noises, then breathes in the mixture of car exhaust, dust, and industrial emissions. At this moment the United States seems far away; she even doubts that she has lived there for eleven years. On the other hand, she questions her existence in this city, which she is now an observer, a tourist. She lost contact with her school friends long ago; the buildings where she studied have been either torn down or renovated with new names. Where is the Happiness Alley she used to bike through to get to high school? Where is the bookstand with the red door and crooked windows she liked to visit and borrow foreign novels from? Where is Granny Zhou, who liked to sit on a plastic chair outside her tiny stationery store on hot summer days, fanning herself with a yellow oil-skin fan? Ingrid wonders as she walks from one street to another, looking for the remains of her past. Though she has seen the changes all around China in the past decade on TV and in other media, only now does she realize how much the cityscape has been transformed, how it has become almost alien to her.