The Wangs vs. the World(114)

“No,” said Charles, dismissive. “Maybe like a cousin. But very far away. Not really Wang family. But listen, for a long time after the Communists take over, we don’t know what happen in China. Everything closed. No communications. I grow up in Taiwan; I come to America. And then China open up and we find out everything so sad. I don’t even tell you; nobody talk about it.”

“What was it?”

“Tai tsan ren le. My aunties, they stay in lao jia, and when Communists come, they are dragged out in the street. You know xiao hong wei bing?”

“Yes, Dad. Little Red Guard, we know.”

“Okay, xiao hong wei bing very scary, they abuse aunties, put them in parade, everybody hit and punch. They spit.”

“That happened? To our relatives?”

“Everything happen.”

A terrible thought made its way into Grace’s head. “If you grew up in China, would you have been one of them? Would you have been a Little Red Guard?”

“Probably. Later on, no choice. Everyone have to be Communist. Okay, so you know I think maybe we can get back the land, all of Wang jia de di. There are some story, sometime, I hear of people who can live again in their old family house, or who can have some of land again, so I hire a lawyer to look, to see who own the land now. And lawyer contact the local council—”

“What’s that?”

“China so big, even government can’t be everywhere. So every town and district have a local council, still Communist, and now they control many thing. So the local council say there is an owner, and the owner is me!”

All three of his children lifted their heads at once and brightened. It broke Charles’s heart to look at them, but he tried to laugh.

“Oh,” said Saina, “it wasn’t really you, right?”

“No. Not really me. I find out that it is him!” Charles pointed towards the divider so fiercely that one of the wires monitoring his vital signs, whatever those might be, came loose. He suctioned it back onto his chest.

When the email came, Saina thought that her father had slipped and fallen on an unfamiliar street or gotten into another car accident, but this was shaping up to be a very different story.

“Him? The weird guy in the red hat?”

“No, that is his son. Him is lying down because Daddy beat him up.” They started to question him again, but he silenced them. “Listen. Okay, so I start thinking about the land in China because I know that last year China pass a law, pass in October, saying it okay for some private ownership.”

“So whoever else is behind that curtain, he bought it?”

“No! He steal it and then he lose it. Listen, listen, so my father, your grandfather, have a friend, since they are very small boys—”

“And he’s the guy behind the curtain?”

“No, no, quiet! I already tell you, this is a very long story. So my father have a very old friend, from Guang family, from when they were young. Very old friend. Good friend. The Wang family go to Taiwan, but his friend stay in China, and Communist send him to camp. But very hard camp, a work camp, not a fun camp like Camp Hess Kramer that you go to.”

“Dad! You remember that?”

“Of course. You all so excited to go. So Guang was send to camp for fifteen years, and when he is in camp, he is force to change his mind and become Communist. And finally they let him go, and then he come back to same place where he grow up, and now they make him head of the local council because he is a good Communist. So then worst part happen. Zwei bu ying gai de.” Charles had been almost enjoying telling this tale, but the closer he got to the pivotal moment, the less he could pretend to himself that this was just a bit of old-world gossip. To have everything slip away, to have someone step into his story and disrupt it so completely, it was too much. He had weathered too much. “Gong fei! Tsao ni ma de!” he shouted. The old curses felt good, so much more satisfying than an insipid f*ck.

“Qu si!” was lobbed back over the wall.

“Did you hear what he say? Andrew, you go in there and tell him he can’t talk like that.”

“Dad! I’m not going to go bully some guy who’s in a hospital bed,” said Andrew.

Grace jumped in. “I’ll do it!”

Andrew huffed. “Just ignore him and tell us what happened already.”

“No, no, no, Gracie. You stay. Okay, I tell you. So hear some story, sometimes, about family going back to old house, or maybe share land with yi qian gen di de ren, uh, with old peasant, old employee. So Daddy hire a lawyer to see if maybe I can do same thing. But we find out instead that he”—Charles pointed again, violently, at the divider wall—“pretend to be me. And everybody believe.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“He pretend to be me! Me. He fool Guang, my father’s friend, and make him think that he is me!” When Charles had first understood the full extent of his treacherous cousin’s misdeeds, he’d thought that there would turn out to be some honorable explanation. It was not implausible to hope that the cousin was holding the property in Charles’s name, so that he, the eldest son of the eldest son, could return and assume proper ownership. But as they’d spoken in the dingy, cigarette-smoke-filled office of the travel agency where his cousin, Wu Jong Fei—not even a Wang!—was employed, Charles had felt his anger expand and take shape in his chest until it had become a sentient thing that willed itself into shape with feathers and claws, a ripping, tearing beast no longer under his control. It wasn’t just the betrayal. It was the man himself, who had stolen Charles’s past and his future, who sat there in a thin, cheap shirt and didn’t even attempt to conceal his misdeeds. He’d confessed it all without shame, and now Charles opened his mouth and spewed out the truth.