Night Angels(31)
I went to the Netherlands consulate, then the Canadian consulate, then the Greek consulate; I was told a limited number of applications had been accepted, and the official application period had ended. Switzerland had declared it would close its border with Austria in August.
In front of a newspaper kiosk, I lost all my strength to walk—those devastating headlines highlighting the disastrous decision of thirty-two countries at the ?vian Conference. Grace had been hopeful, but she couldn’t have known. Who would have known?
We were willing to abandon our home, to flee to the end of the world, but none of the countries wanted us.
In the far distance, a low rumble echoed. Above the domes and steeples, a fleet of aircraft, which had dominated the sky on the day Hitler’s Wehrmacht swarmed the streets, loomed over Vienna.
CHAPTER 17
GRACE
With a heavy heart, I went to Lola’s apartment the next day, again with the newspapers, but Lola had already read the news. What are you going to do? I wanted to ask her. Without a visa, her brother remained in prison; without a visa, her family remained stuck in Vienna.
In my bedroom, I put on my favorite nightgown and my lipstick and waited for Fengshan. I decided to talk to him about visas again. He could change his mind when we were alone, when the timing was right. A diplomat with a suit and a tie, he was also my husband, a compliant negotiator who made easy concessions in our bed.
By the light on the nightstand, I read Dickinson, the poetry book that had attracted Fengshan when we first met. I had been a twenty-one-year-old, working in a noodle shop near the campus of the University of Chicago, full of fear of my mother. Fengshan was thirty-two, a secretary to a governor in his hometown, and part of a Chinese delegation attending the World’s Fair in the US. He had noticed the book in my hand and asked what my favorite verses were when I took his order. I felt awkward, didn’t know what to answer, vacillating between “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” and “I felt my life with both my hands,” but in the end, gazing at his infectious smile, I said, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—that perches in the soul.” He was charismatic, empathetic, and had a hearty laugh that made people believe everything would be all right. Like many people, upon first meeting him, I was awestruck. Later, he returned to the noodle shop, but not always for the noodles. When the fair ended and he was scheduled to return home, he asked me to marry him. Flattered and eager to escape from Mother, I agreed.
When I arrived in his hometown, it had never crossed my mind that domestic life would be a challenge, having worked in a noodle shop and kept house while Mother passed out in her rocker. But in China, water needed to be boiled, laundry was rinsed in the river, vegetables for salad must not be raw, and cooking chicken involved a life-and-death battle with a hen that could fly over the table and run along the windowsill. To eat chicken, duck, rabbit, fish, or shrimp, I played the role of executioner and butcher and cleaner.
Fengshan commented and appeared proud—his American wife possessed skills essential to Chinese living. I wondered if he knew I put on a brave face while holding a cleaver with my small hands. And sometimes I’d rather not do it. Once, Monto wanted to eat a chicken for his birthday, a rare treat for the birthday boy—there was no cake in Fengshan’s hometown. I chased after the bird with a cleaver in hand, and finally had it grasped firm between my legs. It was the most beautiful bird I had ever seen, with a sleek neck and snow-white feathers, and it was energetic and full of life. I couldn’t do it. “Tomorrow, Snow White, I will kill you,” I whispered. So that evening, Monto had rice and cooked cabbage for his eighth birthday, no chicken. The next day, I still couldn’t slay Snow White. After spending all day with her, I had grown to admire her, her beauty, her spunk, and her queenly walk across the kitchen counter. Snow White lived a long life, to Monto’s disgust.
That was perhaps why Monto could never be close to me.
I put down my book and turned to the clock. Nine o’clock. This was late. I wondered where Fengshan had gone. It was quiet in the bedroom. Some music would be lovely, but turning on the gramophone would wake Monto, whose bedroom was on the same floor.
I walked to the small row of terra-cotta soldiers on the shelf near the sofa. Each wrapped in a red cloth sachet, these soldiers were Fengshan’s favorite gifts, which he often presented to foreign diplomats and professionals in Vienna. To their intrigued faces, he would explain the centuries-old northern Chinese tradition of creating figurines out of terra-cotta. He would then dive into a story that went back to two thousand years ago, before the birth of Jesus Christ, to the first emperor of China, the emperor of the Qin Kingdom, who had conquered the other six rival kingdoms to create one country, known as China today. Legend said that the emperor, believing in immortality, had ordered the creation of thousands of terra-cotta soldiers, cavalries, horsemen, horses, and chariots to guard him in his tomb. Until this day, his tomb remained undiscovered.
Fengshan was proud of the terra-cotta figurines, their craft, their symbolism of unyielding loyalty to the emperor, and their eternal purpose, in humble clay.
When I heard him tell the story, I had a feeling that he was explaining himself, a man of clay, born in an unremarkable family in a rural region, transforming himself into a man of gold, a warrior for his country. Would such a man be owned by me? That was too good to be true. I tried to love him with all my heart; I tried to keep him all to me, but he was a man molded by his own will and led his own battle. Still, I followed him, rooted beside him, danced with him. I wouldn’t say I was entirely happy, but I wasn’t entirely unhappy either. My love was like a shadow, waxing and waning, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me.