The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(27)
Her teacher opened her eyes and said, “It’s getting late.”
Mrs. Bidwell patted Zoe’s hand.
Zoe turned hers up and their hands clasped, fingers laced, her teacher’s thumb brushing the back of Zoe’s hand. They both looked down curiously, appraisingly, as if their bodies had acted on their own.
Then Mrs. Bidwell let go and said, “Good night, Zou yi.”
“Good night, Alyce,” Zoe sighed.
As Mrs. Bidwell left, Zoe walked back to her cottage. When she reached her door, she turned, not wanting to go inside, not wanting her feelings to evaporate back in the noisy world of housemates and homework. She stood still, breathing in the cool night air, searching the darkness as it began to rain.
8 Faye
(1942)
Faye was nearly out of breath as she ran to the hospital through a torrent of rain. She heard a jeep, gears grinding, blaring its horn in the distance amid the thunder. Not the thunder that comes from a formation of bombers or Japanese artillery, but the kind that heralds the arrival of monsoon season. Sharp cracking explosions, followed by the sound of gargantuan trees falling in a deep forest, a booming so loud she could feel it on the soft soles of her oxfords. Echoing like timpani, part of the seasonal symphony of water dripping from metal roofs, quickened steps on sodden boardwalks, the rhythmic thrumming of rain on puddles that grow and swell until they become estuaries that spill into muddy streams, flowing through the streets of Kunming.
Faye arrived at the hospital beneath sprites of red lightning as Lois was still laying on the horn, blaring her presence to those inside. The jeep she was driving was occupied by an injured family from a nearby village. A father in the front passenger seat, mother and daughter in the back, their legs blackened and cinched with tourniquets where their feet were mangled or missing, their blood-soaked clothing in tatters.
For a moment Faye was frozen, speechless, a statue weathering the storm. She wasn’t thinking about John Garland or the photo he’d left behind, because she couldn’t take her eyes off the mother and daughter. The carnage of war contrasted how tender they looked with their eyes closed, their bodies together, the mother’s limp arms still wrapped around her broken child as the rain washed over them. The sight awakened a longing Faye had tried for years to ignore, the desire for a child. It haunted her the way she’d seen amputees try to scratch an itch from a part of them that was no longer there.
“What happened?” Faye asked, even though she’d been in Kunming long enough to recognize the various types of war wounds. She’d accumulated a mental encyclopedia of bloodshed and suspected that she’d find this family’s horrific injuries filed under L.
“A neighbor said the girl was playing and chased her dog into a field full of land mines,” Lois said, her voice shaking. “Her mother and father got injured trying to rescue her. I heard that the dog came through without a scratch, though.”
Faye touched the pale neck of the father, who was slumped against the door. Even in the sultry air, his body temperature was far below that of the warm, tropical downpour.
“He’s gone,” Lois said, sniffling, wiping the rain from her eyes. The crushing humidity turned Lois’s curly blond hair into a wet mop that clung to her cheeks. “I lost him on the way.” She draped her nurse’s cape over the face of the dead man.
Faye blasted the horn again until orderlies came rushing out. They called for stretchers, shouting in English and Chinese, and carried what was left of the mother and daughter inside the hospital.
* * *
After surgery and her final rounds for the day, Faye sat once again in the bar of the Kunming Tennis Club, nursing her third drink. Her surgical mask, still tied around her neck, hung loosely below her chin as she stared at the photo of her younger self. She sighed and finished her drink as a song crooned from the juke box. “I go around wanting you. And yet I can’t imagine that you want me too.”
The front door opened and closed, and Faye heard the rain, felt a gust of monsoon air. She heard footsteps that grew closer and then stopped next to her.
“I thought I might find you here,” Lois said as she placed two bowls, two sets of chopsticks on the table. She sat down and then slid one of each over to Faye. “I’ll be honest—I don’t like how much I’m getting used to this.”
Faye held her bowl and mixed the rice noodles with the tofu pudding and pickled vegetables. “The dau faa min?” Faye asked. “I think it’s quite good.”
Lois sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Faye nodded and took a small bite of the flat noodles and creamy tofu, which tasted rich and savory, topped with fresh mint, chives, and chrysanthemum. It felt like the food, so reminiscent of her mother’s cooking, was healing her from the inside out, showing her that good things could still come out of this ailing land, salted with so many tears.
“How have you made it this long?” Lois asked.
Faye shook her head. “I don’t know.” She tucked the photo into her breast pocket. The photo with her words: FIND ME. None of this made sense.
Maybe I’m losing my mind. But if I am, how would I even know?
Faye thought about the survivors of the Canton Uprising, fifteen years ago. How the Red Guard was crushed and how many of the wounded had healed physically, but remained shell-shocked, benumbed with facial tics, shakiness, sensitivity to light and sound. Many of them lost weight and died or later took their own lives.