The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(93)
Zoe tried to make eye contact. “Mrs. Bidwell?”
She said nothing and looked at her hands, which were shaking. She had ligature marks around her wrists, bracelets of purple bruising. Her fingernails were worn down to nubs, bloody and swollen from some self-inflicted abrasion.
“Mrs. Bidwell. It’s me, Zoe from school.”
She didn’t say anything, swatting at imaginary gnats.
What did they do? What did I do?
“Alyce? It’s me, Zou yi.”
Her chin raised, trembling, as though her neck were being ratcheted by an unseen wrench. She met Zoe’s gaze, and for a moment the noble spirit of Mrs. Bidwell returned like a mysterious voice unleashed by some cult mystic, a theosophist, an automatic writer in the throes of a trance.
She smiled through cracked lips and whispered, “Zoe.”
Zoe watched as the glimmer of joy and resiliency of Mrs. Bidwell’s former self faded. She glanced around and her smile quickly retreated into a place of fear, not just in the shadows of the tall brick walls that loomed above, but back into the dark hollows of her mind. She began to pick at a sore near the corner of her mouth.
“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Bidwell asked as she glanced behind her, as though someone might set upon them and drag them away, screaming. “They might see you. See us.” She grit her teeth and her eyes widened. “Oh no, no, no, no, no. They caught you too, didn’t they?” Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. “I was afraid of this.” She let out a soft cry. “It’s all my fault. It’s all me. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…”
“You didn’t do anything.” Zoe placed her hand on Mrs. Bidwell’s arm, trying to reassure her, but her former teacher recoiled from Zoe’s touch as if her fingers burned.
“I wish we’d never found each other,” Mrs. Bidwell said. “I wish… I wish…”
“It’s okay, Alyce,” Zoe said, whispering gently, the way you’d coax a dog that had been beaten so much it was afraid to take table scraps when offered. “It’s just me, Zoe. I left school and came to see you. I even wrote some poems for you. Would you like me to read one? Or I could just give them to you.” She held up a small notebook and began to turn the pages. “I’m sure they’re terrible, but…”
“You can’t.” Mrs. Bidwell snatched the book, closed the cover, and placed it on the table. She kept her hand on top as though something horrible and demonic might escape, as if it were a bomb that might explode. “Whatever you’ve written, burn it.” Her voice quavered. “Burn it all. Get rid of everything.”
“But…”
“Destroy it. Or they’ll do to you what they’ve done to me.”
“Alyce…”
“Don’t let them…”
“I won’t.”
Mrs. Bidwell swallowed. She blinked and looked around again as though waking from a bad dream, more lucid than she’d been just moments before. Then she regarded Zoe again for the first time. “You’re my only visitor. The only person I wanted to see. But it’s not safe for you.” She began to mutter and her voice trailed off.
Zoe thought about Mrs. Bidwell’s husband, Stanley, and how he must have abandoned her here. She wondered if he’d grant her a divorce now.
“I’m going to wait for you, Alyce. I’m going to be there for you when you get out, when you come home. I won’t let anything bad happen to you again. I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t care if I have to leave school.”
Both of them refrained from talking as a guard walked by, eyeing them.
When he had passed, they held hands across the table. Zoe felt her teacher’s warmth, as well as the tremors that racked her body. Zoe felt hopeful as long as they were touching. They seemed stronger together. As though 1 + 1 now equaled 10.
They shared a moment in silence as the words from a favorite poem echoed in Zoe’s mind: We loved with a love that was more than love.
“I’m going to find a way to take you home,” Zoe said.
Her teacher smiled as though enraptured. Then her eyes turned to glass and she slowly let go, as though she were on a boat being pulled out to sea. She stared up at the sky as a formation of geese flew by, struggling against the wind.
Through cracked lips Mrs. Bidwell said, “This is my home.”
Zoe watched helplessly as Mrs. Bidwell, her teacher, her crush, her love, her shame, her loss, her heart’s ruin—her beloved Alyce—touched the bandages around her temple as though she suddenly remembered they were there. She touched the empty space where her hair used to be. She sat in silence for a moment, as though trying to remember something, and when she did it horrified her. She stood up and looked down at Zoe with surrender in her eyes. “Don’t be like me, Zou yi.”
Zoe opened her mouth as if to speak, but she couldn’t find the words.
“Promise me.”
Act III
18 Faye
(1942)
Faye said her goodbyes to the body of John Garland and stepped outside into the light rain and humidity of Kunming. The sun was setting behind the clouds, the sky turning a deeper shade of gray, occasionally illuminated by explosions from the Japanese bombers that had begun targeting the steel and cement plants on the far side of the city. Faye was used to the bright flashes and the booming sounds that followed a few seconds later, like counting time between a bolt of lightning and the thunder rolling in. She felt caught, suspended in that moment in between. That’s where she’d met and lost the stranger whom she couldn’t stop thinking about, dreaming about; he came and went between blinding light and the resounding darkness.