Throwaway Daughter Page 12

  I phoned home that night. My parents were happy that I was moving in with Mrs. Xia, until I told them there was no phone in the house and the public phone at the end of the lane didn’t have overseas service. Early the next morning I checked out of the hotel and moved my stuff to Lao Zhang and Yong-fang’s house. The night before, the whole family had ganged up on me, telling me I must stay with them. Where? I wanted to say. The house consisted of a small kitchen, a closet with a chamber pot, a sitting room, and one bedroom. Lao Zhang and Yong-fang had the bedroom, and Dan-yang and her grandmother slept in the living room. I wasn’t looking forward to living in crammed surroundings, without a square foot to myself, but I felt I couldn’t refuse. In a way, I told myself, I’d be a step closer to my goal.

  I had put a lot of thought into the outfit I would wear to Liuhe Village. I didn’t want to attract any more attention than necessary—or “beat the grass” as Lao Zhang would have put it. I had had no idea when I left home that Chinese women, even the younger ones, didn’t wear shorts. They preferred skirts, dresses, or long pants, and blouses rather than T-shirts. So I was glad that Mom had insisted that I pack two dresses. The one with the floral pattern had a swooping neckline, so I opted for the beige linen, a loosely fitting dress that fell to just above my ankles and had a crew neck. I took off my cork sandals and put on a pair of running shoes. But when I looked at myself in the mirror I changed my mind again. The reflection reminded me of the career women in downtown Toronto during rush hour. I ended up in a pair of flat-heeled walking shoes.

  Wishing myself good luck, I left the house and took a local bus to the long-distance station, where I would make the connection for Liuhe Village. I met Lao Zhang inside and followed him around the small, crowded terminal to a dilapidated contraption that looked like it had been built several dynasties back: a faded blue bus with a peeling white stripe. There were already passengers on board, looking bored behind the dirty windows.

  Lao Zhang introduced me to his friend Lao Huang, who sat behind the wheel. He was a rough-looking character with a bristly crewcut. He smiled when we shook hands.

  “This isn’t my route,” he said, “but the regular driver owed me a favour. Besides, no one cares who drives what, as long as the wheels are moving.”

  Lao Zhang laughed, then took me aside. “Listen, Dong-mei,” he said, his voice suddenly serious, “let’s hope your journey today will be successful. But you should also prepare yourself for disappointment.”

  I nodded. “I have.”

  “Good.” Turning to his friend, he called out, “Take care of her!”

  Lao Huang waved me into the seat behind him, which he had saved for me with a scuffed vinyl bag. Then he pulled the lever to shut the doors and started the engine.

  The bus rumbled through the dusty outskirts of the city and into the flat countryside. Lao Huang kept up an almost constant stream of chatter. Like Lao Zhang, his accent was thick and I had to listen carefully over the hammering of the diesel engine. He was fascinated that I, a foreigner, could carry on a conversation in Chinese. A few of the passengers were eager to know about Canada, and tossed in questions wherever Lao Huang left an opening. A lot of their questions were personal and nosy by North American standards.

  “What a smart Ya-tou you are!” Lao Huang called out repeatedly. The term in general means a slave girl or a young maid but was also a pet name used by a father to his daughter, or an uncle to his favourite niece. He meant well, but I wasn’t thrilled with his choice of words.

  Most worrisome were his comments about my mission, which he made at the same volume as his other remarks. “They will be so sorry, when they lay eyes on you, Ya-tou,” or “They will pay for what they did to you in their next lives.”

  Finally the flood of questions from my-fellow travellers ran dry, and I had a chance to look at the countryside and to try to take my mind off what lay ahead for me. Paddy after green paddy separated by narrow dikes stretched to the horizon, criss-crossed by ditches and larger waterways. The day was scorching by now, the air thick with humidity, the road sending off shimmering waves of heat.

  The sun was high in the sky when Lao Huang pulled to the side of the road, under the shade of a few spindly poplars. A few people got off, hauling bundles, baskets, and live chickens in bamboo cages. An old couple climbed on. The bus jolted into motion with a roar of the engine—and made a U-turn.

  Voices soared in protest. Lao Huang shouted, “I know what I’m doing, don’t worry! I just have a small detour to make, then we will all be on our way!”

  The hubbub went on. One old lady in a threadbare white shirt and black pants shouted and waved her fist.

  “Will you be quiet?” Lao Huang yelled back. “I promise we won’t lose any time. Now sit down and don’t bug me.” To me he said, “I am trying to save you the long walk to the village.”

  He swerved onto a bumpy side road, stirring up a tower of dust. Roosters and chickens squawked and shot to the side or flapped valiantly over the low mud wall that lined the road. A goat stood panic-stricken in the middle of the track until Lao Huang blasted the horn, and it bolted out of the way. The bus came to a stop before a square of cement, which had been swept clean. On one side stood a wall of bundled straw.

  “The threshing ground,” Lao Huang explained, getting out of his seat. He pointed. “Follow the path over there. It looks like it leads into the village. I will be back here around three o’clock. Don’t be late, Ya-tou. Good luck.”

  I got down from the bus under the silent stares of the other passengers. Lao Huang swung the bus around in the narrow road and roared away, trailing a cloud of yellow dust.

  If I had expected to see farmers bending to their work in the lush green paddies on both sides of the path that led to a cluster of buildings, I was wrong. The fields were empty, the rice stalks swaying in the hot breeze. Gradually I approached an orderly collection of houses. The yards in front of the identical two-storey buildings were deserted. Chickens wandered around, pecking at the ground. Goats, chained to stakes, dozed in the shadow of overhanging clay-tiled roofs.

  I was hot and sweaty and thirsty, and my ears were still ringing from the bus motor. There was a soggy patch under each of my arms and I could already feel the perspiration gather between my shoulder blades under my backpack. I began to regret my choice of a light-coloured dress. I stopped in the middle of the road. On my left a radio was faintly playing Beijing Opera. I heard people talking. Women’s voices. I followed the sound and found myself standing outside an open door. A bike was propped against the wall.

  The interior of the house looked cool and inviting. Inside were a large square table and a few benches. The hard-packed dirt floor had been swept clean. No one was in sight. My hands shook as I cleared my throat and called out a greeting. A young woman about my age, with a bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other, came out of the back room. Judging from her pink blouse, black skirt, and white plastic sandals, she was a city woman, not a farmer.

  “How do you do?” I said.

  “Who are you looking for?” she asked warily, her mouth still full of rice.

  “Who’s that?” came a shrill voice from the rear of the house.

  “I am looking for Chun-mei,” I said calmly, sounding more confident than I felt.

  “I don’t know any Chun-mei,” the young woman answered. “What’s her family name?” She scooped more rice into her mouth.

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “Then I can’t help you.”

  “Is this Liuhe Village?” I asked when she began to turn away.

  “Yes. But I don’t know any Chun-mei,” she repeated with irritation. “How old is she?”

  I took a wild guess. “In her forties.”

  “Let me ask my mother.”

  The older woman walked towards me and stopped in the middle of the room, squinting. “Who are you?” she demanded. She was middle aged, chubby and strong, her face and hands deeply tanned. Beside her, her daughter looked pale and skinny.<
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  “I’m a relative. I haven’t seen Chun-mei for a long time. I was told she might live here.”

  “You’re her relative but you don’t know her last name?” the older woman said. “And you don’t speak our dialect. Are you here alone?”

  I began to get the feeling she knew the answer to my question but was reluctant to admit it. Her daughter put her bowl and chopsticks down on the table with a clatter. “Mother, if you know this Chun-mei woman, why don’t you tell her? My lunch break is over. I have to go.”

  And she walked out of the room while her mother continued to look me over.

  “Please, Aunt,” I addressed her in the common term of respect, “just tell me if Chun-mei lives here. I didn’t come to make trouble for her.”

  The woman kept silent, her mouth working as if she was making a decision. “Chun-mei used to live here, but not any more,” she said.

  My voice cracked. “Do you mean she’s dead? Tell me!” I demanded when I got no answer.

  “Come inside,” she said, glancing up and down the path, her voice less harsh, “and sit for a minute. Chun-mei left the village a long time ago, the same year my daughter was born. That’s how I remember.”

  Now that the woman had decided to talk, there was no stopping her.

  “She and Loyal were a good match, at least that’s what we all thought at the time. But it didn’t last long. Less than three years. It was the first divorce in the village and surely set a bad example. I never heard anything of Chun-mei since. By the way, her family name is Ma.”

  Ma Chun-mei. Chinese women don’t change their names when they marry.

  Her daughter passed through the room, looped the strap of her purse over her shoulder, climbed on the bike, and pedalled off.

  “Now, I’ve been honest with you. Return the favour,” the woman said, leaning her elbows on the table. “You’re no relative or you’d have known she is a Ma.”

  “I am Chun-mei’s daughter, Aunt. I live in Canada. She doesn’t know I’m here. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

  She stared into my eyes, as if studying a map. “You can’t—” she began. “How could—?” Her eyes widened and she slapped the tabletop. “Aiya! You’re the girl who they said was stillborn! The one supposed to be buried in their vegetable plot! I always knew something wasn’t right. Aiya! Power is a strange thing. It comes and it goes. Maybe you’d better think about what you are doing. People here always think twice before they deal with the Chens.”

  Who were the Chens, and what did power have to do with it? But I got her last line clear enough. She was giving me the brush-off.

  “By the look of you, your family must be rich. Everybody in your country is rich, aren’t they? So let well enough alone. Go home. Chun-mei isn’t here any more. And if Firecracker finds out I’ve talked to you there will be no peace for me or my family. Not to mention Old Chen still has influence.”

  “Can’t you at least tell me where Chun-mei has gone, or the name of her former husband?”

  “You mean your father. He’s here, all right. But I doubt he’ll tell you anything, not without permission from Firecracker, and he isn’t likely to get that. When Loyal married her, he lost his tongue.” She peered into my face again. “All right, I’ll tell you where the Chens live, but promise you won’t say anything about me.”

  So Firecracker was Loyal’s new wife. She sounds like a real scarecrow, I thought as the woman walked me to the door. But who was Old Chen? Keeping to the shadow of her room, she pointed up the road.

  “Second row from the front, the last house on the left. Next to the vegetable plot with the bright yellow flowers,” she said. “His name is Chen Zhong, Chen the Loyal. That makes you a Chen, too.”

  Her words spun in my head. Was I really so close to my destination? And what was all that babble about a baby buried in a vegetable plot?

  My stomach churned as I made my way along the path. A part of me wanted to stop and think, maybe go back and ask the woman more questions so that I could somehow find Chun-mei without confronting new people who certainly didn’t sound like they would welcome me. I couldn’t have cared less about this Loyal guy, father or no father. It was clear to me that he had never wanted me. His name was not on the piece of paper Mrs. Xia had given to my parents. And Chun-mei returned alone to the orphanage a year later. But at the same time I was curious to see what he looked like.

  And, I suddenly realized, I was metres away from the place where I had been born, in a little village, remote, backward, and poor. The people here had gone on with their lives after I had left the scene, totally unaware that a girl unwanted here had grown up in Canada, with a sister and two parents. I decided to screw up my courage and confront the man who had fathered me.

  The houses in this part of the village were a little bigger but of similar design—two-storey brick, clay-tiled roofs, metal window frames. They reminded me of the townhouses in Milford. I was hungry and thirsty, but the orange pop and waffles in my backpack remained untouched.

  Like all the houses I had passed, the one the woman had directed me to had its door open. This must be a safe neighbourhood, I thought. It was about one o’clock by then, and the whole village seemed to be napping. My heart hammered in my chest.

  I reminded myself of Mrs. Xia’s advice. “There is no use being bitter, Dong-mei. What happened to you is long in the past. And remember the elbow only bends one way. A family threatened by an outsider will draw together.”

  It was her way of reminding me that, as far as my birth family was concerned, I was someone else, an outsider. Not just a foreigner, but an unwanted child. Standing at the doorway, I hesitated, my courage slipping away from me. Maybe I’ll wait a while until nap time is over, I thought. I wandered aimlessly through the village, past small plots cultivated between the rice paddies and bursting with beans and cabbages, along a canal where ducks floated serenely in the sun. The zzz-zzz of cicadas was loud in the heat.

  A motorcycle roared into the village and stopped in a cloud of dust outside Loyal’s house. A guy about my age shut off the engine, balancing the bike with splayed legs. He had a strange haircut, long on top, like some Hong Kong actors pictured outside the theatres in Toronto’s Chinatown. Behind him was a young woman, her head and face covered by a colourful scarf, tied at the neck. She wore stylish, snug-fitting jeans and her ribbed shirt was so tight it divided her plump body into rings, like a sausage.

  I heard a woman’s voice. “Come on in. You must be hot. Watermelon is ready.” Her voice was rough, with an accent I didn’t recognize.

  Quiet returned to the village as the two young people got off the motorcycle and went inside. I walked gingerly past the door, but no one was in sight. And then, whether from the heat, the tension, or confusion, I lost my courage completely. I looked at my watch. In a half-hour, Lao Huang would be at the threshing ground with the bus, waiting for me. I shouldn’t be late, especially if he had a bunch of passengers as grumpy as he had had earlier that day.

  I decided to call it quits, at least for that day, and walked to the threshing ground. I sat on a tree stump in the shade and gulped down a bottle of warm pop. An old man walked past with a pole over his shoulder. On each end of the pole was an empty bucket.

  “Good day, Miss,” he said. “Hot day, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, Old Comrade,” I replied, standing up.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

  “My friend is picking me up.”

  “You’re not from around here,” he said. “You speak Common Language. Are you visiting someone?”

  “I came to visit the Chen family, but I ran out of time, so I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  He pushed his straw hat back, revealing a shaved, deeply tanned head. “The Chens,” he murmured.

  “Yes.” I tried the subtle approach. “I haven’t met Firecracker, though.”

  He laughed. “Never call her that to her face, young miss. If you do, she’ll show you how she got her name!�
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  When I stepped down from the bus the next morning, Liuhe Village seemed a different place. There were people about, unlike the day before, and as I headed nervously to the Chen house a small crowd followed me, women and men, a few kids, a number of seniors, all yakking away in the local dialect, pointing to my backpack, my clothing, my hair.

  The motorcycle guy, as I had come to think of him, was standing in front of the house. He ducked inside when he saw me approach. I stopped at the doorway and looked in. Lying on a chaise longue made of bamboo in the centre of the room was a middle-aged woman. The motorcycle guy slouched beside her, giving me a cold smile. One of his front teeth was missing and the corner was chipped off another. Under thick brows, his narrow eyes were far apart.

  He came towards me, putting out his right hand. “I am Ah-miao.”

  His name meant seed. I shook hands with him. The woman sat straight up on the edge of her chair, her eyes locked onto mine, her bare feet slipping into a pair of sandals.

  “My name is Dong—”

  “I know who you are,” she cut me off, jumping to her feet. She had a broad face, with high cheekbones and full lips that would have combined to give her a playful look if her face was not clouded with anger. Her shoulder-length hair was tightly curled, and bounced when she moved. I heard the crowd behind me shuffle back from the door. The woman stopped inches from where I stood and said loudly, “I also know that you have been snooping around behind our backs.” Spit flew from her mouth, narrowly missing me.

  I took a breath, holding back my anger, willing myself to speak slowly to avoid misunderstanding. “I am not snooping around. My name is Dong-mei and I came here to look for my mother. Her name is Chun-mei. If you know anything about her, I’d appreciate your help. If not, maybe there’s someone else here who is willing to give me some information.”

  The woman’s hostility wasn’t nearly as much of a shock as the realization that, for the first time in my life, I had called Chun-mei my mother.