For six weeks, the loudspeakers around the city bellowed funeral music.
My life with Mother hadn’t changed as I’d hoped. We got no more news about Father or the Wongs, and I still hadn’t seen any ribs.
Coming home for lunch one afternoon, I smelled the scent of frying pig fat from our window. My mouth watered. I ran up the stairs two steps at a time.
Someone with a crutch under his left arm stood outside our door. He turned to face me. It was Niu. The two lower buttons of his blue jacket were missing. I hadn’t stood this close to him since the night he arrested Father. He was taller, and his skin darker. A thin, weedy mustache appeared above his lips. Words choked in my throat.
“Here!” He held out a white shirt. “It needs mending.”
It appeared to be one of Father’s shirts. “How did you get this?” I grabbed it from him.
Without answering, he turned and hobbled past me. I watched until his back disappeared down the stairs. I pressed the shirt close to my nose. It smelled like Father and the hospital.
“Who’s there?” Mother stepped out of the apartment.
I handed her the shirt. “Niu gave me this,” I whispered. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened a little.
She glanced toward Comrade Li’s door. It was closed. We hadn’t seen much of him since Mao’s death. When he did come home, he sang like a drunken sailor, filling the hallway with the pungent smell of rice wine. Mother pushed me inside and closed the door. I followed her to the kitchen.
Sitting on two low stools near the stove, we examined the yellowed shirt. It had neatly stitched patches on both elbows.
“Look at this, Mom.” I pointed to a patch under the armpit. It had bigger stitches.
“Your father is better at mending patients than shirts.” Mother tried to rip out the thread, but it was too strong. “He used surgical thread. This must be what he wants mended.” She broke the thread with her teeth. Three layers of old hospital sheet peeled off.
My heart raced with excitement. On the inside piece, in perfectly horizontal rows, were characters as small as ants written in blue fountain-pen ink. I grabbed the cloth and read quickly.
I am healthy, getting enough to eat. They let me treat prisoners and guards. Sell my watch to buy food.
Love and miss you both!
The last words were smudged. Tears from Father? My throat tightened. Had Father given Niu the shirt while he was treating him in the hospital? If so, how did Father know he could trust him? Tears ran down Mother’s face. Even though it was the only valuable item left in our home, Mother never had sold Father’s watch. I had seen her holding it many times, but she always put it back in the rice jar, its hiding place.
I reached out and hugged her. Mother stroked my head, as though she were rubbing memories back
into me. I became very still. Her herbal medicine had long since healed the bites and scratches under my inch-long hair. And then her hand dropped and she stood up.
“Come help me.” She went over to the corner under the window, picked up a few pieces of coal shaped like Ping-Pong balls, and dropped them inside the slow-burning stove. It wasn’t until now that I noticed the small white pieces of half-cooked pig fat in the wok. Four bottles of herbal medicine sat around the stove.
“What are these for?” I asked.
“Gardener Zong told me this morning that your father will be operating on Comrade Sin again.” Mother sat down on the short stool next to the stove. “He offered to take something to him.” She put the wok on the stove.
I squatted next to her. “Did Gardener Zong tell you when?” I needed a plan. This time I would make sure they did not catch me.
Mother narrowed her eyes and looked at me suspiciously. “No, he didn’t. Ling, don’t do anything that will get us into more trouble.” She pressed the pig fat with a metal spatula. Oil spurted from beneath it.
“Why does Comrade Sin need another operation? Is he drinking again?” The way Gao treated me made me wish his father would never get better.
“No, he is bleeding inside. In his last operation, two Barefoot Doctors sewed him up while your father went to treat injured Red Guards.”
“Did they leave a scalpel inside him? Is he going to die, like Mao?” I asked hopefully.
Mother glared. “Don’t talk like that. Your father can fix him.”
“Why?” I couldn’t help but raise my voice. “Why does Father have to treat them? After what they have done to us, how can he forgive them?”
Mother stopped pressing the pig fat; her face turned serious. “Your father believes that a true doctor will treat each patient with care, even his enemy.”
I thought of the hidden calligraphy of the Physician’s Creed. Did the person who wrote it ever have to go to jail? If so, would he still think a great physician should treat his enemy with compassion? I wasn’t sure I could treat my enemy with care. I had imagined many different ways for Gao to suffer and die.
“Hurry! Empty the cough medicine into the big bowl. I have to deliver this to Gardener Zong before Aunt Wu comes for her acupuncture treatment.”
“What are you going to do with it?” I opened the plastic cover on the glass bottle.
“I’m rendering the lard for your father. If we mix the oil with it and then make them into balls, it will look and smell like herbal medicine. Hopefully the guards won’t take it.”
The medicine was a dark brown mixture of herbs and honey. When I had craved sweets, I used to spread it like jam on steamed bread. One time, I ate too much and had diarrhea for three days. I stirred the thick mixture with two chopsticks to loosen it and then poured it into the bowl.
I stared at the curling pig fat, now shrunken and crispy brown. The smell hung in the air just beyond reach of my tongue. How delicious it would taste with salt sprinkled on top! I longed to have just one small piece. But Father needed the lard to help him stay strong. I swallowed hard.
“What’s happening at school?” Mother asked.
“We’re still crying for Mao.” My eyes were fixed on the iron wok.
Mother sighed.
To show our love for Chairman Mao, we had to cry for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. During an afternoon crying session, one boy from the fourth grade said he had no more tears left. The next day the police came and took him away.
It wasn’t hard for me. I had many reasons to feel heartbroken. I made a list in my mind: on Monday I cried for Mrs. Wong; on Tuesday I cried for Father; on Wednesday I cried for my blouse; on Thursday I cried for my hair; on Friday I cried for the ribs I missed so much; on Saturday I cried for the hidden picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. When Sunday came, I was glad I didn’t have to cry.
I had thought that Mao’s death would change everything, especially when a month later, the new Central Government arrested Jiang Qing and her supporters. The new chairman had shocked the whole nation by accusing her and her gang of planning to overthrow the new government.
Aside from the crying, for me the only change was that I had become infamous among the two hundred
students at school. They stared at my head, whispering loud enough for me to hear, “She’s that crazy girl that almost killed Gao with her belt.”
Living up to my reputation, I now wore the belt over my blue shirt. I never had to use it again though. The one time Gao’s gang got close to me, all it took was a wolf scream and they backed away. I was relieved that they no longer bothered me but in my heart I felt lonely. I wished someone would talk to me, even to pick a fight.
Mother handed me a wooden spoon. “Keep stirring while I add the oil.” With the front part of her jacket, she lifted the wok by the handles, tilted it slightly, and slowly drizzled oil into the bowl.
As I stirred, the dark brown medicine became lighter. The mixture turned sticky as the oil cooled. My arm grew tired, but I didn’t stop. It felt good to do something for Father.
Mother showed me how to roll the mixture into half-inch herbal medicine balls. Between each ball, she dipped her hands into a bowl of cold water to keep them from sticking.
When we finished, it was almost time for me to go to the afternoon crying session.
I hoped. I wished. But I was embarrassed to ask.
At last, Mother scooped up two spoonfuls of the rendered pig fat, put them into a bowl, and mixed in some rice. With two fingers, she reached into the salt jar, took out a pinch, and sprinkled it on top of the rice mixture. Stretching out my shaking hands, I took the bowl from her. “Thank you, Mom!”
It tasted heavenly! I fed the last spoonful into Mother’s mouth before rushing out the door with my schoolbag. As I ran past Comrade Li’s apartment, his door swung open. There he stood, smelling like a liquor jar.
“Bourgeois Sprout, where are you running to?” he shouted. His stained blue jacket was unbuttoned, showing his pale chest.
I showed him my afraid-of-nothing face, but inside I trembled. “School.” I stared right in his eyes. I had never seen his Mao jacket this dirty and wrinkled.
“I smell meat cooking in your home.” He took a deep sniff. “What are you celebrating?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “It’s about time I took care of you two.” He laughed, showing his corn-yellow teeth. His foul breath brushed my forehead.
I ran down to the courtyard. Outside, the wind had stopped and the sun hid behind thick clouds. The air was cool and dusty. All afternoon, I was anxious and fearful. Had Comrade Li expected Comrade Sin to punish us? With Comrade Sin still sick, had he decided to act on his own? Would he send us away or hold a public criticism meeting? If only I knew where he planned to send us, then I could ask Gardener Zong to tell Father. Or maybe I shouldn’t. It would only worry Father.