• Sixty-Three •

Soon after Jin Shan had left the hospital, Yomei’s brother’s family moved back to Beijing from Sichuan, where Yang had headed the Southwest Normal College for several years. Yang’s former boss Zhu Deh, the nominal commander in chief of the People’s Liberation Army and a vice chairman of the PRC, wanted him to write his biography. Yang had worked as his secretary for many years in Yan’an and then in Beijing, so he felt obligated to undertake such a project, regarding Zhu Deh as a father of sorts. The old man, already in his midseventies, used to be a sworn brother to his father and had treated Yang like a son, even though Zhu Deh had a son of his own, who was a locomotive driver in Beijing. It was whispered that the old man was extremely shrewd, believing that to be a common laborer would be a good way for his son to survive the endless political upheavals. His belief turned out to be right—his son, though relegated to a small train station where he took charge of a warehouse for three years during the Cultural Revolution, eventually died of a natural cause, of a heart condition, but left five children for the Zhu family.

Now Yang was back in the center of the CCP again, where he knew life could be troublesome and even treacherous, but he was willing to work for Zhu Deh for a third time. As a matter of fact, he was the best candidate for writing Marshal Zhu’s biography. Few who knew the old man well could write better than Yang, who had studied in Japan for some years in the early 1930s and had been acknowledged as one of the most capable official writers in Yan’an. Since the office of the CCP’s Central Committee didn’t have housing for Yang at the moment, his family—his wife and three children—was staying at the PLA’s guesthouse at the edge of Beihai Park. Yang had once owned a courtyard in downtown Beijing that had been presented to him by a friend of his father’s, but after the Communists had come to power, he had donated the property—three small houses surrounding a tiny yard—to the country. At that time, in 1949, while divorced and still single, he had been living in the Zhongnanhai compound, next to Zhu Deh’s residence, for the sake of work, and he’d never thought he might need his own housing someday. Now he regretted a bit having given his property away. But he didn’t worry much about his family’s inadequate housing yet, certain that this problem would be solved pretty soon once he started his work here. As long as he had a room where he could work on Marshal Zhu’s biography, he wouldn’t complain. The PLA’s guesthouse did provide him with a small office on the top floor in addition to a suite for his family.

Yomei and Jin Shan invited Yang’s family over for a gathering. Yolan and Zongchang also came and brought with them a large watermelon and a magnum of champagne.

Little Lan got excited to see her three cousins, Yang and Shi Chee’s children, two of them younger than she was. Yang and Chee’s oldest child was Bing, a lovely girl the same age as Little Lan who was a bit frail. Bing’s younger siblings were boys, Ning and Ming. The two girls, Lan and Bing, were both second graders, but the boys were still too young for elementary school. It was drizzling outside, the sky gray and low, so the kids couldn’t go out to play in the tiny yard. Little Lan had some bric-a-brac under her bed, among which were a couple of dolls. She pulled out a box of children’s picture books, and the four of them gathered in her room, the girls reading while the boys built things with toy bricks.

Meanwhile Jin Shan was making his signature dish, braised pork cubes. Yang’s wife, Shi Chee, a slender woman with an angular, heart-shaped face, had brought a large cured white fish, a special product of Sichuan. Jin Shan had eaten this kind of fish before and was excited to cook it. He cut the fish and steamed it in a pot. He didn’t have many relatives himself, so Yomei’s siblings were like his own. He enjoyed having family gatherings, and even the noise made by the kids filled the house with life. Now and then, Jin Shan let out a wisecrack. He told Yang and Shi Chee that Yomei had saved his life again, having helped him recuperate from the heart attack, so from now on he preferred to stay home and just help his wife with her work. Yang smiled and said he was so delighted to see that Jin Shan had finally become “a model husband.”

After dinner, Yomei and Yolan chatted about their respective work. Yolan liked working at Beijing University, and this semester she was teaching a selected-reading course, which included Pushkin and Turgenev and a few authors of the Soviet period, like Gorky and Isaac Babel. She mentioned a novel she had just read—The Brothers Yershov, which a Russian colleague had loaned to her. She was told that the book might be problematic but was immensely popular in the USSR at the moment. In fact, ever since its publication four years earlier, the novel had been in the center of controversy. The author, Vsevolod Kochetov, was already known in China. His previous novel, The Zhurbin Family, had been a bestseller here, and he’d been held as an exemplary practitioner of socialist realism. His new book, Yolan said, felt nostalgic. It questioned the current political trends in Soviet society. Evidently the author preferred Stalin to Khrushchev, similar to the Party secretary, a main character in the story, who laments at the end of his life, “If only Lenin were alive!” Indeed, it was extraordinary for such a novel to have seen print, considering that Khrushchev was still the boss of the CPSU. Yomei was fascinated and said she’d get hold of a copy of the book and read it. There was a foreign language bookstore downtown, so she’d go there and buy a copy.

Yang had heard of the controversy, and he said some top CCP leaders actually appreciated the views and sentiment expressed in the hefty novel, whose Chinese translation had come out the previous summer. There had been some discussion within the CCP’s top circle about this book, which seemed quite timely and evoked some sympathy among the CCP leaders. They believed that like in the Soviet Union, there was also deep-seated corruption among their comrades in China, many having gone astray in their pursuit of self-interest and forgotten the original vision of the revolution. Some had betrayed the proletariat and even themselves, becoming obstacles to progress. Yang had overheard a senior cadre in his office saying, “This is a timely book, a poignant reminder for all of us.” It was also true there had been grumbles in the CCP about Khrushchev’s denouncing and demonizing Stalin. Mao believed that some of the Soviet leaders had strayed from the original course of the revolution started by Lenin.

Thus they had committed the misdeed of revisionism, which Mao was determined to fight. So it was high time for a correction—this novel could serve such a purpose. The inside information provided by Yang made Yomei want to explore the possibility of adapting the novel into a play, given that she had liked Kochetov’s previous books. Over the years she had learned that it would be safer to produce a Soviet or traditional Russian play, because those cultural officials and hacks above her tended to leave such a production alone, not daring to mess with it. Aside from politics, if a work could cross linguistic and cultural barriers and find an audience in another country and language, it meant the work had great vitality, and was almost without exception artistically superior.

After dinner, having eaten ice cream that Jin Shan made, the guests were ready to leave. Yolan helped Yomei wash the dishes, then both families left. The children were in jubilant spirits, each taking with them a gift from Aunt Yomei—Bing got a baby doll, Ning a toy plane, and Ming a wind-up gunboat. But Little Lan hadn’t joined them in devouring the ice cream that she loved. She said she had a headache. Jin Shan saved a small bowl of it for her.

After the guests were gone, Yomei went into her daughter’s room and found her lying in bed, her face buried in her flowered pillow. Yomei touched her head and neck and decided the girl’s temperature was normal. “All right,” she said, “come eat your ice cream or it will melt in a jiffy.”

The girl stepped into the kitchen and sat down at the table, eating the ice cream while gulping down her tears. Alarmed, Jin Shan asked, “What gives? What makes you cry like this?”

“Ming said you two are not my real parents. Is that true?”

Yomei and Jin Shan glanced at each other, for a brief moment too stunned to say anything. “Why did he say that?” Jin Shan asked Little Lan.

The girl went on in a moist, snotty voice, “Dunno, maybe because I wouldn’t let him take away my set of Monkey King books. He said, ‘I’m gonna ask Aunt Yomei for them. She’s my real aunt but not your real mother.’ I called him a liar, but he told me, ‘Go ask Aunt Yomei when she adopted you.’ ”

“That little squirt is an asshole,” Yomei said.

“You are my real parents, aren’t you?”

“No, Ming is right,” Yomei said. “We adopted you when you were a baby, and you have brought so much joy to us.”

“Yes, Little Lan,” Jin Shan added, “we’re one family. We’ve taken you as our flesh and blood. You’re our daughter, our only child in every sense. You’re our pride and joy.”

“Who’re my birth parents?”

Yomei managed to reply, “Your father passed away long ago. Your mother was too ill to raise you on her own, so she let us have you.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in Shanghai, but we haven’t been in touch since you came.”

Jin Shan said, “I knew your father, who was a smart, elegant man. Your mother was beautiful too.”

Yomei explained, “We didn’t mean to keep you in the dark for good, Lan. Your dad and I talked about this, and we both believed we should let you know the truth when you grew up. So we will share any information on your birth mother in case you want to know and even look for her.”

At those words, Little Lan got up and fell into Yomei’s arms, crying hard. “You’re my mother! Dad is my real father. This is my home.”

“We’re so happy to hear this, Lan,” said Jin Shan. “We couldn’t imagine this family without you. You’re heaven-sent to us. You know that Mother Yomei loves you as much as if she’s afraid you might melt like a chocolate in her hand. In the beginning, you wouldn’t sleep at night, so she just held you in her arms pacing about the room for hours at night.”

“Sometimes your dad did that too—the second he put you down, you cried again, so he had to keep holding you, walking around and humming a nursery rhyme.”

At those words, Little Lan beamed with a smile. “I can see I’m so lucky. I could’ve become an abandoned baby.”

“You joined us and made this family complete,” Yomei said. “It must be fate that threw us together, so we must love each other and live happily.”

Jin Shan added, “I’m so glad we can talk about this openly now, Little Lan.”

“I’m happy to know the truth, Dad and Mom. I love you.” She smiled in spite of her tearstained cheeks.