A Hundred Flowers Read online

  Sitting in the hospital, she suddenly remembered that Auntie Song was coming over that morning for more dangshen roots to lower her blood pressure. Song had been a good friend of Sheng’s mother and was a great help to Kai Ying after her mother-in-law, Liang, had died. She was certain that all the commotion must have awakened her and that when their old neighbor saw the kitchen door closed and everyone gone, she would know something was wrong. She wondered if Song would think something had happened to her father-in-law, for since Sheng’s arrest, Wei had rarely strayed far from the house and courtyard. He seemed to grow more lethargic each day, despite all the ginseng soups she fed him. Surely, Song would never imagine Tao had fallen from the kapok tree. Her only consolation came in knowing Song would keep a close watch on the house and tell anyone coming to see her for herbs to return tomorrow. She couldn’t afford to lose a patient.

  * * *

  The light in the waiting room shifted as the sky darkened by noon, bathing the room in shadows. Kai Ying wondered if it had begun to rain outside. It had now been over three hours since they’d brought Tao to the hospital and he was rushed to an examining room. Where was he now? Was he going to be all right? The abrupt nurse at the desk wouldn’t tell her anything and simply said, “Go sit, the doctor will find you when he’s ready,” and waved her away.

  Kai Ying felt helpless when she returned to the crowded room. She shook her head at Wei and said softly, “Nothing yet.” While her father-in-law sat calmly, waiting for the doctor to come to them, she knew if her husband Sheng had been there he would have been pacing the halls, checking with doctors every few minutes, pushing to see where his son was and how well he was being taken care of. Kai Ying found the differences between them all the more glaring at that moment and she longed for Sheng and his impatience. There had been only two letters from him in the past year, the first arriving almost a month after they were told he was being reeducated in Luoyang.

  For a while, she worried that Tao would wake up to find he was all alone in a foreign place surrounded by strangers. Then she swallowed her panic and froze at the thought that he might never wake up. She took a deep breath and shifted in the hard chair. First there was her difficult miscarriage three years ago, then Sheng had been taken from her, and now … she wouldn’t allow herself to think about that. Just then, Kai Ying felt her father-in-law’s warm hand cover hers. Wei leaned close and whispered, “Tao will be all right,” his calm words grazing her cheek.

  * * *

  Her father-in-law was a retired professor of Chinese art history at Lingnan University, a tall and graceful man with a trimmed goatee and gray hair shaved close to his head. A well-known authority in his field, he had retired at sixty-two after Mao’s Chinese Communist Party came into power, almost ten years ago, a time when outspoken scholars and intellectuals like many of his colleagues had fled from China rather than be persecuted and imprisoned by the new government. Wei, who had never been overtly political, and who had never voiced his opinions aloud, had slipped by untouched. Devoted to art and research, he kept to himself, stubbornly refusing to leave Guangzhou, the home of his ancestors. “Here in the South,” he once told Kai Ying, “we do things differently from the rest of China.” She knew he meant that they spoke Cantonese instead of Mandarin, preferred their food less spicy, and reveled in Guangzhou’s long history of open trade with foreigners, which left them less isolated than the Northerners. China’s sheer size and lack of communications created vast differences. “Beijing has no idea what we’re doing here half the time,” he added confidently.

  Wei always remained scholarly and soft-spoken, which Kai Ying had realized, early on, was his deliberate way of being heard. His students would have to stop and listen in order not to miss something important. She glanced over to see Wei’s long legs were crossed and he sat with his eyes closed so he appeared asleep. But Kai Ying knew he wasn’t asleep; he had simply retreated into his own quiet world away from the flurry around him. She’d often found him in this meditative state. It was his way of dealing with the difficulties of life, by going inward. At times, she was envious, wishing she could disappear so easily for a little while. Instead, she was destined to keep her eyes wide open. Her husband, Sheng, was much the same way, but whereas she had always been more a spectator who stood by and watched the world from a safe distance, her husband was more likely to act.

  Sheng was also a teacher; he taught history at the Guangzhou High School. After the Communist Party took over and his father retired, Sheng wasn’t able to finish his doctorate, but was fortunate to get a teaching position at the nearby high school. Both father and son believed that lessons could be learned from China’s history. It didn’t take long for Kai Ying to realize that they were both prisoners of the past, though each pursued his desires and preoccupations differently. While Wei’s sole interest was in preserving China’s past through its art, Sheng believed that if the Chinese were going to forge a stronger nation with a vibrant future, they would have to move past their history and learn from their mistakes.

  Sheng never shied away from school politics and student problems, and it was this same concern and impulsiveness that had gotten him into trouble last year. Kai Ying had often heard Wei counsel her headstrong husband, “You should always look for the quiet within the storm, and then you’ll find the answers to your questions.” Afterward, she watched Sheng turn away from his father with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. She knew what he was really thinking. No, no, you’ll only find the answers to your questions by walking straight into the storm.

  Sheng frightened Kai Ying sometimes. She could feel his discontent, like that very same storm brewing just beneath the surface. She worried their quiet life within the courtyard couldn’t contain all his hopes and desires for China to grow and prosper, to be a better place for Tao and future generations. China was at a crossroads, he had said, and it was important that they choose the right path. Growing up back in Zhaoqing, she’d seen her own father’s disappointment with the Nationalist government. The Kuomintang government had grown increasingly corrupt under the leadership of Chiang Kai Shek, and while officials and military leaders grew rich, the Chinese people suffered inflation and unemployment. Her father’s anger was a disease that spread through his body until all that was left was bitterness. She didn’t want to see the same thing happen to Sheng.

  “Think of Tao,” she had pleaded with Sheng, reminding him there were always consequences to the kind of change he hoped for.

  “I am thinking of Tao,” he said. She could still hear his voice rise as he continued, “China has to accept change if we expect to move forward! All the Party has done is taken us a step backwards!”

  She had wanted to reach out and put her fingers on his lips to quiet him. Please, please, don’t say another word; keep your thoughts to yourself. No one was safe, she thought. She knew if anyone, even their neighbors, heard what Sheng was saying and reported him to the authorities, he would be in serious trouble. But no matter how he felt, Kai Ying never thought he would go so far as to jeopardize both himself and his family, even if he believed there would be no repercussions. While the Party had ignored Wei as a harmless academic of the old regime, they didn’t hesitate to arrest Sheng for writing that letter. The Party had found a way to get to her father-in-law after all, for Sheng’s arrest had knocked the wind out of him. Wei had aged in the past year and kept increasingly to himself, spending most of his days reading in the courtyard and looking after Tao.

  * * *

  Kai Ying squirmed in the hard chair and looked down at herself. For the first time she realized she was still dressed in the pale yellow cotton tunic and pants she slept in, having hastily thrown on only an old cotton sweater. Thankfully, she’d had the presence of mind to change into street shoes. Kai Ying couldn’t help but think how chaotic she must look. Even in the sticky heat, she felt a chill and pulled her sweater tight across her body. Wei was still wearing the same threadbare brown mein po, the silk padded jacket he refu
sed to throw away, even with a new one in his closet. She leaned over and touched the edge of his frayed sleeve, careful not to disturb him. His eyes were still closed, his breathing even. For a moment, she thought he might really have fallen asleep, but she detected the slightest movement of his hand resting on his knee and knew that he was awake. She studied her father-in-law closely, looking for the subtle characteristics that were carried over from father to son. There was a definite resemblance between them around the eyes and in his strong chin. She could already see that Sheng would have the same thick, gray brows when he was older. They were both good-looking men. Sheng wasn’t quite as tall but was lean and solidly built, with thick, unusually wavy hair. His real power and grace came through in his passion for his family and his beliefs. It’s what had attracted her to him from the very beginning. She sometimes saw the same fearlessness in their son, and when she did, she felt the ache of not knowing when she’d see her husband again.

  Kai Ying loved both father and son for their strengths, and despite their weaknesses. She stood between the two, balancing their personalities. The one thing she was certain united them both was their love for Tao. Their differences aside, she saw what wonderful teachers they were in the way they always inspired the boy, keeping Tao interested in the world around him. She couldn’t imagine what she’d do if Wei wasn’t there at the hospital with her.

  Just then, someone coughed and Kai Ying looked up. Across the aisle from them sat a pale young girl watching her. The girl’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail and angry red pimples peppered her forehead and cheeks. She wore a soiled, loose-fitting cotton jacket and pants, and her thin hands lay on the rounded bulge of her stomach. She appeared fourteen at most, Kai Ying guessed, just a child. But her watchful eyes seemed older, and there was something about the girl that kept her from turning away. Instead, Kai Ying wanted to lean closer, place her fingers on the girl’s wrist to feel her pulse. Just by looking at her, she knew the girl lacked the iron and nutrition needed for the baby’s health and growth. She would also need a cleanser of rhubarb, phellodendron, skullcap, and sophora to quiet the heat in her body that was causing the acne. It would also help to prevent any future scarring. Underneath it all, there was a pretty young girl.

  * * *

  Kai Ying was suddenly startled by a woman’s scream coming from the hospital corridor, which quickly dissolved into a mournful cry. She sat up straight and her body stiffened as she listened to the consoling voices that followed. No, she thought. No, that won’t be me. Tao will be all right. Fear rose to her throat. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on finding tranquillity the way her father-in-law did, but all she heard was a swell of voices rising in confusion all around her.

  Wei

  When Wei closed his eyes, he felt comforted by the darkness. If he were patient the noise would soon quiet to a thin whisper and the black shadows moving against his eyelids would gradually fade away. Then the images he carefully conjured up would slowly come into focus. It was similar to the only moving picture he had ever seen, since he’d rarely had the time or inclination for entertainment when he was still teaching and researching. But once he retired, Sheng had finally persuaded him to see a film just before Tao was born. After the Party came into power, only anti-bourgeoisie, pro-Communist movies were allowed to be shown by the new government. Downtown at the Golden Palace Theater, The White-Haired Girl was already a well-known favorite, based on the famous opera about a young girl who escapes the cruelties of an evil landlord after her father is killed, and manages to survive in the wilderness against all odds. Several years later, when she’s found by the young man who loves her, her hair has turned completely white from all the hardships she has had to face.

  Wei had never forgotten how the screen flickered with light before the actors appeared like magic, coming to life before his eyes. As he sat enthralled that afternoon in the darkened theater, he couldn’t help but think of Liang, his own white-haired woman. She hadn’t faced the same kind of hardships, but her hair did begin to turn prematurely gray not long after Sheng’s birth. Yet she refused to color it, or to drink his mother’s black moss soup boiled with the immortal herb He Shou Wu to help darken it again. Wei had loved her tenacity and independence.

  Now, every time Wei closed his eyes, instead of clearing his mind as Kai Ying and Sheng assumed he did in meditation, he waited until the light flickered on in his head and brought Liang back to life. He had met her on a day not unlike this one, gray and wet, with a mist that veiled and softened everything around them on campus. He had been teaching at Lingnan University for three years when he saw Liang walking across the grounds with some other students. It was the way she moved that attracted him at first, floating among them, as if she were in a Pu Ru painting walking through the mist. And there she was, with him once again. He was amazed at how real it felt to see her in his mind’s eye, standing there with her hand held out to him, or to imagine her warmth as she leaned toward him and touched his cheek. “You’re tired,” she said, her voice comforting, her beauty stealing his breath away. It was all he could do to keep himself from smiling, from laughing aloud with happiness to see her again. He never dreamed he would have been so lucky to have met and married someone as remarkable as Liang.

  The noise in the waiting room rose and fell around Wei, threatening to drive Liang away as he struggled to hang on to her. He felt his heart beating faster. I need you, he thought, I always have. He tasted something acidic, the regret of not having shown her just how much. Watching her smile as she slowly faded away, he kept his eyes closed.

  * * *

  Beyond the surrounding turmoil, his grandson was alone somewhere in the hospital and there was nothing he could do but wait. Wei wondered if it was some kind of retribution for his years of self-absorption. He had always been too involved in his own work, never taking into consideration how it might affect those around him. Rather than going into business as his father had wished when he graduated from Lingnan University, he concentrated on his art history studies, preoccupied with teaching and research. The thought of making money never occurred to him. He was thirty when he finally married Liang, and long after they’d given up on having a child, Sheng came along unexpectedly almost ten years later. Through it all, Wei continued to work long hours, sorting through the evolution of art in each dynasty, cataloguing every artifact or painting, recording each piece of information with the knowledge that this was his small contribution to the long, complicated history of China. What he relished most of all was discovering how the past had brought them to the present. He told himself that his work was a part of all their legacies, but was it? By the time he paused long enough, Wei had missed so much of Sheng’s childhood that he had little memory of what his son was like as a boy.

  Liang passed away a year after he retired. He lived in quiet despair at having lost Liang just when he could finally have spent more time with her. Each morning, it took all his energy just to get out of bed, and it wasn’t until his grandson’s birth the following year, in 1951, that he found his footing again. His greatest regret was that Tao never knew Liang, his white-haired grandmother.

  Unlike with his son, Wei gave his grandson his full attention. He couldn’t imagine life without Tao; the little boy was their beating heart, their future. Wei had taught him to recite the names of the four greatest dynasties before he could string a full sentence together. He could still hear the boy recite “Han, T’ang, Sung, and Ming” over and over, like a musical chant. It rang through the courtyard all through the day, becoming the lullaby that put him to bed each night.

  Wei had never been so proud.

  * * *

  Even with his eyes closed, Wei felt his daughter-in-law’s gaze upon him, a shadow and the warm movement of air as she moved closer. He kept his eyes closed and hung on to his thoughts for a moment longer. Kai Ying was a good woman. Liang had told him as much from the very beginning, even when he felt uncomfortable having a stranger in the house. “She’s a y
oung woman with a good heart, quick to learn, and most importantly, she will keep Sheng rooted,” his wife had said. By then, Liang hadn’t been feeling well, and he realized now that she knew her life was coming to an end. He could only imagine the relief she must have felt entrusting her family to a young woman in whom she felt confident. Almost ten years later, Kai Ying hadn’t let her down.

  “Lo Yeh, the doctor is here,” Kai Ying whispered. Her breath brushed against his ear.

  Wei opened his eyes slowly and cleared his throat, waiting a moment for the world to refocus. He glanced over at Kai Ying to see the quiet, desperate look on her face, the tiny lines of fear that crept from the corners of her pursed lips. He wished Liang were there; she would know how to console their daughter-in-law. Sheng took after his mother in that way. He was always the better classroom teacher, involved and well liked by his students. Wei’s own inability to say the right words felt like a stubborn knot caught in the middle of his throat. He reached over and put his hand on hers.

  Kai Ying

  The doctor who finally spoke to them was clinical and detached. He kept his eyes focused on his clipboard when he told them Tao’s right leg had suffered a severe compound fracture. The same height as Kai Ying, he had a serious, careful appearance, from his thick black glasses to his perfectly parted hairline. He appeared slightly anemic, his skin pale and smooth, almost translucent. A prominent blue vein pulsed at his temple. She wondered if he spent any time outdoors in the sun and fresh air, and would have immediately prescribed it if he ever came to her, along with a soup of ginseng, wolfberries, and astragalus roots for energy and blood flow.