Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos (19 page)

“I could tell them I’m her father,” the representative said.

“Wonderful.” Comrade Pan sighed. “I knew I could count on you.” With that, she crawled into the backseat with me and shut the door. The representative got into the front seat. He gave directions to the driver. “When we get there,” he said, “let me do the talking.”

At PLA Hospital 105, the representative filled out admission forms affirming that he was my father and Comrade Pan was my mother. Attendants immediately wheeled me to an intensive care ward. As a doctor and nurse examined me, I opened my eyes. In the bright light, I could see the representative’s face. He was a tall man, middle-aged, slim, confident in his manner. When he noticed me looking at him, he smiled and whispered, “It will be all right now. No need to worry.” I forced a hint of a smile and blinked once to let him know I had heard him. Like so much else in my life, this man’s kindness was as inexplicable to me as the wickedness of so many others. The last time I had been this close to a soldier, he had hurt me. Now another soldier was posing as my father in order to save my life. Why? I understood neither. And Comrade Pan, who had never said a single kind word to me—who despised me because of my family background—was pretending to be my mother. I no longer had any idea what she might actually be thinking. So many adults around me seemed to be playing roles that changed dramatically in a moment. Their behavior was utterly unpredictable.

“I think it’s spinal meningitis,” the doctor said to the representative. “I’m going to have to isolate your daughter from the other patients.”

“Will she survive?” Comrade Pan asked anxiously.

“I can’t say,” the doctor answered.

I watched the doctor take out a long needle. The nurse pulled me into a sitting position and lifted my shirt. The doctor inserted the needle
and drew spinal fluid. He administered no anesthetic. The pain was excruciating. I let out a little squeak and struggled for a moment, but I was weak and easily restrained by the nurse.

I was taken to a private room. The doctor prescribed several Chinese medicines and acupuncture to bring down my fever. Hour by hour I wasted away. Nothing seemed to work. Comrade Pan visited every day and sat silently beside my bed.

One night I awakened with a start and sat up in bed. My pain had vanished and I seemed to have recovered my strength. The moon shone brightly through the window bathing the room in a blue haze. I slipped to the floor and walked to the window. The courtyard below was empty. There was no sound and no movement. The world was like a dreamy still-life painting.

As I gazed around, I felt my feet leave the floor. I rose through the air to the ceiling and floated there facedown, looking at the room below me. In the bed beneath me, eyes closed, I saw a wasted little girl. In each of her arms was a needle attached to an IV. She was as pale as the sheet covering her. Her breath was barely perceptible. I thought, Poor little girl. I felt so sorry for her. I wanted to ease her suffering. I remembered something I’d learned in school. I began to speak to her. But the gentle voice from deep inside was not my own. It was the voice of Auntie Liang. It said, “Your life has not been a long one, little Yimao. But now it is over. There is nothing more for you in this world. You may leave it now. Come with me.”

The little girl didn’t move. Did she hear me?

I began to cry for her. I reached down but could not quite touch her. I cried for her and my tears fell like raindrops, splashing one after another on her face and hair. Her eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings. She blinked and stared up at me hovering above her. Her hand moved toward mine and our fingertips drew closer. At that moment I descended like a feather toward her. Her arms encircled me. When our faces were nearly touching, we looked into each other’s eyes and she smiled. Our eyes blended. Our fingers, hands and arms flowed into each other. Our faces became one. Everything darkened.

————

A few days earlier Mama had set out to enroll Yiding in a school eight miles from Gao Village. As she and my brothers neared the school, a stranger shouted behind them, “Li Yikai! Wait!”

“What is it?” Mama asked.

“I was sent here by the leaders of Anhui University to find you,” he said. “Because of the flood, I couldn’t get in touch with you. Your daughter is very sick. And you have to go back to Hefei immediately.”

The temperature that summer day was well over 100 degrees. Mama and my brothers were exhausted by the humidity and heat when the messenger found them. Mama braced herself against her bicycle. “What is her illness?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I have not seen her,” the messenger replied. He climbed onto his bicycle and rode away.

Mama decided to drop Yiding off at school as planned. When she was satisfied that he would be cared for there, she said goodbye to him.

On the way back to Gao Village with Yicun she pondered the problem of getting to Hefei quickly. A major flood occurred in the region in the previous week. Most of the roads were closed, and the train and bus systems were disrupted.

She was not feeling well, so she first proceeded to the commune clinic. As soon as she walked into the facility, she heard someone wailing. It was the cry that comes from deep within the soul, the sound of suffering that cannot be contained. The doctor in charge told Mama that an eleven-year-old girl had just died of a lung infection. “She didn’t arrive in time to get effective treatment,” he said.

Mama looked through the open door at the three forlorn figures standing around a table on which lay the body of a little girl. The dead child was dressed in rags. The mother and father were holding each of her hands. A brother, about the age of my younger brother, clung to his mother, sobbing. Mama immediately thought of me in Hefei. She imagined at that moment I might be lying dead on a hospital table, just like this, but with no one beside me. She became both sad and desperate
and began praying under her breath. She prayed that God would hear her and that He would save me and that I would not suffer the fate of this poor little girl.

She returned to Gao Village and received permission from Old Crab to leave after giving him a pack of cigarettes. The following morning she put Yicun on her back and set out for Hefei. She waded across a shallow stream where the flood had washed out a bridge, passed an abandoned bus stop, and walked twelve miles to another stop to catch another bus. In the adjacent county she caught a train to Hefei and arrived at the child care center after midnight.

Mama pounded on the door until Comrade Pan responded.

“Where is my daughter?” she demanded. “What disease does she have?”

“She’s not here,” Comrade Pan answered. “I took her to PLA Hospital 105 a week ago. The doctors don’t know what her problem is.”

“Why is she in the PLA Hospital?” Mama asked.

“The city hospital refused to admit her. The PLA representative for the university took her there. He said he was her father. I said I was her mother,” Comrade Pan said. “That’s how she got in.”

Mama was speechless at this revelation of compassion. The top university administrator had lied to get me admitted to the best hospital in the city. And Comrade Pan had assisted him.

Comrade Pan led Mama to my room. Mama saw my mat on the floor. She saw books and papers from school and my shoes beside it. She concluded that I had been carried from the room because I was too sick to walk. She burst into tears. “I need to see her right now,” she sobbed.

“Impossible,” Comrade Pan said. “You’ll have to wait until the morning. You can stay here tonight.”

Early the next morning Mama left Yicun with Comrade Pan and hurried to the hospital. At the western gate of the university she ran into a colleague who was surprised to see her. “Your daughter is very sick,” the colleague said. “We didn’t think you’d make it here because of the flood.”

“What is her illness?”

“You didn’t know?” the woman asked. “Well …” Then she stopped and averted her eyes and hurried away. Mama concluded that she knew but would not say because it was so serious. Her anxiety intensified. Mama ran the rest of the way to Hospital 105. She burst in the door and hurried down the hall. A soldier stopped her and demanded to know who she was. “My daughter is here,” she answered. “She is very sick. I am from the countryside and I don’t know where she is.”

“Go to the registration desk,” he told her. “Find out what room she is in.”

At the registration desk the receptionist went down the list of patients. “There is no one here with that name,” she said.

Mama went to the children’s ward. She asked an attending nurse for me. “No one here by that name,” the nurse said.

She searched through the other departments, more desperate by the moment. Finally she found her way to the contagious diseases wing of the hospital. She went from room to room until at last, on the third story, she found me alone in a room at the end of the hall.

“Maomao,” she sobbed, “please do not die,” and rushed to my bedside.

————

“Mama?” I whispered. “Is it really you?”

“Yes,” she said. She laid her face against mine and sobbed.

A doctor came into the room and asked, “Who are you? No visitors are allowed at this hour. Please leave!”

“I am her mother,” Mama replied. “I traveled all night to get here from the countryside.”

“If you are her mother,” the doctor said, “then who is the other woman who claims to be her mother? Does this child have two mothers?”

“That is Comrade Pan. She cared for my daughter until I could get here.”

“And her father? The representative?”

Mama just shook her head. The doctor not only seemed to understand, he also seemed to sympathize. He walked to my bedside and began examining me. Mama stepped back to make room for him.

“What is the problem with my daughter?” Mama asked.

“I did a spinal tap and ordered blood tests. The original diagnosis was meningitis,” the doctor said, his voice gentle and empathetic. “Now I am no longer sure what she has. I suspect she may have contracted typhoid fever. I treated her for it and she stabilized. But she still has a high temperature. Now I believe she does not have typhoid fever. I am still watching her and testing her. But I really can’t yet give an accurate diagnosis.”

“How serious is it now?” Mama asked the doctor.

“She was fortunate they brought her here. She had a high fever for at least ten days. She has not responded to treatment. To be honest with you, it’s still touch and go,” he said. “But she has a chance now. I promise you, I’ll do everything I can.” He gave me a concerned look and left the room.

Mama closed the door and returned to my side. After several minutes, she said, “Maomao, there is something I must do for you.”

“What?”

“You can never tell anyone,” she said. “Never! No matter what happens, you have to keep this a secret. If anyone found out”—her voice choked with emotion—“they would hurt us. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone. What are you going to do?”

“I am going to baptize you.”

“Baptize?”

“Yes, Maomao. Your mama is a Christian. Your aunties and uncles in Tianjin are Christians, too.”

I had never heard the word “Christian” before. I had no idea what she was telling me.

“If I do this, whatever happens to you from this morning on, someone will always be watching over you. You will never be alone.”

“Are you going away, Mama?”

“No, but I’m afraid you might, Maomao. And I want someone to care for you and love you until I am with you again.”

“I won’t go away, Mama.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

She dipped her fingertips in the basin of water beside my bed and touched them to my forehead. She whispered something about mother and father and blessings, all the while crying. I watched and listened in wonder as she said in a low voice, “ ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus—’ ”

“Mama?” I asked. “Who are those people?”

“ ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ ” she continued, “ ‘pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death … Amen.’ ”

My mother stayed with me in the hospital. My brother remained with Comrade Pan in the child care center. My fever continued for three days after she baptized me. On the morning of the fourth day, the fever finally broke. My desire for food returned. I told Mama I was hungry.

“If I bring you some watermelon, do you think you can eat it?” she asked.

“Yes,” I responded. “I’d like that.”

Mama asked the doctor if she could give me watermelon and he agreed it was a good idea.

Mama found a nearby street market and bought a small watermelon. She cut it open and spooned out the juice and fed it to me. I was able to swallow several spoonfuls.

On her fifth day in Hefei, Mama went to the university offices to make a request that my father be given permission to visit me in the hospital.

Her request was denied.

The doctor was delighted by my sudden dramatic improvement and announced I could leave the hospital.

Mama borrowed a two-wheeled cart and brought it to the hospital. A nurse helped her carry me outside and placed me on the wooden bed of the cart. Mama then wheeled me to our new quarters, a room in a dingy hostel provided to us by the university. The room was without a kitchen, bathroom or running water. It had beds fashioned from unfinished wooden planks. In a room next to ours resided one of Mama’s old colleagues, who had been in the cowshed with Papa. He took pity on us and gave us a few cooking utensils and a small coal-burning stove.

Mama brought Yicun from the child care center to live with us. A few days later, Yiding arrived from the countryside. His school semester had been canceled because of the extensive flooding. The four of us lived in the dark hostel room for the next three months while I gradually recovered my strength. The conditions were crude, I heard Mama tell her colleague, yet they were superior to Gao Village. During those days, Mama had to carry me to the bathroom. For a long time I was so weak I could not stand.