Paper Daughter (15 page)

Maybe he'd meant all was good enough that we could stand a rough bump.

I didn't fall asleep until almost dawn, and then it was into a nightmare of dark streets and screeching tires. I was a reporter getting a story, but then I wasn't. And it wasn't my father in the way of a hit-and-run driver, but me in the headlights of the onrushing car.

The lights got brighter and brighter, and I couldn't see who was driving. Or maybe I could. Maybe it was my father driving.

But then I saw that I was behind the wheel.

Driving and being run down at the same time. About to crash into myself.

And then I was at the
Herald,
sitting at a computer, having to report the whole story, and I didn't know where to start. I couldn't think of a lead sentence, couldn't even get my fingers moving on the keyboard.

FAI-YI LI, 1935

One day in another spring I pluck a white blossom and give it to An, an excuse to touch her hand. Her fingers entwine with mine—a familiarity no longer new, but it still fills me with wonder.

It is a familiarity that troubles An. Often we talk about the conflict she feels. At school she is a modern girl. At home she must be more like her mother and grandmothers were. And during the in-between hours, like these, she must decide how much of one and how much of the other she is.

Now, when I see An searching for words, I think she wishes to talk about this again. Instead she says, "My father is sending me away. As soon as I graduate here, I'm to begin a nursingprogram in California.
"

Heaviness fills me and then washes out, leaving me cold and hollow. I manage to say, "I did not know that was your plan.
"

"
My father enrolled me.
"

"
And it is not what you wish?" I ask.

"
No.
"

She looks so sad, as desolate as I feel, that I would put my arms around her if it were not more than she permits.

"
What do you want?" I ask.

"
I don't know," she answers. But I feel her hand tighten around mine. "Iwant to be with you.
"

We sit so close that it almost causes me to forget I have brought her a present. It is a picture—a postal card—that shows the street on which she lives, though it is a photograph from an earlier year. "But it is not too old," I tell her. "Look there. You can see your father's shop.
"

I have inquired about the proper way to present such a card, and now, before giving it to her, I carefully write on the back, on three lines in one corner so I will not use up all the space, "With best regards, Li Fai-yi, Seattle." I am so intent on making each better perfect that I do not see until too late I have put
Li
first.

"
Oh!" I say. "I did not mean to do that.
"

"
I like your name this way, too," she says. "Thank you for my gift." And then she starts laughing. "But—only best regards?" she asks. "That is all that comes with this gift?
"

"
No," I tell her. "Much more.
"

And although I do not say how much more, I believe she knows, for she no longer laughs. Instead she says, "Thank you, Fai-yi Li. I will keep your present always.
"

She will not hear that it is only a postal card and not worth such care.

But I know that if we can somehow have the time of years rather than of weeks and months, I will give her many more gifts, and they will be things of true value. Still, An, treasuring this small picture, makes me feel as though I have given her a jade carving set in gold.

***

Three weeks later I clean and brush my jacket and comb my hair smooth. Then I go as far as the arching entrance to An's school, and I wait.

And several hours later An is my wife and we are celebrating our wedding night. An has a few tears. "Ithought more would be said," she tells me. "The official words were so few. And I feel so bad for my father. He must be frantic if he has not yet found my note.
"

I tell her, "We will go see him in the morning.
"

"
No. I'd like to do that by myself," she says. "I need to make him understand.
"

"
If that is what you want," I say, holding her now that I can. "But please do not be unhappy tonight.
"

Her answering smile tells me that mostly she is not.

***

An is up early the next day—much earlier than I would wish—saying she cannot sleep while the prospect of facing her father is before her. "I will not be long," she says. 'And then I will come get you at the laundry, and we will talk with him together.
"

But she does not come for me, and finally I go to where her father's shop is and walk up and down the block, waiting for her to come out. There is a
CLOSED
sign on the door, and the curtains in the upper-story windows are drawn.

I watch a customer, annoyed at the sign, try the door anyway but turn away when he finds it locked.

And then a cab pulls up and An's father gets out, fumbles with a key, opens the door.

I hurry to him. "Where is An?
"

He pulls me inside roughly, spilling out angry words. From the tumble of them I pick out a word that I have not heard before, but I know from the way he says
annulled
that it is important.

"
What do you mean?" I ask.

"
That this—mistake—never happened. You and my daughter are not married, and you were not.
"

I come to understand that he has seen officials and secured papers that make the marriage certificate given to An and me no good.

"
But we are married," I say. "How can it be possible foryou to undo such a thing?
"

He does not bother to answer, and I wonder if he only had to tell the officials that he had not given permission. Or perhaps he paid money to someone to get what he wanted, the way I did to become Fai-yi Li.

"
Now get out!" he says.

"
Wait!" I say. "Please, listen! If you are worried how I will take care of An, I have thought of that. My father and I talked this morning of opening a second laundry that I will run.
"

I hasten to add, "Though, of course, I would not have An work in it. My sister would do that.
"

Mr. Huang makes a snorting sound. "Your father?
Paper father!
You think I didn't guess?" he says. "An old customer of mine, needing money to bring over a wife and baby, suddenly acquires two almost-grown children that he has never before mentioned?
"

My heart pounds so hard that moments pass before I am able to ask, "Does An know?
"

He doesn't have to answer. Of course he has told her.

"I can explain to her...
"

"
What? That you are so selfish you would take away who she is? An is not like me, still an alien, though I've been here since I was a baby. She was born here.
A
citizen. What if you were found out?" he demands. "Deported as an illegal? Do you not know that when a woman—any woman—marries a Chinese who is not a citizen, his status becomes hers?
"

I struggle to absorb that. Is that really the law? Could he be lying? No. I can feel that he is not.

"
Still, I must talk to her," I say.

"
I've already sent her away, and you will not find her." He thrusts his chin forward. "Leave!
"

I hardly see the streets andpeople around me as I walk the two blocks back to the laundry. All my awareness is inward, on questions of what An must be thinking and of where she might be. I am not willing to accept that I will never see her again.

And I do not know what is best for her. Perhaps, if all her father has said is true, then the thing that is best is this word
—annulment.

But I will find her, and together we will decide.

***

At the laundry, Sucheng, who has talked with Li Dewei, is waiting, rage on her face and venom in her voice. "What right have you to a wife? You owe me,
me!"

She does not listen when I tell her what An's father has done. She hears only my concern for An.

"
Do you think I care?" she demands. She sweeps her hand about, at the cramped, sweat-smelling shop. "You are not going to go off and leave me with this. It is not what I killed a man for!
"

"
Killed?" I repeat, uncomprehending. Then, "Oh, the man who died when you fought him off." Why is she dragging that up now, when I have so much more on my mind?

She looks at me with contempt. "How do you know his death was an accident?" she demands. "How do you know I did not lie in wait for him, and then for you to come by and find us. His dying did make you bring me here.
"

Again she sweeps her hand about the shop. "I hate you for not telling me how it would be.
"

But I hardly hear, because I am being pulled under to someplace where pressure pushes in, squeezing on my chest, distorting all around me...

She is making this up,
I tell myself.
She is grabbing for a way to hurt.

I try to catch her in her lie. "The money," I say. "How couldyou know he would have enough money for us to come here?
"

"
Perhaps he did not," she answers. "Perhaps I took the money from our parents' safe earlier in the day and put it in his coat.
"

Her mouth curves. "Tell me you did not wonder about the money. Perhaps you did not ask these questions then because you also wanted to come to the Gold Mountain.
"

"
No!" I say so loudly that Philip begins crying. "And ... our parents! You must have taken all they had! How could you do that? Even think of doing it?
"

She shrugs, but her hand comes up to her face.

And then, with blackness flooding though me, I grab her and shake and shake her until I feel as though there is nothing left inside me except bile going sour.

***

When Li Dewei comes in that evening, I do not have to tell him about Mr. Huang sending An away. "Mr. Huang is going, too," he says. "He is looking for someone to keep open his shop while he is gone.
"

"
I have to find An," I tell him. "Can Sucheng remain here?
"

And so that is what happens. I stay long enough to train a boy to work in my place while I am gone, and then I begin my search. At first I look close by, and then farther and fartheraway, to othercities, otherChinatowns, in Oregon and California.

I do not stop looking until I find someone in San Francisco who remembers meeting Mr. Huang. "It was many months ago," he tells me. "It was at the shipping office. He was purchasing passage to China for himself and his daughter.
"

"
For a visit?" I ask.

"
No. One way there," he answers. "I remember because I wondered what had made him so bitter that he would not want them to return.
"

Afler that I go back to Seattle and the laundry, and over time, as Li Dewei and I prosper, and as Philip grows up believing me to be his real brother, I settle into understanding that this is the life I have made.

***

I never do find a way to write my parents that would not mean putting onto paper names like Li Dewei's that are not mine to expose.

Many years later, though, after World War II ends, I travel to China once, along with many other Chinese Americans who also have served in the military. But unlike them, I do not go to bring back a bride. And not to find An, either, for even if it were possible, I would not break into her life again.

No, I go to find my parents and to try to right some of the wrong done them. If there was a wrong, beyond Sucheng and me leaving them with no children to carry on their name and care for them in their old age. For I never again speak to Sucheng of that long-ago death and how it happened. There is no reason to, when I cannot know whether anything she might say would be truth or lie.

And what can I say of my return to where I was born? It is to a country at war with itself, where there has been fighting of one kind or another for many years, and famine and more sickness.

The village where I grew up no longer exists except as the site of a huge factory. I can find no family in the surrounding countryside, and no one I talk with knows me or knows what has become of my parents.

And so, in the end, I walk toward the ocean, where I board another ship for America.

I can see the lonely years stretching out before me, like the endless gray swell of the sea. I can imagine there will be good things; perhaps Philip will have children and grandchildren who will call me Uncle. For their sake and for Li Dewei's, I make a kind of peace with Sucheng.

I am resigned to An's face fading from my memory. Already it has become hazy, like a face seen through oiled parchment.

What I do not foresee is that when I am very old and have lost my sight, hers will be the face I will see most clearly.

The Galinger piece in Saturday's paper was short, saying mainly what I'd already learned from the television: that police wanted to question Galinger, who had disappeared. It also mentioned the reopened investigation into Dad's death, but only briefly. I could tell that Harrison had tried to walk a line between reporting the story honestly and giving Dad all possible benefit. But still...

I'd just read through it for a second time, feeling heartsick, when the phone rang. It was Jillian, who plunged right in.

"I saw the paper," she said. "I figured you'd be feeling awful."

"Pretty much."

"How's your mom taking it?"

"Hard. I had to tell her about Dad's—about the stuff I told you."

I paused and then said in a rush, "Jillian, it's such a mess—more than has been reported. And I'm so afraid that if things don't get cleared up, then years from now, whenever Dad's name is mentioned, somebody will say,
Steven Chen. Wasn't he involved in some scandal?
It's not something you want for your dad."