The Natural Laws of Good Luck (4 page)

Waiting is a Chinese art. Just waiting in a fold of time. Travelers often find themselves waiting: waiting for a train or a bus, waiting
for breakfast or lunch to be served, or waiting on a bench, as Zhong-hua was, between the footsore Alice and Myrtle. There is no dishonor in this kind of waiting. No need to try to make something happen or fill up the emptiness. When Zhong-hua waited on a stone bench, he became stone. When he leaned his body against a tree, he became wood. Whenever possible, he combined waiting with sleeping. I learned from him how to conserve energy this way. He seemed to think that talking just to talk wasted energy. It was better to keep it inside and make no extra effort until conversation rode out clomp-clomp on the horses of intent. If the horses were relaxing, then what need for words? Perhaps it was possible to listen to another's thoughts as horses listen to one another chewing grass.

Zhong-hua excelled in the art of being simultaneously absent and present. He wore no expression on his face. Walking, he stared ahead and never walked farther than necessary. When a bench presented itself, he sat down. If the group lingered, he soon dozed.

During our travels, Da Ge sometimes grunted something in his ear. Zhong-hua nodded and disappeared into the crowd, reappearing later with a cryptic message for Da Ge. They exchanged sharp, explosive words and never smiled. When he returned with packages, Da Ge tucked them in his bag, and Zhong-hua resumed gliding stoutly along with no agenda of his own while concealing an exquisite readiness for action. If Alice tripped, he righted her before anyone else knew she was falling. If Myrtle dropped her purse, he caught it before it hit the ground.

Word quickly spread in Da Ge's native Qufu that he had returned for a visit with American friends. A young university woman, Kong Hui, appeared at our lunch table, hoping to practice some English. Kong Hui followed me around for several days. I had only a small paper book of poetry with me, translations of Antonio Machado by Robert Bly. I read these poems to Kong Hui, and we decided to translate one of them into Chinese. Of course, it had already made one crossing from Spanish to English.

I have never wanted fame

Nor wanted to leave my poems

Behind in the memory of men

I love the subtle worlds,

Delicate, almost without weight,

Like soap bubbles.

I enjoy seeing them take the color

Of sunlight and scarlet, float

In the blue sky, then

Suddenly quiver and break.

Kong Hui was uncommonly sincere and honest. When she reappeared the next day after examining the poem, her smooth oval face was troubled, her straight eyebrows furrowed.

“Ellen, I do not understand this poet. I believe he must be confused. I feel very sorry; you share with me, and I don't want to hurt you.”

“Go ahead, Kong Hui, tell me what you think.”

“He says he would like to see beautiful things break and die.”

“Kong Hui, perhaps he means that a person can appreciate beauty but need not grab it. He is accepting that all things pass away and are lost.”

“This is a very sad thing.”

“He very much loves the beauty of the world.”

“He very much enjoys watching this beauty break.”

“Well, he notices that the best things cannot be fully known; they float by, and you can't tell if they are real or reflections of something, maybe of your own eye.”

“No, I still don't understand him. Why does it make this poet so happy to see things break and die?”

“Hmm. Yeah. Is that strange to you?”

“Very strange. I believe this man has a terrible heart.”

Kong Hui helped me find the red shoes to wear with the red dress for the fake wedding. Zhong-hua and I were already married
in a government office by virtue of official signing of papers. But Da Ge had invited many old friends to come to a wedding “show” that included martial arts stunts and a wedding orchestra. We were supposed to appear onstage and dance a wedding dance. This exhibitionist idea was repugnant to Zhong-hua, but he could not say no to an older brother-in-law.

Da Ge and Zhong-hua were opposite personalities. Da Ge relished the limelight. He loved to show off his skill with sword or staff and leap high in the air in his pink silk pantaloons. Wherever we went, he demonstrated to people he had just met how he could make
qi
energy by concentration. He captured their attention and then made them feel the heat collected in his palms. He said he could blow off the end of a Coke bottle with this heat, but it would make a mess. I asked Da Ge if Kong Hui and I could share our poem translation at the show, since his brother was also going to perform with his yo-yo in what seemed to be shaping up as a hodgepodge talent show. He said, “OK, OK, if there is time.” I didn't yet know enough to realize that this meant “No way.”

The night of the show we were supposed to meet everybody to catch the bus that would take us to dinner. We hurried down the main street lined with vendors selling from small tables or makeshift platforms made of crates. They sold bunches of greens, eggs and watermelons, jade bracelets, and small statues of Confucius. Zhong-hua shouldered me onto a side street and up an alleyway strewn with cardboard and vegetable refuse. Stucco walls smelled of urine, and flies feasted on melon rinds. We made a few more turns into the labyrinth and ducked into a restaurant.

The restaurant was the living room of an old man and his wife who were on the couch watching TV. Two bottles of wine stood at attention on top of the TV, and one small table occupied the middle of the room. The man motioned for us to sit, and Zhong-hua pointed to the wine atop the TV. Soon we were served a gigantic dish of dumplings with another huge bowl of chopped cucumbers on the side. Zhong-hua linked his arm through mine and downed
the wine while I downed mine. We smirked like two outlaws stealing time. It took only an ounce of Chinese wine to paralyze my lips and set my head on fire. I vaguely remembered that we were supposed to be going somewhere, but where?

I thought of the two small china vessels on my mother's shelf, a portly middle-aged man with a knapsack and cane and his pleasingly plump wife in her bonnet and long-aproned skirt with a basket on her arm. The inscription on the base under the man's feet said, “I am going on a journey.” The inscription beneath the woman read, “And I am going with him.” I would follow Zhong-hua anywhere. Zhong-hua's face was beet red, but I trusted him no less. I asked,
“Women yin'gai qu nar?”
(We should go where?)

“Bu yao.”
(No need.) He filled my glass again. We finished our meal and careened back into the alley. Zhong-hua bought a watermelon from a farmer, who slashed it open with one stroke of his big knife. We sat on the dusty curb and ate it, slurping and spitting seeds. One landed on my shoe. I realized Zhong-hua did not care about red shoes or about my appearing in them to please his brother-in-law. Ordinarily, I could not detect any trace of negative attitude in this man, but he had drunk the tall bottle of wine from the top of the TV, and I could plainly see that he disdained to go among the people Da Ge had summoned.

“Da Ge is waiting for us.”

Zhong-hua waved his hand in dismissal. As the younger relative, he must always defer to his elder. Da Ge used him as a shopping cart, a hat rack, a bellboy, and a secretary, according to the order of the Confucian universe. Zhong-hua sauntered down the alley with deliberate slowness, his arm draped heavily over my shoulder. He began to sing a melody. The notes of his magnificent voice floated over the dirty puddles like wind-borne blossoms. No, he surely did not want to appear in a spectacle or to be anywhere but here. I thought of Da Ge, generous and voyeuristic, presenting his friends with sword dancing, wedding music, and us—the bride and groom puppets.

When we arrived at the school where the stage had been set, Da Ge met us frantically at the door and said we must run because the music was already playing. We ran up on the stage. By magic, Da Ge was already there before us, gesticulating to make us walk faster. We were both drunk and full of dumplings. Da Ge directed everything with the mastery of a circus trainer. He stepped around us and between us, pushing here, pulling there, brushing our ears with garlic-breathy orders. I vaguely recall eating from opposite sides of an apple that Da Ge dangled between us. I do remember at the end of the routine Zhong-hua lifted me over a wooden bench and carried me off the stage while Da Ge's friends clapped and laughed. Then Da Ge thrust bowls of candy into our arms and told us to distribute it to these guests whom we did not know. Next came Tai Chi Sword, Wushu Tiger, Monkey, and Snake demonstrations. These are dancelike fighting forms based on diligent observation of animals in motion. Da Ge was in his glory.

I saw Kong Hui with the poem in her hand. She saw my face fall in realization that we hadn't gotten to read our poetry after dinner as we planned because I had been drunk in the alley with my new husband, and because Da Ge had never intended to allow a poem to infiltrate his show. I had let her down. She read my heart and rushed to me. “Ellen, don't worry about this small thing. We can read this terrible poem next time. I know when you return, we will translate many things. You will return home to China and live here forever. Forever. I am sure of this.” In what time or manner return or forever might manifest, I could not imagine. I folded her curious words away.

I tried to hug my husband good-bye in the hotel room. He moved back and said, “Airport.”

“OK.” That seemed frugal to me. Couldn't we hug twice? Maybe the last hug would be a big bear hug. I would have to wait and see.

At the airport we waited in line. Da Ge chattered to anyone
who would listen. Zhong-hua stood stiffly with his lips pressed together. I took my cue from him and stood straight and motionless. As it turned out, this was a quite tolerable way to deal with the situation; it contained the swells of emotion and conserved energy. A few tears rolled down my face, but I didn't wipe them or move.

At the last minute, Da Ge turned to Zhong-hua and ordered, “
Yongbao
, American-style.” Zhong-hua looked shocked, as if pinned to the wall by a dart.
“Kuai yidiar, yongbao! Meiguoren xihuan zuo zheyang”
(Quickly hug! Americans like doing things this way). I don't remember feeling this public hug, only that it was a swift, uninvested motion. Other Chinese people were standing in line watching us; I sensed Zhong-hua did not wish to entertain them. Zhong-hua turned to Da Ge and said,
“Ta dei geiwo xie henduo xin”
(She must write me many letters), then hurried away without saying good-bye.

A Sovereign Sense

I
RETURNED HOME TO AMERICA
and waited a year and a half for Zhong-hua to be granted a visa. We communicated over the phone in Chinese bookended with English for hello and good-bye; in letters we both wrote Chinese characters and English words, one underneath the other. Translating with a dictionary, I sometimes wrote down characters that had been out of popular use in China for centuries. When I asked after his father, it probably sounded something like “I prithee, how fareth thy honorable ancestor?” Zhong-hua wrote things like “I am writing you together with my miss and wishes from the brootom of my heart.” So I was surprised to receive a perfect love poem in English:

Love doesn't ask why

It speaks from the heart

and never explains

Don't you know that love doesn't have to think twice

It can come all at once,

or whispers from a distance

Don't ask me if this

feeling's right or wrong

It doesn't have to make much sense

It just has to be this strong

cause when you're in my arms I understand

we don't have to have a voice

when our hearts make the choices

there's no plan

it's in our hands.

Impressive! I thought he had labored over this poem for me and didn't discover until five years later that it was a Céline Dion song his English teacher had handed out in class.
*
At Christmas the kids grew some fondness for Zhong-hua based on the messages he left on the phone asking after their welfare: “This is Lu. Uh. Merry Crimma! How are your cho-co-lates?”

After one failed attempt and two long train rides from Linyi to Guangzhou, Zhong-hua was finally granted a visa. He would be coming soon, he said, after he sat by the bed of his dying uncle and journeyed to his mother's grave with delicious food and paper money.

I wanted to have everything neat and tidy when my husband came—no junk, no broken, useless things. Paroda helped me clean the cobwebs and wood ash from the corners of the house and rearrange our possessions. She made a list of yet more products needed for decent living, adding up to thousands of dollars, including things like a color-matched bath mat and toilet seat cover, but in the end we just painted the walls the color of Granny Smith apples.

On the way home from the airport, according to our notions of American hospitality, Paroda and I kept the banter going, and my husband kept saying “Oh!” and “Yes!” even though he could not yet understand or speak English.

It was winter. As soon as we entered the house, Zhong-hua made
himself deftly at home. First he stood before the woodstove and removed the business pants he had traveled from China in. There he stood in his baggy quilted long underwear. “Very comfortable,” he said. This phrase, along with “not comfortable,” “yes,” “no,” and “hello,” completed his vocabulary.

It must have been the moment when the pants came off that Paroda and I simultaneously adopted our policy of no judgment. It was clear that Zhong-hua was living by a different set of rules. We didn't know those rules—we only knew we adored him. Supper that night was a piece of salmon. Zhong-hua nudged me aside and, with experienced hands, sliced garlic and scallions. He pulverized a big handful of peppercorns under a stone pestle and dumped the pile into sizzling oil. I began sneezing uncontrollably and had to run outside. Paroda ran upstairs.