The Kitchen God's Wife Part 16

"Same thing happened to me," she said, shaking her head. "When my husband died, the survivor money from the air force-all of it went to his family! Nothing to me. So you see what I have to do to earn food for myself and this child inside me." She tapped the letters she was sorting. "Now the family is saying I should go back to Nanchang, have the baby, give them their grandchild. After that, they said, I can leave, do what I want. I ask you, why should I go there and let them treat me so bad? Do they think I'm a duck-laying eggs so they can eat them?"

I laughed. That's how Wan Betty was, always speaking honestly, straight from her liver, the same bile in her words. And soon, I found myself talking the same way.

"I'm going to ask him to give my money back," I said.

"That's right," she said. "Reason with him. The money is yours. The money is for taonan."

"The money is mine, for taonan."

"No excuses."

"No excuses."

A lot of big words. I returned home to reason with Wen Fu. "We need the money for taonan," I said. "You never know what is going to happen to us."

"Who told you we are taonan?" he said, picking his teeth.

"Even so, this is my dowry money," I said firmly.

And Wen Fu turned his mouth down in an ugly way. "What would you do with so much money-become a rich, happy widow?"

"Don't say such things!" I cried.

"Then you should not say such things," he shouted. And just like that, all my big words no longer made any sense. It was as though the worst part of his heart could see the worst part of mine. Of course, I had not been thinking he might die. But once the thought was out, once he put it there, my red face could not hide my black heart. How do you reason with a husband like that?

Later that night, I found out how useless my words had truly been. Wen Fu had already spent all the money. A Cantonese pilot from the fourth cla.s.s had left a car at the airport, then died in a crash. Wen Fu now owned that car.

Oh, what bad luck! How could Wen Fu think about buying a dead pilot's things! As if he were still running his family business, turning a dead person's tragedy into his joy.

"If we really are taonan," he said, "we can use the car to escape. Now you see what kind of smart husband you have."

I said nothing, of course.

"The car is very fast," he added, still dreaming about it.

"But if they send us inland?" I said. "Then we have to go with the others, by truck or boat."

"Don't be so stupid. If we cannot take the car, we can sell it-at twice what I paid for it, and for gold, not just paper money."

I started to think that maybe I was wrong. Maybe this was the best idea, and I should not be so stubborn.

"It must be a very good car," I said.

"Hunh! Of course it is very good," he said. "What do you think-that I don't know how to make a good business deal?"

But that afternoon I saw what he drove back, an old sports car, a Fiat, I think, with its top cut off. What is that word Americans have for such a bad car?-a jalopy, that's it. It was a little jalopy, dusty and dented, no top to keep the rain, snow, or cold air out. And the pa.s.senger-side door would not open. Of course, any kind of car was rare during the war, a luxury. So Wen Fu did not mind that he paid the dead pilot's family ten times what the car was worth. He was honking the horn, laughing and shouting, "Hanh? Now what do you think?"

I smiled back, letting him think I was proud that he had made such a good business deal with a dead man. And then he told me to climb in over the broken door. You have to imagine: I was already six months pregnant, and I had on many layers of clothing because of the bitter weather. So I was working hard to throw one leg over. Wen Fu was eager to go. He was grinning. He was honking the horn.

"Let's go, lazy!" he shouted, and then pushed down hard on the gas pedal so that the engine roared loud, making me think he would take off before I got my other leg in.

I let him take me for a drive, down the main boulevard, out the East Wall Gate, over narrow icy bridges, then down long dirt roads that took us into the foot of the Purple and Gold Mountains. My hair was whipping my cheeks. Cold air was blowing into my ears, numbing my brain.

"Watch this!" Wen Fu shouted, then made the car go faster. Just as I screamed and closed my eyes, he turned a corner fast, leaving big ruts where our wheels had twisted.

"This is a good car, very good!" he shouted.

He turned the wheel again, one way, then another, missed a muddy pothole, then a slow donkey cart. He honked at a young boy, sent him scrambling into a rain-filled gully. He ran over a line of six ducklings, too new in this world to know they should have been scared. And every time I pointed out some fast-coming danger or slow-moving calamity, when I screamed or covered my eyes, Wen Fu laughed. I think it was the best time he ever had with me.

The next day I told him I was too tired to go for a drive. So he asked Jiaguo, and they drove off like happy boys. Late at night, Wen Fu came home, a sulking look on his face.

"So you had a good time?" I said. He would not answer me. I asked him why he was angry. He still did not talk. He lit a cigarette, poured himself a gla.s.s of whiskey.

And then I thought, Strange, I did not hear that noisy car when he came back. I looked out the window, walked to the door. I looked down the dark pathway, toward the road. No car.

"The new car, where is it?" I asked him.

I sat at the table with him. I watched as he drank more and more whiskey, smoked more cigarettes. Then finally he announced: "That car is worthless." And he cursed its worthlessness: "May the dog-mother rut with a dead devil!"

The next morning Hulan told me what happened, what Jiaguo had told her.

They had driven the car out to the countryside just beyond the South Wall Gate. They went over a little hill, down a long narrow road, and into what Wen Fu thought was an open field. He drove fast to chase a rabbit, pretending the rabbit was a j.a.panese airplane. But the rabbit was faster, turning this way and that. It ran up a mound and the car followed. That's when the car's stomach landed hard-on a pile of rocks, balanced like one turtle on top of another.

He tried to drive the car off. Jiaguo got out. He tried to push it forward. And then Wen Fu pushed the gas pedal all the way down, making the wheels spin faster and faster, making the engine roar louder and louder until-wah!-black smoke poured out from under the hood and flames burst out.

Both of them jumped back and stood there, watching the car burning on top of a pile of rocks. The flames rose higher, so they backed away. And then, as they searched for a means to put out the fire, they saw the rough land all around them, lit up by the fire. They saw the field was covered with these same humps of rocks-hundreds of turtles stranded in a sea that had lost its water.

Before Hulan told me any more, I knew what Wen Fu had done-he had driven his car into a poor village cemetery!

Hulan crossed her arms. "Of course, I scolded Jiaguo. How careless he was, not guiding your husband more carefully."

I should have cried when she told me Wen Fu had ruined that car. I should have been crazy with anger that he wasted my four hundred yuan that way.

Instead I was laughing. Hulan thought I had gone crazy. I was laughing so hard, tears fell from my face. I had no breath for words.

So I could not explain how I felt. How I could see the look on my husband's face, standing in the cemetery, realizing where he was. How I could see the little car burning up on a pile of rocks, the same way mourners send gifts to the dead. How I was now so glad for that dead Cantonese pilot, riding off to heaven in his claimed-back car.

That same morning, Hulan and I went into town. I put on my long green coat and everyday shoes, because it was three or four li to get to the middle of the city. A li? That's maybe half of one of your American miles. And I had to walk that distance. I wasn't like you, getting into a car to go two blocks to the grocery store.

Along the way I stopped off at a post office to send another telegram, this time to Peanut, who was now married to a rich husband in Shanghai, the one the fortune-teller found for her. I told Wan Betty to write the same message as the last telegram: "We are soon taonan." This time, however, I added: "Send four hundred yuan direct to Jiang Weili only." Betty did not ask what had happened to the other four hundred. But I think she knew.

After I sent the telegram, Hulan and I headed to the market square to do our grocery shopping. It was very cold that morning, and I remember looking at the gray, cloudy sky, saying, "Maybe it will snow again."

Hulan looked up at the same sky. "Not enough clouds. In any case, I heard that snow comes here only once or twice all winter, not one day after the next."

We arrived at the marketplace. It was perhaps ten o'clock and the vendors had been at their stands since dawn. They were now eager to do a little bargaining to warm up their blood. On the outskirts of the marketplace, young boys crouched in front of vegetables, piled neatly on the ground. And in the marketplace itself were rows of tables, covered with buckets of tofu and weighing scales, piles of sweet potatoes and white turnips, baskets of dried mushrooms, pans of live fish, freshwater soft-sh.e.l.l crabs from the south, and wheat, egg, and rice noodles.

Already people in a stream as long as a dragon were pus.h.i.+ng past the stands, puffing little clouds of cold breath. At that hour of the morning, everyone was happy, not yet tired from the day's work, already thinking about the evening meal's ingredients.

Hulan and I had followed the sweet smoke of roasting chestnuts, and we were now standing in front of a sidewalk vendor. He was stirring a basket filled with dark nuggets. It was three hours since we had eaten our breakfast, so Hulan and I agreed: A handful would be good for warming our hands.

"You've come just in time," the vendor said. "I added the honey just half an hour ago, when the sh.e.l.ls cracked open." He poured six chestnuts each into two newspaper cones.

I had just peeled one open, was about to put the steaming chestnut into my mouth, when-a shout in the street: "j.a.panese planes! Disaster is coming!" And then we heard the airplanes, faraway sounds, like thunder coming.

All those people, all those vendors-they began to push and run. The basket of chestnuts tipped over. Chickens were squawking, beating against their cages. Hulan grabbed my hand and we were running too, as if we could go faster than those planes could fly. The airplane noise became louder, until they were over our backs, roaring like elephants. And we knew the bullets and bombs were coming. Then everyone around us began to fall at the same time, just like wheat in a field blown down by the same wind. I was falling too. Hulan was pus.h.i.+ng me down. But because my stomach was so big, I had to lie curled up on my side. "Now we are dying!" Hulan cried.

My face was turned to the ground, my hands over my head. If people were screaming, we could not tell-the planes were roaring so loud above us. Hulan's hands were shaking as she held my shoulders. Or maybe it was my body that was making her shake.

And then the sounds seemed to be going away. I could feel my heart beating fast, so I knew I was still alive. I lifted my head just as others lifted theirs. I felt so lucky. I felt so grateful. I could hear people crying, "Thank you, G.o.ddess of Mercy! Thank you!" Then we heard the airplanes coming back. And all those praises to the G.o.ddess turned into curses. We lowered our heads, and I thought that those curses would be my last memory. The planes flew back and forth, back and forth, and people's heads were going up and down, up and down, as if we were bowing to those j.a.panese planes.

I was so angry. I was so scared. I wanted to get up and run. But my body was too numb to rise. And although I was fierce in my desire to live, my thoughts were only of death, perhaps because people around me were now crying and chanting, "Amitaba, Amitaba" -already calling upon Buddha's guide to the next world.

I thought, Have we already died? How do I know? It seemed to me my breath had stopped, yet my thoughts were still racing, my hands could still feel the cold, hard ground. And I could still hear the airplane sounds, which now-eh?-now seemed to be moving farther and farther away.

The chanting stopped. But we all stayed down, so quiet, not moving. After many long minutes, I heard somebody whispering. I could feel people around me uncurling themselves. Someone was moaning. A baby was crying. I did not want to look up, to see what had happened. Hulan was shaking me. "Are you hurt? Get up!" I could not move. I could not trust my own senses.

"Get up!" cried Hulan. "What has happened to you?"

Hulan was helping me stand. We all rose slowly, the same field of wheat, now unbending. And we all whispered the same thought: "No blood." Then Hulan shouted: "No blood! Only snow!" At least that's what she thought it was at first. And because she said that, that's what I thought at first too. Big flakes of snow covered the street, lay on the backs of people crouched on the ground.

And when I looked up, I saw the snow falling from the sky, each flake as big as a sheet of paper. A pedicab driver in front of us picked up one of those flakes, and it was a sheet of thin paper. He handed it to me. "What does it say?"

The paper showed a happy drawing of a j.a.panese soldier with a little Chinese girl sitting on his shoulders. "j.a.panese government," I said. "If we do not resist, good treatment will be given to everyone, nothing to fear. If we resist, trouble follows for everyone."

And then I heard a Chinese soldier screaming in the street. He was kicking the paper snow, like a crazy man. "Lies! Lies!" he cried. "That's what they said in Shanghai. Look what they did to us! This is what is left of our army! Only rags to mop up China's blood!"

An old woman began to scold him. "Be quiet! Behave! You have to behave, or we will all be in trouble." But the soldier continued to shout. The old woman spit on his feet, picked up her bags, and hurried away. Now everyone began to talk, and then others began to shout, and soon the whole street was filled with frightened voices.

I tell you, that day, when this fear sickness spread, everyone became a different person. You don't know such a person exists inside of you until you become taonan. I saw people grabbing for food, stealing things. Vendors walked away from their steaming pots. I saw fights and arguments, children lost and crying, people pus.h.i.+ng to get into a bus, then emptying out of the bus when they saw the streets were too full for anyone to move forward.

Hulan asked the pedicab driver in front of us to take us home. But as soon as he got off his seat to help us in, a bigger man knocked him down, jumped on the pedicab, and drove off. And before I could even say, "How terrible," a beggar boy ran up to me and tried to tear my purse from my hands. Hulan beat him off.

Suddenly someone cried, "Run! Run!" And everyone behind this voice began to move forward, a crowd of people coming toward us. A barrel of ice and fish was knocked over, as if it were a light vase. A woman fell down and cried-such a horrible cry, lasting for so long until it disappeared under hundreds of feet. Hulan twisted my arm, made me turn around, pus.h.i.+ng me along in the same direction as the crowd. And then we were swallowed up in the wave, carried between other people's shoulders. I could feel elbows and knees punching into my back, into my big stomach.

And then the s.p.a.ce around us grew even tighter, and we were squashed together, moving in one breath, one current.

Hulan had one hand on my shoulder and was pus.h.i.+ng me forward. "Hurry-go, hurry-go," she murmured behind my back, as if she were praying. "Hurry-go, hurry-go," she said with each step. Suddenly the crowd burst onto a wide boulevard, and I was no longer crushed between people. People were now running in different directions.

"This way, this way," Hulan said. I felt her hand slip off my shoulder.

"Which way?" I called back to her. "Hulan!"

No answer.

"Hulan! Hulan!" I shouted. I turned around and people rushed by me, but there was no Hulan. I turned forward again. She was not there either.

And in that crowd, all alone, all the fears I had been holding inside fell out. I started swimming against all those people rus.h.i.+ng toward me, looking right and left, down below. She was gone.

"Ma! Ma!" I was crying. And I was amazed that those were the words coming out of my throat. "Ma! Ma!" As if she could have saved me, the mother who had abandoned me so long ago.

I was so stupid that day. I could have been knocked over, stepped on, and killed like so many other people. Someone could have knocked the baby right out of my body. Yet I was walking through the crowd, calling for my mother, looking for Hulan.

If you asked me how many minutes, how many hours went by before I was found, I could not tell you. When my senses came back, this was all I knew: I was sitting on a bench, staring at a chestnut in my hand. I had found it in my hand, the same chestnut I had peeled before the airplanes came. I wanted to laugh and cry, that this was what I had held onto when I almost died. And I was about to throw it away, when I considered I should still hold onto it. These are the kinds of important thoughts you have when your world changes so suddenly. The city gone mad, Hulan disappeared-should you keep a cold chestnut or not?

"Eh, sister! I hope you have one for me!" It was like a voice waking me out of a bad dream.

I saw Hulan riding up to me on a pedicab. Can you imagine! She was joking after a terrible disaster, joking when I had thought she was dead! I ran to her with a happy cry.

"Get in fast," she said, and held out her arm to pull me in. I threw the chestnut away, then struggled into the little backseat. Hulan pedaled off. She handed a stick back to me, the leg of a stool or chair.

"If anyone tries to steal this pedicab from us, beat them away!" she shouted. "You have to do this, understand? Beat them away!"

"Beat them away," I repeated. My heart was pumping fast. I looked to the sides, behind me, raising the stick at a man who was eyeing me.

It was not until we were almost home that I thought to ask her how she had found the pedicab.

"What a bad world," she said. "When we ran into the boulevard, I could finally breathe and see again. Right away I saw the same man who robbed the pedicab from the driver who was standing next to us. He was pedaling by, just a few feet away. I didn't even think. I just ran over and pushed him off the seat as hard as I could. When he fell, I jumped on and pedaled away to get you. I saw your green coat, saw you were looking for me as well. But right before I called out to you, at that same moment, someone ran up to me. Wah! He was waving a stick, ready to strike me down and steal this pedicab, the same as I had done, and the man before me had done. But I was ready. When he swung, I grabbed the stick, then used it to beat him away."

She waved her hand at me. One of her fingers looked broken. "You see how bad the world has become," she said. "Now I'm that way too."

That day we left Nanking.

So you see, in some ways I have been lucky in my life. I was never really taonan, only the next level before that happens.

Of course, I was scared enough to forget all about the telegram I sent Peanut. I forgot all about my four hundred yuan, until it was too late.

13.

HEAVEN'S BREATH A few years ago, I was talking to Helen about this same thing, what happened in Nanking. She was complaining about her finger, that's what reminded me.

I said, "Remember how you stole a pedicab the day the paper warnings fell from the sky?" You see, I had never thanked her for saving my life. We were so rushed back then, so anxious to leave, there was no time to be polite. And then fifty years went by, and I still had not thanked her. So I was going to thank her now.

Helen laughed. "I don't remember this," she said. "Anyway, how can you accuse me of stealing something? I never stole anything!"

I said, "But this was wartime. You pushed a man off and broke your finger, the same finger that now gives you arthritis problems. And then you found me and took me home. I was six months pregnant."

But Helen still didn't remember. She remembers only a little bit about living in Nanking, about duck kidneys she ate there once and has never had since, about a table she never wanted to leave behind. And of course, she remembers Wan Betty. She thinks Betty was her friend.

Isn't that strange? We were at the same place, at the same time. For me, this was one of the worst moments of my life. I remember everything. For Helen, except for those duck kidneys, it was nothing worthwhile to keep in her mind.

Why do you think this is? My happiest times, my worst times-they are things only I remember, n.o.body else remembers them. A very lonely feeling.