Dreams of the Red Phoenix (18 page)

But then he yanked the Chinese Nationalist cap off his head
and twisted it between his hands. As his breathing calmed, he
wanted to shout to the kid that this wasn't a game, but clearly the
Japanese soldier knew that already. Charles was the one slow to
understand. He should never have worn the cap. He had almost
gotten himself killed. He told himself he had to face things as
they truly were. He was alone now, without his best friend or his
father.

He cleared his throat and tried to think what his father would
want him to do. He sat up straighter and remembered something
so obvious it startled him. Every time his father had left the com
pound on one of his tours to the outlying parishes, he would say,
“Take care of your mother, my boy.” He had said it even when
Charles was small. The request had always mystified him, since
clearly it was the other way around: his mother had taken ex
cellent care of him, perhaps too good care, fussing over him and
seeing that he got anything he wanted. Yet his father had asked
him to take care of her. Charles had no idea how to do that when
Nurse Carson was more headstrong than ever, but he knew he
must try.

But first he needed to find Han. He could do nothing to get his
father back, but at least he could make an effort with his friend.
He stayed low as he made his way back to the pigeon coop. The
plumpest and handsomest of the kit had been Han's favorite.
Charles unlatched the cage of that bird now.

“You miss him, too, don't you, Hsiao P'angtze?” he asked,
calling their best bird by the nickname that they had given him:
Little Fat Boy. Charles stroked him all the way down his sturdy
back. The pigeon cocked his head to the side and seemed to be
listening.

When Charles was young, his father would sit on the edge of
his bed before sleep and use his hands to make shadows in the
lamplight against the wall. He had shaped his fingers to become
bunny ears and a round tail. His thumb and forefinger would
part to resemble the mouth of a barking dog or a howling wolf.
But Charles's favorite by far was when the hands wove together
and flapped, mimicking the wings of a phoenix rising up into the
flickering light. Charles could still see the magical bird taking
off, courageous and free.

Lian had taught him that the phoenix Fenghuang was also
known as the August Rooster. Contained within it were all
birds, and other brave creatures, too, representing the full range
of Yin and Yang in life. It appeared in auspicious times and
brought goodness, virtue, and grace. From high in the K'un-
lun Shan Mountains nearby in North China, where it lived, it
would someday swoop down and bring everyone below good
luck. Lian had boasted that those in the North were most likely
to profit from such auspiciousness, which seemed to Charles a
feeble perk given the many hardships of living in the region.
Still, when she told him to keep watch for the Chinese phoenix
as it circled the sky above the compound, he did. At any mo
ment, the bird might descend, she said, spreading immortality
and happiness. Charles looked about him now and longed to
see its shadow.

“Find Han!” he whispered, pressing his mouth to Little Fat
Boy's feathers.

He could feel the fast-beating heart as the bird's small system
quivered, eager to take off. Charles raised the pigeon above his
head and flung it out and over the wall until it disappeared into
the cloudless sky.

P
lease, Mother, get in. Don't make a scene.”

“Humans are not meant to be beasts of burden. I hate to
encourage it.”

“It's the man's job.”

“I'm fastest in town!” exclaimed the rickshaw driver.

“Let's go now,” Charles pleaded with her, “so the other drivers
leave us alone.”

She slid in beside him, and the rickshaw bolted forward,
throwing them both against the straw seat. Though he wore
no shoes, the coolie ran swiftly as he navigated the deeply rut
ted road that led away from the mission compound and into the
town. When they were young, Charles and Han had raced bare
foot on the hard-packed dirt to the river, and he knew how the
pebbles cut into you.

“We need to find him,” he said, more to himself than to his
mother.

She patted his knee briskly. “We
will
find your friend,” she
said. “We
will
.”

Her rising determination almost made Charles imagine she
could see to it. Since opening the medical station in their home,
she had been behaving as if she could accomplish whatever she
set her mind to. He had to wonder if her confidence rose in in
verse proportion to how hopeless their situation had become.

On the narrow main street, only a few shops appeared open.
Young women dressed in high-cut, tight-fitting
cheongsam
strut
ted in front and called out to any men passing by. From the
doorsteps of deserted buildings, grandfathers in traditional robes
smoked thin pipes and gestured with long pinkie nails coated in
white powder. Stocky, unshaven Russians in Western-style black
suits and fedoras even in the summer heat hissed prices at Charles
and his mother as they hurried past.

When the rickshaw reached the farmers' market, they
climbed out. The driver set down the bamboo poles and doubled
over with hacking. When he finally stood straight again, Charles
saw blood on his lips. His mother was about to pay, but Charles
snatched the coins from her and slapped them down on the straw
seat. The driver pocketed the change quickly and was gone in an
instant.

“That driver was not only sick,” his mother said, “but utterly
lackluster and exhibiting very strange behaviors. All that twitch
ing and the way his arms shook. Did you notice? I suspect he has
several illnesses at once in addition to being malnourished.”

Charles wondered how it was possible that his mother had
lived in China for five years and still couldn't tell an opium addict
when she saw one. The rickshaw driver with his scabbed arms
and rheumy, darting eyes looked like every man who ever stum
bled out of a den after a binge. Charles had never been inside
one of the smoky rooms down the back alleys but had peered in
as he passed and seen the sickly-looking customers lolling about
on couches, their heads thrown back onto threadbare pillows in
some sort of unpleasant ecstasy. His mother had always said that
she loved the Chinese people, their language and history, but as
far as Charles could tell, she had rarely left the mission before
now and certainly had never wound through the passageways
and side lanes the way he had with Han. The Chinese people
must have remained abstract to her—more the idea of a people
than the real thing.

But on this warm afternoon, she strode into what was left of
the marketplace, a straw basket swinging on her arm, as if fully
expecting to find the makings for supper. Charles did a quick
two-step to keep up with her as she pressed on past the destroyed
stalls, many of which had been converted into makeshift homes
with laundry hanging across their fronts instead of awnings.
Someone tossed a tub of bathwater onto the path, and his mother
simply skirted it. She even kept her balance when a pack of wild
dogs raced by and knocked against her legs. None of it seemed
to bother her.

When they reached the one open stall, his mother stepped up
but didn't seem to recognize Mrs. Chen, who looked even more
bedraggled then the last time, her clothing torn and her hands
scabbed and encrusted with dirt.

“How much for these root vegetables?” his mother inquired
in the local dialect. Charles was afraid she might touch a shrunk
en beet, but luckily she seemed to know that wasn't done.

Mrs. Chen continued to repair a filthy and tattered straw bas
ket and barked an unreasonable price. Charles's mother laughed
outright, placed her hands on her hips, and exclaimed, “Why,
that's robbery! No one has that kind of money any longer. These
vegetables shall rot before you find a willing customer.” She then
glanced around at the peasants who rummaged through what
was left of the market. “Good woman,” she said, “have you no
feeling for your compatriots? You don't need to sell your precious
produce to me, but at least offer a better price to your comrades.”

“She's not going to budge,” Charles whispered. “Let's go.”

His mother rose taller, leaned over the stall, and said, “Your
fellow citizens are starving, madam. If you have food, then it is
only right that you share it. Your generosity will come back to
you. Captain Hsu will see to it that you are given a portion of the
millet we have at the mission.”

The woman finally looked up. “Captain Hsu?” Beetle nut
juice fell slowly and deliberately from her bottom lip onto the
dusty ground. “That man is dog and traitor. The Reds are re
sponsible for this.” She spread her bony arms. “If he and his sons
of bitches, turtle-egg, festering dog-bitch men had not come here,
the Japs would have left us alone.” She snarled quite a bit like a
dog herself, Charles thought.

“He is none of those things,” his mother persisted. “He fights
for the country and its people. He's against capitalist greed, which
I can plainly see you remain in favor of.”

“Mother,” Charles tugged at her arm, “please don't get involved.”

She turned suddenly to him and said in English, “But I am
involved. I'm deeply involved, and you should be, too.”

Then she turned back to Mrs. Chen and continued, “Captain
Hsu and his compatriots think about the whole, not just those
at the top. China is far too destitute a country to have the mar
ketplace rule. I see that now. The Communists intend for the
vast majority of your people to be literate and fed. Isn't that mar
velous? Other countries may have higher goals, but here that
is what's needed. But everyone must get on board. I think you
should join them.”

Mrs. Chen's three-legged stool fell over as she stood abruptly
and hobbled off. “American woman is Communist,” she mut
tered. “Now I have seen everything!”

Charles finally pulled his mother away. “You can't get tangled
up in this. We have to leave.”

“Yes, you're right, it's time we got back to the mission. Hope
fully we'll still come upon something for supper on the way.”

“I don't mean leave the market,” Charles said. “I mean leave
the province, leave China. It isn't safe here any longer. I want to
go back to America.”

His mother stared at him for a long moment, and her face
did not soften, even when she should have noticed his eyes filling
and his bottom lip quivering almost imperceptibly. He didn't in
tend to cry, but the beginnings of tears were there, and she should
have sensed them. When he was younger, his mother had always
known when he was injured or sad or had gotten his feelings
hurt by friends. She had called him sensitive—which he knew
meant overly sensitive. But, while that was true, it was also true
that she had been overly sensitive to him. Alert to his every pain,
his mother had known how he felt almost before he did. But ap
parently not any longer.

“I'm surprised you don't understand that we are still needed
here, Charles.”

“All right, I wasn't going to tell you this,” he said, pulling the
Nationalist Army cap from his back pocket and using it to fan
his face, “but it will change your mind. A Japanese soldier shot
at me today.”