The Cooked Seed (17 page)

“It’s a gift!” She insisted. “It wouldn’t be much, two thousand dollars.”

“I can’t, but thank you.”

“I insist.” The lady grabbed my hand and smiled warmly. “I can tell that you could use the money.”

Of course. I thought about the cost of an abortion. Two thousand dollars would not only cover the cost of the abortion but also help me escape Peng Xu.

As if reading my mind, the old lady said, “Sweetheart, I want you to have it. God bless you. You deserve it.”

The lady explained that in order to cash the lottery ticket, there was a procedure. “It’s standard.” She said that she was waiting for her two nieces to pick her up and drive her to the money exchange. “Do you know the money exchange on South Halsted and Thirty-first Street, across the street from the public library?”

I said that I wasn’t sure.

“Follow me, honey,” she said.

A burgundy car pulled over. The old lady introduced me to her nieces, Clara and Mimi, both well-dressed black ladies in their thirties. Clara was the driver, and she invited me to sit in the passenger seat. They thanked me for my good deed and told me that I must take the token from their aunt.

“Let’s go to the money exchange,” Clara said.

We parked across the street from the money exchange. Mimi took the lottery ticket from her aunt. “I’ll be right back.” She waved and smiled at me.

I watched her enter the money exchange. I felt uneasy that I was in a stranger’s car. I turned to look at the old lady and Clara, who chatted
warmly. Clara asked the aunt if she had been following her doctor’s instructions to take her arthritis medication. “You are not going to enjoy the money if you can’t walk.”

I saw Mimi making her way back across the street. She got into the car. “The money exchange needs serial numbers in order to cash the lottery ticket.” She turned to me. “Can we borrow some of your money so we can get the serial numbers? Don’t be afraid, this is how the lottery system works. Trust me. Where is your bank? It’s just a technical thing we need to take care of before getting you the two thousand dollars. You need to go to your bank and withdraw cash. The money you take from the bank will have serial numbers printed on it. The number is invisible to the human eye, but it is there. In order to get one hundred dollars, you must take out one hundred dollars first.”

I was confused. I didn’t have $2,000 in the bank. “Thank you, but it is too much trouble,” I said. “Good-bye.”

“No trouble at all, honey,” the three of them said.

“What’s the name of your bank?” Clara asked.

“Citibank.”

“Oh, it’s right around the corner,” Mimi said.

“Let’s go.” Clara started the car.

“Never mind, truly,” I said.

“Don’t you leave without my gift.” The old lady put her hand on my shoulder. “It will take just a minute.”

Clara and Mimi followed me into the Citibank. We moved to the front counter. I asked to withdraw all the money I had in the account.

“The total is $300.61,” a bright-eyed young clerk said. “Would you like to leave the sixty-one cents so that your account remains open?”

“Sure.”

“Three hundred dollars, that’s all you have?” Clara appeared disappointed. “Do you have another account?”

“No,” I replied.

“It’s a dollar-for-dollar match,” Mimi reminded me. “With the three hundred dollars you can only get six hundred. For two thousand dollars, you need at least one thousand.”

I gave Clara my three hundred dollars and told her that it was all I had.

Walking out of Citibank, we headed to the money exchange again. This time Mimi returned saying that the money was ready. However, to get it we had to go to a money exchange at the other side of the town. “The traffic is awful at this time,” Clara said. “How about we let you off and meet you two hours from now at the public library to deliver your money?”

Before I could respond, the three of them shut the door. “Bye! See you at five.” They waved and the car pulled off.

Suddenly I felt a kick in the gut. “Three hundred dollars is all you have?” The sound of Clara’s disappointed voice stuck in my mind. Was I a fool?

I arrived at the public library at five P.M., but the ladies never showed up.

For three hours I waited, standing on the ice. My mother’s words came to mind: “Flies land only on cracked eggs.”

I was disgusted at the sight of Peng Xu. The pregnancy-test kit had revealed that I was pregnant. I was ashamed of myself.

I entered the apartment and took off my ice-covered boots. Peng Xu was in the kitchen making his dinner. I went into my room and began to pack. Two suitcases were all I had. I didn’t know when and where I would be moving. I simply had to do something in order not to break down. Packing made me feel that I was doing something toward an escape.

I planned to get up early in the morning. I’d visit the city community college and check its housing bulletin board. I had to find a place that would fit my budget.

“We need to talk.” Peng Xu’s voice came from the kitchen. I heard him turn off the television.

I closed my suitcase and said, “There is nothing to talk about. I have already told you that I’m moving.”

“You signed a one-year lease.”

“No, I didn’t. Your signature was the only signature on the landlord’s lease agreement.”

“But you verbally agreed to live with me.”

“Not after what you did to me.”

“I am in trouble, you see. I need your help.”

“Find another roommate or move.”

“You gave me too short of a notice.”

“It was twenty-five days in advance.”

“That is not enough.”

I knew it was useless to argue. I was thinking about spending the night on the floor of the film-editing room at the school. The trash bags would keep me warm.

“You are not walking out on me!” Peng Xu banged the wok on the stove. He then came into my room. We were face-to-face.

“This is America,” I said, staring into his eyes.

“You know what Communists used to do to those who betrayed the Party? Shoot them.”

I picked up my school bag and moved toward the door. “I am leaving,” I said.

“But I am not done talking!” He came to stand between the door and me.

“Let me through, please.”

“The landlord upstairs is listening.” He pushed me to the side and then slammed the door shut. “You don’t care about our reputation as Chinese. I do. Let’s go inside the bathroom and talk. Please at least make an effort to work things out.”

“Why the bathroom?” I asked.

“So the landlord won’t hear us.”

I let him know that I was no longer interested in speaking with him. “I am through with this.”

“It won’t be long, I promise.”

I stood, unmoving.

“Come on. I’ll let you go after we talk.”

I took off my school bag, thinking,
This will be the last time I’ll let him bother me.

He pointed to the bathroom like a traffic police officer.

I entered the room and switched on the light. He followed me. He immediately switched off the light and shut the door behind him.

“What are you doing?” I sensed danger.

In pitch dark he pushed me against the wall.

I couldn’t see, but I heard the sound of his heavy breathing.

“Please, turn the light back on—”

Before I could say another word, I felt his hands on my throat.

“No!” I cried out.

His hands were a pair of steel claws. He pressed and squeezed.

My neck felt like it was breaking.

We wrestled, but I was not his equal. My strength began to weaken as my airway was cut off.

I realized that I might die tonight, here, in this bathroom, in a foreign land. My thoughts went to my mother.

He must have thought that I was dead when he tossed me off.

I didn’t know how long I remained unconscious. When I woke, I heard the sound of the television. I was lying on the concrete floor in the bathroom. The killer was in the living room.

Run
was the first thought that entered my mind. I thought about the back door, which we rarely used. I started across the floor. A shooting pain from my neck stopped me. I looked at the dead bolt and imagined turning the knob. Behind this door was an exterior door at the end of a short hallway. I had to get through both.

I kept an eye on Peng Xu as I continued crawling. I reached the bottom of the door. As I rose, grabbed the door, and was about to open it, Peng Xu heard the noise. He came toward me with a Coke in his hand. He seemed surprised.

Peng Xu was behind me when I opened the exterior door at the end of the short hallway. He yelled, “Give it up, bitch!”

With all my might I pushed him off. I ran into the snow-covered street in my socks.

Peng Xu followed.

I cried, “Help!” But there was no one, no cars, no bus. The snow was about a foot high. The houses had no lights on.

I kept making turns into the alleys and dark streets. I tried to lose him, but he was getting closer. I headed toward the Wallace bus stop, where I knew there was a phone booth next to a Chinese takeout café.

After making one last turn, I was inside the phone booth, and I watched him run past.

Who to call for help? My mind raced. “Stella!” Her phone number was the only one I could remember.

“You don’t sound okay,” Stella said as she picked up the phone.

I told her that there had been an emergency. I asked if she would come and pick me up at the corner of Wallace and Twenty-sixth Street by the bus stop.

“I’m on my way,” Stella said.

I waited by the pay phone booth, trembling and freezing. The snowflakes came down like white feathers. In my icy socks, I couldn’t feel my toes.

An hour later Stella’s car pulled up. She opened the passenger door to let me in. “What’s going on?”

I broke down sobbing.

She discovered the bruise on my neck. “Oh, my God! You have been strangled! Who the hell … your roommate?”

I nodded.

“Did you call 911?” Stella asked. “No? Why not? Would you like me to call 911 for you?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t be afraid. This is America! He has no right to do this to you!”

I let Stella know that I wanted no trouble.

“Anchee Min, for God’s sake, that son of a bitch just strangled you!”

“I know.”

“He could have murdered you! What is wrong with you acting like it’s your fault? I am driving you to the police station!”

The streetlights were dim and the roads barely visible in the snow. Stella drove down the middle of the street. She didn’t know where the nearest police station was. She wanted to stop and make a call.

I was having a hard time thinking of what I would say to an American police officer, or a group of police officers, about what had happened to me. Would they believe me? Would they think that I had asked for it? I couldn’t say that I hadn’t invited the trouble. Nobody had forced me to move in with Peng Xu. The police could say that I was a grown woman and should be held accountable for my own actions. I knew that my bedroom had no door, but I still chose to stay. I had put myself in a vulnerable situation for cheaper rent.

Stella told me that if I made a police report, Peng Xu would be arrested and deported back to China. The thought burdened me. Peng Xu’s future would be destroyed and his entire family devastated. It would dishonor his dead mother. Her soul would never rest in peace. If I was 1 percent at fault, I was at fault.

“I don’t want to go to the police,” I said to Stella.

“Why not?” Stella turned to stare at me. “This man has committed a crime!”

“I survived,” I said. “Would you let me spend the night at your place?”

I asked Dr. Kelly if she knew of a low-cost abortion clinic. She gave me the number for the Rape Hotline.

“What’s your budget?” a woman on the other end asked.

“One hundred and fifty dollars is all I have,” I replied.

She told me to hold on. A few minutes later, she returned and told me that she had booked me an appointment at a nonprofit clinic.

At the clinic I was asked to first confirm that it was a rape case. I was asked the name of the rapist. I was afraid to give the information in fear that Peng Xu would distort the truth. He would say that I had seduced him. I told the doctor that I would like to leave.

“You don’t have to give us the name if you don’t want to,” the woman at the clinic’s front desk said. She also told me that I needed to wait for two months before the surgery.

“Why?” I asked, frustrated.

“It can’t be done when the fetus is too small.”

For the next two months, I tried to shut my mind off while I dealt with the pregnancy symptoms. When I felt nauseated, it was hard not to feel the life I carried. I was unable to sleep at night. I recited the alphabet and let the tears wash my face. I looked for a new place to live, went to classes, and tried my best to act as if everything was fine. I didn’t tell Stella that I was pregnant.

It was Monday—a clear day—when I went for the abortion. On Michigan Avenue, nicely dressed people were taking their lunch breaks outside under the bright sun. I told myself to be glad that today would be the end of my agony. Two months of torture. I desperately wanted to believe that the abortion would help me move on, but I was not sure if I would be able to. I tried not to cry.

My family sent me letters from China asking how I was doing. I wrote back saying, “I am doing great. School is great. America is great.”

The clinic was quiet. The nurse took my urine sample and blood test to confirm the pregnancy. The clinic policy was read to me,
and I was asked, “Is there anyone we can contact in case of emergency?”

I answered, “No.”

“Are you with someone?”

“No.”

“Your husband? Boyfriend? A family member? A friend?”

“No.”

“Miss Min, I understand that you want privacy, but someone has to drive you home after the surgery. You will bleed. Some women bleed quite a lot. There is risk involved. Do you understand?”

I nodded but said nothing.

In the changing room, I put on a paper gown. I was led into a small room, told to lie down, and was left alone facing pictures on the wall of a woman’s uterus, with a baby growing inside. I turned away and burst into tears.