“Could you give this to Ming-Ming?” she said. “I don't have anything else to leave for him.”
“Is it something special?” Kai said. “Don't give it away to a small child so easily.”
The girl gripped the pendant and insisted that Ming-Ming would not sleep without touching it.
“He'll do without it,” Kai said. She put the money into the pocket of the girl's blouse, and thanked her and then apologized for the disruption. The girl begged again to leave the pendant with the baby so that he could have something by which to remember her.
Kai accepted it; the girl bowed to Kai, then wiped her tears. Ming-Ming was the first baby the girl had taken care of other than her siblings; Kai wondered if there would be other babies in the coming years, and if farewells would become easier once they were a regular part of the girl's life.
“And please tell his grandparents that Ming-Ming likes to have someone touch the back of his ears before he goes to sleep,” the girl said.
Kai looked down at the pendant, a carved jade piece in the shape of a fish. It was an inexpensive one, the carving rough and amateur, the kind that a peasant's family could afford for their daughter. Han's parents would not allow such a thing near Ming-Ming, but Kai thanked the girl and said that she would buy a silver chain for the pendant so Ming-Ming could wear it around his wrist. She was welcome to come back and visit them, Kai said, and promised that once things settled down, the girl would be rehired. Her lie was delivered and received without much faith on either side; after a moment, Kai had little left to say but to wish the girl good luck in her own life.
HAN RETURNED TO MUDDY RIVER on the night of Ching Ming, after he had phoned the mayor with news of the victory they had been waiting for. In Beijing, the situation in the central government had taken a drastic turn after a late-night meeting, with the democratic wall now defined as an anti-Communist movement; the man to whom they had provided the new kidneys was on his way to cleanse the provincial government of the supporters and sympathizers of the democratic wall, and rumors were that he would either become the leader of the province or be promoted and move to the central government in Beijing. Yet the mayor had sounded halfhearted in his praise of Han's work, and it was only when his own parents got on the phone that Han understood the reason for the mayor's lukewarm response. Did he know what his wife had been up to? Han's mother yelled at him over the telephone, and then without waiting for an answer, she ordered Han to come home straight away.
On the trip home, Han practiced his defense, saying that he had been away and he had no idea what Kai had been doing in the past weeks. In his imagined conversation, he begged his parents and the mayor to help Kai out, and by the time he reached the door of his flat, he believed in his fantasy. Despite the request of his parents for him to report to them first, Han went straight home. It was in the middle of the night when, discovering his own wife absent from their bed, he woke the nanny up. Mrs. Wu—Kai's mother—had come that night and had asked Kai to go back to her flat, the nanny said, frightened by Han's grip on her arm; his parents had brought the baby home with them. Han looked at the nanny hard, as if she were lying to him, and when he saw that the trembling girl in her night-clothes was about to cry, he told her that she had better have a good sleep, as he would get Ming-Ming back first thing in the morning. The girl mumbled and said that she was to leave for home in the morning, as his parents had fired her. What nonsense, Han told her; he and Kai would both come home with Ming-Ming the next morning.
Han thought of knocking on his mother-in-law's door, but in the end he went to his parents’ flat instead. His parents, both smoking in the living room, showed no sign of having slept. “That wife of yours,” Han's father said at the sight of Han. “She has spoiled our victory.”
Han looked at his parents’ expressionless faces. Despite the defense he had rehearsed, he began by saying that he was the one to blame, as he had not detected early enough what Kai had been doing. Now that all this had happened, could they think of a way to protect her before it was too late?
“Protect her? We need to think about protecting ourselves,” Han's mother said. “The only thing we can do now is to draw the line with her and pray.”
“But she's my wife,” Han said.
“She won't be after tomorrow,” Han's mother said. She motioned for Han's father to continue the conversation. He laid out the plan, obviously devised by Han's mother: Before daybreak, Han was to prepare a divorce application, and he would turn it in in the morning. “Start with the divorce application,” his father said. “Say that you and she disagree on the most fundamental problems of ideology— now use your brain to elaborate on this—and say that the knowledge of your wife's role in the antigovernment scheme was shocking— explain ‘shocking’ to mean that you had no previous information about it until being told by someone, not us, of course, but someone irrelevant, someone unimportant, that she was a leader at the rally— and that when you learned of this, it was too late to correct her wrongdoing. Also, write a sincere self-criticism. I mean flesh-and-bone sincere, blood-and-marrow sincere. Dig and dig into the real depths and open yourself to show you regret your lack of political alertness. Ask for punishment—now this is tricky—ask to be punished in a way that means really it was not your mistake except getting married to the wrong person—and then ask for an opportunity to make amends. You know what that means? Say you want to put your life in the hands of the party so you can demonstrate that your life is a worthy one.”
“What will happen to Kai?”
“What will happen to her is not our concern anymore,” Han's mother said. “Didn't you hear what your father said? Now is the time for you to act. If you miss this chance we'll all be dragged down by her foolishness.”
Could they at least reconsider their strategy? he begged his parents again; did they want their grandson to become a motherless orphan? Halfway into his argument Han began to cry.
Wordlessly, Han's mother brought him a towel. He buried his face in its wet warmth and wept. His parents watched him, patiently waiting for him to gather himself, and when he finally did, his mother reminded him to think about his parents’ careers and his own political future; her voice was unusually gentle and sympathetic, and Han could not help but think, for a brief moment, that he would have to give up his wife to earn tenderness from his own mother. There was Ming-Ming's future to take into consideration, she said, and asked him if he wanted his son to lose all privileges because of his mother's stupidity. Kai was not the only woman in the world, Han's mother said, and once this crisis passed, they would look for a better wife for him, more beautiful and obedient, kind as a stepmother. This talk went on for a while, and when Han cried again and said he could not let this happen to Kai, his father sighed and told his mother not to waste her words anymore. From a desk drawer he produced a draft of the divorce application they had written for him. Just sign the paper, his mother said to him, her voice still gentle and unfamiliar.
Han signed his name, his spirit crushed and his heart filled with a pain and sadness that he had not known could exist in life. His mother poured a cup of tea and left it by his side, and then retreated with his father to their bedroom to sleep before daybreak. Han sank into his parents’ sofa; a new television set, on its beautifully crafted stand, watched him like a dark, unblinking eye. Han had imagined years of happiness with three children, the youngest one a daughter as beautiful as Kai and spoiled by her big brothers. If he closed his eyes he could see them in ten years, a loving family sitting at the dinner table on a New Year's Eve, the steam from the fish and chicken and
