The Price of Silence Page 8

  It was freezing in the subway car. An-ling’s arms were covered in goosebumps. I wrapped my jacket around her. “You’re Chinese-American the way I’m Italian-American,” I said.“To have two cultures is something to be proud of.”

  “Hyphens divide, hyphens unite. I don’t care. The most important thing is,”—she raised an arm, fingers spread high, a player shooting for the basket—“the important thing is I am making it up the mountain!”

  Her optimism delighted me. I had no doubts that she would reach her goals.

  Her apartment was on a Queens street filled with two-story warehouses. No grocery store, no laundry, nothing that would indicate it was a residential neighborhood. Mid-block, An-ling unlocked a large metal door which opened onto a loading dock. Inside, we made our way through a maze of sealed cartons to a metal staircase.

  “What’s inside these?” I asked.

  “My staying here is not legal.I ask no questions.”We walked up to the second floor. At the end of a narrow hallway she unlocked a padlock. I followed her into a small windowless kitchen.A deep double-sink—the kind found in the laundry rooms of century-old houses—took up half of one wall.Next to it,a table held a hot plate.An outsized refrigerator filled most of the rest of the room.

  “A photographer used to work here,” she said.

  The kitchen opened into a tight rectangle at the end of which a grimy window smacked against the brick wall of the next building. On the concrete floor under the window there was a futon and a stool with a lamp on it.There was no other furniture in the room. The walls were covered with paintings whose subject matter I couldn’t make out.At one o’clock on a summer afternoon the room was too dark, with no ceiling light. In one wall, a door stood open, revealing a closet-sized room that contained a toilet and nothing else.The air in the apartment was stale, filled with the smell of paint. My heart shriveled to see how An-ling lived.

  “Turn on the lamp. I want to see your paintings.” I used my cheerful teacher’s voice, which didn’t fool her.

  “It’s a matter of perspective,” An-ling said. “The kitchen has running water. I have a toilet I can flush. New York is outside my window, the ocean not very far away.” She removed the lamp and offered me the stool to sit on.

  Through the window I glimpsed an inch-wide sliver of sunlit street.

  An-ling sat cross-legged on the futon. “On my tenth birthday my mother took me to the South China Sea. It was not far, two hours on the bus.When we got to the beach, my mother held my head and made me look out as far as I could see.

  “‘A frog in a well cannot imagine the size of the ocean,’ she said. ‘The ocean is a gift. See. Listen. Smell. Tie the ocean with a ribbon and hide it in your head. When you are in the dark, you will open your gift and the ocean will keep you company.’

  “She knew about the dark, sewing soles on shoes for eighteen hours a day, six days a week. She knew also I would end up in this room.

  “It’s small and dark like the bottom of a well, but the rain doesn’t come in and the floor is large enough for my futon.

  The wall is my easel and in my head I have the ocean wrapped in a ribbon.”

  It’s too dark, I wanted to tell her.You can’t paint here.

  I left the stool, snapped on the lamp and peered at the large canvases within the reach of its light.The strokes were sure, the oil paint thick, with none of the delicacy and meticulousness I’d seen in old Asian paintings. She painted everyday objects, both Chinese and Western, piled high like mountains. A turquoise fan with dancing girls on it thrown on top of a pile of envelopes addressed in script next to a man’s belt coiled in a nest of silk scarves below a wide-necked blue vase filled with brightly colored women’s high-heeled shoes. Another painting was dedicated to the kitchen: pots, pans, a wok, chopsticks, a cleaver, Brillo pads, cellophane-wrapped Chinese noodles spilling out of a basket. I let out a laugh of surprise when I recognized the green-lidded jar I use to store my tea. Each painting depicted a human body part: a hand holding the fan, a nose peeking out of a glass, an elbow resting in the middle of the man’s belt.

  “These paintings are wonderful, full of humor,” I said. Her face opened up with pleasure. “Thank you. Until the last century, oil painting was not accepted in China, but it’s more powerful than watercolor or ink, and it doesn’t wash away.”

  “You have so much talent, An-ling.You should make the rounds of galleries.”

  She stood up. “Stay here, I will make tea.”

  I watched her silently glide across the floor in her bare feet. I wanted more than anything else to give An-ling shelter, but she was like a deer, full of grace, poised to flee at the least movement of possession.

  She rested against the door jamb as we waited for the water to boil.“There’s a legend that says that Chinese painting was invented by a woman. One day, Fu Li saw that her favorite songbird had flown away from its cage. She waited every day for it to come back, sent her servants out to look for it in the vast gardens of the palace.

  “Shun, her brother, the great ruler, offered Fu Li the best songbirds in the province, but she wanted her favorite songbird back, no other. Shun asked his scribes to write amusing stories to cheer his sister up.” Her voice was sure, level. It was a story she knew well.

  “When the first scroll arrived, its ink was still wet. The scribe had been in a great hurry to get it ready before nightfall. Instead of reading it, Fu Li cried and cried and her tears smeared the ink.” The tea kettle whistled. An-ling disappeared, raising her voice.

  “In the smear Fu Li saw the wing of a bird and with a wet finger she pushed the ink this way and that way and soon enough she had painted the image of her beloved songbird.To the end of her days she kept her ink bird near her, swearing she could hear it sing.”

  An-ling crossed the floor with two cups of dense black tea.

  “I like that story. It’s optimistic.” I took a sip.The tea was too strong, bitter.“Bringing back a loved one with tears and a little ink.”

  Carefully balancing her cup,An-ling lowered herself onto the futon. “My grandmother told me that story after she sold my father’s paintings. The story was meant to honor women painters, but my grandmother liked it because it showed how foolish girls can be with their imagination, with their need to see something for what it isn’t. She had no use for painting. ‘You cannot eat it,’ she liked to say. ‘It will not keep you warm in the winter.’

  “I told her she was the foolish one.My father’s paintings fed her.”An-ling drew her knees to her chest.“I have something else to show you.”

  She opened a sketchbook that had been under her futon and dropped a black-and-white photograph in my lap. It fit easily in the palm of my hand. A little girl, standing next to a stone lion three times her size, peered at the camera. She wore a fancy light-colored jacket and pants ringed with dark bands. Her hair was in a long ribboned braid on one side of her head.

  “That is me at the Moon Festival. It’s our Thanksgiving.”

  The picture was yellowed, faded, grainy, as if taken with a dirty camera lens.“How old are you here?”

  “Five. My mother took the photo. I ate so many cakes that night I threw up on my outfit and Mama was very angry with me, but she didn’t hit me. She was too educated.” I heard immense pride in her voice.

  “You must miss her terribly.”

  “It’s the only photo I have of me in China.” She showed me another photo. “This is my mother.”

  The eight-by-ten portrait of a young woman with a square jaw and a tight mouth reminded me of the unsmiling photos of subway supervisors posted near the token booths.“She doesn’t look like you.”

  “That is a photo from the factory where she made shoes for Chairman Mao. She was pretty when she was happy.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, the most useless words in the English language, but that is what I genuinely felt: sorrow for her, for her losses.“Thank you for showing me these photos.” I glanced at her wrists, sheathed as always in the beaded b
racelets. “An-ling, if there is anything more you want to tell me, I’m here to listen.”

  She slipped the photos back into the sketchbook and unhooked a bracelet.“For you.” She held it close to my face. I saw now that it was new, covered with whirls of tiny pink and purple glass beads, not a family heirloom at all.

  “I can’t accept it.”

  “You’re always staring at my bracelets. I think you want them. Come on, it’s Canal Street cheap.We’ll share. One for me one for you.” There was something provocative in the way she spoke. I wondered if she knew I’d seen what the bracelet hid.

  “Thank you,An-ling, but no.Your bracelets are very pretty and they look wonderful on you.”Where did the desperation come from, I wanted to ask? But there are invisible boundaries in all friendships that shouldn’t be crossed. My desperation, hers. Off limits.

  An-ling hooked the bracelet, obviously glad the moment was over, the matter dropped. “I quit Feldy. It’s very stupid work pulling faces.”

  I laughed with relief at this good news, at the hurdle we’d just crossed.“That’s great.You should be painting every day, taking more classes. Do you want a part-time job? Maybe I can help you find one.”

  “You are always too good to me. I have money saved. When I need more I’ll model for the art schools, maybe get a permit to sell paintings in front of the museums.”

  “If I can help, please—”

  An-ling pressed a strand of her yellow hair against my mouth.

  “Be my friend.That is all I need.”

  On the way home, I stopped at Paragon and bought Josh his home gym.

  SEVEN

  Subj: Fairytales and fantasies

  Date: 04-08-05 17:02:00 EST

  From: Chinesecanary@BetterLateThanNever.com

  To: EPerotti@aol.com

  In China a man is born, grows up and dies in the same house. He never has to leave his home or his parents. A woman leaves family and home. When her husband-to-be comes to her family house to take her to the marriage ceremony, her father throws a bucket of water on the path her feet have just left. The hard earth receives the water with a loud slap, separates it, runs it off into streams that stretch thin until they disappear. You cannot take back thrown-away water. It’s gone forever. So it is with a daughter.

  You were my new home. That was my hope.

  It was Josh who told me about Amy, what he knew from his grandmother. I came early for dinner. You weren’t home from school yet. Tom I guess was at work. Josh took me down to the basement to show me his drums. I told him that during the mid-autumn festival the drums get beaten to hurry up the blooming of the flowers. We started playing a game from the festival. The drummer beats the drum. When he stops, who holds the wine cup must drink. Josh opened the bottle of Italian wine meant for you with his Swiss Army knife and we took turns drinking, beating the drum. He told me about his sister. I thought he was going to cry and I hugged him. He smelled more of chewing gum than wine.

  This is true. All of what I’m writing to you is true. It’s too late for lies.

  A-l

  Tom

  Eight months after Amy’s death, Emma announced she was pregnant. Before I could express my happiness at the wonderful news, she cut me off cold.“I’m having an abortion.”

  “I’ll never agree to it.”

  “I don’t need your permission.”

  “It’s my child, too.”

  “Then you carry it. Scream your head off when it splits you in two.Then nurse your baby, love her so much it takes your breath away and then when she dies, what will you do then,Tom? Go for one more? Why not, have another one like you have another Scotch!”

  “You can’t do this to us, Emma.”

  “I’ll go crazy if I don’t. The date is set. I will not have another child. Ever.”

  I accused her of wanting to be miserable, of wearing suffering like a halo, of feeling virtuous because of it. “All you need is a palm frond in your hand and you’d be the perfect martyr!”

  I brought Father Caputi home to ram some piety into her. “Amy’s death was our personal original sin,” she told him,“something we have to expiate for the rest of our lives.

  There’s no place for a new birth or even our rebirth.”

  Nothing he could say would change her mind.

  I threatened divorce, believing my role as husband, partner, still had leveraging power. I stuffed all of Amy’s belongings into black garbage bags and drove them to the town dump. I scraped off the striped wallpaper in her room, the bunny rabbit border. Emma looked down at the green strips covering the carpet and said she felt flayed.

  “God damn it, Emma, I want that baby.We’re being given another chance!”

  Ten days later I came home from teaching and she had changed her mind. I didn’t risk asking why.

  This time there was no miscarriage, no six weeks in bed. The baby was born after less than an hour of labor. Before Emma came home from the hospital I removed all of the pictures of Amy from the house and told her I had burned them. I was trying to help Emma direct her love to the future, to our son. I chose the name Joshua; Emma agreed. I even bought him a trumpet, foolishly thinking his birth would crumble Emma’s wall of grief.

  One truth that guides me is that I love my son above anyone or anything else. I will do whatever is necessary to keep him safe, to make sure I am there when he needs me.

  Sergeant Daniel is on the stand. He is a thirty-three-year veteran of the police force, a tall, large African American with a soft face and drooping eyelids that give him a tired, worn look. He sets his eyes on Ms. Perotti’s son, Josh, sitting on a spectator bench. There is compassion on his face.

  “You are the detective in charge of this case?”

  “I am.”

  “When did you first interview the defendant?”

  “On April twenty-first of last year.”

  “Can you briefly tell the jury what transpired during that first interview.”

  “I showed Ms. Perotti the crime scene photos showing the dead body and then asked her about her relationship to—”

  Josh

  I wish he’d stop gawking at me. Just because we talked a little about music, no way are we pals.

  Mom had been back home about ten days when the doorbell rang. I expected it to be Mrs. Ricklin from down the hall; I walk her dog two times a day. Instead a big man in a suit and a bow tie filled the whole doorway.Al Roker, that’s who this guy looked like.Al Roker when he was fat.A nice-guy face. An-ling had been dead about a week is my guess.

  “Is your mother or father home?”

  “No.” I was wondering why Julio, the doorman, hadn’t buzzed to say this guy was coming up.

  “When are they coming back?”

  Down the hall, Mrs. Ricklin was calling me.“Joshy, Joshy, Scottie needs to go out. It’s late, Joshy.” Mrs. Ricklin is eighty-two years old and I guess she can call me anything she likes.

  “I’ll be right there!”

  In my head I thanked her for being deaf so that I had to shout and my voice didn’t give away how scared I was. Four guys were waiting down the hall by Mrs. Ricklin’s apartment and two of them carried satchels with NYPD written on them. One beanpole guy I recognized from the police station in Brooklyn. Last week he’d taken my fingerprints along with Dad’s.“Just routine,” he’d said and I’d gotten through it without breaking into a sweat by pretending I was in a TV show—CSI, Law and Order, NYPD Blue, take your pick, anything that wasn’t real. Now the guy was back and I was glad Mrs. Ricklin wasn’t wearing her glasses. The men and the NYPD logos on the satchels could only be a blur to her.

  “Who’s there, Joshy?”

  I meant to answer her right away, but it was like I was standing in front of a huge crowd expecting me to hit the drums, but I couldn’t remember any music. My stomach was flip-flopping all over the place and I was sure it was showing on my face and this man—the guy on the witness stand now—would think I had something to tell him. By then Scottie was barkin
g.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Ricklin. They’re friends of Dad’s.” I reached for my jacket hanging by the door and stuck my arms in it.“I’ve got to walk her dog or he’s going to shit all over her rug.”

  I had to squeeze out the door because the man didn’t budge. I locked the door behind me, called out,“Come on, boy.” Scottie raced to me down the hall.

  The man intercepted, started playing with him, tugging at the leash in Scottie’s mouth, spinning the dog around, lifting him off the ground. Scottie growled with pleasure and I felt totally betrayed.

  On one of the spins I grabbed the dog. “He’s really got to go, sir.” The man let go of the leash. I clipped it to Scottie’s collar and shouted to Mrs. Ricklin that I was going to take her dog on a nice long run along the river. “It may take an hour, so don’t worry.”

  The policemen followed me down the stairs. All five of them. The big man introduced himself as Sergeant Daniel, sticking his badge under my nose while I skipped down the stairs two at time.

  “My parents aren’t coming home until late,” I lied.

  “They’re going to a dinner and a movie. I don’t know where.” I could tell he was having trouble with the stairs and I didn’t slow down. “They gave me money for takeout.” I showed him a twenty dollar bill from my pocket, just in case he thought they were terrible parents or something.

  In the lobby he told his guys to wait in their cars; he was going with me.“Scottie needs to run,” I reminded him, but that didn’t phase him. The beanpole guy wanted to come with us, but Sergeant Daniel said no, he was just going for a walk, nothing more. If he thought he was going to catch me off guard—just-the-two-of-us-and-the-dog-taking-a- nice-stroll-in-the-park kind of thing—he didn’t know anything about teenagers.We’re a lot smarter than we make out to be.

  We crossed the street into Riverside Park. Scottie left his mark on every tree on our way down to the Hudson. Sergeant Daniel walked with a rock-in-the-shoe lean to his left.When we passed our first bench I asked him if he wanted to sit down and untie his shoe. I don’t know why I did that. If his foot was hurting him, he didn’t need me to tell him what to do.Maybe I was trying to show him what a nice guy I was. He laughed at my question and kept on going.