Lisa See - Dreams of Joy

ALSO BY LISA SEE

Shanghai Girls
Peony in Love
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Dragon Bones
The Interior
Flower Net
On Gold Mountain

Dreams of Joy is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure into the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2011 by Lisa See

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
See, Lisa.
Dreams of Joy: a novel/Lisa See.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60489-1
1. FamiliesChinaFiction. 2. ChinaHistory20th centuryFiction. I. Title
PS3569.E3334D75 2011
813.54dc22 2011003891

www.atrandom.com

Jacket design: Lynn Buckley and Ruby Levesque
Jacket illustration: Vincent Lexington Harper/ Zhiying Studio, Shanghai, China

v3.1

For my father,
Richard See

Authors Note

In 1958, a Peoples Republic of China government committee developed the Pinyin style of transliteration for Chinese words, but it took some years before it was widely used on the mainland and it wasnt adopted by the International Organization of Standardization until 1982. For these reasons, I have used the Wades-Giles system of transliteration for Chinese words in keeping with the times and with Pearls background and education. Those who read Shanghai Girls will remember that Pearl also uses a combination of Cantonese and Mandarin when speaking.

The Great Leap Forward began in 1958 and ended in 1962. Although the number of people who died in the resulting famine will never be fully known, archival material recently released by the Chinese government along with research done by scholars and journalists suggest 45 million fatalities.

Contents

THE WAIL OF a police siren in the distance tears through my body. Crickets whir in a never-ending chorus of blame. My aunt whimpers in her twin bed at the other end of the screened porch we sharea reminder of the misery and embarrassment from the secrets she and my mother threw at each other during their argument tonight. I try to listen for my mother in her room, but shes too far away. That silence is painful. My hands grab the bedsheets, and I struggle to focus on an old crack in the ceiling. Im desperately attempting to hang on, but Ive been on a precipice since my fathers death, and now I feel as though Ive been pushed over the edge and am falling .

Everything I thought I knew about my birth, my parents, my grandparents, and who I am has been a lie. A big fat lie. The woman I thought was my mother is my aunt. My aunt is actually my mother. The man I loved as my father was not related to me at all. My real father is an artist in Shanghai whom both my mother and aunt have loved since before I was born. And thats only the tip of the icebergas Auntie May might say. But I was born in the Year of the Tiger, so before the gnawing blackness of guilt about my dads death and the anguish I feel about these revelations overpower me, I grip the sheets tighter, set my jaw, and try to force my emotions to cower and shrink before my Tiger ferocity. It doesnt work .

I wish I could talk to my friend Hazel, but its the middle of the night. I wish even more that I could be back at the University of Chicago, because my boyfriend, Joe, would understand what Im going through. I know he would .

Its two in the morning by the time my aunt drifts off to sleep and the house seems quiet. I get up and go to the hall, where my clothes are kept in a linen closet. Now I can hear my mother weeping, and its heartbreaking. She cant imagine what Im about to do, but even if she did, would she stop me? Im not her daughter. Why should she stop me? I quickly pack a bag. Ill need money for where Im going, and the only place I know to get it will bring me more disgrace and shame. I hurry to the kitchen, look under the sink, and pull out the coffee can that holds my mothers savings to put me through college. This money represents all her hopes and dreams for me, but Im not that person anymore. Shes always been cautious, and for once Im grateful. Her fear of banks and Americans will fund my escape .

I look for paper and a pencil, sit down at the kitchen table, and scrawl a note .

Mom, I dont know who I am anymore. I dont understand this country anymore. I hate that it killed Dad. I know youll think Im confused and foolish. Maybe I am, but I have to find answers. Maybe China is my real home

I go on to write that I mean to find my real father and that she shouldnt worry about me. I fold the paper and take it to the porch. Auntie May doesnt stir when I put the note on my pillow. At the front door, I hesitate. My invalid uncle is in his bedroom at the back of the house. Hes never done anything to me. I should tell him good-bye, but I know what hell say. Communists are no good. Theyll kill you. I dont need to hear that, and I dont want him to alert my mother and aunt that Im leaving .

I pick up my suitcase and step into the night. At the corner, I turn down Alpine Street, and head for Union Station. Its August 23, 1957, and I want to memorize everything because I doubt Ill ever see Los Angeles Chinatown again. I used to love to stroll these streets, and I know them better than anyplace else in the world. Here, I know everyone and everyone knows me. The housesalmost all of them clapboard bungalowshave been what I call Chinafied, with bamboo planted in the gardens, pots with miniature kumquat trees sitting on porches, and wooden planks laid on the ground on which to spread leftover rice for birds. I look at it all differently now. Nine months at collegeand the events of tonightwill do that. I learned and did so much at the University of Chicago during my freshman year. I met Joe and joined the Chinese Students Democratic Christian Association. I learned all about the Peoples Republic of China and what Chairman Mao is doing for the country, all of which contradicts everything my family believes. So when I came home in June, what did I do? I criticized my father for seeming as if he were fresh off the boat, for the greasy food he cooked in his caf, and for the dumb TV shows he liked to watch .

These memories trigger a dialogue in my head that Ive been having since his death. Why didnt I see what my parents were going through? I didnt know that my father was a paper son and that hed come to this country illegally. If Id known, I never would have begged my dad to confess to the FBIas if he didnt have anything to hide. My mother holds Auntie May responsible for what happened, but shes wrong. Even Auntie May thinks it was her fault. When the FBI agent came to Chinatown, she confessed to me on the porch only a few hours ago, I talked to him about Sam. But Agent Sanders never really cared about my dads legal status, because the first thing he asked about was me .

And then the loop of guilt and sorrow tightens even more. How could I have known that the FBI considered the group I joined a front for Communist activities? We picketed stores that wouldnt allow Negroes to work or sit at the lunch counter. We talked about how the United States had interned American citizens of Japanese descent during the war. How could those things make me a Communist? But they did in the eyes of the FBI, which is why that awful agent told my dad hed be cleared if he ratted out anyone he thought was a Communist or a Communist sympathizer. If I hadnt joined the Chinese Students Democratic Christian Association, the FBI couldnt have used that to push my father to name othersspecifically me. My dad never would have turned me in, leaving him only one choice. As long as I live I will never forget the sight of my mother holding my fathers legs in a hopeless attempt to take his weight off the rope around his neck, and I will never ever forgive myself for my role in his suicide .

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