Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When Joan dreamed of Taiwan, she usually dreamed of it in summer.
The ovenlike heat and humid wetness on skin; rows of single-speed bicycles, metal white in the sun.
The place was fading in her conscious memory, though when she dreamed, the scenes from childhood were clear, the people dimensioned and bright.
Many of Joan’s former Stanford classmates visited Taipei. She could as well: her passport and papers were in the same butter-cookie tin. The tin, which also contained her jewelry from Bill, was one of the few items she’d saved the night of the fire.
Her entire childhood, Joan had lived in the same apartment in Taipei, near the electrical utility where Wen-Bao worked.
Their unit was on the first floor, and they shared a wall with a family with six children who fought all the time.
At night their shouts and screams pierced the air.
The father liked to gamble, and first the mother would begin wailing, and then the children would join.
Occasionally the father would lose his temper, violently slamming the walls.
Joan’s mother loathed the noise, but what Mei truly hated was that the neighbors’ apartment was nicer than her own—their unit had not been improved since they moved in, and there were many things wrong with it.
The paint on the walls was chipped, and the door had come slightly off the hinges in a way that meant in the summers, when the wood expanded, it didn’t fully shut.
Why don’t you fix it? Mei would shriek at Wen-Bao.
Don’t you feel shame, letting others see your wife and children come in and out of this place?
But no, you don’t care. You go across town and spend money on your mistress.
“Shut up,” Wen-Bao would roar. But he never hit her, as the father on the other side of the wall did to his wife and children.
In the complex was a lovely courtyard with a lush square of grass in the middle.
Because they were the closest unit to the courtyard, it was unofficially theirs (or so they considered it); Joan and her brothers would often run on the grass, on the edges of which were scattered large stones.
They played a version of a game enjoyed by children all over the world, one where the grass was lava, the stones safety.
There was one strange aspect to the courtyard.
The rumor was that, years earlier, a young woman had been murdered in a unit by her husband and his parents.
Dissatisfied with her performance as a wife and daughter-in-law, they had chopped her body into little pieces and cooked them in a large pot.
What remained, they buried in the courtyard, next to the loquat tree.
Often when Joan played, she could not help but glance at the spot of dirt where the woman was supposedly buried.
On the surface was a boulder, as high as Joan’s chest, its surface streaked with brown and red.
Though the story was long denied by others in the complex (perhaps due to a fear of its impact on property values), still it persisted; as a little girl Joan imagined the woman’s blood had somehow risen into the boulder, and had nicknamed it in her head “the demon rock.” When Joan played, she was careful not to press against the rock.
When her brothers dared her to climb it, to escape their lava monsters, she refused and let herself be caught.
Directly across the courtyard was one of the nicest apartments in the complex.
The man who owned this apartment was named Joseph.
He went by this Western name—rarer for men of his generation—because it was said he did business with Westerners.
Joan thought Joseph’s fancy name matched his apartment: it was twice as large as her own, though he lived with only his wife, a hardworking nurse who rarely socialized.
Joseph was younger than Wen-Bao, and he was tall, extremely tall—after work he often stopped and chased the children in the courtyard.
Upon catching them, he raised them onto his shoulders, which made the children feel like they were giants.
Joan often wished Joseph were her father.
He was so different than her own, so much more dynamic and funny and interesting.
Once he made a stray remark about her height, as she was relatively tall for her age, causing her to obsess over a possible familial link for weeks.
She engaged in elaborate fantasies in which he was revealed at school to be her father, striding into her classroom and interrupting the lesson to announce he was taking her to an amusement park.
How impressed her teachers would be! She would go and live in his apartment; she would visit her brothers, and they would be a little more careful with her, for now she was important too.
One morning when Joan was eleven, she threw up at school and was sent home early. When she arrived—having walked the mile in some digestive discomfort—she found a young woman in the kitchen.
“Oh, hello,” the woman said when she saw Joan. She was washing a teacup. She was small, shorter than Joan, though a full-grown adult, with bright lipstick—when Joan saw her, the image that came to mind was a porcelain doll. “How are you?”
Before Joan could answer, her father appeared. “Ah, it’s you,” said Wen-Bao. He was hastily straightening his sweater and looked almost fearful.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” Joan said as explanation.
“Oh.” Wen-Bao coughed. “This is Ling. She is, ah, helping me do some work.”
“Okay,” Joan said as she waited to hear about this work.
Ling seemed to be holding back laughter, but neither she nor Wen-Bao elaborated further, and so after a few seconds Joan went to her room.
The rest of the day proceeded as ordinary—so ordinary that Joan forgot to tell Mei she had been ill—until at dinner, while looking at Wen-Bao, Joan had the sudden thought that she hated her father.
But that was strange , wasn’t it? Why would she feel such a way?
“Have you ever seen anyone at the apartment?” Mei asked the following week. “Anyone who isn’t a member of this family?”
“Yes,” said Joan.
“Who?”
“A woman. Wearing lots of makeup.”
Mei narrowed her eyes and Joan prepared to be slapped. There passed a long silence. “Your brothers lied to me,” Mei said. “I’ve asked them many times. Only you dared tell the truth.”
Initially the implications of the exchange were lost on Joan, as in the moment she was only relieved not to be hit.
That evening at dinner, however, Mei served Joan first, right after Wen-Bao: she received five thick, tender pieces of duck, as well as the largest sesame ball for dessert, and finally Joan made the connection.
How wonderful it was to have her mother’s approval! How easy life was once you were liked!
And thus the first time Joan saw Joseph in the house—and now it was Mei who emerged from her room in a robe, flustered and hair mussed—Joan kept her mouth shut.
Joan liked Joseph, after all, and he always had some pleasant words, inquiries about her schoolwork; often he would leave a snack for her on the counter, dried squid or seaweed crackers. Once Mei came out and saw her eating.
“Just be sure to finish before your father returns,” Mei said. It wasn’t a distinct order of the sort Joan was used to Mei barking but rather a light, private request, as if they were in friendly conspiracy.
Because her brothers stayed late at school for tutoring, it was only ever Joan who was home when Joseph visited.
“Come try these chocolates,” he said to her one Friday.
“A business partner brought them. From France.” Joan thought the shells, milk swirled with white chocolate, were the most delicious dessert she had ever tasted.
By now Joan had more of an idea of what Mei and Joseph did in the bedroom when she was sent out to study in the courtyard.
But even when it was sweltering and Joan was forced to seek shade under the thin branches of the cherry tree, she didn’t mind—Mei was the nicest she had ever been, and Joan closer than ever to her dream of an amazing father.
Perhaps Mei would leave Wen-Bao, Joan mused.
Joseph would move in. Or better yet: they would move to his place.
Weeks later, it was Wen-Bao who questioned Joan. He trailed her as she took out the garbage one morning.
“Have you seen anyone in the apartment?” he asked once they were outside. “Anybody new?”
“No,” Joan said quickly. She could feel the sun tilting onto her face as Wen-Bao studied her, and she shifted her gaze, which landed on the demon rock, radiant in the light.
“Right,” Wen-Bao said after a long moment.
There were small changes after that: Wen-Bao kept the same hours at work but no longer stayed every other weekend with his mistress in Shilin; he remained home for entire Saturdays. Mei did not appear bothered. In fact, she was happier than ever. And Joseph continued to visit.
The days stretched into summer. Taipei summers, so sticky and hot: funny how you could live someplace your whole life and never get used to the weather.
Joan hated sweating into her clothes and was constantly searching for shade and fanning herself.
She had a threadbare set of pajamas she was embarrassed by but wore openly come July.
It was two pieces, a top and shorts, of the softest cotton, and little holes had been worn along the seams from all the use over the years.
One afternoon Joseph surprised her in the kitchen as she was putting away dishes.
She startled, not realizing he was inside.
“How old are you now?” Joseph asked. He was tying his robe around his waist.
“Twelve.”