Of course, all the attention had spurred the media to cover a different aspect of the story. Chinese woman migrant workers were changing the face of the countryside. Unlike their male counterparts, these women either sent their earnings home to their peasant families, increasing the household income by forty percent, or were saving their salaries so they might return to their villages to open little businesses. It was estimated that women who'd returned from foreign factories owned nearly half of all shops and cafes in rural villages. Suddenly Chinese peasant girls were seen by their families as leaders of social and economic change; as a result, in the last calendar year female infanticide had dropped for the first time in recorded history. As a Ford Foundation scholar noted, female migrant workers were the single most important element transforming Chinese society. "This is happening on a scope unprecedented worldwide, and it means radical, revolutionary changes for women." If anything, these stories soothed the consciences of parents around the world who needed to have Sam and Cactus and Notorious and the rest of the Friends in time for the holidays. Or, as Amy Gao might have put it, if there was one thing Americans admired, trusted, and believed in more than democracy, it was capitalism.
Hulan had heard all this before and once again repeated her view. "This wasn't caused by greed. It was love."
When she'd first said this back in the hospital, David hadn't believed her, for she was not a woman given over to mushy sentiments. But she had stuck to her theory now for weeks without much other explanation. In fact, since his return from Los Angeles, he'd noticed a certain bitterness in her thoughts, but perhaps after what she'd been through this was to be expected. That day in the factory she'd drawn on her last bit of strength to save not only David and Henry but all those other women. She'd been left so physically weak and emotionally frail that her usual defenses were in tatters.
"I've never experienced unconditional love like Suchee's for Miao-shan or even Keith's for Miaoshan," she said, finally expanding on her idea. "She had a lot of faults, but she must have been a remarkable woman to elicit that kind of devotion."
"Maybe they weren't so blind," David interrupted. "Yes, she was manipulative, but somewhere along the line she shifted. She had nothing personal to gain from trying to organize the women in the factory, and the way she divided up the materials tells me that she really wanted to make sure that information got out. She had energy, brains, and in other circumstances things might have turned out differently for her." He paused, then asked, "What about Doug? You can't believe he acted out of love."
"Him most of all. Think of what he did to prove himself to his father. Then think of how on that last day, Henry was willing to take the blame for everything-the corruption, the murders-to protect his son. He begged us to bring him back to Beijing to face the consequences. And in our own ways we deceived ourselves and each other despite love, for love…" She closed her eyes. When she opened them, he saw nothing but sorrow. "I look back at my parents and the way I was brought up, and I wonder at all of it. I think of my work and how I see the very worst in people. But for me it's easier than the alternative."
"The alternative?"
"To give myself over fully to love," she said, at last admitting her deepest fear. She looked away again and stared over at Zai, her mother, and her nurse. "Suchee says I've run away my entire life. Maybe I have, because staying opens up the possibility of losing love and being hurt." When she turned back to him, her eyes glittered with tears. "I don't think I could stand losing you or the baby."
"You're not going to lose us," he said. "I'm here and the baby's coming." He tried to be light. "You're always so good with your proverbs. Well, I have a few of my own. You can run, but you can't hide. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. You don't know if you don't like spinach unless you've tried it."
"Those aren't proverbs! They're cliches."
"Well, hear this, then." He took her hand and kissed it. "I'll never leave you, Hulan. That's just the way it is."
Epilogue
THE DEAD HEAT OF SUMMER FINALLY PASSED, AND A KIND of languid somnambulance fell over the countryside as the crops ripened and the people readied for harvest. The heads of the sunflowers, drooping from the weight of their seeds, could no longer look up to the sun. The fields of millet and sorghum had already been harvested, the land cleared, and some farmers had begun preparations for their winter crops, for every day the sun rose less high in the sky and daylight waned minute by minute. The cicadas had grown quieter in recent days as the humidity, stickiness, and thick air disappeared as it always did at this time of year. Ling Suchee imagined-for by any measure temperatures were still warm, hot even-a coolness drifting on the air.
Suchee tore an ear of corn from the stalk, peeled back the outer leaves, and examined the kernels. They were plump and a pleasing shade of yellow. There were no bugs and no diseases. She took a bite and the raw corn felt fresh and sun-warm in her mouth. Yes, in another day or two this field would be ready for harvest and she would hire a couple of boys to help her. She walked on, passing through the rows, feeling the rustle of the stalks against her arms and the warmth of the soil beneath her bare feet.
But inside, where her heart kept its steady, relentless beating, she ached. Not a day, not a minute went by that she didn't wish for a hardness to form over that delicate but persistent organ. She knew, of course, that the physical heart-the chambers and valves and aortas that she'd seen in a book-did not really suffer from loss, but then how else could you explain the pain, the sickness that lay heavy in her chest every morning when she woke up and that she carried with her as she went about her chores?
The barefoot doctor had recommended that she leave this place and move into the village. Instead she'd come away with a packet of herbs and instructions to boil them, strain them, boil them again, then drink one cup three times a day for ten days. She'd done as the doctor ordered, but that bitter liquid could not cure her.
Nor would her neighbors' suggestion to join them in the village. Tang Dan had been right in his assessment of the Tsais. Everywhere they looked they saw reminders of their son-the kang where he'd slept, the well where his body had been found, the land where he'd been with them literally every day since his birth. So within days of Tsai Bing's death, his parents, without completing the harvest, had handed their land back to the government and had moved to the village house for end-of-the-liners.