A catastrophic disaster in China triggers a mother’s heartbreaking choice and a daughter’s reconciliation with the past in this engrossing novel by the author of A Single Swallow and Where Waters Meet. Perfect for fans of Amy Tan, Lisa See, and Min Jin Lee.
In the summer of 1976, an earthquake swallows up the city of Tangshan, China. Among the hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for survival is a mother who makes an agonizing decision that irrevocably changes her life and the lives of her children. In that devastating split second, her seven-year-old daughter, Xiaodeng, is separated from her brother and the mother she loves and trusts. All Xiaodeng remembers of the fateful morning is betrayal.
Thirty years later, Xiaodeng is an acclaimed writer living in Canada with a caring husband and daughter. However, her newfound fame and success do little to cover the deep wounds that disrupt her life, time and again, and edge her toward a breaking point. Xiaodeng realizes the only path toward healing is to return to Tangshan, find her mother, and get closure.
Spanning three decades of the emotional and cultural aftershocks of disaster, Zhang Ling’s intimate epic explores the damage of guilt, the healing pull of family, and the hope of one woman who, after so many years, still longs to be saved.
Excerpt
July 28, 1976 Tangshan, Hebei
Parts of Wan Xiaodeng’s memory of that night were extremely clear, so clear that she could recall every texture of every detail. Other parts were blurred, only a rough outline with smudged edges remaining. Years later, she wondered whether her memories of that night were just an illusion, developed from reading so many documentary accounts of the event. She even thought that perhaps there had been no such night in her life at all.
It had been hot. Summer nights were generally hot in Tangshan, but this particular night was outrageously so. The sky was like a large clay pot that had been baked all day, overturned and sitting atop the earth, blocking out even the slightest hint of a breeze. It was not just the people who were hot, but the dogs too. They barked from one end of the street to the other, filling the neighborhood with the sound of howling.
The Wan family had an electric fan that Comrade Wan had built himself using leftover materials from the factory, but the fan’s motor had burned out after constant use. The Wan family, like all their neighbors, was left without a fan as they suffered through the raw heat that night.
Her mother, Li Yuanni, slept alone in bed. Her father was on the road, and the two children were crammed into the other bed with their uncle. They had slung their army-green bags over their shoulders when they went to bed. Xiaodeng heard her mother and her uncle toss and turn, their thin fans sounding like firecrackers as they slapped, stirring up a breeze and driving away mosquitoes all at once.
“Isn’t the food in Shanghai different from ours?” her mother asked her uncle through the thin wall separating the rooms. Her uncle’s troop was stationed in a suburb of Shanghai.
“Everything comes in small servings. I’m so afraid I’ll finish it all in one bite that I don’t even dare start. It’s very refined, a mix of sweet and sour,” her uncle answered.
Her mother tutted enviously. “No wonder those women in the South have such delicate skin. See how they eat, and how we eat. I heard that the weather in the South is good too. The summers and winters there are not as uncomfortable as ours, right?”
“It’s a coastal climate with four distinct seasons. Their winter is warmer than ours, but it’s still uncomfortable without heating. In summer, it’s hot during the day, but cool at night, so at least you can sleep well.”
Her mother sighed. “All my life, I’ve been a frog at the bottom of a well. I really want to see the big city one day.”
Her uncle was silent for a while, then mumbled, “It’s my fault. If it wasn’t for that telegram, you would be living in the provincial capital—”
Her mother interrupted. “It’s all up to fate. Who can fight against fate? If it were not that telegram, it would have been something else. God doesn’t like me.”
Her uncle slapped a mosquito on his arm, killing it. He wiped the blood from his palm onto the wall. “When Xiaoda grows up, I’ll take him to Shanghai to study. That can count as fulfilling your dream too.”
Xiaoda stomped his foot on the bed board excitedly and said, “Xiaodeng and me will go together.”
There was a rustling sound from their mother’s bed. She got up in the dark and took off her close-fitting undershirt. She had never slept topless, but the past few days had been so unbearably hot.
“Isn’t this year wickedly hot? Look at the heat rashes on the kids. They’ve scratched so much they have little white spots all over. When their father comes back and sees it, he’s going to be so upset.”
Their uncle laughed and said, “He seems easily upset with everyone, but when he sees these two precious kids, his temper disappears.”
Their mother laughed too. “You should see his parents. They have three sons, but only one grandson, Xiaoda. They wish they could put him in the palm of their hand and worship him like a bodhisattva.”
Their uncle felt Xiaoda’s leg. The boy was thin, but very strong. He didn’t move. He was probably asleep.
“He’s grown well. He’s a good kid. I’ve never seen him throw a temper tantrum. But I think you two are fonder of Xiaodeng.”
“A son forgets his mother as soon as he’s married, but when a daughter grows up, she’s her mother’s warm jacket. I just wish she were more easygoing. She holds a grudge.” Her mother yawned, a long, slow yawn. “Go to sleep. Those two rascals have been talking to you all night. You’re tired.”
He grunted in agreement. The sound of fanning slowed down, and it was soon replaced by fine snoring. Xiaodeng’s eyelids drooped, but she felt that there were ten thousand bugs crawling over the wet, sticky mattress, biting her. She heard her mother get up in the dark, grope about, bump into something, and let out a pained yelp. Xiaodeng knew that her mother was going out to the courtyard to relieve herself. She usually used the chamber pot in the house, but with the awful heat these days, the smell would fill the whole house. When she finally stumbled her way into the courtyard, Xiaodeng vaguely heard her mumble to herself outside the window, “God, why is it so bright tonight?”
Suddenly, an earth-shattering sound cut off her mother’s voice like a knife.
Xiaodeng’s memory also cut off here, losing shape. All she could remember were faint pieces, like dust particles flickering at the beginning of an old film. Later, she would try and collect these dust particles to connect them into a whole picture, but it never worked. It remained a deep, impenetrable darkness. Not the kind of darkness that arrives when you turn off the light at night—no, that darkness could be torn with a slit in the curtains or a crack of light under the door. This shadow was a quilt with no seams, draped over her head, smelling like dirt, growing heavier and heavier, until it felt as if her forehead was squeezed flat and her eyes were about to pop out from her head.
She heard people scream. Someone shouted, “The Soviets have dropped an atomic bomb!” Her mother was moaning, a string on a Chinese violin that was about to break. She tried to move, but found that only three toes on her right foot were functioning. She wiggled them back and forth, left and right. She bumped into something soft, a body. For a moment, she thought it was her mother—but it couldn’t be; her mother was moaning somewhere far away. It was Xiaoda. She wanted to shout, yell, cry for help, but she had no voice.
After a great noise from the shifting rubble, her mother’s voice suddenly became clear. “I need to get dressed. This is humiliating.”
“Saving lives is all that matters. You’re still worried about such things?” That was her uncle’s voice.
Her mother remembered, and she suddenly screamed, “Xiaodeng! Xiaoda!”
For as long as she lived, Xiaodeng would never forget her mother’s cries that day.
In the darkness, Xiaoda suddenly started to slam himself violently against the solid walls around him. Xiaodeng couldn’t see his movements, but she could feel that he was like a fish stuck in a quagmire, desperate to escape. She moved her right hand and found that it was a little freer, so she directed all her strength into that hand and pushed upward. Suddenly, she saw a thin line of the sky. It was tiny, like the eye of a needle. Looking out through the needle’s eye, she saw a woman covered in blood. The woman was wearing only a pair of underpants, and there were two plaster-covered balls dangling from her chest.
“Mama! Mama!”
Xiaoda started shouting at the top of his lungs. Xiaodeng had lost her voice, so Xiaoda’s voice was now their common voice. He shouted for a long time, until his voice gradually weakened.
“It hurts, Xiaodeng.” Xiaoda fell silent, as if he knew their situation was hopeless.
“Oh God! Xiao . . . Xiaoda is under here. Help! Someone help me!” their mother cried.
Their mother’s voice was not at all like her usual voice. It was more like a current that had broken from her body and gone on its own way, sharply barging through the air and cutting through everything that blocked its path, smashing it all to pieces.
There was a burst of chaotic footsteps, and the sliver of sky disappeared from Xiaodeng’s sight. It was probably someone lying on the ground, listening.
“Here. I’m here,” Xiaoda said weakly.
Then there was their mother’s roaring, gasping sound, like a wolf. Xiaodeng guessed that their mother was digging through the rubble.
“It’s useless. The child is under a cement slab. You can only pry it with tools. You won’t be able to dig them out with your hands.” This was the voice of a strange man.
There was another burst of chaotic footsteps, and someone said, “I’ve got the tools. Get out of the way.”
There was a jingling sound, then it stopped again. A voice stammered, “This slab was laid flat. If we pry up one end, it will slide all the way to the other.”
The two children were stuck, one on each side of the slab.
There was a dead silence all around.
“Please, tell me which one to save.” It was her uncle talking now. Her mother banged her forehead on the ground. “Oh God! God!” Following a brief struggle, her mother’s voice fell. Xiaodeng heard her uncle snap at her mother. “If you don’t tell me which one, they’ll both be gone.”
After a seemingly infinite silence, her mother spoke.
Her mother’s voice was low. The people around her may have only guessed at what she said. But Xiaoda and Xiaodeng both heard the two syllables perfectly, and the slight pause in the middle.
Her mother’s words were “Xiao . . . da.”
Xiaoda’s body suddenly tightened, becoming a rocky lump. Xiaodeng expected him to say something, but he said nothing. There was a noise like rolling thunder overhead, and Xiaodeng felt that some- one had slammed a hammer into her head.
“My sister . . . Sis!”
That was the last thing Xiaodeng heard before she fell into a deep sleep.
It grew light. The sky was ugly, full of disjointed, cottony clouds. The earth still trembled intermittently, and the razed city had suddenly broadened, making the horizon visible at first glance. Without the familiar buildings, the boundary between sky and earth seemed to have changed drastically.
That day, they found a little girl lying face up beside a huge, half- fallen banyan tree. It was a corpse that had just been dug up, and it had not been moved yet. There was a good deal of blood on her forehead but almost no visible injury to other parts of the body. Her eyes, nose, and mouth were covered with mud. It seemed she had suffocated. The sky-blue shirt she wore had been torn to shreds. She was practically naked, but she still had a nearly perfect army-green bag with an image of Tiananmen Square on it slung across her shoulder.
“What a pretty little girl.”
Someone sighed regretfully, but no one stopped. They had seen too many bodies like this along the way, and they would see still more as they continued. That day, their concern was only for the living. They had no time to look after the dead—not now, and not for quite some time.
Then came the rain, a rain that stirred up dust and stories, a rain that carried color and weight. The raindrops hit the little girl, and beautiful mud flowers opened one after another on her face. When the mud was washed away, a clean water droplet that had sat on the girl’s eyelid for some time suddenly quivered and rolled down. She opened her eyes.
She sat up and stared blankly at the wilderness surrounding her, having completely lost her bearings. After a while, her eyes fell onto the bag she clung to, and the scattered memories gradually began to fall into place. She recalled something that seemed to have happened in the distant past. She stood up, swayed, and tore at the bag strap on her shoulder. It was a strong strap. She could not tear it off. She bent to bite it. Her teeth were as sharp as a little beast’s, and the threads began to slip between them, groaning miserably. Finally, the cloth broke. She rolled the bag into a ball, then flung it away ruthlessly. It spiraled through the air and got entangled in the branches of the half-fallen banyan tree, where it hung alone and helpless.
She only had one shoe left. Using her clad foot, she searched for the road, which was really no road at all anymore. She walked along it for a while, then stopped and looked back at the path she had traveled. She saw the bag she had tossed, like an old sparrow hawk shot by a hunter, one dirty wing drooping from the branches of the tree.
Wan Xiaodeng did not know at the time that this would be her last memory of her childhood.
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