Wish You Happy Forever (25 page)

Wuqiao County, Hebei Province

Wuqiao County's claim to fame was acrobatics. Dick was heading there, just a three-hour train ride south of Beijing, to shoot a photo story. We all went along; maybe the young athletes would inspire our budding gymnast.

WELCOME TO WUQIAO—FAMOUS HOMETOWN OF CHINESE ACROBATICS!
said a string of giant roadside billboards. Behind the signs, Wuqiao seemed to be a mix of barren fields, small farms, and assorted rundown acrobatic schools in barnlike buildings.

We were expected at the
most famous
school. The principal greeted us in her reception room. She told us that her family had been training acrobats for two thousand years. “Ours is the best and biggest acrobat school in China,” she said. “People send their children from all over the world to live and study here. Some begin when they are just four years old.”

Anya squeezed my hand tighter. I picked her up and gave her a hug. “Don't worry, she doesn't mean you. You guys are coming home with us. Always.”

While Dick shot, we watched some children spinning plates on their feet. A couple of girls were bending themselves into pretzels. We watched tiny jugglers, and human pyramids made up of exchange students from Africa.

At the second school, Maya had a turn at practicing Chinese yoyo and received one as a gift. She handed the prize over to her little sister and turned to us. “Can we go home now?”

“Had enough?” Dick asked. “Sure, just a few more minutes.”

“Home to America,” she said.

“Hey, how about Circus World?” said Dick. “I heard you can actually ride on a tiger there.”

“A real one?” asked Maya.

“I want to! I'm a tiger!” Anya said.

At Circus World, we watched an obese performing mouse climb a ladder and walk a tightrope in his own mini-world, complete with pagoda. Dick, eager to cheer Maya up, agreed to be shot out of a canon. At the Funny Zoo, Anya had her picture taken on a real (and pathetic, not funny) tiger.

Months later, we would manage to move the girls to an international school. They would both love it. And that would be the end of Maya's Olympics career.

OUR BEIJING HOME
was just a block from Ritan Park. Early each morning, after a breakfast of congee and heart-stopping deep-fried dough sticks, we walked to the park.

Despite tortured-looking sawed-off trees and fake rockeries with mucky koi ponds, parks in China feel like the country at its most heartfelt and personal and somehow spiritual. Time and progress blissfully come to a standstill. Wherever you are in that vast, almost always polluted, almost always chaotic land, at 7:00
A.M.
you will find a peaceful retreat full of people doing their own thing—some performing morning exercises that require banging on tree trunks, groups of ladies dancing with fans, aging
taiji
warriors thrusting swords in slow-motion battles, players of
jianzi
(a shuttlecock game played with feet) and the ancient
erhu
, with its two mournful strings. Some folks stroll alone, beating their chests, vocalizing into the treetops.

Old men shuffle the paths in pairs and threesomes, each carrying a tiny bird swinging in its covered bamboo cage. When they arrive at their favorite spot, the men arrange the delicate cages to hang from low branches and uncover them so the birds can see each other. Then the men sit and smoke and play checkers and argue while their little birds chirp out melodious birdie gossip.

I was coming to see my journey in China as something like wending through one of those gardens. There were no straight routes, only winding paths and zigzag galleries and bridges to pavilions and towers and vistas designed to draw attention and distract one from one's worldly cares. But always in the distance was something—an artificial mountain peak, a
most excellent and magnificent
specimen—that seemed almost out of reach, yet not quite. If you kept your eyes on it, if you kept wending along the paths and didn't let yourself be seduced by the Listening to the Rain Pavilion or the Hall of Distant Fragrances, it seemed you could get there. If you could just stay focused.

Easier said than done. It was never the closed orphanage doors that obscured my view and drew me off course. It wasn't the endless bureaucracy, the fear of the unknown, the now-familiar China Smile. I'd just find another path, my eyes always on the prize. The challenge for me was to not get caught up in the lives of individual children. Each of them was like my siren call to mission drift. I understood all about that mountain in the middle, how I had to keep moving toward it. But the more I came to know the children, the more I ached for every one of them. And although I tried not to, sometimes I just had to pause along the way.

One of our new expat friends in Beijing ran an organization that arranged medical care for local orphans. She told me that an American orthopedic surgeon would soon be coming to treat some of her kids. I told her about Jingli, who was now back in Baling.

After the Shanghai surgery, Jingli had gained some bowel control, nothing else. No further treatment had been suggested. I wondered if her gait could be improved—if something could be done for those floppy feet. And was she allowed to be with the other kids now? After attending our happy little preschool each day, was she sent back to the Root Cellar?

“Do you think your doctor friend would see Jingli?” I asked. “Maybe there's something more we could do.”

A week later, Jingli arrived in Beijing, accompanied by an
ayi
from the orphanage and by Director Slick's wife, who it turned out was the orphanage “doctor.” Mrs. Slick gave no indication of ever having examined Jingli or of knowing anything about spina bifida or even about medicine. She was, however, very attractive.

The American surgeon told us that Jingli had no bone deformity and that she'd healed as well as could be expected from surgery. Certainly her gait could be improved; Jingli needed to be fitted for AFOs—ankle/foot braces—and after she'd been wearing them for a couple of years and her legs were accustomed to being straight, she might benefit from tendon surgery.

We all sat at dinner that night—Jingli's escorts, my family, ZZ.

“Can she even get AFOs in Baling?” I asked.

Mrs. Slick didn't know. ZZ doubted it.

“We'll keep her here, then, with the
ayi
. Just until the braces are ready. She'll have to miss some school.”

“That's no problem. She doesn't go to school,” said Mrs. Slick.

We all looked at her.

“She's eight years old now. She graduated from Half the Sky preschool. No disabled children can be admitted to our community schools in Baling.”

Dick and I looked at each other.

“Well, then,” Dick said, “we'll just keep her here with us and get her what she needs.”

“That's not possible,” said Mrs. Slick. “We must follow procedures—”

“Of course, Mrs. Slick,” I said quickly. “We also respect procedures. She must stay in Beijing until she is fitted for the AFOs. Certainly, you and your
ayi
will stay too. We'll extend your time at the hotel. Let's wait and discuss the next step after Jingli's had her AFO appointment.”

“But I can't stay—”

“Oh, what a pity,” I said, smiling at Dick. “Then I suggest Jingli stay at our home! What do you think, girls?”

“Yes!” the girls chimed.

“We're never sending her back to the Root Cellar,” Dick said quietly.

“Never,” I said.

JINGLI TOOK ONE
look at our Beijing apartment, at the white Ikea sofa and the white Ikea chair, and refused to sit. She was terrified of soiling those (to her eyes) pristine surfaces. We tried to tell her it was okay. She stood firm on her wobbly little legs. We brought wooden chairs into the living room and all sat on them together. Still she stood. We asked Gao
Ayi
to run out and buy Pull-Ups or diapers—whatever she could find to fit a big girl. For the first of a thousand times, we told Jingli, “Please don't worry. For this time, we are your family and this is your home. We all take care of each other, and we will take care of you.”

Jingli's eyes shone, but she didn't smile.

We showed her the girls' bedroom. “I'm not going to sleep on the floor,” she said. “If you make me do that, I want to go back to Baling.”

“Of course, you don't have to sleep on the floor, Jingli! You can sleep here with Maya or, if you want, back at the hotel with Mrs. Slick and your
ayi
tonight. And tomorrow we'll buy you a bed,” I said.

“With a blanket?” she said.

“Yes . . . definitely with a blanket.”

“I'll stay here,” she said.

This child was a survivor.

“JENNY,
KUAI LAI,
”
Gao
Ayi
called from the bathroom.

She was giving Jingli a bath. When I opened the door, she looked up at me in distress.

Jingli's little bottom, her entire genital area, was a mass of red, oozing sores, deep and surely painful. The poor child had been sitting in her own waste for months, maybe years.

An angry lump rose in my throat. My breath caught. I closed my eyes. Behind my closed lids I saw Anya's burned feet, the diaper scars . . . all the hungry, tied babies . . . their blank little faces. I felt the anger burning in my chest.
Don't. It solves nothing. Let it go. What is changing is that I can do something now. I can help.

It was the last time rage swallowed me. It has paid fleeting visits since, but never lingers more than a heartbeat. Sadness, though, seems to be forever.

I tried to smile in a reassuring way. “We'll fix it.
Mingtian
, tomorrow, I promise.”

First thing the next morning, ZZ and I took Jingli to Beijing Union Hospital. We were prescribed salve and antibiotics and told to park Jingli under bright lights for two hours each day. The last suggestion seemed impractical for an eight-year-old who was long overdue to start living her life; we decided to aim a warm hairdryer at the affected area twice a day instead. It worked great and Jingli thought it was hilarious. The scars, of course, would be there always.

ON THE WAY
home, ZZ called Director Slick and somehow managed to convince him to let Jingli stay with us in Beijing and to submit her dossier for adoption. We'd take care of her until she was matched with a family. Slick doubted that any family would want such damaged goods. Still, he bragged, he had special
guanxi
with the vice director of CCAA. They were old army buddies. He would see what could be done. ZZ complimented him on his considerable influence. “How fortunate that Jingli's life is in the hands of such an important man,” she told him.

Mrs. Slick and the Baling
ayi
went home. And Jingli became, at least for now, our daughter. Gao
Ayi
, who'd been working only during the day, now moved in with us to care for Jingli full-time. The Bowen household was, yet again, complete: five females—six counting ZZ, whom I rarely let out of my sight—and Dick.

A WEEK LATER
, our visit to the orthotics and prosthetics department at Bo'Ai Orthopedic Hospital reminded me of the prop shops from my theater days. The room was covered in plaster dust. Plaster-of-Paris hands and feet were strewn on tabletops. Assorted artificial limbs and braces and buckles and crutches rested everywhere—leaning against chairs, littering the floors and every other possible surface.

A giant wall case displayed orthotics and prosthetics behind smudged glass doors. Jingli's favorites were the hands and fingers—every size and shape imaginable, and looking almost real. The doctor himself had an artificial leg; he took his work seriously. A whole team swarmed around Jingli, measuring and conferring. She was enthralled by the attention.

Just then, a flurry of excitement! Baobao, my little footless friend from the Xinyang orphanage, was escorted in the door by her Half the Sky preschool teacher and an
ayi
.

“Baobao!” I whooped.

“It's really Baobao's appointment time,” ZZ said. “I thought we can share.
Nihao! Nihao
, Baobao!”

Baobao was tottering proudly on two new prosthetic feet covered by bright red boots. Forever free of her stroller, she was smiling—glowing with happiness. A whole new girl.

After a big welcome, Baobao was plunked in a chair. The
ayi
removed her feet. “They still hurt her,” the
ayi
said. “But she doesn't want to take them off.”

“Let's take a look,” said the doctor.

“Zhang
Ayi,
” Jingli said, “I want to go.”

“But Jingli, they haven't finished the plaster mold yet.
Deng yi huir
, wait a bit,” ZZ said.

I saw the tears fall. “Jingli, what's wrong?”

“I don't want my feet cut off,” she said, her eyes on Baobao.

Then Baobao started to cry too. I sat down on the plaster-coated floor and took both sobbing little girls into my lap. “Oh ZZ, please explain to them.”

“Where can I begin?”

 

FANGCAODI PRIMARY SCHOOL
refused to admit Jingli, officially because she didn't have the proper
hukou
(residence permit), but privately they told us that no school in Beijing would accept a handicapped child. We decided to homeschool her along with our little gymnast.

Life settled into a new normal. I began to quietly browse the adoption e-mail lists, looking for special voices, the right parents for a most special child. I wished it could be us—that we could give Jingli the time and care she needed and deserved. But I was never home. We lived in a place where she couldn't even go to school. We were not the ones.

Still, Jingli was soon entirely at home. When Dick traveled for work, he'd call daily and talk to all of his girls. Jingli was always first to the phone, even though they couldn't understand a word the other said. At night the phone rang and Jingli ran dripping wet and naked from the bath, calling out, “
Baba ShuShu!
—Uncle Daddy! My talk!”