What to read: the saga "Do not say that we have nothing," encompassing the entire second half of the twentieth century

***

A few months later, in March, ninety years old, my mother showed me the record book. That evening she was sitting in his usual seat at the dinner table and read. Notebook, which she held in her hands was long and narrow - with the proportions of a miniature door, tightly stitched with cotton thread hazel.

I long ago it was time to sleep, when my mother finally noticed me.

- What is wrong with you! - she said.

And then, as if embarrassed his own question:

- You've already done the lessons? What time is it now?

Lessons I made a long time ago and all this time watching a horror movie without sound. I still remember: some uncle there just scored ax.

- Midnight - I said.

Uncle turned soft as dough, and I was not myself.

The mother held out her hand, and I went. She hugged me around the waist.

- Want to see what I'm reading?

I bent over her notebook, staring at a flock of words. Chinese characters on the page curled like animal tracks in the snow.

- This is a book - my mother said.

- Oh... And about what?

- In my opinion, this is a novel. There about an adventurer by the name of Wei Yes and that on the ship sailed to America, and about the character named fourth in May, which crosses the Gobi desert ...

I looked more closely, but still could not read a word.

- There was a time when people are whole books copied by hand - my mother said. - Russian is called "samizdat", the Chinese... okay, let's say, did particularly we call it is not. Look how dirty this notebook, even the grass has adhered to it. Who knows how many people bore it with you... Liling, it is because for many decades older than you.

"And that I was not over?" - I thought. And asked whether her dad rewrote.

Mom shook her head. She said that the handwriting is wonderful, that is the work of a trained calligrapher, and my dad wrote so-so.

- In this notebook - one single head of any long books. Here it is written: "Number seventeen". Who is the author, does not say, but look, the name: "The Book of Records."

Mom put down the notebook. Father's paper on the dining table like the snow-capped mountain peaks - they hung over the edge, ready is about to come down and get an avalanche on the carpet. All our mail is also lying there and then. On New Year's mom walked letter from Beijing - the condolences of the Central Philharmonic musicians, only recently learned about my father's death. Mother read these letters with a dictionary, because they were written in simplified Chinese, which she did not know. My mother was studying in Hong Kong and there mastered the traditional Chinese writing. But in the fifties on the mainland, in Communist China, it was legitimized by new Simplified. Thousands of words have changed; for example, "write" (tszo) turned out to 寫 写, and "recognize" (B) - from 識 in 识. Even the "Communist Party" (Gong Chan dan) from 共 產 黨 became 共产党. Sometimes my mother was able to discern the essence of last word, in other cases, she wondered. She said that it's like reading a letter from the future - or to speak with someone who betrayed you. The fact that it is now rarely read Chinese and expressed his thoughts mainly in English, further complicates matters. As I speak Cantonese, she did not like, because, in her words, "pronunciation you at random."

- It's cold here - I whispered. - Let's change clothes in pajamas and go to sleep.

Mom looked at the notebook, not even pretending to hear.

- Mother will be tired in the morning, - I insisted. - Mother twenty times clicks the "snooze".

She smiled - but the eyes behind glasses glasses peered into something more closely.

- Go to sleep - said ona.- Do not wait for my mother. I kissed her soft cheek.

- What did the Buddhist in a pizzeria? - she asked.

- What?

- "I do one."

I laughed, moaned and laughed again, then winced at the thought of the sacrifice teleubiystva and doughy skin. Mom with a smile, but firmly he pushed me to the door.

***

Lying in bed, I think about some of what facts.

Firstly, that in his - the fifth - grade, I turned into a completely different person. There I was so pious, so good-natured, so diligent that sometimes thought my brain with the soul exist separately.

Secondly, that in the poorer countries people like us with her mother would not be so lonely. On the TV in poor countries ever crowd and jam-packed with elevators ascend straight to heaven. People sleep at six in one bed, a dozen in the same room. You can always speak out loud and to know that someone will hear you, even if you do not like. In fact, people can be punished as follows: pull them out of the circle of family and friends, to isolate in some cold country and flatten the loneliness.

Thirdly - and this was not so much the fact of how much the question: why our love so little for the Pope?

I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly woke up - and saw that my mother leaned over me and his fingertips stroking my face. During the day, I never cried - only at night.

- Do not, Liling, - she said. She mumbled a lot of things.

- If you are locked up in the room and no one will come to save you, - she said, - what will you do? Will have you banging on the walls and break windows. You have to get out and flee.

Clearly, at Lilin that tears do not help to survive.

- My name is Marie, - I yelled. - Marie!

- Who are you? - she smiled.

- I Liling!

- You're a girl - my mother used the affectionate nickname that called me dad, because the word 女 meant the "girl" and "daughter". Dad liked to joke that in his home country, the poor had been taken to give the names of his daughters. Mom then clapped him on the shoulder and said in Cantonese: "Enough to hammer her head trash".

Under the protection of his mother's embrace, I curled up and fell asleep again.

Later, I woke up from what my mother quietly mused and chuckled. The morning of the winter were the impenetrable dark, but suddenly my mother's laughter swept through the room, like the hum of the heater. Her skin is kept clean pillows smell and sweet flavor it osmantusovogo cream.

When I called to whisper her name, she murmured:

- Hi ...

And then:

- Hee hee ...

- You're in the next world, or in this? - I asked.

Then she said very clearly:

- He is here.

- Who? - I tried to peer into the darkness of the room.

I really believe that he's here.

- Foster. This uh-uh. This... Professor.

I firmly squeezed her fingers. On the other side of the curtains the sky changed color. I wanted to follow her mother to her father's past - and I still did not trust him.

People can go for glamor; may see something so fascinating, that and think to turn around. I was afraid that my mother, like, why would she go home before his father, forget it.

***

Outer life - the new school year, regular monitoring, the joy of young mathematicians camp - continued, as if she would not end, and circular change of seasons drove it forward. Daddy's summer and winter coat is still waiting behind the door - between his hat and shoes.

In early December from Shanghai came thick envelope, and my mother sat down again for a dictionary. Dictionary - is a small, extremely thick book in hard cover white-green. Pages shine while I leaf through them, and do not seem to weigh anything. Here and there my eye catches a speck of dirt or coffee ring - the trace of the mother's, or maybe from my own cup. All words are distributed over the roots or, as they are called, for the keys. For example, 門 means "gate", but also is the key - that is the building material for other words and concepts. If the incident light or the sun 日, it turns out the "space" through the gate 間. If the gate - horse 馬, it is an "attack» 闖, and if the gate mouth 口, it turns out "the question» 问. If inside - Eye 目 and dog 犬, it turns out "Silence» 闃.

Letter from Shanghai has appeared in thirty pages long and was written in a very florid handwriting; a few minutes later, I'm tired of watching over him like a mother beats. I went into the living room and began to look at a neighbor's house. In the courtyard in front of a miserable kind of stuck a Christmas tree. It was as if it tried to strangle tinsel.

Lashing rain and howling wind. I brought his mother a glass of eggnog.

- A letter about the good?

Mother delayed written sheet. Her eyelids nabryakli.

- I did not expect.

I fingered the envelope and began to decipher the name of the sender. It surprised me.

- Female? - I clarified, seized by a sudden fear.

The mother nodded.

- She's got us, please, - said mother away from me the envelope and tucked into it under some papers.

I came closer, as if she was a vase that is about to fly off the table, but my mother's swollen eyes could read a sudden feeling. Comfort? Or maybe - and to my amazement - joy.

- She asks to help her - my mother continued.

- And you read my letter?

Mama pinched his nose.

- Entirely it very much long. She says that for many years have not seen your father. But once they were all like one family - the word "family" she said, somewhat uncertainly. - She writes that her husband taught your father in the song of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. But they have lost touch.... In the difficult years.

- that over the years they?

I suspect that the request, what would it was not, by all means for the dollar or, for example, a new refrigerator, and that her mother simply popolzuyutsya.

- Even before you were born. Sixties. When your father was still studying at the conservatory, - mother lowered her eyes expressionless overlooking anything. - She writes that he got in touch with them in the past year. The pope wrote to her from Hong Kong for a few days before his death.

I climbed into a whirlwind clung to each other's questions. I understand that it is not necessary to stick to my mom on the little things, but as I just wanted to understand what was happening, finally said:

- Who is she? What is her name?

- Her family name Dan.

- And the name?

Mom opened her mouth, but said nothing. Finally, she looked me straight in the eye and said:

- And the name - Liling.

Is the same as mine - once it has been written in the simplified Chinese. I held out my hand for the letter, and her mother firmly covered her own. Anticipating the next question, she leaned forward:

- These thirty pages all about now, not about the past. Daughter of Dan Lilin arrived in Toronto, but his passport can not use. She has nowhere to go, and we have to help her. Her daughter... - my mother deftly slipped a letter into an envelope, -... and her daughter come a bit her stay here with us. Do you understand? It's about now.

I felt as if he had slipped to one side and turned upside down. Why would a stranger live with us?

- Her daughter's name is Ai Ming - my mother said, trying to bring me back to reality. - I'll call and invite her to come.

- And we're the same age?

Mom seems to be confused.

- No, she must have no less than nineteen, she is studying at the university. Dan Lilin writes that her daughter... she says that Ai Ming ran into trouble in Beijing, during the demonstrations at Tiananmen. She ran.

- And what kind of trouble?

- Pretty - his mother said. - More than you know there is no need.

- Not! I need to know more. - Mom angrily slammed the dictionary.

- And who authorized you to stand up? Small yet be so curious!

- But ...

- Pretty.

Marie Jiang family immigrated to Canada from China, settling in Vancouver. After his father's suicide, a talented pianist, the girl sits down to disassemble the paper and gradually learns what tests endured by the deceased.

Events of the past and the present are layered on top of each other, intertwining and becoming a massive saga covering three generations and a huge layer of history of the country: from the Civil War and the Cultural Revolution to the Tiananmen Square massacre. And Marie is trying to put together the broken pieces of the puzzle to reconstruct the history of his family. Translated from English by Mary Morris.

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