The man handed the microphone to the woman who was next to his mother. After she spoke, his mother spoke again, and Daniel felt himself puffing up, proud at how confident and intelligent she sounded, how smooth her Mandarin was. The man stuttered, the microphone amplifying a catch in his voice, and the other woman’s sentences were peppered with excruciating pauses, but his mother spoke without hesitating.
The moderator asked the audience if they had questions. A woman near the front rambled on about a program she had created until the moderator cut her off. Daniel raised his hand, and the moderator walked over. He’d played enough shows to know his mother wouldn’t be able to see the back of the auditorium from the stage, not with the pillar in the way. He spoke in his best imitation of a northern accent, trying not to crack up because it was a terrible caricature of Mandarin. “I’d like to learn more about bilingual education in Chinese schools. Do you teach Chinese and English at the same time? What about students who can speak both?”
The man onstage answered the question, talking about an initiative at the college where he worked, but Daniel saw his mother look around the auditorium, trying to find him, as the rest of her face struggled to remain still. He suppressed a laugh.
She found him after the panel ended, pushing past people waiting to talk to her.
“Deming! You scared the shit out of me!”
Her eyes widened. They stared at each other. She was wearing makeup—he didn’t remember her wearing makeup before—and her skin was powdered and oddly even. He was relieved to hear her curse, to know a part of her remained the same beneath this new exterior polish.
“Hi—Mama.” His face and hands grew warm. Why did saying the word feel so embarrassing? It felt like he was claiming something that didn’t belong to him.
Her mouth wobbled. His heart was beating so loudly he could hear the blood thump in his ears. People were trying to move past them, but Daniel and his mother could only stand there, looking at each other. He felt the intensity of her stare and had an urge to duck and hide. He wanted to apologize to her for growing up, for also becoming unrecognizable from his former self.
The moderator rushed over. “We’re going to get lunch, Polly, with the group from Shanghai.”
“I can’t,” his mother said, not taking her eyes off him. “My son is here.”
The moderator turned. “This is your son? You must be a bilingual education teacher, too.”
“Something like that,” Daniel said. He wanted to tell the moderator to leave them alone. Couldn’t she see that they didn’t want to be bothered?
His mother linked her arm in his and he could feel her trembling. “Let’s go,” she said, and they walked across the lobby and out of the hotel. She wore high heels, black and spiky, and there was a sense of overcompensation to her movements, her features carefully set to a neutral expression. She kept her arm in his, steered them onto a busier street and into the backseat of a cab, directing the driver in rapid Mandarin. Then they were stuck in what appeared to be endless traffic.
“You came all the way from New York,” she said.
“I flew from New York a few days ago.”
Her voice got high and choked. “You traveled so far!”
“Well, today I just took the train from Fuzhou.”
She took a handkerchief out of her purse and blotted her forehead, then her eyes. “I don’t like being onstage like that, being watched.”
“But you were great.” He noticed the muscles working in her face, the labor it took to hold herself together. “What about when you’re teaching, up front in a classroom?”
“That’s not so bad. I don’t teach much these days, though. My work is more administrative. Are you hungry? Yong e-mailed me to say you came by the apartment.”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Some asshole stole my phone on the train. I had to get a new one, change my number. Such a pain. I hope you still have yours with you.”
He touched his pocket. “Right here.”
“You’ve never been to Beijing before, have you?”
“No.”
“This is the second time I’ve been here this month. I’ve been traveling more for work.”
“Do you like Beijing?”
“There’s a lot of change happening here.”
“There was construction all over Fuzhou when I was there.”
“Here, too. The government rips down these homes where families have been living for years. They say they’re going to compensate them properly but they get shoved out to a crappy apartment on the outer ring.”
“That sounds like New York. There are big new buildings in Chinatown, now, with doormen and white people.” Daniel watched the traffic clear, stop again. They were moving up the road in ten-second increments. Wherever his mother was taking him, they’d get there next year.
Trucks bumped along in the next lane. “Ten years ago, that would’ve been a bicycle lane.”
“You’d rather be riding a bicycle?”
“Never.” She laughed.
“In Ridgeborough, the town I lived in after you left, you need a car to go anywhere. One time I told a friend I’d hop on the train to see him, but then I remembered there’s no train.”
“Your Chinese has gotten better. You don’t sound as illiterate as you did on the phone.”
He basked in her barbed teasing, recalled her toughest, most resilient love. How different it was from Kay’s exposed emotions. His mother had never demanded his reassurance.
“I’ve been in China for almost a week now.”
“You don’t lose a language,” she said. “You need be exposed to it again, and the brain remembers.” The cab rolled forward. “It’s elastic, the brain.”
“Would that be the same for you and English?”
“If you heard me, you’d laugh. But compared to the other teachers, I’m practically fluent. Very few of them have gone abroad, so they learn from watching movies and listening to recordings. It’s not the same.”
“I’ll help you practice if you want.”
“It’s all right.”
“When do you need to return to the conference?”
“Not until tomorrow. I’m going to skip the rest of the day, spend it with you.”
He felt his shoulders loosen. The cab stopped at a group of old buildings with elaborate rooftops.
“This is the Summer Palace,” his mother said. She led him across a bridge and down a long pathway, the ceiling an intricate mosaic of blues and greens. Suddenly it was quiet, and Daniel was mesmerized at the colors. They crossed into an open space where tour groups gathered, the guide speaking into a megaphone in Cantonese, and entered a quieter corridor, passing through another pavilion until they arrived at an expansive lake. Daniel stopped, taken aback by the sight of so much water at once.
They sat on a bench, next to each other. “This is my favorite place in Beijing,” his mother said. “The Empress had her summer vacations here, in the Qing Dynasty.”
He saw an arched bridge, small boats with yellow roofs. Fatigue rippled through his body. He was fried. Four days ago, he’d been in Ridgeborough.
“It’s a man-made lake. Like West Lake Park in Fuzhou. I go there when the walls start to come. Did you go when you were there?”
What did she mean by walls? “Leon and I just walked around the neighborhood.”