A Map of Betrayal by Ha Jin Page B

man’s eyes lit up and his mouth hung open. He turned away and whispered something to his wife, a large-framed woman with a knot of hair at the back of her head. He then said to me, “This is my wife, Ning.”
    “Very glad to meet you, Aunt Ning. I’m Lilian.” I held out my hand, but she drew back a bit, then gingerly shook my hand, her palm rough and callused.
    “Welcome,” she mumbled.
    “Come on, Weiren,” Mai said to the old man. “Don’t keep us standing like this.”
    So the host led us into the sitting room, which was also a bedroom. A large brick bed, a kang , took up almost half the space. On the whitewashed wall hung a glossy calendar that displayed the Golden Gate Bridge, and next to the picture was a garland of dried chilies, a few of them fissured, revealing the yellow seeds. Minmin went over to the picture of the bridge and blurted out, “Wow, this is gorgeous. Do you know where this is?” As soon as she said that, she bit the corner of her lips as if to admit a gaffe in assuming the host’s ignorance.
    Mai laughed while Uncle Weiren smiled, showing that only three or four teeth were left in his mouth. “Sure I know,” the host said. “It’s in the American city called Old Gold Mountain.” That’s the Chinese name for San Francisco.
    Aunt Ning came in holding a kettle and served tea while Uncle Weiren offered us Red Plum cigarettes. Mai took one; Minmin and I declined. I lifted the mug and sipped the tea, which had a grassy flavor. The old man told me that his name, Weiren, meant he and my father were cousins. In other words, he was a real uncleof mine. All the males of their generation in the Shang clan had the same character, wei , in their personal names.
    “I’m your grandpa’s nephew,” he added. “Your father and I are cousins.”
    “Do you remember my dad, Uncle Weiren?” I asked.
    “You bet. He taught me how to dog-paddle when I was a little kid. I knew your first mother pretty well too. She was a kindhearted woman and once gave me a full pocket of roasted sunflower seeds.” He was referring to Yufeng. Traditionally a man’s children by his second and third wives also belonged to his first wife, who was the younger generation’s “first mother.”
    “Where is Yufeng now? Do you know?” I said.
    “In the northeast. Your sister used to write me at the Spring Festival, but her letters stopped coming after a couple of years.”
    “Why did they have to leave?” I asked. I had been plagued by the question for a long time. “Didn’t the government provide for them?”
    Uncle Weiren sighed, then took a deep drag on his cigarette. “They used to send her your dad’s pay every month, but money became worthless during the famine. Rich or poor, folks all starved, and only the powerful had enough food.”
    “By docking others’ rations,” Mai said.
    I asked Uncle Weiren, “But didn’t my grandparents leave Yufeng some farmland?”
    “Their land was taken away long ago, in the Land Reform Movement in the early fifties. Since then, all land belongs to the country.”
    “I see. So there was no way Yufeng could raise her kids here?”
    Uncle Weiren stared at me, his bulging eyes a little bleary. He cleared his throat and said, “It was hard for her indeed. Your brother died of brain inflammation, but it was also believed he starved to death. All the Shangs in the village got angry at Yufeng, because the boy was the single seedling in your father’s family. The old feudalistic mind-set, you know, that doesn’t allow girls to carry on thebloodline. It wasn’t fair to Yufeng really. She was an unfortunate woman, alone without a man in her home. How could she raise the kids by herself? To make things worse, your brother was weak from the day he was born. The Shangs here were all upset about his death, and some blamed Yufeng for it, but every family was too desperate to give her any help. It was not like nowadays, when we can afford to spare some food or cash.”
    “About a