Cronología de la muerte

Capítulo 9

I always care about these things; I'm always cautious about things that aren't "ideal." I pay attention to divorce rates: what are the chances of a lasting marriage? Twenty percent? Ten percent? It seems like all the women I know have broken hearts, crushed like recycled tin cans.

From my observation, when the numbness of love gradually fades, intense pain always follows. You don't necessarily have to marry the wrong man; if you can't find the right one, do you have to marry him?

Look at my best friend and my real estate trustee, Vera Hendix. She's an incredibly intelligent woman with a PhD in sociology from Stanford University. She's on the board of one of the largest nonprofit foundations for Africa and the Americas, and she's frequently named one of the 100 most influential Black women in America.

Watching one's own funeral (4)

However, Vera also made a mistake in her youth by marrying a jazz drummer named Maxwell. His job seemed to consist of spending his nights out, smoking, drinking, telling jokes, and returning home in the early hours of the morning. And let me tell you, he wasn't Black; he was Jewish. Black and Jewish people were considered quite unusual in those days. His mother, a Catholic, declared him dead and observed weeks of mourning. When they moved from Boston to Tuscaloosa, Vera fought against Maxwell and the entire world. Vera said that people's resentment towards them was the reason they stayed in the marriage. Later, when they moved to the Berkeley suburbs filled with mixed-race marriages, the fighting was confined to the two of them; money and alcohol were common causes of discord in their marriage. Even intelligent women make mistakes in choosing men, and Vera is a prime example.

As I approached forty, I almost convinced myself to get married and have children. A man who deeply loved me showered me with romantic empty words and affectionate nicknames. I was flattered and moved. By traditional standards, he wasn't particularly dashing, but he was very strong. He wasn't good at socializing and had some eccentricities, but DNA-wise, he was the ideal partner for having children. He said our future child would be like a half-angel, half-prodigy. I was drawn to the future of having children, but inevitably, I also had to consider the responsibilities of motherhood, which reminded me of my stepmother.

He was devastated when I refused his marriage proposal. I felt incredibly guilty about it until six months later when he married another woman. It was quite sudden, but I was happy for him, really. They had a child, and I was still happy for them. Then they had one after another, four children in total! I've wanted children for years, but I can only manage one at most. Will my child like me? Of course, I'll never have children.

Looking at Vera's two daughters, I often think—they love their mother so much, even in their teens. They are truly wonderful children, like children from a dream. If I had children, would they be as good to me as they are to me?

If I had a daughter, I would definitely let her sit on my lap, comb her hair, and inhale the faint fragrance of her hair. I would tie a peony behind her ear or a hair clip with jade spots in her hair. We would look in the mirror together, knowing the depth of our familial love, and our eyes would fill with tears. It was only much later that I realized that the child I imagined was actually myself as a child, and I had always longed for a mother like that.

I confess that every time I hear about a friend's child becoming disobedient or ungrateful, I feel a pang of schadenfreude, thankful that I don't experience that parental sadness. What would you think if your child declared they hated you and distanced themselves from you forever?

This question flashed through my mind as I saw Lucinda Barry, head of the communications committee of the Asian Art Museum, walk onto the stage to deliver her eulogy for me. She had said I was like a mother to her, and now she had come to my memorial service to celebrate "the legacy from Chen Bibi."

She paused, tossing her flowing hair like a racehorse: "Sell her luxurious three-unit apartment and her magnificent villa in Livingworth overlooking the bridge, as well as her shop, the legendary 'Immortal' and its successful online catalog business, and next up is her personal collection of Buddhist art—incidentally, a very fine collection that has already been specified in her will as going to the museum."

A round of applause erupted. It was Lucinda's talent; she could combine drama with the mundane in an exaggerated way, and it all sounded so real. Before the applause reached thunderous force, she raised her hand to signal for quiet and said, "She left us, leaving behind real estate worth approximately—wait, oh, found—twenty million dollars."

No one was panting, no one was cheering, they were clapping loudly as if my legacy was just a string of numbers, as they had expected.

After a sudden silence, she held up a small badge: "We will use this to commemorate her generosity. The new Asian museum will be completed in 2003, and one of the buildings will be built with funds donated from this legacy."

One building! I should have checked what kind of praise my twenty million would actually get me. And this badge is just a plain square, stainless steel, with my initials engraved on it, so small even people in the front row can't see them. This is Lucinda's style—modern yet mediocre, as hard to read as the instructions on a medicine bottle. We often argue, like friends, about her expensive artist-designed blueprints.

“Your vision is still too naive,” I told her not long ago. “You have to realize that people who donate huge sums of money have a mature vision. If you want that style, you have to give people a magnifying glass to see clearly.”

She said, not entirely jokingly, "You're like my mom. There's always something you do wrong."

"I'm just providing useful information."

"Like my mother."

At my funeral, she said those words again, this time with a smile and tears: "Bibi was like my mother. She always gave generous advice."

My mother never gave me any advice, whether good or bad.

My Childhood in Shanghai (1)

My mother died when I was a baby.

She was my father's first wife, who raised my two older brothers and me. Her name was Bao Tian—"sweet bud, sweet flower bud"—a name that didn't quite suit her. As her stepchildren, we could only affectionately call her Sweet Mom. The emotional void I experienced is all her fault. Yet, my entire life comes from my biological mother.