atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs
fifty years ago. There was a piece from
my father, too.
I studied the collection with relish.
Some of the memoirs read like sci-
ence papers, with formulas and terms
beyond my understanding. Some, in-
evitably, read like the propaganda from
the nineteen-fifties and sixties. Two
pieces have stayed with me. One was
written by a female physicist, who de-
scribed the duties of raising children
while working on the development of
the hydrogen bomb. The other was by
my father. He was not a poetic writer,
and he had no interest in recounting
the glorious contribution he’d made
to the nuclear industry. Instead, he
wrote about a plant he’d seen in the
desert near the testing site. Coming
from a mountain village where rain is
abundant, he found the plant’s root
system fascinating. He also wrote
about the Army-issued canteen he
had received—such good quality, he
marvelled. It had stayed in use for
more than thirty years. Both my sis-
had spared him but out of pride, which
was not far from fear. I did not want
my father to remain stoic for my sake—I
already have my stoicism. Though, had
he shed tears for Vincent—as I did for
Julia—I wouldn’t have been able to cry
with him. The border between restraint
and paralysis is not often cleanly marked.
The day before his surgery, my father
told me his worries about my mother
and my sister. He did not worry about
me—perhaps I had made him believe
that things would turn out all right with
me. Do I wish otherwise? My father
never said to me, “Make my house your
inn.” It was that guest-child in me who
insisted that I could not make myself a
permanent resident in his care.
S
ome memories about my father that
will remain with me, yet also under-
line what I don’t know about him:
He walked with his right shoulder
visibly higher than his left shoulder—
an asymmetry just short of being a de-
formity. This was a result of his work-
ing in the field with a carrying pole
from an early age—that was all he said.
What load was he carrying—stones,
yams, firewood, water? I do not know
his life as the son of peasants.
He loved a Japanese song called “The
Spring of Northern Country,” with its
lyrics about the childhood home that
one yearns to return to. At different
times of his life, I’d caught him listen-
ing to it, sometimes on repeat. For a
man who seldom expressed his feelings,
that song was close to a revelation. A
revelation of what, though?
On a visit when we were living in
California, my father saw a poem by
Vincent, written when he was in fourth
grade. We had had it framed and hung
it in the living room. My father studied
the poem for a long time, and then ex-
claimed, with an uninhibited wonder
that was unlike him, “This is incredible!
This child writes better than his mother!”
It amazed me that my father, who
had years ago talked about the deficiency
in his poetry education, loved Vincent’s
poem as much as I did.
A
year after my father’s death, I went
back to Beijing, and found a col-
lection of short memoirs written by
the nuclear physicists and the math-
ematicians who had worked on the
ter and I had taken the canteen on
school trips.
There must be a thousand things
in his life like the desert plant, remem-
bered only by him, that were never
shared with his family.
There are many words that my fa-
ther and I did not say to each other,
“I love you” among them. After my
childhood, he hugged me only once,
when I was saying farewell to my
mother and him at the end of a three-
week trip to China. Right before he
went into surgery, I patted his face and
said nothing. Not saying anything, not
letting my father into my sorrow—
and not knowing how to. Perhaps one,
acting out of kindness, acts out of cru-
elty, too. Had he known that I had ex-
cluded him from the most astonish-
ing loss of my life, he would not have
been surprised. I will never know if he
would have surprised me: Would he,
the most stoic man in my life, have
cried for Vincent and for me; would
he have told me to keep smiling, as
that is what I do the best?
Where
Beauty Lives
A legendary home.
Spectacular gardens.
Immersive virtual experiences.
And you’re invited.
Hours: Tues – Sun 10am – 5pm HillwoodMuseum.org
4155 Linnean Ave. NW, Washington DC Free parking
Photo: Erik Kvalsvik
