Daughter’s Daughter

by Sol Ye

Editor: Maya Goel

Nai Nai did not eat the fruits I bought for her at all, only the Dove chocolates and the cheap, possibly expiring candies.

“This one is nice, you should get me more next time.” She waved the candies to me, as she lazily put her legs on the tea table in front of her. The tea table used to belong to me. It barely stood but she insisted on taking it home. My face must have been awkward as she smiled. I had not seen her for three years but she still seemed to love expiring sweets.

I sat in her new apartment on the south side of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Across the city’s largest river was this buzzing E-commerce district, where they built all the startling new, magnificent yet module-like buildings overnight. It was filled with young influencers who made more fortune than Nai Nai could imagine. It also had someone like Nai Nai who is eighty five but had to live depend on the government’s low-rent housing system. None of her children were able to afford anything anymore. Certainly not herself, because her husband died last year and left her with two boxes of mathematics textbooks and ten thousand yuan of savings, which Nai Nai spent on dresses and shoes that she bought from Pinduoduo - some sort of a cheaper version of Taobao (as someone lived in the U.S. for a decade it was hard for me to grasp there could be things even cheaper than Taobao).  She never wore most of them. And I saw her trying to hide those from me when I was standing in the living room. She tried to use the TV stand to hide the piles of shipping boxes scattered around on the floor.

Nai Nai has three children, two sons and a daughter. I am the daughter’s daughter. It was no secret that she favored sons. Back when they were kids, one time my uncle spit a candy out and it fell on the ground, Nai Nain picked it up and put it into my mom’s mouth. She did not put insurance on my mom because she thought my mom would not need it. But she also beat the boys. She  ended it up just wanting obedient children.

“How’s America? Where do you live again, the fallen mountain chicken?” She asked. I tried to be serious because I was here for serious business, but I could not help laughing at her accidental accurate capture.

“Yes, Los Angeles. But I just moved to New York.” I said without emotion.

“New York is good. They have the Trump Tower there.” Nai Nai’s eyes widened.

I was slightly shocked. Yet this did not surprise me because she was obsessed with Trump. Not in a way that she would vote for him - she did not even know what it meant to vote. She just loved that he dodged the bullet and could stand there with people praising and applauding him. I could even sense an odd jealousy in her eyes when she spoke about him. Would she also want to be a mad man in the mad times?

But as I said, I was here for serious business. I was here to talk to her about the property division, on behalf of my mom. The two stopped talking to each other last month, to a point that I had to take a 15-hour flight from New York to deal with this. But what was there to divide? The one hundred pairs of shoes (as definitely claimed by my dad) or the never-worn dresses in ten different colors? What do you expect to take from an eighty-five-year-old living alone in a 40-square-meters low-rent apartment that she only paid seven hundred yuan per month for?

I looked at her, the woman who raised and fed me. My mom and dad used to work all over Zhejiang province to meet with clients for my mom’s clothing business, so Nai Nai took care of me since I was five years old. She did not love children was careless. She would let me run around with bare feet and dirty face. She also cut my hair super short like a little boy because she did not bother to braid pretty ponytails for my hair. I was the only girl in the entire school who had such short hair. I had this strange sense of protection over girls because I felt like a boy, even though I liked boys. I wanted boys to like me, to write me gross love letters and act naughty around me. But boys only fought with me, or shared secrets. I did not want to know about their secrets. Then I went to the United States at sixteen and decided to have long hair ever since. I never cut my hair short again.

Nai Nai gave me my first menstrual pad when my period came on a summer day in fourth grade. The red was not even red. It was this dark brown clot in my underwear, like a small chunk of dark chocolate. I saw this right before my gymnastics class when I went to the toilet. A small panic attack - even though I had no idea that it was a panic attack - hit me. My head got dizzy. I skipped the class, lied about me having a stomach pain and took a bus home first thing. Nai Nai was surprised that I got home early, because she would usually pick me up. I told Nai Nai what happened, and I probably cried a little. She scolded me for being a “coward cat” - she probably invented that word herself - yet she still gave me the pad and taught me to use it: “It's just blood. You are a big girl now.” She looked at me. I started to shiver. Then she left home to participate in her weekly opera group, in her bright red dress with white dots, glittering in the golden hour sun. She would always play the male character in those opera plays. I was left home alone, thought the world was over and I was dying. I did not know where my grandpa went. Memories could be deceitful, maybe he was there but he was so quiet and dull that I forgot he existed. Later I learned that it was Nai Nai that made growth scary, because I did not want to grow up to be like her.

“Do you want to stay for lunch? I have some leftover noodles from last night and can heat them up.” She finally put down her legs from the shaking tea table and stood up. Her home was messy and dirty. Mom used to have our maid come to clean for her three times a week, but that was before her company went bankrupt and she sent the maid home. One day, she called me at five am in New York morning and cried on the phone, asking me to help her because she could not talk to Nai Nai. Nai Nai had a very small apartment in the city center that she just gave to my uncle and his family.

Mom was so fearful of Nai Nai that she never failed in anything growing up. She was that perfect, pretty girl who always got the best grades and barely got into trouble. She married a handsome and decent man and gave birth at the right age. Then she was blessed to enter one of the most prosperous businesses when China opened its door to the world. She did not know what it was like to be not successful and not have money. Ever since the company's bankruptcy, she has suffered from intense insomnia and anxiety that eventually resulted in a massive mental breakdown. She tried to kill herself and was forced to go to the mental hospital. During her six months there, Nai Nai did not come visit her once. My dad called me. Next thing I knew, I bought a flight ticket home. I had not been back home for three years because of Covid. During the entire flight, I could not sleep at all. My chest was filled with this overwhelmingly intense anger. In my head, I had already fought with Nai Nai hundreds of times, including using some really vicious cursing words. At first my dad even tried to find excuses for her. “It was 43 degrees yesterday in Hangzhou. It was probably too hot and you know Nai Nai got a leg problem.” I could not believe it. As the flight went through a wave of strong turbulence, I tried imagining standing in front of Nai Nai, now shorter and tinier, with an increasingly thinner body and wrinkles all over.

And here she was sitting on the couch with her purple sweater and dark green pants. Lights were fading away from her eyes. The sparkling lights she used to have. The only colors that remained in her life were the colors of her clothes now. The air conditioner was blowing nice cold air, but I felt uneasy and found myself at a loss for words. Those most provocative, hateful words that had been rehearsing by myself over and over again inside my head for the past hours had now been stuck in my throat like a fish bone and could not get out.

“Why didn’t you visit mom?” I finally said.

“Who said I will not go to check on her? I am planning to go tomorrow, actually. I will buy her some pears and tangerines this afternoon.” It never ceased to amaze me how quickly Nai Nai could lie. Her voice trembled when she said she would visit Mom tomorrow. Her reaction was so real that I almost believed her. Then she tried to walk fast and went to the refrigerator.

“Beer or Coke?” She did not look at me. I could sense that she was nervous because I saw her through her lies. Nai Nai always tried to give me something to drink if she could not handle the conversation.

Nai Nai gave me my first taste of liquor. It was during my second grade. She came to pick me up from school, as always. But this time she came with a man I did not know. A man who was not my grandpa. Grandpa never came to pick me up, anyway. This one who came with her was a tall, muscular man with a slightly big belly. Before he opened his mouth I already knew he was a cheerful, expressive person. At least more than grandpa. “This is Uncle Zhu, Nai Nai’s old friend.” Nai Nai said, smiling. She seemed very different. Happier, lighter, warmer.

Uncle Zhu came to our home and ate with us that night. They drank a lot of baijiu. The cheap, super strong ones from Shanxi. I had no idea what they were talking about. I just remembered them all being very drunk and emotional. At the end of the night, Nai Nai cried. Grandpa did not drink much but his spirit was higher than usual. Uncle Zhu was smoking, silent. I remembered the piles of cigarette butts and the greasy, oily leftover food on the table. I was sitting on the couch watching TV. It was playing the period drama of Wu Zetian. The first and only woman emperor in China’s history.

“Wu Zetian killed her own daughter to become the emperor.” Nai Nai suddenly said. I was not sure if she said that to me.

“Not true. Screenwriters came up with this.” Uncle Zhu said.

I did not move. My ass was completely glued to the couch. Wu Zetian was played by this famous actress named Liu Xiaoqing. She was so stunning and violent that I could not take my eyes off her.

“Lulu, come over here and drink with us.” Uncle Zhu called me by my nickname and walked towards me.

“You are drunk.” Nai Nai laughed. Though she still had tears in her eyes.

Uncle Zhu then took something out from his pocket. A small disposable camera. I stared at the camera, trying to figure out what it was. He asked me to smile. I did not. I remembered seeing a strong flash.

“What a well-behaved kid.” He came closer to me and held me in his arms tightly. He was a very big and strong man. His hand was rough and firm. I felt an instant pain on my shoulders and back. Nai Nai was too drunk to say anything. She just sat still and kept laughing.

Then it was all fragments of memories. But Nai Nai let me taste the baijiu from her small cup. She held it up to my nose and I stuck my tongue out. It was more like dipping than drinking. Later, she told me I spit it out immediately and screamed.

“It was pretty bad baijiu. The good ones like Maotai will not give you any headaches the next day.” Nai Nai said to me years later.

I never saw Uncle Zhu again after that night. Years later Mom told me that he was Nai Nai and Grandpa’s classmate. The three of them went to the same high school.

“Coke is okay. I quit drinking.” When was the last time Nai Nai got drunk? Sometimes I forgot she cut three-fourths of her stomach twenty years ago, because of drinking. She was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Nai Nai underwent three chemotherapies. We never talked about it at home. We only knew that after the surgery, she stopped going to the opera club.

“Why? Don’t you Americans all love drinking? ” Nai Nai looked visibly surprised, with a smell of her signature scoff. She grabbed me the Coke nonetheless.

“I drank too much and it became disgusting.”

“That’s too bad. I bought it just for you.” Nai Nai said. At least she remembered my habit and favorite brand. She then took the beer out and threw them in the trash can.

I almost yelled that she should have not done that. I could just bring it to my dad. But then I remembered it was probably expiring beer, like those candies she ate earlier.

She poured some hot water for herself and sat at the dining table with me. We were silent for ten minutes. Maybe it was just thirty seconds but it certainly felt way longer. There was a void lingering between us that I could feel but I did not know what to say or what to do.

“So, your mom is staying at the City’s Seventh Hospital on Renmin Road?” Nai Nai finally broke the silence.

“She just checked out. Dad and I picked her up yesterday and she is home now. You should come tomorrow.”

“I don’t think she wants to see me.” Nai Nai gave out a cold laugh. “But I don’t care. I’m a dead woman anyway.”

All of a sudden I could feel the blood rushing up in my brain.

“Nobody cares if you are dead or not. We just want what is fair for Mom. She’s been paying for everything for you and Grandpa since I could remember. Did any of your sons ever work and make money? And now that she needs you the most, you still pretend that everything's okay? What kind of mother are you?” I wanted to say more but my voice was trembling so much that I could not continue. My entire body was shaking.

All the anger and frustration and fear I have been oppressing inside me for the past two days were all out now. The wild beast had been untamed and unleashed. It was too late to do anything else.

“Did America also make you dumb? You can’t even tell right from wrong.” Nai Nai looked oddly calm and stood up quickly. “Now go back to your dad and mom and tell them I will never give them the house. It’s my damn house and I’ll do whatever I want with it.” She then rushed to the bedroom and shut the door.

I was left alone in the living room, again, like when I was a kid.

Nai Nai then opened the door. Tears were filling up in her eyes and streaming down on her cheek.

“I never wanted to be a mother.”

I was dumbfounded. Did she actually say those words? Or was it just my interpretation of how she might have said it in this circumstance? Was I too shocked that I purposefully chose to remove this piece of memory from my brain? But the image of her speaking that sentence was so vivid. She was crying. The same type of crying she had when she was drunk that night with Uncle Zhu. The night she gave me the first taste of alcohol. The night I saw her crying for the first time.

I did not respond to her and left her apartment.

Nai Nai did not bring fruits to see Mom the next day. She was sent to the ICU due to a sudden heart attack. Her neighbor called the ambulance - he was a young man in the IT industry whom Nai Nai would occasionally talk to. He told us that Nai Nai knocked on his door at dinner time and asked if he wanted free, extra clothes and shoes.

“I thanked her but I did not want anything. She seemed rather normal, only tired. Then she just passed out.” The neighbor told us later, as I sat outside of the ICU room with Dad and Mom. It was my first time in my life waiting for someone I knew coming out of that room.

Nai Nai did not make it out of the ICU. She died that night. The clock on the wall showed it was 1:11am. It seemed like a scene in one of those melodramatic soap operas. Was I supposed to cry? I did not have time to process any emotions because Mom collapsed on the floor, kneeling down. Her entire body was shaking and distorted. Dad and I struggled to lift her up. She could not stand up, as she fell again and again. As I was holding her thin arm, tears rolled down my face. I did not realize that I was crying. I could not speak anything. I could not hear anything.

I did not know how I ended up in my bed that night. I woke up and it was already past noon. And we went to Nai Nai’s apartment. It was so quiet. The air conditioner was still blowing cold air. It actually smelled nice. We looked around and walked inside the space carefully, as if we were some invited guests coming to Nai Nai’s home for the first time. It was particularly hard for me to remember that I was only here yesterday.

“Let me see if she put it in her bedroom.” Mom said. Finally we remembered that we were here to look for her ID for the death certificate.

As Mom went inside the room, Dad and I sat on the couch. The image of Nai Nai waving the expiring sweets appeared in my head. A strong ache came to my stomach. I felt dizzy.

We started to watch TV. Trump was on the news. I forgot what he was saying; it never mattered to me, and I never cared. He was yelling emotionally, like always. It also made my stomach ache. I did not know that after one died, everything I saw could be related to that person.

I could not bear it so I stood up and went to Nai Nai’s bedroom to check on Mom. And I found her standing there facing one side of a shelf, frozen. Then I looked in her direction, and I saw a small black-and-white photo of a young woman, naked while wearing a crown. It was hard to tell her age, but she seemed eighteen or nineteen. It did not look like it was staged or shot in a studio, and whoever the photographer was clearly had an intimate relationship with that young woman. The crown was a big one, one of those props that the Chinese emperors would wear in period dramas. To be honest it was very unsuitable for the woman in the photo and even looked a bit ridiculous on her tiny body. Not to mention that she was fully nude. She had short, black hair, and did not wear any jewelry. Her eyes were sharp, with the faintest smile. The light of the golden hour came through the window and radiated on the shelf. It was like her body was glittering, just like that afternoon when Nai Nai went out to the opera play in her bright red dress with white dots. The afternoon I became a “big girl”.

It did not have anything else in that photo. We could not tell when this was taken. I looked at my mom. I knew she was thinking the same thing that I was thinking. But neither of us said anything. Then she put the photo away, told me that she found the ID card, and we stepped out of the bedroom.

I never asked Mom where she kept the photo of the nude woman.

Sol Ye

Sol is an independent producer based in Beijing who specializes in international productions. Her most recent narrative film ACROSS THE WATERS was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Competition. Her documentary feature THE LAST YEAR OF DARK- NESS won the 2023 CPH:DOX Special Mention and was distributed by MUBI in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Brazil, India, Turkey and many other coun- tries. Sol is currently running her own creative community Tiny Volcano Studio for global collabo-rators and clients.