 
DAVID SHATH SQUARE Chapter Eight
I got up early next morning and walked along the river path to Lee Chang's cottage, a mile downstream from my grandfather's house. As I walked, a threw a stick for Shadow who plunged into the river to retrieve it. He was a powerful dog and could make headway swimming into the strong current.
Lee Chang was willing to listen to problems, but he only offered advice if asked. He said a man should resolve his own difficulties by consulting his inner feelings and he quoted a Chinese proverb as proof: 'The man who consults a fool will a find sage.'
I saw Lee Chang behind the cottage removing potato bugs from the deep green foliage of his potato plants. He placed the striped yellow bugs into a juice can as he crawled between the rows and picked them off the plants.
His garden was large and well tended. A line of colorful gladioluses encircled the perimeter and chrysanthemums grew at the head of each row of vegetables. Lee Chang said the chrysanthemums contained a natural insecticide that kept cabbage butterflies away from the plants.
He had started to meditate when I approached. He sat on his heels, remaining absolutely still between the rows of potato plants for several minutes. A cabbage butterfly landed on his nose but Lee Chang never moved.
When he came out of his short meditation, Lee Chang noticed me right away. "Zack, what a pleasant surprise. You have come to work in garden?"
I liked the Chinaman and sometimes in my spare time helped him to weed the garden and to pick potato bugs. I didn't love gardening like he did, but I did find the work soothing, especially when I had things on my mind. And I enjoyed working alongside Lee Chang who was always placid and contented.
I got down on my knees and began to pick bugs off a potato plant, while Lee Chang worked the opposite row.
"I've got a big problem," I said, after several minutes had passed.
Lee Chang didn't say anything. He just nodded his head and his pigtails moved up and down his back as he did. I decided to get right to the heart of my problem.
"My father and my grandfather are going to skin me for what I did to Thoreena...I didn't mean to get her pregnant. It just happened." I looked at the Chinaman to see if my sudden revelation was having any effect on him.
Lee Chang continued to pick potato bugs, but I could tell by a stiffening in his shoulders that my news had made an impression on him.
"I know I'm too young to be a father. But Thoreena wants to have the baby and she's already picked out names for a boy and a girl."
Lee Chang stopped his work and sat back on his heels.
"You do indeed have a problem," he said. It sounded funny because when he said it his pidgin accent had disappeared. It had been replaced by a cultured accent, the accent of an educated person who had attended good schools.
It was my turn to look surprised.
"What's with your voice, Lee Chang? You sound so different."
"This is my real voice," he said. At least, it's the voice I use when I'm not pretending to be someone else. You have honoured me with a great secret, so I will confide a great secret to you."
Lee chang told me some amazing things. He said he wasn't Chinese at all, but born of Japanese parents. His family lived in Vancouver before the war where his father was a well-to-do importer of oriental goods. In l941, after the start of the war in the Pacific, all of the Japanese living in Canada had been rounded up as spies and collaborators. They were stripped of their possessions and sent to internment camps. Families were split apart; able-bodied husbands and sons were shipped to farms on the prairies where they provided free labour, while women and children were sent to the B.C. interior where they lived in squalor.
"In l942, I was studying at the University of British Columbia with dreams of becoming a philosophy professor," Lee Chang said. "One day, I was arrested with my father and younger brother and we were sent away to work on a farm in Saskatchewan. We never saw our mother and two sisters again. They died of dysentery in an internment camp in B.C."
After the war, Lee Chang, his brother and father drifted from job to job pretending to be a Chinese labourer because the Japanese were still resented for their part in the war. When his father and brother were killed in a mine explosion in Ontario in l947, his dream of becoming a university professor ended forever.
"We were saving our money so I could return to university and finish my education. When I had found a secure job, I was to help my younger brother get his education. My father had no plans for his future. His soul died in l944 when he learned of my mother's death."
Lee Chang's story kind of put my own predicament into perspective. Suddenly my problem didn't seem so big. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and look at the ground because I had been taught it is shameful to show emotion in front of other men. Lee Chang pretended not to notice and went back to picking potato bugs.
After a while, I got down beside him and began to work methodically. I even managed to reach the end of my row before Lee Chang, an accomplishment because he's the fastest potato bug picker east of Lac du Bonnet.
When he caught up to me, Lee Chang motioned to a shady spot under an oak tree. We got up stiffly, walked over to the tree and sat in the cool of its shade. Lee chang took a wood pipe carved with dragons out of his jacket pocket and filled it with an aromatic tobacco he said came from the Orient. It burned with a sweet smell, like the sweet grass Indian people smoke at ceremonies.
"Your grandfather is a wise man -- when he hasn't been drinking," Lee Chang began, after inhaling deeply. "The first time I met him he was in charge of a logging camp and I was looking for work. He hired me immediately, even though he knew I was no Chinese labourer. He didn't say anything about me to the other men in the camp. It remained our secret."
Until my grandfather nearly spilled the beans in his drunken rage earlier in the day, I thought to myself.
"My grandfather may be wise in some matters, but if I were to tell him about me and Thoreena he'd have me horse whipped," I said to Lee Chang. "And the Swede is no better. He still attends that Roman Catholic church in Lac du Bonnet. You know how they feel about teenage sex...or any kind of sex, for that matter?"
Lee Chang nodded and continued to smoke his pipe.
"I suppose I could tell my father. But he would never allow Thoreena to keep the baby. He wants me to get a university education...I couldn't go to school in Winnipeg and look after Thoreena and a baby."
As he smoked, Lee Chang's brown eyes became unfocused, as if he were looking inward.
"You're secret is safe with me, Zach," he said, "but you must decide how to handle this situation. How many months pregnant is Thoreena?"
"She says it's been three months since she had her last, you know, woman thing."
Lee Chang shook his head and looked concerned. His pipe was out.
"You must tell your father immediately. He will help you."
In my heart I knew I didn't want to tell my father about myself and Thoreena.
"I can't talk to him. He doesn't know me. Besides, ever since my mother died, he's been strange. Have you ever seen him with Myron Mann? There's something very creepy about the two of them toghether."
"What do you mean?" asked Lee Chang, who was surprised.
"They seem to be more than friends. They're always touching each other. They look like a couple of nancy boys."
"Where did you hear that term?" asked Lee Chang.
I didn't want to tell Lee Chang that I had overheard my grandfather using the term to describe homosexuals.
"The boys at school use it all the time," I said.
Lee Chang grimaced. "And I think your grandfather Jeb also uses it," he said.
He refilled his pipe with the sweet-smelling tobacco and then leaned back against the oak tree.
"Listen to me, Zach, a person must not be too quick to judge his fellow humans. Do you have any proof that your father and Myron are homosexuals? And even if you could prove such a thing, would it make them worthy of scorn and persecution?"
He took a long draw on his pipe before continuing.
"My people were thrown into concentration camps not because the authorities truly believed we were a theat to national security, but because they feared the color of our skin and the difference of our customs. Ignorant people are always afraid of things they do not understand and instead of trying to understand them they seek to destroy them."
Lee Chang sucked hard on his pipe, inhaled deeply and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke from deep within his lungs before continuing.
"There is a Japanese saying: 'A content man looks inward and conquers his demons, a discontent man looks outward and blames others for his misfortunes.' If you fear the unknown, Zach, then what you really fear is yourself."
Then Lee Chang stood up and walked back toward the garden. I waited for a few minutes to contemplate what he had said. I'd never heard him talk for so long in my life and I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information I had to mull over. Looking inward has never been one of my strong points. I thought self-analysis was reserved for women. Men were supposed to be strong, silent and emotionless. Showing emotion was like showing weakness, especially in front of men. I knew I was afraid of some things, but I would never admit my fears to others. I was afraid of things like the forebay at the power plant with its terrible, sucking current that had drawn Dean Potter to his death. And I was afraid of my father's relationship with Myron Mann -- but I still didn't understand why? How could I be afraid of myself? Most of all I was afraid for Thoreena and her baby and how we were going to break the news to an adult.
I didn't return to Lee Chang's garden. I stood up and wandered away. Somehow I felt unworthy of the garden. I wondered if Adam had felt this way when God banished him and Eve from the garden of Eden. Shadow followed at a respectful distance.
To Chapter Seven
Copyright © 1998 David Square/Log Cabin Chronicles/2.98 |
