Chapter Text
Bernie took a deep breath of fresh mountain air through the open window of the Land Rover. It was far removed from the thick industrial smells of the city they’d left just hours ago and, in spite of all the years she had spent travelling for her work, it still amazed her how this much contrast could exist in such close proximity.
“We’re nearly there,” the driver said as he negotiated them as carefully as he could over a pothole on the single track road. The vehicle jolted as it exited the dip and Bernie hung onto the edge of the door in reflex, her other hand steadying the bag of equipment that sat next to her on the back seat.
“The road is not usually this bad. It’s the rainy season. This part of it was under three feet of water just last week.” The dark-haired man in the passenger seat craned his neck around as he explained apologetically.
Bernie smiled and shook her head. “I’ve been on much worse roads than this. Besides, the scenery more than makes up for it.”
Her companion nodded proudly. “Yes, this isn’t much but it’s home to over a thousand of us and I for one wouldn’t exchange it for anywhere else.”
The four wheel drive rounded a final bend in the road and suddenly they were at the crest of a hill looking down at their destination. The village was tiny, Bernie estimated no more than a mile from one end to the other, and consisted mostly of small houses clustered around courtyards. The largest building was built of red brick and stood prominently at the centre of the village. It was that building they finally pulled up outside a few minutes later. The driver immediately made his way towards the back of the vehicle and started unloading the contents of its boot while the man in the front passenger seat exited swiftly and opened the door for Bernie, who was gathering her kit bag as well as briefcase from the back seat.
“Thank you, Weng,” she said with a smile and pulled herself out of the car. He plucked the bag out of her hand and hefted it onto his shoulder, gesturing for her to follow him into the building.
“This is the community hall where you’ll be seeing your patients.”
The building was plainly decorated on the inside, twin doors leading from the entrance hall on opposite sides of the room. A small group standing in front of one of them turned collectively at the sound of their entrance. A white haired woman peeled away from the group and greeted Weng loudly as she crossed the room towards them. Bernie watched as they chattered away with a hand intermittently waving in her direction during their brief conversation. It ended with the woman clasping a hand onto her arm, pulling her along as they headed towards the door. Bernie stuttered in surprise and hesitated briefly, glancing at Weng. The hand on her arm loosened and the woman looked at her with a furrowed brow.
He replied with a shrug. “She’s keen to show you what they’ve prepared.” He lowered his voice before continuing. “They’ve been working hard making sure it’s set up exactly as you requested.”
Bernie turned and smiled at the woman, relaxing and allowing herself to be propelled onwards. She was ushered into a small hall, a loud chatter falling into silence as she entered, and found herself being stared at by a score of wide-eyed children lined up at one end of the room. Her equipment, as well a small area surrounded with dark curtains, was set up on the opposite end.
Weng followed her gaze and remarked, “We set the test area up as far from the windows as possible. The village elders talked about putting up partitions to make a separate room but there wasn’t enough time.”
Bernie laid a hand on his shoulder reassuringly, smiling broadly. “This is more than adequate, trust me. I’ve worked in much more challenging environments through the years.”
The twenty five years she’d spent travelling with Vision Aid had taken her to all corners of the globe and Bernie had found herself having to improvise on more than one occasion. There was an assignment to a remote village in Peru when she found herself testing in candlelight because their only power generator had run out of oil and the lorry delivering the supply had been delayed by a mudslide. Or the time in India when half her equipment was rendered useless because the jeep transporting it ended up half submerged when the bridge it was crossing gave way. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she reminisced. In spite of the challenges and mishaps, she wouldn’t have chosen to do anything else. Optometry might not be the most exciting of careers on the face of it, but the adventures she had been lucky enough to be a part of more than made up for it.
Her reverie was broken by a small voice. Bernie turned and realised that the children were now crowded around her, urged along by the old woman. A young girl was whispering something to the woman, who nodded agreement and answered loudly.
“Méi cuò, tā jiù xiàng tàiyáng!”
The other children, urged on by her words, started chanting excitedly in unison.
“Tàiyáng! Tàiyáng! Tàiyáng! ”
Bernie thought she recognised the name of the village but gave Weng a confused look as they kept pointing to her as they jabbered away. “They’re very proud of their village,” she ventured.
Weng grinned and broke out laughing. “Yes they are but that’s not what they’re saying. Dàiyáng is the name of the village. They’re saying tàiyáng.” He enunciated the word carefully, and this time Bernie could hear the minute difference in intonation. “It means ‘the sun’ and they are excited because to them, you,” Weng pointed at Bernie’s head, “look like the sun.”
A light flush coloured Bernie’s cheeks and she ran a hand through her messy curls reflexively. She nodded at the group, smiling widely, clasping a hand onto her chest and hoping that the gesture would adequately signal her gratitude.
* * *
“That’s the last one, Ms Wolfe,” Weng reported as he ushered the final patient out of the room.
Bernie nodded wearily, stretching her back and rubbing her wrist which had been clutched enthusiastically and gratefully by the woman she’d just seen. She had repeatedly asked Weng to use her first name but to no avail. It would be rude, he replied, as she was not only a guest but a person of authority, an expert who had come a long way to help them.
“I‘m just doing my job,” Bernie had answered shaking her head, the first time he explained this to her. “There really isn’t any need for all this formality.”
But it seemed that the entire village was in agreement with him as she was greeted with polite bows at the start of every conversation. And, although she had picked up a smattering of Mandarin through the years, Bernie didn’t recognise the phrase they called her at each bow - the same one her last patient had called her at the end of her test.
“What does that phrase mean?”
Weng stopped in the middle of lifting a piece of equipment into its box. “Which one?”
“The one they call me by,” Bernie elaborated as she started tidying away her equipment. She paused briefly, taking time to carefully enunciate the words as best as she could.
Weng smiled and nodded approvingly at her effort. “Dà Bái Yànguāng Shī. It means great white eye master.”
Bernie stared at him, partly in disbelief but mostly in embarrassment. Weng chuckled at the look on her face and continued with his work. “I know it seems strange to you, but the work you’ve done over the past three days has made such a difference in the village. Most of the villagers have never been out of Dàiyáng, let alone met and had the privilege of having their eyes examined by a great expert from a distant land.”
“And yet, almost all of them could have benefited from having glasses before now,” Bernie murmured, her cheeks flushing when the look on Weng’s face revealed that he wasn’t teasing her. Her thoughts flitted immediately back to a young man she’d met that morning who’d been told he would never be able to see well enough to read or write, and how he’d shouted with delight the moment she fitted him with his first pair of glasses. “Wǒ kěyǐ kàn dào!” he’d exclaimed, and Bernie had heard that particular phrase enough in her time in China to know it meant I can see.
Weng sighed as he closed the lid on the box. “It isn’t easy for most of them to travel to the city for such a thing, so they just make do as best they can. Until now.”
Bernie tidied away the last of her equipment and surveyed the room. It was mostly empty again, a row of folding chairs in the makeshift waiting area the last thing to be put away. “I’m just glad I could help,” she said, then looked at her watch and groaned in dismay.
“What’s wrong, Ms Wolfe?”
She shook her head as she answered. “Nothing.”
Weng gave her an enquiring look, clearly not taking her at her word and Bernie relented, continuing. “I remembered saying to the driver that I’d be ready to leave an hour ago. He had a family dinner to attend and now I’ve made him late for it.”
The look on Weng’s face cleared as he shook his head. “No, you haven’t. I told him to leave and make sure he was home on time.”
Bernie gave him a confused look. “Is there another way for me to get back to the plane tonight?”
Weng shook his head in mock regret, the wide smile on his face giving him away. “No need, Ms Wolfe. Tonight, you are a guest of my family and my house.”
* * *
Bernie dug her chopsticks into the bowl of rice and transferred a few sticky grains into her mouth. She had barely swallowed the first mouthful before a piece of fragrant roast pork was placed into her bowl. The hand responsible belonged to the old woman sitting next to her at the table and she deftly picked another piece of meat, piling it on top of of the pork. Bernie held up a hand to still her but was ignored, her bowl filling rapidly, the other woman only stopping when there was a sample of food from every dish before them in her bowl.
“I hope you’ll like the food, Ms Wolfe,” Weng spoke up from his seat across the table.
The table in front of them was laden with more than half a dozen dishes, all different but all smelling mouth-wateringly delicious.
“It looks amazing, Weng, but she shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,” Bernie answered, imagining how much effort it’d taken to prepare such a feast.
The man shook his head. “No trouble at all. My mother enjoys cooking and this is just a small sample of her recipes. Besides,” he continued, smiling, “it isn’t every day she has an important guest visiting and she wanted to make sure there was something you’d enjoy.”
Bernie smiled shyly at the older woman and nodded her thanks as she lifted her bowl. The woman gave Bernie a toothy grin and mimicked the action of shovelling rice into her mouth, speaking excitedly whilst picking up her own bowl of rice. “Chī, chī…”
The meal was the most delicious one Bernie had enjoyed for a long time and, as tempting as it was, she had to decline the third helping of rice Weng’s mother tried to offer her.
“Xiè xiè,” she said politely, hoping the intonation was correct.
Weng’s wife Ling and their son Hern had joined them midway through the meal, the pair arriving home from a shopping trip to the nearest town. Bernie’s attempt at expressing gratitude was met with a nod of approval from Ling.
“Bié kè qì,” she answered with a smile, setting her empty bowl back onto the table. “You’re a fast learner,” she continued in perfect English.
“Thank you. Your husband is a good teacher and I’ve been practising a little,” Bernie responded with grin.
The meal eaten, Bernie and Weng were shooed away from the table as the women started clearing up, dishes and bowls tidied onto a large tray. Bernie’s attempt at offering her help was immediately turned down with vigorous protestations from the elder Mrs Weng, so she stepped back, dipping her head in deference. Weng grinned broadly as he led her away from the dining room and they adjourned to a courtyard where a small brick stove sat, with a kettle boiling away on top of it and a tray holding a clay teapot and half a dozen small teacups next to it.
“Tea,” Weng explained, inviting Bernie to sit on one of a bench tucked up against the wall of the house. “The best digestif after a good meal.”
Bernie sank onto the bench and watched as Weng performed the ritual of making their tea. Dusk was setting in and the dying sunlight bathed the courtyard in a warm orange glow. They drank the tea silently for a moment before Bernie spoke.
“This is a beautiful home you have, Weng. Thank you for inviting me.”
Weng smiled and held his hands up in deference. “You have done a great deed, Ms Wolfe. Some of the villagers you’ve seen in the past two days have never had their eyes tested before.”
Bernie thought back to the dozens of patients she’d seen at the makeshift clinic. “Isn’t there an optician in the nearest town?”
“No. And even if there were, spectacles would be considered a luxury and unaffordable to most people here. Deteriorating sight is accepted as a part of growing old. As my mother says, the eyes lose their gleam as the hair whitens.”
Bernie tilted her head as she considered his words. “Poetic words but not the most practical approach.”
The soft sound of conversation drifted from inside the house and Weng glanced fondly towards his family before turning back to Bernie. “Perhaps not, but I’ve learned over the years never to argue with her.”
“Wise choice.” Bernie chuckled, taking another sip of her tea. The liquid, edged with the refreshing bitterness of tannin, was both warm and comforting. “Mother knows best applies in every culture.”
A loud clatter drew Bernie’s attention towards the pair of women crouched over a large sink. The sound came from soapy pot that had slipped out of Ling’s grasp and tumbled onto the floor. Weng’s mother cackled loudly and patted her daughter-in-law’s arm as the younger woman shook her head, smiling and bending over to retrieve the fallen item.
“It does, indeed.” Weng emptied his teacup and leaned forward, replacing it alongside the other ones on the tray and picking up the kettle to refill the pot. “And there are times I’m sure she still thinks I’m still a child even after all the time I’ve been away.”
Bernie nodded, recalling the biographical information on Weng from the briefing document she’d been given at the start of the project weeks ago. She had managed to embarrass herself on their initial meeting by commenting on his fluency in English. “It’s reassuring to know that my years of study at Oxford haven’t gone to waste,” Weng had answered seriously. It wasn’t until Bernie’s eyes widened in embarrassed horror that he broke into laughter at the look on her face.
“I suspect she always will,” Bernie said. “She must be pleased you chose to come home after all those years abroad.”
Weng nodded. “The village needed a new doctor when old Dr Fu retired, and Ling and I decided that that taking up the job would be the right thing to do. My mother isn’t getting any younger and she’s been on her own since my father passed away three years ago. All our other relatives have moved away to the bigger cities but she refuses to. This,” he swept a hand around their surrounding, “has been her home since she was a young woman and this is where she wants to end her days.”
The women had now finished with the washing up and were enjoying their own cups of tea at the dinner table. Hern sat with them, his head bent over his homework, scribbling diligently onto the page under his mother and grandmother’s watchful eyes. Bernie watched as his grandmother leaned over to speak to him when he stopped to ask her a question.
“There is another reason I’ve come home,” Weng spoke up, seeing the wistful look on Bernie’s face. “My mother has enjoyed spending time with her grandson and the young rascal has a great deal to learn from his grandmother.”
“He looks like a bright boy,” Bernie commented, watching him explain the story he was writing to the old woman, drawing a loud burst of laughter when he mimed a monster by baring his teeth and raising his arms as he roared loudly.
“Too bright. But I am hoping that this connection to his roots will serve him well in the future. Too many of our young people have left for the bright lights and opportunities of places new and far. The village, this country, needs some of its sons and daughters to stay and build its future.”
Bernie looked thoughtful as she considered his words. “You wanted him to have a chance to choose.”
He answered with a vigorous nod. “It wouldn’t be fair to limit his perspective. He is lucky because he has the choice of both worlds when the time comes.”
“He’s very lucky that his parents have the foresight to show him that he had those choices in the first place,” Bernie replied with a broad smile.
Weng smiled, his face flushed in embarrassment at the praise. “I hope that he’ll think so as well.” He hesitated before asking his next question. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you have children, Ms Wolfe?”
Bernie blinked, surprised by the change in topic. “Yes. A boy and a girl, Cam and Lottie.”
“And they live back home with Mr Wolfe?”
Bernie laughed lightly, shaking her head. “I don’t think my ex-husband would appreciate being called that but no, they’ve left home and have their own lives now.”
The small sigh that punctuated her words caught Weng’s attention. “You miss them.”
“They’re both fully grown and quite capable of making their own way in the world as I have been reminded on numerous occasions,” Bernie answered with rueful smile. “But I do make them share the odd, compulsory Sunday dinner with me when I’m back home.” Her brow creased slightly in a frown as she remembered the last few such occasions, soon after the divorce - ‘compulsory’ was definitely the right word for them, but not enjoyable. But perhaps enough time and distance had now passed that there could be a thaw in relations.
Weng leaned over and patted her arm. “And I’m certain they enjoy it as much as you do. Time spent with family is always precious, but they may not have the wisdom to appreciate that yet.”
“You might be right,” Bernie agreed. “I imagine there are many things they’d rather be doing than spending time with their mother.”
“Perhaps that’s why as parents, we keep trying to interfere. To remind them how important family ties are,” he said with a smile.
A light breeze rustled the leaves on the trees and Bernie breathed in the rapidly cooling air as she pondered his words.
“It’s getting late. We should go back in,” Weng said, pulling himself upright. “It’s been a long day and you’ll need to be at the airfield early tomorrow morning.”
Bernie nodded and followed as he led the way back to the house, glad to get out of the chill.
* * *
“Thank you again for your hospitality,” Bernie said, shaking Weng’s hand.
The tarmac, which earlier had been busy with a flurry of activity, was now mostly empty as the cargo had been stowed onto the plane. There were two other passengers on the small aircraft and Bernie could see them through the window as they made their way to their assigned seats.
“We’re the ones who should be grateful for all the help you’ve given us,” Weng answered.
“I’ve been practising so I’m hoping this sounds right.” Bernie pursed her lips in concentration as she composed her answer. “Bié kè qi.”
Weng nodded approvingly. “Practically a local. We need to make you an esteemed honorary citizen of Dàiyáng village. Ma will be your staunchest advocate after the way you praised her cooking.”
Their combined sound of laughter was drowned by loud blare, signalling that the plane was ready to depart.
“Yī lù shùn fēng. May the winds favour you on your journey.” Weng waved as he shouted over the sound of the wind and the large propellers starting up.
Bernie flashed him a final smile before climbing the steps of the small aircraft, feeling the thrum of the engine vibrating through her body as she did. She was soon strapped into the seat and settled in for the short flight back to Tàiyuán. They were bouncing along above a layer of clouds when Weng’s words from the evening before drifted back into her thoughts.
Family ties.
She had been travelling and living out of suitcase for so long that it’d been a while since the thought had crossed her mind. Too long, an inner voice chided and - unlike every other time, when she’d batted the thought away in favour of work or some similar distraction - Bernie Wolfe found herself thinking longingly of home.