China Ghosts by Jeff Gammage

Author:Jeff Gammage
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

IN CHINA, Jin Yu was afraid of the bathtub. It may have been the cold tile or the warm water, or the sound produced when one sloshed against the other.

In Hunan we washed Jin Yu in the sink, the small oval form a better fit for her thin body. That first time, the dirt came off her like a second skin. In her new home Jin Yu has overcome her aversion to the tub, come to relish bathtime as a chance to splash and laugh and taste soapy mouthfuls of suds.

Tonight, as every night, Christine is kneeling beside our daughter, leaning into the tub to gently swish a wet washcloth across her back.

My job is twofold: One is to make funny faces and the occasional odd noise, to keep Jin Yu amused and patient while Christine washes her body and lathers her hair. My second task, once Jin Yu is clean and rinsed, is to wrap her in a big powder-blue towel and lift her up, sparing Christine’s back and giving me the chance to hold my fresh-scrubbed daughter close, to breathe in the scent of her skin.

I lift Jin Yu out of the tub, naked and shining. It’s as close as I will ever get to the moment of her birth. She smells so good. She smells like rain. She smells like the earth in the minutes after a storm has passed, the sky caught between cloud and sun.

I take a seat on the commode, steadying Jin Yu on my lap while her mom rubs her from foot to forehead with moisturizing lotion. Jin Yu is all motion and sound, wriggling this way and that, calling out unintelligible orders to mom and dad. Christine cleans Jin Yu’s ears with a Q-tip, tossing the used swab into a wicker trash basket. She trims Jin Yu’s toenails and fingernails with a pair of safety clippers, then rubs antibiotic cream onto the palms of our daughter’s hands, the site of a weird, bumpy infection.

Last, Christine turns to Jin Yu’s head. The cleaning of the scar has become part of our daily ritual.

Christine takes another cotton swab, dabs it with antiseptic and gently begins to scrape the surface of the wound, pushing away bits of dead skin. The scar seems to be changing, becoming more defined and solidified. As it contracts it offers up bits of dirt and filth, the way slivers of metal will continue to work their way out of a soldier for years after the initial wound.

After she completes the cleansing, Christine coats the scar with the medicines we were given in China, the white cream and the green jelly. We still don’t know what’s in them. Or if they’re helping. Whether we should stop applying them now or go and try to find more, for the day when we run out.

Christine assumed the job of bathing our child through unspoken mutual consent. And just as there was never any question she would be the one to bathe Jin Yu, there was no doubt she would be the one to clean Jin Yu’s wound.

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