This, the most beautiful city

Ji Xia wakes up quietly and I watch from my pillow as a tiny porcelain arm reaches up to touch the colored beads strung on a rod at the top of the crib beside the bed. She doesn’t complain, just sits playing with the beads, and I wonder if she learned from her time in the orphanage that it is futile to cry out in the morning. I say her name and she turns, squints her eyes, smiles through the slats as if we’ve been doing this every morning far longer than we’ve actually been at it. I lift her out of her crib while Crescent prepares a bottle. It is 6:30. This is my third day as a father.

We’re finished with the legal proceedings in this town, the seat of the Provincial Government where Ji Xia was abandoned and presumably born. We have been waiting for the papers we thumbed in red ink to be processed by the plodding machinery of the state, and after two days the office of civil affairs gives us the stamp of approval and generates the papers that document the adoption, papers we will need to show the U.S. Consular officer in a few days, when we apply for her travel visa to the U.S. There are three documents:

First, the Notarial Certificate of Birth: This is to certify that Hu JiXia, female, was born on February 17, 2006. Her parents and place of birth are unknown.

Second, the Certificate of Abandonment: This is to certify that Hu JiXia, female, born on Februrary 17, 2006, was found abandoned at the doorway of No. 64 Yinbong Road, Wenzhou City on Februrary 17, 2006. On the same day, she was sent to Wenzhou Children’s Welfare Institute for nursing by the policemen of Wenzhou Tining Police Station. Up to now, no evidence can prove who are her parents or other relatives though great efforts have been made to search for them.

Third, the Adoption Registration Certificate of the People’s Republic of China: After examination, this is to certify that the adoption is in conformity with the provisions as regulated in “Adoptive Law of the People’s Republic of China”, thus adoption registration is permitted. The adoption comes into effect on the day of adoption registration, May 22, 2007.

Tomorrow, we fly to Guangzhou, but today, with no more official business scheduled here, we explore Hangzhou. We rent bikes. Our plan: ride the 30 kilometers around the west lake, Ji Xia strapped to my chest in a baby-sling because I don’t like the idea of putting her in the infant carrier on the rear rack. We ride over ancient stone footbridges, stop to photograph sculptures, watch old men drinking green tea and playing Chinese Chess under a pagoda that has been standing in the same place on a hill overlooking the lake since the year 900. Hangzhou, the most beautiful city in the world, according to Marco Polo who saw more than a few.

Everywhere we go in this most beautiful city in the world people stare at us, curiously, intently, obviously. Most smile. Some do not. People approach us, sometimes in groups, as if they know us, rubbing Ji Xia’s cheek and snapping fingers to draw her attention, talking to each other and looking up at us only after a few moments. At first I listen for the words “cleft lip” that I have taught my ears to hear and when I hear it I repeat it back in the best Mandarin I can manage to let them know that I understand the topic of discussion, looking over the tops of my glasses as a reproach, but after a time or two I realize it doesn’t matter and so I release myself from the duty, because people are people the world round and you can’t bring them all along. And truthfully, most just smile and say “lukee babee” or “beautiful gul”, and I feel like the proud father, as I might if I actually had anything at all to do with how beautiful she is.

I think about the morning nearly two years ago in Pat Lee’s office when we selected her to be our adoption agent and signed the first of a million forms, wrote the first of a raft of checks. I slid our initial application across the table to her, a $300 check paper-clipped to the corner. She put it in a tab folder with our names on it, looked up at us with a beatific smile and said, “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”

I’m certain she’s used this same line a thousand times with a thousand clients but somehow it didn’t seem tired in the least. She said it with such certainty that it shortened my breath. And so here I am, a guy in an adoption agency two years ago, a guy on a plane a week ago, now a father with three days behind me. And here is Ji Xia, an orphan three days ago, now, smiling her scarred little smile through the crib slats, a daughter. You can’t imagine how bizarre it seems, and at once how completely natural.