Son of Fortune (33 page)

iden walked off alone into the night streets. His anger was spent, his frustration had collapsed, leaving only tiredness to carry his body home. Blind Sally's queer tale was likely just the imagining of a nutty old woman. But what if there was some hand of destiny twisting the threads of his life? Would that absolve him now? What if there really had been no other choice for him to make?

He did not fall asleep until nearly dawn, and woke just after ten to rare sunshine streaming in through his window. Breakfast was long past, but the coffee was still warm on the back of the stove. The house was quiet. He found the ducklings in the conservatory. They lay in a row on the floor, each one in her own patch of sun, reading or drawing pictures. Peter's wheelchair was parked nearby. The boy slid his hands back and forth through the light, fascinated by the shadows crossing his fingers.

“Good morning.” Aiden walked over and patted his shoulder. Peter looked up briefly, screeched a greeting and turned back to his light play. Aiden knew he could not distract the boy for lessons until the sun vanished.

“What are you drawing?” Aiden looked down at Annalise's paper, which was covered in colorful blobs like burst flowers.

“Molecules,” Annalise said somberly. “Professor Tobler taught them yesterday in science class.”

“They are the smallest parts of things,” Annabelle said. “They make up everything, like bricks make up a house—but you can't see them, even with our microscope. You just have to believe in them.”

“Like God,” Annalise offered.

“But molecules are real,” Daisy said.

“Molecules are proven by science,” Charlotte broke in, with the imperious tone of the oldest. Her molecules were lacy constructions of green and yellow swirls. Some had faces, arms and legs. Daisy's were simply circles, squares and triangles connected in long, wiggling chains—more geometry than chemistry.

“If you change only one molecule,” Daisy said gravely, holding up one small finger, “just one molecule, that can change a thing completely!”

“So if I change a molecule of you, would you be different?” Aiden asked playfully.

“Would I be?” she asked seriously. “Would that make me a boy? Or an animal?” She frowned. All four ducklings looked at each other in consultation.

“Well, one molecule different will make water not be water,” Annalise said tentatively. “That's what Professor Tobler said.”

Daisy stroked her hands across her cheeks as if trying to smooth all her molecules into place.

“It probably isn't really easy to change molecules around,” Aiden tried to reassure them. He didn't really know much more about molecules than they did. “Or else things would be changing all the time, wouldn't they? I mean, you can't just change bricks around once they're in a house, right? Let's not worry about it now.”

But what if one molecule could really change everything? he thought. One thing done differently, one decision. “We'll just ask Professor Tobler when he comes again.” Aiden sat down on the floor with them, sharing Daisy's patch of sun. “In the meantime, let's draw—tigers.”

“Have you stopped being sad?” Daisy asked, laying her small hand on his.

“No one can be sad with four beautiful girls around,” he said lightly.

“Christopher said you were sad about the Chinamen,” Daisy pressed. “Because they had to work so hard.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell them you were sorry?”

“The Chinamen? No. I suppose not.”

“You should. When you apologize, you feel better. And also make, um…” She hesitated.

“Amends,” Charlotte said, in a tone that sounded like deeds requiring amends had recently occurred.

“Like if you borrow a ribbon and then lose it, you have to give one of your own ribbons,” Daisy said. “You can't just say sorry. Even when it wasn't your fault. Even if it just fell out when you were running in the wind.”

he
Atlas
of
the
World
had eleven pages about China, four maps, two photographs and five illustrations. Though Aiden remembered every detail from his countless readings of that holy book during the endless prairie evenings, he knew almost nothing about the real Chinese living in San Francisco. They did not go to the same shops, saloons, theaters, music halls or dining houses as the whites. Like most white people, Aiden had never even talked with one.

The only Chinese who ventured outside Chinatown were the silent men washing dishes in the backs of restaurants, picking up trash, digging ditches or wheeling carts of laundry through the streets. The man who collected the laundry from the Worthington house twice a week did not even talk to the servants. The sacks of dirty laundry were left in a bin outside the kitchen door. When he returned four days later, he put the clean bundles, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, in the bin and jangled his bells for the maids to come collect it. They always peeked through the kitchen curtain to see that he was gone before they came out.

The only thing most people in San Francisco knew about the Chinese was that they were filthy, sneaky, idol-worshiping criminals. A few of them were smart—or at least cunning and clever enough to run a business—but most were simple brutes. They were all addicted to opium and kept prostitutes in every basement. Half the newspapers would go out of business without daily stories of Chinese villainy. Except for the opium dens, Aiden had heard and read pretty much the same things about Negroes, Mexicans, Indians and the Irish all his life.

He had visited Chinatown a few times with Christopher and his friends. It was popular as an exotic adventure in the same way that their visits to the Barbary Coast were, but they had stayed mostly on the main streets of Stockton and Kearny. On these border streets, where the two worlds came together, there were shops full of bright souvenirs for tourists: painted fans and carved ivory pagodas, silk purses and painted scrolls. There were restaurants and teahouses catering to the white patrons.

“Genuine Chinese dinner!” touts called, beckoning the tourists in. “Chop suey restaurant here. Very clean! Come see—very clean, very good chop suey.…”

But today he was wandering deeper into the heart of the place. The cries soon fell away, replaced by a constant low din, the background clatter of thousands of people living on top of each other. The buildings were constructed to crooked heights, like toy blocks stacked up perilously high, with facing balconies so close together that neighbors could almost hand things across the street from one balcony to another. Every inch of space was precious, and so every inch was used. Most of the shops were barely big enough for a single person to sit behind a counter the size of a child's school desk. The merchandise was stacked to the roof on three sides and spilled out onto the stoop in front. Out on the street, spindly ladders leaned against walls, with more merchandise hanging from every rung: cloth, kettles, slippers, shirts and hats; live chickens and ducks in cages; wooden tubs of live fish; pig heads hanging from hooks outside the butcher shop. At the base of each building, a stone stairway, narrow enough that even a small man would have to turn sideways to pass through, led to dark underground rooms. It was reported that half of Chinatown was actually underground, where the poorest and most unlucky lived in the tiny dank rooms.

The streets themselves were so narrow that little sunlight ever reached the ground, and it was perpetually damp. So many people trod the streets that the mud was packed to a firm surface. It was like walking on moss. The Chinese mostly ignored Aiden, though some cast suspicious glances. A few, probably deciding that he looked too young to be a policeman, beckoned to him, pointing to some dungeon entrance with a whispered offer of one sin or another.

How in the world was he ever going to find Jian's sister in this place? Except for some older women in the shops and restaurants, there were no Chinese women out at all. A common laboring man could not afford to bring a wife from China, or support her if he did. No Chinese woman came on her own, for there was no work for her here. Wives and daughters of the wealthy would be kept safely in their homes.

His idea had been to go to the Chinese Merchants Association and try to find out where Silamu Xie lived, but then what? He had no pretense for seeking the man out, and certainly couldn't simply go knock on his door and ask to speak to his wife. No matter how bad Lijia's life might be, Aiden knew, he could make it worse with the wrong questions. What did she know about her brother's fate? And what could she do if she did know? It was difficult enough for a white woman to leave her husband, even when he beat her, even if she had family to take her in. Where would a Chinese woman go to escape? He had messed enough things up by now, Aiden thought. He should think this through a little more. He turned and found his way back through the streets to the outside world.

The kitchen and dining room were bustling as the servants cooked and set the table. Aiden found Christopher in his room, dressing for dinner. They exchanged glances in the mirror. There was a distance between them now, a kind of wariness. Like little boys who had, for no reason, started throwing rocks at a stray cat one day and wound up killing it.

“Come in,” Christopher said, winding his necktie around his stiff shirt collar. “I said you'd be here for supper. You weren't around to ask.”

“That's fine,” Aiden said. “I can dress quickly.”

“And there's this for you,” Christopher said, picking up a leather folder from his desk. “The papers from the lawyer. The cargo has sold—your bank statement is there too. Like it or not, you've made a good bit of money.”

Aiden took the folder but didn't open it. He didn't want to see the number. He knew it was huge.

“Winning the ship wasn't an accident,” Aiden said.

“What do you mean?”

“The captain set out to lose it.”

Christopher frowned.

“Captain Newgate asked Blind Sally to find him someone who would burn his ship,” Aiden went on. “She suggested he lose it in a card game and sent him to the Elysium.”

“Well, there you have it. It was all fate and we have nothing to feel guilty about,” Christopher said. He was trying for humor, but there was a bitter edge to it.

“Does your father do any business with the Chinese?”

“No. Of course not,” Christopher said.

“Why ‘of course not'?”

“They don't do our kind of business. The richest of them made their money by bringing in coolies for the railroad. But now, with the railroad nearly done, there are too many coolies, so that's dried up. They import some regular goods—tea, silk, ivory—but nothing that really matters, no commodities, no industry. Even their banking is private. What are you after?”

Aiden had not told Christopher about his promise to Jian. He had said nothing of the full story even to Fish. He had told them only that Jian had brought him the pottery shards, then had begged to be rescued. Aiden had refused, which was true. He knew Fish had some questions—he certainly remembered Aiden asking about buying a coolie's indenture—but he also trusted Aiden. Leaving out some of the details, Aiden thought, was not betraying that trust.

“It wouldn't take much to make things a little better for them,” Aiden said. “At the very least, the Chinese merchants could make what is happening known back in China so other men aren't tricked into going.”

Christopher dropped into a brocade chair. “You think they don't know?”

“How could the harshest businessman—thinking only of his profits—allow men to be tricked into that place?”

“Because he wouldn't believe it was true,” Christopher said. He leaned forward, running his fingers through his hair. “Who could imagine that place was true?” His voice was quiet, resigned. “But if you really want to meet some Chinese, I suppose you could just go to their New Year's banquet.”

“New Year's was a month ago,” Aiden said.

“Ours was—not theirs. Theirs depends on the moon—but it's always late January or early February. I'm sure it hasn't happened yet this year—we'd have seen or heard something. It goes on for two weeks. They have parades and shoot off firecrackers every night. Were you not here for it last year?”

“No,” Aiden said. “I had just arrived last January. I would have still been living at Fish's mother's boardinghouse. It's not so close to Chinatown.”

“Wow,” Christopher said. “Has it really been only a year?” He got up and pulled his dinner jacket on. “Well, the Chinese merchants host a New Year's banquet for us every year. Businessmen, politicians—you know, their top people and our top people. Father always gets invited, of course. Come on, then.” He led Aiden into the small anteroom beside his father's office, where the secretary's desk and file cabinets were kept. He began to poke through the little wooden slots and trays of letters and invitations waiting to be copied or answered.

“Look for a red envelope,” he directed. “It's always a red envelope—lucky color. Ah, there.” He plucked the invitation out of a tray. The red paper was thick and smooth, and there was an intricate Chinese symbol stamped into the broken wax. Christopher lifted the flap and pulled out the card. “It's postmarked just two days ago, so it isn't likely a refusal has been sent yet, but you can ask Mr. Butter in the morning. New Year starts February fifth. Tomorrow; the banquet is on the tenth.” The invitation was hand-painted with Chinese symbols and watercolor flowers on the outside.

“Pretty, isn't it?” Christopher said. “They get very serious with the decorations. I went once with Father. Wives are invited, but Mother never wanted to go.”

Aiden examined the card. Five days from now. He thought of Jian chipping away at the guano. Five days seemed an eternity. “You don't think your father will mind if I go?”