Shanghai Girls (33 page)

In these moments, I regret the years of homesickness and loneliness I’ve felt for Shanghai: the way I turned it into so many golden-hued remembrances of people, places, and food that, as Betsy has written me so many times, no longer exist and will never again exist. I berate myself: How could I not have seen what was right in front of me all these years? How could I not have sucked in all the sweetness instead of pining for memories that were only ashes and dust?

In desperation, I call Betsy in Washington to see if there’s anything her father can do for us. Although he’s suffering from his own persecution, Betsy promises he’ll look into Sam’s case.

“
MY FATHER BORN
San Flancisco-ah,” Sam says in his badly accented English.

Four days have passed since we had dinner with Fred, and now Sanders and Billings have come unannounced to our house. Sam perches on the end of Father Louie’s recliner. The other men sit on the couch. I’m seated on a straight-backed chair, wishing that Sam would let me speak for him. I have the same feeling I did when the Green Gang thug gave May and me his ultimatum in my family’s salon all those years ago:
This is it
.

“Then prove it. Show me his birth certificate,” Agent Billings demands.

“My father born San Flancisco-ah,” Sam insists firmly.

“San Flancisco-ah
,” Billings repeats in a mocking tone. “Of course it would be San Francisco, because of the earthquake and fire. We aren’t stupid, Mr. Louie. It’s said that for there to be so many Chinese born in the United States before 1906, every Chinese woman who was here back then would have had to have given birth to five hundred sons. Even if by some miracle that could have happened, how is it that only sons were born and no girls? Did you kill them?”

“I wasn’t born yet,” Sam answers, switching to Sze Yup. “I didn’t live here—”

“I have your file from Angel Island. We want you to look at some photographs.” Billings puts two photos on the coffee table. The first is of the little boy that Chairman Plumb tried to trick me with all those years ago. The other shows Sam upon his arrival at Angel Island, in 1937. With the two images side by side, it’s clear that the people in them can’t possibly be the same. “Confess, and then tell us about your fake brothers. Don’t let your wife and daughter suffer because of loyalty to men who won’t come forward to help you.”

Sam examines the photographs, leans back in the recliner, and says, his voice shaking, “I Father’s real son. Brother Vern will say you.”

It’s as if his iron fan is collapsing before my eyes, but I don’t know why. When I get up, move to behind his chair, and put my hands on the backrest so he’ll know I’m there, I understand why. Joy stands in the kitchen doorway directly in Sam’s line of vision. He’s afraid for her and embarrassed for himself.

“Daddy,” Joy cries as she scurries into the room. “Do what they ask. Tell them the truth. You have nothing to hide.” Our daughter knows not one thing about what the truth actually is, but she’s so innocent—and here, I’ll say it, stupid like her auntie—that she says, “If you tell the truth, good things will happen. Isn’t that what you taught me?”

“See, even your daughter wants you to tell the truth,” Billings prods.

But Sam doesn’t waver from his story. “My father born San Flancisco-ah.”

Joy continues to cry and plead. Vern whimpers in the other room. I stand there helpless. And my sister is out working on a movie or shopping for a new dress or I don’t know what.

Billings opens his briefcase, pulls out a piece of paper, and hands it to Sam, who can’t read the English words. “If you sign this paper saying you came illegally,” he says, “we’ll take away your citizenship, which isn’t real to begin with. Once you’ve signed the paper and confessed, we’ll give you immunity, new citizenship,
real
citizenship, on condition that you tell us about
every
friend, relative, and neighbor you know who came illegally. We’re particularly interested in the other paper sons your so-called father brought in.”

“He dead. What it matter now?”

“But we have his file. How could he have so many sons? How could he have so many partners? Where are they now? And don’t bother telling us about Fred Louie. We know all about him. He got his citizenship fair and square. Just tell us about the others and where to find them.”

“What you gonna do to them?”

“Don’t worry about that. Only worry about yourself.”

“And you give me papers?”

“You’ll get legal citizenship, like I said,” Billings says. “But if you don’t confess, then we’ll have to deport you back to China. Don’t you and your wife want to stay with your daughter, so you can keep her out of trouble?”

Joy’s shoulders pull back in surprise as she hears this.

“She may be an A student, but she goes to the University of Chicago,” Billings goes on. “Everyone knows that’s a den of Communism. Do you know the kind of people she’s been seeing? Do you know what she’s been doing? She’s a member of the Chinese Students Democratic Christian Association.”

“That’s a Christian group,” I say, but when I glance at my daughter, a shadow crosses her face.

“They say they’re Christian, Mrs. Louie, but it’s a Communist front. Your daughter’s connection to that group is why we looked into your husband’s case in the first place. She’s been picketing and getting people to sign petitions. If you help us, we can overlook these infractions. She was born here, and she’s just a kid.” He looks over at Joy, who weeps in the middle of our living room. “She probably didn’t know what she was doing, but if the two of you are sent back to China, how will you help her? Do you want to ruin her life too?”

Billings nods to Sanders, who stands. “We’re going to leave you now, Mr. Louie, but we can’t let these discussions go on much longer. Either you tell us what we want to know or we’re going to take a closer look at your kid. Understand?”

After they leave, Joy runs to her father’s chair, sinks beside it, and sobs in his lap. “Why are they doing this to us? Why? Why?”

I kneel next to my daughter, put my arms around her, and search Sam’s face, looking for the hope and strength he’s always carried there.

“I left home to earn a living,” Sam says, his voice far away, his eyes peering into the darkness of despair. “I came to America to make a chance for myself. I did the best I could—”

“Of course you did.”

He looks at me in resignation. “I don’t want to be deported back to China,” he says hopelessly.

“You won’t have to go back.” I put a hand on his arm. “But if it comes to that, I’ll go with you.”

His eyes shift to mine. “You’re a good woman, but what about Joy?”

“I’ll go with you too, Daddy. I know all about China, and I’m not afraid.”

As we huddle together, something Z.G. said long ago comes into my mind. I remember him talking about
ai kuo
, the love for your country, and
ai jen
, the emotion you feel for the person you love. Sam fought fate and left China, and even after everything that’s happened he hasn’t stopped believing in America, but he loves Joy above all else.

“I okay,” he says in English, patting his daughter’s head. Then he switches back to his native Sze Yup. “You two go see about Uncle Vern. Hear him in there? He needs help. He’s scared.”

Joy and I stand up. I wipe my daughter’s tears. As Joy starts for Vern’s bedroom, Sam grabs my hand. One of his fingers loops up and through my jade bracelet, holding me in place, showing me how much he loves me. “Don’t worry, Zhen Long,” he says. When he releases me, he stares at his hand for a second, rubbing his daughter’s tears between his fingers.

Vern is terribly upset when I get to his room. He mumbles incoherently about Mao’s Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom and how the Chairman’s now condemning to death everyone he encouraged to criticize the government. Vern’s so confused he can’t separate that from what he overheard in our living room. As he rambles and rails—and he’s so distressed that he’s messed his diaper and every time he squirms or pounds his fists on the bed, a disgusting odor fills my nostrils—I wish my sister were here. I wish for maybe the ten thousandth time that she would take care of her husband. It takes Joy and me a long time to calm Vern and get him cleaned. When we leave the room, Sam’s gone.

“We need to talk about this group you’re a member of,” I say to Joy “but let’s wait until your father returns.”

She doesn’t defer to me or apologize. She says with the absolute certainty of youth and being raised in America, “We’re all citizens, and it’s a free country. They can’t do anything to us.”

I sigh. “Later. We’ll do this later with your father.”

I head to my bedroom bathroom to get the smell of Vern off me. I wash my hands and my face in the basin, and when I lift my head I see in the mirror’s reflection over my shoulder into the closet…

“Sam!” I scream.

I run to the closet, where Sam hangs. I put my arms around his swaying legs and lift them to take the weight off his neck. Everything turns black before my eyes, my heart scatters like light dust, and my ears buzz with my horrified screams.

The Boundless Human Ocean

I DON’T LET
go of Sam until Joy gets a stool and a knife and cuts him down. I don’t leave his side when the people come and take him to the funeral parlor. I give Sam’s body as much care as possible, touching him with all the love and tenderness I couldn’t show him when he was alive. Then May picks me up from the funeral parlor and takes me home. In the car, she says, “You and Sam were like a pair of mandarin ducks, always together. Like a pair of chopsticks, evenly matched, always in harmony.” I thank her for the traditional words, but they don’t help me.

I stay up all night. I hear Vern tossing in the next room and May quietly comforting my daughter on the screened porch, but eventually the house and everyone in it stills.
Fifteen buckets drawing water from the well, seven moving up and eight going down
, meaning I’m filled with anxiety, doubts, and an absolute inability to fall asleep, where my dreams will haunt me. I stand at the window, a slight breeze ruffling my nightgown. The moonlight feels as though it shines on me alone. It has been said that marriages are arranged by Heaven, that destiny will bring even the most distantly separated people together, that all is settled before birth, and no matter how much we wander from our paths, no matter how our fortunes change—for good or bad—all we can do is accomplish the decree of fate. This, in the end, is our blessing and our heartbreak.

Regrets scorch my skin and burrow into my heart. I didn’t do enough of the husband-wife thing with Sam. I looked at him too often as a mere rickshaw puller. I let my longing for the past make him feel that he was never enough, that our life together was never enough, that Los Angeles was never enough. Worst, I didn’t help him enough in his final days. I should have fought harder against the FBI, the INS, and this whole immigration mess. Why didn’t I see that he could no longer carry the weight of our burdens across his iron fan?

In the early morning, avoiding the screened porch, I go out the front door and around to the back of the house. I know that too many suicides haunt our community, but it feels like Sam’s death has added a new grain of salt to the boundless human ocean of misery and sorrow. Beyond my rose-covered chain-link fence, I imagine my neighbors languishing and expressing the sorrows of the ages. In that moment of quiet and grief I know what I have to do.

I go back to my room, find a photograph of Sam, and take it to the family altar that he cared for in the living room. I place his picture next to those of Yen-yen and Father. I look at the other things Sam placed on the altar to represent the others we’ve lost: my parents, his parents, brothers and sisters, and our son. I hope for Sam that his version of the afterworld exists and that he’s with all of them now, looking down from the Viewing Terrace, watching me, Joy, May, and Vern. I light incense and bow three times. No matter what I feel about my one God, I promise that I’ll do this every day until I die and I meet Sam either in his Heaven or in mine.

I’m a one-Goder, but I’m Chinese too, so I follow both traditions for Sam’s funeral. A Chinese funeral—that most significant of rites—is the last time we show respect to the person who’s left us, give him the honor to save face, and tell the young about the accomplishments and deeds of their newest ancestor. I want all that for Sam. I choose the suit he’ll wear to rest in his coffin. I place photographs of Joy and me in his pockets, so he’ll have us with him when he goes to Chinese Heaven. I make sure that Joy, May, Vern, and I all wear black—not Chinese white. We say prayers of thanks for the gift of Sam, blessings and forgiveness for the living, and mercy for all. There’s no brass band, just Bertha Hom at the organ, playing “Amazing Grace,” “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and “America the Beautiful.” Then we have a simple, modest, mournful banquet at Soochow of five tables—-just fifty people, minuscule compared with Father Louie’s funeral, even smaller than Yen-yen’s memorial, all a result of the fear our neighbors, friends, and customers feel.
You can always count on people to crowd your party when you are in glory, but you should never dream of people sending you charcoal in the snow
. I sit at the main table between my sister and my daughter. They do and say all the right things, but both of them ooze guilt: May for not being there when it happened, Joy for believing that she caused her father’s suicide. I know I should tell them not to feel these things. No one,
no one
, could have predicted Sam would do this crazy thing. But in doing it, he released Joy, the uncles, and me from further investigation. As Agent Billings told me when he came by the house after Sam died, “With your husband and father-in-law gone, we can’t prove anything one way or the other. And it turns out we may have been wrong about that group your daughter joined. This has to be good news for you, but a little advice: when your daughter goes back to school in September, tell her to stay away from
all
Chinese organizations, just to be on the safe side.” I looked at him and said, “My father-in-law was born in San Francisco. My husband was always a citizen.”

How could I be so clear with the INS man but not know how to talk to my sister or console my daughter? I know they’re both in pain, but I can’t help them. I need
them
to help
me
. But even when they try—by bringing me cups of tea, by showing me their red and puffy eyes, by sitting on my bed as I weep—I find myself filled with immense sadness and … rage. Why did my daughter have to join that group? Why didn’t she show her father proper respect in his last few weeks? Why did my sister always encourage Joy’s American side about clothes and haircuts and attitudes? Why didn’t my sister help Sam and me more during these difficulties? Why didn’t she take care of her husband—for all these years but especially on the day of Sam’s death? If she’d been taking care of him, as a proper wife should, then I would have been able to stop Sam. I know this is just my grief speaking. It’s easier to feel anger at them than agony at Sam’s death.

Violet and her husband, also at our table, pack up the leftover food for me to take home. Uncle Wilburt says good-bye. Uncle Fred, Mariko, and the girls go home. Uncle Charley lingers for a long time, but what can he say? What can any of them say? I nod, shake their hands in the American way, and thank them for coming, doing my best to be a proper widow. A widow …

DURING THE MOURNING
period, people are supposed to visit, bring food, and play dominoes, but just as with the funeral, most of our friends and neighbors stay away. The gossips smack their lips, but they don’t understand that my troubles could become their troubles at any time. Only Violet dares to visit. For the first time in my life I’m grateful that there’s someone besides May to comfort me.

In so many ways Violet—with her job and her house in Silver Lake—is more assimilated than we are, but she’s taking a risk coming here, since she and Rowland have more to be afraid of than Sam and I ever did. After all, Violet and her family were trapped here when China closed. Violet’s and Rowland’s jobs—which once seemed so impressive—now make them targets. Perhaps they’re spies left here to collect the United States’ technology and knowledge. And yet she overcomes her fear to see me.

“Sam was a good Ox,” Violet says. “He had integrity and bore the burdens of righteousness. He followed the rules of nature, patiently pushing the wheel of fate. He was not afraid of his destiny. He knew what he had to do to save you and Joy. An Ox will always do whatever is needed to protect his family’s welfare—”

“My sister doesn’t believe in the Chinese zodiac,” May cuts in.

I don’t know why she says this. Sure, there was a time when I didn’t believe in these things, but that was a long time ago. I know in my heart that my sister is forever a Sheep, that I’m forever a Dragon, that Joy is forever a Tiger, and that my husband was an Ox—dependable, methodical, calm, and, as Violet said, the bearer of so many burdens. This comment, like so much of what comes out of May’s mouth anymore, shows how little she knows about me. Why haven’t I seen it before?

Violet doesn’t react to May. Instead, she pats my knee and recites an old saying. “All things light and pure float upward to become Heaven.”

In my life, no three miles have been flat and no three days have had sun. I’ve been brave in the past, but now I’m beyond devastated. My grief is like dense clouds that cannot be dispersed. I can’t think beyond the blackness of my clothes and heart.

Later that evening—after Vern has been fed and his lights turned out and Joy has gone out with a couple of the Yee girls to talk and drink tea—May knocks on the door to my room. I get up and answer it. I’m wearing a nightgown, my hair is a mess, and my face is splotched from mourning. My sister wears a slim sheath of emerald green satin, her hair is teased into an improbably high bouffant, and diamond and jade earrings dangle from her ears. She’s going somewhere. I don’t bother to ask where.

“The second cook didn’t show up at the café,” she says. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t care. Whatever you decide is fine.”

“I know this is a hard time for you, and I’m sorry about that. I really am. But I need you. You don’t understand the pressure I have now with the café, Vern, the responsibility for the house, and my business. Things are so busy right now.”

I listen as she wonders aloud how much to charge a production company for extras, costumes, and props like wheelbarrows, food carts, and rickshaws.

“I always base my rentals on a ten percent value of the article,” May continues. I understand she’s trying to get me to come out of my room, reconnect with life, help her as I always have, but truly, I don’t know one damn thing about her rental business, and right now
I don’t care
. “They want to rent some pieces for several months, perhaps as much as a year, and some of what they want—like the rickshaws—is irreplaceable. So how much do you think I should charge to rent them? They each cost about two hundred and fifty dollars, so I could charge twenty-five dollars a week. But I’m thinking I should charge more, because where will we buy replacements if something happens to them?”

“Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”

I start to close the door, but she grabs it and pulls it open. “Why don’t you let me in? You could take a shower. I could do your hair. Maybe you could put on a dress and we could take a walk—”

“I don’t want to upset your plans,” I say, but I’m thinking,
How many times in the past did she leave me at home with our parents in Shanghai, in the apartment with Yen-yen, and now with Vern so that she could go out to do … whatever it is she does?

“You need to rejoin the living—”

“It’s only been two weeks—”

May gives me a hard stare. “You need to come out and be with your family. Joy will be going back to Chicago soon. She needs you to talk to her—”

“Don’t tell me how to mother my daughter—”

She takes hold of my wrist, wrapping her hand around Mama’s bracelet. “Pearl.” She gives my wrist a little shake. “I know this is terrible for you. A great sadness. But you’re still young. You’re still beautiful. You have your daughter. You have me. And you’ve had
everything
. Look how Joy loves you. Look how Sam loved you.”

“Yes, and he’s dead.”

“I know, I know,” she says sympathetically. “I was trying to be helpful. I didn’t think he’d kill himself.”

Her words hang like elegantly calligraphed characters in the air before my eyes, the silence thick as I read them again and again, until finally I ask, “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I didn’t mean anything.”

My sister has never been a good liar.

“May!”

“All right! All right!” She lets go of my wrist, raises both of her hands, and shakes them in frustration. Then she pivots on one of her high heels and sways into the living room. I’m right behind her. She stops, turns, and quickly spills the words. “I told Agent Sanders about Sam.”

“You did what?” My ears refuse to understand the depth of her betrayal.

“I told the FBI about Sam. I thought it would help.”

“Why would you do that?” I ask, still not willing to believe what she’s saying.

“I did it for Father Louie. Before he died, he seemed to sense what was coming. He made me promise to do whatever was necessary to keep you and Sam safe. He didn’t want the family separated—”

“He didn’t want Vern to be left only with you,” I say. But this is far off the point. What she’s saying about Sam can’t be true. Please let it not be true.

“I’m sorry. Pearl, I’m so sorry.” And with that, May lets the rest of her confession fall from her lips in a jumble. “Agent Sanders used to walk with me sometimes when I was coming back to the house after work. He asked about Joy, and he wanted to know about you and Sam too. He said this was an opportunity for amnesty. He said if I told him the truth about Sam’s paper-son status, then we could work together to get his citizenship and yours. I thought if I could show Agent Sanders I was a good American, then he would see that you were good Americans too. Don’t you see? I had to protect Joy, but I was also afraid of losing you, my sister, the only one in my life who’s loved me for who I am, who’s stood by me and taken care of me. If you’d just done as I’d said—hired a lawyer and confessed—then the two of you could have become citizens. You never again would have had to be afraid, and you and I never again would have had to worry about being separated. Instead, you and Sam continued to lie. The idea that Sam would hang himself never entered my mind.”