China Dog (16 page)

Ming said nothing. A few moments later, when Dan turned toward her and climbed on top of her body, her fingers gently touched the creases around his neck. The folds wove together like a rope. Was it her imagination?

Two days later, Ming left for work. She waited for the streetcar at the corner of Queen and Greenwood. It wasn’t particularly crowded that morning. Ming found a seat at the back. Her head felt congested. Not with mucus, but with that single thought: that Dan was next. She had felt the rope of creases. Earlier that morning she’d had to stop herself from suggesting to Dan that he wear a turtleneck. It was a hot day in June. She had to be careful. It was hard to know when a ridiculous idea like that might come tumbling out of her mouth. Other thoughts entered Ming’s mind, but soon they were pushed aside and her obsession with the family curse edged its way back. Not abruptly like thunder, but insidiously like fog. Suddenly her mind was filled and she couldn’t see anything
else. Ming couldn’t even remember what she made for the children’s lunches. Did she make ham sandwiches, or did she use the leftover barbecued pork?

Ming got off the streetcar at Queen and Spadina. She walked south to Wellington. Her factory was just half a block from the corner. It had just received a new contract for making women’s coats. Her job was to do the hems. She was thankful for that. Even though it meant handling the whole coat, which was heavy, at least it wasn’t finicky work, like binding buttonholes. The trademark of a high-class coat was its bound buttonholes. And these were high-class. On a bound buttonhole, the seams were neatly tucked inside and all the stitching was hidden. On cheaper coats they were stitched on the machine and then somebody slit the opening.

Ming had already decided that she would talk to Wong
Mo
, old Mrs. Wong, at morning break. Mrs. Wong was in her sixties. When she was widowed five years back, she had mourned appropriately, but it was obvious that she was freed by the death of her elderly, demanding husband. She lived on the first floor of her Huron Street home and rented out the five rooms on the second and third floors.

When Mrs. Wong arrived in Canada in 1954 with her twelve-year-old son, she had not seen her husband for seven years. Mrs. Wong had lived in Chinatown for over thirty years. She was unable to read or write. Yet she knew the location and was able to describe the front of every shop in Chinatown. She knew the colour of the doors, the frames, and the decorations on the signs. Her body seemed to possess some kind of inner
radar that instinctively directed her to the lowest prices in Chinatown. She had the goods on every young woman of marriageable age and had in mind an appropriate young man for each. Ming knew that with Mrs. Wong there was nothing to hide. She could assume that Mrs. Wong knew the circumstances of her father-in-law’s death and that by now would have heard the rumours of the curse. Ming decided not to confide her concern that Dan was next. She didn’t want that speculation flying around Chinatown. She would start by asking for general advice on how to stop the curse.

Ming paused outside her building and sighed. It had been ten days since the suicide. She hadn’t found out about the old man’s hanging until she arrived home that night. But her mother-in-law had called Dan as soon as she cut the old man down. Dan had to deal with his stepmother’s hysteria. He called 911 and went in the ambulance with his dead father. There, he explained in his broken English to the officious doctors that his father, at age eighty, had hung himself.

Although Ming dreaded going back to work, a small part of her welcomed it. It meant returning to routines. Perhaps an opportunity to do something about this curse that was haunting her family. Ming opened the heavy wooden door of her building and walked down the half-flight of stairs to the sewing room where she worked. Her machine was in the third row. She felt lucky about being close to the window. In the summer, she could at least open one of the lower panes and feel the breeze from outside.

Most of the women were seated at their sewing machines.
When they caught Ming’s eye, they cautiously nodded. She sat down at her machine, checked the thread and started her work.

At break time, Ming walked up the aisle to Mrs. Wong’s station. She took her thermos with her and offered her a cup of oolong tea. Mrs. Wong didn’t work at a sewing machine. Pieces of finished clothing were piled at her table. Her job was to snip off the dangling pieces of excess thread. Mrs. Wong moved over on her bench and motioned for Ming to sit down. Ming looked up and saw her friends Elsie Low and Mary Chow, who had been at the funeral. They gave her a quick hug and leaned against the sewing table.

“Ah, Ming. I am so sorry.” Mrs. Wong patted her on the arm.

Ming took a deep breath. “Wong
Mo
, you know what people are saying about my husband’s family?”

“I know, Ming.”

“Wong
Mo
, I’m afraid the curse is real. I want to stop it.”

“Oh Ming, do you really think that? I mean, this is Canada,” said Elsie.

“Well, Elsie, I don’t want to take any chances.” Ming didn’t dare mention her premonition about Dan.

“There’s no harm in taking precautions,” Mrs. Wong nodded as she spoke and took another sip of tea.

Mary leaned a little closer. “I think you’ve got a point.”

Mrs. Wong thought for a few seconds. “Go and visit a
sung pu
, a fortune teller. Maybe she could help you.”

Two weeks later, on a Saturday morning, Ming left home early. She told her family that she was going to Chinatown to pick up groceries. What they didn’t know was that she also had an appointment with Mrs. Wong to visit a
sung pu
.

Ming had never been to Mrs. Wong’s house before. It was early, so she found a parking spot on Beverly Street below Dundas without difficulty. As she walked past Grange Park, several homeless people were still asleep on the benches. Even though it was late June, they were wrapped in heavy winter coats. Probably to ward off the early morning chill. From a distance, it was hard to tell whether they were men or women. Their multiple layers of clothing had all taken on varying shades of brown and grey. Ming turned left on Dundas and then up Huron Street.

Mrs. Wong lived in a Victorian semi-detached house. The wooden porch had settled and the floor slanted slightly. Ming rang the doorbell. As she waited, she noticed that the windows were covered with a threadbare red paisley curtain. Over the bottom half of the sash windows were taped some Chinese newspapers, yellow with age. She saw Mrs. Wong peek through a peephole that had been ripped into a corner of the newspaper. A few moments later, Mrs. Wong slowly opened her door. “Ah, Ming. Come in and sit down for a moment.” Ming stepped inside and handed Mrs. Wong a bag filled with oranges.

The
sung pu
lived on Glasgow Street. Ming had no idea that the street existed. It was a city secret, tucked in the southeast corner of Spadina and College. They walked down an alley off Huron, past a three-storey orange-brick apartment building. Two-storey row houses and semis stood on either side of Glasgow Street. The houses had no front lawns. The small wooden porches were flush with the treeless sidewalks. In all, there might have been a dozen homes. The
sung pu
lived in a semi of freshly painted red bricks with a bright green porch.

The
sung pu
opened the door. She appeared to be in her mid-sixties, around the same age as Mrs. Wong. In contrast to Mrs. Wong, who was short, round, and plain, she was heavily powdered, with red lips, rouged pouchy cheeks, and thinly pencilled brows. Her hair was permed and artificially black. She wore several gold chains around her neck. One had dangling from it a large jade pendant. The gold had the pink-tinted colour of the kind bought in Hong Kong. It looked rich and pure, not like the gold bought here from the
lo fon
stores, gold that had been mixed with other metals and made to look cheap and glistening.

The
sung pu
led Ming and Mrs. Wong into a tiny square landing, then up a flight of three shallow steps and down a short hallway into the kitchen. Ming handed her a bag containing several oranges and some seedless green grapes. She asked Ming and Mrs. Wong to sit down at the kitchen table next to the window. The window looked out at the wall of the next house. The wall was so close that if Ming had been able
to reach through the glass, she could have touched it. The
sung pu
sat down across from them and poured three cups of tea from a thermos bottle.

She looked first at Mrs. Wong, then at Ming. “Chong
Tai
, Wong
Mo
has told me a little about your situation. I’m sorry about your father-in-law.” Ming caught a faint whiff of the
sung pu
’s breath. There was a slight, but distinctly sour smell, a smell of meat going bad.

Ming set her teacup down and interlocked her fingers in her lap. She leaned slightly forward. She looked first at Mrs. Wong, then at the
sung pu
. “Lam
Tai
, do you know how my father-in-law died?” The
sung pu
nodded. “I’m very worried that this might be a family curse.” Ming hesitated, then went on. “My husband’s great-grandfather also hung himself.”

“Oh.” The
sung pu
was obviously interested.

“If there is a family curse, I want to find a way to stop it. Can you help me?” Again, Ming made no mention of her concerns about Dan. But there was something about the way the
sung pu
stared at her that made Ming wonder if she hadn’t already guessed the deeper reason for her anxiety.

“Is there any way you can get in touch with the family spirits?” asked Mrs. Wong.

“I can try,” said the
sung pu
. “Come back in two weeks. We should give your father-in-law a little more time to settle in with the ancestors.”

“Shall I come too?” asked Mrs. Wong.

“It makes no difference to me. It’s up to Chong
Tai
.”

It was obvious that Mrs. Wong did not want to be left out. Ming nodded agreement and smiled. “Of course.”

As Ming left with Mrs. Wong she gave the
sung pu
a red lucky money envelope. Inside was twenty dollars.

Two weeks later, Ming and Mrs. Wong were sitting in the
sung pu
’s kitchen. Outside it was a brilliant sunny morning. But inside the tiny kitchen on Glasgow Street, it was dark. Ming looked through the window at the wall of the next house. The shadow that she had seen before seemed even darker, the space between the houses like a cave in half-light. She was surprised that they were there on a Saturday morning. She had expected to return in the evening. Somehow she associated conjuring up spirits with the night. She wondered if these notions were from watching too much television. After Ming gave the
sung pu
an offering of oranges and coconut candies, and after a sip of jasmine tea, she took them into the living room.

The living room was a small square room with a window overlooking Glasgow Street. Along one wall was a three-seater sofa covered in red crushed velvet. Ming saw a matching armchair and a plastic wood-veneer coffee table. Standing in a corner was a large television set. Several Chinese newspapers and glossy magazines with close-ups of glamorous young women were scattered on the coffee table. The walls were bare, except for a clock in the shape of a jewelled phoenix. The
sung pu
drew the green-and-gold brocade curtains over the windows
and closed the door. Ming and Mrs. Wong sat down together on the red sofa. The
sung pu
pulled the coffee table away from the window and positioned it near the back of the room. On it she placed an offering of oranges and a white cooked chicken. She lit incense and thin wax candles on sticks and burned some special paper money. She sat down on the single chair and closed her eyes. Her breathing gradually became deeper and slower. Ming felt a slight change in the air, and she saw the flames on the candles flicker. She and Mrs. Wong watched in silence, unable to move.

Suddenly the
sung pu
’s body began to twitch, then stiffen, and she sat upright in the chair. Her lips parted. Ming was shocked at the voice that came out. It was the voice of her father-in-law, sounding strained and stretched, as if someone had pulled his vocal chords until each tone was thinned in the middle. He told them that there was a curse on the family. That to end it, they would have to find a way of confusing the spirits. “But how?” asked Ming, leaning forward, her back tense. The
sung pu
went into a slump. When she opened her eyes, her face was drenched in perspiration. Breathing heavily, she dabbed her face with her handkerchief, smudging the white cloth with rouge and powder.

“But how?” Ming repeated, “how can we fool the spirits?”

The
sung pu
looked directly at Ming. “Go to a store and buy a small china dog, about the size of your hand. Come back at the same time next week.”

For days Ming walked around with the porcelain china dog wrapped in tissue paper and hidden in her purse. What if she was found out? Then she would have to either lie or explain. She was only trying to protect her family. So why did she feel that her activities were questionable, like she was hiding a crime? A few days earlier, she had walked into the China Emporium and gone directly to the shelves of china figurines. Standing there, she gasped, her hand covering her open mouth. A row of porcelain, glazed-blue Pekinese dogs stared back at her. She even lied when she bought the wretched thing. She told the sales clerk that it was for her daughter – as if the clerk cared.

Ming and Mrs. Wong were standing inside the
sung pu
’s living room. The curtains were drawn and the door was closed. There was an offering to the ancestors on the coffee table. On the floor was a galvanized metal pail, half-filled with water. Ming’s hand shook as she gave the
sung pu
the china dog. The three women crouched around the basin. The
sung pu
took a thin rope from her pocket and tied it around the neck of the china dog. She dangled the object over the pail of water. Then she grasped the dog in her hand and smashed it against the side of the pail. Ming winced.