Fortune is a Woman (63 page)

"San Francisco was big and frightening, but her heart lifted when she saw Chinatown. The streets had a familiar look and so did the temples with their golden dragons and the smell of incense, the voices, the faces, and the shops with their scrawled slogans wishing prosperity and long life. The smell of spices was familiar, as were the pigtailed children in gay clothing, the fortune-tellers, and the teahouses.

"She stared enviously at the girls, feminine in their cheongsams and padded jackets with flowers in their hair, then looked sadly at her own work-toughened hands, comparing her large feet, heavy boots, and long stride with their tiny delicate ones and their feminine little steps. She listened to the high chatter of their voices and her own rough monosyllabic words copied from the men, and she longed for their dresses and their hair combs, their feminine shoes and chatter. She longed to be a girl again, like them.

"On an impulse, she went into a Chinese store and squandered her precious money on a bright silk smock and trousers, pretending to the shopkeeper she was buying them as a present for her sister. She bought shoes and combs for her hair and took them back to her tiny cockroach-ridden cubicle behind a dry-goods store. She tore off all her foreign devil's men's clothes and looked at herself naked. She was almost sixteen years old and her body was still a girl's with small high breasts, narrow waist, and slender adolescent hips. She filled the tin bucket with cold water and washed herself carefully all over. Then she put on the silken smock and trousers. She slipped her feet into the precarious curved-soled shoes and unbraided her hair, coiling it into a smooth bun at the nape of her neck and fastening it with the combs.

"She peered at her reflection in the dirty windowpane and saw a miracle. She was no longer the peasant Lai Tsin, she was sixteen-year-old Mayling again. She practiced walking around the room in her strange wobbly shoes, wincing at the pain because she had become used to her big flat boots. Then plucking up her courage, she ventured outside onto the street, hardly daring to look at anyone in case they were staring and laughing at her. She walked slowly to the little shop in the alley nearby where the photographer took pictures of the Chinese to send home to their relatives. He barely looked at her, just gave her a scalloped paper fan to hold and told her to sit very still. There was a blinding flash and it was all over.

"Mayling went back to her room. She took off the clothes, folded them, and put them carefully away, because she was so used to being Lai Tsin she no longer knew how to behave as a girl and she was afraid.

"Back in her man's disguise, she found a job working in a gambling hall, serving drinks, cleaning tables, washing floors. Any menial job was hers. And at the end of each week when she received her few dollars' wages she would spend the night at the tables, and sometimes she would win and sometimes not, because these gamblers were cleverer than the peasants she had learned from. And every Sunday without fail, she attended the English classes at the Baptist Sunday School. She had a roof over her head, food in her belly, and she looked for no more.

"Wu Feng, the Chinese who ran the gambling hall, paid rent to a
gwailo
landlord and each week the man would call to collect his money. He was a young man, tall, with pale-blue eyes, thick curly hair, and a beard, and Mayling's eyes were often drawn to him as she served him rice wine. By now she spoke enough English to understand when he asked her for wine, or how old she was and where she was from. The man's voice was soft and his eyes often lingered on her but she did not feel afraid because to him she was Lai Tsin. She was a 'man,' like he was.

"Then one week he did not come to collect his rent but sent a message asking Wu Feng to have the money delivered to him. 'Lai Tsing can bring it,' he told Wu Feng, giving him the address.

"Mayling was very frightened at leaving Chinatown and she hurried along Market Street, her head down, afraid to look at the faces of the foreign devils. The landlord's house was a grand one. It had five white steps leading up to its shiny black-enameled door and she hoped her boots were not soiling the pristine marble as she nervously rang the bell.

"A Chinese houseboy in a white jacket and white cotton gloves opened the door. He grinned slyly at Lai Tsin. 'Master waits for you upstairs,' he said, giving her a little shove toward the red-carpeted staircase.

"Mayling walked hesitantly to the stairs and then turned to look for him, but he had disappeared. With a nervous sigh she walked to the top of the stairs and called out the landlord's name. It was a famous name in San Francisco and she could see the man was rich, richer than she had ever dreamed of anyone being. She stared at his
gwailo
treasures, the silk carpets, the huge, dark paintings, the silver urns and crystal vases as she waited, uncertain, what to do.

"She heard him call, 'Come in here,' and walked down the corridor toward his voice. He was sitting behind a big desk. She bowed and he stood up and walked to the door and locked it. Mayling blinked in surprise, but then she remembered this was a transaction of money; obviously he would not want his servants to see or overhear.

"She took the parcel from her secret pocket and laid it on his desk. 'Wu Feng's rent, honorable sir,' she said in her soft, rough voice. He perched on the edge of his desk, his arms folded. He looked at her for a long time and then he laughed.

" 'Thank you, Lai Tsin,' he said, still smiling. 'And how would you like to have that money back again? Your own money this time, in your own secret pocket?'

"She gasped, her eyes grew round at the thought, but she asked, puzzled, 'What can Lai Tsin do to earn such a sum?'

" 'Do you really not know?' His voice was deep with a rough throaty eagerness. His hand shot out and gripped her shoulder. Mayling gasped, she had heard that sound in a man's voice before, she had felt that grip of steel, felt the hands that trembled with passion. But this man thought she was a boy. 'No, sir, no. You don't understand,' she cried.

"He laughed as he held her squirming in his grip, 'What don't I understand, little boy?' he asked, amused. 'Don't I understand the glances you send me each Friday when I come to Wu Feng's? Do I not understand the language of your body, the languorous look in your eyes, the movements of your hands and your buttocks? Of course I do. You and I understand each other perfectly, little Lai Tsin. I want what you can give me, and you want what I can give you.' He took the money from the desk and thrust it at her. 'Take it. I'm a generous man to those who please me.'

"Mayling twisted from his grasp and he laughed as she ran for the door. Of course, it was locked. She turned slowly to face him. 'You do not understand,' she said again in her halting English. 'I am not Lai Tsin. I am Mayling. I am a girl.'

"He shook his head, laughing. 'That's a good one,' he chortled, his face pink with merriment. 'A girl in sheep's clothing!' And then he pulled her roughly to him, thrusting his hand between her legs. He looked at her, surprised, and then with a roar of laughter he commanded her to take off her clothes. Mayling was shaking with fear and humiliation. She shook her head, she would rather die than do what he asked. But her masquerade had inflamed his passions, she was both boy and girl and he shook with desire as he threw her to the ground. He pulled at her clothes and lay on top of her, fumbling and cursing as he forced himself into her, trembling with passion for the few minutes it took to satisfy his bestial urge. Then he stood up. He buttoned his pants. He walked back to his desk and sat down, smoothing back his hair and straightening his cravat. 'You may go now,' he said coolly, 'and I don't want to see you at Wu Feng's again. Do you understand? I don't ever want to see your face again.'

"Mayling stumbled to her feet. Her body was defiled with his sticky semen and she trembled with disgust and anger as she covered herself quickly and walked to the door. It was locked and he tossed the key across to her and said, 'I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but I warn you, it's a dangerous one. Other men would not be as kind to you as I was. They would kill you for such a deception.'

"Mayling closed the door quietly behind her. She walked slowly back down the beautiful staircase and through the grand hall. From the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the sly, grinning Chinese houseboy as she let herself out of the door. He ran after her, grabbing her shoulder. He whispered, 'Mr. Harrison is a generous man, give me half what he put in your secret pocket and I will not tell about you.'

"She looked blankly at him. 'Mr. Harrison?'

" 'My boss,' he said impatiently. 'Harmon Harrison, the big banker. He's the most powerful man in San Francisco.'

" 'I did not take any money,' she said, pushing the Chinese houseboy out of her way and running down the steps. The name meant nothing then to Mayling. Only many years later was she to realize who he was.

"She did not know how she managed to walk back to Chinatown, but when she got back to her little cubicle, she stripped off her clothes and scrubbed her body with icy water and coarse soap until it stung. Then she put on her girls' smock and trousers and lay down on her bedmat, wondering what to do. She longed with all her heart for her mother and her little brother, and she burned with hatred for all men. But when all her tears were spent, in the end she knew there was nothing she could do. She must continue her deception. Except no man was ever going to touch her again, and if any tried, she would kill him.

"The next day she found herself a new job as a coolie carrying vegetables and live chickens to market in two straw baskets slung over her shoulders on a bamboo pole. And at night she worked in another gambling hall, a smaller, seedier place run by the tongs, with opium divans in the back and men with hatchets tucked into their belts at the tables. She did not care, she scarcely even noticed them. All she wanted was the dollars. And then a few months later she found she was pregnant.

"She was ignorant in such matters and by the time she realized that the hated Harmon Harrison's child was in her womb it was too late to do anything about it, even if she dared. She worked until it was no longer possible to hide her condition and then she found herself a different room. She became Mayling again, in her silken smock and long, smooth-coiled hair.

"An old Chinese woman, experienced in birthing, came to help her, though Mayling had to pay her too much because the woman despised her for having no husband. She did not know what to expect and thought the pain of birth would destroy her mind, but in the end the child was born. A small, pale-faced, wailing boy.

"After a while the old woman completed her tasks and left Mayling alone. She looked at her baby, wrapped in a shawl beside her on the bedmat. He was tiny, with dark hair and dark eyes, and he did not look in the least bit like the foreign-devil landlord. He looked Chinese, like her. And he looked as helpless and frightened by his new world as she was. Her heart went out to him and at last she picked him up and began to feed him.

"When the boy was two months old Mayling knew she would have to return to work. She thought and thought about what to do and knew there was only one answer. It had always been the custom in China for families with too many mouths to feed to give away one or two of their children to less fortunate, childless couples, and now Mayling found a family for her son. They were middle-aged and had given up hope of ever having the pleasure of their own baby and their eyes lit with happiness when Mayling handed them her boy. She promised she would send them money every month for his welfare and then she turned quickly away, her eyes burning with unshed tears.

"Mayling went back to being Lai Tsin. She returned to her work in the fields and to the gambling. Her life was solitary, for she dared call no person her friend. She stayed alone and every month she sent money for her child, though she never tried to see him in all the long, slow years.

"Time passed and one day the couple sent a message that the son was now eighteen years old and had become betrothed. Mayling immediately sent all the money she had to help pay for his wedding, but she was not invited as a guest. The next year she was told that a son had been born and she rejoiced in their happiness. She realized that she was now a grandmother, though she guessed she was only about thirty-four years old. She went back to her work, drifting between the fields and the gambling, a solitary figure on the Chinese landscape.

"On the day of the great earthquake Mayling was on her way back to her little cubicle on Kearny Street. She had gambled until dawn and when the paved street suddenly rose under her feet and hurled her to the ground, her first thought was that the gods were angry with her for all her sins and at last had come to seek their revenge. She crawled into a doorway as the world collapsed around her, and when the earth stopped shaking and the buildings stopped trembling she opened her eyes onto a scene of devastation. She immediately thought of her son and her grandchild and her heart trembled like the buildings as she thought of what might have happened to them.

"She leapt to her feet and ran through the crowded, broken streets to the house where they lived. It was no longer there. Neighbors were frantically shifting beams and chunks of masonry, digging with their bare hands in the rubble while a small half-naked boy sat on the sidewalk, solemnly watching them. Mayling ran to him and took his hand. He held on to her tightly, looking up at her with trusting black eyes. Someone cried out that they had found them, the old couple and the young one, still in their beds. The chimney had fallen in on them and they had died instantly. The child's small bed in another room was untouched.

"Mayling walked through the rubble and looked at the face of her dead son. It was the first time she had seen him since she gave him away when he was just two months old, and her heart mourned, for he was young and handsome and had much to live for. She told the neighbors she would look after the child. They quickly found him some clothes, and with one last long glance she left her son again for the last time.