Journey Across the Four Seas (23 page)

The thought was frightening.

*

I poked my head into Baba’s study. "I’m sorry to disturb you, but I have a matter to discuss with you."

Putting down his brush pen, Baba welcomed me in. He invited me to pull up a chair and sit across from him at his desk. The smell of ink and paper was overwhelming. I steadied myself a second before beginning: "Please forgive Hok-Ching for disobeying you. He’s a very sentimental man. Asking him to leave his child behind is worse than taking his life."

"Yes, yes, I know," Baba said with a sigh.

"Now that we’re not going to
America
, we’ll have to make other plans.
Shanghai
is a prosperous city, but there is one slight problem about our staying here. Hok-Ching and I are now sleeping in a small back room, which is fine for a few months. But Man-Kuk will soon be walking, and if I have another child, the space will be a bit too tight for us. I wonder whether it’s possible for Hok-Ching and I to move into your house in
Nanking
. With your help, I’m sure he can find a job there."

I lowered my eyes, hoping that he could read between the lines. His family home was a viper’s nest, not a place for human beings to live in. A clever man like Baba should be able to get my message.

"I understand your difficulty," Baba said. "My house in
Nanking
has plenty of spare rooms. You can have one for yourselves, and another for Agnes and her little brothers and sisters." Baba’s eyes danced with delight at the prospect of more grandchildren. Becoming serious again, he added, "With regard to a job for Hok-Ching, it can be arranged. Commercial Press has a big office in
Nanking
. I’m sure it can accommodate him."

Baba’s active hand came to a sudden standstill. Although it wasn’t visible behind the desk, I could tell that he’d been doodling characters on his lap as usual. "There’s only one problem," he said. "You know how sensitive my son is. He’s still angry with me. If I were to tell him I want him to go to
Nanking
, he’ll say no for sure. How about this? I will talk to the
Nanking
manager of Commercial Press. He will contact Hok-Ching directly and offer him a job. That way, Hok-Ching won’t know that I’m involved."

"Whatever you say must be for the best," I said respectfully. Inside I was shouting with joy.

Baba’s ploy turned out to be brilliant. For days my husband beamed like a newly discovered star. He said that at long last the world had discovered his literary ability. He wasn’t just a muscle man putting together
Health and Strength,
but an artist of many talents. For this reason, Commercial Press had offered him the post of assistant manager in the
Nanking
bureau.

I started packing without a moment’s delay. Since my marriage, I’d allowed my husband to be captain of my ship. He’d steered aimlessly from place to place without getting us anywhere. Financially, we were down to just my dowry. Professionally, he’d lost whatever status he had in the education community. If he continued to have his way at the helm, we would be shipwrecked in a few years. By charting the course to
Nanking
behind his back, I’d wrested control of the steering wheel without his noticing.

2

The train pulled into
Nanking
late at night. Baba’s chauffeur met us at the station and drove us to our new home. As the car pulled into the driveway, I stared out into the darkness. Goosebumps broke out on the back of my neck. The place was as eerie as Ah Yi had described it.

Baba’s house was an old building at the edge of town, next to a large barren field. This land was a mass grave for Chinese soldiers who’d died defending
Nanking
. In their haste, the Japanese had dug a shallow pit and dumped thousands of bodies in it. Neighborhood dogs had since discovered that this was a bountiful source of food. They were often seen gnawing at human thighbones and playing with scalps that still had full heads of hair on them. My mother-in-law swore that she’d heard the soldiers marching at night.
Shaa, shaa, shaa,
their footsteps went, like trees thrashing in the wind.

My heart stopped when a mummy ran out of the house straight toward me. A maid’s pajama suit was wrapped around the skeletal body. The skin on her face was like dried orange peel. The skull was bare but for the few strands that were bunched back into a loose bun. While I shrank back, Hok-Ching bounded up to her. She opened her toothless mouth and yammered a string of gibberish. The only words I could make out were "Ah Nu," Hok-Ching’s baby name. Then she started patting him first in the face, moving to the arm, head, bottom, and everywhere. She was treating him like a little boy!

For me, the mummy had only a most reluctant nod. The sockets of her eyes were fixed on the baby in my arms. Her claws reached for Agnes. To my surprise, Agnes didn’t cry. She flapped her arms and made an ugly face that sent everyone doubling over with laughter.

"Who’s the old woman?" I whispered to Hok-Ching.

"I’ll tell you later," he said, his eyes soft and damp with emotion.

We didn’t get back to the subject until the next morning, after Agnes had been fed and turned over to Ah Hing. I was lazing in bed, savoring the tranquility. "Who was that old woman who was touching you all over last night?" I said.

Hok-Ching laughed and rolled on his side toward me. "What, are you jealous of Old Mama? She’s my nanny. She’s cleaned and fed me ever since the day I was born. There’s no part of me she hasn’t touched."

I should have guessed—she was the amah who’d raised him. "Why does she speak such a funny language? Isn’t she Shanghainese?"

"She’s from a village near
Shanghai
. What she speaks is a rural dialect, which is very different from what city people speak. Her children were grown when she came to the city to look for work. Baba hired her and sent her to
Hangchow
to take care of me."

"I didn’t know you lived in
Hangchow
."

"I was born in
Hangchow
. In the beginning Baba kept separate households: Hangchow for Ah Yi and
Shanghai
for Ah Ma. Only later did he merge the two branches under the same roof."

This was news to me. I’d thought the three of them had always been together. "How did your father get to marry two sisters?" I asked the question that had caused me no small amount of perplexity.

    
"The first marriage with Ah Ma was arranged by matchmakers. The second one with Ah Yi was out of free love—like us." Hok-Ching gave a dirty laugh, a signal that he was about to digress.

I fended off his probing hand and went on: "But how did it happen? He was married to Ah Ma, and then…he asked for the hand of her sister?"

"How do I know? I wasn’t there."

"Didn’t anyone tell you anything?"

Hok-Ching rolled back on his side of the bed. He was sober now. "I was told that Ah Yi was a boarder at a girls’ secondary school. On holidays she stayed over at her married sister’s house. Baba liked her… and they had me."

"You mean to say that—" I paused to think of a tactful way of putting it—"you were conceived before Ah Yi had officially entered the family door?"

"I guess."

I fought the urge to exclaim, "You mean you’re a bastard?" Discretion held me back and I said instead, "How old were you when you moved into the
Shanghai
home?"

"I’m not sure, maybe two or three. They’re rather vague about my age. Ah Yi said I was born in the year of the horse, but officially my year of birth is 1917, which is the year of the sheep. I’m quite confused myself."

I began to understand: Baba, attracted to his wife’s sister, had a tryst with her and got her pregnant. He whisked her away to
Hangchow
and set up a home for her and their love child. After a few years, when the heat of the scandal had cooled, he took her into his official home and legalized the relationship. The lovers had to cook up some story to explain how they’d linked up, and the only person who could blow open their secret was Hok-Ching. His age alone would tell a lot, and therefore must be fudged.

"They made my life hell the moment I stepped through the door," Hok-Ching said, his voice tight and snappish. "Ah Ma had three children of her own already—one girl and two boys, and they were all older than I. Big Sister was the terror of my life."

"Was she the one who committed suicide?" Keeping track of my large clan of in-laws was no easy task. Aside from Hok-Ching’s live siblings, there were also the dead. Out of twelve live births from Ah Ma and Ah Yi, four had died in childhood, and one, the eldest girl, killed herself in her twenties. She’d fallen in love with a married man, and when Baba forbade her to see him again, the lovers checked into a hotel and drank rat poison.

"She’s the one," Hok-Ching said. "I didn’t mind my brothers so much. Frail and sickly as I was, I wasn’t afraid to die. If they picked on me, I wouldn’t hesitate to punch it out with them. They were older and bigger, but they didn’t scare me. Big Sister was another story. She had a tongue that cut like a knife. She was always hinting that I wasn’t part of the family, that my last name shouldn’t be Wang." Hok-Ching kicked off a corner of the blanket. "They were against me, all of them. Old Mama was the only one who took my side." His voice caught and I saw a drop glisten in the corner of his eye.

The bizarre behavior of this family made sense now. The illicit affair was the family’s dark secret, and Hok-Ching was its living symbol. What better person to punish than this jaundiced little boy? His mother wouldn’t protect him because she was too hamstrung by her own guilt. His father couldn’t protect him because a man had to go out to earn a living. Old Mama was Hok-Ching’s only shield.

In the days that followed, I took note of my husband’s relationship with his nanny. The more I observed, the uneasier
I felt. Mother-son didn’t quite describe it; neither did best friends. The only word that kept coming to my mind was—lovers. I often found them whispering in the hallway. Old Mama always stopped mid-sentence when she saw me, as though I could understand her dialect. At meal times, she hovered over Hok-Ching, anxious for him to finish his bowl of rice so she could serve him seconds. She was the only one she deemed worthy of washing Hok-Ching’s laundry. If by mistake the washerwoman touched an item that belonged to Hok-Ching, Old Mama would squawk like a mad hen.

The intensity was mutual. My husband loved his nanny more than his own mother, and most certainly more than me. At breakfast one morning, while Old Mama stooped to place a bowl of soybean milk on the table, Hok-Ching grabbed her wrist and drew her close to him. "What’s this on your cheek?" he said.

I could understand his Shanghainese, but what she said was beyond me. Hok-Ching got up and left the table.

"Aren’t you going to eat your breakfast?" I called after him.

"Old Mama’s boil is oozing pus. I’m going to the pharmacy to get her some medication."

Old Mama disappeared as soon as Hok-Ching did. I was relieved, because we both knew that we couldn’t stand each other. At least I could finish my breakfast of soybean milk and fried bread in peace.

Hok-Ching returned with an armful of packages. He spread them out on the dining table and unwrapped them, one by one. All this fuss over a little boil was getting ridiculous.

"Your breakfast has gone cold, and you’re going to be late for work," I said.

Ignoring me, he took a bottle out of a fancy box and shook it with vigor. The label was in German. Of course, nothing but the best for Old Mama. After seating her in a chair, he tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face. With gentle strokes, he swabbed her pimple with the imported lotion. "This is for cleaning," he told Old Mama. Shaking another bottle also inscribed in German, he added, "The pharmacist says this is the most advanced formula. It will dry up your boil without leaving any scars."

Twice a day, seven days in a row, my husband ministered to his nanny until every trace of the pimple had disappeared. Their unusual relationship was most disconcerting for me to watch. It was as if Old Mama were the young and beautiful concubine, and I were the old and jealous first wife. I consoled myself by recalling the bickering bunch in
Shanghai
. Compared to that rancorous home,
Nanking
was a vast improvement. The household was peaceful except for the hostility between Hok-Ching and Wai-Jing. The tension, however, was short-term, for she was soon to join her husband, Hok-Jit, in
America
. They’d accepted Baba’s condition of going to the
U.S.
without their baby.

There was another person living with us. He was Baba’s personal secretary—a suave, well-dressed man in his forties by the name of Cho. He had a home and family elsewhere, but during the week he lived in Baba’s house in order to provide round-the- clock service. Sometime during my first week in
Nanking
, he showed up at dinner in his business suit and tie and a briefcase tucked under his arm. Bowing and bending, he begged Baba to excuse him.

"Your Excellency is like a giant," he said to Baba. "You take one step, and a little man like myself has to run ten steps to keep up. I am afraid I cannot have dinner until I have finished my work at the office."