Shanghai Girls (26 page)

IN LATE FALL
we gather around the radio to hear that President Roosevelt has asked Congress to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act: “Nations, like individuals, make mistakes. We must be big enough to acknowledge our mistakes of the past and correct them.” A few weeks later, on December 17, 1943, all exclusion laws are overturned, just as Betsy’s father hinted they would be.

We listen to Walter Winchell’s broadcast when he announces, “Keye Luke, Charlie Chan’s Number One Son, just missed being number one Chinese naturalized U.S. citizen.” Since Keye Luke is working in a picture that day, a Chinese doctor in New York becomes the first. Sam commemorates that moment of happiness by taking a picture of his daughter standing with one hand on her hip and her other hand resting on top of the radio. No
cheongsams
for her! Since Joy started school and we gave her that lunch box, she’s decided she loves cowgirls and cowgirl dresses. Her grandfather has even bought her a pair of cowgirl boots on Olvera Street, and once she has her outfit on, there’s no getting it off. She grins happily. Even though the rest of the family is not in the picture, I will always remember that we all smiled with her.

After that day, Sam and I talk about applying for naturalization, but we’re afraid, as are so many paper sons and the wives who squeaked in with them. “I have my fake citizenship from masquerading as Father’s real son. You have your Certificate of Identity through being married to me. Why should we risk losing what we have? How can we trust the government when our Jap neighbors are sent to internment camps?” Sam asks. “How can we trust the government after everything it’s done to us? How can we trust the government when the
lo fan
look at us funny—like we’re Japs too?” May is in a different situation than Sam and I. She’s married to a real American citizen, and she’s lived in the country for five years. She becomes the first person in our building to become a citizen through the naturalization process.

THE WAR DRAGS
on month after month. We try to keep life as normal as possible for Joy, and it pays off She does so well in school that her kindergarten and first-grade teachers recommend her for a special second-grade program. I work with Joy all summer to get her prepared, and even Miss Gordon—who’s taken a continuing interest in our girl—comes to the apartment once a week to help my daughter with her sums and reading comprehension.

Maybe I push Joy too hard, because she gets a bad summer cold. Then, two days after the bomb drops on Hiroshima, her cold takes a turn. Her fever rages, her throat burns red, and she coughs so hard and long that she throws up. Yen-yen goes to the herbalist, who makes a bitter tea for Joy to drink. The next day, when I’m working, Yen-yen takes Joy back to the herbalist, who blows an herb powder into her throat with the cap of a calligraphy brush. On the radio Sam and I hear that another bomb has been dropped—this one on Nagasaki. The broadcaster says that the destruction is terrible and vast. Government officials in Washington are optimistic that the war will end soon.

Sam and I close up the café and hurry to the apartment, wanting to share the news. When we get there, we see that Joy’s throat has become so swollen she’s starting to turn blue. Somewhere people are rejoicing—sons, brothers, and husbands will be coming home—but Sam and I are so afraid for Joy that we can’t think beyond our own fear. We want to take her to a Western doctor, but we don’t know one and we don’t have a car. We’re talking about how to find and hire a taxi when Miss Gordon arrives. In the chaos of the news of the bombs and the anxiety we feel for Joy, we’ve forgotten about the tutorial. As soon as Miss Gordon sees Joy, she helps me wrap her in a sheet, and then she drives us to General Hospital, where, she says, “They treat people like you.” Within minutes of our arriving at the hospital, a doctor cuts a hole in my daughter’s throat so she can breathe.

Less than a week after Joy’s encounter with death, the war ends and Sam—shaken by almost losing his little girl—takes three hundred dollars of our savings and buys a very used Chrysler. It’s old and dented, but it’s ours. In our last photograph from the war years, Sam sits in the Chrysler’s driver’s seat, Joy perches on the fender, and I stand by the passenger door. We’re about to go for a Sunday drive, our first.

Ten Thousand Happinesses

“
FIFTEEN CENTS FOR
one gardenia,” a melodious voice rings out. “Twenty-five cents for a double.” The little girl standing behind the table is adorable. Her black hair shimmers under the colored lights, her smile beckons, her fingers look like butterflies. My daughter, my Joy, has her own “place of business,” as she calls it, and she runs it wonderfully well for a child of ten. On weekend nights she sells gardenias from six to midnight outside the café, where I can keep watch on her, but she doesn’t need me or anyone else to protect her. She’s a Tiger—brave. She’s my daughter—persistent. She’s her aunt’s niece—beautiful. I have exciting news. I want to get May alone to tell her, but seeing Joy sell gardenias has us entranced and paralyzed.

“Look how precious she is,” May coos. “She’s good at this. I’m glad she likes it and that she earns a little money. It’s a good thing all the way around, isn’t it?”

May looks lovely tonight: like a millionaire’s wife in vermilion silk. She dresses well, because she can afford to spend the money she earns frivolously. She recently turned 29. Oh, the tears! As if she turned 129. But to me she hasn’t changed one bit since our beautiful-girl days. Still, every day she worries about gaining weight and forming wrinkles. Lately, she’s been stuffing her pillow with chrysanthemum leaves so she’ll wake with her eyes clear and moist.

“China City is a tourist place, so who do you think should be the seller? The smallest and the cutest, that’s who,” I agree. “And Joy’s smart. She watches to make sure nothing’s stolen.”

“For an extra penny, I’ll sing ‘God Bless America,’” Joy says to a couple who stop at her table. She doesn’t wait for an answer but begins to sing in a clear, high, and earnest voice. At American school, she’s learned all the patriotic songs—“My Country, ’Tis of Thee” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag”—as well as songs like “My Darling Clementine” and “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” At the Chinese Methodist Mission on Los Angeles Street, she’s learned to sing “Jesus Is All the World to Me” and “Jesus Loves Even Me” in Cantonese. Between work, regular school, and Chinese school—which she attends Monday through Friday from 4:30 to 7:30 and Saturdays from 9:00 to 12:00—she’s a busy but happy little girl.

Joy glances at me and smiles as she holds out her hand to the couple. She’s learned this trick—getting people to pay for things they may not want—from her grandfather. The husband puts some change in Joy’s palm, and she closes her hand around it as fast as a monkey. She drops the change into a can and gives the woman a gardenia. Once done with these customers, Joy moves them along. She’s learned this from her grandfather too. Every night she counts the money and then turns it over to her father, who converts the change into dollars, which he then gives to me to hide with Joy’s college money.

“Fifteen cents for one gardenia,” Joy trills, a serious but endearing look on her face. “Twenty-five cents for a double.”

I link my arm through my sister’s. “Come on. She’s fine. Let’s get a cup of tea.”

“But not in the café, all right?” May doesn’t like to be seen in the café. It isn’t glamorous enough for her. Not these days.

“That’s fine,” I say. I nod to Sam, who’s behind the counter in the café, stir-frying an order in a wok. He’s the second cook now, but he can keep an eye on our daughter while I visit with May.

My sister and I swing through China City’s alleyways toward the costume and prop shop that came to her through Tom Gubbins. It’s been ten years since we arrived in Los Angeles, ten years since we stepped into China City. When I first passed through the miniature Great Wall, I felt no connection to this place. Now it feels like home: familiar, comfortable, and much loved. This isn’t the China of my past—the busy streets of Shanghai, the beggars, the fun, the champagne, the money—but I see reminders of it here in the laughing tourists, the traditionally costumed shop owners, the smells that come from the cafés and restaurants, and the stunning woman at my side, who happens to be my sister. As we stroll, I catch glimpses of us in the shopwindows and I’m transported to our girlhoods: the way we dressed in our room and stared at our reflections and those of our beautiful-girl images that hung on the walls around us, the way we walked together along Nanking Road and smiled at ourselves in store windows, and the way Z.G. captured and painted our perfect selves.

And yet we’ve both changed. Now I see myself—thirty-two years old, no longer a new mother but a woman content with herself My sister is a flower in full bloom. The desire to be looked at and admired still burns from deep within her. The more she feeds it, the more she needs. She’ll never be satisfied. This malady is in her bones—from birth, her essential character, her Sheep that wants to be taken care of, petted, and admired. She isn’t Anna May Wong and she never will be, but she gets more movie work and more varied roles—as a whimsical cashier, the giggly but ineffectual maid, or the stoic wife of a laundryman—than anyone else in Chinatown. This makes her a star in our neighborhood and a star to me.

May opens the door to her shop and flips on a light, and there we are—surrounded by the silks, embroideries, and kingfisher feathers of the past. She makes tea, pours it, and then asks, “So what’s this thing you’re so eager to tell me?”

“Ten thousand happinesses,” I say. “I’m pregnant.”

May clasps her hands together. “Really? Are you sure?”

“I went to the doctor.” I smile. “He says it’s true.”

May gets up, comes to me, and hugs me. Then she pulls away. “But how? I thought—”

“I had to try, didn’t I? The herbalist has been giving me wolfberry fruit, Chinese yam, and black sesame to put in our soup and other dishes.”

“It’s a miracle,” May says.

“Beyond a miracle. Unlikely, impossible—”

“Oh, Pearl, I’m so pleased.” Her joy mirrors mine. “Tell me everything. How far along are you? When is the baby coming?”

“I’m about two months.”

“Have you told Sam yet?”

“You’re my sister. I wanted to tell you first.”

“A son,” May says, smiling. “You’re going to have a precious son.”

Everyone has this desire, and I flush with pleasure just hearing the word
—son
.

Then a shadow crosses May’s face. “Can you do this thing?”

“The doctor says I shouldn’t be so old, and I have my scars.”

“Women older than you have babies,” she says, but this isn’t the best thing to say given that Vern’s problems are often blamed on Yen-yen’s age. May winces at the insensitivity of her remark. She doesn’t ask about the scars, because we never talk about how I came to get them, so she shifts to more traditional questions about my condition. “Are you sleepy all the time? Are you sick to your stomach? I remember …” She shakes her head as if ridding herself of those memories. “They always say that life is extended only by having children.” She reaches over and touches my jade bracelet. “Think how happy Mama and Baba would have been.” May suddenly grins, and our sad feelings melt. “Do you know what this means? You and Sam have to buy a house.”

“A house?”

“You’ve been saving all these years.”

“Yes, for Joy to go to college.”

My sister brushes away that worry with a wave of her hand. “You have plenty of time to save for that. Besides, Father Louie will help you with the house.”

“I don’t see why. We have an arrangement—”

“But he’s changed. And this is for his grandson!”

“Maybe, but even if he does decide to help us, I wouldn’t want to be separated from you. You’re my sister and my closest friend.”

May gives me a reassuring smile. “You’re not going to lose me. You couldn’t even if you tried. I have my own car now. Wherever you move, I’ll come and visit.”

“But it won’t be the same.”

“Sure it will. Besides, you’ll come to China City every day to work. Yen-yen will want to take care of her grandson. I’ll need to see my nephew too.” She takes my hands. “Pearl, buying a house is the right thing to do. You and Sam deserve this.”

SAM IS BEYOND
thrilled. He may have once told me he didn’t care if he had a son, but he’s a man, and, for all his words, he’s needed and wanted a son very badly. Joy hops up and down with excitement. Yen-yen weeps, but my age concerns her. Father Louie, wanting to behave as a patriarch should, tries to capture his emotions in his clenched fists, but he can’t stop beaming. Vern stands by me, a kind but small protector. I don’t know if my posture is taller and straighter because I’m happy or if Vern is just shy around me, but he seems shorter and thicker—as though his spine is collapsing and his chest broadening. He should have grown out of the slouch of his teen years by now, but I often notice that he will lean over and put his hands on his thighs as though propping himself up from fatigue or boredom.

On Sunday the uncles come for dinner to celebrate. Our family—like so many in Chinatown—is growing. The Chinese population in Los Angeles has more than doubled since we first arrived. This isn’t because the Exclusion Act was overturned. We thought that was going to be wonderful when it happened, but only 105 Chinese a year are allowed to enter the country under the new quota. As always, people find ways to get around the law. Uncle Fred brought in his wife under the War Brides Act. Mariko’s a pretty girl, quiet, and Japanese, but we don’t hold it against her. (The war is over and she’s part of our family now, so what else can we do?) Other men have brought in wives through other acts, and when you have men and women together, you’re going to get children. Mariko had two babies one right after the other. We love Eleanor and Bess, even though they’re half-and-half, even though we don’t see them as much as we’d like. Fred and Mariko don’t live in Chinatown. They took advantage of the G.I. Bill to buy a house in Silver Lake, not far from downtown.

The men wear sleeveless undershirts and drink bottles of beer. Yen-yen—in loose black trousers, a black cotton jacket, and a really fine jade necklace—dotes on Joy and Mariko’s daughters. May swishes through the main room in a full-skirted American-style dress of polished cotton belted at the waist. Father Louie snaps his fingers, and we sit down to eat. My family use their chopsticks to snap up the best morsels to drop in my bowl. Everyone has advice. And surprisingly, everyone agrees that we should look for a house in which to raise the Louie grandson. And May was right. Father not only volunteers to help but says he’ll match us dollar for dollar as long as his name’s on the title too.

“Married people are starting to live away from their in-laws,” he says. “It will look strange if you don’t have your own home.” (Because after ten years he’s no longer afraid we’ll run away. We’re his true family now, just as he and Yen-yen are ours.)

“This apartment—too much bad air,” Yen-yen says. “The boy will need a place to play outside, not in an alley.” (Which had been fine for Joy.)

“I hope there’s room for a pony,” Joy says. (She isn’t getting a pony, no matter how much she wants to be a cowgirl.)

“With the war over, everything’s changed,” chimes in Uncle Wilburt, for once wholly optimistic. “You can go to the Bimini Pool to swim. You can sit wherever you want at the movie show. You could even marry a
lo fan
if you wanted to.”

“But who’d want to?” Uncle Charley asks. (So many laws have changed, but that doesn’t mean attitudes—Oriental or Occidental—have changed with them.)

Joy reaches her chopsticks across the table, looking for a piece of pork. Her grandmother smacks her hand. “Only take food from the dish directly in front of you!” Joy’s hand retreats, but Sam dips his chopsticks into the pork dish and fills his daughter’s bowl. He’s a man—soon to be the father of a precious grandson—and Yen-yen won’t correct his manners, but later she’ll give Joy a talking-to about being virtuous, graceful, courteous, polite, and obedient, which means, among other things, learning to sew and embroider, take care of the house, and use her chopsticks properly. All this from a woman who barely knows these things herself.

“So many doors have opened,” Uncle Fred says. He came back from the war with a box full of medals. His English, which had been pretty good to begin with, improved in the service, but he still speaks Sze Yup with us. We thought he’d return to China City and the Golden Dragon Café to work, but no. “Look at me. The government is helping me with my college tuition and housing.” He raises his beer. “Thank you, Uncle Sam, for helping me become a dentist!” He takes a swig, then adds, “The Supreme Court says we can live wherever we want. So where do you want to live?”

Sam runs a hand through his hair and then scratches the back of his neck. “Wherever they’ll accept us. If they don’t want us, I don’t want to live there.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Uncle Fred says. “The
lo fan
are more open to us now. A lot of guys were in the service. They met and fought with people who looked like us. You’ll be welcome wherever you go.”

Later that night, after everyone goes home and Joy has been tucked into her permanent sleeping place on the couch in the main room, Sam and I talk more about the baby and a possible move.

“With our own place, we could do what we want,” Sam says in Sze Yup. Then he adds in English, “In privacy.” No single word in Chinese conveys the concept of privacy, but we love the idea of it. “And all wives want to be away from their mothers-in-law.”