They had a house in the Victoria Peak area. It was smaller than the others nearby, more like a cottage, with a twisty narrow path and green ferns that led to the front door. The two old English ladies lived on top, and I lived in a room on the basement floor of the cottage.
Because Miss Patsy had always lived in Hong Kong, she could speak Cantonese just like the local people. It was a special dialect. When I first went to live there, she spoke to me in the local talk, which I could not understand except for the words that sounded a little like Mandarin. Later she mixed in a bit of English, some of which I knew from living at the orphanage school. But Miss Patsy spoke English like a British person, and at first it was very hard for me to understand.
Lady Inas words were also hard to understand. The sounds spilled out as soft and lumpy as the porridge she ate every day. She was so old she was like a baby. She made messes in her panties, both kinds, stinky and wet. I know, because I had to clean her. Miss Patsy would say to me, "Lady Ina needs to wash her hands." And then I would lift Lady Ina from the sofa or bed or dining room chair. Lucky for me she was tiny like a child. She also had a temper like one. She would shout, "No, no, no, no, no," as I walked her to the bathroom, inch by inch, so slow we were like two turtles glued at the shells. She kept shouting this while I washed her, "No, no, no, no, no," because she did not like any water to touch her body and especially not her head. Three or four times a day, I changed and cleaned her and her panties, her other clothes, too. Miss Patsy did not want her mummy to wear diapers because that would be a big insult. So I had to wash, wash, wash, so many clothes, every day. At least Miss Patsy was a nice lady, very polite. If Lady Ina threw her temper, Miss Patsy had to say only three words in a happy voice, "Visitors are here!" and Lady Ina suddenly stopped what she was doing. She would sit down, her crooked back now very straight, her hands folded in her lap. That was how she had been taught from the time she was a young girl. In front of visitors, she had to be a lady, even if it was just pretend.
I nearly jumped off the boat I was so scared. It was as if I were seeing what would happen to me. "Give me some money," he said.
After I had lived a month in Hong Kong, I received a letter from Gao-Ling:
"I was so angry to hear that Fu Nan has been bothering you," she wrote. "That turtle spawn will stop at nothing to satisfy himself. The only way to get rid of him for a few days is to give him money for his opium. But soon this will no longer be a problem for you. Happy news has ar rived! I have found another way you can come. Do you remember the brothers I told you about—one is studying to be a dentist, the other a doctor? Their family name is Young and the father said a person like you can come if a person like him sponsors you as a Famous Visiting Artist. This is like a tourist with special visiting privileges. The family is very kind to do this, since I am not yet related to them. Of course, I cannot ask them to pay your way. But they have already completed the application and supplied the documents. The next step is for me to earn more money so we can buy the boat passage. In the meantime, you must prepare yourself to leave at any moment. Obtain the boat schedules, have a doctors examination for parasites. . . ."
"I already know she doesnt want you to come. She went to America to run away from you."
The next day, I gathered my things and went to the train station to return to Peking. I put down my remaining money at the ticket booth. "The fare is higher now, miss," said the ticket man. How could this be? "Money is worth less now," he told me, "everything costs more." I then asked for a lower-class ticket. Thats the lowest, he said, and pointed to a wall with fares written on a blackboard.
I did not answer GaoLing at once. I had to go to the bird market that afternoon. Miss Patsy said that Cuckoo needed a new cage. So I went down the hill and crossed over the harbor in the ferry to the Kowloon side. Every day it was becoming more crowded there as people came in from China. "The civil war is growing worse," Sister Yu had written me, "with battles as fierce as those during the war with Japan. Even if you had enough money to return to Peking right now, you should not. The Nationalists would say you are a Communist because Kai Jing is now called one of their martyrs, and the Communists would say you are a Nationalist because you lived in an American orphanage. And whichever is worse changes with each town you pass through."
I stared at that terrible man. What was he saying? What would he really do? I hurried away, weaving in and out of the busy crowds, until I was certain I had lost him. At the bird market, I watched from the corner of my eye. I did not spend too much time bargaining, and when I had bought the cage, I quickly made my way back to the Hong Kong side, holding on tight to my documents that showed where I lived. What would Fu Nan do? Would he really tell the authorities? How smart was he? Which authorities would he tell?
I stirred the question in my head. What was the danger in answering him one way or another? "Gone," I finally told him, and I was glad to be able to say these words: "Gone to America."
"Another way is for me to be a citizen first so I can sponsor you as my sister. You will have to claim that Mother and Father are your real mother and father, since I cannot sponsor a cousin. But as a relative, you would be in a different line, ahead of ordinary refugees. For me to become a citizen, however, means I have to learn English first and get a good job. I promise you I am studying very hard, in case this is the means I have to turn to.
When I read this, I no longer had the worry of how to get back to Peking. I exchanged that for a worry over Sister Yu and Teacher Pan and his new wife. They, too, could be counted as enemies on either side. As I walked toward the bird market, these were the only thoughts I had. And then I felt a cold breeze run down my back, though it was a warm day. Like a ghost is right behind me, I thought. I kept walking, turning one corner, then another, and this feeling that someone was following me grew stronger. Suddenly I stopped and turned around, and a man said to me, "So it really is you."
There was Fu Nan. One of his eyes was missing.
I made a plan. I would find a cheaper place to live—yes, even cheaper than the stinky-fish house—and find a job. I would save my money for a few months, and if the visa still had not come through, I would return to Peking. There at least I could get a job at another orphanage school. I could wait there in comfort and companionship. If GaoLing got me the visa, fine, I would make my way back to Hong Kong. If she did not, fine, I would stay and be a teacher.
I read the long list she provided, and was surprised at how smart she truly was. She knew so much, and I felt like a child now being guided by a worried mother. I was so happy I let tears fall right there as I rode the ferry home. And because I was on the ferry, I did not think to be afraid when I felt a breeze. To me it was a comfort. But then I looked up.
For the next few weeks he popped up like that, every time I left the house. I could not call the police. What could I say? "My brother-in-law who is not really my brother-in-law is following me, asking me for money and the address of my sister who is not my true sister"? And then one day when I stepped outside to go to the market, he was not there. The entire time I was out, I expected I would see him, and I was prepared to be miserable. Nothing. When I returned home, I was puzzled and felt a strange relief. Perhaps he died, I allowed myself to hope. For the next week, I saw no sign of him. I felt no sudden cold breeze. Could it be that my luck had changed? When I opened the next letter from GaoLing, I was convinced this was true.
"Give me some money," he said. "You can do this for your brother-in-law, cant you? Or arent you really my wifes sister?"
"America?" He looked astonished at first, and then he smiled. "I knew that. I just wanted to see if you would tell me the truth."
"I feel a great burden of guilt and responsibility."
Again I went to the railway station. Again I found out that the money value had gone down, down and the price of the ticket had gone up and up, to twice as much as before. I was like a little insect scurrying up a wall with the water rising faster.
"In his last letter, Father said he almost died of anger when he learned that Fu Nan lost the ink business in Peking. He said Fu Nan has returned to Immortal Heart and is lying around useless, but the Chang father is not being critical, saying Fu Nan is a big war hero, lost two fingers, saved lives. You know what I was thinking when I read that. Most terrible of all, our family still has to supply the inksticks and ink cakes, and we receive none of the profit, only a lesser debt. Everyone has had to take on various home businesses, weaving baskets, mending, doing menial labor that makes Mother complain that we have fallen as low as the tenants. She asks me to hurry and become rich, so I can pull her out of the bowels of hell.
I began to walk away and he grabbed me. "You help me, I help you," he said. "Give me her address, thats all I want. If she doesnt want me to come, thats that, and you can be next in line. I wont tell the Liu family."
Now I was stuck. I wondered if I should write to Teacher Pan or perhaps Sister Yu. But then I thought, Oh, to give so much trouble to someone. No, you fix this problem yourself. I would pawn my valuables. But when I looked at them, I saw that these were treasures only to me: a notebook of Kai Jings, the jacket GaoLing gave me before I went to the orphanage, the pages of Precious Aunties and her photograph.
"Then you arent hiding the fact that you are trying to go to America, too?"
"Give me her address, or Ill go to the authorities and tell them you arent really sisters. Then youll lose your chance to go to America as well, same as me."
In that house, there was also a parrot, a big gray bird named Cuckoo—Cuckoo like the clock bird. At first I thought Miss Patsy was calling him ku-ku, like the Chinese word for crying, which is what he sometimes did, ku! ku! ku! as if he were wounded to near-death. And sometimes he laughed like a crazy woman, long and loud. He could copy any kind of sound—man, woman, monkey, baby. One day I heard a teakettle whistle. I went running, and the teakettle was Cuckoo rocking on his branch, stretching his neck, so delighted that he had fooled me. Another time I heard a Chinese girl cry, "Baba! Baba! Dont beat me! Please dont beat me!" and then she screamed and screamed, until I thought my skin would peel off.
There stood Fu Nan, GaoLings husband, and now he was missing not only two fingers but his entire left hand. His face had a bad color, and his eyes were yellow and red. "Wheres my wife?" he asked.
Miss Patsy was the daughter, seventy years old, born in Hong Kong. Her mother must have been at least ninety, and her name was Lady Ina. Her husband had been a big success in shipping goods from India to China to England. Sir Flowers was how Miss Patsy called him in memory, even though he was her father. If you ask me, the Flowers part of their name stood for the flowers that made opium. That was what the shipping business was a long time ago between India and Hong Kong, and that was how lots of Chinese people found the habit.
The next day, I left the house to post the letter. As soon as I stepped into the street, I felt the sudden chill again. I stuffed the letter in my blouse. Around the next corner, there he was, waiting for me.
And there was also the oracle bone.
Miss Patsy said, "Cuckoo was already bad when Sir Flowers bought him for my tenth birthday. And for sixty years, he has learned only what he wants, like so many men." Miss Patsy loved that parrot like a son, but Lady Ina always called him the devil. Whenever she heard that bird laugh she would waddle to his cage, shake her finger, and say something like, "Ooh shh-duh, you shut up." Sometimes she would raise her finger, but before any sounds could come out of her mouth, the bird would say, "Ooh shh-duh," exactly like Lady Ina. Then Lady Ina would get confused. Wah! Had she already spoken? I could see these thoughts on her face, her head twisting this way, then that, as if two sides of her mind were having a fight. Sometimes she would go all the way to the end of the room, inch by inch, then turn around and walk back, inch by inch, raise her finger, and say, "Ooh shh-duh!" And then the bird would say the same. Back and forth they went: "You shut up! You shut up!" One day Lady Ina went up to the bird, and before she could say anything, Cuckoo said in Miss Patsys singsong happy voice, "Visitors are here!" Right away, Lady Ina went to a nearby chair, sat down, took out a lacy handkerchief from her sleeve, crossed her hands in her lap, closed her lips, and waited, her blue eyes turned toward the door.
For the next two years or so, I thought my situation would never change. Every month, I went to the train station, only to find the fares had gone up again. Every month, I received a letter from GaoLing. She told me of her new life in San Francisco, how hard it was to be a burden on strangers. The church that sponsored her had found her a room with an old grandmother named Mrs. Wu who spoke Mandarin. "She is very rich but acts very cheap," GaoLing wrote. "She saves everything that she thinks is too good to eat right away—fruit, chocolates, cashews. So she puts them on top of her refrigerator, and when they are finally too rotten to eat, thats when she puts them in her mouth and says, Why does everyone say this tastes so good? Whats so good about it?" This was GaoLings way of telling me how hard her life was.
"One way is for you to apply as a refugee. The quota for Chinese, however, is very low, and the number who want to get in is beyond count. To be honest, your chances are like a leak moving against a flood.
I left that store, angry and insulted. But my heart was going poom-poom-poom, because now I knew that what was in my hand was worth a lot of money. Yet how could I sell it? It had belonged to my mother, my grandfather. It was my connection to them. How could I hand it over to a stranger so I could abandon my homeland, the graves of my ancestors? The more I thought these things, the stronger I became. Kai Jing had been right. This was my character.
"There is a third way: I can marry a citizen and then become a citizen faster. Of course, it is inconvenient that I am already married to Chang Fu Nan, but I think no one needs to know this. On my visa papers, I did not mention it. Also, you should know that when I applied for the visa, the visa man asked for documents as proof of my birth, and I said, Who has documents for such things? He said, Oh, were they burned during the war like everyone elses? I thought that was the correct answer, so I agreed this was true. When you prepare your visa papers, you must say the same thing. Also make yourself five years younger, born 1921. I already did, born 1922, but in the same month as the old birthday. This will give you extra time to catch up.
When I finished reading GaoLings letter, I felt as if an ax were chopping my neck when I was already dead. I had waited in Hong Kong for nothing. I could wait a year, ten years, or the rest of my life, in this crowded city among desperate people with stories sadder than mine. I knew no one and I was lonely for my friends. There was no America for me. I had lost my chance.
That day, I moved to a cheaper place to live, a room I shared with two women, one snoring, one sick. We took turns sleeping on the cot, the snoring girl in the morning, me in the afternoon, the sick one after me. Whichever two were not sleeping wandered outside, looking for take-home work: mending shoes, hemming scarves, weaving baskets, embroidering collars, painting bowls, anything to make a dollar. Thats how I lived for a month. And when the sick girl didnt stop coughing, I moved away. "Lucky you didnt get TB like the other girl did," a melon vendor later told me. "Now theyre both coughing blood." And I thought: TB! I had pretended to have this same sickness to escape from the Japanese. And would I now escape from getting sick?
That night, I wrote GaoLing a letter, telling her of Fu Nans threats. "Only you know how tricky he is," I said. "He might also tell the authorities you are already married, and then youll be in trouble, especially if you marry an American."
And there were also those who made money from peoples despair. I went to many blind seers, the wenmipo who claimed they were ghost writers. "I have a message from a baby," they called. "A message from a son." "A husband." "An ancestor who is angry." I sat down with one and she told me, "Your Precious Auntie has already been reincarnated. Go three blocks east, then three blocks north. A beggar girl will cry out to you, Auntie, have pity, give me hope. Then you will know it is she. Give her a coin and the curse will be ended." I did exactly as she said. And on that exact block, a girl said those exact words. I was so overjoyed. Then another girl said those words, another and another, ten, twenty, thirty little girls, all without hope. I gave them coins, just in case. And for each of them, I felt pity. The next day, I saw another blind lady who could talk to ghosts. She also told me where to find Precious Auntie. Go here, go there. The next day was the same. I was using up my savings, but I didnt think it mattered. Soon, any day now, I would leave for America.
As for connections, I had only GaoLing, now that Miss Grutoff was dead. And GaoLing was of no use. She did not know how to be resourceful. If I had been the one to go first to America, I would have used my strength, my character, to find a way to get a visa within a few weeks at the most. Then I wouldnt be facing the troubles I had simply because GaoLing didnt know what to do. That was the problem: GaoLing was strong, but not always in the right ways. She had forever been Mothers favorite, spoiled by pampering. And all those years in the orphanage, she had forever lived the easy life. I had helped her so much, as had Sister Yu, that she never had to think for herself. If the river turned downstream, she would never think to swim upstream. She knew how to get her way, but only if others helped her.
The next day, I sold the oracle bone to the second shop I had gone to all those months ago. With my savings as a maid, I had enough money to buy a ticket in steerage. I got the boat schedules and sent GaoLing a telegram. Every few days, I gave Fu Nan money for his habit, enough to put him into dreams. And then finally the visa was approved. I was a Famous Visiting Artist.
I unwrapped it from its soft cloth and looked at the characters scratched on one side. Unknown words, what should have been remembered. At one time, an oracle bone was worth twice as much as a dragon bone. I took my treasure to three shops. The first belonged to a bone-setter. He said the bone was no longer used as medicine, but as a strange curiosity it was worth a little money. He then offered me a price that surprised me, for it was almost enough to buy a second-class ticket to Peking. The next shop sold jewelry and curios. That shopkeeper took out a magnifying glass. He examined the oracle bone very carefully, turning it several times. He said it was genuine, but not a good example of an oracle bone. He offered me the price of a first-class ticket to Peking. The third place was an antique shop for tourists. Like the jeweler, this man examined the oracle bone with a special glass. He called another man over to take a look. Then he asked me many questions. "Where did you find this? . . . What? How did a girl like you find such a treasure? . . . Oh, you are the granddaughter of a bonesetter? How long have you been in Hong Kong? . . . Ah, waiting to go to America? Did someone else leave for America without this? Did you take it from him? There are plenty of thieves in Hong Kong these days. Are you one? Miss, you come back, come back, or Ill call the police."
"The entire Liu family. Theyre panting like dogs for an opportunity to follow their daughter. Why should you go first, they say, when you arent even really her sister? Only true relatives can be sponsored, not bastards." He gave me a smile of false apology, then added: "Husbands, of course, should be number one."
"Who says that?"
I was clever, of course, and if I had been greedy, I would have sold the oracle bone. But I decided onceagain I could not do that. I was not that poor in body and respect for my family.
That night, I put Precious Aunties picture on a low table and lighted some incense. I asked her forgiveness and that of her father. I said that the gift she had given me would now buy me my freedom and that I hoped she would not be angry with me for this, as well.
This time I needed a better plan to change my situation, my siqing. In English and in Chinese, the words sound almost the same. On every street corner, you could hear people from everywhere talking about this: "My situation is this. This is how I can improve my situation." I realized that in Hong Kong, I had come to a place where everyone believed he could change his situation, his fate, no more staying stuck with your circumstances. And there were many ways to change. You could be clever, you could be greedy, you could have connections.
The British and other foreigners lived on the Hong Kong Island side. But in Kowloon Walled City, it was almost all Chinese, rich and raggedy, poor and powerful, everyone different, but we all had this in common: We had been strong, we had been weak, we had been desperate enough to leave behind our motherland and families.
I sailed for America, a land without curses or ghosts. By the time I landed, I was five years younger. Yet I felt so old.
"My Own True Sister, Forgive me for not writing you sooner. Teacher Pan sent your address to me, but I did not receive it right away, because I was moving from one church ladys house to another. Im also sorry to tell you that Miss Grutoff died a week after we arrived. Right before she flew to heaven, she said she made a mistake coming back to America. She wanted to return to China so her bones could rest there, next to Miss Towlers. I was glad to know how much she loved China, and sorry because it was too late to send her back. I went to her funeral, but not too many people knew her. I was the only one who cried, and I said to myself, She was a great lady.
Next I lived with a Shanghai lady who had been very, very rich but was no longer. We shared a hot little room above a place where we worked boiling laundry, dipping the clothes and plucking them out with long sticks. If she got splashed she yelled at me, even if it was not my fault. Her husband had been a top officer with the Kuomintang. A girl in the laundry told me he had beenjailed for collaborating with the Japanese during the war. "So why does she act so uppity," the girl said, "when everyone looks down on her?" The uppity lady made a rule that I could not make any sounds at night—not a cough or a sneeze or a burst of gas. I had to walk softly, pretend my shoes were made of clouds. Often she would cry, then wail to the Goddess of Mercy what a terrible punishment it was that she had to be with such a person, meaning me. I told myself, Wait and see, maybe your opinion of her will change, as it did with Sister Yu. But it did not.
"Mother and Father have already written to ask me to send them my extra money. I have had to write back and say I have none. If I do in the future, of course, I will send some to you. I feel so guilty that you insisted I come first and I gave in to your demands. Now it is you who are stuck, not knowing what to do. Dont mistake my meaning. Life here is not so easy. And making money is not like we imagined. All those stories of instant riches, dont believe them. As for dancing, that is only in the movies. Most of the day, I clean houses. I am paid twenty-five cents. That may sound like a lot, but it costs that much to eat dinner. So it is hard to save money. For you, of course, I am willing to starve.
By the next morning, I had devised a new plan. I took my little bit of money and bought the white smock and trousers of a majie. British people were crazy for that kind of maid—pious, refined, and clean. That was how I found a job with an English lady and her ancient mum. Their last name was Flowers.
So thats how I learned to speak English. To my way of thinking, if a bird could speak good English, I could, too. I had to pronounce the words exactly right, otherwise Lady Ina would not follow my directions. And because Miss Patsy talked to her mother in simple words, it was easy for me to learn other new things to say: Stand up, Sit down, Lunch is served, Time for tea, Horrid weather, isnt it.
Each night when I returned to the rooming house in Hong Kong, I lay on a cot with wet towels over my chest. The walls were sweating because I couldnt open the windows for fresh air. The building was on a fishy street on the Kowloon side. This was not the part where the fish were sold. There it smelled of the morning sea, salty and sharp. I was living in Kowloon Walled City, along the low point in a wide gutter, where the scales and blood and guts gathered, swept there by the fishmongers buckets of water at night. When I breathed the air, it was the vapors of death, a choking sour stink that reached like fingers into my stomach and pulled my insides out. Forever in my nose, that is the fragrance of Fragrant Harbor.
When I read that letter, I had just finished cleaning up Lady Inas bottom twice in one hour. I wanted to reach across the ocean and shake GaoLing by the shoulders and shout, "Marry the one who takes you the fastest. How can you ask which one, when I am wondering how I can live from day to day?"
One month, though, I received a letter from GaoLing that did not start with her complaints. "Good news," she wrote. "I have met two bachelors and I think I should marry one of them. They are both American citizens, born in this country. According to my passport with the new birth year, one is a year older than I am, the other is three years older. So you know what that means. The older one is studying to be a doctor, the younger a dentist. The older is more serious, very smart. The younger is more handsome, full of jokes. It is very hard for me to decide which one I should put all my attentions on. What do you think?"
"I have nothing to hide."
After that awful woman, I was glad to move in with an old lady who was deaf. For extra money, I helped her boil and shell peanuts all night long. In the morning, we sold the peanuts to people who would eat them with their breakfast rice porridge. During the heat of the afternoon, we slept. This was a comfortable life: peanuts and sleep. But one day a couple arrived, claiming to be relatives of the deaf ladys: "Here we are, take us in." She didnt know who they were, so they traced a zigzag relationship, and sure enough, she had to admit, maybe they were related: Before I left, I counted my money and saw I had enough for the train ticket to Peking at the lowest, lowest price.
"My other news is not so good, either. I learned I cannot sponsor you, not yet. The truth is, I almost was not able to stay myself. Why we thought it would be so easy, I dont know. I see now we were foolish. We should have askedmany more questions. But now I have asked the questions, and I know of several ways for you to come later. How much later depends.
