We shared the apartment with my brother-in-law Francis, who took the sofa while Philip and I shared the bed. Usually I could charm most strangers, but Francis took one glance at my cropped hair and slippery eyes and decided he didn’t approve of me. It certainly didn’t help that I shut myself in the bathroom whenever he practiced his guitar.
“Helen doesn’t like music,” I overheard Philip explain for me.
“I didn’t take you for a cuckold, dai gor.” Francis sniffed. “A woman like her doesn’t marry a man like you. She’s hiding something.”
It was a moment I appreciated Philip, who stood up for me and said, “Or maybe your twanging gives her a headache.”
I was sorry Francis didn’t like me, because I came to be fond of him. He punctuated his questions with a laugh, he foldedhis own laundry and kept his cupboards neat, and he was an excellent cook. His ngau lam singlehandedly saved me that winter, warming my bones from the vicious cold. It was a classic Hong Kong dish—tender disks of daikon radish that the brothers had grown themselves in the yard, an aromatic smattering of herbs, a dash of rice wine, and juicy chunks of beef flank cooked for hours. I craved it to the point that whenever I woke to the sound of Francis chopping in the kitchen, I prayed he was making ngau lam. For the life of me, I didn’t understand why we didn’t serve it at Fortune’s Palace.
Our restaurant was a quick four-minute drive away. Francis was the Chinese cook, while Philip catered to American tastes. Most of our business came from the workers from a nearby steel parts factory. In the mornings Philip and I woke at five to prepare brown bag lunches. We baked fresh bread and assembled chicken, ham, and tuna sandwiches, twenty-five cents each. We sold two hundred a day, and the profits were good. Then in the evening, Francis drowned innocent white rice in soy sauce and prepared a buffet of gloopy atrocities that he dared call Chinese American food.
Sweet-and-sour pork was our bestseller. Nuggets of battered pork, fried until they glistened, smothered under a tangy tomato-based sauce—I’d eaten that back in Hong Kong. Here in America, though, the sauce was far more sweet than sour, brighter than a tangerine, and cooked with canned pineapples.Cannedpineapples! Americans had a sweeter palate, Philip explained. They actually preferred the syrupy preserved fruit to fresh.
I stayed out of the kitchen. I could cook well, but that was in Gu Ma’s house unhindered by orders and waiting customers. Here I was too slow to be of much help, and my English wasn’t good enough to take orders. All the same, Chinese women wererare in those days, young and pretty ones even rarer. Francis liked keeping me in the front of the house.
“Smile at the customers, give them their menus, and keep their water glasses filled,” he instructed. He looked me up and down. “I’ll have Philip buy you a nicer dress.”
Philip and Francis knew what they were doing, because most nights, we had a line of locals waiting for a table. Customers enjoyed being waited on by a beautiful woman; only a few minded that my English was poor. Soon the brothers were talking about opening a second Fortune’s Palace near the new Ford factory. One they could own themselves.
Which was when I learned that they had a third business partner.
Sam Bou held the majority stake in Fortune’s Palace but only showed up once a month to empty money from the till. When I met him, he licked his lips and said, “Ah Philip, heaven smiles on you for securing such a pretty wife. Next time you go to Hong Kong, bring one back for me too, eh?”
He tucked a dollar behind my ear as if I were a streetwalker. A wedding present, he called it. I didn’t like Sam Bou.
Philip’s friends weren’t so bad. Most worked nearby: One owned a laundromat and two worked as busboys in River Market. “Sister Helen” they’d call me.
I piled their bowls with extra noodles and listened to their stories about why they were here. “You were in Guangdong during the war?” they’d say to me. “You know hunger, then. No matter how poor you are in America, at least there’s rice in your bowl. Life will be better here, just be patient.”
Those early weeks, I was naïve. I thought the hardships his friends were talking about pertained to weather. Before we were married, Philip had warned me about winters in Kansas City. I’d laughed, saying that my ancestors were from the North—I wasn’t afraid of cold.
Big, empty words. In December the whole world turned white, snow stitching together heaven and earth, bleaching away all color and life. I put on every layer of clothing I owned, cursing America with every breath. I hated it here. No place had ever made me so cold, so lonely. So miserable.
I complained to Sui Chan in my letters, but the post between Kansas City and Hong Kong was slow. It took months for a reply.
I won’t lie, there were nights that I stared at the ceiling, wishing I’d stayed in Hong Kong. Some days I hated Philip, I hated the restaurant, hated this town full of people who didn’t look like me and the scowls I got when people found out I didn’t speak English—and I locked myself in the bathroom. There I held my breath, welcoming the icy pinpricks that washed over my skin.
It was like drowning. The longer I held my breath, the deeper I sank. The world that I knew washed away, blurring into a dark and empty dream.
Only when a customer knocked, calling, “Hey, are you finished in there?” would I snap back into my body. I’d ignore the lingering sting of cold and smile as if nothing had happened.
One Monday Philip and I came to Fortune’s Palace to find the window broken, our porcelain statue of Guan Yu on the altar smashed, and the cash taken from the till. On the wall was a message in red marker.
“What does it say?”
Philip gave me a tired look. He didn’t talk much, but I’d gotten to know the clockwork of his face. From the way his nostrils twitched, I knew he didn’t want to answer.
“It’s telling us to go home,” he replied at last. “To go back to China.”
He took a broom and swept the altar’s shattered pieces into a dustpan. Before I could see if the Guan Yu statue was salvageable, he poured it into the bin.
“Has this happened before?” I asked.
Philip’s mouth set into a thin grim line. “It’s just a bunch of teenagers. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”
I nodded even though that wasn’t what I’d asked. There were nights Philip came home dejected, refusing to tell me why. Now I was beginning to understand, and it softened me toward my husband. I meant to reach out and say something comforting, but I didn’t know what. So I took a wet rag and started wiping the wall clean.
The thief’s words didn’t upset me. Iwantedto go home. But I didn’t know where home was.
