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“Seven years!” he shouts as he whacks his cleaver through a piece of meat. “It’s been only seven years since the Exclusion Act was overturned. Now the lo fan government has passed a new law so they can lock up Communists if there’s a national emergency. Anyone who has ever said one single word against Chiang Kai-shek is suspected of being a Communist.” He waves his cleaver at us. “And you don’t even have to say anything bad. All you have to be is a Chinese living in this pit of a country! You know what that means? Every single one of you is a suspect!”
Joy and Hazel have stopped chatting and stare at the butcher with wide eyes. All a mother wants to do is protect her children, but I can’t shield Joy from everything. When we walk together, I can’t always distract her from the newspaper headlines that shout out at us in English and Chinese. I can ask the uncles not to talk about the war when they come for Sunday dinner, but the news is everywhere, and so is gossip.
Joy is too young to understand that, with the suspension of habeas corpus rights, anyone—including her father and mother—can be detained and held indefinitely. We don’t know what will make a national emergency either, but the internment of the Japanese is still very much in our minds. Recently, when the government asked our local organizations—from the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association to the China Youth Club—to hand over their membership rosters within twenty-four hours, a lot of our neighbors panicked, knowing their names would show up on the list of at least one of the forty groups targeted. Then we read in the Chinese newspaper that the FBI had bugged the headquarters of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance and had decided to investigate all subscribers to the China Daily News. I’ve been grateful ever since that Father Louie subscribes to Chung Sai Yat Po, the pro-Kuomintang, pro-Christian, pro-assimilation newspaper, and buys only the occasional copy of the China Daily.
I don’t know where the butcher will go next in his rant, but I don’t want the girls listening to it. I’m just about to take them out of there when the butcher calms down enough for me to place my order. As he wraps the char siu in pink paper, he confides to me in a more temperate tone, “It’s not so bad here in Los Angeles, Mrs. Louie. But I had a cousin up in San Francisco who committed suicide rather than face arrest. He hadn’t done anything wrong. I’ve heard of others who’ve been sent to jail and are now awaiting deportation.”
“We’ve all heard these stories,” I say. “But what can we do?”
He hands me the pork. “I’ve been afraid for so long, and I’m tired of it. I’m just plain tired of it. And frustrated …”
As his voice begins to grow in intensity again, I lead the girls out of the shop. They’re silent for the rest of the short walk to Pearl’s. Once we get insid
e, the three of us go straight to the kitchen. May, who’s in her office talking on the phone, smiles and waves. Sam’s mixing the batter for the sweet-and-sour pork that’s so popular with our customers. I can’t help noticing that he’s using a smaller bowl than he did a year ago, when we opened. This new war has caused much of our clientele to stay away; some businesses in Chinatown have closed completely. While outside of Chinatown, there’s so much fear about Chinese in China that many Chinese Americans have lost their jobs or can’t get hired.
We may not be getting as many customers as we used to, but we don’t have it as rough as some people. At home we’ve been economizing, making our meals stretch by eating more rice and less meat. We also have May, who still runs her rental business, works as an agent, and appears in the occasional film or television show herself. Any minute now the studios are going to start making films about the threat of Communism. Once that happens, May will be very busy. The money she’ll make will go into the family pot, to be shared by all of us.
I hand Sam the char siu, and then I put together a tray for the girls that combines Chinese and Western sensibilities about what a snack should be: some peanuts, a few orange wedges, four almond cookies, and two glasses of whole milk. The girls drop their books on the worktable. Hazel sits down and folds her hands in her lap to wait, while Joy goes over to the radio we keep in the kitchen to amuse the staff and turns it on.
I flick my wrist at her. “No radio this afternoon.”
“But, Mom—”
“I don’t want to argue. You and Hazel need to do your homework.”
“But why?”
Because I don’t want you hearing any more bad news is what I think but don’t say. I hate lying to my daughter, but these last few months I’ve come up with excuse after excuse for why I don’t want her listening to the radio: I have a migraine or her father is in a bad mood. I’ve even tried a sharp “Because I said so,” which seems to work, but I can’t use it every day. Since Hazel is here, I try something new:
“What would Hazel’s mother think if I let you girls listen to the radio? We want you girls to get straight As. I don’t want to tell Mrs. Yee that I let her down.”
“But you always let us listen before.” When I shake my head, Joy turns to her father for help. “Dad?”
Sam doesn’t bother to look up. “Just do what your mother says.”
Joy turns the radio off, goes to the table, and plops down next to Hazel. Joy’s an obedient child, and I’m grateful for that, because these last four months have been difficult. I’m a lot more modern than many of the mothers in Chinatown but not nearly as modern as Joy would like me to be. I’ve told her that pretty soon she’ll be getting a visit from the little red sister and what that means in terms of boys, but I can’t find a way to talk to her about this new war.
May sweeps into the kitchen. She kisses Joy, gives Hazel a pat, and sits down across from them.
“How are my favorite girls?” she asks.
“We’re fine, Auntie May,” Joy answers glumly.
“That doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. Cheer up. It’s Saturday. You’re done with Chinese school and you have the rest of the weekend free. What would you like to do? Can I take the two of you to a movie?”
“Can we go, Mom?” Joy asks eagerly.
Hazel, who anyone can see would love to spend the afternoon at the movies, says, “I can’t go. I have homework for regular school.”
“And so does Joy,” I add.
May defers to me without hesitation. “Then the girls had better finish it.”
Since my baby died, my sister and I have been very close. As Mama might have said, we’re like long vines with entwined roots. When I’m down, May’s up. When I’m up, she’s down. When I gain weight, she loses weight. When I lose weight, she still stays perfect. We don’t necessarily share the same emotions or ways of looking at the world, but I can love her just as she is. My resentments are gone—at least until the next time she hurts my feelings or I do something that irritates or frustrates her so much that she pulls away from me.
“I can help, if you want,” May says to the girls. “If we get it done quickly, then maybe we could go out for ice cream.”
Joy looks at me, her eyes bright and questioning.
