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“You can go if you finish your homework.”
May puts her elbows on the table. “So what do you have? Math? I’m pretty good at that.”
Joy answers, “We have to present a current event to the class—”
“About the war,” Hazel finishes for her.
Now I really do feel a headache coming on. Why can’t the girls’ teacher be a little more sensitive about this subject?
Joy opens her bag, pulls out a folded Los Angeles Times, and spreads it on the table. She points to one of the stories. “We were thinking of doing this one.”
May looks at the story and starts to read aloud: “Today the United States government issued orders restraining Chinese students who are studying in America from returning to their home country fearing that they’ll take scientific and technological secrets with them.” May pauses, glances at me, and goes back to reading: “The government has also banned all remittances to mainland China and even the British colony of Hong Kong, so that money can no longer be walked across the border. Those caught trying to send funds to relatives in China will be fined up to $10,000 and jailed for up to ten years.”
My hand goes to my pocket, and I finger Betsy’s letter. If things are dangerous for someone like Mr. Howell, then they could get a lot worse for people like Father Louie, who’ve been sending tea money back to their families and villages in China for years.
“In response,” I hear May reading, “the Six Companies, the most powerful Chinese-American organization in the United States, has mounted a virulent anti-Communist campaign in hopes of halting criticism and curtailing attacks in Chinatowns across the country.” May looks up from the paper and asks, “Are you girls scared?” When they nod, she says, “Don’t be. You were born here. You’re Americans. You have every right to be here. You don’t have to be afraid.”
I agree that they have a right to be here, but they should be scared. I try to match the tone I took when I first warned Joy about boys: steady but serious.
“You need to be careful though. Some people are going to look at you and see girls who are yellow in race and red in ideology.” I frown. “Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” Joy answers. “We’ve been talking about that in class with our teacher. She says that because of how we look, some people might see us as the enemy, even though we’re citizens.”
Hearing her words, I know I have to try harder to protect my daughter. But how? We’ve never learned how to fight against evil stares or sidewalk ruffians.
“Walk together to and from school like I told you,” I say. “Keep doing your classwork and—”
“That’s so like your mother,” May says. “Worry, worry, worry. Our mama was like that too. But look at us now!” She reaches across the table and takes one of each of the girls’ hands. “Everything’s going to be fine. Don’t ever feel that you have to hide who you are. Nothing good ever comes from keeping secrets like that. Now, let’s finish your assignment so we can get some ice cream.”
The girls smile. As they work on the project, May keeps talking to them, pushing them to look deeper into the issues brought up in the article. Maybe she’s taking the right approach with them. Maybe they’re too young to be so scared. And maybe if they do their current events report, they won’t be as ignorant about what’s happening around them as May and I once were in Shanghai. But do I like it? Not one bit.
That night after dinner, Father Louie opens the letter from Wah Hong Village: “We have no wants. Your money is not needed,” it says.
“Do you think it’s real?” Sam asks.
Father Louie passes it to Sam, who examines it before passing it on to me. The calligraphy is simple and clear. The paper looks properly worn and tat
tered, as have the letters we’ve received in the past.
“The signature looks the same,” I say, handing the letter to Yen-yen.
“It must be real,” she says. “It traveled very hard to get here.”
A week later we learn that this cousin tried to escape, was captured, and then was killed.
I tell myself that a Dragon shouldn’t be so afraid. But I am. If something happens here—and my mind reels with the possibilities—I don’t know what I’ll do. America is our home, and I fear every day that somehow the government will find a way to push us out of the country.
JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, we receive an eviction notice. We need a new place to live. Sam and I could continue to save money for Joy and rent a place just for ourselves, but the one thing we have—our strength—comes from the family. It’s old-fashioned Chinese, but Yen-yen, Father, Vern, and Sam are the only people May and I have left in the world. Everyone but Vern and Joy chips in, and I’m given the task of finding a new home for all of us.
Not so long ago, filled with optimism about the birth of our son, I’d gone looking for a place for Sam and me to buy and had been turned away by real estate agents who wouldn’t show me houses even though the laws had changed. I’d spoken to people who’d bought houses and moved in at night, only to have garbage thrown in their yards. Back then Sam said he wanted to go “wherever they’ll accept us.” We’re Chinese, and we’re a family of three generations choosing to live together. I know of only one place that will accept us completely: Chinatown.
I see a small bungalow off Alpine Street. I’m told it has three small bedrooms, a screened porch that can be used for sleeping, and two bathrooms. A low chain-link fence covered with dormant Cecile Brunner roses surrounds the property. A huge pepper tree sways gently in the backyard. The lawn is a dried-out rectangle. Marigolds left over from summer lie shriveled and brown. Some chrysanthemums, which look like they’ve never been pruned, languish in a wilted heap. Above me, endless blue sky holds the promise of another sunny winter. I don’t even have to enter the house to know I’ve found our home.
By now I understand that for every good thing that happens, something bad will happen too. When we’re packing, Yen-yen says she’s tired. She sits down on the couch in the main room and dies. Heart attack, her doctor says, because she’s been working too hard taking care of Vern, but we know better. She died of a broken heart: her son melting before her eyes, a grandson born dead, most of her family wealth built over too many years turned to ash, and now this move. Her funeral is small. After all, she was not a person of importance, rather just a wife and mother. The mourners bow to her casket three times. Then we have a banquet of ten tables of ten at Soochow Restaurant, where the proper and plainly flavored dishes are served.
Her death is terrible for all of us. I can’t stop crying, while Father Louie has retreated into pitiable silence. But none of us has time to spend our mourning period confined, quiet, and playing dominoes, as everyone does here in Chinatown, because the following week we move into our new home. May announces that she can’t sleep in the same bed with Vern, and everyone understands. No one—no matter how loving or loyal—would want to sleep next to someone who’s plagued by night sweats and a festering abscess on his spine that reeks of pus, blood, and decay the way Mama’s bound feet once did. Two twin beds are put on the screened porch—one for my sister, one for my daughter. I hadn’t considered this eventuality, and it worries me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. May keeps her clothes in Vern’s closet, where her rainbow of silk, satin, and brocade dresses bulge through the door, her matching purses spill from a high shelf, and her colorfully dyed shoes litter the floor; Joy is allotted two bottom drawers in the built-in linen closet in the hallway next to the bathroom shared by her, Father Louie, and May and to deal with Vern’s needs.
Now each of us must find a way to help the family. I’m reminded of one of Mao’s sayings that has been mocked in the American press: “Everybody works, so everybody eats.” We’re each given a task: May continues hiring extras for films and the new television shows, Sam runs Pearl’s, Father Louie manages the curio shop, Joy studies hard in school and helps her family when she has free time. Yen-yen was supposed to take care of her ailing son, but that job comes to me. I like Vern well enough, but I don’t want to be a nursemaid. When I walk into his room, the warm odor of sickly flesh hits my face. When he sits, his spine slides down until he looks like a toddler. His flesh feels soft and heavy, like when your feet go numb. I last one day, and then I go to my father-in-law to appeal the decision.
