"Shanghai Girls" - читать интересную книгу автора (See Lisa)Shadows on the WallsTHE NIGHT BEFORE we land, I pull out the coaching book Sam gave me and leaf through it. The book says that Old Man Louie was born in America and that Sam, one of five brothers, was born in China in 1913, the Year of the Ox, during one of his parents’ visits to their home village of Wah Hong, which makes him an American citizen because he was born to one. (He’d have to be an Ox, I think dismissively. Mama said that those born under this sign lack imagination and are forever pulling the burdens of the world.) Sam went back to Los Angeles with his parents, but in 1920, the old man and his wife decided to go China again and then leave their son, only seven years old, in Wah Hong with his paternal grandparents. (This is something different from what I’d been led to believe. I had thought Sam came to China with his father and brother to find a bride, but he was already there. I suppose this explains why he spoke to me in the Sze Yup dialect instead of English on the three occasions we met, but why hadn’t the Louies told us any of that?) Now Sam has returned to America for the first time in seventeen years. Vern was born in Los Angeles in 1923, the Year of the Boar, and has lived there all his life. The other brothers were born in 1907, 1908, and 1911-all of them born in Wah Hong, all of them now living in Los Angeles. I do my best to memorize the tiny details-the various birth dates, the addresses in Wah Hong and Los Angeles, and the like-tell May the things I think are important, then put the rest out of my mind. The next morning, November 15, we get up early and put on our best Western-style dresses. “We’re guests in this country,” I say. “We should look like we belong.” May agrees, and she slips into a dress that Madame Garnet made for her a year ago. How is it that the silk and buttons made it all the way here without being soiled or ruined, while I…? I have to stop thinking that way. We gather our things and give our two bags to the porter. Then May and I go outside and find a spot by the rail, but we can’t see much in the rain. Above us, the Golden Gate Bridge is draped in clouds. To our right, the city perches on the shore-wet, dreary, and insignificant compared with Shanghai ’s Bund. Below us on the open-air steerage deck, what seems like hundreds of coolies, rickshaw pullers, and peasants push and shove against one another in a writhing mass, the smell of their wet and stinking clothes wafting up to us. The ship docks at a pier. Little family groups from first and second class-laughing, jostling, and happy to have arrived-show their papers and then walk down a gangplank covered to protect them from the rain. When our turn comes, we hold out our papers. The inspector looks them over, frowns, and motions to a crew member. “These two need to go to the Angel Island Immigration Station,” he says. We follow the crewman through the corridors of the ship and down flights of stairs to where the air is dank. I’m relieved when we step outside again until I see that we’re now with the steerage passengers. Naturally, no umbrellas or awnings cover this deck. Cold wind blows rain into our faces and soaks our clothes. Around us people frantically pore over their coaching books. Then the man next to us tears a page from his book, stuffs it in his mouth, chews for a bit, and swallows it. I hear someone else say that he dropped his book into the waves the night before and another boast that he threw his into the latrine. “Good luck to anyone who wants to look for it now!” Anxiety clenches my stomach. Was I supposed to get rid of the book? Sam didn’t tell me that. Now I have no way to get to it, because it’s tucked in my hat in our luggage. I take a deep breath and try to reassure myself We have nothing to be afraid of. We’re out of China, away from the war, and in the land of the free and all that. May and I elbow our way through the smelly laborers to the railing. Couldn’t they have washed before we landed? What kind of an impression do they want to give our hosts? May has something else on her mind altogether. She watches the people still filing off the first-and second-class decks, searching for the young man she’s been spending time with on the voyage. She grips my arm excitedly when she sees him. “There he is! That’s Spencer.” She raises her voice and calls. “Spencer! Spencer! Look up here! Can you help us?” She waves and calls a few more times, but he doesn’t turn to look for her standing at the rail of the third-class deck. Her face tightens as he tips the porters and then strolls with a group of Caucasian passengers into a building to the right. From deep within the ship, cargo is brought up in big netted bundles and deposited on the pier. From there, most of the cargo goes straight on to the customshouse. Pretty soon, we see those same crates and boxes leave customs and get loaded onto trucks. Duties have been paid and the goods go on their way to new destinations, but we continue to wait in the rain. Some crewmen hoist another gangplank-this one with no protection from the weather-onto the lower deck, where we are. A People around us mumble, confused. “What’s he saying?” “Be quiet. I can’t hear.” “Hurry up!” the man in the slicker demands. “Chop! Chop!” “Do you understand him?” a soaked and shivering man next to me asks. “What does he want us to do?” “Take your belongings and get off the boat.” As we begin doing what we’re told, the man in the slicker puts his balled fists on his hips and yells, “And stay together!” We disembark, with everyone pushing against one another as though it’s the most important thing in the world to be the first off the ship. When our feet touch ground, we’re marched not into the building to the right, where the other passengers went, but to the left, along the pier, and then across a tiny gangplank and onto a small boat-all without explanation. Once on board, I see that, although there are a few Caucasians and even a handful of Japanese, almost everyone here is Chinese. The lines are let go, and we pull back into the bay. “Where are we going now?” May asks. How can May be so disconnected from what’s happening around us? Why can’t she pay attention? Why couldn’t she have read the coaching book? Why can’t she accept what’s become of us? That Princeton student, whatever his name is, understood her position perfectly, but May refuses to consider it. “We’re going to the Angel Island Immigration Station,” I explain. “Oh,” she says lightly. “All right.” The rain gets heavier and the wind colder. The little boat bobs in the waves. People throw up. May hangs her head over the rail and gulps in wet air. We pass an island in the middle of the bay, and for a few minutes it looks like we’re going to chug back under the Golden Gate Bridge, out to sea, and return to China. May moans and tries to stay focused on the horizon. Then the boat veers to the right, curves around another island and into a small inlet, where it pulls up to a wharf at the end of a long dock. Low-slung white wooden buildings nestle on the hillside. Ahead, four stubby palm trees shiver in the wind and the wet flag of the United States slaps noisily against its pole. A large sign reads NO SMOKING. Again everyone pushes to be first off the boat. “Whites without satisfactory paperwork first!” that same man in the slicker shouts, as though his higher decibels will somehow make the people who don’t understand English suddenly fluent, but of course most of the Chinese don’t know what he’s saying. The white passengers are pulled out of the line and brought forward, while a couple of squat and very solid guards push away the Chinese who’ve made the mistake of standing at the front of the line. But these There’s a lot of confusion and a lot of manhandling by the guards, but once they line us up the way they want, we’re led in the driving rain along the dock to the Administration Building. When the men are sent through one door and the women and children through another-separating husbands from wives and fathers from families-cries of consternation, fright, and worry fill the air. None of the guards shows any sympathy. We are treated more poorly than the cargo that traveled with us. The separation of Europeans (meaning all whites), Asiatics (meaning anyone from across the Pacific who isn’t Chinese), and Chinese continues as we’re marched up a steep hill to a medical facility in one of the wooden buildings. A white woman wearing a white uniform and a starched white cap folds her hands in front of her and begins speaking in English in that same loud voice that’s somehow supposed to make up for the fact that no one except May and I understands what she’s saying. “Many of you are trying to enter our country with loathsome and dangerous parasitic diseases,” she says. “This is unacceptable. The doctors and I are going to check you for trachoma, hookworm, filariasis, and liver fluke.” The women around us start to cry. They don’t know what this woman wants, but she’s wearing white-the color of death. A Chinese woman in a long white (again!) But whatever looseness I had in the past has disappeared for good. I can’t bear to be unclothed. I can’t stand to be touched. I cling to May, and she steadies me. Even when the nurse tries to separate us, May stays with me. I bite my lips to keep from screaming when the doctor approaches. I look over his shoulder and out the window. I’m afraid that if I close my eyes I’ll be back in that shack with those men, hearing Mama’s screams, feeling… I keep my eyes wide open. Everything’s white and clean… well, cleaner than my memories of the shack. I pretend I don’t feel the icy chill of the doctor’s instruments or the white softness of his hands on my flesh; I stare out across the bay. We face away from San Francisco now, and all I see is gray water disappearing into gray rain. Land has to be out there, but I have no idea how far it is. Once he’s done with me, I allow myself to breathe again. One by one, the doctor makes his examinations while we all wait-shivering from cold and fear-until everyone has given a stool sample. So far we’ve been separated from other races, then men separated from women, and now we women are separated yet again: one group to go to the dormitory, one to stay in the hospital for treatment for hookworm, which can be cured, and one for those with liver fluke, to be instantly and without appeal deported back to China. Now the tears really flow. May and I are in the group that goes to the women’s dormitory on the second floor of the Administration Building. Once we’re inside, the door is locked behind us. Rows of bunks two across and three high are connected to one another by iron poles attached to the ceiling and floor. There are no “beds” to sleep on, just wire mesh. This means that the frames can be folded up to create more space in the room, but apparently no one wants to sit on the floor. The distance between bunks is barely eighteen inches. The vertical gaps between the bunks are so tight that at first glance I can see I won’t be able to extend my arm without hitting the one above. Only the top bunk has enough space to sit upright, but that area is cluttered with drying laundry of the women already here, which hangs on strings tied between the poles at the ends of the bunks. On the floor beneath each occupied tier of bunks are a few tin bowls and cups. May leaves my side and hurries down the center aisle. She claims two top bunks next to each other near the radiator. She climbs up, lies down, and promptly goes to sleep. No one brings our luggage. All we have with us are the clothes we’re wearing and our handbags. THE NEXT MORNING May and I straighten up as best we can. The guards tell us we’re going to a hearing before the Board of Special Inquiry, but the women in the dormitory call it an interrogation. Just the word sounds ominous. One of the women suggests we sip cold water to calm our fear, but I’m not afraid. We have nothing to hide, and this is just a formality. We’re herded with a small group of women into a room that looks like a cage. We sit on benches and stare at one another pensively. We Chinese have a phrase-eating bitterness. I tell myself that, whatever happens with our hearings, it won’t be as bad as the physical inspection, and it can’t be as bad as what has happened to May and me day after day since the moment Baba announced he had arranged marriages for us. “Tell them what I told you to say and everything will be fine,” I whisper to May as we wait in the cage. “Then we’ll be able to leave this place.” She nods thoughtfully. When the guard calls her name, I watch her enter a room and the door close. A moment later, the same guard motions me to another room. I put on a false smile, straighten my dress, and stride in with what I hope is an air of confidence. Two white men-one nearly bald, one with a mustache, and both wearing glasses-sit behind a table in the windowless room. They don’t return my smile. At a table set to the side, another white man busily cleans the keys on his typewriter. A Chinese man in an ill-fitting Western-style suit studies a file in his hands, looks at me and then back at the file. “I see you were born in Yin Bo Village,” he says to me in Sze Yup as he passes the file to the bald man. “I am happy to speak to you in the dialect of the Four Districts.” Before I can say that I know English, the bald man says, “Tell her to sit down.” The interpreter motions to a chair. “I am Louie Fon,” he goes on in Sze Yup. “Your husband and I share the same clan name and the same home district.” He sits to my left. “The bald one before you is Chairman Plumb. The other one is Mr. White. The recorder is Mr. Hemstreet. You don’t have to concern yourself with him-” “Let’s get on with it,” Chairman Plumb cuts in. “Ask her…” Things go well at first. I know the date and year of my birth in both the Western and the lunar calendars. They ask the name of the village where I was born. Then I name the village where Sam was born and the day we were married. I recite the address where Sam and his family live in Los Angeles. And then… “How many trees are in front of your alleged husband’s home in his village?” When I don’t answer right away, four sets of eyes stare at me-curious, bored, triumphant, snide. “Five trees stand before the house,” I answer, remembering what I read in the coaching book. “The right side of the house has no trees. A ginkgo tree grows on the left.” “And how many rooms are in the house where your natal family lives?” I’ve been so focused on the answers from Sam’s coaching book that I haven’t considered they’d ask anything so detailed about me. I try to think what the right answer would be. Count the bathrooms or not? Count before or after the rooms were divided for our boarders? “Six main rooms-” Before I can explain myself, they ask how many guests were at my “alleged” wedding. “Seven,” I answer. “Did you and your guests have anything to eat?” “We had rice and eight dishes. It was a hotel dinner, not a banquet.” “How was the table set?” “Western style but with chopsticks.” “Did you serve betel nuts to the guests? Did you pour tea?” I want to say I’m not a country bumpkin, so under no circumstances would I have served betel nuts. I would have poured tea if I’d had the wedding I’d dreamed of, but that night was hardly festive. I remember how dismissively Old Man Louie waved away my father’s suggestion that May and I perform the ritual. “It was a civilized wedding,” I say. “Very Western-” “Did you worship your ancestors as part of the ceremony?” “Of course not. I’m Christian.” “Do you have any documentary evidence for your alleged marriage?” “In my luggage.” “Is your husband expecting you?” This question momentarily takes me aback. Old Man Louie and his sons know we didn’t show up in Hong Kong to take the ship here with them. They certainly notified the Green Gang that we failed to fulfill our part of the contract, but did they tell the Angel Island inspectors any of that? And do the old man and his sons still expect us to arrive? “My sister and I were delayed in our travels because of the monkey people,” I say. “Our husbands long for our arrival.” After the interpreter relays this, the two inspectors speak between themselves, not knowing I understand every word. “She seems honest enough,” Mr. White says. “But her papers claim she’s the wife of a legally domiciled merchant “This could be an error in past paperwork. Either way, we’d have to let her in.” Chairman Plumb grimaces sourly. “But she hasn’t proven There it is. The same old complaint. I look down, afraid they’ll see the flush creep up my neck. I think of the girl on the boat we took to Hong Kong and how the pirate appraised her. Now these men are doing the same with me. Do I really appear that country? “But consider how she’s dressed. She doesn’t look like a laborer’s wife either,” Mr. White points out. Chairman Plumb thrums his fingers on the table. “I’ll let her through, but I want to see her marriage certificate showing she’s married to a legitimate merchant or something proving her husband’s citizenship.” He looks at the interpreter. “On what day are the women allowed to go to the wharf to get things from their luggage?” “Tuesdays, sir.” “All right then. Let’s hold her over until next week. Tell her to bring her marriage certificate next time.” He nods to the recorder and begins dictating a synopsis, ending with “We are deferring the case for further investigation.” FOR FIVE DAYS May and I wear the same clothes. At night we wash our underwear and hang it to dry with the laundry the other women drape above our heads. We still have a little money to buy toothpaste and other toiletries from a small concession stand open during mealtimes. When Tuesday arrives, we line up with women who want to get things from their luggage and are escorted by white missionary women to a warehouse at the end of the wharf May and I get our marriage papers, and then I check to see if the coaching book is still hidden. It is. No one has bothered to search inside my hat with the feathers. I now pull at the lining and hide it properly. Then I grab fresh undergarments and a change of clothes. Every morning, embarrassed to be seen naked by the other women, I dress under the blanket on my bed. Then I wait to be called back to the hearing room, but no one comes for us. If we aren’t called by nine, then we know nothing will happen that day. When afternoon arrives, a new feeling of anticipation and dread fills the room. At precisely four, the guard enters and calls, Over the next few days, we watch as the women who arrived the same day we did are allowed to continue to San Francisco. We see new women land, have their hearings, and leave. Still no one comes for us. Every night, after another disgusting meal of pig knuckles or stewed salted fish with fermented bean curd, I take off my dress under the blanket, hang it on the line above me, and try to sleep, knowing I’ll be locked in this room until morning. But the feeling of being locked in and trapped extends far, far beyond this room. In a different time, in a different place, and with more money maybe May and I could have escaped our futures. But here we don’t have choice or freedom. Our whole lives up to now have been lost to us. We know no one in the United States other than our husbands and our father-in-law. Baba had said that if we went to Los Angeles, we’d live in beautiful houses, have servants, see movie stars, so maybe this is the path May and I were supposed to be on all along. We could consider ourselves lucky we’ve married so well. Women-whether in arranged marriages or not, whether in the past or right now, in 1937-have married for money and all that it brings. Still, I have a secret plan. When May and I get to Los Angeles, we’ll skim money from what our husbands give us to buy clothes and shoes, beautify ourselves, and keep our households running, and use it to escape. I lie on the wire mesh that is my bed, listen to the low, mournful sound of the foghorn and to the women in the room cry snore, or whisper among themselves, and plot how May and I will leave Los Angeles one day and disappear to New ’York or Paris, cities we’ve been told are equal to Shanghai in splendor, culture, and riches. TWO TUESDAYS LATER, when we’re allowed to retrieve things from our luggage again, May fishes out the peasant clothes she bought for us in Hangchow. We wear them in the afternoons and at night, because it’s too cold and dirty in this place to wear our good dresses, which we put on in the mornings in case we’re called to finish our hearings. In the middle of the following week, May takes to wearing our travel clothes all the time. “What if we’re called for an interview?” I ask. We sit on our top bunks with a little valley of space separating us and clothes hanging like banners all around us. “Do you think this is so different from Shanghai? Our clothes matter. Those who are well dressed leave sooner than those who look like…” My voice trails off. “Peasants?” May finishes for me. She folds her arms over her stomach and lets her shoulders fall. She doesn’t look like herself. We’ve been here a month now, and it feels like all the courage she showed getting me to safety has somehow been sucked out of her. Her skin looks pasty. She isn’t terribly interested in washing her hair, which, like mine, has grown out into a straggly mess. “Come on, May, you have to try. We won’t be here much longer. Take a shower and put on a dress. You’ll feel better.” “Why? Just tell me why. I can’t eat their terrible food, so I rarely use their toilets,” she says. “I don’t do anything, so I don’t sweat. But even if I did, why would I take a shower where people can see me? The humiliation is so great I wish I could wear a sack over my head. Besides,” she adds pointedly, “I don’t see you going to the toilets or showers.” Which is true. Sadness and despair overwhelm those who stay here too long. The cold wind, the foggy days, the shadows on the walls, depress and frighten all of us. In just this month, I’ve seen many women, some who’ve already come and gone, refuse to take showers during their entire stays, and not just because they don’t sweat. Too many women have committed suicide in the showers by hanging or by sharpening chopsticks and driving them through their ears and into their brains. No one wants to go to the showers not only because no one likes to do her private business with others around but because nearly everyone here is afraid of the ghosts of the dead, who, without proper burial rites, refuse to leave the nasty place where they died. We decide that, from now on, May will go with me to the communal toilets or showers, check to see if they’re empty, and then stand outside the door to keep the other women out. I’ll do the same for her, although I’m not sure why she’s become so modest since arriving here. AT LAST THE guard calls us for our interrogations. I run a brush through my hair, take a few sips of cold water to calm myself, and slip on my heels. I glance back to see May trailing after me, looking like a beggar magically dropped here from a Shanghai alley. We wait in the cage until our turns come. This is our last step and then we’ll be transferred to San Francisco. I give May an encouraging smile, which she doesn’t return, and then I follow the guard into the hearing room. Chairman Plumb, Mr. White, and the stenographer are there, but this time I have a new interpreter. “I’m Lan On Tai,” he says. “From now on you will have a different interpreter for each hearing. They don’t want us to become friends. I will speak to you in Sze Yup. Do you understand, Louie Chin-shee?” In the old Chinese tradition a married woman is known by her clan name with “That is your name, isn’t it?” the interpreter asks. When I don’t answer right away, he glances at the white men and then back at me. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but your case has problems. It’s best if you accept what’s in your record. Don’t change your story now.” “But I never said my name was-” “Sit down!” Chairman Plumb orders. Even though I pretended not to know English during our last meeting and now, after the interpreter’s warning, feel sure I should stick to my feigned ignorance, I obey, hoping that the chairman will believe the tone in his voice scared me. “In your last interview you said you had a civilized wedding, which is why you didn’t worship your ancestors as part of the ceremonies. We have your husband’s file right here, and he says you did worship your ancestors.” I wait for the interpreter to relay this, then reply, “I told you before, I’m a Christian. I don’t worship ancestors. Perhaps my husband worshipped his after we parted.” “How long were you together?” “One night.” Even I know this sounds bad. “Do you expect us to believe you were married for one day and now your husband has sent for you?” “Our marriage was arranged.” “By a matchmaker?” I try to think how Sam would have responded to this question in his interrogation. “Yes, a matchmaker.” The interpreter gives a subtle nod to let me know I answered correctly. “You said you didn’t serve betel nuts and tea, but your sister says you did,” Chairman Plumb says, tapping another file, which I assume covers May’s case. As I look at the bald man before me, waiting for the interpreter to finish the translation, I wonder if this is a trick. Why would May have said that? She wouldn’t. “Neither my sister nor I served tea or betel nuts.” This is not the answer the two men want. Lan On Tai looks at me with a combination of pity and aggravation. Chairman Plumb moves on. “You said you had a civilized wedding, but your sister says that neither of you wore a veil.” I’m torn between berating myself and May for not being more diligent in working on our stories and questioning why any of this matters. “We had civilized weddings,” I say, “but neither of us wore veils.” “Did you raise your veil during the wedding banquet?” “I already told you I didn’t wear a veil.” “Why do you say only seven people came to the banquet, when your husband, father-in-law, and sister say there were many occupied tables in the room?” I feel sick to my stomach. What’s happening here? “We were a small party in a hotel restaurant where other guests were dining.” “You said your family home consists of six rooms, but your sister says many more and your husband stated the house is grand.” Chairman Plumb’s face turns crimson as he demands, “Why are you lying?” “There are different ways to count the rooms and my husband-” “Let’s go back to your wedding. Was your wedding banquet on the first floor or upstairs?” And on it goes: Did I take a train after my marriage? Did I ride on a boat? Are the houses where I lived with my parents built in rows? How many houses stood between our house and the main street? How do I know if I was married according to the old custom or the new custom if I had a matchmaker and didn’t wear a veil? Why don’t my alleged sister and I speak the same dialect? The questioning continues for eight straight hours-with no break for lunch or to use the toilet. By the end, Chairman Plumb is red-faced and weary. As he recites his synopsis for the stenographer, I boil with frustration. Every other sentence begins “The applicant’s alleged sister states…” I can understand-barely-how my responses might be taken to mean something different from those given by Sam or Old Man Louie, but how could May have given such completely different answers from mine? The interpreter shows no emotion as he translates Chairman Plumb’s conclusion: “It would appear that there are many contradictions which should not exist, particularly concerning the home the applicant shared with her alleged sister. While the applicant adequately answers the queries concerning her alleged husband’s home village, her alleged sister seems to have no knowledge whatsoever of her husband, his family, or his family home, either in Los Angeles or in China. Therefore it is the unanimous opinion of the board that this applicant, as well as her alleged sister, be reexamined until the contradictions can be resolved.” The interpreter then looks at me. “Have you understood everything that’s been asked of you?” I answer, “Yes,” but I’m furious-with these awful men and their persistent questioning, with myself for not being smarter, but most of all with May. Her laziness has caused us to be detained even longer on this horrible island. She isn’t in the holding cage when I leave the room and I have to sit there and wait for another woman whose interrogation also hasn’t gone well. After another hour, the woman is pulled from her hearing room by her arm. The cage is unlocked and the guard motions to me, but we don’t go back to the dormitory on the second floor of the Administration Building. Rather, we walk across the property to another wood-framed building. At the end of the hall is a door with a small window covered with fine mesh and ROOM NO. I printed above it. We may feel like we are in jail on this island and in our locked dormitory, but this is the real door to imprisonment. The woman wails and tries to pull away from the guard, but he’s far stronger than she could ever be. He opens the door, pushes her into the darkness, and locks her inside. I’m now alone with a very large white man. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. I shake uncontrollably. And then the strangest thing happens. His contemptuous sneer melts into something resembling compassion. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says. “We’re just short-handed tonight.” He shakes his head. “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?” He gestures back toward the door we entered. “We need to go that way, so I can take you back to the dormitory,” he goes on, elongating and exaggerating the words so that his lips stretch into the twisted features of a temple demon statue. “Got it?” Later, as I walk the length of the dormitory back to May’s and my bunks, my emotions are in a frenzy-yes, that’s the word-of anger, fear, and frustration. The other women’s eyes follow each step as my high heels click on the linoleum floor. Some of us have lived together for a month now and in very close quarters. We’re attuned to one another’s moods and know when to back off or offer comfort. Now I feel the women ripple away from me, as though I’m a large boulder that’s been dropped into a very peaceful pond. May perches on the edge of her bunk, her legs dangling. She cocks her head in the way she has since she was a small girl and knew she was in trouble. “What took so long? I’ve been waiting for you for hours.” “What have you done, May? What have you She ignores my questions. “You missed lunch. But I brought you some rice.” She opens her hand and shows me a misshapen ball of rice. I slap it from her palm. The women around us look away. “Why did you lie in there?” I ask. “Why would you do that?” Her legs swing back and forth like she’s a child whose feet don’t yet reach the floor. I stare up at her, breathing heavily through my nose. I’ve never been this angry with her. This isn’t a pair of muddied shoes or a borrowed blouse that’s been stained. “I didn’t understand what they were saying. I don’t know that singsong Sze Yup. I only know the northern song of Shanghai.” “And that’s “We’ve been through so much, but you couldn’t take five minutes on the ship to look at the coaching book.” When she shrugs, a wave of fury sweeps through me. “Do you want them to send us back?” She doesn’t respond, but the predictable tears form. “Is that what you want?” I persist. Now those predictable tears fall and drip onto her baggy jacket, staining the cloth with slowly spreading blue splotches. But if she’s predictable, so am I. I shake her legs. The older sister, who’s always right, demands, “What’s wrong with you?” She mumbles something. “What?” She stops swinging her legs. She keeps her face tucked low, but I’m looking up at her and she can’t avoid me. She mumbles again. “Say it so I can hear it,” I rasp impatiently. She tilts her head, meets my eyes, and whispers just loud enough for me to hear. “I’m pregnant.” |
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