Authors: Rhys Bowen
She led me around the screen and into a fine living room that looked out onto the street. It was well-furnished in American style with a comfortable plush sofa and armchairs, marble side tables, and lace curtains at the window.
“Sit down, my dear,” she said, gesturing to the sofa. “Kitty!” she called. “Kitty, where are you—we’ve got company.”
A girl of about ten came running into the room. She had light hair and skin like her mother, but her eyes were almond-shaped like those of her Chinese father. It was an extremely attractive combination. She gave me an inquisitive stare.
“My daughter Kitty,” Aileen Chiu said. “My youngest. I’ve three older girls and a boy. Our boy goes to college—Princeton, no less, but he’s home for the summer.” She turned to the girl who was lingering in the doorway, still staring at me with interest. “Kitty, tell Ah Fong that we want tea and see if he made any of his soda bread this morning.” She nodded to me. “We’ve a marvelous cook—he can cook anything, you know. Not just Chinese. Makes better soda bread than me.”
The girl went running off and I heard her calling out something in Chinese in a high little voice.
“You seem to have a good life here,” I said, looking around the room.
“I came to this country with nothing and I don’t think I could have done better,” Aileen Chiu said. “Certainly not if I’d married some drunken lout of a lazy Irishman. My man owns four laundries—two in Brooklyn and two here in Manhattan. He provides well for us and he’s a good father too.” She smiled, then the smile faded as she stared out at the net curtains. “Of course, it’s a trifle lonely at times. We’re neither one thing nor the other, you see. The Irish will have nothing to do with me; neither will the Chinese.”
“That must be hard,” I agreed.
“We survive. There are the other Irish wives to take tea with and sometimes we go to a theater and out to a picnic on Staten Island on Sundays, so I can’t complain. But how about you, my dear? I don’t often see a white woman coming up Mott Street, unless it’s on one of these slumming tours.”
“Slumming tours—what are they?”
She laughed. “Oh, it’s the latest craze, so they tell me. This man called Chuck Connors—he gives guided tours of Chinatown, as if we’re exhibits in a zoo, you know. He plays up all the vices—gambling and opium dens, houses of ill repute, and the tourists are suitably shocked and titillated. The young women pretend to swoon at the horror and degradation of it.”
She was still chuckling as her daughter brought in a tray of tea things and put it on the table in front of her mother. “Should I pour?” she asked.
“No, you go and get on with your schoolwork. I can do my own pouring,” Aileen said.
“But Ma—it’s the summer vacation,” the girl protested. “Nobody else has to do schoolwork.”
“You know how keen your father is that you get on,” Aileen said. “Look how well your brother and your sisters have done. You don’t want to let us down, do you?”
The girl sighed and stomped upstairs.
“My Albert is very keen on education,” she confided. “He was quite a scholar back in China. Of course I had no schooling myself, but I can see the value of it. If you’ve enough education you can move where you want in society, can’t you?”
“That’s very true,” I said. I watched her pour the tea and then hand me a slice of soda bread, liberally dotted with raisins. I ate with relish before I paused to ask, “Is there really that much degradation going on in Chinatown?”
“Of course there’s plenty of gambling. One thing about the Chinese—they are all gamblers. They’ll gamble on how many buttons the next man to come into the room has on his jacket or whether it will be fine the next day. Some of them will bet their clothing when they’ve spent their last cent and have to be given a sack to wear home. My man is more sober in that department than most, but I have to keep an eye on him.”
“And opium? Are there really opium dens?”
“Oh, yes. They’re here, all right. That stupid Connors fellow has concocted a fake opium den that he shows to his tourists—he hires actors to play the part of addicts. The real ones are hidden away, but they’re here, all right. And it’s not just the Chinese that visit them either. There are plenty of white men sneaking in at night.”
As we talked I noticed that she kept a steady eye on the street beyond. I tried to phrase my question tactfully. “Mrs. Chiu—you have a good view of the street here and you obviously see a lot of what goes on—you didn’t notice a young Chinese woman going past, about a week ago, did you?”
Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “A young Chinese woman? Out alone on the street? My dear, there are no young Chinese women. Why do you think the men marry us? And if there were, they wouldn’t be allowed out on the street. There are a couple of small-foot wives—you know, the poor creatures with the deformed, bound feet?”
“I thought Chinese wives weren’t allowed to come into the country?”
“These ones are older women who came here before the Exclusion Act. I feel sorry for them, personally. They’re virtually prisoners in their own homes. At least I can walk down the street to visit my neighbors, but they can’t even walk that far. You should see them hobbling. It’s something pitiful. If they ever go out it’s only in a closed carriage, door to door, even if they’re only visiting a couple of houses down.”
I returned to my original question. “So if a young Chinese girl had come down the street, you would have noticed?”
She tilted her head on one side with a puzzled look. “What’s this all about? Why these questions about a Chinese girl? You’re not from the authorities, are you? On the trail of a prostitute?”
“So there really are Chinese prostitutes here?”
“Of course there are. Not that they’re ever allowed out either, but one hears rumors of what goes on.”
“I assure you I’m not from the authorities.” I took a sip of my tea while I tried to come up with a good reason for my question without giving away why I had been hired.
We ate in silence until suddenly she looked up. “Wait a minute. If you were with Frederick Lee, then it’s true—old Mr. Lee Sing Tai did bring in another bride from China. Don’t tell me she’s gone?”
“How did you hear about this?”
“Their cook is friendly with Ah Fong. There’s not much that Chinese servants don’t know about. He’s brought in a bride from China before, you know.”
“And what happened to her?”
“From what I hear she couldn’t produce a son so he got rid of her. Sent her back to China as likely as not. So this one’s run away, has she?”
“I really can’t talk about it,” I said. “Mr. Lee would be furious if he found out that anyone else knows his business.”
Aileen Chiu laughed. “Listen, my dear, when you live in a narrow society like this, it’s hard to keep secrets, and servants love to talk. So he’s hired you to find her, has he?”
I nodded. It seemed pointless to deny it at this stage and I had now made a useful ally.
“Surely she can’t have gone far.” Aileen Chiu was frowning in a puzzled way. “The police would have picked her up if she’d strayed beyond Chinatown. They seem to think that all Chinese women are prostitutes.”
“So she could be in jail, do you think?”
“It’s possible. And if not, where else could she go? She won’t have had money of her own. What did she hope to achieve by it? If he wants her found, he’ll find her. He’s a big noise around here with fingers in every sort of pie. And he’s got the police in his pocket too.”
“Really? He spoke of the police as his enemies.”
“Don’t you believe it. He’s well in with the Sixth Precinct. He pays them good bribe money to keep out of his business interests—and out of On Leong interests too.”
“So presumably he could have found out from the local police if his bride had been picked up and arrested?”
“Although maybe he wouldn’t want to admit something like that to white men. It’s all a question of losing face. They’re very big on losing face, these Chinamen. He wouldn’t have hired an outsider like you—and a woman at that—unless he wanted to try and keep the affair secret from the local community. So where does Lee Sing Tai think she might have gone?”
“She was educated by missionaries, so he thinks that maybe they have taken her in and are hiding her. I gather that there must be quite a few missionaries operating around here?”
“There certainly are. All the denominations out there competing to save poor Chinese souls. It’s pitiful really. They lure the young men in with the offer of English language lessons and then they start preaching at them.” She chuckled. “Of course the Chinese aren’t stupid. They take the language classes and slip out before the sermon starts.”
“You presumably know the various missions around here. Can you suggest where I should start?”
“You can’t do much better than start with Miss Helen Clark. If any girl’s been wandering the streets, Miss Clark will have snapped her up—interfering, do-gooding busybody that she is. Always poking her nose where it’s not wanted.”
I had to smile at her sudden outburst of anger.
“It may be unchristian of me to speak like that of someone who thinks she’s doing the Lord’s work, but she’s caused a lot of trouble. If she spots a child out on the street, she assumes it’s a slave and she kidnaps it, making it go to her classes. And if she hears of a white woman marrying a Chinaman, she’ll try to break up the union.”
She paused to take a gulp of tea and I nodded with understanding before she put the cup down firmly and added, “And she tries to come into Chinese homes to instruct their occupants on Christian living—the nerve of it. She tried to get in here once. I’m a good Catholic, I said, and so is my man and my children have been baptized at the Church of the Transfiguration across the street, so we need none of your help to get to heaven, thank you.”
“And where would I find this Miss Clark?” I asked.
“If she’s not out prowling the streets, she’s got her school at 21 Mott, just down the street. Of course it’s still summer vacation, so she may not be giving classes. If she’s not there, you can always try the Morning Star Mission on Doyers, or there’s the Evangelical Band at 4 Mott—but that’s mainly just a Sunday school.”
“Do you think any of these might have taken in a Chinese woman if she’d come to them?”
She frowned. “I’ve never heard of them having beds to offer. It’s just the hall and a little room for making tea. But you could try the Rescue Mission also on Doyers. They try to rescue fallen white women, but I don’t suppose they’d say no to a Chinese girl if they thought she was some kind of slave.”
“Rescue Mission on Doyers,” I muttered. “Thank you. You’ve given me plenty to start with. And if I wanted to check with the police, would it be at headquarters on Mullberry?”
“No, dearie. We’re in the Sixth Precinct here. The police station’s on Elizabeth, just up from Canal.”
“Then I should be going,” I said. “Thank you for the tea and the chat.”
“Come back anytime,” she said, eyeing me wistfully. “I’d love to talk more about the old country, although it was a hard life, wasn’t it? Never enough to eat.”
“It was,” I agreed.
“So all in all we’re better off here.” She said it as if she was trying to convince herself, not me.
Nine
I took my leave, promising to return and having extracted a promise from her not to say anything about my commission in case it got back to the ears of Lee Sing Tai. Noting the ease with which she liked to gossip, I couldn’t be sure that she’d keep to it. There was no sign of Frederick Lee when I came out into Mott Street, but a vendor’s cart was standing at the curb nearby selling vegetables to a line of Chinese men and a couple of half-caste children. Even the vegetables in the basket looked strange—beans as long as my forearm, huge hairy cannonballs (God knows what they were), and tiny little white sprouts. The vendor was a fellow Chinese and was certainly doing a lively trade.
I picked my way past the fresh horse manure and looked for 21 Mott and Miss Clark. I found her in a bare upstairs room, lined with rows of benches, supervising a couple of little half-Chinese girls as they put out hymn books. She was quite the opposite of what I had expected—although no longer young, she was beautiful and elegantly dressed. No wonder she could lure those poor woman-starved Chinese men into services on Sundays. She looked at me with surprise and suspicion until I explained the reason for my visit. Then a smile spread across that lovely face. “So you’re doing the Lord’s work too—trying to save poor girls from a life of degradation. God bless you, my dear.”
I didn’t like to say that my employer wasn’t the Lord but a rich Chinese gentleman. “So you haven’t seen a young woman like this? She didn’t come to you?” I held out the picture.
She shook her head. “And it’s a great pity that she didn’t. I would have given her sanctuary. If she spoke English I might even have managed to find her a position as a servant safely far from the city. I’ve done that for girls before, you know—if they have not descended too far into a life of vice. I have to be careful whom I send to wholesome Christian families. One can’t risk a corrupting influence.”
“So if she didn’t come to you, where do you think she might have gone?” I asked.
“I rather fear the worst, my dear. One has only to walk a few yards from here to the Bowery where every second establishment is a house of ill repute.” She looked up as one of the little half-caste girls called out, “All done, Missie Clark.”
“Nicely done, Elsie. We’ll make a fine Christian of you yet,” Miss Clark said, patting the child on her shining black hair.
She turned back to me. “You see how much we can do if we catch them early enough. Of course these girls do have the benefit of Irish mothers who have been raised as Christians so it is not such an uphill battle to claim them for the Lord and keep them from the sins of the flesh. Sometimes I despair for the full-blooded Chinese, though. It’s a struggle to make them turn from their heathen ways. Even those who profess to be Christians still worship idols in secret. But one does what one can.” She patted the child again. “Run along now and wash your hands and then we’ll work on your letters some more. You too, Alice.”