Daughter of Fortune (45 page)

Eliza Sommers worked for two years in San Francisco at Tao Chi'en's side. During that time, she left twice, during the summers, to search for Joaquín Andieta, following the same procedure she had used before: joining other travelers. The first time she went with the idea of looking until she found Andieta or until winter began, but after four months she returned, exhausted and ill. In the summer of 1852 she started out again, but after retracing the route she had followed previously, and later visiting Joe Bonecrusher, now thoroughly immersed in her role as Tom No-Tribe's grandmother, and James and Esther, who were expecting their second child, she had returned home after five weeks because she couldn't stand the anguish of being away from Tao Chi'en. They were so comfortable in their routines, paired in their work and as close in spirit as an old married couple. She collected everything published about Joaquín Murieta and memorized it, as she had Miss Rose's poems when a little girl, although she tried to ignore the references to the outlaw's sweetheart. “They invented that girl to sell newspapers; you know how the public is fascinated by romance,” she argued to Tao Chi'en. On a brittle map she tracked Murieta's steps with the determination of a navigator, but the available information was vague and contradictory: routes crisscrossed like the web of a demented spider, leading nowhere. Although at first she had rejected the possibility that her Joaquín was the one responsible for the bloodcurdling attacks, she soon was convinced that that person jibed perfectly with the young man she remembered. He, too, had rebelled against abuses and was obsessed with helping the downtrodden. Maybe it wasn't Joaquín Murieta who tortured his victims but his gang, someone like that Three-Finger Jack, whom she believed capable of any atrocity.

She kept wearing men's clothing because it contributed to the invisibility so necessary in the quixotic mission Tao Chi'en had enrolled her in. It had been three and a half years since she had worn a dress, and she'd had no news of Miss Rose, Mama Fresia, or her uncle John; it seemed a thousand years that she had been chasing an increasingly improbable chimera. The days of the furtive embraces with her lover were long behind her; she wasn't sure of her feelings and she didn't know whether it was love or pride that was driving her to wait for him. She was so caught up in her work that sometimes whole weeks went by without her remembering him, but suddenly a memory would lunge out at her and leave her trembling. Then she would look around her, confused, unable to identify the world in which she found herself. What was she doing wearing trousers and surrounded by Chinese? She had to make an effort to shake off the confusion and remember that she was there because of the intransigence of love. Her mission was not to be helping Tao Chi'en, she would think, but to search for Joaquín; that was why she had come so far, and look for him she would, even if it was just to tell him face-to-face that he was a damned deserter and he had ruined her youth. That was her reason for having set out three times before; she lacked the will, however, to start again. She had gone to Tao Chi'en to announce her determination to take up her pilgrimage but the words stuck like sand in her throat. She could not abandon this strange companion fate had sent her way.

“What will you do if you find him?” Tao Chi'en had asked her once.

“When I see him I will know whether I still love him.”

“And if you never find him?”

“I will live with that doubt, I suppose.”

Eliza had noticed a few premature gray hairs at her friend's temples. At times the temptation to bury her fingers in that thick black hair, or her nose in his neck to get the full effect of his ocean scent, was unbearable, but now she did not have the excuse of sleeping on the ground rolled up in a blanket, and opportunities to touch one another were nonexistent. Tao was working and studying too hard; she could tell how tired he must be although he was always impeccably groomed, and kept his calm in even the most trying moments. He faltered only when he came back from a sale leading a terrified girl by the arm. He would examine her to see what condition she was in and hand her over to Eliza with necessary instructions, then lock himself in his room for hours. “He is with Lin,” Eliza would conclude, and an inexplicable pain would imbed itself deep in a hidden corner of her heart. In truth, he was. In the silence of his meditation, Tao Chi'en would try to recover his lost aplomb and rid himself of the temptation of hatred and anger. Gradually, memories, desires, and thoughts would slip away, until he felt his body dissolving into nothingness. For a time, he ceased to exist, until he reemerged transformed into an eagle, soaring effortlessly, borne by cold, limpid air that lifted him above the highest mountains. From there he could look down on vast prairies, endless forests, and rivers of pure silver. Then he knew perfect harmony, like a fine instrument resonating with the heavens and the earth. Floating among milky clouds, superb wings outstretched, he suddenly would feel Lin with him. She materialized at his side, another splendid eagle suspended in the infinite heavens.

“Where is your joy, Tao?” she asked.

“The world is filled with suffering, Lin.”

“Suffering fulfills a spiritual purpose.”

“This is merely useless sorrow.”

“Remember that the sage is always joyful because he accepts reality.”

“And evil, must he accept that, too?”

“The only antidote is love. And, incidentally . . . when will you marry again?”

“I am married to you.”

“I am a ghost. I cannot visit you your whole lifetime, Tao. It is very difficult to come when you call me; I do not belong in your world any longer. Marry, or you will be an old man before your time. Besides, if you do not practice the two hundred twenty-two positions of love, you will forget them,” she teased with her unforgettable crystalline laugh.

The auctions were much worse that his visits to the “hospital.” There was very little hope of helping the dying girls, and if that happened it was a miraculous gift; on the other hand, he knew that for every girl he bought, dozens were condemned to infamy. He would torture himself imagining how many he could rescue if he were wealthy, until Eliza reminded him of the ones he had saved. The two of them were joined by a delicate web of affinities and shared secrets, but also separated by mutual obsessions. The ghost of Joaquín Andieta was fading; in contrast, Lin's spirit was as detectable as the breeze or the sound of waves on the shore. All Tao Chi'en had to do was summon her and she came, always smiling, as she had been in her lifetime. Far from being Eliza's rival, however, she had become her ally, although Eliza never knew that. Lin was the first to realize that Eliza and Tao's friendship was closer to love, and when her husband rebutted that there was no place in China or in Chile for a couple like them, she always laughed.

“Do not say foolish things; the world is large and life is long. It is all a question of taking a chance.”

“You cannot imagine what racism is like, Lin; you always lived among your own kind. Here no one cares what I do or what I know; to white people I am just a revolting Chinese pagan, and Eliza is a greaser. In Chinatown I am a renegade without a queue who dresses like an American. I don't belong anywhere.”

“Racism is nothing new. In China you and I believed that the
fan wey
were all savages.”

“Here the only thing they respect is money, and apparently I will never have enough.”

“You are mistaken. They also respect the person who commands respect. Look in their eyes.”

“If I follow your advice, I'll be shot at the first street corner.”

“It's worth the chance to try. You complain too much, Tao, I cannot recognize you. Where is the courageous man I love?”

Tao Chi'en had to admit that he felt bound to Eliza by countless fine threads, each easily cut but when twisted together forming strands like steel. They had known each other only a few years but they could look to the past and see the obstacle-filled road they had traveled together. Their similarities had erased differences of race. “You look like a pretty Chinese girl,” Tao had said in an unguarded moment. “You have the face of a handsome Chilean,” she had immediately answered. They were a strange pair in the quarter: a tall, elegant Chinese man with an insignificant Spanish boy. Outside Chinatown, however, they were nearly invisible in the multifaceted throngs of San Francisco.

“You cannot wait for that man forever, Eliza. It is a form of madness, like gold fever. You must set a deadline,” Tao said one day.

“And what do I do with my life when the time is up?”

“You can go back to your country.”

“In Chile a woman like me is worse off than one of your singsong girls. Would you go back to China?”

“That was my intention, but I am beginning to like America. There I would be Fourth Son again. I'm better off here.”

“So am I. If I don't find Joaquín, I'll stay here and open a restaurant. I have everything I need: a good memory for recipes, love of the ingredients, a good sense of taste and touch, an instinct for seasonings . . .”

“And modesty, too.” Tao Chi'en laughed.

“Why should I be modest about my talent? Besides, I have a nose like a hound. A good nose should be worth something; all I have to do is smell a dish to know what's in it, and how to make it better.”

“You can't do that with Chinese cooking.”

“You eat such strange things, Tao! Mine would be a French restaurant, the best in the city.”

“I will make you a deal, Eliza. If within one year you do not find this Joaquín, marry me,” said Tao Chi'en, and both burst out laughing.

After that conversation, something changed between them. They felt uncomfortable when they were alone, and although alone was what they wanted to be, they began to avoid it. The longing to follow Eliza when she went to her room often tortured Tao Chi'en, but he was stopped short by a blend of shyness and respect. He felt that as long as Eliza was clinging to the memory of her former lover he should not go near her, but neither could he continue to walk a tightrope indefinitely. He imagined her in her bed, counting the hours in the expectant silence of the night, she, too, sleepless with love, but for another, not him. He knew her body so well that he could sketch it in detail, down to the most secret mole, even though he had not seen her naked since the days he had looked after her on the ship. He daydreamed that if she fell ill he would have an excuse to touch her, but then he was ashamed at the thought. The spontaneous laughter and quiet tenderness that had used to bubble up between them was now replaced with oppressive tension. If they brushed against each other by accident they pulled back, embarrassed; each was aware of the other's presence or absence, the air seemed laden with presages and anticipation. Instead of sitting down to read or write in quiet companionship, they parted ways as soon as work in the consulting room was finished. Tao Chi'en would visit bedfast patients, meet other
zhong yi
to discuss diagnoses and treatments, or go to his room to study Western medical texts. He hoped to earn a permit to practice medicine legally in California, a project he had confided to no one but Eliza and the spirits of Lin and his acupuncture master. In China a
zhong yi
began as an apprentice and then worked on his own, which was why medicine hadn't changed for centuries but had preserved the same methods and remedies. The difference between a good practitioner and one who was mediocre was that the former had a talent for diagnosing and the gift of using his hands to heal. Western doctors, however, followed a demanding program of study, kept in contact with one another, and were up-to-date on new discoveries; they had laboratories and morgues for experimentation and exposed themselves to the challenge of competition. Science fascinated Tao, but his enthusiasm was not seconded in a community faithful to tradition. He followed all the latest advances and bought every book and magazine he could find on those subjects. His curiosity for modern ways was so great that he had to write his venerable master's adage on the wall: “Knowledge is of little use without wisdom, and there is no wisdom without spirituality.” Science isn't everything, Tao repeated to himself, in order not to forget. In any case, he needed American citizenship—very difficult to obtain because of his race, but that was the only way he could remain in that country without being a permanent outsider. And he needed a title; with a title he could earn a lot more. The
fan wey
knew nothing about acupuncture or the herbs used in Asia for centuries; they considered him a kind of witch doctor, and their scorn for other races was so profound that slave owners on southern plantations sent for a veterinarian when a Negro fell ill. They held the same opinion of the Chinese, but there were a few visionary doctors who had traveled, or had read about other cultures, and were interested in Eastern techniques and the thousand drugs in the Oriental pharmacopoeia. Tao kept in touch with Ebanizer Hobbs in England, and both lamented in their letters the great distance that separated them. “Come to London, Dr. Chi'en, and give an acupuncture demonstration to the Royal Medical Society. You will leave them openmouthed, I promise you,” Hobbs wrote. He had always said that if they combined their knowledge they would be able to raise the dead.

S
everal singsong girls died of pneumonia from the winter cold, and Tao Chi'en couldn't save them. Twice he was called while the girls were still alive; he managed to get them home but they died in his arms a few hours later, delirious with fever. By then, the quiet tentacles of his compassion had spread across North America, from San Francisco to New York, from the Río Grande to Canada, but that extraordinary effort was only a grain of salt in an ocean of misery. Things were going well in his practice, and everything he was able to save, or obtained through the charity of a few wealthy patients, went toward buying the youngest girls in the auctions. He was recognized now in that subculture, and had the reputation of being a degenerate. No one had ever seen alive any of the adolescents Tao acquired “for his experiments,” as he called them, but no one really cared what happened behind his closed doors. As a
zhong yi
he was the best; as long as he did not create a scandal, and limited himself to the little whores, who were no more than animals, anyway, they left him in peace. In answer to curious questions, Tao Chi'en's loyal assistant, the only person qualified to give information, said only that his employer's mysterious experiments resulted in the exceptional knowledge that was so beneficial for his patients. By that time Tao Chi'en had moved to a fine house on the edge of Chinatown a few blocks from Union Square, where he held his clinic, sold his remedies, and hid the girls until they were able to travel. Eliza had learned the rudiments of Chinese necessary for communicating on an elementary level; the rest she improvised with pantomime, drawings, and a few words of English. The effort was rewarding; it was much better than posing as the doctor's deaf-mute brother. She could not write or read Chinese but she recognized the medicines by their smell, and as a safeguard she marked the bottles with a code of her own invention. There were always patients waiting for the gold needles, the miraculous herbs, and the comfort of Tao Chi'en's voice. More than one asked himself how that man who was so wise and affable could be the person who collected corpses and child concubines, but as they were not absolutely sure what his vices consisted of, the community respected him. He had no friends, it was true, but neither did he have enemies. His good name spread beyond the confines of Chinatown and some American doctors consulted him when their knowledge was insufficient—always very quietly, for it would have been embarrassing to admit that a “celestial” had anything to teach them. That was how Tao had occasion to treat certain important figures in the city, and to meet the celebrated Ah Toy.