Shanghai Girls (9 page)

“You have to take care of your sister,” Mama says. “Promise me, Pearl. Promise me right now.”

I promise. And then, after what seems like days and weeks and months, blackness comes over my eyes.

Eating Wind and Tasting Waves

I WAKE ONCE
to find a moist cloth wiping my face. I open my eyes and there’s May—as pale, beautiful, and tremulous as a spirit. I see the sky above her. Are we dead? I close my eyes again and feel myself lurching and bumping.

The next thing I know I’m on a boat of some kind. I fight hard to stay awake this time. I look to my left and see netting. I look to my right and see land. The boat moves in a steady
pull, pull, pull
. The lack of waves tells me we aren’t on the ocean. I lift my head and see a cage just beyond my feet. Inside, a boy of about six—retarded, insane, diseased?—twitches and shimmies. I close my eyes and let myself be lulled by the steady rhythm of the boat as it’s rowed through the water.

I don’t know how many days we travel. Momentary images tear across my eyes and echo in my ears: the moon and the stars above, the incessant croaking of frogs, the sorrowful sound of a
pi-pa
being played, the splash of an oar, the raised voice of a mother calling to a child, the crack of rifle shots. Into the anguished hollows of my mind, I hear a voice say, “Is it true that dead men float facedown in water but women look to the sky?” I don’t know who asked the question or if it was asked at all, but I’d prefer to stare down into an eternity of watery blackness.

Once I lift my arm to block the sunlight and feel something heavy slide toward my elbow. It’s my mother’s jade bracelet, and I know she’s dead. My insides boil with fever, while my skin shivers uncontrollably with cold. Gentle hands lift me. I’m in a hospital. Soft voices say words like “morphine,” “lacerations,” “infection,” “vagina,” and “surgery.” Whenever I hear my sister’s voice, I feel safe. When I don’t, I despair.

Finally, I come back from my wandering among the nearly dead. May dozes in a chair by the hospital bed. Her hands are so thickly bandaged that she looks like she has two huge white paws lying in her lap. A doctor—a man—stands over me and puts a forefinger to his lips. He jerks his head in May’s direction and whispers, “Let her sleep. She needs it.”

When he leans over me, I try to pull away, but my wrists have been tied to the bed rails.

“You’ve been delirious for some time and you fought us pretty hard,” he says gently. “But you’re safe now.” He puts a hand on my arm. He’s Chinese, but a man nevertheless. I fight the urge to scream. He looks into my eyes, searching, and then he smiles. “Your fever’s gone. You’re going to live.”

In the coming days, I learn that May put me in the wheelbarrow and pushed me herself until we reached the Grand Canal. Along the way, she discarded or sold much of what we’d brought with us. Now our sole possessions are three outfits apiece, our papers, and what remains of Mama’s dowry. At the Grand Canal, May used some of Mama’s money to hire a fisherman and his family to take us on their sampan to Hangchow. I was near death by the time she got me to the hospital. When they took me in for surgery, other doctors worked on May’s hands, which were blistered and worn raw from pushing the wheelbarrow. She paid for our treatment by selling some of Mama’s wedding jewelry at a local pawnshop.

Gradually May’s hands heal, but I require another two surgeries. One day the doctors come in with grim faces to tell me they doubt I’ll ever be able to have children. May weeps, but I don’t. If having a baby means doing the husband-wife thing again, I’d rather die.
Never again
, I tell myself
Never ever again will I do that thing
.

After nearly six weeks in the hospital, the doctors finally agree to discharge me. With this news, May disappears to make arrangements for us to go to Hong Kong. On the day she’s to pick me up, I step into the bathroom to change. I’ve lost a lot of weight. The person who stares back at me in the mirror looks no more than twelve years old—tall, gawky, and skinny—but with hollowed-out cheeks and dark circles under the eyes. My bob has grown out, and my hair hangs limp and dull. The days spent under the sun without benefit of an umbrella or a hat have left my skin ruddy and tough. How infuriated Baba would be if he saw me now. My arms are so emaciated that my fingers look overly long, like talons. The Western-style dress I put on hangs on me like loose drapery.

When I come out of the bathroom, May’s sitting on my bed, waiting. She takes one look at me and tells me to take off the dress.

“A lot has happened while you’ve been recovering,” she says. “The monkey people are like ants looking for syrup. They’re everywhere.” She hesitates. She hasn’t wanted to talk about what happened that night in the shack, for which I’m grateful, but it hangs between us with every word, every look. “We need to fit in,” she goes on with false brightness. “We need to look like everyone else.”

She sold one of Mama’s bracelets and used the money to buy two changes of clothes: native black linen trousers, loose blue jackets, and kerchiefs to cover our hair. She hands me a set of the rough peasant clothes. I’ve never had any shyness around May. She’s my sister, but I don’t think I can bear for even her to see me naked now. I take the clothes and go back into the bathroom.

“And I have one other idea,” she calls from the opposite side of the closed and locked door. “I can’t say it’s my own and I don’t know if it will work. I heard it from two Chinese missionary ladies. I’ll wait until you get out here to show you.”

This time when I stare in the mirror I almost laugh. In the last two months I’ve changed from a beautiful girl into a pitiful peasant, but when I come out of the bathroom, May doesn’t comment on how I look. She just motions me to the bed. She pulls out a jar of cold cream and a tin of cocoa powder and sets them on my night table. From my breakfast tray—she frowns when she sees I haven’t eaten anything
again—
she takes the spoon, scoops out some of the cold cream, and drops two big dollops of it on the tray.

“Pearl, pour some of the cocoa powder in here.” I look at her quizzically. “Trust me,” she says and smiles. I shake the powder into the jar, and she begins to stir the disgusting combination. “We’re going to wear this on our hands and faces, so we’ll look darker, more country.”

It’s a clever idea, but my skin is already dark and that didn’t save me from the soldiers’ madness. Still, from the moment I leave the hospital, I wear May’s concoction.

WHILE I WAS
in the hospital, May found a fisherman who’s discovered a new and better way of making a fortune than looking beneath the waves by transporting refugees
on
the waves from Hangchow to Hong Kong. When we board his boat, we join another dozen or so passengers in a small and very dark hold once used for storing fish. Our only light comes from between the slats of the deck above us. The lingering smell of fish is overpowering, but we set to sea, tossing in the tail of a typhoon. It doesn’t take long before people get seasick. May has it the worst.

On our second day out, we hear shouts. A woman next to me begins to weep. “It’s the Japanese,” she cries. “We’re all going to die.”

If she’s right, I won’t give them a chance to rape me again. I’ll throw myself overboard first. The hold echoes with the sound of heavy boots above us. Mothers hug their babies to their breasts to muffle any sounds. Across from me, an infant’s arm jerks desperately as he struggles to take a breath.

May rummages through our bags. She pulls out the last of our cash and divides it into three stacks. One she folds and wedges into the wooden slats of the ceiling. She hands me a few of the bills. I follow her lead as she tucks her money up under her kerchief. Hurriedly, she pulls Mama’s bracelet off my wrist, takes off her earrings, and adds them to what’s left in Mama’s dowry bag. This she jams into a crack between the hull and the platform on which we sit. Finally, she reaches into our travel bag and brings out her cold-cream mixture. We smear an extra coating on our faces and hands.

The hatch opens, and light streams down on us.

“Come up here!” a voice demands in Chinese.

We do as we’re told. Fresh, salty air blows on my face. The sea thrums under my feet. I’m too frightened to look up.

“It’s all right,” May whispers. “They’re Chinese.”

But these aren’t sea inspectors, fishermen, or even other refugees being transferred from one boat to another. They’re pirates. On land our countrymen are taking advantage of the war by looting areas under attack. Why should the sea be any different? The other travelers are terrified. They don’t yet realize that the theft of money and belongings is nothing.

The pirates search the men and take whatever jewels and money they find. Unsatisfied, the head pirate orders the men to strip. At first they hesitate, but when he shakes his rifle, the men do as they’re told. More money and jewels are found tucked into the cracks of rear ends, sewn into the hems or linings of clothes, or hidden in the soles of shoes.

It’s hard to explain how I feel. The last time I saw men naked … But here are my countrymen—cold, scared, trying to cover their private parts with their hands. I don’t want to look at them, but I do. I feel confused, bitter, and strangely triumphant to see men reduced to such weakness.

Then the pirates ask the women to hand over whatever they’re hiding. Having seen what happened to the men, the women promptly obey. Without regret, I reach into my kerchief and pull out the bills. Our valuables are gathered, but the pirates aren’t dumb.

“You!”

I jump, but he isn’t addressing me.

“What are you hiding?”

“I work on a farm,” a girl standing to my right says, her voice trembling.

“A farm girl? Your face, hands, and feet deny that!”

It’s true. She wears peasant clothes, but her face is pale, her hands pretty, and she wears new saddle oxfords. The pirate helps the girl off with her clothes until all she wears is a napkin and belt. That’s when we all know for sure that she’s lying. A farm girl can’t afford Western-style napkins. She’d use coarse grass paper like any other poor woman.

How is it that in times like these we can’t help but look? I don’t know, but again I look—partly afraid for myself and May, partly curious. The pirate takes the napkin and slits it open with his knife. He comes away with just fifteen dollars Hong Kong money.

Disgusted by his measly haul, the pirate tosses the napkin into the sea. He looks from woman to woman, decides we aren’t worth the bother, and then motions to a couple of his men to search the hold. They return a few minutes later, say a few menacing words, jump back onto their boat, and chug away. People rush to be first to scramble down into the stinky hold to see what’s been taken. I stay on the deck. Soon enough, faster than I could imagine, I hear cries of dismay.

A man rushes back up the ladder, takes three giant steps across the deck, and flings himself overboard. Neither the fisherman nor I have a chance to do anything. The man bobs in the waves for a minute or so, and then he disappears.

Every day since waking up in the hospital I’ve wanted to die, but watching that man sink below the waves, I feel something inside me rise up. A Dragon doesn’t surrender. A Dragon fights fate. This is not some loud, roaring feeling. It feels more like someone blew on an ember and found a slight orange glow. I have to hang on to my life—however ruined and useless. Mama’s voice comes floating to me, reciting one of her favorite sayings, “There is no catastrophe except death; one cannot be poorer than a beggar.” I want
—need—
to do something braver and finer than dying.

I go to the hatch and climb down the ladder. The fisherman clamps and locks the hatch. In the sepulchral light I find May. I sit down next to her. Wordlessly, she shows me Mama’s dowry bag, and then she glances up. I follow her gaze. The last of our money is still safe in the crevice.

A FEW DAYS
after we arrive in Hong Kong, we read that the areas surrounding Shanghai have been under attack all this time. The reports are almost too much to bear. Chapei has been bombed and burned to the ground. Hongkew, where we lived, hasn’t fared much better. The French Concession and the International Settlement—as foreign territories—are still safe. In a city where there isn’t room for another rat, more and more refugees arrive. According to the paper, the foreign concessions’ quarter-million residents are flummoxed by the crowding caused by three and a half million refugees living on the streets and in converted movie theaters, dance halls, and racecourses. Those concessions—surrounded as they are on all sides by the dwarf bandits—are now being called the Lonely Island. The terror hasn’t been limited to Shanghai. Every day brings news of women being abducted, raped, or killed throughout China. Canton, not so far from us here in Hong Kong, suffers from heavy air raids. Mama wanted us to go to Baba’s home village, but what will we find once we get there? Will it be burned to the ground? Will anyone be alive? Will our father’s name mean anything anymore in Yin Bo?

We live in a hotel on Hong Kong’s waterfront. It’s dirty, dusty, and louse-ridden. The mosquito netting is sooty and ripped. The things we ignored in Shanghai are all too vivid here: families crouched on street corners with their worldly goods spread on a blanket before them, hoping someone will stop to buy. Nevertheless, the British act as though the monkey people will never come to the colony. “We aren’t involved in this war,” they say in their crisp accents. “The Japs dare not attack here.” With so little money, we’re reduced to eating stewed rice bran, a meal often given to pigs. The bran scratches the throat on the way in and is ruinous on the way out. We have no skills, and no one has need for beautiful girls, because there’s no point in promoting beautiful girls when the world’s turning ugly.