Shanghai Girls: A Novel Part 15

The old man's knuckles tap on the table, weighing, weighing, weighing. He gives one final decisive rap, and then he stands. He reaches out his hand and squeezes Sam's shoulder. Then he walks back to his tea cakes, tea, and friends.

The next day, I buy a newspaper, circle a cla.s.sified ad, and walk to a phone booth, where I make a call about a position as a clerk in a refrigerator repair shop.

"You sound perfect, Mrs. Louie," a pleasant voice says on the line. "Please come in for an interview."

But when I get there and the man sees me, he says, "I didn't realize you were Chinese. I thought you were Italian because of your name."

I don't get the job, and variations of this happen again and again. Finally, I put in an application at Bullock's Wils.h.i.+re Department Store. I'm hired to work in the storeroom, where no one will see me. I make eighteen dollars a week. After my time in China City, moving from the cafe to the various shops throughout the day, staying in one place is easy. I dress better than the other storeroom clerks and work harder too. One day the a.s.sistant manager releases me into the store proper to stack merchandise and keep it in order. After a couple of months-and intrigued by my British accent, which I use because it seems to please my Occidental boss-he promotes me to elevator operator. It can't be easier or more mindless--just up and down from ten in the morning until six at night-and I earn a few dollars more a month.

Then one day the a.s.sistant manager has a new idea. "We just got in a s.h.i.+pment of mah-jongg sets," he says. "You're going to help me sell them. You're going to provide atmosphere."

He has me change into a cheap cheongsam sent by the game's manufacturer, and then he takes me to the ground floor just inside the main entrance and shows me a table-my table. By the end of the afternoon, I've sold eight sets. The following day, I come to work wearing one of my most beautiful cheongsams-bright red with embroidered peonies. I sell two dozen mah-jongg sets. When customers announce they want to learn how to play the game, the a.s.sistant manager asks me to teach a cla.s.s once a week-for a fee, of which I receive a percentage. I'm doing so well that I ask the a.s.sistant manager if he'll let me take the written test for another promotion. When his boss grades me down because of my Chinese hair, skin, and eyes, I know I've gone as far as I can at Bullock's, even though I sell more mah-jongg sets than the other girls sell gloves or hats.

But what can I do? For now I'm happy with the money I make. I give a third to Father Louie, as we all have called him since he and Sam came to their agreement, for the family pot. Another third is put aside for Joy. And I keep a third to spend as I please.

SIX MONTHS AFTER the fire, on August 2, 1939, China City has its second Grand Opening, with an opera, dragon parade, lion dance, magicians, devil dancers, and carefully monitored firecrackers. In the months that follow, the fragrances of incense and gardenias perfume the air. Soft Chinese music wafts down the alleyways. Children dart among tourists. Mae West, Gene Tierney and Eleanor Roosevelt visit. Shriners host events, and fraternities come to rush. Other groups go to the Chinese Junk Cafe-modeled on the command s.h.i.+p of a pirate fleet led by the greatest pirate in the world, who just happened to be a Chinese woman-"docked" in the Harbor of Whangpoo to eat "pirate chow" and drink "pirate grog" prepared by "an expert mixologist, a man of soft words but loud concoctions." The alleyways are full of Occidentals, but China City will never be what it was.

Perhaps people begin to stay away because many of the original sets that had been a big draw are now reproductions. Maybe they stay away because New Chinatown is seen as more modern and fun. While we were closed, New Chinatown and its neon lights seduced visitors with the promise of late nights, dancing, and amus.e.m.e.nt, while China City-no matter how much pirate grog you imbibe-is peaceful, quiet, and quaint, with its little alleyways and people dressed as villagers.

I quit my job at Bullock's and resume my old routine of cleaning and serving in China City. This time I'm properly paid for the work I do. May, however, doesn't want to go back to the Golden PaG.o.da.

"Bak Wah Tom has offered me a full-time job," she tells Father Louie, "helping him find extras, making sure everyone arrives on time for the bus to take them to the studio, and translating on sets."

I listen to this in surprise. I'd be better at that job. I'm fluent in Sze Yup, for one thing-something even my father-in-law understands.

"What about your sister? She's the smart one. She should do this work."

"Yes, my jie jie is very smart, but-"

Before she can make her arguments, he tries a different tack. "Why do you want to be apart from the family? Don't you want to stay with your sister?"

"Pearl doesn't mind," May answers. "I've given her plenty of things she would never have otherwise."

Lately, whenever May wants something, she reminds me that she gave me a child and all the many secrets that go with that. Is this meant to be a threat-that if I don't let her do this she'll tell the old man Joy isn't mine? Not at all. This is one of those times when May has thought things through very clearly. This is her way of reminding me that I have a beautiful daughter, a husband who loves me, and a little home for the three of us in our room, while she has no one and nothing. Shouldn't I help her get something to make her life more bearable?

"May already has experience with people from Haolaiwu," I tell my father-in-law. "She'll be good at this."

So May goes to work for Tom Gubbins, and I take her place in the Golden PaG.o.da. I dust from one end of the store to the other. I wash the floor and windows. I make lunch for Father Louie and then scrub his dishes in a tub, throwing the dirty water outside the door as if I'm a peasant's daughter. And I take care of Joy.

Like women everywhere, I wish I were a better mother. Joy is seventeen months old and still in diapers that have to be washed by hand. She often cries in the afternoons, and I have to walk her back and forth for what seems like hours to calm her. It isn't her fault. Because of her filming schedules, she doesn't sleep well at night and she barely naps during the day. She eats American food on the sets and spits out the Chinese food I make for her. I try to hold her, snuggle her, and do all the things a mother's supposed to do, but there's a part of me that still doesn't like to touch or be touched. I love my daughter, but she's a Tiger child and not easy. And then there's May, who now spends a lot of time with Joy. A kernel of bitterness begins to grow, which Yen-yen feeds and nourishes. I shouldn't listen to that old woman, but I can't get away from her.

"That May thinks only of herself. Her beautiful face hides a devious heart. She has just one thing to do and she doesn't do it. Pearl, Pearl, Pearl, you sit here and take care of a worthless girl all day. But where is your sister's child? Why won't she bring us a son? Why, Pearl, why? Because she's selfish, because she doesn't think of helping you or anyone else in the family."

I don't want to believe these things are true, but I can't deny that May is changing. As her jie jie, I should try to stop it, but my parents and I didn't know how to do it when May was a little girl and I don't know how to do it now.

To make things more difficult, May often calls me from the set, lowers her voice, and then asks, "How in the H do I tell these people they have to carry their firearms over their shoulders?" Or "How in the H do I tell them to huddle together when they're being beaten?" And I tell her the Sze Yup words, because I don't know what else to do.

By Christmas, our lives have settled. May and I have been here twenty months. Making our own money allows us to slip away for excursions and treats. Father Louie calls us spendthrifts, but we always weigh how to spend our cash. I want a more stylish haircut than I can get in Chinatown, but every time I go to a beauty parlor in the Occidental part of town, they say, "We don't cut Chinese hair." I finally get someone to cut my hair after hours, when white customers won't be offended by my presence. A car would be nice too-we could get a used four-door Plymouth for five hundred dollars-but we have a long way to save for that.

In the meantime, we go to the movie palaces on Broadway. Even if we pay for the best seats, we have to sit in the balcony. But we don't care, because movies perk up the spirits. We cheer when we glimpse May as a fallen woman begging a missionary for forgiveness or Joy as an orphan being handed onto a sampan by Clark Gable. Seeing my daughter's beautiful face on the screen, I'm embarra.s.sed by my dark skin. I take some of my money to the apothecary and buy face cream embellished with ground pearls, hoping to make my face as fair as Joy's mother's should be.

During our time here, May and I have changed from beautiful girls buffeted by fate and looking for escape to young wives not completely happy with our lots-but what young wives are? Sam and I are doing the husband-wife thing, but so are May and Vern. I know because the walls are thin and I can hear everything. We have accepted and adapted to what's safe, and we do our best to find pleasure where we can. On New Year's Eve, we dress up and go to the Palomar Dance Hall, only to be turned away because we're Chinese. Standing on the street corner, I gaze up and see a full moon that looks worn and blurred, dulled by the lights and the exhaust that hang in the air. As one poet wrote, Even the best of moons will be tinged with sadness.

Haolaiwu WE ARE BACK in Shanghai. Rickshaws clatter past. Beggars squat on the ground, their arms outstretched, their palms open. Barbecued ducks hang in the windows. Street vendors hover over carts, boiling noodles, roasting nuts, frying bean curd. Peddlers sell bok choy and melons from baskets. Farmers have come into the city, carrying bundles of live chickens, ducks, and pig parts hanging from poles slung over their shoulders. Women drift past in skintight cheongsams. Old men sit on upturned crates, smoking pipes, their hands tucked into their sleeves for warmth. Thick fog drapes itself around our feet, oozing into alleys and dark corners. Red lanterns hang above us, turning everything into an eerie dream.

"Places! Places, everyone!"

Home vanishes from my mind, and I'm back on the movie set I'm visiting with May and Joy. Bright lights turn on the fake scene. A camera rolls across the floor. A man positions a sound boom overhead. It's September 1941.

"You should be proud of Joy," May says, brus.h.i.+ng a loose strand of hair from my daughter's face. "No matter what studio we go to, everyone loves her."

Joy sits on her aunt's lap, looking content but alert. She's three and a half years old and beautiful; "just like her aunt," people always say. And what a perfect auntie May is, getting Joy jobs, taking her to movie sets, making sure she has good costumes and is always in the exact right spot when the director looks for an innocent face on which to focus his camera lens. This past year or so, Joy has spent so much time with her auntie that being with me is like spending time with a bowl of rancid milk. I discipline Joy and make her eat her supper, dress properly, and show respect to her grandparents, her uncles, and every other person older than she. May prefers to indulge Joy with treats, kisses, and letting her stay up all night on shoots like this.

People have always called me the smart one-even my father-in-law says so-but what seemed like a good idea a couple of years ago has turned out to be a big mistake. When I said May could take Joy to movie sets, I didn't fully understand that my sister was going to provide my daughter with a different world, which was fun and completely separate from me. When I mentioned this to May, she frowned and shook her head. "It's not like that. Come with us and watch what we do. You'll see how good she is, and you'll change your mind." But this isn't just about Joy. May wants to show off her importance, and I'm supposed to tell her how proud of her I am. We've followed this same pattern since we were children.

So today, in the late afternoon, we boarded a bus with neighbors for whom May had also gotten jobs. When we reached the studio, we drove through a gate and straight to the wardrobe department, where women shoved clothes at us with no regard to our sizes. I was handed a filthy jacket and a wrinkled pair of loose trousers. I hadn't worn clothes like these since May and I crept out of China and then languished on Angel Island. When I tried to exchange them, the wardrobe girl said, "You're supposed to look dirty, plenty dirty, understand?" May, who usually plays someone glamorous and naughty, also took a set of peasant clothes so we'd be together in the scene.

We changed in a big tent with no privacy and no heating. Somehow, although I dress my daughter every day, her auntie took charge, slipping off Joy's felt jumper and helping her step into trousers that were as dark, dirty, and loose as the ones May and I wore. Then we went to hair and makeup. They hid our hair under black cloths wrapped tightly around our heads. They tied Joy's hair with several rubber bands until her head looked like it was sprouting exotic black plants. They smeared our faces with brown makeup, bringing back memories of May coating my face with the mixture of cocoa and cold cream. Then we went back outside, so we could be spattered with mud from a spray gun. After that, we waited in the fake Shanghai, our wide black trousers fluttering in the breeze like dark spirits. For those born here, this is as close as they'll ever get to the land of their ancestors. For those born in China, the set allows us a moment to feel as though we've been transported across the water and back in time.

I have to admit I love seeing how much the crew likes my sister and the way the other extras respect her. May is happy, smiling, greeting friends, reminding me of the girl she used to be back in Shanghai. And yet, as the night drags on, I see more and more things that disturb me. Yes, a man sells live chickens, but behind him a group of men squat on their haunches and gamble. In another part of the scene, men pretend to smoke opium-right on the fake street! Nearly all the men have pigtails, even though the story not only takes place after the Republic was formed but has as its background the dwarf bandits' invasion twenty-five years later. And the women ...

I think about The Shanghai Gesture, which May, Sam, Vern, and I saw earlier this year at the Million Dollar. Josef von Sternberg, the director, had spent time in Shanghai, so we thought we might see something that would remind us of our home city, but it was just another one of those stories where a white girl was led into gambling, alcohol, and who knew what else by a dragon lady. We laughed at the movie posters, which read, "People live in Shanghai for many reasons ...most of them bad." Toward the end of my days in Shanghai, I'd thought that was true, but it still hurt to see my home city-the Paris of Asia-painted in such an evil light. We've seen this kind of thing in movie after movie, and now we're in one.

"How can you do this, May? Aren't you ashamed?" I ask.

She looks genuinely confused and hurt. "About what?"

"Every single Chinese in this film is portrayed as backward," I answer. "We're made to giggle like idiots and show our teeth. They make us pantomime because we're supposed to be stupid. Or they make us speak the worst sort of pidgin English-"

"I suppose, but are you telling me this doesn't remind you of Shanghai?" She looks at me, hopeful.

"That's not the point! Don't you have any pride in the Chinese people?"

"I don't know why you have to complain about everything," she replies. Her disappointment is palpable. "I brought you here so you could see what Joy and I do. Aren't you proud of us?"

"May-"

"Why can't you have a good time?" she asks. "Why can't you take pleasure in watching Joy and me earn money? I admit we don't make as much as those guys over there." She points to a gaggle of fake rickshaw pullers. "I got them a guaranteed seven fifty a day for a week, so long as they kept their heads completely shaved. Not bad-"

"Rickshaw drivers, opium smokers, and prost.i.tutes. Is that what you want people to think we are?"

"If by people you mean lo fan, what do I care what they think?"

"Because these things are insulting-"

"To whom? They aren't slurs against us, you and me. Besides, this is just part of an evolution for us. Some people"-meaning me, I suppose-"would rather be unemployed than take a job they feel is beneath them. But a job like this gives us a start, and it's up to us to go from here."

"So today those men will play rickshaw pullers and tomorrow they'll own the studio?" I ask skeptically.

"Of course not," she says, finally annoyed. "All they want is a speaking role. There's a lot of money in that, Pearl, as you know."

Bak Wah Tom has been enticing May with the dream of a speaking role for a couple of years now and it still hasn't happened, although Joy has already had a few lines on different films. The bag where I keep Joy's earnings has gotten quite fat, and she's still a small child. In the meantime, Joy's auntie yearns to make her own twenty dollars for a line, any line. By now she'd settle for something as simple as "Yes, ma'am."

"If sitting around pretending all night to be a bad woman offers such opportunity," I say rather pointedly, "then why haven't you gotten a speaking role?"

"You know why! I've told you a thousand times! Tom says I'm too beautiful. Every time the director chooses me, the female star shoots me down. She doesn't want my face to fight with hers because I'll win. I know that sounds immodest, but that's what everyone says."

The crew finishes positioning people and adding a few more props for the next part of the scene. The film we're working on is a "warning" movie about the j.a.panese threat; if the j.a.panese can invade China and disrupt foreign interests, shouldn't we all be worried? So far, from my perspective, having spent a couple of hours shooting the same street scene over and over, it has little to do with what May and I experienced on our way out of China. But when the director describes the next scene to us, my stomach tightens.

"Bombs are going to drop," he explains through a megaphone. "They aren't real, but they're going to sound real. Next the j.a.ps are going to rush into the market. You have to run that way. You, over there with the cart, tip it over on your way out. And I want the women to scream. Scream really loud-like you think you're going to die."

When the camera begins to roll, I hold Joy on my hip, give what I think is a pretty good fake scream, and run. I do it again and again and again. Even though I'd had a momentary fear that this would bring bad memories, it doesn't. The fake bombs don't shake the ground. My ears don't go deaf from the concussions. No one loses their limbs. Blood doesn't spurt. It's all just a game and fun in the way it had been years ago when May and I used to put on plays for our parents. And May was right about Joy. She's good at following directions, waiting between shots, and crying when the camera starts rolling, just as she was instructed.

At two in the morning, we're sent back to the makeup tent, where they daub fake blood on our faces and clothes. When we return to the set, some of us are positioned on the ground-legs splayed, clothes twisted and b.l.o.o.d.y, eyes unseeing. Now the dead and dying lie around us. As the j.a.panese soldiers advance, the rest of us are supposed to run and scream. This isn't hard for me. I see the yellow uniforms and hear the stomp of boots. One of the extras-a peasant like me-b.u.mps into me, and I scream. When the fake soldiers run forward with their bayonets before them, I try to get away, but I fall. Joy scrambles to her feet and continues to run, tripping over corpses, getting farther away from me, leaving me. One of the soldiers pushes me down when I try to get up. I'm paralyzed with fear. Even though the men around me have Chinese faces, even though they're my neighbors dressed up to look like the enemy, I scream and scream and scream. I'm no longer on a movie set; I'm in a shack outside Shanghai. The director yells, "Cut."

May comes to my side. Her face is etched with concern. "Are you all right?" she asks as she helps me up.

I'm still so upset that I can't speak. I nod, and May gives me a questioning look. I don't want to talk about what I'm feeling. I didn't want to talk about it in China, when I woke up in the hospital, and I still don't. I take Joy from May's arms and hug my baby tight. I'm still shaking when the director saunters over to us.

"That was terrific," he says. "I could have heard you scream two blocks away. Could you do it again?" He eyes me appraisingly "Could you do it several more times?" When I don't answer right away, he says, "There's extra money in it for you, and the kid too. A great scream is a speaking part as far as I'm concerned, and I can always use a face like hers."

May's fingers tighten on my arm.

"So you'll do it?" he asks.

I push the memory of the shack out of my mind and think about my daughter's future. I could put a little extra money aside for her this month.

"I'll try," I manage to say.

May's fingers dig into my arm. As the director strolls back to his chair, May pulls me away from the others. "You have to let me do this," she implores desperately under her breath. "Please, please let me do it."

"I'm the one who screamed," I say. "I want to make something worthwhile come out of this night."

"This could be my only chance-"

"You're only twenty-two-"

"I was a beautiful girl in Shanghai," May pleads. "But this is Hollywood, and I don't have much time left."

"We all have fears of getting older," I say. "But I want this too. Have you forgotten I was also a beautiful girl?" When she doesn't respond, I use the one argument I'm sure will work. "I'm the one who remembered what happened in the shack-"

"You always use that excuse to get your way."

I step back, stunned by her words. "You don't mean that."

"You just don't want me to have anything of my own," she says forlornly.

How can she possibly say that when I've sacrificed so much for her? My resentment has grown over the years, but it has never stopped me from giving May everything she wants.

"You're always being given opportunities," May continues, her voice gathering strength.

Now I understand what's happening. If she can't have her way, she's going to fight me. But I'm not going to give in so easily this time.

"What opportunities?"

"Mama and Baba sent you to college-"

That's going way back in time, but I say, "You didn't want to go."

"Everyone likes you more than they like me."

"That's ridiculous-"

"Even my own husband prefers you to me. He's always nice to you."

What's the point in arguing with May? Our disagreements have always been about the same things: our parents liked one or the other of us more, one of us has something better-whether it's a better flavor ice cream, a prettier pair of shoes, or a more companionable husband-or one of us wants to do something at the expense of the other.

"I can scream just as well as you," May persists. "I'm asking again. Please let me do it."

"What about Joy?" I ask softly, attacking my sister's vulnerable spot. "You know Sam and I are saving for her to go to college one day."

"That's fifteen years away, and you're a.s.suming an American college will take Joy-a Chinese girl." My sister's eyes, which earlier tonight had sparkled with pleasure and pride, suddenly glare at me. For an instant I'm thrown back in time to our kitchen in Shanghai when Cook tried to teach us how to make dumplings. It had started out as something fun for May and me to do and had ended in a terrible fight. Now, all these years later, what was supposed to be an enjoyable outing has turned bitter. When I look at May, I see not just jealousy but hate. "Let me have this part," she says. "I earned it."

I think about how she works for Tom Gubbins, how she doesn't have to stay confined in one of the Golden enterprises all day, how she gets to come to sets like these with my daughter and be out of Chinatown and China City for a while.

"May-"

"If you're going to start in with all your grudges against me, I don't want to hear them. You refuse to see how lucky you are. Don't you know how jealous I am? I can't help it. You have everything. You have a husband who loves you and talks to you. You have a daughter."

There! She said it. My reply comes out of my mouth so fast, I don't have a chance to think about it or stop it.

"Then why is it that you spend more time with her than I do?" As I speak, I'm reminded of the old saying that diseases go in through the mouth, disasters come out of the mouth, meaning that words can be like bombs themselves.

"Joy prefers being with me because I hug and kiss her, because I hold her hand, because I let her sit on my lap," May snaps back.

"That's not the Chinese way to raise a child. Touching like that-"

"You didn't believe that when we lived with Mama and Baba," May says.

"True, but I'm a mother now and I don't want Joy to grow up to be porcelain with scars."

"Being hugged by her mother won't cause her to become a loose woman-"

"Don't tell me how to raise my daughter!" At the sharp tone in my voice, some of the extras peer at us curiously.

"You won't let me have anything, but Baba promised that if we agreed to our marriages I would get to go to Haolaiwu."

That's not how I remember it. And she's changing the subject. And she's confusing things.