Songs Of Willow Frost: A Novel Part 8

Mr. b.u.t.terfield slammed the cash register shut, snapped his suspenders, and relit his smoke. Then his smile faded. "You know-I heard the bad news." He pointed at the ribbon she wore. "I'm very sorry about your mom, that's such a tragedy. I'm sure she was a lovely woman-she had to be, to have had a daughter such as you. If there's anything I can do, if you need time off, you just let me know."

Liu Song thanked him.

"At least you have your uncle. Sounds like he has big plans for you, chickadee."

LIU SONG DREADED going home. She skipped the trolley and slowly walked down Second Avenue like a prisoner heading to the gallows. She shuffled past old nickelodeons that were going out of business and dozens of new movie theaters-the Bijou, the Odeon, the Dream. One marquee that caught her eye showcased The Red Lantern, a curious story about the Boxer Rebellion. Liu Song stopped and stared in awe at the poster of a slender woman in an elaborate, flowing gown and Peking-style headdress. Ah-ma, she thought, touching the cold gla.s.s, inhaling the damp Seattle air. But under close examination it became obvious that the star was a white actress-some Russian named Alla n.a.z.imova. In fact, all of the actors had Western names.

When she was little, Liu Song had dreamed of the stage. Theater was everything she knew. Performing was all her father talked about. Now the stage was changing. It was moving, coming to life in storefront theaters. Even local vaudeville houses like the Alhambra had been converted to showcase moving pictures, which were cheaper. That's where she and Mildred went to watch The Hazards of Helen and eat toasted watermelon seeds. Each week the adventurous Helen was nearly burned at the stake, fed to the lions, crushed beneath iron spikes, or cut in half with a buzz saw, yet by some miracle she always got away unscathed.

Liu Song wished she could be that fortunate.

Black and White.

(1921).

"You're late."

"We had a very busy day at the music store," Liu Song said. She stopped short of an apology as she watched Uncle Leo hang a red scroll outside their front door. The Chinese characters, painted in gold, were a traditional greeting, inviting the ghost of her mother-welcoming her back before she embarked on her spirit's journey. And on the lintel above the door he'd hung a bundle of dried mugwort and a peeled onion to ward off any wayward demons.

Liu Song knew that Uncle Leo didn't really care about her mother. But he was a slave to appearances and tradition. He was a man who strictly believed his fortunes were wedded to his superst.i.tions, so why take chances? He went through the rituals of mourning even as his first wife had moved in with them. But he was still no family man. He was a businessman-a laundryman, whose hands were always filthy.

"Last night was a good night. Maybe tonight I'll be lucky again." He hiked up his pants, jingling the pockets, which were laden with coins, and wandered off for an evening of drinking and gambling at the Wah Mee Club.

Inside, Auntie Eng was already serving dinner. The chicken Liu Song had plucked had been roasted and chopped. The savory aroma made Liu Song's mouth water, but her appet.i.te waned when she saw the group of curious strangers who sat around the table eating noisily, chewing, smacking, and picking the meat with their fingers, licking them clean. Liu Song watched as they ate from her parents' celadon double happiness bowls, greedily shoveling rice into their mouths with her mother's favorite chopsticks.

"You don't cook. You don't eat," Auntie Eng said as she sat down at the table.

The visitors looked at Liu Song as if she were the stranger in their home.

"My sisters and my nephews," Auntie Eng said. "They came up with me from Portland. My sisters will sleep in your room tonight. Their sons will share the couch."

Liu Song stood helpless and hungry as the visitors stared back; then they ignored her and continued eating and chattering about Leo and how fortunate he was that Auntie Eng had been able to finally come to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act had limited the flow of Chinese workers from hundreds of thousands twenty years ago to almost none today. Fortunately for Uncle Leo, his immigration records had been destroyed in the fires caused by the great San Francisco earthquake. After a three-day interrogation at Angel Island, he showed up on the steps of the newly rebuilt city hall with hundreds of other Chinese workers and posed as a paper son-claiming to have been born in the United States. Following a lengthy appeal, he was granted full citizens.h.i.+p, which allowed him to eventually bring over his paper wife, who lived with her sisters until Liu Song's mother finally pa.s.sed away.

The notion of Uncle Leo marking time with each of her mother's seizures, each fevered moment, made Liu Song sick to her stomach. He'd been waiting, barely able to contain his annoyance at having to care for her ailing mother. Liu Song went to her room to collect herself. Then she fixed up her bed and found blankets for the children. After that she went to the living room and sat quietly as Auntie Eng and her sisters played mah-jongg and gossiped and drank huangjiu from porcelain teacups that her mother had been given as a wedding present. The women talked about war and famine and the fall of the Manchus, and about family they had left behind and hadn't seen for years. They clucked about Uncle Leo's businesses. He'd opened hand laundries in Portland and Olympia, and had bought a used laundry truck, but still worried about losing business to the new treadle-driven machines. The women talked and smoked and belched and ate boiled peanuts, throwing the wet sh.e.l.ls on the floor until the barley wine ran out and they all staggered off to bed, leaving Liu Song to sweep up. She ate the peanuts that remained in the bowl and then changed into her bedclothes. She curled up on the cold wooden floor, next to the hissing radiator, with only a sheet, listening to the children snore. She had terrible dreams, and when she woke in the morning she had strange bruises in hidden places and smelled like Uncle Leo.

MR. b.u.t.tERFIELD WAS right. The next day the rubbernecker bus came by twice. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon, loaded with gawkers who marveled at Liu Song. Some even got off the bus and had her sign their sheet music.

One well-heeled blond woman handed her a small leather book and a pencil. "Just your name, dear," she said. And after Liu Song wrote her name in Chinese, the woman asked again, "No, your real name. What's your name in English?"

Liu Song hesitated, confused, then signed Willow. She wondered if this was what it had been like for her ah-ma on the evening of her grand performance. She wondered if her mother had had any inkling of how bad things would soon get.

BY DAY'S END, Mr. b.u.t.terfield was humming a happy tune and counting the money he'd made. "We'll need to double our orders of sheet music," he said as he sat down on an old leather stool and unscrewed his hip flask. He offered it to Liu Song, who shook her head and smiled politely.

"I haven't played that much since I was your age," he said. "Who knows? We keep this up, kid-I might even sell a few of the new Weltes."

Liu Song took a dusting rag and wiped down one of the enormous pianolas. "Do I get a commission on one of these as well?" she asked.

Mr. b.u.t.terfield took another swig. "Missy, if we sell one of the player pianos, I'll give you ten percent, and ten percent of every roll of music that goes with it to boot. Though you might have to shorten your skirt a bit if you expect to attract those kinds of dollars. Your voice isn't your only sales tool, you know."

Liu Song ignored his comment about her skirt and played a few notes on the piano. She didn't know much, just some jazz stingers she'd heard in the neighborhood and had taught herself to play. She plunked away, then left the store on an open chord.

As she walked to the trolley stand, she contemplated earning twenty-five dollars per piano-fifty for a deluxe model, enough to move out on her own, for a while at least. She wondered if she'd be able to enroll in school again, or if she needed a parent, and would Uncle Leo and Auntie Eng even let her leave? She felt tightness in her chest, her gut. She hated the thought of being alone but hated the notion of going home even more. Then she remembered that even if she sold one of the autopianos, the money would probably go directly to her uncle. She slumped onto a cold iron bench next to a man reading a copy of The Seattle Star. As she glanced at the paper she recognized the dress on the back page-her mother's dress, the same dress she was wearing. The feature photo was of her, singing in front of b.u.t.terfield's. The man slowly lowered the newspaper. She recognized his eyes, his gentle smile.

"Not bad for black-and-white," Colin said with his curious accent as he folded the paper and handed it to her. "But you'd look much better in Kinemacolor."

Liu Song had seen only one moving picture in color-The Gulf Between, with Grace Darmond. Her father had taken her to a matinee of the sad tale of a young girl who falls in love with a man whose wealthy, disapproving family comes between them. As Liu Song delighted in Colin's presence, her happiness flowing from her beating heart to her aching stomach, she worried about having feelings for someone-anyone-especially after losing so many people who had meant so much to her. She hesitated to hope and dream, unsure if she could take another loss-even a rejection seemed far beyond her capacity to endure.

"Ngoh m'mhng?" Liu Song was weary from singing all day, but now her tongue was tied in knots. She switched to English. "Why are you here?" She shook her head. "I'm sorry, that's terribly rude ..."

"Well, aside from working on my American dialect, I had to see-no, I had to hear you for myself. After reading such a flattering write-up in the Star, I thought I'd pay you a visit. And to be honest, I think you even outdid your mother-may her spirit rest."

Liu Song's smile faded as she looked down at her empty hands. "I can't believe she's gone. It's better for her, I'm sure. But ..."

"Again, I'm so terribly sorry, Liu Song."

"My parents ..."

"Are proud of you."

Liu Song heard a bra.s.s bell as a streetcar came and went. It was getting late and her stomach was growling, but she didn't want to go home. She felt grateful that Uncle Leo read the Post-Intelligencer instead of The Seattle Star.

"I knew your parents well enough to know that they would want you to perform, onstage, singing, acting-any way you can. Even here." He touched the newspaper. "This is a good start. I think your mother's spirit has been busy."

Liu Song ached for her ah-ma's presence. A Chinese spirit is said to come back in seven days, before departing. Perhaps her mother was looking out for her.

"And what of your parents? Your family, back home, your wife?" As Liu Song asked, she could see the discomfort in Colin's face. He frowned and exhaled slowly, staring up at the cloudy sky. She glanced at his finger and didn't see a wedding ring, though they weren't so common in China, where a dowry was more important. The gift of an appliance or a car wasn't unheard of instead of a token piece of jewelry.

"Ah, my parents," Colin said. "My father is a banker. And Mother stays at home. Her skin is so pale-I don't think she ever goes outside. She's too busy tending to my brothers and sisters, and my grandparents. I'm the firstborn son, so I'm expected to take a part in my father's business-to get married, to care for my mother and my siblings ..."

Liu Song was taken aback as Colin struggled to explain.

"But, you're here," she said.

He nodded, slowly. "That I am. I'm here. I always wanted to perform-always wanted to be an actor." The words came out almost as an apology. "First in the opera, like your lou dou-he was one of the first performers I had ever met. Your father encouraged me-jokingly of course, but I took him quite seriously. And growing up, I read constantly. I studied English. My father a.s.sumed it was to help in business, but I had other plans. While other men my age looked for an obedient wife, I watched every play, photoplay, and moving picture that I could. I wanted to be Chai Hong in An Oriental Romeo."

"And then you left your family?" Liu Song asked, astonished that a man his age would break with such traditions. She was different-she was an American. But most of the Chinese-born sons she knew would never think of leaving their families. Who would take care of their mothers when their fathers died?

"My parents said I had been corrupted, that movies were filled with vice and carnality. I'm sorry. You must think dreadful things about me now," Colin said, staring down at his polished shoes. "For my nineteenth birthday my father sent me to America on a business holiday, alone. He bought me a token partners.h.i.+p in a Chinese American business so I could come and go, in and out of the country, as a merchant. I handled his affairs-did everything I was supposed to do. The trip was a success. And then ... I sent a letter home informing him that I wasn't planning to return, that my younger brother should take my place."

Liu Song saw the sadness wash over him.

"That was two years ago," he said. "I hope to return one day as a famous actor, or at least a successful one. I hope that's enough to save face-to be forgiven. I know. Foolish of me, yes? My father-he is a very wealthy man. But even as his firstborn son I was never afforded the simple luxury of ... dreaming-of doing something on my own. But here, I can live my dream." He wiped his hands on his pants.

"Even on an actor's wages?"

"Even on an actor's wages." Colin laughed. "So I met with your father and he took me on as his understudy. I even met your uncle once. He was there for your mother's performance. He was intrigued-everyone was."

"He's not really my uncle." Liu Song's stomach turned as she thought of the man. "He had another wife in a village near Canton. He only married my mother to try and have a son. Now his first wife is here and I'm the servant, stepchild." Brood mare.

"You're like Yeh-Shen." Colin smiled.

Liu Song shook her head. The only thing she had in common with the Chinese Cinderella was the part about the wicked stepmother. There was no golden slipper, no magic fish to clothe her in finery, no spring festival at which to find her prince. "There's no happy ending to my fairy tale."

"Then you should leave," he said, as if it were that simple.

"And go where?"

Colin took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I know you're hurting. But you could be like me and just follow your heart-who knows where it will take you?"

Liu Song found comfort and solace in his sympathetic eyes.

"This is Gum Shan. Your father knew this," he whispered. "But the gold isn't in the mountains anymore. It's found on the streets. You saw it yourself-the way those people regarded you. Here, you can be anyone you want to be-it's all about your performance. From the way you sing, the way you act, I think you know exactly what I'm referring to. I never feel more myself than when I'm pretending to be someone else. If I were to follow in my father's footsteps and become a banker-that would be the illusion, that would be stage magic and acting, because that's not who I am."

Liu Song hung on his every word.

"Though I must admit I'm truly not much of an opera singer. I don't think I have such a promising future onstage, but that's not where the future is."

Liu Song followed his gaze as they both looked back down Second Avenue.

"The Tillic.u.m, the Clemmer, the Melbourne, the Alaska Theatre-there are eighty movie theaters in Seattle and they're opening more every month, practically every week," he said. "That's the future."

The future, Liu Song thought. She imagined those enormous letters as a movie t.i.tle on a twinkling marquee, with her name featured below. For the first time since her mother died, her timid hopes felt real-it felt possible to be something greater than a stepchild and a source of income for Uncle Leo, or a housemaid and nanny for Auntie Eng and her greedy, slovenly family.

"The future"-Liu Song nodded slowly-"in black-and-white."

The Devil's Claim.

(1921).

In the future you can be anyone you want to be.

Those words haunted Liu Song all the way home. That and the thought of Colin forsaking his father and his family for the stage and then giving up the stage for the silver screen-running toward an unknown future, arms outstretched, but alone.

Liu Song had been so alone for so long. She'd been mired in sorrow, been beaten down with despair and hopelessness-to the point of numbness. Now she felt as though she were seeing the world with new eyes, her mother's eyes.

What would my father think? she wondered. Her parents had adored photoplays and motion picture shows even though the audiences were so modern, the themes so unconventional.

The notion of Liu Song performing on-screen seemed as ridiculous, as unseemly, as that of her mother performing onstage. But as she pa.s.sed a crowd of ticket buyers who patiently waited in line outside a theater showing The Devil's Claim, her perspective s.h.i.+fted like a kaleidoscope, and she marveled at the new shapes, colors, and designs of the future that coalesced in her imagination. Especially when she noticed the enormous movie poster featuring the das.h.i.+ng Sessue Hayakawa. Her father had once raved about Hayakawa performing onstage in The Three Musketeers-in j.a.panese.

"He wasn't some coolie actor. His gestures were so dramatic, so poetic, you didn't even need to understand the language-that's great acting," her father had said.

And though Hayakawa must have spoken English with a lingering accent, it didn't matter in silent films. The performance spoke for itself. All that mattered were his handsome looks, his brooding presence, and his piercing eyes, which made even the most matronly of American women swoon. He'd appeared in dozens of films, and Liu Song's father had said he was as famous as Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin.

Colin reminded her of Hayakawa, but the similarities went beyond mysterious eyes and a perfect smile. As she daydreamed about Colin, she didn't know what she liked more, his ambition-his willingness to follow his dreams-or his quiet sadness-his reluctance and guilt at having to forsake his familial obligations. His conflict was real. He wore his lament. And he didn't hide the fact that his dreams were burdened with a heavy price. It was a peculiar kind of integrity; it reminded her of her father.

As Liu Song pa.s.sed the boarded-up remains of the old Opera House, the cold wind carried the smell of rain-soaked soot and ash. The brick structure had survived, but the wooden joists, rafters, and parquet flooring had gone up in a tremendous blaze. Now the building was being rebuilt, repurposed as a parking garage.

Liu Song stopped and stared at one of the brick walls, which still had the pasted remnants of a poster for Zhuangzi Tests His Wife. The years had faded the colors, which made the Widow of Zhuangzi look even more heartbroken; the expression of her mask showcased her misery-her tortured soul put to the test. The gown in the painting was the one her mother had worn-the one Liu Song kept beneath her bed. As she stared at the poster, she thought about her mother's presence-her ah-ma's busy spirit, as Colin had said. Liu Song was so grateful to have the mask her mother had worn. In the drizzling rain, Liu Song said a silent prayer to the remains of the theater, as Yeh-Shen had prayed above the bones of her past, hoping for new clothes and a new life. "Ah-ma, you wore the colors of sickness and despair," Liu Song said as she remembered what the colors represented onstage-the symbolism her father had taught her.

As she pa.s.sed a Buddhist church and a s.h.i.+nto temple and walked through the j.a.panese settlement past Cherry Land Florist, Liu Song remembered her mother's favorite tea, made from the seeds of a blue flower. She stopped at the Murakami Store on Weller and wandered the aisles, which were crowded with crates and boxes of dry goods. She was looking for the seeds and perhaps an answer to her prayer. Instead she found something that would suffice-an a.s.sortment of ceramic paints. Liu Song carefully selected two small jars, one gold, the other silver. She had just enough money to buy both.

Satisfied, she walked down the alley to her apartment, thinking, Ah-ma, soon you'll perform again. Soon you'll wear the colors you deserve.

THE APARTMENT WAS crowded and smelled like cigarettes, flatulence, and sweaty feet. Auntie Eng's sisters were still there. They'd made themselves at home, stringing wet laundry across the alley while their children cut paper dolls out of newspaper, leaving the remains all over the floor. One of them had even bought a turtle from the pet store in the alley and let the reptile creep around Liu Song's room. If I'm lucky, Auntie Eng will cook it, Liu Song thought.

Despite this chaos, Liu Song bridled her anger and her fear. She remained silent, and like Yeh-Shen, she did what she was told. She helped cook dinner and doted on Auntie Eng's family. Liu Song played with the children, even though none of them knew how to share and cried when they didn't get their way, drawing stern reprimands from Auntie Eng and her sisters. They blamed Liu Song for being a poor, undisciplined caretaker. Liu Song even went to the store to buy a tin of wet snuff for Auntie Eng's sister, who chewed the ground tobacco and then spat the vile, pungent remains into a Folgers coffee can.

Fortunately for Liu Song, Uncle Leo cared for their slovenly houseguests even less than she did. He popped in to eat, shave, and mask his stench with a splash of bay rum cologne. He'd light prayer sticks in his family shrine, asking for good fortune. Then he would depart for a meeting at the Eng Suey Sun Benevolent a.s.sociation or catch up to a poker game at the Wah Mee, often returning just before sunrise. Sometimes he would wake her up, but even then she would pretend she was asleep-dead to the world, a part of her dying each time.

Liu Song's routine of domestic drudgery and the late-night visits from Uncle Leo lasted only a few days. Then she followed Auntie Eng and her family to the King Street Station, porting their luggage. She didn't linger at the train terminal to say goodbye. Instead she went home and found Uncle Leo, half-drunk, sprinkling talc.u.m powder on the wooden floor. It had been seven days since her ah-ma's burial. Old-world superst.i.tion dictated that they would go to bed and remain in their rooms until the pa.s.sing of her mother's spirit was complete-until her ah-ma had departed on her final journey. Liu Song accepted this tradition. She embraced it. In fact, she had been counting on it all week.

Alone in her room, she found the valise beneath her bed and dug out her mother's belongings. Liu Song stared solemnly at the opera mask. She had carefully repainted it. The greens, which represented poor judgment, and the blues, which denoted astuteness and loyalty, were now covered by s.h.i.+mmering metallics-silver and gold-the colors of mystery, the colors of an angry G.o.d, or a demon, or a vengeful spirit.

Liu Song stared at the mask and waited for Auntie Eng to return and go to bed. She bit her tongue as she heard her stepparents' drunken laughter. They joked as they finished the last of her father's barley wine, the bottles he'd hidden to be uncorked during each New Year's celebration.

When she was certain that Uncle Leo and Auntie Eng were asleep, Liu Song took out her mother's s.h.i.+mmering white gown, with its long, flowing water sleeves and dramatic red embroidery. She dressed slowly, carefully, reverently, paying attention to every detail as though donning armor for battle. She piled her long hair up high in the style of a married woman. She outlined her eyes with black grease and wrapped a strip of leather around her temple, pulling the cord tight the way she'd seen her father do it, tying the strip in the back so her eyes were held wide open. She covered the cord with her mother's jeweled headpiece, pinning the crown to the leather. Then she tied on the demon mask. She was certain she would laugh when she looked in her vanity mirror. Instead she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She didn't see her own reflection. She didn't recognize the red eyes that stared back, flickering in the lamplight. She wasn't Liu Song anymore. Nor was she Yeh-Shen, Cinderella. She wasn't merely her mother's daughter playing a child's dress-up game. She was her mother now, if only for one night. And her mother was a very angry spirit.

In the living room she opened the door of the cast-iron stove and stoked the fire. Then she burned a stick of incense and lit all the candles in the room. Finally, she went to the kitchen and found the longest, sharpest carving knife-the one her mother had used for deboning shanks of pork. Liu Song noticed the colors of her gown reflected in the blade. They looked like blood and fire.

Carefully, Liu Song draped a long sleeve over the knife. Then she walked along the wall to the front door. From there she stepped carefully with her bare feet in the talc.u.m, leaving a trail of ghostly footprints from the entrance directly to her stepparents' bedroom. She took a deep breath, heard the popping and hissing of the newly lit candles, and opened the bedroom door. She didn't knock.

Liu Song surrendered to her performance as they walked into the room, mother and daughter together as one, the incarnation of the Widow of Zhuangzi. She let the firelight flood the darkness, casting a spidery shadow over the bed as her long sleeves swept across the floor. Auntie Eng woke first and made an inhuman sound, a squeal like that of a frightened, trapped pig. Then Liu Song, her mother, the Widow, floated to the bra.s.s railing at the foot of the bed. She smelled the alcohol on Uncle Leo's breath as he bolted upright, as though waking from an unpleasant dream to a nightmare. His face became a riot of fear, his mouth contorted as his drunken, superst.i.tious mind struggled to reconcile what he was seeing. The Widow slowly pulled back her long sleeve, revealing the blade. She pointed the knife at Auntie Eng's soft belly, then glided around to Uncle Leo. Bulging eyes stared into his. The Widow twirled her sleeve until her hand emerged and grabbed a fistful of hair, lifting his head as the cold edge of the carving knife kissed the soft tissue just below his chin. His face grew pale as he held his breath.

"You will not touch my daughter ever again," the Widow whispered in Cantonese through clenched teeth and the demon's mask. "You will not speak to her. You will not look upon her," she hissed. "You will give her everything that is owed to her-and more. And you will leave ... my ... home before the next moon, or I will tie you to this bed and pour oil down your throat every night until you join me in the spirit world. And I promise, on your blood and the blood of your family, that I will never leave this place until you are gone."

The Widow looked at the whimpering ma.s.s that was Auntie Eng and sang in a high, shrill voice, "I'm only second wife." She reached out, touching the frightened woman's lips with the point of the knife. "But you will call me Big Mother."

LIU SONG'S HEART raced as she undressed and sat on the edge of her bed, struggling to collect herself. She lingered on the image of Uncle Leo and Auntie Eng huddled together as she'd left the room. Her bravery had been an act, a put-on that she found exhilarating but emotionally exhausting. She'd removed the mask, which now felt suffocating. She stared at its hollows, which echoed the emptiness she felt, and she gazed forlornly into the darkened corners of her bedroom, half-expecting to see her mother and father, or her brothers, standing there, silently clapping or nodding their approval. Through the walls she could hear Uncle Leo arguing and Auntie Eng crying.

"Well done, Liu Song," her father would have whispered.

Her mother might have gushed, "Encore," while wiping away tears.

As Liu Song lay down and pressed her face into the fabric of the dress she'd worn, she could smell her mother's skin, her lotion, her perfume-her essence. She missed her so much. She clawed at her pillow, wanting to cry, but the tears never came, just a swirling riptide of feeling-anger, abandonment, the fear of being alone, and the weight of the emotional millstone still tied around her neck, submerging her further into the murky depths of stinging, biting solitude. She wished she could wail all night. Instead she curled up in the darkness of her bedroom, listening to her racing heartbeat, which eventually slowed, like the ticking of a clock unwound.