The Language of Threads Read online

  “It’s as if everything’s alive here.” Ji Shen’s voice rose and filled the small space.

  Pei inhaled, the warm air tasting slightly stale. “I suppose it’s time we join in,” she heard herself respond. She looked around at the bare, colorless cubicle that was now their home, then hurried to open the window, letting in the demanding, boisterous voices from outside.

  That night, in a restless sleep, Pei dreamed of Lin. Once again she heard her friend’s sweet, calm voice telling her that everything would be all right. At twenty-seven, Pei had spent almost twenty years of her life with Lin, first at the girls’ house with Auntie Yee and Moi, and then at the sisters’ house, where their life took on the comfortable rhythm of work at the silk factory. Pei was amazed at how easy it was to forget. Suddenly gone were the raw, sore fingers from soaking the cocoons in boiling water, the long, grueling hours of standing on damp concrete floors, the lives that were lost in their union’s struggle against the rich factory owners. And Lin’s death. It wasn’t just Lin’s death that tormented her, but how she had died, and what had gone through her mind as she gasped for breath, slowly suffocating in the devastating fire that destroyed the silk factory. In the past month, Pei had learned what to hold on to, and what to discard.

  Instead, Pei dreamed moments of pleasure. How Lin always found answers to her smallest questions, even before Pei could ask them. When she first came to work at the silk factory, the steamy, sweet-sweaty smell of the soaking cocoons seeped into every pore of her skin, clung to her clothes, hung on every strand of her hair. It was so persistent, yet so subtle a scent, Pei thought it wouldn’t ever wash out.

  “Wash your hair with this,” Lin had told her one evening when they’d returned to the girls’ house. She held up a bottle filled with an amber liquid. When Lin shook it, white jasmine petals drifted through the liquid, floating slowly back down to the bottom of the bottle.

  “Does it work?”

  Lin stepped closer. “Here, smell,” she directed.

  From that day on, the scent of jasmine became a part of Pei’s everyday life. Just after the girls had washed their hair, the strong, sweet smell rose up and filled their room at the girls’ house; she couldn’t help but think of Lin. Even the clean smell of Auntie Yee’s ammonia was no match for the jasmine.

  Again, Pei smelled jasmine in her dreams. Ammonia. Cocoons boiling in hot water. The fragrance of Moi’s cooking wafting from under the kitchen door they were forbidden to open without knocking first. Again, Pei stood at the bottom of the wide wooden stairway that led up to their rooms. She heard a sound, a small intake of breath, and looked up to see Lin, radiant in her white burial gown, walking down the steps toward her.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Lin said, smiling.

  Pei opened her mouth, but at first no words emerged. She felt so dizzy she thought she might faint.

  Lin answered her question even before she had asked it. “Yes, it’s me.”

  “I’ve missed you.” Pei finally found her voice. “More than you can know.”

  “I do know.” Lin took her hand. “Now come along. Everyone is waiting.”

  Pei held onto Lin’s hand, never wanting to let go. It seemed so real in hers she squeezed it tighter, feeling Lin’s warm softness in her own large, rough hand. “But who’s waiting?” she asked.

  “Still so curious.” Lin smiled. “You’ll soon see.” She swept a strand of Pei’s hair away from her face, then swung open the double doors to the reading room.

  Pei’s heart raced. She glanced around the crowded room. The smell of burning incense was overpowering. Shadows flickered across the walls. The chairs were filled with women dressed in the white cotton trousers and tunic of the sisterhood. Pei closed her eyes and opened them against the thick, stinging air. She touched Lin’s sleeve to make sure she was really there beside her. Faces from the past appeared fresh and young.

  “Come, come in,” called a high, shrill voice. Pei knew it immediately: It belonged to Auntie Yee.

  Pei rushed toward the older woman, fell to her knees before her chair, and threw her arms around her. She breathed deeply. The faint clean smell of ammonia rose above the incense. “It’s been so long,” Pei whispered into Auntie Yee’s neck.

  Auntie Yee squeezed her tightly before letting go. “You’ve grown into a fine young woman, just as I knew you would.”

  “Yes, you have,” another voice added.

  Pei faintly remembered it. She stood up and looked closely at all the faces that surrounded her. “Who?” she asked.

  “It’s me,” the voice said. Moving out and away from the other sisters was Mei-li, who appeared just as she had so many years ago, before she had drowned herself.

  “Mei-li?” Pei asked.

  “And don’t forget me,” another voice rang out.

  Sui-Ying stood by the side of Mei-li—kind, sweet Sui-Ying, who had been killed during their strike for better hours.

  All through the years Pei had prayed to the gods that these two friends would find the peace they so richly deserved. Like Lin’s their lives had ended much too soon.

  Then, from the corner of her eye, Pei saw movement from behind the others. The flash of gray hair stood out among the rest. Pei strained to see beyond the sisters in front of her, hoping to catch another glimpse. She wondered if this could really be. The last time Pei had seen her mother, Yu-sung, she had been so thin and fragile. “Ma Ma,” Pei said softly, then again, louder. The hum of voices died down around her.

  Yu-sung stepped forward. Her gray hair was neatly combed back. She smiled widely and said, “Yes, my tall daughter. I’m here.”

  Growing up, Pei had rarely seen a smile cross her mother’s lips, Now it glowed before her as bright as any light. Pei took a step forward and began to say something, but the words became confused and caught in her throat. Tears blurred and burned behind her eyes.

  “It’s all right,” Ma Ma said. “You have done well in life, just as I always knew you would. After you and Lin visited, I knew I could leave your world in peace.”

  Pei hung on to her mother for as long as she could, but soon she felt Lin lean near and heard her whisper, “You have to leave now.”

  Pei shook her head. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here with all of you.”

  Yu-sung pulled away. “That can’t be. It isn’t your time yet. There are too many things you must still do. Don’t forget your baba, and your elder sister, Li.”

  Pei began to cry, at first softly and then without restraint. She felt Lin take hold of her arm, pull her gently away from the others. Ma Ma stood before her, whispering words she could no longer hear.

  Once outside the closed door, Pei held tight to Lin. “Not you, too,” she said, through tears. “Not again.”

  “You have to go on with your life in Hong Kong, just as we planned. We will be together again one day,” Lin whispered. “I promise.”

  Voices. Footsteps. A dull thump against the fragile partition. Pei awoke. In the darkness she felt lost. A thin, pale light filtered into the room. Ji Shen slept soundly in the bed across from her. Pei closed her eyes again, struggling hard to hold on to the memory of Lin’s sweet, lingering fragrance of jasmine.

  Song Lee

  Song Lee quickened her steps, already late to meet the two new sisters waiting for her at Ma-ling’s. Wan Chai was crowded and noisy. In the past year, since the Japanese devils had seized Beijing and continued their march southward, more and more people had flowed into Hong Kong from Canton. Along with the crowds, the heat and humidity already felt unbearable. The pounds she had gradually put on in the eight years since she had arrived in Hong Kong left Song Lee gasping for air.

  That morning, when the young boy with Ma-ling’s message arrived at the gate of the house she worked at, Song Lee had already made plans for her Sunday afternoon. She’d intended to meet some of her other sisters at the Go Sing Teahouse in the Central District. There, the latest news and gossip were eagerly delivered. The sisterhood from Yu
ng Kee and other villages had remained strong in Hong Kong. Most of the sisters were known to be clean and hardworking. Nearly all were enthusiastically accepted as amahs and servants in wealthy households, both Chinese and British. The majority of the sisters now working in Hong Kong had been in the sisterhood back in the delta region of Guangdong province for many years, and had gone through the hairdressing ceremony, pledging their lives to the silk sisterhood. Song Lee knew the Hong Kong Tai tais had their own term, sohei, to describe their vow never to marry. Their vow meant the sisters were less at risk of attracting philandering husbands, and their services quickly grew in value.

  Some sisters couldn’t adapt to domestic work and were soon replaced. But for the most part, the sisterhood continued to thrive in Hong Kong. Organizing themselves much as they had in the silk work, they remained strong in numbers. Loan associations and retirement committees were quickly formed to help sisters who found their way to Hong Kong. In no time, Song Lee became an active participant in helping the new arrivals adjust to living and working in Hong Kong.

  Like most of her sisters, Song Lee had had a lifetime of adjusting. She was the only daughter of a poor farmer and his wife. Her two older brothers were granted what little her parents had to offer them, both materially and emotionally, while Song Lee was given to the silk work when she was six, earlier than most. For months she refused to speak to anyone and cried herself to sleep every night. She lay small and voiceless in one of ten beds that lined the long, narrow room. Then one night Song Lee heard another girl crying, the soft hiccuping breaths drawing her attention away from her own misery. She listened in the darkness, mesmerized by the strangely comforting lullaby. For the first time, she realized that she wasn’t alone. Every girl in the room had been abandoned by a family she loved. A dozen years later, Song Lee had pledged her life to helping her sisters in whatever way she could.

  By the time Song Lee reached the boardinghouse, she was hot and thirsty. The two new sisters were waiting for her as Ma-ling ushered her into the sitting room.

  “Please, please, don’t get up,” Song Lee said. She let her thick body fall onto the sofa next to the young girl, across from the older, strikingly tall sister, who watched Song Lee’s every move with sharp, inquisitive eyes.

  “Thank you for coming all this way,” the tall Pei said, relaxing into a slight smile. “I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for work. Hong Kong is so big, so crowded.”

  “I hope I can make your transition easier.” Song Lee smiled. She rummaged through her bag for the red, gold-trimmed paper fan at the bottom, and snapped it open. The slight movement of sticky air brought her little relief.

  Song Lee watched Pei closely for a moment. She must have helped more than a hundred sisters relocate and find domestic positions since she herself had come to Hong Kong. Now she prided herself on reading each woman’s face as if it were a map of her life, with hints in every line and crevice. Even if Song Lee didn’t know a woman’s final destination in life, she could guess in which direction she was headed. Sometimes the clue was as subtle as a young woman’s slightly protruding forehead, or the delicate downward curve of her lips. Each small feature foreshadowed a person’s destiny.

  So many times Song Lee’s heart ached when she detected future problems. One eighteen-year-old sister, whose eyebrows were like two sharp knives pointing upward, had foolishly played up to the master of the house, become pregnant, and been kicked out by his wife. Afterward, the sisterhood had a hard time placing her. Word had spread, and no Chinese Tai tai would take her. She eventually found work washing clothes for an English family. Another young girl, whose eyes were always moist and watery, cried suddenly at the slightest word or glance. Her employers were at a loss for what to do with her, and when she returned to the sisterhood in tears, Song Lee was exasperated, too. In cases like these, Song Lee simply had to look the other way. There was little she could do against a fate that had already been set. She could only hope that what she detected as a flaw would be balanced by some other favorable feature she hadn’t seen. Song Lee’s own life had been no less difficult, and though that didn’t show on her round, prosperous face, it was evident in the large, dark mole she carried on the back of her neck. If the same mole had been on the front of her neck, and carrying her, Song Lee’s life might have followed an easier path.

  The face of this woman, Pei, told a different story. Song Lee saw a quiet strength in the bridge of Pei’s nose, along with intelligence in the deep-set eyes. If Ji Shen—whose face lacked a certain definition, with its flatter nose bridge and sloping forehead—minded Pei, then she too, would be all right. Pei was also old enough not to make some of the foolish mistakes that other younger sisters had. Song Lee saw a complex journey ahead, but one Pei could most likely manage.

  Over the past years, Song Lee had learned to move slowly, leading each woman carefully into the specifics of her new life. She drank down her tea, cleared her throat, and spoke in her high, melodious voice. “The sisterhood has been good to me, and the least I can do in return is to help other sisters. Besides”—Song Lee smiled—“I have always believed good fortune will someday return to me. But tell me, how are Chen Ling and Ming?”

  “Well, we hope,” Pei said, her smile disappearing. “They have given themselves to the Buddhist faith and joined a vegetarian hall in the countryside. They were to leave the day after we left Yung Kee. I can’t help wondering whether they’re all right.”

  Song Lee leaned forward. “If anyone will be all right, it’s Chen Ling. She has the strength of a dozen men!”

  Pei and Ji Shen relaxed. They spoke of Yung Kee and the silk work, until Song Lee sat back and raised her hand as if to wave away the recollection.

  “Most of the sisters who have come to Hong Kong do domestic work now,” Song Lee said. She poured herself another cup of tea. “It is a small island, after all, and word spreads quickly from one household to another that a sister is looking for a position. Most families prefer us above all others as their children’s amahs.”

  “Why?” Ji Shen asked.

  “Because we have come from a working background, and we’ve proved to be stable and reliable,” Song Lee answered.

  “Will I be able to work, too?” Ji Shen asked. It was the first time she had uttered a full sentence since Song Lee had arrived.

  Song Lee smiled at the girl. “I’ll have to talk to some of the other sisters, but I’m sure we can find you a place—”

  “No,” Pei quickly said. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I would like Ji Shen to finish her education.”

  “But—” Ji Shen began.

  “You’re still young enough to choose another path. It’s important to me,” Pei continued, lowering her voice seriously. “In a few years, you can do whatever you want.” Then, turning back to Song Lee, she said softly, “For now, I’m the only one who will need to find a position.”

  Song Lee nodded. She sipped the slightly bitter tea, then adjusted the collar of her tunic, which was getting too tight. Perhaps she had been wrong; this tall sister’s strength was not so quiet after all.

  Fragrant Harbor

  Three days later, Pei followed the directions Song Lee had given her to the Bing Tao Fa Yuen, the botanical gardens across from the governor’s palace. She had thought about hiring Quan to take her up, but decided she should learn the streets of Hong Kong as fast as she could. Walking would assure her of a quick challenge. After making sure Ji Shen would be comfortable staying with Ma-ling, Pei set off to meet Song Lee and the other sisters who would help her seek work.

  “Come meet some of the other sisters on the committee,” Song Lee had said. “It is important to make as many connections as you can here in Hong Kong. You can never know when you’ll need them.”

  Pei nervously agreed, wondering if she’d even be competent to do domestic work. With the help of Song Lee, she had no choice but to enter this new world, of which she knew so little.

  A crush of people enveloped her as soon as Pei ro
unded the corner from the boardinghouse. She suddenly became acutely conscious of her surroundings. The sour smells of sweat and urine, the oily odor of Chinese doughnuts frying, the heady fumes from the many motorcars, the high-pitched voices of vendors. In the quivering afternoon heat, even the bright daytime blend of garish color was jarring. Pei had never seen so many big, dark motorcars, which roared and raced at her from every direction. “Metal monsters,” she muttered under her breath as she dodged across a crowded street.

  The crowds thinned and Pei’s panic calmed as she left the noisy streets of Wan Chai and began the upward climb along paved streets toward the gardens. Beautiful brick and stucco houses stood large and imposing on each side of the street. Pei felt the muscles of her legs pull as she walked briskly up the incline. The flat, open space of Yung Kee had had almost no hills; climbing the streets of Hong Kong left her hot and breathless. As the streets grew gradually steeper, she tried to imagine making her way back down again. One slip, and she might roll all the way back to Wan Chai!

  When she was high enough to see the shimmering blue-gray water below, Pei paused and turned around. Ships dotted the harbor. Across from it rose the dark landmass that was Kowloon, and beyond Kowloon lay China. Pei was amazed by all she could see. She swallowed the dull pain of wishing Lin were there with her.

  At a soft shuffling of footsteps behind her, she turned around. An old woman dressed in a servant’s dark tunic and trousers, carrying a bulging bag in each hand, walked slowly downhill toward Pei. She seemed to stare at her with disdain, mumbling under her breath. Pei made out the words “young and strong” and “take our positions,” as the old woman quickened her steps down the hill.