The Language of Threads Read online

  The kitchen was warm with the garlicky aroma of dinner cooking. Pei was famished by the time she sat down between Fong and Ah Woo, and gratefully received her bowl of rice. Like Moi, Leen was a wonderful cook who prepared at least three or four dishes each night. Most of the time, only the four of them—Pei, Ah Woo, Leen, and Fong—ate dinner together. Wing and Lu went home to their families, while the night chauffeur was usually on duty.

  “I see Chen seen-san and Chen tai are off on time tonight,” Ah Woo said. “It must be a big banquet they’re giving in honor of Chen seen-san.”

  Leen scraped her chair back and sat down. “He must have donated a great deal of money.” She lifted her bowl and pushed some rice into her mouth.

  Ah Woo glanced at Leen, then quickly changed the subject. “Pei is going down to Central with Chen tai at the beginning of the week.”

  Pei looked up at the mention of her name, and saw the quick change of expression on Fong’s face. Ah Woo was watching Fong, too.

  “Like a zoo down there.” Leen picked up a piece of lean pork from a plate in front of her.

  Ah Woo laughed. “It’s true, another whole world can be found down in Central.” She balanced a green bean between her chopsticks.

  Fong lowered her rice bowl. “As far as I’m concerned, Central’s a much better world,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she reached for a piece of steamed fish.

  After dinner Pei retired to her room. Once she closed the door on the other women, she felt like herself again. She was exhausted from all the small talk, from constantly keeping up her guard on account of Leen’s warning to be careful. Pei sat down and carefully unwound her chignon. She picked up Lin’s silver brush and worked the bristles through her hair in long, slow strokes. In these quiet moments she could almost feel Lin there beside her. Tomorrow was her Sunday off, and her heart lightened at the thought of visiting Ji Shen and Ma-ling at the boardinghouse.

  Pei had just finished brushing her hair when there was a quick knock at her door. Her heart leaped, and she was surprised to find Fong standing in the doorway holding a small black tin with red roses on it.

  “Here, this is for you,” Fong said, a slight smile on her full lips. She held out the round tin. “It’s just some butterscotch candy. I want to apologize for my unfriendly behavior since you’ve been here.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pei answered. She kept the door half-closed between them.

  “But it does,” Fong continued. “I’ve been going through some difficult times. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Please, take this. It would make me feel much better.” She pushed the round tin at Pei.

  Pei hesitated, then accepted the tin. “Thank you.”

  Fong smiled, then touched the back of her own head and said, “You have beautiful hair. Much nicer than mine. It’s a shame we can’t wear it down.”

  Pei nodded, noting the flecks of gray on the top of Fong’s head.

  “I hate to start things off badly, especially since we do live and work here together.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Pei said, trying to smile back. It was wise to keep on friendly terms in such close quarters.

  “How do you like it here?” Fong asked, peering around the door into Pei’s room.

  “It’s fine,” Pei answered. “Thank you for the candy. I hope you sleep well.” She slowly began closing the door.

  Fong shrugged. “Okay then, we’ll visit another time.” She smiled and started to leave, then turned back. “Anytime you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “I won’t,” Pei said.

  “Enjoy the butterscotch.”

  The candy rattled against the hollow tin when Pei lifted it. “I will, thank you.” She closed the door and leaned heavily against it, wondering if her being chosen to accompany Chen tai down to Central had anything to do with Fong’s sudden change of heart.

  Ji Shen

  Ji Shen glanced out the window of the sitting room, but saw no sign of Pei walking up the street. Every other Sunday, Pei came to visit at the boardinghouse for a few hours before returning to Po Shan Road. Ji Shen waited anxiously by the window like an angry child. Ever since Pei had gone to work in the Chen household and sent her to Spring Valley, a public school in Wan Chai, Ji Shen had felt something hard and cold growing inside her.

  Ji Shen had missed Pei terribly the first few weeks after she’d left. They’d been together ever since she stumbled into the girls’ house over a year ago, after the brutal murders of her parents and sister by the Japanese devils in Nanking. Then Lin’s death had left them both orphans. Pei became her older sister, the one who eased her nightmares and guided her to their new life in Hong Kong. But now, Ji Shen was alone each night in her small cubicle, wondering how long it would be until she and Pei were together again.

  Ma-ling was nice enough, but still a stranger. Ji Shen’s only pleasure was that Quan came to visit her a few times a week. In the first week after Pei left, he took her on a tour around Hong Kong. He shyly waited outside by his rickshaw while Ji Shen ran upstairs to tell Ma-ling. Ji-Shen quickly tied a red ribbon at the end of each braid, and pinched her high cheekbones for color. She ran back down the stairs, then stood behind the lace curtain watching Quan nervously rubbing his hands together as he paced back and forth. Ji Shen took a deep breath to calm herself before she swung the door open.

  Quan helped Ji Shen into the rickshaw. “Where would you like to go first?”

  Ji Shen didn’t know what to say. For a moment she felt as if she were at Spring Valley, in the large, echoing classroom that smelled old, dusty, slightly sour. The day Pei first brought her there, all the curious eyes of her classmates followed her until she sat down on the hard wooden bench.

  “Where are you from?” the thin, tired-looking teacher had asked.

  Ji Shen sat staring at the old, scratched desk in front of her and slowly answered, “Nan-king, Chen-chiang pro-vince,” trying to hide her heavy northern accent, to keep from slurring the hard Cantonese words. Then she heard the muted whispers and the laughter of the girls and boys nudging each other around her.

  “What kind of accent is that?”

  “Why is she dressed like a servant?”

  Ji Shen looked down at the white tunic and black trousers she had worn ever since coming to the girls’ house, then at the bright yellow and blue shirts and dresses her classmates wore. She wanted to jump up and run after Pei.

  From that day on, Ji Shen felt too old, out of place among her classmates. They made silly, careless conversation and knew nothing about life. Day after day she sat in the airless classroom for Pei’s sake. As far as Ji Shen was concerned, she could learn far more by working in a store or restaurant and earning her own money.

  “Where would you like to go first?” Quan asked again.

  “I don’t know,” Ji Shen finally answered. “Where do you usually take your customers?”

  Quan smiled. “I know a few places,” he said, lifting the wooden poles and setting off down the street.

  The rest of the day was like a dream. Quan took Ji Shen through Central, where men in dark, serious suits strode from one building to the other, and women glided down the sidewalks in beautiful silk cheongsams or Western dresses and veiled hats. Quan rattled off exotic names—Swire House; Jardine, Matheson; Des Voeux Road, The Gloucester Hotel; King’s Theatre—as he and Ji Shen flew past tall, stately buildings like the wind. He finally came to a stop, in front of a large stucco building.

  “This is the Central Market,” Quan explained, pulling his rickshaw to one side. “You can buy anything here.” He helped Ji Shen down and led her through the maze of stalls, where hundreds of merchants sold everything from bok choy and Chinese mustard greens to bananas and mangoes. Pigs and ducks squealed and quacked in open pens. The pungent odors of salt fish and dried blood mixed in the air. Voices sang out, their melody punctuated by the dull thuds of cleavers severing the heads of chickens and fish. Ji Shen saw the many cook amahs dressed in white tunics and black pant
s, bargaining at stalls as they scurried to buy for their households, and her thoughts drifted back to her own servant’s clothes and how they set her apart from everyone else at Spring Valley.

  From the Central Market, Quan took Ji Shen down to the Star Ferry building to watch the crowded green-and-white ferries cross the harbor.

  “They’re all named after stars,” Quan explained. They sat on the concrete wall, watching a ferry float smoothly into its berth as Chinese sailors, dressed in blue cotton uniforms, jumped onto the concrete platform to tie the thick ropes before they lowered the wooden ramp for the multitude of passengers to disembark. “That’s the Lone Star. There’s also the Morning Star, Day Star, Northern Star, Celestial, Shining Star, Silver Star, and Meridian.”

  Ji Shen remembered the rocking motion beneath her feet when she rode the ferry down from Canton, which was now under Japanese occupation. “How do you know their names?”

  “I’ve seen the entire fleet of star ferries, every one of them,” Quan boasted.

  “Do you think we can ride on one someday?” Ji Shen stared at the mixed crowd of people, men and women, young and old, Westerners and Chinese, even Sikh Indians, pushing and pulling as they flowed from the ferry.

  “I promise.” Quan pointed to another ferry crossing the harbor. “Just choose any star you want, and that’s the one we’ll take across the harbor.”

  “The Shining Star,” Ji Shen said. “Like the one that must have guided us here to Hong Kong.”

  The door to the sitting room suddenly clicked open. Ji Shen turned from the window to see Ma-ling enter. Sometimes Ma-ling moved so quietly through rooms she was like a puff of air, or a shadow hovering. “Pei should be here any minute now,” she said, closing the door behind her.

  “Yes,” Ji Shen mumbled back. Moments later she heard the downstairs door open and close, the soft tapping of footsteps up the wooden stairs . . . eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve . . . and then Pei entered, breathless and smiling.

  Ji Shen jumped up and hugged her, breathed in the salty smell of sweat and lavender soap. Even her loose-fitting tunic couldn’t hide the fact that Pei had lost weight. Ji Shen gave her another squeeze and hung on until she felt Pei pull back.

  “How’s school?” Pei asked as soon as they settled onto the sofa in the sitting room. Ma-ling had retreated to the kitchen to make some tea.

  “Fine.” Ji Shen avoided Pei’s eyes.

  “Have you made some new friends?”

  “Not many.”

  “You will in time.” Pei reached for her hand. “Do you like your teacher any better?”

  Ji Shen shrugged her shoulders. She felt Pei watching her, waiting for some kind of answer. “She’s all right,” Ji Shen said, but the words felt hard in her throat. No matter how she hated Spring Valley, she knew how much Pei wanted her to finish school.

  Pei’s gaze never wavered, though she sat forward and changed the subject. “Oh, yes, I brought you this.” She reached into the cloth bag by her feet and pulled out a blue cotton dress with a white Peter Pan collar.

  Ji Shen smiled. “Where did you get it?” She saw the flicker of happiness in Pei’s face at her interest, and felt bad for acting so spoiled.

  “It was given to the Chens’ daughter Ying-ying, but it’s similar to another dress she already has.”

  Ji Shen’s smile disappeared. “So it’s something they’ve discarded,” she said, too sharply. She could feel her pulse quickening in anger, despite her intense desire for the blue dress.

  “It’s like new,” Pei answered, laying the dress flat across her lap.

  Ji Shen jumped up. “Did they give it to you, or did you have to beg for it?”

  Pei paused. When she spoke, she kept her voice calm. “I worked for it.”

  Ji Shen stepped back, knowing she’d been wrong to speak as she had. Her eyes blurred. The sight of Pei’s raw, red fingers made her heart ache. She wanted to take Pei’s hands in hers, heal them with her touch. Instead, Ji Shen reached down for the dress. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s beautiful. I can’t wait to wear it to school.”

  Pei’s face softened.

  Ma-ling returned to the sitting room with tea. “Song Lee should be here any minute now. I hope you don’t mind. She wants to see how you’re doing and didn’t want to disturb you at the Chens’.”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” Pei answered, turning her attention to Ma-ling.

  Ji Shen smiled with relief. Song Lee’s kindness and happy disposition would distract Pei for a good part of the afternoon. Ji Shen had upset Pei enough for one visit. She didn’t want to let slip what she really felt—how she didn’t want Pei to leave again, how she hated the thought of returning to the dusty classroom each day, and how terrified she felt, waking up from her nightmares, only to find herself alone in her closet-sized cubicle. Ji Shen walked slowly over to the window and opened it, filling the room with a choir of screeching street voices, blaring horns, and babies’ cries.

  The Saitong

  Pei returned to the Chens’ house that evening feeling unsettled. Ji Shen had been distant and quiet the entire afternoon. Pei knew she was hiding something under her flat answers and forced smiles. Their separation had proven more difficult than she expected. All Pei wanted was for Ji Shen to get a good education, so that she would have a better future. But she felt Ji Shen’s silence like the sharp edge of a knife, stinging as if Pei were to blame. Even as Ji Shen waved good-bye at the door, clutching the blue cotton dress, Pei grieved for their lost time together.

  All the way back to the house, Pei tried to block out Ji Shen’s sullenness by recalling Song Lee’s visit. By the time the rotund Song Lee had climbed the stairs and fallen onto the sofa next to Pei, Ji Shen had already retreated to a chair by the window.

  “And how is it, working for the Chens?” Song Lee asked, breathing heavily.

  “It’s fine.” Pei poured her a cup of tea. “I’m still getting used to everything.”

  Song Lee smiled. “All the different personalities,” she said knowingly.

  “Yes, and all the dos and don’ts.”

  “I’ve heard the Chens are much better than others.” Song Lee took a large swallow of tea, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “There are more horror stories than you can imagine—tiny, filthy rooms, long hours, too little food, beatings; some are even raped by their employers.”

  Pei nodded, knowing that she should thank the gods for her good fortune. Yet she couldn’t help feeling uneasy. “Do you know much about Fong, who takes care of the Chens’ daughter Ying-ying? She used to be a silk worker.”

  Song Lee’s tongue flicked out and moistened her lips as she eyed Pei more closely. “Yes. From the Shun-te region. I know who she is. Is there a problem between you?”

  “No,” Pei answered too quickly. In the moment of silence that passed between them, Song Lee’s large, clear eyes never wavered from hers. Pei felt she could trust Song Lee, but didn’t want to cause her more problems. “Nothing of importance. I just wondered where she was from.”

  “There have been rumors. . . .” Song Lee leaned closer. “Some say she was really a grass widow with a young child, and that she abandoned the child when she came to Hong Kong. Others say she was never a silk worker, but just pretends to be as a means of finding work in a good household.”

  “What do you believe?”

  Song Lee fell back against the sofa with a throaty laugh. “I have heard so many stories over the years, I’ve ceased to believe any of them. I’ve learned to wait and see what happens instead of taking sides. One way or another, a person’s past eventually makes itself known.”

  Pei hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that we can’t run away from what defines our fates. Who we are and what we believe in grow from the roots of our past, no matter how much we might try to deny it.”

  From the corner of her eye, Pei saw Ji Shen staring blankly out the window. Would she understand one day why she must stay at the boardinghouse and study now
? Pei’s thoughts turned to her own past, to Lin and the silk work. If she hadn’t been given to the silk work, her life would have taken a very different path. She might have been forced into a marriage in which she had no choice, or, fated not to marry, been left to fend for herself in a world that regarded an unmarried woman as worse than a disease. Pei couldn’t imagine what her life would have been without the strength of Auntie Yee, the obstinacy of Moi, the love of Lin.

  “I see what you mean,” she finally said.

  Song Lee’s eyes narrowed as she watched Pei closely. “Yes, I can see that you do.”

  Pei paced back and forth in her room, listening for the first stirrings of the morning—the soft creaking of a door opening, the sharp scrape of Leen’s iron kettle against the stone counter. Pei had been up for over an hour, worrying about her trip down to Central with Chen tai. What would they talk about the entire afternoon? What if she said or did the wrong thing? Was she supposed to wait inside or outside the store? Pei put her ear to the door, hoping to catch Ah Woo before the others awoke.

  After dinner the night before, Pei had only wanted to retire to her own room, exhausted from her visit with Ji Shen at the boardinghouse. She’d just finished clearing the table when Ah Woo returned from the dining room and whispered, “Chen tai would like to see you,” as if it were a secret. Pei could feel Fong and Leen watching her every move, their gazes piercing through the kitchen door as it swung closed behind her.

  The Chens had already abandoned the dining room for their living room, with its tall ceiling and large windows overlooking the front garden. Pei had entered the living room just once before, when Ah Woo gave her a tour of the house. Easily three times the size of Lin’s Canton house, the room smelled of incense and spices. Pei had never seen so many beautiful objects displayed in one room. It was crowded with rich rosewood furniture, elaborate embroideries, an ornate rug the color of cinnamon and tea leaves, Chinese scroll paintings, and a set of black lacquer screens. There were large and small statues of tigers, lions, and the goddess Kuan Yin, and each tabletop was adorned with vases of inlaid mother-of-pearl and bright cloisonné of red, green, yellow, and gold. Pei wondered how such a vast room could feel so suffocating.