The Language of Threads Read online

  Sometimes, Ji Shen found Quan waiting for her when St. Cecilia’s let out. He’d be hovering around the front entrance of the pale pink building, craning his neck in search of her. The first few times she’d been excited to see him, but as Ji Shen made more friends, she found herself secretly wishing Quan would stop coming. Each time the final bell rang, her heart skipped a beat as she walked out the door, fearing he’d be there.

  “So you really like this school?” Quan asked. He had waved at her when she came out of the building, and there was no way she could avoid him.

  “Very much.” Ji Shen looked around to see if anyone she knew had seen Quan. He had grown taller and stronger in the past year, but at almost seventeen, he still had his boyish smile and callused hands. He was constantly pulling down on his too-short tunic, and she couldn’t help but wish his clothes had grown along with him.

  “Who’s that?” her friend Phoebe Lee had asked a few weeks ago.

  “Just a sha who pulled us once,” Ji Shen quickly answered. “He recognized me and came over to say hello.”

  Phoebe wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather he didn’t say hello if it were me.”

  Ji Shen had shrugged and changed the subject.

  At least Quan was without his rickshaw today; she assumed he had left it somewhere close by. “You came all this way to ask me something you already know?”

  Quan stammered, “I had a fare to run not far from here. I thought I might see you coming out of school.”

  “Oh, that’s nice of you.” Ji Shen began walking briskly down the street.

  “Are you in a hurry?”

  Ji Shen didn’t stop. “Yes, I just remembered that I’m supposed to help Pei polish the silver this afternoon.”

  “I’ll come along,” Quan said, catching up.

  “No, you don’t have to. I’m sure you have something more important to do than walk me home.” Ji Shen knew her next words were cruel as soon as they’d left her lips: “You’d better get back to your rickshaw.”

  Quan stopped. “So you’d rather I didn’t go with you?” His voice sounded small and tight.

  Ji Shen paused for a moment. “Thanks, but I don’t have much time today.” She smiled, then swung her book bag between them. “Maybe another day. I’ll meet you down by the ferries.”

  Quan’s face revealed nothing, even as he shrugged and turned away. Ji Shen imagined he had already lived a lifetime of trying to please people and being rejected. He had told her he’d pulled a rickshaw since he was twelve, when his father had fallen ill and died within a few months. Since then, it had been up to him to support his mother, and younger brother and sister. Ji Shen swallowed her guilt, but it was becoming obvious to her that her new life at St. Cecilia’s didn’t include him. Why couldn’t he understand that? For the first time in her own life, Ji Shen felt wellliked and was eager to learn. The school was bright and clean, and the popular girls included her in their group. There was Mei Wa, whose father was a doctor; Phoebe Lee, who wore lipstick after school; and Janet Teng, who shared her lunch of steamed pork buns with Ji Shen. Sister Margaret, the strictest teacher at St. Cecilia’s, even admired her slightly slurred northern accent. Ji Shen just didn’t want to lose any of that.

  “On Sunday morning,” Ji Shen yelled after Quan. “I’ll meet you down by the pier.”

  Quan turned around with a smile. “Ten o’clock!” he yelled back with a wave.

  Ji Shen hurried down to Central. She had told Pei she was going to Mei Wa’s house to study after school, but she really wanted to buy a copy of “Moonlight Serenade,” the latest record by Glenn Miller. Mrs. Finch allowed Ji Shen to use her phonograph for a short time each afternoon. She had two dollars, saved the past two months from her lunch allowance, tucked in the side of her shoe.

  Central was busy and crowded. More people came to Hong Kong every day. Once in a while, Ji Shen saw signs of the war with the Japanese in the half hearted advertisements for war bonds, in the sandbags piled in front of tall, important-looking buildings. But as she stepped into the record store, Ji Shen forgot everything but the Glenn Miller record.

  The first time she’d heard music coming from a spinning black disk, she thought some ghostly force must be hidden in the fine grooves to make the music emerge.

  “How can it be?” she asked.

  Mrs. Finch laughed and showed her how the needle picked up a groove and played back what was recorded on it. “It is a little piece of magic,” she said. “I remember when Howard first brought this Victrola home. It was just after we’d moved to Hong Kong back in 1921. He carried in this wonderful box and set up the elegant horn, and with several good turns of the handle, we danced all night to Irving Berlin. Even now, every time I lift the arm and place it on a record, I think I’ll turn around and Howard will be waiting for the first dance.”

  Ji Shen watched the record spinning on the turntable, imagining a young Mrs. Finch and her husband twirling around the room.

  “Since then, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of records.” Mrs. Finch looked at the stacks of 78’s sitting neatly on the desk. “But I’m rambling. What I wanted to say was that if you’d like to borrow the Victrola for a bit each day, you may. It has brought me great pleasure over the years since Mr. Finch died. Here, you try.” Mrs. Finch stepped aside and gestured Ji Shen to pick up the metal arm.

  “Thank you.” Ji Shen’s hand shook as she lifted the slender arm, in which a fine needle was set, then placed it gently on the spinning record. It jumped and skipped a moment before settling into a groove to produce a scratchy, sweet strain of music that filled the air.

  By the time Ji Shen returned to the flat, she was hot and tired. She climbed the stone steps and carefully felt for the record that she’d slipped into her schoolbag between her Chinese and history books. By the time Pei caught on that she’d bought yet another new record, it would already be old. Not that she liked to keep secrets from Pei, but in the past month, Pei had become even more careful than usual of every dollar she made. “You never know what the future will bring,” she said, never looking Ji Shen in the eyes. The more pessimistic Pei became, the more Ji Shen wanted to go out and spend.

  The front door creaked open and Mrs. Finch’s familiar sweet scent met Ji Shen.

  “How was your day?” Pei’s voice was a sudden surprise. Ji Shen stepped into the cluttered living room to see her dusting the glass figurines.

  “Nothing new.” Ji Shen shifted from one foot to the other. She cradled her book bag, hoping her record hadn’t cracked. Then she would have spent all her lunch money for nothing! She glanced around the room. “Where’s Mrs. Finch?”

  Pei replaced a glass piece on the table, then flung the cleaning cloth over her shoulder. “She left to have lunch with her friend Mrs. Tate, and to take care of some errands. She took a taxi and said she’d be home by dinner, or else for us to go ahead and eat.”

  “What are we eating?”

  Pei stood up and stretched. “Steamed vegetables and chicken.”

  Ji Shen shrugged and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of Ovaltine. Her stomach rumbled. She looked for the tin of biscuits she’d seen in the cabinet the other day and grabbed a handful. Ji Shen ate the crackers hungrily, then drank down her Ovaltine as she waited for Pei to return to her cleaning. Only then would she steal into Mrs. Finch’s room and quietly listen to her new record.

  Possessions

  Caroline Finch stroked the last of her old records, then put them carefully in a sturdy box and taped it closed. Pale late-autumn sunlight streamed through the window, revealing a shower of dust motes in the air. She couldn’t believe how much she had collected over the years. As she looked around her cramped flat, she saw glass figurines, needlepoint pillows, teacups . . . the remnants of a past she planned to seal away. By the first week of November, Mrs. Finch had slowly begun packing her things, usually when Pei was out at the market, Ji Shen at school, so she wouldn’t worry them.

  With each passing day, it became more
evident that the Japanese would invade Hong Kong. Since September, when the Japanese had occupied Indochina, the Americans and British had imposed embargoes on all steel and oil exports to Japan. Tensions were running high in the Pacific, and many of Caroline’s oldest friends were leaving Hong Kong and returning to England.

  They pleaded with her to do the same. “Please, Caroline. You can’t stay here alone.”

  “Hong Kong is my home now. Besides, I’m not alone. I have Pei and Ji Shen with me.”

  She listened as their voices grew excited and they raised their hands in exasperation, as if talking to a stubborn child.

  “Caroline, you must be reasonable. They’re servants, not your family.”

  “Ah, but they are my family.” Her voice was calm and certain.

  While Mrs. Finch wasn’t about to leave her home, it didn’t hurt to tidy up. There was no point in letting the old records clutter the room when she barely listened to most of them anymore. It seemed like a lifetime ago that George Gershwin, Rudy Vallee, and Kate Smith had kept her swooning, made her believe that anything was possible. Even now, their songs still evoked memories that stung her heart. She remembered how “You Made Me Love You” had been playing when Howard came home with the news of his promotion. He stood tall and handsome in his dark suit as he announced, “We’re off to the colonies, old girl.” It took Caroline a moment to realize what Howard was saying: He was being sent to manage the Hong Kong branch of his London bank. Ever since she was a little girl, Hong Kong had seemed like a fairy tale. The days before they were to leave stuffy old England couldn’t go by fast enough.

  Mrs. Finch patted the box of records and remembered the joy and excitement as if it were just yesterday. When the steamer made its way into Hong Kong Harbor, dozens of junks and sampans accompanied her ship to the dock. Voices cried out in high, nasal tones. The smell of salt and fish filled the air. Entire families lived on the tiny boats that bobbed along beside the steamer. Clothes hung across cluttered decks to dry, and half-naked babies were strapped across their mothers’ backs as the women cooked over steaming black pots. Caroline looked beyond the boats to the tall peak rising dark and majestic from Hong Kong Island. It was the most wonderful sight she’d ever seen.

  As soon as Caroline set foot in Hong Kong, she knew she’d found her new home. Howard was just as captivated. For eight years they had lived a charmed life, discovering new aspects of their adopted home. She had refused to follow the example of other English expatriates, who clung together in stuffy clubs and had afternoon tea together as if they’d never left England.

  Instead, while Howard was at the bank, Caroline embarked on a rigorous project of learning to speak Cantonese and getting to know the Chinese people. “What a beautiful baby!” she’d once exclaimed in Chinese to a baby amah strolling down the street with a baby in her arms.

  The amah wrapped her arms tighter around the baby as if shielding it from her. “No, no!” She shook her head and raised her voice as she backed away. “This boy has the face of a dog! He will have a very hard life.”

  Only later did Mrs. Finch learn that the baby amah believed the superstition that providence might take away a baby who was too smart or good-looking. Even now, she blushed at all the mistakes she’d made over the years. It didn’t take her long to realize that living in another culture was like being a child and learning everything all over again.

  In those early years, Caroline liked to linger at the marketplace with her first cook amah, Kuo. The sharp, pungent smell of the live pigs and chickens reached her first, along with the bargaining voices. The buyers haggled over everything, from the dried sausage and the ducks to the fist-sized tiger prawns still twitching in wooden crates. The first time Caroline entered the market, a headless chicken ran around in circles, blood spurting from its neck, only to collapse at her feet.

  Kuo shook her head disapprovingly whenever Caroline struck up a conversation with the old fruit-and-vegetable peddler who roamed her street every morning. Each time she heard his high, singsong voice calling out, in Chinese, “Or-anges . . . ba-nanas . . . or-anges!” Caroline ran down to the front door, buying fruits and vegetables by the bunch in order to keep up the conversation and learn more about how he lived. “He’s harmless. Old enough to be my grandfather,” she told Kuo, ignoring her glare.

  Soon Caroline became friendly with the thin, wiry peddler, whose name was Chang. After a while, he showed up every morning and tapped lightly on her front door, offering her his fruit at bargain prices.

  “Two for the price of one!” He held up two oranges in one hand.

  “It’s a deal,” Caroline said, choosing two more oranges from one of the baskets he balanced on a pole across his neck and shoulders.

  “How many hours do you work?” she once asked, hoping he understood her broken Cantonese.

  Chang shifted the pole across his shoulders. “From day to night,” he answered.

  “And what about your family?”

  A toothless smile flashed proudly across his wrinkled, sunbaked face. “Five children,” he said. “Not so many for a man who is almost forty years old. My oldest girl just turned twelve years old, and my youngest son, newly born!”

  Caroline was taken aback. In the weeks she had known Chang, she’d assumed he was already an old man, a grandfather with grown children. She looked closer at the deeply lined face, the stubby shadow of beard, and the dark, tired eyes. She was several years older than he was. Caroline’s heart skipped a beat as she stepped back into the doorway. It was one thing to chat with an old man; it was another to become too familiar with a man her age or younger! She would never want to cause Howard any embarrassment.

  “And you, Tai tai, how many children do you have?” Chang lifted the pole from his neck and gently placing the two baskets of fruit on the ground.

  “Oh, we weren’t blessed with any children.” Caroline looked down at the basket of oranges, then back up at Chang. “I really must go now.”

  Chang watched her closely. “The Tai tai seems upset this morning.”

  Caroline paid quickly, blushing. “I’m in a bit of a hurry today,” she said, gathering up her oranges. “Well, good-bye, then.” She balanced the fruit in her hands as she stepped back into the cool, dark entranceway and hastily closed the door.

  Caroline had been careful after that. She would never do anything to jeopardize Howard’s career with the bank. They had married late in life, just past her twenty-sixth birthday. Before then, she hadn’t met anyone she wanted to marry. Howard had been a bachelor of thirty-two. He was shy and awkward, but his kindness had won her heart. For three decades, theirs was a marriage built on love and friendship.

  After Howard had unexpectedly died of a heart attack, almost twelve years ago, Caroline was in a state of shock. His sudden death left her dizzy, as if the room were spinning around her. She needed to hold on to anything that was a reminder of their life together. Caroline couldn’t throw away a thing. She wouldn’t abandon Howard as he had abandoned her. The first few days after he had died, she turned to the empty space in their bed and placed her cheek on his pillow, breathing in the lingering scent of him. The same ritual continued with his starched white shirts, which still hung in the closet. She wrapped the lifeless sleeves around her neck and imagined herself and her husband dancing together again. A last dance. At fifty-six, she was certain her life had as good as ended.

  “You can’t keep mourning,” friends had told her after six months. “You’ll feel much better once you get out.”

  Mrs. Finch had read somewhere that Chinese women mourned the death of their husbands for three years, dressed from head to toe in black.

  “Yes,” she agreed, her entire body numb.

  “You still have a full life ahead of you,” they added. “And when you return to London . . .”

  Then, thinking they were being helpful, they packed away Howard’s clothes and left her closet half-empty, her life even emptier. Caroline remembered waking up the next morning and
turning to Howard’s side of the bed. She placed her cheek on his pillow and breathed deeply, smelling nothing but freshly laundered sheets. She turned full-face into the pillow and pressed down hard into it. A simple thought flowed through her mind. It would be so easy to follow him. Her heart pounded in her breast, throbbing in her temple like a drumbeat. She held her breath until her lungs felt as if they’d burst. A few minutes longer and it would all be over . . . over . . . over . . .

  Caroline jerked upward, gasping for breath like the fish at the marketplace, their bodies flipflopping, reaching for air. She breathed in huge mouthfuls, as if swallowing water for a parched throat. When she had calmed again, she lay back onto her pillow. She had no intention of returning to London, she realized. She dismissed all her servants and began to live life on her own.

  Mrs. Finch sighed heavily. She was sixty-eight: her dancing days were over, her legs already stiff and tired from kneeling on the floor. She stacked the few records she listened to these days—Bach, Handel, and Mozart—next to the Victrola. Classical music was still a comfort. She stood up and felt lightheaded, the room spinning around her. Mrs. Finch staggered to her bed and fell heavily onto it.

  “Are you all right?”

  Mrs. Finch looked up to see Pei standing in the doorway. She smiled at the young woman who had become her closest companion in the past year. “Yes, yes, of course. Nothing youth and beauty wouldn’t cure.”

  Pei quickly propped up her pillows behind her. “Youth and beauty just come with another set of problems.”