The Language of Threads (12 page)

Pei had listened intently; then, for the first time she began to divulge bits and pieces of her own life to someone outside the sisterhood.

“I thought I would live the rest of my life in Yung Kee doing the silk work,” she began, “but it seems that life plays tricks on you.”

Mrs. Finch smiled. “For better or worse, I suppose. But at least we were destined to meet.”

Pei nodded, a sad stillness running through her. She couldn't help but wish Lin had lived to meet Mrs. Finch. “I had a friend who would have loved talking to you.”

“Had?”

“She died in a fire.” She realized it was the first time she'd ever said the words aloud.

“I'm sorry; it must have been horrid for you.”

Pei suddenly wished she hadn't brought up Lin's death. “Yes,” she said, unable to say any more.

“Time heals,” Mrs. Finch said gently, then turned toward the window and changed the subject, as if she could read Pei's mind. “Well, it looks as if it'll be another nice day.”

Pei removed the breakfast tray and sat down on the yellow chenille bedspread. Mrs. Finch closed her eyes again, opening them when the music ended. “Since the end of summer, there have been rumors,” she began, “that the Japanese will eventually make their way to Hong Kong.”

Pei nodded grimly. She'd heard the same rumors down at the Central Market, the prating of servants who insisted Hong Kong would be swallowed up by the Japanese even though it was a British colony. Still other servants spoke of the thick layer of fear rising in the households of the Westerners they worked for: “The wife had everything packed and ready to be shipped back to England by the time the husband came home from work!”

During the first few weeks of September 1941, although Pei watched and waited, she saw little change in the carefree, extravagant Hong Kong way of life. She said nothing to Ji Shen, who had barely survived the Nanking massacre, and who still suffered from nightmares about the death and dying she had witnessed. It wasn't fair that she should have to relive the horror.
Without Lin's guidance, Pei wouldn't know where to go if they had to leave Hong Kong. Now, she wondered if she should seek out Ho Yung, who had been so kind to them once before, but then she shyly put the thought to rest.

“Will you be leaving Hong Kong?” Pei asked.

Mrs. Finch smiled. “Oh, no, my dear, I have no intention of leaving. If the Japanese want me out, they are going to have to carry me out of this flat! And I promise you, that won't be an easy task. But in the event that something so awful does happen, I'd just like us to be prepared, that's all. I didn't mean to frighten you.”

Pei breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “Yes, of course.”

“Bottled water, canned food—we need to stock those kinds of things. You can never be too safe. I don't know how Mr. Finch and I made it through the war back in 1914. London was all but shut down; there was so little food and no fuel. It's the only time I've ever thanked God that we had no small children to worry about.”

“Where did you go?”

“Go? We stayed put. London was our home. I was still teaching at the time. Howard hadn't been called to serve because he was already in his forties. He never did feel right about it. Volunteered in every civilian war effort he could. Sometimes, he was out till all hours. I worried about him just as if he were out on the battlefield.” Mrs. Finch smiled. “I remember those nights sitting in wait, trying to concentrate on some book by candlelight, while all the time I was wondering when he'd come stumbling back in.” Mrs. Finch's voice trailed off. “Only this time, Howard won't be here.”

Pei touched Mrs. Finch lightly on her thin wrist. “But Ji Shen and I will be.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Finch perked up. “And we girls shall prevail, won't we!”

By the first week of October, Pei had bought dozens of cans of meat and vegetables, sardines, and boxes of crackers. Now she packed everything into a cardboard box and rearranged the pantry. She planned to continue buying a few more cans each week, just in case. As she pushed the box back behind the other dry foods, she suddenly remembered Moi hiding her clay jars of herbs and dried fruit in Auntie Yee's room. Almost three years ago, the Japanese had seized Canton, and most likely Yung Kee, in one clean sweep. Pei hoped Moi had somehow kept herself safe at the girls' house. She pressed her hands to her knees and forced herself to rise. A wave of fear swept over her as she hurried to her room and carried back the jars of dried herbs and fruits Moi had given them to hide among their other supplies.

A year ago, when Ji Shen first arrived at Mrs. Finch's Conduit Road flat in Quan's rickshaw, she hadn't really known what to expect.

Quan had shown up at Ma-ling's boardinghouse the morning they left. He insisted on taking them to Conduit Road.

“It's too far,” Pei protested.

“I've taken white devils all the way up to the Peak,” Quan boasted. He flexed his long, thin arms as if to prove his strength.

Ji Shen smiled. “It's very nice of you to think of us.”

Quan seemed to take that as a yes; he began loading their few possessions and Moi's jars into a basket behind his rickshaw. “Get in,” he said, “and enjoy the ride.”

Ma-ling had packed them sweet rice cakes and dried plums, and even the old herbalist emerged from his shop and stood in the doorway to send them off. In the bright sunlight, Ji Shen thought he looked small and fragile as he helped Pei into the
rickshaw. Then he smiled and handed Pei a cloth bag, fastened with a piece of blue ribbon.

“It's tea,” he said. “The kind that helps you dream.”

Ji Shen watched Pei squeeze his hand tightly before letting go. Then, in the rickshaw, sitting next to Pei as they climbed up the paved streets, she felt both happiness and excitement for the first time in months.

Ji Shen never thought she would feel comfortable in a
gwei lo's
home, but Mrs. Finch was as unlike a “white devil” as she could imagine. The flat was dark and crowded, and Ji Shen had never seen so many objects in one room before. Every table was covered with glass figures. Mrs. Finch hadn't even been angry when Ji Shen accidentally broke a glass swan. From what Ji Shen had heard from Quan, many Chinese Tai tais would have beaten her for less.

“At least most Westerners pay me,” Quan told her a few months later. “When they yell ‘Sha!' from the doorways of restaurants and hotels, it's a race to see which puller reaches them first. But one time I couldn't get to the Hong Kong Hotel fast enough for one Chinese Tai tai, and she just climbed down from my rickshaw and walked off without paying. When I ran after her, she told the doorman I was bothering her!”

“That's terrible.”

“You can't trust anyone out there.” Quan shook his head. “But this Englishwoman seems nice enough.”

Ji Shen nodded. “Pei likes her a great deal. Mrs. Finch is even teaching her English.”

Quan laughed. “From what I've been hearing, she'd probably be better off learning Japanese!”

“Don't say such things!” Ji Shen scolded, her voice harsher than she had expected. She caught herself, realized Quan knew nothing of the murders of her parents and sister by the Japanese devils in Nanking. “It might come true.” She clutched the edge of her tunic.

Quan wiped his dirty palms against his trousers. “I won't let anyone hurt you,” he said with a shy smile.

Even though Pei said little about the Japanese armies making their way to Hong Kong, Ji Shen's classmates whispered among themselves: It was just a matter of time before the Japanese came. Some of the European families had already left. Now sixteen, Ji Shen felt her past terrors begin to loom large again. Most of the time, she refused to believe anything was going to change—she liked Mrs. Finch and St. Cecilia's, and the uniform dark blue sweater and skirt that made her feel she was no different from any other girl there. And she loved living with Pei again. Not since Ji Shen was a little girl with her own family in Nanking, before the Japanese invasion, had she felt so secure.

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.”