In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

by Bette Bao Lord

  By the time Sean was found and sanitized, the game was over. The Dodgers had won, 4 to 3, but Shirley was much too beaten to enjoy the victory.

  Within moments, Mrs. O’Reilly returned. Her sons were snoring peacefully. Not a limb moved. The warriors had fought the good fight and deserved a rest.

  Shirley earned three dimes that shone in her palm as brightly as medals for valor. She couldn’t wait to show them to her parents.

  The next day, Father presented her with a piggy bank. “Now that you’re earning money, you deserve a proper place to keep it.”

  While her proud parents watched, Shirley lovingly deposited the coins in the china pig.

  Thereafter, twice a week, Mrs. O’Reilly did her good works, and twice a week, Shirley wrestled with Sean, Seamus and Stephen. For a while, the coins that jingled ever more loudly in the pig drowned out the taunts of the Terrible Threesome. But as the magic number—any combination of Dodger wins or Cardinal losses needed for the Dodgers to win the National League pennant—dwindled from 7 to 6 to 5 to 4 to 3, Shirley fretted. More and more, she longed to exchange the chaos of the downstairs apartment for the quiet of her own. The boys were no fans of the Dodgers, or of Shirley.

  Drastic measures were called for. Before she went to baby-sit again, Shirley secretly substituted buttons for the coins in the piggy bank. Then, at Mr. P’s, she armed herself with a fabulous array of candy. Amitabha! Bribery worked magic. Sucking sweets, the Terrible Threesome was no more. In their stead, the Tame Trio.

  Bursting into her own apartment in triumph, Shirley found her mother still working on the accounts for the Señora and her father mixing paint. As usual, they stopped what they were doing to witness the grand ceremony of feeding the pig. Mother gave her a quick squeeze. Father patted her on the shoulder.

  “Go on, Shirley. Go on.”

  “No. Wait,” announced Father as he pulled a small blue book from his back pocket to give Shirley. On it were stamped many numbers and her name in gold.

  “What is it?”

  “Your own savings account at the Brooklyn National Bank. Open it.”

  On the first line was a deposit of $5.00, a week’s grocery money.

  “Now every time the pig is filled, you can go to the bank yourself and make a deposit. And every penny in the account will go to help pay for your college education.”

  “College?”

  “Yes. It is not too early to plan. College is expensive, but it is the most valuable treasure a person can have. With a proper education, you can aspire to do anything you desire in America. Be a doctor or a teacher or . . .”

  “An engineer?”

  “Of course.”

  Passing her finger over the name in gold, Shirley pictured herself as a grown-up, saving a life on the operating table, teaching a class, building a bridge. The images thrilled her, for she saw them so clearly in her parents’ eyes.

  She wanted to tell them all that was in her heart, but how do you express such feelings? Americans, she knew, would simply say, “I love you.” But Chinese never used the phrase. It was too obvious, too direct. Like a present on one’s birthday rather than those her father gave for no reason at all. Americans would also kiss. They did it all the time, even in public. That also seemed wrong. Without her saying a word, her parents knew how she felt and this she understood. It was the essence of being Chinese. But Shirley wanted to find a special way, her own way. What could it be?

  Mother came to the rescue by handing her the pig. She gave it the customary three shakes. This never failed to make her parents laugh. Suddenly, Shirley remembered the trick she had played, bribing the boys. This time when the dimes dropped, the sound was hollow. Counterfeit.

  In the morning the shame had not gone away. It cast a stillness within her like the hush of new snow. She began to see things she had failed to see before. Once again, her parents had slept through the alarm. But only now did she realize it was because of the long hours they worked. Worked to keep a promise she had made for them to the Señora. Worked to build a new life for them in America. Worked without complaint, always with cheer. How could she have deceived them so?

  Shirley confessed everything to Emily.

  “You’ll feel much better when the buttons are replaced.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll share my school meals with you until you have saved enough.”

  “You will?”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  But things thoughtlessly done are never so easily undone. This Shirley learned the next time she baby-sat. Expecting candy and having none, the boys took turns unplugging the radio. Three against one was no contest. And so she missed the crucial game—the game that clinched the pennant for the Dodgers.

  October

  The World Series

  Brooklyn went berserk. The Dodgers were the champs of the National League. Jackie Robinson was voted “Rookie of the Year” by The Sporting News. Nothing else mattered but the World Series.

  Each day during the Series, at the sound of the school bell, Shirley and her classmates dashed to Mr. P’s to cheer their team. This was no game. This was war. Huddled on empty soda crates, they sweated out each play. A Yankee hit, a blow to the stomach. A run, a mortal wound. A Dodger steal, a seizure of enemy territory. A score, a hero’s welcome.

  When the Yankees won the first two games easily, Tommy made the mistake of saying, “De Bums played like amateurs.” No one spoke to him after that except Shirley, who sensed his tough talk masked a loyalty as passionate as the others’. “You didn’t mean it, did you?”

  “Sure, I meant it. Amateurs. Girl amateurs, to boot.”

  The next game was the longest ever played in the history of the World Series—over three hours of hard hitting and fielding and running at Ebbets Field. If it had gone into extra innings, Shirley’s heart would have stopped. The Dodgers finally edged the Bronx Bombers, 9 to 8. Relief swooped through the crowd like the news of a snowstorm on the morning when a report not yet written was due.

  After the fourth game, “Cookie” was on the lips of everyone. It had nothing to do with chocolate chips. It had everything to do with a player named Lavagetto. He was called off the bench to pinch-hit with two outs in the ninth, two Dodgers on base after walks, and the enemy leading by one run. The Yankee pitcher was one out away from becoming a phenomenon so rare that it had never been seen before—the first man to pitch a no-hitter in the World Series. Lavagetto swung and missed. Shirley prayed. He swung again. At the crack of the bat, everyone jumped to his feet and did not breathe until the ball hit the concrete wall to drive in the winning runs. The Series was tied.

  In the last inning of the fifth game, Mabel shook Shirley like a bottle of catsup, shouting, “Do it again. Bust this one outta the park, Cookie!” Unbelievable as it seemed, once again it was the Yankees 2 to 1, with two outs and Lavagetto at bat. But history would not repeat itself. He fanned. And the kids who had rallied at Mr. P’s disappeared as silently as dandelion heads in the breeze.

  Tommy almost got himself killed before a pitch was thrown in the sixth game on Sunday. “It’s over. De Bums are through. Back in Yankee territory, they got as much chance as a guppie swallowing a whale.” Even Shirley thought he had gone too far. She helped to push him out the door.

  The game was endless. Thirty-eight men played before it was over. Maria set a record too. She chewed Mr. P clean out of gum. The Dodgers led throughout most of the game, but everyone knew the Yankees were luckier than mice in a cheese factory. They could not relax until Red Barber announced a Brooklyn victory. Not even when there was only one out to go, Yankees trailing 5 to 8. Especially not when Joe DiMaggio was swinging the bat with two men on base. He had already smacked a home run earlier and could get lucky again.

  DiMaggio connected, walloping one 415 feet to left center. At that instant Shirley hated him as much as she hated Awaiting Marriage—even more. Then a miracle. A miracle that banished every unkind thought and filled her with wonder. Gion
friddo, charging from left field to the edge of the bullpen, reached behind the fence and robbed DiMaggio of his sure home run and a tied game.

  Screeching and leaping, the fans at Mr. P’s gave a good imitation of monkeys stung by a swarm of bees. Even the boxes of Ivory Snow and Corn Flakes, jars of peanut butter and mustard, hopped. Forgetting thirty-nine generations of Confucian breeding, Shirley hugged anyone in reach.

  Mr. P swept her up in his arms and twirled to a song he bellowed out in Greek. Everybody started to clap in time. Around and around, faster and faster, until finally in happy exhaustion, he plopped her on the counter to mop his face with his apron. Mabel and Joseph took the floor. Like a yo-yo, the captain flung Joseph out and snatched him back. Mabel sure could jitterbug. Finally to Irvie’s horror, Maria pulled him off the freezer and as he stood stiff as an icicle, she tap-danced about, nudging him with a shoulder, patting him on the cheek, closer and closer till they were nose to nose, and he fled into the street.

  Only then did Shirley notice Tommy, outside, darting from car to car, kissing the hoods like a proud new papa. Any other day, it might have seemed strange. Not today. The Series was tied and the Dodgers had been reborn.

  What happened on Monday was too painful to recall. On Tuesday Shirley could forget everything, except that the Dodgers had lost and the Yankees were the World Champs. Oh, she got up in the morning and went to bed at night and did what she was supposed to, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  Wait until next year, everyone said. Only next year seemed as far away as a balloon lost in summer skies.

  November

  Moon Cakes Without Grandfather

  Leaning out the kitchen window, Shirley and her parents watched the crescent moon drift through the clouds. Below, a lone maple shivered in the wind, shedding leaf after leaf that scooted down the lane without so much as a backward glance.

  No one spoke. All knew they were thinking the same thoughts. How could they have let the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival slip by without realizing it? Americans did not commemorate the fullest moon of the year, but the Wongs had done so for centuries. If Grandfather had not sent the moon cakes, would they have remembered at all? True, the clan was far away and there was no courtyard to gather in, but that was all the more reason for them to recall the glow of reunion under the stars.

  Each had an excuse. Mother had not been feeling well. Father had been toiling day and night to repair the leaks that sprouted throughout the house like chicken pox. And Shirley had been moping for weeks over the loss of the World Series. But no excuse eased the sadness that welled in their hearts.

  Now the moon itself disappeared, swallowed by a fitful cloud. Father closed the window, and together the family returned to their seats at the dining table. On each plate was a golden moon cake filled with lotus seeds and honey.

  Shirley started to take a bite, then stopped. She did not deserve such a delicious treat. A tear escaped, then another.

  Mother dried her cheeks, smiling a brave smile. “Let us pretend we were there, and tonight is the Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Moon. This table, the altar in the Garden of Celestial Harmony. This covering, not oil-cloth, but red brocade, embroidered by the ladies of the House of Wong. This bowl, not empty, but one of five filled with grapes, apples, peaches, melons and pomegranates, offerings to the gods for the longevity of our clan. The salt, incense. The pepper, candles. . . .”

  “And all around,” Shirley said, transported by the dream, “flowers. In the air, the smell of jasmine. Overhead, the biggest and the brightest of moons. So near that we can see the Hare that stands under the cassia tree pounding the elixir of life in a jade mortar. The paper lanterns are dancing in the willows while a musician plays on the lute. . . .”

  “There sit my father and mother,” Father continued, “surrounded by clansmen. The harvest is in and we are all together, from near and far, to celebrate with the reading of poetry the bond of all bonds—family.”

  Once again, no one spoke. But this time the silence was gentle, like a pause in a piece of beautiful music when one melody has ended and another is yet to begin.

  At last Shirley spoke. “I wish . . .”

  “What do you wish, my daughter?”

  “I wish I were the girl in Grandfather’s story.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one about the filial daughter and the loving bride.”

  “My father tells so many, it’s hard to be sure. Shirley, you tell it again. This, too, will bring us home.”

  She nodded, then began, telling it as Grandfather would, slowly.

  Long, long ago, there lived a most honorable man who owed much of his good fortune to the kindness of his friend. And so when their wives were both with expectant happiness, they vowed, even before the babies left the womb, that should one be a girl and the other a boy, they would be married. And indeed a daughter and a son were born.

  Before the children could crawl, the friend was named by the emperor to an important post in the Capital. On the day he left, his last words were, “When my son is of age, he will come back to claim his bride.”

  To which the father replied, “No other honor could make us as happy or as proud.”

  The years passed, and the child grew into a maiden admired by all for her beauty and goodness. One day while she was walking by the river, she happened upon a young fisherman. Although they had never met before, they immediately knew that the Fates had decreed for them a love as faithful as the north star. And so, when it was time for him to go upriver, she ran away with him.

  They lived happily as man and wife, but always there was sadness too. Not a moment passed that they did not think of her poor parents and the dishonor of a promise broken.

  After they had been away ten years, the daughter implored her husband to return to her hometown. “I cannot live any longer without begging my parents for forgiveness.”

  When the boat anchored along the banks where they first met, the daughter asked the fisherman to go ahead to explain. He agreed, asking her to come along an hour later.

  At the house, he fell upon his knees before his in-laws and confessed the wrong he and their daughter had done. The couple looked mystified. “How can this be? How can this be? Our daughter has never left home. She has always been at our side. She has never married, for her betrothed died in battle.”

  Now it was the husband who cried, “How can this be? How can this be?”

  Precisely at that moment, the garden echoed with temple bells. In the distance were two women, one to the left of the cypress tree and one to the right. Slowly they walked toward each other. Beneath the evergreen boughs, the two figures merged into one. She came into the house and kow-towed three times before the fisherman and the old man and his wife. She was no stranger, but the love of their hearts. She was wearing two gowns. One that belonged to the fisherman’s wife. One that belonged to the filial daughter.

  For many moments, there was no sound save the hum of the refrigerator in the next room. Then Shirley said in a small voice, “It is so sad, moon cakes without Grandfather. When will we all be together again?”

  “Perhaps someday.”

  “Someday soon?”

  The question hovered in the air, hauntingly.

  December

  A Star-Spangled Christmas

  Shirley spent the weekend after Thanksgiving writing a ten-page letter to her cousins in Chinese describing her debut onstage as a turkey. She drew colorful illustrations to help even Precious Coins picture each scene in the school play.

  The transformation of a Homo sapiens into a Meleagris gallopavo had not just happened with a wave of the wand. It took two knitting needles, Mother’s ingenuity and the resources of all the tenants. Father sacrificed his favorite brown sweater, which was unraveled and remodeled into the roly-poly hide of Tom Turkey. Mr. Habib donated the leather headgear and goggles he had worn as a pilot in the war, to which was attached a red tie belonging to Mr. Lee to simulate the bird’s fleshy nose. Mrs. O’Reilly
yielded a boa reeking of mothballs for the feathers. Sean, Seamus and Stephen lent their pillows to plump up the bump, hump and rump of the beast. Widow Garibaldi insisted on buying rubber flippers for the feet. Professor Hirshbaum tutored Shirley on the various movements peculiar to the breed.

  “I wish you all could have been there!” Shirley wrote.

  A few weeks after the show, Mrs. Rappaport announced another project—a class election for someone to represent the sixth grade at the Christmas Assembly. “The election will be held next Monday.”

  At lunch that day, Shirley watched Tommy show off even more than usual, swaggering from table to table, getting laughs.

  “Hey, Four Eyes, be a sport and vote for me.”

  Emily ignored him, drawing the last of her milk through her straw with a series of loud slurps.

  Tommy refused to be snubbed and, cupping his ear to the carton, shouted, “What’s that? No kidding! You’re crazy about me. Inside that answer machine all those brainy cells are rooting for me to win.”

  With hands clasped over his heart, Tommy feigned a swoon; then, leaping like the Frog Prince, he went off to entertain his older fans behind the lunch counter.

  “How juvenile!” Emily muttered, studiously wiping her glasses with a napkin.

  To cover up her own soft spot for Tommy, Shirley agreed, too heartily.

  Glasses in place again, Emily stared, as if reading Shirley’s thoughts, all knowing.

  And so, before Shirley knew it, she was urging her friend to run herself.

  “That would be an exercise in futility,” Emily replied, in her most progressive voice. “Only you and I would cast votes in my favor.”

  It was true. Emily was not popular. She got all A’s, never once got into trouble and seldom hung around.

  Once again, Emily was cleaning her glasses, and Shirley’s heart went out to her friend. “That’s not true. Lots of people like you. Wait and see. You can win.”