Mambo in Chinatown

by Jean Kwok

I could feel his calluses, and I saw the knuckles were red and chapped. Warmth flowed through me. I hadn’t expected to find someone like me at the studio. “They don’t bother me at all.”

  When I walked around the room to help the other students, Ryan waited until I came back. To my surprise, I was having a good time. The students were all nice and laughing and stumbling over each other’s feet. I taught them some of the things Julian had told me, about dance not being about steps but about feeling. When we did rumba, I told them to draw in the sand with their feet. When we waltzed, we pretended to be ladies and gentlemen. I was afraid it’d seem childish but they seemed to enjoy the games.

  “Oh, I’m the clumsiest person,” one woman said and I automatically answered, “You could never be as uncoordinated as me.” The people who could hear us started to laugh. I realized they believed I was graceful and thought I was being modest. They thought I was a real dancer.

  At the end, Adrienne came in with her clipboard and started booking lessons for people who wanted to take follow-up private lessons. Most of them stayed around, some thanked me. Evelyn had come up to Adrienne and was asking about planning a dance for her wedding. Ryan grinned at me as he stood by the door, waiting for Evelyn and Trevor.

  It was now break time. A few of the dancers started filing through the small ballroom on their way to the teachers’ room. I realized Adrienne had the situation under control and that my feet hurt. I stepped into the teachers’ room, then took off those high heels, placing them carefully by Katerina’s locker.

  “How was it?” Nina asked.

  “I think all right.”

  Simone spoke up, “Though you were playing a waltz while you were counting to foxtrot.”

  I hunched my shoulders. “How would you know?”

  “We all swung by to see how the class was going,” Mateo said. “You were so busy, you didn’t even notice us.”

  “Well, I’m glad I survived my one and only class. Never again.”

  Eight

  It was early in the morning, and the wintry air was crisp. I stared at the flour sacks piled as high as my shoulder that the delivery truck had dumped in the alleyway behind the noodle shop. A few doorways further, the fishmonger was unloading ice-filled crates from a truck.

  Pa grinned. “Just you and me, Charlie, like before.”

  When I was working at the restaurant, it had always been an understood part of my job to help Pa and his assistant stack the sacks of flour in the basement. Today, the assistant’s wife was in labor, keeping him away, so Pa needed me more than ever. The assistant before this one had been my secret steady boyfriend for a few months, and Pa never figured it out. It’d been exciting at first to have a hidden relationship but that quickly became stressful, and when he’d left for another restaurant our relationship had ended as well. I felt a bit hurt that he hadn’t wanted to see me afterward, but the truth was, I missed him less as a person than as a distraction. We’d shared an interest in exploring each other’s bodies but not much else.

  “Come on.” Pa hoisted a large bag over his shoulder and headed for the stairs.

  I bent my knees, grabbed another one and threw it over my shoulder as well. This was no place for ballroom heels. After a few trips, I was warm enough to shed my coat and sweater. One of the bags had a small leak in it, and now my face and shoulders were white with flour. I rubbed my nose and mouth, trying to clear them. My right shoulder ached from the weight of the bags.

  “You want to take a break?” Pa asked. “I can do the rest.”

  “Of course not.” I’d never let Pa do this by himself. I worried about the day that the restaurant work would be too demanding for him.

  “You’re a good girl.” He dropped another sack onto the growing pile in the basement, which was lit by an incandescent bulb. I hated to think which insects were lurking there. “You will make some man very happy someday.”

  I raised my eyebrows. This I had never heard before. “You don’t even want me to date.”

  Pa didn’t meet my eyes, running his hand over his hair. “Uncle and Aunt have been talking to me about this for a while now. Aunt seems to think I should be preparing more for your future.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stared at a spot on the wall. “I’m not that young anymore, Charlie. Uncle’s even older than I am. When I’m gone, I need to make sure someone’s here to look after you.”

  Sudden tears sprang into my eyes. “That’s nonsense. You’ll live a very long time.”

  “I’m alone. Your ma’s already gone. I’ve been saving for you girls but I don’t know how long that money can last.”

  Now I understood the money Pa always put aside. It wasn’t for our dowries or college, it was for after he had passed on. “I don’t want to talk about this. I can’t believe you want me to just start going out with men either.”

  “No! No strangers. Aunt thought maybe a matchmaker . . .”

  “Absolutely not!” It was a Chinese tradition for parents to arrange marriages for their children. We were supposed to stay pure until a spouse was chosen for us. “Over my dead body.”

  “Yes, I thought you would say that. That’s why I was thinking, you know that nice boy, that old friend of yours . . .”

  My jaw dropped. “Winston. No.”

  “I always liked him. Maybe you should see him more often.”

  I rubbed my palms over my eyes. I reminded myself that Pa had no idea Winston and I had already had a romantic relationship and that it had not worked out. Sometimes it was hard to keep track of all the things I hid from Pa but I understood where this was coming from. Winston was a known quantity, or so Pa thought. Pa couldn’t stand the thought of his daughter going out with a random man, any more than I could stomach an arranged match. “I’m not about to date Winston or allow a matchmaker to choose a man for me. Look at you. You and Ma fell in love. You didn’t let anyone set you up.”

  Pa’s gaze was fixed upon the floor now. “And see how well that turned out. The price of moving to America was too high for her.”

  My heart broke at the sadness in his voice. This was the first time Pa had ever admitted how unhappy Ma had been here in the U.S. Memories flooded me, of Ma’s voice coming from their bedroom, “I wish we’d never left. I want to go back to China.” Sometimes she’d sobbed and other times they’d fought. Pa would say that it was hard for him too and she would say he didn’t understand, he could never understand. Ma had given everything up for love but regretted it in the end.

  “She loved you very much, Pa.”

  His forced smile was unsteady. “She was a beautiful bird and I clipped her wings. She never flew again after we came here.”

  “If you had stayed in Communist China, no one knows what would have happened to either of you. There was so much political unrest. And Lisa and I would have been born there with so much less freedom. Instead of washing dishes for a couple of years, I probably would have had to wash dishes my entire life.” I smiled at him and took his hand in mine.

  Pa laughed even though his eyes were red. “You are right, we never regretted allowing you and Lisa to grow up here. I am very proud of you in your computer job.”

  I felt the guilt rise in my throat, along with the truth desperate to come out. To change the subject, I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Do you think Lisa is okay?” She was still wetting the bed and having nightmares. I could do so little to help her, I only worked on knitting that scarf for her whenever I could.

  His face grew serious. “I am worried about her too. Those bad dreams, they are not good. You say the test is very competitive. Maybe some of the other students have put a curse on her.”

  “What?” We’d made such progress, I’d thought. Now I was ready to pull my hair out again.

  “They are jealous. They do not want her to succeed. Maybe they want her spot for themselves.”
/>   “Pa, this is not how things work in America. They might make a mean comment or put garbage in her locker or something, but no one’s going to curse her.”

  “You are young and naive, Charlie. People can have black hearts. It’s good you mentioned it. When I get the chance, I am going to talk to the Vision about this.”

  Pa patted my arm lovingly, then headed up the stairs for more flour. “Maybe Winston can come over for a cup of tea sometime.”

  —

  When I got home, I showed Lisa the book I’d bought for her. I’d gone to the little bookstore down the street and tried to explain to the clerk what I needed. He swore this book would solve our problems but I wasn’t so sure. It was called English and Math Workout: Test Prep and was so expensive that it’d wiped out my budget.

  Lisa flipped through it. “Charlie, I don’t know most of this stuff.”

  I gulped. “That’s why you need the book. We’ll work through it together.”

  “No, I mean, I think this is a college prep book. Not for sixth graders.”

  “Really? But I told him it was for the Hunter test.”

  “I don’t know, he probably heard Hunter College and thought you needed a general college prep book.”

  We marched back to the bookstore together. The bell rang as we pushed open the door. The store was cramped and narrow, filled to the ceiling with books, mostly in Chinese, and smelled musty. The same balding clerk came up to us.

  I said, “We need a book to prepare for the Hunter high school test. This is for college.” I thrust the book and receipt at him.

  “This book is very good for test,” he said.

  “No, we need one for a junior high school test.”

  He stared at me.

  I turned to Lisa. “Can this book help you at all? He obviously doesn’t have anything else. Do you want to keep it? If you want it, you can have it.”

  She said, “It’s useless for us. Just get a refund.”

  The clerk grumbled as he gave me my money back.

  Outside, Lisa saw how crestfallen I was. “Don’t worry, Charlie.”

  When we got back to the apartment, I said, “Well, at least let me show you what I learned in the studio this week.” I took her hands, then turned her underneath my arm.

  Lisa clapped her hands. “Show me more!”

  I taught her everything I knew. I did the man’s part while she was the lady. By the end, Lisa was shouting, “Quick quick slow!” along with me.

  Suddenly, there was a pounding on our floor from below. It was the downstairs neighbor. We must have been making too much noise. Lisa and I collapsed on the couch, laughing.

  —

  Later that afternoon, I was leading the warm-ups for the tai chi class at the Yuan Benevolent Association again. I looked down at my baggy shirt and suddenly felt grateful that my tai chi students never cared what I looked like or wore. They’d always accepted me exactly as I was.

  Godmother was walking around the room. She put her hand on a woman’s stomach and nodded at her as she breathed in and out. “Deeper. Let it go. Don’t hold everything in.”

  I rolled my shoulders, feeling more aware of my body than I ever had before. I reached inward and allowed my feet to sink into the floor.

  Godmother met my eyes and smiled. “The core power of tai chi begins with awareness. Our stance is the posture of infinity: not tense but relaxed and upright, expectant. From this nothingness, all things begin.”

  —

  The next week I was back behind my receptionist’s desk again. I was relieved the class was over and I didn’t have to be nervous or on display. My feet didn’t have to hurt anymore. I wouldn’t have to dance with Julian again. At this, a pang went through me.

  Dominic came up to me and leaned on my desk. “Almost seventy percent of your class signed up for their free private lesson.”

  I wasn’t sure how to react; I didn’t know if this was good or not.

  “We’d been getting about thirty percent with Estella. Many of your students said they’d had fun. One group even requested you specially as their teacher.”

  “Who?”

  “The wedding couple and her brother.”

  I nodded. Evelyn and Trevor. And Ryan. “What did you tell them?”

  “No, of course. It is impossible. The couple will still come for lessons. I’ve booked them with Nina. They said they would call back about the brother. But Julian was right, you do have potential. We would like to ask you to continue teaching the beginners’ classes.”

  A wild combination of dismay and elation rose in my chest.

  “We need you. Everyone’s booked, we’re shorthanded until we can hire a new dancer. Think of it as a little vacation from this desk.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “And the students seem to like you. However, if you are going to be doing any teaching in my studio, even of the very beginners, you are going to start attending dance session. Any problems with that?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Classes with all of those trained dancers were quite different from bluffing in front of people who had never done a ballroom step in their lives. “Do you think I can?”

  “Of course. You will be terrible but we are expecting that. And I see you watching, I see the look on your face. I think you would love to learn something of dance, am I right?”

  I flushed that I’d been so obvious. “Yes.” It was what I wanted more than anything, only I’d thought I would never be able to do it. If I taught these classes, I would be allowed to train for free, like a real professional dancer, if only for a little while.

  —

  It was my first dance session with Dominic and the other professionals. I felt like a fraud walking over to that group, but I kept my shoulders back and my head high.

  Adrienne sat at one of the little tables to watch. She sighed as she sat down and took her shoes off. She rubbed her tummy, murmuring a few words to it.

  Dominic said, “Okay, take a partner.”

  Everyone paired up. I saw the others edging away from me. It was Katerina and Viktor, Mateo and Nina, and next to Nina stood Simone alone, looking irritated. I realized I would have to dance with her. Then Nina whispered something to Mateo, gave him a nudge when he made a face, then she came over to me. Thank goodness. Mateo reluctantly held his arms up in dance position to Simone. She slid into them.

  We were practicing international foxtrot. There were so many quicks and slows and twinkles and reversals. My head spun. Dominic only had to show a step once and all of the other dancers followed along perfectly, except for me.

  I felt like a squid as I hung onto Nina. She just raced after the other dancers and I was happy if I managed to stay attached. My clothing was too hot and inflexible. When I needed to draw a quick circle with my leg and turn at the same time, my heel got tangled in the hem of my skirt and I almost tumbled over.

  Dominic stepped over to us and waved his hand, indicating my entire body. “We have to completely rebuild her from the ground up. Allow me to demonstrate what dancing should be. Nina, if you please.”

  Dominic held out his hand to Nina. Without a word, she flowed into his arms, her head arched back in dance position. He started doing a foxtrot with her, but a foxtrot like I had never seen. It was a far cry from the step, step, side step I’d taught the beginners. They flew and glided, whirling into a pivot turn, then Dominic led them smoothly into a waltz. From there he switched into tango, had her do a number of fans in his arms, dipped her and then twisted her out into a series of spins. As she stopped and faced him after the turns, their bodies changed to the predatory, animalistic pacing I’d seen with Julian. They did a slow and sensual rumba together, then the hottest mambo I’d ever seen. They put every dancer I’d ever seen on television to shame. Dominic spun Nina away from him, then he bowed while she did a deep curtsey. We all clap
ped.

  I was amazed. “How could you dance in perfect harmony together without any music?”

  “The music is inside,” Dominic said. “We never need music to dance together.”

  I looked at the others and saw them all nodding. I thought of what Godmother always said about external strength being meaningless without inner power.

  “What many do not realize,” Dominic continued, “is that leading and following are not about one person being in control and one not. It is about yin and yang. It is qi. Necessity. The person moving forward is doing the leading. That person provides the energy and impetus. In advanced routines, that may well be the woman. The person moving backward must flow in harmony with the other, otherwise they will lose balance. Now I need you all to switch partners and change roles.”

  I was surprised and glad that Dominic had spoken about yin, yang and qi. This time I had to be the man, and I was supposed to lead Viktor. I held him in dance position but he was just so tall, I couldn’t see over his shoulder at all.

  “Oh my goodness.” Dominic came from behind Viktor with a mock shudder. “You look like a driverless car from this side. I hope we all survive this lesson.”

  Afterward, I was so tired, I wanted to cry. I’d never felt so slow and stupid in my life, not even in school. I should never have left the restaurant; this wasn’t like tai chi to music at all.

  Nina came up and gave my arm a squeeze. “It’ll get easier as you go on.”

  To my surprise, Viktor bent down and said, “You did good.”

  I was rubbing my arms. “I made so many mistakes.”

  “You are judging yourself against us, and we’ve been dancing for most of our lives,” Katerina said. “For a person who had never danced before, you were extremely good indeed. You learned the steps almost as quickly as we did.”

  “But I couldn’t do them together with anyone else,” I said.

  “Of course not.” Adrienne had come up to us. “You don’t know anything about leading and following yet. You’ll feel like you’re wrestling an alligator until you start to understand.”