by Stacey Lee
Then I set off at a run, zigzagging my way up street after ruined street, dying a thousand deaths each time I spot a child Jack’s age who doesn’t turn out to be him.
The earth begins to tremble again. People scream and grab onto whatever or whoever is closest. I fall to the ground, cutting my hand on glass.
The trembling stops. I am in Union Square surrounded by the smoldering remains of its former occupants, metal skeletons for smoke to seep in and out of. Winged Victory still holds her head up high, and her stony gaze seems to order me to dust off my sorry bloomers and get moving. I rise, ignoring the pain. The anxiety that wends through my chest is slick and reptilian, stirring me onward.
Finally, I reach California Street, one of the main avenues into Chinatown. The smoke here is thick enough to hold a bottle in place. The faces turn Chinese, all hurrying in my direction as I approach.
I stop a man holding a picture frame. “What of Chinatown?”
He doesn’t want to stop, and so I tag along after him. “Burning! It’s all burning!” he spits.
A bolt of panic shocks me in the chest. “Burning?”
“Hai.”
I set off at a run toward the smoke, tears running down my face. They must have escaped. They had to.
“Mercy!” I look frantically toward the sound of my name. A thin man in dark pants and a jacket like mine waves at me.
“Ah-Suk!” I cry, collapsing upon him and almost knocking off his skullcap.
Tom’s father holds me steady with one hand. The other is holding a suitcase.
I blurt out, “Ma—?”
He shakes his head.
“Dai-dai?” I whisper the word, not able to say Jack’s name aloud.
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are wet.
“Their building was one of the first to go. I am sorry—” he begins to say in Cantonese.
I tear away from him, continuing on toward Chinatown. No! It can’t be true.
“You cannot go that way, Mercy! The fire is still hungry. Your clothes will melt off!”
After running half a block, I hit an invisible wall of heat that my body refuses to push through. Chinatown lies just a block ahead, though it’s no longer the scene I remember, but a searing spectacle of hot yellows and reds.
I find myself kneeling on the ground, and then I crumple, burying my head into my lap as if I could disappear inside myself forever.
Oh, my baby brother. I wish I had never left you. If I had known your time had such short measure, I would have spent every second watching you grow. And, Ma! You predicted your own death, but of all the times you had to be right, why now?
I sob and sob, so hard I think my heart may give out from the effort. I imagine the flames licking at Jack’s tiny feet, his terrified voice calling, “Mercy!”
Someone pulls me to my feet.
My limbs have gone numb, and nothing can shake me from my stupor. I barely register the screaming people, the fire trucks whose horses have run off, the wagons pulling away the dead. Fires roar, and children wail, but all pass over me as if I am in an impenetrable glass bubble.
The only sound I hear is the voice of my regret, like a howling wind in my ears.
23
WHEN BA PLACED JACK IN MY ARMS FOR the very first time, I decided that he belonged to me. If anything deserved to be called “perfect,” it was this warm bundle, with his round pearl of a head and starfish hands. He hardly cried, and when he slept, sometimes fourteen hours at a time, I longed for him to wake so I could tickle his feet. Jack’s birth proved to me that God exists.
People are like boats, always coming and going. Sometimes never returning. Now that his boat has sailed, the sea is empty for me.
Someone pats my shoulder. I’m covered with a blanket, and there’s a pillow under my head. The smell of dirt and grass is all around me. Maybe I’ve died of grief, and they’re readying my plot. During my time at the cemetery, I never saw grief kill a body, though I’ve seen plenty of mourners try to throw themselves into the grave. Surely the pain I feel is worse than a shot to the heart, powerful enough to send me where I want to go.
Strangely, the thought comforts me. I will see Ma and Jack again, maybe in a city like this, though on a higher plane where we can look down and watch the living.
Of course, Ba might still be alive.
And Tom. Do earthquakes affect the ocean? My insides clamp with worry.
With a groan, I open my eyes. Katie hangs not a foot from my face, staring at me with her green eyes. “Hi.” She sits back on her haunches and beckons someone over. “She’s awake.”
Soon, Harry and Francesca are also staring down at me. Beyond them, Georgina—the only senior I see—braids Minnie Mae’s hair. The Southerner’s puffy face is as red as the sun. I must have been sleeping all afternoon.
I wiggle out of the tight blanket. Vaguely, I remember stumbling to the park, aided by Ah-Suk and Francesca. I meet Francesca’s warm eyes. “Thank you.”
She gives me a smile so full of concern that I almost break down. I swallow the hot ball in my throat. “Where’s Ah-Suk?”
“The man who brought you back? He’s over there.”
I push myself up, but the pain in my hand makes me wince. My stomach bucks, and every muscle aches as if I have been treading water for hours. Francesca puts a steadying hand on my back.
I must talk to Ah-Suk. A hundred paces closer to the eastern border of the park, I see him squatting by his suitcase, twisting and pulling another man’s shoulder to open blocked energy gates. Behind him, the unruffled dark waters of Alvord Lake stretch half a city block. The shoreline teems with people, with their soot-stained clothes and traumatized expressions.
In the opposite direction, I recognize the section of the park called the Children’s Quarters. The stone pavilion of the carousel looks intact from three hundred feet away, but the adjacent brick building has lost its crisp edges.
Francesca combs the hair from my forehead. “I’m sorry about your family.”
Harry holds out a fruit jar filled with water, her glassy eyes big with sympathy. I take it gratefully, noticing as I do that someone has bandaged my hand in a strip of fabric. The water tastes flat and muddy, and I only drink enough to soothe my throat.
Katie’s face crumples in sympathy. “What was your brother’s name?”
“Jack. He was six.”
Francesca and Katie coo and cluck over me, and for once, I wish they could be more like Harry, who sits quietly like a peace lily. Ma says peace lilies are good plants to have in one’s home because they neutralize any negative energy.
Francesca fluffs Harry’s pillow and wedges it behind me. I want to scream for her to stop. It isn’t fair that I should be sitting here so comfortably when Ma and Jack suffered such unspeakable deaths.
I belt my arms around my knees, willing the tears from spilling. I have cried enough today to put out several fires, and more tears would be an indulgence. “How is everyone else?”
“The staff and all the teachers left to find their own families. Most of the other girls are local and got picked up by their parents, except—” Francesca looks to where a lone figure sits with her back against a pine tree, the pearly purse by her side a strange contrast to the natural setting.
Elodie’s gaze connects with mine, and she opens her mouth as if to speak. But instead, she hugs her knees. I guess certain boundaries can be smudged, but not entirely erased, even by death. Despite my dislike of her, a new wave of sadness pulls at me. Her father is in New York and won’t claim her anytime soon. I wonder if she knows her mother died. Katie shakes her head as if reading my mind.
Cruel world, do not leave this task to me.
Francesca continues, “A few left by car. Those with family outside the city.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll wait here f
or my brother to come back. If there’s anything we can do for you—”
“What will you and Harry do?” I ask Katie, remembering that Harry doesn’t have family.
“Wait for Gran. She’ll be heaps worried once the news spreads.”
Katie’s words return to me. As long as you have someone worrying over you, you’ll be okay. I worried over Jack and Ma, but that didn’t do a whit of good.
The ancestors have turned their backs on my family, even after all those offerings we made. And Ba’s Christian God—the caring, all-powerful one—He has been the most disappointing of all. Though I am not speaking to Him anymore, I still plead with Him to let me find Ba soon. It’s the least You can do.
“Are you comfortable?” Katie pulls a leaf off my hair.
“I’m fine. Please don’t worry.” Mourning should be done in private.
“Of course we’re worried. When my parents died, I crawled into my tree house and wouldn’t come down until it started to snow over a month later.”
Francesca gives my arm a squeeze and tells Katie, “She’s in shock. Leave her be.”
Katie nods but doesn’t look offended. “I wish we could give her some tea,” she whispers to Francesca. “Or something to eat. I wonder if pinecones are edible.”
Their voices sound distant to my unfocused ear.
“Their nuts are edible after you roast them,” Francesca says. “If it weren’t so dangerous, I would take her to the restaurant for spaghetti alla gricia. It’s my specialty.”
“Ain’t spaghetti just spaghetti?” asks Katie.
“Goodness, no. There are many ways to cook a noodle.”
Several paces away, Headmistress Crouch directs men to set crates of supplies under a sprawling hemlock. The men trot off to dispense more crates from their horse-drawn wagon, and I hear her call after them: “We’ve been here almost eight hours, and that’s all you can give us?”
Though I’m tempted to sit and wallow, it will only lead to me imagining the awful way that Ma and Jack died—burned, but hopefully suffocated first so they did not feel the flame. And Ba, what if he was . . . ?
Hot tears form in my eyes again. I shake my head, willing my thoughts back in their cage. Getting to my feet, I fold the blanket in quarters and hang it on a branch.
The park is a perfect oasis of trim lawn, punctuated with evergreens and poplars. If it weren’t for the ashy sky, and of course all the refugees, you would never know an earthquake had happened.
Francesca and Katie stop talking. I can feel them watching me as I walk away.
I pull Jack’s Indian head penny from my pocket, wanting to throw it as hard as I can. Useless, unlucky piece of copper. But it’s the only thing I have left of Jack. I return it to my pocket.
Help me find my way, little brother. I am lost.
24
HEADMISTRESS CROUCH RUMMAGES THROUGH a crate. A sprig of hemlock needles falls on her, and she claws it off. “Fools. What good’s a pot without coal?”
I want to continue past her to Ah-Suk, a hundred feet away, but I don’t wish to be rude. “Maybe it’s not for cooking.”
She shudders, then bends over the crate, which is stuffed with canvas and wood sticks. “What kind of blanket is this?”
“I believe that’s a tent, ma’am.”
She looks up at me sharply, then shakes out the canvas. “Obviously it’s a tent.”
I’m in no mood for her snippiness, so I move toward a ring of redwoods, passing an iron bench, which has become a makeshift bed for an entire family.
Ah-Suk perches on his supply crate, trying to unstick the clasp of his suitcase. Unlike Tom, who favors his mother’s solid build, the doctor has always reminded me of a crane, with a long neck and a deliberateness to his movements.
“Ah-Suk, thank you for bringing me here,” I say in Cantonese. More tears spring to my eyes, but I force them back.
The last time I saw Jack, he was asleep. I should’ve woken him. I should’ve told him how much I love him.
“Don’t need to thank me.” He beckons me to sit beside him on the crate, and I do.
He continues, “Your ma led a good life. She deserved a five-blossom death.”
I nod, though that particular saying always blew sand in my face. Chinese believe that in order to die well, a woman must have experienced the five “blossoms”—marriage, bearing a son, being respected, having a grandson who loves you, and dying in your sleep after a long life. To me, Ma’s death is no less honorable than someone with five hundred grandsons.
In the distance, the St. Clare’s girls are trying to put together tents. Harry and Katie stretch out the canvas, while Francesca tries to fit two sticks together.
“You must burn paper for your mother, and your brother, too.” Ah-Suk makes a sucking sound, and he shakes his head gravely. “Black hair must send white hair first.”
The reminder that parents should not live longer than their children puts a fresh ache in my heart. “I will, Ah-Suk.”
“Your father was out making deliveries?”
“Yes. He would have been coming back from Oakland.”
He pulls off his skullcap to run a hand through his hair, and the gesture immediately reminds me of Tom. I always teased him that he better stop or his hair would grow as thin as Ah-Suk’s. “Then he should be fine. Nothing you can do but wait.”
Despite his words, an image of Ba wringing his cap springs to mind, replaced by a worse image of Ba drowning. I take a deep breath, forcing the terrible thought to leave.
“And what of Tom? Do you think he is okay?”
He scowls, and his chin hairs quiver. “Captain Lu’s ship can reach twenty-two knots. They should be a few hundred miles up the coast by now.” He returns to trying to open his suitcase. “I would not worry about him, Mercy. He is not coming back. We have both lost family.”
He must feel great shame that his only son has left, though he, like many Chinese, will never admit it. I don’t point out the irony of Tom’s disobedience, which saved him from this hell. And though I sympathize with Ah-Suk’s loss, it cannot equate with the loss I feel for Ma and Jack. Ah-Suk could still go look for Tom, or write him a letter.
The lid of the suitcase finally pops open to reveal his high-shelf tea set padded with packets of herbs.
“I’d packed this to give to Tom for his trip, because sometimes he has trouble sleeping.” His sharp Adam’s apple dips as he swallows, and I’m surprised to find his normally strict expression beset by grief. “I didn’t realize he meant to leave so soon.” He pulls a folded paper from his jacket and slaps it against his palm. “That’s all I get for eighteen years of being his father. One lousy note.”
Despite my loyalty to Tom, I find myself hurting for the old man. I want to assure him that we will see Tom again, but it would be impertinent for me to offer comfort to a respected elder. He shakes his head and snaps the lid back down.
“I sent Winter to Mr. Cruz. I told the fool to lay off the chicken livers, but he prefers his gout,” Ah-Suk says brusquely, changing the subject. He often sent his horse to the Portuguese man’s house in Potrero Hill when his leg acted up. Winter was the smartest horse I ever met, and he always followed Ah-Suk’s instructions to the letter.
“May luck go with them. Have you heard word of Ling-Ling and her mother?”
“I have not. One can’t be sure. The whole block went up in smoke.”
I envision Ling-Ling’s ma trying to hobble away from the flames with her lotus feet, and immediately regret all the unkind thoughts I’d had about her.
I’m struck by the impermanence of it all. You expect certain things to always be there, like the bakery on the corner, or the boy you grew up with. But when the very ground can eat you alive without warning, what’s to say the ocean won’t dry up? Or the stars won’t suddenly shut off? Nothing is forever.
�
�May we help you with your tent?” I ask.
“Girls should not do men’s work,” Ah-Suk says sternly. “Plenty of others to help.” He points his chin toward the river, where two Chinese men are fetching water. “Go back to your white ghosts. Seems they need your help more than me.” He sweeps his hand toward Harry and Katie, who are wrestling the tent as if it were a live animal.
It strikes me that maybe I should stay with Ah-Suk and my countrymen. Where do I belong now? Maybe this is what it feels like to be a hungry ghost, caught in both worlds, trapped in ambivalence. There are only a few dozen Chinese here—most probably took shelter closer to Chinatown—but I recognize them all. Like the three o’clock funeral peddler and the Clay Street barber wearing his basin on his head.
A group of cigar rollers about Tom’s age are unfolding a large canvas sheet. I stare at their faces. If only he were here. He would understand the rift in my soul.
Biting my trembling lip, I head back to the girls. They do need me more, like Ah-Suk said.
In addition to the tents and pots—which, unless you’re a horse, are too large to be chamber pots—each crate also contains matches and candles, soap and rags, and a short-handled brush, either for brushing hair or washing dishes.
I wish they had thought to include toilet paper, as I am feeling the urge. My eyes catch on someone’s comportment book lying in the grass. Of all the things to grab in an emergency. I pick it up and rub one of the pages between my fingers. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than leaves.
When I return from my visit to the nearest bush, I find that the girls have successfully put up four tents, arranged due north, south, east, and west, with an open space in between for a campfire. Ironically, the number for death is also the number for survival. Something sour coats my tongue. What more can four do? It has taken the very best from me, and no longer do I fear it.
Only ten girls from St. Clare’s remain, plus Headmistress Crouch. The old woman claims the tent facing north, assigning Elodie, Minnie Mae, and Georgina to the one opening south. The one facing west goes to three sisters from Boston who are as frail as porcelain teapots. That leaves Harry, Francesca, Katie, and me in the one facing east.
