by Tan, Amy
He laughed and kissed me. “I will be right here with you. Squeeze my hand if it is unbearable and I will find excuses to take you away.”
Even though we had exchanged photos by mail, I had pictured her in one of her high-fashion party dresses, and not in a plain brown suit. Her features were striking, but outside of her world of business, she did not have the mesmerizing qualities that drew men to her side. She did not move gracefully but with jerky nervous movements as she searched for her luggage. She went to me, stopped ten feet away and stared, as if she were seeing a ghost. She was biting her lips as she looked me fully in the face. “I know we agreed to hold off speaking about our emotions. But I have kept seventeen years of your absence inside me, and I cannot hold back the words I had wanted you to hear. I love you so very much.”
For the second time in my life, I saw her cry. I nodded and let her put her arms around me and I wept freely, too.
After a few minutes, she let go, and wiped her eyes. “There! Now that’s out of the way. We can go back to being nervous about what we say.”
Loyalty treated my mother with much respect. “It was in your house where I first met your lovely daughter as a seven-year-old brat. She has not changed much, except in age.” My mother liked him immediately. She talked to him in her rusty Chinese. It was a relief to have him there to change the conversation to safer topics whenever either of us became uncomfortable. They recalled people they both knew, the scions of wealthy families, and he gave her an update on what had happened to some of them—whether they were doing the same, worse, or better. Most were doing worse.
Magic Gourd was waiting for us at our house. Many of my letters had mentioned her, and the first time I did, I reminded Mother that about twenty-five years ago she had asked the courtesan Magic Cloud, as she was known then, to leave Hidden Jade Path because of a matter having to do with a ghost and a patron. Magic Gourd, I went on to say, had been with me when I met Edward, when Flora was born, when Edward died, when Perpetual nearly killed me, when we escaped from Moon Pond—during all the moments of my life since my mother had left. I did not say anything about Magic Gourd’s role in training me to be a courtesan. But I had made it clear that Magic Gourd had been like a mother to me. Over the distance of letters, I could not see my mother’s face when she read those words, like a mother. The handwriting in her return letter, however, was more neatly written than usual. She expressed sadness that she had treated Magic Gourd so poorly, especially considering how she had taken care of me and how she embodied the attributes a true mother should have, one who was protective, who sought the best for her daughter over all other matters, who was selfless and would sacrifice her own life before any harm befell her child. In those words, she had spoken of the ways she had failed me. In each of her following letters, she asked how Magic Gourd was doing. Magic Gourd also politely asked the same about Mother.
Before coming to Shanghai, Mother already knew that Magic Gourd was now called Mrs. Harmony Chen and that Happy was her given name—Happy Chen in English. She was proud of her status and did not appreciate anyone using her former name. I was the only exception.
In the car on the way to the house, Mother and I talked about how she might introduce herself to Magic Gourd. We were nervous. She could hardly pretend that they had never met. And Magic Gourd was not one to hide her feelings. I had also forewarned Mother that she would not recognize Magic Gourd. She was past fifty and stout. Her jowls and the corners of her mouth hung down when she was nervous or disapproving. But when she smiled or was excited, they lifted up and added to her ample cheeks. She still had large beautiful eyes, and they were more often kind than critical.
When we walked in the door, Magic Gourd and Harmony were having a leisurely cup of tea. She acted surprised to see us. “Is it that late?” she said. “I thought you wouldn’t be here for another hour.”
Mother went to her and began by saying that she had read about her in so many letters, and it was good to finally thank her. She got no further than that.
“You remember me,” Magic Gourd said. “You kicked me out. The reason had to do with the ghost of the house and a rumor that a greedy courtesan spread. It nearly ruined the business of the entire house. I wished the girl who spread the gossip a bad life, and then I heard she wound up in a Hong Kong gutter next to a fish market and without her teeth, and after that, I told myself, ‘You don’t need to think about that anymore.’” She smiled. “None of us do.”
Mother was free to continue with her expressions of gratitude, using the words like a true mother and mentioned the attributes of one. This unleashed the first of endless stories Magic Gourd had at the ready about the harrowing times we had shared. Beginning with the Hall of Tranquility, she informed Mother about how she had trained me so that I would not fall into the dirty hands of cheap customers. Mother did not appear shocked. She said, “She could have wound up in the streets without your guidance.” An hour later, Magic Gourd described the lavish feast Loyalty threw for me when I was fourteen. Eventually it came out that Loyalty had bought my defloration. She turned to Loyalty. “Don’t be embarrassed. It was going to happen with someone, and Violet was lucky it was you.”
Magic Gourd said to her, “You know what I think? It wasn’t just luck. It was fate that you were on that boat. If you had stayed, Violet wouldn’t have met Edward. She wouldn’t have had Little Flora. She would not be here with Loyalty. What happened to Violet was terrible, and I’m not saying fate happens without blame. But when fate turns out well, everyone should forget the bad road that got us here. We should now concentrate on having Little Flora meet her true mother. With everyone’s help, there’s no way we can’t succeed.”
We took Mother to the old neighborhoods. She saw that Hidden Jade Path was now the private residence of someone powerful enough to have guards with rifles standing by the gate. “Gangsters,” I said. “Or politicians who are friends of gangsters. Fairweather fell in with them, did you know? He met with a very bad end, I’m not sorry to say.” She asked for details, and when I told her, she winced. She spent the second week in Soochow with Golden Dove, who, by her own description, had become fat and lazy. She was plump, but hardly lazy. Two years after she moved from Shanghai she married a man who had a furniture store. She turned it into an emporium of dry goods. In her late thirties, she told us, she gave birth to a son, who was making her life less peaceful. So she was happy.
Mother returned home after three weeks. Our letters resumed, and we critiqued our reunion. We admitted that we had secretly wanted to re-create that day she left Shanghai. We wanted to stand in her office, listen to the scoundrel’s lies, and for her to see the danger, so she would know to protect me. But we could not re-create a different past. It was more like going to a movie and already knowing the ending, and also seeing that the movie stars did not look as we had expected.
Although my mother and I were glad to embrace each other at the beginning and end of the visit, we agreed that we preferred the intimacy we had in our many letters. In person, we had been careful about what we said. We had looked at each other’s expressions, gestures, and the direction in which we turned our eyes to judge what we could talk about. There were others who tried to defray tension when there was none, or who added discomfort we could have easily avoided. Overall, however, the visit was a success. We wrote with greater openness and understanding. Magic Gourd had said we should forget the in-between years. But we did not want to. The wound had made it necessary to reveal to each other as much as we could.
MOTHER RETURNED YEARLY to Croton-on-Hudson to be near Flora a few months out of the school year. She took on the role of nosy neighbor. She ran into Flora at the fair, at church, in the park, or along the sidewalk walking the dog.
I once saw her dog take off to investigate another one across the road. A car nearly hit the beast and Flora screamed, “Cupid!” I felt the peril in my granddaughter’s heart and the relief when the dog returned with head, tail, and legs attached in the right places.
Tha
t was the first time she had called Flora her “granddaughter.” I knew she had undertaken the task of finding Flora out of love for me. She had acquired additional reasons, and I was glad.
I bought a perky-eared cairn terrier like Flora’s, thinking the two dogs would be eager to play with each other. I named her Salomé. Sure enough, Cupid saw her and bolted down the sidewalk to see her, and their leashes wound around us as the maypole. In the struggle to free herself, Salomé tried to kill Cupid. Fortunately, once the two dogs were untangled, they became quite chummy, in fact, rather lewdly so, which required further extrication.
With Salomé’s help, she ran into Flora often at the park. She carried dog biscuits to ensure Cupid would always seek out Salomé and her. She asked Flora if cairn terriers were the best choice of dogs as far as intelligence went. Flora shrugged and said, “I dunno.” I believed Mother would have taken equestrian lessons to be with Flora had she not been terrified of horses. She did brave her distaste for religion and joined the Methodist Church. Through her reports and photos, I saw Flora from that distance. I learned that she kept her hair short, wore a plaid dress, and liked to sketch. When Mother posed questions to her—about the weather or the fair coming to town—the answer was always the same: a shrug and “I dunno.”
When Flora was sixteen, my mother reported concerns that Flora’s friends were “not the best kind.” A particular boy came by often, and she would run to the car, and the boy would be slouched against the door and hand her a lit cigarette. That was his greeting. Mother saw her storm off one day after church, shouting to Minerva, “That’s not for you to know.” She hopped into the waiting car of the boyfriend. The boyfriend leaned across and gave Flora a long kiss. Minerva was left standing amid the churchgoers, distressed and embarrassed. Mother observed in Flora the signs of rebellion, which she believed were normal for a sixteen-year-old girl. But she also saw trouble. Flora was reckless.
The following year, Flora had settled down, my mother reported. She seemed quieter. She had bobbed her hair even shorter in a rather unattractive style. She took long walks through the park and drew in a sketchbook. Mother once asked to take a look. Flora answered: “Suit yourself.” She had seen Minerva praise everything Flora did, which Flora almost seemed to resent. She would sigh and walk away. Mother knew to be more measured, one of her old skills from the days of Hidden Jade Path. “I find the perspective is quite interesting. It creates a trick of the eye. That’s how I see it. But everyone sees something different in any work of art.” Flora said, “That’s what I wanted, many perspectives, but I don’t have it right yet.” It was the first time Flora had responded in any real way to what Mother had said. When Mother introduced herself as Mrs. Danner, Flora said: “I know who you are. You tried to make movie stars out of us.”
IN 1937, AFTER high school, Flora went to college, and my mother did not know where. She continued to rent the place in Croton-on-Hudson so she could return in the summer, in case Flora did, too. But she did not see Flora and was bereft.
I was about to respond to her letter, but the war with Japan had started in full force. There had been incidents here and there. But in August, bombs fell on the South Railway Station and killed nearly everyone there. And then bombs from the Chinese air force accidentally fell on the Bund, and on another day, one fell on Sincere Department Store. Each time that happened, we were uncertain whether we truly were safe, even though the International Settlement was not in the war zone. The Japanese surrounded the Settlement, ready to pluck any Chinese with anti-Japanese sentiments who was foolhardy enough to sneak out. That included many. Within a few days of each bombing, the nightclubs started up again, life went on eerily as before. Loyalty warned me every other day to not go near Nanking Road or anywhere near the border of the Settlement. He was afraid I would think I was American enough to go anywhere I pleased. “For my peace of mind,” he said, “I want you to think of yourself as Chinese. No half safe, half not.”
IN JANUARY 1938, Loyalty put a letter in my hand. It was from Flora and it was addressed to “Uncle Loyalty.” It was the first time Loyalty had been acknowledged as Uncle, and he shed a few tears as he pointed a shaky finger at the word Uncle.
December 26, 1938
Dear Uncle Loyalty,
If you got any letters of thanks over the last nine years, they weren’t from me. I never saw your letters until today. Minerva Ivory, erstwhile mother, intercepted them, as well as the gifts. First let me say, I’m impressed that you kept my father’s cuff links, fountain pen, and book of poems. You two must have been really good pals for you to go to the trouble of shipping the stuff all the way from China. So thanks for sending me his things. It really does mean a lot to me.
Thanks also for the Christmas gifts, especially the little carved jade horse. I never knew that was my sign in the Chinese zodiac. I’m guessing the eyes are not real rubies. The charm bracelet would have fit me when I was ten, and it’s a shame I didn’t get to wear it then because I adored charm bracelets when I was that age. You have no idea how much. Actually, I’m kind of surprised that you would have guessed that a girl would like something like that.
By the way, while looking for your letters, I found some written by my father. They made it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that Minerva Ivory was not my real mother. (She’s the liar who wrote the letters to you.) I had always suspected that was the case, and I’m glad to know it’s the truth for all kinds of reasons I won’t get into. The fact that she’s not my mother naturally makes me wonder who my real mother is. In the last letter my father wrote, he told Minerva he was married to a woman in Shanghai and she was going to give birth to their baby (me). The problem is, he did not give her name. This is a shot in the dark, but do you happen to know the name of my real mother? I know it was ages ago, and for all I know, she died in the pandemic, along with my father. Anyway, it’s not that important. I’m just curious. But if you do know her and run into her, give her my regards from New York.
Sincerely,
Flora Ivory
P.S. I never really liked poetry, but maybe I’ll give it another try, now that I know how much my father liked the book you sent. You never know.
Loyalty was angry. “She never got my letters! That dog-bitch mother wrote the letters. Dear Mr. Fang. All these years, I could have been called Uncle.”
“Flora knows.” That was all I said.
I debated what to write. Should I say she was ripped from my arms, with the two of us screaming for each other? Should I say that Minerva and Mrs. Lamp made it impossible for me to keep her? In the end, I expressed to Flora my great joy at having found her and that my fondest wish had always been to be reunited.
I have much to tell you about your father and how much he and I loved you. In the meantime, if you wish to meet your grandmother, she is right there, in Croton-on-Hudson, where she has watched over you for all these years.
We received Flora’s answer by telegram. She wanted to meet her grandmother.
MOTHER SAID THAT she arranged for Flora to meet her in the park, and as soon as Flora saw her standing at the little bridge, she snapped: “I knew you were up to something. I was always running into you. I thought you were spying on me for my parents. Later I thought you were just some crazy lady.”
She did not show immediate affection for her grandmother. It was mostly curiosity, and with caution. Mother understood this and told Flora that she had only wanted to assure her real mother that she was all right.
“You can tell her what you want,” she said. “But how would you know the difference between what is all right for me and not? I don’t even know if I’m all right.”
She told Mother that she had learned the truth about me when she was home during the Christmas holidays. Her mother had gone to Florida on a two-week honeymoon with her new husband, “the professional leech,” she called him. In the mailbox, Flora found Loyalty’s letter in a Christmas-wrapped gift containing a scarf. She found it puzzling that he mentioned “another Christmas gr
eeting” and that he thanked her for her last thank-you note. She then ransacked her mother’s desk, shelves, and closets. Minerva was a pack rat, and Flora knew it had to be somewhere. In the attic, she found several shoe boxes bound with string. Inside were letters—not just from Uncle Loyalty, but also from her father. She read them all, feeling sick to her stomach as she gradually realized what had happened. Most of the letters were dated before she was born. They were pleas from her father for Minerva to grant the divorce, and they came with declarations that he would never return to her, that he didn’t love her and never had. The earlier letters mentioned Minerva and Mrs. Lamp’s trickery that had roped him into a sham marriage. There were later letters disparaging her for using lies about his father’s health to lure him home. And then Flora read the letter that said he loved another woman and he had made her his wife in Shanghai. “A baby will soon be born,” he had written, “a real one, and not the kind you made up to trick me into marrying you. Isn’t that enough proof that I will never return?” That letter was dated November 15,1918, and it was his last.
Flora told Mother she wanted the truth—who was her real mother, why was she in Shanghai, and how she met her father. “Please don’t give me pretty lies. I’ve been fed them all my life. I don’t want to find I’ve been fooled again in other ways. If the facts are bad, I can take them. I don’t care what they are, as long as they’re the truth.”
I began by telling her that her mother was half-Chinese. Flora was stunned at first, but then she laughed and said, “Well, isn’t that ironic?” It turns out that when she was thirteen or fourteen, she had begged Minerva to take her to a Chinese restaurant in Albany. Minerva insisted she wouldn’t like it. Flora asked her how she knew that. She was furious when Minerva said nothing else and kept driving. When she was sixteen, she and her boyfriend—the bad one I told you about—drove to the city and ate Chinese food. She said she did it to spite Minerva, but she discovered she also liked it. I told Flora she probably ate more Chinese food than Western when she was little. And she said, “Of course I liked it. I’m part Chinese.”
