by Jamie Ford
“We’re like a big happy family at the Tenderloin; Fahn and me are like Irish twins. Even Professor True is like an uncle. But, despite all that, you should know that Madam Flora is most definitely not my real sister.”
Ernest looked over at her.
“Madam Flora is my real mother.”
Ernest blinked and stepped away from the curb as a bus rumbled by.
“Here’s the thing. She doesn’t want outsiders to know, because it’s bad for business. Back in the day, Madam Flora had plenty of suitors—rich, powerful men, some even wanted to marry her. But…then I came along and crashed the party. Amber said my father was some banker. From what I heard, he already had a wife back in Chicago, so when he found out Flora was up the duff he wanted her to get rid of me. He tried to buy her off, but she refused. That’s how I know she loves me.”
Ernest stopped in his tracks.
Maisie brushed her long blond bangs from her eyes. “Amber said that man lost a million dollars the year I was born. And we’re guessing he blew what was left in the big Knickerbocker Panic, because right about that time we heard he walked off a pier in New Jersey and was never seen again. Sharks probably got him. Madam Flora hung up her stockings after that, once and for all, breaking the hearts and egos of a lot of wealthy gentlemen. Ever since then she’s just told everybody that I was Flora’s little sister—it’s less complicated that way. Plus, I think it makes her feel youthful.”
Maisie shrugged again. “Besides, I doubt that Flora’s the first working girl to call her daughter a cousin or baby sister…”
“But…she’s still your mother,” Ernest said. “You’re still her daughter, you’re…”
“I’m nobody’s anything, Ernest.” Maisie cut him off as she handed him the rest of the invitations and walked away. “I’m not the Mayflower.” She turned and patted her chest. “I’m Plymouth Rock.”
DRAGON’S BLOOD
(1909)
After Ernest finished delivering the invitations, he returned to the Tenderloin and found Fahn waiting for him on the front step. She was peeling green apples, cutting them, and dropping the slices into a copper pot filled with water. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and shook her head.
“When Miss Amber saw that the Mayflower had sailed back without its crewman, she chewed her out something fierce and then sent me off looking for you. I circled around for a few blocks, but I knew you’d figure it out.” Fahn smiled and cocked her head. “I hoped anyway. Grab the pot and follow me.”
As Ernest trailed behind, he tried not to drip on the carpets or the wooden floor and tried even harder not to think about Maisie, and her stubborn acceptance of her circumstances. He remembered the last time he saw his own mother back in China. Her life—her death—had become more myth than memory. He knew he’d been born near the Pearl River Delta, but now he couldn’t even find that place on a map. And he remembered his mother telling him how she could never be a good Chinese wife, could never abide by the three obediences—whatever those were.
He put the pot down on the kitchen counter where a dozen ceramic dishes sat at the ready, lined with fresh piecrusts. He felt heat radiating from the large gas oven.
“Are we baking pies?” Ernest asked. “I don’t know a thing about—”
“Mrs. Blackwell must be taking a break,” Fahn cut him off. “She makes the pies. I do all the grunt work. I don’t mind, though, because I was able to save you the best apple in all of Washington—maybe the whole wide world.”
Ernest watched as she hung up her apron, polished a perfectly round apple, chopped it in half, and delicately sliced out the core with a paring knife. Then she took a wooden dipper and drizzled honey over the bare fruit. She handed him one half and then bit into the other, wiping her chin with the back of her hand.
“Miss Amber told me to pick up tins of snuff for the upstairs girls. They use chewing tobacco to lose weight and stay fit. Then I have to go pick up Madam Flora’s new medicine,” Fahn said with an excited smile. “Amber thought that you should come with me so you know where to get it next time.”
Ernest’s legs felt tired from trying to keep up with Maisie, and his feet were swollen in his ill-fitting leather shoes, but the apple tasted sweet.
“I’d love to go,” he told her.
—
ERNEST FOLLOWED FAHN, who mercifully walked at a much slower pace than Maisie’s battle march. As they turned left at King Street Station and headed east up South Jackson, she pointed out places of interest, like the Maple Leaf Saloon, the Triangle Bar, and the People’s Theatre in the basement on Second Avenue.
“Don’t be fooled by the name,” Fahn confided. “It’s not a penny crush. It’s a low-rent crib joint with watered-down drinks. If a rich customer happens to wander into a place like that, he’s bound to take a sap to the back of the head, wake up down on the mudflats, without his wallet. Madam Flora hates those kinds of places. She says they treat the girls awful and give the Garment District a bad name.”
Ernest was still gawking at the buildings when they passed a newspaper boy who stood on a fruit crate, shouting headlines.
“Ty Cobb wins home run title with ninth home run!” he barked to no one in particular as he held up the paper. “Only a nickel! Read all about it!”
Fahn smiled at the newsboy. “Maybe on the way back, hon.”
As they continued east, Ernest noticed the signage above the stores had changed from English to Chinese. But there was also Oriental lettering that he didn’t recognize—Japanese, he assumed. He remembered how Mrs. Irvine had once taken all the kids from the children’s home to the Majestic Theatre for a production of Jappyland. But all of the performers, singers, dancers, the emperor, the queen, even the geishas and cuddle-up girls were all just white people in heavy robes and thick Pan-Cake makeup—a contrast to the people he was now passing on the street. Men in woolen suits grew scarce, replaced by Orientals in white collars, black hats, and silken robes with fine Chinese embroidery. Ernest couldn’t read the symbols on their clothing but vaguely remembered that the robes and the beads represented rank in the community.
“Where are we going?” he asked as he overheard a group of men arguing in a dialect that reminded him of the village where he’d been born.
Fahn took his hand. “We’re going to the Jue Young Wo herb shop for dried dracaena flowers.” She laced her fingers between his and held on tight. She arched an eyebrow mischievously. “They use it to make dragon’s blood.”
Some sort of illicit drug, Ernest thought as he furrowed his brow and remembered old men on a Chinese waterfront sleeping beneath the thick, meaty, sickly-sweet smell of opium smoke. Or like the herbs some men in China used to boost their virility.
Ernest’s heart raced as he glanced surreptitiously at his fingers, interlaced with Fahn’s. The simple magic of her touch reminded him of how comfortable he felt at the Tenderloin, how excited, and joyful, a sense of belonging he had only dreamed of all those years at the boarding school. Somehow, he finally fit in. That’s when he noticed his and Fahn’s reflection in the window of the Gom Hong Grocery, their hands swinging freely between them, connecting them. This stroll into Chinatown was also a homecoming. The people, the faces, the smells and aromas of roasting duck, dove, and waxy sausages preserved with cinnamon wafted over him like remembrance of a lovely dream he’d long forgotten. But the faces of the few Chinese women he saw reminded him of his mother, and the Japanese men reminded him of her warnings.
“Avoid the law baak tau at all costs,” she’d told him with a stern look, even though the War of Jiawu had been fought before he’d been born. He’d never seen a Japanese man until he’d come to America, and those he’d met didn’t look like daikon heads at all. They looked like him, in a way. If anyone looked like ugly potato heads, they were the bald sailors who’d brought him here.
Ernest felt his chest flood with warmth as Fahn said, “I like holding your hand. We make a good pair, don’t you think?”
He tried to
say something charming in response but could muster only “Thanks.”
He remembered sleeping next to her, a little boy among so many big sisters. She seemed older now, in more than just years. Ernest peeked at her, expecting to see disappointment, but she merely smiled, showing off her perfect cheekbones.
That’s when Ernest noticed all the men staring at Fahn as they walked through Chinatown, past baskets of dried fish and wooden casks filled with ice and blue rock crabs. Even the ones playing cards and swimming their hands through mah-jongg tiles, smoking, drinking, all took a moment to let their eyes linger on her. Ernest watched as they gazed from her to him, and then back to her again—some smiled, showing crooked or missing teeth. Others pointed, while many laughed and called out to them in their thick Cantonese accents. Ernest wished he knew what they were saying.
“There aren’t many women in Chinatown—just old ladies and a handful of girls, Chinese and Japanese,” Fahn said. “So that makes me a vaudeville attraction whenever I come here, like the women on display at the Japanese Village at the fair. But my American dress sets me apart. They always think I’m the daughter of Goon Dip, who built most of these buildings, or the teenage bride of some other wealthy merchant, or a businessman’s new concubine—wouldn’t that be a hoot?”
Ernest nodded as though all of this made perfect sense.
“That’s why I’m glad you’re here—I feel safer with you as my gentleman companion. Usually it’s Professor True who escorts me through this part of town.”
Ernest felt flattered and somewhat disappointed at the same time.
Before he’d begun to wallow in that thought, Fahn pointed to a nearby building on a hill. “That’s the Tangerine—it’s strictly low-rent. That’s the crib where I was supposed to spend my days…and nights, eventually.”
Ernest looked at her quizzically.
“After my employer died in China, I came over with dozens of other girls, poor Japanese picture brides, Chinese from the Pearl River, all of us sold by our parents as mui tsai or karayuki-san—contracted to be little sisters, house servants. They gave us some other girls’ passports to get into America. They had us all sign our names with only our thumbprints, since most of the girls couldn’t read or write. And then the sailors herded us into a barracoon on the waterfront, where they cleaned us up. Then they moved us to the basement of some other building and stripped us naked.”
Ernest’s eyes widened and he fidgeted, unsure if he wanted to hear more.
“At best, our parents thought they were sending us to be contracted servants in fancy houses or, at worst, workers in some garment factory. And the girls without contracts, the rich ones who looked down on the rest of us, they thought they were meeting their new husbands, who turned out to be the same old men in charge of the rest of us. The same men who auctioned all of us off like cattle. I was only eight years old and ended up over there as a servant and a cleanup girl.” She pointed back to the Tangerine.
“On the ship, the Chinese all called me Fahn, which I guess means girl or something, and the name stuck,” she said. “So that’s what they called me at the Tangerine, where I did laundry, I shined shoes and stuffed them with newspaper, I bathed the older working girls, kept bottles of vinegar near the privy, I even did some cooking. Until Madam Flora had the place raided by the police and she took me in.”
Ernest wanted to know more, but just then the pungent aroma of dried ginger and wormwort overwhelmed them.
“Here we are,” Fahn said, as they walked through an open door.
The small shop felt like a lost chapter of his childhood, though this place was larger and much nicer than the one in his village his mother used to visit for dried yarrow to treat colds and fevers. Ernest watched and listened as Fahn ordered two ounces of dracaena and paid for the red herbs with a new silver dollar. The herbalist carefully measured the dried leaves, weighing them on a druggist’s scale, and then spooned them into a cone that he’d rolled from a small piece of newspaper. He folded over the top and handed her the herbs.
“These are flowers from lucky bamboo plants,” Fahn said as she waved the packet beneath Ernest’s nose. “Madam Flora mixes them with red wine and drinks it.”
“Why?”
“To treat an old war wound, she says—nervousness from the job. She has headaches. Dizziness. Forgetfulness.” Fahn shrugged. “She’s tried the latest remedies—Horsford’s acid phosphate, tinctures of mercury, and even long, hot baths in mineral salts from Soap Lake, but nothing seems to help. So she read about a Chinese doctor in San Francisco who could cure certain maladies with dried herbs. She wrote and told him about her fits of melancholy, and this is what he recommended.” She lowered the tone of her voice. “If you ask me, I think she caught the big casino back when she was just a working girl. Syphilis is supposed to make you do crazy things as you get older.”
Ernest had no idea what Madam Flora’s condition had to do with a casino, big or small. But he had heard that other word, and only vaguely knew it as some kind of shameful illness. “Do the herbs work?”
“Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
As they left the herb shop Ernest felt bold enough to offer his arm, and Fahn took it without ceremony. She talked and talked, occasionally pausing to point out a puffy cloud in the blue sky that looked like a circus animal, or to admire the crispy ducks hanging in the window of a Chinese barbecue, or her favorite blossom, tiger lilies, on a nearby flower cart—the street provided an infinite supply of everyday things to amuse and delight her. At the corner, where they waited for a streetcar to roll by, she even complimented Ernest on his smile.
And when they reached Pioneer Square the paperboy was still there, still hawking today’s news—something about a Wright Brothers airplane crashing in France and killing the pilot, and the return of a great comet. Fahn paused, and Ernest watched as she read the paper’s headlines, then regarded the boy, who was still standing on his upturned crate. She dropped a nickel into his tin cup as he stepped down to hand her the paper, which she ignored. Instead, she placed her hands on the newsboy’s shoulders, stood on her tippy-toes, tilted her head, and kissed him square on the lips.
Then she smiled, took Ernest’s hand, and continued walking, leaving the stunned paperboy behind them without a second glance. “I don’t like paying for bad news.”
Ernest looked back at the boy, who seemed dumbfounded. “But…why did you do that? He’s a total stranger!”
“Well, we’re not total strangers, Ernest. I see him on the same corner at least once a week.”
Ernest remembered his own kiss and was even more confused, and a bit jealous.
Fahn seemed to notice his befuddlement. “Women settle for the admiration of men, which is worthless. A dog will admire trees all day but only respect a sharp stick. That’s what Madam Flora always says. She tells us that we need to make our own way in the world and not rely on a man for anything. Sometimes that means we have to take what we want for a change. So I kissed him back there because I wanted to add a little something to my collection.”
Ernest felt her squeeze his hand.
“Some people collect pennies or feathers. Others collect commemorative ribbons or stamps of the world. I collect first kisses. But that wasn’t his first,” she said, shaking her head. “Trust me. There are a lot of boys in my menagerie, and I can tell by now.”
Ernest held her hand as they walked. Or, more aptly, she held his hand and led him along the avenue. He didn’t mind. Not too much, anyway. He was deeply dazzled by this strange place, this happy new life. Though when they got back, as she let go of his hand and bounded up the steps, two at a time, part of him felt sad to be left behind, disappointed that she didn’t care to collect second kisses, or thirds.
OLD MAN ON CAMPUS
(1962)
Ernest contemplated the collection of sentimental items that had accumulated in his desk drawer—postcards, souvenir pins, campaign buttons (more losers than winners), and ticket stubs from old mo
vies. And of course Juju’s latest news clippings, and programs and lobby cards from Hanny’s many performances in Reno and Las Vegas.
Some people yearn for the spotlight, Ernest mused.
While at the Tenderloin, he had often heard about a legendary Japanese woman known as the Arabian Oyae. She always wore bright blue stockings and was said to be the rival of any of the Tenderloin’s Gibson girls. Fahn had actually seen Oyae once, on King Street late one night, a regal woman, who was surrounded by a retinue of servants and rich men, who all fought for her attention. That encounter, years before Ernest had arrived, had left an impression on Fahn. She had told him that she wanted more from life than her household duties. She wanted to become the talk of Chinatown, if not the city. Fahn wanted to be like Oyae: she wanted to become the next unbreakable horse.
Ernest sipped his coffee and read the paper. He tried not to worry too much about his daughter’s new Caucasian fiancé. Rich the lawyer was rich, and handsome and successful, and he’d said all the right things over apple pie à la mode. And he obviously cared about Hanny a great deal, but…marriage, a mixed-race one at that—that’s a complicated undertaking. Ernest remembered Gracie’s favorite magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal, and its trademark column “Can This Marriage Be Saved?”
Marriage is easy to untangle in Las Vegas, Ernest thought. Perhaps that’s why Hanny is entering this arrangement so suddenly after turning down so many other overtures. Meanwhile, Washington’s judicial system refused to acknowledge divorces from Nevada—let alone those from south of the border. What had been so convenient for Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and even last year for poor Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, would never work in Seattle. Not that Ernest would ever consider divorcing Gracie, no matter what her condition was or if she even remembered him.
