Bury What We Cannot Take: A novel

by Kirstin Chen

  “Take them away to be executed,” the announcer said.

  San San wiped her tears. If she turned herself in, might she be allowed to see Dr. Lee and Auntie Rose one final time? The van door shut. The crowd began to disperse. She blew her nose on her sleeve and jogged toward the town square. She had to make it back to the arts college without being seen.

  “San San,” a deep voice cried. “San San, is that you?”

  She didn’t need to turn to know exactly who it was. Cook, along with Mui Ah, hurried toward her. Her mind screamed, “Run!” but her feet lagged. The storm within her lifted, making way for a long-overlooked memory: her Hansel clad in a tiny striped nightgown that Mui Ah had sewn from old drapes.

  “I told you it was her in that tree,” Mui Ah screeched. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  Mui Ah’s mouth was a gaping hole. Cook’s face was purple with exertion. But they looked overjoyed to have found her. Maybe, just maybe, they would hide her; maybe they would help her escape.

  “Call the police,” Cook gasped.

  San San snapped out of her trance and sped up.

  “That’ll slow us down more,” said Mui Ah. “Catch her first and then we’ll call the police.”

  San San’s thighs and calves blazed, her lungs threatened to burst, but she knew now to keep running, to never let herself get caught. If there was one lesson she’d learned over the past month, one lesson her family’s betrayal had taught her, it was this: the only person she could depend on was herself. The corollary to that lesson was clear: she would never again put herself in jeopardy for anyone else. She would never turn herself in.

  At the top of the hill, she glanced back and spotted the old gravedigger two steps behind Cook. “I told you I saw her the other day. No one ever listens to me.”

  San San veered off the main road, leapt over the low gate of the postmaster’s house, and crouched behind a hedge. She cupped her hands over her nose and mouth to muffle her panting and peeked through the leaves.

  “Which way did she go?” Cook wheezed, his belly heaving with each breath.

  Mui Ah said, “You go that way, I’ll go this way. She can’t be far.”

  Cook bent over and rested with his hands on his knees. “If her mother finds out, she’ll have me killed,” he said to the gravedigger, who said, “Worry about that later.”

  San San’s fingers brushed the portfolio of letters tucked in her waistband, her grandmother’s filigreed gold bangle, the red-leather strap of her silver-faced watch. She had to get off the islet. There was nothing left for her here.

  20

  Seok Koon was so furious she could barely choke out the words, “Thank you for your help,” before hanging up the phone.

  Although it was the middle of the day, the sky outside her window was evening dark. Lightning slashed the dense clouds, followed by booming thunder, as though Nature herself shared Seok Koon’s rage.

  Another doctor’s note had been procured. The letter had been carefully crafted to get past censors and would arrive in Diamond Villa in days. Father Leung had included San San’s name in Sunday’s prayer bulletin and assured Seok Koon that he was personally praying for the girl’s safe arrival.

  But when Seok Koon had telephoned her husband’s banker, just to confirm the funds were in place, she discovered that less than half the needed sum had been deposited into Ah Zhai’s account.

  “Your husband did indeed pay us a visit yesterday,” the banker had said. “No, I don’t believe he mentioned anything about another deposit.”

  “That can’t be right,” Seok Koon said. “Please check again.”

  But the banker had returned with the same number, and when Seok Koon pressed him to check one more time, he said curtly, “Mrs. Ong, I suggest you take this up with your husband. Clearly there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

  According to his secretary, Zhai was currently in a very important meeting and could not be disturbed. And even if he had come to the phone, what would Seok Koon have said? How much harder could she beg? How could she make him care?

  She wondered if her husband had always been this selfish, this coldhearted. The first time Zhai had waited outside the conservatory gates, Rose had spotted him before Seok Koon had: a trim, confident figure in a straw boater that had struck them as the height of sophistication. What had Seok Koon known of her suitor? She’d admired his impeccable manners, his self-assuredness coupled with that irresistible impish grin. She’d been flattered by his attention. She’d felt pride when family and friends congratulated her on forming such a good match. Beyond that, however, she drew a blank. She could not remember if she’d thought him kind or upstanding. She could not even remember if she’d enjoyed his company, so focused was she on ensuring he enjoyed hers.

  That afternoon, they’d meandered through Bright Moon Garden on the way back to the home where she boarded during the school year. She’d asked him to tell her about Hong Kong, which even back then he’d visited regularly for business.

  “It’s dirty, crowded, a real mess of a city. The only good thing about Hong Kong is it reminds me how lucky we are to live here, on Drum Wave Islet. I would never raise my family there.”

  She’d blushed and looked down to avoid appearing presumptuous. Three weeks later, he and his family traveled to her parents’ house in Fuzhou for the betrothal, and they were married two months after that.

  Ah Zhai maintained his promise, keeping his family on the islet while he braved frequent trips to the colony. He returned home exhausted and relieved, brimming with tales of the things he’d seen—a whole street of shops that served only snake soup, which the Cantonese believed to be medicinal; the fortune-teller who chased him down to warn of impending financial ruin, that crazy old hag. Back then, Seok Koon had imagined a bleak, licentious land of fog and shadows. Now, however, she saw that Hong Kong was like any other city in prerevolutionary China: gritty, noisy, chaotic.

  One day, right around Ah Liam’s third birthday, Zhai burst into the villa with a trunk full of presents, not just for the birthday boy, but for Seok Koon and Bee Kim, too: jade and silks and a lacquered jewelry box inlaid with a pair of mother-of-pearl cranes. Even as she swooned over the treasures, Seok Koon’s delight was tinged with doubt.

  Ah Zhai’s trips to Hong Kong grew longer, but his stories faded away. He came home distracted and impatient and always, always with presents, each more extravagant than the last, as though the luster of a jade pendant in the rare shade of apple green could somehow blind a wife from seeing into her husband’s heart.

  When Seok Koon went into labor again, Zhai didn’t come home for the birth, and when the baby turned out to be a girl, everyone praised him for having the foresight to prioritize his work.

  That, Seok Koon knew now, was the moment when she’d lost him for good. And by letting go without a fight, she would have to shoulder part of the blame for his indifference toward San San.

  Another crash of thunder. Thick ropes of rain plunged from the sky. She wondered what the weather was like on the islet. Summer holidays had begun, and if the day were fine, her daughter would be at Flourishing Beauty Cove with Little Red, swimming, fishing for yellow croaker, harvesting wild oysters.

  Suddenly the room was too dark, too claustrophobic. Seok Koon could not breathe. She needed to go outside, see the ocean, inhale the brisk, briny air. She saw herself dipping a toe in the swirling, rain-pocked waters of Repulse Bay, the waves spiriting her longing across the South China Sea to her daughter, who splashed in the surf beneath a cloudless blue sky. Seok Koon imagined diving beneath the surface, knifing her limbs through the water, propelling herself straight into her daughter’s arms.

  Beneath a large umbrella, Seok Koon stood by the side of the road until her skirt and the back of her blouse were soaked, but no taxi would stop. All of Hong Kong, it seemed, was out on these stormy streets, trying to get from one place to another.

  An empty taxi careened down the road, its wipers working furiously. Seok Koon wa
ved and waved, but it refused to slow. The taxi was followed closely by a capacious silver Jaguar. By the time Seok Koon registered the need to jump back, it was too late. The Jaguar’s fat tires rolled through a puddle, drenching her in filthy water. She cried out, filled with the crazed urge to fold her umbrella and hurl it like a javelin at that ridiculous boat-sized car.

  To her surprise, instead of speeding away, the car pulled to a stop. The driver’s door opened, and a uniformed chauffeur, toting an umbrella of his own, came toward her.

  It took Seok Koon a second to recognize her husband’s chauffeur. But when did he buy this ridiculous car? Anger roiled inside her. Could Zhai really be throwing away money at a time like this?

  The chauffeur bowed deeply. “Please accept my sincere apologies, Madame Ong. I didn’t see you.”

  “It’s my fault for standing so close to the edge.” She glanced down at her mud-streaked skirt and then strained to see in to the back seat of the car. What was Ah Zhai doing in this part of town? She wondered if his important meeting was over, or if his secretary had simply lied.

  “Come, we’ll give you a lift to wherever you’re going.”

  Seok Koon marched over to the Jaguar, the chauffeur hurrying to keep up. She yanked back the passenger door and was greeted not by her husband but by a very pale young woman with a wiry, reddish-brown mane and eyes the color of weak tea—rare for a Chinese.

  “Hurry up and get in before we both get drenched,” the young woman said in a tone so commanding that Seok Koon immediately folded her umbrella and complied.

  The young woman held out her hand. “Nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Ong, I’m—”

  “Lulu,” Seok Koon said.

  The woman pressed her lips into a grim line. “Indeed.”

  Of course Seok Koon had expected her to be beautiful, but the young woman was like none she’d ever seen. From this angle, Lulu was all limbs and bones, like an adolescent boy in the midst of a growth spurt. From another, the light brought out the flecks of gold in her weak-tea eyes, the vertiginous slope of her cheekbones, the sensuous curve of her lower lip.

  “Where to?” the chauffeur called back.

  The absurdity of Seok Koon’s plan to go to Repulse Bay in the middle of a storm grew clear. All she wanted was to talk to this strange young woman, the only person who might have insight into her husband’s opaque mind.

  “Well?” asked Lulu.

  “I need your help,” said Seok Koon.

  Lulu’s face softened. “And, I suppose, in a way, I need yours.”

  So, this meeting was no grand coincidence. Lulu had come looking for her.

  “You first,” said Lulu.

  “It’s my daughter.” Seok Koon felt her tears forcing their way out. “Forgive me,” she said, fishing in her pocketbook for her handkerchief.

  Lulu held out her own handkerchief, and when Seok Koon brought the ivory, lace-edged cloth to her face, she smelled roses in full bloom.

  “The daughter you had to leave behind.”

  Seok Koon was taken aback by this near stranger’s bluntness, but then she realized it freed her from having to explain. “I have a plan to rescue my daughter, a good, solid plan, but—” her voice trailed off. She could not speak her husband’s name.

  “But?”

  “You’re the only one who can change his mind.”

  Lulu made a sound that was part scoff, part laugh. “That may have been true in the past, but I’ve lost any sway I once held. He’s made his choice, after all.”

  Seok Koon frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Lulu arched an eyebrow. “He put the townhouse up for sale. He’s moved in with you. How much clearer could it be?”

  This was the first Seok Koon had heard about the sale of the house, though, of course, her husband never told her anything. “He hasn’t been by the flat in weeks.”

  Lulu’s eyes narrowed. She had the chauffeur turn around and ferry them to her cousin’s home where she was staying—very temporarily, she added darkly.

  Seok Koon dared not ask her to elaborate. She didn’t know what to make of Lulu’s brusque yet beguiling manner. She felt a begrudging respect for her husband, who had managed to capture the attention of this odd creature.

  In Lulu’s cousin’s drawing room, over cups of English tea, which Seok Koon found too bitter black and too bland with cream, the women pieced together all they knew.

  Abruptly Lulu set down her cup. She rose to her feet and went to the window to watch the falling rain. “It appears our Mr. Ong Hong Zhai is broke.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Seok Koon.

  “Ruined, bankrupt, penniless.”

  But how could that be true? What of Zhai’s lavish lifestyle? The generous monthly allowance? Ah Liam’s private school fees?

  Lulu returned to her seat opposite Seok Koon. “He fired all the servants and sold the cars. The chauffeur, the housekeeper, they all showed up here, begging me to talk some sense into him. I persuaded my cousin to take them on.”

  Seok Koon tried to absorb this new information. “I see.”

  “After I heard he’d put the townhouse on the market, I figured he’d moved in with you. I drove by your flat today to confirm my suspicion. But I see now that he was just trying to raise money as quickly as possible.”

  Seok Koon knew she should feel sorry for her husband—for how long had he kept this tremendous secret?—but her thoughts were consumed by San San. Her bright, determined daughter had taken her first steps early, earlier even than Ah Liam. That long-ago summer day, Seok Koon had looked up from her mystery novel to see her baby toddling toward her, chubby arms outstretched for balance, face beaming, mouth a joyful O. Seok Koon fell to her knees and reached for San San, who took two more steps and tumbled into her lap, all softness and laughter and squeals.

  Without money, all was lost.

  “What will you do now?” Lulu asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Seok Koon. Any remaining threads of self-righteousness, of indignation, vanished, leaving her empty and slack. She saw no way to rescue her daughter. She watched Lulu drain the last of her tea as though observing a museum exhibit. “And you?” she asked.

  Lulu shrugged her thin shoulders. “I can’t impose on Cynthia for much longer. I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

  Seok Koon looked around the immaculate room at the rose-and-pearl–striped wallpaper and the vase of robin’s-egg-blue hydrangeas atop the fireplace. An oil painting hung above the upright piano, a still life of waxy-looking apples. She wanted to ask where Lulu’s parents were. Surely someone like her had other family and friends to lean on.

  Lulu returned her cup to its saucer with particular care. “I had a daughter once.”

  Seok Koon studied the young woman’s smooth face. “Oh?”

  “Her name was Marigold.”

  “A beautiful flower,” said Seok Koon. “A beautiful name.”

  21

  To play the East Wind or the 7 Bamboo—to go for the quick, easy point, or to wait, bide one’s time, try to win it all, but, of course, risk losing everything in the process? Wasn’t that the eternal dilemma, in mahjong as well as in life?

  The game was going poorly. Bee Kim hadn’t slept well the night before and was in no mood to chat with her fellow Fujian émigrés. In fact she couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a good night’s sleep. Certainly not since arriving in the colony, with its honking trishaws and motorcars, its denizens who screeched—never just spoke in normal, conversational tones—in that cacophony of a dialect.

  The Fujian Association Center was crowded, with six games going at once. Bee Kim had arrived a few minutes late and been shunted to the leftover table with Mrs. Lao, a widow who was plump, guileless, and wholly uninteresting, Mr. Ng, a pensive man who only spoke when absolutely necessary, and, worst of all, Madame Tay, an unapologetic gossip who had apparently been a well-known socialite in her hometown.

  At the last second, Bee Kim changed her mind and flicked her bamboo ti
le in the center of the table. Two tables away, Mr. Tan raised his arms in the air and yelled, “Mah jong,” and his opponents let out disappointed hoots.

  Madame Tay waggled her skinny, penciled-on eyebrows and cleared her throat. “Surely you’ve heard the news by now,” she said. It was her typical opening.

  “What news?” asked Mrs. Lao, who always took the bait. Back home, the widow would never have been a part of Madame Tay’s clique. Here in the colony, however, in the grand tradition of exiles putting aside differences and banding together against a common enemy—in this case, the snobby Hongkies—the women had become fast friends.

  “Pung,” Mr. Ng said softly, reaching for Mrs. Lao’s discarded tile.

  Bee Kim continued to study her hand. She didn’t feel like indulging Madame Tay.

  Undeterred, Madame Tay turned to Mrs. Lao. “Oh, you haven’t heard? About the execution on Drum Wave Islet?”

  Bee Kim slowly raised her eyes. Beside her, Mr. Ng shuffled the tiles on his rack again and again.

  “Oh dear,” said Mrs. Lao. “There’ve been such a rash of them. The communists are really showing their true colors now.”

  “Where did you hear that?” asked Bee Kim.

  “From my son’s school friend’s wife,” Madame Tay replied. “She’s from Drum Wave Islet, or maybe her mother’s family is. I don’t remember which.”

  “Who?” asked Bee Kim.

  “I can’t recall the wife’s maiden name—”

  “No,” Bee Kim interrupted. “Who was executed?”

  “Oh, I see,” said Madame Tay, clearly pleased to have her attention. “A famous doctor and his wife.”

  Mrs. Lao said, “What a waste. What a sad, sad waste.”

  Madame Tay placed her fingers on Bee Kim’s forearm in a gesture of concern.

  “Hopefully they weren’t people you knew?”

  Bee Kim withdrew her arm. “There’s more than one doctor on Drum Wave Islet.”

  “Certainly, but this one was supposedly quite well known. Quite high up, too. And his wife was an accomplished pianist.”