Bury What We Cannot Take: A novel

by Kirstin Chen

  The pair ignored Gor’s polite greeting and peered at San San. “To what family do you belong?”

  Gor and San San had anticipated this scenario, and he replied smoothly, “She’s the fourth daughter of the Tan family. She lives in that building over there.” He pointed vaguely down the street.

  One of the women nodded. “Ah, yes, the Tans. You take after your mother, little girl.”

  Gor and San San hurried down the street, holding in their laughter until they were out of hearing range.

  They reached Commercial Square at the busiest time of the day, when queues of shoppers clutching ration tickets snaked through the marketplace and out of stores. But the shelves in the pair of general stores that sold shoes and clothing were almost completely bare. Instead of meat, the market vendors peddled inferior short-grain rice that had been mixed with millet for bulk, and those oversized vegetables that Cook had complained about, so tough and fibrous that no amount of boiling could prevent them from catching in your throat.

  San San followed Gor to the center of the square, and when he unstrapped his erhu, she adjusted her own bulky instrument in front of her—so the straps wouldn’t cut into her shoulders—and ran her fingers over the keyboard. At first, no one paid them any mind. The queuing shoppers went on complaining about wait times and scarce inventory. But when Gor began to tune his strings, a few of the shoppers turned to face the square. The men smoking on benches beneath spindly yellow flame trees lowered their newspapers enough to reveal their eyes.

  That familiar tingling sensation that always hit San San before piano recitals spread through her. It was as if someone had flicked on an extra lamp, or turned the volume knob up a notch. The world came into sharper focus. She stood a little straighter.

  Gor mouthed the word, “Ready?”

  “Ready,” she mouthed back.

  He launched into the first song, and even though by now San San had heard him sing plenty of times, she was once again stunned by his voice. Like all great performers, Gor saved his best for when it mattered, and today he’d found an added suppleness, a new grace.

  She recovered in time to make her entrance. For the first few bars, she focused intently on moving her fingers to the right spots, but she soon saw that her fingers effortlessly found the buttons and keys. These folk songs were much simpler than Chopin and Bach.

  The chorus came back around, and this time she sang the harmony to Gor’s melody, which was even easier than playing the accordion. When she sang with Gor, his stunning voice seemed to enfold her rather unremarkable one, imbuing hers with its beauty, until both voices and both instruments merged into a pure, impenetrable wall of song.

  At the conclusion of “The Crescent Moon Rises,” Gor and San San moved right into “Mo Li Hua” without pause. (“Never give the audience a reason to disperse,” he’d instructed the day before.) And then it was time for her solo.

  Gor gave her an encouraging nod and ceded the stage. By now a sizable crowd had gathered, a few of whom continued to hold their ration tickets even though they’d abandoned their places in line.

  San San took a deep breath, played the introduction to “The Young Shepherdess,” and sang, “From dawn to dusk I roam these hills, my sole companions, my flock of sheep.”

  At first her voice emerged reedy and weak, but then she imagined Gor’s voice pouring out of her, and her voice took on a richness she’d never heard before. She closed her eyes and felt the accordion bellows swell and empty beneath her arms like a pair of lungs. Her body undulated in time. (“Singing isn’t like playing the piano,” Gor had said. “You can’t retreat into yourself. You have to smile, make eye contact, tell a story.”)

  Her eyes snapped open. She smiled at Gor who had blended into the front row of the crowd. Instead of smiling back, however, his eyebrows came together in the center of his forehead, just for an instant, and her confidence dimmed. She kept going, wondering what she’d done wrong. It was then that she saw Gor’s fingers creep into the trouser pocket of the fat man beside him and pinch out his wallet. A split second later the wallet had vanished, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined the whole thing.

  Her voice quavered. Her fingers sounded a wrong note. This time she read alarm on Gor’s face, and somehow, seeing his fears so plainly displayed calmed her down. She paused, started the phrase over, and got to the end of the song without making another mistake.

  As the crowd scattered, Gor clapped her on the back. “Not bad for the first time.”

  She gazed at him flabbergasted. Did he expect her to play dumb? Was he daring her to confront him? At last she knew the truth: neither generosity, nor kindness, nor even pity had driven Gor and Auntie to take her in. It was purely a financial transaction. She’d been cheated, used.

  Gor must have mistaken her silence for disappointment. “You’re too hard on yourself. That wrong chord was no big deal.”

  She set off toward the marketplace, too shaken to speak.

  “What’s the hurry?” he asked.

  She stopped dead, and he crashed into her back. “Of course my mistake was no big deal to you. You don’t care about the music.” She lowered her voice. “You’re a thief.”

  Gor’s face blanched. He dragged her to a quiet spot by a low stone wall. “Sio Beh, I can explain.”

  “I’m not your sio beh. We barely know each other.”

  “Fine. Let me explain.”

  “In a way, I’m glad you were just using me because then I don’t have to feel so indebted to you. Now we’re even.”

  She expected Gor to yell back, but all he said was, “If that’s what you really think, you’d better find somewhere else to live.”

  “Fine,” said San San. Even as she turned to go, she knew she was being foolish—foolish and hypocritical. For hadn’t she lied to Gor and Auntie to convince them to take her in? At the end of the week, she would disappear without a word, never to see them again. What did she care about their secrets and schemes?

  She turned back. Gor was already walking briskly in the opposite direction. She hurried after him, ready to call out, but something in his bearing—the defiant jut of his chin, the purpose in his gait—silenced her. After a few steps, she slowed, continuing to tail him.

  At the main intersection, instead of veering east toward home, he veered west, and she quickened her pace. Weaving through pedestrians and bicyclists and some kids kicking a tin can back and forth in the dirt, he led her down an alley curtained off from the sky by rows of laundry draped from bamboo poles. Near the end of the alley, he slipped through a gap between two buildings and emerged onto a street so narrow, the awnings of the tenements on opposite sides nearly touched. Gor whirled around to make sure he was alone, and San San leapt inside a doorway just in time. She waited a few moments and then resumed following him. On the back side of one of the tenements was a door that appeared to lead to a ground-floor flat. He must have already gone inside. She peered through the frosted-glass shutters of the window by the door, but a faded floral sheet had been tacked up as further insurance against prying eyes. Pressing her ear to the shutters, she heard muffled voices, polite laughter. She couldn’t make out what was being said. Never before had Gor mentioned any relatives or friends, but of course he and Auntie could not be all alone in this big city. After a while, she crouched down on the gravel beneath the window to wait.

  A sharp crash drew her to her feet.

  A voice cried, “Please have mercy.”

  The voice was high, tremulous; it couldn’t have been Gor’s. Perhaps he wasn’t even inside that flat. Perhaps he’d gone into another unit altogether.

  “Hold the boy before he breaks anything else,” someone growled, and then San San heard the sounds of one heavy blow followed by another.

  This time, Gor’s cry was unmistakable. San San ran out to the street to find help, but the only person in sight was a bent old woman on bound feet, fanning herself in the doorway of her home.

  “Grandma, who lives in the flat back there?
”

  The woman’s eyes glazed over. “No idea,” she muttered.

  “My brother’s in trouble,” said San San. “I need to get help.”

  She backed into her flat. “I can’t help you.”

  “Is anyone else home?” San San pleaded.

  “I can’t help you,” she repeated and shut the door.

  “Please,” San San said, pounding on the door, but it remained closed—as did all the other neighboring doors. In fact, she’d never seen a street so deserted in this overcrowded city.

  She ran back to the tenement, at a loss for what to do. Should she knock on the door and demand to be let in? Scream for help and hope someone would hear? She didn’t have to make a decision because there, kneeling on the gravel with his head in his hands, was Gor.

  She gasped. The skin around his eyes was red and swollen and quickly darkening to purple.

  He stood. “Did you follow me here? Were you spying on me?”

  “I wanted to say I was sorry,” she said.

  He took her hand and pulled her onto the street. His palm was hot and rough, and she hoped the gesture meant all was forgiven.

  Back on the street, however, Gor dropped her hand and said, “This is not a place for kids.”

  She touched his sleeve. “Who did this to you?”

  He turned away, and she reached for his arm. “Gor, tell me what happened.”

  He shook her off and started down the street. “Don’t follow me. From now on, you and I are strangers.”

  She tugged on his arm with all her might, and finally he slowed.

  Again she asked who had beaten him.

  “Someone I owe money to, all right?”

  “Is that why you stole?” she asked. “Are you in trouble?”

  He waved a hand at his battered face. “This may look bad, but it’s nothing compared to my ma’s suffering.”

  San San cocked her head, confused.

  He looked up and down the empty street and then leaned in. “Do you know what the black market is?”

  She nodded. She’d heard Grandma say that their daily teatime petits fours had been purchased “on the black market,” though she’d never given the term much thought.

  Gor explained that the man in the ground-floor flat sold medicinal herbs. He’d gone to buy a special powder to ease his ma’s pain; this, despite the fact that he still owed him money from last time. “I was hoping, stupidly, that the herbalist would make an exception this once,” he said.

  San San wished she could take back her earlier accusations—and that there was something she could do to help Auntie.

  Gor went on. “He warned that if I came back without the money, he’d be forced to give me two black eyes.” He gestured to his face and smiled weakly. “So really, I only have myself to blame.”

  San San asked how much money he needed.

  “What does it matter? More than I have.”

  She pushed back her sleeve, wrenched the bangle down from her elbow and over her hand, and held it out to Gor. He squinted at the bangle’s delicate scrollwork but made no move to take it. “Sio Beh, is this real gold?”

  “Yes. My grandma gave it to me before she died.” She thrust the bangle into his palm, and he tried to give it back, saying, “It’s too much.”

  She held her hands behind her. “It’s yours.”

  “I can’t accept it. It’s too much.”

  “We’re family,” said San San.

  A tear welled in the corner of Gor’s swollen eye and trickled down his discolored cheek. He wiped it with his sleeve and winced in pain. “I can’t thank you enough, Sio Beh.”

  “Family members don’t thank each other.” She felt a wild desire to blurt out her plan to board the ship with the green flag. If only Gor and Auntie could come along to Hong Kong.

  He grinned through his tears, wiped his nose on the edge of his shirt, and then together they returned to the herbalist’s flat.

  Gor told San San to wait outside because strangers made the man jumpy.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  Gor knocked on the door, which opened a crack. “The bloom is not a bloom, the mist not mist,” he said—the first line of a famous Tang poem that she had learned in school.

  The door opened all the way, and he went inside.

  From underneath the window, San San listened for any sounds of trouble and was relieved when none came. She’d meant every word she’d said to Gor. For the next few days, at least, he was her family, and she was his.

  25

  After the heat and smog of city streets, the Peninsula Hotel’s cool, perfumed air was a balm. It was just before three. The tearoom was packed with ladies in slim dresses and coiffed hairdos. They chattered like songbirds in high, melodious voices and clinked heavy silverware against fine porcelain. On an elevated platform in the center of the lobby, a pianist played a sentimental Gershwin tune, and Ah Zhai caught himself humming along.

  A waitress with swaying hips led him to a corner table. He pulled the brim of his hat low over his eyes to avoid having to stop and make small talk, and then sat with his back to the room, even if it meant missing Lulu’s entrance.

  In the past seventy-two hours, his mood had ricocheted between extremes. Three nights earlier, reeling from his wife’s visit and the news of what his mistress had done, Ah Zhai had parked himself at the bar of the Parisian Grill, hoping to catch Lulu’s angular profile in the long mirror above the shelves of bottles, to hear her throaty laugh wafting down the hallway to the powder room. The longer he sat on that hard, unforgiving stool, the more he agonized over what to say if forced to speak to Francis Low. Only the scotch tempered his anxiety, and he downed glass after glass, until the music from the swing orchestra blurred in his ears and the dangling lights of the chandelier danced like raindrops. He stumbled outside just in time to vomit in the gutter, much to the amusement of the idling chauffeurs.

  But the following day his luck turned: an English banker expressed interest in the townhouse, and even though everyone knew the Brits to be penny-pinchers, Ah Zhai immediately asked his secretary to invite Lulu to high tea. She didn’t love Francis Low, that much he knew. Now he just had to convince her that once the townhouse sold, even for an absurdly low price, and he had the money in his account, and San San was finally rescued—after all that, they could start over. He’d buy a modest but well-appointed condo in Mid-Levels. He’d start to pay off his debts. He’d finally take Old Wu’s advice and downsize his factories. It would take some time to regain his former wealth—in truth, he might never get it back—but he could give Lulu his word that they would always live comfortably and he would never deceive her again. Once San San crossed the border, he would divorce Seok Koon and marry Lulu. She would have another child. They would be a real family.

  He felt a pang in his chest for his two daughters: the one he’d held in his arms only a handful of times, and the one he’d never laid eyes on. He even thought fondly of his insolent son. It was too late for him to be a good father to San San and Ah Liam, but the new baby would give him a chance to try again. This time around, with Lulu by his side, he would be the kind of father who was warm and affectionate and stern only when necessary. The baby would look up to and adore him.

  The efficient click-click-click of high heels against marble drew his attention. He caught a whiff of Lulu’s intoxicating perfume. There she was, a vision in an emerald silk-shantung column dress with a matching pillbox hat perched atop her sculpted waves of hair. He stood, lightly touched her shoulder blades, tried not to mind the way she stiffened when he leaned in to kiss her cool, powdery cheek.

  “You look marvelous, bunny,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Her low, husky voice thrilled him. “I’m sorry I’m late. Traffic was abominable. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long?”

  He looked at her in disbelief. Why was she talking to him like an acquaintance, like one of those friends she only pretended to like?

  The waitress arrived to ta
ke their order.

  Lulu didn’t glance at the menu. “I’ll have a pot of orange pekoe.”

  Ah Zhai had been looking forward to scones and clotted cream, but said, “Same for me.”

  The waitress swayed off.

  He held out his cigarette case, which he’d filled with her brand. She lifted out a Pall Mall without comment, and when he leaned in with his lighter, she said, “Thank you kindly.”

  He was determined to make her drop the act. “Bunny, I’ve missed you so much. Tell me how you’ve been.” He’d already decided he would not bring up Francis Low.

  “I moved out of Cynthia’s house.”

  His smile strained the corners of his mouth. “Indeed.”

  Lulu twisted the pearl cocktail ring on her finger from side to side. “I know this is awkward, Zhai.”

  “Awkward?” he said. “I’m so happy to see you. Don’t you feel the same way?”

  “I’m just going to come right out and say it. I live with Francis now.”

  He leaned forward, bumping his knees on the edge of the low table, and covered her hand with his. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t care. We’ve both made mistakes.”

  She extracted her hand. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He had to take control of the conversation before it was too late and so he blurted, “I’ll get a divorce.”

  She stared at him. “No.”

  “Yes,” he said ardently.

  “No.”

  “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “I don’t want that,” she said. “Don’t you see? It’s too late.”

  But how could that be true? She couldn’t have moved in with Francis more than a week ago. “We’ll start over,” he said. “I’ll never lie to you again.”

  “I can’t unknow what I know.” She violently stubbed out her cigarette.

  He didn’t want her to elaborate, so he said, “I love you. Come home.”

  She raised her napkin to the corners of her eyes. “Stop, please.”

  If only he could take her in his arms and kiss away her tears. Why had he waited so long to act? He should have fought harder to see her at Cynthia’s. He should have slept on the floor by her hospital bed until she was well enough to come home. “I need you, Lulu.”