Alt.History 101 (Alt.Chronicles)

by Ken Liu

  The woman laughed, a brusque abrasive sound, like who might hear her outburst was of no concern. I looked to Manuel to see if he would admonish her, being the only man in the room, but he seemed unconcerned with either of us, his attention back on Betty.

  “You think me a man?”

  “No, I mean, yes. I don’t know.”

  “But you wish to stay.” She said it like a statement, a proclamation of fact.

  “Not really. But if my mother sent me to you, then I’d rather do what she wanted than go to the factory.”

  “So you’re here out of fear? You think yourself too good to work with your hands? Perhaps you only ran because you didn’t get the Prince Charming you’d dreamed of.”

  “I have no interest in a Prince, charming or otherwise.” The words fell from my mouth, like now with a reason to speak I couldn’t stop. “My mother died tonight. She shot herself so I could be...” I stumbled on the word “…free.”

  I stared at the ground, waiting for her judgment. I felt as if I were again kneeling at my father’s feet, as he decided my fate. Mother said to make my own way, no more agreeing. But I didn’t know what to do to convince the woman before me. I’d never done anything but wait.

  After a moment I pulled my gaze from the floor and found her eyes staring right at me. They were gray like her hair and sparkled with a deep intelligence that sent a shiver through me. Could all women be like this? I held her gaze despite the instinct to look down and fold my hands over my middle, the way I’d been trained to stand when in the presence of men. In my mind, I whispered my mother’s words to myself, a mantra of her final words: No more crying, no more agreeing. You are stronger and smarter than you can ever imagine.

  Eventually, the gray-eyed woman narrowed her eyes and smiled. “Don’t call me Sir again, my name is Jo Candy.”

  “Can I stay?”

  “You can decide for yourself. If you choose to stay, Betty will get you some clothes.” Jo swept past me, her skirts brushing against my legs.

  Decide for myself? The idea was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. I could make a choice. The right thing to do would be to return home, tell Father about Mother and Mother Hwei’s crimes, beg for forgiveness and take my place in the factory if that’s what he decided. But the right thing by the world maybe wasn’t the right thing for me. I looked up the stairs and watched Jo disappear behind a set of double doors.

  I descended the stairs, my sleeping dress clutched in my fists as I made the first real decision of my entire life. “I’d like to stay please.”

  Betty’s face broke out into a blinding smile and she pulled me into a motherly embrace. For a moment, I could imagine my mother still lived and that she was the one welcoming me into this new world.

  Betty guided me into the back rooms behind the stairs and presented me with a change of clothes. “If you’re going to be here, you can’t well wander around in your night dress.” She grinned when she spoke, her round face blooming like a rose.

  I stared at the pants and blouse she held out to me, unable to take them from her. I’d never worn pants before. Sometimes, First Mother would wear a pair under her skirts if she accompanied Father out riding or on some other out-of-the-house adventure, but never without some sort of cover.

  A woman in pants.

  The idea of pulling them over my legs, of shedding my skirts and sitting with my legs crossed or knees apart without worrying about what anyone might think thrilled me. I grabbed the pants from Betty and pulled them on under my nightgown. “I’ve never worn pants before.”

  They felt tight and snug and perfect. I wanted to run and sing and be outside. Just changing my clothes gave me such a feeling of giddiness. The act of wearing pants could have me labeled a criminal. It was wrong but having the cloth cling to my thighs felt so right. Without worrying about propriety or modesty, I pulled off my dress and donned the blouse. It hung to my hips, flowing over my body in waves of silken fabric. The long sleeves ghosted around my arms, and I wanted to throw them up in the air just to feel the material as it danced with me.

  I followed Betty through the back rooms where women with their hair in all lengths, covered and uncovered, worked at sewing machines. We passed through a large kitchen where men, women, and children all clamored around in an organized chaos.

  “We make everything ourselves. Everyone pitches in with everything.”

  “The men cook?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, everyone works and everyone plays. On the roof we have a garden and outside the city there’s a larger farm with enough land no one notices how we live. The men and women there grow food and we have some livestock. Any extra we have after feeding ourselves, we sell at the town market for a little money, but Jo owns the buildings through an inheritance and we don’t want for much.”

  “How do you get away with it?” A small child with light skin and Negro hair ran past us. I’d never seen such a thing. Interracial offspring had been illegal since the Mulatto Wars. Even the girls learned about that.

  “Who is that?”

  “Lorraine, my daughter,” Betty said.

  The child’s bouncing curls stood out like a halo around her head.

  “Things here are different. Manuel and I don’t have to hide and even though we’re not married to the world outside, we live as a family and we have three beautiful children.”

  “I’ve never seen a Mullato. I thought they had all been—” I slapped my hand over my mouth, horror at what I almost said rising in my throat.

  “Every mixed child was killed. It’s true.” Betty’s vibrant beauty froze and at the look of terrible anguish that flashed across her face my heart twisted in my chest. “Which is all the more reason why Jo is so careful about who she allows to come here. Helen, this place is a secret. I know you’re young, but do you understand how important that is?”

  Betty didn’t look at me, her gaze locked on the child running back through the room, returning to whatever task had her darting through the halls. If her child were caught she would be killed, euthanized out of mercy is what I’d been taught, because the human body wasn’t meant to contain two shades of soul. Betty and Manuel would be tried as traitors: he would certainly be hung and Betty would at best spend her life in the pits of the factories until she died alone in some mechanical accident.

  But here, she lived with a man she chose for herself, no matter how forbidden, and her children were happy. As the impossible manifested as reality around me, I blurted out. “Do you think someone could teach me to read?”

  Betty wrapped an arm around me. “It’s probably the first thing Jo will insist on. Let’s go upstairs and find her.”

  We walked through the building, an endless maze of small spaces partitioned off into bedrooms and work areas. A narrow staircase with fabric-covered windows, “to keep the outside eyes out,” Betty explained, led us up to the fourth floor.

  Inside the huge building I was practically in another world. The strangeness of my clothing, my tightly cropped hair and the oddity of men and women talking, laughing and working side by side purged my exhaustion. I felt a lightness, like the air lifted me higher with each breath. This place left me giddy. Intoxicated.

  At the top of the stairs, Betty pushed a heavy metal door open to a huge room. Windows stretched from floor to ceiling. Though gauzy layers of fabric hid the view, the brilliance of the midday light was allowed in. Men and women of all ages and colors sat in groups talking or eating; girls, boys, Chinese, Black and White. Two girls played chess at a table next to the door. A game my brother laughed at me for wanting to learn. The second sex’s inferior intelligence cannot comprehend the intricacies of a game of strategy. You have no mind to think beyond what lies between your legs, be it a man or a babe.

  I watched transfixed as the players scowled at the other’s moves then as they laughed with glee as they danced their pieces across the board.

  “Do you play?” Jo asked, surprising me.

  She stood beside me, tall and p
roud and I felt a wave of relief to have her near. This woman, this incongruous and impossible woman, was the hope my mother had gifted me.

  “No, but I’d like to, very much,” I said.

  Betty wrapped an arm around me and squeezed. “Back to work for me, I’ll see you later, Helen. I’m glad you’re here.”

  She left in a blur of flour and fabric, her charming smile lingered in the air behind her.

  “So what do you think of Betty and her family?” Jo asked as she led me farther into the room. A girl a bit younger than me sat curled in a chair reading a book, her eyebrows pulled together in concentration. Beyond the girl, a man sat with a group of teens, boys and girls. He wrote Chinese characters on a handheld chalkboard as he spoke, explaining their secret meanings. The children learned to read English and Chinese!

  “Everything here is inconceivable, my mind is spinning.”

  “But does it offend?”

  “What? That Betty married a Negro?” I shrugged. “I don’t consider it my place to have an opinion on their business. Or anything actually. I’m not sure my thoughts have ever been considered before.”

  “Your opinions are placed in high regard here. Everyone’s are. You’ll see many things that differ greatly from how you’ve been taught to see the world should you stay with us. And you’ll need to learn to develop your own thoughts, your own values.”

  I thought for a moment, remembering the image of Manuel kissing Betty. “He seems to love her well enough and she is clearly happy.”

  “She is.”

  We came to a small leather couch and I sat for the first time in pants. The fabric bunched around my thighs, pulling and stretching in unfamiliar ways. I fidgeted, sitting forward with my ankles crossed as I’d been taught, but unable to remain in that position for long. Soon the best position I found had me leaning back against the cushions with my legs crossed at the thighs. An undignified and lurid way to sit, but no one stared and I found myself quite comfortable.

  “Then, I think their life isn’t my concern.”

  “So you still feel you don’t have the right to have an opinion?” Jo pulled a thick cigar from her skirts. She lit it and took a deep inhale.

  “No, you asked my opinion so I gave it to you. If I think about it then I don’t believe it matters so long as they are happy. I haven’t known many Negros but—“

  “—you should consider the sound of the word ‘Negro’ to be similar to calling a grandmother ‘girl’ for no reason other than her gender. Manuel is much more than the color of his skin.”

  “I understand.” The admonishment stung with truth.

  “Helen, did you know your mother was a Suffragista?”

  “She wasn’t, but she did say Mother Hwei was counted among you.”

  “Hwei is one of us, a formalized movement to live in an equalized society. Your mother did not join our network, but just sending you here shows that her politics were those of a suffragist.”

  “My mother had no politics. She raised her sons and knelt at my father’s feet.”

  “And she sent you away, so you would never have to do either.”

  “No, she sent me away because no one wanted to marry me. If my father had received a bid for my hand, she would never have done this.”

  “Are you sure?” Jo drew a mouthful of smoke into her mouth and the smell of the burning tobacco filled the space around us. “We’ve learned that those who come to us rarely do it for themselves. The children here were all brought by mothers and brothers who wanted better lives for their female family. Would your mother have given you to a man she knew beat his other wives? To one who mistreated his children or who out-aged you so much you would be a child on his knee? She may have wished you the happiest, most fulfilling marriage, but should it fall short of the ideal, do you think she would have done anything other than what she did last night?”

  “She only did this to save me.” My voice felt thick in my mouth as my grief surfaced. Adrenaline and hope had shoved aside my loss, but talking about my mother made it all real again. “She killed herself. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t have to.”

  Jo ashed her cigar into a tray on the table next to the couch. “I do wish she’d come to us sooner, so we could bring you both. Hwei did not have time to tell us anything other than that a refugee needed rescue. If we could do it again, I would have been delighted to bring your mother here. She was very strong.”

  “No.” A hiccup cracked my voice but I continued, holding back my sobs. “She was weak.”

  “Helen, she gave everything she could to give her daughter a better life. There is nothing weak about her.”

  “She could have done something sooner. She could have said something to me. She could have come with me.” My voice rose and soon the tears fell, breaking through my resolve of stoicism.

  Jo sat as I cried, leaving me with my sorrow. She neither held me, nor seemed uncomfortable with my display of emotion. It simply existed. As my grief played out, she maintained her dignity and calm and I understood why she was in charge.

  When I’d pulled myself together, Jo got up. She returned a moment later and handed me a glass of water.

  “Thank you.”

  “Bú xiè,” she said in Chinese as she settled back down on the couch. Her skirts flared around her taking up space proportional to her presence.

  As my tears dried, the heaviness of sleep infected my limbs. Soon my eyes struggled to stay open and my mind couldn’t focus on Jo’s words. My thoughts drifted more and more to my mother and how little I knew of her, how much more I had to discover about this woman who raised me. But I’d never have the chance. Maybe I’d known all along, maybe I was always in trouble with the other Mothers and older boys because she allowed me too much freedom in my thoughts. Maybe she’d given me more than I realized.

  The request for somewhere to sleep hung on the cusp on my lips as I waited for Jo to finish her sentence, more talk about equality and education. Her words intrigued me–my interest a surprise—but I couldn’t absorb anymore until I got some rest. As I opened my mouth to speak, an alarm shrieked and chaos erupted around us.

  Jo stood, pointing and screaming orders. People shoved chairs and tables against the door. A heavyset man hurried to a window with a ladder in his arms. He pushed aside the fabric, and opened the window.

  “Go!” Jo shoved me toward the window. The man slid the ladder out the window, lowering it to a landing which led to the next building over. I climbed out the window and found myself again running. Men and women of all ages poured out of the windows of the building.

  From the landing I could see police pulling people out of the building, men in riot gear scaled the building, climbing ever closer to where I stood. I was paralyzed. The world had already exploded around me too many times for me to process being attacked.

  Police shoved a large black man carrying a little boy into a group of men gathered together in the street. He screamed, reaching for an older child with long blond hair and dark mocha skin, but the police dragged the teen away, locking her in the back of a motorvan. I couldn’t see more of the disaster from so high but I had no doubt this wouldn’t end well for anyone.

  “Betty!” I pushed my way through the throng of people and children pouring from the building and climbed back up into the window. I wasn’t sure if the man I’d seen was Manuel or not but I had to find Betty and her children. Inside I scrambled over the furniture and pushed just enough away so I could squeeze through the doors to the stairs.

  Loud masculine voices echoed off the concrete and metal walls. I reached for my skirts to hold them out of the way, but when I touched my legs, I remembered I wore pants. Freedom of movement meant I could run faster, harder . . . I could get to Betty. I didn’t know what I expected to happen when I found her, or what I would do if I didn’t, but after losing my mother and my entire family in one night I couldn’t stand for her daughter to lose her.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I ran through the abando
ned halls and kitchen. Food and personal items were strewn about as if a tornado ripped through the building. A tornado of desperation. I wasn’t the only one who lost my home today.

  I searched for Betty, biting my tongue so I didn’t call out and pull attention to myself. On the corner of a table, I saw a stain of red dripping down into a puddle of blood.

  Everyone was gone.

  More choices than I’d ever confronted before lay out before me. My fate lay in no one’s hands but my own. I could leave, try to hide, maybe find the others, or I could step out into the main room and fight. I wouldn’t accomplish anything, not really. I didn’t have the strength or skill to stand up to even my brothers let alone a brigade of police. Adrenaline and anger and indignation made me want to stand before the raiding squad in my pants and shaved head and demand they acknowledge me.

  Me!

  The unmarriable daughter of Calvin Haynes.

  In pants.

  I felt almost giddy at the idea and the lack of sleep made me reckless, but the familiar voice of Jo on the other side of the door spurred me into action.

  “We had an arrangement!” she screamed.

  I stepped through the door and saw her, held by the arms by two hulking policemen. Before her stood a well-groomed man in a three-piece brown suit. He faced away from me, but his stance, the way he held his hands behind his back tickled something in the back of my mind. They were the only people in the room.

  “An arrangement you broke. Who do you think is in control here? You? I own this building, I allowed this perversity to continue to appease you, but now you’ve brought your felony into my home!” He backhanded her with the full force of a man enraged. Her body slumped against one of the police gripping her arms.

  “No!” I screamed and ran forward directly at my father.

  “Helen!” His face relaxed and he smiled at me as if I were a lost kitten come home. “We’ve been so worried.” He reached out as if to place an arm around my shoulders but I danced out of the way.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I’m the Deputy Constable. When someone abducts one of my children no stone is left unturned. Let’s get you home now.”