Paper Wife

by Laila Ibrahim

  For Mei Ling, Siew’s presence was a relief and a joy. Like an obedient and dutiful big sister, she entertained and watched over Bo, giving Mei Ling time to be lost in her own thoughts, study the book, and write to her family.

  As they drew closer to the port, Mei Ling saw a long line of men on the wooden gangplank. Only a few women and even fewer children were waiting to board the Persia Maru.

  “See them?” June pointed to a clump of ten or so women dressed in colorful kimonos who were boarding the boat close below them. Most were near Mei Ling’s age but some looked younger, practically children. One older woman with graying hair, wearing plain clothing, moved between them. They were beautiful and full of life. Some were laughing and pointing, looking eager for an adventure. Others couldn’t hide their despair. One young woman with bow lips and a round face stared back at shore, longing in her eyes. Mei Ling’s heart swelled in empathy. She imagined that was how she must have looked as she was driven away from her village.

  “Picture brides,” June explained in her all-knowing voice. “She sells them to their future husbands in California. They must be watched over all the time because Japanese can’t be trusted.”

  June’s voice grew conspiratorial; she appeared to take great pleasure in making her point. “On the last trip, a Japanese girl left the boat in Hawaii with a Russian man that work on the ship. Oh, the chaperone was so mad! She lost her pay for that one.”

  Mei Ling furrowed her eyebrows at June, showing the skepticism in her mind.

  “It’s true,” June insisted. “I hear it from a cook. He wouldn’t lie to me; we are in the same clan.”

  June had made a point of speaking to all the Chinese people who shared the family name she used now and the one from her childhood. After a little conversation they would find a relative in common or seemingly in common—confirming the notion that they were family. She used this network to learn the news of the ship and gleefully reported it to Mei Ling. Mei Ling suspected she often exaggerated for effect, but it was possible that there was truth in this particular story.

  “In America they cannot tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese,” June whispered, obviously intending to shock Mei Ling. But instead this brought her to the edge of incredulity.

  Mei Ling countered, “We are enemies, not the same at all.”

  “I promise, that is true. The Westerners don’t know our clothes or our languages or our food or our religions. They only see our dark hair and dark eyes and think we are just the same.”

  “How can that be?”

  June replied, “You don’t believe me, but it is true! California is very different than China. We are separate but mixed up too. My children go to public school with German students, Filipinos . . . Japanese . . . and even a Negro.”

  “Public school?” Mei Ling asked.

  “The government provides school for all children,” June explained with a decisive nod.

  That was even harder to believe than a Japanese woman fleeing with a Russian man. “Even coolies?”

  “Everyone,” June confirmed. “Of course, some schools are better than others. The Chinese are the best, so other kinds want to come to our school. Some say it should be more mixed up, but I don’t think so. Everyone be nice to each other, sure, but stick with your own kind.”

  Mei Ling wasn’t certain what she believed about being mixed up. She would wait to confirm the veracity of June’s story when she got there herself. For the moment she would enjoy the fresh air and the sights below. It took hours for the boat to be unloaded with goods and people and then reloaded. But neither she nor the children tired of watching the exchange.

  Before heading downstairs Mei Ling took a last look for Kai Li, but she didn’t see her husband. It was unsettling. Was he busy? Ill? Indifferent? She could only make up a reason for his absence.

  “You look for your husband, but he isn’t here?” June asked a question that was a statement.

  Mei Ling nodded.

  “I will ask my cook clansman to find news of him,” June declared. “That will make you happy again.” June looked satisfied that she had solved her young friend’s problem. Mei Ling appreciated the offer.

  They returned to their bunks and Mei Ling opened up her book, ready to study again so that she would be fully prepared when the time came for her to disembark.

  “What’s a citizen?” Mei Ling asked June.

  “It means you belong to that country. Let me see.”

  Mei Ling passed the book over, and June read the page.

  “That is very good! Your husband is an American!”

  “No, he’s Chinese,” Mei Ling said, surprised that June would think she married a White man.

  “Some are both: Chinese and American,” June replied. “See here.” She pointed to a column of characters. “Your husband’s grandfather was a coolie for building the railroad. His son, your husband’s father, was born in America. So he is a United States citizen. It is the law there. If you are born there, you are a citizen and”—excitement filled her voice as she leaned in—“your children too!”

  June continued, “Like I say, Americans are tricky, but Chinese trickier. A Chinese man named Wong Kim Ark argue that his father was born in America, so that makes him an American. The argument went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the highest judges agreed with him: born in America means you are an American. You are very fortunate. You made a good marriage for your children. Bo is an American too once you prove he is your husband’s son.”

  Mei Ling still didn’t understand how Kai Li could be Chinese and American, but she liked hearing that she had made a good marriage, even from June, who enjoyed stretching the truth for dramatic effect.

  “Where do these books come from?” Mei Ling asked the question she’d been wondering since Kai Li gave the book to her.

  “We paid a broker in Oakland Chinatown much, much money for mine. He sent the order to China. When I got to Guangzhou I picked it up,” June explained. “For many people, it is their job. They arrange everything for paper sons and daughters and wives—they make these books, they make the documents, they buy the tickets . . .”

  “How do you know the book will be good? Have the right information?” Mei Ling asked.

  June shrugged. “That man has a good reputation, so we trust him. If this book were bad, we would tell everyone, and he would go out of business. Everybody knows everything in Oakland Chinatown,” June said. Then she sighed and shook her head. “San Francisco is big, big. Too many people. Harder to trust there after the greedy, greedy immigration brokers took advantage of the big earthquake.”

  Mei Ling cocked her head and furrowed her eyebrows in a question.

  June explained, “All the records burned up in the fire after the earthquake in 1906. Tricky Chinese say, ‘My father born in America, so I am a citizen even though I was born in Guangdong. I have six children, two sons with me in America and two sons and two daughters in China with my family,’ even though they only have four children. No one can check because all the records were gone. The two pretend children get papers that say they are Americans because their father is a citizen. Buy those documents and you become a paper son or paper daughter.”

  “Why does anyone choose to be a flimsy self?” Mei Ling asked, glad for the opportunity to learn about a term she’d heard of but not thought about in her past life. And now was.

  “Why you want to go to America?”

  I don’t want to go to America, Mei Ling thought but didn’t say.

  “To have a better life, right?” June answered her own question. “Most don’t choose. It happen to them when they are children. Poor parents think they are all going to starve. Being a servant in America is the best way for their child to live. Some people don’t want daughters, so they sell them away. If you have no money to buy your own ticket, you agree to pay back your passage with labor.”

  June continued her explanation. “Big-money families make the investment hoping their second son will b
ecome rich in America to support them in their old age. Others go to be with their real family, but false papers are the only way in.”

  Like me, Mei Ling thought. She was married to Kai Li, and her false papers were her only way in for the Americans. But she was also deceiving her husband, telling him she was Yu Ling, her sister. The layers of her own false identity were confusing.

  “So many people. So many reasons,” June declared.

  Mei Ling looked around the hold, wondering who else was in her same situation, building a life on a misleading foundation. She looked at June; perhaps she was presenting a false story built over generations.

  “How many?” Mei Ling asked.

  “Paper sons? Paper daughters? Paper wives?” June asked.

  Mei Ling nodded.

  “Who knows? Might be many. Might just be a few. No one says out loud.” June shrugged and whispered, “Smart people keep it a secret.”

  Mei Ling’s heart beat hard in her chest. If that was a warning, she didn’t need it. She had no intention of telling anyone she was a paper wife.

  After days on the boat, Mei Ling’s travel garments were too filthy to continue wearing. She would have to figure out whether there was any means to wash them, but for today she changed into her black tunic and pants. She hated to have her precious coins away from her body but was relieved to be in more comfortable and practical clothes. She removed most of the items out of her trunk so she could squirrel away the gown with the coins at the bottom.

  The silk bundle her mother had tucked in called her attention. Mei Ling opened it to find the four yellowing stalks. The plants were fading in this dark environment. Her heart sank. They might die before they reached the United States. Mei Ling rubbed the stems gently. Find the strength to survive, she encouraged the plants in her mind.

  Siew looked over her shoulder and asked, “Should I get them some water?”

  Mei Ling shook her head. “My Mah-ma said to leave them be until they can get in the sun. They just need to rest and survive on what they have in them.”

  Mei Ling looked at Siew, but the little girl was staring at the picture Mei Ling had placed on the bed.

  “Is that your mother?” Siew asked, pointing to the picture.

  “Yes,” Mei Ling replied. “That is my family.” Was my family? she thought to herself. It was confusing and painful to think of these people now—two were ghosts, and she might never see the other four again.

  “He’s cute! Like Bo,” Siew said, pointing to Dai Dai.

  “He’s much older than that now. Older than you.”

  Bo’s head looked around to see what they were looking at.

  “Look, Bo,” Siew said. “It’s your family.”

  Mei Ling’s throat tightened up. Siew had a certainty about her relationship to Bo that she wanted but didn’t yet feel.

  Bo pointed to Mui Mui and asked, “Siew?”

  “No,” Mei Ling replied, though she could see the resemblance between the two girls with their round faces and bright eyes.

  Siew said, “That’s not me, that’s your . . . ?” The girl looked up at Mei Ling for an answer.

  Mei Ling’s heart swelled with sorrow. “Your aunt—my little sister,” her choked-up voice managed to spit out. “She’s a ghost now.”

  “Like my family,” Siew said wistfully.

  “Yes,” Mei Ling said. And Bo’s first mother, she thought.

  “Manila!” June interrupted their poignant conversation. “Come, come.”

  Mei Ling smiled at Siew. The girl grabbed Bo’s hand and led him away. Mei Ling savored the moment of quiet to pack up her treasures into the beat-up trunk. She kept the ongoing letter home so she could update her family while they were above deck.

  She slid her trunk below the bed—all the way back against the wall. As she headed up to the deck, she realized that without any thought, she had trusted Siew to take care of Bo. They really had become a family, no matter how temporary.

  Mei Ling inhaled the cool, fresh air at the top of the stairs. Blue sky sparkled in the bright sun. Hardly anyone had come out to see this harbor, so it was easy to find the others. Kai Li wasn’t with them. She wished she could find out if he was ill or simply disinterested in them. Both explanations were troubling but raised very different fears in her heart.

  June, oblivious to Mei Ling’s concern, lectured about the Philippines. “They are an American colony. So they are Americans but not Americans. Like Korea is China but not China. Filipinos not tricky like Chinese to make the judges say they are real Americans. Big, big American military base is nearby,” she whispered. “That is why America want the Philippines. They are afraid of Chinese strength, so they come all the way out here to show they are strong against China.”

  Mei Ling nodded, not particularly interested, but she just let June say her piece.

  “After this stop we have long, long time until we reach Hawaii,” the older woman said. “The most beautiful of all places. Paradise on earth. They grow so much sugar for America that it is cheap, cheap.”

  Three times a day, men who weren’t Chinese came into their dank barracks with meals. As Kai Li had stated, the food was passable but not appetizing, which made Mei Ling all the more grateful for the sauces he’d provided for the journey. The brown faces, of many ages and backgrounds, grew familiar, but Mei Ling didn’t interact with them, so it was surprising and disconcerting when one of them asked, “Are you Bo?”

  Siew spoke up for her foster brother: “He is, and I’m Siew. Who are you?”

  “Pasha,” the dark-haired young man who was barely out of boyhood answered with a smile. Then he leaned close to Bo and said, “I have a message from your father.”

  Mei Ling perked up at the reference to her husband. Perhaps this man had the answer to June’s inquiry about Kai Li’s well-being.

  The young man said, “He’s too ill to get out of his bunk, but he hasn’t forgotten you.”

  Relief and concern tussling in her, Mei Ling asked, “What’s causing him to be confined to his bed?”

  The young man raised his shoulders and replied, “I don’t know, but I can ask.”

  It was only after they were out of the line that Mei Ling registered surprise that someone who wasn’t Chinese was speaking Cantonese.

  From then on, each morning as he served breakfast, Pasha would pass news between Kai Li and the women’s quarters. Thankfully her husband didn’t worsen but continued to be weak, with difficulty walking or keeping food down. Many of the women in their hold were also suffering and didn’t get out of their beds except for running to the bathroom. Mei Ling was consoled by June’s assessment that they would spend the journey crossing the Pacific Ocean miserable in their beds but recover as soon as they were on land. The sickness was caused by motion of the sea, nothing else.

  Siew enjoyed her conversations with Pasha and didn’t hesitate to pepper him with questions. Mei Ling considered it rude to ask personal information, but Pasha eagerly shared stories from his life, and Mei Ling was fascinated to learn about him. Pasha occasionally slipped Bo and Siew treats of pineapple or dried mango.

  Pasha was from Honolulu on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Growing up on a sugarcane plantation, he had watched the ships sail by on their way into and out of port. Two years before—when he turned twelve—he came on board with the dream of saving up enough money to purchase land of his own.

  “How do you know Cantonese?” Mei Ling asked one day, adjusting to the custom of asking a personal question. She’d been curious for days about how a boy from Hawaii learned her language, and no one else asked him.

  “On the sugar plantation I was the water boy. I ran around all the fields. I learned Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Korean . . . everything but English.” He laughed. “No English speakers work the fields. The Americans will be gone soon, so English won’t be important in Hawaii.”

  Days after they left Manila, Mei Ling experienced the seasickness for herself. In the morning she barely made it to a basin before e
mptying the contents of her stomach. June insisted plain rice followed by fresh air was the best remedy, so she forced down some food and made herself climb the stairs to the deck, leaving the children below and taking paper and pen.

  June was right. The cool air and the expansive view restored her health. The sun sparkled in the sky, and waves sparkled in the sun. It was magical. There was nothing in sight, no birds, no land, nothing besides this boat in the midst of the enormous ocean.

  She found a bench in a quiet spot to continue the letter to her family.

  Fear is my constant companion, she thought but didn’t write.

  Many on the boat are sick from the sea now that we are far across the Pacific and so far from home. My husband has taken to his bed in the Chinese men’s quarters, so we haven’t seen him in many days. Weeks. My traveling companion assures me that he will recover fully once we are on land but I fear he is a weak man. The expanse of the ocean is magnificent and terrifying if I dwell on how alone and vulnerable we are. The food which was already horrid has declined in quality because we cannot take on fresh supplies. We are managing to keep our spirits up, though my appetite is lost, and I feel ill as well.

  Two fellow travelers are welcome companions on our journey. June, a Chinese woman who returned home to Shekki to visit her mother after ten years, gives me hope that I will do the same one day. And Siew, a young orphan with an eager mind and kind heart like our Mui Mui, has adopted us for the journey. She keeps Bo occupied and all of us in good spirits. I spend hours each morning studying about my husband and his family so that I can pass the test on Angel Island. Otherwise we spend the time telling stories and folding paper animals.

  Mei Ling left off there; she had many more days to speak of her travels before they landed in San Francisco.

  The next day Mei Ling once again felt ill when she woke. She managed to keep hold of her stomach, forcing herself to eat and then sit in the fresh air until she felt better. The following morning Pasha handed her a small bag after he served her rice. She looked at him with a question in her eyes.