by Wayson Choy
“Yes,” she said. “Everyone in Chinatown is talking about the Canadians fighting there.”
I thought of Mr. O’Connor’s son on his last visit home in October. A bunch of us boys stood around admiring him. He looked good in his uniform and thick woollen army coat. He walked over to our yard from his father’s house and showed Kiam some pictures of his buddies. Kiam used to be in the same class with him, but Jack O’Connor had quit school to enlist. I admired his heavy army boots, with the khaki puttees anchoring his pants. Later, Mr. O’Connor and Mrs. O’Connor got into a taxi with their son to take him back to the docks.
I thought of Jack O’Connor charging into Hong Kong with his army buddies, guns blazing.
“Will us good guys win the war, May?”
“Of course we will! Why, Sekky, we have good alliances!”
“Then all the Japs will be killed?”
Her eyes widened in shock. I had breached our code. I was sorry to have asked that question, even more sorry when I heard her answer, at last, “Yes, yes... I... suppose so.”
THAT SUNDAY morning, Jung and I were awakened by hard pounding on our front door. Jung swore and got up from his bed. I peeked out from my blankets. Voices were raised; there was shouting. Someone came running up the stairs,
“Stepmother, Stepmother!” I heard Father yell, “The Americans are going to have to fight the Japs!”
Footsteps ran back down the stairs.
Jung and I pulled on our kimonos and ran downstairs. Third Uncle, still in his winter coat, was standing impatiently at the parlour doorway, telling Kiam to “open” the radio: “Open it up! Open it!”
The front tube warmed; I could see its pinpoint glow behind the edge of the large dial. There came the familiar sharp buzzing sound; we smelled electricity, then heard static... a voice said, “... Pearl Harbor has been bombed...”
Liang said, “What’s that?”
“The tide has turned,” Father said. “America is going to be China’s ally!”
“Dirty Japs!” Jung said.
“Father,” Kiam said, “I want to join the Canadian Army!”
“Yes, yes,” Father said, forgetting the countless times he had told Kiam not to think of such a foolish thing.
Third Uncle and Father were charged with excitement. Jung took a boxer’s stance and started shadow boxing. Kiam bent down closer to the radio. Stepmother pulled her dressing gown tightly around herself, looking worried. She was standing behind me and I could see her face in the wall mirror. She put her hands on my shoulders and gently squeezed them.
I thought of Powell Ground and the slim boy holding Meiying’s hand, laughing at my Spitfire.
THE SECOND WEEK of December, we began a new routine. Meiying told me we were going to meet at my house. “That way you won’t have to rush home, Sekky,” she said. “I’m still not feeling well enough to be good company.”
When I got home from school, Meiying would be upstairs in Stepmother’s bedroom. Both women would talk quietly while Stepmother prepared herself to go to work at the woollen factory.
Sometimes their conversation, in a formal dialect, was agitated, and I was told not to come upstairs but to get something to eat. I realize now that the kitchen was the farthest place away from the bedroom.
Then Meiying would take me to play with my boy friends at MacLean Park. She sat on a bench, wrapped in her dark coat, book unopened.
Once Meiying came to Strathcona School to pick me up. Her face looked bruised, and there was a small cut over her left eye. She told me it was nothing. There had been a fight at school; she’d defended herself. Everything would be okay. She turned pale, uneasy, and told us she had a queasy stomach. I drank my cherry coke in silence and watched her grip her glass of water and stare at the empty soda counter.
On the Monday of the second week of December, Meiying did not arrive on time for Stepmother to leave for her shift.
I remember that day because it was December 15, my official birth date. Meiying had promised me a special treat. The day before, the first Sunday after Pearl Harbor, I had a big dinner with the family, and a fake-chocolate birthday cake from Woodward’s with my name spelled Sekee. Father bought a freshly killed chicken from Keefer Poultry and Stepmother made my favourite dish: braised white-meat chicken smothered with salted black beans and special black Chinese mushrooms.
I waited for my special surprise from Meiying, but she did not appear. When I asked about her, Stepmother said she’d forgotten to tell me that Meiying had some kind of flu.
I got a pair of socks, a rare package of All-Sorts all the way from England, some lucky money from relatives, and a new pair of suspenders with sheriff badges on each strap. Kiam gave me two new Dinky Toy jeeps. Jung made me a set of Sherman tanks out of empty Spam tins and large rubber bands. Each tank emitted a clacking noise when you pushed it along the ground. Liang clipped off the blonde hair of one of her smallest dolls, painted the hair with Chinese black ink, and dressed it up in a Flying Tiger pilot’s outfit Stepmother helped her to sew—except the doll had blue eyes and didn’t have a pilot’s leather cap.
“I’m working on that,” Liang said.
I missed Meiying; I asked if I could take a piece of birthday cake across the street, but Stepmother said it was best to let her rest.
“Mrs. Lim says May’s throwing up a lot,” said Liang. “Save her a piece of cake for tomorrow.”
Now it was Monday, our regular after-school time together, and Meiying was late. Stepmother was to be at work in ten minutes, but she refused to leave the house and let me wait alone. Instead, she stood by the front window, looking at the street.
“Have you been going to MacLean Park with Meiying?”
“Yes.”
“Always?”
“Sometimes we go to Chinatown or Woodward’s or the library,” I answered. “But usually we go to MacLean Park. For cherry sodas or ice cream or a new comic.”
“No other parks?”
Stepmother seemed too curious.
I did not hesitate.
“Nope.”
Stepmother sighed. When she turned back to the window, there was a knock on the door; it was Meiying. She had on my favourite scarf, a trailing red and black one floating with amber butterflies over her dark navy winter coat. But it was not tied around her hair neatly. The long silk material fell loosely around her shoulders, as did her hair. She said to Stepmother, “I’m fine,” and then they both quickly walked upstairs. They closed the bedroom door, but I could hear their whispering. When they finally came down, Meiying’s hair was combed and the scarf neatly tied in place. They both walked stiffly. I thought their odd behaviour was because of my birthday, my special treat, which they both were conspiring to hide from me. I guessed we were going to the John Wayne movie, or to inspect the new war toys at Eaton’s Toyland. Maybe I was going to get my pick of a new fighter plane and not just some dumb sweater. Meiying brushed by me, empty-handed. I could smell Three Flowers perfume.
“We going to the Odeon?” I asked, but neither of them paid me any attention. Stepmother pushed my arms into my coat, buttoned me up tightly. She handed me my leather pilot’s cap without even looking at me. Instead, Stepmother frowned sternly at Meiying and said, “Make this the last time.”
They were talking in code to each other, like secret friends, allies, just as I did with the Han boys when the white boys that sometimes played with us could be tricked, defeated, by the conspiracy of our speaking Chinese. Stepmother watched Meiying and me leave the house. As we rounded the corner, going north, I knew where we were headed. I pulled the flaps of my cap down and buckled up, ready for battle.
Meiying walked quickly, and I kept pace. She seemed too wan to walk so quickly.
“Hurry, Sekky, they’re breaking up the Asahi team.”
The words “breaking up” made me think of war, of fighting and winning. We passed some soldiers and sailors walking on Hastings Street and then Powell Ground was before us. Meiying stopped, took out her compac
t and fixed her hair. Each word she spoke sounded as if it were wrenched from her. She pulled at my arm.
“Kaz left school so I haven’t seen him. Hurry, Sekky!”
We ran the last block.
As my boots pounded on the pavement to keep up with Meiying, I could hear Third Uncle’s raspy voice shouting, over the loud words of the parlour RCA, “The filthy bastards! The back-stabbing, whoring Japs!” Then we were standing on Powell Ground.
Meiying and I were back on enemy territory.
There were a few men in the park. Each time someone appeared, another man ran up to him, and soon one or both of them departed. I recognized the catcher from the Asahi team. It was the first real cold day in December; the skies threatened snow. The trees were skeletons. A voice suddenly shouted to us in Japanese, then in English.
“No come here today! Everything over! Go home!”
But Meiying took my hand and we did not move. We must have stood there for twenty minutes, watching men come and go, watching fragments of a crowd begin to gather and quickly disappear. The wind felt damp. A Japanese woman started to cry, then quickly returned to her car with two children. Behind her, I could see the storefronts decorated for Christmas. A giant red paper crane floated in the middle of one window display, draped with tinsel. Twinkling lights surrounded it. A man waved at a group and they ran into a building, shouting in Japanese. Lights began to go off all along Powell and Jackson Streets, until the windows reflected only the grey sky. People in the street suddenly appeared like ghosts, disappeared, then noisily reappeared.
Then, at the other end of the park, Kazuo came running towards us, with a boy almost exactly my height at least ten feet behind him. The boy with Kaz seemed taken aback to be hurried along to our part of the field.
“May, you shouldn’t have come,” Kazuo said, catching his breath. “Didn’t Mr. Barclay give you my letter? He told me he only meant well when he first got us together. He’s sorry—”
“Sorry?” Meiying gasped, as if she were choking.
Meiying reached out and pulled Kazuo to her. They held each other closer than I had ever seen. I looked at the chunky boy behind Kazuo and dared him to say anything.
“Where will you go, Kaz?” Meiying’s voice sounded sad. They held each other very close.
She buried her head on his shoulder and began to cry. It made me think how weak girls were, just like everyone said. I started to concentrate on the enemy boy across from me. He was bunching up his fists; maybe he couldn’t stand a girl crying either. I wished for the nerve to say aloud, “Jap!” the way Father would say it. I stared at the boy until he stared right back. I mouthed it:
Jap!
Chunky didn’t flinch.
He pursed his lips and mouthed back,
Chink!
I began to tighten up my fists, getting ready to bloody his stupid eyes.
Suddenly Meiying stepped back from Kaz.
“Kazuo, take this with you.”
She raised her arms and a silk scarf flashed against the open sky and her long hair suddenly flew out in the wind. She folded the material with its dancing butterflies and pressed it against him.
“Keep this scarf to remember us.”
“Don’t, May,” he said, “don’t make things so hard for me.”
She turned away, started running, and shouted, “Sekky, we must go home!”
I shot one last hard look at the boy, giving him my best tough guy glare. I meant to give the same ugly look to Kazuo, but he seemed to be crying. I was shocked: how could a grown man cry over a girl?
When I turned to follow Meiying, she was already a great distance away, her hair streaming behind her. I shouted, “Wait! Wait!”
Meiying stopped to wait for me. We paused for a last glimpse of her friend, the tall shadow with the small ghost beside him.
We walked home, past the Good Shepherd Mission, the crunch of dead leaves marking our every step; each of us wordless and deep in thought. The cobblestone road felt slippery, treacherous, as we crossed alleyways and sidewalks. Finally, we were at the bottom of our steps. Meiying reached into her coat pocket and took out a small gift-wrapped parcel, pressing it into my hand. Barely whispering “Happy Birthday, Sekky,” and only with the faintest smile, she left me.
I looked at the small parcel in my hand and tore it open. The red paper separated and a hand-sized blue notebook emerged, the kind you can still buy in the Five and Dime. I opened the book. Inscribed on the first page, both in her Chinese calligraphy and in English, were my name and the title, neatly printed: A PILOT’S ADVENTURES—A STORY FOR MY FRIEND SEK-LUNG.
From between the pages, a red packet fell out. That was my lucky money. I lifted the flap. It was five dollars, more money than even Third Uncle had given me.
FOR THE REST of the week I did not see Meiying. Stepmother stayed home from work and said Meiying was really sick with flu. She explained that the extra shift at the factory was temporarily shut down. Supplies for the factory were scarce or had not yet arrived.
Whenever we were alone together, Stepmother pestered me with questions about Meiying,
“Where did you go to play?”
“The playground.”
“Was it always MacLean Park?”
“Sometimes we read comics in the soda shop.”
“No, I mean the playground.”
“MacLean Park,” I lied, “always the same.” A soldier would never break a promise not to tell.
Somehow Stepmother was satisfied with my answers. She could always tell when I was lying, but this time I fooled her.
“Sometimes we stayed at Mrs. Lim’s,” I added, to be sure, “in May’s bedroom, reading and stuff.”
“Yes,” Stepmother said. “Remember to tell Father that if he happens to ask.”
CHRISTMAS CAME, but we hardly noticed, because on Christmas Day, Hong Kong fell to the Japanese. The Canadian soldiers there were reported killed or captured. Father knocked on the O’Connors’ door with a small box of English toffee and said how sorry our whole family was and how it was just a matter of time before their Jack would be home again. Frank O’Connor agreed and thanked Father. Mrs. O’Connor did not even smile, Father said, but took the small box of candies from him and gently closed the door. From then on, whether day or night, the blackout curtains were never raised again at the O’Connors.
The New Year came. Chinatown burned a few firecrackers, and lucky packets with coins were given to children, but no one knew if the coming year would grow darker.
That first week of January 1942, Father came home to say the Japanese were being taken away. Camps were being built for them. Chinatown heard that Japtown was to be seized and auctioned to the highest bidders. Even Chinese businessmen would be allowed to bid on the real estate and the stock; there were stores and houses, fishing boats and cars, radios and pianos, everything you could imagine. Third Uncle ran to the Tong Association to raise money so he could bid. Father said there was justice in this. “Look at all the real estate they’re taking in China...”
“We don’t want any of it,” Stepmother said, putting down her knitting on the table in front of Grandmama’s framed portrait. “We want none of it.”
“You should hope!” Father’s tone was contemptuous. “As if you should have the money to buy anything!”
“And if I did—!”
“You should have chosen a damn rich man!”
“I chose? I was bought!” Stepmother said, for all at once she could not stop herself. She stood up, as if pulled against her will. “Even Jook-Liang and Sek-Lung—my own two children—call me Stepmother!”
“That was the Old One’s decision,” Father said. “She decided, you accepted!”
My heart beat against its cage; they rarely argued like this.
“If you hated it, why didn’t you say something?” Father said, his voice rising, unspoken pain in his eyes. “You two women agreed.”
Slowly, deliberately, Stepmother sat down.
“My love,”
she said, so softly I could hardly hear, “and all these years, where was the tongue of my husband?”
When I stopped playing with my Sherman tanks to listen for more, they fell silent.
Kiam held his brush suspended in air. Jung was coming down the stairs but had stopped. Liang bent her head down over her book. Stepmother picked up her knitting. The click of the needles began measuring the seconds. Father looked at the picture of Grandmama.
“One of you go make some tea,” Father said, absently.
Kiam hesitated, then got off his chair and went into the kitchen.
“Liang, come here,” Stepmother said. “It’s time I show you a new stitch.”
Father watched me as I raised my Spitfire over the Sherman tanks. I pretended to crash-land and made spectacular noises. Jung shouted from the hall that the Han boys were at the front door for me. We were joining other boys to form alliances and play war. Fresh snow had fallen. We could make mountains and bomb them, make caves and hide snipers in them.
“Sek-Lung,” Stepmother said, encouragingly, “go out and play.”
“Just a minute,” Father said. “Where do you go with the Hans?”
“MacLean Park,” I said. “Just down the street.”
“I know where it is,” Father said. “That’s the only park you ever go to?”
“Always.”
I selected some planes, dashed past Jung, who was holding up my coat, grabbed my cap and ran out the house. As I started down the stairs to join the Han twins, buttoning up my coat and pulling on my pilot’s cap, Mrs. Lim came rushing on her fat legs across the street. Her eyes were wide with shock; her body shook. She was frantically waving me to go back inside. I jumped back up the porch stairs and banged on the door, calling for Stepmother. Something ominous in the way Mrs. Lim raised her arms made me cry out for Father, too.
Jung was still at the door when Father and Stepmother ran past me and down the stairs. Mrs. Lim was almost collapsing. She gasped, “In her room! Meiying!”
A kind of dreadful excitement gripped me. I rushed across the street, following Stepmother, who hurried up the shaking and rattling staircase into the house. I watched from the front doorway. There was a stillness, an immense silence when I thought the world had been stopped forever. I heard Stepmother wail, “Aiiihyaah! Aiiihyaah! Lim Meiying! Lim Meiying!”
