Jade Wind worked in a large, cluttered back room that was the costuming department. Clothing and ornate robes hung from racks lining the walls, spilling over on tables and chairs. In the midst of it all, Joan found Jade Wind busy sewing beads on a robe.
Joan was happy to see her friendly face again. “I guess I’ve found the costume department.”
Jade Wind looked up and smiled. “The one and only. Are you here for a fitting?”
“I’m a villager in The Blind Swordsman.” Joan laughed. “Not exactly the glamour-girl role I had hoped for!”
“This does seem to be Chin’s month for martial arts movies.” Jade Wind stood up, put down the robe, and browsed through a rack near her. “Four so far, and the three of us in costuming can barely keep up!”
Joan glanced through a rack of silk and lace cheungsams. “Have you worked with Ming Li? I loved her in Swan River.”
Jade Wind nodded, pulled out a mud-stained black cotton tunic and pants. “She has quite a temper, especially when she doesn’t get what she wants.” Jade Wind rolled her eyes. “I’m just glad she’s between film projects. Here, this is your costume. You can try it on over there.” She pointed to a fitting room.
“Really? She’s that difficult?” Joan asked, unable to hide her disappointment.
Jade Wind picked up the robe and sat down to finish beading. “It’s a shame that some actresses aren’t as sweet as the roles they play. Oh, and beware of the extras. Keep to the front of the crowd scenes, or you’ll be swallowed up by all those trying to get in camera position.”
Joan grasped the tunic and pants close to her. “Thank you,” she said gratefully.
“Small tricks of the trade.” Jade Wind pulled at a knot in her thread. A few beads clicked to the floor. “Just wait, I’ve only begun to tell all!”
Sometimes, after a long day at the studio, Joan caught a taxi after work and went to visit Auntie Go. At her knitting factory Joan lamented the lot of a bit-part actress and errand girl.
“You don’t have to stay,” Auntie Go said, pouring Joan a glass of sherry. “You know how your Mah-mee worries about you.”
“What else can I do?” Joan asked, sipping the smooth, sweet wine and feeling its heat run down her throat.
Auntie Go smiled. “You can always come back to work for me.”
Joan paused. The knitting business had grown larger each year, and she remembered Mah-mee saying the other night that Auntie Go was moving from the Wan Chai District to a larger building. “Did Mah-mee say you’re moving Western Wind to Kowloon side?”
Auntie Go poured Joan more sherry, then refilled her own glass. “We’ve outgrown this place. I hope to make the move in the next few months.”
Joan knew Auntie Go dreamed of having either her or Emma working at her knitting factory. Joan watched her tall aunt and felt a wave of admiration for her. Auntie Go had made a successful life for herself without he benefit of marriage. Joan only hoped she could do the same.
“You’re turning the Western Wind into a knitting empire!” Joan smiled, then lifted her glass. “Here’s to your continued success!”
Auntie Go blushed, sipped her sherry. “It’s nothing, nothing.”
“It’s everything!”
Joan drank down the last of her sherry, but knew in her heart she wasn’t ready to give up on acting. Cold and calculating as the profession was, there was still some silent voice within her that she needed to share with an audience.
Joan felt a pleasant warmth rise to her cheeks. “Can you give me more time to answer your offer?”
“You know you have my lifetime.”
Early the next morning Joan walked straight to C. K. Chin’s office. His secretary, Mei, wasn’t at her desk yet. Joan wondered if the growing rumors of Mei’s sleeping with Chin were true. Late mornings after late nights. She had been his fifth secretary in as many years. Unlike other producers, Chin paid no attention to his actresses; he preferred his secretaries to keep him company. He had a long-suffering wife and four children living in Repulse Bay, who drowned their sorrows in a ten-room mansion and a variety of cars, including the latest-model American Cadillac.
Joan had read in the Chinese movie magazines that though Chin appeared older than sixty, he was known to have the constitution of a man thirty years younger. No matter what event or private meeting kept him up late into the night, he was always at his desk by eight o’clock every morning, except Sundays. On Sundays, he worked deals from his Repulse Bay office at home. Joan imagined he had to visit his family sometime.
Joan’s tongue flicked across her red lipstick. She swept back her hair, touched the darkened mole above her lip, then straightened the silk blouse and capri pants she’d purposely worn. Without further hesitation, she knocked solidly on Chin’s door. No answer. Maybe Chin hadn’t come in early after all. Maybe he wasn’t the “creature of habit” the magazines proclaimed he was, possessive of his private morning hours. Just as she turned to leave, Joan heard his voice mumbling, “Come in.” Carefully she stepped back and pulled open the door.
Chin sat behind his large, wooden desk across the room. He looked small and less intimidating in the morning light. As she stepped closer, Joan tried to keep this first simple vision of him in mind. Only then would she get through with what she wanted to say to him.
“Excuse me, Mr. Chin, I’m one of your actresses, and I was wondering if I might speak with you?”
“Yes, what is it now?” Chin answered, not looking up from the morning paper he was reading. A thin blanket of cigarette smoke lingered just below the ceiling.
“I am a very good actress,” she said, her voice sharper and louder than she had intended. “I deserve to have a larger role in one of your films.”
Chin’s eyes finally strayed away from his paper toward her. He took the burning cigarette from his lips and dropped it in the half-filled silver ashtray. Again, she felt his eyes move from her head to her toes and back again.
“And what makes you think you can act?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.
Joan felt hot and sticky. She wished she could turn around and leave, but instead, folded her arms across her chest.
“How do you know I can’t?” she asked back, keeping her voice steady. “Just come watch me in one of my classes. I’ll show you how good I can act.”
Chin stared at her for a long time, his eyes narrowing. Scrutinizing, Joan thought, but she didn’t budge. She felt perspiration trickling under her collar. Then a slow smile spread across Chin’s wrinkled face.
“You’re right. I can’t know unless you show me.” He picked up his cigarette and sucked in a deep breath. “Tell me, is that mole on your lip real?”
Joan’s fingers instinctively touched it. “Yes. And so are my acting abilities.”
“What is your name?”
“Lew. Joan Lew.”
“Joan Lew.” He smiled. “Ah, yes. The perfect Blanche Dubois. Or so I hear.” He lit another cigarette. “Well, we shall see what becomes of you, Miss Lew.” He turned away and picked up his paper.
Weeks, then months, flew by without a change. Joan wondered if she’d ever be seen on film without fifty other people crowding around her. Occasionally, she saw Chin glide onto a set, speak to a director, then disappear back into his office.
The first time Joan saw herself on film was at the Queen’s Theatre in The Blind Swordsman. Mah-mee and Auntie Go waited anxiously for her crowd scene, while Joan wondered if she was even in the shot. She’d tried to stay in the front of the crowd, but a persistent actress kept blocking her way. There were more behind-the-scenes battles going on than were written in the script.
“There she is!” Auntie Go whispered.
“Where? Where?” Kum Ling asked, grabbing Joan’s arm.
Joan’s mouth went dry when she saw herself for a split second, in mud-splattered clothes, pushing and pulling against the crowd, her dark eyes frantic as she ran for her life, as if the camera could save her.
Joan was just abo
ut to give up when Chin cast her in a small “woman in distress” role in another martial arts film. The first thing Joan did was write Emma, who she knew would be anxious to hear of her good fortune. You may one day see me in Hollywood after all, Joan wrote. I’m finally getting to open my mouth and say something, even if it’s only to scream for help!
Mah-mee was still skeptical, but Auntie Go was encouraging, and Foon stopped brewing her teas. After so long, Joan was finally finding a direction in her life.
In one small role after another, Joan usually felt hidden beneath the costumes and makeup. She screamed and yelled on cue and once in a while actually uttered more than a word or two—her longest line being “You won’t get away with this!” right before she met her untimely death saving her mistress. Even if her scenes were trimmed or removed altogether, Joan pinched herself to think she was really in the movies. And, as insignificant as her roles were, her latest death scene was enough for Chin to see that she did have talent. He signed her to another year’s contract.
Almost a year and a half after setting foot into the Tiger Claw Film Company, Joan graduated to larger parts, mainly playing the lady-in-waiting to Chin’s heroines. At the same time, Joan became a regular member of Chin’s film family, finally acknowledged by others in the company. It wasn’t long before she found many of the younger actresses jealous and spiteful, eyeing her suspiciously, whispering insults behind her back. How she had “slept with Chin” or had “bought her way in with family connections.” Joan much preferred the more established actresses, who simply ignored her. By the beginning of her second year in films, Joan was fully aware of the realities of the business—the long hours, the backstabbing rumors, the positioning for each shot that might gain her more notice. Still, nothing was more thrilling than seeing herself transformed into someone else on-screen.
One of the first things Joan had to learn was how to handle all the unwanted attention that came her way. Not long after she’d joined the company, many of the actors and directors began to pursue her with flowers and dinner invitations. “You have to eat,” they said, or, “I’ll make sure your next part is bigger and better.” She grew sick and tired of their empty words and sweet-smelling colognes. When polite refusals didn’t work, Joan began to look them straight in the eyes as she refused, until they couldn’t help but turn away. Soon, they were too intimidated to ask her out. Joan deliberately kept her distance, even at the risk of being known as “stuck-up” or a “prima donna.”
Jade Wind became Joan’s closest friend and confidant at the studio. Whereas she put up false fronts with the other actresses, she and Jade Wind traded gossip and laughter whenever they found time to have lunch or tea together in the small courtyard behind the large buildings.
“Look how much weight she’s gained,” Jade said, raising her eyebrows toward another young actress crossing their path. “She can barely fit into her costume. I had to use pins to hold it together.” She laughed. “I can’t imagine how she’ll be able to do her fight scenes.”
“Pretty soon, she won’t be flying through the air with such ease,” Joan added, picking up her bowl of noodles. “At least, that’s what I hear.”
“You mean…?”
Joan nodded. “It’s rumored the father is the director of her latest film.”
Jade lifted noodles to her mouth. “But I heard that he couldn’t…”
“Apparently he can.” Joan laughed.
She wanted to tell Jade that on at least two occasions she had had her own problems with this director, but thought better of it. Joan had learned that the Tiger Claw Film Company was a world within itself. Sometimes, they were no better than squabbling siblings. You could never be too careful. It was one thing to pass on existing rumors, but another to start unwanted ones about yourself.
The next day Joan anxiously waited all morning for a scene to be set up in her latest movie, The Price of Love, starring Bai Guang, one of her favorite actresses. It was Joan’s biggest part yet as a singsong girl, the escort-girl and songstress role that seemed to be growing in popularity. A Hong Kong dance hall had been replicated, only to have the scene postponed by the director at the last minute. As she wasn’t scheduled for any other scenes that day, Joan was able to go home early for the first time in almost two years.
The flat felt cool and inviting. The lingering scent of Mah-mee’s Shalimar still remained, though Joan knew her mother was probably out to lunch before playing mah-jongg at an auntie’s apartment, or in one of the restaurant’s private rooms.
Joan flipped through the mail on the dining room table and found a letter from Emma. Foon was nowhere in sight, so Joan kicked off her heels and sat down on the sofa to read Emma’s letter.
I can’t wait to come home during the holidays to see you in one of your movies. I’m so proud of you! I’ve told the girls in my dorm that my sister is a genuine Chinese movie star, and they want to know when you’ll be as big as Joan Crawford. I told them to give you another year, then you’ll be as well-known as Lucille Ball! I went home with a classmate, Maggie O’Leary, and saw the television show I Love Lucy for the first time. I still can’t understand how you can actually see moving pictures in such a small box. But Mrs. O’Leary says it’s transmitted through airwaves. So maybe one day you’ll actually have your own television show in Hong Kong!
Joan felt herself blush, but read on.
I wish you could come to visit me. You would love San Francisco. The weather is so mild, I sometimes can’t tell the difference from one month to the next. I try to go to Chinatown whenever I can, though the food barely resembles what I had at home. Even the Chinese food here is Americanized. Sweet-and-sour sauces on everything. Still, it’s better than our dormitory diet, which consists of large portions of tasteless, overcooked meats and potatoes with lots of ketchup. What I miss the most, besides all of you, is nee for dinner. The girls eat stacks and stacks of plain white bread, until I think they’re all going to explode!
I hope Mah-mee and Auntie Go are well. I’ll write them all separately, including Ba-ba. How I miss Foon’s wonderful cooking. Isn’t it strange how you have to go away to really appreciate what you have.
Joan put down Emma’s letter and went to look for Foon. She listened closely for any signs of her old servant’s whereabouts, but there was only a strange, flat quiet, uninterrupted by the usual rush of voices in the courtyard, or the clinking of pots cooking on a fire. Joan’s throat felt dry. She hadn’t really had a conversation with Foon in a long time. Frequently, when Joan came home for dinner, it was already late. She usually ate, then retired to her room to prepare for a scene she was in the next day.
“Foon!” Joan called out. She opened the kitchen door, but the room was empty. Maybe Foon was off on an errand, or downstairs in the courtyard, squatting over a large tub doing laundry.
Joan looked out the back door to the stone courtyard, but it too was empty.
“Foon!” Joan yelled again, though she didn’t expect an answer. She returned to the kitchen, redolent of garlic and Foon’s strange herbs. It was the room in which Joan had always found the most warmth and comfort. She reached out and touched the stone counter, polished smooth from years of cleaning, then picked up Foon’s old cleaver and balanced its weight in her hand. She smiled to herself remembering how Foon had told her several times that the edge had been sharpened so much over the years, it had lost an inch off of its width.
“You home early.” Foon’s voice startled her.
Joan turned around to see Foon emerging from her closet-size room next to the kitchen. A sliver of Foon’s gold tooth glimmered as she spoke. Wisps of gray hair stood away from her head. Joan wanted to go and hug Foon, but didn’t make a move.
“They let us off early.” Joan replaced the cleaver on the stone counter. “Trouble with one of the scenes.”
“Too soon to cook.” Foon looked down at the cleaver.
“Is Mah-mee playing mah-jongg?”
“At Auntie Hong’s.”
Joan smiled. “I was just wondering what you were doing. Maybe I could help you with something?”
“Everything done.”
“Do you need anything from the market?”
Foon buttoned up her padded vest. “Already went this morning.”
Foon poured water into an old kettle and placed it on the fire. “Afternoons quiet now. With you at the studio, and moi-moi in America…At first it’s the voices you miss most. The rest follows.”
Joan paused, not knowing what to say. “No matter what paths we take in life, you and this flat will always be home,” she said, taking down two of Mah-mee’s good teacups from a shelf.
Foon remained quiet, busying herself by breaking off a small piece of tea from a large circular cake of dried leaves. “Why two?” she asked, seeing the cups Joan had taken out.
“I thought you might like some too,” Joan said, never taking her eyes off her old servant.
Foon looked at the delicate porcelain cups, then slowly nodded her head, raining just enough dark tea leaves into each one.
Chapter 10
Rendezvous—1954
Auntie Go
Auntie Go felt a stiffness in her left knee as she paced her hotel room waiting for Emma to arrive. This was her second overseas trip in a year, and Go detected the small signs of her travel’s effects on her body. Besides the stiffness that came and went, she had trouble sleeping, which invariably led to terrible headaches. Now, every time Go left on a business trip to America or Europe, she could hear Kum Ling’s voice telling her over and over, “You’re not so young anymore! Let someone else go for you.”
Not yet fifty years old, Go refused to let her cousin dissuade her from her travels. She loved all the new sights and sounds, had grown used to traveling alone. The droning hum of a plane, and the screeching metal wheels of a rattling train, had become just as much a part of her life as the steady swishing sounds of her knitting machines. In a strange way, the raw mechanical noise of travel set her free, took her away from her daily life and into uncharted territory.
Night of Many Dreams Page 16
