Still tall and striking, Auntie Go dressed in Western-style clothing when she traveled—tailored calf-length dresses with matching hats and handbags. At home in Hong Kong, she disregarded the fashion trends, preferring comfort to American and European designer labels, which most Hong Kong tai tais fancied. At the Western Wind, she usually wore a tunic and pants in alternating sets of black and blue.
Many of Auntie Go’s meals abroad were taken with clients, some of whom she’d come to know well. She was often invited to their homes to have a pleasant dinner with their families. Out of friendship, and sometimes loneliness, Go accepted these invitations.
“But you don’t really know anything about them,” Kum Ling warned when she first found out.
“They have been kind to me, and they order sweaters from me. That’s all I have to know,” Go answered.
Kum Ling watched her carefully, then spoke in clear, precise words. “Just so the gods know I’ve warned you. A face worn to work is not always the same face worn at home.”
Auntie Go had smiled, then dismissed her cousin’s words with a silent shake of her head.
Kum Ling couldn’t know how friendly most of her clients were. There were so many big and small happinesses in Go’s life. She was proud of the Western Wind’s success, and the many friends she’d made. Auntie Go also learned to enjoy eating a mixed variety of Western foods—thick slices of salty ham from a can, mashed potatoes, corned beef and cabbage, casseroles of noodles and cheese. Lately, she had even drunk an occasional glass of hot milk before she slept. Still, Go had to laugh at the thought of Foon’s face were she to see the jumble of dull colors and tedious tastes.
What Auntie Go kept from Kum Ling was that sometimes Westerners were uncomfortable seeing her eating and traveling alone. She could tell by their darting eyes and low whispers. Go was immediately set apart, left dangling. In Hong Kong, she’d always been part of a larger group—second mother to her two nieces, owner of the Western Wind knitting factory, a member of Kum Ling’s mah-jongg group.
Go deliberately kept a slight smile on her lips, a universal language she found everyone understood. It protected her from sideways glances when she ventured alone into expensive restaurants and disarmed sly assessment of her mother’s deep green jade ring where a wedding ring should be.
Now Auntie Go smiled and glanced at her jade ring, the only jewelry she wore on her travels. “Jade will always protect you,” she heard her mother’s soft voice telling her. Go wondered if her mother also knew what great comfort the ring had given her.
She looked at her watch, then at the white walls of her hotel room. It might be a room anywhere in the world, except that a glance through the windows at the Golden Gate Bridge reminded her it was San Francisco; Emma would arrive at any moment. Auntie Go had specified a suite, in case Emma changed her mind and wanted to stay with her for a few days. After all, Go was the only family member attending Emma’s graduation. The sitting room was large and comfortable, with a sofa and two oversize chairs. Now, looking at it, Go wondered if she’d been too extravagant.
Emma had returned to Hong Kong only once—the first summer after she’d left for college. Auntie Go remembered the sweltering heat of early August, and how they had sat around the dining room table in cotton housecoats, drinking iced tea and relentlessly fanning the thick, still air.
During the hot, sticky month, Foon stayed in the kitchen and cooked all Emma’s favorite dishes—fried rice with salted fish and diced chicken, Chinese mustard greens with mushrooms in oyster sauce, and scallops with garlic and ginger.
On the nights when Joan was working late at the Tiger Claw, Auntie Go and Kum Ling hovered closely over Emma, making sure she ate enough, greedy for her to fill in all the blank spaces of her past year in San Francisco. Emma smiled wearily, lifted her hair away from her sweaty neck, and repeated much of what she’d already written them in letters.
“I go to classes from eight in the morning until about four in the afternoon,” Emma said between bites of rice and diced chicken with pickled vegetables.
“When do you eat?” Kum Ling asked.
“Between classes.”
Kum Ling eyed Emma closely. “No wonder you’ve lost weight. Running around and not eating!”
“You look good,” Auntie Go interceded. “Much more grown-up.”
Emma looked at her aunt with a grateful smile. “It’s different being on your own. Everything seems clearer, more immediate.”
Auntie Go continued, “You must have made some good friends in the dorm where you stay?”
“They’re very nice to me. There are a couple of girls I’m close to. One of them is a Hong Kong girl. But I do miss Foon’s cooking,” Emma said, raising her voice so that Foon would hear.
“Then you should stay home,” Kum Ling snapped. She laid her chopsticks across the rim of her bowl, then picked up her fan and opened it with a quick flick of her wrist.
Emma stopped eating and looked up at her mother. “Sometimes I think about coming home, but I’ve really come to love San Francisco,” Emma said, her words measured and self-assured. “Besides, I’m determined to finish my bachelor’s degree in art, even if I starve to death at Lone Mountain!”
Auntie Go smiled to herself.
Kum Ling remained silent for a moment, then she too smiled, dishing more chicken into Emma’s bowl. “How did both of my daughters get so stubborn?”
“Look who their mother is!” Auntie Go laughed.
Kum Ling nodded in rare agreement. She turned to Emma and said, “Well, then, you better eat while you can.”
After that summer, Emma stayed in San Francisco to work, even when Auntie Go offered to send her a ticket to come home. There was always work to do, Emma said, or exams to study for, that kept her across the Pacific. At the same time, Auntie Go sensed it had to do with the increasing noise and crowds of Hong Kong. Like her, Emma needed the distance, the calm.
“Do you think moi-moi’s growing further away from us?” Kum Ling had asked one day with a sigh.
“Emma’s growing up, not away from us,” Auntie Go had gently answered.
Auntie Go couldn’t believe how quickly time slipped through her fingers—a good year since she had seen Emma. Go had had to cancel their last scheduled visit because of trouble at the Western Wind, exchanging only quick words at the airport as she passed through San Francisco on her way back to Hong Kong from New York. Auntie Go had slipped a red envelope with lucky money into Emma’s hand and couldn’t forget her slight figure waving good-bye from the gate.
There’d been talk of a strike and an imminent shutdown of the Western Wind if she didn’t get back to Hong Kong right away. She remembered thinking, Give them what they want. They work hard enough for it! But the company had grown too big for her to make that decision alone. Auntie Go had to meet with her managers, lawyers, strategists. “You’ll never make money giving in to them!” voices roared at her.
But Auntie Go had made money, more than she could ever imagine, and many of the knitters had been with her since the beginning, when she didn’t know the difference between a Fair Isle pattern and a tuck stitch. Old Sum had taught her how to operate the machines, Mei-mei how to read patterns. They’d become her working family, faces as familiar as those of her own blood relatives. Give them what they want, she kept thinking, just as she would give everything she could to Kum Ling, Joan, Emma. In the end, the voices calmed. They had met her working family halfway.
Go remembered entering the Western Wind after everything had been settled. She was greeted by the smiling faces of her workers, who nodded their heads and thanked her. The hundred or so machines, lined up in uniform rows, were running again, the sharp swish of wood against metal filling the large, open room. A bright light filtered in through the skylights above, as if everything were caught in the flash of a camera. Auntie Go blinked, rubbed her nose against the motes of wool and cotton that floated through the air. She stopped to inspect a rack of cotton pullover sweaters. Were the stit
ches even? The design and colors perfect? The Western Wind’s reputation was based on quality work. Satisfied, Go climbed the wooden stairs to her office, looking down at a blur of motion that made her eyes water.
At the end of the day, Old Sum approached Auntie Go. She knocked and entered Go’s office, eyes averted, and refused to sit down. Her fingers darted in and out of the pocket in her black tunic. “You know if it had been up to me, none of this would have happened,” Old Sum said, her voice timid and shy.
Auntie Go smiled at her longtime worker, well into her sixties. “Sometimes, things must be shaken up in order to fall right again. Do you remember when you first taught me to use the machines? You told me to relax, that my mind and fingers would soon memorize how to thread the yarn and press the right buttons, without my even thinking. I believe in the past year I’ve been operating the Western Wind in much the same fashion. It’s time to begin thinking again.”
Old Sum glanced up, her eyes bright. “But the workers should have talked to you, instead of sneaking around behind your back.”
“We need to let go of the past. What matters is that we now look toward the future.”
“To a prosperous one!” Old Sum smiled, her crooked, discolored teeth protruding.
Auntie Go poured a glass of sherry and handed it to Old Sum, then poured another for herself. “To a long and prosperous future!” Go said, then sipped, the warm, sweet liquid soothing her throat.
But this trip to San Francisco held special importance. Nothing would keep Auntie Go from attending Emma’s graduation, even if the Western Wind stopped production. Already it had been a journey riddled with difficulties. Tickets reserved, then canceled. Joan was all set to accompany Auntie Go, until C. K. Chin himself cast her in a movie, which she tried unsuccessfully to postpone.
“What can I do?” Joan had asked, pacing the floor of Auntie Go’s office. “It’s not the starring role, but Gone Forever is a good family drama, with a strong part for me as Lin Yu’s best friend. And most importantly, Chin asked for me himself.”
During the past year, Joan had won larger roles, and audiences were beginning to take notice. She played second to the lead actresses in her most recent movies, The Dream Chamber and The Three Phoenixes. Kum Ling and Auntie Go were holding their breath as to when Chin would give her a starring role.
“She does make you believe,” Kum Ling had said as they walked out of the Queen’s Theatre after seeing Joan’s latest movie, The Three Phoenixes. “Don’t you think Joan was convincing as the younger sister?”
Auntie Go laughed. “Joan’s had moi-moi to draw from all her life!”
“But it’s one thing to know a person, it’s another thing to become them.”
For the first time, Go heard the sharp edge of pride and hope in Kum Ling’s voice.
Auntie Go sat and listened to Joan, nodding her head with sympathy, pouring hot tea and sipping it slowly. “Then you have no choice but to stay,” Go said, and made a mental note to cancel her niece’s plane ticket.
“Do you think moi-moi will ever forgive me?” Joan asked, looking dark and serious.
“Of course she will.”
“I’ll send her a telegram tomorrow. Will you tell her how sorry I am, and that I’ll make it up to her?”
“Yes, you know I will.”
When Joan turned toward her with a sad smile, Go couldn’t get over how much she resembled Kum Ling.
Auntie Go had also tried tirelessly to convince Kum Ling to fly to San Francisco with her. But her cousin wavered, afraid to commit herself, citing Lew Hing’s health. She backed out only days before they were to leave.
“You go and explain why,” Kum Ling had pleaded, sitting at her dining room table. She tucked a pair of pearl earrings and a gold bracelet into a red, embroidered silk pouch and pushed it into Auntie Go’s hand. “Please, Go, give this to moi-moi for me. Tell her that her ba ba is not feeling well, and I had to stay in Tokyo with him.”
Go stroked the smooth silk pouch. What Kum Ling said was only partially the truth. Yes, Lew Hing had been under the weather lately, but Go knew Kum Ling’s reason for not going to San Francisco had more to do with her fear of flying than anything else. Kum Ling could barely tolerate the flight to Tokyo. Before, when they had traveled together, Go remembered her strong-willed cousin, white-knuckled, gripping the arms of the airline seat until they landed. There was little chance she would cross an entire ocean.
“It seems a feeble excuse,” Go persisted. She wasn’t about to let Kum Ling off so easily. “Moi-moi is the first one of us to graduate from college. It’s not a small event to miss!”
Kum Ling made a clicking sound with her tongue, fingering loose cake crumbs on the table. “It’s such a long distance. She’ll understand,” Kum Ling said, more to herself than to Auntie Go. “I’ll write her a letter explaining.”
In the silence between them, they heard Foon in the kitchen—chopping, pouring water, clapping a pot onto the fire.
“Write it tonight.” Go stood up. “It will be faster if I take it to her.”
Quick taps on the door roused Auntie Go from her thoughts. She rubbed her left knee and rose slowly. Emma was waiting in the hallway, smiling. Auntie Go drew a breath and let it out slowly. In the year since she’d last seen her niece, Emma had grown up remarkably well, her youthful chubbiness giving way to sharper, leaner features. She’d cut her hair short—above the shoulders with bangs—and was dressed in a blue cardigan sweater, flare skirt, and saddle shoes. She looked fresh out of college. In comparison, Go hated to think how she must have aged in Emma’s eyes.
“Moi-moi…I mean Emma.” Go laughed. “You look wonderful! Very American.”
Emma hugged her. “I’m so glad to see you. I can’t believe you’re really here,” she said in an excited flow of words.
“Come in, come in,” Go said, taking Emma’s arm. “We have so much to catch up on.”
“I’m so glad to see you,” Emma repeated as she sat down on the sofa. In her voice there was a hint of the young girl Auntie Go knew so well.
“We’re very proud of you. I’m sorry we all couldn’t be here.”
“How many people can say their sister’s busy making a movie?” Emma laughed too quickly. “And how’s Mah-mee?”
Auntie Go handed her Kum Ling’s letter and red silk pouch. “Your mah-mee had to be in Tokyo to look after your ba ba. She’d be here if she could.”
Emma nodded, held the red pouch in her lap, but didn’t open it. “And Ba ba? How is he feeling?”
Auntie Go shook her head. “He has been under the weather for the longest time now.”
“He wrote me to say he was fine, and for me not to worry about him,” Emma said, her voice strained.
“Then you should listen to his words,” Auntie Go said reassuringly. “You should also know that your mah-mee would be here, but she’s afraid of flying in an airplane for so long. Kum Ling just doesn’t trust the fates. She never did.”
“But you do.”
Auntie Go laughed. “I’ve never been smart enough to do otherwise.”
With two days before graduation, Auntie Go was thrilled to have Emma all to herself. They were free to do whatever they pleased in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Go was determined to make it a weekend Emma wouldn’t forget. She wanted to climb all the hills she’d read about—Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill….
Auntie Go sat in the fifth row of the overcrowded St. Dominic’s hall at Lone Mountain College and watched as her younger niece was about to graduate with honors. The room was stifling, filled with murmuring voices, thick perfumes, hairspray, and perspiration. “It’s too damn hot in here,” she heard a man’s voice say, followed by a louder “Sshh!”
Auntie Go smiled. It was too hot in the crowded hall. She’d taken the longest time trying to figure out what to wear, finally deciding on a burgundy knit suit, complete with matching purse and shoes. Go never did like to wear gloves. They somehow made her feel as if her hands coul
dn’t breathe. Still, she looked just as she felt, a proud mother watching her daughter graduate.
Go took off her knit jacket, fanned herself with the green and gold-edged program, and checked again to see if her envelope for Emma was in her handbag. Within the card was a thin piece of white parchment paper that conveyed 25 percent of her Western Wind ownership to Emma. The same would go to Joan. The rest of the company would be theirs to use as they wished upon Go’s death. She swallowed the thought. The future would sort itself out.
Auntie Go sat squeezed between two sets of parents who craned their necks looking forward and backward. They fidgeted so much in their seats, Go wanted to tell them to “freeze” like in one of those children’s games. When Emma’s name was called, it echoed and filled the enormous hall. Auntie Go felt everything around her stop. The sting of hot tears welled behind her eyes. Emma, in black cap and flowing gown, which matched those of the nuns, moved carefully across the stage and reached for her diploma. Then, just as she approached the edge of the stage, Emma turned, her eyes seeking and finding Auntie Go. A grateful smile spread across Emma’s face as she lifted her hand and waved.
Chapter 11
A Dream of Spring—1955
Emma
The pungent smells of fresh fish, sweet fruits, dried herbs, and cigarette smoke mingled in the air as Emma got off the Stockton Street bus in Chinatown. She walked briskly down the block, weaving around the throngs of people in her way. Outside the numerous small markets that lined the street, men and women laden with shopping bags gathered in front of chaotically displayed wooden crates, picking and choosing oranges, tangerines, and Chinese grapefruits for the New Year. Their hurried, high-pitched voices reminded her of Foon and the other servants gabbling at the market, or washing laundry together in the courtyard. Emma imagined that most Americans must think the Chinese language sounded like arguing, but she knew it was a way of life, a clash of voices fighting to be heard, erupting in a chorus.
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