A moment later, the door banged open and a short, wiry man wearing a white T-shirt, brown slacks, and a brown cardigan sweater entered. Around his neck hung a silver whistle.
“Miss Lew, I’m Wilson Chang. I’m sorry I’m late. We had a little problem in the gymnasium. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?”
“No, not at all.”
He shook Emma’s hand. His hand was surprisingly warm and smooth. He pulled a manila folder from a pile on his desk and sat down.
“Sorry I’m so disorganized, but you can see that’s why I’m looking for someone to take care of the office.” He glanced up and smiled.
Emma nodded. She held her purse tighter on her lap and shifted in her chair while he studied her file.
“You don’t have much experience doing clerical work,” he said without mincing words. “College grad. In art. We could use some color around here,” he said, his eyes remaining on her file.
Emma wanted to just get up and leave. First, he had made her wait, then he hadn’t the decency to have at least glanced at her file before she arrived. Sometimes, Emma thought that Americans were too casual. She tried to smile and sat tight.
“You were born and raised in Hong Kong. I assume that means you speak fluent Cantonese?”
Emma gripped the handle of her purse tighter. “Of course I do,” she snapped, no longer caring if she was polite or not.
He glanced up at Emma over her file. “I see. All right, you’ve got the job if you want it. It’s important that you speak fluent Cantonese here, since most of our calls come from the parents of kids from the old country wanting to know about our programs. It pays sixty dollars a week until further notice.”
Emma was stunned. She stood up so quickly, she almost knocked over her chair. “Are you sure?”
“Never more. You look like someone who can straighten out this mess and answer the phone.” He waved his arm across his desk.
“When do I begin?”
“Is tomorrow morning at nine o’clock too soon?”
“Tomorrow would be fine.” Emma smiled awkwardly and turned to leave. Hesitating, she turned back toward Wilson Chang. “I think it’s only fair to tell you I’m not a very fast typist.”
“Neither am I,” he said, rising from his chair. “But can I trust you to be here on time and help clean up this mess?”
Emma looked around the small, crowded office and smiled. “Yes. Yes, you can.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said hurriedly. “I’m sorry to rush you, but we’ve got a game in ten minutes.”
When Wilson extended his hand to Emma, she again marveled at its warmth, which clung like a glove when he let go.
On her way home, Emma stopped at the Golden Harvest Market, hungry for some home cooking. Over the years, she felt less and less homesick, comfortable in her new life, but an occasional memory of some dish Foon had made would make her mouth water and send a deep craving through her. Emma shuffled through the dusty, crowded aisles of the store, which smelled faintly medicinal, and bought all the ingredients to make Foon’s stuffed bitter melon specialty. In a brown bag she carried home on the bus were the necessary ingredients: black mushrooms, lean ground pork, the fist-size, torpedo-shaped bitter melon, and a bottle of oyster sauce. Emma had seen Foon and Joan make it so many times at home, she was certain she wouldn’t have any problems.
Hours later, Emma gave up and sat down to a dinner of white rice, debating whether to drop a sunny-side-up egg on top. Through the thin walls she heard The Jackie Gleason Show blaring on the television next door. She couldn’t quite make out what was being said, only the occasional rise of voices, followed by organ music, and mechanical-sounding laughter. In front of her was the overcooked melon and gray meat blended together. It didn’t even faintly resemble what Foon and Joan had made at home. Emma reviewed what she’d done—peeling and hollowing out the middle of the melon of its seeds, mincing the garlic and mushrooms before mixing them with the pork, then filling the cavity with the pork mixture and slicing it into inch-thick circles. Emma looked at the watery, overcooked mess in front of her. She must have scraped the melon too thin, then left it cooking on the stove too long. Unlike Joan, her cooking skills were minimal at best.
Emma glanced at Joan’s last letter on the other side of the table, next to a copy of Anna Karenina and yesterday’s newspaper. The headline read, President Eisenhower Authorized to Defend Formosa. Emma didn’t expect Joan to have much time for cooking now, especially when she was on the verge of movie stardom. She’d written to Emma of her new contract with the Tiger Claw Film Company: Can you believe it? Chin has promised me that I’ll have a starring role in one of his films within a year’s time. Emma smiled at the excitement in her sister’s words. She picked at the melon and pork, flat and tasteless, already planning to fly back to Hong Kong for the premiere.
Emma began working at the Chinese Recreation Center the following morning, arriving half an hour early and staying until almost six o’clock. For the most part, Wilson Chang told her what and what not to do, then stayed out of her way, preferring to be with the kids in the gymnasium, rather than sitting behind his cluttered desk. He had an old desk and chair brought up from the basement for her. They squeezed it into a small alcove next to his office. Emma returned phone calls and organized his papers into alphabetized files in the cabinets. It was easy enough, and Wilson was grateful, though he shyly tiptoed around her without saying much.
By the end of Emma’s first week, she could see some semblance of a working office. As she put on her coat and started for the front door, Wilson appeared from the gym, looking as young as some of his basketball players in a T-shirt and tennis shoes.
“Don’t forget,” he said, “to add on all the extra hours you’ve worked this week.”
“But I…”
“You’ve done a good job so far,” Wilson said, his voice kind and calm. “Have a good weekend then.”
“You too.” Emma smiled.
They teetered in a moment of awkward silence before Wilson turned around and disappeared into his office.
Chapter 12
What Price Beauty?—1956–57
Joan
Joan knocked against the makeup table in her dressing room, rattling the many jars and bottles. Almost thirty, Joan was on the verge of stardom. She was preparing for the final scene in The Longest Day, hopefully her last film in a supporting role. Sometimes, in her deepest imaginings she could hear the roar of applause, feel the slow crush of the crowds, the hot lights and cameras flashing a snow-white blindness. It frightened her to think that her movie career was actually materializing after years of persistence and hard work. Joan bit her thumbnail and didn’t dare to think what would happen if her upcoming movie, A Woman’s Story, in which she was to star, failed.
A sudden slapping sound made Joan jump. She turned around to see the pages of her Movie Mirror magazines fluttering on the table by an opened window. The smooth, glossy pages were a gentle reminder as to who the real movie stars were—Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Kim Novak, William Holden.
Lately, everything made Joan anxious. In the past few weeks, she’d felt a strange sensation moving through her body. It was as if a fever grew and surged through her blood, leaving her warm and flushed most of the time. Last year, Joan had seen similar symptoms in Mah-mee, who was constantly perspiring and complaining of the heat. “Like an oven that suddenly turns on inside of you,” Mah-mee had said, fanning herself vigorously. Joan knew the heat marked a time in life after which her mother would no longer be able to have children.
Before, children were not something Joan thought much about. She could barely keep up with her own life. All around her, old classmates she knew were having their second…third child, hiring amahs to take care of them while they resumed their life of luncheons, shopping, and afternoon teas. Joan never understood the need to have children you barely saw. But now, every time the heat surged through her blood, she couldn’t imagine not having
them.
Joan stared into the mirror, searching for any distinct changes. She felt a sudden wave of warmth move through her body, rising to color her face pink. She leaned closer to the mirror. The warm glow enhanced her pale, smooth complexion, dark eyes, the mole above her lip, which had become her acting trademark in the last few years.
Still, the feverish flush frightened her. Joan wondered if anyone noticed that this was happening to her too soon. She was too young. Yet, no one seemed to observe any difference in her. Mah-mee and Auntie Go hadn’t said anything…no “Are you feeling all right?” or “Do you have a fever?”…no strong black teas coming from Foon.
In the heart of winter, as the wind and rain raged outside, Joan drank down iced tea and coffee, soy bean milk, both sweet and salty, and took special care to eat “cold” foods—fresh tofu, fruits, and vegetables—to control her body temperature. At dinner, she waited until her soup and rice turned room temperature before eating them, giving detailed accounts of her day—the actor who broke his leg swinging through the air in a fight scene, or the actress who froze and forgot all her lines—to entertain Mah-mee and Auntie Go, so they wouldn’t notice her food getting cold. Only Foon shook her head, but she didn’t say a word. After a week, she simply waited until the end of dinner before bringing Joan a bowl of lukewarm soup to drink.
There was a hollow knock on Joan’s dressing room door, followed by a high, anxious voice. “Miss Lew, you’re needed on the set in five minutes.”
“Yes. Yes, I’m coming.”
Joan pulled her hair back into a chignon, then buttoned the top frog of her cheungsam, looking very much like the tai tai, the married woman she played in the film. In reality, Mah-mee had all but given up in the past few years, her matchmaking dwindled to a standstill. She was content that Joan would at least have a career to fall back on. She’d heard her mother telling some aunties at one of her mah-jongg games, “My older daughter is an act-tress”—always stressing the syllables—“and my younger daughter has graduated from college in America. With honors.”
Just when everyone had finally grown comfortable with this modern arrangement, Joan felt the smallest whisper of dissatisfaction. Despite her growing success, her emptiness increased. The more Mah-mee accepted the fact Joan wouldn’t marry, the more unsettled Joan became. She tried hard not to show it, but found herself imagining that what her mother really thought was that she had somehow failed to do what was expected of her. She saw again her mother’s tight smile and searching eyes. And sometimes, even when she knew it was foolishness, Joan finished the sentence she really thought Mah-mee meant to say: “My older daughter is an act-tress…because she couldn’t find a husband.”
Joan traced the beginning of her sudden fever back to last month at the studio, just after she’d heard the news of the actress Lily Wong’s death from Jade Wind. For almost a decade, Lily Wong had been one of the most beautiful lead actresses to grace the Hong Kong movie screens. Originally from Shanghai, she’d migrated to Hong Kong after the war, along with a second wave of actors and directors in 1948. She immediately established herself as a major presence in the Hong Kong film industry, making both Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking movies. She had been under contract to another large Chinese studio, though rumor had it that C. K. Chin spoke endlessly of signing her with Tiger Claw as soon as her current contract was up. Only in her midthirties, Lily was at the height of her career and was even rumored to be courted by the likes of David O. Selznik for a big-budget Hollywood film.
“How did she die?” Joan had asked. Jade Wind was busily hemming a long, white robe Joan would have to wear in her next scene.
“Committed suicide,” Jade Wind mumbled, pins pressed between her lips, talking out of the side of her mouth. “Cut her wrists. Her servant found her. She was lying in a pool of her own blood. Already dead.”
Joan sighed and looked away, her eyes beginning to burn. She’d read about Wong’s unhappy love affairs with actors and directors, most of them never lasting more than a few months at a time. Joan could easily imagine what it was like, the euphoria that comes with hope, then the letdown. Hadn’t she been through it before? Still, it was hard to believe anyone so beautiful, in the prime of her career, could simply end her life so senselessly.
“Does anyone know why?” Joan asked.
“Rumors.” Jade Wind removed the last few pins from between her lips. “Some say she was pregnant, others say she was having another unhappy love affair. I say it was probably the love affair, because a friend of mine had fitted her for a film just before, and she was as thin as a piece of straw.”
“Love,” Joan mumbled to herself.
“What did you say?”
Joan pulled the robe closer around her body. “It’s a shame.”
Another knock on her small dressing room door and Joan closed the window. She glanced one more time into the mirror, finding just the right expression for her role as a happily married woman—lips rising up into the smooth curve of a waxing moon, eyes as bright and content as stars.
In March, Joan had her first scheduled meeting with Edward Chung, the director Chin had chosen for A Woman’s Story. Somewhere in his late thirties, he was reputed to be a demanding, difficult director to work with. Joan had no great illusions of liking him.
“Be careful of that one,” Jade Wind had told her. “He has been known to send more than a dozen actresses crying from the set before a movie is finished.”
Joan brushed off her fear with laughter. “Well, he’ll have met his match with me!” she said defiantly.
She had prepared herself for all-out war, but Edward Chung surprised her by being tall, thin, and mild-mannered in his gold-rimmed glasses. He remained completely silent during their first meeting in Chin’s smoke-filled office. When she glanced in his direction, Joan caught him watching her and couldn’t help but think, You might as well not be here at all.
It wasn’t until halfway through the meeting that Joan realized her fever had disappeared. It was as if her body had found balance again. The heat that had left her perspiring throughout the winter had departed as suddenly as it came. Unconsciously, Joan smiled, then found herself laughing out loud with relief.
“What’s so funny?” Chin asked, his cigarette burning between his lips.
Edward Chung remained silent, watching.
Joan looked over at Chin’s drooping eyelids, his tired face. “Oh, nothing. I’m sorry,” she quickly apologized, imagining the heat rising out of her body like steam.
Only when they were finally about to leave did Chung pause in front of her, take off his glasses, gaze directly into her eyes, and ask, “Are you ready?”
Joan assumed he meant starring in the film, and her reply was just as short and curt. “Of course.”
But at home that evening, Joan ate her dinner and drank her soup steaming hot, still troubled by Chung’s question. She began to doubt herself, knowing her career would depend on the outcome of this film. It made her angry to know that he already had this power over her. Joan knew it was in his eyes, the way he looked at her—with an unrelenting steadiness. Unlike so many other men, who sometimes squirmed, then looked away when she walked by or entered a room, Chung didn’t seem at all intimidated by her. Joan drank down another hot bowl of soup Foon had brought her, certain that she was as ready as she’d ever be.
A few days later, Joan was surprised to find a message from Chung waiting for her when she arrived at the studio:
Would you be free for tea this afternoon at four o’clock to discuss the movie? I’ll be waiting at the Peninsula Hotel, unless I hear otherwise.
Edward Chung
Joan thought of a hundred different ways to tell him she couldn’t make it, but instead, watched the clock all day, then rushed out of the studio in order to make it to the Peninsula Hotel on time.
Chung was already sitting at a table when Joan arrived. He was dressed casually in khaki slacks, white shirt, and ascot. The large, open room was filled with people standi
ng in line, waiting and watching for an empty table. Joan made her way through the thick crowd of tai tais in designer suits, seeking refuge from shopping, and the intense businessmen who met regularly at the Pen for afternoon tea. Joan knew that certain preferred customers had designated tables held for them every day, so she couldn’t imagine how Chung had managed to get a table snugly in the corner, away from the center of the storm.
As soon as Chung saw Joan walking toward him, he lifted his hand up in a slight wave, fingers spread evenly apart as if he were raising his hand in a classroom. Immediately, Joan felt another kind of warmth flush through her.
Chung stood up and smiled. “I’m glad you could make it,” he said, offering her a chair.
“You wanted to discuss the movie?” Joan sat in the chair across from his and kept calm, distant.
“Yes, I do.” He raised his hand again to call a waiter over. “Tea or coffee?”
“Tea, please.”
After a waiter arrived and scribbled down their order, Chung wasted no time in getting down to business. He leaned forward against the loud hum of voices surrounding them and asked, “What do you expect from this movie?” He removed his glasses and watched her with a steady gaze.
All morning Joan had wondered what he might ask her. She had practiced her answers throughout the day, as if it were some kind of exam, and now answered without hesitation. “That it be a movie better than what they have at the theatres now. Something different from the usual family soap operas you see being made.”
“A movie can only be as good as its story,” he said, his gaze still focused on her. “And by the way it’s interpreted. How do you think this story should be interpreted, Miss Lew?”
Joan smiled. Try to remain calm. Try to remain calm, she thought to herself, but said, “Please, call me Joan. I can only show you what my character feels in the world around her. The rest will have to be up to you.”
Night of Many Dreams Page 19
