The Paper Daughters of Chinatown

by Heather B. Moore

  When Charles helped Dolly down from the buggy in front of the mission home, he pulled her into an embrace. She held onto him, her pulse throbbing, her heart aching, and hoped that this separation would somehow be bearable. When he drew away, his gaze was tender, and his words only for her. “You have my heart, Donaldina Cameron. And I will miss you every day.”

  Dolly didn’t want to let him go, but she could never ask him to give up his dream. Even now, the purpose and confidence in his eyes bore into her. She didn’t want to hold him back or watch him regret anything.

  “I will miss you every day too, Charles,” she whispered at last. Then she stepped away from the man who had brought so much light to a forgotten corner of her life.

  Holding back her tears until she was inside the door, she hurried down the corridor to her office.

  Finally, she was alone and could wrap her mind around all that had changed in her life and in her heart. She sat at her desk and gazed out the window into the deepening colors of the approaching evening. She hadn’t given up on the idea of marriage, exactly, but over the last weeks, she had allowed hope to bloom as the idea of marrying Charles had formed into a possibility. No, she hadn’t known how all the specifics would work. Perhaps she imagined serving on the board of the mission home and staying involved as much as possible.

  She had ignored the deep ache that idea had brought to her soul because she’d fallen in love with Charles. But now . . . a small part of her was relieved. She would have more time with her daughters while Charles was in training. Immediate decisions about her future would be delayed. She could continue in her work.

  As if the heavens were agreeing, Tien cracked open the office door.

  Dolly dried her tears and turned with a smile.

  But Tien wasn’t fooled. “You are sad.”

  Dolly’s chest hitched. “Charles is . . . he’s going back east to attend school.”

  Tien’s brow wrinkled. “For how long?”

  Dolly looked away. “Years,” she whispered.

  Tien entered the room and sat in the chair across from the desk. “He is a good man.”

  Dolly could only nod, and when their gazes connected again, she sensed that Tien understood things far beyond her years. Perhaps that was what happened when one’s childhood was ripped away. The two didn’t speak for a moment; it wasn’t necessary. Dolly knew this melancholy would pass soon enough. Tomorrow would be a new day, and there would be challenges aplenty to distract her.

  Tien held up a folded piece of paper. “This note arrived while you were gone.”

  She handed it over, and Dolly scanned the short message. It seemed that her few moments of feeling sorry for herself had already come to an end. “We need to leave immediately,” she told Tien. “This girl’s mistress is away from Chinatown for the day, and if we hurry, we can save her from more atrocities.”

  “While the world today is convulsed with war, our Home too has not been exempt from its share of exciting events . . . as some poor slave girl or abused child made her hasty and terrified flight . . . from her angry pursuers. Our warfare against the wickedness and cruelty . . . is sometimes a discouraging conflict, yet as we look back over the past year we are thankful to see that much good has been done, and many victories gained.”

  —Donaldina Cameron, mission home report

  1904

  Mei Lien didn’t know exactly where she was, but it wasn’t San Francisco. Despite the numb stupor she’d been in for days, she remembered the smell of the ocean, the sting of the salt, the cry of the gulls, then finally the motion of a boat. She had been taken on a boat, or a ferry, and now she sat in a small, windowless room.

  How many days had passed, she wasn’t sure. In the small room she now existed in, she’d been fed and allowed water, so she knew they didn’t want her dead . . . yet.

  Zhang Wei. He was behind all of this. Did that mean Ah-Peen Oie was involved too? Of course she was. It was the only thing that made sense.

  The slave owners would get their investment from Mei Lien yet. Keep her fed, keep her strong, then either sell her again or force her into the trade at a new location.

  Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor outside her room, and she tensed as the door unlocked, then opened. It was Wang Foo, the man who had first sold her to Ah-Peen Oie. She cringed at the sight of his wide-set eyes and stocky face.

  The hardness in his eyes made her stomach flip. He carried no food, and she could only guess what his purpose was. Likely the same purpose of other men who had visited her small room. Or was he here to punish her in a different way?

  “Get up,” he said. “We need to hide you. Fahn Quai is here, looking for any paper daughters.”

  Mei Lien scrambled to the far corner and drew herself into a tight ball.

  Wang Foo grunted, then entered the room.

  “No,” Mei Lien whispered in a hoarse voice. “I’d rather face the white devil than go anywhere with you.”

  “You have no choice.” Wang Foo grasped both her arms and wrenched her to her feet.

  Yes, Mei Lien had been fed in this prison, but she was also weak and exhausted. Wang Foo had an easy time of it carrying her from the room. She didn’t try to get away, she didn’t scream, she didn’t yell.

  Wang Foo carried her along a narrow corridor with other doors. The dimness was broken only by a light at the end of the hallway. He paused before a door, then fumbled with the lock before getting the door open. The room’s stale atmosphere made Mei Lien’s throat feel scratchy. It was as if years of dust had accumulated and been trapped in here.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Wang Foo said. “If the devil gets ahold of you, she will use you to cast spells, and then your ancestors will return from the dead and haunt you until you die a terrible death. Then Zhang Wei will send orders across the ocean to have your mother pay in your name.”

  The threat was old, but it never failed to wedge Mei Lien’s fear even deeper into her soul. She crouched without a word of protest and moved inside the cupboard Wang Foo held open.

  He shut the door and latched it closed.

  In the new darkness, Mei Lien didn’t even bother to look around. She couldn’t see anything anyway. Beneath her hands, small pellets indicated the presence of mice. Old or new, she didn’t know. The space was warm and musty, and she held back more than one sneeze.

  Listening, she could hear voices, doors opening, footsteps echoing.

  She guessed there to be more than one person with the white devil. How many devils were there? The footsteps grew louder, then an argument broke out.

  Wang Foo said, “There’s no one in there.”

  “You should dust more, sir,” a woman said in Chinese.

  Another woman spoke in English, but Mei Lien didn’t recognize any of the words.

  The door opened, and footsteps grew closer.

  Mei Lien couldn’t be any quieter or make herself any smaller. She hoped they wouldn’t open the cupboard because she had no doubt that Wang Foo would tell Zhang Wei it was her fault she had been discovered.

  The creak of the latch on the cupboard caused the hairs on her arms to raise, and suddenly, the air shifted and cooled.

  Candlelight flickered, and Mei Lien had to close her eyes against the brightness.

  “Mei Lien?” the woman’s voice was soft, spoken in an accent.

  Then another woman spoke in Chinese. “Mei Lien. We are from the mission home. We are here to take you to safety.”

  No one touched her, but the light remained.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes to find two women crouched before her, their gazes upon her. One woman was Chinese. Her face was clean, her black hair looked soft, and her eyes were intelligent. She couldn’t be much older than Mei Lien. The other woman had lighter eyes, pale skin, and she seemed oh-so-tall, even though she too was crouched before the cupboard.

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bsp; “No, no! Fahn Quai!” Mei Lien burst out.

  Neither woman looked startled. In fact, the pale woman smiled. She spoke in a soft but firm voice, and the Chinese woman translated, “Miss Cameron says she’s been called much worse.”

  Wang Foo yelled something from the corridor. He hadn’t even come into the room?

  “My name is Tien Fu Wu, and we are here to rescue you from the men who hold you captive.”

  The pale woman scanned every inch of Mei Lien.

  “Come with us,” the Chinese woman continued. “We will clean you up, feed you, and give you an education. You will be free to find your own path—”

  “I cannot,” Mei Lien said, her voice trembling. “They will make my mother pay.”

  Wang Foo echoed this sentiment from the hallway.

  The pale woman who was called Miss Cameron gave a soft smile. “They have no power to harm your mother. I will make sure of it.” She held out her hand. “Come, you will see.”

  Mei Lien shrank away. Wang Foo was still hollering in the hallway, spitting out threats about Zhang Wei hunting her down, and how her mother would be beaten, and how Mei Lien would be swallowed up by demons. Hot tears scaled her cheeks, and her chest felt like it would crack in two.

  The two women looked at each other, then the pale woman nodded.

  The Chinese woman named Tien Fu Wu leaned close and whispered, “Huan Sun sent us. He wants you safe, Mei Lien. He visited us last night and told us he sold his shop to get money. Huan Sun tried to give us all his money so that we could come find you.”

  Mei Lien stared at the crouching women. Could this be true?

  “We told him to keep his money,” Miss Cameron said through her interpreter. Her eyes also filled with tears, which Mei Lien found remarkable. Why was she crying?

  “We told him that we would find the woman he cares about and that we would take care of her.”

  “Why?” Mei Lien whispered.

  “We will show you why,” the pale woman said. “But first we must get you to safety.”

  Mei Lien raised a shaky hand and put it into Miss Cameron’s outstretched one. “Huan Sun really sold his shop?”

  “Yes.” Miss Cameron’s eyes were kind, and in them Mei Lien saw compassion. Understanding, perhaps.

  “Then I will come with you,” Mei Lien said.

  She let the women help her out of the cupboard. Mei Lien’s limbs felt as if she’d been folded into a paper decoration. The women urged her to hurry, and she ran with them past the cursing Wang Foo. She followed the women down the corridor, then around a corner.

  They descended a set of steps, and Mei Lien’s legs burned. She wasn’t used to much running, but she pressed on. Someone shouted from within the house, and instead of heading out a front door, as she expected, the women leading her turned another direction. They reached the kitchen, moved around the table, and Tien Fu Wu opened the kitchen door.

  “Through here,” she said.

  When Mei Lien stumbled against the edge of a chair, Miss Cameron grasped her arm. She murmured something Mei Lien didn’t understand, and Tien Fu Wu didn’t take the time to translate.

  No matter, because the moment Mei Lien stepped outside into the cool night air, nothing else signified. She wanted to be free more than she had ever wanted it in her life.

  A buggy was waiting, and the two women ushered Mei Lien inside just as two men came out the same back door, shouting for them to stop. But the driver of the buggy had already whipped the horses into a frenzy, and the buggy lurched forward.

  Mei Lien realized she had been gripping Miss Cameron’s arm so tightly that her fingers ached. She could only imagine the bruises she’d left. The horse continued to move forward, drawing Mei Lien farther and farther away from her place of captivity.

  The women in the buggy with her wasted no time in unwrapping a basket of food and drink.

  Miss Cameron draped a thick blanket over Mei Lien. She hadn’t noticed the cold as they were fleeing the house, but now she was shivering. Then Tien Fu Wu handed over the food, and Mei Lien took a bite of a wonton. It was cold, but it was perhaps the best thing she’d ever tasted—a dish like her mother would have made on one of their holidays. After all that had happened and all that she’d gone through, this bit of food brought tears to her eyes.

  “Thank you,” Mei Lien told both women.

  Miss Cameron could understand that much, and she nodded, then placed a hand on Mei Lien’s shoulder. Through Tien Fu Wu, Miss Cameron said, “You will soon have plenty to eat. A bed to sleep in. A chance to learn skills to prepare you for a full life.”

  Mei Lien nodded, although she wasn’t entirely sure she believed this woman’s words. What if this were some delightful dream from which she would soon awake, only to find that the Fahn Quai had come to drag her to Diyu—a dark hell?

  When Tien Fu Wu said, “No one is following us,” Mei Lien found herself starting to relax.

  And she was so very tired. “We lost them?” She hardly dared believe they could escape men in the tong.

  “We’ve lost them,” Tien Fu Wu said.

  Mei Lien noted the hesitation in her voice, but her exhaustion won out, and she allowed her eyes to close. The warmth of the blanket along with the motion of the buggy soon lulled her to sleep.

  A tap on her shoulder sometime later awakened Mei Lien, and for a moment she froze, wondering who had entered her locked room and what they would ask of her. But then the memories of her rescue flowed into her mind. She cracked her eyes open to find that it was still dark outside, and Miss Cameron was smiling at her.

  Mei Lien saw Tien Fu Wu’s face as well. Her eyes were warm, so unlike Ah-Peen Oie’s eyes filled with distrust and hatred.

  “We’re at 920,” Tien Fu Wu said.

  Mei Lien straightened and looked out the window. They were in a small alley, one with brick buildings on both sides. Looking up, she could see the sliver of a cloudy night sky.

  “This is your new home,” Tien Fu Wu said. “But we need to enter through a tunnel in case any of the tong are watching.”

  At the mention of the tong, it felt like needles scraped her skin.

  But Tien Fu Wu grasped her hand. “I will come with you while Miss Cameron enters the front of the building. No one will see us go in.”

  Mei Lien nodded. “All right,” she said in a voice thick with sleep.

  The door to the buggy opened, and the driver motioned for Tien Fu Wu and Mei Lien to hurry.

  Mei Lien needed no prodding to climb out of the buggy. She winced at the aches that shot through her body, but she moved quickly and followed Tien Fu Wu. The woman led her along the alley, then stopped at a grate that covered a window. Instead of moving the grate, though, she lifted a heavy board on the ground.

  “Down here,” Tien Fu Wu said. “Hurry. Feel for the ladder.”

  Mei Lien stared into the blackness as cold rushed over her. “I cannot.”

  Tien Fu Wu grasped her hand. “You must. There are no evil spirits inside. I have been through many times.”

  Still, Mei Lien couldn’t climb in. She scanned the dark alley. The stench reminded her of the streets where she had tried to flee but had only been captured again. “Is there no other way in?”

  “The tong went to great lengths to recapture you,” Tien Fu Wu said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Huan Sun told us what happened. They will try to find you again. You need to go through this tunnel, or I cannot protect you.”

  Mei Lien squeezed her eyes shut and thought of Huan Sun. The last time she had seen him, his face was bruised and his lip split open. “I will go.” She swallowed back her fear, then knelt on the ground. She felt around until she touched the top of a ladder. Then she turned and descended into the darkness.

  Tien Fu Wu came after her and pulled the board back into place, sending the two of them into utter black.
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br />   “Go slowly and feel your way,” Tien Fu Wu said quietly, her voice sounding hollow in the narrow space.

  “How far down do we go?” Mei Lien asked.

  “We’re halfway there,” Tien Fu Wu’s voice returned. “Keep moving.”

  Mei Lien tried not to let the darkness steal her breath. When her feet reached the bottom, she still couldn’t see anything. She felt along the wall and stepped carefully to one side to give Tien Fu Wu room to step down.

  “Now we have to crawl.” The woman’s warm breath rushed over Mei Lien’s face as she spoke. “Hold onto me and let me guide you.”

  Mei Lien grasped the woman’s clothing, then knelt. The tunnel was not much larger than what anyone could crawl through. There was no way to stand, and Mei Lien tried not to think about how she was beneath a street. Her damp palms slipped against the ground more than once as she crawled. The air was cool and damp, and frequent chills raced through her.

  Tien Fu Wu didn’t speak, but Mei Lien could hear her breathing, and it gave her courage to keep moving even though the very air around her seemed to be pressing her into the ground. The darkness of the tunnel reminded her of the feeling of helplessness she had when Ah-Peen Oie had locked her in. Then the tunnel curved upward, and bits of dirt and rock slid past her as Tien Fu Wu led the way.

  “We’re here,” Tien Fu Wu said.

  Mei Lien wiped at the tears on her cheeks as Tien Fu Wu rose to her feet. Then she grasped Mei Lien’s hand and helped her rise. The area was still underground, and the darkness still surrounded them, but at least Mei Lien could stand.

  “Come.” Tien Fu Wu clasped Mei Lien’s arm. “Miss Cameron will be waiting for us.”

  Mei Lien walked on shaky legs through the underground room; then they headed up narrow stairs made of creaking wood. Tien Fu Wu opened a door, and there it was.

  Light.

  Miss Cameron stood with a burning candle in hand, waiting for them in a narrow corridor. “You are safe now, Mei Lien.”