The Paper Daughters of Chinatown

by Heather B. Moore

  “Last night we went on a rescue,” Miss Cameron said, and Tien translated.

  Mei Lien straightened in her chair. This was not what she had expected to hear.

  “We went to the house off Commercial Street,” Miss Cameron continued.

  At this, Mei Lien felt sick. Had they found another beaten and abused girl like her? Had Zhang Wei done something terrible? What about Ah-Peen Oie? Would Miss Cameron be forced to return Mei Lien to those slave owners’ hands?

  “The place has been cleared out,” Miss Cameron said. “Sold off.”

  Mei Lien wrinkled her brow. “What happened?” she whispered.

  Tien continued to translate, and Miss Cameron said, “Only one person was left inside the building. She was the one who sent the note for rescue.”

  Mei Lien thought of the girls she had known at the house. Had one of them found out about the mission home somehow and sent for help? Or . . . had it been a trap?

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Ah-Peen Oie sent the note for help—to rescue herself, ” Miss Cameron said.

  Mei Lien stared at the director’s tired eyes and disheveled hair. Surely what she was hearing couldn’t be true. And surely Miss Cameron had seen through the ruse.

  “Ah-Peen Oie said she was desperate. She owes thousands of dollars to two different men, and her original slave owner claims he still owns her.” Miss Cameron moved around the desk until she was near the second chair in the office. She took a seat and grasped Mei Lien’s hands. “I was about to leave, but she pleaded with me on her hands and knees.”

  “She’s a liar,” Mei Lien hissed, pulling her hands away. “She was never a slave.”

  Miss Cameron exhaled. “I spent half the night gathering information through my sources. She was a slave once, and she bought her freedom. She owes Sing Choy two thousand dollars. And Hip Chang is trying to sell her to Wong Dick for three thousand.”

  Mei Lien didn’t care about Ah-Peen Oie’s problems. She deserved them. “I hope you kicked her like a dog.” The words were harsh, but since coming to the mission home, she had found other girls who had crossed paths with Ah-Peen Oie. No one had anything good to say about the demon woman.

  Miss Cameron looked down at her hands for a moment, and when she again gazed at Mei Lien, there were tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t fully trust her either, Mei Lien,” Miss Cameron said. “But I know desperation when I see it. Hundreds of times, I’ve seen desperation. And Ah-Peen Oie is desperate. Does that mean her heart has changed? That she is remorseful for all her crimes? I don’t know yet.”

  Mei Lien’s mouth opened, then shut. What could she say? It was unbelievable that Miss Cameron, of all people in San Francisco, could be duped by the devil woman.

  “We’ve taken her to the city prison,” Miss Cameron said. “I know the matron there, and she’ll keep her through the rest of today. Then we’re going to move Ah-Peen Oie to a schoolroom on Joice Street that’s no longer used. She’ll be kept under lock and key until we decide what to do with her.”

  Mei Lien’s mind churned. This seemed beyond any compassion that Ah-Peen Oie deserved. “She owned other slave girls in this house. She abused them and forced them into prostitution.”

  “I know,” Miss Cameron said, her tone soft, remorseful. “That is why she will not be brought here. We will keep her completely separate.”

  Mei Lien shook her head, unbelieving. Her gaze connected with Tien’s, and in the translator’s eyes, Mei Lien saw that she didn’t agree with Miss Cameron’s actions either.

  “So, she’ll live behind a locked door now,” Mei Lien said with bitterness churning her stomach. “How fitting. I lived behind Ah-Peen Oie’s locked door for months.”

  “Mei Lien,” Miss Cameron said softly, urgently. “The girls in this home will always be my priority. You are my priority.”

  Mei Lien looked away, her eyes burning with emotion. Miss Cameron had changed her life. If it weren’t for her, Mei Lien doubted she would be alive today. But if Miss Cameron believed in rescuing enslaved women, then how could she help their perpetrators?

  “I do not know all the events that led Ah-Peen Oie to her actions of depravity,” Miss Cameron continued. “But I have been reading from the Bible this past hour about how the Lord taught the sinners and the shunned. How he extended a merciful hand to them and gave them a chance to change. When the Lord visited the woman at the well in Samaria, she was living in sin, yet the Lord offered her the living waters. Will Ah-Peen Oie truly change? I don’t know.” She broke off, and silence surrounded them.

  The first bird began to sing outside the office window, a faint, mournful tune.

  Mei Lien sniffled as tears coursed down her cheeks. If Ah-Peen Oie had been a slave early in her life, then turned that around to become the mistress of her own fate, weren’t they all in the same wretched cycle not of their own making? A cycle of greed, immoral appetites, and desperation?

  Mei Lien had learned many of the Bible stories over her time at the mission home, and she was familiar with the story of the woman of Samaria. The staff had taught that they were all beggars beholden to a higher being.

  Miss Cameron handed over her monogrammed handkerchief to Mei Lien, and she wiped her tears. Then she met the director’s gaze. In Miss Cameron’s green eyes, Mei Lien saw light and love, a sharp contrast to the harsh darkness of Ah-Peen Oie’s. Miss Cameron had battled with this decision deeply. That much was clear.

  If her faith had guided Miss Cameron through her rescues over the past decade in Chinatown, then perhaps this most recent rescue had a purpose as well.

  “All right,” Mei Lien said at last. “Thank you for telling me. Although I do not know if I will ever be able to look upon the woman again.”

  “I would never force you to do something you didn’t want to,” Miss Cameron said.

  Mei Lien nodded and closed her eyes. “I know.” She dropped her head into her hands, and her shoulders shook as she silently cried. She had been hoping to get news about Huan Sun. But perhaps the fall of Ah-Peen Oie was the first step in giving Huan Sun the chance to return to San Francisco. Fear and worry clashed in her chest. Worry for Huan Sun. Fear for the darkness that crept into the edges of her mind with the news about Ah-Peen Oie.

  Miss Cameron wrapped an arm about Mei Lien’s shoulders. “All will be well, dear Mei Lien,” Miss Cameron said. “We must trust in that.”

  And Mei Lien tried.

  Over the next few days, she carried the knowledge in her heart that her former slave owner was being kept under lock and key a few streets away. Tien and other staff helpers took food to the woman three times a day. They had informed the other residents at the mission home, but Mei Lien refused to talk to anyone about the woman who had mistreated her so badly.

  When Miss Cameron told Mei Lien that Ah-Peen Oie was gravely ill and had been taken to Lane Hospital for an operation, Mei Lien didn’t know how to react, what to feel. The thought of Ah-Peen Oie dying did odd things to Mei Lien’s mind. It would be a relief, to be sure, but it would also be an added weight. Had Mei Lien willed the woman’s fate toward such an end? Did that make Mei Lien herself no better than the slave owner?

  But Ah-Peen Oie recovered, and, strangely, Mei Lien was relieved. She had heard reports from the staff members who fed the woman that she was a changed person. Mei Lien had yet to see for herself, and she wondered if that day would ever come—a day when Mei Lien could look upon her former slave owner again and hear her plea for forgiveness.

  That day of testing came soon enough. Tien was the one to knock on her door one morning, and when Mei Lien opened it, she found Miss Cameron standing there too. By the looks on their faces, she knew they were there for an important reason.

  “Mei Lien.” Miss Cameron’s voice was soft, and Tien translated. “We’ve come to ask if you would consider meeting with Ah-Peen Oie. We know this
is a lot to ask, so if you aren’t ready yet, we’ll completely understand.”

  Mei Lien waited for the pain to lance through her body, to buckle her knees, to make her heart grow cold. But none of that happened. A bird began its song outside her window; one of the girls laughed in a distant room; someone ran down the stairs, their footsteps thumping along.

  Life had moved on. Mei Lien had a baby boy now. She’d gained friends. She’d learned some English. She’d sung hymns and recited scripture. She had come to recognize that every morning and every evening was a gift—a gift of a new life.

  She could very well understand another person wanting to change, to grow, and to become like new. Shed the old life. The darkness. The sins.

  Just as Mei Lien had.

  “I will come,” she whispered, because she didn’t trust her voice. Her eyes were already watering by the time she met Tien’s gaze. “Can you stay here with my baby?”

  “Of course,” Tien said.

  Then Mei Lien grasped Miss Cameron’s hand, holding on as if she needed the support. “Where is she?”

  “She is waiting in my office,” Miss Cameron murmured.

  Mei Lien walked along the corridor, her heart thumping louder than her footsteps. By the time they reached Miss Cameron’s office, Mei Lien had changed her mind a dozen times. The only thing keeping her feet moving forward was her grip on Miss Cameron’s steady hand.

  Miss Cameron opened the door.

  And there she was. Ah-Peen Oie was no longer wearing a silk dress. Her hair was not swept into an elegant style. She wore no makeup. Her hair had been cut short and now framed a face with aging lines. Her clothing was a simple white tunic over white trousers. She could have been anyone on the street, but there was no doubt it was the same slave owner. But the most significant change was that the woman’s eyes had changed. Gone was the hatred from their dark depths.

  The light in Ah-Peen Oie’s eyes told Mei Lien that the slave owner’s soul had changed too.

  The woman sank to her knees and bowed her head. As Ah-Peen Oie whispered her plea, Mei Lien’s tears dripped down her face. She realized she had wanted to forgive this woman; she wanted to be free of the burden of grief and heartache.

  Instead of the sorrow or anger that Mei Lien had expected to feel toward the woman, she felt a strange kinship. And the very air seemed sweet with love.

  “Ah-Peen Oie,” Mei Lien whispered, kneeling next to the woman and grasping her trembling hands. “I forgive you, and I only wish you happiness and peace.”

  Ah-Peen Oie collapsed against Mei Lien, and the two women held each other, both crying. It was many moments before Mei Lien realized that Miss Cameron had left the room, giving them privacy to talk through their heartaches and hopes for the future.

  After meeting with Ah-Peen Oie, Mei Lien hadn’t expected another miracle. But it seemed her act of forgiveness had opened the floodgates. Another early morning, another sketching session, and Miss Cameron knocked on Mei Lien’s door before the sun crested the neighboring eastern buildings. When Mei Lien answered, Miss Cameron whispered, “Come with me and bring your son.”

  Mei Lien hesitated, but the director looked like she had been crying. Mei Lien picked up her sleeping son from his bed. His dark head lolled against her shoulder, but as they walked down the corridor, he stirred awake.

  Following Miss Cameron, they headed down the back stairs. To the basement? Had Zhang Wei come for her, then? Thankfully, her son was quiet and had laid his sleepy head on her shoulder. But Mei Lien’s heart pounded loudly. At the ground level, Miss Cameron opened the door to the final staircase.

  This couldn’t be good, Mei Lien decided. She had brought nothing for her son. If they had to leave the mission home, they had only the clothing they were wearing. Once they reached the final step with Miss Cameron, Mei Lien saw that there was a light on. The room was full of shadows, but the wan light was enough to reveal the man standing there.

  Mei Lien’s breath hitched. She had been dreaming of Huan Sun’s return for so long, and fearing Zhang Wei’s appearance just as long, that it took her a moment to believe what her eyes were seeing.

  “Huan Sun,” she whispered.

  He looked different, yet the same. His hair was shorter, and he had more lines about his eyes. But those warm brown eyes were the same, as well as the familiar curve of his mouth. He seemed taller than she remembered, yet there was a distinct sag to his shoulders. Had he been doing manual labor? The railroad, mining, or factory work?

  Huan Sun smiled, and then he was walking toward her.

  “Who is this?” Huan Sun asked, resting a hand on her son’s shoulder.

  Her son didn’t flinch; he merely stared at the strange man.

  Seeing the two together left no doubt in Mei Lien’s mind. Huan Sun was the father of her child. They looked like replicas of each other. One had rounded cheeks and bright eyes, the other showed the lines of aging beginning—but their features were the same. The arch of their brows, the shape of their chins, the curve of their mouths. Even their ears were duplicating patterns of each other’s.

  “He is beautiful,” Huan Sun said.

  Mei Lien’s eyes pricked at the sound of his voice. Memories shot through her, good and bad, but none of them mattered now. Huan Sun was here. He’d returned. To her.

  “This is your son, Huan Sun,” she said in a trembling voice.

  He leaned forward and kissed the top of the boy’s head.

  “I still have the pearls.” Slowly, she slid the bracelet from the upper part of her arm to her wrist.

  Huan Sun smiled and lifted her wrist, then placed a tender kiss where the pearls met her skin. When he enfolded both her and the child in his arms, Mei Lien knew that at last, happiness might be possible.

  “We only aim to leave a few words of testimony to bear witness in coming years to the kind care of a loving heavenly Father, and also to the unselfish courage displayed by our Chinese girls throughout the terrifying and distressing experiences of the days in which our city and the Home we loved were wiped out of existence.”

  —Donaldina Cameron, combined 1905–06

  and 1906–07 annual report

  April 1906

  The following year, Dolly’s restlessness had driven her from sleep early in the morning. Today was the annual Occidental Board Meeting. The new housekeeper, Miss Minnie Ferree, and the girls had spent the past few days scrubbing the mission home from top to bottom. Everything from the attic to the basement had been swept, polished, and cleaned. The floors shone, the windows sparkled, and all the woodwork gleamed with a new luster. When Frances Thompson had resigned last December, Dolly had worried about replacing such a faithful and efficient woman. But Miss Ferree had proved very capable.

  Last night, before retiring to bed, Dolly and Tien had double-checked the preparations. Not a thing had been left undone. A couple of women from the board had stayed the night and had also remarked on the cleanliness and order.

  Miss Ferree had pulled the younger girls into a final rehearsal of their sweet song and recitations. Everyone was ready, everything was in place, yet Dolly couldn’t sleep.

  She gazed up at the ceiling and watched the dark of the night fade to the dove gray of morning. She had been the director now for over six years, and every year had had its challenges. Some nights, Dolly dropped into bed exhausted, unable to do one more thing or even think one more thought. Other nights, she didn’t sleep at all, only to go on another rescue.

  Over the past few months, death threats had arrived at the mission home. This was nothing new, but these threats were specifically aimed at Tien. As a budding young woman, her scars had faded and she was pretty in her own right. The threats alternated between capturing her to warning her to stop betraying her own people . . . or else.

  Officer Cook had taken the threats seriously and had made a few of his own threats toward the high
er ranks of the tong. He hoped the message would trickle down, yet on the weekends, when most activity seemed to take place, he frequently posted an officer to keep an eye on the mission home through the night.

  Tien didn’t seem fazed. She kept going on rescues, even as she was preparing for college. Dolly deeply admired her for this, but she also wanted the young interpreter to be safe.

  The mission home was no longer a fable or a whispered secret in Chinatown. Unlike during the first years she had worked there, now it seemed more girls and women showed up at the mission home for help. They were no longer afraid of the missionary women. Even babies were dropped off on their doorstep. There were currently three babies at 920. These babies and younger girls were hard to manage in a household of women who had been through extreme trauma and weren’t always on their best behavior.

  Dolly mulled over one of the requests she wanted to make to the board about opening a second home for the younger children. This way, the younger children’s needs could be fully met, and they wouldn’t be exposed to some of the language or stories that came with mixing all the ages. She planned to involve Mei Lien, who was now married to Huan Sun. They lived in Oakland and ran a tailoring shop there. Mei Lien was pregnant again, and Dolly loved the idea of including the young woman in the organization of the new home for babies.

  Mei Lien’s forgiveness of Ah-Peen Oie had been perhaps the most tender moment Dolly had ever witnessed. The former slave owner had recovered from her surgery, then had declared that she wanted to study Christianity. Dolly remained skeptical for months and kept Ah-Peen Oie separated from the girls at the mission home. It wasn’t until an acquaintance had agreed to tutor Ah-Peen Oie that Dolly began to fully trust in the woman’s change of heart.

  The weeks had turned into months, and Ah-Peen Oie became one of the most devoted women Dolly had ever met. She was humble, she was a hard worker, and she made it her new mission to serve others. Perhaps it had been a leap of faith to let her begin working on the looms in the industrial department, but Ah-Peen Oie continued to prove herself over and over. She went from being a hard worker at the looms to being suggested by Tien to fill in a vacancy at the mission home kitchen.