Women of the Silk

by Gail Tsukiyama

  “He handed it to me,” Moi said, as she lifted the rest of the bok choy and tossed it towards Auntie Yee. “He knows a good or bad bunch by touch. He is a tricky one!”

  “Aii-ya!” Auntie Yee sighed as she lifted her hands above her head.

  “A tricky one!” Moi continued, mumbling her displeasure to Auntie Yee. With almost everybody else in the house, Moi remained silent. She made herself noticed in other ways, by suspicious stares and slamming doors.

  Auntie Yee had found Moi living on the streets. Moi had been with her since the beginning of the girls’ house. For a place to sleep, Moi became her cook and housekeeper, even before Auntie Yee knew if she could cook or clean. The truth was, she felt sorry for Moi, and began watching the way Moi limped from street to street, always holding her head up so proudly. And unlike others who made their lives on the street, Moi had managed to keep herself relatively neat and clean.

  Auntie Yee once watched Moi digging through some garbage for food. When she found some scraps, Moi wrapped them carefully in a handkerchief. Then, rather than eat them herself, she fed the few precious scraps to a starving dog. When Auntie Yee finally approached her, Moi eyed her suspiciously and spat on the ground next to where she stood. When Auntie Yee didn’t move away, Moi dropped her bedding and listened to what Auntie Yee had to say.

  “I need a cook,” Auntie Yee had said.

  “What is it to me?” asked Moi.

  “The job is yours if you want it,” Auntie Yee answered.

  “Why?” Moi’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Auntie Yee.

  “Because I can offer you nothing more than a warm room and a cot to sleep on.”

  Moi shifted. “How do you know if I can cook?”

  “I don’t,” Auntie Yee answered.

  “How do you know I won’t rob you blind?”

  “I don’t.”

  Moi laughed. Several missing teeth left darkened holes on one side of her mouth. She picked up her bedding and followed Auntie Yee back to the girls’ house.

  Auntie Yee couldn’t have managed without Moi. The last time she had offered to hire a new cook, Moi refused with anger. “No!” she snapped. “Moi is the only cook here, unless Moi is not good enough for you!” Auntie Yee would then waste the next hour soothing her. After so many years, Moi still worried about ending up on the streets again. She had little trust in anyone, not even Auntie Yee.

  Auntie Yee had been seven years old when she was given to the silk work. She lived in a girls’ house until she was twelve, and then was made to marry. Like many girls, Auntie Yee was forced into marriage against her will. Her father knew that if no daughter was sent out in marriage, her brothers would receive no wives in return. Auntie Yee left the silk work and was sold to a struggling farmer. Before him, the only males she had known were her father and brothers. The farmer was decent enough and did not force himself on her when he saw how scared she was. He only laughed and said, “There will be plenty of time for more later!” For the first three nights of their marriage, he seemed satisfied with touching her and having her touch him. She felt only fear when he grabbed at her, but when she touched him long enough in one place, his body would tighten and arch with a low moan, as if he were in pain. Then he would leave her alone for sleep.

  Before her marriage, Auntie Yee had heard stories of married life from the older girls at the girls’ house. “Some girls are beaten into submission,” they had said. “But the worst are the ‘stone girls’ who are made to take bitter medicine by their mother-in-laws. They are ridiculed and scrutinized from morning until night for not fulfilling their wifely duties. It is a fate I would wish on no one, not even my most hated enemy!”

  Following custom, Auntie Yee was allowed to return home to visit her family three days after her marriage. She knew if she were allowed to leave the farmer, she would never return to him and his family. There was no telling when he would force himself on her. She couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in the same bed with him ever again. She decided then to return to the sisterhood and remain celibate. She simply returned to the village and resumed her work at the silk factory. There were few objections from her husband and his family. She was never very nice to look at, and could do much more for them by working to support her husband, the concubine she procured for him, and their children. In return, Auntie Yee would be able to remain celibate and her husband’s first daughter, Chen Ling, would come to her when she was of age.

  Auntie Yee knew she had been a fortunate one. Even now she believed her good fortune to be the result of the lucky charms given to her by the girls at the girls’ house to ward off her husband’s advances. She had kept them hidden away from his sight. To this day she kept the few tarnished trinkets and withered herbs carefully wrapped in silk underneath her pillow.

  Over the years, Auntie Yee had many difficulties, both in starting her own girls’ house and in supporting her husband’s family. She worked long hours and borrowed from her sisters at the silk factory until she had enough money. The girls came afterward, one by one like stray cats, filling the house with bodies and voices. Chen Ling came to Auntie Yee soon after. Auntie Yee was her other mother, and Chen Ling was a young girl who already seemed old.

  After evening meal, Auntie Yee watched Chen Ling take the precious volume down from the shelf in the reading room. Chen Ling’s body was thick and square like hers. It was amazing how alike they looked, even though Chen Ling didn’t have one drop of Auntie Yee’s blood. She had never seen Chen Ling’s hand caress anything but this book. With low whispers the girls eagerly waited for Chen Ling to begin reading the ballad of Kuan Yin to them. Kuan Yin was the goddess of mercy. It had always been the girls’ favorite among the ballads in the book.

  “Kuan Yin alone fought against all the objections of her family to become a nun,” Chen Ling said with great enthusiasm. Her voice resonated against the walls of the room as she read. Chen Ling had a talent for speaking. Auntie Yee still wondered where it came from; certainly not from her or from Chen Ling’s sad-faced father and mother.

  Chen Ling wasn’t like the other girls. She had always kept her distance from everyone, ever since she was a young girl coming to live with Auntie Yee. How resistant and cautious she was at first, and so self-sufficient that Auntie Yee’s heart sank at not being able to do the small motherly things she had thought about. Chen Ling reserved her enthusiasm for the great volumes in which she read of the religious life. Even so, Auntie Yee had come to love Chen Ling, despite her religious beliefs and her rigid ways. She loved all the girls, but Chen Ling was her own. But whenever Chen Ling spoke of equality between men and women, Auntie Yee shook her head and didn’t listen. It was enough to keep the girls’ house running without all this other nonsense!

  Chen Ling had made Auntie Yee proud. She quickly established herself as an efficient, hard worker and in a short time had risen within the ranks of the silk factory. What mother could ask for more?

  Auntie Yee indulged her when allowed, buying for Chen Ling the religious books and pamphlets she read one after another. It was through them that Chen Ling had come into her own. With great fervor she spoke to the girls after evening meals, telling them of the advantages they had in remaining pure in the sisterhood.

  “Why do we need a husband to mock us and a mother-in-law to beat us? This way we can dictate our own lives and remain free!” Chen Ling said.

  Suddenly the girls who had sat quietly listening would clap and chant, “Kuan Yin! Kuan Yin!”

  Chen Ling paced the floor, her arms rising up and down in quick, jerky movements. Sometimes Auntie Yee could hardly recognize this young woman who was her daughter.

  Auntie Yee knew that many of the girls, afraid of Chen Ling, remained at a safe distance from her. Lin and the new girl, Pei, watched with interest, but Auntie Yee knew they would never conform to Chen Ling’s way. It was not in them, as it was not in her.

  But Chen Ling had captured a small group of girls who followed her without reservation, especially one g
irl named Ming. Auntie Yee could only shake her head when she saw how Ming followed Chen Ling around like a puppy dog. Ming was a thin, serious girl who was on the plain side and appeared very intelligent and eager to please. She and Chen Ling were almost inseparable, spending hours together reading the good books. For the most part, Auntie Yee was happy that Chen Ling had found such a friend.

  The Pond

  In the waning light Yu-sung packed the last of the mulberry leaves in a basket. Then, looking up, she shifted the baby Yu-ling into a comfortable spot on her back and looked for any sign of Pao coming up from the ponds. Since Pei had gone away, Pao worked longer and harder than ever. Their days and nights were filled with a thick silence, no longer burdened by Pei’s curious chatter. Yu-sung kept Li and the baby out of Pao’s way and simply let him work his way toward his own peace.

  Once, when it was still dark, Yu-sung awakened to find Pao no longer beside her. Her sleep had become as haphazard as his. Through a crack in the curtain she looked hard to see the shadowy outline of her husband sitting in the dark. Neither of them made a move. Pao had aged in the past few months, and even in the darkness he was stooped over as though some great weight bore down on him. They remained frozen in this position until something foreign reached her ears. Yu-sung strained to make it out. She turned quickly around to make sure it was not Yu-ling, who was still sleeping soundly. The strange muffled sound cracked through the silence. When she looked again, Pao’s face was buried in his arms and she could tell the soft whimpering was coming from him. Her first instinct was to comfort him as she would her children, but she didn’t move, remembering that, before anything, he was her husband.

  Outside, the air was cool and sharp. In the hollow darkness, everything seem to echo around Pao. He could just make out the faint glow of the ponds and the dark brooding mulberries that surrounded them. It was because of the ponds and groves that he found a place on this earth, a reason more powerful than blood. Long after he was gone, they would remain.

  Pao wandered instinctively down to the largest of his ponds. He often did this when he could not sleep. Sitting on the dry dirt, he waited for something, but he was not quite certain of what. He tried not to think of Pei or hear her voice, which sometimes followed him into his sleep. In one moment of weakness, he had thought of taking Pei’s arm and running from the girls’ house, but he had stood firm as she turned into the house with Auntie Yee. He could only hope she was happy there among the other girls.

  Suddenly Pao turned his attention back to the pond. In its blackness he looked hard for any movement, the smallest flicker of life. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw a ripple in the calm surface. Quickly Pao stood up and looked harder, but nothing stirred in the empty pond. Still, he felt a warmth spread through him. He stood there waiting for some movement to return.

  Then slowly Pao lowered himself into the cold water, feeling more alive than he had in months. The cold spread the length of his cotton pants, but as Pao pushed against the water he felt like a boy again. He imagined the invisible fish, hundreds of them, almost knocking him off balance. Still, he persisted, and step by step Pao moved closer to the center, reliving those days of abundance, when he pushed the metal net and took the frantic fish towards their certain death.

  The sky had lightened considerably by the time Pao made his way back to the house. The first stirrings of the day began with the waking birds. It would be another mild day. He paused just a moment outside the door and listened for Yu-sung’s quiet movements. Then he went in. She stood by the fire stirring the jook as the thick steam filled the room. Neither of them said a word. Yu-sung’s hair was pulled tightly back into a knot. His eyes caught hers and he saw the weariness in them before she turned away. Pao sat down and watched as she placed a bowl of jook in front of him. He wanted to say something of how he felt about the fish and the ponds, but he kept silent.

  Chapter Four

  1925

  Pei

  Pei’s days at the silk factory were very long. The girls arrived every morning at five thirty. When the horn wailed its low cry for them to stop working at seven thirty each evening, they left the factory wilted and drained from the wet heat. Most of the time they were given half an hour for lunch and ten minutes off for every three hours they worked. Sometimes, if they were behind their quota, these breaks never came. The male managers hired by the owner, Chung, waved their sticks and shouted, “Keep working!” The girls reluctantly obeyed.

  Many of the girls argued and complained bitterly among themselves. “We are here before the sun rises,” said one girl, poking at the mass of cocoons dropped in her basin, “and they won’t even give us time to relieve ourselves!”

  “Let’s see how they feel standing all day in this heat!” another voice said.

  Still, they bit their, lips and kept working.

  Like all the new girls, Pei had begun in the sorting room. The dim, hollow room filled with cocoons smelled stale and musty. She tried very hard not to ask too many questions of Lin, but every step was like a new adventure, from transporting cocoons on wooden carts from one room to another, to standing behind the long wooden tables sorting out the mountains of white. The girls who once whispered secrets about her now spoke in the same secretive hush with her. Soon Pei could tell a good cocoon from a bad one simply by touch, by the texture and the firmness of its shell. A year later she was promoted to standing before a metal basin of steaming water soaking the cocoons. With her forked stick she poked the white mass of cocoons, which floated to the surface like tiny islands. The steam and the slightly sweet smell of the cocoons boiling soon became a familiar part of her new life.

  In the beginning Chen Ling watched over her from a distance, like a bird hovering. But when she saw that Pei could hold her own, Chen Ling disappeared back into the tiny hole of her office and was rarely seen.

  The first few months were miserable for Pei. She missed her family terribly. Sometimes, after everyone was asleep, she let her tears flow freely, her face pressed into her pillow. She often fell asleep exhausted by grief Gradually, with the help and kindness of Lin and Mei-li, she grew accustomed to the rigorous routine and the long hours of standing.

  Pei slowly began to feel comfortable working in the silk factory and living at the girls’ house. Everything was new and exciting. She saw and felt things she had never dreamed of Every other month, Lin took Pei to the theater, where a traveling troupe of actors would paint their faces white and portray both the men and women in an opera. They sang in high, whiny voices and moved gracefully across the stage. Pei sat on the hard wooden bench, completely still, captivated by the splendor of light and music. Afterward, she would ask Lin question after question. “Was it really a man who portrayed the woman?” Or, “Why would he have killed himself over such a little thing?” Lin always laughed and patiently answered Pei as well as she could. At other times, Pei might go with Lin and a group of the girls to visit the village temple, its vibrant red-and-gold altar the biggest and most ornate she’d ever seen.

  During the first year of learning the silk work, Pei realized there was very little time for memories. Some evenings she was so tired she could barely stand, but the faces of her family still appeared in her dreams, only to grow more vivid each year during the Dragon Boat Festival. Even now, after almost six years, Pei still felt a pain in the middle of her stomach whenever they were given a Jong for evening meal. She tried hard to imagine how Li and her mother must look, but the years had dimmed their colors. Sometimes, Pei was afraid she would one day pass her sister Li on the street and they would be strangers. And, unlike those of some other girls at the girls’ house, Pei’s family never came to visit. Occasionally, she made up small excuses for them: Her father could not leave his ponds; or, her mother was not up to traveling so far. But deep inside, Pei knew they would never come; they had given her to the silk work. It was as if they no longer had a daughter.

  Since coming to the girls’ house, Lin and Mei-li had become Pei’s closest companio
ns. Pei’s most private feelings were saved for Lin, but lately Lin was always so busy at the factory. She had moved from reeling silk to supervising the girls in another building. Pei missed her terribly. She knew that it was an important step for Lin, but she’d begun to feel abandoned by her. With Mei-li, it was enough that they laughed and had fun together.

  Mei-li was always good-natured and laughed with a high, tinny shrill. She had come to the girls’ house two years before Pei, fitting in without any major complications. With her easy disposition, Mei-li had no problems making friends. Even when there were bad feelings between the girls at the house, their long silences and violent bursts of emotion didn’t touch Mei-li, who remained neutral and friendly to all.

  Mei-li’s parents came to visit her religiously every month. They brought her gifts of dried beef, pickles, and sugar candy. She shared most of this with Auntie Yee and the girls—all except the sugar candy, which she saved and shared only with Pei.

  On one occasion, when Mei-li and Pei were walking back to the girls’ house from the silk factory, Pei asked, “What do your parents talk about when they come every month?”

  “About our family mostly, my brothers and their wives. My mother complains of their laziness!” Mei-li laughed.

  “Don’t they obey her?”

  “They’re sly, my mother complains. When she turns her back they do the opposite of what she tells them.”

  “What does your father say?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “My parents say very little. They have always had to work very hard. That’s probably why they never come to visit.” Pei paused, realizing it hurt just as much to say this aloud as to think it. “Do you ever want to go back home with your parents?”