Women of the Silk

by Gail Tsukiyama

But one evening, Auntie Yee had entered right through the back door, dressed in the same white tunic she was buried in. In her hand she carried the pearl that had been placed between her lips.

  “Who are you?” Moi hissed, lifting the cleaver up as the blood dripped from her cut finger onto the floor.

  Auntie Yee kept walking toward her. When she reached the table Auntie Yee sat down in the chair across from Moi, as she had often done when she was alive. When Auntie Yee smiled, exposing her crooked teeth, Moi knew that she had really come back to her.

  “Have I also entered the life after?” Moi wondered aloud, calm at the thought.

  Auntie Yee laughed and pointed to Moi’s finger. “By the looks of that, you’re very much alive,” she answered, assuring Moi that life remained with her.

  Moi lowered the cleaver and felt the sudden throbbing of her bleeding finger..

  After that first night, Auntie Yee often came to visit. They spoke in low tones in the kitchen while Moi cooked, before the girls came back from the factory. For the most part Auntie Yee was happy where she was, though she spoke little of the life after. Most of their conversation dealt with the running of the girls’ house now that Chen Ling had taken over. Moi asked little of Auntie Yee, only too grateful for the company.

  Moi put a spoonful of vegetable mixture into the middle of a small circle of her rolled-out dough. With her fingers she quickly pinched the edges together in the shape of a half-moon and added the dumpling to her growing collection. When Moi felt there were enough, she dropped half of her dumplings into a large pot of boiling soup. The other half she steamed in bamboo baskets, one stacked on top of the other.

  At any moment Chen Ling and Ming would return with the soy-sauce chicken and some incense. Moi wrapped the last of the dumplings and waited. They were already late and would have to hurry off to the cemetery, where Lin, Pei, and the others would be waiting for them with the roast pig. When Moi heard a noise, she quickly looked up, hoping it might be Auntie Yee, but it was only a stray dog scratching at the back door.

  The morning air was still fresh when they arrived at the cemetery. Chen Ling had spared no expense in erecting a suitable memorial for Auntie Yee. The white marble headstone stood upwards of six feet tall; it was flanked by two angels on either side, especially carved and brought back from Canton. On the headstone was an inlaid photo of Auntie Yee, taken when she was still a young woman, and underneath it were a few words describing her life. The inscription ended with a large gold engraving:

  “BELOVED MOTHER OF MANY.”

  Lin and Pei were already waiting. A makeshift table held an entire roast pig and the sweet cakes Auntie Yee loved. Moi placed the dim sum and chicken next to them, then looked around to see if Auntie Yee might be waiting for them. When she saw that Auntie Yee was nowhere in sight, Moi took a bowl and filled it with choice pieces of pork and chicken. In another bowl she put the dumplings and cakes, along with a pair of chopsticks, and placed them next to Auntie Yee’s headstone. One by one, Chen Ling and the rest joined Moi around the headstone, respectfully kowtowing to Auntie Yee. Thin, dark strips of smoke drifted into the air as they burned the incense and the gold, silver, and white paper money that would go to Auntie Yee in the next life.

  Afterward, when they all sat down to eat, Moi stood aside. Even at Chen Ling and Ming’s urging, Moi could not bring herself to join them. She was too accustomed to eating alone in her kitchen, and stubbornly refused to break her habit now.

  Then something made Moi turn around quickly. She almost cried out in happiness when she saw Auntie Yee sitting at her gravestone. Very slowly, Auntie Yee picked up the food that had been left for her and, without saying a word, lifted her hand and gestured toward the others. Moi remained silent and smiled, then obediently made her way back to eat with the others.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1936

  Pei

  The music blared harsh and scratchy from the machine called a phonograph. The phonograph and records were a gift from Lin’s younger brother, Ho Yung. They came all the way from Canton and had been hand-delivered to the sisters’ house so that nothing would be broken. Chen Ling, Ming, and even the reclusive Moi came over in the evening, curious to hear what miracles the machine could create. The first time Lin wound the handle and placed the needle on the record, the music erupted like a scream from the phonograph’s long sprouting horn. The sudden wail frightened them and sent several for cover. Moi shook her head and mumbled, “Who would send such a thing, filled with spirits trying to get out!”

  In a note accompanying the gift, Ho Yung wrote to them about different dances, each step vividly described. He had written regularly since their visit to Canton and was now working in the trade business, having defied his mother’s wishes for him to follow his brother into a government position. “Somebody has to support the family when the government collapses!” Ho Yung wrote. He traveled regularly from Canton to Hong Kong, and sometimes even to London and Paris, and other places Pei could only dream about. Often he sent them gifts and vivid descriptions of the cities and people. Lin read his letters aloud, proud of her younger brother. They had much in common now, both of them defying their mother and choosing their own paths. Pei knew Ho Yung’s letters and gifts brought Lin great happiness, filling a void left by her mother. Pei began to gain something too, a new sight of a world she longed to see.

  The girls giggled when the first foreign sounds entered the room, then fell silent and curious as the music continued. The song, which played in distinct beats, was something called a tango.

  A moment later, Lin stood up. “Let’s try this tango. Just follow me,” she said, taking Pei’s hand and slipping her arm around Pei’s waist. In the next moment Lin was following Ho Yung’s instructions, and gliding with Pei down the length of the room to the beat of the music. Pei concentrated so hard it took her a few minutes to realize the rest of the girls in the room were laughing at them.

  Kung Ma, who usually just smiled at their antics, was laughing so hard she fell back into a chair. Not long ago they had gone to see a moving-picture show, the first in Yung Kee. It showed tall, splendid white devils dancing across a shiny dance floor, dressed in a glitter of finery such as Pei had never seen before. This was what Pei saw again in her mind as Lin moved her across the floor. Slowly the others stopped laughing, and gradually tried to join them, following the moves Lin tried so carefully to imitate.

  “Now turn!” Lin shouted. They switched hands and turned their bodies awkwardly in the opposite direction. The others clumsily followed, knocking into each other.

  “No, no, not that way!” said Kung Ma suddenly, jumping onto her feet. “The change of hands must be sharper, like this.” She took Pei’s hand and led her back across the room, only this time there was no hesitation. Kung Ma turned Pei with a pronounced yet graceful change and led her back to Lin.

  “Where did you learn to dance?” Lin asked, as surprised as the rest of them.

  “I wasn’t always a silk worker.” Kung Ma laughed. She waved her hand in the air and took a quick spin, her thickening body still light and fluid. “A girl from Hong Kong taught me,” she finally admitted. “Just before she left our girls’ house to be married. Her mother was once a professional dancer in Hong Kong. When her mother became ill, the daughter was sent here to do silk work. Shortly after, she was called back to Hong Kong to be married. It must be almost twenty years ago now. Well, until she left, she would teach us a few steps each evening.”

  “Will you teach us?” Pei asked.

  Kung Ma blushed. “It was so long ago. I hardly remember anything.”

  “You know more than any of us,” Pei said pleadingly.

  Lin walked over to the phonograph and lifted the needle. Instantly the room was silent.

  “All right,” King Ma finally agreed. “Start the record over. Let’s begin with the tango!”

  For the rest of the evening, the room was filled with laughter, childlike and contagious. Even Moi participated in their dan
ce class by changing the records, once she had been convinced that no spirits lived inside the phonograph. It seemed like such a long time since they had had so much fun. The slow spread of Japanese threats seemed far away, lost in the tango and another dance Kung Ma had learned, called a waltz. Kung Ma was like a different person, someone Pei had never known, so young and carefree. They all were. The music moved through the air around them, filling the room.

  The Year of the Rat was almost upon them. Only during the New Year were they given a week off and allowed the luxury of some free time. The silk factory closed down and they were left to their own wanderings—but only after their New Year’s preparations were done.

  Nothing was taken for granted in order to start the New Year in purity. Pei and Lin immediately began cleaning the sisters’ house and washing their clothes for the New Year. Each year they all scrubbed behind doors and under beds till their hands were raw and the floors rediscovered their natural color.

  It was a relief when Kung Ma asked Pei and Lin to pick up some nien kao at the bakery. Nien kao was the sticky sweet cake that Pei loved best about welcoming in the year. Few shops stayed open during the week, except for the market stalls and those that prepared nien kao.

  “I love this time of year,” Lin said happily as they walked through the streets filled with people. Red-and-gold banners, for felicity and prosperity, hung from windows and doorways. “It’s the one time that all of China celebrates together!”

  “Even with the war?” Pei asked Lin.

  “Especially because of the war,” she answered.

  And even if Pei wasn’t so sure this was true up north, she kept silent. Pei knew China was struggling. What little information they received came from Ho Yung’s letters and from the merchants and peddlers who made their way to the sisters’ house, selling their wares and dispersing the bits of information they gathered along the way. Pei and Lin listened, drinking it all in with a great thirst.

  “It does not look good, Missy,” the last peddler had said. “China is surely to fall under the weight of the Japanese devils, if not by the hands of her own people.”

  There was definitely something in the air, voices echoing with a quiet threat, thinly disguised underneath all the celebration. It left Pei feeling cold inside, but by the time they reached the bakery, the rich, sweet aromas helped to erase her fears.

  It was still early, but the bakery was already crowded with customers trying to buy nien kao and the little red mountains of bread neatly lined in their wooden boxes. Pei felt like a child again as she ran ahead of Lin to wait in line. She turned around to wave for Lin to join her, when a face caught her eye. A shiver moved through her as she opened her mouth, then closed it again in silence. Standing with a group of young men waiting in front of the bakery was Su-lung’s brother, Hong.

  “What is it?” she could hear Lin ask.

  Pei couldn’t answer, even when she knew that Lin’s gaze was heavy upon her. It was Mei-li’s presence she could feel beside her, the salty smell of her river death still upon her.

  “Over there,” Pei finally whispered.

  “Where?” Lin asked.

  “Hong, Su-lung’s brother.”

  Lin’s gaze left her instantly. Pei didn’t know if Lin had caught sight of the tall, thin, serious-looking Hong before he disappeared behind some others. Pei thought the years would have softened the shock and the blame she felt for having kept Mei-li’s secret, but the pain of Mei-li’s death returned like a freshly opened wound.

  “Let’s go,” Lin said to her.

  “But the nien kao?”

  “We can get it later.”

  “No,” Pei insisted.

  Before anything else could be said, another event left them standing speechless in the same place. Not thirty feet from where they stood, a man was screaming while being dragged away by several men. One of the men gathered a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffed it roughly into the screaming man’s mouth. “The son of a bitch is a traitor!” they shouted. “He would sell his family to those Japanese devils!”

  In the suffocating crowd that had gathered, Pei and Lin watched as the man was dragged down the street. In the past few months, more and more hysterical accusations were being made, singling out those who were said to be traitors or spies. Fear of the Japanese was so great that such accusations could happen anytime, and for any reason. The traitors were usually taken care of in one swift motion, before the authorities could intervene. Sometimes the accused were left hanging from a tree; or their bodies were found slumped over in a pool of blood, their throats slit from ear to ear.

  “Where are they taking him?” Pei asked.

  Lin said, “They’ve found him guilty.”

  “But how can they be sure? How can we just stand here doing nothing! What if he’s innocent?”

  “Fear seems to be the ruling judge.”

  “Then we’re all guilty.”

  “Pretending to be innocent,” Lin said, shaking her head in apology.

  “What’s going to happen to us?”

  Lin thought, then answered: “I’m afraid we won’t have much choice. We’ll do what we have to do to survive this terror.”

  When the crowd dispersed, Pei turned around to find that Hong was no longer to be found. They waited in line for the nien kao, then went quickly back to the sisters’ house, saying nothing of what had happened.

  For days after, the shock and then the dull grief of that morning hung on. Pei tried hard to shake it off. She knew it would be bad luck to carry it into the New Year.

  A few days after the New Year, Lin said, “I think we should take a short trip.”

  Pei had remained quiet and preoccupied since the morning they saw Hong. Even the opera performance they were returning from did nothing to lift her spirits. The music, made up of cymbals, drums, and the high whining voices of the actors, only proved to be irritating.

  “Where?” Pei asked, surprised.

  “I’ve never seen much of the countryside. We could take a boat part of the way, then hire a sedan chair to take us out to some of the temples,” Lin said, watching Pei closely.

  “Is it safe to travel?”

  “The Japanese are still far up north. There’s no telling when they’ll ever make it this far south.”

  Pei hesitated, then smiled. “It would be a nice change.”

  Lin smiled and appeared encouraged. With her fingers she brushed a wisp of hair away from her smooth forehead. Even in the waning light Pei could see the curve of Lin’s fingers and the face that grew more beautiful with age. Pei knew what she had always known: She would have died if Lin hadn’t saved her.

  “And we could visit your village and family if you would like,” Lin said softly. “It’s your decision.”

  Pei couldn’t answer right away. The thought was so new to her. She let the words move through her mind, slow and even. Lin and her sisters at the factory had been her family for so long, Pei found it easier to bury the fact that she came from others. After all these years, her parents’ silence gave her the strength to move forward, no longer looking back. Still, the questions lingered. Would her family still be there? And what of her sisters, Li and Yu-ling? She took a deep breath. The night air was so sweet, it suddenly filled her with such sorrow Pei wanted to cry.

  The Guest People

  Pao Chung quickly pushed the wire net closer and closer to the side of the pond, even as it grew heavier with his catch. He had been doing this for so many years that the weight of the load made no difference to the speed at which he worked. He could have done it just as easily blindfolded. Once the load of fish had been pushed as far as possible to one side of the pond, Pao would scoop the struggling fish up in baskets and ready them for market.

  The fish never ceased to amaze Pao in their gasping struggle for life. Like silver and orange flashes of light, they jumped in the air, trying to find their way back into the water. This would sometimes continue for as long as fifteen minutes after they had been taken from
the pond. The strongest survived longer, wheezing and bloating in their final moments of life. As a boy Pao had sympathized with the fish. As a man he could think of more miserable ways to die.

  Most of the time Yu-sung helped with loading the fish into the baskets. They had worked side by side like this for almost twenty-five years, except for the month she stayed in after each birth. But lately Yu-sung had not been feeling well and had become bone-thin. Pao forbade her to do any more hard work. Still, he knew she might be inside scrubbing the floors or doing some other taxing job. It was her nature, and though Pao would never say it aloud he was worried about Yu-sung.

  Pao Chung was no longer a young man, though his lean, hard body and tall, straight stance made him appear so. The only telltale sign of his age was the tiny wrinkles that textured his leathery face. Unlike Yu-sung’s hair, which had turned gray, Pao’s was thick and black; not one gray hair emerged from his head.

  Every day of his life was spent tending to the ponds and the mulberry groves. Even in the hard times when there was little work to be done in the fishless ponds and empty groves, Pao stood among them, waiting. The work was what had always kept Pao Chung alive, ever since he was a boy working alongside his Hakka father from morning until night. He was at home on the land as he had never been among people. In front of others, Pao always felt too tall and awkward. He would always be a Hakka among them. Only when his muscles ached and his hands were bloody and raw from bringing in the fish did Pao feel at his best.

  Pao unloaded the last of his empty baskets from the boat and stacked them among the rest. It had been a good day at the market and he was able to return home in good time. It was dark, with only a thin moon giving off light, but Pao felt content in knowing he had gotten a very good price for the fish. At first, Pao had hesitated to leave Yu-sung alone. She seemed to grow weaker by the day. He couldn’t give her illness a name, but he knew it was growing, dark and dangerous. Pao felt his pocket for the herbs he had bought at the market hoping they would give Yu-sung back her strength.