Eating Bitterness to Find Gold
CHINESE NEW YEAR arrives. We follow all the traditions. Old Man Louie gives us money to buy new clothes. I put together an outfit for Joy that will celebrate her Tiger sign: a pair of baby slippers shaped like Tiger cubs and an orange-and-gold baby hat with little ears on top and a tail made from twisted embroidery thread coming out the back. May and I pick out American cotton dresses in floral prints. Then we have our hair washed and styled. At home, we take down the picture of the Kitchen God and burn it in the alley so he’ll travel to the afterworld to report on our activities during the past year. We put away knives and scissors to make sure we won’t cut our good fortune. Yen-yen makes offerings to the Louie ancestors. Her wishes and prayers are simple. “Bring a son to Boy-husband. Make that wife of his pregnant. Give me a grandson.”
In China City, we hang red gauze lanterns and couplets in red and gold paper. We arrange for dancers, singers, and acrobats to entertain children and their parents. We search out special ingredients to make holiday dishes in the café that will be Chinese in feeling but appeal to Occidental palates. We expect big crowds, so Old Man Louie hires extra help for his various enterprises, but he needs even more people to assist with what he anticipates will be the most profitable business on New Year’s Day: the rickshaw rides.
“We have to beat the people in New Chinatown,” he tells Sam on New Year’s Eve. “How can we do that if I have Mexican boys pulling my rickshaws on the most Chinese day of the year? Vern’s not strong enough, but you are.”
“I’ll be too busy in the café,” Sam says.
My father-in-law has asked Sam to pull rickshaws other times, and he always has some excuse not to do it. I can’t say what it will be like on New Year’s, but I know how busy we’ve been on other festival days. We’ve never been so overwhelmed that I haven’t been able to follow my usual routine of working in the café, the flower shop, the curio shop, and the antiques store. I know Sam’s lying, and so does Old Man Louie. Ordinarily my father-in-law’s anger would be great, but this is New Year’s, when no harsh words should be spoken.
On New Year’s morning, we dress in our new clothes, putting Chinese custom above Mrs. Sterling’s rules about wearing costumes to work. These things are factory-made, but it’s wonderful to have something fresh and Western on our skins again. Joy, who’s eleven months old, looks adorable in her Tiger hat and slippers. I’m her mother, so of course I think she’s beautiful. Her face is round like the moon. White as clean as new snow circles the black of her eyes. Her hair is wispy and soft. Her skin is as pale and translucent as rice milk.
I didn’t believe in the Chinese zodiac when Mama talked about it, but the more time that’s passed since her death, the more I understand that the things she said about May and me might have been true. Now when I hear Yen-yen talk about a Tiger’s traits, I see my daughter very clearly. Like a Tiger, Joy can be temperamental and volatile. One minute she’s brimming over with giddiness; the next she can dissolve into tears. A minute later, she might try to climb up her grandfather’s legs, wanting and getting his attention. She may be a worthless girl in his eyes—forever Pan-di, Hope-for-a-Brother—but the Tiger in her has pounced into his heart. Her temper is greater than his. I think he respects that.
I know the exact moment when New Year’s Day starts to turn rotten. While May and I fix each other’s hair in the main room, Yen-yen has Joy on her back on the floor, tickling her stomach, building anticipation by zooming in and out with her fingers and by raising and lowering her voice, only the words that come out of her mouth do not match her happy actions.
“Fu yen or yen fu?” Yen-yen asks, as Joy squeals in expectation. “Would you rather be a wife or a servant? Women everywhere would rather be a servant.”
Joy’s giggles do not have their usual melting effect on her grandfather, who watches sourly from a chair.
“A wife has a mother-in-law,” Yen-yen trills. “A wife has the despair of her children. She must obey her husband even when he is wrong. A wife must work and work but never receive a word of thanks. It’s better to be a servant and the mistress of yourself. Then, if you want, you can jump in the well. If only we had a well…”
Old Man Louie pushes himself away from the table. Wordlessly, he gestures to the door, and we leave the apartment. It’s still early morning, and already ill-omened words have been spoken.
Thousands of people come to China City, and the festivities are great. The firecrackers are loud and plentiful. The dragon and lion dancers wiggle and squirm from shop to shop. Everyone wears such bright colors it’s as if a great rainbow has come to earth. In the afternoon even more people come. Whenever I look out the window, another rickshaw rushes past. By evening, the Mexican pullers look exhausted.
During dinner, the Golden Dragon is completely full, and perhaps two dozen people stand just inside the door, waiting for a table to become free. Around 7:30, my father-in-law enters and pushes his way through the clustered customers.
“I need Sam,” he says.
I look around and spot Sam setting a table for eight. Old Man Louie follows my glance, strides across the room, and speaks to Sam. I can’t hear what he says, but Sam shakes his head no. Old Man Louie says something else, and Sam shakes his head again. At the third refusal, my father-in-law grabs Sam’s shirt. Sam pushes his hand away. Our customers stare.
The old man raises his voice, spitting the Sze Yup dialect out of his mouth like phlegm. “Don’t disobey me!”
“I told you I won’t do it.”
“Toh gee! Chok gin!”
I’ve been working at Sam’s side for months now, and I know he’s neither lazy nor empty-headed. Old Man Louie yanks his son across the room, bumping past tables and through the crowd by the door. I follow them outside, where my father-in-law shoves Sam to the ground.
“When I tell you to do something, you do it! Our other pullers are tired, and you know how to do this.”
“No.”
“You’re my son and you’ll do as I say,” my father-in-law pleads. His face quavers, and then his moment of weakness hardens. When he next speaks, his voice sounds like grinding rocks. “I’ve promised everything to you.”
This is not one of the pretty dramas with singing and dancing that are happening elsewhere in China City as part of tonight’s festivities. The tourists don’t understand what’s being said. Still, this is a captivating and entertaining spectacle. When my father-in-law begins to kick Sam down the alley, I trail along with the others. Sam doesn’t fight or cry out. He just takes it. What kind of man is he?
When we reach the rickshaw stand in the Court of the Four Seasons, Old Man Louie looks down at Sam and says, “You’re a rickshaw puller and an Ox. That’s why I brought you here. Now do your job!”
Fear and shame wash the color from Sam’s face. Slowly he gets to his feet. He’s taller than his father, and for the first time I see that this is as distressing to the old man as my height was to Baba. Sam takes a step toward his father, looks down at him, and says in a trembling voice, “I won’t pull your rickshaw. Not now. Not ever.”
Then it’s as though both men become aware of the silence around them. My father-in-law brushes at his mandarin robe. Sam’s eyes dart about uncomfortably. When he sees me, his whole body cringes. Then he takes off, sprinting through the gawking tourists and our curious neighbors. I run after him.
I find him in our windowless room in the apartment. His fists are bunched. His face is red with anger and hurt, but his shoulders are back, his posture upright, and his tone defiant.
“For so long I’ve been embarrassed and ashamed before you, but now you know,” he says. “You married a rickshaw puller.”
In my heart I believe him, but my mind thinks otherwise. “But you’re the fourth son—”
“Only a paper son. Always in China people ask, ‘Kuei hsing?’—What’s your name?—but really it means, ‘What is your precious family name?’ Louie is just a chi ming—a paper name. I’m actually a Wong. I was born in Low Tin Village, not far from your home village in the Four Districts. My father was a farmer.”
I sit on the edge of the bed. My mind spins: a rickshaw puller and a paper son. This makes me a paper wife, so we’re both here illegally. I feel sick to my stomach. Still, I recite the facts from the coaching book: “Your father is the old man. You were born in Wah Hong. You came here as a baby—”
Sam shakes his head. “That boy died in China many years ago. I traveled here using his papers.”