“Don’t you mean, will he come home?” the girl with the bob asks. “A big tree catches the wind, after all.”
The one in charge pinches her subordinate to get her to stop talking, apparently not liking the lesser servants stepping out of their places.
“I remain hopeful,” the head servant says. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left money for me to take care of the house.”
“And to feed us too,” the quiet one mutters.
I glance from girl to girl. They’re all about Joy’s age. What kind of man is Z.G.? Is he still falling for any pretty face?
“Have you had any visitors?” I ask. “A young woman perhaps.”
“We get those all the time,” chirps the girl with the bob.
My jaw clenches. For so long, I felt I lived like a servant, but I wasn’t a servant. I wasn’t impudent…
“I’m looking for my daughter,” I say sternly. I start to put my wallet away.
“We know the one!”
“Yes! We do!”
“Tell me,” I say.
“She came the day Master Li was leaving. We heard her say she was his daughter. She came from a different place …”
“Like you.”
“Where is she now?” I ask.
“She went with him to the countryside.”
It’s not the worst thing I could hear, but it’s not the best either.
“Do you know where they went? To which village?”
They shake their heads. Even when I offer more money, they can’t help me.
After they let me out, I stand in the lane for some time. I’ve run up against a blank wall, and I’m unsure what to do next. I’m desperate and terrified for my daughter, who is with someone in such trouble that he appears to have chosen banishment over arrest. In my hopelessness, I find myself speaking to May, as though she could hear me so far away in Los Angeles. I haven’t found our girl yet. She’s with Z.G., and he could cause problems for her—things we haven’t even thought of.
I shake my head as Shanghai begins to push itself into my thoughts. I hear the sound of a trolley and the rumble of a bus or truck in the distance, but otherwise there’s very little traffic noise. All the elegant, low-slung foreign cars of the past have been replaced by pedicabs, bicycles, and donkey-drawn carts and wagons. I hear a food vendor calling out a treat. “Crisp and spicy olives! Fresh olives! Buy my olives!” I haven’t eaten Shanghai o
lives in twenty years, and I follow the cries to the corner and down the street to the left. I find a man with a basket hoisted on his shoulder. When I approach, he lowers the basket and lifts a damp towel off the contents. He has three types—fat, thin, and brown. I ask for some of the fat olives. I pop one in my mouth even before I pay the man. My eyes close in appreciation as the alkaline taste blossoms into something light, refreshing, and invigorating. I’m instantly transported back in time, eating olives with May and our friends—Tommy, Betsy, and Z.G.
Somehow this burst of flavor clarifies my mind. I’ll have to go back to the Artists’ Association to ask more questions, but first I need to figure out the best way either to get information from that woman in the lobby or to get past her. For now, though, I need a place to stay. I’m sure I can find someone to rent me a room, if I pay double or triple the standard rate, but I don’t want to do that.
Home. Los Angeles is my home now—and how strange that is after all my years of homesickness for this place—but the word reminds me that I had a home here too. To get there, I’ll have to go to the Hongkew district across Soochow Creek. I don’t see any rickshaws, but I doubt I could ride in one now after being married to Sam. If I saw one, my heart might collapse in grief. Still, I can’t help wondering where the pullers are. What happened to them?
I hurry back to the Bund. I speak again to the inspector who helped Joy. I even slip him a bribe, but he insists he doesn’t know anything more, so this is just money down the drain. Then I have to pay what he calls a handling fee to watch my belongings overnight. I take my one travel bag and ask directions to a bus stop. The streets were crowded when I arrived. Now that work is done, the sidewalks are jammed with people and the roadways are a swelling mass of bicycles. The rings of all those bicycle bells sound almost calming, like cicadas on a hot summer night. I board the bus to take me to Hongkew. For years, May has picked up American phrases and used them until the rest of us were nearly crazy. One of those phrases was about being crowded together like sardines. Now I understand what she meant. People press against me on all sides. I feel the familiar panic rising, force myself to swallow it, and sway with the bony mass of humanity as the bus accelerates or stops.
I get off in my old neighborhood. It all looks familiar yet completely different. Vendors and little shops cram together, selling goods and services: bicycle tire repair, haircuts, and tooth pulling; oranges, eggs, and peanuts; Front Gate men’s underwear, Red Flag sanitary napkins, and White Elephant batteries. I turn onto my old street. The houses on my block all still stand. I remember how each spring our neighbors painted them in rich earth tones: dark purple, dark green, or dark red—colors that wouldn’t show the dust or the moss that grows so quickly in Shanghai’s humid climate. But the houses don’t look like they’ve been painted in years. Most of the paint has peeled away entirely, revealing dirty gray plaster.
The summer evening customs haven’t changed much since I was last here, however. Children play in the street. Women sit on steps stringing peas, shucking corn, or sorting rice. Men lounge on chairs or perch on upturned crates, smoking cigarettes and playing chess. Eyes begin to follow me. I’m afraid to look back. Do they recognize me?
My family home comes into view. The magnolia tree is huge now, making the house seem smaller than I remember. When I get closer, I see that the carved wooden screen that prevented evil spirits from entering the house still hangs above the door, but the jasmine and dwarf pines that our gardener once nursed are gone. My mother’s rose vines cling to the fence, still alive but dried out and uncared for. Mostly what’s “growing” is laundry draped on bushes and strung on lines. A lot of people must live here, but then a lot of people lived here when May and I left too. A man sitting on the front steps rises as I approach. I should have prepared an introduction, but it seems one isn’t necessary.
“Pearl? You’re Pearl, right? Pearl Chin?” He’s tall, thin, about my age, with a distinguished demeanor but wearing shabby clothes.
“That was my maiden name,” I answer, uncertain. Who is he?