I’m sorry I’ve been a burden to you both. I’m sorry I was a mistake that you had to endure for so many years. Don’t worry about any of that now. I’ll love you both forever.
Love, Joy
I run a finger over Joy’s words and try to imagine her as she wrote them. Did she cry as I’m crying now? She’s so sure of herself, but anyone can be sure at nineteen. How can she possibly say she never felt at home in Chinatown? We did everything—everything—to give her a good home, so my delight at reading my daughter’s letter is tempered with disappointment. It’s with that feeling that I open the other envelope.
Dear Pearl,
If you’re reading this, then you know our mail system works. I put some money in the hat and in the box. If any of it is gone, then someone has pilfered it somewhere along the way. The cousins in Wah Hong? The censors?
I’ll keep sending clothes. Search them for hidden messages and money. Have you read Joy’s letter yet? Some of the things she wrote break my heart. Maybe you have found her by now. I hope so.
I’m doing my best to manage the café. It will be here when you return. Vern is sad and lonely. The people he loved most in the world—Sam, Joy, and you—have disappeared. His confusion shows me how much he’s grieving. I worry about the strain on his health.
Pearl, everyone at your church is praying for you and Joy. I pray for you too and think of you every day. The main thing is we’ve heard from Joy. I hope you’re as relieved as I am.
You have great courage, Pearl. If our Joy is at all like you—and how can she not be?—then she will survive. You have done a lot for me over the years, but I’ve never been so proud or honored to have you as my sister as I am now.
Stay safe and all my love,
May
I rifle through the things May sent to find her original letter. It’s been written in a style to get past the censors. It contains innocuous news about Chinatown, the weather, and a dinner she went to where the hostess served a green Jell-O mold with bananas. Not once did May mention Hollywood, her own business, or anything about herself in either letter. I don’t take that to mean she’s miraculously changed.
Then I go back to Joy’s letter and read it several more times. It doesn’t bring me any closer to finding her, but I’m elated to have heard from her, relieved that May and I will be able to communicate, and awfully happy to have seen Auntie Hu too. What a day this has been, after so many weeks of monotony.
I get up off the bed and add the poster I salvaged to a collection of others I’ve hidden in my closet. I place the fragments of my sister’s and my eyes, ears, and mouths in a pear-wood box tucked under my bed. I’m taking a risk keeping these memories of the past, but I can’t help myself. If Z.G. can have framed posters on his walls, why can’t I keep these things in my room? I know the answers too well: Z.G. may be in trouble, but he’s still important, and this isn’t even my room anymore. So where will I hide Joy’s and May’s letters? For now I tuck them back in the hat and put it on an upper shelf in my closet.
Today’s visit to Auntie Hu and the blast of hope I’ve received from my daughter have revitalized me. I peel off my work clothes, leave them in a rumpled pile on the floor, and take a bath. Feeling inspired, I go through my closet and drawers again. I put on a custom-made bra and panties in soft pink silk edged with handmade French lace. Over these, I slip a dress of crimson wool that was made for me by Madame Garnett, who once was one of the finest seamstresses in the city. The dress fits perfectly, but what was elegant and beautifully made twenty years ago is now long out of fashion. I put on a pair of alligator pumps that have turned a warm amber hue from age. The silk and wool are soft on my skin after the coarseness of my work clothes. My jade bracelet feels cool and heavy on my wrist.
When I go back downstairs, I try to look at everything from Joy’s perspective. Although I still don’t know where she is, I have renewed faith that she’s coming back here, and soon. When she does, I want the house to look good. Auntie Hu was right; I just hadn’t analyzed it properly before. The boarders have lived here twenty years, but they haven’t sold or thrown away any of my family’s belongings as far as I can tell. That doesn’t mean they’ve taken good care of things either. The wallpaper is stained, dirty, and torn in places. The rugs, draperies, and upholstery are all in terrible shape. But I’m back now, and I’m going to follow Auntie Hu’s advice. On my next free day, I’ll visit a pawnshop and a flea market. I’m going to buy some things for the house and get myself a camera. I remember how strict the guards were on the train, closing the shades so people couldn’t see bridges or military installations. I don’t know what would happen if, for example, I tried to take a photo of the navy ships moored at the Bund, but I don’t plan on doing that. If I can, I’ll find a place to develop my photographs so I can send them to May. In the meantime, looking through a lens again will give me pleasure. I’m also going to complete what I started by accident this morning: clean the house. I’ll do it carefully, when the public rooms are empty. Maybe the boarders will notice. Maybe they won’t.
The squabbling in the kitchen that started this morning continues for the evening meal. The professor stands at the stove making a pot of noodles.
“You’re taking too long,” one of the former dancing girls complains.
“And you’ve made too much food for just one person,” her roommate observes. “You shouldn’t be so wasteful.”
“I’m not being wasteful,” he responds, as he ladles the soup into two bowls and puts them on one of my mother’s trays along with two pairs of chopsticks and two porcelain soupspoons. He looks at me and asks, “Would you care to join me for noodles in the second-floor pavilion?”
The silence this morning when they saw me cleaning the spot on the floor is nothing like the silence that freezes everyone now. Then they’re all squawking at once.
“The second-floor pavilion is your bedroom!”
“You never share your noodles with us!”
“You have no socialist spirit!”
Cook stops their twittering with a stern rebuke directed at me. “Little Miss, bad ways will not be tolerated in this house.”
I don’t say a word as I follow Dun out the door and upstairs to the pavilion. I haven’t been in this room since my parents carved up the house to rent to boarders, but here is another oasis in the sea of communist gray that Shanghai has become. My mother must have felt sorry for her poor student renter, because he has some pieces of furniture that I thought had long ago been sold. The bed is neatly made, and the shelves are filled with books. He also has an old typewriter with English letters and a phonograph, which I remember from when May and I were kids.
Dun sets the tray on the table, which also functions as a desk. He gestures for me to sit in the chair, and then he pulls over a stool.
“I hope we don’t get in trouble,” he says. “I don’t want you to be reported to the block committee.” What he says next is even more troublesome. “You look beautiful tonight.”
I’m a recent widow. I should get right up and go back to my room. Instead, I take a different approach. Dun and I are friends. That’s all we can be.
“Thank you,” I say, acknowledging his compliment as though it had come from Auntie Hu or even Cook. “And thank you for inviting me to dinner.”