Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

“Yes, your brother in China also gave us his name.”

“You want me call him, say come over here?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

Sammy pulled himself slowly out of his chair and shuffled over to an old rotary telephone. Sammy peered at the numbers, trying to make them out. It took three tries before the call went through. He hung up and looked around. “Old woman,” he called out in Chinese, “bring that tea. You take too many years!” Then he again shuffled across the room as a woman with a face like a wrinkled walnut emerged from the kitchen balancing a tray laden with a teapot, cups, and a saucer of watermelon seeds. Her back was folded into a hump as she tottered wordlessly from the kitchen to where David and Hulan sat.

“Mrs. Guang?” Hulan ventured.

Sammy cleared his throat gruffly and said, “She no speak English. She come here sixty years ago. I bring her here and she never learn English. You imagine that?”

Hulan switched to Mandarin, introducing herself and thanking the woman for tea.

When they heard the knocker, David jumped up to prevent Sammy from having to cross the room again. He opened the door to a sprightly man of about sixty-five. Harry Guang, Number Five, proved to be quite talkative. He was retired, just like his brother. He explained that One and Two had left China in 1926 when they were twenty and eighteen years of age. “That was a hard time to come here. You know the Exclusion Law? No Chinese were supposed to be let into the U.S., but my two older brothers came as paper sons. Lucky for them they bought papers to say their last name was Guang. Otherwise, we could be Lews or Kwoks. My brothers worked very hard, very hard. They thought they were coming here to become rich men. But they worked in the fields. They worked in a factory. The Depression came and it was very bad. They lived in a house for single men. Number Two got pneumonia and died—no money for a doctor in those days. Number One didn’t have enough money to go home.”

“I stay here by myself,” Sammy said. “You think it easy for a man alone—no family, no wife, no children? I go to letter writer in Chinatown. I mail this letter to China. Send Number Three! Four months later a letter come back. I take the envelope to that same letter writer to have him read it. I pay my money and he tells me, Number Three is dead. Baba dead, too. I can’t believe it! I find out Mama has two more children. I don’t know these boys.”

Harry picked up the story. “The Japanese came to our village, burned the house, killed our mother. By then, Number Four was twelve years old. I was six. It was 1938. Number Four borrowed money from the neighbors. Not much. One day we started to walk. We walked and walked and walked until we came to the sea. I was crying, but Number Four looked at me with a cold heart. He said, ‘You go to Number One.’ He put me on the boat by myself. I tell you, I was crying the whole time. I was at Angel Island by myself. Only six years old! When I came out, Number One was there. He brought me to Los Angeles. My brother put me in an American elementary school and he continued to work. That’s why my English is pretty good and his is…” Harry shrugged. “The rest, as they say, is history.”

“What happened to Mingyun?” Hulan asked, “Number Four?”

“We think he dead,” Sammy said. “China is fighting the Japanese. We are here, working with others in Chinatown trying to raise money. Then America goes to war. I am too old to fight, but I am not too old to work in factory for war effort. My first real American job.” Sammy gave them a gummy smile. “After war, I get my citizenship, Number Five, too. I buy this house, Number Five go to college. He an engineer.”

“When the Bamboo Curtain fell,” Harry said, “we wrote letters to our old village, but no answer. We thought, if Number Four was alive, he would write us.”

“So when did you see him again?”

“Ha!” Sammy grunted. “I never see Number Four in my life. He is not born when I leave.”

“But he’s traveled to California. He has businesses here.” David had difficulty keeping the surprise out of his voice.

“Too many years,” the old man said, shaking his head. “What he want with know-nothings like us?”

“But you knew his son.”

Sammy nodded. “My nephew, yes. He come here maybe three years ago. He go to college like Harry. The Old Woman makes dinner. We visit. He a good boy, tells us all about Number Four. You know something? Number Four a rich man now. First millionaire in our family. Can you imagine?”

“And that was the only time you saw Guang Henglai?”

Sammy waved his hand. “We see him many times! Always he says, ‘Father rich. You come work for Father.’ I am laughing, because you know how old I am?” When David and Hulan shook their heads, he answered, “Ninety. What I need job for?”

“But the nephew got my granddaughter a summer job at the bank,” Harry Guang said. “And Number One’s third grandson works in the China Land office in Century City.”

But Sammy was still back in his own conversation. “Always that nephew comes here and says, ‘You want job? You want job?’ He says, ‘You know old-timers here. You know people who like the old ways. Not hard work. Easy work. Good money.’ I’m thinking, This boy need have his head examined!” Sammy laughed at his witticism.

“What kind of work?” David and Hulan asked simultaneously.

“He wants me to sell something. ‘You make good money,’ he tells me.”

“What was the product?” David asked.

Sammy shook his head. “What I care? I am old man. What I need to sell merchandise for? I tell that boy, ‘I’m retired. Leave me alone.’”

“And Guang Mingyun?”

The two brothers exchanged a look. “We don’t know him. He doesn’t know us. He’s a big man now. We are”—Harry searched for the appropriate word and settled on—“insignificant.”

“But family—”