Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls 1)

“I told him I’m a veteran, that I served in the Army and fought for the United States,” he recounts. “He looks at me and says, And you got your citizenship.’ Well, of course I got my citizenship! That’s what the government promised. Then he pulls out a file and invites me to take a look at it. It’s my immigration file from Angel Island! Remember all that stuff from our coaching books? Well, it’s all in the file. It has information about the old man and Yen-yen. It lists all of our birth dates and outlines our whole story, since we’re all connected. He asks me why I didn’t tell the truth about my so-called brothers when I enlisted. I didn’t tell him anything.”

He takes Mariko’s hand. She’s white with the fear we all feel. “I don’t mind if they pick on us,” he continues. “But when they go after my children, who were born here …” He shakes his head in disgust. “Last week Bess came home crying. Her fifth-grade teacher showed a film to the class on the Communist threat. It showed Russians in fur hats and Chinese, well, looking like us. At the end of the film, the narrator asked the students to call the FBI or the CIA if they saw anyone who looked suspicious. Who looked suspicious in the class? My Bess. Now her friends won’t play with her. I have to worry about what’s going to happen to Eleanor and little Mamie too. I remind the girls that they’re named after the First Ladies. They don’t have to be afraid.”

But of course they have to be afraid. We’re all afraid.

When you’re held underwater, you think only of air. I remember how I felt about Shanghai in the days after our lives changed—how streets that had once seemed exciting suddenly stank of nightsoil, how beautiful women suddenly were nothing more than girls with three holes, how all the money and prosperity suddenly rendered everything forlorn, dissolute, and futile. The way I see Los Angeles and Chinatown during these difficult and frightening days couldn’t be more different. The palm trees, the fruits and vegetables in my garden, the geraniums in pots in front of stores and on porches all seem to shimmer and shiver with life, even in the heat of summer. I look down streets and I see promise. Instead of smog, corruption, and ugliness, I see magnificence, freedom, and openness. I can’t bear that the government is persecuting us with its terrible—and God help me, true—accusations about our citizenship, but I can bear even less the thought that my family and I might lose this place. Yes, it’s only Chinatown, but it’s my home, our home.

In these moments, I regret the years of homesickness and loneliness I’ve felt for Shanghai: the way I turned it into so many golden-hued remembrances of people, places, and food that, as Betsy has written me so many times, no longer exist and will never again exist. I berate myself: How could I not have seen what was right in front of me all these years? How could I not have sucked in all the sweetness instead of pining for memories that were only ashes and dust?

In desperation, I call Betsy in Washington to see if there’s anything her father can do for us. Although he’s suffering from his own persecution, Betsy promises he’ll look into Sam’s case.

“MY FATHER BORN San Flancisco-ah,” Sam says in his badly accented English.

Four days have passed since we had dinner with Fred, and now Sanders and Billings have come unannounced to our house. Sam perches on the end of Father Louie’s recliner. The other men sit on the couch. I’m seated on a straight-backed chair, wishing that Sam would let me speak for him. I have the same feeling I did when the Green Gang thug gave May and me his ultimatum in my family’s salon all those years ago: This is it.

“Then prove it. Show me his birth certificate,” Agent Billings demands.

“My father born San Flancisco-ah,” Sam insists firmly.

“San Flancisco-ah,” Billings repeats in a mocking tone. “Of course it would be San Francisco, because of the earthquake and fire. We aren’t stupid, Mr. Louie. It’s said that for there to be so many Chinese born in the United States before 1906, every Chinese woman who was here back then would have had to have given birth to five hundred sons. Even if by some miracle that could have happened, how is it that only sons were born and no girls? Did you kill them?”

“I wasn’t born yet,” Sam answers, switching to Sze Yup. “I didn’t live here—”

“I have your file from Angel Island. We want you to look at some photographs.” Billings puts two photos on the coffee table. The first is of the little boy that Chairman Plumb tried to trick me with all those years ago. The other shows Sam upon his arrival at Angel Island, in 1937. With the two images side by side, it’s clear that the people in them can’t possibly be the same. “Confess, and then tell us about your fake brothers. Don’t let your wife and daughter suffer because of loyalty to men who won’t come forward to help you.”

Sam examines the photographs, leans back in the recliner, and says, his voice shaking, “I Father’s real son. Brother Vern will say you.”

It’s as if his iron fan is collapsing before my eyes, but I don’t know why. When I get up, move to behind his chair, and put my hands on the backrest so he’ll know I’m there, I understand why. Joy stands in the kitchen doorway directly in Sam’s line of vision. He’s afraid for her and embarrassed for himself.

“Daddy,” Joy cries as she scurries into the room. “Do what they ask. Tell them the truth. You have nothing to hide.” Our daughter knows not one thing about what the truth actually is, but she’s so innocent—and here, I’ll say it, stupid like her auntie—that she says, “If you tell the truth, good things will happen. Isn’t that what you taught me?”

“See, even your daughter wants you to tell the truth,” Billings prods.

But Sam doesn’t waver from his story. “My father born San Flancisco-ah.”

Joy continues to cry and plead. Vern whimpers in the other room. I stand there helpless. And my sister is out working on a movie or shopping for a new dress or I don’t know what.

Billings opens his briefcase, pulls out a piece of paper, and hands it to Sam, who can’t read the English words. “If you sign this paper saying you came illegally,” he says, “we’ll take away your citizenship, which isn’t real to begin with. Once you’ve signed the paper and confessed, we’ll give you immunity, new citizenship, real citizenship, on condition that you tell us about every friend, relative, and neighbor you know who came illegally. We’re particularly interested in the other paper sons your so-called father brought in.”

“He dead. What it matter now?”

“But we have his file. How could he have so many sons? How could he have so many partners? Where are they now? And don’t bother telling us about Fred Louie. We know all about him. He got his citizenship fair and square. Just tell us about the others and where to find them.”

“What you gonna do to them?”

“Don’t worry about that. Only worry about yourself.”

“And you give me papers?”

“You’ll get legal citizenship, like I said,” Billings says. “But if you don’t confess, then we’ll have to deport you back to China. Don’t you and your wife want to stay with your daughter, so you can keep her out of trouble?”

Joy’s shoulders pull back in surprise as she hears this.

“She may be an A student, but she goes to the University of Chicago,” Billings goes on. “Everyone knows that’s a den of Communism. Do you know the kind of people she’s been seeing? Do you know what she’s been doing? She’s a member of the Chinese Students Democratic Christian Association.”

“That’s a Christian group,” I say, but when I glance at my daughter, a shadow crosses her face.

“They say they’re Christian, Mrs. Louie, but it’s a Communist front. Your daughter’s connection to that group is why we looked into your husband’s case in the first place. She’s been picketing and getting people to sign petitions. If you help us, we can overlook these infractions. She was born here, and she’s just a kid.” He looks over at Joy, who weeps in the middle of our living room. “She probably didn’t know what she was doing, but if the two of you are sent back to China, how will you help her? Do you want to ruin her life too?”