Chapter Fourteen #3
“It’s hard to grow soybeans here. His farm is in the Zhejiang Province. That’s where he grew up—he learned to make soymilk from his mother, and he’d ride on his bicycle delivering it to their neighbors. When he moved to Hong Kong, he turned it into a business. Do you like soymilk?”
“I like soda more.”
“So you don’t like soymilk?”
He certainly asked a lot of questions about soymilk.
“It was a treat during the war,” I replied.
“My mother grew a few soybean plants—we’d soak the beans for a few days, then mash them into gruel.
When we were lucky, Mama was able to barter for some sugarcane.
” I licked my lips, reminiscing about the droplets of sweet soymilk my brothers and I had squeezed out from the gruel.
“I bet it tasted better than soda.”
“Anything tastes good when you have nothing.”
Tommy gave a small but inscrutable smile. “Lots of families survived off soybeans during the war. It’s a miracle food. Nutritious, too.”
Like luncheon meat, I thought. The other miracle food.
“Friends joke that my mum nursed me with it as a baby.”
I cocked my head. “Why do you call your mother ‘mum’?”
“I go to a British school,” he explained. “Grandpa says English is the language of the future.”
“Madam Chan says it’s the language of the colonizers,” I retorted. “But since the colonizers are rich, she has a tutor come into the factory to teach her. Honestly, it hasn’t done her much good—everyone secretly thinks she sounds like a dog when she speaks.”
Tommy gave me an amused look. “You’re not really a maid, are you?”
“Why?”
“Most maids don’t have opinions like you do, or wave their cleavers at a guest.”
Heat bloomed in my cheeks. “Maybe I’m just a bad maid.”
“You’re also good at evading questions.”
“Only silly ones.”
“I’ve been nursing a curious notion,” he said, “that you’re related to Madam Chan.”
I flinched. “What makes you think that? Do you see a resemblance?”
He picked up one of my orange slices. “I’m not fool enough to fall into that trap. You don’t look like her, thank God, but you do look like her brother.”
“Who’s her brother?” I asked, pretending not to know.
“The one with two wives: the opera singer and the opium pipe.”
He said it deadpan, yet there was a twinkle in his eye, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“Finally, I made you laugh. Now we’re friends.”
I cut my laugh short. “Will you go? I’m working.”
“Why are you in the kitchen and not attending your family’s party?”
He spoke like someone who’d been raised only around adults. I couldn’t help enjoying his company.
I like to cook, I thought about replying, for it was true. I’d planted spring onions in a pot by the window, and my lotus seeds were finally germinating. I was also pickling radishes and brining salted eggs in a jug of vinegar and rice wine.
“One of the helpers couldn’t come,” I replied. “I offered to help.”
“I see.” He looked relieved. “I was worried that they treated you like Yeh Shen.”
“Who?”
“It’s a fairy tale we read in primary school. It’s a good story—and Yeh Shen reminds me of you. She was the daughter of a local magistrate with two wives, but after her parents died—”
“My parents aren’t dead,” I interrupted.
“Let me finish. After her parents died, she was forced into becoming a servant for her stepmother. Horribly unfair, yet Yeh Shen never complained. She was kind and pretty. Like you.”
I cast Tommy a sidelong glance. Had he just called me pretty?
“One day, when she went to the river to wash the clothes, she met a fish with real gold scales. He was a guardian spirit that her mother had sent from heaven.”
He paused, and I hated that I was curious. “What happens next?”
“She befriended him and went to the river every day to feed him. Weeks passed, then months. Soon it was time for the Spring Festival. Yeh Shen wished that she could go. But her stepmother wouldn’t allow it.”
Frowning, I placed the last of the strawberries onto the cake. “Are you making this up?”
“I’m not smart enough to come up with a story like this,” he protested. “There’s even a western version called Cinderella.”
“Cinderella?”
“Because her face is gray from sleeping next to the fireplace.”
“You mean, she’s dirty.” I rubbed my cheek. “Like me.”
Tommy gently wiped the flour from my face. “I prefer flour to ashes.”
“You should go,” I mumbled, turning away. “Susu’ll be here soon for the birthday cake.”
“Don’t you want to know the rest of the story?”
I did, but I didn’t want Susu seeing Tommy with me in the kitchen. The old maid was a snitch. “If I tell you my name, will you leave?”
Tommy lifted an eyebrow, but he nodded.
“It’s Yut Ying.”
“Yut Ying,” he repeated, grinning like a buffoon. “I won’t forget it.”
“Stop trying to flirt, just go.”
He ducked out of the kitchen right before Susu arrived. While I put Richard’s candles on the cake, I stole a glance out the window. As if he could sense my eyes on him, Tommy turned and gave me a wave.
For the first time, Hong Kong was starting to feel like home. Which, of course, meant everything was about to go horribly wrong.