Chapter Fifteen
I was in the kitchen early the next morning trimming snap peas when I heard the screams.
Lily burst inside. “Hurry, quick! Prince Cannonball went into the parlor.”
Aiya. I rushed after her, only to come face-to-face with Sai Ma. She was still in her nightgown, flanked by Susu and Tingting. Both maids held brooms.
The parlor was a disaster. Records were strewn about the floor, and the porcelain fruit bowl was shattered, its celadon shards jutting out of the carpet like toothpicks.
“What a good girl I thought you were,” Sai Ma said, clucking her tongue. “It seems you had me fooled.”
What? “Sai Ma, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She grabbed my arm and spun me to face the phonograph.
An enormous rat lay dead inside the horn, its pink tail dangling limply, leaving a bloody trail.
“I can clean it,” I said, assuming Susu and Tingting were too squeamish. “If someone could bring me a box and some towels—”
Sai Ma crossed her arms. “I know you were upset that you couldn’t attend the party, Yut Ying, but such a tasteless prank is highly unbecoming. And frankly, disappointing. Your aunt will be so upset.”
“Wait, you don’t think that I—”
“I personally made sure that this door was locked before the party began,” Sai Ma interrupted. “Only four people know where the key is, and three of them—your father, your aunt, and myself—were at the banquet. You were not.”
I gestured with my kitchen scissors. “I was working. I didn’t come into the parlor.”
“It’s true, Gah Jeh was in the kitchen,” Lily said, coming to my defense. “She couldn’t have—”
“Quiet, Lily,” snapped Sai Ma. She snatched the scissors from my hand. “Your sister didn’t do this alone. Susu saw her with someone in the courtyard.”
I grimaced. “I went out for a minute—for air.”
“She’s lying. I saw her with a boy.” Susu uttered the word like it was a sin.
“Who was it?” Sai Ma demanded.
Tommy, I answered in my head, but I couldn’t implicate him. He wouldn’t put a dead rat in the phonograph. I didn’t know anyone who would.
The only answer I could come up with was Prince Cannonball. But if I named the cat, Sai Ma would send Susu to hunt him down. Susu would tie him up in a rice sack, then drown him in the toilet, and that would be the end of our cantankerous little friend.
Sai Ma must have sensed me hesitating, for she set the scissors on a table and put her hands on my shoulders. “Yut Ying,” she said, honeying her tone. “Tell me the truth. If you admit to your wrong, the punishment will be far less severe.”
“I did speak to a boy,” I allowed. “He was just a guest who was looking for the toilet.”
“That’s all?”
“And Mr. Zhou,” I added. I glared at the maid. “Susu was there. She spoke to him.”
At that, Sai Ma let go of my shoulders. “What did Mr. Zhou want?”
“He was looking for Madam Chan,” said Susu quickly.
“And he saw Yut Ying.”
“On the way to the parlor.”
It should have made me worry how dramatically Sai Ma drew her breath and folded her hands one over the other, as if we were characters in one of the operas she so loved.
“I suppose this is how rumors begin,” she mused. “Not even thirteen years old, and the center of sordid gossip. You have to keep yourself fresh if you’re going to marry well.”
I didn’t understand what she meant, which amused her. “Your mother kept you so innocent,” she said. She stroked my hair. “You’re a pretty girl. Some advice for you: Don’t get too pretty. A man’s attention is more trouble than it’s worth. You trust me to take care of you, don’t you?”
She’d asked me that question before, months ago, when I first arrived in Hong Kong and still thought the world of her.
“Yes,” I lied. “I do.”
“Clever girl.” Sai Ma sat on the settee, dismissing the maids with a lift of her chin. She picked up my scissors. “Lily, your sister has beautiful hair, doesn’t she?”
Lily glanced at me uneasily before responding, “Yes.”
“I want you to cut it.”
My sister’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“You’ve been wanting to leave Saint Maria’s Academy. Shall I speak to your baba about finding you a school closer to home?”
It was cruel of Sai Ma to dangle this opportunity in front of Lily, who was still young and still loved her. The yearning on her face made my chest tighten.
It’s fine, I mouthed to Lily. It’s only hair.
Sai Ma passed her the scissors. “Cut it short, above her ears.”
“I can’t,” Lily whispered.
I grabbed the scissors from my sister. In one swift motion, I reached for the back of my ponytail and made a decisive snip.
It was so much hair. The shorn black locks tumbled past my shoulders, their ends prickling my arms as they fell. I bit the inside of my cheek, holding back tears.
Lily made a gasping sound. “Gah Jeh!”
“It’s done,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. I set the scissors back on the table.
The corners of Sai Ma’s lips twitched into a smile. “So black and silken,” she said, sifting a lock between her fingers. “I’ll give this to Gu Ma to sell.”
“Sell?” Lily repeated.
“The phonograph will have to be replaced. Its energies have been tainted, and your aunt won’t stomach keeping it in our home. The expenses will be deducted from Yut Ying’s wages at the factory.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “You can’t punish me like this, you know I didn’t do it.”
“Do I?” Sai Ma said, tapping her chin. “You’ve shown yourself to be a liar, Yut Ying, and quite possibly a vandal. Such a bad example for my daughter must be punished.” Sai Ma took my wrist and unhooked my bracelet.
“Stop!” I cried. “Give that back!”
“Insurance,” Sai Ma said, “to make sure you pay back what you owe.” She dangled the bracelet high, the way a bird admires a freshly caught worm. “It’s real gold. Someone special must have given it to you.”
My mother. My mother, whom I didn’t know if I’d ever see again.
Anger boiled out of my throat. I lunged, grabbing Sai Ma’s arm as I reached for my bracelet.
“Let go,” she seethed. “All it takes is one word to your father, one word to your aunt—and we send you back to the mainland.”
For the longest time I’d thought my aunt was the snake, but I was wrong.
It was Sai Ma. Behind the honey of her words was poisonous venom, and that made her the most dangerous of all.
I gritted my teeth, wishing that my power wasn’t invisibility, and instead that I could make Sai Ma vanish from this world like she deserved.
“Clean up the mess,” she said, pocketing my bracelet with a flourish. “You’ll not be allowed in this room again.”
There was no more music in the house. Much as I hated Sai Ma, I hated the silence more. Gu Ma declared the parlor off limits until a specialist could come cleanse the area’s energy, and then came the floods.
Monsoon season began early that year. Thunder boomed, and rafts of dark clouds hemmed the sky, rain spilling from their seams in apocalyptic cascades. More than once, the storms startled me awake, and I hid under my blankets, frightened by the bone-white slashes of lightning across the night sky.
Lily was the opposite. She adored the storms, and the more devastatingly they brewed, the happier she was.
“Howl more,” she would tell the wind. “Break the sky,” she would yell to the thunder.
The longer the rains and winds waged war upon the island, the longer she could stay at home instead of school.
Even Gu Ma’s factory had to close because of the rain.
That summer would be my favorite of all my seasons in Hong Kong.
Every night despite the rain, Lily climbed out of her window and fearlessly lowered herself to the second story, her small feet landing in the box of myrtle before she crawled into my room.
The humidity was awful, a boundless sea of moist, unwanted kisses upon our skin.
Mama used to say going to bed with wet feet would give you arthritis, so every night I’d wait for Lily with a pair of dry socks.
We’d sit on my bed in our underwear, hugging Prince Cannonball, and complain about Sai Ma.
“I bet she planted the rat herself,” Lily grumbled. “Did it to make you lose face in front of Baba and Gu Ma—and take your money.”
It’d been weeks since the phonograph incident, but holding grudges was a family specialty. My sister couldn’t stop talking about it.
“The money and loss of face doesn’t bother me as much as it should,” I admitted. “What bothers me is why. Why does she hate me so much?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” said Lily. “She’s jealous of you.”
“Me? I work in the factory all day and Baba can hardly tell me apart from the maids.”
“You’re prettier,” Lily said. “People are always telling Mama how beautiful she is. Now that you’re here, they notice you not her.”
“That’s because I’m new, not because I’m prettier.”
“I’d disagree. So would Mama.”
My clothes were rags compared to Sai Ma’s, and as she often reminded me, I walked and talked like a peasant. But it did explain why she’d sent me to Gu Ma’s factory. Why she made me cut my hair.
“She’s also jealous of your mother,” Lily said. “Every now and then Baba feels bad about leaving her behind in China and wants to do something nice for you, but Mama talks him out of it.”
Now this was news. “How do you know?”
“Their room is right next to mine. I hear a lot.”
“What else do you hear?”
“Mama blames the war for robbing her of her dreams. She blames me, too. If I hadn’t been born, she wouldn’t have had to marry Baba. She could have been a famous singer.”
Sai Ma should’ve been an actress, not a singer. I stroked Prince Cannonball, ignoring the hiss he made. “That has nothing to do with you. It was her choice to marry Baba.”
“No,” said Lily, lowering her lashes. “She had to—I was born six months after they got married.”
It took too long for me to understand what that meant. Then my hand flew to my mouth. “Oh.”
“She still complains about how Gu Ma made her quit performing after she married into the family.” Lily mimicked our aunt: “ ‘You’re a mother now, you can’t be going onstage and singing in nightclubs.’ ”
I knew this was the worst possible thing anyone could say to her. “No wonder she hates Gu Ma.”
“She hates everyone. Which is why I have to get out of here. I’m going to study hard and go to university as far away from Hong Kong as I can. I’ll bring Prince Cannonball, and you too—if you want to come.”
“Of course I do.”
“We’ll go to America,” Lily decided. “The hills are made of gold, and people can say and do whatever they want.”
I closed my eyes, lost in the fantasy of living far from here. “That sounds like a dream.”
“It won’t be a dream forever,” said Lily pointedly, “which is why you’d better work on your English. You haven’t even opened the books I lent you.”
I groaned. “Our Chinese lessons are enough. Gu Ma has me cooking and cleaning all day. By the time I finish, my brain’s too tired to study. Simply opening a book makes my eyes do somersaults!”
With a laugh, Lily curled up at my side. “You come up with excuses for everything, Gah Jeh.” She took off her glasses, wiping the fogged-up lenses with her fingers. “I bet Ma’s asleep,” she said then. “I’ll sneak into her room and get your bracelet back.”
“Then she’d punish you.”
A shrug. “She’d just lock me in the cellar for a few hours.”
“What?”
“That’s where she puts me whenever I don’t wear my gloves or I go out without a hat. She says I’m getting too much sun.” Lily made a face. “It’s not so bad. Last time I smuggled in a flashlight and some books so I wouldn’t rot with boredom.”
I was familiar with the cellar, a dark and cramped space beneath the kitchen mostly used for storing surplus grains. Susu was terrified of the cockroaches and regularly foisted the task of getting the rice to me or Tingting. I couldn’t imagine being locked inside.
“You aren’t to do anything,” I said firmly. “I’ll get the bracelet back myself.”
Lily grimaced, but she didn’t argue. “Did your mother give it to you?” she asked. “You never talk about her.”
“Because I was angry with her,” I admitted. For years I wanted to come see Baba in Hong Kong, but she wouldn’t let me. Now I wish we’d had more time together. I don’t know when I’ll ever see her again.”
“What’s she like?”
I leaned back against the window. Prince Cannonball was splayed across my lap, snoring.
“She’s tall, almost as tall as Baba, and she only combs her hair to check for spiders and doesn’t care whether her clothes match—she doesn’t have holes in her ears to wear earrings, and perfume makes her sneeze.
She’s strict and rarely gives compliments, but she’d kiss me when she thought I was asleep.
She’d tell me stories about leoi san when I was afraid of the thunder. ”
My voice had gone hoarse. When was the last time I’d spoken about Mama? I missed her.
Lily scooted closer to me on the bed. “You’re lucky you have a mother who cares about you. Ma doesn’t love anyone except for herself. She doesn’t even love Richard.”
I turned to my sister, parting the curtains of her hair so they didn’t obscure the brightness of her face. “I love you, Lily,” I said fiercely. “I’ll take care of you.”
Lily buried her head in my chest, and I held her close. The last time I embraced someone this way was Mama, the night before I left Tunglam.
“Sing to me, Gah Jeh,” Lily whispered. “I can’t sleep when it’s so quiet.”
Thunder rolled, rain spilled down the roofs, and outside beyond the racecourse a hundred cars honked a boisterous symphony. Only Lily would consider this quiet.
“Study hard, Lily mui mui,” I murmured, the lilt in my voice slowly turning into a song.
Quickly grow up, grow up tall and strong,
One day we’ll leave for America,
and the unhappy years we’ve shared
will be a distant memory
that we’ll laugh about when we’re old.
Lily’s body grew soft against me, sleep easing away the worried pinch in her brow.
I pressed a kiss on her forehead. I was sent here to be with you, I thought fondly. I would protect this girl the way Mama had protected me. I’d love her the way her own mother wouldn’t.
Heavens help me, I would get the two of us out of here. I just had to grow up first.