Chapter Nineteen
Hong Kong
The autumn I turned sixteen, my family started discussing my marriage prospects.
The decade was ending, and uncertainty crackled in the air like the static between radio stations.
My family wasn’t unaffected. Neighbors had heard the gunshot Yi Gor fired and spied the black Renault that’d mysteriously come and gone from our driveway.
Rumors danced about us despite Gu Ma’s desperate attempts to quell them.
As a result, everyone went out less, and the house was full even when I returned from the factory.
At dinner, Baba and Sai Ma talked together as though I weren’t there.
Gu Ma had become withdrawn, her mood affected by frequent episodes of indigestion that Baba also shared, while Sai Ma pretended nothing had changed.
She groused on about this or that perceived slight and how much her back hurt from carrying Richard.
She waxed on about the new wallpaper she’d selected for the parlor, yet she never brought up the bloodstains or the gun or the trickle of policemen that’d come searching the room before Gu Ma bribed them away.
It was as Yi Gor had predicted—the whole incident had been scrubbed from existence, to the point that even my brother was no longer mentioned, and Tingting had been dismissed. I never saw her again.
I missed my old dinners alone. With my family around, I couldn’t stay out late to see Tommy or practice disappearing while I cooked Gu Ma’s supper. I became a ghost in the house, half here and half not, yet always unwanted.
Then one evening, the conversation abruptly veered toward me.
“Yut Ying is the year of the rooster,” Sai Ma commented, biting into a piece of chicken. “How quickly the seasons have changed—she must be seventeen already.”
“Sixteen,” said Baba, whose mind was always more lucid after suffering an upset stomach, for Sai Ma withheld his pipe and he was too enervated to pick it up himself. “What of it?”
“She’s lived with us for four years, shouldn’t we discuss her future?” Sai Ma said.
Baba frowned. “I’ve told you my thoughts on the matter.”
What are your thoughts? I wanted to ask, but I kept my head down.
“We can’t keep sheltering her forever. Even Syun Kit has left. Shouldn’t we—”
“This isn’t the time,” Baba interrupted. “You’ve heard the news.”
“The news?” Sai Ma tapped her fingers against her chin. “Surely you don’t think that Mao Zedong will invade Hong Kong?”
Baba stared at her, and I wondered if he was thinking about my mother, his first wife, who would have known the answer.
Gu Ma was quiet too. With a shaky hand, she lit a new cigarette. Usually she went through a pack a day, but lately the ashtrays couldn’t be emptied fast enough, and a trail of white stubs littered the garden. Her teeth had turned cola brown, her eyes sunken like Baba’s. “Someone pour me more tea.”
“Do you have another headache, sister-in-law?” said Sai Ma as she obliged. “This is why I never like talking about politics. Headaches will give you wrinkles, and wrinkles will turn your hairs gray like dead roots.”
Gu Ma’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I look old?”
“I’m saying, perhaps we should find a way to ease your concerns. Perhaps by bolstering our family ties.”
“What are you talking about?” Gu Ma huffed.
“I’ve been thinking we should find your niece a husband.”
I choked on my rice. What?
“I ran into Mrs. Tsang the other day in Bastion’s, and she mentioned that her son is looking for a wife.”
“James,” remembered Gu Ma. She bit into a dried persimmon slice and, unconsciously, I did the same. “He’s finished studying in England?”
“He’s only just begun,” Sai Ma corrected. “He’s planning to become a barrister.”
“Abroad? Impressive.”
“Indeed. The Tsangs would be good allies to have.”
Gu Ma chewed, then lifted her cigarette, considering. “It’s been too long since we’ve had a proper tea. Perhaps we should invite the Tsangs to yum cha.”
“A brilliant idea.” Sai Ma darted a glance at my father. “What do you think?”
No one asked what I thought. I was clenching the edge of my seat, my insides roiling like a boiling kettle. I couldn’t let this pass. I would speak up.
“They’re a respectable family,” Baba allowed.
Right as I was about to open my mouth, Sai Ma and I locked eyes. “You ought to come, Yut Ying,” she said, extra loudly. Her lips curved, forming a perfect crescent as she delivered the crushing blow: “I think James and your sister will get along quite nicely.”
My sister? As the word blared inside my head, I cupped my left ear. No, I couldn’t possibly have heard correctly.
Even Gu Ma was stunned. “I thought the betrothal was meant for Yut Ying.”
“Yut Ying is not suited for an upper-class marriage,” replied my stepmother. “She has no dowry, no roots in Hong Kong, nothing to offer.”
“She’s pretty. That’s more than enough.”
“Not for the Tsangs. And she still has a debt to pay.”
“Lily is too young,” Gu Ma insisted. “She’s only twelve.”
“My mother was married when she was twelve,” countered Sai Ma.
“Pok Mun, are you going to allow this?”
Before Baba could reply, Sai Ma let out a sigh. “You must think me a callous mother. But with the world as chaotic as it is, it would be a comfort to me knowing that my only daughter’s future is secure.”
It always amazed me how good Sai Ma was at putting on a show. Her eyes became glassy with unshed tears, and her mouth actually trembled. She made Ah Ma’s old fits look like amateur performances.
“Perhaps Grace has a point,” said Baba. “I know you’ve plenty of connections, Sister, but it doesn’t hurt to be prudent and join with another family.”
“Why the Tsangs?” said Gu Ma.
“The family has an untarnished reputation,” Sai Ma replied. “All the men contributed greatly against the enemy; in fact, Mrs. Tsang’s brother works for the British military tribunal.”
For some reason, that information made Gu Ma straighten in her chair. She snuffed her cigarette against her bowl, ashes falling into her soup and floating among the rings of scallions.
My aunt pressed her lips into a line. “She won’t marry right away.”
“No, no. She’s a child, like you say. It’ll simply be a betrothal. Insurance, for her future.”
“And ours,” Baba murmured.
No! I wanted to scream, No you can’t. But a cramp reared deep inside my stomach, shooting up to the back of my ribs. I folded over my bowl in pain.
“I trust your instincts, Seet Ling,” said Baba. “If you think this is right, I’ll call Director Tsang and speak to him about his son. We can make an introduction.”
No, I thought, balling my fists. “Stop—”
Sai Ma clapped. “You’ll see, Husband. This is the perfect match.”
I couldn’t breathe. Tingly sensations fired up and down my skin like shooting stars, and I could feel myself start to disappear. As my soupspoon clattered onto the table, Richard shook my arm. “Gah Jeh? Gah Jeh!”
Another cramp lanced my belly. I let out a cry and toppled off my chair onto the floor.
“Yut Ying!” Sai Ma sprang to her feet. “She’s passed out on the floor.”
The next two days, I was confined to my room. I couldn’t have gotten up even if I wanted to. Just the smell of the magnolia flowers outside my window made me retch.
Gu Ma blamed my illness on my ear injury. “There’s no need to send for Doctor Wong,” she said. “It’s clear that the energies in her body are off balance. She’ll be better after some rest.”
I didn’t believe the prognosis one bit. The pain had come from my stomach, not my ear. But I was too weak to argue.
On Saturday my sister came home. I heard her footsteps from my room—a plodding march in counterpoint to Sai Ma’s birdlike gait. As soon as it was safe, I held my breath and followed them to the third floor.
Lately, there had been a problem with my invisibility. No matter how I concentrated, I could disappear but my rebellious shadow wouldn’t follow. It would skate along the parquet floor, giving away my hunched form as I hobbled, invisible, to Lily’s room.
I pressed my cheek to her door, and, with the discretion of a soundless breeze, cracked it open a jot.
“I scored first in my exams,” Lily was saying. “In maths, Chinese, and English. Miss Catherine says that my marks are strong enough to guarantee me a spot at Diocesan Girls’ School—”
“Your teachers are foreigners. Foreigners know nothing about what the world is really like. You’re not going to university, Lily. You’re a girl. Girls belong to their fathers until they’re married, then they belong to their husbands.”
“Times have changed, Ma. People don’t think that way anymore.”
“I know just how people think. I know more people than you do, young lady. All you do is go to school. You can’t imagine what I’ve sacrificed for you to have a good future.”
“What do you care about my future? You send me away to boarding school so you don’t have to see me, you lock me in my room—”
“All for your benefit,” Sai Ma interrupted. “Now that your skin has gotten lighter, if you only took off those spectacles, you might actually be pretty.”
“I don’t want this,” Lily burst. “I’ve done well, ask my teachers. I’ve been good, I’ve even made friends.”
“You want to become a man’s secretary? That’ll be your future if you keep on like this.”
“Better than a man’s property.”
The slap came singing against Lily’s check. My sister gasped, and I almost let go of my breath. One of Sai Ma’s rings had cut her.
“Stop crying. You have no idea how lucky you are. My father would have beaten me for acting the way you do.
“Beginning next month, you will live with your fiancé’s parents. The Tsangs have a library. You can read to your heart’s delight.”
“Please, Mama, don’t send me away.” Lily’s voice dropped to a painful whisper. “I’m your daughter. What have I done to make you not want me so?”
My throat swelled. Waves of heat rolled across my body, threatening to snuff out my invisibility. Lily, I thought. Don’t listen to her.
“Stop sulking.” Sai Ma rose from the bed. “Talking sense into you gives me a headache.”
She stalked away. I flattened myself against the wall and prayed she wouldn’t see my shadow, an inky puddle in the corner.
Once she was gone, I entered Lily’s room, turning visible once I closed the door. She’d taken off her dress and lay on her bed in her underclothes, unmoving, with a volume of The Dream of the Red Chamber over her face.
I picked up the book. Lily’s eyes were welded shut, a thin trickle of blood streaking down her cheek. As I dried her with a cloth, she rolled onto her side.
“I tried,” she said between her sobs. “I tried so hard for her to love me.”
“I know you did.” I gathered her up in my arms. She was so small I could still lift her easily. “It isn’t your fault.”
It pained me how much Lily loved her mother when she’d done nothing to deserve that love.
“During the war, I used to see babies by the roadside,” I said.
“My mama would take them in, feed them as best as she could. A few times, their mothers came back looking for them. But other times . . .” I let my words drift.
“Not everyone is meant to be a mother, Lily.” I stroked her cheek where it was starting to swell.
“I hope one day you’ll stop blaming yourself for that.
Until then, know that I love you. I’ll make sure she doesn’t send you away. ”
“Her mind’s made up.” Lily closed her eyes again. “There’s nothing you can do.”
But was there? I hesitated. Mama had warned me not to share my secret with anyone; look what had happened to Mr. Zhou after he’d seen me disappear.
Little devil, he’d uttered, does anyone else know what you can do?
Months later, those words still made my hackles rise. He was a wicked man who’d deserved his wicked end. I utterly believed that, just as I believed that my curse had helped deliver him that fate. So maybe it could help Lily, too.
After all, Lily wasn’t simply anyone. She was my sister.
I knelt at her side. “Watch.”
With a touch of showmanship, I sucked in a long breath.
I’d gotten better at understanding the signs before I went invisible.
Disappearing always started with the cold.
An icy draft swept across my body, its chill twining deep into my bones.
My skin then tingled, shimmered. The rest happened quickly. In a blink, I was gone.
Spooked, Lily poked the air with her finger. “Gah Jeh?”
Much had changed since I first turned invisible in Mama’s cupboard.
When Lily poked my ribs, her finger went straight through me as though I didn’t exist. This act of vanishment, of dissociating completely, was something I’d been practicing, but it still startled me.
I had to be careful, lest I walk through a window and fall out of the house.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
With an exhale, I reappeared in front of her. She immediately poked me again.
“Ow!”
“Four years,” she exclaimed, crossing her arms. “I’ve known you four years, yet you never told me you’re a fairy!”
My heart squeezed. The way she could find levity at a time like this made me love her even more. “Just a small fairy,” I said, pinching my fingers together. “The size of a fish bone.”
“Like Yeh Shen’s fish bones?” Lily, I’d found out, already knew the tale. “Do you have a fish bone, Gah Jeh? It would explain your fairy magic.”
I flinched, growing uncomfortable with my lie. Mama had called what was inside me a demon, not a fairy.
“Enough about fairies and fairy tales. I’ll protect you with everything I have. Sai Ma won’t force you to marry anyone, I swear it. We’re going to run away. Together.”
“You . . . you can make me disappear too?”
“Of course,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “We’ll practice together.”
“When?” She was starting to turn giddy. “When can we leave?”
“Soon.” It was one thing to run away, another to have a place to go. “I need time to work on it.”
“Then I’ll wait for you.” Lily’s eyes were bright. “Do you know what the characters for patience are?”
I tilted my head. “Noi sam . . .”
“Means resistant heart,” said my sister softly. “Like yours—and mine.”
Only Lily could sneak a lesson into a moment like this. I hugged her tighter.
She was counting on me. Unlike Yi Gor, I wouldn’t let her down.