Songs of Willow Frost

by Jamie Ford

  Worried that she’d wake him, Liu Song walked about her apartment and then sat on the edge of her bed. She scooted beneath the covers, then lay back, slowly reclining, hoping not to rouse him. She stroked the soft fabric of his flannel pajamas and felt a bit of wetness on her cheek as he drooled ever so slightly.

  “William Eng,” she whispered. “What am I going to do with you?”

  She hated the last name they’d both been branded with. And even though she’d lied and told the midwife that she didn’t know who the father was, Liu Song vaguely recalled screaming Leo’s name during her labor—cursing him and Auntie Eng, crying for her ah-ma as she gave birth to a boy in a cloud of righteous pain and a haze of ether. The doctor wrote Leo Eng’s name on the birth certificate in loco parentis, in place of a parent, a festering blister on an otherwise pristine and celebratory document.

  “Someday I’ll give you a real birthday party,” Liu Song whispered.

  Because of fluid in his lungs, William had not been allowed to leave the Lebanon Home for weeks that spilled into months. Liu Song remained as well, so that he could be fed without a bottle or a wet nurse—so he could fully recover.

  During Liu Song’s extended stay, she’d been expected to help out with the new girls as they arrived, each of them terrified and alone. None seemed to mind that Liu Song was Chinese as she tried her best to light the path that she had just traveled. But that light grew darker as Liu Song watched delirious new mothers be told that their tarnished reputations would only burden their children—that an unwed mother was unfit to be a mother. She listened in as they were compelled with unrelenting guilt, goaded, and ultimately swindled, into signing away their children. She looked on in sadness and confusion as mysterious couples arrived each week, then left with newborns, often pried from the grasp of wailing, hysterical young girls. But those infants seemed luckier than the forsaken—the babies no one wanted. Those few without prospects, from mothers who truly didn’t want them, from mothers who had died during childbirth, those born sightless or without arms, those children were taken away by grim-faced caretakers to places unknown. Liu Song watched this strange tragedy performed over and over again, quietly wondering why no one had chastised her for weaknesses of the flesh, for bringing shame to her family and being a blight on public morality—she wondered why no one came to try to take William from her. At first she thought it was because of her son’s sickly condition; then she caught her reflection in the polished tin of a bedpan and realized the truth of the matter—that no one would adopt a Chinese baby.

  As Liu Song closed her eyes, she realized that her misfortune had been William’s good luck. Her sorrow had given birth to joy. She would celebrate one day. But due to William’s poor health when he’d been born, Liu Song had been unable to give him a proper red egg and ginger party. Even now the thought was sadly comforting. If she had been sent home from the Lebanon Home on time, that celebration, with chewy yi mein commemorating thirty days of life, would have been a lonely occasion. Because she knew that her family would only have been able to be present as ghosts. At least if she threw a party now, she reasoned as she fell asleep, William would be old enough to eat the longevity noodles by the fistful.

  LIU SONG WOKE promptly at 6:05 A.M.—she didn’t have a choice. Each morning the Shasta Limited chugged into the Oregon and Washington Station, alerting the neighborhood of its arrival with a stout blast of its whistle. The steam horn was so loud the bellowing sound rattled Liu Song’s windows from two blocks away. She peeked at William, who merely smiled and yawned. He stretched as she pinched his nose and changed a wet diaper. Then Liu Song carried him to the kitchen, where he played on the floor while she reheated a pot of rice, mixing last night’s sticky clumps with sweetened condensed milk and a drop of vanilla extract. An hour later their bellies were full, their teeth were brushed, their hair was combed, and they were out the door.

  As Liu Song pushed William along King Street in a secondhand Sturgis carriage, she couldn’t help but notice that the city had become a blooming flower as Chinatown extended its petals in all directions. But she still stood out from the crowd on every street corner. In Chinatown she was a girl out of place—young, unmarried, yet with a child. And as she headed uptown, toward Butterfield’s, she was an Oriental face in a city of white strangers who marveled when she spoke such fluent English. They gushed over her accent, which she’d always apologized for. Somehow her voice had become exotic, sophisticated, and mysterious. Though that might have been because of Mr. Butterfield’s relentless promoting. After she returned to work he’d given her a raise, doubling her commission on sheet music, providing income that she desperately needed. The Lebanon Home had helped her apply for a pension for unwed mothers, but she’d answered the questionnaire honestly and said that she had no plans for William to attend Sunday school. As a result, she’d been denied, which was unfortunate because Liu Song didn’t even know what Sunday school was. She put down how she intended for William to attend Chinese school in the afternoons when he was old enough to enroll in public kindergarten, but that didn’t help her cause. That, and the fact that single Chinese women were still viewed with suspicion.

  To make things worse, she’d lost her apartment while at the Lebanon Home, but Mr. Butterfield had generously found her another place. He’d moved her few belongings to a partially furnished room at the Bush Fireproof Hotel, on the corner of Sixth and Jackson. Liu Song felt safe there because William Chappell, who had once been a volunteer fireman, had built the seven-story hotel. The modern building had 255 rooms, 150 of which had private baths. Liu Song had lived there for nearly two years, paying $1.25 per day. The tiny one-bedroom unit was smaller than her old place in Canton Alley, but at least it was a home without bitter memories etched into every wall, every floorboard, and every ceiling tile.

  “You can repay me by coming back to work, dear,” Mr. Butterfield had said. “As soon as you’re able. Patrons have been asking about you for months. I lied and told them you were in California working on a vaudeville circuit.”

  Liu Song had planned to repay Mr. Butterfield by William’s first birthday but managed to settle her debt in half that time by taking a weekend job as a dancer at the Wah Mee Club. The popular speakeasy in Maynard Alley was the one place where her reputation worked to her advantage. She’d hoped to get an opportunity as a singer, but the pay was good in the meantime. On a Saturday night, after payday at the docks, she made more money selling dances than she earned all week at the music store. But at the music store, her employer let her bring William to work. Mr. Butterfield had even cleared a space in the back where William could take naps while she hustled songs on the street. And when he wasn’t tired, the music store was a toddler’s wonderland.

  “Ready to play a song for your mama?” Mr. Butterfield asked William, who loved sitting on his lap, William’s tiny feet on top of Mr. Butterfield’s wingtips as they worked the foot pedals of a small upright pianola. “Pedal faster,” Mr. Butterfield said. “Now slow through this part … then we’ll hit it hard for a big finish.” The pedals not only drove the manual piano but also accented and shaped the music. The keys moved like magic, but in a small way, William was playing the song. Then he’d pop down, run outside, and throw himself into Willow’s arms. “I did it,” he’d say. “I played it for you.”

  That’s how Willow spent her days, fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off—enough time to earn a living and care for her son. That was a unique advantage her day job had over her weekend gig at the club, which required special arrangements, from special friends.

  LIU SONG SIPPED a cup of tea as she watched William close his heavy eyelids and doze off. Then she heard the front door open. She smiled as Mildred came inside.

  “Look at you in that dress!” Mildred said in Chinese.

  Liu Song stood and straightened the seams of her cheongsam. The long dress might have seemed modest on someone else, but the formfitting silk hugged her curves in a way that demanded attention. “Too Orien
tal? Too garish? Too revealing?” she asked.

  “Too bad.” Mildred shook her head. “I wish I was as tall as you.”

  Her old friend doffed her coat and hat and peeked at William, who was now snoring lightly. “He’s getting so big,” she said. Mildred’s eyes were wide and expressive, even more so with the heavy green eye shadow she wore.

  Liu Song nodded proudly and poured Mildred a cup of tea.

  The rumor at Franklin High was that Liu Song had gotten pregnant and been forced to drop out. Mildred had fought that rumor and was the only person who came and visited Liu Song at the Lebanon Home, against the wishes of her mother. And when Liu Song took the job at the Wah Mee, Mildred offered to babysit William. She said she’d do it for free, just to help out, but Liu Song insisted on paying her. Liu Song avoided asking Mildred if her mother knew that they were friends again. She wished Mildred could be equally adept at avoiding questions.

  “How was your date last week?”

  Liu Song took a deep breath and tried not to express her disgust. Mildred had fixed her up on a blind date last Thursday with a recent high school graduate, a boy named Harold from a prominent Chinese family. But, like so many men—young or old—Harold didn’t want a date as much as he was hoping for a night to remember.

  “Same as the others,” Liu Song said.

  Ironically, William was the only reason most men asked her out, not because they wanted anything to do with him but because, as Harold had intimated, “Hey, the field has already been plowed—why not till the soil once in a while?”

  “You’re too picky,” Mildred said as she took out a Marlboro. Like most women, Mildred favored them because of the red band around the filter that hid her lipstick stains. She went to the stove, bent down, and lit the cigarette on the pilot light. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You could have any man you want …”

  “I don’t want any man.”

  Mildred smiled but rolled her eyes in a way that seemed to say Suit yourself.

  A moment of silence lingered between them as Mildred took a long draw on her cigarette. She looked at her painted fingernails, then back at Liu Song.

  “So are you ever going to tell me who the father is?”

  Liu Song found her clutch and gloves. “William doesn’t have a father.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Mildred said, teasing. “You discovered him under a mountain of rocks, like the Monkey King. When he learns to fly on a cloud, could you let me know? I could save a lot of money on streetcar tokens.”

  “He has me,” Liu Song said. “That’s all anyone needs to know.” She kissed her sleeping boy on his tiny, pursed lips. Then she looked at Mildred, resting one hand on her hip. “And no boyfriends allowed. Your mother wouldn’t approve …”

  “My mother wouldn’t approve of a lot of things.” Mildred giggled and blew a perfect smoke ring into the air. It hung between them like an unfulfilled wish.

  Liu Song poked her hand through the center, dissipating the smoke. She looked at her friend with one eyebrow raised.

  “Fine. No boyfriends will come over. I promise,” Mildred said, cursing in Chinese as she plopped down on the worn davenport. “I’ll read a book or something.”

  The Wah Mee

  (1924)

  The Wah Mee Club was only one block over, tucked neatly into the belly of Maynard Alley. But to Liu Song the whiskey-soaked club seemed a world away from the rest of the city—from the rest of Chinatown for that matter. Because unlike the stately (and dry) Luck Ngi Music Society, or the Yue Yi Club, which had bright neon signs on the outside and handsome musicians on the inside—men from Hong Kong, with slicked-back hair who wore matching jackets and stood in a gold-leafed band box playing the stringed yi wuh and the tenor saxophone—the Wah Mee could easily be missed. In fact, if it weren’t for the steady stream of patrons one might never know the nightclub was there at all. And tonight the men were out in droves, some in traditional brocade dragon jackets, but many more in Western suits and ties, with fedoras and homburgs.

  As Liu Song passed a beat cop who stood at the T where the alley met the street, tipping his hat at passersby, she was reminded of a story Mr. Butterfield had told her. The tale was about a local distributor named Roy Olmstead—Seattle’s Rum King, who made his fortune bringing cases of alcohol down from Canada. Rumor had it that his wife, Elsie, hosted a popular children’s radio program that also carried hidden messages about where the action was each night. As Liu Song passed dozens of people coming and going from the alley, all beneath the watch of the local police, she surmised that Miss Elsie must have been spinning one of her yarns about the Celestials of Chinatown.

  When Liu Song walked past the club’s only window, made of frosted glass bricks, she could make out the opaque silhouettes of bodies moving inside. The figures were muted and distorted, as though the patrons were underwater. When she reached the entrance, Liu Song turned the key that rang the doorbell. She peered through the one transparent block and waved as a large shadow blocked the light. A second later a squat fireplug of a man opened the heavy wooden door. Liu Song heard music and laughter wafting out into the evening on a warm current of cigarette smoke and the overpowering smell of stale beer.

  “Sweet Willow.” The man spoke in Cantonese with a thick, farm-country accent. He was clad in a dark green suit, wearing white leather shoes, and he said her name as though it were more of a statement than a greeting. He waved a few Chinese and Filipino patrons in as well, then looked up and down the alley before locking the door.

  Liu Song checked in with the manager and then signed her dance card, just below the time and date. The club’s three-piece band was already playing a familiar tune as a pair of white sailors lined up for a dance, a nickel apiece, though some tipped more. Liu Song obliged the servicemen, making small talk and trying her best to create the illusion that she cared. On the nights when she grew tired of pretending, she acted like she didn’t speak English. She didn’t think of herself as a dancer. She thought of herself as an actress playing a part for an audience of one. That simplified things.

  As the second sailor led her through a fox-trot, she shuffled backward in a wide, lazy circle, circumnavigating the dance floor. On a second pass she caught a frightening glimpse of an older, balding man in Oxford bags, who stood at the rail of the club’s tiny, hand-painted craps table. The man’s shirtsleeves were rolled up, and his suspenders hung below his waist. An unlit cigarette dangled precariously from his lower lip as he bounced a pair of dice off the far wall of the gaming table again and again, until finally the other players groaned and the man threw his hands up, cursing in Cantonese and then louder in English, as though one language wasn’t enough to express his outrage.

  Uncle Leo, she thought. Liu Song had seen him on the street once or twice from far away and always managed to avoid running into him, until now. But as she watched the stickman rake the chips from the table and begin stacking them into neat piles of green, black, and red, the gambler looked up and Leo was gone. In his place was some other man, a simple patron who looked especially down on his luck.

  As the dance ended, Liu Song thought of how she dreaded the inevitable reunion with her drunken stepfather. She’d often pictured him turning from the craps table toward the wooden dance floor, fishing in his baggy pants for a cigarette lighter. In her nightmares he would demand that she light his cigarette. He’d regard her slender ankles and leer at her curves until he made eye contact.

  Liu Song looked at the stranger, this man who was not her uncle. She still felt terrified—of what? She wasn’t sure. That just by Uncle Leo’s presence, people might know her shame. Or that he’d follow her—drag her off to wherever he lived now? That he’d find out about William. Her stomach tightened.

  She stood, frozen in place as the man approached. In her heels she was an inch taller than he was, even in his fancy leather shoes. As he looked up at her and frowned, she felt a wave of nausea and was reminded of Uncle Leo’s smell. His pungent body odor reeked o
f bad dreams. He blew smoke as he walked by, though she remained frozen in something akin to sleep. A hostess handed him his coat and hat, and Liu Song felt the room spinning as she watched Uncle Leo snap his suspenders into place and then reach into his suit jacket and pull out a billfold. He opened the leather wallet and showed her how empty it was. Then he reached into his pants pocket and fumbled around a bit before he pulled his hand back out and held up an empty silver money clip.

  “My bad luck at dice is your good fortune,” he said with a shrug. “If I had known the dancers were as lovely as you, I would have saved a dime or two. Because that’s all you’re worth.” He spat on the floor. “I don’t care about the spirit of your mother, and I don’t care about you. All I care about is …”

  Liu Song blinked and Uncle Leo was gone; a confused-looking man stood in his place. He shrugged and tipped his hat. She watched him stagger away, past the doorman and into the night without a second glance. As sensation returned to her frozen limbs and she could breathe normally again, she felt as though she’d woken from a nightmare, leaving her to wonder what had happened. She always thought that if she ran into her stepfather, things would be different, that she’d be stronger, that she might find satisfaction in his failings. But even brushing up against his memory left her feeling neither strength nor joy. She was shaken by how much she still feared him, how paralyzed and helpless she felt—frightened but detached. The last few times she’d seen him, Uncle Leo had been drunk, and if she had a choice she hoped he’d be drunk forever. She remembered him being angrier when sober.