by Jamie Ford
She closed her eyes and saw her parents. She saw her future, far away from here, beneath spotlights with cameras and cheering fans. She heard music to songs that she’d never had the courage to sing. She tried to open her eyes, but she felt sleepy, and when she did raise her eyelids, her vision was blurry, shadowy, as though she were staring through a tunnel, a portal that was closing. She tried to call for help, to call for William, to call for anyone, but her eyelids refused to stay open. Finally the pain subsided as warmth surrounded her and she allowed the darkness to swallow her whole.
Sanitarium
(1929)
Liu Song woke to the sound of stiff leather shoes upon a polished wooden floor. She opened her eyes, but all she saw was white: a white ceiling, white walls, white linens, and white skin. Her eyes ached and her lips felt dry; the tender skin was coarse and chapped, peeling. She was burning up with fever.
With her eyes slowly adjusting to the light, she winced as a grim-faced nurse slipped something cold and metallic into her mouth. The nurse glanced up at the clock on the wall, but Liu Song’s vision was still too blurry for her to read what time it was. Then the nurse snatched the thermometer, read it quickly, shook it, and stepped to the next bed, where she slipped the thermometer in the mouth of another patient.
Liu Song slowly turned her head and tried to count the beds. It seemed as though she was sharing the room with six other women: one black, one Indian, the rest white, one feebleminded—all of them young, all of them looking better than she felt.
The black woman smiled and waved. Liu Song tried to wave back but found that her arms and legs had been bound to the bed by thick leather straps. Horrified, she strove not to panic. She felt suffocated, every part of her body aching, itching, her skin crawling. She tried to escape, the only way she could, by running to the darkest, safest corner of her mind. The place Uncle Leo could never find.
“Do you understand English?” the nurse asked.
Liu Song vaguely remembered where she was and nodded. “Yes.”
“Then I can tell you it’s for your own good, dearie,” the nurse said as she pointed to Liu Song’s restraints from two beds away. The nurse kept wending her way around the room with the thermometer in hand. “That way you don’t get all restless and pull out the stitches in your sleep.”
Liu Song tried to move but was too dizzy and weak; her body didn’t respond as though it belonged to her. She looked down and discovered stains on her shirt from where she’d thrown up on herself. Someone had cleaned her up, but she still smelled of ripe stomach acid and a hint of onion. She looked toward her belly but couldn’t see past the covers. And whenever she shifted her weight or moved her hips, she felt stabbing pains near her belly button.
She heard the nurse again. “Take it easy over there, you’ve had surgery.”
Liu Song blinked, confused. “Surgery?” She looked around, slowly realizing that she was in a hospital of sorts, a recovery room.
“You’ve been sterilized.”
Liu Song didn’t understand the word. “Where’s my son?”
“You lost the baby, hon,” the nurse said without looking up. Liu Song watched as the woman made notes on a clipboard before hanging the slab of wood on the wall. “Maybe it’s God’s way of saying you’re not cut out for motherhood,” she said without even a shrug of concern. “Are you still in pain?”
Liu Song remembered William and shook her head, but hot tears began to run down her cheeks. She bit her tongue, trying to hold in her emotions.
The nurse disappeared from view for a minute, then came back with a sponge and a bottle of something that smelled like dreaming. Liu Song shook her head as the nurse sprinkled a few drops on the sponge and put it in a mask, then wrapped the mask around Liu Song’s head. She didn’t want to breathe. She was afraid they were trying to kill her, poisoning her, afraid she’d never wake up. In a fit of panic she looked around the room and saw that the black woman had pulled up her gown and was touching the scar above her belly button.
Liu Song closed her eyes again. Her last conscious thoughts were of William.
WHEN LIU SONG woke it was morning. She could tell that her fever had passed. The only warmth she felt now was from the sun shining through the barred window. As her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten, she looked around, but all she saw was a bowl of broth next to her bed with a thin soup skin on the top. She couldn’t help thinking that if her mother were here she would have made her gai jow with dried wood ears and tiger lily buds. Her mother had credited the chicken-wine soup with saving Liu Song from the flu. If only the concoction had saved the rest of her family.
Liu Song noticed that two of the other patients were up and a nurse was helping them out the door and down the hallway. That gave her hope that this ordeal would soon be over. But then a familiar woman walked in and stared at Liu Song with pinched lips and a wrinkled forehead, as though she were a riddle to be solved, a social equation with an empirical answer.
“Mrs. Peterson,” Liu Song said. The woman’s presence was not a comfort.
“So you do recognize me? That’s good I suppose. That just means you can trust me and what I’m about to say.”
Liu Song felt her stomach ache again—whether from the lack of food, nerves, or the surgery, she couldn’t be sure. She reached toward her nightstand and found a glass of water. She emptied the glass in two large gulps.
“When can I go home? Where’s my son?”
Mrs. Peterson looked at a folder in her lap. “You can go home when we decide what to do with your son.”
Liu Song tried not to panic, tried not to tell herself stories with unhappy endings. She needed to be calm, rational. She needed to be a good mother.
“Right now, the plan is to contact the father and have him take William, permanently. You’ve never married. You’ve gotten pregnant, again. You were found in the bathtub, in terrible shape, doing deplorable things …”
Liu Song didn’t understand. The woman spoke too fast.
“My only regret is that your son wasn’t taken from you at birth. Who knows what damage you’ve done to him. It’s better that he’s with his father. It’s not too late …”
“His father doesn’t want him. Please …” Liu Song knew that wasn’t true. Leo might not want the burden of raising a son, but it was common for childless couples to adopt or buy a child outright. Such arrangements weren’t entangled with love or actual emotion. They were solely practical. If a child was adopted into a Chinese family and given a good name, that name came with the responsibility to care for his elders—a social debt that was expected to be paid. After all, a child owed everything to his parents. And in the meantime, Leo might relish free help in the laundry. Or Auntie Eng might have use for William as a house servant. Liu Song shook her head.
Mrs. Peterson looked at the other patients in the recovery room. “Well, considering your estranged relationship with Mr. Eng, I suppose we could make an exception. Think of it as an act of charity—grace, if you will. The sisters at Sacred Heart could take your son, but understand that this would be permanent. You’d be giving him up for adoption, and odds are, no one will adopt him. But at least he’ll have a moral upbringing and there will be plenty of other kids his age. He might even make friends.”
Liu Song desperately wanted to see her son, to hold William, to run away. “Are those my only options?” she asked, trying not to cry.
“Give him up to Mr. Eng,” Mrs. Peterson said, “or take your chances with an orphanage. It’s a moot point to me.”
Liu Song stared at her empty hands for what seemed like hours. Scared and alone, again, she felt her heart pounding, her hopes and dreams bent across an anvil, waiting to be hammered. I can’t give him anything, not even my name, Liu Song thought. But I’ll never give him to Leo. She looked up at Mrs. Peterson and whispered, “The orphanage. Where do I sign?”
When the papers were read and signed through a fog of disbelief, disconnection, Liu Song gave Mrs. Peterson an hour’s
worth of parental instruction—William’s favorite food, favorite toy, favorite bedtime story, and she resigned herself to fatigue and her bottomless well of sadness. She didn’t ask if he’d be allowed a photo of her or if he might know who his family was. She couldn’t bear to hear the answers. She could hardly breathe through her tears.
“You could at least thank me,” Mrs. Peterson said as she was about to leave. “I’ve done you, and your son, a tremendous favor.”
The woman stood in the doorway as the clock on the wall ticked away a lonely minute. She tapped her foot on the wooden floor.
“Thank you,” Liu Song whispered as she cried softly.
Liu Song listened to the woman’s footsteps as she walked away. She heard the door at the end of the long hallway open and close. She sat motionless as an orderly came and went. She watched the man help each of the other women into a wheelchair and take them away. When he left with the last woman, the black woman, Liu Song took a deep breath and then screamed. She screamed until she tore her stitches and the sheets dotted red. She screamed and flailed her bare legs, tearing out her hair as nurses and orderlies stormed into the room and fell upon her, wrenching her to her side, a meaty hand shoving her head into a pillow as she wailed until she felt a pinch in her thigh and her tears were the only things that moved.
Daughter of the Dragon
(1934)
William didn’t fully understand his ah-ma’s plight, but he knew that whatever she’d done, she’d done it for him, which left him feeling loved and guilt-ridden at the same time. As he searched his memories, he vaguely remembered Colin and Uncle Leo, but he never forgot his mother’s sadness. The only time he remembered her feeling truly at ease was during the Lunar New Year’s celebration. They’d dress in red and watch the parade on Seventh Avenue, waiting for the liu bei to look their way. The actors who dressed up as the black and gold lion would strut and bob, weave and lunge, as musicians banged drums, gongs, and cymbals. Some would even light strings of firecrackers that flashed and echoed between the brick buildings, filling the air with smoke. His ah-ma would hand him a red envelope wrapped in a lettuce leaf to feed the lion, pacifying the beast and sparing him for another year.
Then they’d return to their apartment, where they would sweep away yesterday’s grime, the dirt, and dust. Only after she had cleaned every corner would his ah-ma relax, completely exhausted. It was as though she were sweeping away the past, the cobwebs, the spiders, and the dead things in her mind.
As he followed her along Second Avenue toward midtown, William stared up at the Smith Tower, which was closed. The only light came from the glowing pyramid at the top, a beacon rising high above the garbage-strewn streets.
“Taking me to the Wishing Chair?”
His mother didn’t smile. She merely shook her head. “I want to show you something. I want you to see who I am.” She pointed to the small building next door, the Florence Theatre, with its new, glittering sign that advertised talkies. William had never been to the second-run theater, which was showing Daughter of the Dragon.
William had heard of Sax Rohmer’s books and movies featuring the nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu, but Sister Briganti had never approved of them. Still, that didn’t keep his classmates from drawing on handlebar mustaches and pulling their eyes back in an attempt to look mysterious and dangerous.
William stood in line as his ah-ma bought two tickets. They sat together in the middle of the theater, whispering through the news-reel and a cartoon of Flip the Frog.
“Is that why you gave me up?” William finally asked. “To keep me away from Uncle Leo? If so, it’s not your fault. I understand.” He watched the flickering cartoon reflected in her eyes.
“In hindsight, I should have taken you and fled when I had the chance, but I was weak. You don’t understand, William. I never wanted to give you up. How could I do such a thing? Instead I chose the lesser of two evils. I gave you up to keep you from him. And gave myself up in the process. I never expected to leave the Cabrini Sanitarium. I didn’t want to leave. I stayed and wrote to you. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I knew where you were. I hoped you’d get my letters and understand.”
William thought about the trove of cards and correspondence that Sister Briganti had kept hidden from him all these years. He shook his head as a Morton pipe organ played a happy melody. William felt sick to his stomach. The song faded and the lights grew dimmer and the feature film began. This time the music was more ominous.
As the credits rolled, William recognized the names of Sessue Hayakawa, Anna May Wong, and Warner Oland as the evil Dr. Fu Manchu. He searched his memories and remembered himself and his young mother in the company of a much older man. He vaguely remembered his ah-ma calling him her uncle.
William remembered his mother in the bathtub.
“Uncle Leo would have wanted nothing to do with a pregnant woman. But the baby—I worried that if I had a girl this time, he and Auntie Eng would make me sell her, or worse. And if I had a boy they might take the newborn and call it their own. Or keep the two of you, eventually tossing me aside.”
William listened to his mother’s confession, which was more painful than any he’d ever stumbled through with Father Bartholomew. He looked at the screen and heard Sessue say, “It is the supreme irony—that the only person I have ever deeply loved, should be born of blood that I loathe.”
That’s who I am, William thought.
“They wouldn’t let me leave the sanitarium until I gave you up one way or the other. I asked about you, begged for you. But they said you had been taken away to a temporary home—that it was what was best for you. And in a sad way, I knew that was the truth. I couldn’t take care of us. I was about to be evicted from my apartment because of how they found me. I couldn’t take care of you. So I signed you away—permanently. That was the only sure way to keep Uncle Leo from finding you. I had lost you, but I could never lose you to him.”
William looked at the screen and saw a familiar face. It was his ah-ma, it was Willow. His mother appeared as a handmaiden to Anna May, who was playing the villainous daughter of Fu Manchu. “But, how did you get here?” William asked, pointing toward the screen.
“Who would have thought that Eyes of the Totem would be my big break? The movie wasn’t even released for two years, and by then no one wanted silent films—they all wanted talkies. H. C. Weaver went out of business, and two years later the studio burned to the ground. But Asa saw the film in a second-run theater, while half-drunk. He’d spent time in an institution as well. I think he recognized sorrow when he saw the tears, the sadness, the pain, which was real—I never had to act to make myself cry, William. I was never one of those actresses who rubbed salt or glycerin in her eyes. I only had to think of you and the tears would come.”
William looked at his mother, who was crying as she spoke.
“Asa found a producer who tracked me down and vouched for me. The studio gave me a screen test. Everyone was looking for the next Nina Mae McKinney—they already had a black Greta Garbo, now they needed an Oriental one as well. That led to a contract. I stopped being Liu Song and I became Willow Frost. The studio even paid to have my name legally changed. They gave me a monthly stipend. They paid to have my back teeth removed to improve my smile. They fixed my crooked nose. Then my big moment came with a role originally written for Anna May. She was allergic to the cornflake snow they were using on the set, so I got the part. But I never forgot you, William. Each year on your birthday, I’d have Mr. Butterfield ask about you at the orphanage, and check on the whereabouts of Uncle Leo—hoping, praying, that if something happened to him, if he died, I’d somehow be able to return as your ah-ma. That was my foolish hope. A hope that slowly vanished as I realized the studio would never embrace the scandals of my past, especially when they were keeping me busy doing three movies a year. Besides, as far as Mrs. Peterson and the state were concerned, I stopped being your mother the moment I signed those papers.”
William watched as his ah-m
a swallowed and caught her breath.
“And later, when the studio found out I could sing, they sent me on the road, which was a relief. For me, performing onstage is more enjoyable and safer than standing in front of a camera making movies all day.”
“Why?” William asked as he watched his ah-ma on-screen. She seemed so glamorous in a jeweled gown with a glimmering headpiece that looked like something from the Ziegfeld Follies.
“Because after each movie, among the cards and fan mail, I would inevitably receive a telegram from Uncle Leo.”
William froze as the hero, played by Sessue, shot her.
“And because I die in all my films, William—every single one.”
William watched his mother’s collapse on-screen. Her movie-star voice was raspy and deeper than in real life, more dramatic, pure make-believe. He listened as the music swelled to a rolling crescendo. He watched as she closed her tearful eyes, her shoulders drooped, and she fell silent, lifeless.
When he turned to speak, his ah-ma was gone, her seat empty as an apology.
Old Laundry
(1934)
William knew his mother wasn’t coming back. He didn’t hold out hope that she would return with a bucket of popcorn or a handful of Tootsie Rolls, or even the toasted watermelon seeds and dried cuttlefish they had snacked on when he was younger. She’d brought him here to make her confession, to say goodbye, and he knew that, in her own strange way, she was hoping for forgiveness. But she didn’t bother to wait around. As for William, for her, rejection wasn’t something to be withstood—it was something to be avoided.