Gina’s eyes blinked rapidly. She gazed around the room to hide her interest, but she couldn’t conceal the lilt in her voice. “Oh, I don’t know. A little paint, new curtains. Are you looking for any kind of business specifically?”
“It’s set up for a nightclub. Everything is here. Missy Gina, I hear you sing. You good. You bring new customers. Men with money. If I find someone to take over, you come back. I give you a job. Please excuse, now.”
Over the next few days an idea percolated—would Chan back her if she offered to take over Rosa’s space? She had no money and no prospect of getting any, but she did have a game plan he might be interested in hearing given his hatred for anything Japanese, his village in China having been pillaged by them in 1937 and many in his family killed. Would he even consider it? She decided to find out and worked on her approach.
Chapter 18
CHAN
I acquire a pair of shorts stitched from a gunnysack. I have learned to be grateful for the smallest mercies.
—Ray Thorpe, Cabanatuan prison camp, October 1942–January 1944
When Gina arrived at Chan’s, Mei came from the back room. “Good morning, Missy Gina. Long time I not see you.”
“Yes, I was away for a while.”
“And Mr. Ray?”
Gina slumped a little. How much she’d like to say that Ray was home with Cheryl, and she could hardly wait to show him the new dress she had purchased. “Yes, Mr. Ray too.”
Mei leaned over the counter and whispered, “I thought because you American . . .”
Gina bent closer and whispered back, “I’m Italian, Mei. I know I never mentioned it. I was born in Milan, but I left when I was a child. I’m using my maiden name, Angelina Aleo—it’s Italian, not American.” She stood up, smiled, and said in her regular voice, “Would Chan have time to see me?”
Mei nodded and held back the curtain so Gina could pass through. The smell of fish frying and the wail of a baby filtered down from the upstairs living quarters. The workroom, once bustling with activity, was empty today, the bolts of silks and satins neatly stacked on shelves, women no longer needing formal dresses for their social lives of prewar Manila. Mei led her to a small office, where Chan, surrounded by invoices and ledgers, was adding a column of figures on an abacus, his fingers flying over the clicking beads.
“Excuse me, Chan.” She stepped into his office.
“Missy Gina.” He put the abacus aside, removed a ledger from a chair, and motioned for her to sit down. “It always good to see you. What brings you here today?”
She tried to look nonchalant, as if the reason for her visit were an everyday occurrence. “A business proposal, sir.” She saw no change in his expression. “I’d like to rent what was Rosa’s place and open my own nightclub. You know I can entertain an audience, and you said yourself that I attracted new business, the ones you preferred, the men with money. I could continue to do that.”
Chan rocked slightly forward. “I sure you could. Do you run business before?”
She had hoped Chan wouldn’t ask that. She hadn’t even finished high school, having dropped out in her senior year after winning a talent contest and a contract with Follies Musical Revue Inc. Nor had she held a job since marrying Ray until her few months at Rosa’s, and that had ended in disaster. “No, sir. Not a business, but I was chairman of the Junior League’s fund-raising committee for three record-breaking years and was awarded a plaque of commendation. I had to keep meticulous records.”
Chan nodded. “It good, but different, but still . . .”
He seemed to be contemplating, and Gina anxiously waited.
He said, “It might be working. You smart lady. I need two months’ rent in advance and a twelve-month contract. I renew yearly.”
Gina had known this was coming too. Her house was in the hands of the Japanese, and her wealth had disappeared. Who in their right mind would lend her a cent? “Chan, I have no money. You’re going to have to trust I’ll make good on my promises. I have a plan—”
He put up his hand to stop her.
She quickly interjected. “Please listen. There’s something important I must tell you. I found that when a little tipsy, the Japanese officers are easily manipulated. I learned to use that to my advantage. I can sweet-talk them out of a lot of money and sometimes information. It’s like a treasure trove waiting to be mined.” She paused, letting that sink in, and then said, “I want to open my own club. Others who think like I do want to work for me too. We’ll cater to the wealthiest of Rosa’s Japanese customers.”
Chan sat as still as a rock, his hands in his lap and his face stony, but she could see a pulse beating fast in his neck. “You bring me shame. I thought you entertain our friends working to keep our country free. But no, you entertain the enemy for your benefit. You no different than Rosa. You leave now.” He waved his hand dismissively and reached for his abacus.
Gina blinked. His shame stung like a slap, but he had it all wrong. She persisted, “Please let me finish. There’s more you need to know.”
His glower conveyed his aversion. “It folly. Even your own people call you a traitor.”
“So what’s new in these times? Everyone is living a lie. Please let me explain, Chan.” She told him her plan of a club to cater to the wealthy Japanese officers and her intent to support a guerrilla unit at the officers’ expense. She hoped he saw the irony and the value of it.
His eyes betrayed a flicker of interest, but he still resisted. “Impossible,” he grunted. “You have much to hide. You stay safe only if you stay noiseless.”
She knew that was true. Drawing attention to herself was a peril she’d lived with since she’d returned to Manila, and now she would be increasing her exposure to a dangerous level. Adamant, though, she leaned close to him and peered into his worried face. “We’re trapped on this island and living under cruel Nipponese rules. I hate what they are doing to us, Chan. I need to do something with my rage.”
She perceived his countenance softening.
Encouraged, she hurried on. “I’m only asking that you help me get started. I need a backer. I saw the money Rosa pulled in. I want that money and any information I learn to support the resistance . . . the guerrillas in the mountains. I’ve done the math. Even paying you back with interest, I could do that. My guerrilla friends are living and fighting in squalid conditions. They need help, Chan. Many are your friends too. My daughter, Cheryl, is there.”
“And Mr. Ray?”
As always when she explained Ray’s situation, Gina’s voice sounded strangled. “I don’t know. He was on Corregidor. He’s been missing for months.” She placed her diamond-and-sapphire ring on the table. “It’s my wedding ring. It means a lot to me. It’s the only collateral I have.”
After a moment, he picked up her ring and inspected it, but then he pushed it back toward her. “I find out more. Come back. Two days.”
Gina left Chan’s curious how he was going to “find out more” and encouraged that he had not rejected her outright. With no desire to go to her lonely room, she walked along Escolta Street and observed her reflection flickering by in the shop windows. Who was that aged and worn woman staring back at her? She turned her face away and beat herself up again with her thoughts . . . her child was unhappy . . . but she was, too, and scared and vulnerable. Two sad peas in a pod, waiting for the Japanese to leave, waiting for Ray to come home to them, waiting for their lives to stop drifting without direction.
In Heacock’s toy department, for two centavos she purchased a Carmen Miranda paper doll book that included two paper dolls, nine long gowns, and many headdresses, hats, and turbans with feathers and fruit. Cheryl would love it, and so would Leah. She rode the elevator to the mezzanine, where there was a café, once a hangout for her and her Junior League friends.
Cutlery clinked on ivory plates and conversations buzzed as the hostess seated her at a small table next to the railing, where she could view the sales floor below. The menu had changed, and
so had the clientele. Missing from the crowd were the blondes and redheads, the blue eyed and green eyed, the tall and the hefty, the pantsuited and skirted, anyone who looked even vaguely American. Gina wished for a slice of pineapple-and-banana bread with cream cheese but spent her last centavo on a cup of tea, feeling guilty even at this meager indulgence, knowing her friends were sometimes going hungry.
On the intercom, Ella Fitzgerald’s “Cry Me a River” played, and the bluesy, pure tones of the chanteuse brought on a more profound bout of melancholy. Gina’s gaze flitted around the room, and she witnessed compassionate pats and expressions of condolence between long-faced people sharing their sorrows. Gina knew the power of music to manipulate moods, and it was one she could use to her advantage in her new endeavor, should it come to fruition.
Chapter 19
PEARL BLUE
I labor to heed the sage advice from a seasoned inmate—stand tall and appear robust to save your body, and search for moments of solitude to save your sanity.
—Ray Thorpe, Cabanatuan prison camp, October 1942–January 1944
Visions of her own nightclub dominated Gina’s thoughts, and sitting on the couch in her room, she jotted down notes, listing things she would have to consider. She’d name it Pearl Blue, a reminder of Ray’s pearl-blue eyes. She contemplated bringing Inez and Arielle into her confidence. She could use their help, and she trusted them, both having lost family members to the Japanese invasion. There would be the mundane, like applying for an operating permit and a license to serve alcohol. She didn’t have a clue where to start. More exciting was dreaming up the ambience—posh and dimly lit—and the entertainment, from wild to seductive to melancholy, calculated to lure in the Japanese patrons, charm them, and then woo them to unguarded moments when they would loosen their lips and empty their pockets for Davy’s guerrillas. She heard a knock on her door. It was Inez.
“I was just at Rosa’s picking up my stuff. Here, this is yours.” She handed Gina a box of eyeshadow, glitter, rouge, and lipstick. “I ran into Julio. He’s still looking for a job. I hope you don’t mind, but I told him what we’re thinking about doing—”
“You what? Nobody’s thinking about doing anything.”
“Well, if you do, he got really giddy. You never know if he’s up or down, but we have a piano player if you could work with him.”
“I could,” Gina replied. During her years in show business, she had worked with perfectionists and prima donnas, the quirky and the suicidal. She’d learned to tolerate their unpredictability and admire their zeal. “I’d want Julio to lead my club’s band. I’m thinking three or four musicians. A percussionist who could keep up with you and Arielle. A jazzy sax behind me at the end of the night. My club would be different from Rosa’s. No clowns, ventriloquists, or comedians. I’m picturing us doing standards, jazz and blues, and spectacular ethnic floor shows. You and Julio have the education and the talent. I think we could pull it off.”
“And you’ve got the worldview,” Inez replied. “I think we could too.”
“It’s all hypothetical, of course.”
“Of course.”
Gina’s head was full of ideas she hadn’t thought about in over a decade. She was in her element again, and the plan set her thoughts spinning. Now, if she could only convince Chan to back her.
On her ride to Chan’s, Gina felt tied in a knot. She raised her shoulders high and tight, squeezing them into the muscles of her neck to loosen the tension. It didn’t work; the butterflies of anxiety still fluttered in her stomach.
She entered Chan’s office with a brisk step and a phony smile and sat tautly in the chair he offered. Feigning confidence, she tried to read his inclination, but there was nothing in his manner to give him away.
As he took a breath, his nostrils flared slightly. “I check. I ask around. I learn you smart lady. You work from your head”—he touched his temple—“and your heart.” He touched his chest. “I proposition you.”
She stifled a smile.
He sat back and laced his hands over his stomach. “You have important mission. You fool Japanese and help American soldiers. I help you with it. We must move fast. Every day business closed, we lose money.”
Chan took a paper from his desk drawer and handed it to her to read. The hand-printed document stated the terms of their agreement. The rent for the building was less than she had expected but still a lot. As she wrestled with the amounts, the silence stretched between them until Chan said, “I help you run business until you learn. And I give you special deal for rent and protection.”
Gina frowned quizzically.
“My number-three son, Ling, come with rent. He stand at the door and watch out for you.”
“That’s very kind,” she said, touched by his concern for her safety, and not hiring security was one less expense. She could finally quit the diner job and forget about working as a nurse’s aide. She could give Pearl Blue her full attention, and Chan believed in her. It was a good plan, so why did she feel so jittery? She gathered her courage and took the plunge that she hoped would change the lives of those depending on her in a positive way. “All right. Let’s do it.”
He handed her a pen and the documents to sign. At the top was his name, Yee Chan.
“Chan! You own the restaurant next door to Rosa’s too.”
“Yes, Missy Gina. We do business with you. Make dim sum for your customers.”
“I wasn’t planning on serving food.”
“Not food . . . dim sum. It come on little platters. Easy. My number-one son, Mak, bring in steam cart. No mess for you. Make customers thirsty. Drink more beer.”
“We’ll see.” She dipped the nib of the pen in the inkwell, dabbed off the excess ink, but didn’t sign the document. “There’s one thing. The place is run down. You’ll need to clean it up before I can use it.”
“How clean?” Chan asked, which Gina thought would be funny if she weren’t about to make one of the most important decisions of her life.
“At a minimum, paint, curtains, renovating the bathrooms. I’ll give you a list. I’d like to put it in the contract.”
Chan took the contract back, and Gina nervously waited for him to decide. He said, “I add dollar figure and time of two weeks to make it pretty for you.” He added the information.
When Gina signed her name and the date, relief that the deal was done turned to euphoria, and a multitude of plans started to whirl in her head. She took a minute to compose herself before she could say, “Thank you. I won’t let you down.”
“Not me, missy. Our guerrillas. You not let them down.”
Gina sat back with her hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. Chan had totally bought into her plan. “Our guerrillas,” she repeated.
Later at home, a nagging worry stalked her—the path she was choosing was risky. Was she up to the task? She called Inez and told her the news.
There was a moment of silence before Inez replied. “You’re not fooling me, are you? You got a fairy godmother or something?”
“Sort of. It’s scary, isn’t it? Meet me at Rosa’s—umm, Pearl Blue—at nine o’clock in the morning. Bring Arielle. There’s something I need to pass by you. I’ll call Julio and Eddie. Oh . . . how do you feel about us serving dim sum?”
As Gina approached Pearl Blue the next morning, she was greeted by the mouthwatering smell of honey and cinnamon coming from the bakery next door. She followed the scrumptious odor into the bakery.
A blonde, angular woman was filling shelves with round loaves of warm bread and long jelly-filled strudels. The woman’s smile was welcoming. “What can I get for you?”
Gina held out her hand in greeting. “Hi. I’m Gina. I’ve been here a few times—you may remember me. I just want to tell you that I’ll be opening a new nightclub next door soon.”
The woman’s welcoming smile faded. “I’ll tell you right now, right to your face. I will hold you responsible for any damage your customers do to my property.”
; Taken aback, Gina said, “I don’t expect there to be any trouble.”
“We’ll see about that. You keep that riffraff in line, or I’ll give you and that Chinaman plenty of trouble.” She turned her back.
Old bat, were the first words that came to Gina’s mind. What had brought that on? Not wanting to make an enemy, she said, “I’m sorry you had problems in the past. I expect my customers to be, umm, better behaved.” She clamped her mouth shut and left.
The front of Pearl Blue faced Manila Bay, which was filled with Japanese troopships, battleships, tankers, barges, and destroyers—a distressing sight but all the better for her business. The cabaret signage that hung overhead would be the first thing to go, she decided as she unlocked the door. The inside was dingier in the morning light, and it smelled bad too.
Not long afterward, Inez and Arielle walked in, Inez carrying a box of pastries.
Despite her lousy encounter with the baker, Gina’s mouth began to water. She selected an apricot-filled pastry. “I take it you didn’t mention to the bakery lady you were bringing these here.”
“Her name is Irma. Should I have?”
Gina relayed the story of her unhappy introduction, the sting of it still pestering her.
“Oh.” Inez wiped raspberry filling off her chin. “I applied here a while back when it was still the Opus Club. It attracted mostly dockworkers, and it got rowdy sometimes.”
Gina was feeling antsy, not sure how to tell Inez and Arielle her real mission. Maybe she should have been up front earlier, but then there had been no reason to. “Before you agree to work at Pearl Blue, there’s something you need to know. There will be more going on here than what meets the eye. I’m aiming to make this place classy to attract the wealthy Japanese in port or working in the city. If you agree, the three of us will work together to woo money and information from them that we pass on to the resistance. That’s the whole of it. You don’t have to stay with me.”
Along the Broken Bay Page 18