Disappearing Moon Cafe

by Sky Lee

  I wandered off into the drawing room towards the piano to tinkle on a few keys.

  “So, what do we do now, Sis?” I asked, not in a fainthearted way, but loud. Not in an intimate way, but from far away.

  They looked at me, startled, as if I were the lunatic! I stared right back at them; Beatrice about to open her silly little oh-so self-righteous mouth again.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, Suzie,” her patronizing tone, her snowy white peter pan collar, “but we have to go and see Granny now.”

  “Oh no,” I said, suddenly alarmed, “not me!” I had mercifully forgotten that old bag heaving about upstairs, and I certainly didn’t have it in me to face her now.

  “What do you mean, ‘not me’!” Beatrice almost took a step in my direction, but Keeman grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Maybe we’d better go a little easier on her this time,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he meant me or Grandmother. I felt like I couldn’t hold back the tears any more, ticklish little things that they were, so I swept myself off the piano stool and headed towards the front door.

  “I’ll wait in the car,” I muttered as I almost ran past them.

  Out on the porch, the door slammed with a terrible finality behind me. It felt like leaded glass splintering against my face, because I knew that door would never open up for me quite the same way again. In my mind, word drills kept up as I ran down the stairs—Let me go! Please let me go! Let go of me!—as if there were thousands of invisible hands holding me back.

  Out in the car, I could hear Beatrice and Keeman talking to my granny, upstairs in her gloomy bedroom. I slapped my hands up against the sides of my head and pressed as hard as I could, but it was no use. I could still hear every word, even smell the sickening odour of her withered body.

  She was lying down as she did all day long, her deadening spirit seeping over the entire house. She got up when she heard Beatrice calling, “Ngen Ngen-ah!”

  “A Bea Bea-ah, so you’ve come to visit Ngen Ngen. Who have you brought with you?” The old woman squinting at them from the far side of her four-poster bed, shaking with the exertion of having to get up.

  “I’ve brought Keeman Woo, Granny! We just got married yesterday. We’ve come to tell you.”

  The old woman got up and tried to walk, wobbling unsteadily. Beatrice flew to her side, and the old woman pointed to her armchair by the front window. Beatrice led her over, and as they limped along, both of them started to cry.

  “Don’t marry him, Bea Bea! Brothers and sisters can’t marry! You’ll ruin your life. This family is falling apart, and I won’t be here much longer. Please listen to me!”

  She sank into the chair, and Beatrice knelt in front of her, crying in her own delicate way. As the old woman stroked the black hair on her lap, ancient tears coursed down a beaten face, and fell in.

  “There, there. You and Suzie are good girls. Always obedient. You only need to go right up to him! Tell him that you can’t marry him,” her words melting Keeman against the doorway like an atomic shadow. “Granny’ll find you someone better to marry, all right? You’ll have the biggest banquet in Chinatown. People will remember it for years to come. And Suzie next, when her turn comes. Where is Suzie? Why hasn’t she come to visit Ngen Ngen?”

  Out of habit, the old woman looked up from the piles of bills and invoices on the desk in front of her, and brushed aside some lace curtains. From the upstairs window, her sharp eyes could scan practically the entire street. There in the yard across the street, Suzie, a lonely little girl in pigtails, squatted, her tricycle beside her, staring intently at a squashed insect or something on the sidewalk.

  Out in the car, I immediately dived down onto the mildewed back seat, overwhelmed with a nausea that pricked more tears out of my sinuses, as if there were a whole stinking ocean back there. There I stayed hidden, lying in a heap as the old woman’s eyes passed over me again and again, like a lighthouse beacon.

  The trip back to Keeman and Beatrice’s apartment was in a total silence that sucked at us like a vacuum. I kept thinking the whole passenger compartment of the car might collapse inward, onto our heads. I sat behind Bea and stared at the back of her head, looking for diamond teardrops in her curls. Suddenly I felt a wave of sorrow for my sister. I had imagined such a beautiful wedding for her; it would have splashed romantic glitter all over Chinatown. Double happiness overflowing their banquet tables! Surely not this pathetic state of affairs!

  There was Morgan waiting for me on the fire escape. I got out; he came down. I flew over to him, pulling at his sleeve, wanting to get away, about ten thousand miles away.

  Instead, Morgan dragged me back to Keeman and Beatrice.

  “Well, what happened?” he demanded. An abrupt approach, a wide stance for railroading, but deep down, Morgan was skittish. One side of him wanted to bolt.

  “My mom’s willing to sign,” he added quickly. “She’s not happy, but she’s got no choice.” He grinned down at me under his arm. I wanted to snuggle into him, he was so wonderful. But I caught him off balance, and we swayed.

  Keeman hesitated, but his eyes watched us unerringly. “Gee, I don’t know,” he admitted, “Bea’s mom acted really strange. Locked herself up in her room.”

  “So what? I just want to know if she’s going to sign.” Morgan’s body tightly strung. “Did you even ask her?”

  “Well, no. We didn’t get around to that.”

  “Oh shit! What the fuck else is there?” His voice an explosion which ripped through me. I jerked back, or Morgan pushed me away.

  “Listen, you greasy little punk,” Keeman’s short hairs bristled, “when there are ladies around, you don’t talk like that!”

  Morgan shook his head and sighed as if he needed to drum up more patience. “We’ve got to get married, you know. Suzie’s my wife, whether they like it or not. We’re not going to sit around and wait for nothing!”

  “Take it easy, will you! Things like this take time,” Keeman growled from the pit of his stomach.

  “We don’t have time to spare, Big Brother.” Morgan always had to have the last word. “Will you lend us your car for a while?”

  “But you don’t even have a licence.”

  “So what! I know how to drive.”

  I could tell that Keeman was about to refuse, but Bea Bea took the keys out of his hands and headed towards the old Nash, dangling the keys under Morgan’s nose.

  Just as Morgan was about to start the motor, Bea leaned over and asked him through the open window, “Didn’t you say that your dad’s name is Wong Ting An?”

  “Was. Yeah?”

  I caught my breath. Morgan was always a bit touchy when anyone mentioned his dad. Bea Bea watched my mouth.

  “He used to work for our family, didn’t he?”

  “Yes ma’am, he sure did,” Morgan answered with a delinquent grin, and Bea stepped back from the car.

  ABOUT A WEEK after that, I was sitting in my parents’ brand-new Pontiac, our faces lit up green in front of the dial cluster dashboard. They bought a new car almost every other year. As usual, I was snuggled up to Morgan as he drove down the Ninety-nine. It was dark countryside around us, and we were about to get caught at the border.

  Not that I thought for one minute that we might have looked a little bit suspicious to that big, fat, american border guard. Being chinese for one thing, being chinese and looking even younger than we were for another! Driving an expensive late model and having a steamy little bundle of about one thousand, three hundred bucks, give or take. Enough for a ticket out of this mess, anyway.

  He didn’t know how much we had to begin with, not until the Vancouver cops came and got us. If we had really thought things out, we would have decked ourselves out in a tuxedo and evening wear and told him that we were headed for a very exclusive party in San Francisco—Chinatown, of course. I bet he would have been too impressed by rich chinks to see anything else.

  The way those cops swooped down on us, amazing to see! We were to
ld to park, then to wait in this holding room while they checked out a few details, or so they said. Morgan must have known something was up, because he said that we never should have gotten out of the car, should have just floored it through. It happened so fast, we didn’t even know we were being held until we saw a lot of flashing lights.

  Suddenly, Morgan ripped the door open and leapt over the counter. And it was a high counter. He yelled back at me, “Run for it, Sue!”

  But I stood there, stupidly surprised that he was going to leave me behind like that. The hordes of cops caught him in the parking lot though, pinned him down like a dangerous animal. They all ignored me. When they saw Morgan screaming for all he was worth, kicking and writhing, they all rushed to muscle in on the action, like a pack of starved dogs. They probably already knew that all I would do was whine like a lost pup and stay as close to my master as I could get.

  My mother threw the book at Morgan. Who knows what kind of strings she pulled. She knew the chief of police. Oh sure, real good friends! Madame Wong this, Madame Wong that, Madame Wong what a laugh! She sold him a downtown eastside tenement building. Sure, found him a chinaman boss-boy to collect the rent too, made it real easy for him. Chinese New Year? Dinner? Sure, as long as she did the inviting, why not? He’d been thinking about investing in another one, you know, on the side.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Morgan had been in trouble with the law before, B & E’s, petty theft, tried to burn his mother’s house down. He had his own probation officer. They blamed him for everything—theft on two counts, even though I told them that I took the money and the car, and that they belonged to my parents, so it wasn’t really stealing. But Morgan insisted that he did it. What was he trying to prove—that he was gallant? Didn’t he know he was going to reform school? What would happen to me? And the baby! They wanted to pin contributing to the delinquency of a minor on him, unlawful flight, resisting arrest, and the penknife he had on his person. They wouldn’t believe that he was just seventeen any more. They were going to double-check his birthdate just in case they could squeeze him into criminal court.

  Suddenly, I had this terrible thought that they were going to electrocute him. I couldn’t help myself, I was so wired up. I started to yell out loud. Who cared if the whole police station heard me?

  “I’m pregnant! I’m going to have a baby! Can’t you see?” I jutted out my stomach with its slight pointiness. “We were just on our way to get married.”

  I heard a cop sneer, “Somebody shut her up, will you!” Even Morgan threw me a disgusted look.

  “What’s the matter with you guys?” I barked as loudly and clearly as I could, as though they spoke another language. “Let us alone! Let us go! We haven’t done anything wrong.” A policewoman came and started to pull me away from the table, out of the room. I fought with my skinny, match-stick arms, shrieking with all my might, but Morgan slumped behind the desk and looked away. I thought he would spring to my rescue, but someone closed the door.

  For days afterwards, I thought if I fixed my eyes on each locked door, any minute he’d burst in, grab me, and we’d make a run for it together. I kept waiting and waiting. My baby kept growing and growing.

  I was kept in the dark about a lot of things. I knew that much, but I couldn’t have cared less. After I realized that Morgan wasn’t going to come charging through the dungeon walls on his white steed, I settled down. My mother no longer had to lock the door. She went back to selling her soul. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, but I didn’t care. I liked sitting in my dark little room. I wouldn’t even go downstairs until I was sure everyone was gone. In fact nobody ate meals together in that house any more. John had a huge fight with my mother and wouldn’t even come back to sleep. I wouldn’t have put it past my mother to try and convince him to do a little operation on me. I played records to drown out the old-woman sounds down the hall, read a lot, sewed all these neat summer outfits for when I would get my figure back. I daydreamt.

  I remembered when I told Morgan that I was going to have a baby. His face lit up, as though he had just discovered a deeper meaning to life.

  “Is that true?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, “it’s in my belly.”

  “Really?” I could tell he was spellbound.

  “Really,” I answered him, laughing, relieved that he wasn’t . . . wasn’t inconvenienced, I guess. In fact, he reacted as though it was the most natural thing in the world, like the Morgan I loved to play with.

  “Look, sometimes you can feel it move.” I pressed his hand against a particular spot.

  “Wow,” he exclaimed when he felt its punch. “It’s true then, it really can happen.”

  “Now, you’ll have to marry us,” I teased.

  “Oh wow!” He leaned over for another kiss.

  That seemed so long ago; maybe I imagined the whole thing.

  IN FRONT OF ME, Beatrice looked plumb awful. Tired, sick, thin and worried. Granny was threatening to die again. This time, she even had Dr. Gunn making house calls every day. Beatrice came back home every day to take care of her too, just as though she had never got married. We sat at the kitchen table drinking Coca-Cola, my hair up in rollers.

  “Bea Bea,” I whined at her for the hundredth time, “why can’t I come to live with you and Keeman?”

  “I told you, I’m trying not to get Mom all riled up, but she’s acting strange these days, and she won’t talk rationally any more. I really can’t figure out why she won’t let you marry Morgan, even if he is a criminal. I’m really at my wit’s end with worry!”

  “What are you so worried about? She’ll have to let us marry. It’s as simple as that.”

  Bea looked away. I stared blankly at her. Then I stared blankly at the wall. Then I wondered why I was staring blankly.

  “Aww, she’s just giving you the silent treatment,” I said finally, perhaps more to console myself, “because she’s peeved at us, because of those wasted boat tickets, but that can’t last. You should have heard her last night. She’s still real good at the good old ear-piercing, screaming-at-Dad number. Last night, they had a whopper!”

  “What was it, the same old going-home-to-China one?”

  “No, it was more like Daddy and his slut-waitress bringing eternal shame and whatever nasties Mom could think up onto this family. She said that if you have a baby by Keeman, it’ll be some kind of horrible cripple or retarded mental case. Nice thing to say, eh?”

  Bea Bea jumped up from her chair, her hand clamped tightly against her mouth. She started to head one way, changed her mind, and flew down to the basement. There, she retched and gagged and coughed. It was awful! When she recovered, I helped her up the stairs and sat her back down.

  She said, “Suzie, I think I’m already pregnant.” I was flabbergasted.

  “So soon? What happened to that bride’s year that was supposed to be the fun part after you get married?”

  Poor Bea Bea. She started to heave up, then she started to cry her eyes out again. I was sick to death of tears, endless tears.

  After a while, I asked, “So, does Keeman still think that the government’s anticommunist witch hunt is really an excuse to take away the chinese vote?” Oh well, I was only trying to make conversation. She was supposed to laugh! Looney tunes, right Bea? Just laugh! Who cares!

  My sister Bea, such a nice girl! I thought it was awfully unfair that these horrible things should fall on her shoulders when she really deserved nothing but the very best.

  Watching her reminded me of another time she had cried her eyes out, after she was not only refused a scholarship but also entrance into music at the University of British Columbia. They said that her english marks were not good enough, but I was sitting out in the hall, waiting for her. Nine years old, and I could see that stinking old man who was supposed to be the head of the department couldn’t even look at Bea without hate oozing from every pore. Pure envy and jealousy that a mere girl, and chinese to boot, should be so gifted. One professor after
another came up to us afterwards and apologized to Bea, telling her that she was musically very promising and that it was a shame such talent might be wasted because of prejudice; but one couldn’t do anything about it because he didn’t even have tenure yet, and another one wasn’t on the selection committee; why didn’t she consider study in the United States?

  The hottest part of summer passed slowly. Beatrice turned out to be definitely very pregnant; she kept throwing up and lost so much weight that they put her in the hospital. So, there was no one else to tend to Ngen Ngen except me, and even though she was getting very feeble-minded, she used to lecture me endlessly on the right way for a girl to behave, and the wrong way, of course. I got so bored that I sneaked out of the house more than a couple of times for some ice cream or a magazine or two. I was careful to avoid anyone I knew, not because I was ashamed but because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. What was there to say?

  A couple of days later, Mom drove home in the middle of the day. Right away, she marched into my room and started to tear out my hair. By then, nothing she said or did surprised me.

  “Are you crazy? Have you no shame—no shame at all?” She slapped and slapped, and when I tried to crawl away, she dragged me back by the hair.

  “Parading yourself up and down the street! Dead girl, dead girl-bag!” The words edged out through her tightly clenched mouth. She wasn’t going to stop until I conformed to her fierce will, but I wasn’t going to do that any more. She never cared about us. She never loved anything but money. I hated her for all the years of dressing us up like monkeys and telling us to behave like good little girls in front of fat men and their high and mighty wives because it was good for business.

  “What have I got to be ashamed of?” I shot back. “I would be married to Morgan by now, if it hadn’t been for you. And I’d be out of this crazy house.”

  I was aware of a tiny bleating noise in the background. Ngen Ngen was standing there, clutching onto my doorknob for support. She must have crawled out of bed when she heard the commotion. Now, she was pleading with Mom to stop beating me.