China Dolls

by Lisa See

  “They’ll give you a disease if you get too close. Have you gotten that close? I’ve heard that their privates are as different as their eyes.”

  “You mean slanted, going from side to side instead of front to back?”

  It made me sick the way they talked, but I was still glad to be here, happy to have made my choice to be in this world and not caged in the compound.

  When the first number ended and we filed offstage, Charlie Low introduced Li Tei. Everyone could feel his pride. “She’s a torch singer and good at grand opera too,” he promised. I lingered by the curtain to watch as he put a hand to the side of his mouth to confide, “But she’ll also sing a Chinese number on request. Ladies and gentlemen, I present my wife, the beautiful and talented Li Tei Ming.”

  Her cheongsam was made of yellow silk with large lipstick-red flowers like giant handprints touching every part of her body. Van Meisner nodded to the band, and the familiar notes of “Loch Lommond” floated through the club. Li Tei sang just one bar—combining a fake Scots accent with her way-down-south Cantonese accent—and once again a feeling of utter disbelief settled over the crowd. When she sang “Sì, Mi Chiamano Mimi”—Yes, They Call Me Mimi—from La Bohème, it was just too, too much. Unbelievable, really and truly unbelievable.

  I hurried back to the dressing room. Irene had changed into her costume for the next number, so she went out to catch Jack Mak’s act. After she left, Ida smirked knowingly. “She’s so gone on that guy.” Once the rest of the ponies were ready, we joined Irene stage left. I guess it hadn’t occurred to anyone in the audience that a Chinese man could be a magician either. I could see guests actually scratching their heads, as puzzled by Jack Mak as they were by his illusions. Did he really just shoot into a box? Now he’s opening it! Hey! A dove flew out and over my head!

  We ponies paraded out for a short interlude. This time I dared to look up to the windows into the bar, hoping to spot Ruby, but all I saw were well-dressed men leaning on the sills, watching the show. Charlie passed from table to table with his microphone, joking with customers, teasing them about how many drinks they’d had, asking if the women were wives, fiancées, girlfriends, or something else …

  As we dipped back behind the curtain, the band broke into “Minnie the Moocher” for the Merry Mahjongs—an acrobatic troupe recently returned from a European tour. When the line “He took her down to Chinatown, he showed her how to kick the gong around” arrived, the acrobats mugged it up for all it was worth. From that night on, they’d be known for literally kicking a gong around, solidifying their reputations as the best Chinese acrobats in America. Aiya! As if that meant anything!

  Another interlude. We wore miniature tuxedos—collars and ties, top hats, gloves, black opera hose, and little sequined corsets. Grace led us through a simple tap number. If a male customer wanted, he could touch a girl’s bottom as it twitched by. I managed to stay just out of reach. The spotlight moved to one of the velvet curtains. Expectations rose. Who—what—was coming next? The curtain swung open. Eddie stood there in top hat and tails. We kept dancing, hitting such a low and relentless rhythm that I finally understood why we were called ponies. Eddie was smooth and debonair. This wasn’t like seeing someone on the big screen. This was real, it was live, and it was happening just a few feet away.

  We waited backstage since we didn’t have another change. Li Tei Ming returned for a torch song. My nerves hadn’t ebbed much and neither had those of any of the other ponies, but it felt like everything was going well. Then it was time for the main attraction. Our crowd made way for the Lim Sisters, who wore white baptismal gowns and big bonnets. Maybe that had worked for them when they were little girls doing vaudeville, but to my eyes they looked ridiculous now that they were grown women.

  “Straight from the Palace in London,” Charlie proclaimed, “I give you the Lim Sisters.”

  The Lims tottered out. I thought their act was strange—who wants to see big babies singing?—but the audience loved them. People here in San Francisco had witnessed so much change the past few years. In the twenties: flappers, alcohol, and money flowing like water. And then the crash: families in breadlines, Okies arriving with all their possessions piled on top of their trucks, and people like those in the audience selling off jewels and property. But as customers watched the sisters perform, you could almost see their hope. It seemed we all wanted to forget.

  The big finale: We formed a conga line—with Li Tei at the front—and wove through the club, picking up customers, who hung on to the waists in front of them. Shake those hips from side to side, and kick! It’s the Chinaconga!

  The first show was flawless—like a perfect piece of jade. The audience demonstrated their appreciation by ordering more drinks. Champagne corks popped. Women sipped frothy cocktails from high-stemmed glasses. Men waved to Flo, the cigarette girl, to come to their table to sell her wares. Dinners arrived on big silver trays, with each dish topped by its own silver dome. In the dressing room, the girls jumped up and down, hugged each other, and laughed. How many times had Grace and the others sat in a darkened movie theater and wished and hoped and pined to be up on the screen in that movie, in that scene, in that world? Now they’d brought the illusion off the screen and into this building. The air crackled with adrenaline, excitement, and happiness. Even I felt something …

  As some of the ponies changed back into their costumes for the first number, I opened the bag I’d brought from home and pulled out my cheongsam. The silk was the color of a robin’s egg and was printed with white snow blossoms. “You’re an unmarried girl,” Mama had said when we ordered the dress. “This will make you look fresh and young, while still evoking the frostiness of winter.” The dress had marked the beginning of a new phase of my life. Now here I was, starting another chapter. I put it on and buttoned the highest frog to hold the mandarin collar in place. I closed the frogs across my breast, under my armpit, and down my side. It wasn’t my best cheongsam—not by a long shot—but the girls in the dressing room stared. Until this minute I was the one they distrusted because they could see I had more money than they did. They’d also made it pretty clear they thought that I had won out over dancers better than I was and that I considered myself special because I had Grace—the girl in charge of the line—as my best friend. Resentment threatened to dampen their exuberant moods, but Grace regarded me with eyes of love.

  “Look how beautiful you are!”

  I waved off the compliment. “I’m going to see if I can find Ruby. I’ll be right back.”

  I left the dressing room before Grace could stop me, then slipped through the velvet curtain and into the club. I sensed Grace behind me, but she didn’t follow. As I picked my way through the tables, customers—particularly men—offered their congratulations. I found Ruby in the bar. She wore a bias-cut dress—inexpensive but clinging to every curve. The group of men who clustered around her parted when I approached.

  “Wasn’t she great, boys?” Ruby asked.

  The men all chatted at once, vying for my attention.

  “Join us.”

  “Sit with us.”

  “Let me buy you a drink.”

  The men tried to one-up each other. Did I want a champagne cocktail, pink lady, gin fizz, or dry martini? After that, they got down to serious proposals.

  “Let me buy you dinner.”

  “Are you free later tonight?”

  “Do you have other girlfriends who’d like to tag along?”

  I did my best to be entertaining and polite, but inside I was swooning through the ether of happiness. Then Charlie announced that the second show would start momentarily. I wasn’t close to being ready!

  I hurried back through the tables but was slowed again and again by admirers. Panic began to well in me. If I didn’t get back in time … Once backstage, I ran to the dressing room. “Fiedee, fiedee, fiedee.” Grace glared at me as a praying mantis would eye a cricket, but she didn’t have time to scold me, not when she had to worry about her own per
formance, her own position, her own life. As Grace and the others filed out of the dressing room, I peeled off my cheongsam and threw on my Gay Nineties costume. I went backstage, desperate to join the number. Suddenly, surprisingly, someone yanked my shoulder. It was Eddie—dressed in his tails and top hat. He was furious.

  “You stupid bitch!” he hissed. “Are you trying to jam this up for all of us?”

  He went on to curse me with words I’d never before heard. When the ponies whisked through the curtain, they ducked their heads and edged around Eddie and me, up the stairs, and into the dressing room. They had to change and be ready for the next routine no matter what happened to me. Only Grace stayed by my side.

  “I’m sorry, Eddie.” My voice trembled. “This is my first show. I didn’t pay attention—”

  “Jesus Christ.” He drawled out the syllables to emphasize his disgust.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks, prompting Eddie to throw up his hands in frustration. Then he gestured to Grace. “Clean her up, for God’s sake. We’re on in a couple of minutes.”

  Grace pulled me into the dressing room, where it felt like we were in the middle of a tornado. Girls pitched aside their skimpy undercostumes from the Gay Nineties number and pulled on their black-sequined tuxedo corsets for the routine with Eddie as fast as possible.

  “Zip me up, will ya?”

  “Is my top hat cocked at a good angle?”

  “Do I look fat in this?”

  “I’ve got a run!”

  “A seam just split. What am I going to do now?”

  Small dramas happened all around us, but not a single pony wasn’t aware of my lapse—my irresponsibility—when this job was so precious. But if I got fired, they’d follow the old saying: Step on her bones to climb the ladder. And I would just be a lonely girl ignored by the wives and mothers at the Chinese Telephone Exchange.

  Grace hastily slipped out of her costume and into her tuxedo outfit. I sat on a bench, weeping. Once Grace was ready, she shooed Ida and the other girls out of the room and kneeled before me.

  “You’ve got to pull yourself together.”

  That Grace was upset with me was almost more than I could bear. I fought my tears, sucking in my upper lip and biting down hard enough that I tasted blood. Grace grabbed a tissue, and I watched in the mirror as she wiped away the worst of the streaks down my cheeks.

  “You need to have a sense of humor about these things,” Grace counseled, even as she tried to erase the irritation that chewed at the edges of her voice. “If you don’t, you’ll never survive in show business. If you miss a step, fall down, or get yelled at, you’ve got to”—here she began to sing—“pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”

  I didn’t know what in the world she was singing, and it must have showed on my face.

  “It’s from Swing Time,” Grace explained. “The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie?”

  I stared at her blankly.

  Grace attempted a new approach, reminding me that she was the head of the line and needed to get me out on the floor or her job was in jeopardy.

  “Stop crying right now,” she ordered. Then she pinched my thigh as hard as she could.

  “Oow!” I rubbed my leg. Grace blotted my cheeks with foundation and then used the powder puff so enthusiastically that little clouds of white dust swirled around us. Once my face looked passable, she brought me to my feet to undress and then dress me like I was a small child. Her eyes briefly rested on my scar. Daring for a Chinese girl to stare at another girl’s naked breast that way; immodest for a Chinese girl to let another girl so closely examine something so private.

  “This isn’t just a scar, is it? A whole piece was gouged out.” Her eyes met mine. “I feel so bad for you. It must have been a rough time.”

  “It was, but I don’t like to talk about it.” I hoped that would put an end to any other questions.

  The call came for Eddie’s number. I quickly wiggled into my sequined corset, tipped my top hat at a jaunty angle, and started for the door. “You coming?”

  This time all eight girls were at one or the other velvet curtain. I spread my mouth into what I’d created to serve as my performance smile and tapped my way through the curtain.

  The rest of the second show ran perfectly, as did the third. At close to four in the morning, the last customer disappeared into the night. Charlie met us on the landing between the dressing rooms, where an air of jubilation filled the cramped space.

  “Good job, everyone,” he said. “But we learned some things tonight. You girls are going to need long gowns or cheongsams like the one Helen wore tonight. I want to see all my glamour girls on the floor between shows. Let the customers buy you drinks. Have dinner with them. Dance with them. Make them happy.”

  The other ponies and I heard this with mixed emotions: I wouldn’t be fired (a disappointment to some, a huge relief to me); a lot of us, including Grace and me, were not old enough to drink (Charlie told us not to worry about that); and we were all going to join the party that happened in the club every night. I had forgotten myself for a minute, true. But my few moments of enjoyment—for which I could have paid a terrible price—clarified that it wasn’t right for me to put happiness first. What had I gotten myself into?

  Later, when Grace and I exited onto Sutter, we discovered that the evening wasn’t quite over. Ruby waited for us, but there were also men—stage-door Johnnies—making their first appearances to invite ponies out for coffee, breakfast, a hotel room. We weren’t about to take them up on any of those propositions.

  It was either too late or too early for sleep, so we found a place to get bowls of jook and wait for the sun to come up. Ruby bubbled, but I couldn’t tell if she was truly excited for us or just wanted to show she hadn’t fallen behind. Grace wasn’t nearly as thrilled as I’d expected her to be. She’d dreamed of having an opening night …

  “I need to spend some of my salary to buy a gown,” she confessed when prodded.

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I have a closet full of them. I’ll give you one of mine.”

  Grace’s shoulders tightened, and she looked away. My offer had made her lose face. Better to die a beggar than to live as a beggar. But weren’t we supposed to be friends? Didn’t friends help each other? Beyond that, we were in the chorus line together. She’d saved me tonight. Lending her a dress was the least I could do.

  “Will you give me one too?” Ruby piped up eagerly.

  Ruby’s reminder that she was in worse shape—without a permanent job—snapped Grace out of her gloom.

  RUBY

  A Lone Wolf

  Two weeks after the Forbidden City’s bang-up opening, the three of us were in the apartment, spending Monday, the only day Grace and Helen had off, painting each other’s toenails, pinning new hairstyles, and trying on each other’s clothes, while I entertained them with my oh-so-humorous Adventures in Unemployment. I was good at getting jobs but not at keeping them.

  “So he tells me, ‘You move like an angel, but I need an angel who can shine a floor. I said to use elbow grease, not grease!’ You can guess the end. Fired!”

  I could amuse Grace and Helen for hours with my stories. I was placed as a maid in a tony home in Pacific Heights, only I hadn’t been taught that using Ajax wasn’t the best way to polish silver. A family on Russian Hill engaged me as a mother’s helper, but the children didn’t particularly ken to me, and I sure as hell didn’t care for them. The father liked me, though, and we had fun until his wife found out. But honestly, why did she have to make such a big stink about a hug and a bump in a laundry room? I signed on as an elevator operator at a department store on Union Square—a highlight in what had been a sorry string of jobs—where I used different accents to entertain the shoppers. “Second floor, gentlemen’s suits and other bespoke wear,” growled like a Japanese samurai. “Fifth floor, ladies’ lingerie,” sung as a girl from the islands. “Mezzanine, notions, books, and candy,” recited as one of t
he Mexican girls from my elementary school in Los Angeles. Customers said I was a hoot; management gave me the bounce. On to cafés in North Beach, Cow Hollow, and the Tenderloin. I knew less about being a waitress than about cleaning a house, unpacking boxes in storage rooms, or selling flowers. It took me a while to catch the brain waves and understand that when someone asked for a bride and groom on a life raft he wanted two eggs and toast, or that a bride and groom on the rocks meant scrambled eggs. Once someone asked for a “rare” waffle. I brought him a plate of batter with a pat of butter on top. Quick as a wink, I was out on my can. “Sorry, slim, but you just aren’t working out.” Rain off a duck’s back, I always say.

  “Remember when that customer asked for fried watermelon?” Grace cued me. “He was teasing you, but you went to the kitchen and asked the short-order cook to make it!”

  Grace and Helen loved that story for some reason. Fried watermelon. Ha! Ha! Yes, the joke sure was on me. “Fired again!” the three of us sang out in harmony. I laughed as hard as they did. The blues were not in my repertoire.

  I didn’t want to put the bite on my roommate and ask her for money, but when I couldn’t chip in my share of the rent, Grace voluntarily made up the extra amount. “That’s what friends do for each other,” she said, which was pretty funny given how bent out of shape she’d gotten when Helen offered to give her a dress to wear between shows at the Forbidden City. I didn’t see the big deal about taking Grace’s money or wearing Helen’s castoffs. A girl needs a place to sleep and something snazzy to wear, after all.

  ON THE WEEKEND, I visited Aunt Haru and Uncle Junji in Alameda. They filled me with soba and natto—sticky fermented soybeans—slivers of toro, and cups of matcha. They asked me questions:

  “Have you heard from your mother and father?”

  “Are you eating enough?”

  “Won’t you come back and stay with us? We can give you a job in the grocery.”

  They were the nicest people. They had a small shop not far from the Alameda naval air station. Their customers were lookers, as you might imagine, so working there wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. But I didn’t want to spend my life drinking beer and necking with servicemen—I’d already done a fair amount of that in Hawaii—and even earlier when we lived on Terminal Island not far from the naval reserve, so I turned down Aunt Haru’s offer, bowing deeply and repeatedly as my mother would have wanted me to do to show proper respect and humility.