China Dolls

by Lisa See

  A little after two in the afternoon, the phone rang. An operator told me to hold for my call. I waited and waited. Grace came to me. I’m here with you. Then I heard Yori’s voice.

  “Kimiko?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” I answered in English.

  My brother didn’t say anything, but I could hear him breathing. Even over so many miles, I felt myself in our house by the shore. Behind the sound of my brother raggedly drawing air into his lungs as he tried to collect himself, I heard an empty well of silence. He shouldn’t be the one speaking to me.

  “Yori?”

  “Sumimasenga—I’m sorry but …”

  I sucked in a breath and held it as Yori choked out the story. As he spoke—a phrase here, followed by a rush of words, then pained silence—I saw images in my head as familiar as snapshots from my childhood. My family usually stayed home on Sundays, but my father told my brothers they’d be taking the boat out anyway … Yori asked if he should start letting out the nets … I’d seen Pop and my brothers do that chore a million times. But as Yori continued, my mind struggled to absorb—see—what he was telling me.

  The Japanese dive-bombers and pursuit planes whined in from the southeast over Diamond Head … Yori heard bombs thudding in the distance and the rhythmic clack-clack of machine guns … Hideo and Pop were by the controls … Pop turned the boat to pilot it back to the docks … Hideo hurried to the stern … A lone American plane buzzed overhead, swooped down, and sprayed the sampan with bullets …

  “Hideo … was … ripped … in … two.” Yori sobbed so hard I could barely understand him. “I saw it, Kimiko. I saw it. He’s dead.”

  My legs buckled, and I collapsed on the floor. “What about Pop? Where’s Pop?”

  “Men came that night. They confiscated the sampan—”

  “Where’s Pop?” I whispered into the phone.

  “They barged into the house. They searched our drawers and closets. Then they took Mom and Pop away. I don’t know where. No one at the FBI will tell me anything except that they’re convinced Mom and Pop helped with the attack.”

  “What happened?” Grace kneeled by my side. “Tell me.”

  I waved her away. On the phone Yori shifted from tears to anger as he told me that in just a few hours the rumor had started that fishermen, Japanese-language teachers, and Shinto priests were spies. My parents fit the first two categories, and it must have seemed extra damning that my father and brothers had been at sea during the air strike. Aware that Grace was next to me, I asked several questions in Japanese. Yori answered, “Hai, hai, hai.” Yes, yes, yes. The last thing he said was “They’ll be coming for me soon. I know it. Take care of yourself. And beware.” I stared at the receiver for what felt like a full minute before dropping it in the cradle. I covered my face with my hands and began to weep. Grace wrapped her arms around me. I told her some—but not all—of what Yori had told me.

  Through my tears, I rasped, “I can’t believe my brother’s dead. What’s going to happen to my mom and pop?”

  “I’m sure your parents will be fine,” Grace said, but it couldn’t have been a more useless comment.

  “What about Yori?”

  Of course Grace didn’t have an answer.

  “Will they come for me next?”

  Before Grace could answer, someone pounded on the door. Double fists! Terror shot through my body as my woman parts constricted, yanking in fear up to my heart.

  GRACE

  Extreme Joy Begets …

  You don’t know how your life can change. You go to sleep one night, you wake up the next morning, and something unimaginable has happened on the other side of the world. It may be far away, but it ripples over all those miles and comes right into the rooms where you live. War, I had already learned, creates extremely strange and complicated situations. Ruby was facing devastating family losses, which were made even more difficult by the uncertainty of what it might mean that she was Japanese. Now, listening to the knocking at the door, I watched Ruby go white with fear. She was too scared to move. When I peeked through the keyhole and saw Helen, relief flooded through me. I opened the door, and she stalked into the apartment. She didn’t say hello to me or Ruby, whose face was wet with tears. Helen scanned the room, didn’t find what she was looking for, then moved to peer into Ruby’s bedroom before acknowledging us.

  “Where’s your suitcase?” she asked, sidling over to Ruby and tapping her on the shoulder.

  “Suitcase?” Ruby sounded bewildered.

  Helen turned to me. “Has she packed? Did you help her?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Are more planes on the way?” Helen went on, once again addressing Ruby in an eerily calm manner. “When are they coming? Did they tell you where to go to be safe? That happened in Shanghai. The Japs who lived in Shanghai got word before their friends invaded—”

  “Helen!” I exclaimed, thoroughly shocked.

  “I always suspected Ruby hid a dagger behind her smiling face. Has she told you anything? I’ve got to protect Tommy.”

  Her strange demeanor confused me. Worse, I didn’t understand what she was saying.

  “Where is Tommy?” I asked.

  “I left him with Mama. I made her promise to take care of him in case I don’t come back.”

  That seemed a little melodramatic when all she had to do was walk a couple of blocks from her family compound to our apartment and back again. But to be fair, I was so scared I hadn’t even gone outside yet, and neither had Ruby. If I had a child, maybe I would have left him at home too. Still, I had to make Helen understand that her suspicions were misplaced and that she had something far more serious to consider. I said, “Ruby’s brother was killed in the attack—”

  “And my parents have been taken away somewhere,” Ruby added. “The FBI could be coming for me next.”

  This scenario seemed like a real possibility. The idea was beyond frightening, and yet, I’ll admit it, a tiny part of me had doubts about her. Ruby was Japanese. I was living with the enemy. But she wasn’t the enemy, I argued with myself. She was my friend. But was she, really? The insidiousness of fear and distrust kept trying to worm its way inside me. In my head, I repeated, She’s my friend, my friend, my friend.

  “Come for you next?” Helen asked in that same unsettling monotone. “What about us? What’s going to happen to Tommy and me? To my family?” She pointed at me. “They could come and kill you, Grace. Have you thought about that? Rape and kill you.”

  “For God’s sake, Helen. We’re all scared, but Ruby’s brother was killed.”

  At that, Helen’s composure crumbled. “So was my husband. The Japs murdered him right in front of me.”

  The news was so overpowering I couldn’t take it in. I didn’t know what to say or do, but Ruby, momentarily shaken out of her despair, managed to mutter, “Your husband?”

  Helen and Ruby gaped at each other—two women who’d suffered unbelievable losses.

  “Tell me what happened,” Ruby said.

  I was still a few paces behind, processing the information. Husband? I conjured up the photo I’d once seen in Helen’s room. I’d always assumed the man beside her was one of her brothers, but now I realized he had to be her husband, and all the oranges and candles must have been part of an altar to him.

  Ruby reached for Helen’s hand. Surprisingly, Helen allowed herself to be led to the couch. Now that she’d revealed her marriage, the rest flooded out—urgent and wretched.

  “We were hiding in the rice paddies. All of us,” she began as tears pooled in her eyes. “Lai Kai, my in-laws, his brothers and sisters, their children, the servants. We heard the Japanese splashing around us. Lai Kai whispered, ‘Stay still. Don’t run.’ He was my husband. I obeyed.” She covered her eyes with her hands. “He tried to lure the soldiers away from us. They killed him with bayonets. And then they found the others …”

  Her moans of grief were almost too much to bear. Ruby held Helen tight and looke
d at me. Now what? I had no idea.

  Needing a moment, I went to the kitchen. I was numb as I filled the kettle, put it on the burner, and waited for the water to heat. I took a quick glance out the kitchen door; they hadn’t moved. I had thought Ruby had suffered the worst thing possible, but Helen had witnessed true horror. Their experiences were beyond me. Never had I felt so confused or lost for words.

  I made tea, put the pot and cups on a tray, and returned to the living room. Helen lay slumped against the couch’s back cushions, her hands splayed with every finger as white as bone, her legs open and limp. I poured the tea and handed cups to Ruby and Helen. Tears still ran from Ruby’s eyes—beyond her control. Helen chewed on her lips and sucked air in through her nose in tormented breaths. I pushed aside the coffee table and sat on the floor between them, tucking my legs beneath me.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Helen,” I said, yet the words sounded small and insignificant compared to what my friend had been through. “And yours too, Ruby.”

  I rested my head on Ruby’s thigh and put a hand on Helen’s knee, letting them feel through my skin and my warmth that I was part of this too. But they were so locked into their own grief that I doubted they were aware of me or could even hear what they each said.

  Over the next hour, Helen told us that when she turned sixteen her father had arranged her marriage into the Kwok family in Soochow. “Baba informed me that Lai Kai’s family was wealthy and that I would live a comfortable life. My future mother-in-law sent me his photo. He was so handsome. The story I told you about my family going back to China during the worst of the Depression was true, but they would have gone anyway for my wedding. I was married on my eighteenth birthday. Lai Kai and I had a traditional ceremony. I wore all red and a traditional headdress with beading that hung down so Lai Kai and I wouldn’t see each other before we reached the privacy of the bridal chamber. Baba threw some water on the ground when I left our family compound in the home village, saying, ‘Marrying out a daughter is like tossing out a cup of water.’ I loved Lai Kai from the first moment he removed my headdress.”

  The family celebrations continued for another three days.

  “After the festivities ended,” she went on, “my family stayed in the home village near Canton, while Lai Kai and I began our married life with his family in Soochow. He was an architect, and he had a special practice, restoring large private gardens.”

  As she dabbed her eyes, I remembered all the times Helen had talked about China: how she’d traveled everywhere (probably on her honeymoon), how Hangchow was the most romantic city (and of course it was, because she was in love), how she’d adored Soochow’s beautiful gardens (because she’d spent a lot of time in them with her husband). But there were the other stories: the Japanese invading, the plane strafing Helen and Monroe, only it probably hadn’t been Monroe. She’d been married, and she was a widow, which was why she’d dressed the way she did …

  “When we first met, it had barely been a year since I lost Lai Kai,” she said. “The two of you saved me.”

  Helen had kept all this a secret from Ruby and me for three years. It was unbelievable. But I didn’t have time to sort that out in my mind, because it was Ruby’s turn.

  “Hideo was only twenty-seven years old,” she told us. “He was not only my mother’s best student but he was good at judo and fishing and laughing too. Grace, you would have liked him. He loved movies. Any kind. Gangsters. Cowboys and Indians. War pictures. He was the eldest child and the best of us. My mom and pop must be heartbroken …” More tears. “I’m so scared. Where are my parents? Do you think the authorities have taken Yori already? What will happen to me?”

  We had no answers, so Helen resumed her story: “Lai Kai took me with him everywhere, even though it wasn’t traditional for me to be out like that. He said, ‘You have learned a lot from watching your father and brothers. You have a good business mind. You can help me with my clients. You can negotiate with contractors, gardeners, and artisans. You can balance our books and make sure we don’t waste anything on our projects.’ ”

  “He sounds perfect,” Ruby said.

  “He was. We were like a pair of chopsticks—always in harmony. I expected we would be like that forever, even if chaff-eating days should come upon us. We were that happy. But you know what they say. Extreme joy begets sorrow.”

  They went back and forth, sharing their sadness. It felt like they were behind a wall and nothing I could say or do could reach them.

  Helen told us about the invasion itself. Four years ago, Japanese troops landed on the shores of Hangchow Bay for the march to Nanking. They killed everyone and everything they saw. At the same time, other Japanese—supposedly living peacefully in China—launched balloons in Shanghai and other cities around the country emblazoned with Chinese characters which read: ONE MILLION JAPANESE TROOPS LAND NORTH OF HANGCHOW.

  “We heard the message was designed to ruin the morale of the Chinese troops,” Helen said. “But what if it was true?”

  Separately, another Japanese force entered Soochow. Helen put a hand over her breast. “The scar you’ve seen. That didn’t happen in a car accident. It was made by a bayonet. I wish I’d died.”

  “But you didn’t,” Ruby said. “You lived, and you got out.”

  “They left me for dead. I stayed in the rice paddy until night, then I slipped from one paddy to the next, slithering through the muck like a water snake. I slept during the day. I lost track of time. I was a walking corpse. I had to get to Shanghai, where I’d be safe in the International Settlement. I don’t know how long it took to cover the seventy-five miles or so. I went to the American Embassy. At first they wouldn’t let me through the gate. You can imagine how I looked. But when I spoke, they heard I was an American.”

  She was put on a boat and sent to her family in the south.

  “A Chinese widow is at the mercy of her husband’s family,” Helen continued. “They can care for her, or they can throw her in the street. But my husband’s family was gone, so they couldn’t determine my future. My parents took me in and brought me back to San Francisco. I was shunned by everyone—girls I’d gone to school with and the women at the Chinese Telephone Exchange—because no one wanted my bad fate to leave dust on them. All because of the Japs. They did this to me.” She paused before adding, “That day, Grace, when you asked me to go upstairs with you into the Forbidden City, I went because I had nothing to lose. You rescued me from decades as a proper Chinese widow—”

  “I had nothing to do with what happened to you, but how could you ever tolerate being around me?” Ruby asked. “You must see me and—”

  “What about your family? Your father?” I cut in before Helen could respond to Ruby’s worries. This wasn’t about her.

  “Since Lai Kai’s death, my life has been an abyss of suffering, filled with deep water and hot fire. I became a pariah even in my own family. They all ignored me. My parents, my brothers. Everyone except Monroe. Baba believes that a wife belongs to her husband, even in death. Marrying out a daughter is like tossing out a cup of water,” Helen repeated bitterly. “No life lay ahead of me, because no proper Chinese man would ever marry me. I truly was a worthless branch on the family tree and a reminder to all those in the compound that I’d survived while so many others had died. Baba said that, as a widow, my only purpose in life was to linger on before dying. Back then I thought—I hoped—there would be something I could do that would make him acknowledge my existence again. But after he found us that day outside the club … well, you saw what happened. He didn’t care enough about me to stop me from working there, although later he said I had no bottom to the depths I would go to embarrass and humiliate the family. I had disgraced myself as a widow, who would have been better off committing suicide. If I couldn’t do that, then I should live as a chaste widow. I slipped just once. I thought Tim would be a comfort. He wasn’t, and now I have Tommy.” Her eyes glistened wet again. “Eddie gave me a way to be a chaste widow for real.
”

  It was close to one in the morning when Helen got up to leave. Such sad things had happened to her, but it seemed she wouldn’t let them, or even this crisis, rupture our relationship. We had to go on.

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” she said to Ruby.

  “I’m sorry about your husband,” Ruby replied.

  Helen gave Ruby a hug and departed, with barely a word to me. I wanted to talk to Ruby—about the terrible tragedy of everything Helen had experienced and the emotional consequences that had so affected our friend—but her face was set in grim determination.

  “You’ll want me to move out,” she said. “I’ll start to pack—”

  “No.” I shook my head, adamant.

  “Grace, I’m the enemy now.” She stared at her feet. “The FBI has to come for me after what they think my parents … I don’t want you to get in trouble for harboring an outlaw.”

  I reminded her of what she’d said to Helen earlier: she was innocent of what had happened to Helen, her husband, his family, and their retainers. And she was certainly innocent of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

  “You’re not an outlaw. You’re my friend.”

  Ruby looked up, unsure but hopeful.

  I reflected for a moment before going on. “I’ve run away from a lot of things, so I’m telling you this from experience. Don’t do anything hasty. Let’s wait and see what unfolds.”

  With that, Ruby sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands.

  THREE DAYS AFTER the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a China Clipper landed at Treasure Island pocked with bullet holes from a strafing at Wake Island. The day after that, San Francisco and the West Coast were named the Western Theater of Operations. Lieutenant General DeWitt was put in charge. The city became a citadel with antiaircraft guns, searchlights, and radar receivers dotting the tops of the hills overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. China Clippers were given new duties: flying military personnel and medical supplies between San Francisco and Pearl Harbor. Treasure Island became a docking station for special blimps, which went on antisubmarine patrols along the coast. Over four hundred mines were placed in the waters around San Francisco. A special net was extended from the marina in San Francisco to Sausalito, which was opened and closed by a heavy-duty tugboat to allow friendly ships and subs in and out of the bay. Ruby and I made blackout curtains and tacked them over our windows. A midnight curfew was instituted, which cut into business not only at the Forbidden City but at every club and bar on all sides of the bay. Helen used one of her many proverbs to tell us what we all felt: Every bush and tree looks like the enemy.