China Dolls

by Lisa See

  “Have another drink,” Charlie appealed to the crowd each night. “If you get a hangover, what the hell? You can always buy an aspirin.”

  AT THE END of the year, nine months after Ruby was sent away, Joe wrote me a letter that changed everything.

  For the longest time I thought of you like I would a kid sister. Turned out I was blind to what was right in front of me. Do you think you could see me another way? Might I have a chance?

  I’d waited for him for so long, and I was as ecstatic as a girl with her first crush. Of course, he had been my first crush. Now he wanted me. But was it real? This time I didn’t write back right away. I needed to think, and protect myself.

  His next letter went further:

  How do I spend my time when I’m not training? Dreaming about coming to see you. I might as well admit it. I’ve gone for you in a big way.

  His words made me happy, but I had to be clear about one thing. I wrote back:

  I want you to be sure. I don’t want to be anyone’s rebound girl.

  I received a letter in the return mail:

  Dear Grace,

  This is the last time I will ever mention Ruby, but I need you to understand this. She was all razzle-dazzle, and she didn’t have integrity. You are beautiful on the outside and the inside, and I know I will always be able to trust and rely on you. I’m only sorry it took me so long to figure it out.

  You’re very different than when we first met, and now I see you in a whole new light. Let me tell you something, Grace. I’m learning more and more about courage every day down here, and you have it. But it’s more than that. When I think about the past and the times we’ve spent together, I see that you always listened to me. On Treasure Island. In the club. These past months. I hope you know that I listened to you too. I heard you for who you are as I think you heard me for who I am. That is more meaningful to me than I can ever express.

  You are not my rebound girl. You are the girl I should have bounded to in the first place.

  Love, Joe

  Finally! Finally! Finally!

  HELEN

  Sequins, Top Hats, Chiffon

  Early on a Friday in mid-April 1944, Grace and I stood on a train platform at the embarkation center in Oakland to say goodbye to Monroe, who’d been called up and was being sent to basic training in Memphis. Baba had invited Grace, since she was the closest thing Monroe had to “a girl to come home to.” Our group should have been the biggest on the platform, since my brother was a local boy with a large family, but not everyone could come. Lincoln, my dentist brother turned chauffeur, had enlisted and was attached to the 54th Signal Battalion, where he was finally getting to use his dental skills. Madison and Jefferson couldn’t take time off from work at the Benicia Arsenal, where they made ammunition in assembly lines. My sisters-in-law? Before Pearl Harbor, they’d “stayed inside the gate,” cooking, taking care of their children, and obeying Mama. Now a couple of them had jobs as Rosie the Riveters at the Kaiser shipyard, where a new ship was christened almost every day. Another worked at the converted Ford factory, preparing tanks for deployment to the Pacific. One sister-in-law had been promoted to welder at Bethlehem Steel. For China-born women, like my sisters-in-law, this work was an act of double allegiance: they were helping the country where they were born and where their parents and siblings still lived, and they were supporting the land of their husbands, sons, and daughters.

  So only three brothers, their wives, and children were on hand for farewells. Mama stood on her bound feet, gazing up at Monroe, a hand on his sleeve. During the past year, no one had surprised me more than my mother. She’d organized a group of women of her same social standing not only to cook for the Chinatown Canteen at the YWCA every Thursday evening but to have boys in the military of Chinese descent over for dinner in the compound on Sunday nights and for special holidays. Now Mama was trying so hard to be brave about Monroe leaving that she nearly broke my heart.

  My brother bowed to Mama and shook hands with Baba. My tears stained my blouse as I said goodbye. He was the person I was closest to in my family, and I couldn’t handle the thought that he was going into danger.

  Monroe turned to Grace. “Having you here is a bit like what families did back in China when their sons sojourned to the Gold Mountain,” he told her. “A married son would be duty-bound to return to his wife in the home village. Mama and Baba would be happier if we were married. Then they’d know for sure I was coming back. Filial duty and all.”

  Even though Mama and Baba were standing right there—because they were there—Grace wrapped her arms around his neck. “Write to me, and I’ll write back.”

  He put his hands on her waist and pulled her close.

  The conductor called the all-aboard. My brother joined the other men as they climbed onto the train. He craned his upper body out an open window. The train began to pull out of the station. A woman standing near us started to trot next to the car, wailing, “I love you,” to her husband—brother? boyfriend?—who stretched down a hand.

  “Be brave,” he said back to her as their fingers touched.

  Such public displays were not my family’s custom, but our reserve fell away. We might not ever see Monroe again.

  “Kill some Jerries,” Washington, our eldest brother, encouraged.

  “Be safe, Son,” called Baba.

  “Come home,” Mama cried out.

  We stayed on the platform until the last waving hand disappeared from view. Baba and my brothers set their jaws. Mama wept. My sisters-in-law broke down. I sobbed into a handkerchief. The children, not old enough to understand what was happening, caught the mood and joined in the misery.

  My family piled into three cars, though Tommy and I went with Grace to her apartment. I wanted her company. She grabbed a stack of envelopes out of her mailbox, and we went upstairs. Grace made tea while I worked on my puffy eyes in the bathroom. When I came out, Tommy was sitting on the couch next to his auntie Grace as she sorted through her mail.

  “A letter from Joe,” she announced, ripping open the envelope. “ ‘Dearest Grace,’ ” she read aloud, “ ‘I’m sorry you couldn’t come down for my graduation, but you’re doing a lot for the war effort where you are, cheering up guys, putting grins on their faces, and leading them in the Chinaconga. I’ve got some time off before I ship out. I was able to get a seat on a transport to Chicago, so I’ll visit my mom and dad for a couple of days. Then I’ll hitch a ride to Frisco. Please don’t make any plans. I’ll take care of all the arrangements. I want everything to be perfect when I see you. Loads of love, Joe.’ ”

  Grace put the letter back in the envelope and held it to her chest. “What do you suppose will happen?” she asked.

  “He’s a man. You’re a girl. You’ve both waited a long time. What do you suppose will happen?”

  Grace started to laugh, and I laughed right along with her. She was very happy. It felt good to think about love on so sad a day.

  After a few moments, she said, “I just don’t want him to think I’m a Victory Girl, like Ida.”

  “That’s right. You’re exactly like Ida. She has Ray Boiler, and all the boys on the side. You have Joe Mitchell, and …” I raised my eyebrows. “Grace, he could never think of you that way. To him, you’ll always be that sweet kid he met on Treasure Island.”

  “I don’t want him to think of me like that either!”

  That sent us into another spasm of laughter.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon playing with Tommy. There is only one perfect child in the world and every mother has him. He was as precious to me as the underfur of a fox. His hair was the softest brown with just a hint of a curl, so there was no getting around the fact that he looked different than the other kids on the playground and in the compound. Baba had noticed, of course, but Eddie insisted that he had a grandmother with brown hair.

  “A carrot of a different color,” Baba had responded. “What else could I expect from a son-in-law like you?”

  Wh
en Baba said things like that, I understood that our time in Chinatown was limited. Eventually, he’d put it all together. I’d have to protect my son from his grandfather’s disdain—and the dirty leers and taunting Tommy would receive from our neighbors—but not yet …

  At 4:00, we walked to the Forbidden City. Servicemen wandered Chinatown’s streets in undulating herds. Already a line—populated with boys eager to meet the Celestial maidens of their dreams—snaked from the club’s entrance down the street. When we got to the dressing room, Tommy went to his corner—where I’d set up a child-size cot—lay down, and began humming to himself, while I oiled my midriff.

  Ponies billowed in. Many of them had babies, toddlers, and little kids in tow. The older boys were lucky little monkeys, getting to hang out in the dressing room, zipping girls into their costumes. I’ll say this for Charlie: he loved kids. He was patient with them too, as long as they kept quiet. Quiet? What a joke!

  “Fiedee, fiedee, fiedee.”

  Charlie had perfected the art of “dressing the room” by putting celebrities, movie stars, and beautiful women in long gowns accompanied by the most successful men at ringside. I’d met and had my photo taken with lots of movie stars, and I now could recognize most of them. That night, we had Captain Ronald Reagan and his wife, Jane Wyman, as well as Errol Flynn, in the audience. My husband, who’d gotten into the habit of drinking a martini before the first show, bought one for Mr. Flynn as well.

  Charlie opened with his usual patter. “My mother is half-Indian. Fortunately, I didn’t come out orange!” The soldier boys guffawed. Charlie went on, recounting that he was only eight years old when his father died. “I received an eighth-grade education in a one-room schoolhouse with Indian kids from the nearby reservation. You’d have to say I’ve done pretty well for myself.”

  He was hugely successful given his background. Sometimes customers would say to me, “Look what Charlie Low has done for Oriental performers.” But I’d picked up enough about business from Baba to recognize that Charlie hadn’t given us a chance for altruistic reasons. He did it because he believed he would make a killing. And he did. Eddie Pond, Andy Wong, and the other club owners who’d come out of the Depression lived like the boom was going to last forever. They all went as wild as mandarins, Charlie especially.

  “Have you heard the one about the three sisters? Tu Yun Tu, Tu Dum Tu, and No Yen Tu …”

  The soldier boys loved that one, no matter how many times they heard it, but they were easy to please. They needed to forget about the things that had already happened to them and bury the dread of the unknown that lay ahead. Tomorrow or the day after, they’d ship out to do their own brand of business with Hitler, Hirohito, and a whole shooting match of international gangsters.

  The floor show began. The ponies still carried “kitten” muffs, but kittens grow up, and those cats sure didn’t like being confined. In the middle of the number, Ida’s cat clawed out of his muff prison and hit the floor. He arched his back, hissed, and scrammed for the Catskills. The boys hooted and yuk-yukked.

  Next up: Eddie and I did our routine, but the minute we came offstage we were at each other’s throats. I complained to him about drinking before our act; he snarled at me to stop nagging. Then the girl we’d hired to be the new Chinese Sally Rand had a hard time with her fans. She lost her balance, dropped a fan, and ended up with her fingers in a G.I.’s chow mein. After that, Mabel, one of the ponies, caught her son behind the stage, peeking through the curtain to catch the back side—the naked side—of that fan dancer. Mabel yanked her boy back to the dressing room by the ear, and I’m sure customers could hear him yowling—even worse than the cat—all the way out front.

  “What the hell’s going on tonight?” Charlie asked, irritated, as we went out to talk with customers during the first break.

  Our boys wanted to dance with Chinese girls, and we did because it was part of our jobs, but plenty of women—fabulous and rich, with orchids splayed on their shoulders—in the audience wanted to dance with our Chinese men. But Eddie didn’t feel like it that night. Instead, he collared Jack Mak, and together they made a beeline for the bar. Jack threw down a hundred-dollar bill and asked the bartender to pour as many drinks as he could for the customers around them, including Errol Flynn. One drink too many prompted the star to eat the orchids off women’s shoulders—one by one throughout the club.

  Charlie started the second show with one of the stalest jokes in the book: “Have you heard that Kotex paid Maxwell House for their slogan? Good to the last drop.”

  It went downhill from there. Eddie’s hands slipped on my midriff. It wasn’t any worse than usual, but I bet there wasn’t a single person ringside who didn’t hear Eddie muttering to me through clenched teeth: “You’re suffocating the kid. Give him a chance.”

  And me, biting back, “He’s only thirty-one months old. I’m his mother.”

  “And I’m his dad! Let the kid breathe.”

  George Louie tried to turn the tide with “I’ll Be Seeing You.” He circulated around the edges of the floor, sometimes kneeling before a woman so he could sing directly into her eyes, when one—and I can only call her this—dame threw her skirt over his head and held him between her knees to show him what was under there. George kept singing, though. “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places.” Our boys in uniform laughed so hard they barely managed to stay in their chairs. When that dame finally let George out, his face was as red and shiny as a Christmas ribbon.

  After the second show, Eddie and Jack returned to the bar. “I want to buy everyone a drink.” Eddie brought out two hundred-dollar bills and slapped them on the bar, outdoing his pal. “Let’s see how far this will go.”

  When the third show started, Eddie and Jack were pickled. From opening night, Jack had done a trick in which he shot into a box, opened the lid, and a dove would fly out. Only tonight he opened the box and feathers flew out. He’d actually shot the bird!

  Then Eddie and I returned to the stage. As he lifted me to spin me over his head, his hands slipped—once again—on my oiled midriff. This time, he dumped me on my rear end, and I skidded across the floor. People shrieked in surprise, and then howled until they held their sides. They thought it was part of the act, but Eddie was in no shape to be laughed at. When we came backstage, he leapt up the stairs toward the dressing rooms. I followed right behind him. When I reached the landing, he turned and bumped into me. I tumbled back down the stairs. Eddie fell too—sprawled out, drunk as a skunk. Was it an accident? Or had Eddie pushed me?

  “He’s my son!” he screamed at me.

  The ponies averted their eyes. Mabel put her palms over her boy’s ears. Grace was so much stronger now, but she stood stock-still. A deer confronted by a hunter, or a warrior on alert? Charlie swung through the curtain, furious, bouncing his open hands up and down, trying to calm the situation. “Pull yourself together,” he said to Eddie. “Get some coffee. Are you going to make me fire you? Is that what it will take to get you to stop drinking?”

  Eddie got to his feet, elbowed past Charlie, and shoved through the kitchen door.

  Grace ran to me. “Are you all right?”

  I was so dazed that at first I didn’t notice Grace squeezing my arms and legs. I pushed away her hands in embarrassment.

  “I’m fine,” I bleated, though I felt bruised and sore.

  Grace walked Tommy and me to the compound. She was awfully silent. I had the feeling she was remembering her father and maybe even Joe. She could change all she wanted, but a part of her would always be that scared little runaway from Plain City. I was too overwhelmed to speak either. I loved Eddie, and I was grateful to him. I never wanted to be afraid of him.

  The courtyard was eerie in the middle of the night. We tiptoed into the back building and edged down the deserted hallway to my childhood room. After we put Tommy to bed, the two of us sat up, eager for Eddie to come home. We waited and worried, but my husband didn’t barge through the door still bristling
and drunk or contrite and bearing forgiveness gifts. What had first been fear about him coming home turned into fear about why he hadn’t come home.

  As the sun came up, Grace dozed off. I bathed Tommy, took him to the dining room for breakfast, and then sat in the courtyard watching for my husband to stroll through the gate. I finally gave up, went back upstairs to my room, and shook Grace’s shoulder.

  “What time is it?” she asked, sitting up, rubbing her eyes.

  “One in the afternoon.” I stifled a sob. “And he still hasn’t come home.”

  “Now, Helen, you’ve told me yourself that sometimes he stays out all night.”

  But her reasoning didn’t help. We went to the club at 4:00, but Eddie wasn’t there either. Charlie, worldly as he was, looked particularly anxious.

  Around 6:00, Eddie arrived with a black eye and other contusions, some of them serious. I drew the back of my hand to my mouth. The ponies’ eyes widened. The guys in the band hung their heads as though they’d expected something like this might occur for a long time.

  “What happened?” I rasped.

  Eddie rubbed his forehead. “I got caught in an alley by a group of sailors. It’s my own damn fault.”