China Dolls

by Lisa See

  “Search the girl’s room,” the burly detective ordered. Then he beckoned to me with a finger. “Come here.”

  Jack followed me out to the living room. The stout detective glowered at him; the other shot his thumb. Scram. They waited until Jack and Chan-chan had slouched out of the apartment.

  “I’m Detective Collins,” the burlier of the two men said. “This here’s my partner, Detective Flynn. Can you tell us what happened?”

  My story was short. I came home, saw Ray with the knife, concluded I was going to die … When I finished, Detective Collins asked, “How well were you acquainted with Miss Wong?”

  “We’re roommates. We met about six years ago,” I answered. “We’re dancers at the Forbidden City—”

  “So the two of you were close,” Detective Collins prompted.

  I nodded.

  “Do you know the suspect?”

  “His name is Ray Boiler.”

  “And you say that you and Miss Wong were close.”

  “I already said that.”

  “Have you met her parents?”

  “No, but she hasn’t met mine either.”

  “What do you imagine Mr. Boiler meant when he said”—here the detective read from his notebook—“ ‘Maybe I’ve lost, but at least the other guys won’t win’?”

  “Ida had a lot of admirers,” I explained. “Ray was jealous.”

  “Would you say Miss Wong had a penchant for servicemen?”

  Penchant? I wasn’t a college girl, but I got the drift. “We try to keep up our boys’ spirits. If they ask us to dance with them, we dance with them.” Then I emphasized, “I dance with them, because it’s my duty. My boyfriend isn’t jealous. Ray was different. He was obsessed with Ida. He gave us the heebie-jeebies and we tried to warn her, but—”

  One of the policemen came out of Ida’s room, holding a packet of letters. “Take a gander at these, Detective.”

  Detective Collins studied the envelopes before directing his gaze back to me.

  “We get mail from servicemen stationed overseas,” I said, trying to be helpful. “They write to us, and we write back. It’s our duty.” Even to my ears that explanation was starting to sound weak.

  Detective Collins opened one of the letters, scanned it, and then sauntered across the room to where the killer sat in his chair. The detective leaned down and spoke quietly with Ray. A few minutes later, the two detectives put an officer in charge, and then they left the apartment. Ida still lay on the floor, growing colder. I shivered from shock, afraid to move from my spot on the sofa. An hour later, the detectives returned. Detective Collins ordered the policemen to “see what else you find in the girl’s room. Make it thorough, boys.” I watched as the cops opened Ida’s dresser drawers and pulled out the contents, letting her panties, bras, stockings, and nighties sail—like leaves torn from trees in an autumn storm—into her blood on the floor.

  Detective Collins approached me. “Let’s start again,” he requested. “What do you surmise Mr. Boiler meant when he said he didn’t want the other guys to win?”

  As I repeated what I’d said before, Detective Collins ran a hand through his hair. When I came to the end, he said, “Well, we’ve just interviewed your neighbors. It seems you have a history of harboring Japs.”

  My stomach clenched under my rib cage.

  “What’s this all about?” I asked.

  “Your roommate, or should I say your second roommate, was a Jap. We need to figure out just how active she was for the Jap cause, and if you were helping her.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I retorted indignantly.

  “Take a look at these.”

  He handed me the letters from Ida’s room. They’d been written to Ida by her parents from the Japanese internment camp at Manzanar and sent to a local post office box. Her real name was Ume Otsuka. I had held on to my emotions—frozen from shock—but now tears welled in my eyes. I cried—not because I’d been deceived, but because I knew the terror Ida must have hidden all these years. She must have been petrified that she’d be caught, hated, vilified, sent to a camp, and, yes, beaten or murdered. It chilled me to think she might have lived with me—the person folks believed had ratted out Ruby—as a way to deflect suspicion from herself.

  THE PRESS DUBBED the incident the Triangle of East and West, which didn’t make a lick of sense but it sold a ton of newspapers. The public defender painted Ray as a heroic patriot, while I was called in for questioning by agents from the FBI and the War Relocation Authority on six separate occasions.

  “Did Ume use her job at the Forbidden City to get information from our servicemen to send to Japan?”

  “I knew her as Ida.”

  “Was she sympathetic to the Jap cause?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Are you sympathetic to the Jap cause?”

  “No!”

  I barely slept. My nerves were wrecked from the questioning, the reporters, the way my neighbors stared at me, and, worst, the memory of Ida’s gaping throat and the lingering stench of blood and death that permeated my apartment. I hadn’t been physically hurt, but I felt broken. My old habit of squeezing my legs, arms, and ribs to feel for injuries returned. Things let up once Ray confessed that he’d “known Ida was a Jap all along,” but that he’d killed her in a jealous rage—just like I’d said. Before he was sent to jail, he gave a final interview in which he proclaimed, unrepentant, “She got what she deserved.” All this was followed by predictable chest beating about the insidiousness of the enemy and reminders that loose lips sink ships, even though Ida’s only crimes had been trying to pass and bad judgment.

  I hadn’t done anything wrong, but the news about Ida being Japanese—and my roommate—went over at the Forbidden City like a dented can of Spam. The ponies and other performers gave me the cold shoulder but good. They couldn’t decide if I was a traitor because I befriended Japanese or if I’d somehow orchestrated Ida’s death in the same way I’d ratted out Ruby for my own gain. I was exhausted. My eyes were swollen and my cheeks blotched from crying. I lost weight. I looked so bad that servicemen didn’t invite me to their tables to chew the fat. Either that or they’d read about me in the newspapers and didn’t want to be seen anywhere near a “Jap sympathizer.” My same old desire to flee—that phantom itch—was overwhelming. But before I could run, Charlie lowered the boom. He fired me. For the second time!

  I called Max Field. My agent had wrung out his guts trying to get me another film role without an ounce of success. Now he failed at getting me a gig in San Francisco. “You’re famous,” he allowed, “but I can’t book you in a mainstream nightclub like Bimbo’s because you’re Chinese.”

  “What about in Chinatown, like last time?”

  “Not after all that’s happened.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!”

  “Look, first Ruby, then Ida—”

  “But I’m innocent!”

  “Whatever you say …”

  Which wasn’t exactly an endorsement.

  I’d lost a job I loved. My friends high-hatted me. My agent didn’t believe me. I was blackballed by clubs in Chinatown. Even Helen, who had helped me so many times before, was at a loss. My career and my life were in ruins.

  “What am I going to do?” I cried to Max.

  “I might be able to get you some gigs on the Chop-Suey Circuit. You won’t be making anything close to what you’re used to making, but you’ll be out of town. People will forget …”

  The Chop-Suey Circuit was an idea I hadn’t considered. Jewish performers traveled the Borscht Belt through upstate New York, going to hotels and bungalow resorts during the summer. Black entertainers had the Chitlin’ Circuit, and they cruised the blues highway through the South, playing clubs and dance halls. We Chinese had the Chop-Suey Circuit. Clubs across the country—mainstream nightclubs—invited us, meaning the Chinese “This” or the Chinese “That,” to perform as novelty acts. It sounded good to me, because there w
as nothing and no one keeping me in San Francisco. No one, that is, except Helen.

  “You promised you’d stick with me,” she said when I told her my plan.

  “I did, and I’m sorry.”

  “But I went to Los Angeles to find you. We came back here together—”

  “Helen—”

  “What will I do without you?”

  “Move out of the compound? Get your own place?” I suggested.

  “I could never go out on my own.”

  “You went to Hollywood,” I reminded her.

  “To find you,” she repeated. “Anyway, that was with Eddie and before I had Tommy.” After a pause, she asked, “Are you really going to desert me?”

  I could have said she’d already deserted me when she went to work as a Gray Lady with Irene, but I knew how she’d respond. She was helping the war effort, while I was breaking my promise to stick with her until Eddie came home.

  “I love you, Helen,” I said, “but Ida was murdered not ten feet from where I sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face.”

  “We could get an apartment together—”

  I gave her a sad smile. “How will I pay for it? No one will hire me. They all think—”

  “Don’t let the worst thing about a person become the true thing. You’ve got to stay and fight!”

  “The worst thing is already the true thing. I don’t have a choice.”

  “All right,” she said, seemingly yielding. “Then let us come with you. Tommy’s old enough now.”

  But I was running, and I needed to change the current path of my story. I couldn’t have a mother and child in tow.

  “Ruby wouldn’t desert me,” Helen protested, laying on the guilt. But that was Helen all over, playing Ruby and me against each other. Besides, wasn’t she the one who’d said I shouldn’t respond to Ruby’s letter? “Please don’t leave me,” she begged.

  Helen was a good and loyal friend, but her neediness felt selfish to me. I reached over and squeezed her hand. “This isn’t about the three of us,” I said.

  “It’s about your career,” she said as she began to weep, which was darned insensitive, considering the circumstances.

  For the second time, I had to pack my roommate’s things and, again, it was excruciating. I put Ida’s belongings in storage to give to her parents once the war ended, but what were they going to do with her polka-dot blouses, hairnets, or the dried corsages soldier boys had given her? I sold or gave away most of my possessions, including my car. I took Ruby’s money and my savings and hid the cash in the lining of my makeup case. I promised Helen that I would write to her at the compound and told her she should send her letters to Max Field, who would forward them to me wherever I was. I wrote to Joe, telling him to do the same. I didn’t give him any details about Ida, the gossip, or losing my job. I needed to buck up and take care of my own business. He had enough on his plate.

  LETTERS

  Topaz War Relocation Center

  June 3, 1944

  Helen!

  Grace sure left you high and dry. Some friend! But it doesn’t surprise me. If she can’t bring herself to write to me, why would she help you? Ugh! If I ever get out of here, I hope you and Tommy will come and meet me. We could have some real adventures together.

  I finally heard from Yori. The 442nd shipped out last month and landed at Anzio on the 28th. It sounds pretty bad over there. The 442nd’s motto is Go for Broke, but I hope Yori doesn’t do anything foolish.

  It’s already an inferno here—well over 100 degrees. The ground is so dry that the surface has cracked and now looks like brown icebergs. Each step—crack, crack, crack.

  These past fourteen months have been god-awful. Winter—snow, icicles, a potbellied stove, and a government-issued coat. Spring—sudden cloudbursts, flash floods, the bare earth of the camp turned into one big mudhole, and so much gunk sticking to our boots that we teased each other about being as tall as Occidentals. Ha, ha, ha! Now we’re back to dust storms—sometimes as many as three a day. And this damn heat.

  Oh, how the mighty have fallen! From nightclub to crapville. The worst part about being here is that I’ve gotten used to the routine. I was never an early riser, but now I try to wake up early enough to be one of the first in the shower line to get the limited hot water. After that, a bell announces breakfast. Then lunch— Then dinner— Other people gab to me about the beauty of the landscape—the silhouette of a cactus against a twilight sky, the appearance of wildflowers after a cloudburst, the shifting reds of sand, the way the stars glitter with few lights to dim them. Blah, blah, blah. I know they’re trying to make the best of a bad situation, but they’re out of their gourds. I’ll always prefer champagne glasses and stage lights. I’ve been robbed of all that. I’ve been robbed of my life.

  Okay, so we do get movies. (Most have been out for a long time, but they’re better than nothing.) We have dances. (But sometimes five girls are wearing the exact same dress ordered from the Sears, Roebuck catalog.) Variety shows. (Remember Goro Suzuki? He’s here, and he still does a good comedy routine.) Favorite song in the camp? “Don’t Fence Me In.” Gotta keep smiling and laughing, I always say!

  I honestly don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t written back to me all those months ago. You were the only one, Helen. That still eats me up. No Grace— No Charlie— Not one of the ponies, guys in the band, or customers who used to drool over me— Only you.

  I was finally allowed to fill out an Application for Leave Clearance. The War Relocation Authority has been releasing about a thousand people from different camps each week. All I need now is a job and a sponsor on the outside. Some girls have been sent to Maine and Vermont, but I don’t want a dumb job as a secretary somewhere practically off the map, and I never want to file again as long as I live. I’ve written to all the people who’ve written about me in Life, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and so many more. I’ve mailed letters to the big-deal night crawlers in New York—Ed Sullivan, Lee Mortimer, and Walter Winchell. A lot of folks have written back to say they can’t or won’t help me. I’m still hoping—

  Yours till Austria gets Hungary and fries Turkey in Greece, Ruby P.S. Thanks for the cash. I’ll use it to buy some shampoo and conditioner. Sure will beat the baking soda mixed in water I’ve been using to clean my hair! Trying to stay positive, but man, oh, man.

  San Francisco

  June 10, 1944

  Dear Ruby,

  Feeling a bit blue today. I was up all night with Tommy, who has a fever. And I’m so worried about Eddie. Have you seen the pictures in the paper of the invasion of Normandy? Our boys wading through the water to shore— Those photos scared me. I know the situation’s different, but it reminds me of what happened to me in the rice paddies. I look at those pictures and I hear the sounds of death in my ears. And the water— I remember that so clearly—Being cold and terrified— The splashing— Seeing my father-in-law floating facedown— When I think of Eddie in something that— This morning, the papers showed photos of injured soldiers. Some of them had their entire heads wrapped in gauze except for little slits for their mouths and noses. Could Eddie be one of them?

  Good iron should not be made into nails nor gentle men into soldiers.

  Sorry to be low, Helen

  Train to Denver

  June 17, 1944

  Dear Helen,

  Greetings! I’m sitting in the lounge car on a train heading to Denver, and I’m surrounded by boys, boys, boys—all in uniform. They’re playing cards, drinking beers, and doing their darnedest to distract me from my letter writing. Outside the window, I see salt flats—nothing to write home about, although I’m writing about it to you. I hear it’ll be beautiful when we start climbing into the Rockies.

  Remember when Eddie used to tell us that all troupers are born tramps and that when you’re in show business, you’ll go east, west, north, and up the hill to get a job? That’s me now! I broke in my act at the Mapes Hotel in Reno. Then I traveled to El Ranc
ho in Las Vegas, the Ranch on the Everett Highway in Seattle (where I broke the theater’s record for highest attendance!), and the Clover Club in Portland. I’m seeing America all right. Everywhere I go folks are 100% behind the war. People are pulling together and doing their parts. I’m doing my part too by giving my ALL!

  After a tiring show, I can knock off a sixteen-ounce sirloin, but I’m still holding my weight under a hundred pounds, because I dance so hard and travel all the time. The other day, when I was interviewed about my figure, I said, I eat like a bird—like a bird who eats cats. (Big laugh.) Dancing is strenuous work, I told another reporter, but it’s better than going back to the laundry. (Remember when Charlie used to crack that one? Well, it’s true for me!)

  I’m copying this from one of my reviews—

  If not for the Oriental Danseuse’s race, she would undoubtedly be in New York’s Rainbow Room or some other first-line cabaret. She is that beautiful, witty, and talented.

  I’ll get there too!

  I’m really happy I did this, but, Helen, I miss you tons. Please give Tommy a kiss and a hug from his special auntie. When you have a chance, will you write to me about Eddie? I’d sure like to know how he’s doing.

  Your gal pal, Grace

  P.S. I almost forgot to mention that I ran into the Merry Mahjongs! In Las Vegas! Crazy, huh? They’re out on the road too—kicking that gong around!

  P.P.S. Why haven’t you written? You aren’t still mad at me, are you?

  Somewhere in the Pacific

  June 23, 1944

  Grace, baby,

  I’ve seen more, done more, and learned more in the past few months than I imagined possible. Have I told you about the guys on our ground crews? We’ve got Chinese, Mexicans, Poles, Irish, and Negroes all working together. We may not look alike, but we eat the same bad food, follow the same crummy orders, are bitten by the same damn mosquitoes, and suffer the same blasted heat and humidity, because we all fight under the same flag to defend the same land. When this thing is over, our country will be very different. But don’t you go changing! I want my girl just the way she was.