The Language of Threads

by Gail Tsukiyama

  The door opened slowly. Pei pursed her lips and gripped tighter as a dark head appeared. She was poised to swing when a voice whispered, “Pei? Ji Shen?”

  Pei froze.

  “Ji Shen?” the voice repeated.

  “Quan?” Ji Shen rose from behind the bureau.

  Pei dropped the piece of driftwood and swung the door wide open to let Quan in. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her life. He brought with him the salty smell of fish and sweat, as she and Ji Shen rushed toward him with open arms.

  “How did you get in?” Pei asked, her heart still racing in surprise as she put the last of their saved water on to boil for tea. She couldn’t believe how tall Quan had grown in the past six months.

  Quan rubbed his hands together and glanced shyly at Ji Shen. “It wasn’t easy. I jimmied that window.” He pointed to the rear of the kitchen. “I just wish I’d known you were still here. It would have been much easier to come through the front door.”

  “Mrs. Finch had to turn herself in this morning,” Ji Shen said in a small voice.

  “I thought she would have to sooner or later.” Quan sipped the hot tea. “They’re holding all British and Canadian citizens at the Hong Kong Hotel, then trucking them off to Stanley prison after they’ve confiscated everything they own.”

  “Will she be all right?” Pei asked, her voice breaking.

  “From all I’ve heard about Mrs. Finch, I’m certain she will be. The Japanese take greater pleasure in parading foreign bankers up and down the streets, or bashing in the heads of Chinese citizens who walk too near them instead of crossing the street. They have better things to do than harm an old lady,” he said quietly.

  “We’ve been hoping you were all right,” Ji Shen said.

  Quan wiped his hair away from his eyes and said, “It’s been rough. The Japanese bastards have destroyed so many areas in Wan Chai and Central with their shelling. For almost a week, it was nearly nonstop. My family and I stayed hidden anywhere it was safe—in basement shelters, mainly. We were hearing explosions in our dreams.”

  Ji Shen unpacked some biscuits, then sat down next to Quan. “Is your family safe?” she asked.

  Quan nodded; he picked up a biscuit and chewed it slowly. “We’re living on a sampan with my aunt and uncle down at the harbor. Now it feels safer on the water than on the island. Those stinking soldiers are everywhere!”

  Pei poured more tea into their cups and sat down next to Ji Shen. “Have you seen Ma-ling?”

  Quan shook his head. “There’s been nothing but confusion. I’ve been back to Wan Chai, but I didn’t get to Ma-ling’s. As far as I could see everyone has scattered, or is in hiding. As soon as I thought it was safe, I came here to see if you were all right.”

  Pei took his hand in hers. “Thank you. What should we do now?” she asked, forgetting for a moment that he was only seventeen.

  Quan sat up straight in his chair, taking on full responsibility. “It’s best if you rest for a few more hours. We can leave just after sunset.”

  “What about the Japanese soldiers?” Ji Shen asked.

  “It’ll take them at least a day to process all their prisoners. Besides, it will be safer for us to move through the streets just after dark. I’ll take you to the harbor. You can stay with my family on the sampan until you decide what to do.”

  “Are you sure?” Pei asked. There was no certainty they would find Ma-ling even if they did make it to Wan Chai.

  Quan nodded. “It isn’t much, but it’s as safe a place as any for now.”

  “Thank you.” Pei looked around the large, empty kitchen and felt something hard and cold lodged in her throat.

  Ji Shen handed him another biscuit, her hand brushing quickly against his. “Thank you, Quan,” she said softly.

  It seemed as if Pei had just closed her eyes when she heard Quan’s dull thumps against their door. “We have to leave soon,” she heard him whisper.

  In the gray hour just before nightfall, Pei and Ji Shen gathered the last of their belongings in the same cloth sacks they’d carried all the way from Yung Kee. Pei carefully distributed Mrs. Finch’s jewelry among the pockets she’d sewed into their tunics, taped the envelope of money inside the cover of Great Expectations, and watched as Ji Shen struggled over which records to take.

  “I didn’t think it would be so hard to choose,” she said, more to herself than to Pei. “I had it figured out, but now I’m so confused again.”

  Pei thought of all the choices that she’d had to make without Lin since leaving Yung Kee. “It’s never easy.”

  Ji Shen glanced longingly at Mrs. Finch’s Victrola. “I guess it’ll have to stay.”

  Pei nodded.

  “I should have burned it along with everything else, just like Mrs. Finch!” Ji Shen blurted, her voice shaky.

  Then, for the first time since they’d arrived in Hong Kong, Pei saw the frightened young girl who had stumbled into the girls’ house over three years ago. She’d never forget how Moi had found Ji Shen drenched and unconscious at their back door. For days, she lay in bed feverish, her feet swollen to twice their normal size by her horrendous flight from Nanking. When Ji Shen finally opened her eyes, it was to see Pei and Lin, and her new home in the silk factory. The story of her family’s death only came out weeks later, and her nightmares continued long after. Before they’d left Yung Kee, Pei had promised Ji Shen that they would be safe in Hong Kong. Now she bit her lip at the thought that they were still running from the same Japanese who had chased Ji Shen out of Nanking.

  Pei touched Ji Shen’s cheek, then hugged her tight. “Sometimes you have to leave things behind in order to go on,” she whispered.

  “I’ve never had anything so beautiful before.” Ji Shen pulled away and stroked the polished base of the Victrola.

  “You will again, I promise.”

  Ji Shen cleared her throat and nodded sadly, then began packing the rest of her possessions.

  Pei quickly checked each room of the flat, pausing just a moment in front of Mrs. Finch’s armoire, breathing in the fading scent of lily of the valley. She hoped Mrs. Finch was safe and among friends at the Hong Kong Hotel. Perhaps the Japanese would allow all the women and children to stay there through the occupation. Pei knew this was wishful thinking—but surely not all the Japanese soldiers were barbaric? They had families—wives and children back in Japan—just like everyone else. What would they gain by hurting someone like Mrs. Finch? Pei swallowed the fear that rose to her throat.

  Quan and Ji Shen waited for Pei at the front door. They all carried as much as they could. Quan swung the two sacks of food over his shoulder, and bounded down the steps with Ji Shen right behind him. Pei closed the door to Mrs. Finch’s flat and locked it securely. The Japanese would most likely just break the door down, but she was determined to make it as difficult for them as she could. Pei sighed, picked up her sack, and followed Quan and Ji Shen out into the cold evening air.

  Under a darkening sky, they walked swiftly down Conduit Road to avoid the Japanese checkpoint on Robinson Road. The streets were eerily quiet, with no soldiers in sight. In the semidarkness, the destruction appeared shadowy, unreal. They walked in single file down the hill, avoiding the rubble and potholes in the sidewalks and streets. A rank smell hung in the air from night soil dumped into gutters. Across one street, a car had crashed into a stone wall and remained there, a burnt-out shell. From what Pei could see, it was not unlike the big black Packard she had once ridden in with Chen tai. She cringed again at the sudden, stabbing thought of how Fong had deceived her.

  By the time they reached Central, a hazy streetlight flooded the streets. Scattered groups of Japanese soldiers stood on the corners. Pei’s heart pounded as she kept her head bowed low and crossed the street with Quan and Ji Shen to avoid them. “It’s one thing if they single you out,” Quan had instructed; “then it’s better to comply. Otherwise, it’s best to remain as invisible as you can, and to get out of their sight as fast as possible.”
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  They hurried away, then turned toward the Central Market. Suddenly the street was packed. Long lines of Chinese men, women, and children, six and seven abreast, were already waiting for the market to open early the next morning. The lines seemed to be blocks long.

  “What are they waiting for?” Ji Shen asked.

  “Rice.” Quan kept walking. “The Japanese have set up rice distribution at all the major markets. This one won’t open again for ten hours, but they still wait, even though most will have to go home empty-handed, given what little is sold. We’re growing hungrier by the day, while our ‘liberators’ feast on our chickens, squabs, pigs, fruits, and vegetables.”

  It was scarcely more than a few weeks into the Japanese occupation, but Pei could see its toll in the defeated faces of those waiting in the lines. Each night they had to stand for hours, with nothing to hold on to but the hope of a few grains of rice. Pei held her cloth sack tighter.

  They turned down Lai On Lane, still crowded with peddlers behind their makeshift stands, selling everything from champagne and perfume for a pittance, to worn blankets and peanuts at astronomical prices. The atmosphere was strangely similar to the busy hustle before the occupation, though Pei could feel something desperate and anxious charge the air.

  Frantic voices rang out, vying for a quick sale.

  “Missee! Missee!” a peddler called out. “Just one Hong Kong dollar will buy you this bottle of champagne and make you forget all about the occupation!” He lifted a bottle toward them.

  “What is it?” Ji Shen asked, keeping step with Pei who had picked up her pace.

  “Sparkling wine,” Quan answered. “Something the Tai tais and Seen-sans used to drink in abundance!”

  At one of the makeshift stalls, Pei saw scorched, bloodied clothing for sale that must have been picked up from dead bodies in the streets. She shook her head and kept walking. When Ji Shen began to trail behind among the stalls, Pei grabbed her arm and pulled her along.

  The harborside was no less crowded. There was no way to avoid the soldiers who stood on every street corner, stopping people randomly to frighten them for fun.

  Quan turned around once and warned Pei and Ji Shen to keep their heads bowed low and simply walk past the soldiers they were unable to dodge. “Follow me,” he said, maneuvering them in and out of the crowd.

  “You!” a Japanese soldier yelled.

  Pei felt her heart pounding. She clutched both the cloth sacks and Ji Shen’s arm tighter, willing her legs to keep moving.

  “Keep walking,” Quan urged them on.

  “You stop now!” the voice boomed.

  Pei hesitated, her tunic clinging to her sweaty skin, the cloth sack thumping heavily against her back. She felt Ji Shen begin to slow her pace, though Pei didn’t dare turn back.

  “Walk faster!” Quan’s voice rose above the rest.

  “On your knees!” the soldier ordered.

  She saw Quan turn around and glance back in the direction of the soldiers. His face relaxed and his pace slowed. “It wasn’t us.”

  Pei turned. She saw a group of soldiers hovering over a young Chinese man, who was on his knees bowing low toward the ground. One of the soldiers yelled, “I said, lower!” Then he lifted his boot to the back of the man’s neck, and drove his face down into the dirt.

  By the time they reached the sampan, Pei and Ji Shen were sweaty and exhausted. A raw, fishy smell, mixed with the stink of night soil and oily cooking, filled the air. Pei felt sick to her stomach. Ji Shen wrinkled her nose but remained quiet. Voices echoed from boat to boat as the rows and rows of dimly lighted sampans bobbed side by side.

  “It’s not much,” Quan said.

  He helped them both onto the creaking sampan. Pei steadied herself against the swaying. The sampan was larger than many of the other boats, with a bamboo-and-canvas roof covering a good two-thirds of its length. Stacks of wooden buckets were piled at one side. Just then, the canvas flap flipped open and a thin man in his fifties emerged.

  “Ah, you, Quan,” he said, looking relieved.

  “Uncle Wei,” Quan said, “my friends need a place to stay for a few days.”

  The small man eyed them both for a moment, then broke into a toothless grin. “Welcome, welcome to my humble boat for as long as you like.”

  “Thank you,” Pei said.

  “Come meet my family.” Quan gestured for them to follow.

  He flipped up the canvas flaps and Pei and Ji Shen bent over and followed him inside. After a moment, when their eyes adjusted to the dimness of the cramped space, they saw two women and two children sitting on mats and staring up at them. The oily smell of frying fish hung heavy in the air.

  “Ma Ma, Auntie Wei, let me introduce Pei and Ji Shen. They are good friends of mine who need a place to stay for a few days.”

  The boy and girl, who appeared to be no older than six and eight, giggled.

  “Quiet,” Quan’s mother scolded, then said, “Please sit. Would you like some tea? I’m afraid it isn’t very fresh.”

  “Sit, sit,” Auntie Wei echoed.

  “Yes, thank you,” Pei said, loosening the top frog of her tunic.

  “And your family?” Quan’s mother asked.

  “There’s just us,” Ji Shen said, before Pei had a chance to answer.

  “They’re looking for some friends living in Wan Chai,” Quan put in.

  Auntie Wei nodded. “There isn’t much room here, but you are both welcome for as long as it takes.”

  Pei bowed her head, astonished at the generosity of Quan’s relatives, who would take in two strangers when they themselves had so little. “Thank you for your kindness,” Pei said.

  They sat cross-legged on the rough straw mats while Auntie Wei poured tea into two battered tin cups. As Pei and Ji Shen sipped the tepid, weak tea, they watched the two thin, agile women roll up one side of the canvas panel to throw the dregs of the tea into the harbor. A cooling breeze filtered in and Pei leaned forward to catch a quick glimpse of white moonlight on the dark water.

  During the first few weeks of occupation, all the English signs—“Queen’s Road,” “Kelly and Walsh,” “Thomas Cook”—that Pei had practiced sounding out with Mrs. Finch were taken down and replaced with Japanese names. Rumors ran rampant through the colony about the removal of the royal statues from Statue Square to be melted down, while plans were under way for the building of a Japanese victory memorial on the summit of Mount Cameron, above Central.

  “They want to call it the Temple of the Divine Wind,” Quan scoffed.

  “Wait until the wind changes direction!” said Uncle Wei.

  Pei listened to all the rumors, though she could see for herself how the once-vibrant city grew more desolate and barren day by day. Cars and buses were quickly confiscated and shipped back to Japan as scrap metal, so transportation came to a standstill. And in the faces of the men and women Pei saw on the streets was the dazed, wide-eyed panic of animals cornered, with nowhere to run.

  On the crowded, suffocating sampan, Ji Shen became quieter. She did everything Pei asked, without question. Their words became fewer, replaced by quick glances and soft whispers. Together they quietly endured bouts of motion sickness and sleepless nights; eight people were crowded into the cramped living quarters. Despite the discomfort, Pei knew she would always be thankful for Quan and his family’s kindness. It gave her the precious time to find a new place to live.

  Quan’s mother Auntie Lu and his Auntie and Uncle Wei were more than generous to Pei and Ji Shen. They treated the refugees like family members. In return, Pei shared the food she’d collected at Conduit Road and gave Quan’s family some of her Hong Kong dollars. It wasn’t much, but they could still exchange two Hong Kong dollars for one Hong Kong yen. Pei decided she would sell Mrs. Finch’s jewelry only as a last resort. And never the emerald ring. She planned to keep the jewelry hidden and return every piece to Mrs. Finch when the occupation was over.

  One morning after Pei and Ji Shen had been living on
the sampan for two weeks, Quan left earlier than usual. When he returned late that afternoon, Pei looked twice and still couldn’t believe her eyes. A red-faced, panting Song Lee was hurrying down the dock to keep up with Quan’s long stride.

  “Song Lee!” Pei jumped up and knocked over the bucket of clothes she’d been washing.

  Song Lee picked up her pace at the sight of Pei. “Pei! Ji Shen!”

  Pei quickly leaped from the boat to the dock, followed by Ji Shen.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” Pei said, throwing her arms around her short, rotund friend.

  “Yes, yes,” Song Lee repeated, her eyes liquid. “I was praying that you were both all right. We owe our reunion to Quan. He’s been asking about me for the past week. It wasn’t until one of the silk sisters recognized him as the sha boy that she let me know.”

  “We’ve been staying with Quan’s family.” Ji Shen patted the rough edge of the boat.

  “Yes, I can see. And the Englishwoman?”

  Pei’s face fell. “She surrendered to the Japanese authorities.”

  Song Lee nodded her head knowingly, then quickly changed the subject. “There’s a large group of us sisters living together again in Wan Chai. With all that we’ve saved working, most of us have rented rooms in a boardinghouse there. After the Japanese takeover, many of us who worked for Chinese families were dismissed. Or we left on our own.”

  “Have you seen Ma-ling?” Pei asked.

  Song Lee shook her head. “What’s left of the boardinghouse is deserted.”

  “What’s left?” Ji Shen grabbed on tight to Pei’s arm.

  “It wasn’t the bomb, but the fire afterward.”

  Pei swallowed, her mouth dry and bitter. The fire. Once again she saw Lin’s charred body lying motionless on the ground. Pei could still feel the thick waves of heat that had smoldered and risen all around her that day. Lin had suffocated, the life slowly squeezed out of her, the roaring red flames never consuming her body. Had Ma-ling met another fate? And what of the old herbalist?