“Bring her upstairs when she arrives,” Pei said. “I’d better start working.” She was only too glad that Ho Yung had come to take Gong out for a walk.
Pei had just sat down when she heard the jingle of the bell on the front door. Song Lee and another voice filled the air with soft and polite words. Their hard, firm steps followed up the stairs. Song Lee and a thin woman in her late twenties emerged at the top of the stairs and paused.
“Come in,” Pei said. She stood up, forgetting that her height immediately gave her a certain advantage.
Song Lee stepped aside. “This is Mai.”
Mai bowed her head, nodded shyly.
“Please sit,” Pei offered.
In one quick glance Pei saw a modest young woman with large deep-set eyes and a slightly protruding forehead, accentuated by hair tightly pulled back in a chignon. She clutched a sample of her work, which she offered to Pei—a pair of brown cotton trousers that, she explained, had been ripped at the knee. “The left knee,” she quickly added.
While Song Lee excused herself to return downstairs, Pei and Mai made small talk, exchanging careful, courteous words they wouldn’t remember in the years to come. While Pei spoke of the eight hours required, of the salary she could afford to pay, Mai listened quietly. Then, in a flood of soft words, she told her story. She’d been sewing and mending for her younger brothers and sisters ever since she was a little girl. Sewing was all she knew. It was what she loved. Now she had a husband who was ill, who could work only sporadically, when he was strong enough. She washed clothes, scrubbed floors, and emptied buckets of night soil. She didn’t mind the work. It earned honest money to pay their debts. Her husband was a good man, but the fates had been unkind to them.
Pei listened and poured her a cup of tea. Mai’s words were steady and matter-of-fact. She took small sips from the cup, then continued to speak. When her story ended, Pei watched the young woman’s hands wrap around the half-empty teacup for warmth, for security. For the first time in her life, Pei realized she had the ability to change a life, change a fate.
As Mai paused to glance around the crowded room, Pei felt for the rip in the left knee of the brown trousers. They must belong to her sick husband. Pei’s fingers could barely distinguish where the tear began from where it ended.
Mai was a true gift, a quick and efficient worker, who spoke little while she mended, and worked with such concentration that she might sit for hours without looking up. In the first few weeks, Pei taught her all the secrets of invisible mending. “Take the same thread from a seam or hem if you can; if not, make sure the material and thread match as closely as possible,” she’d instructed. “The slightest difference in color can be as distinct as another language. Always study the pattern of the material and follow it as closely as possible.” It wasn’t long before Mai’s work was almost as good as Pei’s.
During her breaks, Mai relaxed, talked, and laughed, and lavished attention on little Gong. When they played, his squeals of laughter could be heard throughout the shop.
“I helped to raise my brothers and sisters,” Mai said one afternoon, as if in apology. “I hadn’t realized how much I miss having a child around.”
“You would make a fine mother.” Pei smiled. “There will be plenty of time for you to raise your own soon.”
Mai shook her head. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
Pei hesitated, then asked, “Your husband?”
“This time it’s my fault,” Mai answered, then picked up her mending and closed the subject.
The Invisible Thread continued to thrive—so much that Ho Yung began to talk about finding a bigger shop.
“This place is too small,” he said. “There’s no longer enough room for customers to even stand.”
Pei looked up from her mending, acknowledging the clutter she’d grown used to. The racks of clothing; the papers piled up and weighed down by empty wooden boxes that once held spools of thread; Gong’s makeshift bed, where he napped.
“It only takes a few minutes for customers to drop off or pick up their clothes,” Pei said softly.
The door jingled open downstairs.
Ho Yung spread out his arms, as if he were about to embrace the small room. For the first time, Pei noticed how his body had begun to thicken and his hair showed a glimmer of gray. She thought of Lin, whose life was forever frozen in time. At thirty-eight, Pei was already five years older than Lin had been when she died.
“It’s too small up here,” he said. “You have another employee now.”
Pei considered Ho Yung’s point, the practical words that had cemented their business partnership and strengthened their friendship through difficult times. Sometimes Pei still caught a glimpse of Lin in him; sometimes she saw a kindness that was all his own.
“Isn’t there some way we could stay here?” Pei asked. “There’s only Mai and me.” She couldn’t explain to him what great comfort the fish store—turned—mending shop brought her.
Ho Yung paced. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said. Then, rather than hurrying off to deal with his family real estate business, he sat down in Mai’s chair. “There’s something else I’d like to talk to you about.” His voice was even and serious.
Pei put down her mending. “Is anything wrong?”
Ho Yung cleared his throat. “You know my mother passed away last year?”
Pei nodded. Wong tai had been sick for a long time. Ho Yung had once told Pei that she was bedridden through most of the occupation. It was her choice, he’d said, as everything she did had always been, even when she slowly began to end her life, little by little. She refused to allow anyone into her room other than her sons. Then, gradually, she refused to speak, to listen, to eat, and, finally, to live.
“Did she ever forgive Lin for going through the hairdressing ceremony?” Pei blurted.
Ho Yung looked at her, surprised at first. “She was unable to,” he said at last.
Pei’s throat felt dry and scratchy. She still felt bad about not having attended Wong tai’s funeral—for Ho Yung, if not for herself. But she simply couldn’t pretend to honor a woman who had shown her only contempt. She wondered if the cold glare of hatred had clouded Wong tai’s eyes one last time before she closed them for good. Everyone had saved face when Gong came down with a fever, enabling Pei to send her condolences without having to attend.
“Yes, well . . .” Ho Yung cleared his throat again. “My brother and his wife have their own apartment. I’m alone in a big house now, with much more room than one man needs, while you and Gong are cramped in one small room at the boardinghouse—”
“It’s not so bad,” Pei quickly interrupted. “Our lives are very simple. Song Lee helps out a great deal.”
Laughter and voices floated up from downstairs. Mai had returned from her break.
“But is it enough for you? For Gong? He’s growing up and needs more attention. A father’s attention.” Ho Yung swallowed. “What I’m trying to say is that I would be happy to have you as my wife and to raise Gong as my son.”
Pei felt the blood pulsing through her body, the rush of warmth coloring her face. What was Ho Yung saying? She had gone through the hairdressing ceremony with Lin, given her life to the silk work. And though the sisterhood was only a vivid memory, Pei had never let go of her vows. She felt Ho Yung’s eyes on her. Lin’s eyes. There hadn’t been a moment when she didn’t trust him and care for him, but what she felt wasn’t a wife’s love for a husband.
“I . . .” she began.
Downstairs she heard Gong’s chiming voice questioning. “Why? How?”
“I don’t expect an answer right away,” Ho Yung said. “It’s something you might think about.” He stood up quickly and tried to smile, though his eyes told her that he’d understood her thoughts. He leaned forward and touched her shoulder lightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Pei wanted to tell Ho Yung to stay, but the words caught in her throat. She watched as he crossed the room, disappear
ing step by step down the stairs.
The Letter
Ho Yung returned to the shop the next day, but stayed just long enough to deliver a letter for Pei that had arrived at his house. The warm September rains had begun the night before, drumming rhythmically against the roof, splattering against the windows.
“But who could it be from?” Pei asked, thankful that the surprise of the letter freed them from any discomfort they might have felt about his proposal.
Ho Yung looked down at the damp and dirty envelope with Pei’s name quickly scrawled across the front, care of his address. “From someone who knew I would get it to you.”
Pei balanced the envelope on her palm, her pulse racing. There was no telling how long the envelope had been in transit, but to judge by its soiled appearance, it was lucky to have reached her. Pei opened it carefully, pulling out two sheets of thin white paper covered with small, neatly written characters that she immediately recognized. All the years of silk factory ledgers and of notes scribbled in the margins of religious pamphlets that came to the sisters’ house. And the carefully written address of Ma-ling’s boardinghouse.
“It’s from Chen Ling,” Pei said, her heart beating faster.
“From Yung Kee?” Ho Yung leaned closer, his damp raincoat falling against her arm, the warmth of his breath brushing against her neck.
“Yes,” she answered, closing her eyes for a moment. The nearness of another body was something she hadn’t felt in so long that its sudden comfort surprised her.
He stepped away, taking his warmth with him. “After so long?”
It had been almost eleven years since she and Ji Shen said good-bye to Chen Ling and Ming at the girls’ house. Lin had just died, and the future in Hong Kong was no more than a dream.
“The letter was written three months ago,” Pei said, her thoughts already drifting back.
Ho Yung cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to read it.”
“Ho Yung—” Pei couldn’t look into his eyes. “About yesterday . . . I can’t.”
“I know,” he said quietly.
“Thank you.” Pei looked up. “For everything.”
Ho Yung smiled. He raised his hand in a slight wave and was quickly gone from the small, crowded room that she so loved. Pei heard the front door open, the rain splashing in the street; the smell of wet concrete rose up and entered.
Chen Ling, whose name rang like a bell. A voice returned from the past. The rank, damp dirt down by Baba’s fish ponds, the hot, sweet steam of the cocoons boiling, the clinking of bowls at the sisters’ house, sudden and distinct, settling inside her. Pei saw again the square-jaw and dark, piercing eyes of Auntie Yee’s daughter, whose strength and passion had led them through a successful strike for better working hours and carried them through the dark days of the silk factory’s demise.
Without a word read, so many questions were instantly answered. Chen Ling was alive. She had survived the war in that Buddhist vegetarian hall in the countryside. Pei could only hope Ming was with her, and that they had once again survived the Communist takeover. The thought filled Pei with joy. She paused to catch her breath, then sat down, unfolded the thin sheets, and began to read.
Dear Pei,
Where have the years gone? I hope you and Ji Shen are well and thriving in Hong Kong. I’ve sent this letter in care of Lin’s brother. I found his card among old papers from the silk factory, and I pray to Kuan Yin that my letter will find its way to you. I still hold close the memory of you and Ji Shen leaving us so many years ago.
Ming and I continue to grow old in the countryside. It hasn’t been a completely peaceful life. We haven’t gone totally untouched by the madness of the world around us. Like all predators, the Japanese devils found their way to our hall, taking what they wished and destroying everything else. We hid in the cellar, warned just in time by a kind farmer whose wife often sold us their firewood. We emerged from hiding to find them hanging by their wrists from a mulberry tree, their throats slashed from ear to ear. Lives saved and lives taken within moments of each other.
And so we begin our lives all over again under Mao and the Communists. And you must be wondering why a letter now, after all these years. Words have never come easily to me. I’ve held in much more than I’ve ever let out. I’ve lost track of how many unfinished letters I’ve begun, telling you where we were and how we were doing. And after the Japanese occupation, I no longer knew how to reach you. Until Lin’s brother’s card came to me, like the granting of a wish.
But to continue, Ming and I were in the village of Yung Kee the other day to visit Moi. Yes, Moi still lives, as stubborn as she ever was at the girls’ house. Perhaps her stubbornness has kept her alive. She went on and on about a woman who had come to visit her a few days earlier. A woman she first thought had come to steal from her. She stared too long at everything, Moi said. “A sister?” I asked. Moi shook her head. “A sister, yes, but not one of ours,” she answered. “What are you talking about?” Ming asked. Moi smiled at her secret, then said: “Pei’s sister. Her real sister, Li.”
Pei stopped reading to catch her breath. The blood rushed to her head. Could it be possible that after so many years, Li was alive and was searching for her?
“Where is she now?” Pei asked aloud, quickly scanning the rest of the letter for the answer.
She lives in the small village of Kum San about thirty miles from Yung Kee. She is a widow. Her husband died four years ago, right after the Japanese surrender. She walked all the way to Yung Kee with hopes of finding you, of bringing you the news of your father’s death. I’m sorry that you must find out like this.
Moi told her that you had gone to Hong Kong to begin a new life. Li clung to the news with happiness. “Then the gods have been kind to her after all,” she said, with a wide smile.
Does it startle you that the past can be so close by? I still feel Auntie Yee’s presence at the oddest moments of the day. And I often wonder if our paths will cross once more in this lifetime; but then I realize that we will all meet again in a better place.
Chen Ling
Pei let the letter fall to her lap and sat stunned. Chen Ling’s words ran through her mind: Li was alive, and Baba had died. A life and a death on two thin sheets of paper. She hoped Baba hadn’t suffered, hadn’t died alone. With Ma Ma gone, she imagined, he must have spent all his time in the groves, only returning to the house to eat, to sleep, and finally to die. Pei closed her eyes at the thought.
And what of Li? Her sister was alive and looking for her. It had been thirty years since they’d seen each other. As a child, Li was the quiet, obedient elder sister Pei always tried to emulate, but never could. Pei was always the one in trouble, the one beaten for asking too many questions and not keeping her clothes clean, while Li silently stayed out of the way. Later, when they were put to bed, Li would roll over in the sticky darkness and stop Pei’s tears by slipping a precious piece of sugar candy into her mouth.
This time, Pei cried tears of happiness.
Chapter Thirteen
1950
Li
The first letter had arrived like an unexpected gift. It was an early spring day and Li awoke with a strange sensation, a flutter of anxiety that came and went. Since the farmer had died four years ago, she moved about her daily routine, freed of the responsibilities that once kept her a virtual prisoner on the farm. Her sons were grown and gone, and the old farmer had died a slow and painful death. The house no longer felt like a jail. Its walls were simply a rough and faded shell, just as worn and old a relic as she’d become at the age of forty-one. Li’s days passed quietly, the scars of her past life slowly healing. It had taken her a while to no longer feel afraid of the looming shadows that always came at twilight—the ghosts of the old farmer and his son, Hun, returning from the groves.
The knocking had startled her. It was solid and persistent. Li moved toward the battered door tentatively, thinking it might be Party members coming to have her relocated. The village letter
writer, old man Sai, had warned of these visits. Li sighed and cracked open the door. But instead of the Party officials she’d expected to see standing there, she saw two peasant women, dressed in cotton tunics and straw hats.
The heavyset one spoke first. “We’re looking for Mui Chung Li.”
“She isn’t here,” Li answered cautiously.
“Do you know when she’ll return?”
Li shook her head.
The woman smiled, not unkindly. “Will you give her this letter? It’s from her sister, Pei.”
She held out a blue envelope and Li’s heart jumped at the sight of her own name, written in bold black characters.
“Pei?” Li had said, her voice rising at the sound of her sister’s name. At first she hesitated to take the letter, thinking it might be some kind of trick. She thought about her sons, Kaige and Yuan, and wondered if the Party was somehow testing her loyalty.
“My name is Chen Ling, and this is Ming. We are Pei’s silk sisters.” The thin, quiet woman next to the heavyset one smiled shyly at the sound of her name. “Pei heard of her sister Li’s visit to the girls’ house and wants very much for her to have this letter. Please, we have come a long way to deliver it.”
It had to be true, Li thought. It was a letter from Pei. Why else would these two women have traveled so far to bring it to her? Li swung open the door and sunlight flooded the dark room.
“I am Li,” she confessed.
Chen Ling broke into a big smile. “I never doubted it for one moment.”
“How could you know?” Li asked, her hand rising instantly to touch her dry cheek and the raised, puckered scar that ran down it to the corner of her mouth. More years had passed than she could remember since anyone had come to visit. She must look terrible in her coarse muslin tunic and trousers. Li took a step back into the house.
It was quiet Ming who then spoke up. “Because you and Pei have the same beautiful eyes.”
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