by Daniel Kalla
A half mile farther, she entered the heart of Hongkew. Like the rest of Shanghai, the architecture bore minimal resemblance to traditional Chinese style. Most of the buildings had been hastily constructed at the turn of the nineteenth century to house the merchants and lower middle classes servicing the affluent Westerners living to the south of Soochow Creek. Unlike the hutongs—traditional dwellings built around a central courtyard—of other Chinese cities, most buildings in Hongkew were cheaply constructed from brick and crammed tightly around a network of lanes. These longtangs, or “lane-houses,” were unique to Shanghai.
Before the invasion, the longtangs in the neighbourhood were so plain and interchangeable that Sunny sometimes had difficulty telling one block from the next. But the Japanese bombardment had permanently disrupted the monotony of the design. Now, heaps of rubble marked the remnants of numerous structures. Some buildings that had withstood the bombing were missing walls or parts of their roofs. Everywhere Sunny looked, she saw boarded or taped windows.
Passing one collapsed building, Sunny spied four little boys, the oldest of whom appeared to be no more than eight, racing each other over and around precariously balanced heaps of brick and stone. Her breath caught in her throat. “Xiao xin,” she called to them.
The boys stopped and stared. “We are always careful, fu ren,” the tallest one announced, referring to her with the respectful title of “lady.”
Another boy, wearing a torn shirt and frayed pants, pointed to the wreckage. “I used to live here,” he said with an almost stunned bravado.
Sunny wondered if any or all of the boy’s family had been trapped inside when the building crumpled. “You are very brave boys. I see that. But please, little ones, take care playing among these piles of rocks. They could fall and hurt you.”
“We are too fast for these rocks,” the smallest one chirped, kicking the stones at his feet.
“And too fast for the dwarf bandits too,” the older one added, using the local epithet for the Japanese. The others laughed and then ran off together, disappearing behind a mound of rubble.
Sunny walked another two blocks before turning into a lane that was not much wider than the span of a man’s arms. Cars could not navigate Hongkew’s constricted lanes, but a steady traffic of bicycles, rickshaws and peddlers’ wagons more than compensated.
Sunny arrived at the fourth brick building. Bullet holes pocked the corner pillar and a portion of its lower archway was missing, but it had otherwise escaped the fighting. She stopped at the second door and rapped gently. The door opened a crack, and a pair of eyes peered out, before it swung wider.
Ko Lo-Shen stood on the other side, wringing her hands and bobbing from foot to foot, appearing even more flustered than usual. As long as Sunny could remember, Lo-Shen had worn the same style of aoqun—a traditional jacket and long black skirt. Stooped and frail, she looked much older than her forty-five years. But Sunny was well aware of the hardships, disappointments and tragedies that had conspired to break Lo-Shen’s spirit.
Sunny bowed her head. “Na ha o, shen shen,” she said in a familiar greeting that loosely translated as “hello, Auntie.”
“It is good to see you again too, Soon Yi,” Lo-Shen sputtered in her nasal provincial Mandarin. She extended her arm. Sunny slipped off her coat and handed it to Lo-Shen, who hung it from the wooden peg on the wall. Lo-Shen turned back to Sunny. Never much one for small talk, she eyed the younger woman anxiously.
“Is Jia-Li in the bedroom, shen shen?” Sunny asked.
Lo-Shen spun and hurried through the main room, hobbling as fast as her tiny feet, which had been bound during childhood, would carry her. Sunny followed her to the bedroom. Through the door, she heard the sound of violent retching. She took a deep breath and mentally braced herself for a scene she had already faced too many times before.
Inside the dimly lit room, a mattress lay on the floor, a damp wadded cloth and a half-full glass of water beside it. Most of the covers had been kicked off and were huddled in a heap at the foot of the bed. A single beige sheet, soaked in patches, covered the writhing figure on the mattress.
“Hello, Jia-Li,” Sunny said calmly in English before switching to Mandarin for Lo-Shen’s benefit. “It’s good to see you, bao bèi.” She used Jia-Li’s familiar childhood nickname of “precious.”
Jia-Li whipped off the sheet and sprang up in the bed, looking as pale as the white negligee that hung loosely off her thin frame. Sweat poured down her brow. Her shoulder-length hair was tousled and wild. Flecks of vomit clung to the corner of her lips. Yet, despite her harsh appearance, she was still striking. With sculpted cheeks and full lips that set off her porcelain skin, Jia-Li was the most beautiful person Sunny had ever known.
Jia-Li shuddered violently. “This time is worse than all the others, xiao bè,” she said, referring to Sunny by her Chinese nickname “little lotus.”
Jia-Li claimed the same every episode. “It will be over soon,” Sunny said softly. “They always are.”
Jia-Li shot a hand out for the bucket beside the bed. She brought it to her lips and retched again but only spat a few drops into the bucket. “I have nothing left in me.”
Sunny’s nostrils filled with the intermingled stench of sweat and vomit. She grabbed the glass of water and damp washcloth as she knelt down beside Jia-Li. She gently ran the cloth across her friend’s mouth, wiping away the remains of vomit. She folded the stained cloth inward and then sponged Jia-Li’s dripping brow.
“Did you bring me something, xiao hè?” Jia-Li’s voice quivered.
“Yes, I did, bao bèi.”’
“Oh, wonderful!” Jia-Li exhaled. “Pills? If not, I have my pipe. I do not like to smoke in Mother’s home but—”
“No, Jia-Li, not this time.” Sunny shook her head. “I brought you real medicine.”
Jia-Li’s face crumpled. She yanked the bucket to her lips and gagged again, producing nothing. “Sunny, please, I need something! Opium … morphine … anything! I can’t get by without it!”
“Look what it is doing to you, bao bèi!”
Jia-Li’s trembling intensified and she began to sob. “What has become of me?”
“Shh,” Sunny soothed as she wrapped an arm around her friend. She hugged her tightly enough to feel the shivering. “We will get you through this. Everything will be all right. You will see.”
“Why do you waste your time? I’m just another opium-addicted wild pheasant,” Jia-Li whimpered, using the derogatory term for the lowest class of Shanghai’s prostitutes.
Lo-Shen gasped at her daughter’s double admission, though neither would have been a revelation to her. Without a word, the small woman backpedalled out of the room and silently closed the door behind her.
Jia-Li might have been addicted to opium, but Sunny knew she was hardly a wild pheasant. In a city reputed to be home to more than a hundred thousand prostitutes, Jia-Li was among the most sought after singsong girls in what arguably was the French Concession’s leading brothel. Outside of work, Jia-Li lived affluently, residing in an airy suite in the Cathay Building, one of the most upscale addresses in the city. Yet she could never persuade her mother to abandon the apartment in Hongkew and move in with her. During fits of opium withdrawal, Jia-Li inevitably slunk back to her mother’s humble flat to suffer the shame of her lifestyle as acutely as anyone possibly could.
Sunny released Jia-Li from her grip and dug a pill bottle out of her handbag. She gently tapped out two pills into her palm. They weighed nothing, but the sight of them conjured a wave of guilt. Sunny had taken the pills from her father’s medication supply at home without permission. She knew he would have willingly given them to her. Her father loved Jia-Li like a daughter and had provided morphine in the past to treat her withdrawal. But Sunny did not have the heart to tell her father about her friend’s latest relapse. Irrational as it was, Sunny felt somehow responsible. And she hated the thought of disappointing her father.
Jia-Li stared wide-eyed at the pil
ls. “Morphine?” she asked hopefully.
Sunny shook her head. “Cannabis and atropine.”
“How will they help?” Jia-Li muttered.
Sunny pointed from one pill to the other. “The cannabis will settle your stomach, and the atropine will stop the cramps.”
A frown crossed Jia-Li’s lips as she extended her trembling fingers toward the pills. It took her three tries to fish them out of Sunny’s palm and pop them into her mouth. Sunny brought the water glass to Jia-Li’s lips, tilting it just enough to dribble a small sip into her mouth. Jia-Li swallowed the pills in one loud gulp. Shakily, she lowered the glass, then pursed her lips as she fought off another gag.
After the episode passed, Jia-Li gaped at Sunny. “Why, Sunny?” she croaked. “Why do you come back after I keep breaking my promises to you?”
Sunny did not answer right away. Instead, she smoothed down the spears of hair that stuck out the side of Jia-Li’s head. “You are my oldest and dearest friend in the world. I will always be here for you. As I know you will for me.”
CHAPTER 10
“What is Virchow’s triad?” Her father sprung the question before Sunny had even set foot inside the den that served as his office.
“‘Virchow’s triad’ refers to the three factors that contribute to the formation of blood clots or deep-vein thrombosis of the legs,” Sunny replied without having to consider the answer.
Mah Kun Li—”Kingsley” to his English-speaking friends and medical colleagues—sat behind his prized redwood desk, a hundred-year-old hand-carved relic from the late Qing dynasty. A chart lay open in front of the doctor, while others were piled neatly in two stacks on either side of the desk. Kingsley saw his patients at his clinic in the International Settlement or, for those too ill to travel, in their own beds, but he often brought charts home to complete in the evening. Though it was well past ten o’clock, he still wore the top button of his navy blazer fastened and his tie perfectly knotted.
“Which three factors?” her father demanded, speaking English as he almost always did in Sunny’s presence.
Sunny listed them with her fingers. “Immobility, injury and hypercoagualability.”
“Correct.”
Kingsley had been devastated when his old alma mater, Hong Kong University, and the other reputable medical schools in East Asia had all declined Sunny’s applications. Convinced that the rejections were based entirely on her gender and mixed race rather than merit, he committed himself to personally training his daughter as a physician, even while she attended nursing school. She had since spent most of her spare moments studying his medical texts or shadowing him at work. Three years after Sunny’s graduation from nursing school, Kingsley continued to quiz her relentlessly, to the point where she could recite whole passages from texts such as Gray’s Anatomy or the Merck Manual.
“So tell me, Sunny,” he said. “What is the single greatest risk factor for developing a venous thrombosis?”
Sunny bit back a smile, recognizing the question as a trick that she might have fallen for a year or two earlier. “The person most at risk for developing a thrombosis is someone who has had a previous blood clot,” she said as she reached his desk.
“Precisely so,” Kingsley said with a satisfied nod.
Sunny circled the desk, wrapped her arms around her father and hugged him tightly, feeling his bony frame through his suit jacket. She kissed his smooth cheek and inhaled his spicy cologne. The scent grounded her, conjuring the warm sense of security it always had.
Many Chinese, especially her highly traditional aunt, would have frowned upon such a show of physical affection by a daughter for a parent, but Sunny never let that stop her. She was her mother’s daughter, born with a fiery streak of independence that, while often landing her in trouble with both Western and Eastern cultures, defined her as much as her Eurasian heritage or her passion for medicine.
Sunny released her father from the embrace. He viewed her intently, and she braced herself for another medical question. Instead, he asked, “How is Jia-Li faring?”
“Jia-Li is … doing … better,” Sunny sputtered, wondering how he could have known about her friend’s relapse.
“Ko Lo-Shen came to see me earlier. She brought me a ymèbang.” The traditional moon cakes were his favourite. “To thank me for sending you to look after her daughter.” He raised an eyebrow. “And for providing medicine to Jia-Li.”
Sunny’s face began to burn, but she said nothing.
“Soon Yi, you only had to ask.”
His tone was impassive but Sunny could sense his disappointment. She looked down, too ashamed to meet his eyes. “I know, Father. I should have told you. You have been so generous to Jia-Li. I had hoped that the previous episode would be her last.”
“There will be a next time, Sunny,” Kingsley said gravely. “And more times after that.”
Keeping her gaze glued to the floor, Sunny only nodded.
Kingsley laughed softly. “Did I not teach you the one truism about opium? It is the worst lover to try to leave, and the most difficult relationship to end.”
“You did.”
“In my experience, the addict has to lose absolutely everything before she can leave the pipe behind.” He cleared his throat. “If she ever will.”
“Jia-Li will,” Sunny said, aware her voice lacked conviction.
“I hope so, Sunny,” Kingsley said. “Between her … circumstances … and living in a city where opium is as plentiful and available as rice, she will have a long and difficult battle ahead.”
Sunny looked up at him. “None of this excuses my behaviour, Father. I am so very sorry.”
He shrugged his narrow shoulders, and his lips broke into the wisp of a smile. “Tell me, Sunny. What is a Sister Mary Joseph’s nodule?” he quizzed.
“A hardened lymph node found under the umbilicus.” And then, anticipating his next question, she added, “It indicates an underlying abdominal cancer, commonly of the stomach or large bowel, which has already spread to the point of being inoperable.”
Kingsley continued to grill Sunny. She knew he was trying to distract her from her nagging guilt, and she loved him even more for the effort, but she could not shake the shame of her deception or her worry for Jia-Li. Though her friend’s stomach had settled and her sweats had broken, Sunny had left Jia-Li still curled up clutching her belly and whimpering for her pipe.
After finishing her father’s evening quiz, Sunny kissed him good night and headed to her bedroom. Three of her favourite poems, penned in ornate Chinese calligraphy, hung like banners on one of the walls. She glanced past them to the room’s only artwork, a charcoal portrait of her mother, Ida Hudson Mah. In the sketch, Ida’s shoulders were turned slightly from the painter and she offered him an enigmatic grin. Sunny remembered the Mona Lisa smile, but in her recollection, her mother’s eyes always brimmed with more warmth than the artist had captured.
As Sunny lay under the blanket, teetering between sleep and wakefulness, childhood memories floated back to her. She had lived her whole life in the same house on the cherry tree–lined street that ran through the heart of the French Concession. The Kos lived two doors down; Sunny and Jia-Li became friends before they could talk. After Ida’s sudden death from a brain hemorrhage, Sunny spent so much time with the Kos that she felt a part of their family too. The girls were inseparable, closer than most sisters. But, at the age of thirteen, everything changed when Jia-Li’s father’s gambling debts caught up to him. In the tradition of other overextended gamblers, he jumped to his death from the top deck of the city’s notorious nightclub and casino, The Great World. Too proud to accept money from Kingsley to pay off her husband’s debts, Lo-Shen sold her house, relocated her family to a poorer area of Hongkew and took on work as a seamstress.
Confused and lonely, Jia-Li fell for an eighteen-year-old boy in the neighbourhood. Sunny distrusted him the instant she glimpsed his reptilian smile, but Jia-Li was too smitten to heed her warning. The boyfriend
exerted a hypnotic influence over Jia-Li, introducing her to the opium pipe and then selling her off as one of Shanghai’s most precious commodities—a “first-night virgin”—long after he had deflowered her. Soon, he abandoned Jia-Li altogether, leaving her broken-hearted, opium addicted and reliant on her income as a prostitute. Humiliated and ashamed, Jia-Li tried to sever all ties with her past life, but Sunny slowly worked her way back into her friend’s heart. In turn, Jia-Li proved to be a dedicated and streetwise companion, introducing Sunny to aspects of Shanghai that she never knew existed, while fiercely protecting her from the same pitfalls to which Jia-Li had fallen victim.
The memories blurred and Sunny drifted to sleep, her dreams a jumble of childhood scenes, military checkpoints, bombing victims and opium dens.
Sunny awoke to the smell of brewing coffee. In the kitchen, the housekeeper, Yang, stood over the stove, boiling eggs to accompany vegetable dumplings. The tiny, tireless woman had been with the Mahs since Sunny was born. Yang had begun as Sunny’s amah and evolved into their housekeeper. She understood English perfectly but never spoke a word of it. At times, Yang could be so quiet that she seemed to blend into the walls, but she could also be as protective as a tigress of her cubs if she sensed the slightest threat to Sunny. “Oh, Soon Yi, what were you doing in Hongkew?” Yang demanded as she placed a full plate and a cup of tea in front of her.
Sunny glanced at her father, who shrugged helplessly. She turned back to Yang. “Jia-Li needed my help,” she said in Shanghainese.
“No one can help Jia-Li,” Yang said with a trace of sadness. “You must stay away from Hongkew, xiao hè. The Japanese soldiers …” She shook her head gravely.
“I will try, Yang.”
“Hongkew is not good any more, not good at all,” Yang muttered, turning her attention back to the boiling eggs.
As Sunny and her father ate, they traded pages of the Shanghai Morning Post. Flipping to the back pages, an article near the bottom caught her eye. The headline read, “No End to Flood of Jewish Refugees.”