Water Ghosts

by Shawna Yang Ryan

  Sofia shrugs herself away. I saw them come in. They were so beautiful. They were so beautiful, Mama. She leans back against the sink, right foot riding up and down her left calf, a soft toe-scratch at an old mosquito bite. I can’t wait to meet them.

  Where have you been? Corlissa turns back to dinner. Indifference may coax forth the truth.

  Sofia picks at carrot bits left on the chopping board: The parade. Then I saw the boats. And the women. Annoyance lightens Sofia’s tone, but doesn’t settle Corlissa’s suspicion.

  Let them be. They’ve come a long way. Get cleaned up. Corlissa opens the oven door and slips the pie in. The black grease burning off the bottom of the oven stings her nostrils. By the time the oven door groans closed, Sofia has already left the kitchen with light steps.

  Corlissa can step softly too. She follows her daughter, into the hallway, where one can already hear the splash of water. The air is heavy here, humid; the steam uncurls from under the door and weighs down the hall. The door is cracked a bit and Sofia pauses before it. over her head, a slim rectangle of view: bodies bending, water poured. A watercolor of pale women bathing, concentrating on the task. A stifled sob sounds, a cry of pure relief. Sofia rebraids her hair as she watches, glances over her shoulder to see if she is caught, and she is caught. Any explanation sits heavy on the tongue. She glances down, then turns away and runs up the stairs.

  DINNER ELICITED NO more from them. Sofia was overly helpful and her eagerness made the women draw back. They passed whispers back and forth between each other, even as Corlissa spoke with Howar about the day, and the couple made allowances for their new guests’ breaches.

  Corlissa sits with her mending on a chair under the light-cone of a floor lamp. She licks the frayed end of thread and tries to guide it through the needle’s eye. The thread hits the needle and curves back. Corlissa licks and tries again. She holds the needle higher, in the light, before her eye. The room funnels through the needle’s frame. Here is Sai Fung, wandering from sideboard to coffee table, touching everything. Here is So Wai, studying a map of the Delta that Howar has laid out for her. Sofia on the floor, flipping through a magazine and playing with her hair. Howar writes at his desk, pen moving from red-marked Bible to letter paper. Their marriage hasn’t seemed to draw any curiosity from the women. Perhaps miscegenation is looped into their myths of America, along with the infamous streets of gold. She could explain the lashings of Chinaman! shouted by her mother, the trip to Nevada, the nearest state where it was legal, for their wedding. But no one in this room cares. She splits the frame with the thread. Her hopes for the day, brought along by these new women, are dissolved by the quotidian.

  6

  The Flat in the City (1913)

  CORLISSA SLID HER fingernail along the spine, shifted it under, and cracked off the shell. Her hands were fast, and the sound of breaking shrimp shells bounced between her and her mother-in-law in the small kitchen. The room was taken up with the smell—shrimp, gray, ready for shelling and more than ready for drying. The two of them had twenty-five more pounds to get through by nightfall and the odor, along with the spattered-grease scent from the speckled walls, was making Corlissa sick.

  Sofia, seven months old and squirming, was tied in her lap. She ran her baby hands through the shells and smashed them in her tiny fists. Corlissa dropped another nude shrimp onto the pile and grabbed at Sofia’s hands. No, no, baby, she said and slid Sofia’s arms back off the table.

  Again the motion. The fingernail with the sore skin beneath. This time she tore off the legs and slipped off the shells from there. Water flooded under her nail and the broken shell was sharp against her skin. The shells in one pile, the shrimp in another.

  Sofia turned her head toward Corlissa’s breast and nuzzled her blouse.

  She’s hungry, Corlissa’s mother-in-law said.

  She’s always hungry. I’ll get her some sugar water.

  Corlissa went to the stove, holding Sofia, to dissolve some sugar into water. A sad afternoon light fell through the small window that was partially blocked by a shelf. It was the light of clouds turned cream color by the sun; neither brightness nor grayness. Corlissa heard Ma behind her.

  Sugar water. Sugar water for a baby, Ma said to herself.

  Sofia’s heels pressed into Corlissa’s side and she began to make whimpering hunger sounds. Corlissa hushed her, stirred at the pan, then reached for a bottle of Chinese white liquor. She uncapped it, dribbled a bit on her finger, and rubbed it against Sofia’s gums.

  Small bubbles formed on the bottom of the pan. Corlissa removed it from the heat.

  Too much sugar’s no good for the baby, Ma said.

  Corlissa said, She’s teething. It hurts me. She took a rag, knotted the end, and stuck it in the water. The hot sticky water crept up the cloth and turned it dark. She tried to put the knot in Sofia’s mouth, but Sofia turned her head from right to left and back, whining and refusing.

  See? The baby knows; why doesn’t the mother? Ma did not break her shelling pace.

  Hush, hush, come on, So. Come now.

  Sofia pressed her face against Corlissa’s shirt again, against Corlissa’s sore breast, the nipples ringed with small imprints, and moved her head back and forth.

  Corlissa sat back down at the table and tried again to give Sofia the sweetened rag. The light seemed to be rapidly falling; night was coming and the shrimp waited in a darkening pile.

  She wants her mother’s milk.

  Corlissa eased her finger between Sofia’s lips and gently pried her mouth open. Sofia, Sofia, she sang, Mama has to work.

  Ma clicked her tongue.

  Corlissa readjusted the strip of cloth that held Sofia to her body. Sofia’s body pressed against Corlissa’s heart and there was heat where their bodies touched.

  The shrimp, the shrimp, Ma said.

  Corlissa flared her nostrils, holding back sighs. She wanted to shake Sofia, she wanted to shake Ma, and she wanted to stop shelling. She set the rag on the table in a puddle of melted ice and shrimp juice. You’ll just have to cry, she said to Sofia. Sofia’s hands curled into fists and she grabbed and pulled at Corlissa.

  Ma stood up to light the lantern. The glow and the flicker created long shadows and made the corners darker. They heard the phoomp of the gaslights coming up in the streets.

  Howar says in China, the mothers give their babies sugar-cane to suck on, Corlissa said.

  I never did. You look at my son’s teeth—they are straight. Not rotted. I fed him with my breast until I had his brother. You must be faster.

  Corlissa fell back into the rhythm of nail against shrimp. This was how they made their money—two women, day after day, shelling shrimp, so Howar could work for the Church for so little money. He’d rather give up part of his wages to buy Bibles to hand out to the people he greeted in their homes. When the traffic paused for a moment, the sounds of the apartments around Corlissa and Ma rose up—the buzz of sewing machines and other rustlings of work by the women who stayed in to earn their money.

  Sofia began to cry. Corlissa jiggled her knee, hummed as she shelled. There was no time to pause—the sun would be down soon and a man would knock at their door to collect their work. Ma shook her head. Corlissa noticed her hair was starting to gray and her shoulders slumped. Ma could do only table work for long periods, and shuffled in small places. Her feet were the size and look of Corlissa’s hand when the fingers curled against the palm. Despite the weakness in the feet and the shoulders, Ma’s face was shaped and tight, and she disapproved of Corlissa at every turn. Corlissa believed it came to this: she was white, and all that entailed. That the ways she had learned to be a daughter were not how she should be as a daughter-in-law.

  Sofia kicked, feet against her mother’s stomach, and tented out the cloth that held her. Her wails elevated to screams and Corlissa tried to hunch over the baby’s movement, tried to keep working. She blushed.

  Go, go, go. Take her away, Ma said.

  The shrimp, Corlissa s
aid.

  I don’t like the noise. Ma’s fingers moved faster in response to Corlissa’s slack.

  Corlissa left the table and slipped into her and Howar’s bedroom. She put one hand on Sofia’s back and one to her own eyes. Her hand carried the smell of the kitchen and her fingers were puckered with moisture. She began to cry a little. She untied Sofia and laid her on the bed. Then she unbuttoned her blouse. Sofia’s chest heaved under its tiny, thin shirt.

  Corlissa lay down beside Sofia and brought her to her breast. They curled together, baby inside the curve of mother’s body.

  7

  CHLOE SITS ON the back stoop of the brothel wishing that she had kept some of the tobacco she’d bought for Sofia so she could smoke. She thinks about that afternoon: She’s been saved. She undoes one more button on her shirt, fans herself with her hand. If she walks to the front of the brothel, she can look across to Richard’s. His apartment is in the back, but maybe she can see the glow of the window against the building next to it. She tries not to look. She runs her heels over the gravel surrounding the stoop. She’s been saved; she feels it as real as if it had happened in church—Sofia holding her down until her lungs felt sunk in, so empty of air they stung, and through the water, a blurry Sofia above her, her mouth moving softly and blessing Chloe. It was true—even when she arose out of the water with small river plants clinging to her, and her hair already beginning to smell in the sun, she felt reborn. She was washed of that morning with Richard, and the four hundred nights before that. even so, she had descended the stairs, turned the brass knob, and sat on the step to wait for their ten-thirty appointment.

  George opens the door and looks startled to see her.

  I-I-I was going to let some air in, he stutters. He rubs his tattooed arms. His girth and painted arms are intimidating, but his stutter and awkwardness diminish him. As the male presence at the brothel, the protector, it serves him best not to speak often.

  I was just getting some air myself. Chloe scoots over. You want to sit?

  George eases himself next to her, tugging at the knees of his pants as he lowers himself. He leans against the doorframe and closes his eyes. The tattoos of his right arm, the arm closest to Chloe, are of foxes and fairies and women who dissipate into coiled clouds. each roll of the clouds is outlined in black that blends into the lines of the women’s robes and loose sleeves. The years have bled the ink, which gives the tattoos an even dreamier aspect.

  I-I-I heard R-Richard’s wife came t-today, George says. His eyes are still closed.

  I saw her. A shadow sweeps over them. Chloe looks up at the mist that passes over the moon and then they are lit again.

  She’s p-pretty. A classic b-b-beauty.

  She’s all right. She stunk to high heaven. I had to cover my mouth to keep from retching.

  He’s very l-lucky to have his wife here.

  He was doing fine without her.

  It sounds like jealousy to Chloe’s own ears—she reminds herself that she doesn’t like Richard—she hates the curve of his shoulders and the sound of him against her ear. You’re right. He is lucky. Chloe turns west. The river is not a hundred feet away, yet she can’t hear it. Distantly, there is a train. Nothing else. Two streets in a small town—all silent.

  S-So maybe he w-won’t come tonight. George stutters his quiet suggestion, but Chloe anticipates the sentence from the first, and each stop and start increases her anxiety and embarrassment.

  I know, she says. It was hot. I came for air. It’s hot in the attic. Above them, bats shudder against the wall, spin, and flutter back into the night.

  George grunts.

  Chloe leans her cheek into her hand and smells the river still on her skin. She sighs.

  Go sleep, George says. He opens his eyes and lifts his head from the frame. I’ll b-bring a fan for you.

  Chloe shakes her head. She stands and taps the dirt off her feet, each heel against the lip of the step. I’m going to sleep in the red room.

  MADAM SEE RESERVES one room in the brothel for an oil-soaked wick sputtering behind glass. The light shimmers off the red walls and glows through the pink curtains. It is just enough to illuminate the slim bed, to cast shadows on faces and create half-lidded illusions of desire. It smooths out complexions and bestows youth. Chloe lights the lamp and turns back the covers. She crawls in with her dusty pants and sweaty shirt, slides her arms beneath the pillow where the sheets are still cool. She presses her face into the scent of laundry flakes. Nothing remains of the morning—no smell, no coat on the back of the door or stocking flung across the chair arm. Not even the light is the same.

  Chloe thinks of how she arrived—on a riverboat to Sacramento, after the pain became too great. The baby was falling and blood was sticky on her thighs. The boat was making a special stop for a troupe of Chinese performers and Chloe hurried off behind them.

  One man, with a soft, feminine face, gave her a haughty backward glance. She muttered an apology, but clung to the group as they crossed the road into a town. She recognized it immediately. Locke. The Chinamen’s town. She slowed her step. The performers moved on. She considered going to Walnut Grove, but pain sent her scurrying down the sloped road onto Main Street, where she stopped a woman and asked where she could go.

  Chloe meant a doctor or a midwife; she felt that the hand low on her pregnant stomach implied this. But the woman couldn’t see the spots of blood or the shudder of cramps; she saw Chloe only as a whitegirl. Whitegirls, she’d said, go to Madam See’s.

  Chloe gave birth in the kitchen. The baby slid into Madam See’s hands with slick gray skin and its umbilical cord wrapped tight around its neck like a vine that chokes its own flower.

  It’s dead, Chloe said. She began to cry and collapsed onto the floor, onto her dress, seeming not to care if it became matted with blood. Richard had been there, in the kitchen. He’d stroked her hair. I was going to keep it, she said. I was going to keep it. He told me to give it away but I was going to keep it.

  In response to Chloe’s sobs, Madam See urged her to stay the night. Stay a few days. I’ll take care of you and in a few days, we’ll see what we can do with you.

  They burned the baby with the rubbish, and a few days became a year.

  She rises to blow out the lamp, but the thought of waking alone in the room at dawn stops her.

  POPPY HAD SEEN her picture before, had glanced over Richard’s shoulder as he read letters from home, but she was unprepared for the flesh-and-blood sight of Ming Wai standing before her with vixen face and tiny pawlike feet. The tightening around her heart was stronger than on the afternoon when Chloe arrived, when being nearly thirty-two could not compare to a sixteen-year-old with a pregnant belly and a glistening face, and she glanced over at Richard coaxing the girl, touching the back of her neck, unflinching at the blood of Chloe giving birth, and knew in an instant that she’d lost him.

  The year Chloe was born, Poppy was standing in the port, newly arrived, fifteen and waiting to meet her husband. A year later, she was traveling as part of an exotic menagerie. Hiding away money for years until she and George ran away and started the brothel in Locke. And it was Richard, a gambling hall manager—not even an owner!—who had made her consider selling the building and leaving it for a more domestic life.

  For a whole month after Chloe’s arrival, Poppy had left the bedroom light on to wait for him. Finally, in May, she turned it off and lay in the dark waiting. She fell asleep and rose with the sun that heated her room. Chloe waits now. Poppy hears her creep by to the red room, alone.

  Poppy folds the clothes at the foot of her bed, lines up her cosmetics, aimless busy tasks to settle her pleased heart. She smiles to herself because, by eighteen, a girl should have her heart broken, at least once.

  RICHARD OPENS THE cupboards and the icebox. He shows Ming Wai how to light the stove, which faucet delivers cold water and which hot. She notes with impatience that there is running water in China too. He shows her how he likes the dishes stacked, the food p
laced.

  In the bedroom, he swings open the wardrobe doors. It is his finest piece of furniture—stained a deep red mahogany, six feet high, with a rod for hanging clothes, and two drawers beneath. A few years before, he had gone with some friends to the junkyard to see what they could salvage and sell for extra cash. Richard found this. It had a broken knob, and the edges were worn so the nude wood beneath was exposed, but he sanded and painted and mended. He shows her how his clothes are hung—the hangers spaced two finger-widths apart from each other, so the cloth of one shirt will not wrinkle the next. Two pairs of shoes, the toes stuffed with balled newspaper to maintain their shape. A piece of cedar carved like a bar of soap lies at the bottom of the wardrobe. That keeps the moths out, Richard says.

  Ming Wai nods, then her eyes sweep across the single bed. Is that where we’ll sleep?

  Richard follows her look to the simple blue-and-white-striped sheets and the lone pillow: I suppose we’ll have to squeeze in.

  You never expected I’d come, she says simply. She turns back to the wardrobe and runs her fingers along his shirts, drags her fingers down the creases made in his pants as they fold over the hangers. It’s as if you don’t even need a wife. She hobbles over to the bed and sits down.

  Her path is traced with tiny smudges of blood. You’re bleeding, Richard says, and he hates himself for feeling more concerned with the wood floors than with Ming Wai’s pain. Her shoulders sag and she looks down at her feet.

  I can’t learn to walk again, she says. I’ll have to rebind them. It hurts too much.

  You’ll look old-fashioned. It’s been only a few hours. Give the bones a chance to heal. He wipes at the spots with an old sock.

  They are healed. You’ll have to break them again if you want me to be modern.

  Richard kneels to inspect her folded feet. Her legs are loose and thin emerging from the heavy brown wool of his trousers. While she sat in the water, Richard struggled in the kitchen trying to pound two extra holes into his belt with a knife so that she could cinch the pants around her bony waist.