Water Ghosts

by Shawna Yang Ryan

  Let’s wait until morning at least.

  The clock on the nightstand ticks eleven-twenty-one. Ming Wai takes the rope of wet hair hanging down her back and twists it in her hands. Some of her fingernails appear to have been bitten or torn away. The things they could say are loud in the room—the two of them still overwhelmed at the idea of ten years.

  Richard says, Let’s go to sleep.

  They turn away from each other to undress. Richard glances over his shoulder at Ming Wai’s icy-white back woven through by muscles and hunger. He waits until she lies under the covers before turning around and sliding in beside her. Her body is cold. She moves closer to the wall to make room for him.

  Good night.

  Good night.

  Richard turns off the light. The moonlight through the windows casts a blue square on the wall—the shape of the window darkened by the shadowed curves of their bodies. Richard lies with his eyes open. They are both silent. Her hand brushes the small of his back and his body tightens. She slides her hand from his back to his hip.

  He turns toward her. She is backlit, her face just a dark shadow. He reaches out to touch her damp hair, to tuck it behind her ears over and over. He strains to hear her breath, but can hear only his heart in his ears. She rolls her hips toward him. This is when the desire should begin, when he should feel a stirring, should do more than twist her hair between his fingers. She kisses him. He tightens his grip on her hair and pulls her head away.

  You don’t want me, she says.

  I want you.

  Ten years, she reminds him, and he cannot tell her that it’s been ten years for her, but far less for him. He swallows heavily and whispers, I’m sorry. She rolls toward the window. His fingers slide through her hair, down the coarse strands to the very ends—hair so long it touches her elbows—and brings it up to his mouth. Her feet kick him away, but there is nowhere for either to go on the small bed. He chews on her wet hair and thinks of three things at once: the taste of his own hair when he would suck on his queue while bathing as a child; Chloe alone in the red room; the wrenching in Ming Wai’s back as she cries—and he wonders how he can balance them all.

  8

  In the Pear orchard (1919)

  RICHARD ARRIVED IN the summer, one young man among many.

  Heat rose. The barracks were stifling when the pear pickers returned in the evening. The heat drove them out—toward town, toward Main Street, toward gambling and women. Main Street was where the Delta breeze swept over the levee and down into town.

  Mosquito bites so bad they bruised. He peeled back the bedding and found fleas between it and the mattress. The mattress stained in the shape of a sweaty body. Lice in the pillow.

  He kept a locked valise under the bed filled with all that was important—papers, portraits of himself with Ming Wai, a change of clothes. He wore the key on a chain.

  With the fifty-pound pear bag slung crosswise across his chest, with his hands reaching to pluck the pears that had not yet turned blush-hued at the bottom, with feet in a constant state of readjusting balance on the ladder, he had never conceived of such weariness. It was more than when they hurried to tie bandannas around their faces as the crop duster’s spray drifted into the orchard; more than the ache that spread from wrist to the wings of his back, so that each shift in bed brought new pain. Because there was loneliness too.

  He needed to feel his body was real; it had gone without touching for so long. even a shoulder brush loosened him. He found ways to ease himself.

  He shat. He urged it out even when he was not ready, just to feel the functioning of his body. He found that he didn’t mind the stink or darkness of the outhouse, nor the newsprint tacked to the wall to wipe with. He wanted it all—the rancid smell, the gassy heat, the slump of his body thrown into the act. The moment of pleasure at release.

  He groomed. With a toothpick, he scraped the dirt out from under his nails. He cut his nails, slowly, savoring the shearing away of growth. He plucked at his eyebrows with newly cut fingernails.

  And then, finally, there was that of which he would never speak. Near the end of the harvest. Two of them, at the farthest corner of the orchard with no one but the trees around them. They were slow to finish up. Richard stepped off the ladder. one hand trying to stay the falling of pears from the bag, a foot that slipped on the last rung; the sudden warmth of a steadying hand at his back. Richard sank into it. The other man, Ah Lum, maintained his touch. A half glance backward from Richard; understanding transferred in a look. Ah Lum was younger, not older than twenty, but his will was unflinching. Richard turned around and leaned against the ladder.

  The work whistle blew. The ladders would be stacked up and the men lined up for food.

  Richard closed his eyes. His belt was undone, his button unclasped. The air cool on his unbundled body. He wanted to cry out and say no, but more than that, he wanted someone else to know his body was real too.

  First was Ah Lum’s hand, then his mouth. Richard gripped the ladder and participated only by his presence. He looked up through the heart-shaped leaves and to the flat blue sky. Bees hummed at the open wound on a yellowed pear. Afterward, Richard knew, he would wish it had been all a dream, or a stumbling midafternoon thought.

  He ejaculated onto the grass.

  Richard couldn’t meet Ah Lum’s eyes. He buckled his pants, then pulled the ladder shut. Help me carry this, he said. They marched back to camp. Two men flashing through the trees, ladder held between them, each slung with fifty pounds of pears to weigh them down.

  9

  THE SUN SETS on the other side of the river. Men leave work by the setting sun and march into Locke, alone and in groups. Their boots have been cleaned of cannery waste, or field dust—shined leather for a Saturday night. They fill up the diners and the gambling halls and the speakeasy—throw their dice, drink their drinks with steady hands, as if the present action is all they have come for. every opening door causes their heads to turn—just a casual glance backward—an eye seeking out the shape of a woman. They are patient.

  The men have come from all over and the boardinghouses are full; there is no place for those from other towns. After dancing, when the sweat has dried, the phonograph shut, the records carefully resleeved, the men suck in their stomachs and squeeze onto the stairs to sleep. Backs against the wall, legs bent up on a short step, or lying full out on the dance floor. So many packed bodies, there is no need for blankets.

  They are waiting for Sunday morning. Straws have been drawn and punches thrown over who gets to sit with the boat-women first. The men have scheduled themselves to enter the Lees’ house by twos, to take off their hats, sit politely, and smile at the new women they hear have arrived.

  But first, there is church. This Sunday it is standing room only. The whole curious town has filled the pews; everyone stares not at the preacher, but at the backs of the two heads in the very front. There is something gauzy and uncertain about the women, as if in a blink they will be gone.

  The preacher tells the story of Noah’s Ark. It is a story better suited for Sunday school, but he is new, underestimates their Christian educations, and so the congregation forgives him. When he lists the animals, the rhythm of the pairs—elephants, eagles, zebras, tigers, ostriches, horses, lions, doves, ravens, dolphins—lulls the listeners into being five again, or twenty-five, learning the names. Sows, bulls, hens, mares, ganders, toms, and bitches. The men whose backs still hurt from the dancing hall stairs nod in understanding.

  Hymnbooks turn into fans. The Jesus hung on the cross on the wall sweats, the wood gaining the luminescence of trees in the rain. Preacher Howar Lee looks down at the red-faced people before him and closes up his sermon. They rise to unstick their legs from their seats.

  On the lawn, the men who have waited since sunset of the night before pull themselves together with whispers. They have chosen a representative to talk to the preacher and his wife—to voice their plan to court the boat-women. Fifty-two men vying for the attentio
ns of two women.

  . . .

  CORLISSA’S VOICE REACHES over the men who stand expectantly on her front porch as she calls her daughter’s name.

  Sofia!

  Sofia rises, breaking through soft white shirts with yellowed stains under the arms, through the heat rising off nervous chests. The men frown as she passes; she has sat among them, silently, without their knowing.

  Corlissa reaches out and pulls her daughter forward. Just a moment, she tells the men. Just another moment.

  Like animals, she says behind the closed door. They smell like bulls pacing the paddock. She looks Sofia up and down to see what kind of trouble she’s drawn.

  It’s hot inside, Sofia says. So I went out. Words fight against Corlissa’s teeth. She licks her lips.

  The curtains hang still in the breezeless day and melted water dribbles from inside the icebox and into a metal pan. Get them some water. Keep them calm. I knew they weren’t all looking for the Lord.

  I ’VE ALWAYS WANTED to go to Africa. All that forest unfurling across the continent. The heat. The humidity. As if there wasn’t enough of that here.

  For sure.

  And the river. I always have to be near a river. I get thirsty just thinking about deserts. I come from city people—a great-great uncle of mine was an adviser to the Daoguang emperor.

  Sweat darkens the pulled-button shirt splitting across the suitor’s stomach. The women sip their tea and politely smile at the eleventh claim of distant royalty that day.

  My father is a scholar. He’s in San Francisco, but he went back to the village when I was thirteen and they still called him Teacher. He works at a hotel, real nice, looks like the White House. Lucky. The village fortune-teller took my mother aside when she was heavy with me and told her my family’s luck would change when I was born. And it was true. Look at me, in America talking to you two lovely women.

  The younger one giggles, but the older, aloof one looks away. The man clears his throat.

  Um, yes, I hope I can call on you next week. I heard the acrobats are coming to Walnut Grove. Maybe we could try an outing. He stands up and thanks the whitelady, somnolent chaperone, who slouches in a chair, nodding off.

  Then the next one. Number forty-nine. The women stop feigning interest. Bulls pacing a paddock, impatient cows kicking away to the pasture.

  THE DAMN GIRL! Corlissa had been in the kitchen with her for an hour, washing all those glasses. Away for ten minutes and Sofia has slipped out already. The kitchen is full of the red light of the setting sun. Corlissa takes up the rest of the washing. Pinches of anger tighten on her neck and face. The scroop of the back door opening.

  You didn’t finish washing, Corlissa says.

  I just stepped out for a minute.

  What did you do? Sofia stands in the doorway, two limp braids in one hand and grease-sticky kitchen scissors in the other. A tiny shake in her hand as she stares at her mother. Her hair is jagged past her ears in an uneven bob like a flapper or a theater woman. Corlissa shakes the soap from her hands and walks over to take the braids. What did you do? Her fingers brush Sofia’s lobes where the hair ends. You look like trash.

  What’s done is done, Sofia says. It was hot on my neck.

  It’s really awful.

  It’s done. She’s impatient with her mother’s surprise.

  Corlissa shakes her head.

  Unbelievable. She dangles the braids. You were going to keep these?

  I guess.

  No.

  I was going to keep them. She makes a reach, but Corlissa won’t let go.

  You’re going to come with me. What kind of daughter? Corlissa grabs Sofia’s arm and leads her to the incinerator behind town. The length of the hair is irrelevant; it’s the impertinent lip, the unashamed stare that leads her to the garbage piling up among the weeds with her fingers bruising her daughter’s arm. Things too unimportant to be burned, forgotten outside the incinerator’s metal mouth: old dolls, papers, potato peelings and sodden apple cores, boxes, torn blankets and a single red woman’s shoe.

  No, Mama, Sofia cries.

  Corlissa opens the door. A whoomp of heat, distorted mirage light wavers out and dries their mouths and eyes.

  I want to keep them.

  Throw them in. She hands the braids to Sofia. It is the battle itself that matters. Sofia wavers. Corlissa grabs her wrists and thrusts them toward the fire. Drop them! Her knuckles are burning. Sofia starts to howl and pull away. Corlissa is stronger. She yanks to Sofia’s pulls, a tug-of-war until the braids are dropped and both are sickened by the smell of burned hair. Sofia rubs at her raw wrists and cries all the way home.

  HOWAR IS AGITATED. He kicks his feet, pulls at the sheets, then wriggles them off again. every movement jars Corlissa awake. She sighs alongside him, impatient, until finally she slips from bed, puts on her dressing gown, loops the belt in a double knot and leaves the room. She paces the hall, remembers the back-and-forth in bare feet with Sofia in her arms. She stands outside Sofia’s door. She pauses with her hand on the knob, then opens the door; Sofia is asleep. What did she expect? Sofia looks much younger in the dark room, and Corlissa almost wants to wake her, just so she can soothe her back to sleep. Instead, she listens to her breathing, then steps out and goes downstairs.

  Maybe warm milk will make her sleepy. She turns on the kitchen light. The pots clang and echo. There is nothing more lonely than an empty, lit kitchen at two in the morning. She heats the milk, stirring slowly, feeling the spoon catch on the scalded bits on the bottom of the pan. She turns at the sound of a moth beating against the kitchen light. When the gas sputters off, and she stands next to the stove drinking her milk, there is no sound at all, except for the light scuffing she makes in her robe. The wallpaper she hung around the kitchen border last week isn’t exactly straight. Geese led with a blue ribbon by a girl, around and around the room. She’d balanced for hours on a kitchen chair, arms in the air, glue dripping off the brush.

  She wipes the milk from her lip and puts the pan in the sink. The curtains flutter. Maybe a walk will tire her out. In the living room, the moon reveals streaks on the floor. The men had left footprints. one hundred and four feet going from door to sofa. She had scrubbed and scrubbed, but she sees on the edges residual prints, dust and grass marks. She spits on the corner of her robe and rubs away at the floor.

  She’ll come back in the morning. All those men lining up just to woo two women—one married, even!—in five minutes of storytelling. It had been easier with Howar. The church had brought them together. It still surprises her, that she has married a Chinese, but it has ceased being strange.

  She goes outside, around to the attached church. Inside, the women sleep on the floor. As excited as she is by her new guests, they are still unknown, and she prefers they don’t sleep in her house. They say they’re not runaways, but to show up like that—no doubt they’re illegal. Howar wanted Sofia to give up her room, but Corlissa gathered up the pillows and blankets and walked out to the church. It was done.

  Peeking in windows, drinking milk—these do not solve her restlessness. She turns away from the church and slides between houses, each with its lights off. The cats scurry away, and she hears a dog bark on the other side of a wall. Somebody yells for it to shut up.

  Walking between buildings so short she can still see the sky, Corlissa forgets to miss San Francisco. So used to the city lights reflecting back orange off the night fog, she had forgotten stars. Locke. A man’s town. The cruelty of laws has twisted the place into a Wild West throwback, where men outnumber the women twenty to one. Despite her own marriage, she still feels a distaste rising up at the unusual coupling of white prostitutes and Chinese men. Aberration added on to vice. Yet this is a place where Howar thrives, more work than they’d imagined, and side money too—paid off by brothels and gambling halls to focus on other sins. Howar calls it tact.

  After the fish market, she turns left onto Main Street. She’d been taken on this tour when she visited last ye
ar, still debating the move. Now every idiosyncrasy is familiar. Across the street is the rooming house; inside the beds are set out in rows. An old widow, Mrs. Sin, runs it, and charges two dollars and fifty cents for a week of meals. even her age and growing dementia do not keep her from being the regular recipient of marriage proposals. Next door, the Wah Lee and Co. Boots and Dry Goods store, specializing in handmade boots. The place smells of leather and grease, and Corlissa has stopped buying flour there, convinced the boot smell has crept into the taste. The lights in the apartment above Jack Yang’s restaurant are still on. The Main Street restaurant is one of several Yang owns around the Delta. This one does well off business from the Star Theatre next door. They say the theater’s seen better years. even traveling acrobats from China once performed there, but now the entertainment is only as exotic as a vaudeville troupe from San Francisco. Lee Bing’s restaurant faces the theater. Despite its reputation for having a wandering ghost, it brings the briskest business. Lee Bing, one of the town founders, is the main reason. even Howar will choose Lee’s place two times out of three, just to stay on his good side. Being located next to the Lucky Fortune also helps. The manager, Richard Fong, has turned the gambling hall into the most successful in town. Corlissa marvels that its dark walls and boarded windows betray nothing of what is inside. If she’d been raised in the Delta, the places and people would radiate histories and private jokes—who almost drowned as a toddler, which man hits his wife, which eternal bachelor lost his shirt to a succubus. Newly arrived, she has only surface details, outlines of power. She knows how the money flows, and to whom. Farther down, she might glance up at the Japanese barber’s place, peer through the window at the dried plants and medicines at another of Lee Bing’s ventures, the herb counter, or strain for the sound of the dance hall above the ice-cream parlor. Instead, she turns her gaze right, at the two-story building facing the Lucky Fortune. Madam See’s brothel, one of many in town. This is where some of the money flows. And some save their vitriol against prostitution for this one house, owned by a Chinese madam. Past Main Street, Locke tries to forget the bachelors crowding the rooming houses. Past Main Street, Locke considers itself a family town. Locke is a Chinese town. Corlissa has learned, through the initial sneers, that it is for the strange and exotic whites to carry the distasteful jobs. Poppy See lowers the dignity of everyone.