Water Ghosts

by Shawna Yang Ryan

  . . .

  WHEN THE TIME was right, she checked for blood. Any cramp or unsettling of her stomach sent her to the bathroom. But there was only clean cotton. In the mornings, she imagined nausea. She stirred at her rice porridge, slowly, until George asked, Are you sick? She shook her head, forced a spoonful of the watery gruel into her mouth, and swallowed. She coughed, but the food stayed down. George watched her and scratched at a tattoo. Its ink had bled, blurring the lines of a daggered heart.

  A baby would be an excuse to leave. In the afternoons, when the girls lounged in the parlor waiting for customers, Poppy watched them in a kind of self-satisfied wonder. Sixteen years ago, she never would have imagined that she would have white-girls working for her. It was a power reversal that gave her a flutter of giddiness. However, it was a giddiness she would trade for the smell of talcum and sleepy-eyed milk drunkenness.

  That the baby would be Richard’s child increased the joy. Poppy was settled by the fact that his wife was far away and he had not seen her in nine years. The town had a few such men: split and living two lives—one in China, through paper, with a wife remembered only through a photograph, and one in America with flesh and blood. Richard showed no interest in returning, and it seemed unlikely that his wife could come over to America, despite the merchant status that Richard had been angling to establish. Poppy might never be his wife, but the role of concubine, of lover, was not distasteful to her.

  . . .

  SHE WAS LOSING the baby. In the dark, her hands went to her stomach, then between her legs as if to hold it in. She had just woken from a dream of a dead baby slipping down a bloody well. It was a girl, she saw. As the dark shapes in the room assumed definition to her adjusting eyes, she told herself that she would want a girl as much as a boy. She muttered this to the baby, cooing, urging it to stay. Richard hushed her, grumbled a bit, and threw his arm across her stomach.

  Don’t, she whispered in the dark. Her voice was so meek, she could barely hear herself. Don’t, she said.

  But he was sleeping, and his arm remained.

  SHE HAD HEADACHES, because she refused to drink anymore. She tried to mold herself to her fantasy of motherhood: an ascetic woman clothed in somber black. The thimbleful of liquor, gulped surreptitiously in the morning, or in the afternoon (to settle her—the doctor recommended it), no longer marked the hours of her day. Without the drink, there was dizziness, rising anxiety. She felt the pressure in her blood. She wrapped the bottle of scotch in towels, dragged a chair to the closet, and stuffed the bottle to the very back of the top shelf.

  The girls began to turn away when she entered the room. They were suddenly taken with the tasks of magazine reading or darning. or staring at their hands. They wouldn’t cross her path, and this apprehension made her even more irritated. She snapped at them, and though they were fighters, unafraid of throwing a punch in a saloon or insulting a customer, they bit their lips and took her words. When she turned, focused on the pounding blood at the center of her stomach, she heard a whisper of conversation that grew the farther away she walked.

  WORK WOULD MAKE her stronger. No longer concerned only with bookkeeping, she washed laundry and dishes, and cooked. She was wringing water from a shirt when there was a knock at the back door. She shook out the shirt, laid it on the tile countertop, and went to answer.

  A well-dressed whitegirl in a beautiful camel-hair coat stood before her. The girl’s blond hair had grown scraggly, and her face was free of makeup. Despite the ragged edges, she was young and pretty. Baby-faced, with loose good looks that fell just short of vulgar. She was pregnant.

  I need some help, she said. Her arms hugged her stomach and her smile failed.

  I’m not a midwife, Poppy said. She raised her eyes for a moment from the seductive swell of the girl’s belly.

  Can I just sit, ma’am? The girl frowned, as if pain lurked just beneath her calm words.

  Poppy let her in and as she shut the door behind her, she saw the spots of blood bright on the girl’s dress.

  How far along are you?

  Just seven months, the girl said. She sat on the sofa and groaned.

  What’s your name?

  Chloe, ma’am. Again, a groan. Yours?

  Madam See. I think you better come to the kitchen.

  The girl walked with her legs awkwardly apart, whimpering the whole way.

  In the kitchen, Poppy placed a pan on the floor and told the girl to squat over it. She put a pot of water on the stove. She hollered for George.

  Chloe steadied herself by gripping two chairs. Her dress pulled up over her knees, the lower half of her belly exposed. Small drops of blood spattered into the pan.

  Did someone hit you? Did you fall? Poppy asked. She yelled for George again.

  No, ma’am. I was just on the ferry from SF and I started hurting. Chloe breathed sharply.

  George walked into the room with Richard.

  What’s this? Richard asked. He was suited and still wore his hat; he had come over from the Lucky Fortune for a break.

  A baby, Poppy said. She bit down her smile. A baby, a baby had just arrived at her back door.

  Chloe closed her eyes and scrunched her face. She moaned. In the reflection of the bottom of the pan, Poppy saw a glimmer of scalp swirled with dark hair.

  It’s coming, she said. Don’t worry, girl, it’s coming. I see the head.

  George remained stoic. Watch the water, Poppy said. Richard slipped off his jacket and crouched beside the two women.

  Chloe grunted and the waste and blood that streamed from her body obscured Poppy’s view in the pan.

  Richard said, You can squeeze my hand. Poppy looked up at his words. She saw him slip his hand into Chloe’s and the softness in his eyes. She’d never seen his face so concerned, nor heard his voice so slack in soothing. He whispered to Chloe. Poppy couldn’t hear his words. They were lost to the panting and the moaning, but it was the tone of the hush, the rhythm of the comfort that mattered. The baby’s head emerged. Poppy put her hands underneath to catch its body.

  Chloe let out an abridged yell. She rocked a little as she pushed. Pull it out! she yelled. Pull it out! The neck and shoulders slipped free and the rest of the baby slid slippery-quick into Poppy’s hand. The umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck.

  George, a knife! Quickly, a knife! Poppy yelled. She tried to wedge her fingers beneath the thick ropes, to loosen them. George handed her a knife and she carefully cut the cord. Blood dribbled out, and still the baby didn’t breathe.

  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 stroked her hair.

  Poppy massaged the baby girl’s broken neck, her tiny chest. She was half the size of a full-term baby and in the quiet of the moment, Poppy noticed the gray skin. Each finger, each piece, perfectly formed, but as limp and discolored as a doll’s. She glanced at Richard; his attention was still on Chloe.

  Do you want to see it? she asked.

  Chloe sobbed and shook her head.

  Do you want to know what sex it is? Poppy still held the baby as if it were alive, sleeping soundly in cradled arms, staining Poppy’s sleeves with blood.

  Chloe shook her head again.

  I’m going to take it away now, Poppy said. Chloe was still crying and she wouldn’t open her eyes. She nodded.

  Poppy wrapped it in a dish towel, bundled it up, covering even its face. She left the brothel and crossed the street, walked down an alley, past Second Street, past all the houses and gardens to the incinerator. The iron door opened with a squeal and the heat was instantly warming.

  She uncovered the baby’s face and touched the tiny nose, the little pout and closed lids. She cried a little, for it and for herself. She folded the cloth back down. She put her ear to its chest to be sure there was not a small, faint beat. The body was already losing the warmth of Chloe’s body. Poppy closed her eyes for a moment, then tossed the baby into the f
ire.

  38

  SINCE THE PARTY on Tuesday, Richard’s days have taken on a steady rhythm. He dreams of Ming Wai. They go about banal tasks—cooking, sewing, reading, walking. She never leaves him. She sits on the edge of the tub when he is on the toilet. She touches the nape of his neck when he brushes his teeth. Asleep, she is there. Awake, she is there.

  When he can manage it, she feeds him ham and boiled chicken and softened crackers. After a few bites, he falls asleep again and the food goes sour in his mouth. Between the dreaming and the eating, they make love. The sadness of Tuesday’s song still lingers, drawing up curiosity about what luck or misfortune brought Ming Wai here, and confusion at her elusiveness. When wisps of the song drift through his head, he feels like he’s crouched in the woods without the will to scream, watching a retreating trail of lanterns bob over hills and disappear into valleys.

  Maybe this is what weakens him: Ming Wai, who asks for more and more and more of him.

  She sits, curled at the end of the bed, the curtain brushed aside with her hand. He looks at the gnarled breaks in her feet. She turns away from the window.

  He smiles, then licks at the dry bits of skin on his lips. He tastes blood.

  What are you watching? he asks.

  It’s going to rain, she says.

  Are there clouds?

  Not yet.

  Then how do you know?

  My feet ache.

  He nods. Could I have some water?

  Next to the bed. She looks back out the window.

  Richard feels around for the glass. He watches her over the rim as he drinks. She looks lovely in the sunlight. She’s gained weight. Her cheeks are full and rosy. Her skin is not so icy.

  Fong Man Gum, she says. Do you?

  Fong Man Gum? he thinks. That’s me. He had forgotten for a moment.

  Do you remember the weather on our wedding day?

  He closes his eyes and sees sunshine—a bright ball of white shining on red dirt. It was summer, he says.

  And it rained. And I cried because my feet hurt so badly.

  It rained? Of course—it was the rainy season, Richard thinks. He licks at his dry lips and hums his agreement.

  You don’t remember?

  I forgot. He opens his eyes. She lets the curtain fall back, but she still glows like sunlight. He doesn’t know if he is dreaming or awake. He wiggles his toes and scratches some wax from his ear. Even movement and detritus can’t convince him.

  She leaves the bed, leaves the room. He hears her move through the apartment. In a building so precariously built, each of her footsteps resonates in the shuddering legs of the bed. He turns on his side and presses his face into the pillow. The wedding party had trampled through mud, taking care not to splatter her trousseau when they carried it across the village into his home. And there was the beating of rain on the roof when he undressed her.

  Are you going out? he calls.

  She walks to the doorway and looks in on him as she combs her hair. She smiles. No, Fong Man Gum, the whole town is closed.

  Is it a holiday? Richard tries to remember what day it is—the month, the date.

  She smiles and shrugs. She struggles the comb through a tangle and, concentrating on the task, walks away from the room again.

  It’s true—Richard cannot recall his sleep being marred by the thumping of the bok-bok man calling out the time. He hasn’t heard the pigs screaming, or even an engine rumble over Main Street. He listens for people and hears only the ragged whistle of his breathing. He pulls his knees to his chest and puts the pillow over his head. He falls back asleep in the muffled darkness.

  39

  CHLOE WALKS IN circles around the empty beds in the hot attic of late afternoon. Madam See says that this happens sometimes—villages fall into a stupor, people make love for days, food is forgotten, spiders spin webs across storefronts, and the animals rut and cry to be fed. It has been nearly a week since any men have crossed the threshold of the brothel, and many of the girls have gone home or to the city to wait for the plague to pass. The sound of crickets has overtaken the evenings—it seems that they have also bred, multiplied their numbers so that every ceiling crack and porch plank vibrates with their singing.

  Chloe sits on Lisel’s bed. She tries to fit herself into the imprint worn into the mattress. But Lisel is bigger, sleeps awkwardly to ease her crippled arm, and Chloe cannot fit. She stands up and the relieved springs sigh. She lies on Beatrice’s bed. Beatrice is a side sleeper, and she has spent so many nights with her beau in Walnut Grove that the springs have righted themselves and there is only the faintest shadow of her presence. Her pillow smells of hair cream.

  Chloe misses Sofia. She fell down inside when they parted in the store, and it was a different sort of falling down from what happened with Alfred. It was the kind of falling down where everything falls into little pieces. But she hadn’t cried. Instead, she thought of New York, of Ruby the jazz singer. Her clear strong voice and the world she moved through—smokescreened, cigar-scented, women in red dresses. Just thinking of the songs made Chloe stronger, and she’d gone upstairs and counted up her savings. It was nearly enough to leave, and she planned for September. She would hitch a ride to Sacramento. There were places that rented to working girls—real, legitimate places—and she had enough for a month’s rent at least.

  Just as Alfred had taught her—it was all about remaking oneself. You could be just a girl from the Central Valley, then turn into a New York moll. From that, an unmarried pregnant girl wandering San Francisco, then, before you could blink a tear, you were a whore, back in the Central Valley. And nobody could trace you through all those different girls, because they knew only what they could see.

  The light coming through the diamond window shifts and the room turns from sun-shafted to gray. Chloe rises from Beatrice’s bed and goes to the window. Clouds cover the sun and start filling the sky. Chloe presses her hand against the glass; the heat is fading fast. Maybe rain is what the town needs. Maybe rain will cool the passions, drive the people from their beds and back to work.

  Chloe walks back to her bed. A motley pile of things she plans to take litters the top. She scoots to her knees and sweeps her hand through the darkness beneath the bed for anything she might have forgotten.

  40

  EIGHT DAYS AFTER the town fell into the lull of lovemaking, and the crickets poured out of the fields and overtook the road, Poppy puts out offerings for Ghost Month. on a table in front of the brothel, she piles up tins of ham, boxes of crackers, a boiled chicken, oranges, bottles of soda. She places lit joss sticks among them and shakes her steepled hands three times. She burns money for the returning dead—a bribery to appease their unhappy souls—and watches as the wind lifts the light ash out of the barrel in a tunnel of smoke and paper flakes that carries the burnt hell notes over the rooftops of Locke.

  Since Sunday, she has heard the rumblings on the other side, the gathering of spirits readying for their once-yearly visit to earth. This morning, as she collected her food offerings, she heard the scream of the hinges as the door to the underworld opened. The Festival of the Hungry Ghost is an old holiday, old already when her grandmother put out offerings on this same lunar day, old already when her grandmother’s grandmother burned incense for ancient ghosts. It is past the point of useful belief and ritual. Perhaps only to Poppy, above all others who put out their gifts and mutter their chants, does it signify anything. every year, all the buildings crowd with ghosts, so packed she has to suck in her breath to pass through. The girls of the brothel do not seem to notice, and Poppy does not bother to explain. The rumbling this year, however, feels different. The source, Poppy thinks, is the three ice-blue women. From the hush-hushes in town, and the gasps of the men who file into the brothel, she knows that the women’s hands are cold, that they cast their own faint light (luminous, one man said), and their utterances are detached and hollow. She whispers a few words of protection for Richard, throws a look at the gathering clouds
, and goes back inside.

  41

  ON THE FIRST night of Ghost Month, the rain begins.

  Warm rain, clapping thunder, even lightning. The rain thunders against the metal roofs, muddies the roads, soaks into the roots of the willows and sycamores on Main Street. The rain washes the gasoline stains from the dirt around the pump and the blood from the yard of the slaughterhouse.

  It’s the kind of rain that keeps people in. The men stay in the bunkhouses, sitting on crates, their hands full of cards, making their fun with bootleg and cigarettes. The inside clatter rises up to beat the outside clatter. In bedrooms around town, men and women break, exhausted, from their week-long embrace, glance down at their emaciated bodies, dress quickly, and hurry to the kitchen for food. The sound of the rain makes them ache for water.

  THE RAIN DRAWS Corlissa from her room. She has been in here without food or real sleep. It takes her a moment to remember this fact, and the memory must rise up through all her immediate senses—the heaviness in her chest, the soreness in her throat, and her constant thirst. Howar sleeps next to her. His glasses are on the floor. She tiptoes out of bed and opens the door.

  She has forgotten Sofia. Who has fed her, cared for her this whole week? It panics her to realize she has forgotten her daughter. She glides down the hall, led from plank to plank by the shattered illumination of lightning. Sofia’s door is ajar. Inside, hushed talking like a murmur into a neck. Sofia has the blankets pulled to her chin. She listens sleepily to a story, lulled by words she can’t understand. Sai Fung sits at the end of the bed; So Wai, in a chair at the bedside. In the space of moments, So Wai’s face darkens to soft shadows, then explodes into the wide, light planes of her cheeks and the blue glaze of her eyes. She tells a story. Corlissa leans into the doorway to listen:

  As the most talented and beautiful singing girl, Young Jade was selective. Only men with the highest honors or positions could hope to be rewarded with a look or a dance. One day, a high dignitary crossed her province. A feast was given. In the midst of the dancing, singing, eating, the dignitary clapped his hands and demanded to be shown Young Jade. Out she came, with peony cheeks and glossy sparrow hair. The dignitary declared that she was the most beautiful singing girl in the east and west, but in this small province, no one would ever know this. As she sang, he scribbled out some couplets to her, promising to make her name widely known. Her reputation grew, but so did her melancholy. On every occasion, she sought solitude. When asked why, she sighed, This life and I are not well suited.