by Yiyun Li
Dear Roland, I’m sorry that you never learned about the birth and the death of your daughter. She was very much your and my daughter: good-looking and difficult. Lilia reread what she had written, and added: But unlike you and me she didn’t know how to make use of these traits. The words didn’t really say what she wanted to say, but they came close.
ANOTHER BIRTHDAY. ALL BIRTHDAYS ARE accomplishments, but this time someone was turning ninety. The birthday boy, a retired philosophy professor from Stanford, would deliver a lecture on the day. “We don’t have to invite an outside speaker this fall,” Jean said when she made the announcement.
“As though she needs to worry about her budget,” Lilia said, loud enough for Jean to hear. Bayside Garden had a well-endowed performance series. The only unsuccessful presenter during Lilia’s residency had been a mindfulness expert—more than half the audience fell into uncomfortable sleep. The best had been a twelve-year-old boy, who had won second place in an all-state magician contest in Sacramento. Such a handsome young man, his dexterous hands and shy smile just the right combination to enchant his audience. Some asked him to repeat the same tricks. Others demanded he reveal the secrets. The show, scheduled for thirty minutes, had lasted an hour and a half.
“I like birthdays,” Nancy said. “I share mine with Julius Caesar. I remember my father told me who Julius Caesar was on my seventh birthday.”
“I share my birthday with Barbara Bush,” someone said. “But she’s older than me.”
“If you think about it, we never ask ourselves whose death date we’ll be sharing,” Lilia said. “That’s one thing I would die to know.”
The day after her mother died, Lilia had accompanied her father to the funeral home in Vallejo. As they left, she noticed the unusual crowds in the street. Women wept. Men, too, some quietly taking off their glasses and pressing handkerchiefs to their eyes, others baring their wounded faces to the sky. At the next block a black maid threw open a third-floor window of a boardinghouse. He died, she wailed, he died. That night, listening to the news of President Roosevelt’s death, Lilia wished her mother had lived a day longer. All those tears shed and her mother didn’t even have a drop to herself.
“Let’s focus on the birthday party,” Jean said.
“We should throw confetti,” Lilia said. “We should all blow horns and shout surprise.”
“We don’t do anything like that here, for health and safety reasons,” Elaine said. She had moved into Bayside Garden a month after Lilia, and the first time she had introduced herself, she had said emphatically that her strength was to be a leader. If you think I’m not good at listening, it’s because I haven’t met many people whose opinions are worth listening to, Elaine said. Lilia laughed out loud, and laughed again when she realized that the other people only nodded, perhaps out of politeness. But sheep are polite too, following one another to the slaughterhouse, not questioning anything.
“Mark Twain died on his birthday,” Owen, who sat at a nearby table, said aloud.
Frank, that encyclopedia in residence, said Owen was wrong. Mark Twain didn’t die on his birthday, but Halley’s Comet was in the sky on both his birth and death days. “I bet you knew it,” Frank, who never sat far from Lilia, said to her.
Lilia wanted to make a joke about death days, but before she could come up with something clever her heart seemed to skip a beat. It didn’t. It was that sudden emptiness, which was Lucy’s doing. It was worse than having your heart broken. If someone broke your heart, you could still gather the pieces and glue them back, or just leave them scattered around, evidence of what was once your heart. But Lucy’s trick was to make that heart disappear. Like the boy magician. Anything could disappear when he put it in a hat or under a handkerchief. But he gave back whatever he vanished.
Lilia turned her mind to other deaths, some recent, some in the remote past. That emptiness could be as fatal as a heart attack, and she had trained herself, faster than the most experienced first responders. Enough people had died on Lilia. But they were more or less in the right order, and the pains they left were the tolerable kind, losing their sharp edges with each month and each year passing. Her grandparents, her parents, some of her siblings, her husbands. And Roland. She didn’t count Roland as dead dead, but he, like the others, let Lilia move her fingers around until they could feel the outline of that heart. Yes, back here again, sturdy, almost stone-hard. Oh, that heart. It did play the vanishing trick on her once in a while.
A FEW MONTHS BEFORE THE DEATH of Lilia’s mother, Lilia’s father had joined Mr. Williamson in an investment. The idea of combining their ranch with the Williamson Inn as an attraction had been Mr. Williamson’s. With the return from war of sailors and soldiers, he had reasoned, and with the guests for the international peace conference in San Francisco, they could start a business of lodging and horseback riding for those who needed a break. Once established, they could advertise it to the locals as a place for weekend outings and family gatherings.
The inn and the ranch were close enough to the city, yet far enough to claim the idyllic-ness of the countryside. Both had been established early enough to claim being historical; both families had been in the state long enough to be called true Californians. The prospect, no doubt dangled by Mr. Williamson as bait in front of Lilia’s father, was presented to the family at supper. California is the future, but exactly for that reason, a ranch that brought back the past would be appealing. When everything changes around us, Lilia’s father said, we can make a fortune from not changing. The words must have been fed to him by Mr. Williamson.
Why is that, Hayes asked, not questioning but giving their father an opportunity to go on talking. A few months short of turning fifteen, Hayes had already begun to think of the ranch as his. Nothing had been said in the family, but Lilia suspected that their father had made some sort of promise to Hayes in private.
People have fancies about the old time, Lilia’s father said. And we can make money out of their fancies.
Mr. Williamson’s sales pitch, Lilia thought, word for word.
Sounds like a great idea, Hayes said. What do you think, Ma?
The children turned to her. They knew their father didn’t need anything from her but to say it was a good idea. They knew, too, that Hayes had spoken twice because of her silence. With a shrewder mind than their father, Hayes was on good terms with both his parents and his siblings. Lilia respected him for his calculation.
Their mother shrugged, cutting a potato into two perfect halves.
People go in for that kind of recreation, Lilia’s father said, raising his voice. That you don’t know how to enjoy life doesn’t mean others don’t. After years of marriage, Lilia’s mother still held some power over her father in her expressionless face, which made Lilia pity him. He still did not understand that the more provoked he appeared, the more powerless he would look in front of his wife and children.
Lilia knew that her mother would not bother to voice her objection. We’re doing fine, Lilia said. Why do we have to change just to help the Williamsons out?
The inn, which once bore the majestic name of the Empire Inn, had been built by Mr. Williamson’s great-grandfather, and it had served well the travelers between San Francisco and the mining towns up north. But by then it had more stories to boast of than prosperity. An inn did not renew itself every year like livestock or vegetables.
Young lady, nobody is asking your opinion, Lilia’s father said. He could’ve said something nastier, but Lilia had turned sixteen the month before, and he felt it necessary to give her some respect as a grown-up woman.
You know what’s best, Lilia’s mother said placidly, looking around the table at each of her children, pausing just long enough, Lilia thought, to register their names and ages. She would have given them the same look had there been an earthquake that had destroyed everything but spared her children’s lives. So you’re all here�
�that look would have said—and I still have to find a way to mother you till we are freed from each other one day.
Lilia’s mother had married the wrong man. It was like boarding a train that never takes you in the right direction, let alone to the destination you have in mind. The farther it travels, the less point there is in going on, and the lesser in getting off. What was unforgivable, though, was that she was the kind of woman for whom any husband would be the wrong husband. Why marry, then?
Lilia’s mother had hoped that Lilia would go into nursing, but she had had no interest in alleviating other people’s suffering. Her beauty would have been a waste in a hospital ward, as her mother’s was a waste on the ranch. Instead, Lilia had set her heart on enrolling at a secretarial school in the city. When she saved enough money for a place to live she would leave the ranch, and once she finished her training she would wear heels and lipstick every day to work, living in a room paid for by her own wages and going to movies with men who knew the world like the backs of their hands.
The Williamson-Liska venture turned out to be more than just a retreat for innocent souls, though Lilia’s father refused to admit that he had assisted the immoral sailors and soldiers and their girls, who were temporary and interchangeable to those rowdy young men. The reputation of the place must have traveled fast. Some of the girls had become returning customers, bringing different men with them and calling themselves by different names.
Lilia and her siblings had much more to say to one another now. The dinner conversation, supervised by their parents, was drab as ever. But promiscuousness penetrated like mold, its spores in the air, its odor in every room—except it was not mold, but something more captivating. Even Kenny absorbed the excitement like a greedy sponge. They were resourceful children, and they competed to make anything out of what little they had access to. Their father’s misjudgment and the regret he would not voice only added to their pleasure.
The most salacious encounters happened over at the inn. Other than Lilia, the children were forbidden to go near it. She observed the girls walking up the staircase and studying themselves in the mirror on the second-floor landing. Some looked more experienced, others only a year or two older than Lilia. None was as pretty as she was. You could see that in the young men’s eyes, but Lilia did not need their confirmation. The mirror was her truest friend.
Where were these girls from? What kind of lives did they have before arriving at the inn? One afternoon when she was saddling Dee Dee for a girl named Betsy—the young man who had come with her was sleeping—Lilia asked Betsy about her life. It was her third visit to the inn, and she seemed eager to talk. She said that she did not have parents. She was raised by her grandparents in Butte, Montana, and after they died she had sold everything and boarded the train for California. Did they tell you who your parents were? Lilia asked. Betsy said, Not really. In fact, she wasn’t sure if they were her mother’s parents or her father’s. Do you have siblings? Lilia asked, and Betsy said no, she was left to her grandparents as an infant. The thought of being an only child fascinated Lilia, like being the only horse or the only cow on a ranch. How do you fight for anything if you are the only one? Betsy, who was not pretty but sweet, did not return after that day. Lilia imagined her falling in love with a soldier and getting married. But would that be it? Lilia wasn’t sure. She made up a second story, in which Betsy was murdered because a girl like that, without anyone to watch out for her and without the upbringing to teach her how to fight, could end up badly.
All visitors were an education for Lilia. From watching the girls she had learned to narrow her shirts at the right place. She had chosen ribbons of different colors and shades that would go with her red hair, emerald green on foggy days, mint green or creamy white on sunny days. From serving the men she learned to be playful but keep a crucial distance. Still, she felt listless. And this feeling was strongest when some of the men would let their fingers linger on her wrist when she handed over the reins, or else they would whisper a few words of endearment when no one was around. They all wanted her, she knew, but their wanting her did not make them more attractive. Hunger and appetite were two different things. Those men, who were mere morsels, wanted Lilia to feel as hungry for them as they felt for her. But she had no use for hunger, which only destroyed appetite and led people to tasteless errors. Yet within a short time after the business opened, her appetite had been sharpened. For what, though, she wasn’t entirely sure.
THE WEEK BEFORE ROLAND AND his friends visited the ranch, Mr. Williamson’s daughter Maggie had come down with German measles, and the two girls hired to clean the rooms caught it from her. Mrs. Williamson, nursing the quarantined girls, had sent her younger children to stay with her cousin and was in dire need of a female helper. Lilia’s twin sisters, Margot and Lucille, were not old enough to be allowed to witness the soiled side of love, and after haggling with Mr. Williamson for a higher rate than the two regular girls were paid, Lilia agreed to fill in.
It was a busy weekend. Some sailors had asked to pay a fraction of the price for a shorter stay. A couple hours, one of them said, good deal all around. Lilia’s father was paid by the visitors coming for horseback rides. Not every young man was interested in bringing his girl over at extra expense, and the unevenness of what the two partners made was never addressed. Lilia’s father was the kind of man who always trusted the judgment of people outside the household, which he easily took as his own judgment. And he would do more for anyone in the name of friendship than for his own family. Mr. Williamson, beady-eyed, had worked it out all for himself.
What was worse, to have a fool as a father, or a mother who had married the fool and given you life?
On the day Roland arrived, Lilia was in a dark mood. By the time Mr. Williamson led him and his friends upstairs, late in the afternoon, she was already worn out by having changed the sheets and pillowcases multiple times and having to breathe in other people’s sordidness. She heard Mr. Williamson apologize, saying they only had two rooms and an extra in the attic left. Let’s take a look, someone replied, and then said something in another language. Lilia did not recognize the language, but whatever the man spoke, even in another tongue, did not repel her as the sailors’ words did. The man spoke the way movie stars did, unhurried because they had all the money and time in the world.
Four men followed Mr. Williamson into a room, three in dark suits and one in a cream-colored suit with a matching fedora. Lilia knew right away that the man in the light-colored suit was the owner of the voice she had heard. He dressed to stand out among a crowd.
Are the other two rooms like this, too? he asked.
Lilia had slipped into the room just before their entrance. She looked up as though caught in surprise, her hands arrested in the middle of arranging a bouquet of larkspur. Lilia’s mother had loved wildflowers, arranging them in jars on the windowsill or wearing them in her hair, not to impress men but to make the flowers her allies against them. Lilia had decided that flowers in her hands would be more welcoming to the right men.
Yes, Mr. Williamson said, but I can bring in a cot if two of your gentlemen don’t mind sharing a room for one night. Tomorrow we’ll have vacancies.
I’m afraid these rooms are too small to be shared, the man said.
Lilia laughed. Even the dullest among the foreigners looked at her. Hello, the man in the light-colored suit said, what’s so funny?
Of course three rooms are not enough for the four of you, Lilia said, unless one of you were a lady.
How do you know we can’t make do with the rooms? the man said to Lilia. These gentlemen, like myself, have come from war zones. We’ve all seen worse.
She looked the men up and down. You’re not dressed for war, she said, and you’re not here for war. Besides, you yourself said these rooms were too small.
Mr. Williamson told Lilia that her father must be waiting for her to get supper ready. He tapped t
he face of his new wristwatch and looked at Lilia sharply.
Mr. Williamson, remember I’m to be here all day? Margot is cooking today.
The man spoke with his friends. One of them, a short man with chubby cheeks and dark bags under his eyes, seemed alarmed. Non, he replied when Lilia’s friend—who else could he be but her friend, having already exchanged words and smiles with her—said something to placate him. Non, he insisted, and the other two men shook their heads, too, with resignation.
The man argued courteously in the foreign tongue. He had a narrow face, shaved to a blue shade. She lingered, rearranging the flowers and taking one out to put behind her right ear. She’d like to see how this man, who had introduced himself as Roland, managed to get what he wanted. He looked like that kind of man.
The short man looked sterner. Roland sighed and asked Mr. Williamson where the horses were kept. Some riding might put these gentlemen in a better mood, he said.
What’s so difficult? Lilia said. If you need one more room, we can put you up in our house.
You can? Roland asked.
Lilia recognized a light in his eyes—he wanted the room desperately. Oh, but one of you would have to put up with the inconvenience of staying separately from his friends, she said.
Five minutes’ walk only, Mr. Williamson said, and offered a discount for the backup room.
Roland spoke to the foreigners again. They seemed unconvinced, but he pressed on with his gentle voice until they agreed. Lilia pretended to be burdened when Mr. Williamson asked if she could show Roland his room. By sending her, she knew, Mr. Williamson would bypass the trouble of facing Lilia’s father.
He had not been quite himself since her mother’s death. A loveless marriage still made him a genuinely bereaved widower. And like a grieving husband he started to neglect his duties. A week ago he had left a bag of oats untied in Beau’s box. If not for Hayes, who had begun to trust only himself when it came to the ranch, Beau would have devoured the oats and burst his stomach. Not wishing to undermine their father’s authority yet, Hayes told only Lilia of the error and said they would have to be more careful in the future. Lilia was not particularly close to Hayes, but the two of them had shared their parents longer than the rest of their siblings. One day he would reign as their father had in this decrepit kingdom. She hoped he would marry someone more suitable to be a wife and a mother than their own. A dreamless woman, so that he wouldn’t have to murder her dreams.