San Shengmu found herself confronted by a paradox. Without the youth whom she loved she could not exist. However, if she agreed to marry him, she would have to trade immortality for her love. When she died, her love would die, too. But while she lived, her love would live—
Astor paused. He closed his eyes and sighed dramatically.
“What did she do?” I demanded.
“She married Yanchang. The Chinese goddess chose lusty youth over timeless virtue. An instructive little tale, don’t you think?”
Astor clapped his hands. “I’ll stage it at the Palace Theater. I’ll play the role of the youth who violates the inner sanctum of a goddess and de-mystifies her. If you’re good, I’ll give you a free ticket. Or, a minor role. Why don’t we call this the undress rehearsal?”
He leaned over and peered into my eyes. “What. Actual tears?”
“I thought the boy had died. Foolish though he was. You don’t need to be a Goddess of Compassion to feel sorry for a stupid kid who’s lost his way—”
He pinched me.
Emboldened, I asked, “Mallory O’Quinn, who’s that?”
“She holds the key to finest brothel in Port Townsend. I should know.” He nibbled the tip of my left ear as he spoke this. Whether it was the smoke, or the attention to my lobe I felt as though I was floating . . . weightless. “Mallory has asked me to spare no effort to help Edith Mathieson to recover. She’s paying me, of course, but that’s not why I’m here. We go back. The fact is there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Mallory.”
Astor turned thoughtful. “Edith is not bad looking, in a trampled lily-of-the-valley sort of way. Edith’s a familiar and lovely cliché. You on the other hand . . . you’re different. Something about you—original, resilient, and daring—attracts. The contrast between you is alluring. It calls for a closer examination.”
He pulled me nearer. Still feeling weightless, I let him. He put the pipe to his own lips again, and then pressed them to mine. As before, a mellow warmth enfolded me in a smothering embrace. My forehead, temple, and neck began to perspire. Astor kissed me there, and there, and there. I shivered. Like a snake charmer, he put his tongue inside my mouth . . .
. . . geologic epochs passed . . .
The front door opened and closed. A freezing gust rattled the panes in the parlor windows. I cracked open my granite lids to the milky light of a new day, with the foreboding glare of Christopher and the Reverend Mathieson, looking down at me. Raindrops somersaulted on the brims of their matching black hats.
The Reverend stared at me quizzically. Chris, with an expression of grim reproach.
Above us, the red lantern, askew, mashed in on one side, pathetically whirled. Where was Thomas Astor?
The Celestials
19th Century
Port Townsend’s Chinese district, in its day, represented one of the most thriving Asian communities north of San Francisco. At its height, the Chinese population, according to widely divergent estimates, accounted for between five to twenty percent of the population. Some whites accepted the Asian immigrants as neighbors and friends. Others referred to the Chinese as “Celestials,” ascribed to them supernatural powers. Still others called them far harsher names and openly persecuted them.
These attitudes were not confined to Port Townsend. In the 1880s, up and down the West Coast, with fewer jobs in railroads and lumber, the hostility toward Asian workers steadily increased. The Chinese community in Port Townsend managed to hang on longer than in other towns. However, by the end of the decade, the Chinese neighborhood in Port Townsend vanished, with only a hint left of the aroma and color the Chinese added to the daily throng.
The first workers from China arrived on the West Coast around the same time as the railroads were being built. They fled hard times at home, caused by overpopulation, land shortages, and famine, and the political uprisings caused by the British opium trade from China to India. Decades of strife inspired thousands of poor farmers to travel to the land of opportunity, known in Chinese as Gam Saan, “the mountain of gold.” Throughout the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese laborers streamed to the American West to mine gold and silver, fell lumber, and sink iron spikes.
From the start, the Chinese were targets of discrimination. In Washington Territory, a person of Chinese descent was required to pay a $6 quarterly tax. Jobs became more scarce, as the population rose. White workers began to fear that the estimated 150,000 Chinese laborers, willing to put in long hours for low wages, threatened their own jobs. Street corner agitators from the Knights of Labor increased tensions with the slogan, “The Chinese must go!” Rhetoric of this sort was employed to attract new members to the Port Angeles workers’ utopia, a successful experimental community on the Strait of Juan de Fuca which excluded all non-whites.
In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prevented Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S. In the mid-1880s, Washington’s legislature barred Chinese residents from owning property. These laws, rather than staunching the anger of white workers, only seemed to inflame them. On February 7, 1886, a mob ushered three-hundred-and-fifty Chinese residents down Main Street in Seattle to an Elliott Bay steamer. The ship had the capacity to safely hold a hundred and fifty. Two hundred Chinese were shunted aboard. To protect the remaining one hundred and fifty, forced to wait another six days, from being mauled, a deputy fired into the crowd, killing one white protestor. President Grover Cleveland declared martial law. The city finally quieted down, but only after every Chinese resident in Seattle had been expelled. Earlier, in Tacoma, Washington, a similar drama had unfolded; violence also occurred in Idaho and California.
By that time, in Port Townsend, the Chinese had put down roots. Aptly symbolic, the Chinese “tree of heaven,” between Polk and Taylor Streets, became a local landmark. The story goes like this: The Chinese emperor uprooted two of the most beautiful trees in his garden as a gift to the people of San Francisco for hosting his son. On the way to the Golden Gate City, the ship was blown off course by gale winds. The crew washed up in Port Townsend. These wayward sailors were received by the downtown “ladies.” In gratitude, the captain gifted one of the pair to the Key City. The other tree still thrives in a public park in San Francisco.
The first Chinese immigrants on the Olympic Peninsula worked in canneries and mills. A majority were single and male, employed as cooks, servants, and gardeners, and laundrymen. The Chinese merchants provided goods to those hoping to make a new start in town, as well as to seasonal fishermen and those just passing through.
In Port Townsend, the Asian Colony, as it came to be known over time, added an exotic flavor to the city. The vendors offered rice, silk, tea, and spices that were not available elsewhere. The Chinese farmers delivered fresh vegetables weekly. On fence posts they inked Chinese characters to keep the household account up-to-date. In February, during the celebration of the Chinese New Year, any person passing by on the Waterfront might receive a coin or an exotic gift. Every July Fourth, disc-shaped kites filled the sky, followed by the fireworks displays.
Boosters of the local economy understood the vital contribution of their Chinese neighbors. Since the federal laws excluded workers, but not business owners, the local government allowed as many as twenty partners to claim one enterprise with a net value of a few hundred dollars. Overnight, every laborer became a trader or shop owner. Since Great Britain had no laws limiting Asian immigration, after the Chinese Exclusion Act Victoria, B.C. became a gateway, Port Townsend a portal.
If illegal workers (and opium, smuggled in tax free) made it by the Coast Guard, who were not above a payoff, the contraband was ushered through a network of tunnels underneath the streets. Geoduck Kelly was the nickname of one notorious smuggler. It was said that if the authorities boarded his boat, the illegal workers, chained together, along with the opium, would be tossed over the side.
In the 1880s the Chinese in Port Townsend, as elsewhere, became targets. Resentment took the form of harassment rather than outr
ight violence. Children were taunted or pelted with eggs. Other kids pulled on their pigtails. White workers plied the doorknobs of the Chinese houses with printer’s ink or tossed rocks through the windows. One Chinese man was arrested for “stealing water.”
By the end of the decade, those opposed to the Chinese presence in Port Townsend became more outspoken. The Immigrant Aid Society, whose mission was to assist newcomers from Europe, in 1889 declared: “Chinamen have gradually come among us until their name is legion; and in their numbers, white laborers and the country have suffered. They are not of us, from us, or for us. They room together in filthy, disgusting crowds, without furniture or similar comforts, importing the most of what they eat from China while they hoard their earnings until an amount is acquired which, in their Native land would be considered opulence, when they gather it up and return to heathendom forever, to give place to others who come to repeat the operation. No person of American or European birth can begin to compete with these leprous creatures, because they cannot, will not, and ought not live as they do.”
On September 24, 1900, a fire would decimate the Chinese colony. According to a rumor, it began with “a woman of the town.” Mona Hervey, in a spat with another prostitute, hurled a lighted kerosene lamp. A sofa ignited the conflagration that consumed a square block. Next morning, all that was left was the exposed network of tunnels underneath the street. Miss Hervey died from her burns. Some accused the fire department of allowing the Chinese quarter to burn. They said that as the fire was fought only after the flames crossed into the white commercial district.
Whether or not the neighborhood could have been saved, the Chinese colony was never rebuilt. Today, in the tunnels underneath the street, buried in the walls or scattered on the ground, shards of pottery and tarnished coins, and broken jade remind us of the legacy of the “Celestials.”
Chinese neighborhood September 24, 1900. The corner of Madison and Washington Streets. The fire leveled a square block occupied by Chinese residents, including two rooming houses sometimes used by “ladies of the noght.” Courtesy of the Jefferson County Historical Society.
32
Women are Frail but Love Prevails
c. Spring 1890
To the Reverend and Christopher, I declared, “Edith is sick. I went to the Chinese herbalist but it was too late. I killed her.” Hot tears spilled onto my cheeks.
It took a moment for the holy Reverend and his more pious son to grasp the ill tidings. Chris rushed upstairs. The minister, humping and wheezing, followed, with me trailing. But what deadly debauchery would the cleansing light of day reveal?
There was Edith, reposing here on pink-and-black embroidered cushions, her eyes blue as squid ink, or the small vial on the nightstand that nearly murdered her. However, the blush on her marbled cheeks and her pointy chin presaged a romping return to health.
Revered Mathieson, out of breath, turned to face me and inquired, “Millie, for the love of God, what happened?”
I stalled. “Indeed, what? I’m very eager to explain. Just as soon as I tend to my patient, recently returned to the land of the living.”
Father and brother embraced darling Edith.
I poured water into the glass beside the blue bottle and paced. As I passed by the balcony window, I lifted up the drapery. Just beyond the front gate, with a flutter of his top hat, Astor spun to blow me a kiss. With the dexterity of an acrobat, or a con, Astor had slipped out the front door while the Reverend and Chris were peeling off their boots in the kitchen. Now he cascaded over a hedge and down the bluff stair.
At least now I could pocket the fear that he would suddenly emerge from the armoire, a hijinks more suited to the Palace Theater than the bedchamber of a minister’s daughter. However, this was no time for a catnap. To prevent the Reverend from tossing me out, over the bluff edge and into downtown’s running gutter of prostitution and piracy—since, without a reference, I would never work again in a respectable home—I needed a cover story, an alibi that would dazzle. But what could I say?
The Reverend occupied the chair by the bed. Chris leaned against the wall.
Both waited.
Haltingly, clasping my hands, I began. “I was sentinel at her bedside, yet her fever rose. Since Swan often described the Chinese healing arts as more ancient and advanced than our Western ways, I had an idea. But I was loathe to leave Edith . . . and filled with dread at entering the corruption of downtown district. Still, I could think of nothing else except to force my way past the drunken sailors and their brazen ladies, to find an herbal remedy in the Chinese market.”
Chris picked up the blue bottle and peered at it suspiciously. “See how your time with Swan benefits us daily. Of course, you might have called a proper doctor. Tell me, what is contained in that concoction that you poured down her throat? Do you even know?”
Miserably, I shook my head. Of course, he was right. Once again, an action I deemed clever was really rash selfishness.
Angelic Edith. Tired dove, she intervened. “See how much better I am. More awake, more alive, than any time since mother died.” She turned to the Reverend. “Father, is that wrong?”
His sad eyes went to the dreamy image of Adele on the wallpaper above the headboard. “No, my parakeet, no. Nothing you can say or do is wrong.”
He patted her hand and then turned to me. His tone became grim. “Downstairs, in the parlor, I noticed a red paper lantern. And an odor like singed rubber boots. Millie?”
My mind raced. “We burned jade incense. To purify the atmosphere, according to the clerk Bobby at Zee Tai.”
The Reverend looked doubtful. “The red paper lantern?”
“So that the light from the oil lamp would not hurt her eyes.”
“Sensible girl.” A half-second later, he asked, “But who exactly is ‘we’?”
Blast! In dishing up a lie I had provided a side serving of the truth. Calmly I explained, “As Bobby-the-clerk prepared the medicine, I became more and more agitated. All I could think of was Edith, delirious, possibly dead. A gentleman, who happened to be, uh, sampling the offerings at Zee Tai, noticed me. He rescued me by offering to deliver the medicine as soon as it was ready.”
The Reverend was appeased, but not Chris. “Let me see if I understand you. Out of a concern for your well-being, this so-called gentleman left that den of iniquity to assist you in your plight?” He laughed a little. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing, and Millie, stupid girl, flung the door wide open.”
The Reverend guffawed. “Chris, you imagine the worst in everyone. This gentleman, I will struggle to repay him, though I know I never can. What’s his name? Who is he?”
“Thomas Astor.”
His name, that part was easy. On the East Coast and in the West, a distinguished one. Though the frontier had little use for leisured fops, even a dandy without a job was better than an actor. And though I had never seen a single advert playbill, I had a notion that the entertainment at the Palace might be a bit too artistic for the Reverend. “Oh, he directs family shows: musical revues and melodramas, and the occasional opera. Once in a while, but only if the script is morally-improving, he might take on a role—”
“In this case, an heroic one,” the Reverend rejoined.
Chris interrupted, “Or villain. Or both. To some, notoriety is as good as fame.”
Edith clapped her hands. “What fun. An actor?” She knit her brow. “When I shut my eyes, I recall: his black hair, bright gaze, and soft touch . . . Thomas Astor saved my life. Oh Millie, do you think he will return?”
I sighed. “I suspect he’d find it difficult to stay away.”
The Reverend gave her a quick peck. “Edith, you need sleep. Christopher and I need breakfast. Millie, please prepare some eggs and toast for us. After that, send a note to the opera house. I want to see this Astor fellow, to express my heartfelt thanks.”
Christopher frowned. “Mark me. This fellow is not to be trusted.”
He bent down to kiss Edith, a tender linger
ing kiss.
The two men, at last, retired down the stairs.
The moment the hasp and latch clicked, Edith, grasped my chafed, freezing fingers. She exclaimed, “Millie, I had the oddest dream. And frightening. Do you want to hear it?”
The night before, I had not slept, at least not much. Ahead: ten hours of hard work, or more. On top of that, all of Edith’s chores. Yet, how could I say no? Her wan smile reminded me that if she survived no request could irk me.
I fell down beside her. “Yes, do.”
She creased her parchment brow. “In my dream, I died. A crow-like bird, with a cap of black feathers and bright eyes, alighted on my chest. With his beak, he pried open my chafed and bleeding lips. Into my open mouth, he dropped a gold ring. I thought I would strangle, but then again I was already dead. However, the next minute I was winging my way into the night—” Her hot hand gripped mine. “Millie, what does it mean?”
Wearily, I offered, “Edith, last night you nearly died. Today, you are alive. So, act the part. Open your mouth and say, ‘Ahh.’ Swallow the gold ring. Even if it hurts. Your only other choice: withering away from want. Nestling, fly. That’s what your dream is trying to tell you. At least, that’s what I think.”
The Play is the Thing
c. 1880-1890
Port Townsend, the City of Dreams. An illusion. The first two-story structure in town was a courthouse, constructed out of granite quarried from the bottom of Scow Bay. However, even before the project was completed, the building was converted into a theater and dance hall, demonstrating the local preference for the spectacle over reality.
Fowler’s Hall, named after the owner Captain Fowler, a schooner pilot, provided wholesome live entertainment. Families came, with their babies in laundry baskets, to dance a reel. But even so, the excitement could lead to unseemly displays. Once, on the first-floor stage, a local lass in traditional Scottish garb pounded out a Highland Fling. One woman exclaimed, “She is barefoot.” To which the Episcopal rector replied, “Yes, and bare-legged, too.” And added, for any parishioners in the house, “I’m shocked.”
Dungeness Page 18