Chasing Down the Moon

by Carla Baku

  “I’ll be back with something later. But probably nothing until supper time. They won’t serve a noon meal.” He put one foot on the stairs and looked back at her. “This is a locked door. There are plenty up top who’d as soon throw you overboard as look at you.”

  “Wǒ hǎo è,” she shouted at his retreating feet, I’m hungry, but he went out and the hatch shut with a metallic thud.

  There were tiny windows widely spaced, throwing just a silver hint of daylight near the high ceiling. She could hear water lapping against the ship’s hull near her and the sound of footsteps overhead. Despite all the cargo, there was a cavernous, echoing quality to the hold. Ya Zhen could make out the shapes of stored items nearby, their corners dimly lit, like hunched shoulders. She could not shake the sense that the girls with whom she had traveled from Guangdong were with her here, all of them now silent, waiting.

  Feeling her way in the near-dark, she spread the ragged piece of quilting out beneath her, doubling it so she could slip between the layers. The fabric felt gritty under her fingers and smelled of mice. She tied her hair back with a length of thread pulled loose from the hem of her pants. Thinking of rodents, she tucked the braid inside her shirt. She settled between the musty layers and watched the feeble light from the high windows until she began to drift.

  She entertained the thinnest semblance of sleep, rising and falling with the ambient sounds above and below. Fragments of sight and sound ticked past her consciousness. In one, a little girl stood before her, hair parted on one side and caught in a red ribbon. The child stood on tiptoe, holding out a torn fragment of paper, but when Ya Zhen tried to see what was marked there her fingers smeared the character into a blur. When she looked up, the little girl was gone. Now she was walking down a path that wound through trees, the sun flickering through a tall canopy, illuminating the ground in scattered piebald patterns.

  Hours later, she came fully awake when the porter returned. She squinted up at him. It was full dark outside and he carried a small kerosene lantern. He held it high, so that it lit only one side of his bearded face and showed heavily pock-marked skin in the few places not covered by wiry whiskers. One eye, pale as a winter sky, stared at Ya Zhen. Then he lowered his lamp a little, showing the plate of food in his hand.

  “Just a bit of supper here,” he said. His voice was low and musical. “It ain’t much account, but it’s hot and maybe you hungry.” He crossed about half the distance between them and set the plate on the floor. She could smell it and felt as though her belly was trying to turn itself inside out. She waited, though, afraid to get too close.

  He went up the stairs, carrying the lamp, but was back immediately. When he bent this time it was to leave a fat-bellied glass jar of water. He stepped away then, taking his light. “Sorry to leave you in the dark, miss,” he said, “but they have my job if I give you this light.” When he was halfway to the top, she scurried over to the food. He climbed the last few steps, talking to himself. “No way to treat a dog.”

  The plate held a fatty cut of ham and potatoes covered with thin gravy. There were also peas, everything swimming together. Ya Zhen couldn’t see any of it, but she felt it into her mouth, swallowing in large gulps. She coughed on the potato, choked it down, and picked up the water. It was cool inside her, and she felt it push the lump of food past her throat and into her hollow gut. In a few bites, the plate was empty and she licked it clean, then licked her fingers.

  She sat for a moment, breathing hard. The jar didn’t have much water left, so she forced herself to take just a small sip, saving some for morning. With one hand on the wall, she worked her way into the corner and placed the jar there, on the floor, so as not to knock it over. Then she moved as far from her crude bed as possible, inched herself between two boxes, and squatted to piss.

  She found her way back to her things and crawled under the mildewed blanket. The food had warmed her and she was soon deeply asleep. For a mercy, she didn’t dream at all.

  She woke just after dawn, hearing people moving around above her. She could see a little now and retrieved the water jar, emptying it in a single swallow, then wished she had saved a little to wash her face. She opened her bundle, undid her hair, and worked the comb through it a little at a time. The lice made her head itch madly, especially around her hairline and behind her ears. She pulled the long greasy hank of her hair into the tightest braid she could manage and tied it at the end.

  The sound of footsteps increased above her and then the hatch door opened, letting in a dim bar of early light.

  She collected her few things and crossed to the steps. When she looked up, the silhouette of the porter was above her, muscular and still. Behind his head the sky slowly brightened. She lifted a hand to greet him and he waved, just a slight flick of his fingers. Then another figure moved into the doorway, Salyer, smiling, his gold tooth glinting in his freshly shaved face. He looked to Ya Zhen like some maladapted child next to the bearded porter.

  “Here we are,” he called down. His voice echoed around the cargo hold. “Home sweet home.”

  Bishop Brokerage Co

  Bishop Brokerage Co. San Francisco, California

  THIS INDENTURE made the sixteenth day of May in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred Eighty Three.

  Witness that Mr. Andrew Bishop, Proprietor of the Bishop Brokerage Company of San Francisco, California, does, for valuable consideration in the amount of Five Hundred Dollars, bind over to Mr. Clarence Salyer of Eureka, California, the woman Ha Chin whose consent hereto is indicated by her signature or mark, below.

  By these presents said servant will be placed to dwell and serve in the establishment set forth here, The Hotel Salyer, in a capacity to be determined by Clarence Salyer that provides for the comfort of all patrons of said establishment. Servant shall her master well and faithfully serve in all business according to her wit power and ability and shall honestly and orderly in all things behave and demean herself during the term set out below.

  During said term, Clarence Salyer shall provide to his servant Ha Chin competent and sufficient meat drink apparel washing and lodging and other things necessary and fit for such a servant.

  The term of this indenture shall be from the day of these presents and for a period of five years. In addition, any days of illness, indisposition, or poor behavior that prevent said servant from serving in the capacity set out herein shall be added to the total length of time served.

  WITNESSETH these signs pertaining hereto

  Broker: Andrew Bishop

  Indenturor: Clarence W. Salyer

  Indentured: X

  Part II

  EUREKA

  POLICE COURT–The vote of the Chinese bill is already bearing fruit. John O'Neil was before Judge Tompkins Wednesday on a charge of battery, the victim being a Chinaman. It seems that O'Neil had imbibed a little whiskey about the same time that he learned of the fate of the Chinese bill, & the mixture so worked upon his mind as to overcome his better judgment. While entertaining a few men on the street corner with his views on the Chinese question, he hailed a passing celestial & promptly knocked him down. This was an act that brought O'Neil to grief. He informed the court that if the president would furnish no relief he would undertake the job on his own account, & intimated that those who "stood in" with the heathen had better look a little out. The court thought he needed a little rest, & prescribed thirty days at the county jail.

  —Daily Humboldt Times, FridayApril 7, 1882

  Such a race of people can only prove a detriment in any community that lays claim to civilization, progress & truth. Age only seems to steep them deeper in their degraded filthy mode of life.

  —Daily Humboldt Times

  February 1, 1883

  If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

  —H. W. Longfellow

  Chapter 3

  Eureka hunched at the edge of Humboldt Bay, wher
e a few sparse and widely-situated settlements worked at survival. Set on a remote and rocky scrim of Pacific coastland, arriving there by any means was a feat of some endurance. Large ships disappeared with shocking regularity in the rough waters north of San Francisco. On dry ground, terrain in every direction was mountainous in a way that defied road-building. While the rest of the country became connected by networks of rail lines, Eureka simply held tight, with little to recommend it save a great deal of lumber and the idea of having arrived in a place that proved one’s mettle by the very act of having attained it.

  The late February afternoon was bitter. People kept their hearths burning all day to hold back the damp; steady wisps of chimney smoke faded into the overcast sky. To the west, low clouds and mist hanging over the bay merged into a curtain of cold murk that made the water almost invisible. The hills to the east looked black in the February afternoon. This was dense Northwestern forest, muscular Douglas fir and coast redwood that grew over three hundred feet tall, dwarfing even the most ambitious buildings in Eureka. Fog lay in tattered skeins in the upper branches. For nearly a week storms had pounded the coast, finally bringing down the telegraph lines.

  Bai Lum, proprietor of the Chinese mercantile, took up a broom and made another careful circuit of his store, sweeping traces of mud, now dried, and other street detritus out the door. On the sidewalk he did a quick sweep, too, brushing the boards in front of his door as clean as he could.

  The day was draining off, though the transit of the sun had been indistinguishable all day. Finally, now, a burnished streak showed behind the clouds to the west. Despite the cold, it was fine to be outside after a busy day in the store. Business was good, steady. His reputation among his Chinese neighbors and the white townspeople was impeccable. The primary way he had established this trust was by honing his instinct about the town’s desires: what sorts of goods were wanted, when, and by whom. For seven years he cultivated a silence that implied acquiescence and cooperation. This tactic had worked seamlessly and allowed him the tremendous flexibility of the nearly invisible. Then Rose Allen had moved to Eureka.

  Rose had one day charged into the mercantile, wet from a wholly expected rain shower for which she had prepared not a whit. She didn’t notice that she was dripping onto the painted floor of his store, nor did she seem to realize that she had left the door slightly ajar. It was clear, though, that Rose Allen saw Bai Lum. She saw him very well.

  On this cold afternoon, old Chen Ma was on the sidewalk too, also with a broom. The old man, though, had been sweeping most of the day —as he did every day, day after day— and would only quit when his son came out to fetch him. The fellow was too intent on his toil to notice Bai Lum, and Bai Lum would be a stranger anyway, despite their lengthy acquaintance. Such was the way time robbed us, but Chen Ma was kindly content and happily surprised by life, so who was a victim after all?

  Bai Lum turned to brush down the front of the building, where the industry of small spiders was revealed, with stunning regularity, by the fog. Lifting the broom as high over his head as he could reach, he noticed the curtain at the upstairs window, his living quarters, twitch. There was the girl’s face, peeping out at one corner of the narrow window, only the top of her face showing, but quite plainly visible to any passerby. When she realized he was looking, her eyes widened and the white curtain dropped back into place. He kept at the little cobwebs, knocking them askew with particular vigor and tamping back his dull anger at the girl. How many threats would it take, how many warnings of a terrible fate, before she obeyed him? One fat spider made a hasty scramble across the wall; Bai Lum slapped it down and crushed it underfoot. It was while he scraped the dead mess off the sole of his shoe that he heard Rose Allen’s footsteps and his irritation melted like late frost. Another customer was approaching, too: Fang Chai, a saw in hand. Bai Lum followed Fang into the store and re-tied his apron, still able to hear Rose three blocks away, whistling some rollicking tune, her boots making their confident thump, thump, thump.

  She strode along the plank walk in her usual headlong posture. Rose Allen was marked by a disposition both serious and practical, and a certain angularity of face and body: narrow waist and broad shoulders, square chin, straight eyebrows set in a calm line above her eyes. Her dark jacket and skirt, though pressed and fitted, hung a bit askew. She had forgotten her hat (again) and springs of tightly kinked red hair frizzed out around her face and nape. A thin line of mud from the street clung to her hem, but mud was the nature of things in February. A transplant to Eureka —as was virtually every adult in town— Rose had grown up in Illinois among pig farms and wheat farms, between vast stands of native hardwoods and the tropical-looking paw paw trees for which her hometown was named. She was only twelve when her mother died, and the ladies of Paw Paw had done their level best to close staunch ranks around her. A female raised by only her father, Charles Allen, wainwright and widower? Motherless girl? Absurd!

  Despite the best intentions of those venerable ladies, though, the older Rose got, the less likely it seemed that she would make a success of courting —what with her apparent high expectations of male intelligence and her desire that a buggy-ride conversation could advance beyond the generalities of the week’s past weather and swine farrowing practices. She dreamed of escape, and finally, with her father’s full collusion, she set out for California. She arrived in Eureka at age twenty-three to live with her father’s eldest sister, Hazel Cleary. For almost four years it seemed she had made a perfect bargain: though she missed her sweet father, she relished her plain bedroom at her aunt’s, with its tall windows that faced east and south, and the dark shelves she was slowly but surely filling with her own books, purchased with the money she earned working with her aunt at Captain and Prudence Kendall’s house, and occasionally working as a children’s tutor. All week she made beds and dusted knick-knacks and watered Mrs. Kendall’s houseplants, and on Sundays she stayed in her room, curled in her comforter with a book. No buggy rides, no pig-centric small talk. For company she had her aunt, and right across the hall she had Matilda Gillen —Mattie, she was called— another stray soul that Hazel had rescued. She was a wispy, freckled young woman whose mother, a neighbor of Hazel’s in Limerick, had fallen on desperate times and sent her daughter to the states. She worked at Salyer’s Hotel nearly every day, serving food in the dining room, mopping up after meals, and washing dishes in the hotel kitchen. Rose, who had never mastered what she considered the invasive intricacies of female friendship, loved that Mattie craved her own privacy, and was mindful of Rose’s.

  For four years Rose had been ridiculously happy. In fact, life seemed nearly ideal. Until she fell in love.

  So here she was, once again headed for Bai Lum’s mercantile in the Chinese block. Tonight Rose and Hazel would help Prudence Kendall host the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in the Kendalls’ fine front parlor. Rose didn’t care a fig about temperance, having been raised to embrace moderation. Aunt Hazel herself was not above using spirits for medicinal purposes and imbibed a small glass of wine every Christmas Eve. The real reason to belong to the WCTU, according to Hazel Cleary, was to be certain of having the ear of the “right people.” So tonight Rose would not only help prepare but would help with hostessing duties. This morning she had convinced Mrs. Kendall that they should serve chrysanthemum tea and rock sugar—the look of the delicate flowers in each cup was such a charming surprise and the ladies would love it. And where in Eureka could she get such a treat? Only at Bai Lum’s store. Nearly every day it occurred to her that there was something at Bai Lum’s she could not live without.

  In reality, it was Bai Lum that Rose wanted. Which was, of course, impossible.

  She stopped just short of the mercantile, pulled at her coat and ran her palms over her hair in a fruitless attempt to smooth the stray curls that pulled loose from her hairpins and corkscrewed in the damp weather. The westering sun suddenly slanted through a thin place in the clouds and lit the summit opposite, turning a triang
ular section of mountainside bright green. The highest ridge, Berry Summit, was still jacketed in snow. The weather had been gray for so many weeks that Rose felt like some burrowing animal, squinting and blinking above ground. Standing still, she heard the ringing whine of some nearby sawmill and, under everything, the ocean. The years she had lived in Eureka had not altered her sense of being dwarfed by the raw landscape. While the gentle slopes and prairie woodlots of Illinois had been enveloping, a community nest, it seemed to Rose that people had to cling tenaciously to this cold, scraggy bit of Pacific coast. It suited her.

  She paused on the threshold, then went into the mercantile with a familiar lifting-off sensation, wanting to find Bai Lum with her eyes, wanting not to seem like she was looking.

  The market smelled like ginger and lard and old paper. On the far wall, a large woodstove set into a deep brick mantel fought the chill, and Rose hovered near it a moment to warm herself. It gave off a strong, steady heat. A large pipe, almost four inches in diameter, ran out the side of the brickwork, up the wall and across the ceiling. The store was packed with merchandise, but all the wares were displayed precisely. The plank floor was immaculate.

  Rose saw him immediately, tall and lean, dressed in black as always. He spoke with a Chinese man who held a small hand saw and gestured at the cutting edge. There were no other customers. Bai Lum made eye contact with her and nodded slightly. She smiled and nodded in return. The sense of lightness washed over her again, awful and wonderful, completely out of her control.