by Carla Baku
The sugar and tea were behind the counter and he would get them for her, so she took time to wander the store. She walked past pyramids of tinned food: mackerel, peas, condensed milk. These things were set up at the front so that a non-Chinese shopper could spot familiar items first. Rose walked behind the carefully stacked cans to look at the tables and shelves situated near the rear of the store.
Here were bolts of satin brocade and polished cotton in rich, saturated green, red, and royal blue. Narrow boxes held piles of lacquered chopsticks. Paper kites —dragons, lions, and a dazzling vermilion carp with a curved tail— hung from the exposed pipe running across the high ceiling and swayed minutely when the door opened or closed. On the back wall was a shelf of porcelains. She lingered here. The small bowls fit perfectly in her cupped palms, white glaze creamy against her fingers. All the bowls were painted on the inside with stylized flowers in cobalt blue. Four Flowers, Bai Lum had told her, was the name of the pattern. She held it close to her, relishing the small weight in her hands. She thought she could get along quite well with such a bowl. This much and no more, she thought. For soup or tea, or perhaps floating a pink camellia.
As she stood looking into the bowl, a flicker of movement caught her eye. A rough curtain hung over a narrow passage in the back corner, and someone peered out between the slightly parted panels. The person, a girl, Rose thought, pulled away from the curtain and stepped farther back into the alcove.
“Good morning, Rose Allen.”
Rose jumped and almost dropped the bowl. Bai Lum reached for it, momentarily cupping his hands around hers. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I startled you.”
She returned the bowl to the shelf. “I was woolgathering,” she said. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
“Wool?”
“An expression,” she said. “Daydreaming. Not paying attention.”
“Yes, daydreaming.” He nodded. “This is important.” He had a strong, square face and to Rose he often seemed on the verge of a smile. “You like the Four Flowers,” he said.
Rose ran her fingers over the slippery glazed surface of the bowl’s inside. “Yes, they spark the imagination.” She glanced back at the curtained alcove, but couldn’t see the girl.
“What do you imagine?” As he spoke, he went to the curtain and pulled it completely closed, then gestured toward the front of the store. His queue was thick and splendid, falling past the middle of his back. As Rose followed him, she watched the heavy black braid swing slightly from side to side. She was sometimes amused by a ridiculous stab of envy over the gloss of Bai Lum’s hair, as she felt her own to be nearly coarse as hemp.
“Just now I was thinking how beautiful a flower would look floating in the bowl,” she said.
“But there are already flowers, painted inside.”
“Yes, well. Perhaps all I need is the water.” They were back at the long counter. Deep shelves ran floor to ceiling behind it, filled with boxes of miscellaneous goods, half-gallon jars of herbs, teas, shriveled roots and fungi. A few held what appeared to be desiccated insects.
He reached under the counter for a cloth and wiped away a few fingerprints and flecks of tea. “My mother did that,” he said. “Every month when the full moon began to disappear, she would leave a bowl of water out all night to capture the moonlight.”
Rose had been coming to Bai Lum’s store for just over a year now. At first they limited their conversations to what he had for sale and what she was interested in purchasing; gradually they expanded their small conversational forays. He would ask about her tasks at Captain Kendall’s house, and she would cajole him to share small stories about the quirks of his customers. There was friendship first, their kind and kindred natures opening to one another by slow degrees. The expectation that they could not have friendship, let alone love, offered its own sort of boundless liberty. Slowly, they had closed a distance, first with their eyes, more recently with incidental touches. Then one morning she had woken with a fully formed thought of him, the remnant of a dream. Lying on her side, she reached over to the far edge of her bed, ran her palm over the smooth, empty expanse of white sheet. To love this man. It was an idea untenable, unbearable. Relentless.
Outwardly she fought the desire to visit the mercantile. For some time —she thought of it as months, but it was only three weeks— Rose Allen closed the door on random notions, set aside the thoughts of Bai Lum that constantly swamped her. She congratulated herself for being stoic and levelheaded. Yet all the while during those weeks she concocted elaborate reasons to take her walk down E Street and right onto 4th, the Chinatown block. It came to seem that a great many things were needed that came from only the mercantile. Finally she told herself that going to Bai Lum’s was simply a matter of utmost necessity and practicality. The heart tells such stories convincingly; no matter what logic the head may shout, the heart will yawp all the louder.
Now, as he polished his already spotless counter, she studied his face, the perfect curve of his forehead, which was clean-shaven nearly to his crown.
“Why did your mother want to capture the moonlight?”
His hand paused and he looked at her. “To have something to remember, when the moon hid itself. She said that if she looked into the bowl when the moon was dark, she could still see its reflection in the water.”
“Did it work? Did you ever see it?”
He tilted his head slightly, smiling. “My mother took care of the moon, so I never worried about it.”
Rose imagined him, a sturdy little boy at his mother’s elbow, watching, trusting. She was about to reply when two men walked into the mercantile.
She knew one of them: Garland Tupper, the father of a boy she had tutored. He was a big man, coarse and full of himself in a way that certain other men admired and tried to imitate. Bai Lum nodded to the men as he had nodded to Rose when she arrived. Neither of the men acknowledged him in return. Garland talked loudly about the previous night’s storm.
“What can I get for you, Rose Allen?” Bai Lum asked her.
“Tea,” she said. “I need some more of the chrysanthemum tea you sold me last month, and some rock sugar.”
Behind her, Garland muttered. “She’s wanting something sweet.” His companion snickered and replied, too low for Rose to hear. She turned and looked them over.
“Something to say, Mr. Tupper?”
He put up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “No ma’am, teacher. I’m good as gold. Wouldn’t want a whipping for being naughty, would we Jimmy?” He swayed slightly on his feet.
“Drunk,” she said. “At four o’clock in the afternoon?”
He laid his palm on his chest. “I don’t normally take anything before sundown, Miz Allen, cross my heart, but it may be that Jimmy and I did visit the tavern today. To ward off the chill, you might say.” He elbowed Jimmy, who couldn’t look Rose in the eye. “It’s been awful damp and cold.”
Tupper’s son, Byron, had been in Miss Alva Stanley’s class, a difficult student. Miss Stanley had asked Rose, who tutored two of her other students after school, to come into the classroom and help with Byron. This was a charity case; Garland Tupper wouldn’t contribute so much as a few sticks of split kindling as barter.
As a younger boy, Byron —motherless for some time— had been clingy and eager to please, but problems with almost all his schoolwork made him an easy target for bullying. Miss Stanley approached Byron’s father about the boy’s trouble, but Garland had rebuffed her, telling her that she shouldn’t coddle Byron. He was of the opinion that as long as Byron could “write his name and count his pay” he had gotten as much out of school as he needed. By the time he was twelve, Byron had become an awkward, sullen young man; last year, at fifteen, he had dropped out entirely. Rose had seen him in town, sometimes doing odd jobs, but usually skulking in alleys near the waterfront, with idlers like Albert Watts and Billy Kellogg.
Rose kept her back turned to the men and tried to ignore Garland’s continued whispering and chuckl
ing. Bai Lum took a jar off the wall and scooped the flower tea onto a sheet of paper. His hand hovered above the little pile as if to ask whether it was enough.
“About twice that much,” she said, “and a large piece of sugar.”
He measured out the tea and folded the paper around it into a neat envelope. From another jar he took a hefty piece of rock sugar that looked like a chunk of yellow quartz. This, too, he wrapped in brown paper. Garland and Jimmy were now shuffling around the store, Garland trying on a pair of work gloves and Jimmy examining the business end of a rake. Rose could see Bai Lum watching the men from the corner of his eye.
“One more thing for you,” he said. “I almost forgot.” He brought a small abacus from under the counter, about the size of a child’s slate. “To show your pupils.” He held it out to her.
The wooden beads were polished and heavy. Months earlier she remarked on how fast he was able to calculate purchases with his own. She had mused that it would be an engaging way to teach younger students arithmetic. “This is so thoughtful,” she said, running her fingers over the beads. “The children are going to love it. How much?”
“A gift,” he said. “For the children.”
Garland Tupper sidled to the counter. “Might just as well teach them kids to count on their fingers and toes,” he said, and reached over to flick a bead to its terminus with a bright clack.
Rose tucked the gift under her arm. “An abacus is an elegant means of calculation, Mr. Tupper.” To her everlasting consternation, she blushed easily and vividly at the least annoyance, and here was the heat, crawling up her neck. “Maybe I should have tried using it to teach arithmetic to your son,” she said. The moment the words were out of her mouth she felt a tired and soggy regret.
His face darkened and he inched closer to Rose. “I think you better not talk about my boy.” Despite his rangy brawn, through the face Tupper had a certain effete resemblance to George Armstrong Custer. This close, he reeked of cheap alcohol and insufficient bathing. Beneath the waves of dark blond hair that fell almost to his shoulders, his neck was seamed with grime. He turned his head and spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the clean floorboards.
Disgusted, Rose stepped back. Bai Lum stood silently behind the counter, not taking his eyes off Tupper. Jimmy, meanwhile, had meandered toward the door and glanced furtively out. From where she stood, Rose could see the old man across the street, sweeping the same piece of board walkway he had been sweeping when she arrived. Another man, bent under a yoke from which hung two large baskets of firewood, walked up the center of the street, followed by a little boy carrying a black rooster under his arm. Jimmy shifted from foot to foot. “Come on Garland,” he said. “I told you I don’t like doing business in a chink store.”
“Hold on now, hold your water. Let’s get what we came for.” He turned to Bai Lum and slapped the counter. “Firecrackers,” he said. “Gimme the big ones.”
Bai Lum’s face was stony. He looked at the brown spittle on the floor, looked at Tupper. “No firecrackers here,” he said.
“That’s a damn lie.”
“All gone. Sold out.”
“Let’s go, Garland,” Jimmy said from the open door. He stood on the threshold, round face pleading.
“Shut up, you jackass,” Tupper said, almost in a whisper. Jimmy grunted and stomped out. Tupper glared at Bai Lum, hands opening and closing into fists. “To hell with you,” he said finally. “Damn heathen bastard. I’ll see you on the street sometime.” He passed so close to Rose that she had to stumble slightly to one side, knocked off balance by his hard bicep. “You ever speak about my boy again, and you’ll get a lesson yourself,” he told her. As he went, he reached out an arm and swept a tall, careful pyramid of cans to the floor. They thundered off the table and rolled everywhere. Outside, he passed the mercantile’s windows in a fury, logger’s boots echoing into the street.
Rose looked around the room, a bit stunned, then at Bai Lum, who didn’t appear at all surprised. “There are some small minds in this town, Bai Lum,” she said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Small minds everywhere. Not only here,” he said. He came out from behind the counter and stooped to pick up the mess.
She put her things on the counter and went after several cans that had landed halfway across the floor. When she straightened, hands full, a Chinese girl stood three feet away, almost near enough to touch. Rose jerked in surprise and dropped everything. The cans hit the floor again and one rolled to a stop at the girl’s feet. She retrieved it and held it out to Rose. Her tunic, shorter and fuller at the hem than Bai Lum’s, was the faint green of new asparagus, and its diagonal yoke buttoned near one shoulder with elaborate black closures. Her sleeves and trousers were edged in wide bands of black and gold. She wore several bracelets on each wrist, small gold earrings, and was rather plump, with a perfectly round face. She smiled at Rose and nodded vigorously. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes.”
“Qū qì.” Bai Lum hurried over and snatched the can from the girl’s hand. She bent her head, but still looked sideways at Rose as Bai Lum hustled her back through the curtain into the rear of the store. Out of sight, he spoke to her in what was clearly a reprimand, followed by the girl’s answering voice, quiet but not sounding at all repentant.
The girl had looked young, surely no older than fifteen. Rose had always assumed Bai Lum lived alone. Was this his daughter? His wife? She felt disoriented, realizing that the most rudimentary circumstances of his life in the rooms above the store were a mystery to her. She stood there, embarrassed to be eavesdropping, and began setting the toppled cans back on the table, listening to the voices rise and fall behind the curtain. She had almost decided to leave without paying for her tea, when Bai Lum reappeared through the curtained doorway.
“I’m sorry, Rose,” he said. He approached her, looking even more dismal than he had when dealing with Garland Tupper. “She is my sister.” He began deftly moving the cans back into a pyramid shape.
“Oh?” She tried to sound nonchalant, watching as he worked. Their shoulders touched and Rose could feel the heat of his skin through her sleeve.
“Yes. Her name is Shu-Li.”
She felt ashamed of her momentary thought that he might be keeping a child bride. “I didn’t know,” she said. “You’ve never mentioned her.”
Bai Lum made small adjustments to his display and said nothing. She stood uncomfortably in the silence, watching him fiddle with the cans. “I…it’s not my business, of course,” she said. “She’s lucky. To have such a good brother, I mean.” Face aflame, she reached to add a can to the stack growing on the table. He took her hand in his and slowly rolled the can out of her grasp.
“No,” he said, holding her eyes with his own.
He was so close she could see a small scar on his chin, and she had an unexpected urge to press her fingertip to it. “Just…helping?” she said, the words coming out in a question. Her open palm was still cradled in his. He turned the can so she could see the label. green peas. She looked at the cans he had been stacking. baked beans.
She smiled. “Ah. I almost ruined it.” Her voice had picked up a small tremor, and she wondered if he could feel through her skin how fast her heart was beating. He stared into the palm of her hand as if searching for the satisfaction of some boundless curiosity. Then, with one long, work-calloused finger, he slowly traced the long line that transected her palm from wrist to index finger. The small sensation of that touch made her breath catch.
He lifted his attention to her face; when he did, his eyes flicked over her shoulder to the front window, and he immediately dropped her hand. He stepped away and put the can of peas on the table. “Let me get your packages.”
A sick sensation flared in the pit of her stomach, and she tried to compose her face into an expression of nonchalance. There was Elsie Dampler, goggling in with an expression of barely-veiled avidity, her mouth open just enough to show a glimmer of pink tongue, like the nose of a small animal. Of al
l the people who might happen to peep through a window at just the wrong moment, Elsie Dampler was probably the worst. For a moment, Rose stood frozen, filled with a curious blankness about what would be the right thing to do. Smile? Nod? Pretend she hadn’t recognized the woman? It probably doesn’t matter now, she thought wearily. No matter what she did, she was going to hear about this. Oh yes. This evening, no doubt, and in great detail—Elsie was a member of the WCTU.
Rose lifted a hand to wave, a hand that seemed to weigh ten pounds, and still bore the sensation of Bai Lum’s tracing finger, but Elsie turned and walked away, eyes wide, mouth still open. She moved up the street toward the laundry, throwing a last look over her shoulder as she went.
“The tea,” Rose said, wondering wearily what time it was. She had to get back to the Kendalls’ and help set up for the meeting. Where I will probably be crucified, she thought. She dug in her small drawstring bag. “What do I owe you?”
“Twelve cents.”
“That’s all? Even for that big piece of rock sugar?”
“Yes, twelve cents.” Now he avoided her eyes, and it made Rose want to chase Elsie Dampler and put a boot to the woman’s exceptionally wide rear end
“Bai Lum,” she said, gesturing at the window, “don’t worry about that, really. That woman is such a windbag. No one pays any attention to her blather. Not that she saw anything anyway. Did she? I mean, my back was to the window, so she couldn’t actually see that we…that you were—” Rose bit her tongue, not quite able to say holding my hand.
“It was a mistake,” he said quietly.
“What? No.” She shook her head adamantly. “Not to me. It wasn’t a mistake at all. It was fine.” Fine? she thought. She sounded prim and starched. No, not fine. Extraordinary. Something she would like him to do every day, as a matter of fact. For the rest of her life. “I’m not sorry,” she said in a fierce stage whisper.
He studied her soberly. “As you said, though, there are small minds, often matched with busy tongues.” He handed her the packets of teas and sugar, careful this time that their hands didn’t touch. “Twelve cents.”