Chasing Down the Moon

by Carla Baku

  He hesitated just long enough to make her think that he was going to turn her away, close the door in her face. Instead, he nodded and stepped aside. When she was in, he glanced out at the street, much as she had, then closed and locked the door.

  Her stomach churned, trying to decide how to explain why she’d come. “I’m so sorry to disturb you this way, and I’m wet, too,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have come, but Mattie is sick and I don’t think I can do it myself, because—”

  “Come with me,” he said, and started for the rear of the store.

  “Come where?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Upstairs?” All the admonitions drummed into her since childhood, the dire social strictures regarding unmarried men and women being alone together, clamored for her attention. She looked at the paper kites, swaying in their shadowy world near the ceiling, and took a breath. “Of course.”

  He held the kerosene lamp so that they could both see, and led her back into the store and through the plum-colored curtain.

  The small alcove where Rose had seen Shu-Li peeping at her yesterday opened into a larger storage area. It was filled with marked bags of oats and rice, barrels that bled salt from the cured meat inside. Two garden spades leaned against the wall next to a large coil of hemp rope. On the far right side, a narrow stairway. Bai Lum led the way, his steps quiet, Rose’s boots louder on the wood risers. Near the top was a ninety-degree landing. A tall window looked out on E Street and probably out to the bay, though there was only dark now. Rose paused there, gathering courage. When Bai Lum realized she had stopped, he turned.

  “Well,” she said. “Well—”

  He simply stood, looking at her. His face had lost the guarded expression, and now seemed curious, but patient. I can wait, that expression seemed to say. Whenever you’re ready. They were almost of equal height, and Rose saw that his eyes, in the light of the lamp, were a clear brown that was almost amber. After a moment, he leaned forward so that his cheek rested wholly against hers. No other part of their bodies touched; only his face, skin smooth over a hard jaw, placed by hers. His lips were near her ear and when he put his nose into her hair and breathed deeply, she closed her eyes. Then he straightened.

  Rose nodded. “Fine, then,” she said, a little breathlessly.

  He led her the rest of the way up.

  When they entered his rooms, Rose immediately had the feeling of being in a place apart. Ivory curtains covered the tall double-hung windows, which she knew must let in a great deal of afternoon light. Over the small fireplace, red satin draped the mantel. An altar was there—a bowl of rice, some apples, several sticks of incense standing in a dish of sand. A black vase held a single spray of pale cherry blossoms. Oh yes, she thought, picturing the awful arrangement she had mashed together for Prudence Kendall. These bloom in February, too. Although the board walls were roughly milled, Bai Lum had softened their appearance with more fabric, hung like paneled curtains. Parchments with long lines of intricate characters painted in calligraphy were above the altar. A fringed carpet covered the floor. The room smelled of the incense, a rich woody odor Rose could almost taste.

  “Bai Lum. Your home is—it’s beautiful.”

  He finally smiled. “Welcome.”

  Shu-Li looked in from the other room. Her eyes widened and she looked back and forth between the two of them.

  “Shu-Li, jìn lái,” he said, motioning to her. The girl stepped forward and stood next to him.

  Rose held out her hand. “Hello, Shu-Li.” She put her other hand on her chest. “My name is Rose Allen.” Shu-Li smiled and touched Rose’s hand tentatively.

  “I’m very glad to meet you,” Rose said, and Bai Lum translated.

  “Yes,” Shu-Li said. Yes, yes, just as she had said in the mercantile yesterday. “English,” she said carefully.

  Rose smiled. “Yes, English.”

  “Yes. English.” Shu-Li beamed, obviously proud of herself. Bai Lum spoke a few words; the girl nodded and left the room, still smiling.

  “She’s a quick learner,” Rose said.

  “She’s been getting ready to go to the Huntingtons’ tomorrow,” he said. “Will you sit?” He led her to a low divan under the windows and sat next to her. One window was open a few inches and the curtain rippled softly.

  “Tomorrow. Right. That’s what I want to talk to you about.” He only waited for her to continue, and she took a deep breath, wanting to somehow inhale the sense of deliberate stillness he seemed to carry with him always. “After Mrs. Huntington and I left here this morning, she drove me past Salyer’s Hotel.”

  There was the smallest flicker across his face. “I know the hotel,” he said. “There are two sisters there who sometimes buy things at my store.”

  Rose sat straight. “What else do you know?” she asked. Then she rushed on. “Did you know that they keep women there —girls, really— that they keep them for—” The flush lit her throat and cheeks, but she forced herself to say it. “Clarence Salyer makes the girls live as prostitutes. The same as Shu-Li in San Francisco.”

  “Have you noticed, Rose, all the men here in Chinatown? How many times have you seen a woman?” He looked at her steadily. “A Chinese woman, I mean. White women are often here.”

  Despite her racing heart, she couldn’t help smiling a little.

  “Your United States government has put a terrible burden on the men who came here from my country. For three years now it is almost impossible for a woman to come here legally, even if her husband arrived long before her.”

  “Wait.” She stared. “Wait, why are you telling me this? Are you defending Salyer, what he’s doing with those girls?”

  “No,” he said. “What he is doing is very bad. You asked me if I knew about the Chinese women at Salyer’s Hotel. What I want to say is that, because there are no wives, no women for the young men to marry, all the men in Chinatown know about the hotel. I think many other men know, too. White men.”

  “It’s horrible,” she said, her voice low but angry.

  “Other places here also have prostitutes,” he said mildly.

  “I know that,” she said, trying to rein in her frustration. It was no secret that several brothels operated openly down among the saloons; more than once, when she had passed by on her walks to the bay, she’d seen the women who occupied the upstairs rooms sitting in windowsills and on rickety balconies, chatting in dressing gowns or chemises. Often, they waved, and she waved back. “It’s different, though. Those other women can leave, if they want to. What happens to them—” she paused, thinking. “Maybe they do it because they don’t know what else to do, or have nothing else, nowhere to go. But if they wanted to pack up and leave, they could. It’s not like that at Salyer’s. He bought them. Went to San Francisco and paid money for them, just like what happened to Shu-Li.”

  He looked away and nodded.

  “Let me tell you what Mattie found out today,” she hurried on. “A girl, very young, like Shu-Li, had a baby last night, in the middle of the night. One of the men who, as you say, knows about the hotel, one of those men is the father of that girl’s baby, and do you know what happened?” She paused, breathing heavily. Bai Lum waited. “They made another girl —her name is Ya Zhen— they made her take that tiny thing down to a stove in the kitchen and burn it!” Hot tears filled her eyes and she took both of his hands in hers. “Bai Lum,” she whispered, “Ya Zhen told Mattie about it today, told her the most terrible things about how she came here.” She swiped angrily at her tears. “Her life is so—” She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. “It’s a nightmare.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said. He crossed the room to the altar, picked up one of the apples and rubbed his thumb over the smooth skin. “I was once married,” he said. “Before I left China. My wife, Jun-li Yan, and my mother both died during the famine that started in the North.” He put the apple back in the bowl and lit two sticks of incense. Twin tendrils of smoke curled upward.

  She
was dumbfounded. “Died,” she whispered, trying to reconcile him with that other life, with a wife, a family far from here. “I’m so sorry, Bai Lum.”

  “Jun-li was expecting our first child. She was already so thin when the child began, and she hid it for a long time. The child withered inside her and Jun-li was poisoned with it.”

  She put a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes again. He continued, his voice a dark river through the room.

  “I had been so worried about my wife that I blinded myself to what was happening to my mother. She had been giving her ration of rice to my sister and to Jun-li. Deliberately starving herself. Two days after my wife died, my mother also died.

  “This was when I decided to come to America. It was seven years ago, before the exclusion. Other men from our village and the villages all around were traveling to the southern provinces, to Guangdong, getting on ships. There were stories about great wealth everywhere, about becoming rich. My father told me it was my duty, that I would be able to save the family by going away, sending money home.” He crossed to the windows and pulled the pale curtain aside. Rose sat very still and watched him. The light from a nearby lamp flickered on his face and the strain of remembering showed in the set of his mouth.

  “I wanted to bring my sister,” he said. “But she was very young then, only seven. It was dangerous to take her on the ship. I couldn’t bring her with me, but I was afraid to leave her with our father. There were people, bad men, roaming all over the countryside, buying girls, some even younger than my little sister, five, six years old. Some were sold as concubines to rich men. Little children like that. Others—” He did not continue.

  “You thought your father—”

  “I had seen the girls weeping, the mothers weeping while strangers led their daughters away like cattle. He swore to me that he wouldn’t sell her. I had to believe him.” He watched the smoke from the incense float toward the ceiling. “I sent money right away, but it didn’t matter. He was hungry, and they promised to take good care of her.”

  Listening to him, seeing the old pain on his face, she felt a terrible regret at her earlier impulse to anger. “And this is why you help the Huntingtons. Why you keep the girls here.”

  He didn’t reply. Another bit of cool breeze luffed the curtains; the haze of incense smoke swirled into competing eddies. There were small sounds of Shu-Li humming in another room. “She is very happy,” he said, “to go to a new place—tired of being here with no one but an old man.”

  She thought of her father, of all the years Robert Allen had raised her alone, his patience and perplexity when she struggled against the conventions expected of her, her bedrock understanding that, under everything, he was her ally. “It would be hard to stay so secluded,” she said.

  “It is the custom for many Chinese women,” he said. “There are a few living here, Rose, but you’ll never see them. They are proud. It’s a sign of prosperity if the woman can stay inside, at leisure. For Shu-Li, and the other girls who have stayed, my thinking was that a pleasant home would bring a feeling of shelter. Safety.” He shook his head. “This girl does not feel safe. She feels…bì yín dài le lóng zi.” He locked his hand around the opposite wrist. “Caught in a trap.”

  “You care for her,” Rose said. “I can see that you’ve been trying to protect her.” She went to where he stood by the mantle, feeling the pressure of passing time. “After Mattie told me about Ya Zhen, all I could think was that I needed to see you. I came here tonight to ask you to do something. It’s something big. It might be…I don’t know. I may not be thinking clearly about it,” she said. “But maybe there’s a way we can help Ya Zhen.” He looked at her cautiously and she hurried on. “I know you’ve been very careful about which girls come here. Lucy explained that part to me. Trying to smuggle one of them away right under Salyer’s nose is more dangerous. I see that, too. But what’s happening to her right now —to Ya Zhen, I mean— is so terrible.” She paused for a breath and pitched forward with her idea. “Reverend Huntington will be taking Shu-Li out of Eureka, sooner than he had planned; maybe he could take Ya Zhen at the same time. It’s a risk, I know, and I haven’t even asked Lucy about it, but Bai Lum, you could go to the hotel. If other Chinese men go, Salyer won’t notice, will he? You could pay to…to meet her.” The hateful blush returned. “See if she’s strong enough to go, right away.”

  He rubbed his jaw with the palm of one hand, seeming to consider. “Tonight,” he said.

  “Yes, tonight.”

  “Shu-Li—”

  “It’s fine,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll stay here with her while you go. My aunt will roast me when I get home anyway, and I may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.” She smiled at the puzzled look on his face. “Another expression,” she said.

  “Like gathering the wool.”

  This made her laugh. “I guess I know a lot of expressions about sheep.” She felt a great sense of relief, now that she had made her proposal. “Will you go? Please say that you will.”

  He cupped her face in his two hands. “I will. And you understand that this does not mean we can help her. There is no way to know now if we can do anything. You shouldn’t put all your hope into the idea.”

  “But we don’t know at all unless you go.”

  He smiled, a rueful quirk of the lips. “I’m going. Shu-Li can make tea while you wait.”

  Byron wedged his hands under his armpits. He was taking a chill, even tucked into the doorway. Nothing had changed at Salyer’s; the light still flickered in Pearl’s room, and all the other windows near hers stayed dark. Just as he decided it would be safe for him to go back to the livery, a man hurried across the street and around to the rear entrance. The cut of his clothes made it clear to Byron: it was a Chinaman, headed upstairs. A ghastly dread ballooned in his gut. He clenched his fists until his nails threatened to break the skin of his palms, and he stared at the lit window above. At first, there was nothing, and then, clearly, shadows moving across the visible bit of ceiling: a door opening, closing. A person moving, then two. The seething in his belly exploded through him, and he voiced an inarticulate growl as he moved out of the doorway. There was no thought behind his trajectory, no plan, just the imperative of rage, the heat driving him. And then he was on the ground.

  Before he reached the corner of the hotel, a juggernaut flew out of the night, a solid weight of force that hit Byron’s left side, driving him down so that his right shoulder and the side of his face slammed into the wet dirt. His breath was knocked loose with the impact, and he gasped, getting nothing but a painful thimbleful of air. Before he even realized he was down, he was straddled, someone on his chest, making it even harder to breathe. “Off!” he wheezed, no voice, just a thin whistle of sound. He tried desperately to jackknife his assailant off, bucking his legs, but his arms were pinned and he was going nowhere.

  “You’re goin nowhere, sonny boy.” Garland Tupper tittered and clutched his legs even tighter around Byron’s arms. “You got much bigger problems than your darlin upstairs, there. Much, much bigger.” He punctuated each much with a ringing slap to the face, first one cheek and then the other.

  “Hngh!” Byron grunted and dug his heels frantically into the ground. He managed to lift his buttocks several inches, but his father rode him like a rodeo steer, laughing. Finally Byron, barely able to breathe, sagged and gave up the fight. Garland was forty pounds heavier, all of it hard muscle, and Garland was not bested. Not by Byron. It was a fact of life as dependable as gravity waiting to meet you at the bottom of a tall gorge.

  His father planted his hands on either side of Byron’s head and leaned down into his face. The smell of whiskey was almost eyewatering. “You burned my property,” he crooned. “Burned that shed right to the ground. You know your mama’s trunk was in that shed? Hm? Oh yes, it was,” he said, as if Byron had tried to contradict him. “It had the clothes she brought with her from Missouri, where I met her. Had the little straw bonnet she used to put on when s
he worked in the garden. Awful vain about her pretty white skin, was your mama.” His voice trailed off, almost to a whisper, as if he’d forgotten where he was, sitting on top of his son in the cold wet of the road. Then he reared back and punched Byron in the face.

  There was a white starburst in his left eye, and he felt the skin between his cheekbone and Garland’s fist split open. The second blow connected with his nose, and the pain in his head was a fiery explosion of agony. Hot blood immediately poured over his lips.

  Garland lurched to his feet then, flexing his hand. “I hear you got a job mucking out horse shit for Joe Reilly,” he said, as if finishing some mundane bit of business. He bent and brushed loose mud from the wet knees of his pants, in a fussy, self-important gesture. “That’s good, boy. You got a lot of paying back to do.”

  Byron curled into a ball, holding his head between his hands. The pain was so exquisite he couldn’t even moan. He lay there trying to breathe through his mouth, gagging on the taste of blood.

  Garland walked toward the corner, still flexing his hand. “Be sure you work real hard,” he said.

  Shu-Li came in with tea on a tray. She had twisted her hair into a bun at the back of her neck and wore small silver earrings. Rose was touched by this little change; the girl had so obviously decided to make herself look more formal, a hostess taking care of a luncheon guest. The tea soothed, was hot and good, and even the first swallow seemed to melt off a fraction of Rose’s tension. She had been concerned that Shu-Li would feel awkward with her, but she should have known better. The girl sat back, relaxed, and sipped from her own cup. She seemed so self-contained. Rose couldn’t imagine what sorts of things she had lived through, yet here she was, looking perfectly content with a perfect stranger.

  “Thank you,” Rose said, and lifted her cup. “The tea is very good.”

  Shu-Li smiled and took another sip. “Yes.”

  Rose stood and wandered over to the small altar, carrying her cup. The fireplace was a dark mouth sitting in shadows. She touched the apples as Bai Lum had done, ran her fingertips over the red satin on the mantle. The incense had burned into tiny piles of ash. A box of matches was at hand; Rose struck one and held the yellow flame to a new stick. It started with a bright blaze, then tapered down until just the tip glowed, a tiny spark winking in the room.