Chasing Down the Moon

by Carla Baku

  The sound of rain and the crackle of the fire had caused Ya Zhen to drowse off, so when the door opened suddenly, she scrambled to her feet, heart pounding, still holding the comb. Old Mol led a man into the room. He was taller than many of the Chinese men who came to her, and wore an impeccable black tunic and coat. She didn’t remember having had him in this room before.

  Old Mol arched her eyebrows at the man, a question. He nodded slightly. “This man’s paid for the hour. Whatever he wants,” she muttered, heading for the door. “That’s a damned long time. She better be in one piece when you’re done here, or the boss will see you hanging by that long pretty hair.” She winked at Ya Zhen and closed the door.

  The man’s face was pleasant, but he seemed greatly on edge, not willing to look her in the eye. No one had ever paid for such a length of time. Old Mol’s ‘whatever he wants’ hung in the air between them and she waited, confused as to what, exactly, he expected. When he said nothing, she pulled at the sash on her gown.

  “No,” he said.

  She was stung with recognition when he spoke in a mountain dialect similar to her own. She pulled her robe shut and stood still.

  “Sit here,” he said, gesturing to the chair, “near the fire.” As if he was her host, she did, and he sat on the edge of the bed. He took the brimless hat from his head and smoothed it over one leg. “You understand my words, yes?”

  “Yes,” she said, feeling dazed to hear her own language spoken so clearly.

  “Then you are from the north,” he said, smiling. “When I saw your face, your long fingers, I knew.”

  She sat silently.

  “You’re very young,” he said. Now he looked at her directly, his face grave. “How long have you been away from your home?”

  Li Lau made a soft sleep sound in the next room, and from outside came the noise of a scuffle between men, familiar as some rough birdsong.

  “I have no home.”

  He shifted his hat from one knee to the other. “How long ago did you leave China?”

  “A very long time,” she told him. “Two years. Almost three.”

  “I have been here seven years,” he said softly.

  Ya Zhen turned to him, sitting on the bed in his fine clothes, his hands and fingernails clean, looking at her solicitously, and she felt fire leap in her belly. How was this man different than the man who brought her the kitten, or the men who left behind little things to ease their sorry consciences—pennies, peppermints. “Why did you come here?” she asked. “Two years, seven years—you are interested in time passing, so we should probably take off our clothes before this long hour has flown away.” She stood and untied the sash at her waist, allowing the robe to fall open. “Would you like me to wash you first? Do you want to put your fingers in my mouth and count my teeth? Shall I crawl on the floor and lick your feet like a dog?” The anger flowed from some dark and bottomless place inside her, her voice growing louder and louder. Being able to say the words to someone who understood them made her feel reckless. She yanked up the sleeve of her gown, revealing three round, purple scars. “Do you want to burn me with a cigar or bite my flesh as if I am a roasted pig? Do you want to tie my mouth shut, or shall I beg you to stop, stop, while you use me, whispering your sister’s name into my ear?” She was right next to him now, and began to straddle him.

  He pushed her away and stumbled to his feet, looking ill. “No,” he said, holding her by the shoulders. He dropped his arms to his sides and shook his head. “No, Ya Zhen. I don’t want any of those things.”

  She stood there, breathing hard and shaking, her gown open. Hearing her name this way, in the soft lilt of her own village, her own place in the world, made the anger fall out of her so suddenly her knees buckled. He caught and steadied her. When she seemed able to stand, he pulled her robe together and gently tied the sash closed. “Please, lie down here.”

  She curled on her side. The soiled sheets stank of Clarence Salyer and made her stomach turn, but she felt a terrible exhaustion, so profound she couldn’t even turn her head from the smell. The storekeeper moved to the bed and pulled the coverlet over her, tucking the edge in under her chin. He stirred the fire and put on another piece of wood, then leaned toward the flames, warming his hands. “My name is Bai Lum,” he said. “I have a market in Chinatown.”

  “Wu Song told me about the store. I don’t go out.” She said. Her throat was dry from the shouting and it made her voice small and scratchy. “Do you have a wife?”

  He shook his head. “My wife died before I was able to bring her here.”

  “So you came tonight because you are lonely.” Ya Zhen closed her eyes. “I don’t feel sorry for you.”

  Bai Lum was silent, and when she finally looked at him, he was gazing into the fire. “I have friends who want to help you.” He turned and looked her in the eye. “I want to help you.”

  A bitter little smile, not much more than a grimace, flitted across her face. “How can you help. Will you shoot Old Mol?”

  He studied her face for some time, and seemed finally to decide something. “They can take you away from here, my friends. It’s north. A long way.”

  She stared. What if he was lying? If she agreed, perhaps he would run to Salyer. Her heart made a little gallop. What if he was telling the truth?

  “Ya Zhen,” he said. “Do you wonder how I know your name?” When she said nothing, he went on. “Your friend Mattie told us. She told us everything.”

  She lay perfectly still and felt tears rising. She did not let others see her cry, rarely allowed herself tears at all, though sometimes they came against her will in the hidden hours of the night. But Mattie was the only person to speak to her in genuine kindness since the old ēn mā, almost three years ago. So she let the tears come and her weeping was deep and hoarse. It didn’t matter how loud she was; in this place, no one paid attention to the sounds in her room, as long as the money had been paid. At first her cries were inarticulate sobs, but then, like the girls on the ship from Guangdong, she called for her mother until the word mā drew itself out into a long, faltering wail, the innate plea of all wounded souls desperate for respite and rescue.

  There was a long silence then. Ya Zhen was at first aware only of her own breathing catching up with itself. Then she could hear the small sounds of the fire as it drew down, and finally the sound of rain outside, dripping steadily on her windowsill, just as it had been before he arrived.

  “This place,” Bai Lum said quietly, continuing as though her storm of tears had not interrupted a thing. “It’s a hard journey. There will be a lot of people helping, but they’ll be strangers to you. You must understand, Ya Zhen—there is some danger. If you’re caught trying to leave, especially.”

  Holding his eyes with hers, she lifted her arm and exposed the purple burn scars again.

  He nodded. “I don’t know yet when it will be. Soon.”

  She couldn’t seem to move or speak.

  “I’ll go.”

  “Wait.” She pulled her knees to her chest, huddled there trying to quell the shaking in her arms and legs. “Can you…can you stay here for a while? You can sit on the chair.” She gestured with her chin. “Old Mol won’t give you back the money. Can you stay and just talk to me?”

  Bai Lum pulled the chair over to the bed, its wooden legs squalling across the board floor. He sat and rested his hands in his lap. “What would you like to talk about?”

  “Tell me about the mountains,” she whispered. “Tell me what you did when you were a little boy.”

  He looked at the ceiling. “That was a very long time ago.” He thought for a moment, then smiled. “When I was very small, I was master of the chickens. This is what my mother told me, though I was a scrawny child and I think the chickens were the masters of me.”

  In a soft voice, he began to tell her about searching for eggs, how one black hen would hide her nest in a new place every day to fool him. Slowly, she felt herself sliding into sleep. Sometime later she woke when
Bai Lum touched her hand. She turned her face up to him.

  “You can sleep,” he said. “No one else will come tonight.”

  “Take me with you,” she whispered, asking again for the impossible. She didn’t think he would reply, but he squatted next to the bed so that their faces were close.

  “I cannot take you,” he said. “But I will come back, Ya Zhen.” His strong face looked immensely tired. “For now, that is what I can do. I can be your friend.” His eyes searched hers for some sign that she understood him, so she nodded. He stood and put a little more wood on the fire, then put on his hat and left the room.

  After he was gone, she lay still and watched the light from the fire reflected in the pressed-tin ceiling. She searched her heart for a sign of hope, but such a large thing as hope was impossible to grasp. It was easier to indulge a more familiar fantasy: that she was the only person alive on the earth; that she was rich with the great gift of loneliness. Then a man’s boot thudded against the wall and a there was a low curse as he made his unsteady way down the dark hallway and past her door. Old Mol let him into the Wu sisters’ room. As Bai Lum had promised, no one else came to Ya Zhen’s room that night.

  Home again, Bai Lum took a cup of tea from Shu-Li. He had been gone for nearly three-quarters of an hour. “Xìe xìe, mèi mèi,” he said, thanking her. A slight frown creased the girl’s brow and she blew air through her pursed lips. He shook his head. “She doesn’t like me to call her this,” he told Rose. “It means little sister.”

  “No young lady wants to be thought of as a little girl,” said Rose. Bai Lum translated to Shu-Li, who replied so adamantly as she left the room that Rose had to stifle a smile. “No need to tell me what she said. I think I got the gist of it.” Bai Lum took a long drink of the tea, and Rose watched his mouth on the rim of the cup, his throat moving as he swallowed. Despite how apprehensive she was to know what had happened at the hotel, the desire to touch the skin on his throat was an incredible distraction, like an ache in her fingers. “You were gone so long,” she finally said. “Did you…did you see her?”

  He nodded. “I told her we would help.”

  Rose put a hand on her chest and gusted an enormous sigh. “Thank you for doing this.”

  “Right now, it is only an idea,” he cautioned. “Not our decision.” He took another drink of tea. “I don’t know if she really believed me,” he said. “She is—” He sat for a moment, watching the curtains ripple. “Her life is very bad.”

  “But she wants to try? To get out?”

  “I think she would have come with me tonight, if I had asked her to.”

  “Good,” she said. “That’s good. Now we need to tell Lucy.” She stood. “I have to go home. Hazel will be worried. And furious.” She pulled her wrap around her again. “I’ll go to the Huntingtons first thing tomorrow, early. I’ll tell them everything, tell them you met with Ya Zhen.”

  Descending the stairs, he once more held the lamp high, and placed his free hand on the small of her back. It rested there, a warm and certain weight that she could feel all the way through her cloak, her dress and chemise. The sensation ran the length of her body like a fever. They came out into the storeroom and passed through the curtained alcove. He stopped her at the mercantile door.

  “Your heart is very kind, Rose Allen.”

  The sound of his voice was a phenomenon. The myriad small parts of her —pores on the backs of her hands, the tops of her ears, the two dimples at the base of her spine— every molecule from eyelashes to toenails came to attention and sang hallelujah just to hear him say her name. His eyes moved over her face. He set the lamp on the counter and took her left hand as he had done the day before. She could feel her own pulse under his fingertips. He looked down and once more traced over the heel of her hand, across her palm to the tip of her middle finger. The blood raced under the surface of her skin, making all the fine hairs on her arms and legs stand up. She had an image then of Hazel’s African violets, their fuzzy leaves prickling in the sun that morning, and she laughed. He looked up quizzically.

  “Sorry,” she said, a little breathless, feeling stupidly awkward. “I was just surprised.”

  He smiled. “I was afraid you saw a face in the window.”

  “No.” She laid her palm on his. He curled his fingers around her hand and leaned down to kiss her.

  It is like falling, she thought later. Like falling and like landing in a safe place. When he pulled away, she was almost afraid to open her eyes, because the whole world had just shifted—what would she see? But he said her name again, and when she looked, it was Bai Lum, the heavy braid of black hair hanging over his shoulder, his eyes quiet on her face, as they always were, and she knew, as she had when she chose to leave Illinois: she would go whichever way this wind wanted to blow her.

  She didn’t even try to come in quietly—she knew Hazel would have found her missing some time ago, so no use sneaking. What she didn’t expect was to find Hazel sitting in the front parlor, rocking. The lamp was turned so low that the room was thick with shadows.

  “She’s resting now,” Hazel said. The rocker ticked back and forth in a slow arc. She glanced at Rose, who stood in the doorway. “You’re wet.”

  Rose took off her wrap and hung it over the back of a chair. She sat on the loveseat opposite Hazel. “I’m sorry, Aunt—”

  Hazel held up a palm. “Don’t say it. I’m too tired.”

  She waited. Hazel rocked. “Is it the grippe?” Rose asked finally, not able to stand this weirdly silent version of Hazel’s normally frenetic self.

  “No, not the grippe. Better by far if it was.”

  Stopping, Mattie had said. Never this bad before.

  “It’s soul-sickness, Rose. Absolute melancholy, like her father.”

  “She told me this morning how much she misses him. Wishes she could see him.”

  “I’m sure she does. But we’re not allowed that, are we? No one puts her head beyond the veil for a last look or one more word of comfort.”

  Rose was mystified. “Beyond the veil?”

  Hazel stopped rocking. “Mattie’s father hung himself when she was eight years old.”

  Rose sat back in the love seat as if pushed by an invisible hand. “Dead.”

  “Dead as Caesar for years,” Hazel said, her voice tender. “Like your mother. Such a lovely man—Mattie’s ma was never the same, after. Certainly no good to her children.” She started rocking again, and her faint shadow, large on the wall behind her, rocked too. “It’s grief that brought Matilda to the opium.”

  Rose was flummoxed. “You knew.”

  Hazel made a derisive little huff. “I’d have to be blind.” She turned her head, and even in the low light, Rose could see the blue eyes boring in. “There’s no end to the things I know.”

  Rose’s mind made a reeling return to the feel of Bai Lum’s kiss, the sensation of his lips moving on hers, and felt as if her face might actually catch fire. Wildly grateful for the dim light of the parlor, she decided that there might be some things about which Hazel could only speculate. At least Rose hoped so. “How long will she be sick?”

  Hazel looked away again and shrugged. “She’s already much improved, if you mean the shakes and the puking. I gave her a little laudanum.”

  “But laudanum has opium in it.”

  “Indeed it does. Just what Mattie needed to settle her.” She nodded, as if confirming the decision. “Only a few drops diluted with water, to keep her from shaking her senses loose.” Back and forth she rocked, back and forth the shadow kept pace. “We’ve been down this road before.”

  Rose dropped her face into her hands and massaged her eyes, which burned with fatigue. “I give up. I’ve stepped through the looking glass,” she said, remembering her earlier thought about the White Rabbit. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  Hazel laughed, a low chuckle. “Yes, Horatio. More things in heaven and earth, etcetera. You’d best get off to bed. We’ll hope morning puts a different shine on t
hings.”

  “And you?”

  “Not just yet. I’m too tired to sleep. Peek in on her when you go in case she needs something.”

  “I will.” Rose put her hand on Hazel’s shoulder as she passed. “I love you, Aunt. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

  “Sorry won’t fill the pipe,” she said. “Neither will worry, but I wish I had a teaspoon of something to make you settle.” She patted Rose’s fingers. “No cure yet for your ailment.”

  A candle burned on top of Mattie’s bureau, and a faint smell of vomit hung in the air. She huddled in bed, facing away. Rose left the door open and tiptoed in. “Mattie?”

  “Hi,” she said, and pulled herself slowly into a sitting position, leaning back on the headboard. “I’m awake.”

  “Water?”

  She nodded, and drank deeply from the glass Rose handed her. “Thanks.”

  “Hazel said you’re feeling a little better. How’s the hand?”

  She held up the bandaged palm, and cocked her head, as if she hadn’t noticed it until just now. “Feels pretty hot,” she said. “Like it’s still burning.” Her voice was a little dreamy-sounding, but nothing like the ugly disorientation of last night. “Not so bad,” she said.

  “Aunt gave you laudanum.”

  “Just a little taste.” She met Rose’s eyes. “I always think it won’t be so bad.”

  “Oh Mattie. You could have told me.”

  She shook her head. “Hazel has been so good to me. Every time, I promise and I promise—like I did to you this morning.” She closed her eyes. “I always mean it, too. With all my heart.” Her voice petered out.

  Rose sat on the foot of the bed. “Listen to me. The girl at the hotel—the one you told me about, remember?” Rose glanced at the bedroom door, and lowered her voice. “We’re going to help her.”