Chasing Down the Moon

by Carla Baku

  She hurried into her clothes, tying her hair behind her, and once more slipped into Li Lau’s room after scanning the hall. She was curled under her blanket much as she had been when Ya Zhen saw her the day before, but this time she turned over and sat up, wincing just a little when she got into a sitting position. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. Ya Zhen saw that the empty plate (empty because Ya Zhen had eaten everything on it) still sat on the washstand. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, very hungry.” Li Lau had the slightly dazed look of a child wandering out of a long nap.

  “I’ll get breakfast.”

  “Old Mol—”

  “She’s not awake yet. If I hurry, she won’t know. Ivo will find me something, and he hates her, too. He won’t tell.”

  Li Lau pushed back the blanket and eased herself out of bed. She lifted her night dress and pulled away a thick padding of rags, easily three times the number they wore when they bled during the month. The rags were heavily stained, but not shockingly so; Old Mol must have been up to help Li Lau more than once. Ya Zhen was relieved to see that Li Lau’s bed was unmarked with even a small spot of blood. She helped her squat over the bucket. When her water came, she uttered a small gasp and pinched her eyes shut.

  “I’ll be right back,” Ya Zhen said, helping her back into bed and refolding the rags between the girl’s legs as well as she could. “Listen,” she said. “When Old Mol comes, don’t sit up unless she forces you. You need to act very weak, very tired and stupid. Make her think you have pain and no appetite.”

  Li Lau nodded and didn’t ask why. She knew.

  Not bothering with shoes, Ya Zhen slipped quickly down the inside staircase, listening for Old Mol before coming out into the kitchen. As she had suspected, Ivo was already deeply into the preparation of the Friday dinner. This time of year, Salyer’s dining room served crab every Friday; the meal attracted so many diners that Ivo and Mattie were kept running all day, and the strong and lingering smell of seafood wafted all the way upstairs. Vivid orange heaps of cooked Dungeness crabs steamed on the table next to a bowl already filling with the picked meat. Ivo glanced up, looking mildly surprised to see her, but not terribly interested. “She’ll make a row if she catches you,” he said, his inflected English hard for her to penetrate.

  “I need food for Li Lau,” she said. “She didn’t eat yesterday.”

  He turned from the crabs, wiping his hands on the apron he wore every day and somehow kept shockingly white. “Salyer,” he muttered. “Hund Ficker.” He took a cracked serving bowl from a corner of the top shelf and from pans inside the warming oven he spooned a mound of potatoes, one of cooked apples, and another of scrambled eggs. He reached around and plucked up two spoons, stabbed them into the food. “Go eat. Hide the bowl.”

  Ya Zhen’s stomach came loudly awake. Most days, breakfast was little more than thinly-buttered toast and the occasional plate of beans. She looked at Ivo, who had turned his perpetually sour face back to his crab butchery, and just as she was about to thank him, Mattie rushed in through the rear entrance.

  I have friends who want to help you.

  She looked tired, her face drawn to the point of being haggard. Dark smudges nested under her eyes and her left hand was heavily bandaged. Despite her flagging appearance, though, there were twin spots of color high on her cheekbones, and when she laid eyes on Ya Zhen, she broke into a broad grin, which she immediately hid by coughing into her arm.

  “Morning, Ivo,” she said to the cook’s hunched back. He made no response. She hurried across the room, gesturing for Ya Zhen to follow. Up the inner stairs they went, Ya Zhen trying to keep pace. “I have to talk to you before any of the bad lot are awake and roaming around.”

  At the top of the stairs, Mattie, having never been in this part of the hotel, hesitated; Ya Zhen pointed to her room. “In there,” she told Mattie. She took the food to Li Lau. “Eat some,” she told the girl. “I’ll come back for the rest.” Li Lau dug into the potatoes, and it made Ya Zhen’s mouth water to watch. “I’ll come back,” she said again, hoping Li Lau wouldn’t eat everything. “Put the bowl under the bed if Old Mol comes.”

  In Ya Zhen’s room, Mattie stood by the cold fireplace, seeming almost to vibrate with nervous energy. “We’re going to do our level best to take you out of here,” she said. “Today.”

  Ya Zhen stared. Who? she wanted to ask. How? A hundred questions jostled for attention, but she couldn’t seem to ask any of them.

  Mattie laughed and hugged her. “Do you understand?”

  She stiffened in the close embrace, making herself bear it. “Today?”

  “I’m going right now to find Mrs. Salyer and tell her that Lucy Huntington wants your help today.” She laughed again and flapped a hand at Ya Zhen’s blank look. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You don’t know her, but she’s going to—”

  From the head of the stairs, Old Mol announced herself with a guttural belch.

  Ya Zhen’s eyes grew large. Mattie put her finger to her lips and crossed to the threshold in what seemed a single enormous step. Hand on the doorknob, she positioned herself to look as though she wasn’t quite inside the room. “…so be sure you do a good job. Mrs. Huntington is a lovely person and I don’t want to hear that you—”

  “What in holy hell do you think you’re doing?” Old Mol barked, marching down the hallway hard enough to make the floorboards jump. She shoved the door open; it slammed into the wall and bounced back. “You got no business up here,” she said, her jowly face ticking from Mattie to Ya Zhen and back to Mattie. “What are you telling her?”

  Mattie looked unperturbed, almost disdainful of the outburst. She lifted her chin self-importantly. “Mrs. Lucy Huntington —Reverend Huntington’s wife— sent me to speak to Mrs. Salyer about a matter of some urgency.”

  Old Mol gaped, then pointed at Ya Zhen. “Does that look like Cora Salyer to you?”

  “Of course not,” Mattie said, managing to sound both bored and impatient. “I just wanted to be sure that this girl understood what was expected of her.” She tilted her head toward Old Mol in a conspiratorial way. “There were a few problems with the laundry yesterday, if you know what I mean.”

  “Hang your goddamn laundry troubles. I don’t want to hear another word.” She gave Mattie a small shove out of Ya Zhen’s doorway. “Get your skinny shanks downstairs. We’ll find her highness and sort out this load of tripe. You—” she said to Ya Zhen, pointing one large, blunt finger, “you know better.” She stood that way for a moment, glaring, and slammed the door shut behind her.

  Ya Zhen stared at the closed door, her breathing quick and shallow. When Old Mol had thrown the door open, the inside knob put a deep divot in the wall, scattering broken bits of plaster onto the floor. Turning a slow circle, Ya Zhen looked at the unpainted walls, the single rickety chair, the tall window with its scrap of yellow curtain, the piss bucket, the thin blanket still rumpled on the bed. Normally she would clean the mess of plaster; normally by this time of day she had straightened everything and put the bucket out for Wu Song to dump in the outside privy. Her heart beat high and hard under her ribs, making the place on her shoulder where Clarence Salyer had bitten her yesterday throb in time. Just before Old Mol pushed her out, Mattie had dropped Ya Zhen a wink.

  First, she slipped into her shoes. Then, in the center of the room where a small bar of sunlight hit the floor, she bent at the waist and spat. The thin line of spittle clung to her bottom lip and glimmered orange and yellow the instant before it hit the scratched floorboards. Not bothering to peek out first, Ya Zhen opened the door and went to get her breakfast from Li Lau. She had gone from hungry to ravenous.

  “It’s best if I speak to Bai Lum myself now.” Reverend Huntington said. After Mattie had climbed out of the big wagon a couple of blocks from the hotel, he had parked the rig in the alley behind the mercantile, next to the sliding door of the storeroom. When Rose began to object —she told herself she simply wanted to see Bai Lum�
��s face when they told him about helping Ya Zhen— Charles held up one large hand. “Hear me. We’re going to need you later, when it’s time for the girl to go off on foot. Best if we stick to the plan and keep our visibility to a minimum.”

  She wanted desperately to protest, but knew he was right: the less any of them was seen together, the better. “I’ll be back to the rectory by four,” she said.

  He smiled down at her. “You were absolutely right to tell us about this, Rose. Absolutely right.”

  Her throat closed around an ache of tears, and she could only nod. Now that the wheels were in motion, the reality of what they planned to do made her feel a bit like Pandora with her hand on the lid of the box.

  He raised a fist and knocked hard. “We’ll need your help—Ya Zhen will. Four o’clock.”

  Rose was out of the alley and around the corner when she heard the storeroom door rumble sideways along its track, when her heart tried to turn her feet around. Just a look, the smallest wave. She put her head down and made a beeline for the Kendalls’ house, boots like thunder on the boards.

  Old Mol deposited Mattie in a downstairs hallway, ordering her not to budge an inch. It was more than fifteen minutes before Cora Salyer finally appeared, with a pillow crease across one cheek and the corners of her mouth pulled down so far she resembled an English bulldog. Now she eyed Mattie as if inspecting a plate of gone-over fish. Old Mol hulked nearby, arms crossed over her prodigious bosom.

  “Why doesn’t she want you to help her?” Cora said. “Why would the pastor’s wife want one of those back room girls?”

  “I wish I could help her,” Mattie said, throwing a load of regret into her voice. “I’d surely love to have the four dollars she offered, but I’ve had an accident, missus. A nasty burn, I’m afraid, and the Reverend’s wife, she needs some things done that will take two good hands. She didn’t even know those girls stayed here until I told her.” She gave a pouty little sniff. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Four dollars, you say?” Cora’s downtrodden expression became alarmingly bright. “My my. Apparently the Congregationalists are doing well for themselves.”

  Easy enough, you old spider, thought Mattie. “Yes, Mrs. Salyer, that’s what she said. Said she needs a younger girl, someone she can work hard, since the Reverend’s party is only next week.”

  “Clarence won’t think much of that idea,” Old Mol said. “He doesn’t let the young ones out.”

  “Don’t meddle in,” Cora snapped. “During the day I can work them as I please—that’s the bargain he struck with me to have them here at all.” She gave Old Mol a look that Mattie thought would suit Queen Victoria herself. “Go up and get the new one. If the pastor’s wife wants young, we’ll give her the youngest.”

  The new one. Mattie opened her mouth and closed it again. She wanted to blurt something, anything that might redirect Cora’s attention to Ya Zhen. What about that girl who helped me with laundry yesterday? The words hovered on the tip of her tongue, and she waited, waited, waited.

  Old Mol uncrossed her arms and shifted uneasily. “I, uh…that one is not feeling well. Still indisposed.”

  Cora rolled her eyes. “That’s what you told me yesterday. Indisposed how? A little dyspepsia? Her free meals have disagreed with her delicate constitution?”

  “Certain female troubles.”

  “Like I mentioned when we did wash,” Mattie jumped in, heart racing. “That particular laundry problem with the bloody—”

  “All right, all right,” Cora interrupted, “don’t start in with that again. Just send the other one. I’d rather have her gone for an afternoon anyway.”

  Mattie was flooded with relief, but did her best to look blandly indifferent to the decision. “Mrs. Huntington said she would pick the girl up in front of the hotel at eleven o’clock. Sharp.”

  “How am I to be paid?”

  “She said that she’d pay you herself when she returns the girl this afternoon at supper time,” Mattie told her, hoping like hell that the arrangement wouldn’t make Cora balk.

  Indeed, Cora didn’t look thrilled with the terms. “Seems like I ought to be compensated first,” she said, looking Mattie over, as if it was Mattie’s decision to make. Finally, she turned to Old Mol. “Be sure she’s outside on time. You,” she said to Mattie. She scowled at the bandaged hand. “Of all the times to be careless, Friday is certainly the worst. You’re not going to be any use in the kitchen or waiting tables, and I’m going to let you tell that madman in the kitchen. You can lay out the dining room, though. Get the tables set first. Then upstairs—can you manage turning a guest room?”

  “Yes ma’am,” she said. “Getting the rooms clean won’t be any problem.” She intended to stay all afternoon, as usual. As Lucy had stressed as they sat around her kitchen table, the more typical Mattie’s day appeared to everyone around the hotel, the less likely that a suspicious eye would turn on her when Ya Zhen failed to return. Up before dawn, she’d corked some of Hazel’s laudanum into an old cologne bottle, admiring the ruby-red color a little before she slipped it into her pocket. The little bit she’d taken with her first cup of coffee had helped the pain, and she had more for later, just in case.

  “There are eight rooms to see to,” Cora said. “Ask Mr. Salyer which ones.” She started to walk away, but stopped and looked at both of them. “You don’t need to mention any of this to my husband,” she said. “If he has questions about where that whore got herself off to, tell him he’ll have to speak to me.”

  Just before eleven o’clock, Old Mol let Ya Zhen out the back stairs entrance.

  “Go out front and wait,” she said. “The reverend’s wife will pick you up on the corner.” Her voice was unaccountably soft. “Listen to me, little sister. Here’s the reason I’m not going to wait down there with you: there’s nowhere for a girl like you to hide, understand? You got the woods on one side and the ocean on the other, so if you get out there by yourself and decide to run off, better think again.” She put her head out the door and glanced around the outside stairs before adding a final warning. “You’d miss us plenty if the Chinese Six Company grabbed you,” she said. “They’d drag you back to Frisco and have you working the street cribs. Two bits a feelie.” She reached out as if to caress Ya Zhen’s face. When the girl flinched away from her, Old Mol smiled thinly, showing a glimpse of her horsey teeth. “Well enough. You don’t have to love me, but you best mind me. Get out there and wait now.”

  Ya Zhen picked her way down the rickety staircase, trying not to catch her clothes on the rough banister. Many of the stair risers were bowed and the banister wobbled, a far cry from the ornate front entrance, which was lovingly maintained and less exposed to the weather and the depredations of salt air. Rounding the side of the building, she realized she was out on the street she had seen hundreds of times from her window. She looked up, and yes, there was the yellow curtain. The window looked so small from here. She was seized by the awful idea that her own face would appear there. All the hotel windows stacked above her felt like eyes, and Ya Zhen wondered if Old Mol or Mrs. Salyer was watching her right now, or one of the Wu sisters, put on guard to see if she would try to run.

  At the corner, there was no one waiting for her, so she stood close to the building, several feet away from the big double doors. The relative freedom of the open street wanted to amplify her strangely claustrophobic fear, causing her heart to beat thickly in her ears.

  She leaned against the warm side of the hotel and lifted her face to the sun, working to slow her breathing. The late morning traffic was heavy, but no one seemed to notice her standing there; everyone looked happy to be out in a second day of mild weather. An onshore breeze carried the salty tang of high tide. For the first time in years, she thought about her mother’s small vegetable garden. In spring, little moles would sometimes burrow out of the earth with their long toenails, eyes almost invisible. The face of Li Lau’s baby had looked that way, his eyes tightly closed against a world for
which he was still unformed.

  She looked out at the bay, then turned and let her eyes roam the hills at the opposite edge of town. Again she was struck by how different her perspective was, here on the street, than it had been yesterday up on the hotel roof. The forest looked so much larger, easily accessible. Couldn’t she live there? It was said that people lived in the trees, far back in the woods. Couldn’t she find a place to hide, eat berries and fungus, trap birds, find a stream for fish?

  Two couples came around the corner, strolling toward the hotel, the first of many who would tuck into the mountain of crab Ivo would be hustling out of the kitchen all day long. She backed against the wall to let the couples pass, keeping her eyes on her feet.

  “What’s she doing here?” said one of the women. She wore an elaborate hat that towered over her head with a swath of purple netting and peacock feathers. “Aren’t they supposed to stay with their own kind?” The group stopped in front of the entrance.

  The man walking next to the peacock woman leaned close to Ya Zhen’s face. “Are you lost, Ching Chang Janie? Or are you just stupid?” He grinned at the others, showing a large gap between his front teeth.

  The peacock woman batted at his arm, laughing. “Teddy, you’re terrible.”