Songs of Willow Frost: A Novel

by Jamie Ford

  The man who was selling the flowers said, “I’m sorry for your loss—death is a terrible thing,” as he handed her the symbolic arrangement. Liu Song thanked the man with a stoic whisper and slowly walked away. She led William down the street, past a music store that was playing a sad song she didn’t recognize. From there they cut through an alley and ended up in front of the Jefferson Laundry.

  “Smell bad,” William said as he pinched his nose. “I go home.”

  They walked inside, and Liu Song rang the service bell on the counter quickly, as though doing so would lessen the discomfort—like swallowing a spoonful of rotten cod-liver oil. She tried not to recoil when Auntie Eng stepped through a pair of wooden swinging doors. The stout woman smelled of detergent and yesterday’s sweat. She snorted and forced a smile, revealing a graying tooth that had died at the root. Then she took the flowers and barked out something in Chinese, but her farmland accent was so thick even Liu Song had no idea what the woman had said.

  She turned and walked into the back of the laundry, and Liu Song heard a conversation erupt, quickly turning into a heated argument.

  Liu Song looked at William, who was fidgeting as he held her hand, looking back toward the door and the restaurant across the street. As she waited she hoped the desperation and surrender in her eyes weren’t as contagious as her cold. She tugged on William’s hand. “I’m your ah-ma. I will always be your ah-ma. Do you believe me?”

  William nodded, but he was confused. He probably would have nodded at anything if it meant going to the bakery on the way home.

  When Liu Song looked up again, Auntie Eng had stepped out and was untying her waist apron, cursing at her in Cantonese as she threw it on the floor. She paused for a moment as she looked up at Liu Song, then spat in her face. Liu Song recoiled and closed her eyes while the warm, foul-smelling spittle ran down her cheeks and nose. She heard Auntie Eng storm out as she felt a rough hand place a soft towel in her hand. She wiped her face clean, trying not to gag as the disgusting smell lingered.

  When she opened her eyes, Uncle Leo was standing there. He slicked his thinning hair to one side. His face was wet from perspiration and steam. He took the towel, sniffed the cotton, wiped his forehead and cheeks, and then neatly refolded it. He placed the soiled cloth atop a stack of fresh towels. He didn’t say a word. He just smiled at Liu Song as if to say, I knew you’d come back.

  Sing-Song

  (1926)

  A week later Liu Song stood on a cracked slab of mossy sidewalk outside the Bush Hotel, urging William to avoid the landscape of mud puddles and overflowing gutters. The heavy rain had stopped an hour ago. The afternoon sun was shining, but the water was still flowing downhill from Washington Boulevard all the way to Pioneer Square, washing away a week’s worth of litter, cigarette butts, and vermin.

  William laughed as he tossed a pinecone into the muck and followed it downstream until an emerald-colored automobile ran it over.

  Liu Song felt as though she were watching a ghost as the old tree-green landaulet glided up to the curb. “It’s time to go,” she said to William as she checked her reflection in a compact mirror. She looked like her mother, the young woman she’d once seen in an old sepia photograph. But the sadness in Liu Song’s eyes echoed the pain her mother had been burdened with in the years before she’d died.

  This is just another role. I’m just playing a part, Liu Song thought as she put on a brave smile while William hopped up and down with excitement.

  “Horses?” he asked. “We go ride them?”

  Liu Song shook her head. “No, we just watch. It’ll be so much fun, I promise.” She looked at the new suit William was wearing. New shoes as well—a pair that fit, instead of having to squish his little toes into old, worn leathers with holes in the soles.

  William frowned as he pulled at his tie and stiff, starched collar.

  The driver honked, and Liu Song quickly opened the door and nodded as if in agreement to Uncle Leo. Then she helped William into the back before she sat down next to her former stepfather. He spat out the window and then grumbled, “We’re late.” He patted her thigh and revved the engine, pulling away before she’d even closed the door.

  Liu Song felt trapped, speeding along from Chinatown to Georgetown, past the Rainier Brewery, which was on its last legs, relegated to bottling soda and near beer. And she felt a crushing wave of loneliness as they passed King County Almshouse and Hospital, which sat on a one-hundred-acre stretch of farmland. Liu Song remembered her family being turned away on the stone steps of that brick building. But back then the property had been packed with tents. She touched her nose as she recalled the entire greenbelt redolent of wet canvas and night soil as people lay dying of the flu. She missed her family. A part of her wished she had died at home along with her father and her brothers, and in a way, part of her had. With every mile, she sank further into her regrets, but she’d thought about her desperate straits, and like her mother, she had no choice. She was doing this for William, who sat in the back and laughed and smiled as if this were the best day he’d had in forever, and sadly, it probably was. He smiled all the way to Meadows Race Track.

  “I will introduce you as Liu Song—no last name,” Uncle Leo informed her.

  That’s fine with me. I’m finally free of your name, but now I belong to you again.

  “We’ll be meeting with men—colleagues from the Chong Wa Association, a hotel owner, a labor foreman for the Alaskeros, all very important men.”

  Liu Song nodded.

  “You’ll come and go with my permission,” Uncle Leo said. “You might sing for them sometime, but you’ll perform for me and no one but me.”

  That was their arrangement, which even Auntie Eng had accepted. Liu Song had agreed to be Uncle Leo’s xi sang. She’d escort him to social occasions, grace the room for his business meetings, and entertain his associates at his pleasure. But she knew that wasn’t all that was expected of her. She was his, a sing-song girl in every way.

  She watched William’s head bob in the backseat as he nodded off. She drew a tired breath, struggling to keep her composure. She’d given herself to Uncle Leo in order to keep William fed, clothed, cared for—this was what she had to do to keep him by her side. She was like Margarita Fischer in The Sacrifice, taking someone else’s burden to protect a member of her family.

  LIU SONG HAD been to the Meadows only once, as a little girl. She recalled trainloads of people, dressed in their weekend finery, packed into open cattle cars. She remembered the smell of grass and hay and the sight of the muddy, mile-long track, surrounding a placid pond, cattails swaying in the breeze. There must have been ten thousand people in the grandstand that day, screaming, cheering. Everyone had been so excited on the way down but seemed drunk and dejected on the ride back.

  She walked holding Leo’s arm, about to direct William to the grandstand when Leo barked, “This way!” He pointed to the opulent clubhouse and then cleared his nose, wiped his hand on his pants, and straightened his tie. He looked out of place as they sat on the lower porch at a wicker table where tuxedoed waiters brought them pitchers of ice water, peeled oranges, and lemon slices with honey. Two white men and a Filipino man joined them and talked about his laundry, unions, contracts, promises, and the startling beauty at Leo’s side. Liu Song smiled politely and kept an eye on William as he stood behind a painted rail near the track, watching horses parade by before heading to the starting gate.

  Liu Song listened and regarded the wealthier patrons as they passed Leo’s table and headed upstairs to the veranda. These men and women were all furs, jewels, laughter, and smiles—not haughty, just oblivious to those with less. Though a few men paused and smiled at Liu Song, kissing her hand and chatting with Uncle Leo as he smiled back and nodded. That was when she understood the value of a xi sang. Leo was too controlling to give her to other men (she hoped), but he wasn’t above using her to attract their favor. Leo grinned and was about to speak when all eyes turned to the entrance, where eve
ryone was fawning over a handsome couple as they made a dramatic entrance. Even Liu Song recognized them as they swept into the clubhouse and ventured upstairs, pausing for photos and autographs.

  Uncle Leo furrowed his brow.

  “That’s Molly O’Day and Richard Barthelmess,” Liu Song gushed to Leo and his associates. “I read that they’re filming The Patent Leather Kid at Camp Lewis, south of Tacoma.” The other men smiled and pointed, in awe of the stars and somewhat impressed with her knowledge, which only seemed to irritate Uncle Leo.

  As the commotion faded, a bugler played the Call to the Post. Everyone double-checked their betting slips and waited for the bell to ring and the horses to come thundering out of the gate. All but Liu Song, who glanced at William and then back toward Richard Barthelmess, who was watching the race unfold from the staircase. She remembered his piercing eyes and his cleft chin from The Yellow Man and the Girl. He’d played Cheng Huan, a Buddhist who cared for Lillian Gish, his broken blossom—the unwanted and abused daughter of a prizefighter. Liu Song had read about a reporter so upset by the scenes of abuse that he’d left the set to vomit. Liu Song shook her head solemnly as she remembered the tragic ending, where Lillian was beaten to death. Cheng Huan had built a shrine in her honor before taking his own life.

  As a wave of cheering swept across the clubhouse, Liu Song turned her attention to the track. Spectators rose to their feet for the finish. Some bettors screamed with joy; others swore and tore their tickets, pitching them into the air, where the pieces rained down like confetti at a parade. She watched as William stood with his hands outstretched, trying to catch the bits of paper as they flitted about. He caught a handful and smiled at her. She clapped for him, blowing him kisses.

  Then behind William she saw the triumphant jockey riding his Thoroughbred to the winner’s circle. The small man was clad in leather and silk, with whip in hand. Liu Song grimaced when she saw the welts on the horse’s back and foreleg. She ached for the exhausted horse as she watched its muscles twitch and could smell the sweat and fear. She felt Leo’s hand on her backside and was jealous of the blinders the horse wore. She wished she had something similar to shut out the world.

  Mother’s Daughter

  (1934)

  William walked alongside his mother, who had had enough of the Bush Hotel and the memories that came with it. He followed her across the street, past a man on the corner of Jackson who was passing out pamphlets and yelling, “The Russians did it!” while a muralist painted a scene with George Washington in it on the opposite street. They stepped around families who huddled for warmth near gushing steam vents and avoided policemen who looked weary of another night of having to relocate vagrants.

  “But what happened to Colin?” William asked as they walked. He wasn’t sure how much more he wanted to know about his father—Uncle Leo. There had been such unspoken sadness throughout his childhood. He’d assumed—no, he’d hoped—that the man he’d seen off and on had been Colin. Now it dawned on him that the man in his life must have been someone else. “Did he ever come back for us?” Did he come back for you?

  Willow nodded. “The morning after his fiancée had showed up he packed his things and then came to see me. He was a wreck of apologies and excuses and prior commitments. My heart hurt to see him. He came to say goodbye. He finally professed his adoration, but his actions didn’t match his words. He left the same day. He had to go—even I understood that. He had a mother to take care of and a family business to save, a beautiful fiancée to share his life with—all of his ambitions here, all of his plans were an escape—the spotlight faded and the curtain fell upon all of his hopes and my dreams of a life with him, a better life for us. But I didn’t give up acting.”

  William listened to his mother, who seemed like a shadow of the woman she portrayed on-screen. She rubbed her thin arms to ward off the chill in the air.

  “I was so hurt, so angry with him, but also so desperate and frightened of the possibility of losing you.” Willow shook her head. “Colin left me heartbroken. But he promised to come back for me. He left me with money, some money anyway. He promised to set things right. He said that he’d find a partner to run his father’s business, or force his brother to fill his shoes. He said that the woman who had shown up was a problem he would resolve. That he wanted me to carry on as best I could. That we would fix this whole mess and start over—he begged for me to have patience. He wrote to me and said that he was a dragon and I was his phoenix. And that one day we would be together again and my life would change, I’d transform.”

  “When did he come back?”

  William watched his mother for a long time. She didn’t answer, then finally shook her head. “It took him a year to write that, and by that time I’d given up all hope. Then the letters came, quite often. And in those letters he said that he’d return as soon as he could—six months more, perhaps—a year at the most.” William watched as she drew a ragged breath and exhaled slowly. “But those months became five long years.”

  The same amount of time I’ve been at Sacred Heart. William recognized the irony. Right after you said you’d be right back.

  “I’d lost my job when the music store closed. I was an unwed mother, a dancer, and no man in his right mind would have anything to do with me. Besides, if I married a Chinese man, I’d lose my citizenship and might have to go to China—a place I’d never been. I had no idea what that would mean for you. But I couldn’t marry a white man either, not that anyone wanted me for more than …” She trailed off. “My reputation was in the gutter. I lived in fear of losing you permanently to the state at best and Uncle Leo at worst. For months I went to bed every night weary, hungry, sick, and fearing a knock on the door. I woke every morning rushing to your bed to make sure you were still there. Your third birthday came and went. I didn’t even celebrate it.”

  William stopped his mother, who was so lost in the story that she almost walked into traffic. When the light changed, he walked her across the street. They passed a familiar alley, and William heard music and boisterous sounds from the Wah Mee Club—gamblers cheering on a winning streak, and a collective groan when someone rolled an unlucky seven.

  “I worked two, sometimes three jobs—everything temporary, singing, dancing, and acting a little, when I could, which wasn’t very often,” his ah-ma continued. “But as my mother found out years earlier, women’s jobs don’t pay very much, hardly enough to live on. I even went back to the Stacy Mansion, hoping to find work as a singer, but I had been a novelty, yesterday’s news. They barely remembered me, and nobody cared. As a last resort I approached Mrs. Peterson for a mother’s pension. I even let some local priest splash water on your head so you’d qualify. I tried desperately to better my English so you could speak like an American. But she turned me down. She said I wasn’t old enough to be a pensioner and that if I loved you I should just give you up. I left her office and never went back. In the end, I had a tiny bit of money tucked away. That got us by for a while. I made it last as long as I could.”

  As they walked, William wondered where they were going. In the darkness his ah-ma seemed more ghost than human, more shade than substance, more of a memory than a mother. He watched as she touched an old movie poster that had been pasted to a brick wall; the paper was cracked and chipped, peeling. As they walked the air seemed fresher, the sounds of motorcars and club music more familiar. He’d walked King Street before with his ah-ma, years ago. They’d walked this avenue often.

  “I was only a girl,” she said as tears streamed down her cheeks. “But as Colin always pointed out, I was my mother’s daughter and I could always act—always put on a performance. So I took on a new role as a xi sang. Leo had always wanted a sing-song girl—a pretty girl to accompany him, someone he could show off. And I wanted you. So I pawned my dignity, for whatever it was worth.” She paused as though she were waiting for a reaction, one of anger or rejection. William didn’t know how to feel or what to say, so he said nothing and kept walking.
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  “I went to meetings and socials, and sang and performed opera for Leo and his clients. I was his … companion. And he paid my rent and let me keep you. He even let you come along on some of our outings,” she said as she stared into the darkness. “I … made the best of the worst of things. I kept going. For three long years, I kept playing my part, always thinking I would get away—that I’d take you and we’d disappear. But I could never save up enough money to be sure. And I was afraid that if we fled and failed to escape, I’d lose you forever. Then the world fell apart.”

  “The Crash?” William asked as he looked around the street and saw boarded-up buildings and a man sleeping on a park bench, cradling a half-empty wine bottle like a mother holding a child. The rounders were everywhere, men who worked all summer and drank all winter, drifting from one mission home to another.

  His ah-ma paused for a moment, then kept walking. “That too.”

  Gilded

  (1929)

  Liu Song opened the fine silk robe Uncle Leo had given her and turned sideways in front of the bathroom mirror. Her hands contoured her belly, which two months earlier had been smooth, flat, and soft to the touch. Now her belly felt as firm as a green winter melon. Her stomach protruded as though she’d gorged herself on an eight-course meal, taking extra helpings of dessert. After years of being careful and taking every precaution, of surviving close calls and drinking the bitter root tea prescribed by the old, white-bearded man at the Hen Sen herb shop, her worst nightmare had repeated itself. Liu Song didn’t look as though she was carrying a child, yet, but she certainly felt pregnant. Her nausea hadn’t been as bad as it had been with William. She drank ginger ale and smoked clove cigarettes, which helped to keep her food down. But she was sore, seemingly everywhere. Her sensitive parts felt more sensitive. She found that she could cry for hours for any reason and sometimes no reason at all, though she certainly had her pick of subjects to rue, the least of which was simply remembering who the father was. Liu Song shuddered and rubbed the goose bumps on her arms.