“Then he’s feeling better. That’s good to hear. Auntie Lai says there’s a bad virus going around.”
Emma swallowed, her mouth dry and bitter. “He was holding hands with another girl.”
Mah-mee’s eyes grew wide, the lines deepening on her forehead. “Another girl?” Mah-mee whispered under her breath. “Are you sure?”
Emma nodded.
“The dirty devil!” Mah-mee snapped.
A warm slant of sunlight filtered through the windows as Mah-mee paced the length of the living room, her head lowered in thought, arms crossed on her chest. She paused for a moment, absently smoothing back a strand of hair. She mumbled something Emma couldn’t hear, then walked out of the living room and down the hall to knock lightly on Joan’s door. Without waiting for an answer, she opened it and disappeared inside, closing the door behind her.
Emma hesitated, then followed and listened against Joan’s door. Much to her relief, Mah-mee’s voice remained calm.
“Just talk to him. He may have a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
“I can’t.”
“But why? I don’t understand. Perhaps she was just a friend.”
“She was more than just a friend!” Joan snapped back. “Joseph lied to me about being sick so he could chase after her! The picture seems clear enough!”
Emma stepped away from the door, expecting Mah-mee to explode.
But there was only the faintest pause before Mah-mee said, “You might as well know now, this isn’t a world that’s simple for women. Sometimes you must swallow your pride and move on.”
“I’ll move on then.” Joan’s voice sounded flat, indifferent.
Still, Mah-mee’s voice remained even. “Do you think it has been easy for me? For any of us? We accept what we must and make the best of it. All foolishness aside, a husband always returns to his wife and family.”
“Maybe you can accept that sort of philandering, but I can’t!”
Emma waited for Mah-mee to say something, but there was only silence, then her mother’s quick footsteps. Emma ran back to sit on the sofa just as Mah-mee emerged from Joan’s room, marched straight into her own room, and slammed the door behind her.
Emma leaned back against the sofa, wondering where Ba ba was, and when he would return from his business trip.
After dinner, Emma stepped into Joan’s dark, airless room, closing the door behind her. “It’s me,” she whispered.
“Go away.” Joan’s voice was sluggish.
Emma clicked on the lamp beside the bed. Joan lay in her slip on the disheveled bed, her arm raised against the bright light. “Joseph called again.”
“Tell him to go cheat on someone else!” Joan groaned.
“Why won’t you just talk to him?” Emma pleaded. “He deserves another chance.”
Joan lowered her arm. Her eyes were red and swollen. “Why?”
“Because everybody makes mistakes.”
“That wasn’t a mistake, moi-moi.” Joan raised her voice. “He knew exactly what he was doing! Now he has to accept the consequences!”
“Well, if you ever made a mistake, I bet Joseph would forgive you. He wouldn’t just let you suffer!”
Joan sat up against her headboard. “I have made mistakes. I have suffered!”
Emma’s blood rushed to her head. “You’re so spoiled because everybody thinks you’re beautiful, but you’re just being stubborn, acting like you’re Garbo!”
Joan sat there stiff and pale with her arms crossed. “What do you know, you’re only a child, you can’t possibly understand, you’re probably in love with Joseph yourself. Well, you can have him and good riddance to you both!”
Emma’s eyes stung. “When did you become so cold? Where did the old Joan go?” She turned and ran from the room before Joan could answer.
Alone in her room, Emma began drawing furiously on a pad of paper. The dark lines ran into each other in a blur. Her breath came in spastic jerks. Tears ran down her jaw and dripped onto her white sheet of drawing paper. She was sick of trying to understand all of love’s contradictions and tired of trying to understand Joan. All she wanted was to turn the clock back, to see her vivacious sister, lip-sticked and perfumed once again, ready to collect on all debts owed.
But wasn’t Emma herself partly to blame? If only she’d made an excuse today when Joan invited her to go shopping. Too much homework! Have to practice piano! A chapter in Jane Eyre to read! But, no, she jumped at the chance to run down to Central, only to have as the result…The memory felt like a dull, throbbing ache.
Emma ripped the paper from the pad and tore it in half, then again into fourths. It scared her to think that you couldn’t really know someone, not even your own sister, if she didn’t want you to.
At the end of the week, the doorbell rang again. Emma glanced at her watch, then ran out of her room to answer it. Every day at noon for the past ten days, Joseph had sent a servant and his old aunt balancing on tulip feet with gifts for Joan. Boxes of candy piled up in the kitchen. By the end of the fifth day, Joan stumbled out of bed, gathered up all the sickenly sweet roses that filled the flat, and threw them down into the courtyard. Emma knew the greater distance Joan created between them, the faster Joseph would fade away.
“For Missee Lew,” the old aunt said, handing Emma a small box.
Emma smiled, holding the gift, and watching the old aunt sway, then lean back against the servant. Emma would never forget the story Joseph had told her of how his aunt had come from Hankow to live with his family after the 1911 revolution. With the fall of the Manchu dynasty, his aunt’s bound feet were a constant reminder of her gentry roots. Left with no acceptable opportunities, she was sent to Hong Kong to live with Joseph’s family long before he was born. She had helped raise Joseph and his sisters and would do anything to ensure their happiness.
“Thank you. Please, won’t you come in?” Emma asked.
But today like every day Joseph’s old aunt smiled and shook her head. Then she turned around and, with the help of the servant, made her way slowly back down the steps.
Emma knocked softly on Joan’s door before entering, still shy and hesitant since their argument. She carried the small box wrapped in cheerful red-and-gold paper along with the latest Movie Mirror magazine. The room was dark and musty, smelling of stale perfume. She pulled apart the drapes and pushed open the window, filling the room with harsh sunlight and outside voices. Then she turned and held out the box. “Another gift from Joseph.”
Joan lay still, her dark hair spread out weblike against her pillow. “I don’t want it,” she whispered. “Just leave me alone. My stomach’s bothering me.”
Emma hesitated, then placed the gift on the bedside table. She sat down with a bounce on her sister’s bed and flipped through the movie magazine on her lap. “I picked up this issue for you at the store this morning. They say Lana Turner is a smash in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Real steamy kitchen-table scene. There’s also a new Li Lihua film out called Phony Phoenixes. And guess what! Gary Cooper told the House Un-American Activities Committee that he’s turning down scripts that have anything to do with Communist ideas.”
A slight smile crossed Joan’s lips. It was a good start, and Emma refused to let her sister slip away from her. “It’s a nice day. Do you want to go for a walk?”
“Not today.” Joan turned away.
Emma kept up her one-sided conversation. “Auntie Go’s coming over with the latest Paris sweater designs to show you. Oh, and Foon needs to know if you want thousand-year-old eggs in your jook.”
Joan turned on her side and pulled her pillow down, hugging it close. “Just tell them I don’t need anything right now, except to rest. And think.”
“It’s been two weeks,” Emma said, pleading. “We miss you.”
Joan, her eyes moist and shiny, stared at Emma for a moment. Then Joan closed her eyes against the white November light.
By December, Emma’s spirits were lifted by Lia’s visit from Macao. S
he was to arrive two days after Christmas. They’d been planning it for months, and even her sister’s despair couldn’t dampen Emma’s excitement. As the date grew closer, Emma could hardly sleep. The night before Lia’s arrival, Emma sat late into the night at the dining room table and carefully made a list of all the places she wanted to take Lia—the Peninsula Hotel, Repulse Bay, Stanley Village, the beach at Shek O, the tram ride up Victoria Peak.
“Drink this, or you’ll be too tired for your friend,” Foon said, appearing from the kitchen. She placed a bowl of dark, foul-smelling tea on the table.
“What is it?” Emma looked up and wrinkled her nose.
“Tea. Made from white flower and snake-tongue grass. Help you sleep.” Foon waited by her side.
Emma knew better than to argue with Foon. Even Joan gave up and drank whatever she was told, although it seemed that her sister’s ulcer was taking forever to heal. Emma put her pen down and lifted the bowl in both hands. The tea smelled like dirt and licorice and tasted even worse. She held her breath and in three gulps drank it down, then handed the empty bowl back to her old servant.
“Good for you,” Foon said, returning to her kitchen.
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, Emma caught a taxi down to the Hong Kong harbor to wait for Lia’s ferry. The sun was out and the wind mild, but all around her harbor life revolved like a storm. Large boats and sampans skillfully swept past one another. Ships from all over the world tilted and swayed. Emma strained to see where they were from as she pushed through waves of travelers toward the ferry building. Spittle spattered the ground, and the smell of urine and cigarettes swirled in the air. Just outside the ferry building, rickshaws formed a snakelike line to await disembarking passengers, while vendors of candy and firecrackers hawked their wares.
Emma leaned against the gate until she heard the deep wail of the horn announcing the ferry’s arrival.
“It’s here!” she said aloud, though no one in the surging crowd paid any attention to her. As the gates opened, Emma looked around, suddenly anxious. She stared at the disembarking passengers. What if she didn’t recognize Lia? After all, they hadn’t seen each other in over a year. But just as the thought filled her mind, she looked up to see her tea-colored friend with the wild hair coming straight toward her.
“Lia!” Emma yelled above the noise.
Lia smiled widely, erasing their last year apart, dispelling the sadness of Joan’s break up, Emma’s loneliness, and all the days she’d dreamed of being far away.
In the taxi on the way home, Emma could almost smell the tropical scent of flowers and coconut. Sitting close to Lia, she sensed the strength in her friend’s strong shoulders, dark against her pale yellow sundress. They had both grown taller in the past year; Lia’s breasts and hips were full, while Emma remained thin and wiry.
“How are you?” Emma asked, suddenly shy.
“I’m well. But you’ve been sad. I can tell from your letters. Even if you don’t say.” Lia paused to look at the tall buildings in Central. “So big.”
“My sister hasn’t been well,” Emma said at first, then quickly changed the subject to something lighter. “There’s so much I want to show you. We won’t have time to sleep!”
“I can go back to Macao to sleep.” Lia laughed.
“And how is your mamae?”
Lia sat forward as they began winding their way up the hill, past another new building cocooned in bamboo scaffolding. Then she looked back at Emma. “She’s well. No more visits from her great-aunt Carmelita.”
They both laughed out loud, and Emma brightened with each musical word that Lia spoke.
Lia’s visit passed so quickly, Emma wished she could stop time. They went someplace new each day—Repulse Bay, Stanley Village, and Shek O. On the fourth day they saw The Best Years of Our Lives at the King’s Theatre, then had tea at the Peninsula. On the last day, they rose early to catch the Victoria Peak tram so as not to miss the morning light. Emma also hoped it would make their final day together last longer.
The large peak tram squeaked as it made its way back down the steep mountain. The cables vibrated while Emma and Lia waited on the platform.
“Will your sister be better soon?” Lia asked.
Emma shuffled from one foot to the other. Beneath her feet she felt the platform shake as the tram approached. “It’s not just because of the ulcer that you haven’t seen much of her. She also broke up with someone she was close to.”
Lia shook her head. “Brokenhearted.”
“Even if she won’t admit it. I don’t understand her sometimes.”
The tram came to a full stop in front of them. The door slid open and a few people disembarked. Emma and Lia hurried in to take their seats.
“There’s no understanding love,” Lia continued. “It’s like a great weight when it’s with you, and also when it leaves you.”
“Sounds like you’ve been in love,” Emma teased.
Lia blushed. “I’ve seen enough of my relatives to know. Joan will be better soon, I bet.”
The tram began its ascent toward the peak, and Lia became quiet, watching intently as they rose above Hong Kong, her mouth open slightly. All Emma could think of was how fast the days had passed, and how empty she would feel when Lia returned to Macao.
At the top of the tram line was a restaurant and a small gift shop. Emma led Lia away to the circular path around the peak.
“When we were young, Mah-mee and Ba ba brought us here for walks,” Emma said over her shoulder. Lia followed her along the path. “I remember once when I was about seven, and there was a thick mist up here. Like we were wrapped in a white blanket. Mah-mee had warned us, ‘Don’t go far, you can’t see your five fingers right in front of you.’ So I held out my arms like a blind person and started running, following the fingers that I could barely make out in front of me. Before I knew it, I was lost. I started crying. I couldn’t see anything but a cool white haze. I’d never felt so completely alone before. And then I saw something coming towards me. It was just a shadow at first, and it scared me, but when it came closer, I saw it was my sister, reaching out for me. Somehow Joan had found me in all that fog.”
Lia laughed. “I couldn’t lose my brothers and sister if I tried.”
As they walked farther, the shrubbery grew thicker. Jasmine and wild indigo, daphne, rhododendrons, and shiny wax trees lined their path. The air was so much sweeter and fresher than down in the city. Emma breathed in the rich fragrances and couldn’t get enough. They continued walking until they came to a sudden gap in the shrubbery that opened up to them like a window. Down below lay all of Hong Kong, breathtaking in the morning light. And beyond, ferries crossed the shimmering harbor to Kowloon.
Emma remembered the game they used to play in Macao and turned to Lia. “And what do we see down below?”
Lia raised her hand against the glaring light. “I see the entire world below us.”
In early January, a week after New Year’s Day, Joan surprised everyone by getting up one morning in time for breakfast. Lia had been gone a week, and Emma was still feeling miserable. She dropped her sweet bun in her plate when Joan sat down across from her. Mah-mee, still in her robe, pulled it tighter as if someone she didn’t know had suddenly arrived.
“Tso sun,” Joan said, almost cheerful.
“Good morning,” Emma said, surprised.
Joan was fully dressed in cotton slacks and an off-white tunic. Her hair was combed back into a ponytail, revealing a calm, if tired, face.
“How are you feeling?” Mah-mee asked.
“Better. My stomach isn’t burning anymore. I think the fire’s finally out.”
Mah-mee smiled and called for Foon, who peeked out the door, then hurried from the kitchen carrying a bowl of plain jook. “Good. Don’t have to walk so far,” she said, placing the bowl in front of Joan.
“Can’t I have something else for a change?” Joan asked Foon.
“One more week,” Foon answered, disappeari
ng back into the kitchen.
Emma leaned over and gave Joan the rest of her sweet bun, spread generously with butter and marmalade.
After breakfast, Joan looked across the table and said, “Let’s go out for a walk.”
“What?” Emma wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
Joan smiled. “It’s a good day for a walk.”
Emma looked at Mah-mee, who simply said, “Don’t walk too far.”
Without a word, Emma scraped her chair back and ran to her room for a coat.
The beginning of January had brought cooler weather. The sky was a flat, dull gray—low and heavy. Joan walked slowly at first, but soon Emma heard her inhale large mouthfuls of air, releasing each slowly. Emma waited for Joan to lead the conversation.
“I woke up this morning feeling better,” Joan explained. “It’s a new year and I just didn’t want to be alone anymore.”
Emma walked slowly beside her sister down Conduit Road as they passed Auntie Go’s flat. Emma felt warm and happy. “I’m glad.”
“Mah-mee must be devastated by my breakup with Joseph.” Joan’s voice filled the chilly air. “She must wish I had been a son…then she wouldn’t have to worry about me having to marry someone like Joseph.”
“She’s strong.” The two words came out of Emma’s mouth without any thought, even before she realized the truth of what she was saying.
“Stronger than I am.”
“Stronger than both of us. It isn’t the end of the world you know. You can have anyone you want.”
Joan smiled. “I’m not sure I want anyone else.”
Emma stopped just in front of her sister. “Then why can’t you forgive him? It isn’t too late.”
“I don’t know.” Joan stepped aside and walked on. “It’s just that I felt so sad and angry at first, and now I feel totally empty. Nothing.”
“Maybe you just need more time.”
“I can’t imagine it’ll make any difference.” Joan picked up the pace. “The grief and anger are gone. There’s nothing left.”
Night of Many Dreams Page 10