Women of the Silk

by Gail Tsukiyama

  Yu-sung took several deep breaths and looked down again toward the groves. For a moment, she thought she saw some movement of the leaves on an otherwise windless day. She straightened, smoothed back her hair, and slowly began walking down to the groves.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1936

  Pei

  Pei lived with the last glimpse of her mother for weeks after they returned from visiting her parents. She spoke continually of their next visit, and of finding Li.

  “Li can’t be far from my parents,” she said. “My mother said the farm was just over the hill.”

  Pei was sitting in Lin’s small, windowless office at the silk factory. For the first time in months they were busy again with a large order. The steady cranking sound of the machines filled the air. The factory had seen some very hard times for the past few years. There’d been a steady decline since the depression, forcing other factories to close down. Many of their sisters were retiring early to spinsters’ houses, or finding employment elsewhere as servants in Canton or Hong Kong. The owner, Chung, held on, but it was just a matter of time before they might have to look elsewhere for work.

  Outside, the commanding voice of Chen Ling could be heard above the loud machinery. “Those over there, yes, yes, be careful!” she said, giving orders to the men from the manufacturers who came to pick up the racks of spun silk.

  When Pei rose to close the door, the small moment of quiet was like a gift. She waited for some kind of response from Lin.

  “Is everything all right?” Pei finally asked.

  “Everything’s fine, for now,” Lin answered. “We just have so much to do in the next week, and then afterward I’m not sure we’ll even be here if things don’t get better.” She looked up helplessly at Pei.

  “We’ll be all right,” Pei said gently. “We can always go to Canton or Hong Kong like the others. Besides, everything’s changing so quickly, who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

  Lin tried to smile. She nodded her head absentmindedly. Pei knew Lin had been worried about more than just the demise of their silk factory. The internal struggles of the country were no longer something distant, and the Japanese devils were making their way toward them at an alarming rate. They watched and waited, certain that they would have to leave Yung Kee anyway in a matter of months, regardless of anything else.

  Still, Pei knew there was something else bothering Lin.

  “What’s really wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t know why I’m acting so foolish,” Lin answered. “I don’t know what’s got into me, it’s just the work and the Japanese.

  “I know I haven’t been much help. I’ve been so preoccupied with my family that I haven’t been able to see or hear anything else,” Pei apologized. She watched Lin, waiting. “What is it?” she finally asked. “I know there’s something else.”

  “There is something else,” Lin said, trying to shake off her uneasiness. “Chen Ling spoke to me this morning about Moi. She may have to let her go. It seems that Moi is frightening the girls. It’s gone beyond her talking to the air; now she won’t let anyone into the kitchen, and screams murder if anyone should go near Auntie Yee’s room.”

  “Where would she go?” asked Pei. “The girls’ house is the only home she knows!”

  “Chen Ling knows that. That’s why she wants me to speak to Moi, in hopes that something can be worked out. It goes without saying that Moi will always be taken care of.”

  “She can’t possibly live anywhere else after all her years at the girls’ house!”

  Pei began to pace back and forth. Moi had been an integral part of the girls’ house, just as Auntie Yee had. Without her, the house would lose its last hold on the past.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll go see Moi this evening,” Lin said soothingly. “We’ll work something out. Now go, we have an order to fill!”

  “You’ll think of something,” Pei said.

  Lin smiled wearily.

  Pei opened the door and hesitated. She wanted to turn back and say something to ease Lin’s mind, but the harsh sound of machinery entered, making the room vibrate with a life of its own.

  Gathering

  Moi dragged her bad leg quickly across the kitchen and filled a clay jar with a handful of rice. In a few days the jar would be full and no one would know that any rice had been missing from each evening’s meal. She did this with equal vigor when it came to tea and flour, though she knew this siphoning off of food would soon have to end. It was getting much too difficult to get enough food for each meal, much less to save some. The roads and harbor were heavily guarded by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops, watching for the Communist infiltrators who stole much of the incoming food supply for their own stomachs.

  Moi jerked forward and looked up when she heard a noise from outside. She listened carefully, and when she was satisfied that it was only the night rumblings of the neighboring cats, she returned to her work. When she looked up again, Moi smiled to see Auntie Yee sitting in a chair across the room, watching her work.

  “Another jar is almost filled,” Moi said, proudly holding up the jar to show Auntie Yee.

  “Have you hidden them?” asked Auntie Yee.

  “Just as you told me.” Moi laughed. “No one dares to enter your room.”

  Auntie Yee nodded her approval and watched silently as Moi filled two other jars with the dry food. When she was through, Moi closed the jars tightly and carried them to her hiding place, underneath her bed. She guarded them with the tenacity of a mother for her child, and no one could enter the kitchen without her permission, including Chen Ling. When the jars were filled, Moi would sneak them upstairs to Auntie Yee’s room.

  When Moi returned to the table, Auntie Yee was standing and inspecting Moi’s evening meal.

  “The girls are getting enough to eat?” Auntie Yee asked.

  “Oh, yes, I never take more than we can afford.”

  Auntie Yee smiled. “Good, good.”

  Moi hesitated, then said, “I think Chen Ling is becoming suspicious.”

  “Ah, Chen Ling can never leave well enough alone, even if it’s for her own good!”

  “What should I do?”

  Auntie Yee moved back and began pacing across the kitchen, her feet floating above the floor. “Continue as you are, but if Chen Ling persists, then stop gathering the food until it is safe again.”

  “Can’t we just tell her?”

  Auntie Yee shook her head and rolled her eyes upward. “Who would believe you? Not Chen Ling, especially if you tell her that I was the one who told you to gather food for the difficult times ahead. To her I am dead and buried. They would all think you’ve gone mad—they already do!”

  Moi silently bowed her head. Knowing that Auntie Yee was right, she could think of nothing else to say. She was only too grateful to have Auntie Yee back at the girls’ house keeping her company. Moi didn’t want to disturb her spirit and possibly lose her forever. Instead of arguing with Auntie Yee, Moi looked up and nodded her head obediently at her oldest friend.

  That evening, when Moi answered the door, she was surprised to see Lin and Pei waiting to enter. It had been months since she had last seen the two, and unlike with other girls who came and went, Moi was genuinely happy to see them.

  “You have come to see Chen Ling?” Moi asked expectantly.

  “No, we wanted to see you,” said Lin, who had always been Moi’s favorite among all the others.

  “Me?” Moi laughed bashfully.

  She stepped back and let the two young women in, leading them to the dining room. When they were seated Moi went to the kitchen and returned carrying tea.

  “What is it that you want to speak to me about?” Moi finally asked, standing beside them.

  “Sit down, Moi,” said Pei, pulling out a chair for her.

  Moi hesitated at first, then sat uncomfortably beside them.

  Lin then cleared her throat and said, “Some of the girls wanted us to talk with you. It’s about the w
ay you’ve been acting—”

  “Who?” Moi demanded.

  “It doesn’t matter who,” continued Lin. “It’s just that you’ve been frightening some of them when you scream at them to stay away from the kitchen.”

  Moi half stood up from her chair, her hands gesticulating in the air. “Isn’t it Moi who cooks for them every night and cleans up after them! They can have every other room in the house, but the kitchen belongs to Moi. You knew that when you were here!”

  “What about Auntie Yee’s room?” asked Pei.

  Moi looked stubbornly at the two of them and defended her position, as all her years battling with Auntie Yee had taught her. “The room is mine. Yee left it for me to use as I wish. I don’t want her spirit disturbed. Besides, if they just stayed where they belonged there would be no trouble!” Moi said, mumbling the rest of her thoughts to herself.

  “Can’t we find a simple way to settle this problem?” Lin pleaded.

  Moi straightened and said angrily, “There is only one way to solve the problem: Tell them to stay away from my kitchen once and for all!”

  Then Moi pushed back the chair and quickly went into the safe haven of her kitchen. She sat rigid on her bed in the darkness, not answering the pleas of Lin and Pei to come out and talk to them. Still, neither of them dared to enter her kitchen, which brought an immediate smile of victory to Moi’s face. Moi waited until she was sure they had given up and left, listening for the final click of the front door. Then, very carefully, her hand felt underneath the bed until she had counted by touch the three hidden jars of stored food. Once assured of their safety, Moi let her body relax onto the bed and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  1938

  Pei

  Everything moved swiftly in the years following Pei’s visit to her parents. All the echoes of war she had suppressed came rising up, filling their lives with growing fear. Even though the war had been raging within China for so many years, Yung Kee had existed untarnished and unaffected by much of it. The little bits of information they heard filtered down to them through those who came and went from Canton and other large cities. Pei lay sleeping within her own dreams, only to be awakened now that the storm was finally reaching them. And like all gathering storms, it had grown to full strength as it headed toward their enclosed world.

  What had been such a simple trip to the outlying villages was now a series of hardships. Several checkpoints were set up to guard against agitators and keep a watchful eye on the Japanese. With the fighting in the south escalating, fewer and fewer people were allowed easy movement from one place to another. Pei tried in vain to find out more information about her sister Li, but her mother wrote letters slowly if at all. Pei received only a few letters from her mother, then heard nothing more. In large, shaky characters, her mother wrote very little of what Pei craved, any information about Li. Her mother said only that too many years had passed, that she couldn’t be certain where Li was. Her father knew even less. Yet, even if it was a slow, frustrating process, Pei knew she wouldn’t give up until she found Li again. She could only hope that her family would remain safe in all the uncertainty that surrounded them.

  Each night, Chen Ling began gathering those of the girls left at the factory for nightly meetings. With the ongoing war, the production of silk had slowed to the point that only a handful of girls remained. Only one of the factory’s three buildings remained in operation. Chen Ling took on the responsibility of preparing them for the time when they would have to leave the factory. As usual, this came to Chen Ling naturally, and Pei always marveled at her talent in bringing even the most demure to their feet.

  “We are the last ones,” Chen Ling said. “And our days are numbered. Now we must prepare for our safe futures, as many of our sisters have done. If you haven’t already, then you must begin to think of your lives and in what direction you will journey.”

  As always, they listened to what Chen Ling had to say and obeyed.

  At one meeting, it was agreed that the women would all stay at the factory until its closing. Pei and Lin knew this would be in only a matter of weeks, yet they needed the time to slowly feel their way into what appeared a very hostile world. Kung Ma, who had always said very little throughout their meetings, was slowly preparing to retire to a spinsters’ house. Chen Ling and Ming spoke of vegetarian halls in the countryside, where many unmarried sisters could go and give themselves to the Buddhist faith. Lin began to speak of their going to Hong Kong, knowing that if the Japanese should invade, Canton would quickly be taken as a vital port. Lin wrote to her family and anxiously awaited news from them. Still, all the women held on to the hope that things weren’t as bad as they appeared.

  Much to Pei’s relief, Moi had stayed on at the girls’ house, serving them tea at each meeting and remaining in full command of her kitchen. She still allowed no one to enter her kitchen or Auntie Yee’s room. Chen Ling had given up, allowing Moi to do as she pleased. “She’s old, and has her strange ways,” Chen Ling said, surrendering. “Let her do as she wishes.” So Moi moved through the house as unapproachable as ever, keeping her secrets and avoiding any direct contact with them.

  One evening, when Pei and Lin returned from a meeting at the girls’ house, Pei was given a stained envelope that had come for her that afternoon. She took possession of the letter, hoping it would contain some news about her sister Li. But Pei immediately saw it wasn’t in the shaky writing of her mother. She quickly tore open the letter and read the brief note, feeling a knot of disbelief growing in her stomach. On the paper was the awkward, scribbled writing of a stranger. In a few crude lines, it told Pei that her mother had died in her sleep, and that her father had buried her among his ancestors. Pei read the letter over and over, trying to rearrange the words so they would tell her something else. She imagined the unconcerned letter-writer from the village whom her father had paid to write the words, and they stung her heart even more. Pei couldn’t move, caught in a tearless daze until Lin found her, the wrinkled piece of paper lying innocently on her lap. Lin read the letter, and then, whispering “I’m sorry,” led Pei upstairs to her bed.

  That night, Pei’s disturbed sleep was filled with shadows and spirits, which seemed to stay just out of sight so she couldn’t see the faces of those who haunted her dreams. Pei dozed and woke several times in the night, the darkness of the room leading her back into the hazy stupor of sleep. Then, it was clearly her mother who came to her in a dream, once again silent, and as beautiful as in her youth. Her mother hovered over her and whispered just once how much she loved Pei, and how happy she was to be reunited with her dead children. The rest Yu-sung said with her eyes, the years of work and restraint slowly disappearing into a clear, peaceful gaze. When Pei tried to reach up and touch her mother one last time, she jerked forward and woke, only to find the dawn’s muted light seeping in and her mother gone.

  Pei felt nothing. The emptiness seemed to swallow her whole. She heard Lin’s slight breathing from the bed next to hers, yet it gave her no comfort. Pei sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. She needed to be holding on to something. Slowly the cold permeated her body, followed by an uncontrollable trembling. It was her inability to stop trembling that first brought her tears. Then Pei began to cry, at first quietly so she wouldn’t wake Lin, then without care.

  Pei couldn’t tell how long it was before she realized the oil lamp was burning brightly beside her. She lay curled up in one corner of her bed. Then she heard Lin’s soothing voice calling her back to reality, and felt Lin’s arms wrap tightly around her. Only then did her tears calm.

  After her mother’s death, Pei’s sleep continued to be restless with fears she couldn’t name. Stories of the war and of violence filled the air. Tales of Japanese executions spread into the most remote parts. Men, women, and children who by fate’s hand had escaped the Japanese invasions of Shanghai and Nanking made a desperate run south. Many of those who had not starved to death along the way lived to tell the tale
s of those they saw slaughtered. The Japanese had raped and murdered hundreds of thousands at will, creating mass graves on the city streets. Bodies were left to rot, producing an unbearable stink of death until they were buried in mass graves.

  Each day Pei tried to find a way to reach her father. She’d written several times, hoping he would go to the village letter-writer and send her a more detailed account of her mother’s death or some clue to her sister Li’s whereabouts, but the days only brought his familiar silence.

  It wasn’t a surprise to any of them when their long-held fears about the silk factory came true. It was a windy, dry afternoon when Chung came to the factory in his large black car. There was only a small group of girls left; the others had scattered to spinsters’ houses and other jobs overseas. They were called outside to listen to what Chung had come to say, knowing full well it was about closing the silk factory. Chen Ling and Lin led the handful of women out to the open courtyard, just as they had several years ago to the sad victory that had cost Sui Ying her life.

  Seeing Chung again, defeated and so much older, still didn’t diminish the hatred Pei felt for him. He stood alone this time, without his bodyguards or their weapons, wiping off the dust and sweat that had collected on his forehead.

  “You must know,” Chung began, “that the past few years have been difficult. And so, even though I’ve done all in my power to keep this factory running, it’s no longer a wise course, and I regret to say we have come to the end of the road. I just want you all to know that I hold no bad feelings toward any of you over our past grievances.”