I stood in Anita’s living room stunned, as though I’d gotten a phone call full of bad news. Not my Rosalie! Oh, Lydia, get a grip! I demanded. You already knew she was gone.
Yes, but not so young! I found myself negotiating. Not so soon! Couldn’t she have had a life of happiness with Kai-rong first, and died a contented old lady?
“Are you all right?” Anita eyed me with concern.
“Yes, I’m sorry.” I drew a breath. “It’s just, I’ve been reading Rosalie’s letters at the Jewish Museum and I got very fond of her. I didn’t know she died so young.”
“I read the letters, too. Zayde donated them around the time Lao-li and Li came to this country. I think I would have liked her.”
“Do you-can you tell me what happened?”
“How she died? I just know it was near the end of the civil war. Those last days are something Zayde absolutely never talked about. Do you think it’s important?”
“I don’t know.” Maybe not to the case, I was thinking. But to me. It is to me.
For a moment, we were all silent. I looked at the book Paul Gilder had handed me. “Do you know what this is?”
“He’s never mentioned it. I didn’t even know the box existed while I was growing up. My father brought it with Zayde’s things when Zayde came to live here, but all he knew was it had papers in it.”
“May I look at this?”
Anita nodded. Carefully, I opened the cover. Flakes of leather drifted off the spine. On thick paper flowed column after column of beautiful calligraphy. The first characters on the first page, twice the size of the others, read, “Kairong is back!”
Back, I thought. From England? Just off the Conte Biancamano?
“Can you read that? What is it?” Anita asked.
“I think it’s a diary. The pages are dated. This first one’s May eighth, 1938. That’s the day their ship docked in Shanghai-Rosalie, Paul, and Chen Kai-rong. Anita, what are the letters in the box?”
“I don’t know. I could try to take a look, but not right now, I don’t think.” Paul, with the box on his lap, was running his hand through a set of bamboo chimes. When he stopped, Lily pointed; when he clattered them again, she laughed.
“If you could, it might help. Anything from that time. And I’d like to try to translate this.”
“I don’t know… What if he asks for it? Now that he’s been reminded.”
“We’ll Xerox it,” Bill suggested. “Then you can put it back. It won’t take long.”
“Well.” Anita smiled. “All right. After all, that he gave to you.”
“Can you really read that?” Bill asked as I got back into the car. We’d spent twenty minutes at the Kinko’s in the mall, and then I’d returned the book to Anita, thanking her profusely and trying not to look like I was running out the door.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to?” I airily traced my finger down a column of Chinese characters.
“Because if it was written in Shanghai while Paul Gilder was there, it’s probably in the Shanghainese dialect, which, though Chinese characters carry no phonetic information and therefore can be read by anyone literate, still may be different enough in the vocabulary formed by those characters to baffle a speaker of one of the other Chinese dialects, say for example Cantonese.”
I stared at him. “What are you, Wikipedia?”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind. How do you know all that, what you just said?”
“Anybody trying to impress his Chinese associate into thinking he wasn’t a total loser would have gone out of his way to know that. So can you read it?”
“Anyone trying to impress her lo faan associate into thinking she was a genius wouldn’t admit it if she couldn’t.”
“I already know you’re a genius.”
“Oh. Okay, then, I can read it, but I have to guess at some words. But there’s no question it’s Mei-lin’s diary. Listen how it starts: ‘Kai-rong is back!!!’ That’s written extra big, with emphasis. Then it goes, ‘What-’ uproar, I think that’s the word. ‘The houseboys airing his rooms, Cook racing to market, the kitchen maids peeling and chopping. I wanted to go meet his ship but of course Father and Amah said no.’ Doesn’t that sound like family?”
“Not my family, but I see what you mean.”
I scanned the page. Modern Chinese is written in simplified characters, but at the Mott Street Chinese school my brothers and I had (with varying degress of grumpiness) gone to Saturday mornings, the teachers had been educated before Mao’s reforms. They’d proudly taught us the old ways. And these strokes-made with a pen, I thought, not a brush-were particularly crisp. “Okay,” I said, “now listen.”
“You’re about to show off?”
“I am. Any objection?”
“None.”
So as we drove toward and over the gleaming Hudson, I read the entry out loud. I stumbled occasionally, but generally, I think I did my Chinese teachers proud.
“ ‘Father sent bodyguards, so I’d have been perfectly safe, but it’s not the danger, I know it’s not! The docks are like every place I want to go: A decent young lady can’t be seen there. SO old-fashioned!!! A decent young lady can’t go anywhere except the homes of other decent young ladies. Even then her amah goes with her! A decent young lady is the same as a prisoner!
“ ‘So I’m sitting, waiting. Sitting, waiting!! Amah sent me to work on my embroidery-an ancient, useless art! Though I am rather good at it. But I stuck myself twice when I thought I heard the car. So I threw that aside to start this book.
“ ‘I haven’t put a stroke in it since Kai-rong sent it from Italy. Father wanted me to fill it with calligraphy-another useless art I’m good at! Copies of famous poems. Amah thought that was a lovely idea. I didn’t! I know why Kai-rong sent it: So I could keep a journal the way European women do. Until now it’s been empty, because what could I write about? Whatever happens behind these walls? But now that Kai-rong’s back, things will change! Father and Amah listen to him. He’ll tell them I’m grown up! He’ll make them let me go out! I’ll finally, finally, finally get out from behind these walls! Kai-rong’s come back to rescue me!!!’ ”
That was the first entry. I took a breath.
“Boy,” said Bill.
“No kidding.”
“Girls just wanna have fun, huh?”
“Hey, give her a break! In the old days women could spend their whole lives locked up in the house. And Shanghai was a dangerous place. You’re the one who’s reading a book about it.”
“Doesn’t say much about girls locked behind walls.”
“What does it say?” I was realizing I didn’t know much about wartime Shanghai. “If it doesn’t make me sound like not a genius to ask.”
“Every word you speak makes you sound like the genius you are. Mostly it says the opposite: the place was a nonstop end-of-the-world party. Everyone who didn’t run when the Japanese came was frantically dancing and drinking, pretending nothing had changed.”
“Party like it’s 1936? All during the war, they did that?”
“What we mean by ‘the war’ was different in Shanghai. Until ’forty-two, the only way you could tell there was war in Europe was when Europeans snubbed each other in the streets.”
“But the Chinese civil war? And the Japanese invasion?”
“The civil war had been going on for years. When the Japanese came, Mao wanted to unite with Chiang Kai-shek to fight them, but Chiang wasn’t interested. That worked for the Japanese. Chiang went inland to push Mao north, and Japan set up puppet governments and occupied the coast. Everyone left Europeans alone and Europeans made money. Until ’forty-two, that was ‘the war’ in China.”
“And in ’forty-two?”
“December ’forty-one was Pearl Harbor. A few months later the Japanese locked Allied nationals-English, Belgians, Dutch, Americans-into internment camps.”
“That’s where Alice Fairchild was, one of those. So the party was over then?”
“No. Things got ugly, but the party went on.”
“Who was left to party?”
“To start with, lots of Japanese. And Germans. Vichy French. Neutrals-Swedes, Spanish, Portuguese. Filipinos, Indians. White Russians. Wealthy Chinese.”
“Indians? Weren’t they British citizens? And Filipinos-”
“They were Asian. The Japanese didn’t lock up other Asians, no matter whose citizens they were. They wanted to be loved when they took over that half of the world and Germany took over the other. They didn’t intern the Jewish refugees, either. Japan had no argument with them. To make Germany happy, they moved them to a ghetto-”
“In Hongkew. In 1943. Rosalie and Paul went there. What, you think you’re my only source of historical information?” I looked at the Xeroxed pages. “So here’s poor Mei-lin, in 1938, in the middle of a wild party, and she can’t go.”
We exited the bridge. Bill asked, “How many entries?”
I flipped through. “Hard to say, but the last one’s dated 1943. After that the pages are blank. Oh…”
“Oh, what?”
“Oh, I’m being stupid. You saw how it threw me when Anita told us Rosalie died so young. I just remembered C.D. Zhang saying Mei-lin had disappeared. I asked him what happened and he said, ‘It was wartime.’ ”
“So you’re worried about her, too?”
“How stupid is that? I hardly know her! I mean, obviously I don’t know her at all-”
“It’s not stupid. It’s one of the best things about you.”
“How I get carried away?”
“No,” he said. “How you care.”
I shot him a suspicious look, but he was concentrating on the road as though he were new in town.
After a moment I looked at the papers again. What a day this has been! She could say that again, I thought. To Bill I said, “I have an idea.”
“Good, I like ideas.”
“I’m really hungry.”
“That’s less an idea than a description of your existential situation.”
“It was the preface. I’m suggesting we find someplace for a snack and I read to you.”
Fifteen minutes later I was guarding two stools at the stain less steel counter of Tai-Pan Bakery. Bill was at the register paying for eight-treasure rice and vegetable dumplings. Tai-Pan had not been chosen lightly. It had two virtues: The food was great, and it was on Canal smack in the middle of Jewelry Row. In fact, it was directly across from Mr. Chen’s shop.
“And the point would be?” Bill had asked when I’d suggested it.
“Mr. Chen said he hadn’t been approached by Wong Pan. That doesn’t mean he won’t be, or anyone else won’t be.”
“You think Wong Pan will show his face, if he killed that Chinese cop?”
“He still needs to sell the jewelry.”
By the time Bill brought the tray over, I’d swept the counter clear of crumbs and provided us with chopsticks. After an urgent dumpling, I took Mei-lin’s diary from my bag.
“Keep your eyes open,” I instructed Bill. “If you see Wong Pan, kick me or something.”
“Really?”
“I don’t think so. Are you ready?”
“Can’t wait.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not laughing at Mei-lin, I hope?”
“Absolutely not. I’m looking forward to this. I’ve never read a girl’s diary. Even from sixty years ago, she still might give me some idea how you people think.”
“Us people, Chinese?”
He shook his head. “You people, women.”
“Not happening,” I informed him. “Okay. This second entry’s the same date. Once she started this journal thing, I guess she got into it.” I studied the characters and began to read. “ ‘What a day this has been!’ That’s written big, with emphasis, like before. She’s pretty excitable, I guess. ‘The moment I put my pen down this morning, the car rolled through the gate. By the time I’d rushed downstairs the houseboys were fighting over the honor of carrying Kai-rong’s luggage. Number One Boy had to shout at them-they almost came to blows!
“ ‘Kai-rong swung me around and told me I looked beautiful! He hasn’t changed, his eyes still twinkle! Of course I’ve changed. I was a child when he went away, I’m a lady now. Father and Kai-rong greeted each other formally, with bows and flowery words. (Father frowned at Kai-rong’s European suit. I thought it looked wonderful!) When Father asked about the voyage Kairong said it was pleasant. Only pleasant? A month on the ocean, where you can see for miles, no walls anywhere-only pleasant???
“ ‘We had tea in the garden listening to Kai-rong’s stories. His life is so exciting! He brought gifts-a leather case for Father, Spanish hairpins for Amah (she said he was foolish to spend money on nonsense). For me-British shoes!! With high heels! Black satin for evening, red leather for day! I jumped up and hugged him in a not very ladylike way. Father disapproved of the shoes, but when he saw how happy I was he didn’t forbid me to have them.
“ ‘After Father went to lie down, Kai-rong asked me to tell him about what I’ve been doing. Nothing, I said, nothing nothing nothing! Embroidery, calligraphy, playing the pipa and feeling about to explode! Since the Japanese came Father says the streets are so dangerous I can’t go anywhere! Although I’m allowed to call on the Feng sisters, and Tsang Sui-ling, and how can the streets be dangerous except when I’m going to them?
“ ‘Kai-rong promised to speak to Father and Amah, though he also agrees the streets are more dangerous than they used to be. I said he’d been home half a day, so how would he know? That made him laugh. Be careful what you wish for, he told me, it might come true. I said that was just more ridiculous old musty advice that doesn’t mean anything. If I wish for something it’s because I want it to come true! He laughed again and asked how the shoes fit. I said, Perfectly! But it’s a shame they’ll live out their lives inside these walls instead of being seen and admired. Then he asked if I thought they’d get enough admiration at the Cathay Hotel. And was Friday too soon for them to be admired? It took me a moment to understand- He’s taking me to dinner at the Cathay Hotel!!!
“ ‘It’s late now. Everyone’s sleeping, except me. Today was so exciting, and the life I’m starting now that Kai-rong’s back is even more exciting!! The way I feel right now, I may never sleep again!’ ”
I paused for breath. “The way I feel right now, I need caffeine just to keep up with her.”
“Good.” Bill got up. “We need to pay rent on the counter.”
“Any action on the street?”
“Nothing but. No one who looked like your boy, though. It would be a hell of a stroke of luck if he just strolled past.”
“I know. But do you have anything better we could be doing?”
“Than eating and reading a girl’s diary? Nope. What can I get you?”
I took over the task of peering out the window until he got back. A typical Chinatown afternoon: wall-to-wall people, mostly Chinese, but also bargain-hunting uptowners and map-wielding tourists, all shopping their little hearts out. Umbrellas, uglyfruit, toys, T-shirts, salmon, and sunglasses flew out of storefronts and street stalls into plastic bags, and good hard American cash flew the other way. Heavy traffic in and out of the jewelry shops, too, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Or almost nothing. The one interesting thing I spied was Clifford “Armpit” Kwan, a distant cousin of mine-not distant enough, according to my mother-peering into jewelers’ windows. I shared my mother’s opinion of Armpit: He and I had had some run-ins at family gatherings in the past, when he was a nasty brat picking on the littler kids and I was an adolescent Lady Galahad riding to the rescue. Now he’s a grubby stoner perpetually on the fringe of one or another Chinatown gang. None of them really wants his useless behind, but occasionally he’ll get a one-day contract when some huge display of muscle is called for, or some gang’s franchise player is unavailable on account of being, say, in jail.
The gangs provide protection. This means they guard shops against theft and vandalism, caused, if you don’t pay, mostly by the gang you didn’t pay. I wasn’t sure whose real estate this block was, or which lucky gang had Armpit’s services these days. But I didn’t like it. Armpit, never devoted to beauty, was unlikely to be merely indulging his joy in sparkly things. It occurred to me some fed-up jeweler could have stopped paying, and his protectors might be planning to show him his mistake. I made a note to mention this to Mary. If, on her info, the cops were ready when a gang did a smash-and-grab, it could do her career some good.
“Anything?” Bill distributed cups and pastries.
“Relatives.”
“Mr. Chen’s?”
“Mine. Are you seriously going to eat that?”
“Why, just because it’s blue?”
“There can’t be one real ingredient in it.”
“Sugar. Come on, what happens next? Does her brother take her to dinner?”
“You really want to hear more?”
“You bet I do.”
I sipped the milk tea he’d brought-my aversion to tea had faded, but a great deal of sweetened condensed milk seemed important-and bit into an almond cookie. “Okay. Just don’t laugh at her, and don’t take your eyes off the street.”
“You got it, boss.”
I read down the column on the next sheet and found myself smiling. “They went to dinner a few days later.”
“Was it great?”
“Her word is ‘grand.’ ‘Oh, the Cathay is so grand!’ She talks about the marble, the carpets, the chandeliers. And the air-conditioning. It was so cold she shivered. But air-conditioning’s modern, and she likes modern.”
“Did she wear the shoes?”
“She did. ‘I’d practiced for days, so I swept smoothly past the Sikhs at the door. (One winked at me! Of course I pretended not to notice.)’ ”
“Of course.”
“You are laughing!”
“Never. If I’d have been there I’d have winked at her myself.”
“And she’d have ignored you, too. ‘I wanted to go into the bar, but Kai-rong refused. Women are permitted there-but he said I wasn’t. He can be so much like Father! When we were shown to our table he ordered champagne. It was delicious, though I’m not sure I care for a drink with bubbles. As we sipped we played a game: guess-the-nationality. I picked out Britons, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Russians. Kai-rong wouldn’t give me credit for Americans because they’re too obvious.’ Hey, that was a definite snicker!”
“Only at the obvious Americans. Remember, I was a Yankee sailor in Asia myself.”
“Oh. Well, all right, but watch it. ‘There were Japanese everywhere, perfectly well behaved. When a mustached man entered, I guessed he was Italian, which made Kai-rong laugh.’ ”
“He’s laughing at her.”
“He’s her brother, he’s allowed.”
“I’ll remind you next time your brothers laugh at you.”
“You’d better not. ‘It was Sir Horace Kadoorie, a wealthy Jew from Bombay. How am I supposed to know what Jews look like? I don’t know what anyone looks like unless they call on Father. And the famous Sir Horace is small and dark. The only Indians I’ve ever seen are those gigantic Sikhs. Kai-rong kept laughing and said I’d seen other Jews and Indians on the streets, but I probably thought they were all Italians, too. I’d have thrown my champagne at him but my glass was empty. If I were allowed on the streets I could learn to tell people apart! He said the Bombay Jews are originally from Baghdad, which accounts for their coloring and size, and that not all Jews look like them, either. When I asked how he became such an expert on the subject of Jews, he blushed! And then said out of nowhere how much he was enjoying the string quartet.’ ”
I glanced up at Bill; he was grinning but silent. Well, I hadn’t said he couldn’t smile.
“ ‘I thought the quartet was boring. I wanted to hear the Filipino jazz band in the nightclub. But I didn’t say that, so he wouldn’t think I’m ungrateful. One day soon I’ll play him my jazz records, and show him the American dances the Feng sisters taught me (while Amah was gossiping with their cook!).
“ ‘So many people came over to welcome Kai-rong home! Some asked who his companion was. When he introduced me eyebrows flew up. “This is little Mei-lin?” they’d say-if they knew I even existed! One Frenchman said he suddenly regretted not calling on Father while Kai-rong was away. Each time someone complimented me, I gave them a distant smile, to show I was pleased to meet them but really, one meets so many people, doesn’t one?’ ”
“I knew it!” Bill broke in. “This girl doesn’t get out much, but she knows how to make men feel small. You’re all born with that talent, aren’t you?”
“No, but we develop it early, after we’ve met a man or two. Shall I go on?”
“Please.”
“ ‘Once each one left I made Kai-rong tell me all about them. The Frenchman, he said, is a wine importer, and I could thank him for the champagne that was making me tipsy. I told him I wasn’t tipsy-’ ”
“She was too.”
“Granted. ‘-and asked about a sad old woman. She’s a Russian countess! Here since the Bolshevik Revolution. Kairong says all the White Russians are aristocracy of some sort, which doesn’t keep them from jobs as waiters and seamstresses. He suggests I take a lesson from that. Just like Father! And I can sew, though I’d like to see him wait on tables.’ ”
I took a tea break. “I can sew, too, by the way.”
“I know you can. And I’m a lousy waiter, but a hell of a short-order cook. So when the revolution comes, we’re in business.”
“What a relief. ‘We ate roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. It wasn’t the first time I’d had them, and I told Kai-rong he needn’t think it was: The Tsangs keep an English cook. I don’t like roast beef-it seems rude to serve such a big, unflavored slab of meat-but Kai-rong says it’s the most British meal of all. The evening raced by like a kaleidoscope of dinner jackets and silk gowns. I was so happy to be there! Probably because of the excitement, some parts are hazy.’ ”
“Or the tipsiness.”
“Shush! ‘I remember meeting a bookseller called Morgan, and a Dutch doctor. Two dashing soldiers approached us together: a German officer named Ulrich, and his friend General Zhang. They both kissed my hand!’
“I don’t know the dashing German,” I interrupted myself to tell Bill, “but the dashing General Zhang is the guy she eventually married. C. D. Zhang and Zhang Li’s father. But you need to read Rosalie’s letters. He doesn’t come off quite so well. ‘Three school friends of Kai-rong’s sat and drank champagne with us; we all found each other amusing, oh how we laughed! They excused themselves, with winks they thought I didn’t see, saying they were off to Madame Fong’s. When I asked who that was, they roared. After they left, Kai-rong’s only answer was that Madame Fong is no one I’ll ever need to know. He thought I had no idea-but of course I do! She must be a courtesan, and his friends were off to a flower house! I asked Kai-rong if he’d ever been to Madame Fong’s. He opened his mouth with no sound, like a carp. I laughed so hard I cried.’ Is that what they called them when you were a sailor?”
“Who called what?”
“Flower houses.”
“How would I know?”
“Uh-huh. ‘When we were leaving (the Sikh winked again!) Kai-rong asked if I’d enjoyed myself and whether I was happy. I said yes yes yes! I had a wonderful time!
“ ‘But if by happy, he meant satisfied-no, I’m not satisfied. Tomorrow I’ll be expected to resume my life as prisoner. Calligraphy, embroidery- no no no no no!!! Crowds, music, laughter-this is the life I want! And the life I’ll have.’ ”
Turning the page, I found a new date, which meant a new entry. I closed the book and took a breath.
“You’re stopping?” Bill protested. “I want to know if she got it.”
“Got what?”
“The life she wanted.”
“You’ll have to wait. This translation stuff is tiring, you know.”
“Even for a genius?”
“I’m immune to flattery.”
Barely audible above the swirling voices and Cantopop Muzak, my phone chirped the ringtone of an unfamiliar number. Who invented this device, I wondered, and did he really do us a favor? Well, maybe he did. The caller turned out to be Anita Horowitz.
“When Zayde was dozing I opened the box. There’s a set of letters. They’re mostly from Rosalie to her mother, but they’re in German, so I can’t read them. And there’s one from someone else to her, in German, too. That one was mailed to her in Shanghai, General Delivery, but the ones to her mother don’t have addresses or stamps. They were never mailed.”
“No?” I thought about that. “Anita, I’d love to read them.” For the case, of course. Strictly for the case. “May I?”
“If you think it would help. I can make copies when I pick up my son from Little League. Zayde won’t notice them gone for that short a time. Can you come out and get them?”
“Absolutely! Thanks!”
When I clicked off, Bill asked, “What are you so excited about?”
I told him what Anita had found. “Though I have to admit I’m not so excited about driving back out to New Jersey right now. And I think my mother wants me home for dinner.”
“Your mother always wants you home for dinner.”
“Yes, but…” He was right, of course. At a loss to explain what was different now, I settled for “I’ve been away.” Which, I realized, was the same nonexplanation I’d offered Joel about Bill.
“I’ll go.”
“Back to Teaneck? By yourself?”
“It’s my fate. To be alone, solitary, by myself, while you-”
“Don’t start that stuff.”
“Oh, okay. But I’m the one who reads German. I’ll go get the letters and settle in with my German-English dictionary.”
“Sounds cozy.”
“Not as cozy as-oh, right. Never mind. You go home and rack up karma points by having dinner with your mother.” He gave me a smile and a kiss on the cheek, and left me at Tai-Pan.