Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls #1)(47)

While May dresses the baby, I wipe the floor and wrap the afterbirth in the towels. When everything’s as clean as I can make it, I stuff the soiled things in the trash.

Outside the sky turns pink. We don’t have much time.

“I don’t think I can get up by myself,” May says from the floor. Her pale legs tremble from cold and the exertion she’s been through. She scoots away from the wall, and I lift her to her feet. Blood trickles down her legs and spots the floor.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “Don’t worry. Here. Take her.”

She gives me the baby. I forgot to bring the blanket May knit, and the baby’s arms jerk awkwardly in their sudden freedom. I haven’t carried her inside me all these months, but I instantly love her as my own. I hardly pay attention to May as she puts a belt and napkin in place and pulls on her underwear and pants.

“I’m ready,” she says.

We look around the room. It won’t be a secret that a woman gave birth here. What matters is that no one suspect it was anything out of the ordinary, because I won’t be able to be examined by the station’s doctors.


I’M PROPPED IN bed, holding my daughter, with May nestled beside me—dozing lightly, her head on my shoulder—when the other women rise. It takes a while before anyone notices us.

“Aiya! Look who’s come in the night!” Lee-shee squeals excitedly.

The other women and their small children gather around, gently pushing against one another to get a better look.

“Your son arrived!”

“No son. A daughter,” May corrects. Her voice sounds so dreamy from exhaustion that for a second I worry she’ll give us away.

“A little happiness,” Lee-shee says sympathetically, using the traditional phrase to convey the disappointment in the birth of a girl. Then she grins. “But look around. Almost everyone here is a woman, except for the little boys who need their mothers. We must look at this as an auspicious occurrence.”

“It won’t remain auspicious if the baby stays dressed like that,” one of the women says forebodingly.

I look at the baby. Her clothes are the first May and I ever made. The buttons are crooked and the knit hat is lopsided, but apparently these aren’t the problems. The baby needs to be protected from bad elements. The women go away and return with gifts of coins to represent the care of “one hundred friends of the family.” Someone ties a red string in her black hair to give her luck. Then, one after the other, the women sew tiny charms depicting the animals of the zodiac onto her hat and the other clothes we made to protect her from evil spirits, bad omens, and sickness.

A collection is taken up, and someone is elected to give the money to one of the Chinese cooks to make a bowl of mother’s soup of pickled pigs’ feet, ginger, peanuts, and whatever hard liquor he can find. (Shaohsing wine is best, but whiskey will do if that’s all he has.) A new mother is depleted and suffers from too much cold yin. Most of the soup’s ingredients are considered hot and builders of yang. I’m told they will help shrink my womb, rid my body of stagnant blood, and bring in my milk.

Suddenly, one of the women reaches over and starts to unbutton my jacket. “You’ve got to feed the baby. We’ll show you how.”

I gently push away her hand.

“We’re in America now, and my daughter is an American citizen. I will do as the Americans do.” And modern Shanghainese women too, I think, remembering all the times May and I modeled for companies advertising powdered baby milk. “She will have baby formula.”

As usual, I translate the exchange from Sze Yup into the Wu dialect so May will understand.

“Tell her the bottles and the formula are in a package under the bed,” May rattles off quickly. “Tell her I don’t want to leave you, but if one of them could help us, I’d be grateful.”

While one of the women takes a bottle and mixes some of the powdered formula we bought from the concession stand with water from the teapot and places it on the windowsill to cool, Lee-shee and the others discuss the problem of the baby’s name.

“Confucius said that if names are not correct, then language and society are not in accordance with the truth of things,” she explains. “The child’s grandfather or someone of great distinction needs to name your baby.” She purses her lips, looks around, and observes theatrically, “But I don’t see anyone around here like that. Perhaps it’s just as well. You have a daughter. Such a disappointment! You wouldn’t want her to be named Flea, That Dog, or Dustpan, like my father named me.”

Naming is important, but it doesn’t belong to women. Now that we have the opportunity to name a child—a girl at that—we find it’s a lot harder than it seems. We can’t name the girl after my mother or even use our family name as her given name to honor my father, because these options are considered taboo. We can’t name her after a heroine or goddess either, because that’s presumptuous and disrespectful.

“I like Jade, because it conveys strength and beauty,” suggests a young detainee.

“The flower names are pretty. Orchid, Lily, Iris—”

“Oh, but they’re such common names and too frail,” Lee-shee objects. “Look where this baby was born. Shouldn’t she be named something like Mei Gwok?”

Mei Gwok means Beautiful Country, which is the official Cantonese name for the United States, but it doesn’t sound melodious or pretty.