The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(30)

Faye pondered this for a moment. “That’s not the Buddha, that’s Rumi.”

“So it is.” The monk smiled and nodded. “And I think both of them would tell you to look deeper.” He departed, gently closing the door behind him.

Faye sighed and covered John Garland’s face once again.

She caressed the smoke, watching it slip through her hands.

Then she quietly took his cup away, setting it on a nearby shelf. She dabbed her forefinger into the water and touched her thumb as though wiping a tear. She moved to the other end of the table, near the pilot’s burning prayer stick, waving her palm over it, feeling the exiguous warmth of the glowing, cherry-red ember. She pinched her wet thumb and finger around the ember, feeling a brief sizzle of pain. Then quiet relief as she let go, the aromatic burning extinguished. She leaned over, hesitated, and then kissed the pilot’s cheek through the fabric, gently, softly, the way a downy feather settles on the surface of a still pond.

“Don’t forget me.”





9 Lai King




(1892)

Lai King Moy sat like the Buddha atop a pyramid of empty shipping crates, her favorite place to be on a rare sunny spring day in San Francisco. From her lofty perch, she could see over the stone seawall of Chinatown’s old, decrepit port, and also watch ships at newer piers on either side being unloaded with steam cranes that seemed magical compared to the old treadwheels operated by Chinese stevedores. The shirtless men had long black braids, but their queues were wrapped around like headbands to keep from getting caught in the spokes of the giant wheels and being crushed like a walnut. Lai King watched another group of men drape ropes and nets from the bulwark of the SS Australia. The four-masted steamship arrived that morning, off-loading travelers first, then luggage, mail, and package freight, before finally addressing its cargo.

Lai King held her breath in anticipation, leaning forward as British sailors wrenched open the doors of the main cargo hold. She felt a cool breeze coming from the vessel and pinched her nose when she smelled white vapor, pumped into the air by the new reefer ship. The aroma of drying seaweed gave way to something pungent, like the sharp smell of salts the local pharmacist once used to try to revive her elderly neighbor who had hit her head and fallen into a stupor.

“The belly of the ship is cold like winter.”

Lai King jumped when she heard her father. She turned and found him standing behind her, watching the ship. He put a hand on her shoulder. “See, everything stays nice and cool, even when the sun is shining.”

“I’m sorry, Ah-ba,” Lai King apologized in plain English. “I know I’m supposed to be in school. I just wanted to come and see the ship. I promise I’ll go tomorrow.”

For a moment, Lai King thought she might be in trouble again. Her father’s voice had startled her in the same way the iron bell at the Chinese school could snap her out of a wistful daydream. She heard the ship’s horn again, reminding her of the many times she’d been late for class. Or absent altogether, like today, when she left her books and slate behind to see if the ship really was delivering a cargo of winter.

Her father hugged her tight. Then he took her hand. “That’s okay, little one, I was curious too at your age. Let’s watch this winter ship, but don’t tell your mother.”

Lai King thought her father was teasing when he’d said the ship was delivering a cargo of wintertime. That he was spinning a folk tale, like how a wicked old man died on the first day of December and that’s why they ate red rice in winter, to scare away the man’s spirit. Or the tale of Captain Stormalong, whose ship was so tall the masts had to be hinged to avoid catching the moon. That story seemed as unbelievable as when he once told her that a stranger found him as a baby, in some dirty alley, in a city far away. That his ah-ma was the most famous Chinese woman in America and when she died in childbirth, her spirit flew like a grasshopper sparrow, carrying him over the mountains to California, where he was raised by a mission home.

Lai King smiled and looked back at the ship, hoping to get a better view as seamen barked orders to the boss stevedore and his foremen. She watched the Chinese men climb the treadwheel, which hoisted a cargo net into the air laden with crates of bananas and pineapple. She’d secretly hoped that the wooden boxes might be covered in snow. But they looked as boring as the rice cake her mother had given her to eat for lunch. She unwrapped it and took a bite. She tasted rosewater, wishing the chewy rice had been flavored with brown sugar and fried in egg the way her father made it whenever he cooked. She offered him a bite, but her father smiled and shook his head.

Disappointed in both the ship and her lunch, she glumly watched a flock of herring gulls as she ate. The noisy seabirds were circling, swooping, darting, as they battled a fat crow intent on stealing a few of the cockles and clams that the gulls had scavenged and dropped from the sky, cracking them open on the seawall.

Then the birds scattered as the ship’s horn blared.

She put her fingertips into her ears as the horn kept bellowing, sending gusts of steam skyward. She watched as the stevedores who had been unloading the ship, porting heavy burlap bags of coffee, halted their labors. Then she heard a sailor on the forecastle yelling, cursing. One of the Chinese foremen shouted, “Aai yah!” He implored whatever deity he worshipped as he took the red scarf from around his neck and retied it, covering his nose and mouth. He called out to the men who had stopped unloading the cargo, many of whom were backing away.