The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(44)
Nanchoy, however, was not so burdened, as each morning he acted as though nothing were amiss. In those confounding moments, filled with self-doubt, self-loathing, Afong found herself wondering if this was what love really was? Perhaps the poets were wrong, or deceptive, dressing up the ugly truth, putting a string of pearls on a fat pig, bringing flowers to a funeral, polishing an apple full of worms.
Afong was rubbing her eyes when Nanchoy opened the door and walked in, fully dressed for the day, bringing with him a tray with corn pone and a bowl of popcorn in sweet milk, which he relished but which turned her stomach. Also on the tray was a handful of purple flowers in an old, brown medicine bottle, and a folded newspaper. He set the tray down by her bed, then stared at her as she donned a robe.
As Afong sat up, she could make out a headline: FINAL PERFORMANCE OF THE CHINESE LADY BEFORE SHE RETURNS TO HER HOMELAND.
Afong wanted to set fire to the paper, burn the theater to the ground.
“Every ticket for this weekend’s grand finale performance has already been sold,” Nanchoy said. “Old man Hannington has been out on street corners and in town squares, promoting you all day. He’s even offering a drawing for a grand cash prize of one thousand dollars. I’d say it’s been a successful week.”
“For who?” she asked.
Nanchoy smiled. “Would you like to resume your English lessons?”
Afong stared out the window, then shook her head. “I am going to get dressed. I will meet you in the parlor as soon as I am ready.”
“What are we doing?”
“I would like to go out.”
* * *
Afong donned her green dress and wore a flowered silk bonnet that Mrs. Hannington had given her. “This is to spare you the indignity of being recognized on the street. I don’t want people to think you’re a mulatto, or mistaken for a free slave.”
As Afong tied the long ribbon around her neck, she tried her best to look plain, like the American women who all appeared the same to her. The same pinched noses and powdered faces, rouged lips, and dangling, spiral curls.
She met Nanchoy in the parlor, who seemed overdressed in his tailcoat and hat, a white linen neck cloth tied around his neck. She ignored him when he offered his arm, and stepped out into the crisp spring morning. She appraised the busy street, which looked chaotic, long lines outside banks and offices. There were fewer carriages and delivery wagons. The people she was used to seeing, groups of men in stovepipe hats, smoking and talking, gaggles of women shopping, were all gone. The flower carts, bread stalls, and vegetable stands that were normally filled with cabbage, garlic, and root vegetables were now empty spaces beneath black awnings spattered with bird droppings.
“What happened?” Afong asked.
“I don’t know,” Nanchoy said. “But banks are closing early.”
In her time in America, Afong rarely went out alone, even though her shoes were durable and she learned to tolerate the pain and discomfort that accompanied a two-or three-mile walk. Her curiosity and desire to get out was generally overshadowed by her fear of getting lost, or attracting too much attention, or as Mrs. Hannington put it, “The wrong kind of attention for a girl your age. You’ll get there someday.”
When Afong crossed the street, away from a breadline filled with men who looked hungry for food, a job, or simply a break in their string of misfortune, she felt sympathy. She did not see the men as nefarious or the wrong sort, the way Mrs. Hannington described them. They were just poor. The poetics of poverty, the expressions of servitude, the dialects of desperation, were all languages Afong was well versed in.
As they passed a negro man in a blue suit who had climbed atop a carriage to tie down a stack of steamer trunks, Afong recalled the few times she navigated the busy city streets without an escort. The first time was in New York, when she visited a ticket office for a steamship company near where she was staying. Afong could not read the sign but recognized a painted ship on the window. When she went inside and tried to speak, the confused man at the ticket counter tapped a board with prices, all of which were far beyond the meager collection of coins she had managed to hide. Another time she went exploring was when a cholera outbreak in the north compelled them to travel to the southern states. It was in Charleston that Afong walked in a straight line away from her boardinghouse toward the city center and saw broadsides for upcoming auctions. Afong knew enough English to read, A girl about 17 or 18 years old. Has been used for house and garden work. She is sold for no fault. Strong back. Sound as a dollar. Afong struggled to understand, then looked down the street to a town square and saw black women, black children, and black men in chains, stripped of their clothing, brought to a viewing stand, and sold to the highest bidder. White men and women went about their business, talking and laughing. Afong turned and walked away as fast as she could.
“Where are we going?” Nanchoy asked.
Afong pointed to the large monument that towered over the brick buildings nearby. The giant column was even taller than the church spires. “I am going to see the ocean,” she said as they walked down the cobblestone street.
They passed through the enormous square of paved brick near the waterfront, and Afong began to smell salt in the air, fish, the odor of unwashed men who were busy loading and unloading tall ships that sat along each pier, great hemp ropes streaming like spider silk, wrapped around rusted metal capstans.