The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(74)

“My uncle died and was buried at sea last night. One of the sailors told me at breakfast. Passengers weren’t allowed to watch,” Alby said. “I didn’t know him well, so I don’t know how to feel, but I wish I’d at least been able to say goodbye.”

Lai King didn’t say anything. She understood.

Alby tried to change the subject. He talked about the food, the pipe organ, the formal dinners that he had no interest in attending.

“What happened to your parents?” he asked. “Why are you here by yourself?” Lai King told him and for a moment, her grief belonged to someone else. As though she were reciting someone else’s story. One with an equally unhappy ending.

“I’m sorry,” Alby said as he stared down at the brace on his leg. He fiddled with the buckles. “My mother died of polio. I guess I almost died as well, but I don’t really remember. I was too sick with fever. Sometimes I think we just learn to forget bad things.”

Lai King’s heart ached for all the things she wished she could forget.

“After she died,” Alby said, “when my father said goodbye, I could tell by the way he looked at me, I knew I’d never see him again. That was when I was sent to live with my uncle. He wasn’t around much. But he was my only family, at least until…”

Both of them fell silent. They’d sat on the deck, two unlikely strangers, or long-lost friends, stepchildren from shotgun marriages of fate and tragedy. They stared out at the endless seascape, while a seven-piece Hungarian orchestra tuned up for first-class passengers in some elegant parlor with crimson carpets and velvet lambrequins.

In steerage, Lai King slept, mostly, or thought about Alby as she darned her stockings with a needle and thread her ah-ma had packed for her. Sometimes she listened—as though she had a choice—to the other passengers singing, or the old woman who played a violin that she called a fiddle as passengers in steerage danced barefoot, stomping, twirling, and wheeling. Their happiness felt tidal, it swelled and lifted Lai King with it. But when their joy receded, Lai King sank into an imaginary landscape of mudflats, dead fish, and rotting kelp. Other times she watched the ladies playing bridge, but their laughter, their hopeful smiles, only made her miss her parents.

“Don’t worry,” the steerage matron said as she hugged Lai King. “The weather is about to clear. I can feel rain in my bones and those aches are going away.”

She’d learned to trust the older woman, and within an hour the rain had faded to a weepy drizzle and Lai King felt fresh air flowing down into the belly of the ship for the first time in days. While waiting to go up top, she filled her sink with soapy water. She washed her hair, her clothing. She tried not to stare at the others. Many stood naked as they washed every raiment, every garment.

When a whistle finally blew, Auntie Anna announced that it was time for the passengers in steerage to enjoy their one hour of daylight. Lai King slung her blanket over her shoulder and went up the ladder.

She emerged from belowdecks, the sky overcast and gray, the water an even darker shade than she remembered. It seemed as though the ship were floating in a cloud. But it was warm. The fresh air, though humid, was glorious.

Alby smiled when he saw her. He pointed to an area near a lifeboat and Lai King joined him, spreading out the blanket on the polished deck. She curled her dress beneath her and sat down as he uncovered a wooden tray with two bowls of rice soup, flavored with lemon and sweet potatoes. There were also two dark pieces of roasted chicken, a half-loaf of sourdough, servings of marmalade, black currant jam, and butter that they’d both learned to ignore because it was always rancid.

Alby caught her up on the latest gossip in second class, like how a minister got drunk on rye and threw up on a woman. Lai King shared how in steerage, an old woman got drunk on gin and threw up on the same man when he came below to proselytize.

“God works in mysterious ways,” Alby said.

Lai King noticed other passengers staring at them as they walked by.

“They’re not staring at you,” Alby said, “they’re staring at me. Or you with me. Or me with you. Maybe both, I don’t know.” He shrugged.

Lai King took a careful bite of bread and jam. “I was born in California,” she said. “But I’m still used to people staring, pointing, whispering.” She looked at the brace on Alby’s leg and suspected that he knew exactly how that felt.

Alby nodded in agreement. Then he scooped out the sweet potatoes from his soup, the best part, and gave them to her.

She smiled for a moment, thanked him, and then they ate in silence.

When they finished, one of the sailors shouted, “Ho! Womb fish!”

Lai King helped Alby to his feet and they peeked over the rail. A pod of dolphins flew beneath the surface of the water, fins skimming. They crisscrossed in front of the ship, zooming back and forth, dipping beneath the bow, then charging forward, leaping, spinning. It was the most incredible thing Lai King had ever seen. She felt free. A prisoner of misfortune, ransomed by the playful creatures.

“My father once told me a story about the Goddess of the Yangtze River,” Lai King said. “A young girl was being taken out on a boat by a greedy man who intended to sell her to the highest bidder. But once he was alone with her, he became enraptured by her beauty. The only way for the girl to escape was to plunge into the river and drown.”