Last Night at the Telegraph Club(20)

“All we can do is cooperate with them,” her mother said. “I’m trying to persuade him to sign the statement.”

“What will happen if he doesn’t?” She instantly wished she hadn’t asked; she felt as if saying it out loud would make it come true.

Her mother looked worried. “Let’s not think about that now. What we need to do is make sure we show we’re a proper American family—because we are. That means you study hard, and you don’t have anything to do with the Man Ts’ing.” Her mother stood up. “I’m going to get Frankie, and after Eddie comes home I’m going to talk to both of them about this. You focus on your homework.”

Her mother paused in the doorway and added, “If you suspect that Shirley or any of your friends are still involved with that group, you tell me right away.”

She thought about how Shirley had denied being interested in Calvin. She wondered whether Shirley knew about the Communist connection. The possibility was unsettling.

“Lily, will you tell me?”

She looked up at her mother and said, “I will.”





—1931


Japan invades Manchuria.





—1932


Joseph Hu arrives in San Francisco to attend the Stanford School of Medicine.


—Sept. 23, 1934

GRACE WING meets her future husband, Joseph Hu.





—1936


Grace Wing marries Joseph Hu.


Chinese graduate student Hsue-shen Tsien joins the “Suicide Squad,” a group of rocket scientists at the California Institute of Technology.





—1937


Lily Hu (胡麗麗) is born.


Japan invades China.





—1940


Edward Chen-te Hu (胡振德) is born.





—1941


United States enters World War II.





GRACE


Twenty Years Earlier



The first time Grace Wing noticed him, she accidentally caught his eye while she was waiting to pour herself a cup of coffee in the fellowship hall after the Sunday service. He was standing halfway across the room, eating a sandwich. He didn’t look like the other Chinese men she knew. His shiny black hair had a Clark Gable–like wave at the front, and he wore a gold signet ring on the little finger of his right hand. She thought he was handsome.

When their eyes met, he was still chewing, and Grace was embarrassed to be caught watching. She turned away immediately, wondering who he was. She didn’t think she had seen him during the service. She focused on fixing her cup of coffee, pouring in extra milk and two spoonfuls of sugar, and then took her time selecting a sandwich for herself. As she settled on egg salad on white bread, Mrs. B. Y. Woo waylaid her to ask advice about an ailment she had been experiencing. Grace was only a twenty-two-year-old nursing student, but Mrs. Woo always enjoyed sharing her complaints while Grace listened sympathetically and offered suggestions for treatment, which Mrs. Woo inevitably refused because she didn’t trust Western medicine. Grace was about to launch into her advice when Reverend Hubbard came over to greet them. That wasn’t surprising, but he also had the strange new man in tow. He had finished his sandwich, but Grace noticed a stray crumb clinging to the lapel of his gray flannel suit. Her fingers itched to brush it off.

“Miss Wing, Mrs. Woo, I want to introduce you to one of our newcomers,” Reverend Hubbard said. He was a middle-aged Caucasian man with a balding pate; the skin of the top of his head was particularly bright and shiny that day. “This is Mr. Joseph Hu, newly arrived from China. Mr. Hu is a medical student at Stanford. Miss Grace Wing is a nursing student, so you have something in common.”

“I’m honored, Miss Wing,” Joseph said, and extended his hand to Grace in the American way.

“Welcome to San Francisco,” she said, shaking his hand.

“Thank you,” Joseph said. “It’s wonderful to be here at last. I’ve heard so much about your city.”

“Oh, I’m not a San Francisco native,” Grace replied. “I only arrived here myself a few months ago. Mrs. Woo has been here much longer.”

“Almost my whole life,” Mrs. Woo said. “I came here as a girl from Kwangtung. Where are you from?”

“Shanghai.”

Mrs. Woo looked at him more curiously. “Shanghai! Is your family all there?”

“Yes. My father is a friend of one of Reverend Hubbard’s acquaintances.”

Reverend Hubbard smiled. “I’m glad that Paul told you about our church here. We’re happy to have you.”

They traded a few more pleasantries about their church connections while Grace sipped her coffee and tried not to appear as if she were staring. She guessed that he was a few years older than she was. There was something slightly mischievous about the expression on Joseph Hu’s face, as if he were containing himself in response to Reverend Hubbard’s and Mrs. Woo’s commentary on their mutual acquaintances and, then, the differences between San Francisco and Shanghai weather at this time of year. (San Francisco, he allowed, was much more pleasant in late summer.) Grace had nothing to contribute to the conversation, so she stayed quiet. She didn’t know this Paul, and she’d never been to Shanghai, though she knew it was supposed to be glamorous. In fact, just that morning in the Chronicle she had seen a story about two rival Shanghai actresses, said to be so beautiful that they somehow brought about the downfall of Manchuria to Japan. She hadn’t had time to finish reading the article, and she considered mentioning it in case Joseph had seen it, but she couldn’t work out how to insert it into the discussion. Besides, the fellowship hall seemed the wrong place to bring up such a scandalous story.