All That Matters (17 page)

“If Heaven grows jealous …,” Poh-Poh said, and shut her eyes tight against the possibility.

If any of the gods grew jealous, she insisted, shaking her white head, the birth would go awry. Even Father cooperated by urging all of us children to respect things as they were, to say nothing ever about Stepmother’s condition. Not to anyone. Especially not to Jack next door, even though all of Chinatown seemed to know about Stepmother’s situation.

“As in Old China, as in England where the King and Queen of Canada live,” Father said, “respectable women in Vancouver do not leave the house.”

“No,” added Mrs. Lim. “Not after their tummy grows to a certain size.”

“Children do not talk about these things,” Mrs. Chong pointed out.

“Very
mo li
to do so,” insisted Mrs. Leong.

In those summer months of 1933, Stepmother’s tummy grew bigger and bigger, and she stayed home just as Father had told us she must. And we three children said nothing, just as Father and Poh-Poh with her stern looks warned us not to.

Women friends brought Stepmother sachets of mixed leaves and bits of prune to brew pink-coloured teas, and jars of vinegared pigs’ feet soup to reheat. A small pile of baby clothes sat unwrapped in her bedroom. The wooden crib was brought down from the attic and thoroughly washed. Bachelor Gee Sook from American Steam Cleaners sent over eight baby-sized cushions sewn from, and stuffed with, discarded fabrics. Eight was a lucky number.

“Best cushion!” he declared, handing them over in a Woodward’s shopping bag when Father went to pick up his suit jacket.

Poh-Poh prepared dishes especially for Stepmother.

“This dish help make boy-baby,” she would say, setting down a shallow plate of sweetened turnip mashed with carrot and long-stemmed pea pods—which Liang and Jung got to sample—or a bowl of ginger-laced broth made of pork and chicken stock, which I tasted.

At the centre of all this attention, Stepmother smiled politely, laughed graciously at the jokes, and said little more than she needed to. Whenever Father felt a draft, he wrapped extra sweaters around her shoulders. When she was napping, he told us to play quietly outside. If it was raining, as it did most days that year, we were made to sit and read our school books or help Liang colour her pictures. Father seemed proud of Stepmother’s silences, the way she sat and knitted, hummed tunes and complained little, except about a backache or two. All of us were caught by the gentle way she ruled us. Soon, Poh-Poh even made sure the
handkerchiefs were all washed twice, and pressed and folded exactly the way Stepmother preferred.

No one asked, and I dared not think, “What if the baby were a
girl?”
How that troubling thought must have swirled about in Stepmother’s mind but she kept calm, at least outwardly.

The Old One took me to the tong hall temple to burn incense before the statues and to ask for luck and blessings. She chattered away about Stepmother’s condition—“such a humble, useless condition”—then said her deepest thoughts to herself, in a prayerful manner. Poh-Poh told me that the gods were listening most of all to her silences.

I had been looking for two empty boxes to put the Spencer’s First Quality English Tea in—each bundle of six ounces a gift, one for Jung-Sum’s Grade 2 teacher, Miss Jamieson, and one for my Grade 4 teacher, Miss McLean—when I noticed sitting on the pantry shelf between tall jars of dried fruit a green velvet box with a cracked red seal and an embossed gold dragon. Something rattled inside, but the lid would not open for me. The Old One raised her eyebrow and took the box away from me.

“Women only,” she said.

The second week into December, Stepmother complained of severe cramps. Poh-Poh gave me the green box to take to Mrs. Lim.

“She know what to do,” Poh-Poh said.

For two days, Stepmother could not even get out
of bed. Poh-Poh or Mrs. Lim stayed beside her. Father slept downstairs on the chesterfield. One morning I peeked into the big bedroom and saw the dragon box sitting on the small table. Its lid was off. I stepped in to ask Stepmother if I could get her anything. She shook her head. Poh-Poh felt her forehead. I inched my way closer to the small table. I noticed there was something like pebbles in the green box, many-coloured stones. I got Jung-Sum up and we got ready for school.

Liang shook Father’s head to wake him up. He had to work the late-morning shift at Third Uncle’s warehouse.

“After you finish at Strathcona today, go right to Chinese school,” Father told Jung and me. “Don’t bother coming home for your snack.”

He handed me thirty cents to buy something to eat and drink from the Hong Kong Café. I knew we would buy some of their egg tarts and maybe a soda to share.

That night after Chinese school, when we pushed open the front door, Third Uncle ran up to us.

“Go see your new baby brother,” he said, but he looked worried. “Ask Poh-Poh to let you see him before it’s too— No, no, go
see!”

I beat Jung-Sum up the stairs and stood breathless before the bedroom door. A little bundle lay on Stepmother’s shoulder. Poh-Poh was changing something on the bed. When I walked up, before the Old One noticed, I caught a glimpse of red droplets along Stepmother’s exposed belly. Poh-Poh quickly lifted the bedsheet over the nakedness. The
soft voice that welcomed me didn’t seem to mind.

“Come closer,” Stepmother whispered. Her eyes were half closed. Her hair lay matted on her forehead. Poh-Poh gently pushed back the baby’s blanket to finish wiping its limbs with a wet cloth.

Jung pushed me aside.

We both stared at the tiny, wrinkled-faced baby. It looked scrawny and unhealthy, like a black-haired plucked chicken. Then Father came upstairs with Mr. Gu, the herbalist. Jung and I were ordered out of the room.

Poh-Poh left with us. She had to change the pail of brownish water.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Too soon for name,” Poh-Poh said.

When we were halfway down the steps, the baby’s wail rose into the air and turned the Old One’s head.

“Name soon,” she said. “Very soon.”

The wailing went on. Poh-Poh looked relieved.

One month later, after considerable fussing by everyone, by Mrs. Lim with her potions and ointments, by Mr. Gu with his herbs, and by the mahjong ladies with their advice and with their share of special recipes for Poh-Poh to consider for Stepmother’s recovery, the baby boy had survived long enough to be given his official name. Third Uncle made sure that the herbalist approved. He even had the baby poked and prodded by a Western doctor.

“Chen Sek-Lung,” Father said at last.

All at once I thought of the stony pebbles that I had glimpsed sitting in that beautiful green box.
Sek-Lung
—“Stone Dragon.” Before I could ask anything
about the name, Third Uncle was already thanking Father for considering his humble suggestion. The name had reminded him of the carved long-necked stone dragon at Prospect Point that looked across the sea towards China.

Poh-Poh was asked if she approved of the name.

“Of course, we discuss this name with you first,” Third Uncle told her. Father smiled.

“Is Chen Sek-Lung acceptable, Old One?”

Poh-Poh smiled back. “Yes,” she said.

FOUR

THROUGHOUT MY ELEVENTH AND
twelfth years, everything focussed on English and Chinese school work, and I also grew busy with new duties—I now routinely went with Father for an hour or two on Sunday afternoons to Third Uncle’s Shanghai Alley warehouse, where, under the towering ceiling, I pulled along a handcart of account books. At every one of the three storage floors, I clambered over stands of huge boxes and shouted out their code numbers while Father checked off the inventory list. When we were finished, we would go to one of the noodle houses on Pender with some of his friends and some elders.

Certain Saturdays, after I finished my morning Chinese classes, Jung-Sum and I met at Gore and Pender and took turns carrying the grocery bags for Stepmother. Poh-Poh would be home with baby Sekky, cooing over him every waking minute.

Second Brother and I also took regular turns filling up the sawdust pails ready for feeding the chute on the side of the kitchen stove. Chopped logs had to be piled neatly beneath the back stairs, then covered with a large canvas tarp. We were also assigned to help Mrs. Lim with her load of logs when she couldn’t find anyone else who would, for ten cents an hour, carry them up the two and a half flights of precarious stairs to her little house. The money was paid in an envelope to Stepmother or Father, who always said, “For your school books.”

Mrs. Lim fed us well during those lugging sessions, calling us good grandsons and telling Poh-Poh how we were building up our muscles.

“Good for fighting,” said Poh-Poh.

Though my time with Jack O’Connor was restricted, we still managed to meet up for sword fighting, acting out Robin Hood episodes in his backyard, or climbing over each other’s porch like Sinbad the Sailor jumping from one prayer tower to another.

One morning, before a shopping expedition with Stepmother, Jack was showing off to Jung-Sum how he could swing like Tarzan from a thick rope we “found” near the ice house and which we had securely tied up to our porch. Jack now decided to tie the rope even higher. He climbed up to the roof and knotted it around one of the metal anchors bracketing the eaves.

“See if it’ll hold,” he hollered down to us.

Jung and I pulled down with our whole weight, and the rope held. Then I tossed the end of the rope to see if it would reach the O’Connors’ porch. It swung like a loose snake and easily crossed to the other
side. I figured that Jack would have to fly through the air at a harrowing angle to avoid banging into our corner post. I leaned over the bannister and warned him about the angle.

“Don’t wet your pants,” he said. “I can see that post from up here.”

“Let me go next,” Jung-Sum shouted up, just as Jack flew into the air with his Tarzan yell.

For a few exciting seconds, everything was going aces. Jack’s lanky body came swinging down in a perfect arc, but suddenly he realized gravity had taken over, and he had only a split-second to jerk himself out of the way of the post. His foot lifted, his hips swung sideways, then his whole body angled out of kilter like a piece of lumber. He missed the post and went swinging down as planned. Jung’s mouth fell open. I was about to yell ‘Watch out!’ but before a single word could escape me, Jack went flying across and into his own porch and crashed through the front window.

Afterwards, Jack told me that he wasn’t the one doing all the screaming, it was his mother. “She gets hysterical,” he said.

She’d been sitting having tea with a friend when two feet came hurtling at them, followed by shattering panes of glass and Jack himself, thumping down hard onto the shards, his limbs entangled in curtain and rod.

Jack required stitches just above his knee. That impressed Jung even more.

The next day, the rope still tied to our roof, Father made me walk over with Jung-Sum and apologize to Jack’s parents. Father even offered to pay a share of the
damage. But when Mr. O’Connor walked outside and saw Stepmother carrying diapered Sekky onto our porch, he told father to put away his wallet.

“Jack’s big feet and thick head were the main problem,” he said. “My boy has absolutely no common sense.”

Jack was not allowed out for two weeks, but later he had fun showing off to the gang at MacLean Park the Frankenstein stitches on his leg. I thought Jack limped a little more than he needed to, but his injury made us both the centre of attention.

“Kiam was ripped up a bit, too,” Jack would boast for me in front of the gang at recess. He gravely indicated an area near my groin. “But his granny won’t let anyone see.”

I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t sure whether I should have limped a little, too.

“You have to give them some blarney,” said Jack when we were on our own. “Makes life interesting.”

Later, I asked Father what Mr. O’Connor meant by Jack’s having no common sense.

“That means,” said Father, “
mo no!
”

That made me feel good. Jack and I both lacked the same thing.