Dreams of the Red Phoenix (17 page)

“I thought you said your mother was dead,” he said.

“My mother is not dead!” she said. “She is here, with you
and your mother, but never with me! She is gone from me all
the time.” Tears welled in her eyes and tumbled down her
cheeks.

“Madam Lian,” Charles asked, “is this true? We thought you
didn't have children.”

“Do not bother me, Charles-Boy.” Lian looked down into the
basket of dirty laundry and shook her head. “I have work to do.
Out of my way, you bothersome children.”

Charles turned to Li Juan. “Lian is your mother?”

“And Dao-Ming is my little sister,” she said.

“We thought Dao-Ming was an orphan. Why didn't you tell
us, Lian?”

She reached into the basket and grabbed a handful of rags
as if she intended to wash them right there in the dusty alley. “I
needed a job. I say I am from town and have no family or they do
not hire me. But it is no matter now.”

“So Li Juan has lived without a mother for many years, and
you without your child?”

“
You
are my child, Charles-Boy. That was how it is. Li Juan
knows this.”

He tried to keep hold of Li Juan's hand, but she pulled it away.

“I wish you'd told us. I'm so sorry we didn't understand.”
Charles looked to Li Juan, but she continued to glare at her
mother. “I think you've done enough for today, Lian,” he offered.
“You should stay here and be with your family. We can manage
without you.”

Lian squinted up at him. “Maybe you are man of house now,
after all. You have grown up. You are like son to me. I have no
real children of my own. I might as well be barren.”

“You are not barren!” Li Jung shouted. “I am your daughter.
You have two daughters!” She turned to Charles and said, “You
see, she does this. She convinces herself she has no children. It
makes no sense. I used to think she did it so she wouldn't miss
me so much, but now I think she does it because she doesn't want
me. ”

Lian shook her head. “Sad truth, I have no boys. I must do all
the work myself. I am cursed. I have Dao-Ming, who is like small
animal. But Li Juan, you are strong. You must do your part for
the family. That is what girls are for. Otherwise they are useless.
You must get along with your grandmother!”

Lian lunged at her daughter for the second time, and the girl
skittered around behind Charles again. He couldn't imagine
such a thing. In his household, his parents hardly ever raised their
voices and certainly never a hand to him.

“Mother,” Li Juan said, “things can change. I can live with you
now. This young American says it's okay.”

Charles made himself stand taller in the way his mother did
when she wanted to assert her authority. “I wish to invite you
and your family to stay at our house, where you will be safe and
where we can share our food and supplies. And best of all, where
both of your daughters can join you.”

Lian's expression remained stony, but Charles thought he saw
a faint glimmer in her eyes. “Mrs. Carson does not need more
mouths to feed,” she said. “I already have one child underfoot
who eats all the time. They said Dao-Ming would die young, but
she is sturdy as water buffalo and looks like one, too.”

“Mother!” Li Juan said. “That's not nice. My sister can't help
it. I will keep her happy and out of the way so you can do your
work. And I hardly eat a thing.” She inched closer to Lian and
continued, “I am very good at cooking and at doing chores in
the house. I am strong. Feel this!” She held up her thin arm, and
Lian squeezed it like a melon at the market.

“With Cook gone, I suppose I could use some help,” Lian said.

“I can do it for you!” Li Juan said. “You will see.”

As Li Juan tried to convince her mother, Charles recognized
the look in his amah's eyes: she was secretly pleased with her
daughter. She did not offer a reassuring smile but sternly assessed
the young lady before her and approved. Li Juan took Lian's hand
now and led her to the stone bench. She sat her down and knelt
before her and began to massage her red and swollen hands.

“I will do laundry for you to start with,” Li Juan said. “I am
good at laundry.”

Lian leaned back against the mud wall and shut her eyes. Li
Juan looked up at Charles in a way that was finally a little bit like
the girls in the movies. But now, he couldn't imagine how she'd
ever really like him, knowing that he had stolen her mother away
from her for all those years. He would try to make it up to her, al
though he knew that nothing could fill the hole a missing parent
made in a child's heart.

Charles gathered up the ladder and headed back toward home
through the crowded mission compound. It worried him that the
Chinese seemed to have erected more established lean-tos out of
wood, cardboard, and tin. Their cooking fires burned incessant
ly, carrying sharp, charred odors that seeped into every corner of
the mission. They appeared to be here to stay.

The massive red doors of the chapel stood open, and a line of
coolies rose up the steps and into the darkened chamber. Charles
doubted they were lined up to attend service; they were probably
waiting instead for rations of rice and millet. At the entrance, the
diminutive Reverend Wells looked lost amid the barefoot crowd
in tattered clothing. The rickshaw drivers, who usually hung
about outside the gates of the mission, ready to pounce on any
potential customers with boasts and bravado about their services,
had pulled their carts up to the chapel steps, where they waited
for food with everyone else. They were always the thinnest and
wiriest of men, and Charles wondered how they had been man
aging on even less food than usual. One of them listlessly lifted
his head and called out to Charles. The man's concave chest was
bare, and every rib pressed against his skin, giving it a bluish,
almost bruised tint.

“Here,” Charles said and reached into his pocket. “It's not
much.”

The man's hand shot out and snatched the oatcake from
Charles's palm. The snacks always tasted like straw, but he still
carried one or two with him whenever he went out. The rick
shaw driver clearly didn't mind its dryness. The man wore a bur
lap bag with holes cut in it for his legs and tied with a frayed rope.
Charles stood beside the shoeless skeleton as he gulped down the
last of the crumbs.

“I give you ride!” the rickshaw man shouted. “I take you to
your home like prince! Best ride in town! Smooth and fast! Fast
er than all others!”

Several other rickshaw drivers growled their usual denunci
ations and curses about their competitor's abilities to do the job
as described.

“I've got a ladder,” Charles said.

“I carry it for you!” the driver shouted.

Charles couldn't imagine how the man mustered such enthu
siasm. “No, you'll lose your place in line if you do.”

The man gazed up the steps to where the rations were being
dispensed. The poor guy was probably starving, Charles thought.
“You can take my mother and me to market sometime soon,” he
offered.

“Excellent!” The man bowed. “I give you best ride in town!”

Charles moved on. When he came to the stone steps that led
to the top of the wall surrounding the compound, he set down
the ladder. It had never been risky to leave anything lying about
in the mission. You could return days later and still find what
ever you had left. But now, as he glanced at the many strangers
passing by, he decided it was worth the risk of losing the ladder.
He took the steps two at a time, came out above the compound,
and hurried to the corner where he and Han had built the pigeon
coop. The anxious sounds made by the abandoned birds made his
chest tighten. He had forgotten to feed them for he wasn't sure
how many days. He wondered if he should let them go free now.
He didn't want it on his head if they died of starvation in their
cages, though if he let them go, they would be eaten in no time.
Either way, the poor things were making a racket and seemed
not long for this world.

But when he reached the coop, he saw that their tray of food
had been filled and their water replenished. They were making
all that noise as they gorged themselves. Charles took off his Na
tionalist Army cap and watched them eat. Who was taking care
of them? he wondered. Maybe it was Han? He missed his friend
so badly in that moment that he walked over to the side of the
wall and shouted.

“Han!” he yelled. “Where the devil are you?”

Charles studied the gray tile rooftops of the modest town. Lit
tle had been done to clear the rubble from the original Japanese
attack that had woken him that morning weeks before. Several
homes on the outskirts had collapsed into their courtyards, their
private rooms exposed to the street. From what he could see, the
market remained derelict, but that was often the case by this time
of year, when summer drought left the farmers with nothing to
sell. Piles of debris and earth blocked the central road to the west,
requiring a more circuitous route. The townspeople had been in
convenienced by the summer's military incursions and remained
wary of troops of any sort, even their own. But since the bulk of
the Japanese Imperial Army had departed, they no longer felt in
imminent danger. Shopkeepers opened each morning by sweep
ing yellow dust from their steps but kept their windows boarded,
just in case. Fewer Chinese families fled on paths leading into the
plains, where the fields of hemp shimmered golden brown in the
heat. The countryside needed rain, but that was to be expected
in high summer. All in all, Charles thought, things seemed as
ordinarily dismal as ever.

The few Japanese soldiers who remained behind behaved as
they had during the earlier occupation before the fighting began,
milling about and generally ignoring the Chinese. Two younger
ones stood directly below the mission wall, and Charles tried to
see if he recognized them. With their caps on, it was hard to tell.
An officer finished speaking to them, then turned and marched
away. Charles squinted and thought he recognized the Japanese
boy who'd swept their back steps.

“Hey,” he shouted down in the local dialect, “how's it going
out there? It's me, Hollywood!”

Charles wasn't sure what he meant by calling out to them.
Later he tried to think it through, but the truth was, he didn't
mean much. He just missed Han and figured the other fellows
who were about his age weren't so bad to talk to. At the sound
of his voice, the two young soldiers scurried across the dirt road
and ducked behind a barricade made from the destroyed guard
house. Charles could see the barrels of their guns pointing out
ward, searching, he assumed, for the source of the voice that had
shouted at them.

“Whoa, guys,” he called again, “take it easy. It's just me, Hol
lywood. I'm not the enemy.”

One of the soldiers tipped back his cap, and Charles could see
his familiar face. He was about to tease the kid about Jean Har
low again when he heard a sharp retort. Charles felt the bullet
go past so close it whistled in his ear, just like in the movies—
shrill and piercing and far too near. He ducked down fast and
slumped against the side of the wall, his heart going wild in his
chest. The dumb Japanese kid, he thought. Charles would report
him to his commanding officer. He would tell his mother. As a
neutral American on American soil, Charles had been shot at by
the Japanese.