Lisa See - Shanghai Girls

May leaves my side and hurries down the center aisle. She claims two top bunks next to each other near the radiator. She climbs up, lies down, and promptly goes to sleep. No one brings our luggage. All we have with us are the clothes we’re wearing and our handbags.

THE NEXT MORNING May and I straighten up as best we can. The guards tell us we’re going to a hearing before the Board of Special Inquiry, but the women in the dormitory call it an interrogation. Just the word sounds ominous. One of the women suggests we sip cold water to calm our fear, but I’m not afraid. We have nothing to hide, and this is just a formality.

We’re herded with a small group of women into a room that looks like a cage. We sit on benches and stare at one another pensively. We Chinese have a phrase-eating bitterness. I tell myself that, whatever happens with our hearings, it won’t be as bad as the physical inspection, and it can’t be as bad as what has happened to May and me day after day since the moment Baba announced he had arranged marriages for us.

“Tell them what I told you to say and everything will be fine,” I whisper to May as we wait in the cage. “Then we’ll be able to leave this place.”

She nods thoughtfully. When the guard calls her name, I watch her enter a room and the door close. A moment later, the same guard motions me to another room. I put on a false smile, straighten my dress, and stride in with what I hope is an air of confidence. Two white men-one nearly bald, one with a mustache, and both wearing glasses-sit behind a table in the windowless room. They don’t return my smile. At a table set to the side, another white man busily cleans the keys on his typewriter. A Chinese man in an ill-fitting Western-style suit studies a file in his hands, looks at me and then back at the file.

“I see you were born in Yin Bo Village,” he says to me in Sze Yup as he passes the file to the bald man. “I am happy to speak to you in the dialect of the Four Districts.”

Before I can say that I know English, the bald man says, “Tell her to sit down.”

The interpreter motions to a chair. “I am Louie Fon,” he goes on in Sze Yup. “Your husband and I share the same clan name and the same home district.” He sits to my left. “The bald one before you is Chairman Plumb. The other one is Mr. White. The recorder is Mr. Hemstreet. You don’t have to concern yourself with him-”

“Let’s get on with it,” Chairman Plumb cuts in. “Ask her…”

Things go well at first. I know the date and year of my birth in both the Western and the lunar calendars. They ask the name of the village where I was born. Then I name the village where Sam was born and the day we were married. I recite the address where Sam and his family live in Los Angeles. And then…

“How many trees are in front of your alleged husband’s home in his village?”

When I don’t answer right away, four sets of eyes stare at me-curious, bored, triumphant, snide.

“Five trees stand before the house,” I answer, remembering what I read in the coaching book. “The right side of the house has no trees. A ginkgo tree grows on the left.”

“And how many rooms are in the house where your natal family lives?”

I’ve been so focused on the answers from Sam’s coaching book that I haven’t considered they’d ask anything so detailed about me. I try to think what the right answer would be. Count the bathrooms or not? Count before or after the rooms were divided for our boarders?

“Six main rooms-”

Before I can explain myself, they ask how many guests were at my “alleged” wedding.

“Seven,” I answer.

“Did you and your guests have anything to eat?”

“We had rice and eight dishes. It was a hotel dinner, not a banquet.”

“How was the table set?”

“Western style but with chopsticks.”

“Did you serve betel nuts to the guests? Did you pour tea?”

I want to say I’m not a country bumpkin, so under no circumstances would I have served betel nuts. I would have poured tea if I’d had the wedding I’d dreamed of, but that night was hardly festive. I remember how dismissively Old Man Louie waved away my father’s suggestion that May and I perform the ritual.

“It was a civilized wedding,” I say. “Very Western-”

“Did you worship your ancestors as part of the ceremony?”

“Of course not. I’m Christian.”

“Do you have any documentary evidence for your alleged marriage?”

“In my luggage.”

“Is your husband expecting you?”

This question momentarily takes me aback. Old Man Louie and his sons know we didn’t show up in Hong Kong to take the ship here with them. They certainly notified the Green Gang that we failed to fulfill our part of the contract, but did they tell the Angel Island inspectors any of that? And do the old man and his sons still expect us to arrive?

“My sister and I were delayed in our travels because of the monkey people,” I say. “Our husbands long for our arrival.”

After the interpreter relays this, the two inspectors speak between themselves, not knowing I understand every word.

“She seems honest enough,” Mr. White says. “But her papers claim she’s the wife of a legally domiciled merchant and the wife of an American citizen. She can’t be both.”

“This could be an error in past paperwork. Either way, we’d have to let her in.” Chairman Plumb grimaces sourly. “But she hasn’t proven either status. And look at her face. Does she look like a merchant’s wife to you? She’s so dark. I bet she’s worked in rice paddies her entire life.”

There it is. The same old complaint. I look down, afraid they’ll see the flush creep up my neck. I think of the girl on the boat we took to Hong Kong and how the pirate appraised her. Now these men are doing the same with me. Do I really appear that country?

“But consider how she’s dressed. She doesn’t look like a laborer’s wife either,” Mr. White points out.

Chairman Plumb thrums his fingers on the table. “I’ll let her through, but I want to see her marriage certificate showing she’s married to a legitimate merchant or something proving her husband’s citizenship.” He looks at the interpreter. “On what day are the women allowed to go to the wharf to get things from their luggage?”

“Tuesdays, sir.”

“All right then. Let’s hold her over until next week. Tell her to bring her marriage certificate next time.” He nods to the recorder and begins dictating a synopsis, ending with “We are deferring the case for further investigation.”

FOR FIVE DAYS May and I wear the same clothes. At night we wash our underwear and hang it to dry with the laundry the other women drape above our heads. We still have a little money to buy toothpaste and other toiletries from a small concession stand open during mealtimes. When Tuesday arrives, we line up with women who want to get things from their luggage and are escorted by white missionary women to a warehouse at the end of the wharf May and I get our marriage papers, and then I check to see if the coaching book is still hidden. It is. No one has bothered to search inside my hat with the feathers. I now pull at the lining and hide it properly. Then I grab fresh undergarments and a change of clothes.

Every morning, embarrassed to be seen naked by the other women, I dress under the blanket on my bed. Then I wait to be called back to the hearing room, but no one comes for us. If we aren’t called by nine, then we know nothing will happen that day. When afternoon arrives, a new feeling of anticipation and dread fills the room. At precisely four, the guard enters and calls, “Sai gaai ,” which is a bastardization of one of the Cantonese dialects for hou sai gaai , which means good fortune . Then he lists the names of those allowed to get on the boat to complete the final leg of their journey to America. Once the guard approaches a woman and rubs his eyes as though he were crying. He laughs when he tells her she’s being sent back to China. We never learn the reason for her deportation.