Lisa See - Shanghai Girls

At the beginning of August, Billings changes direction. “If your so-called father was actually born here, then why did he keep sending funds back to China even after he should have stopped?”

I don’t wait for Sam’s response but answer this myself “The money went to his ancestral village. His family has fifteen generations there.”

“Is that why your husband has continued to send money out of the country?”

“We do what we can for our relatives who are trapped in a bad place,” I translate for Sam.

At that Billings comes around the table, pulls Sam up by the lapels, and shouts in his face, “Admit it. You send money because you’re a Communist!”

I don’t have to translate this sentence for Sam to understand what the man is saying, but I do in the same even voice I’ve used all along to show that nothing Billings says will throw us from our story, our confidence, and our truth. But suddenly Sam-who has not been himself since the night Joy made fun of him for his cooking and his English and has not slept well since the day Agent Sanders entered Pearl ’s Coffee Shop-jumps up, sticks his finger in Billings ’s face, and calls him a Communist. Then they’re shouting back and forth-No, you’re a Communist! No, you’re a Communist!-and I’m sitting there echoing the accusations in both languages. Billings gets angrier and angrier, but Sam is steady and firm. Finally, Billings clamps his mouth shut, collapses in his chair, and glares at us. He has no evidence against Sam, just as Sam has no evidence against the INS agent.

“If you don’t want to confess,” he says, “and you won’t say who’s sold false papers in Chinatown, then perhaps you can tell us a little something about your neighbors.”

Sam serenely recites an aphorism, which I translate: “Sweep the snow in front of your own doorstep, and do not bother about the frost on top of another family’s house.”

We seem to be winning, but in twisting and in struggle, thin arms will not win out over thick legs. The FBI and INS question Uncle Wilburt and Uncle Charley, who refuse to confess, say anything about us, or rat out Father Louie, who sold them their papers. Those who don’t push the drowning dogs are already the decent ones .

When Uncle Fred brings his family to the house for Sunday dinner, we ask Joy to take the little girls outside to play so he can tell us about Agent Billings’s visit to his home in Silver Lake. Fred’s stint in the service, his college years, and his dental practice have nearly erased his accent. He’s lived a good life with Mariko and their half-and-half daughters. His face is full and round, and he has a bit of a belly.

“I told him I’m a veteran, that I served in the Army and fought for the United States,” he recounts. “He looks at me and says, And you got your citizenship.’ Well, of course I got my citizenship! That’s what the government promised. Then he pulls out a file and invites me to take a look at it. It’s my immigration file from Angel Island! Remember all that stuff from our coaching books? Well, it’s all in the file. It has information about the old man and Yen-yen. It lists all of our birth dates and outlines our whole story, since we’re all connected. He asks me why I didn’t tell the truth about my so-called brothers when I enlisted. I didn’t tell him anything.”

He takes Mariko’s hand. She’s white with the fear we all feel. “I don’t mind if they pick on us,” he continues. “But when they go after my children, who were born here…” He shakes his head in disgust. “Last week Bess came home crying. Her fifth-grade teacher showed a film to the class on the Communist threat. It showed Russians in fur hats and Chinese, well, looking like us. At the end of the film, the narrator asked the students to call the FBI or the CIA if they saw anyone who looked suspicious. Who looked suspicious in the class? My Bess. Now her friends won’t play with her. I have to worry about what’s going to happen to Eleanor and little Mamie too. I remind the girls that they’re named after the First Ladies. They don’t have to be afraid.”

But of course they have to be afraid. We’re all afraid.

When you’re held underwater, you think only of air. I remember how I felt about Shanghai in the days after our lives changed-how streets that had once seemed exciting suddenly stank of nightsoil, how beautiful women suddenly were nothing more than girls with three holes, how all the money and prosperity suddenly rendered everything forlorn, dissolute, and futile. The way I see Los Angeles and Chinatown during these difficult and frightening days couldn’t be more different. The palm trees, the fruits and vegetables in my garden, the geraniums in pots in front of stores and on porches all seem to shimmer and shiver with life, even in the heat of summer. I look down streets and I see promise. Instead of smog, corruption, and ugliness, I see magnificence, freedom, and openness. I can’t bear that the government is persecuting us with its terrible-and God help me, true-accusations about our citizenship, but I can bear even less the thought that my family and I might lose this place. Yes, it’s only Chinatown, but it’s my home, our home.

In these moments, I regret the years of homesickness and loneliness I’ve felt for Shanghai: the way I turned it into so many golden-hued remembrances of people, places, and food that, as Betsy has written me so many times, no longer exist and will never again exist. I berate myself: How could I not have seen what was right in front of me all these years? How could I not have sucked in all the sweetness instead of pining for memories that were only ashes and dust?

In desperation, I call Betsy in Washington to see if there’s anything her father can do for us. Although he’s suffering from his own persecution, Betsy promises he’ll look into Sam’s case.

“MY FATHER BORN San Flancisco-ah,” Sam says in his badly accented English.

Four days have passed since we had dinner with Fred, and now Sanders and Billings have come unannounced to our house. Sam perches on the end of Father Louie’s recliner. The other men sit on the couch. I’m seated on a straight-backed chair, wishing that Sam would let me speak for him. I have the same feeling I did when the Green Gang thug gave May and me his ultimatum in my family’s salon all those years ago: This is it .

“Then prove it. Show me his birth certificate,” Agent Billings demands.

“My father born San Flancisco-ah,” Sam insists firmly.

“San Flancisco-ah ,” Billings repeats in a mocking tone. “Of course it would be San Francisco, because of the earthquake and fire. We aren’t stupid, Mr. Louie. It’s said that for there to be so many Chinese born in the United States before 1906, every Chinese woman who was here back then would have had to have given birth to five hundred sons. Even if by some miracle that could have happened, how is it that only sons were born and no girls? Did you kill them?”

“I wasn’t born yet,” Sam answers, switching to Sze Yup. “I didn’t live here-”

“I have your file from Angel Island. We want you to look at some photographs.” Billings puts two photos on the coffee table. The first is of the little boy that Chairman Plumb tried to trick me with all those years ago. The other shows Sam upon his arrival at Angel Island, in 1937. With the two images side by side, it’s clear that the people in them can’t possibly be the same. “Confess, and then tell us about your fake brothers. Don’t let your wife and daughter suffer because of loyalty to men who won’t come forward to help you.”

Sam examines the photographs, leans back in the recliner, and says, his voice shaking, “I Father’s real son. Brother Vern will say you.”