Lisa See - Shanghai Girls

“The second cook didn’t show up at the café,” she says. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t care. Whatever you decide is fine.”

“I know this is a hard time for you, and I’m sorry about that. I really am. But I need you. You don’t understand the pressure I have now with the café, Vern, the responsibility for the house, and my business. Things are so busy right now.”

I listen as she wonders aloud how much to charge a production company for extras, costumes, and props like wheelbarrows, food carts, and rickshaws.

“I always base my rentals on a ten percent value of the article,” May continues. I understand she’s trying to get me to come out of my room, reconnect with life, help her as I always have, but truly, I don’t know one damn thing about her rental business, and right now I don’t care . “They want to rent some pieces for several months, perhaps as much as a year, and some of what they want-like the rickshaws-is irreplaceable. So how much do you think I should charge to rent them? They each cost about two hundred and fifty dollars, so I could charge twenty-five dollars a week. But I’m thinking I should charge more, because where will we buy replacements if something happens to them?”

“Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”

I start to close the door, but she grabs it and pulls it open. “Why don’t you let me in? You could take a shower. I could do your hair. Maybe you could put on a dress and we could take a walk-”

“I don’t want to upset your plans,” I say, but I’m thinking, How many times in the past did she leave me at home with our parents in Shanghai, in the apartment with Yen-yen, and now with Vern so that she could go out to do… whatever it is she does?

“You need to rejoin the living-”

“It’s only been two weeks-”

May gives me a hard stare. “You need to come out and be with your family. Joy will be going back to Chicago soon. She needs you to talk to her-”

“Don’t tell me how to mother my daughter-”

She takes hold of my wrist, wrapping her hand around Mama’s bracelet. “Pearl.” She gives my wrist a little shake. “I know this is terrible for you. A great sadness. But you’re still young. You’re still beautiful. You have your daughter. You have me. And you’ve had everything . Look how Joy loves you. Look how Sam loved you.”

“Yes, and he’s dead.”

“I know, I know,” she says sympathetically. “I was trying to be helpful. I didn’t think he’d kill himself.”

Her words hang like elegantly calligraphed characters in the air before my eyes, the silence thick as I read them again and again, until finally I ask, “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I didn’t mean anything.”

My sister has never been a good liar.

“May!”

“All right! All right!” She lets go of my wrist, raises both of her hands, and shakes them in frustration. Then she pivots on one of her high heels and sways into the living room. I’m right behind her. She stops, turns, and quickly spills the words. “I told Agent Sanders about Sam.”

“You did what?” My ears refuse to understand the depth of her betrayal.

“I told the FBI about Sam. I thought it would help.”

“Why would you do that?” I ask, still not willing to believe what she’s saying.

“I did it for Father Louie. Before he died, he seemed to sense what was coming. He made me promise to do whatever was necessary to keep you and Sam safe. He didn’t want the family separated-”

“He didn’t want Vern to be left only with you,” I say. But this is far off the point. What she’s saying about Sam can’t be true. Please let it not be true.

“I’m sorry. Pearl, I’m so sorry.” And with that, May lets the rest of her confession fall from her lips in a jumble. “Agent Sanders used to walk with me sometimes when I was coming back to the house after work. He asked about Joy, and he wanted to know about you and Sam too. He said this was an opportunity for amnesty. He said if I told him the truth about Sam’s paper-son status, then we could work together to get his citizenship and yours. I thought if I could show Agent Sanders I was a good American, then he would see that you were good Americans too. Don’t you see? I had to protect Joy, but I was also afraid of losing you, my sister, the only one in my life who’s loved me for who I am, who’s stood by me and taken care of me. If you’d just done as I’d said-hired a lawyer and confessed-then the two of you could have become citizens. You never again would have had to be afraid, and you and I never again would have had to worry about being separated. Instead, you and Sam continued to lie. The idea that Sam would hang himself never entered my mind.”

I’ve loved my sister from the moment she was born, but for too long I’ve been like a moon spinning around her entrancing planet. Now I whirl away as the anger of a lifetime boils out of me. My sister, my stupid, stupid sister.

“Get out.”

She stares at me in that Sheep way of hers-complacent and uncomprehending.

“I live here, Pearl. Where do you want me to go?”

“Get out!” I scream.

“No!” It’s one of the few times in our lives that she’s so directly disobeyed me. Then, in a heavy but raspy voice, she repeats, “No. You’re going to listen to me for once. Amnesty made sense. It was the safe thing to do.”

I shake my head, refusing to listen. “You’ve ruined my life.”

“No, Sam ruined his life.”

“That’s so like you, May, placing fault on someone other than yourself.”

“I never would have spoken to Agent Sanders if I’d thought there was any danger to Sam or you. I can’t believe you’d think that about me.” She seems to gather strength, standing there in her emerald satin. “Agent Sanders and the other one gave you every chance-”

“If you call intimidation a chance.”

“Sam was a paper son,” May goes on. “He was here illegally. For the rest of my life I’m going to blame myself for Sam’s suicide, but that doesn’t change the fact that what I did was right for the both of you and for our family. All you and Sam had to do was tell the truth-”

“Didn’t you consider what the consequences of that would be?”

“Of course I did! I’ll say it again: Agent Sanders said that if you and Sam confessed, then you’d receive amnesty. Amnesty! Your papers would have been stamped, you would have become legal citizens, and that would have been that. But you and Sam were too stubborn, too country-Chinese and ignorant to be Americans.”

“So now you’re blaming me for everything that’s happened?”

“I don’t want to say that, Pearl.”

But she just did say it! I’m so angry I can’t think straight. “I want you to move out of my house,” I seethe. “I never want to see you again. Not ever.”

“You’ve always blamed me for everything.” Her voice is calm, calm .

“Because everything that’s been bad in my life is because of you.”

My sister stares at me, waiting, as if she’s ready to hear what I have to say. If that’s what she wants…

“Baba loved you more,” I say. “He had to sit next to you. Mama loved you so much she had to sit right across from you, so she could stare at her beautiful daughter and not the one with the ugly red face.”

“You’ve always suffered from red-eye disease.” My sister sniffs, as though my accusations are insignificant. “You’ve always been jealous and envious of me, but you were the one who was cherished by Mama and Baba. Who loved who more? I’ll tell you. Baba liked to look at you . Mama had to sit next to you . The three of you always spoke in Sze Yup. You had your own secret language. You always left me out.”