Shanghai Girls: A Novel Part 6

The front door sc.r.a.pes open, and I hear the sound of more boots tramping on the hard-packed earth. The whole thing is horrible, but this is my worst moment, knowing that there's more to come. But I'm wrong. A voice-angry, authoritative, and as rough as grating gears-bellows at the men. They scramble to their feet. They adjust their trousers. They smooth their hair and wipe their mouths with the backs of their hands. Then they stand at attention and salute. I lie as still as possible, hoping they'll think I'm dead. The new voice yelps out orders-or is it a reprimand? The other soldiers bl.u.s.ter.

The cold edge of a bayonet or a saber presses against my cheek. I don't react. A boot kicks me. Again, I don't want to react-be dead, be dead, be dead, and maybe it won't begin again-but my body curls in on itself like a wounded caterpillar. No laughing this time, only terrible silence. I wait for the stab of the bayonet.

I feel a wave of cool air and then the soft settling of cloth over my naked body. The gruff soldier-directly above me, I realize, as he shouts his orders and I hear the shuffling of boots when the others file out-reaches down, adjusts the cloth over my hip, and then leaves.

For a long while, black silence fills the room. Then I hear Mama s.h.i.+ft her weight and moan. I'm still afraid, but I whisper, "Be still. They may come back."

Maybe I only think I whisper this, because Mama doesn't seem to pay attention to my warning. I hear her creep closer, and then I feel her fingers on my cheek. Mama, whom I've always thought of as physically weak, pulls me onto her lap. She leans back against the mud wall of the shack.

"Your father named you Pearl Dragon," Mama says, as she smoothes my hair, "because you were born in the Year of the Dragon and the Dragon likes to play with a pearl. But I liked the name for another reason. A pearl grows when a piece of sand lodges in the oyster. I was young, just fourteen, when my father arranged my marriage. That husband-wife thing we have to do was my duty and I did it, but what your father put inside me was as unpleasant as sand. But look what happened. My Pearl came out."

She hums for a while. I feel drowsy. My whole body aches. Where is May?

"There was a typhoon the day you were born," Mama suddenly goes on, switching to Sze Yup, the language of my childhood and the language that keeps secrets from May. "It is said that a Dragon born in a storm will have a particularly tempestuous fate. You always believe you are right, and this makes you do things you shouldn't-"

"Mama-"

"Just listen to me this one time ... and then try to forget... everything." She leans down and whispers in my ear. "You're a Dragon, and of all the signs only a Dragon can tame the fates. Only a Dragon can wear the horns of destiny, duty, and power. Your sister is merely a Sheep. You have always been a better mother to her than I have." I stir, but Mama holds me still. "Don't argue with me now. We don't have time for that."

Her voice sounds beautiful. Never before have I felt her mother love so strongly. My body relaxes in her arms, slowly drifting into darkness.

"You have to take care of your sister," Mama says. "Promise me, Pearl. Promise me right now."

I promise. And then, after what seems like days and weeks and months, blackness comes over my eyes.

Eating Wind and Tasting Waves I WAKE ONCE to find a moist cloth wiping my face. I open my eyes and there's May-as pale, beautiful, and tremulous as a spirit. I see the sky above her. Are we dead? I close my eyes again and feel myself lurching and b.u.mping.

The next thing I know I'm on a boat of some kind. I fight hard to stay awake this time. I look to my left and see netting. I look to my right and see land. The boat moves in a steady pull, pull, pull. The lack of waves tells me we aren't on the ocean. I lift my head and see a cage just beyond my feet. Inside, a boy of about six-r.e.t.a.r.ded, insane, diseased?-twitches and s.h.i.+mmies. I close my eyes and let myself be lulled by the steady rhythm of the boat as it's rowed through the water.

I don't know how many days we travel. Momentary images tear across my eyes and echo in my ears: the moon and the stars above, the incessant croaking of frogs, the sorrowful sound of a pi-pa being played, the splash of an oar, the raised voice of a mother calling to a child, the crack of rifle shots. Into the anguished hollows of my mind, I hear a voice say, "Is it true that dead men float facedown in water but women look to the sky?" I don't know who asked the question or if it was asked at all, but I'd prefer to stare down into an eternity of watery blackness.

Once I lift my arm to block the sunlight and feel something heavy slide toward my elbow. It's my mother's jade bracelet, and I know she's dead. My insides boil with fever, while my skin s.h.i.+vers uncontrollably with cold. Gentle hands lift me. I'm in a hospital. Soft voices say words like "morphine," "lacerations," "infection," "v.a.g.i.n.a," and "surgery." Whenever I hear my sister's voice, I feel safe. When I don't, I despair.

Finally, I come back from my wandering among the nearly dead. May dozes in a chair by the hospital bed. Her hands are so thickly bandaged that she looks like she has two huge white paws lying in her lap. A doctor-a man-stands over me and puts a forefinger to his lips. He jerks his head in May's direction and whispers, "Let her sleep. She needs it."

When he leans over me, I try to pull away, but my wrists have been tied to the bed rails.

"You've been delirious for some time and you fought us pretty hard," he says gently. "But you're safe now." He puts a hand on my arm. He's Chinese, but a man nevertheless. I fight the urge to scream. He looks into my eyes, searching, and then he smiles. "Your fever's gone. You're going to live."

In the coming days, I learn that May put me in the wheelbarrow and pushed me herself until we reached the Grand Ca.n.a.l. Along the way, she discarded or sold much of what we'd brought with us. Now our sole possessions are three outfits apiece, our papers, and what remains of Mama's dowry. At the Grand Ca.n.a.l, May used some of Mama's money to hire a fisherman and his family to take us on their sampan to Hangchow. I was near death by the time she got me to the hospital. When they took me in for surgery, other doctors worked on May's hands, which were blistered and worn raw from pus.h.i.+ng the wheelbarrow. She paid for our treatment by selling some of Mama's wedding jewelry at a local p.a.w.nshop.

Gradually May's hands heal, but I require another two surgeries. One day the doctors come in with grim faces to tell me they doubt I'll ever be able to have children. May weeps, but I don't. If having a baby means doing the husband-wife thing again, I'd rather die. Never again, I tell myself Never ever again will I do that thing.

After nearly six weeks in the hospital, the doctors finally agree to discharge me. With this news, May disappears to make arrangements for us to go to Hong Kong. On the day she's to pick me up, I step into the bathroom to change. I've lost a lot of weight. The person who stares back at me in the mirror looks no more than twelve years old-tall, gawky, and skinny-but with hollowed-out cheeks and dark circles under the eyes. My bob has grown out, and my hair hangs limp and dull. The days spent under the sun without benefit of an umbrella or a hat have left my skin ruddy and tough. How infuriated Baba would be if he saw me now. My arms are so emaciated that my fingers look overly long, like talons. The Western-style dress I put on hangs on me like loose drapery.

When I come out of the bathroom, May's sitting on my bed, waiting. She takes one look at me and tells me to take off the dress.

"A lot has happened while you've been recovering," she says. "The monkey people are like ants looking for syrup. They're everywhere." She hesitates. She hasn't wanted to talk about what happened that night in the shack, for which I'm grateful, but it hangs between us with every word, every look. "We need to fit in," she goes on with false brightness. "We need to look like everyone else."

She sold one of Mama's bracelets and used the money to buy two changes of clothes: native black linen trousers, loose blue jackets, and kerchiefs to cover our hair. She hands me a set of the rough peasant clothes. I've never had any shyness around May. She's my sister, but I don't think I can bear for even her to see me naked now. I take the clothes and go back into the bathroom.

"And I have one other idea," she calls from the opposite side of the closed and locked door. "I can't say it's my own and I don't know if it will work. I heard it from two Chinese missionary ladies. I'll wait until you get out here to show you."

This time when I stare in the mirror I almost laugh. In the last two months I've changed from a beautiful girl into a pitiful peasant, but when I come out of the bathroom, May doesn't comment on how I look. She just motions me to the bed. She pulls out a jar of cold cream and a tin of cocoa powder and sets them on my night table. From my breakfast tray-she frowns when she sees I haven't eaten anything again-she takes the spoon, scoops out some of the cold cream, and drops two big dollops of it on the tray.

"Pearl, pour some of the cocoa powder in here." I look at her quizzically. "Trust me," she says and smiles. I shake the powder into the jar, and she begins to stir the disgusting combination. "We're going to wear this on our hands and faces, so we'll look darker, more country."

It's a clever idea, but my skin is already dark and that didn't save me from the soldiers' madness. Still, from the moment I leave the hospital, I wear May's concoction.

WHILE I WAS in the hospital, May found a fisherman who's discovered a new and better way of making a fortune than looking beneath the waves by transporting refugees on the waves from Hangchow to Hong Kong. When we board his boat, we join another dozen or so pa.s.sengers in a small and very dark hold once used for storing fish. Our only light comes from between the slats of the deck above us. The lingering smell of fish is overpowering, but we set to sea, tossing in the tail of a typhoon. It doesn't take long before people get seasick. May has it the worst.

On our second day out, we hear shouts. A woman next to me begins to weep. "It's the j.a.panese," she cries. "We're all going to die."

If she's right, I won't give them a chance to rape me again. I'll throw myself overboard first. The hold echoes with the sound of heavy boots above us. Mothers hug their babies to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s to m.u.f.fle any sounds. Across from me, an infant's arm jerks desperately as he struggles to take a breath.

May rummages through our bags. She pulls out the last of our cash and divides it into three stacks. One she folds and wedges into the wooden slats of the ceiling. She hands me a few of the bills. I follow her lead as she tucks her money up under her kerchief. Hurriedly, she pulls Mama's bracelet off my wrist, takes off her earrings, and adds them to what's left in Mama's dowry bag. This she jams into a crack between the hull and the platform on which we sit. Finally, she reaches into our travel bag and brings out her cold-cream mixture. We smear an extra coating on our faces and hands.

The hatch opens, and light streams down on us.

"Come up here!" a voice demands in Chinese.

We do as we're told. Fresh, salty air blows on my face. The sea thrums under my feet. I'm too frightened to look up.

"It's all right," May whispers. "They're Chinese."

But these aren't sea inspectors, fishermen, or even other refugees being transferred from one boat to another. They're pirates. On land our countrymen are taking advantage of the war by looting areas under attack. Why should the sea be any different? The other travelers are terrified. They don't yet realize that the theft of money and belongings is nothing.

The pirates search the men and take whatever jewels and money they find. Unsatisfied, the head pirate orders the men to strip. At first they hesitate, but when he shakes his rifle, the men do as they're told. More money and jewels are found tucked into the cracks of rear ends, sewn into the hems or linings of clothes, or hidden in the soles of shoes.

It's hard to explain how I feel. The last time I saw men naked ... But here are my countrymen-cold, scared, trying to cover their private parts with their hands. I don't want to look at them, but I do. I feel confused, bitter, and strangely triumphant to see men reduced to such weakness.

Then the pirates ask the women to hand over whatever they're hiding. Having seen what happened to the men, the women promptly obey. Without regret, I reach into my kerchief and pull out the bills. Our valuables are gathered, but the pirates aren't dumb.

"You!"

I jump, but he isn't addressing me.

"What are you hiding?"

"I work on a farm," a girl standing to my right says, her voice trembling.

"A farm girl? Your face, hands, and feet deny that!"

It's true. She wears peasant clothes, but her face is pale, her hands pretty, and she wears new saddle oxfords. The pirate helps the girl off with her clothes until all she wears is a napkin and belt. That's when we all know for sure that she's lying. A farm girl can't afford Western-style napkins. She'd use coa.r.s.e gra.s.s paper like any other poor woman.

How is it that in times like these we can't help but look? I don't know, but again I look-partly afraid for myself and May, partly curious. The pirate takes the napkin and slits it open with his knife. He comes away with just fifteen dollars Hong Kong money.

Disgusted by his measly haul, the pirate tosses the napkin into the sea. He looks from woman to woman, decides we aren't worth the bother, and then motions to a couple of his men to search the hold. They return a few minutes later, say a few menacing words, jump back onto their boat, and chug away. People rush to be first to scramble down into the stinky hold to see what's been taken. I stay on the deck. Soon enough, faster than I could imagine, I hear cries of dismay.

A man rushes back up the ladder, takes three giant steps across the deck, and flings himself overboard. Neither the fisherman nor I have a chance to do anything. The man bobs in the waves for a minute or so, and then he disappears.

Every day since waking up in the hospital I've wanted to die, but watching that man sink below the waves, I feel something inside me rise up. A Dragon doesn't surrender. A Dragon fights fate. This is not some loud, roaring feeling. It feels more like someone blew on an ember and found a slight orange glow. I have to hang on to my life-however ruined and useless. Mama's voice comes floating to me, reciting one of her favorite sayings, "There is no catastrophe except death; one cannot be poorer than a beggar." I want-need-to do something braver and finer than dying.

I go to the hatch and climb down the ladder. The fisherman clamps and locks the hatch. In the sepulchral light I find May. I sit down next to her. Wordlessly, she shows me Mama's dowry bag, and then she glances up. I follow her gaze. The last of our money is still safe in the crevice.

A FEW DAYS after we arrive in Hong Kong, we read that the areas surrounding Shanghai have been under attack all this time. The reports are almost too much to bear. Chapei has been bombed and burned to the ground. Hongkew, where we lived, hasn't fared much better. The French Concession and the International Settlement-as foreign territories-are still safe. In a city where there isn't room for another rat, more and more refugees arrive. According to the paper, the foreign concessions' quarter-million residents are flummoxed by the crowding caused by three and a half million refugees living on the streets and in converted movie theaters, dance halls, and racecourses. Those concessions-surrounded as they are on all sides by the dwarf bandits-are now being called the Lonely Island. The terror hasn't been limited to Shanghai. Every day brings news of women being abducted, raped, or killed throughout China. Canton, not so far from us here in Hong Kong, suffers from heavy air raids. Mama wanted us to go to Baba's home village, but what will we find once we get there? Will it be burned to the ground? Will anyone be alive? Will our father's name mean anything anymore in Yin Bo?

We live in a hotel on Hong Kong's waterfront. It's dirty, dusty, and louse-ridden. The mosquito netting is sooty and ripped. The things we ignored in Shanghai are all too vivid here: families crouched on street corners with their worldly goods spread on a blanket before them, hoping someone will stop to buy. Nevertheless, the British act as though the monkey people will never come to the colony. "We aren't involved in this war," they say in their crisp accents. "The j.a.ps dare not attack here." With so little money, we're reduced to eating stewed rice bran, a meal often given to pigs. The bran scratches the throat on the way in and is ruinous on the way out. We have no skills, and no one has need for beautiful girls, because there's no point in promoting beautiful girls when the world's turning ugly.

Then one day we see Pockmarked Huang get out of a limousine and bound up the steps of the Peninsula Hotel. There's no mistaking him. We go back to our hotel and lock ourselves in our room. We try to figure out what his presence in Hong Kong means. Has he come here to escape the war? Has he moved the Green Gang's operations here? We don't know, and we don't have a safe way to find out. But no matter what, his reach his great. If he's here in the south, then he'll find us.

Out of options, we go to the Dollar Steams.h.i.+p Line office, exchange our original tickets, and procure spots in special second cla.s.s on the President Coolidge for the twenty-day voyage to San Francisco. We don't think about what will happen once we get there, finding our husbands, or anything like that. We're just trying to stay out of the Green Gang's net and stay ahead of the j.a.panese.

ON THE s.h.i.+P, my fever comes back. I stay in our cabin and sleep for most of the journey. May's plagued with seasickness, so she spends most of her time outside in the fresh air on the second-cla.s.s deck. She speaks of a young man who's going to Princeton to study.

"He's in first cla.s.s, but he comes to our deck to see me. We walk and talk, and walk and talk some more," she reports. "I've fallen for him like a ton of bricks." It's the first time I've heard the American phrase, and it strikes me as odd. This boy must be very Westernized. No wonder May likes him.

Sometimes May doesn't come back to the room until very late at night. Sometimes she climbs to the top bunk and goes right to sleep, but sometimes she crawls into the narrow bed with me and wraps her arms around me. She matches her breathing to mine and falls asleep. I lie awake then, afraid to move out of fear of waking her, and worrying, worrying, worrying. May seems very smitten with this boy, and I wonder if she's doing the husband-wife thing with him. But how could she when she's so seasick? How could she, period? And then my thoughts spiral to even darker places.

Many people wish to go to America. Some will do anything to get there, but going to America was never my dream. For me, it's just a necessity, another move after so many mistakes, tragedies, deaths, and one foolish decision after another. All May and I have left is each other. After everything we've been through, our tie is so strong that not even a sharp knife could sever it. All we can do now is continue down the road we're on, wherever it takes us.

Shadows on the Walls THE NIGHT BEFORE we land, I pull out the coaching book Sam gave me and leaf through it. The book says that Old Man Louie was born in America and that Sam, one of five brothers, was born in China in 1913, the Year of the Ox, during one of his parents' visits to their home village of Wah Hong, which makes him an American citizen because he was born to one. (He'd have to be an Ox, I think dismissively. Mama said that those born under this sign lack imagination and are forever pulling the burdens of the world.) Sam went back to Los Angeles with his parents, but in 1920, the old man and his wife decided to go China again and then leave their son, only seven years old, in Wah Hong with his paternal grandparents. (This is something different from what I'd been led to believe. I had thought Sam came to China with his father and brother to find a bride, but he was already there. I suppose this explains why he spoke to me in the Sze Yup dialect instead of English on the three occasions we met, but why hadn't the Louies told us any of that?) Now Sam has returned to America for the first time in seventeen years. Vern was born in Los Angeles in 1923, the Year of the Boar, and has lived there all his life. The other brothers were born in 1907, 1908, and 1911-all of them born in Wah Hong, all of them now living in Los Angeles. I do my best to memorize the tiny details-the various birth dates, the addresses in Wah Hong and Los Angeles, and the like-tell May the things I think are important, then put the rest out of my mind.

The next morning, November 15, we get up early and put on our best Western-style dresses. "We're guests in this country," I say. "We should look like we belong." May agrees, and she slips into a dress that Madame Garnet made for her a year ago. How is it that the silk and b.u.t.tons made it all the way here without being soiled or ruined, while I...? I have to stop thinking that way.

We gather our things and give our two bags to the porter. Then May and I go outside and find a spot by the rail, but we can't see much in the rain. Above us, the Golden Gate Bridge is draped in clouds. To our right, the city perches on the sh.o.r.e-wet, dreary, and insignificant compared with Shanghai's Bund. Below us on the open-air steerage deck, what seems like hundreds of coolies, rickshaw pullers, and peasants push and shove against one another in a writhing ma.s.s, the smell of their wet and stinking clothes wafting up to us.

The s.h.i.+p docks at a pier. Little family groups from first and second cla.s.s-laughing, jostling, and happy to have arrived-show their papers and then walk down a gangplank covered to protect them from the rain. When our turn comes, we hold out our papers. The inspector looks them over, frowns, and motions to a crew member.

"These two need to go to the Angel Island Immigration Station," he says.

We follow the crewman through the corridors of the s.h.i.+p and down flights of stairs to where the air is dank. I'm relieved when we step outside again until I see that we're now with the steerage pa.s.sengers. Naturally, no umbrellas or awnings cover this deck. Cold wind blows rain into our faces and soaks our clothes.

Around us people frantically pore over their coaching books. Then the man next to us tears a page from his book, stuffs it in his mouth, chews for a bit, and swallows it. I hear someone else say that he dropped his book into the waves the night before and another boast that he threw his into the latrine. "Good luck to anyone who wants to look for it now!" Anxiety clenches my stomach. Was I supposed to get rid of the book? Sam didn't tell me that. Now I have no way to get to it, because it's tucked in my hat in our luggage. I take a deep breath and try to rea.s.sure myself We have nothing to be afraid of. We're out of China, away from the war, and in the land of the free and all that.

May and I elbow our way through the smelly laborers to the railing. Couldn't they have washed before we landed? What kind of an impression do they want to give our hosts? May has something else on her mind altogether. She watches the people still filing off the first-and second-cla.s.s decks, searching for the young man she's been spending time with on the voyage. She grips my arm excitedly when she sees him.

"There he is! That's Spencer." She raises her voice and calls. "Spencer! Spencer! Look up here! Can you help us?"

She waves and calls a few more times, but he doesn't turn to look for her standing at the rail of the third-cla.s.s deck. Her face tightens as he tips the porters and then strolls with a group of Caucasian pa.s.sengers into a building to the right.

From deep within the s.h.i.+p, cargo is brought up in big netted bundles and deposited on the pier. From there, most of the cargo goes straight on to the customshouse. Pretty soon, we see those same crates and boxes leave customs and get loaded onto trucks. Duties have been paid and the goods go on their way to new destinations, but we continue to wait in the rain.

Some crewmen hoist another gangplank-this one with no protection from the weather-onto the lower deck, where we are. A lo fan in a slicker bounds up the gangplank and climbs onto a crate. "Take everything you brought with you," he shouts in English. "Anything you leave will be thrown away."

People around us mumble, confused.

"What's he saying?"

"Be quiet. I can't hear."

"Hurry up!" the man in the slicker demands. "Chop! Chop!"

"Do you understand him?" a soaked and s.h.i.+vering man next to me asks. "What does he want us to do?"

"Take your belongings and get off the boat."

As we begin doing what we're told, the man in the slicker puts his balled fists on his hips and yells, "And stay together!"

We disembark, with everyone pus.h.i.+ng against one another as though it's the most important thing in the world to be the first off the s.h.i.+p. When our feet touch ground, we're marched not into the building to the right, where the other pa.s.sengers went, but to the left, along the pier, and then across a tiny gangplank and onto a small boat-all without explanation. Once on board, I see that, although there are a few Caucasians and even a handful of j.a.panese, almost everyone here is Chinese.

The lines are let go, and we pull back into the bay.

"Where are we going now?" May asks.

How can May be so disconnected from what's happening around us? Why can't she pay attention? Why couldn't she have read the coaching book? Why can't she accept what's become of us? That Princeton student, whatever his name is, understood her position perfectly, but May refuses to consider it.

"We're going to the Angel Island Immigration Station," I explain.

"Oh," she says lightly. "All right."

The rain gets heavier and the wind colder. The little boat bobs in the waves. People throw up. May hangs her head over the rail and gulps in wet air. We pa.s.s an island in the middle of the bay, and for a few minutes it looks like we're going to chug back under the Golden Gate Bridge, out to sea, and return to China. May moans and tries to stay focused on the horizon. Then the boat veers to the right, curves around another island and into a small inlet, where it pulls up to a wharf at the end of a long dock. Low-slung white wooden buildings nestle on the hillside. Ahead, four stubby palm trees s.h.i.+ver in the wind and the wet flag of the United States slaps noisily against its pole. A large sign reads NO SMOKING. Again everyone pushes to be first off the boat.

"Whites without satisfactory paperwork first!" that same man in the slicker shouts, as though his higher decibels will somehow make the people who don't understand English suddenly fluent, but of course most of the Chinese don't know what he's saying. The white pa.s.sengers are pulled out of the line and brought forward, while a couple of squat and very solid guards push away the Chinese who've made the mistake of standing at the front of the line. But these lo fan don't understand much of what the man in the slicker is saying either. They are, I realize, White Russians. They're lower than the poorest Shanghainese, and yet they're given special treatment! They're led off the boat and escorted into the building. What happens next is even more shocking. The j.a.panese and Koreans are grouped together and politely led to a different door in the building. "We're ready for you now," the man in the slicker instructs. "When you get off the boat, line up in two lines. Men on the left. Women and children under twelve on the right."

There's a lot of confusion and a lot of manhandling by the guards, but once they line us up the way they want, we're led in the driving rain along the dock to the Administration Building. When the men are sent through one door and the women and children through another-separating husbands from wives and fathers from families-cries of consternation, fright, and worry fill the air. None of the guards shows any sympathy. We are treated more poorly than the cargo that traveled with us.

The separation of Europeans (meaning all whites), Asiatics (meaning anyone from across the Pacific who isn't Chinese), and Chinese continues as we're marched up a steep hill to a medical facility in one of the wooden buildings. A white woman wearing a white uniform and a starched white cap folds her hands in front of her and begins speaking in English in that same loud voice that's somehow supposed to make up for the fact that no one except May and I understands what she's saying.

"Many of you are trying to enter our country with loathsome and dangerous parasitic diseases," she says. "This is unacceptable. The doctors and I are going to check you for trachoma, hookworm, filariasis, and liver fluke."

The women around us start to cry. They don't know what this woman wants, but she's wearing white-the color of death. A Chinese woman in a long white (again!) cheongsam is brought in to translate. I've been moderately calm up to now, but as I listen to what these people plan to do to us, I start to tremble. We're to be picked over like rice being prepared for cooking. When we're told to undress, murmurs of distress ripple through the room. Not so long ago I would have snickered with May about the other women's prudishness, because we hadn't been like most Chinese women. We'd been beautiful girls. Good or bad, we'd shown our bodies. But most Chinese women are very private, never exposing themselves publicly and rarely even in private before their husbands or even their daughters.

But whatever looseness I had in the past has disappeared for good. I can't bear to be unclothed. I can't stand to be touched. I cling to May, and she steadies me. Even when the nurse tries to separate us, May stays with me. I bite my lips to keep from screaming when the doctor approaches. I look over his shoulder and out the window. I'm afraid that if I close my eyes I'll be back in that shack with those men, hearing Mama's screams, feeling... I keep my eyes wide open. Everything's white and clean ... well, cleaner than my memories of the shack. I pretend I don't feel the icy chill of the doctor's instruments or the white softness of his hands on my flesh; I stare out across the bay. We face away from San Francisco now, and all I see is gray water disappearing into gray rain.

Land has to be out there, but I have no idea how far it is. Once he's done with me, I allow myself to breathe again.

One by one, the doctor makes his examinations while we all wait-s.h.i.+vering from cold and fear-until everyone has given a stool sample. So far we've been separated from other races, then men separated from women, and now we women are separated yet again: one group to go to the dormitory, one to stay in the hospital for treatment for hookworm, which can be cured, and one for those with liver fluke, to be instantly and without appeal deported back to China. Now the tears really flow.

May and I are in the group that goes to the women's dormitory on the second floor of the Administration Building. Once we're inside, the door is locked behind us. Rows of bunks two across and three high are connected to one another by iron poles attached to the ceiling and floor. There are no "beds" to sleep on, just wire mesh. This means that the frames can be folded up to create more s.p.a.ce in the room, but apparently no one wants to sit on the floor. The distance between bunks is barely eighteen inches. The vertical gaps between the bunks are so tight that at first glance I can see I won't be able to extend my arm without hitting the one above. Only the top bunk has enough s.p.a.ce to sit upright, but that area is cluttered with drying laundry of the women already here, which hangs on strings tied between the poles at the ends of the bunks. On the floor beneath each occupied tier of bunks are a few tin bowls and cups.

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."