Gold Mountain (6 page)

“My interpreter, Yuen Qui, is ill and needs several weeks to regain her strength, and while there are others of my girls that I could use in that capacity, I hate to take them from their work and studies. I could use someone with your knowledge of both Chinese and English to assist in several areas. It would be eight weeks at most, I imagine, and not constant. I might need you to spend some nights at 920, however, if you or your sister wouldn’t object to your sleeping away from home now and then.” She gave me another long, contemplative look. “I think you have the character for the work—or am I mistaken?”

Ruth, who had come to stand beside me, placed her hand on my arm and stated proudly, “Dinah isn’t afraid of anything, Miss Cameron. Last year she spent fifty-five days in Pekin under siege from the Boxers, and I don’t believe she turned a hair.”

“That’s not exactly true,” I interjected hastily, “but my sister’s point that I’m not easily cowed is true. My father once said that I lacked the necessary imagination to be afraid, and I fear he was right.” Miss Cameron laughed.

“I don’t need imagination, only a good ear for the Chinese language and an unapologetic temperament. I’m already late for another meeting, but do you think you could find the time to stop by 920 tomorrow?” She replied to my nod. “Good. Come sometime in the morning so you can visit the classes and plan to have lunch with me and my girls.” To Ruth, she added, “You’re welcome to accompany your sister, of course, Mrs. Shandling. We enjoy company.” Miss Cameron looked across the room at a woman who stood by the door beckoning with a rather imperious wave. “I must go. It never does to be late when the subject is finances.”

Later, going home, Ruth asked, “Dinah, are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into? Miss Cameron’s work sounded dark and dangerous to me. I doubt if you’ve ever been exposed to what she and her girls have experienced.”

“You and I lived in the same house in the same city for twelve years, Ruth. Are you telling me that you never noticed when one of our girls disappeared, that you never wondered what happened to her?”

“Of course, I noticed, but I never thought—”

“You never thought she disappeared because her father sold her into servitude or prostitution?”

“How could I ever have imagined something like that?” Ruth paused, then added on a less defensive note, “I never really considered it. Did you know about—?”

“Yes,” I replied tersely. “I may not have had much imagination, but I had an awful lot of curiosity. Father had to explain the situation to me, what it meant for a daughter to be sold by her father and why a father would do such a reprehensible thing. The knowledge helped me view the importance of our mission and our school in a different way. If we could keep the girls under our watchful eyes until they were grown and if the girls received a basic education in domestic and academic skills, they could find work on their own. They wouldn’t be at the mercy of a society that considered them expendable and valued them only as human currency.”

“I didn’t know,” my sister responded sadly. “I’m sorry. I should have been more like you.” I smiled at her, recognizing the sincere regret in her voice.

“One of me is plenty, Ruthie. You have never been able to conceive of anyone or anything as wicked, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m sure such optimistic innocence is one of the many reasons Father protected you and Martin fell in love with you.”

“Optimistic innocence,” Ruth repeated softly, her tone giving the impression that the idea was new and not entirely welcome. She remained reflective and quiet the rest of the way home.

“I can’t go with you,” my sister told me the next morning when I appeared at breakfast ready for my visit to 920. “I want to, but I feel awful. I’ve been told that in another week or two this misery will pass, but until then I’m afraid I’m not able to be much company for you.”

Ruth sat down at the breakfast table, took one look at the eggs and ham I’d set before her, turned an alarming shade of ecru, and disappeared quickly from the room.

Martin followed his wife out but rejoined me not long after saying, “I don’t think Ruth is quite in the mood for breakfast this morning. Will it be like this until the baby’s born?” The anxiety I heard in his voice made me feel unusually sympathetic toward him.

“Not typically. Just the first three months, I’m told. I’ll take her some dry toast and hot tea when she can consider food rationally.” He looked relieved and, to make conversation, I continued, “How are you enjoying your new promotion?” His expression took on a vague smugness that immediately erased all the good humor I felt for him and made me wish I hadn’t asked.

“It’s a lot more work, of course, and I’m responsible for the bank’s clerical staff, that they get to work on time and carry out their duties properly, but Mr. Gallagher stopped by last week to tell me that he’s pleased with everything I’m doing. He repeated that this position is a step on the way to bank manager. I have to believe that Ralph Gallagher asking us to join him and his wife as their guests at the city’s summer cotillion is his way of moving me up the ranks.”

“Provided I don’t eat peas with my knife or talk about the benefits of labor unions,” I commented dryly.

Martin narrowed his eyes at me, but he was growing used to my humor and only rejoined, “Yes, Dinah. I’d appreciate it if you would keep your preference for labor unions to yourself, at least while we’re sitting at the table with the Gallaghers. The city’s agitated enough about the topic without you stirring the pot.”

I gave him a quick grin. “Of course, Martin. I wouldn’t want to cause Ruth any more indigestion than she already has.” My brother-in-law had enough good nature to grin in return.

Sacramento Street, as I later learned, had already gained the nickname “China Street” in honor of the red-brick building that sat innocently behind the numbers 920. Eyeing it from the curb, I thought it looked innocuous enough, a large, unimaginative, plain brick building of five stories, arched windows on each side of a dark front doorway, the words “Occidental Board of Foreign Missions” etched in stone over the door, and its only menacing feature the heavy bars that covered the windows.

My knock was answered by a petite Chinese girl with a radiant smile. The sight of her friendly face sent a pang of guilt straight to my heart with the piercing sharpness of an arrow. Her facial features resembled Mae Tao’s and I knew from Miss Cameron’s recent speech that while I had been enjoying myself these past few weeks, it was unlikely that poor little Mae Tao had been doing the same.

Miss Cameron greeted me with what appeared to be a bottomless reservoir of energy and good humor. Did she never grow discouraged? Was she always as fearless as she seemed? If appearances were any measure, the Mission Board could not have found anyone better suited for this work than the woman who stood before me, hand outstretched.

“Miss Hudson, I am so pleased you were able to visit us. Your sister—?”

“Is unfortunately indisposed this morning. Very indisposed, in fact.” I gave a small shrug to express the helplessness of Ruth’s condition, and Miss Cameron smiled her understanding.

“Well, we’re glad you were able to leave her long enough to visit 920. Did you meet Lu Chu?” She motioned toward the girl who had ushered me into the house. “Our housekeeper, Miss Thompson, is away for the morning so Lu Chu has kindly taken on her duties.”

“Hello, Lu Chu,” I said in Chinese. “Your gracious welcome honored me.” The girl’s eyes widened at my words and she turned to look at Miss Cameron in surprise.

“Our guest speaks my language as if she were one of my sisters, Lo Mo, but she looks like you. How is this?” The girl spoke in soft, accented English.

“Miss Hudson has spent a great deal of her life in China, Lu Chu, and her ear for the language is much more exact than mine. Your Lo Mo would do well to learn from Miss Hudson.”

“Oh no.” The child’s response was immediate and heartfelt. “No one is as good and wise as you.” Then, fearing she had insulted me, she added, “I mean no disrespect to you, of course, Miss Hudson, but it is to Lo Mo that we owe our safety and our freedom.”

“I understand perfectly and I completely agree. Your mother is indeed good and wise—but not so old, I think.” I looked at Miss Cameron with a slight smile. “How did you come by the name Lo Mo—‘old mother’? I can hear the affection in the words, but I would have thought Mo Chun a more apt name. Lo Mo is usually reserved for someone several years your senior—or is it just that to these young girls anyone older than twenty seems old?”

“When one of my daughters, Leung T’sun Tai, first called me Lo Mo, she was so very young that I’m sure I must have seemed ancient to her, though it’s true I wasn’t much older than eighteen at the time. For some reason the name stuck. I don’t mind. I agree that being called Mo Chun would credit me with more dignity, but frankly sometimes I feel like a very old mother so Lo Mo is as apt as anything else.”

For just a moment, I caught weariness and a touch of anxiety in her tone that answered my earlier musings. Donaldina Cameron was human and not as unfamiliar with discouragement and fear as I had originally thought. The name Lo Mo might fit her more than I realized.

“Now, Miss Hudson, let me show you around. Lu Chu, run ahead and tell the girls to have everything ship-shape for our visitor. We want her to be so impressed that she will be willing to stay with us for a time and fill in for Yuen Qui until she regains her health.”

The little girl gave a blindingly beautiful smile and hurried away while Miss Cameron and I proceeded to explore the first floor at a slower pace. When I finally made it to the classrooms upstairs and to the sleeping rooms even farther up, Lu Chu had followed through on her assignment well. All the rooms were neat, the girls even neater. Most were in Chinese costume although a few wore skirts and shirtwaists, and all sat with their hands folded politely on their desktops, beaming a welcome from scrubbed faces. From the friendly sparkle of their black eyes, I would never have guessed that many had endured degradation and abuse on an unbelievably inhuman scale.

Later, Miss Cameron and I sat in the parlor, a tray of freshly brewed tea, cream, and sugar between us.

“So what are your impressions, Miss Hudson?” Miss Cameron eyed me over the rim of her teacup, waiting for my response.

“I sense,” I answered slowly, “happiness in this house, and safety, and contentment. Yet on the faces of some of the girls, and truthfully, sometimes in your voice, too, I can see and hear that struggle and grief also inhabit this place.” I set my cup down and leaned forward. “If I can do anything, anything at all, to increase the joy and diminish the pain, then I am at your disposal. Only I have an obligation to my sister, and I must be faithful to that, too. If you believe there is a way I can balance the two responsibilities, then I would love to be part of your efforts, even temporarily.”

“As one of five Cameron sisters myself, I understand completely your duty to Mrs. Shandling and I guarantee not to abuse the time you volunteer at 920. I have other girls who can interpret if you are not available.” She was going to say more but our conversation was interrupted by loud voices in the hallway just outside the parlor where we sat.

A woman’s voice—an old woman, if I had to guess—cried in broken English, “No. Must come now. Now. Girl die.” Then, slipping into Chinese, she added, “She will die anyway, but I won’t have her spirit haunting me.”

I glanced quickly at Miss Cameron and saw her lips thin and the smile leave her eyes as she whirled away from me and stepped quickly into the hallway. I followed her.

Standing just inside the front door was an old, bent Chinese woman. She tried to straighten as Miss Cameron approached but her back’s deformity would allow her to do so only in a limited capacity. She was able to raise her head, however, and did so with a regal gesture that compensated for her lack of stature. The old woman spoke in a rapid, sing-song voice as she thrust a small white cloth toward Miss Cameron.

Miss Cameron turned toward me to ask, “I think I understood what she said but can you—?”

“Of course. She said the cloth is from a girl held in a gambling house on the corner of Tuck Wo Gai and Wa Sheng Dun Gaiby and that the girl needs help. The girl is ill. She sickens for home but they will not release her. They beat her instead. This woman says she has heard that the people in this house will help poor girls. She says we are to show the girl the cloth so she will know we have come to help.”

Miss Cameron took the cloth. “Tell her thank you. Tell her we will do all we can. And ask her, Miss Hudson, if there is anything we can do for her since she is here.”

The woman shook her head proudly in answer to the last question before saying, “I must go. If I am gone too long, they will suspect something.”

I caught the fear in her tone and nodded. “Then, go. But first tell us this girl’s name.” The old woman shrugged off my request.

“I don’t know her name. When the girls come into the house, they lose everything.” Then she slipped out the front door with an awkward, unsteady step that I recognized as a sign of the ancient, vile practice of foot binding. The woman’s matter-of-fact response chilled me. If even her name was taken from her, what was left for this poor, homesick, captive girl?

Miss Cameron dispatched a message to the police and asked me if I was able to stay into the early afternoon. “You will get a personal taste of our work at 920 if you can stay, Miss Hudson. You might as well see if it suits you.”