Rebecca Hagan Lee (5 page)

Chapter Five

“Boldness be my friend.”

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

T
wo days later, Julie Parham shivered as she made her way along the rabbit warren of streets and alleys that made up Chinatown. She was headed for what was known as the Chinese “red light” district—the area between Stockton and Montgomery streets, north of Sacramento—dressed as a peasant in a tunic and trousers and black cotton shoes she’d purchased from a street vendor for a dollar and fifty cents.

Feeling conspicuous in her Salvationist uniform and aware that the locals were tight-lipped and suspicious of a “foreign devil” missionary who spoke perfect Cantonese, Julie had exchanged her woolen dress for this costume.

She’d rinsed her hair in a mixture of cold black coffee and vinegar to darken it, plaited it into one long queue that hung down her back, lined her eyes with kohl to elongate them, darkened her eyelashes and brows with a mixture of lampblack and beeswax, and had even gone so far as to stain her face, neck, and hands with finely ground rice powder tinted yellow. There was nothing she could do about the color of her eyes, and her cosmetics wouldn’t fool anyone in bright sunlight or beneath the glow of lamps or candles, but San Francisco was perpetually wreathed in fog and mist, and with a conical straw hat covering her head and shading her face and no sun to speak of, she found that she could pass among the locals with little fear of discovery as long as she kept her eyes humbly downcast. Julie had worn her disguise on three consecutive days, but she couldn’t relax her diligence. The slightest mistake might give her away.

Her ugly Salvationist dress had protected her from the more unseemly elements and characters in the Occidental sections of the waterfront, proclaiming her a missionary and acting as a shield against unwanted advances from all but the most jaded and depraved of men, but it was of little use in Chinatown, where it was met with suspicion and disdain.

She reveled in the freedom the costume provided, but she missed the warmth of the gray wool and the extra protection from the damp and cold afforded by the undergarments needed to support her wool dress. Her tunic and trousers were comfortable and liberating, but the chill cut through the fabric like a hot knife through butter.

Julie bit her bottom lip to keep her teeth from chattering as she hurried down the makeshift boardwalk to the next boardinghouse.

It had taken her almost a week to work up the courage to approach the saloons situated around the perimeter of Chinatown, and another few days to cross into Chinatown, where saloons were replaced by gambling houses, opium dens, boardinghouses or parlor houses, and cribs where many of the Chinese girls who came to San Francisco worked—willingly or unwillingly—as prostitutes. Julie didn’t approach the boardinghouse from the front, but went around to the side entrance. Carrying a single willow basket in her guise as Chinese peasant, rather than the double baskets suspended from a shoulder pole that were currently outlawed by a city ordinance, Julie presented herself at the back and side entrances of establishments, pretending to be a laundry worker collecting soiled linens.

She had learned her first week in San Francisco that entering disreputable establishments through the front door while wearing a gray wool Salvationist gown was guaranteed to get one unceremoniously escorted out the door and off the premises. She barely managed to whisper Su Mi’s name to the girls in the front parlor before the madam’s hatchet men had ushered her out the door. And her second week in San Francisco had taught her that missionary “ladies” were not allowed entrance to the back and side entrances of disreputable establishments either. Especially missionary ladies asking questions about Chinese girls. She’d been forced to wait outside the establishments in order to question customers entering and exiting the premises about Su Mi under the guise of soliciting donations for the mission. Unfortunately, that had lasted only as long as it took for the customers to complain and for her to be escorted away from the area. She had been threatened, intimidated, spit upon, and shoved off the plank walkways and into the street.

No one looked twice at Chinese laundry workers collecting or delivering linens. They were permitted access to all the boardinghouses and a few of the cribs lining the streets and alleys.

Chinese laundries were plentiful in San Francisco. Most operated seven days a week; all she had to do was find one that needed the business she promised to bring it. She began by befriending the laundry girl who collected the linens used in the female dormitory at the mission. After that, it was a simple matter of paying Zhing Wu a better-than-average price to keep quiet and to look the other way while Julie took her place at the boardinghouses, and eliciting a promise that Zhing would do any laundry Julie brought back and never question its origin.

The ruse worked like a charm. As it turned out, Zhing Wu hated collecting soiled linens and clothing from the Chinese-owned boardinghouses. She was rare in San Francisco: a free Chinese woman. The young widow of a mine worker, Zhing Wu had come from the interior of China to work for her father-in-law at the laundry he’d established on the far end of Washington Street, past the ladders that led to the underground housing derisively known as the Dog Kennel. Zhing Wu was terribly afraid of being kidnapped by the madams in the boardinghouses. She was especially afraid of being kidnapped by the notorious Li Toy, who owned a dozen or more boardinghouses, brothels, and cribs. Zhing was terrified by the possibility that Li Toy or one of the other madams might force her into becoming a
baak haak chai
, a Cantonese term that meant “one of a hundred men’s wives.”

Julie couldn’t blame Zhing Wu. Li Toy’s name was enough to put the fear of God in all but the most hardened Celestial. From what she’d learned during her two weeks in San Francisco, Li Toy was not a person one wished to have as an enemy.

Julie had spent three days collecting laundry, from the boardinghouses on Dupont Street to the brothels lining both sides of Montgomery and Stockton streets, slipping silently into the back and side entrances during the midmorning hours and going from room to room, retrieving dirty linen while making quiet conversation with the girls working in the houses, asking as many questions as she dared about Su Mi. Did anyone know her? Had anyone traveled from Hong Kong to
Gum Saan
,
the Cantonese term for California,
with her? Or heard her name mentioned?

None of the girls she’d questioned so far admitted to knowing anything about Su Mi, or admitted to even having heard her name. But there were dozens of brothels in Chinatown left to investigate, along with the second-floor businesses in the saloons surrounding Chinatown on streets lined with cheap cribs, as well as Li Toy’s establishments like the Lotus Blossom and the Jade Dragon.

Julie knew the likelihood of anyone from the mission recognizing her was slight. Her Salvationist sisters preferred patrolling the businesses in San Francisco proper, leaving the waterfront dives to the Women’s Temperance League members and mysterious Chinatown to the men brave enough to tackle its maze of narrow, dirty alleyways. Julie didn’t blame them. She’d lived in Hong Kong all her life and spoke fluent Cantonese and Mandarin, and still found Chinatown and the Barbary Coast surrounding it daunting. The people and the sounds of the area were as familiar to her as the faces of her loved ones, but Chinatown and the Barbary Coast were worlds away from the closed sedans and coaches she’d traveled in and the walled gardens of home.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Julie made her way to the back entrance of the Lotus Blossom. Fridays were busy days for Zhing Wu. On Fridays she made two visits to the brothels on Montgomery and Stockton streets, picking up soiled laundry in the mornings and delivering clean laundry in the afternoons before the brothels began teeming with customers. She began with the Lotus Blossom at the top of Montgomery and ended with the Jade Dragon at the bottom.

Balancing her willow basket on one hip, Julie knocked on the back door of the Lotus Blossom and called out in singsong Cantonese, “Wu’s laundry pickup.”

Someone peered through the peephole drilled in the back door, then slid the bolt, allowing Julie entrance. She stepped inside. “Dirty laundry, please,” she called out in her singsong voice.

In minutes, piles of soiled sheets, towels, and female garments and accoutrements began appearing outside the doors. All the garments were similar. There was nothing to distinguish one corset, silk stocking, nightgown, or sheer robe from the others. The embellishments and embroidery were identical—nothing special, nothing personal. Julie had hoped to find something—a nightgown or handkerchief—bearing Su Mi’s exquisitely detailed embroidery, but so far all she’d collected was dirty bed linens, bathing flannels, and shockingly revealing dressing gowns and blouses. No outer garments and no drawers. Women in the brothels and parlor houses wore sheer robes or opened blouses during working hours, but were required to leave their nether regions uncovered. There wasn’t a pair of drawers or a tunic and trousers to be found.

Zhing Wu had tried to prepare Julie for the immodesty she’d find in the brothels, but she’d been scandalized nonetheless. Nothing could prepare an innocent young lady for the sight of a Chinese brothel. The first day she’d arrived early and had had to struggle to keep the shock off her face and her eyes downcast. It had gotten a bit easier in subsequent days, but Julie feared she’d never get over the sight of girls lounging about with breasts and nether regions bared, or covered in robes so transparent they provided no coverage at all—or worse—entertaining grunting, groaning men behind curtained alcoves or closed doors.

The thought of shy, modest little Su Mi trapped in such a place haunted Julie. Her desperation to find her friend was growing with each passing day.

Reaching for the closest pile of laundry, Julie stuffed it into her willow basket and whispered to the girl in the doorway in Cantonese, “Do you know of a girl from Hong Kong? A girl named Su Mi? Is she here?”

The girl shook her head. “No Su Mi here.”

“Are you sure?” Julie persisted, scooping an armload of dirty linen from the girl in the next doorway and pushing it into the basket. “She left Hong Kong for the Flowery Flag Nation almost three months ago.”

“No Su Mi here today,” the second girl told her. “No Su Mi here yesterday. No Su Mi here day before yesterday.”

Julie heaved a sigh.

“Why you care?” the first girl asked. “No one else care about poor China girls in here.”

“Su Mi is . . .” Julie thought for a moment. She and Su Mi couldn’t pass for blood sisters, not upon close scrutiny, but she could be family. “Su Mi is the daughter of my father’s—” She searched the word for
housekeeper
, but what came out was
wife
.

“Poor Su Mi.” The second brothel girl clucked her tongue and shook her head in sympathy. “Nobody to look for her except Wu’s big-footed laundry girl, Jie Li.”

Julie absorbed the insult, but she couldn’t keep from glancing down at her feet. They were small compared to most Englishwomen’s, but she supposed they appeared enormous when compared to the tiny feet of the China girls. “Perhaps, but Wu’s big-footed laundry girl won’t stop looking until she finds Su Mi.”

“If Jie Li don’t stop looking and asking questions, Jie Li will get herself and all Lotus Blossom girls in big trouble with Madam Li Toy,” the first brothel girl said as a third girl shoved laundry into Julie’s basket.

“I don’t want to cause the Lotus Blossom girls any trouble,” Julie said. “I just want to find Su Mi.”

“Girls not always stay in
Dai Fow
parlor houses,” the third girl whispered, using the Cantonese term for San Francisco.

“What?” Julie gasped.

“Ignorant laundry girl,” the third girl chided. “Bad girls sent to mining camps and little towns. Very bad or ugly girls sent to cribs.”

“Or
auction
.” Pronouncing the word in a tone filled with dread, a fourth girl stripped the sheets off her cot and shoved them at Julie. “As rich man’s concubine.”

“Auction?”
The girls’ demeanor and the way they pronounced the word showed how much they feared the humiliation and shame of being displayed and sold in that manner. The sound of it sent a shiver of dread down Julie’s spine. “Bad girls are auctioned off?”

The first girl nodded. “Bad girls and virgin girls.”

Julie’s heart began to pound. “Where?” Su Mi’s uncle had arranged her marriage to the scoundrel who had sold her into slavery, so Julie doubted she was still a virgin, but she was fairly certain that shy, modest Su Mi would have put up a fight when her tunic and trousers were taken away. Or her needlework. Su Mi was an artist when it came to elaborate and intricate embroidery. It was her passion. If anyone attempted to take her needlework, Su Mi would have fought like a tiger. Julie knew Su Mi, knew her friend would have fought to protect her needlework and clothing, but would have been docile and pleasing with her husband, the way she’d been taught, no matter what he did or how badly he treated her. Was it possible that Su Mi had been auctioned and sent somewhere outside San Francisco? How would Julie ever find her in the land beyond the city’s boundaries? San Francisco was big, but California was so much bigger. . . . Julie sucked in a breath she felt as a stabbing pain deep inside her chest.