Stone, Katherine (3 page)
Authors: Pearl Moon
When, eventually, she looked away from the place where there'd
been such happiness, she beheld a virtual miracle. In the distance, across the
harbor, were boats. Other fishing families had survived, as had the floating
restaurants, and the varnished yachts were also unscathed. Sampans darted in
and out. From this distance their hectic activity appeared normal. In truth, on
this day after death, the frenzy signaled the frantic search for loved ones
lost at sea.
Tranquil Sea knew no one in that part of the harbor. But her
father did. Perhaps the boy she was destined to marry lived there. She didn't
know his name, but the arrangements might already have been made.
She was alive, perhaps he was alive. The certainties of her life
could go on. And even if no fiance awaited her, the families on those faraway
boats would welcome the orphan, the child of the storm. She needed only to
begin walking along the shore.
She'd be rescued, returned to the scents of fish and sea and teak
and smoke... and to the certainties of tradition... and the ever-present threat
of another typhoon.
No.
She couldn't return. She
would
not. She'd been spared a
gasping death—and she'd been flung onto land, the forbidden place where the
whispers deep within had always insisted she belonged.
This was her destiny.
This
was where she'd begin again.
***
Her slender legs knew the rhythms of the sea, the soft sighs and
lazy yawns, the treacherous lurches and heaves. In thirteen years her steps had
never faltered. Ballerina-graceful, she could leap from the bow of
Pearl
Moon
to the bow of the next junk and the next, anticipating every pitch and
trough.
But it was with great difficulty that Tranquil Sea walked on land.
The sand was unyielding, so different from the buoyant sea. She staggered, her
catlike balance gone, and dizziness invaded her. This was the land sickness
about which her father had complained, yet another reason to disdain life on
shore.
The sickness will pass, she told her swirling head as she stumbled
from the hardness of the sandy beach to the greater hardness of Fu Lam Road. It
must.
Fu Lam Road was littered with palm fronds and wooden debris from
the destroyed shanties of Aberdeen. It was also cluttered with traffic.
Residents from the island's north side had come to see the devastation for
themselves, and trucks, the same ones that came every day, searched for what
remained of yesterday's catch. The trucks represented the most fundamental
truth of a life dependent on the whims of nature. There wasn't time to mourn
the past. Today was here and needed to be survived.
Tranquil Sea drew little notice as she made her way through
Aberdeen. Her tunic and trousers were damp from the sea, and she wore no shoes,
and her waist-length hair was snarled. But others were ravaged by loss. They,
too, had nearly drowned.
It wasn't until she reached the road that wove through the
mountains that the barefooted waif, clearly of the sea, attracted curious
stares from passersby. As they slowed to see the face belonging to the slim
body with the staggering gait, they called out that she was going in the wrong
direction.
When the words came from a man who reminded her of her drowned
grandfather, she finally replied.
"I'm not going in the wrong direction! I'm on my way to
Queen's Road West."
"Do you know how far that is?"
"It doesn't matter!"
"Where is your family?"
"Gone... except for my aunt. She has a dress shop on Queen's
Road West. That's why I'm going there."
The kind face greeted her with skepticism. But he said, "Let
me give you a ride. I happen to be driving right by Queen's Road West."
She hadn't imagined getting into a vehicle until her land sickness
was conquered, but she thanked the man and climbed aboard.
The dizziness came more quickly, more terrifyingly, as the truck
sped away from Aberdeen. It was through a whirling blur, an ever-spinning
kaleidoscope, that she saw the splendor beyond the mountains. Towers of glass
gleamed ebony and gold beneath the summer sun, and freighters rocked on the
silver water of Victoria Harbour, and there was an astounding crush of
humanity.
The typhoon that in a single breath had taken away her world had
spared the northern side of Hong Kong Island. It was a usual Wednesday here.
Goods were being traded. Fortunes were being made.
The kaleidoscope stopped spinning when they reached the city
center, as if it was important that she see clearly the girls who strolled
beneath the skyscrapers. Only slightly older than she, they wore stylish silk
suits, and their shining black hair was shoulder-length, and their strides were
purposeful yet buoyant, confident—and steady.
I will become one of them, she vowed. One day I, too, will be able
to dance on the land with my head held high.
***
"This is Queen's Road West." The truck driver broke the
silence that had traveled with them since Aberdeen. "Do you know where
your aunt's shop is?"
"Not exactly, but I'll recognize it when I see it." With
that, because they were stopped in traffic and he looked skeptical again, she
thanked him, opened the door and landed on the pavement with a jolt.
Tranquil Sea knew how she'd recognize the dress shop. The
pearl-and-sequin designs created by her mother and grandmother would be on
display. A wave of sadness swept through her as she remembered the patience
with which they'd taught her their craft, and their smiles as they'd sewed.
If only she could undo everything by undreaming her dishonorable
dreams....
Closing her eyes, she felt the sway of her body, moving as if at
sea, and let herself imagine that when she opened them she'd have awakened from
this nightmare. She'd be on the deck of
Pearl Moon,
and her mother would
be calling her to come and begin the day's work. She'd scamper inside without a
glance toward shore—and with a vow to never again dream of the world beyond the
dragons.
But her opened eyes saw the new world, not the lost one. Yet, as
she wandered from fabric shop to fabric shop, squinting against the brightness
of the silk and satin bolts, she was reminded of sunrise in Aberdeen, the
glitter of sunlight on sea.
The shops were so small their colorful wares overflowed to the
street like exuberant rainbows, the best offerings at the very front. It was in
such a place Tranquil Sea found her own designs. Her vision blurred by tears,
she staggered past her own designs to the creations made by her loved ones,
displayed farther back.
***
When Tranquil Sea told the truck driver she was going to Queen's
Road West to find her aunt, it was the first lie she'd ever uttered.
Her words were more prophecy than falsehood, however, for Vivian
Jong, the proprietress of the dress shop, became her family.
Vivian was a sprightly sixty-five, widowed for forty years,
childless, wealthy, joyfully independent and eccentrically liberated. Hers was
one of the most successful dress shops in Hong Kong, and in a city well-known
for its sweatshops, her seamstresses enjoyed a pleasant working environment and
excellent wages.
Vivian's belief in fairness in the workplace was just the
beginning of her revolutionary ideas. A woman could be every bit as successful
as a man, she asserted. Even a Chinese woman, and even in British-ruled Hong
Kong. Despite the constraints placed on Chinese women by centuries of
tradition, the laissez-faire capitalism that flourished in the Fragrant Harbour
was blind to both sex and race.
A Chinese woman could establish her own house of fashion. She'd
need to be very smart, of course, and diligent, and committed to her dream. And
because Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony, she'd need a proper
Englishwoman's name.
Tranquil Sea became Juliana Kwan. The grateful orphan of the sea
also became the keeper of Vivian Jong's daring dream. Juliana wanted to pursue
the dream right away, to achieve it in all its splendor while Vivian was alive.
"No, Juliana," Vivian said in Cantonese to the girl
who'd only just begun learning English. "It will be many years before
you're ready. You must be patient. But it will happen. You'll
make
it
happen. Your gift cannot be denied. One day Pearl Moon will be the most desired
label in the world."
"Pearl Moon?" Juliana echoed, frowning, torn between the
woman she loved on land and those she'd loved and lost at sea. "I thought
the label would be Vivian Jong."
"Thank you, my dear." Vivian's eyes sparkled with
affection—and wisdom. "But it must be Pearl Moon. We both know that."
They were sitting on the veranda of Vivian's Mount Cameron Road
home overlooking Happy Valley. The jasmine-scented air was so clear the black
mountains of the People's Republic of China appeared close enough to touch.
Too
close, Vivian mused. "Someday, Juliana, you'll need a full
British passport."
"British?" From girlhood she'd heard stories of the
British, the evil barbarians who'd poisoned her ancestors with
opium—"foreign mud"—then lured them into an unfair and bloody war.
The Chinese had fought valiantly, but were no match for the British military.
At war's end, Hong Kong was seized by the conquerors as imperial booty. From
her parents, Tranquil Sea had learned of the ancient hatred toward the
gweilos,
the "pale ghosts" who'd stolen the most valuable deep-water
harbor between Shanghai and Singapore. From Vivian, Juliana had learned a more
contemporary truth: to succeed in modern-day Hong Kong one needed to play by
British rules. That made sense. But to
become
British? "No... I
couldn't."
"But you must." Vivian drew her worried gaze from the
mountains of China. "You'll only be fifty in 1997. That may sound old to
you today, my little love, but it's not. You'll be young enough to move Pearl
Moon to England, to begin again there, if necessary."
The history lessons taught in Aberdeen Harbour had focused
bitterly on the First Opium War. As a consequence of that war, in the 1842
Treaty of Nanking, Hong Kong Island and its floating fishing villages were
ceded to the British. Tranquil Sea hadn't been told about the Second Opium War,
eighteen years later, following which Kowloon Peninsula, too, was lost. Nor did
she know that England had agreed to lease from China, for a period of
ninety-nine years, the land known as the New Territories.
"1997?" Juliana asked. "What happens then?"
"The British lease expires and the sovereignty of Hong Kong
reverts to China."
"But isn't that what we want?"
"I don't know, my darling. Perhaps not. It's impossible to
predict how things will be in the future." Vivian couldn't foretell the
future, but she had vivid memories of the past. In 1949, when China fell to
communism, a tide of refugees had flooded Hong Kong. And now, as scholars, authors,
artists were falling under the harsh scrutiny of Chairman Mao and his
followers, the numbers seeking asylum were increasing anew. Vivian looked at
the gifted young artist who sat beside her. "Someday, Juliana, to be safe,
you will need a British passport."
Victoria Peak
Hong Kong Island
April 1965
One
month before Juliana's eighteenth birthday and nearly five years
after the typhoon that changed her life forever, her life changed again—and
again forever.
It wasn't a natural disaster this time, the violent whimsy of an
enraged goddess, but it came without warning, without omen, and like the
typhoon that had transformed her from a child of the sea to a woman of the
land, it felt like destiny.
When the winds shattered the spell over Aberdeen, she'd believed
there'd be no more magic for her. But more magic, and more tragedy, were to be
embroidered in the tapestry of her life.
It was April second, at twilight. Juliana had just delivered an
evening gown to a magistrate's wife on Old Peak Road. She'd come in Vivian's
chauffeured car, but had sent the driver home, wanting to remain at the summit
as day faded to darkness.
Two narrow roads encircled Victoria Peak, creating a promenade,
the Hong Kong Trail, through a forest of fan-palms, banyans and camphor trees.
Strolling the length of the Trail, one found vistas of the entire island.
Juliana visited the Peak often, but she never viewed from these heights the
harbor that had been her home. She'd never visited Aberdeen, either. She
doubted she ever would.
Tonight, as always, she walked along Lugard Road to her favorite
vantage point. The straight-down view, at once dizzying and spectacular, was
high above even the most presumptuous skyscraper. As Juliana gazed at the city
below, her hands curled around the guardrail at the trail's edge.
That was where Garrett Whitaker found her. The springtime sun was
gone, as was the lavender sunset. Were it not for the silver light of the
crescent moon, he wouldn't have seen her until she'd heard his approach.
As it was, he stopped a short distance away, surprised by the
discovery that he wasn't alone and stunned by the realization that the privacy
he'd been seeking felt undisturbed by her presence. Indeed, it was as though
this woman haloed by moonlight was
supposed
to be here...waiting for
him.
The craziness of the thought almost made Garrett turn away in
disgust—and concern. He was well acquainted with madness. Over the past few
months he'd seen the insanity of war taint the minds of those around him. But
until this moment, he believed he'd remained distant from it, emotionally
detached.
Garrett's ability to remain aloof was a trait—a flaw?—that had
been with him all his life. It had merely been honed to perfection at the Naval
Academy. Other traits made him an outstanding officer, as well. Integrity,
self-discipline, calm under fire. But there were gentle places—for his family.
Because of their father's hard work, Garrett and Blake Whitaker
had been born wealthy. Neither brother had to enroll in the Naval Academy, or
become pilots who'd go to war. They could have attended Harvard or Yale, and
most assuredly could have avoided the conflict in Southeast Asia. But the
Whitaker boys had a deep sense of patriotism. The freedoms that enabled their
dirt-poor father to achieve financial security for his family were freedoms for
which they were willing to give their lives.
Blake and Garrett were stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, on
different aircraft carriers. Both flew combat missions over North Vietnam. Both
saw friends shot from the sky. Both were tested by the madness of war.
Garrett talked to Blake when he could. Not often. But he knew his
older brother wasn't going mad.
And neither was he.
The idea that he was destined to be here—with her—had nothing to
do with war. The culprit was Hong Kong itself, this mystical place where even
he'd become enchanted with the notion that life was controlled by luck and
winds and gods and dragons.
He was supposed to be here.
And she was supposed to be here.
And because this was Hong Kong, the man who'd always imposed a
flinty control on his destiny—and his heart—relinquished both to the bidding of
the moon. It was at that moment, when Garrett yielded the steel within him to
whatever the moon had in store, that Juliana turned to him.
"I'm Garrett," he said as he moved toward her. With each
step he saw her more clearly, the shoulder-length hair caressed by the evening
breeze, the eyes far brighter than the city lights below, the lips slightly
parted in wonder and welcome.
More than once in the past five years Juliana had questioned why
she worked so tirelessly to learn English, to speak it so flawlessly that
anyone who heard her would believe she'd been raised on a grand estate in
England, not an enclave of fishing boats.
Now she knew why.
He was why.
"I'm Juliana."
What now? Garrett thought. Do I ask her if she feels it, too? Do I
tell her the Garrett I've known for twenty-four years has never believed in
love, much less in love at first sight, but the man who's with her now is
falling in love?
Garrett realized he didn't need to tell her anything. She already
knew. And as to what would happen next? It would happen. If he believed in the
mandates of the moon and the wind and the stars...
It was the wind that intervened, a sudden whisper that made her
hair dance and her body shiver.
"You're cold," he said. I kept you waiting, didn't I?
While I was lingering on the other side, looking down at Aberdeen Harbour, you
were here, in the chill and the darkness, waiting for me. "Have dinner
with me, Juliana. I'm staying at the Peninsula. We'll dine at Gaddi's. I've
made reservations for myself, but I'm sure—"
Garrett stopped as she shivered again and a shadow of fear touched
her face. Was he mad, after all? Had he imagined an enchantment that existed
only in his moon-crazed mind? Was she trembling with fright because she'd heard
about the lust of American sailors on leave from the war being waged a short
distance from this paradise?
"Juliana?"
"The Peninsula?" she echoed with surprise—and worry.
He wore the uniform of an American naval officer, and from what
Juliana had heard, virtually all visiting military men, both officer and
enlisted, stayed on Hong Kong Island, in Wanchai mostly, with its all-night
bars and easy sex for an easy price. But this naval officer was staying at Hong
Kong's grandest hotel, located on Kowloon Peninsula, an eight-minute ferry ride
across Victoria Harbour.
Juliana hadn't been on the water in five years. And, she'd
decided, would never be again. She could live on Hong Kong Island
and
realize
the dream of Pearl Moon without ever again experiencing the terror of a
gasping, suffocating death.
"We can go somewhere else, Juliana. Anywhere you want."
His voice drew her from her thoughts, and as she looked at the man
who wanted her to cross the water with him, Juliana knew she was seeing the
most important dream of all. "The Peninsula is fine, Garrett. That's where
I want to go."
***
By the time they took the Peak Tram down the mountainside and
walked from Garden Road to the Star Ferry terminal, the breeze that had been a
chilly caress was a bitter-cold wind. Garrett draped his jacket over her
shoulders, and his arm cloaked her, too. Nonetheless, when Juliana saw the
harbor's silver-tipped waves, she shivered.
"I'm afraid of the water," she confessed. "I can't
swim and—"
She stopped, knowing with inexplicable certainty that she shouldn't
tell him the truth about her past.
"And?"
"It's a foolish fear, isn't it, for someone who lives on an
island?"
"We don't have to go across, Juliana," Garrett said.
"But if we do, I promise you'll be safe. I'm a strong swimmer, and I'd
never let anything happen to you."
His promise gave her strength.
He
gave her strength.
"I want to go to Kowloon, Garrett. Tonight...with you."
The windblown roughness of Victoria Harbour wasn't dangerous. The
ferries wouldn't be running if it were. Indeed, once upon a time, a girl named
Tranquil Sea would have greeted waves such as these with joy. True, such
exuberant rocking could have caused mishaps with fire, but those blazing
tragedies were rare, and frolicking waves were common, and on a night like this
she'd have danced from bow to bow, meeting the surges, anticipating the
valleys, in a graceful
pas de deux
with the sea.
Over the past five years, Juliana Kwan had become accustomed to the
motionlessness of land. The hardness that had made her sea legs stagger felt
secure to her now—and safe. As she boarded the swaying ferryboat, Juliana
wondered if the nimble sea nymph within her would return.
She did not. The pitching of the ferry felt hostile. If not for
Garrett, Juliana would have fallen. His balance didn't falter, nor did his hold
on her. Even when they were seated, he held her, counterbalancing her fear with
his confidence, just as his legs found safe footing for them both.
"So beautiful," he murmured as the ferry began its short
journey to Kowloon.
Garrett looked at her as he spoke. But, overwhelmed by the
tenderness in his voice, she lifted her eyes to the view instead of him.
"It is beautiful."
Garrett waited until she turned to him. "So very
beautiful."
***
Once inside the hotel's peach-and-gold lobby, Juliana telephoned
Vivian. Her words were simple. She was at the Peninsula Hotel with a naval
pilot she'd met at the Peak. To Vivian, the words spoke volumes. Since age
fifteen, Juliana had been desired. But she'd viewed men warily. Spurning their
advances, she'd focused single-mindedly on her designs.
Now, because of an American pilot, Juliana had cast off her
wariness and—apparently—conquered a fear Vivian had believed was unconquerable.
She repeated the revelation to be sure. "You're at the Peninsula,
Juliana?"
"Yes. And it's every bit as magnificent as you've always told
me." Apology touched Juliana's voice, regret for the many times when the
harbor was smooth as glass and Vivian had suggested ferrying to the
"Pen" for its famous high tea— only to have her decline.
"Garrett and I are going to have dinner here and..."
Juliana didn't know what would come next. She knew only that she'd
never choose to leave him.
"You're safe with him," Vivian said, not asked.
Juliana's joy gave her the answer.
"Yes."
"Then I won't worry about you."
***
Gaddi's was one of Hong Kong's most celebrated restaurants.
Royalty dined beneath its Parisian chandeliers, as did presidents and
playwrights, movie stars and moguls. And on any given night, powerful taipans
with their elegant
tai tais—
wives—enjoyed the ankle-deep luxury of the
Tai Ping carpets.
Garrett and Juliana sat before the coromandel screen from the
Emperor's Summer Palace in Beijing. But lost in their love, they were unwilling
to look away from each other even for a second, and their lavish surroundings
went unnoticed.
Garrett told Juliana no lies, neither in the words he spoke nor in
the love that shimmered in his dark-green eyes. Her eyes mirrored the love, but
there was very little truth in what she said.
It wasn't shame that compelled her lies. Her humble beginnings
wouldn't affect Garrett's feelings. But something she couldn't name, yet had to
obey, commanded her to deceive him.
"My parents died shortly after I was born. They'd gone
sailing and there was a sudden storm and they both drowned."
"No wonder you're afraid of the water."
"I'm not afraid, Garrett. Not anymore, not with you."
His gaze made her tremble with unfamiliar yet powerful longings. After a
confused moment, she resumed her make-believe story of the orphan of wealthy
parents raised by her even wealthier aunt. When she spoke of Vivian, the truth
at last, her voice filled with pride. "She's a thoroughly modern woman,
far ahead of her time. Her dress shop is an enormous success and she's made
another fortune investing in Hong Kong's premier trading companies."
"Are you planning to follow in her footsteps?"
"I hope to. Not in the stock market, but in the world of
design. One day, Aunt Vivian and I will have our own house of fashion. We've
already given it a name, Pearl Moon," she said. "We're going to call
it Pearl Moon."
***
"Can you stay with me tonight, Juliana?" Garrett asked
at the end of the gourmet meal they'd scarcely touched. "Will you?"
"Yes." Tonight, tomorrow, for as long as you want me.
Tranquil Sea, the daughter of a poor fisherman, had become Juliana
Kwan, surrogate niece of one of Hong Kong's most visionary women. Her clothes
were elegant, her hair stylish, her speech regal and refined.
She looked modern. Sophisticated. But Juliana knew almost nothing
of the intimacies between women and men.
She'd heard about Chinese girls, younger than she, who sold their
bodies to American GIs in Hong Kong for "R and R." Such girls were viewed
with disdain—and there was greater scorn for those who gave their bodies away
without money to show for their shame.