The Language of Threads (24 page)

“Where is she?” Ji Shen asked.

Pei's stomach clenched. “I don't know. She should be here by now.” She searched the now familiar faces of the prisoners. “Have you seen Mrs. Finch?” she asked.

Their eyes avoided hers. One man mumbled something about Mrs. Tate coming to talk with them. Pei's heart raced and she felt Ji Shen lean closer.

“Do you think she's all right?” Ji Shen asked.

“I hope so. Maybe she just needs to rest.”

Pei strained to see if anyone was coming from the redbrick building where Mrs. Finch lived. In the distance Mrs. Tate rounded the corner and hurried toward them. As she drew closer, the look on her face told Pei the terrible answer to Ji Shen's question.

“I'm sorry, girls.” Mrs. Tate swallowed, her voice breaking, a Chinese word or two, mixed with her English, emerging in staccato. “Caroline passed away. Almost a month ago. There was nothing the doctor here could do for her. It was heart failure. Caroline was a pillar of strength. She accepted her fate and went peacefully. I'm so sorry. I know how close you were to her.”

“A month ago,” Ji Shen echoed.

Pei took hold of Ji Shen's arm, her own legs weak at the news. “Where is she now?” Pei heard herself ask, enunciating each English word clearly.

Mrs. Tate pointed at the cemetery on the other side of the grounds. “They let several of us go along to say a few words before they buried her.”

Pei bit her lip to hold back her tears.
It's not fair
, she thought. Mrs. Finch had made it so far. The occupation was almost over.
It was rumored on the street that the Japanese were losing the war. Signs of their defeat were everywhere. Japanese soldiers no longer waited on street corners to harass the Chinese.
The Hong Kong News
, once a means for the Japanese to boast of their victories, now sounded shallow and whiny. News of German defeats peppered the columns, even if Japanese troops supposedly remained victorious. For the past month, Chinese people had relaxed; now they lingered freely in the streets to bargain and socialize.

Surely it would be only a matter of months before all the prisoners were released. All Pei's hope evaporated in the heat. Mrs. Finch deserved so much more than a quick prison burial.

“Do you think we might go there?” Pei asked. Her throat suddenly felt so raw and dry, it hurt to swallow.

Mrs. Tate smiled tiredly. “I don't think it would be very wise. There are guards everywhere. Perhaps you can see her grave from outside the fence?”

Pei felt Ji Shen pull on her sleeve.

“I'm so sorry to have to tell you this. Caroline was a lovely person.” Mrs. Tate's fingers touched the fence. “She thought the world of you both.”

“We thought the world of her,” Pei whispered, then turned away, unable to say another word.

She and Ji Shen walked across the hilly path to the cemetery in a daze. Neither of them spoke. Pei wanted to say something to make Ji Shen feel better, but she couldn't find the right words. Mrs. Finch's sudden absence left a sharp emptiness inside her that she hadn't felt since Lin's death. Why did everyone she loved leave her without saying good-bye? As a child, she'd lost her mother and her sister Li, then lovely Lin, and now Mrs. Finch. Pei felt a burning behind her eyes, and the tears streamed slowly down her cheeks.

As they approached the low-walled cemetery, Pei led Ji Shen boldly forward, daring the Japanese guards at the prison to stop them. She was tired of being afraid, of keeping invisible, of dodging
soldiers in dark, dank alleys. But even if the soldiers saw them on the outskirts of the cemetery, leaning over the barbed wire fence to look for the grave of Mrs. Finch, no one came to disturb them. There were rows and rows of unmarked graves, and Pei couldn't help but wonder how many families would never know what had happened to their loved ones. Then, in the third row right, she saw the name Caroline Finch, scrawled in black letters on a piece of broken board. Pei supposed that Mrs. Tate had quickly marked the grave before she and the others were herded back to the camp. “Thank you,” she heard herself say into the air.

The mounded earth was higher than the bone-dry dirt of the other graves. Pei turned around and saw the ocean, a view she knew Mrs. Finch would have appreciated. “Not a bad place to close my tired eyes,” she heard Mrs. Finch say. At least Tin Hau, the goddess of the sea, would protect her here. A cooling seasalted wind blew in their direction as Pei and Ji Shen kowtowed three times from the other side of the fence. Then they remained silent, staring. Ji Shen stood stiff and stoic, but Pei kicked at the dirt in front of her and fought back more tears.

1945

After Mrs. Finch's death in July, Ji Shen withdrew even further, while Pei began to notice something new and more disturbing in her behavior. It was as if Ji Shen had become a hostile stranger. When Ji Shen was at the boardinghouse, she spoke very little, but stared off into the distance as if in a trance. Her heavy silence made Pei feel uneasy, and though Pei hated to admit it, she was almost relieved when Ji Shen went out.

Usually, Ji Shen left the boardinghouse early in the morning and returned at dinnertime, bringing with her a variety of canned vegetables and meats, which she shared with all the sisters. She gave little explanation other than “I was out with friends.” When Pei pressed further, she grew snappish: “Why can't you believe that I was out with Quan and my other friends? There's nothing for you to worry about. I'm not a baby anymore!”

At almost twenty, Ji Shen was indeed no longer a child, though Pei thought she acted like one. Pei felt her own anger simmering just below the surface, but she held her tongue and took comfort in the thought that at least the Japanese had grown conspicuous by their absence in the past months. A sense of spirit had returned to the Chinese as rumors of Japanese surrender continued to spread through the streets.

During the first days of August, Ji Shen came home to the boardinghouse with a man Pei had never seen before. As Ji Shen rushed up to the sitting room for the purse she'd forgotten, he stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Who is he?” Pei asked.

Ji Shen avoided her eyes. “Just a friend.”

“Won't you ask your friend up?”

Ji Shen grabbed her bag. “We're in a hurry,” she answered, looking flushed. “He's very busy. Maybe another time. I promise.” Ji Shen smiled nervously, then hurried out of the sitting room and down the stairs.

Pei glanced out the sitting room window and glimpsed Ji Shen's friend. He was older and well-dressed, with neatly combed hair and a dark mustache. He turned back once, so that Pei saw his narrow eyes squint against the sun. Then he walked quickly down the street, while Ji Shen ran behind him in order to keep up.

On a sudden impulse, Pei ran down the stairs and found herself following Ji Shen and her friend toward Central. The crowds thickened as she pushed her way down the street in pursuit. It was obvious from the way Ji Shen was behaving that something was terribly wrong. Everything about her seemed secretive and volatile. Ji Shen was either out or feeling ill and sequestering herself in their room, refusing to talk. When she did return home—always late in the evening—she paced like a trapped and desperate animal.

Now, even though she knew it was wrong to follow Ji Shen and the man, Pei couldn't stop. She had to know what was going on, and she had a strong suspicion that Ji Shen's friend had everything to do with her difficult behavior and Quan's absence from their lives.

A crowd of people had just emerged from the King's Theatre when Pei reached Queen's Road in Central. She quickly glanced at the faces that swarmed and buzzed around her, hoping Ji Shen was one of them. Pei remembered reading that the Japanese had restored the theaters to full use not long after the occupation began; they ran mostly Japanese propaganda movies. Many of the wealthier Chinese families had wasted no time in reclaiming this small detail of their former lifestyle.

“Pei!”

Pei turned her head toward the male voice that unexpectedly called out her name.

“Pei, is that you?” The voice again, closer, until she felt someone's hand touch her arm. “It's me, Ho Yung.”

Pei stepped back, away from his touch, in order to see his face more clearly. In the bright sunlight, Ho Yung's dark eyes looked so much like Lin's. Next to him stood a young woman and another couple, who seemed impatient to leave.

“Ho Yung?”

“Yes—Lin's brother, remember?”

“Yes . . . of course,” Pei stammered. How could she ever forget Ho Yung? After Lin's death, he had comforted her and arranged for their safe passage to Hong Kong. Pei could still see him standing on the dock waving to them as she and Ji Shen boarded the ferry. In the six years since she'd seen him at Lane Crawford's, he had aged. Still, there were the unmistakable characteristics that he and Lin shared—the thin lips and dark, round eyes. She swallowed and tried to find the right words to say to him.

“How have you and Ji Shen been?”

“We're fine,” Pei answered.

She lifted her hand up against the bright sunlight and saw Ho Yung glance uncomfortably toward his friends. They were all well dressed in dark suits or silk cheongsams.

“How is your family?” She raised her voice against the flurry of noise.

Ho Yung stepped away from the woman standing next to him and moved closer to Pei. “They're as well as can be, considering the occupation. My brother, Ho Chee, and his wife are the parents of two daughters. My mother has been ill in the past few years and is bedridden.”

“I'm sorry,” Pei said, at once struck by the sudden, sharp memory of the last time she'd seen Wong tai. The hard glare of hate still stung.

“I've often wondered how you and Ji Shen were doing.”

Pei looked away. “We've managed to get by.”

Ho Yung searched for words. “You look well.” The young woman in a silk cheongsam tugged at his arm.

“I'd better be going,” Pei said quickly. “I'm supposed to meet Ji Shen.”

Ho Yung pulled a card from his pocket. “Please, take my card, and if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to look for me. Perhaps we can meet for tea?”

“Yes, thank you.” Pei reached for the card and slipped it into her pocket. “I should go now.”

“Yes, of course,” Ho Yung said, gently releasing the woman's grip from his arm. “I hope we'll see each other soon.”

Pei nodded, then hurried away from King's Theatre, too embarrassed to stop. Her heart was racing. She must look a mess in her old tunic and pants, among the bright silk dresses. She rushed down the street and pushed everything away—even Ho Yung's serious dark eyes, whose gaze was too much like Lin's.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August left no doubt that a Japanese surrender was imminent. Pei could feel the rhythm of the streets humming again.

The following week Ji Shen was late coming home. It was long after dinner and she still hadn't returned. Pei glanced out the window and sighed heavily. “Where can she be?” she asked,
more of herself than of the other women in the room. The image of Ji Shen's friend lingered heavily in her mind.