The Language of Threads (27 page)

At forty-eight years old, Song Lee had a family in Pei and Ji Shen for the first time since Ching Lui and the sisterhood. Her life within the sisterhood had provided for her for almost twenty-five years, until one morning she woke up knowing, the way she knew a body needed food and water to survive, that she had to leave.

“Why did you leave the sisterhood?” Pei had once asked her.

“Because I simply couldn't stay any longer.” Song Lee struggled
for an answer. “I always felt I belonged elsewhere.” She knew this wasn't really an answer.

“And have you found that ‘elsewhere'?”

Song Lee smiled. “I think so,” she said, though she knew “elsewhere” wasn't so much Hong Kong, as it was now Pei and Ji Shen.

She'd picked up so many skills along the road of life—silk reeling, domestic work, organizing her sisters, reading faces, and now taking care of Pei and Ji Shen. But Song Lee had never expected that she would finally be part of a family so late in her life; that a tall, hardworking woman, a sometimes difficult young one, and a coming baby could fill her days with such happiness.

Song Lee brought the food to the kitchen, and quickly took out the white packets of herbs for twelve
ti bo
tea. The old herbalist had meticulously wrapped them separately. She put water on to boil, then sat down to wait. What Song Lee didn't dare tell Pei was how worried she was about Ji Shen. From the beginning it had been a hard pregnancy, and lately Song Lee saw a pale color in the area between Ji Shen's eyes: a diminishing of her energy. The tea would renew her strength and help her blood circulate. Song Lee would work her magic as quietly as possible; there was no point in worrying Pei. When the water boiled, she sprinkled the herbs into a pot, let it steep to just the right shade of dark brown, as the old herbalist had instructed, then carefully carried the bowl on a tray to join the two women.

After months of morning sickness, Ji Shen woke up feeling better. Pei saw the flush of pink in her cheeks and reminded herself to
thank Song Lee and the old herbalist for their miracle tea. Just last week, Song Lee had said triumphantly that Ji Shen was graduating from twelve
ti bo
tea to thirteen
ti bo
tea now that she was past her sixth month.

“I'm hungry,” Ji Shen said, her belly rising as she arched her back in a stretch. “I never thought I would be hungry again.”

“Go get something to eat,” Pei urged her. “I'll be there shortly.” She watched Ji Shen step lightly out the door.

Pei pulled out the cloth bag that contained Mrs. Finch's jewelry and poured the contents onto her bed, where they glistened in the sunlight. It was hard to believe that such simple objects, shaped of metal, stone, and pearls, would be able to finance her new business. She held up each piece—the diamond brooch, the gold bracelet, and the gold wedding band, along with the emerald ring she hoped to keep. Last, Pei picked up the pearl necklace and let the lustrous pearls slip between her fingers like water. Pei felt the love and strength of Mrs. Finch in each one of them.

Ho Yung was supposed to arrive at any moment. They'd finally found the perfect location for her seamstress shop, within walking distance of the boardinghouse. Before the occupation it had been a fish shop, and the salty, tart smell reminded Pei of her father's fishponds. The strong fishy odors were long ingrained in the dull-colored walls and plank floor. Pei felt dizzy at first, only to realize it wasn't out of fear or unhappiness, but out of a strange comfort in returning to a place she once knew well—her own childhood. The downstairs was no larger than the sitting room, but there was also an upstairs where she could work undisturbed, with tall windows and plenty of light. After all the dark, dank stores they'd seen, Pei was certain that this was the right one. They could paint the walls and replace the wood floor. She'd tossed and turned all night, knowing Ho Yung would be talking to the owner that morning.

A quick knock on the door, and Song Lee told her Ho Yung was waiting in the sitting room. Pei gathered the jewelry back into the bag, hoping he had brought her good news. It was strange
to think how two swift words like “yes” and “no” could change a life. She braced herself for whatever the answer would be. Pei felt the weight of the jewelry in her hand, then hurried to the sitting room.

Ji Shen's voice could be heard from the kitchen, followed by light laughter. Ho Yung stood staring out the window. He turned around when he heard her come in, and she saw a hint of Lin again. Then, by the calm smile on his face, Pei knew the shop was hers.

Pei's business doubled within the first few months after her mending shop opened in 1946. Word-of-mouth business flowed in and out, the only evidence of the shop's presence being a faded sign that bore a threaded needle in green and Chinese characters in red: “Moth holes, rips, splits, cuts, slashes, tears, and burns—fabric made new.”

Most days Ji Shen was at the shop helping. After nearly six months of morning sickness, she felt fine again and had settled comfortably into her last three months of pregnancy. Sitting on a tall stool behind the counter, she greeted customers and collected and tagged cheongsams, Western dresses, trousers, even silk stockings, which soon piled up on Pei's worktable upstairs waiting to be mended.

The tiny bell on the door jingled constantly. Opening and closing, letting in the incessant street noises—high, nasal voices and honking horns. From upstairs Pei could hear it all—a chorus that floated up to her sewing room.

One morning, though, when she stood up and stretched, then went downstairs to get more thread, she suddenly realized how quiet it had become. Her heart skipped a beat. Where was the soft hum of Ji Shen helping a customer? “Torn? Moth-eaten? Don't worry, it will be just like new,” Ji Shen would reassure them, beaming as she listened intently to the history of how each garment was acquired. “This dress once belonged to my
mother,” one woman recounted, near tears. Or “This tie is of the finest Italian silk,” a man might brag. Pei smiled to herself when she heard these things. Ji Shen was quickly gaining the patience needed to be a good mother.

Halfway down the stairs Pei saw why everything had come to a standstill: A man stood talking quietly to Ji Shen. For a moment, she was frightened to think that the long, solid figure belonged to the baby's father, that he had finally come to his senses and returned to claim his rights. Pei trod heavily on the next step, and the young man looked up. Only then did she realize he was Quan.

“Quan!” Pei hurried down the stairs and welcomed him with a hug. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ji Shen slide off her stool, stand there rooted and unmoving. Quan had grown tall and had filled out in the past year. No longer the skinny sha boy, he looked handsome and grown-up in a clean, white shirt and dark trousers.

“Where have you been?” Pei asked, stepping back and taking a good look.

Quan grinned. “I've been working on a fishing boat over by the island of Lantau,” he answered. “Uncle Wei helped me get the job before the occupation ended. Things were getting too difficult here.” He shifted from foot to foot and glanced over at Ji Shen.

“How is your family?” Pei asked.

“Everyone is fine. My brother is the sha boy now.”

“We worried about you,” Pei said softly. Even if Ji Shen hadn't discussed Quan's whereabouts, Pei always suspected his sudden disappearance had to do with Ji Shen's involvement with the baby's father.

“My mother heard that you'd opened a shop,” Quan said, changing the subject. “I've been wanting to visit.”

“It keeps a roof over our heads.”

“Looks as if business is good.” He gestured to a pile of clothes awaiting Pei's mending.

“Yes,” Pei said, remembering the thread she'd come down for. “I have some work to finish up. Stay and talk to Ji Shen, then come back with us to the boardinghouse for dinner. You can tell me all about your fishing career then.”

Quan nodded shyly.

At the top of the stairs, Pei peered down to see Ji Shen once again talking quietly to Quan, her hands folded lightly over the full moon of her stomach.

Pei usually closed the shop around six each evening and walked slowly back to the boardinghouse with Ji Shen, where Song Lee had dinner waiting for them. That night, she quickly finished mending a pair of silk stockings, then decided to close the shop a half-hour early.

As if Song Lee knew they were bringing Quan home, she had prepared soup, rice, pork with lotus roots, and chicken with long beans. The usually quiet boardinghouse took on a festive air. Quan ate heartily long after all the women had put down their chopsticks. “You don't know how sick I am of eating fish,” he said, finally putting down his bowl.

Ji Shen laughed. “I can see.”

Quan blushed.

“Nonsense, he's a growing young man. He should eat!” Song Lee filled his bowl again with rice.

Pei hadn't seen Ji Shen so happy in a long time, smiling and teasing. When Quan leaned forward and reached out for his rice bowl, Pei also noticed how little difference there was between a sha boy's hand and a fisherman's hand—they had the same largeknuckled strength. Quan had moved gracefully from the secrets of the streets to the secrets of the sea.

When they'd finished dinner, Quan left to spend some time with his family, promising to return soon. Still in a joyful mood, Pei
and Ji Shen adjourned to the sitting room with Song Lee. Pei sat by the window, and as was her habit, began some mending—a cheongsam, tonight—that would be picked up the next morning. She threaded a needle with silver-gray, a wise and calm color. There was always too much work now not to do it late into most evenings. More than once, Song Lee had told her to employ an assistant, but Pei had shrugged off the suggestion. Her business was just getting on its feet, and every cent was needed. Not to mention that very soon there would be one more mouth to feed.

Ji Shen waddled back and forth, her small frame still slim except for her belly, where the baby rode high and round. Song Lee had said to herself over and over again, “The baby sits high, so it should be a boy.”

Ji Shen suddenly turned to them from the window and said, “I've been thinking of names.”

“For the baby?” Song Lee asked.

Ji Shen laughed. “For the shop.”

Pei looked up from her mending. “We've been doing all right without one.”

“Ho Yung thinks it's bad business not to have a name,” Ji Shen continued. “How will people identify us?”

Pei smiled and continued to sew. Ho Yung came to the shop at least once or twice a week with a new idea to improve business: chairs for customers to sit on while they waited, flowers to brighten up the counter, ways to make each customer feel important.

“Let them chose the shade of thread they want you to use,” he said one afternoon, fingering a flat of threads in a rainbow of colors.

Pei remembered stopping for a moment at Ho Yung's idea. She always felt that each color had a personality, a language all its own. After so many years of reeling the pale white threads of the cocoons, and salvaging hidden threads during the occupation, it was a pleasure to have such a multitude of colors to work with.
Perhaps some kind of dialogue with her customers was important. That, and a name.

“The Invisible Thread,” Song Lee suddenly suggested.

“The Needle and Thread!” was Ji Shen's idea.

It didn't take Pei long to agree on one. The Invisible Thread, it would be. She liked the sound of it. Simple and clear.

“And now what about a name for the baby?” Song Lee continued.

By the smile on Song Lee's face, Pei knew her friend was pleased that they'd chosen a name for her shop so quickly. She saw it as a good omen, like so much else lately.

“I was thinking if the baby's a girl, we should call her Lin,” Ji Shen said.

Pei was startled to hear Lin's name ring so calmly through the room. “She would be honored,” Pei said, mostly to herself and not looking up from her sewing. She'd have to get used to saying the name aloud every day again. But how could the child be anything but fortunate in carrying the name of her beloved Lin?

“And if it's a boy?” Pei finally looked up and asked.

“I'd like him to have a prosperous name. My father's name was Gong.”

“ ‘Gong' means bright,” Song Lee said. “A good name for a boy. It's important to start a child off right in the world. His name will define who he is in this life.”

“It's a good name,” Pei seconded. Both of them were. She held the dress she'd been mending up to the light, barely able to tell where it had been ripped.

Two days later, Ji Shen's water broke. Pei held her hand tightly, although Ji Shen's nails dug into her skin with each new spasm of pain. It was going to be a long labor; hours had already passed since her first contraction. They were all in the sitting room talking and making plans for the baby's arrival. Ji Shen had just
picked up her teacup, only to double over, grabbing her stomach as if she'd been punched. She screamed aloud as warm water rushed from between her legs to the floor. It was followed by a series of prolonged contractions.

While Pei helped Ji Shen up the stairs to bed, Song Lee rushed to get the midwife. The wizened old lady finally sauntered in, saying, “Relax, relax, the first one never comes so quickly!”

Almost eleven hours later, the midwife cut an incision that lengthened all the way to Ji Shen's rectum. Only then did the baby finally arrive. Ji Shen tried to lift her head, smiling weakly when she saw her newborn son. “A boy,” she whispered, her eyes looking up and finding Pei's.

“A boy,” Pei echoed, placing the baby next to the exhausted young woman.

Pei couldn't help but remember her own mother, and the births Yu-sung had suffered through. All that pain, only to have five daughters and no sons to carry on her husband's name and help with the groves and ponds. In the end, she and Li had been the only two to survive. Pei's heart filled with yearning to know if her sister Li was still alive and well.