Bury What We Cannot Take: A novel Page 11

  Now, he wondered how his finances could have possibly gotten so out of control. He was the sharpest of all his brothers, the one his father had trusted most. He’d been charged with modernizing and growing the family business, and no one had doubted that he’d succeed. So when had he lost his acumen, his golden touch?

  He’d heard the gossip, of course. He knew those friends of Lulu’s claimed Boss Ong had made all the decisions and Ah Zhai had merely implemented them. And maybe there was a shred of truth to that. His father had been a formidable and controlling presence who always got his way. Following his death, Ah Zhai made a few uncharacteristically risky investments that failed to pan out—the luxury hotel in Macau that went under before opening its doors, for instance. In retrospect, he saw those gross lapses in judgment for what they were: a delayed rebellion against his father’s staunchly conservative approach. But all that was behind him. With a little time, he would turn things around.

  Still, he needed money now, and there wasn’t a loan shark in all of Mong Kok who would give him another cent. A wild thought entered his mind: what if he preempted Tam and told Lulu himself? Perhaps she could ask her cousin Cynthia for a loan. Already he could hear Lulu’s perplexed response. “What do you mean?” she’d ask, furrowing her brow. “What did you do with all of yours?” As though his money were a hat, or a pair of spectacles, something portable and easily misplaced. Even greater than his desire to spare her from worrying was his unwillingness to face her disappointment, her dismay.

  Last night Lulu had reminded him about the upcoming Red Cross Ball, one of the biggest social events of the year. Ah Zhai had made the mistake of voicing his ambivalence, and her reaction was unsparing.

  “I don’t know what’s come over you,” she said. “Do you even care for me anymore? For us?” She seized her pregnant belly with both hands.

  He tried to calm her down. This late in her pregnancy, Lulu remained sylphlike aside from her swollen abdomen. She needed to gain weight and the doctor had advised her to eliminate all sources of stress from her life.

  “Ignore me, bunny. I was spouting nonsense,” he said. “Of course I’ll pay for our usual table.”

  But Lulu had already moved on. “Go back to them if that’s what you really want. I don’t need your pity.”

  That was the last thing he wanted. He tried to make himself heard.

  “I’ll sleep in the guest room,” she said.

  When he followed, helplessly, she looked over her shoulder and said sharply, “No.”

  Again came the relentless ringing of the telephone. Ah Zhai snatched up the receiver. “For God’s sake, Wendy, tell him I’ve left the office.”

  His secretary’s voice wavered. “Sir, it’s your—your—it’s Miss Lulu’s cousin. She says it’s an emergency.”

  Cynthia had never called the office before. “What’s the matter, Cynthia?” he asked. “Are you with Lulu?”

  “We’re at Mount Sinai,” Cynthia said evenly.

  A chill seeped through him. “Why? What happened? Is Lulu all right?”

  A strange, strangled noise came through the telephone. It took Ah Zhai a second to realize that Lulu’s stoic, imperious cousin was crying.

  “Cynthia, please tell me what happened.”

  She choked out, “She started bleeding. They couldn’t make it stop.”

  His forehead hit his palm. Why had he upset Lulu over such trivialities? He’d find a way to pay for ten tables if it would make this whole thing disappear.

  Cynthia spoke again. “It’s gone, Zhai.”

  And even though he’d known, he wished she hadn’t said the words. “I’ll be right there. Stay with Lulu. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Where would I go?” Cynthia asked, contemptuous even in her grief.

  The fifth floor of Mount Sinai Hospital was actually the fourth, but the builders had simply skipped over the unlucky number that was a homonym of the character for “death.” Ordinarily Ah Zhai would have scoffed at yet another example of Cantonese superstition, but on this particular afternoon, he needed every scrap of luck he could get.

  Cynthia was pacing outside Lulu’s room. “She’s sleeping,” she said by way of greeting. Her stony expression showed no traces of her earlier breakdown.

  Ah Zhai peered through the small window into the colorless room. There Lulu lay, her complexion as wan as the bedclothes draped over her still-bulging belly.

  Cynthia said, “You’ll both want to be alone, so I’ll be on my way. Just telephone if you need anything.”

  “Thank you, Cynthia, for your help.”

  She gave him a brisk nod and headed for the elevators.

  Ah Zhai entered Lulu’s room as stealthily as he could.

  Her eyes darted open. “It’s you.”

  He went to her side and gently clasped her hand. “How are you feeling, bunny?”

  Lulu released a hollow laugh.

  She was still young; they could have another baby. This did not at all seem like the right thing to say. In truth Ah Zhai had felt only a vague affection for the unborn child. It had been the same way with his son, up until the moment someone plopped the sleeping bundle in his arms and the sob surged up his throat, catching him completely unaware. Now, however, in this sterile room, his love for Lulu swelled to encompass everything she loved, and his heart ached. He longed to rest his palms on the hill of her abdomen, to cradle the space that their baby had filled. Instead he squeezed her hand, which sat limply in his like a cold, dead thing.

  Finally he said, “Is there anything you need? Anything at all?”

  Lulu pulled back her hand. “A divorce.”

  He squinted at her. Was she threatening to leave him?

  She lowered her eyelids in exasperation. “Divorce your wife and marry me.”

  In all their years together, never once had Ah Zhai and Lulu discussed marriage. Lulu could not fault him for circumstances that had ossified long before her eyes met his across the ballroom of her uncle’s mansion—she a teenage beauty with that mesmerizing hair, he the oldest and most accomplished son of the Ongs of Southern Fujian. And for his part, Ah Zhai would not insult Lulu by offering to take her as his second wife.

  Now he fell to his knees so they were eye to eye. “You are the one I love. But she’s a good woman. None of this is her fault.”

  Lulu looked resolutely away from him. “You and I can be husband and wife, or we can return to being strangers. Those are our only options.”

  His tie was slowly strangling him. He tore at the knot. “Please, Lulu, be reasonable.” She was the one breaking promises; she was the one betraying him.

  “I’ve been reasonable for ten years, and I’m sick and tired of it.” She pulled the covers up to her chin and rolled over. “Go now,” she said into her pillow. “Cynthia will come for me tomorrow. I’ll stay with her until you’ve made a decision.”

  He stared at the curve of her back in disbelief. “Are you searching for a reason to leave me? Because you know I can’t divorce Seok Koon.” Never before had he spoken his wife’s name to his mistress.

  “So, you’ve made up your mind?”

  He took her shoulders and tried to make her face him, but her entire body winced, and he let go. “I love you. I love our life together. I will love our children. That’s what I’ve decided.”

  “Then you know what you need to do.”

  “Lulu, please,” he cried.

  She reached out and tapped a bell on the nightstand, which emitted a cheerful ding.

  A large, capable nurse bustled into the room. “How can I help you, Miss Lulu?”

  “Please see Mr. Ong out. I’m exhausted.”

  “Wait,” he said. “We’re not done yet.”

  “Come along now,” the nurse said, taking Ah Zhai’s elbow. “Miss Lulu needs her rest.”

  In the doorway he shook off the nurse’s hand. “Rest well, Lulu. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “Don’t come until you’ve made up your mind.”

 
His face flushed in shame. To the nurse he said, “Make sure she has everything she needs.”

  “We take good care of our patients. You have nothing to worry about.”

  As the door swung shut, Lulu said, as though to herself. “He never even asked if it was a boy or a girl.”

  Anger coursed through Ah Zhai’s veins. He stood there, seething, with his palm flat on the door, wanting to charge back in and shake Lulu until she came to her senses, wanting to flee down the corridor and never return.

  15

  San San clutched Hansel to her chest and inhaled the smell of the doll’s candy-scented hair before tucking her in bed. She shed her nightgown to reveal her travel clothes, a lightweight cotton blouse and drawstring trousers, and pulled on her canvas shoes. She felt beneath her sleeves for her grandmother’s bangle and her father’s watch. Dr. Lee had said to pack nothing, and aside from her mother’s letters—bundled in a tea towel and bound with a pink grosgrain ribbon torn from the waist of her favorite dress—she’d obeyed.

  Outside a sharp cry sliced through the quiet. Across the courtyard, the windows of the maternity clinic that had been the servants’ quarters blazed. A pair of nurses helped a woman with a belly the size of a sack of rice through the door. The woman moaned and cursed her husband, the heavens, even her unborn child. This was one thing San San wouldn’t miss—the tormented screams that sailed through the courtyard at all hours of the day. How strange that giving birth could be so tortuous and yet so completely mundane.

  Gazing around her room, San San bid a silent farewell to the bookcase lined with colorful volumes, the armoire brimming with party frocks and soft sweaters, the pale nightgown pooled on the floor like the wavy reflection of the moon in water. After a moment’s thought, she kicked the nightgown under the bed and out of sight. At last she tiptoed through the dark flat to the front door, cringing as the latch clicked in place behind her.

  The night was humid and warm. A couple of the streetlamps had burned out, and she was grateful for the added darkness. With her back pressed to the high stone wall lining the street, she crab stepped down the hill. From a distance came the sound of leather soles clapping against cobblestone. She dashed into an alley just in time to watch a woman, whose white nurse’s uniform glowed in the moonlight, pass inches away from her, so close she could place her: the clinic’s head nurse, no doubt rushing to assist in the cursing woman’s delivery.

  At the bottom of the hill San San rounded the bend and her piano teacher’s home came into view. The villa was dark, the whole compound blanketed in a silence marred only by the blood pounding in her ears. Had they left without her? Had her watch stopped? She held the watch face to her ear, and the steady tick of the second hand helped ease her fears.

  As Dr. Lee had promised, the side gate was unlocked, and she skirted around the back of the house to wait. Clouds drifted past the paper-fan moon. She imagined the scene that would erupt when she appeared at her family’s Hong Kong flat. The tears and screams, the smothering embraces. They would beg her forgiveness; they would treat her like a princess.

  Soon she grew tired of standing and dropped to a crouch, shredding blades of grass about her feet to distract from the doubts hovering at the edge of her consciousness. At half past two, she stood and stretched her legs and strained to pick out any signs of life in the villa. The backs of her eyes ached from fatigue. Why had she thought to depend on Dr. Lee and Auntie Rose after what her own mother had done? If she hurried home now and got back in bed, the servants would suspect nothing. Suddenly San San missed Mui Ah, who fussed over her when she had no appetite, who threatened but had never actually made her wash her own clothes.

  The back door of the house creaked open, and the doctor’s head popped out. San San was so elated, she would have cried out if he hadn’t held a finger to his lips. Dr. Lee stepped back to let Auntie Rose pass. San San ran to her and hugged her fiercely, but Dr. Lee was already beckoning for them to follow him.

  He led them out the side gate into the narrow lane. Two figures emerged from the shadows and waved them over to a large wooden handcart like the ones lugged back and forth from construction sites. San San wondered how they’d managed to transport the cart without being stopped by nosy neighbors.

  The two men wore rough work clothes, but they were young and clean-cut and looked more like university students than laborers. They shook hands with Dr. Lee and spoke to him in low voices. Then they helped San San and Auntie Rose into the cart, and Dr. Lee climbed in after them.

  “Everything’s in place,” one of the men told Dr. Lee. “At the Xiamen harbor, look for the ship flying the green flag. Our guy will be there to get you on board.”

  The other man hovered by San San’s head, and her eyes lingered on the shiny gold cross dangling in the opening of his shirt. Impaled on the cross was the slender, sinewy figure of a foreign man, naked but for a small cloth tied around his waist. San San couldn’t remember whom the figure was supposed to represent, nor why the cross was a discouraged symbol, but putting all that aside, she wondered why anyone would want to sport something so gruesome.

  “What if the ship leaves without us?” Auntie Rose asked.

  San San froze. It hadn’t occurred to her that such a thing could happen.

  “It won’t,” said Dr. Lee.

  “But if it does?”

  “We’ll reach Xiamen with plenty of time.”

  “But if it leaves early?”

  The man with the cross pendant leaned in. “The ship won’t return for another two weeks.”

  Dr. Lee reached for Auntie Rose, but she turned away. San San wondered what business the doctor and her teacher had in Hong Kong. Surely they couldn’t be embarking on this journey simply to escort her to her family.

  The university students told them to lie down and stay very quiet. A dusty tarp was drawn over the cart, and San San cupped her hands over her nose and mouth and prayed she wouldn’t sneeze. They set off down the lane, and then over a brief stretch of cobblestones so bumpy that she reluctantly freed one hand to cling to a handle on the side of the cart.

  Beneath the tarp the air grew hot and stuffy.

  “We’re not the first people they’ve helped,” Dr. Lee said to Auntie Rose.

  The cart bumped over a pothole. San San let go of the handle in surprise and was flung straight into her teacher.

  “Sorry,” she whispered, but Auntie Rose pulled her close. Her teacher smelled of sandalwood soap and, not unpleasantly, of sweat.

  Shyly, San San said, “I’m glad we’re together.”

  Auntie Rose pressed her lips to the crown of San San’s head and spoke into her hair. “We couldn’t leave without you.”

  Her words thudded into San San’s innermost place, kicking up a cloudy profusion of gratitude and bitterness, joy and anguish.

  The cart rolled to a halt, and the students lowered the tarp. They were on a cliff overlooking the water, on the opposite end of the islet from the ferry terminal. In place of the broad paved road that led down to the docks was a punishingly steep slope covered with waist-high grasses, dotted here and there with jagged boulders.

  San San’s face must have shown her trepidation because the man with the cross pendant said apologetically, “This is the only place we could tie a boat without being seen.”

  Sure enough, down in the water, a rickety fishing boat was lashed to a boulder. San San reminded herself that the Xiamen harbor was only a few hundred meters away, a distance she could probably swim, if it came down to that.

  Once again all the men shook hands, and then Dr. Lee rolled up the sleeves of his jacket and said, “Let’s go.”

  San San felt a twinge between her legs.

  Auntie Rose stopped short. “What’s the matter, San San?”

  Dr. Lee turned around.

  San San shook her head but the sensation intensified. She squeaked out, “I think I have to pee.”

  Her teacher smiled, which only made San San more embarrassed.

  �
�It’s all right,” said Auntie Rose. “Go behind those bushes. No one will see you.”

  San San hurried off, paying no heed to the grass blades that pricked her calves through the thin fabric of her trousers. She removed the bundle of letters from her waistband and placed it on a rock before lowering her trousers. A few moments passed before she relaxed enough to urinate, and when she was done, she cast about for an appropriately sized leaf.

  She was glad she hadn’t tried to hold it in. She felt considerably calmer, yet her heart seemed to beat louder and louder, until she realized the rhythmic pounding was coming from far away, as though from a parade or a political rally, though nothing like that could be occurring at this hour. The ground beneath her feet shook slightly, then more violently, and then the pounding transformed into galloping horses’ hooves.

  “Hands over your heads,” a man yelled.

  A horse neighed as if to reiterate the command.

  Falling back on her bare haunches, San San yanked up her trousers and rolled into a tight ball.

  “Walk toward us.”

  She could smell the pungent, brackish scent coming off the bodies of the riders and their beasts. There had to be at least a half-dozen men.

  “Comrades,” Dr. Lee said, his voice shockingly calm, “put down your batons. This is all a misunderstanding.”

  “Shut up. You can’t talk your way out of this,” the man who was clearly the leader said. “Bind their wrists.”

  Dr. Lee continued slowly, “You all know I’m a doctor, not a bandit. My wife here teaches piano.”

  One of the students said shakily, “We attend the university.”

  The strike of a baton silenced the student, and Auntie Rose shrieked.

  “Shut up all of you,” the leader said. “Take the three of them back to headquarters. I’ll take her.”