All That Matters (32 page)

“The truth will make us strong,” he said to me. “We pin down truth.”

For the many citizens of Chinatown who could not read at all, the colourful flags created a vivid, shifting picture.

“China knock out soon!” an old man said to me in his best Chinglish, shaking his white head at the enemy flags eclipsing more and more chunks of Chinese and Southeast Asian territories.

As Father and I stood on three-legged footstools, I could see how the swastika also darkened whole parts of Central and Eastern Europe, all of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. On a blank tag, Father wrote “Russia” in Chinese and jabbed it into Finland.

With much head-shaking, Mr. Sung, who had been observing Father and me working away, explained to his audience of six old men that the great Allied armies were now retreating to a beach called Dunkirk. Mr. Sung compared Dunkirk to the stretch of sand at English Bay.

“Imagine ten thousand German bombs dropping there! Killing all the sunbathers!”

Later, Father explained to me that Mr. Sung had translated the word
retreat
in his own way and compared
Dunkirk to Chiang Kai-shek’s brave soldiers
regrouping
in Chungking.

Mr. Sung put on a more positive front for those who could not read. But there was worse news to come. Mr. Kang, the Chinese school principal, told Father he was fearful of the negotiations between Washington and Japan.

“Americans promise to stay out of the war,” he said in formal Cantonese, “and the Japanese buy up six million tons of scrap metal since the Rape of Nanking.” The big man cuffed his bald head in frustration. “Buy up Ford machinery!”
Slap!
“Buy up oil and coal!”
Slap!

“To fuel the slaughter of the Chinese,” Mr. Sung commented. “How can the Americans not know?”

Father, a champion of American democracy, had no ready answer. I picked up the Free China donation box sitting on the table and slipped in some loose change, rattling the box to distract the two men. To my surprise, bald Mr. Kang dug in his pocket and dropped in some coins. Loud thunder suddenly shook the walls, and lightning flashed. A downpour slashed at the storefront windows. Liquid shadows streaked across the maps. Someone switched on the main light.

Stepmother, with Liang and Sekky, who had been shopping in Market Alley when the shower burst over them, dashed in, shaking the rain off themselves. Other men and women came running in for shelter. From habit, I shook the donation box.

A toothless man looked away from the map of China and said, “We lose.” He spoke with a thick Hakka accent. “I keep my money.”

“Be strong, Mr. Lew,” said Father, putting away some leftover pins. “We win soon.”

Mr. Lew spat. To the disgust of the women shoppers, he missed the spittoon.

From across the room, Mrs. Leong greeted Stepmother with a hearty shout.
“Mmh tauh-hohng!
Never surrender!”

Liang and Sekky smiled at the startled faces on the bench. That any woman would be quoting a British politician caused a few others to giggle. Mrs. Leong, undaunted by the disapproving looks of the men, made a show of reaching across the table for the donation box. She smiled at me and stuffed in a dollar.

“Mr. Lew,” she said, “some coins for a Free China?”

Mr. Lew unfolded a strip of old newspaper before my face. The paper crackled with age. He translated the English headline for Mrs. Leong and everyone to hear. His rough Hakka accent made the
Vancouver Sun
headline seem even more ominous: “
DEATH STALKS THE CHINESE.”
The rain lessened. There was quiet in the room.

People shook their heads at the bad sign. I knew if Poh-Poh had been there she would have snatched the evil words and torn them up and burned every scrap, and lit incense. I went to get the donation box and overheard Mrs. Leong tell one of the ladies that she was relieved to see Sekky with Stepmother. She half whispered that it was best for the boy to have a break from his grandmother. “The Old One behaving so strangely,” she said. “Saw her with young Sekky looking into garbage cans.” She tsk-tsked to the
others, who all looked sympathetically towards me.

Father ignored the whispering. “Gloom-collector Mr. Lew!” He gave a little laugh, politely, so that Mr. Lew would not lose face. “Read out the date on that newspaper, Kiam-Kim.”

I read, first in English, and then translated in Chinese, “Nineteen thirty-seven.”

The yellowing paper was three years old.

“China not dead yet,” announced Father. “And you will soon see America fight with China.” He pointed to the large maps on the side wall. “Soon these evil flags will be defeated!”

“Soon? America!” A few of the elders on the bench laughed. “American soldiers! How soon?”

With a
slap, slap, slap
to his bald head, Mr. Kang shouted, “When
no-more-profit
soon!”

Father and I had only been the messengers in the Reading Room, shifting the pin-tags according to the most recent news. Stepmother signalled with a discreet nod that it was a good time for the family to leave, but Father did not make any move.

An elder hawked, drew everyone’s eyes to his queasy act, and spat a bull’s eye of slime directly into a corner spittoon. Father winced.

“This for your dog-shit writing!” the elder said.

Another said, “Good man, Mr. Chen! Write more!”

After an awkward pause, someone said, “Look!” and pointed to the two maps. “So many enemy flags! Look!”

The newcomers rushed to the wall. Necks craned. Stepmother held back Sekky and Liang. Father had given her a frown, as if he knew something was going to
go terribly wrong. But he would not follow her eyes to the door and take the chance to exit.

Around the table the anxious murmuring began to escalate. People pushed forward and began to study the map of China. Whenever someone asked about their home village, Mr. Kang, carefully perched on the footstool, expertly pointed to provinces and counties, being careful not to dislodge any of the pins.

“Your village located here,” he would say like the schoolteacher he was. “By this river section.”

There were gasps. Mr. Kang’s finger rested right beside a deadly Rising Sun.

The names of other towns and villages were shouted out. A woman in a quilted jacket felt faint and had to be guided to a chair. I looked with confusion at Father. Truth had brought only gloom and despair to the whole room.

Stepmother looked over at the sullen men in their shirtsleeves sitting on the long bench by the windows. For a long moment, her eyes lingered on the woman in the quilted jacket whose soft, round face had frozen when Mr. Kang pointed out the Rising Sun, the pin like a bayonet pierced into the heart of her town district.

“My son and daughter—
still there!”
she said, and dissolved into tears.

The way the big woman shook, no one could doubt that the horrors of Nanking had flooded her mind.

Stepmother must have felt Father’s sudden loss of face before Mr. Kang and Mr. Lew and felt, too, the contempt of that old hawker. Even Mrs. Leong stared at the map, open-mouthed. An enemy pin was stuck
right next to her birth city of Canton. No one even noticed when the sunlight swept across the tear-stained windows.

Stepmother surveyed the rays of dust-speckled gloom around her. All at once, she straightened up. Her eyes shone. She waved her knitted grocery bag, almost like a flag, to catch the eye of Mrs. Leong at the far end of the table. The bench-sitters turned their heads.

“Leong Sim!” Stepmother’s voice boomed across the long reading table. Leong Sim turned her attention from the map. Stunned by the sudden interruption, Mr. Kang’s polished head shot up. Everyone stared at the guilty party.

“Leong Sim!” Stepmother’s voice grew even louder. “The Old One now at American Steam Cleaners”—and louder still—“Poh-Poh and Gee Sook to alter the greatcoat of Mr. Yuen! To pin up the greatcoat for Jung-Sum!”

Mrs. Leong frantically fanned her palms, as if to say, “Chen Sim, I’m not deaf!” Mr. Kang frowned at Stepmother’s poor attempt to speak formal Cantonese.

But the eyes of all the elders on the bench were riveted on Stepmother. And the last face, wiping away tears, turned away from the map of China to focus on her, too. Everyone wondered what was wrong with the slim woman with the two children, speaking so wilfully about fixing up a greatcoat.
So mad! So unbecoming!
Father furrowed his brow, suggesting Stepmother lower her voice, but she—bristling—faced Mr. Lew, the brittle
Sun
headline still dangling from his hand.

“Our boy just thirteen, Mr. Lew!”

Abruptly, Stepmother’s volume dropped. I heard a familiar gentle tone; her softly spoken words began to fill the stillness of the room. “But my young man in that tailored coat … 
oh, such a coat …”
Her voice fell almost to a whisper. People tilted their heads to catch her words. “
Our Jung-Sum stand like a soldier …”

Father quickly caught on; after a moment, I, too, understood Stepmother’s motives. Jung-Sum’s name meant “Loyalty,” “To Remain Loyal,” “To Remain Faithful.” Still keeping her voice low, Stepmother let her final words rise to a ringing clarity.

“Our Jung-Sum, he stand like a soldier!” She stared directly at the round-faced woman who had been crying. “Never to surrender! Never!”

Someone applauded. It was bald Mr. Kang. Mr. Lew tore up the strip of newspaper headline he had saved for three years. Others began to applaud. The old men on the bench broke into toothless smiles. Mrs. Leong looked at the women about her and sternly pointed at the donation tin. Purses snapped opened, and I heard coins clinking down. In the hubbub that followed, Father rushed his family out the Reading Room doors. My feet hit the wet pavement last.

The afternoon sun skated over pools of gold. Stepmother took some quick steps ahead of us so she could shake out her shawl and jiggle loose her knitted grocery bag. Each of us took a long, deep breath. The air tasted of salt.

“We buy a fresh chicken,” Father said to the slim figure walking ahead of us. “Third Uncle give me a raise today.”

Sekky shouted, “Gum cards!”

“I’ll buy you some,” I said, and remembered too late that all my spare change had gone into the donation box back at the Reading Room.

“Don’t spoil that little brat.” Liang pulled at my shirt and latched on to my warehouse-callused hand. With a proud authority, Only Sister shook her Shirley Temple curls at Little Brother. “He only wants, wants,
wants.”

“Do not!”
Sekky said and pushed her aside.

Father gently knuckled him and took him by the hand before Sekky could swing his fist at Liang.

With Stepmother leading the way, we headed east to Sing’s Poultry, where Father said that Sekky could help him pick out the fattest bird. Liang skipped ahead of everyone. She stopped and waited to take her mother’s hand, which she had not done for a long time. As the two walked before us, deftly avoiding the puddles, damp flowery patterns clung to Stepmother’s shoulders.

“I learned something today,” Father said to me.

“What’s that?”

“Pins
.”

Father smiled to himself. A dozen questions crowded into my head, but we walked on in silence, content to follow the prancing edges of a shawl.

Father was right. The war was at our doorstep.

At King Eddy, more and more of the senior boys discussed enlisting. Over their boxed lunches, some declared that right after graduation, they would join the Royal Canadian Air Force; others said they wanted the navy life. I noticed that, like me, most of the boys
from Chinatown, and some of the Japanese guys from Powell Street, were silent.

Our classroom bulletin board was crowded with clippings about the men and women from Vancouver who were fighting in Europe. Thumbtacked under
THINGS TO DO
were reminders to collect tins of lard and pieces of scrap iron and to bundle up newspapers. Another sheet reminded us of the proper procedures to follow in case of an air-raid exercise. I was responsible for seeing that all the lights were turned off, and Jeff Eng that the plug of Mr. Waites’s fish tank was pulled out.

Announcements about food drives, victory dances, volunteer work with the Red Cross all became a part of our weekly assembly. At the end of each month, the names of former staff and students missing or killed were read out to us. During the two minutes of silent prayer, we bowed our heads in Christian fashion. Throughout the world in many other school assemblies, there must have been longer lists of names being read aloud, like the list Robert Donat read in
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
. I wondered how many boys had whispered to their best pal—as Jack had whispered to me in the theatre and in the school auditorium—
“No guts, no glory!”

From the stage, Principal Sanderson tapped his knuckles on the microphone and waited for us to settle into quiet. The flowers on the stage and his black armband reminded everyone that today was another solemn occasion.

“At this time of war,” he began, “the world has no use for a quitter, another name for the fellow who feels sorry for himself. A teacher familiar to all of you
has asked that he be allowed to commemorate two names this month. I am sure you are aware of his own loss.”

Moustached Mr. Fry took the stage. His hands clenched the lecturn. As he related a funny incident involving Mr. Thompson, his delivery was flawless. Some of us even laughed.

“That is why we will fondly remember Mr. Robert Thompson,” he concluded, “who was a friend to so many and a respected member of the Science Department. And last … my son, Collin Jonathan Fry.”

We all sat up.

The gravel voice carried on. “Six years ago, Collin graduated from King Edward. My colleagues might well recall how proud I was that he was chosen to be his class valedictorian. But I remember how much more proud Collin was to have played offensive tackle on the senior football team. May God grant them both His merciful and eternal peace.”

“Amen” echoed up and down the rows of bowed heads. Mr. Fry adjusted his glasses and sat down.

This time, Jack did not poke my side: the war was too real and too threatening. Or was it that we had glimpsed another kind of glory, another kind of guts?