Jewel of the East (14 page)

“Father was away up north when Clyde went to
heaven. But he came home for the funeral,” Pearl added.

They were silent for a moment, then Pearl said, “He was my little buddy. We used to play on the hillside outside our house and go to Horse Street with Wang Amah and tell each other the most marvelous stories. Mother insisted that we leave the city in the summer, so we would go to the mountains, to Kuling, where we had a small cabin. I do wish there hadn’t been so much trouble this summer, or you would have both come with us. The trip up Mount Lu is thrilling. Four pairs of men carry us by bamboo poles on chairs all the way up the mountain. Along the way we stop in the little villages for tea, and the men hang awnings across the poles to keep the sun off us. Do you know, even in the summer it’s cool up there? And the water in the stream is so clean we can drink straight from it. Mother felt relaxed when we were there. Safe,” she said, her voice heavy with sadness.

“But this is so terrible!” Maisie blurted.

Pearl nodded. “Clyde was so brave,” she said. “He knew he was dying, and he told us that he was leaving our house to go to his home in heaven.”

At this, both Maisie and Felix could not hold back their tears.

Pearl tried to soothe them, murmuring, “There, there,” and reminding them that her mother had Grace now, and also that there was an older brother Edgar, who was safe and in school in America.

But they had never heard such a sad story or met anyone who had had to bear so much loss. Maisie’s own sadness over moving away and their parents’ divorce seemed selfish in comparison.

“I do think they are all together in heaven,” Pearl said. “But meanwhile we have to appreciate what we have here on earth, don’t we? And aren’t you two the luckiest people in the world? Twins! You’ve been together since before you were even born!”

That made them smile.

“Our mother says in our sonogram, we were holding hands,” Maisie said.

“Your what?” Pearl asked.

“Oops,” Maisie said. Of course, she realized, sonograms weren’t invented yet in 1900.

Pearl leaned closer to Maisie and Felix.

“I didn’t know Maude or Artie or Edith,” she told them. “But I knew my little brother, Clyde, and I loved him more than anything. You two have each other, and you have to always remember how special that is. You have to treasure it, always.”

Maisie let out a big sob and threw her arms around Felix’s neck.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I’ve been so mean to you.”

Felix was hugging her back just as hard.

“No, no,” he was saying. “I was thoughtless. I’ll never go behind your back again.”

They grew so emotional and cried so hard to each other and repeated “I’m sorry” and “I love you” so many times, that neither of them realized that the air grew heavy with the smells of Christmas trees and cinnamon and bread baking or that they were being lifted up, up, up.

When they finally parted, they heard Lily Goldberg say in a confused voice, “What in the world are you two doing?”

Maisie and Felix blinked. Then they blinked again.

“Oh,” Maisie said happily. “We’re home.”

Lily Goldberg stared down at Maisie and Felix, who lay splayed out on the floor of The Treasure Chest.

“Well, of course you’re home,” Lily said, shaking her head, annoyed. “Where else would you be?”

They looked at each other and grinned.

“Can we go get dinner now?” Lily asked. She was wearing that dissatisfied face that Felix liked so much.

“Sure,” he said, helping Maisie to her feet. “Are you hungry?” he asked his sister.

Maisie nodded. “Don’t they have roast beef and stuff?”

Lily wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ew,” she said. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“They’ll have something for you, too,” Felix assured her.

“Where…,” Lily said under her breath, looking around. “Where in the world…?”

“What?” Felix said.

“That little jade box,” Lily said. “Where is it?”

“Oh,” Maisie said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?” Lily said, unconvinced.

“We’re sure,” Felix said.

They began to walk toward the door, Lily still keeping an eye out for the box, when the doorway filled with the Blond Woman.

“Caught you!” she said, pointing a quivering finger at them. Her overplucked, overarched eyebrows shot upward, and her thin lips set into a tight line.

“Uh-oh,” Maisie said.

“
Uh-oh
is right,” the Blond Woman said.

Up close like this she looked even scarier with those eyebrows and lips and her beady, blue eyes flaring angrily.

“We just—” Felix began.

Lily stepped forward, her hand extended.

“Lily Goldberg,” she said. “I take full
responsibility for being here. I’ve never been in one of these mansions before, and I wandered up here by myself. They just came looking for me.”

The Blond Woman narrowed her already small eyes.

“In fact,” Lily said, her hand still waiting for the Blond Woman to shake it, “they were just explaining how this room is—”

“Off-limits,” Maisie interjected.

Felix was nodding his head like a bobblehead. “Off-limits,” he repeated.

“Well,” the Blond Woman said, thinking.

Lily lifted her hand slightly as if to remind her she was supposed to shake it.

Reluctantly, the Blond Woman did.

“Now that we’ve got her,” Maisie said, “we’re going to go downstairs and get some food.”

Lily smiled up at the Blond Woman. “Roast beef,” she said with false enthusiasm.

“Well,” the Blond Woman said again.

They didn’t wait for her to think about it any longer. Instead, the three of them hurried past her, walking fast down the hall to the Grand Staircase and the party going on below.

“That was great!” Maisie said as they moved down the marble stairs.

“Yeah,” Felix said. “You were amazing.”

At the bottom of the stairs, he touched Lily’s arm lightly.

“Xiè xie,”
he said.

“Huh?” Lily said.

“That’s Chinese,” Felix explained. “For thank you.”

“It is?” Lily said. “You know some Chinese?”

“A little,” Felix said.

She looked at him, impressed.

“Oh, yeah,” Maisie said. “He can even write Chinese characters in beautiful calligraphy.”

“Wow,” Lily said.

Felix was beaming. “Confucius says, ‘He who does not revere letters is no better than a blind buffalo.’”

Lily’s eyes shone. “What else does Confucius say, Felix?”

“Let’s get some food and I’ll tell you,” he said.

The day after the party, their mother took Maisie and Felix to visit Great-Aunt Maisie. The Island Retirement Center was decorated for Christmas with a big, artificial tree in the lobby. Big, blue ornaments hung from it and gold garland wrapped around its branches. Gold garland and cardboard Santas appeared just about everywhere, on desks and doorways and windows.

“It’s certainly festive,” their mother said unconvincingly.

They all felt a little guilty living in Elm Medona, with its lavish Christmas decorations and the VIP party, while poor Great-Aunt Maisie was confined here.

As they walked down the hall to her room, their mother said, “Now remember, she’s been failing a bit these last few weeks. Don’t rile her up.”

“Oh,” Felix said, “I have a feeling she’ll be doing great.”

His mother tousled his hair. “My optimist,” she said.

The door to Great-Aunt Maisie’s room was open, with one of those cardboard Santas tacked on it.

When they walked in, the room was empty. The bed was neatly made, with Great-Aunt Maisie’s favorite ivory cashmere throw blanket folded at the foot of the bed. A large, white amaryllis bloomed in a bamboo planter on her night table, and another one sat on the small, round table by the window beside the silver bell she used to call the staff. The curtains were open to let in the morning sun, and the room smelled of Great-Aunt Maisie’s perfume.

Despite the cozy feeling of the room, Maisie and Felix’s mother looked upset.

“Oh dear,” she said, worried. “I hope nothing has happened to her.”

She picked up the silver bell and rang it lightly. When Great-Aunt Maisie used it, she gave it a firm shake that pierced their ears.

A nurse in a mauve uniform came in.

“I knew that wasn’t your aunt calling,” she said. “She practically breaks my eardrums with that thing.”

“I’m sorry,” their mother said. “I just… I mean… where is she?”

The nurse shook her head in wonder. “It’s the darnedest thing,” she said. “For weeks now she’s been slipping again. Not as bad as she was when she first came in here. But you know, getting more and more frail. Then last night, she comes walking down the hall without her walker! I jumped up, thinking maybe she was sleepwalking or worse, but she says, ‘I’m just stretching my legs,’ and when I tried to help her, she actually pushed me away. It was so great to see her being so feisty!”

Although their mother looked surprised, Felix knew for certain what he had suspected was true: Every time they time traveled, it made Great-Aunt Maisie stronger.

“And where is she now?” their mother was asking.

“She insisted on going out to the garden,” the nurse said. “By herself.”

“But she’ll catch pneumonia out there,” their mother said. “It’s cold outside.”

The nurse shrugged. “You try telling Maisie Pickworth what to do,” she said.

“We’ll go get her, Mom,” Felix offered. “You can make her some tea for when she comes inside. She’ll like that.”

“Good idea,” their mother said, already reaching for the kettle. “She does like her Earl Grey.”

Maisie and Felix found Great-Aunt Maisie sitting on one of the stone benches in the garden behind the Island Retirement Center. The garden looked out over Narragansett Bay, but Great-Aunt Maisie had her eyes closed and her face tilted up toward the sun. She wore her usual face powder and rouged cheeks and red lipstick, and she had on a big, reddish fur coat with long, black gloves that had tiny pearl buttons up their sides.

Maisie and Felix stood uncertainly in front of her, not wanting to disturb her.

“I know you’re here,” Great-Aunt Maisie said without opening her eyes. “I’m not that dotty.”

“You just looked so…” Felix searched for the word.

“Content,” Maisie finished for him.

Great-Aunt Maisie opened her eyes then.

“That’s because I am content,” she said in a strong voice. She had a rich person’s accent, slightly British sounding and very confident.

Her eyes twinkled. “You two had an adventure, I think?”

“Oh, Great-Aunt Maisie,” Maisie said. “We went to China!”

Great-Aunt Maisie clapped her hands together gleefully. “China! How marvelous.” She pointed one of her slender fingers at them. “Confucius?”

They looked at her, confused.

“Mao Tse-tung?”

When they didn’t answer, she said sharply, “Who did you meet there?”

“Oh!” Felix said. “Pearl Sydenstricker.”

“Pearl Sydenstricker,” Great-Aunt Maisie said with a laugh. “Do you know who she is?”

Felix shook his head.

“Pearl Sydenstricker grew up to be Pearl Buck,” Great-Aunt Maisie said as if the name Pearl Buck meant anything to them.

When she saw that it didn’t, she shook her head in disgust.