Portrait in Sepia (38 page)

It's possible that during the long voyage on the steamship my grandmother Eliza recalled her first sixteen years in Chile, this geographically narrow and proud nation, her childhood in the care of a generous Indian woman and the beautiful Miss Rose, and her peaceful and secure life before the intrusion of the lover who left her pregnant, abandoned her to chase after gold in California, and was never again seen. Since my grandmother Eliza believes in karma, she must have concluded that the long voyage was necessary in order for her to meet Tao Chi'en, whom she would love in each of her reincarnations. "That is not a particularly Christian idea," Frederick Williams commented when I tried to explain to him why Eliza Sommers didn't need anyone.

My grandmother Eliza brought me as a gift a beat-up trunk, which she delivered to me with a naughty twinkle in her dark eyes. It contained yellowed manuscripts signed by "An Anonymous Lady." Those were the pornographic novels Rose Sommers had written in her youth, another well-guarded family secret. I read them carefully—for purely didactic reasons, of course—to the direct benefit of Iván Radovic. That entertaining literature—where did a Victorian spinster get such audacity?—and Nívea del Valle's confidences have helped me combat my shyness, which at first was a nearly insurmountable obstacle between Iván and me. It is true that on the day of the storm, when we were supposed to go to the operetta but didn't, I made the move to kiss Iván in the carriage before the poor man could defend himself, but that was as far as my daring went; after that we lost a lot of precious time arguing over my tremendous insecurity and his scruples, because he didn't want "to ruin my reputation," as he put it. It wasn't easy to convince him that my reputation was rather battered before he appeared on the horizon, and would go on being battered because I did not plan ever to go back to my husband or to give up my work or my independence, all of which are frowned on in this country. After the humiliating experience with Diego, I thought I was incapable of inspiring desire or love. Added to my total ignorance in sexual matters was a sense of inferiority; I thought I was ugly, inadequate, not very feminine, and I was ashamed of my body and of the passion Iván aroused in me. Rose Sommers, that distant great-grandmother I'd never known, handed down a fantastic gift when she gave me the playful freedom so necessary in making love. Iván often takes things too seriously; his Slavic temperament tends toward the tragic. Sometimes he sinks into despair because we can't live together until my husband dies, and by then surely we will be ancient. When those clouds darken his mind, I go to An Anonymous Lady's manuscripts, where I discover some new trick for giving him pleasure, or at least to make him laugh. For the purpose of entertaining him in our private time, I have been losing my inhibitions and acquiring a security I've never had. I don't feel seductive yet—the positive effect of the manuscripts hasn't gone that far—but at least I am not afraid to take the initiative in encouraging the adventurous side of Iván, who might otherwise be mired in the same routine forever. It would be a waste to make love like an old married couple when we're not even married. The advantage of being lovers is that we have to work hard at our relationship, because everything conspires to drive us apart. Our decision to be together has to be renewed again and again; that keeps us on our toes.

•

This is the story my grandmother Eliza Sommers told me.

Tao Chi'en never forgave himself for the death of his daughter Lynn. It was futile for his wife and Lucky to keep repeating that no human power is capable of changing the course of fate, that as a
zhong-yi
he had done everything possible, and that medical science was still powerless to prevent or contain the fatal hemorrhages that kill so many women during childbirth. For Tao Chi'en it was as if he had walked in circles to find himself right where he'd been more than thirty years before in Hong Kong when his first wife, Lin, gave birth to a baby girl. She, too, had begun to bleed, and in his desperation to save her, he had offered heaven anything he had in exchange for Lin's life. The baby had died a few minutes later, and he had believed that was the price for saving his wife. He never imagined that much later, on the other side of the world, he would have to pay again with his daughter Lynn.

"Don't talk that way, Father, please," Lucky berated him. "It isn't a matter of trading one life for another, those are superstitions unworthy of a man of your intelligence and culture. My sister's death has nothing to do with that of your first wife, or with you. These calamities happen all the time."

"What use are all my years of study and experience if I couldn't save her?" Tao Chi'en lamented.

"Millions of women die in childbirth. You did everything that could be done for Lynn."

Eliza Sommers was as crushed as her husband by the pain of having lost her only daughter, but she bore in addition the responsibility of caring for the tiny orphan. While she fell asleep on her feet out of pure exhaustion, Tao Chi'en never shut his eyes. He spent the night meditating, walking around the house like a somnambulist, and secretly weeping. They had not made love for days, and considering the states of mind in that home, it didn't seem they would anytime in the near future. After a week Eliza chose the only solution that came to her: she placed her granddaughter in Tao Chi'en's arms and announced to him that she was incapable of tending her, that she had spent more than twenty years of her life like a slave, looking after their children, Lucky and Lynn, and that she didn't have the strength to start all over with little Lai Ming. Tao Chi'en found himself in charge of a newborn baby, who had to be fed watered milk every half-hour from an eyedropper because she could barely swallow, and be rocked constantly because she screamed with colic night and day. The little thing was not even pleasant to look at; she was tiny and wrinkled, her skin yellow with jaundice, her features squashed by the difficult birth, and there was not a hair on her head, but after twenty-four hours of caring for her, Tao Chi'en could look at her without being terrified. After twenty-four days of carrying her in a pouch strung around his neck, feeding her with the eyedropper, and sleeping with her, she began to seem pretty to him. And after twenty-four months of giving her a mother's care he was completely enamored of his granddaughter and convinced that she would be even more beautiful than Lynn, despite there not being the least basis for that supposition. The child was not the mollusk she had resembled at birth, but she was far from looking like her mother. Tao Chi'en's routines, which previously had been composed of his practice and the few hours he shared with his wife, changed completely. His schedule centered around Lai Ming, that demanding infant who was glued to his side, whom he had to tell stories to, sing to sleep, force to eat, take on walks, buy the prettiest dresses in American stores as well as those in Chinatown, and introduce to everyone on the street because there had never been such a clever little girl, according to the grandfather, whose judgment was clouded by affection. He was sure that his granddaughter was a genius, and to prove it he talked to her in Chinese and in English, to which he was adding the Spanish jargon her grandmother spoke, creating a monumental confusion. Lai Ming responded to Tao Chi'en's stimuli like any two-year-old child, but to him it seemed that his occasional successes were irrefutable proof of superior intelligence. He reduced his office hours to a few in the afternoon; that way he could spend the morning with his granddaughter, teaching her new tricks, like a trained macaque. Only grudgingly did he allow Eliza to take her to the tearoom in the afternoons while he worked, because he had it in his head that he could begin to train her for medicine from early childhood.

"There are six generations of
zhong-yi
in my family; Lai Ming will be the seventh, seeing that you do not have the least talent for it," Tao Chi'en told his son Lucky.

"I thought that only men could be physicians," Lucky commented.

"That was in the past. Lai Ming will be the first female
zhong-yi
in history," Tao Chi'en replied.

But Eliza Sommers did not permit him to fill their granddaughter's head with medical theory at such an early age. There would be plenty of time for that; for the moment they needed to get the girl out of Chinatown a few hours a day to Americanize her. On that point at least, the grandparents were in agreement. Lai Ming should belong to the world of the whites, where undoubtedly she would have more opportunities than among Chinese. In favor of this plan, the girl had no Asian features; she had come out looking as Spanish as the family of her father. The possibility that Severo del Valle would return one day with the proposition of reclaiming his purported daughter, and take her to Chile, was intolerable, so it was never mentioned. It was simply assumed that the young Chilean would respect their pact because he had given ample proof of nobility. They did not touch the money he had provided for the girl but deposited it in an account for her future education. Every three or four months Eliza wrote a brief note to Severo del Valle, telling him about his "protégée," as he called her, to make it clear that they did not recognize his claim of paternity. There was no reply for a year, because he was immersed in his mourning, and the war, but later he was able to answer occasionally. They had not seen Paulina del Valle again, because she did not return to the tearoom and never acted on her threat to take away their granddaughter and ruin their lives.

And so five years of harmony went by in the home of the Chi'ens, until, inevitably, the events that were to destroy the family were set in motion. Everything began with the visit of two women who announced themselves as Presbyterian missionaries and asked if they could speak alone with Tao Chi'en. The
zhong-yi
received them in his consulting room, because he thought they had come for reasons of health; there was no other explanation for why two white women would unexpectedly appear in his house. They looked like sisters; they were young, tall, rosy-cheeked, with eyes bright as the waters in the bay, and both displayed the attitude of radiant assurance that tends to accompany religious zeal. They introduced themselves by their given names, Donaldina and Martha, and proceeded to explain that the Presbyterian mission in Chinatown had until that moment maneuvered with great caution and discretion in order not to offend the Buddhist community, but now it could count on new members determined to implant the minimum norms of Christian decency in that sector which, as they put it, "was American territory, not Chinese, and thus violations of law and morality could not be tolerated." They had heard about the Singsong Girls but had encountered a conspiracy of silence in regard to the traffic in children for sexual purposes. The missionaries knew that American authorities were taking bribes and looking the other way. Someone had told them that Tao Chi'en would be the only person with enough courage to tell them the truth, and to help them. That was why they were there. The
zhong-yi
had waited decades for that moment. In his slow labor of rescuing those miserable adolescents, he had counted solely on the silent aid of a few Quaker friends who took responsibility for getting the young prostitutes out of California and starting them in a new life far from the tongs and madams. It had been his role to buy the girls he could afford to pay for in the clandestine auctions and to take to his home those who were too ill to work in the whorehouses. He tried to heal their bodies and comfort their souls, but he did not always succeed; many died in his care. In his home there were two rooms, almost always occupied, where the Singsong Girls were given shelter, but Tao Chi'en felt that as the Chinese population in California increased, the problem of the slaves grew worse every day, and he could do very little to change that by himself. Those two missionaries had been sent from heaven; first of all, they had the backing of the powerful Presbyterian Church, and, second, they were white. They would be able to mobilize the press, public opinion, and the American authorities to put an end to that inhuman traffic. So he told them in detail how the girls were bought or kidnapped in China, how Chinese culture disdained girls, and how it was not unusual in that country to find newborn baby girls drowned in wells or tossed into the street to be chewed on by rats and dogs. Their families had no love for them, which was why it was so easy to acquire them for a few cents and bring them to America, where they could be exploited for thousands of dollars. They were transported like animals in huge crates in the holds of ships, and the ones who survived dehydration and cholera entered the United States carrying false marriage contracts. They were all brides in the eyes of immigration officers, and their young age, their lamentable physical condition, and the expression of terror on their faces apparently did not arouse suspicion. They were not important. What happened to them "was up to the Celestials," it was of no concern to the whites. Tao Chi'en explained to Donaldina and Martha that the life expectancy of the Singsong Girls, once they started in the trade, was three or four years. They serviced up to thirty men a day, and they died of venereal diseases, abortion, pneumonia, hunger, and rough treatment. A twenty-year-old Chinese prostitute was a curiosity. No one kept a record of their lives, but since they entered the country with a legal document, their deaths had to be recorded, though it was highly improbable that anyone would ask after them. Many went mad. They were cheap; they could be replaced in a blink of an eye. No one invested in their health or in making them live. Tao Chi'en reported to the missionaries the approximate number of young slaves in Chinatown, when the auctions were held, and where the brothels were located—from the most wretched, in which the girls were treated like caged animals, to the most luxurious, ruled by the celebrated Ah Toy, who had become the major importer of new flesh into the country. She bought youngsters of eleven in China and on the voyage to America handed them over to the sailors, so that when they arrived they would already know how to say "pay first" and tell gold from brass, so they wouldn't be tricked by false coins. Ah Toy's girls were selected from among the most beautiful, and they were more fortunate than the others, whose fate was to be auctioned like cattle and to service the most degenerate men in any way they demanded, however cruel and humiliating. Many became wild creatures, acting like ferocious beasts that had to be chained to the bed and kept dazed with narcotics. Tao Chi'en gave the missionaries the names of three or four Chinese businessmen who had money and prestige, among them his own son Lucky, who might help them in their task, the only ones who agreed with him about eliminating that kind of traffic. Donaldina and Martha, with trembling hands and teary eyes, took notes on everything Tao Chi'en said, then thanked him. As they said good-bye they asked if they could count on him when the time came to act.