Songs of Willow Frost (17 page)

“And what of
your
parents? Your family, back home, your wife?” As Liu Song asked, she could see the discomfort in Colin’s face. He frowned and exhaled slowly, staring up at the cloudy sky. She glanced at his finger and didn’t see a wedding ring, though they weren’t so common in China, where a dowry was more important. The gift of an appliance or a car wasn’t unheard of instead of a token piece of jewelry.

“Ah, my parents,” Colin said. “My father is a banker. And Mother stays at home. Her skin is so pale—I don’t think she ever goes outside. She’s too busy tending to my brothers and sisters, and my grandparents. I’m the firstborn son, so I’m expected to take a part in my father’s business—to get married, to care for my mother and my siblings …”

Liu Song was taken aback as Colin struggled to explain.

“But, you’re
here
,” she said.

He nodded, slowly. “That I am. I’m here. I always wanted to perform—always wanted to be an actor.” The words came out almost as an apology. “First in the opera, like your
lou dou
—he was one of the first performers I had ever met. Your father encouraged me—jokingly of course, but I took him quite seriously. And growing up, I read constantly. I studied English. My father assumed it was to help in business, but I had other plans. While other men my age looked for an obedient wife, I watched every play, photoplay, and moving picture that I could. I wanted to be Chai Hong in
An Oriental Romeo
.”

“And then you left your family?” Liu Song asked, astonished that a man his age would break with such traditions. She was different—she was an American. But most of the Chinese-born sons she knew would never think of leaving their families. Who would take care of their mothers when their fathers died?

“My parents said I had been corrupted, that movies were filled with vice and carnality. I’m sorry. You must think dreadful things about me now,” Colin said, staring down at his polished shoes. “For my nineteenth birthday my father sent me to America on a business holiday, alone. He bought me a token partnership in a Chinese American business so I could come and go, in and out of the country, as a merchant. I handled his affairs—did everything I was supposed to do. The trip was a success. And then … I sent a letter home informing him that I wasn’t planning to return, that my younger brother should take my place.”

Liu Song saw the sadness wash over him.

“That was two years ago,” he said. “I hope to return one day as a famous actor, or at least a successful one. I hope that’s enough to save face—to be forgiven. I know. Foolish of me, yes? My father—he is a very wealthy man. But even as his firstborn son I was never afforded the simple luxury of … 
dreaming
—of doing something on my own. But here, I can live my dream.” He wiped his hands on his pants.

“Even on an actor’s wages?”

“Even on an actor’s wages.” Colin laughed. “So I met with your father and he took me on as his understudy. I even met your uncle once. He was there for your mother’s performance. He was intrigued—everyone was.”

“He’s not really my uncle.” Liu Song’s stomach turned as she thought of the man. “He had another wife in a village near Canton. He only married my mother to try and have a son. Now his first wife is here and I’m the servant, stepchild.”
Brood mare
.

“You’re like Yeh-Shen.” Colin smiled.

Liu Song shook her head. The only thing she had in common with the Chinese Cinderella was the part about the wicked stepmother. There was no golden slipper, no magic fish to clothe her in finery, no spring festival at which to find her prince. “There’s no happy ending to my fairy tale.”

“Then you should leave,” he said, as if it were that simple.

“And go where?”

Colin took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I know you’re hurting. But you could be like me and just follow your heart—who knows where it will take you?”

Liu Song found comfort and solace in his sympathetic eyes.

“This is Gum Shan. Your father knew this,” he whispered. “But the gold isn’t in the mountains anymore. It’s found on the streets. You saw it yourself—the way those people regarded you. Here, you can be anyone you want to be—it’s all about your performance. From the way you sing, the way you act, I think you know exactly what I’m referring to. I never feel more myself than when I’m pretending to be someone else. If I were to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a banker
—that
would be the illusion, that would be stage magic and acting, because that’s not who I am.”

Liu Song hung on his every word.

“Though I must admit I’m truly not much of an opera singer. I don’t think I have such a promising future onstage, but that’s not where the future is.”

Liu Song followed his gaze as they both looked back down Second Avenue.

“The Tillicum, the Clemmer, the Melbourne, the Alaska Theatre—there are eighty movie theaters in Seattle and they’re opening more every month, practically every week,” he said. “
That’s
the future.”

The future
, Liu Song thought. She imagined those enormous letters as a movie title on a twinkling marquee, with her name featured below. For the first time since her mother died, her timid hopes felt real—it felt possible to be something greater than a stepchild and a source of income for Uncle Leo, or a housemaid and nanny for Auntie Eng and her greedy, slovenly family.

“The future”—Liu Song nodded slowly—“in black-and-white.”

The Devil’s Claim

(1921)

In the future you can be anyone you want to be.

Those words haunted Liu Song all the way home. That and the thought of Colin forsaking his father and his family for the stage and then giving up the stage for the silver screen—running toward an unknown future, arms outstretched, but alone.

Liu Song had been so alone for so long. She’d been mired in sorrow, been beaten down with despair and hopelessness—to the point of numbness. Now she felt as though she were seeing the world with new eyes, her mother’s eyes.

What would my father think?
she wondered. Her parents had adored photoplays and motion picture shows even though the audiences were so modern, the themes so unconventional.

The notion of Liu Song performing on-screen seemed as ridiculous, as unseemly, as that of her mother performing onstage. But as she passed a crowd of ticket buyers who patiently waited in line outside a theater showing
The Devil’s Claim
, her perspective shifted like a kaleidoscope, and she marveled at the new shapes, colors, and designs of the future that coalesced in her imagination. Especially when she noticed the enormous movie poster featuring the dashing Sessue Hayakawa. Her father had once raved about Hayakawa performing onstage in
The Three Musketeers
—in Japanese.

“He wasn’t some coolie actor. His gestures were so dramatic, so
poetic, you didn’t even need to understand the language—that’s great acting,” her father had said.

And though Hayakawa must have spoken English with a lingering accent, it didn’t matter in silent films. The performance spoke for itself. All that mattered were his handsome looks, his brooding presence, and his piercing eyes, which made even the most matronly of American women swoon. He’d appeared in dozens of films, and Liu Song’s father had said he was as famous as Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin.

Colin reminded her of Hayakawa, but the similarities went beyond mysterious eyes and a perfect smile. As she daydreamed about Colin, she didn’t know what she liked more, his ambition—his willingness to follow his dreams—or his quiet sadness—his reluctance and guilt at having to forsake his familial obligations. His conflict was real. He wore his lament. And he didn’t hide the fact that his dreams were burdened with a heavy price. It was a peculiar kind of integrity; it reminded her of her father.

As Liu Song passed the boarded-up remains of the old Opera House, the cold wind carried the smell of rain-soaked soot and ash. The brick structure had survived, but the wooden joists, rafters, and parquet flooring had gone up in a tremendous blaze. Now the building was being rebuilt, repurposed as a parking garage.

Liu Song stopped and stared at one of the brick walls, which still had the pasted remnants of a poster for
Zhuangzi Tests His Wife
. The years had faded the colors, which made the Widow of Zhuangzi look even more heartbroken; the expression of her mask showcased her misery—her tortured soul put to the test. The gown in the painting was the one her mother had worn—the one Liu Song kept beneath her bed. As she stared at the poster, she thought about her mother’s presence—her ah-ma’s busy spirit, as Colin had said. Liu Song was so grateful to have the mask her mother had worn. In the drizzling rain, Liu Song said a silent prayer to the remains of the theater, as Yeh-Shen had prayed above the bones of her past, hoping
for new clothes and a new life. “Ah-ma, you wore the colors of sickness and despair,” Liu Song said as she remembered what the colors represented onstage—the symbolism her father had taught her.

As she passed a Buddhist church and a Shinto temple and walked through the Japanese settlement past Cherry Land Florist, Liu Song remembered her mother’s favorite tea, made from the seeds of a blue flower. She stopped at the Murakami Store on Weller and wandered the aisles, which were crowded with crates and boxes of dry goods. She was looking for the seeds and perhaps an answer to her prayer. Instead she found something that would suffice—an assortment of ceramic paints. Liu Song carefully selected two small jars, one gold, the other silver. She had just enough money to buy both.

Satisfied, she walked down the alley to her apartment, thinking,
Ah-ma, soon you’ll perform again. Soon you’ll wear the colors you deserve
.

T
HE APARTMENT WAS
crowded and smelled like cigarettes, flatulence, and sweaty feet. Auntie Eng’s sisters were still there. They’d made themselves at home, stringing wet laundry across the alley while their children cut paper dolls out of newspaper, leaving the remains all over the floor. One of them had even bought a turtle from the pet store in the alley and let the reptile creep around Liu Song’s room.
If I’m lucky, Auntie Eng will cook it
, Liu Song thought.

Despite this chaos, Liu Song bridled her anger and her fear. She remained silent, and like Yeh-Shen, she did what she was told. She helped cook dinner and doted on Auntie Eng’s family. Liu Song played with the children, even though none of them knew how to share and cried when they didn’t get their way, drawing stern reprimands from Auntie Eng and her sisters. They blamed Liu Song for being a poor, undisciplined caretaker. Liu Song even went to the store to buy a tin of wet snuff for Auntie Eng’s sister, who chewed the ground tobacco and then spat the vile, pungent remains into a Folgers coffee can.

Fortunately for Liu Song, Uncle Leo cared for their slovenly houseguests even less than she did. He popped in to eat, shave, and mask his stench with a splash of bay rum cologne. He’d light prayer sticks in his family shrine, asking for good fortune. Then he would depart for a meeting at the Eng Suey Sun Benevolent Association or catch up to a poker game at the Wah Mee, often returning just before sunrise. Sometimes he would wake her up, but even then she would pretend she was asleep—dead to the world, a part of her dying each time.

Liu Song’s routine of domestic drudgery and the late-night visits from Uncle Leo lasted only a few days. Then she followed Auntie Eng and her family to the King Street Station, porting their luggage. She didn’t linger at the train terminal to say goodbye. Instead she went home and found Uncle Leo, half-drunk, sprinkling talcum powder on the wooden floor. It had been seven days since her ah-ma’s burial. Old-world superstition dictated that they would go to bed and remain in their rooms until the passing of her mother’s spirit was complete—until her ah-ma had departed on her final journey. Liu Song accepted this tradition. She embraced it. In fact, she had been counting on it all week.

Alone in her room, she found the valise beneath her bed and dug out her mother’s belongings. Liu Song stared solemnly at the opera mask. She had carefully repainted it. The greens, which represented poor judgment, and the blues, which denoted astuteness and loyalty, were now covered by shimmering metallics—silver and gold—the colors of mystery, the colors of an angry god, or a demon, or a vengeful spirit.

Liu Song stared at the mask and waited for Auntie Eng to return and go to bed. She bit her tongue as she heard her stepparents’ drunken laughter. They joked as they finished the last of her father’s barley wine, the bottles he’d hidden to be uncorked during each New Year’s celebration.

When she was certain that Uncle Leo and Auntie Eng were
asleep, Liu Song took out her mother’s shimmering white gown, with its long, flowing water sleeves and dramatic red embroidery. She dressed slowly, carefully, reverently, paying attention to every detail as though donning armor for battle. She piled her long hair up high in the style of a married woman. She outlined her eyes with black grease and wrapped a strip of leather around her temple, pulling the cord tight the way she’d seen her father do it, tying the strip in the back so her eyes were held wide open. She covered the cord with her mother’s jeweled headpiece, pinning the crown to the leather. Then she tied on the demon mask. She was certain she would laugh when she looked in her vanity mirror. Instead she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She didn’t see her own reflection. She didn’t recognize the red eyes that stared back, flickering in the lamplight. She wasn’t Liu Song anymore. Nor was she Yeh-Shen, Cinderella. She wasn’t merely her mother’s daughter playing a child’s dress-up game. She
was
her mother now, if only for one night. And her mother was a very angry spirit.