Songs of Willow Frost (41 page)

Then they’d return to their apartment, where they would sweep away yesterday’s grime, the dirt, and dust. Only after she had cleaned every corner would his ah-ma relax, completely exhausted. It was as though she were sweeping away the past, the cobwebs, the spiders, and the dead things in her mind.

As he followed her along Second Avenue toward midtown, William stared up at the Smith Tower, which was closed. The only light
came from the glowing pyramid at the top, a beacon rising high above the garbage-strewn streets.

“Taking me to the Wishing Chair?”

His mother didn’t smile. She merely shook her head. “I want to show you something. I want you to see who I am.” She pointed to the small building next door, the Florence Theatre, with its new, glittering sign that advertised talkies. William had never been to the second-run theater, which was showing
Daughter of the Dragon
.

William had heard of Sax Rohmer’s books and movies featuring the nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu, but Sister Briganti had never approved of them. Still, that didn’t keep his classmates from drawing on handlebar mustaches and pulling their eyes back in an attempt to look mysterious and dangerous.

William stood in line as his ah-ma bought two tickets. They sat together in the middle of the theater, whispering through the news-reel and a cartoon of
Flip the Frog
.

“Is that why you gave me up?” William finally asked. “To keep me away from Uncle Leo? If so, it’s not your fault. I understand.” He watched the flickering cartoon reflected in her eyes.

“In hindsight, I should have taken you and fled when I had the chance, but I was weak. You don’t understand, William. I never wanted to give you up. How could I do such a thing? Instead I chose the lesser of two evils. I gave you up to keep you from him. And gave myself up in the process. I never expected to leave the Cabrini Sanitarium. I didn’t want to leave. I stayed and wrote to you. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I knew where you were. I hoped you’d get my letters and understand.”

William thought about the trove of cards and correspondence that Sister Briganti had kept hidden from him all these years. He shook his head as a Morton pipe organ played a happy melody. William felt sick to his stomach. The song faded and the lights grew dimmer and the feature film began. This time the music was more ominous.

As the credits rolled, William recognized the names of Sessue Hayakawa, Anna May Wong, and Warner Oland as the evil Dr. Fu Manchu. He searched his memories and remembered himself and his young mother in the company of a much older man. He vaguely remembered his ah-ma calling him her uncle.

William remembered his mother in the bathtub.

“Uncle Leo would have wanted nothing to do with a pregnant woman. But the baby—I worried that if I had a girl this time, he and Auntie Eng would make me sell her, or worse. And if I had a boy they might take the newborn and call it their own. Or keep the two of you, eventually tossing me aside.”

William listened to his mother’s confession, which was more painful than any he’d ever stumbled through with Father Bartholomew. He looked at the screen and heard Sessue say, “It is the supreme irony—that the only person I have ever deeply loved, should be born of blood that I loathe.”

That’s who I am
, William thought.

“They wouldn’t let me leave the sanitarium until I gave you up one way or the other. I asked about you, begged for you. But they said you had been taken away to a temporary home—that it was what was best for you. And in a sad way, I knew that was the truth. I couldn’t take care of us. I was about to be evicted from my apartment because of how they found me. I couldn’t take care of you. So I signed you away—permanently. That was the only sure way to keep Uncle Leo from finding you. I had lost you, but I could never lose you to him.”

William looked at the screen and saw a familiar face. It was his ah-ma, it was Willow. His mother appeared as a handmaiden to Anna May, who was playing the villainous daughter of Fu Manchu. “But, how did you get
here
?” William asked, pointing toward the screen.

“Who would have thought that
Eyes of the Totem
would be my big break? The movie wasn’t even released for two years, and by
then no one wanted silent films—they all wanted talkies. H. C. Weaver went out of business, and two years later the studio burned to the ground. But Asa saw the film in a second-run theater, while half-drunk. He’d spent time in an institution as well. I think he recognized sorrow when he saw the tears, the sadness, the pain, which was real—I never had to act to make myself cry, William. I was never one of those actresses who rubbed salt or glycerin in her eyes. I only had to think of you and the tears would come.”

William looked at his mother, who was crying as she spoke.

“Asa found a producer who tracked me down and vouched for me. The studio gave me a screen test. Everyone was looking for the next Nina Mae McKinney—they already had a black Greta Garbo, now they needed an Oriental one as well. That led to a contract. I stopped being Liu Song and I became Willow Frost. The studio even paid to have my name legally changed. They gave me a monthly stipend. They paid to have my back teeth removed to improve my smile. They fixed my crooked nose. Then my big moment came with a role originally written for Anna May. She was allergic to the cornflake snow they were using on the set, so I got the part. But I never forgot you, William. Each year on your birthday, I’d have Mr. Butterfield ask about you at the orphanage, and check on the whereabouts of Uncle Leo—hoping, praying, that if something happened to him, if he died, I’d somehow be able to return as your ah-ma. That was my foolish hope. A hope that slowly vanished as I realized the studio would never embrace the scandals of my past, especially when they were keeping me busy doing three movies a year. Besides, as far as Mrs. Peterson and the state were concerned, I stopped being your mother the moment I signed those papers.”

William watched as his ah-ma swallowed and caught her breath.

“And later, when the studio found out I could sing, they sent me on the road, which was a relief. For me, performing onstage is more enjoyable and safer than standing in front of a camera making movies all day.”

“Why?” William asked as he watched his ah-ma on-screen. She seemed so glamorous in a jeweled gown with a glimmering headpiece that looked like something from the Ziegfeld Follies.

“Because after each movie, among the cards and fan mail, I would inevitably receive a telegram from Uncle Leo.”

William froze as the hero, played by Sessue, shot her.

“And because I die in all my films, William—every single one.”

William watched his mother’s collapse on-screen. Her movie-star voice was raspy and deeper than in real life, more dramatic, pure make-believe. He listened as the music swelled to a rolling crescendo. He watched as she closed her tearful eyes, her shoulders drooped, and she fell silent, lifeless.

When he turned to speak, his ah-ma was gone, her seat empty as an apology.

Old Laundry

(1934)

William knew his mother wasn’t coming back. He didn’t hold out hope that she would return with a bucket of popcorn or a handful of Tootsie Rolls, or even the toasted watermelon seeds and dried cuttlefish they had snacked on when he was younger. She’d brought him here to make her confession, to say goodbye, and he knew that, in her own strange way, she was hoping for forgiveness. But she didn’t bother to wait around. As for William, for her, rejection wasn’t something to be withstood—it was something to be avoided.

As he sat back in the theater, he looked at the stage. The tiny venue had once hosted vaudeville comedians. The lobby was filled with signed posters featuring Fay Tincher, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin, from their days as traveling performers. William had plenty of answers, but he still felt empty; the joke was on him it seemed. He wished he could have seen his grandparents, wished he had known them, before those days surrendered to silent films and the talkies that were now everywhere.

He didn’t know why he sat there until the film was over. He knew his mother was dead on-screen, he wasn’t hoping to catch another glimmer of the only true family he’d ever known, but maybe it was simply because he had a single streetcar token left to his name and nowhere else to go. So he sat, in darkness, while the audience
clapped politely and the organist played a happy waltz as patrons drifted to the exits. William was the last to leave the empty theater as an usher began to sweep up.

Outside, the air had a bite to it that hadn’t been there before. He pulled his collar up to ward off the chill, thinking of where he could go at this late hour. He knew the train station would be open—and warm. He headed back in that direction, but even from a block away he could see police officers dragging homeless men and squatters out of the station, tossing them into the streets along with their belongings. The officers were yelling at the men and pointing in the direction of Hooverville. William considered flowing south with the rising tide of misery until his curiosity got the better of him—up the street, one block away, sat the Jefferson Laundry.

William couldn’t bring himself to look away. His cold feet seemed to move on their own as he found his way past street musicians and fruit vendors packing up for the day and to the window of the laundry, where a faded picture of Zhong Kui hung in a golden frame. William recognized the demon slayer from childhood stories—fairy tales to him, but revered superstitions to Uncle Leo, his father. William peeked inside and saw a lumpy old woman taking in bundles of sheets and passing out claim tickets.
Auntie Eng
, he thought. Not his real aunt. Not his real anything. She was hardly family.
Sunny is more family than that old woman
.

Then William glimpsed a strange yet familiar face as it emerged from the back room. The stern-looking man had lost more hair since the last time William had seen him. But his clothes looked the same, just older and more out of fashion. He’d gained weight too, which William found odd, considering the city was filled with so many hungry mouths. The man looked to be twenty, maybe thirty years older than Willow. William gritted his teeth at the thought.

What you did, Ah-ma, you did for me
. William understood why Willow never came back for all those years. She was helpless here, laden with too many bad memories. He wondered when Uncle Leo
had finally seen his ah-ma, in the newspaper, or on-screen, or heard her familiar voice on the radio. Did he recognize her right away? And was he more interested in Willow now, or in Liu Song? Would he have some claim to her?
And if he did
, William realized,
the only way to collect on that debt would be through me
.

Then the man looked up, directly at William. He glanced at his watch and came around the counter. He untied his apron, tossed the dirty linen in a bin, and opened the door. William was overwhelmed by the smell of detergent and a wave of moist heat that steamed into the frigid air.

“No jobs today. Come back next week,” Leo said in Cantonese.

William stared back at him.

“Do I know you?” Leo asked.

William kept staring, examining the man’s face, his nose, his receding hairline. William shook his head slowly.
No. And you never will
.

Prodigal

(1934)

Despite his daydreams, William was no character in a Horatio Alger story. He wasn’t Ragged Dick or Ben, the Luggage Boy. Nor did he envision being rescued from the street by Daddy War-bucks and transported to a mansion on Capitol Hill, where he’d spend the waning years of his childhood with tuxedoed servants and a scruffy dog.

Gee whiskers
, he thought sadly. He gave up on those dreams and accepted all the reality that a streetcar token could afford. He picked up the broken pieces of his childhood and carried them inside him all the way back to the gates of Sacred Heart.

When he entered the main school building, he went to Sister Briganti’s office. She was there, smoking, drinking black coffee, and reviewing a ledger.