Candlelight Bridge, page 33
The peeled orange still sat in his palm. He split it in two, looked for a place to set the halves, then gave up and set them atop the unpeeled oranges, out of her reach. He wiped his sticky hands on his slacks and left. On his way out, he held the door open for Candelaria to go in.
In China, he could have two wives, and nobody could keep him from any of his children. But though he was born Chinese, his papers declared him American. His wife was born Mexican, but their marriage made her American. Their children were American, his businesses were American, he was emperor of an American dynasty. Therefore, he must act American, which meant keeping up appearances, which meant walking out of God’s Hotel and not looking back.
38. Consumed
1924 – El Paso, Texas
Yankee only rang the little chrome bell when orders were up for café customers. For the three underground cousins, he bellowed, “Grace!” For the lone patient in the sick shack, he gave no signal at all, simply set aside a small copy of the larger underground order, which was: a platter of pork lo mein, bowl of wor wonton, and pot of rice.
Grace popped into view at the pass-through shelf, saw the extra order, and sighed wistfully. “So, Cousin Man Fai still stays in the sick shack?”
In answer, he held up a stern thumb and forefinger. “Second tray, second trip.”
She avoided his eyes as she moved the three larger dishes to a large tray,
“Hurry-hurry, before my delicious food gets cold.” He waved her off.
He watched her carry the first, larger order across the courtyard to the house. He smiled. She’d filled out in the year since she had the baby, and though she walked fast she couldn’t control the roll of her hips, so like her sister when she was seventeen. In no time, she rushed back to prepare the smaller tray for the worrisome young man in the sick shack.
Yankee had a reputation for helping Chinese men in need, and sick ones with nowhere to go often appeared at his door. Healthy cousins were back to staying in the tunnels and eating meals in the house. Recuperating cousins like Man Fai stayed in the fake shithouse, one at a time. Yankee attended to their every comfort: providing food, supplies, and even his herbalist for free. When sick cousins needed a hospital, he paid for that too. He gave starting-out money to those who lived, and most did. Those with TB remained in Texas or other desert climates. All the survivors found ways to return the favor: with contacts, illegal booze, hard-to-find goods, hiding places, quick loans.
Man Fai seemed like a survivor.
Grace’s lips twitched in a secretive smile as she picked up his tray.
“Just drop off the food and leave him alone,” Yankee said. “He needs rest.”
“He needs company. Nobody talks to him but the Chinese doctor. It’s like he’s in jail.”
She scurried out with the tray, and he called after her, “Keep your distance!”
His eyes tracked her to the shed. It still looked like a double outhouse—one door carved with a moon, the other a star—but inside, it was now a single shed with a cot, blankets, and a woodstove for cold nights. She set the tray on a large stone next to the star-door, knocked, and stepped back. A muffled cough drifted from inside. The young man opened the door, no longer coughing but beaming, the picture of health.
Yankee couldn’t hear their talk over the wok sizzling behind him. Still, he watched them so intently, it wasn’t till he smelled shrimp burning that he turned to stir it, swearing over the ruined seafood, which cost a pretty penny. It only had a few black spots, so maybe it could be saved. He kept stirring blindly as he leaned toward the door again to glance at Grace. She flung her head forward, laughing at whatever Man Fai just said.
Yankee wished this task didn’t fall to Grace, now a regular waitress at the International Café. But when he’d tried to coax his other workers to carry meals to his visiting cousins, the other two waitresses and second cook had exchanged looks. They’d said they were happy to serve the underground men but not the ones in the “sick shack.”
“Some of them have consumption,” the cook said.
“You don’t have to go near,” he replied. “Just drop off the plates.”
They all remained silent.
“If I fire you, that won’t be good for your health either.”
“I can find another job. I can’t find another life,” the cook replied.
“Never mind. My sister-in-law is happy to help those in need.” He flapped his arms at them. “All right, all right. Back to work.”
Sam offered to do it but wasn’t always available. He managed the accounts for both restaurants now and spent a lot of time at Yankee’s Chinese Café, too long a walk.
Last time Yankee visited Man Fai at the shed, the young man said he owed his improving health to him, which swelled Yankee’s chest with pride. Then Man Fai added, “And thank you for sending your kind sister-in-law to visit me. She lights up dark days,” which swelled Yankee’s chest with the desire to smash the boy’s pretty face.
Instead, he smiled. “Ah, Grace. A nice girl, yes. She also has a nice baby, a daughter, one year old. As Americans say, Esperanza wraps us all around her finger.”
“Yes, Grace told me about her daughter, but she calls her Hope. I’m eager to meet her. I grew up in a big family and was sorry to leave them. When I came to Gold Mountain, I knew I was unlikely to find a wife and make a family here, but Grace makes me believe I can.” Man Fai gave him a sly smile. “I didn’t know Mexican women were so agreeable, Daai Lou.”
That had been the worst moment, when the insolent boy named him both big brother and boss-man in a single breath.
He now tossed the plate of half-burned shrimp onto the shelf, slapped the bell several times, then stepped outside to better hear the young lovers’ chatter, maybe douse the heat between them with an icy stare. Man Fai either didn’t see him in the olive tree’s shade or pretended not to. He didn’t catch everything the pair said, only enough to regret teaching Grace bits of Toisanese and Cantonese, and curse whoever taught the boy bits of English and Spanish. Their conversation blended it all, filled in with longing looks that required no translation.
“My father give me money for buying land,” Man Fai told her. “When I get well, maybe you go with me.”
“I always wanted to see the ocean,” she said.
“California?”
“I hear they have land to farm.”
Man Fai’s head bobbed like a seesaw, neither a nod nor a shake. “Land costs much in California, and weather is bad for TB. I wish to buy land in Colorado.”
Her body pivoted as if with indecision, twirling her skirt open and closed, open and closed. “Colorado means red in Spanish.”
“Red is important in China. Mean joy, long life, good luck.”
“I know those Chinese meanings for red,” she said. “Yankee taught me.”
The boy lowered his voice and muttered something about “brides.”
“In America, brides wear white,” she replied.
“If we have wedding, you wear what color you wish.”
Wedding? Was he serious? An immigrant with TB? Someone must warn her father. Eduardo’s hatred of Yankee would come in handy. Surely he’d never let another daughter marry a Chinese man.
She bowed her head, hair hiding her face. “I can’t wear white. I’m not…complete.”
Man Fai muttered, “For me, you complete. For me, you wear color from my country.”
She giggled. “In America, if I wear red, everyone will know I’m a bad girl.”
“No matter. Yankee tell me, ‘To Americans, all Chinese are devil.’ So, you and me: both bad.” At this, they laughed until the boy turned his head to splutter and cough.
Yankee was about to swoop in and carry her away, to prevent her getting sprayed with disease. She beat him to it, jumping backward while the boy waved her away. Along the restaurant wall, the café’s chickens flapped against the sides of their coop, clucking in alarm.
Two-year-old Rose burst from the house toward the coop, shrieking, “Chickies!”
Five-year-old Mary ran after her. “Leave the birdies alone!”
Candelaria emerged in the doorway, shouting, “Stay away from that shack!”
She saw Yankee and followed his gaze to Grace and the boy. Then her eyes locked with his: a declaration of war or solidarity? “Girls. Inside. Now.” She pointed at the house and snapped her fingers. They tried to skirt past her as they ran in, but she swatted Mary’s rear and scooped Rose over her shoulder. Then she strode inside and slammed the door.
Man Fai ceased coughing, but he stepped behind the star-door and shut it while Grace turned back to the cafe, catching Yankee’s stare before he could avert it. Her expression said she knew he’d been watching. She wore a pitying smile, not for the sick boy but for him. He returned to the kitchen, face burning. Pity was for the weak.
A new order caught his eye from the pass-through. What kind of idiots ate lunch at two? He snatched the ticket: Peking duck and pork short ribs. Idiots with money, that’s what kind. He focused on cooking. He couldn’t afford to get distracted. Love was so much smoke, which could either make his eyes water or be dispersed with a wave of his hand. Money was solid, something he could hold and count. He turned up the flame under the wok, splashed in sesame oil, and watched the smoke rise.
***
Grace had a cough. Yankee blamed Man Fai for luring her. Blamed her parents for letting her work instead of keeping her home. Blamed her for flirting. It took days for him to admit, and then only to his wife in the privacy of their bed, that he blamed himself for giving Grace a job.
Candelaria didn’t comfort or correct him. “You should feel guilty. It was you who made her lonely by stealing her innocence, you who weakened her health by making her pregnant, you who put her to work serving men with diseases.”
“I told her to leave the plates outside.” But he knew she was right.
She sighed. “I’m tired of arguing. Let’s not make a world out of nothing. We don’t know the test results yet. It’s probably a normal cough. It’s not as if she’s coughing blood.” She only babbled like this when she was afraid.
“Will you pray?” he asked.
“Why ask? You don’t believe in it.”
“But you do.”
She rolled away from him with such force the bed bounced him up and down.
Two days later, Grace appeared outside the café at dawn and beckoned him. He stepped onto the sidewalk, and she raised one hand like a traffic cop.
“Don’t get too close,” she said. “It might be catching.”
He stepped back in alarm, for himself and for her. “Then why did you come?”
“My cough’s gone today, and I want to be the one to tell you: the test was bad. It’s tuberculosis.” She stared at him, into him, through him.
If she were waiting for him to speak, he had no idea what to say.
“I was going to suggest you hire a new waitress, but I see you’re ahead of me.” She pointed at the window, where a sign in the lower corner declared in both English and Spanish, Help Wanted: Waitress.
He looked away. “It was Sam’s idea.”
When his eyes returned to her it was hard not to stare, imagining her face pale with death. Yet her cheeks were rosier than ever. He wanted to comfort her, if only he could touch her. Even if he could, she didn’t want him but handsome young Man Fai.
“If Man Fai doesn’t die, I’ll kill him,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s not his fault. I brought him food and conversation, but we kept our distance. He was already getting better before I ever talked to him, thanks to the medicine you bought him. Many people in El Paso have consumption. I could’ve caught it anywhere.” Before he could reply, she held up a halting hand again. “It’s not your fault either.”
“That’s no comfort if you die.”
“TB patients come to El Paso because dry air helps. Man Fai got well. Maybe I will too.”
“Then you can live happily ever after.”
“If so, you shouldn’t be bitter but happy. Man Fai will take the baby and me away. Then we can all make a new start.”
“But you’ll never see the ocean.”
“A small price to pay for my life, and for a man who’ll take care of us.”
“What if he finds out Hope is mine?”
“It won’t matter. You saved his life. Anyway, he hasn’t asked Papá yet. He’s waiting till I’m well.” Empty words. She was sweet and forgiving, not obedient or patient: she’d never wait for permission. She would die or she would elope. Either way, she’d be gone.
But if she could pretend otherwise, so could he. “Your job will be waiting for you when you get well. Except you’re no longer allowed to carry food to the outhouse.”
She gave a nod that said her mind had moved on. “I came for another reason.”
“Yes?”
“If anything happens to me, promise you’ll keep my daughter safe.” It wasn’t a question.
He gave a single nod, not trusting himself with more.
She turned to leave.
“Grace?”
“Yes?”
“Should I tell your sister, or will you?”
“Tell her what?”
“What the doctor said.”
She looked puzzled. “I already told her. You do know my sister and I share everything?”
He pondered her words as she walked away. Maybe her bad luck wasn’t his fault. Maybe he never could’ve taken one sister without the other. He recalled a Mexican customer who called his own wife “mi media naranja,” my half orange, what Americans called my other half. Though the phrase referred to spouses, it aptly described the two sisters who turned Yankee’s life upside down. Despite the difference in their ages and personalities, they were two halves of a whole: back and forth, up and down, yin and yang. He’d sliced the orange in two. Could one exist without the other? He pulled out his flask and gulped its cool liquid till it washed the question away.
39. The Grandmother Clock
1925 – El Paso, Texas
Candelaria lay nose-to-nose with Hope in the narrow bed, inhaling the two-year-old’s milky breath. She pushed a sweat-damp lock from her niece’s forehead, hair blacker and straighter than hers or Grace’s, and tried to forget why it looked that way.
Hope pushed her hand away with a fist. “Want Mommy!”
“Mommy’s sleeping. You’re stuck with me.”
The tiny fist swung into her cheekbone.
“Ouch!” She uncurled Hope’s fist and tucked it under the blanket, then swaddled her, binding her arms against her sides.
Instead of resisting, Hope grew still. “More, tía!”
Her own children had resisted swaddling by the time they were one, but Grace’s child seemed to fear her wild limbs more than most. Candelaria wrapped her so tight she couldn’t budge. Hope exhaled contentment.
“Want to hear your mommy’s favorite song?” Candelaria asked.
Hope nodded, eyes expectant.
Candelaria patted the blanket-cocoon in time with the song, “At the gate of heaven, little shoes they are selling…”
Only Benny and Celia remembered when Auntie Grace used to sing them that lullaby. Only they had an inkling of why their mother was keeping Grace and her child at home after sending her own children to Uncle Miguel’s. The rest of her kids called her “Mean Mommy!” She replied, “All family is a never-paid obligation,” and made no effort to explain away their confusion. They must never know the truth about their father and Grace and Hope, about what kind of man they came from. Children shouldn’t have to fear the blood in their own veins.
She stopped singing to listen to Hope breathe, in impatient little puffs like Grace used to do. “A mean mommy maybe, but good at singing babies to sleep, no?” She ran her fingers over the useless white ruffles of Hope’s pillow, such a Grace thing to buy. Candelaria would never be more than Hope’s second mother—like Segundo Barrio, a second neighborhood, second home, second choice. It was the best she could do. “Dream with the little angels,” she said as she left the room, cracking the door to let in a sliver of light because Hope was afraid of the dark.
In the kitchen, ten-year-old Celia stood over the stove, the only child she allowed home briefly each day to help. Celia intently stirred a wood spoon around a pot, where a thick plop-plop-plop of bubbling liquid released the mouth-watering smells of chocolate, corn masa, and cinnamon. Champurrado. Celia lifted the spoon, blew on it, and slurped.
Candelaria’s eyes watered with memories. “Did I ever tell you your grandma made champurrado for us the day we left Mata Flores?”
Celia whirled around, jostling a towel into the burner. “¡Híjole, Mamá! You scared me to death.”
“Watch that towel. It’s catching fire.”
Celia snatched the singed towel and tucked it at her waist. “Auntie Grace mentioned champurrado. I thought it might make her feel better.”
She craved not only to hug her daughter, who was growing so tall, but to wrap herself around her like armor, to protect her from the beast that would soon swallow her whole: womanhood. It was more urgent to protect her children from TB, so instead of stepping closer she stepped away, retreated to the parlor, and perched on the sofa. From there, she could still watch through the archway to make sure Celia didn’t burn down the house.
Celia stared at her, frowning. “Mamá, you look tired.”
She pressed a coy hand to her chest. “Awww, you say the sweetest things.”
Celia propped her hands on her hips, reminding Candelaria of her mother, of Grace, of herself, a funhouse mirror of Rivera women. “I’m not kidding. You need rest. You need help.”
“You’re a big help, my perfect daughter!” She blew her a kiss.
Celia snatched the kiss from the air, slapped it to her face, and pretended it knocked her backward. But it wasn’t that easy to throw her off track anymore. “Mamá, Benny’s worried…”
