The Laundryman's Boy, page 4
Like a waterfall, the books spilled from the crooked shelves, but they drew the tottering and newly peripatetic Hoi Wing like a magnet into their musty redolence of ink, paper, and leather, no matter where Fong-Fong set him down. “He is his father’s son,” she declared proudly.
In this fashion, Hoi Wing passed a bucolic infancy blissfully unaware of the scandal surrounding his parents, and never knowing that his father, Ying, had at the tender age of twenty years been widely touted as a candidate for the Imperial Civil Service.
But in the laundry, Hoi Wing grew ever more despondent. For him, the experience with the rock throwers at the schoolhouse was an evil portent that foreshadowed his permanent exclusion from schooling of any kind in the New World.
Furthermore, he had little or no time for formal study, just as Elder Uncle had said. The Sam Kee Luk Chinese Hand Laundry was officially closed on Sundays, and the men profited from the break by greasing the rollers on the wringers, mending wicker baskets, and performing the thousand and one necessary and mundane tasks required to operate their business.
Hoi Wing longed to explore the city and its surrounding woods, but the weather remained inclement, and he retreated to the copper boilers, rubbing his arms, stamping his feet, and blowing into his hands. Late one evening, he was surprised to observe Elder Uncle immersing himself in a meaty novel procured from some secret stash in the attic. As Hoi Wing sidled close to discern its title, the man gripped the book to his chest and growled a warning for the boy to back off.
On another occasion, Elder Uncle descended from the attic bearing a small bundle wrapped in blue silk. Going to the dining table, the man unfolded the cloth to reveal as venerable a set of the Four Treasures of the Study as Hoi Wing had ever seen: brush pen, ink, inkstone, and paper. Hoi Wing’s eyes went wide as the one-handed man ground the inkstone and dipped his pen to compose a long missive on a sheet of translucent onion skin paper using a calligraphy as crisp and forceful as that employed by Ying the Scholar.
Where had Elder Uncle learned such a beautiful hand? And to whom was he writing with such solicitude? Surely it had to be the woman whose portrait graced the Wall of Family. Even more astonishingly, the man often hummed as he wrote, and Hoi Wing was doubly disconcerted at how the melodies transported him back to his own childhood on Beggars’ Row when his beautiful mother would sing to him in her haunting soprano. He even recognized tunes that Fong-Fong had once favoured.
Hoi Wing had to reset his opinion of Elder Uncle once more. The world was just as his father had taught him. Nothing was ever what it first seemed, and understanding was only gleaned through quiet observation, contemplation, and study.
Second Uncle had a wholly different pastime. He liked nothing better than to sink into the moth-eaten armchair by the drying room and roll his toothpick between his lips as he sketched in a thick pad of ivory-coloured sheets positioned on his lap. Pencils, watercolours, ink and brush, oily crayons: he had them all. Sometimes he drew from memory, staring at the wall of unclaimed laundry with the same far-off expression Hoi Wing had spied in his father’s eyes when he came upon Ying unbidden in the fields, the man’s hoe tossed to the ground and the crops seemingly forgotten, his lips moving soundlessly as he composed some verse in his mind.
Other times, Second Uncle placed a bowl of apples or a clump of withered grapes onto a plate and drew from life. Once, he arranged a flatiron, the tin atomizer, and a booklet of laundry tickets in a composition that tickled the eye. When Hoi Wing peeked over the man’s shoulder to see the progression of the drawing, he could not help but appreciate the transformation of the everyday tools of their trade into objets d’art.
Where had the man gained his skill? At work, Hoi Wing caught Second Uncle staring at him as if to etch his features into his brain, and sure enough, Second Uncle’s sketchbook began to fill with depictions of Hoi Wing churning wash before the big tub, ironing at the storefront window, or balancing the laundry pole across his narrow shoulders. At first, Hoi Wing feigned consternation at seeing himself so immortalized, but secretly, he could not have been more pleased.
In the month before his journey to the West, Hoi Wing, his father, Little Mei-Mei, Eldest Great Auntie, and Fourth Youngest Auntie had all travelled in Old Soong’s bullock cart to the market town of Nam-toun to stand before a painted backdrop of Hong Kong harbour in a photographer’s studio for a family portrait. The resulting image, framed in mahogany, still lay beside the picture of Hoi Wing’s mother in his valise. Ying had also commissioned a solo photograph of his son, and that now hung in Beggars’ Row on the wall opposite the family shrine.
Hoi Wing had been shocked at the way his father expended their precious savings, but Little Mei-Mei giggled delightedly when she saw the portrait. Fourth Youngest Auntie declared him the handsomest thirteen-year-old in all the Four Counties, which caused him to stare hard at his cloth shoes, his cheeks suddenly afire.
Nevertheless, having now viewed Second Uncle’s art, Hoi Wing wished his father had not dispensed his hard-earned coins in the little studio in Nam-toun. It was not that the photographic print had failed to capture his face; the sombre likeness generated by the alchemy of silver nitrate was a faithful reflection of what he saw in mirrors and the small pond in which he often bathed. But Second Uncle’s drawings exceeded mere two-dimensional renderings. Despite their economy of stroke, the man had caught something else with his deft line and subtle shadows.
In the basement under lamplight, Hoi Wing scrutinized the sketches Second Uncle had so magnanimously given him, and discerned a new-found maturity in his chin and the line of his jaw. There was a certain defiant expectation in his eyes. He peered closer. Were his biceps rounder? Whatever magic Second Uncle had wrought, it was as if the man had distilled Hoi Wing’s essence and brought forth a bolder and better version of him: one who would not be daunted by mere weather or ragamuffin gangs. One who would dare a fate other than the laundry.
Inspired by the uncles, Hoi Wing hovered at the curtain behind the reception area to eavesdrop on their conversations with their customers. He strained to hear every word and studied the lofan’s lips. How were they creating the sounds they emitted? Afterward, he repeated the meaningless syllables until he could say them in his sleep. Soon he discovered he could parrot the pronunciation and syntax used by their clients more accurately than either of his employers. He began to make notes on a pad of paper, and he recited a lexicon to himself each morning as he washed his face, and during the few minutes he managed to remain awake every night.
Hoi Wing entreated the laundrymen to speak lofan with him whenever possible and to name every object within their four walls and whatever else they could see from the big window. What do the lofan call this cup of drink? “Wah-tah.” What is that four-legged beast pulling the wagon? “Hoss-see.” What was the lofan name of this town again? “Seng-cah-doun.”
With their help, Hoi Wing managed to identify the letters printed on the newspapers in the wicker basket. One night, he took a few sheets into the basement, and he held the newsprint to his face as if proximity could confer literacy.
The words swam before his eyes, but the photograph beneath the headlines depicted a tall lofan with a heavy beard. The man stood before a podium, gripping a wooden cane as an audience applauded. His fine worsted suit and tie denoted his importance to Hoi Wing, who was becoming an expert on the subtleties of Western attire. Was it an artifice of the photographer’s medium, or was there a predatory gleam in the man’s eyes? When Hoi Wing could no longer keep his own eyelids open, he folded up the broadsheet, extinguished his lamp, and fell into an uneasy sleep.
One fateful evening, Hoi Wing conducted a ceremony of his own. He opened his valise and placed his family portraits on the chest of drawers. Fourth Auntie’s adventure novels followed. Then he added two dried peonies Little Mei-Mei had flattened in one of their father’s books, and three polished river stones, the favourites culled from her collection.
He took out Eldest Great Auntie’s amulet. She had told him to wear it on the shores of the Gold Mountain. It was a disc of jade with a dragon carved along the outside edge. His name was etched in the centre. He fastened the delicate gold chain and breathed deeply as the disc fell to the hollow at the base of his neck.
His throat was already thick when he drew out his father’s massive Chinese-English–English-Chinese dictionary for the first time. The tome’s binding was blue and faded from use. The spine was ungluing. He flipped the threadbare cover to discover an inscription inside:
For Hoi Wing the Scholar, who will find a way,
Your father
Hoi Wing gasped. For a while, he stared at his father’s words. No one had ever called him that. All his life he had just been “the son of Ying the Scholar,” with all the attendant embarrassment, resentment, frustration, and suppressed rage. Friendless throughout childhood, he had learned to keep his eyes forward when he heard the whispered jeers and jibes. To pretend he was no different from any other farmer’s son in Drink the Waters Deeply.
He remembered turning from his father when the man offered to help with his homework, and how, at the age of nine, he had vowed to memorize the multiplication tables (up to fifteen times fifteen), analyze sonnets, and complete every one of Teacher Lee’s assignments without going to his father. He remembered that sometimes when they walked through the village, he had run ten paces ahead.
He had not even thanked his father when the man pulled the dictionary from a sack and handed it to him on the quay in Heung San village where he boarded the sampan that was to carry him to Hong Kong and then the New World.
In the basement, Hoi Wing’s breath shuddered, and he clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle a sob. Suddenly, all the pent-up emotion endured over a lifetime as the son of Ying the Scholar flooded his chest. A moan escaped his lips, and hot tears spilled from his eyes. What kind of son was he? He had not even turned to wave goodbye as the boatman sculled the little craft from the wharf!
For long minutes, Hoi Wing wept reproaching himself, regretting so much of his young life, and lamenting his father’s lost years in the fields. He sobbed and blew his nose. Slowly, the spell subsided, and he took deep, cleansing breaths, grateful that the uncles could not hear him in his underground hideaway.
When he felt himself once more, he splashed cold water over his face. Despite the hour, his resolve was keen and his soul purged. He set the dictionary on the workbench and pulled up the stool. Then he began the Herculean task of translating the front page of the St. Catharines Herald. Without knowledge of grammar, syntax, or even the use of verb tenses, he found the effort slow and difficult. Nevertheless, as time passed, letters, patterns, and even words became recognizable: A-B-C.
It was a start.
A week passed. One afternoon, Elder Uncle returned from the dry goods store, where he had purchased galvanized wire, brown paper, clothespins, string, bluing powder, starch, and soap. On the way back, he had also stopped at the post office.
“Letters from home!” he called out. “We have mail!”
There was a whoop of excitement from the drying room, and Second Uncle burst through the curtains hung to contain the heat of the braziers. “Give me my letters!”
Elder Uncle laughed and set his bag of purchases down. Then he pulled a bundle of envelopes from within his jacket. “Ho! There’s even a couple for Farmboy! I thought everyone back home had forgotten him!”
All thought of work was banished as the brothers commenced a mock battle for their missives from the village. Once the mail was distributed, Elder Uncle clutched his letters to his heart. Second Uncle settled into his armchair. Hoi Wing retreated into the basement.
There, he sat on his cot and carefully slit the first onion skin envelope with his pocket knife. He drew out a letter from Fourth Youngest Auntie.
To my favourite nephew,
Last week, I rounded with Eldest Great Auntie for the first time, and we travelled to Bak-Sieuk to visit a young woman, early in her seventh month. So tiny was the young mother-to-be, but already swollen like an overripe melon, with veins in her legs like long, dark worms. The poor girl’s worry was palpable, but Eldest Auntie bade her lie down and placed sure hands over her distended belly.“Twins, you are carrying!” Eldest Auntie proclaimed. “A birthing without complication portends!” How relieved the young woman was! Oh, that I could learn Eldest Auntie’s bedside manner!
When I returned home, I found your letter. Thank you for sending the sketches! In your maturing face, I see the man you will become. That is why I will strive to answer your questions now, although I can only tell you what I know.
As a young girl, I remembered your father’s achievements in Teacher Lee’s class and how all believed he would bring honour to our village. Some imagined he might even gain a position as eminent as the one held by the legendary and venerable Woo Gon Wen, our town’s most illustrious ancestor.
Thus, when your father travelled to the provincial capital, I had no doubt he would pass the Imperial Examinations. Yet weeks later, when he returned with neither fanfare nor diploma, I wondered how Ying the Scholar had failed at the examination chamber. What happened? In shame, our father grew incensed and expelled him from our house. For years, I watched our townsfolk ridicule your father, so that one day I ventured into the fields and questioned him.
I have never forgotten the answer he gave me. Ying the Scholar said, “I left for the capital seeking my heart’s desire, and I returned, having found it.”
And then I remembered, your father came home that night with your mother, Fong-Fong.
With love as always, Fourth Youngest Auntie
P.S. And thank you for your last remittance. We look forward so much to the next!
4
In the sorting area, the laundry sacks were piled higher than Hoi Wing’s head. He heaved a bag over his shoulder and spilled the damp sheets, towels, nurses’ caps, masks, and gowns onto a table.
It was almost noon, a week since their last mail call, and Elder Uncle’s grand scheme of expanding their clientele was bearing fruit. Not only had they poached a few customers from the Cascade, but this morning he’d picked up laundry from the St. Catharines Sanatorium for the Treatment of Tuberculosis and Coughing Maladies. The new contract included a standing rush order and a turnaround of no more than four days, including weekends.
Hoi Wing stared at the mountainous heap of burlap bags, imprinted with white letters spelling the sanatorium’s name. He could now ascribe meaning to most of those words, but the acquisition of even this glint of knowledge had been excruciatingly slow.
It turned out that reading was much harder than he thought, and mastery of the lofan’s twenty-six characters did little to enhance one’s comprehension of their endless combinations and permutations. Moreover, his attempt at translating the lofan newspaper had sputtered and stalled, much like the trajectories of some of the motor cars he watched from the laundry’s windows. Exasperated, he had relegated most of the purloined pages of the St. Catharines Herald to their more primordial function in the laundry’s backyard outhouse.
His plan to become conversant in lofan hadn’t achieved much success either. He still eavesdropped on the uncles’ conversations, but the handful of words they exchanged with their clientele rarely amounted to more than a quick haggling over a price (“five cen, ten cen, twen-dee cen” ) or the scheduling of a return date for pickup (“to-mo-low, no, Fli-day you come” ).
Furthermore, his ear—well schooled by his mother’s music lessons—told him the uncles’ accents bore little resemblance to the speech employed by their customers, and the last thing he wanted was to speak lofan the way they did. He was fast realizing he would never learn proper lofan without formal instruction.
Hoi Wing fingered Eldest Great Auntie’s amulet around his neck. He dragged another sack of hospital laundry across the floor. Until now, he had considered the wash from the Springbank Hotel the most stomach-turning, but nothing could compare with the rotting-flesh stink of the hospital sacks, oozing with body fluids. To mask the odour, he had tied a handkerchief sprinkled with lavender around his neck, causing Elder Uncle to mock his dainty sense of smell, but Second Uncle told him he would soon grow inured to even this.
Needing a rest, Hoi Wing opened the small window and drank in the crisp November air. This afternoon he would be outside, making pickups and deliveries in the Golden Li. It would be his third time performing this important task in the stately neighbourhood surrounding Montebello Park (“Mong-tah-beah-loh-pak”), but this was the first occasion Second Uncle had entrusted him with performing all three circuits.
It felt good to know Second Uncle had faith in him, although more and more he realized what he missed most was someone with whom he could talk and share his innermost thoughts. Back home, he had never had a real friend. His status as “the son of Ying the Scholar” had ostracized him since his earliest days. This week, he had set himself another challenge: he wanted to meet and speak with three new lofan, but how likely was that to happen?
He stared out the window as a pair of young women hurried by in grey raincoats, laughing and chatting. One had curly brown hair and wore high heels with dark hose. The other’s hair was loose, and her coat was open to the wind. They were likely shopgirls, heading downtown to one of the many “Women and Girls” stores or a fine haberdashery. Second Uncle had told him the laundry owed much of its success to this wave of young women who would no longer submit to the drudgery of domestic service in the wealthy homes of “high class-ee lofan.”
