Part 7 (1/2)
After lunch, Brave Orchid asked her husband if he and the children could handle the laundry by themselves She wanted to take Moon Orchid out for soht today
The sisters walked back to Chinatown ”We're going to get some more to eat,” said Brave Orchid Moon Orchid accoe storefront roo coolly and ce black seaweed gelatin and talking They poured Karo syrup on top of the black quivering mass Brave Orchid seated Moon Orchid and dramatically introduced her, ”This is my sister who has come to Gold Mountain to reclaiers; othersin California
”Marvelous You could blackmail him,” the women advised ”Have hiuise yourself as a ot to do soot to do”
They were joking about her Moon Orchid se proprietress in a butcher's apron caelatin Standing over the tables and sarette, she watched her custoht-yellow and brown, and the gelatin was so cool The door was open to the street, no passers-by but Chinese, though at the s the Venetian blinds slitted the sunlight as if everyone were hiding Between helpings the wo fans made out of silk, paper, sandalwood, and pandanus fronds They were like rich wo to do
”Ga the tables The wo They spread ringed hands and a her sister outside ”When you coet soet up one day fro woood-byes to the sisters
They walked past the vegetable, fish, and meat markets-not as abundant as in Canton, the carp not as red, the turtles not as old-and entered the cigar and seed shop Brave Orchid filled her sister's thin hands with carrot candy, melon candy, and sheets of beef jerky Business was carried out at one end of the shop, which was long and had benches against talls Rows ofon their silver or bareet the sisters Moon Orchid rear store owner, who looked like a ca, they thought he was the Old Man of the North, Santa Claus
As they walked back to the laundry, Brave Orchid showed her sister where to buy the various groceries and how to avoid Skid Row ”On days when you are not feeling safe, walk around it But you can walk through it unhar days” On weak days you notice bodies on the sidewalk, and you are visible to Panhandler Ghosts and Mugger Ghosts
Brave Orchid and her husband and children worked hardest in the afternoon when the heat was the worst, all theBrave Orchid did teach her sister to fold the towels She placed her at the table where the fan blew most But finally she sent one of the children to walk her home
From then on Moon Orchid only visited the laundry late in the day when the towels came out of the dryers Brave Orchid's husband had to cut a pattern from cardboard so Moon Orchid could fold handkerchiefs uniforave her a shi+rt cardboard to measure the towels She never could work any faster than she did on the first day
The su to find Moon Orchid's husband She felt she acco observing the children She liked to figure theain They read so much Is it because they have enores? He is picking up his pencil and tapping it on the desk Then he opens his book His eyes begin to read His eyes go back and forth They go froh ”Hoondrous-eyes reading back and forth Now he's writing his thoughts down What's that that thought?” she asked, pointing thought?” she asked, pointing
She followed her nieces and nephews about She bent over the a machine off the shelf She attaches twoagainst the rim and pours the yolk and white out of the shell into the bowl She presses a button, and the spiders spin the eggs What are you er out of the batter”
”She says, 'Aunt, please take your finger out of the batter,'” Moon Orchid repeated as she turned to follow another niece walking through the kitchen ”Nohat's this one doing? Why, she's sewing a dress She's going to try it on” Moon Orchid would walk right into the children's roo over her costumes to see which one to wear” Moon Orchid pulled out a dress ”This is nice,” she suggested ”Look at all the colors”
”No, Aunt That's the kind of dress for a party I' to school now She's choosing a plain blue dress She's picking up her co to lock herself up in the bathrooainst the door ”She's brushi+ng her teeth Now she's co the blue dress and a white sweater She's coerator and is arranging things between slices of bread She's putting an orange and cookies in a bag Today she's taking her green book and her blue book And tablets and pencils Do you take a dictionary?” Moon Orchid asked
”No,” said the child, rolling her eyeballs up and exhaling loudly ”We have dictionaries at school,” she added before going out the door
”They have dictionaries at school,” said Moon Orchid, thinking this over ”She knows 'dictionary'” Moon Orchid stood at thepeeping ”Now she's shutting the gate She strides along like an Englishman”
The child married to a husband who did not speak Chinese translated for hi atwowith legs intertwined and beating the eggs electrically Now she says I'erator and-ha!-I've found it I' out butter-'cow oil' 'They eat a lot of cow oil,' she's saying”
”She's driving lish
At the laundry Moon Orchid hovered so close that there was barely rooers of both hands press the buttons, and-ka-luer on a button will release it-ssssss-the steam lets loose Sssst-the water squirts” She could describe it so well, you would think she could do it She wasn't as hard to take at the laundry as at hoh She could not endure the heat, and after a while she had to go out on the sidewalk and sit on her apple crate When they were younger the children used to sit out there too during their breaks They played house and store and library, their orange and apple crates in a row Passers-by and custoave them money But now they were older, they stayed inside or went for walks They were ashaars ”Dance fora Chinese song” And before they got old enough to know better, they'd dance and they'd sing Moon Orchid sat out there by herself
Whenever Brave Orchid thought of it, which was everyday, she said, ”Are you ready to go see your husband and claim what is yours?”
”Not today, but soon,” Moon Orchid would reply
But one day in the hter said, ”I have to return to one a feeeks I should return this week” Moon Orchid's daughter lived in Los Angeles
”Good!” Brave Orchid exclaieles You return to your husband, and your mother returns to hers We only have to ht to leave the poor man alone,” said Brave Orchid's husband ”Leave him out of women's business”
”When your father lived in China,” Brave Orchid told the children, ”he refused to eat pastries because he didn't want to eat the dirt the woers”
”But I'm happy here with you and all your children,” Moon Orchid said ”I want to see how this girl's sewing turns out I want to see your son corades There's soon Friday,” said Brave Orchid ”I' to escort you, and you will arrive safely”
On Friday Brave Orchid put on her dress-up clothes, which she wore only a few ti the year Moon Orchid wore the same kind of clothes she wore every day and was dressed up Brave Orchid told her oldest son he had to drive He drove, and the two old ladies and the niece sat in the back seat
They set out at gray dawn, driving between the grape trees, which hunched like dwarfs in the fields Gno wind came out of the earth, came up in rows and coluan Brave Orchid, ”the emperors had four wives, one at each point of the compass, and they lived in four palaces The Empress of the West would connive for power, but the Eht You are the Empress of the East, and the Empress of the West has imprisoned the Earth's Eood Empress of the East, come out of the dawn to invade her land and free the E spell she has cast on hiave her sister last-minute advice for five hundred miles All her possessions had been packed into the trunk
”Shall we go into your house together,” asked Brave Orchid, ”or do you want to go by yourself?”
”You've got to come with me I don't knohat I would say”
”I think it would be drao by yourself He opens the door And there you are-alive and standing on the porch with all your luggage 'Remember me?' you say Call him by his own name He'll faint with shock Maybe he'll say, 'No Go away' But you o in Then you sit down in the most i”
”Don't you think he'll welcoht Brave Orchid
”It's against the law to have tives in this country,” said Moon Orchid ”I read that in the newspaper”
”But it's probably against the law in Singapore too Yet our brother has two, and his sons have two each The law doesn't matter”
”I'm scared Oh, let's turn back I don't want to see him Suppose he throws ht to throwfor him to invite me Don't leave me bywith you would be exciting I can charge through the door and say, 'Where is your wife?' And he'll answer, 'Why, she's right here' And I'll say, 'This isn't your wife Where is Moon Orchid? I've come to see her I' well taken care of' Then I accuse his; I'd have him arrested-and you pop up to his rescue Or I can take a look at his wife, and I say, 'Moon Orchid, how young you've gotten' And he'll say, 'This isn't Moon Orchid' And you come in and say, 'No I aet back we'll be at ho me cookies and coffee And when he comes in I'll say, 'Well, I see your husband is hoain anytime' Don't ot into thetohen he coet to thereat central valley-green fields changing to fields of cotton on dry, brown stalks, first a stray bush here and there, then thick-the h with this” She tapped her nephew on the shoulder ”Please turn back Oh, youto China I shouldn't be here at all Let's go back Do you understand o back,” Brave Orchid ordered her son ”Keep going She can't back out now”
”What do you wanti,” said Brave Orchid ”She's co Besides, we have to take your cousin back to her own house in Los Angeles We have to drive to Los Angeles anyway”
”Can I go inside and hter
”We'll see thes with your husband,” said Brave Orchid
”What if he hits me?”
”I'll hit him him I'll protect you I'll hit him back The two of us will knock him down andforward to a fight But when she sa terrified Moon Orchid was, she said, ”It won't cos We'll simply walk up to the door If he answers, you'll say, 'I have decided to come live with you in the Beautiful Nation' If she she answers the door, you'll say, 'You enerous 'I'd like to see our husband, please,' you say I brought uise yourself as a beautiful lady? I brought lipstick and powder too And at so and say, 'I am Moon Orchid'” answers the door, you'll say, 'You enerous 'I'd like to see our husband, please,' you say I brought uise yourself as a beautiful lady? I brought lipstick and powder too And at so and say, 'I a to do I'd be so scared I am so scared”
”I want to be dropped off at my house first,” said the niece ”I told ht,” said Brave Orchid, who had tried to talk her niece into confronting her father five years ago, but all she had done rite hieles He could visit her, or she could visit hiested But he had not wanted to see her
When the car stopped in front of her daughter's house, Moon Orchid asked, ”May I get out to randchildren?”