Memories of the Past, Hope for the Future

 by Lucy Salzman (ages 14-17)

Setting: San Francisco Smugglers

 

The white missee and her friend with fire hair are very kind to keep me hidden. They are nice to me and won’t let master Feng Chee find me. If he finds me, he will say I stole jewelry, beat me, and sell me.

Missee keeps asking me to tell about my past. I don’t think I can. It’s not that I don’t remember China. I remember everything; I don’t want to remember all the awful things that happened to me. But Missee is very persistent, so I will tell her how I came to San Francisco.

***

“Lin Mei! Get up!” The voice of my father woke me up one morning when it was not quite dawn.

I had been having a bad nightmare. I was on a boat with evil spirits. Then when the boat landed, the evil spirits gave me to a bad man who whipped me every day. My heart beat fast when I woke up. It was the scariest nightmare I’ve ever had.

“Pack your things. You will be going on a long journey.”

I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “What journey, Daddy?” I asked him.

“Lin Mei! Are you going to obey me?” Daddy’s sharp voice made me jump.

Maybe Daddy will tell me after I pack, I thought. I found a piece of cloth to put my things in. I didn’t have much, just some spare outfits, my comb, and a pair of chopsticks.

“I’m finished, Daddy.”

    “Good. Now come outside with me.”

    An old woman I had never seen before was waiting with my mother when Daddy and I came outside. I turned to my mother. “Who is this, Mommy?” I asked.

    Mommy hung her head, but didn’t speak. The old woman spoke for her. She said, “I am Ling Cai. You must come with me.”

    My eyes opened wide. I ran to Daddy and threw my arms around him. I cried, “No, please, Daddy! Ling Cai can’t take me! I don’t want to go with her! I want to stay with you and Mommy! Don’t let Ling Cai take me from you!”

    Then Mommy spoke to me. I would always remember her trying to control her sadness when she spoke those words. “Sweetie, you belong to Ling Cai now. Daddy owed money to gamblers, but he could not pay it off unless he sold you.” Mommy started to shake with sobs.

“Do not worry, Lin Mei,” Ling Cai told me in a voice I did not trust. “I will take you to America. America is a good land. It is called Kum Sum, the Golden Mountain. You will have a good life there. A good family will care for you. And when you are of age, you will surely marry a rich man. Now come quickly, our ship leaves soon.”

I burst into uncontrollable weeping. I clung tighter to Mommy, but Ling Cai pulled me away. I went limp in her arms, and she carried me away to the docks. I looked back at Mommy and Daddy until I couldn’t see them anymore. My heart broke--I’m sure it did.

Ling Cai put me down when we got to the docks. “You must walk by yourself now.” I shook my head. I did not want to go on the ship, so I turned and ran back toward my house! I could hear Ling Cai shouting curses from behind me, but I kept running.

I ducked into an alley to hide. I crouched down, hugging my knees and breathing rapidly. I saw Ling Cai run past the alley, and figured I was safe. I got up and walked carefully out of the alley. I made sure Ling Cai was nowhere nearby, and continued to run home.

Then I tripped. My face smashed on the hard ground. I sat up and touched my cheek. When I took my hand away, there was blood on it. I started crying again.

Suddenly I was yanked roughly to my feet. I looked into the furious face of Ling Cai. “You are a wicked girl!” she screeched. Her face was turning red with rage. “Come on!” She pulled me by my ear back to the docks.

“I am not!” I shouted at Ling Cai.

She promptly slapped me. “Shut up! Do not talk back to me!” I shut up.

Ling Cai marched me onto the ship, still pulling my ear. When we reached our cramped berth, I lay down and cried myself to sleep.

When I woke up, I could feel the ship rocking and tossing and pitching and rolling on the sea. It made me feel sick. Ling Cai came with food for me, but I could not eat. I was so sick I had to keep a bucket beside me the whole voyage.

The ship finally docked after two long weeks. When we disembarked, I felt the strangest sensation, like the ground was rolling under my feet. I stumbled and tried to keep my balance, but fell right into Ling Cai.

“Clumsy girl!” She boxed my ears, and I yelped. “Can’t you stay on your feet?” I managed to remain upright from then on, but I had been so used to the rocking of the ship that it would take me awhile to truly get my “land legs” back.

A Chinese man who appeared to be in his early forties came up to us. “Ling Cai,” he said, “this girl is my niece. I will take her from you.”

“How much will you give me for Lin Mei?”

When Feng Chee and Ling Cai had agreed on a price, he quickly led me away. I barely understood what had happened to me, and startled when Feng Chee spoke to me.

“How old are you, Lin Mei?” his voice was as sharp as his face.

“I’m four, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir! I am your master! You are a slave for me and Wen Shu and you must do what we tell you. Do you understand me?”

I was so scared I just nodded. But I remembered the dream I had the night before I was taken by Ling Cai. I thought to myself, Ling Cai was the one who sold me to Feng Chee in my dream. That nightmare has come true. I am a mui tsai now, a slave.

***

    Missee cannot believe my story. I tell her my bad memories are from long ago, and it’s best to forget them. Missee and her fire hair friend tell me they will help me run away. Missee will take me to her aunt’s. She will hide me there until it is safe for me to go somewhere else.

    When Missee is called away, I crawl out of sight under her bed and think about my friend Kum Ju. She had a hard life, too. I think about when we first met.

***

    When Feng Chee bought me from Ling Cai, he brought me to work in a big mansion school. Feng Chee’s wife Wen Shu always gave me more work than I could do in a day--washing dishes, folding and delivering laundry, cleaning chimneys, scrubbing floors.

    Three years passed. One day when I was seven years old, I was in the kitchen washing dishes with Wen Shu. I had just washed a heavy bowl and was trying to lift it from the sink onto the counter to dry it. The bowl slipped from my wet fingers and was soon nothing more than a thousand glass shards on the floor.

    Wen Shu turned on me like an angry dragon. “Lin Mei, you big klutz! You blockhead!” She struck me until I saw spots. I covered my head, but her slaps still came. I wailed in pain, but Wen Shu continued to deal out blow after blow. When she finally stopped, I dropped to the floor whimpering. I didn’t dare get up in case she began to beat me again. “Clean that up and get out of here!” Wen Shu snapped. She thrust a broom and dustpan at me.

I swept up the glass as fast as I could and dashed out of the building. By now, one eye was swollen shut, but I kept running until I got to Chinatown. I didn’t feel comfortable anywhere else in Kum Sum. Going to Chinatown felt like I was back in Canton. Best of all, I didn’t have to speak English there. Even though I had lived in Kum Sum for three years, I still preferred to speak in Chinese.

I wandered around for a while, then sat down on an empty crate. A girl was buying food, and I watched her. She had bruises all over her face, probably from being struck. I thought, my face is probably bruised from Wen Shu’s beating.

Then the girl looked at me. I felt embarrassed for staring, and dropped my gaze. The girl walked over to me and asked in Chinese, “What is your name?”

“Lin Mei,” I told her in the same language. “What’s yours?”

“Kum Ju. I’m six. My master’s wife sent me to run errands. She was angry with me for not keeping their baby from crying. It’s my job to rock the baby and make sure it stays quiet, but it was very fussy today and cried no matter what I did. Missee Johnson beat me and said I was useless.” A tear rolled down Kum Ju’s puffy cheek. “She told me to go away and not come back until I had bought food for dinner tonight.” She pointed to my face. “What happened to your eye?”

I found myself telling Kum Ju not only about the broken bowl, but also about my dream, how Daddy sold me to Ling Cai, my journey on the big ship, and Feng Chee buying me from Ling Cai.

Kum Ju listened, then said softly, “I’ve been a mui tsai as long as I can remember. I haven’t lived in the same house for more than a year because I keep getting sold. Master and Missee Johnson give me lots of work every day caring for their children, cooking, and washing clothes. By night, I’m so tired I want to drop, but I must sew buttons on shirts in a factory until midnight.”

My mouth fell open in disbelief. Kum Ju was a year younger than I was, but her owners worked her twice as hard as me!

“Kum Ju, do you have any friends?” I asked her.

She shook her head mournfully. “Unless you can be my friend?” She looked hopefully at me.

“Yes, Kum Ju. I will be your friend. Will you be my friend?”

“Yes, Lin Mei!” Kum Ju clapped her hands. “We will be great friends!”

***

    Missee Andi and her fire hair friend are helping me escape tonight! We almost got caught in the stable, but a brave boy helped us. Missee told me it will be better for me to go to a mission home instead of her aunt’s. She assured me there are no evil spirits at the mission home. Missee even agreed to Kum Ju coming with us! I will be so happy at the mission home--I will be happy and free.

I found Kum Ju and told her I was running away, and she could come with me. She was overjoyed at the thought of being safe from her master. “You and I will be free together, Lin Mei!” she told me. Now we all--Missee Andi, her fire hair friend, Kum Ju, and I--are making our way through the dark streets of Chinatown to the mission home.

None of us know what lies ahead, but we are filled with hope for the future.