Hui said, “Are you going to throw it out?”
“I don’t know. He might come looking for it.”
So far there’d been no sign of the salesman, but he knew my real name.
“Ji Lin” was the Cantonese way of pronouncing it; in Mandarin, it would be “Zhi Lian.” The Ji in my name wasn’t commonly used for girls. It was the character for zhi, or knowledge, one of the five Confucian Virtues. The others were benevolence, righteousness, order, and integrity. Chinese are particularly fond of matched sets and the Five Virtues were the sum of qualities that made up a perfect man. So it was a bit odd that a girl like me should be named for knowledge. If I’d been named something feminine and delicate like “Precious Jade” or “Fragrant Lily,” things might have turned out differently.
* * *
“Such a peculiar name for a girl.”
I was ten years old, a skinny child with large eyes. The local matchmaker, an old lady, had come to call on my widowed mother.
“Her father named her.” My mother gave a nervous smile.
“I suppose you were expecting a son,” said the matchmaker. “Well, I’ve good news for you. You might get one.”
It had been three years since my father had died of pneumonia. Three years of missing his quiet presence, and three years of difficult widowhood for my mother. Her frail figure was more suited to reclining on a chaise than doing other people’s sewing and washing. The skin peeled off her pretty hands, now rough and red. Previously, my mother had put off all talk of matchmaking, but today she seemed especially dispirited. It was very hot and still. The purple bougainvillea outside trembled in the heat.
“He’s a tin-ore dealer from Falim,” said the matchmaker. “A widower with one son. He’s no spring chicken, but neither are you.”
My mother plucked at an invisible thread, then gave a slight nod. The matchmaker looked pleased.
The Kinta Valley in which we lived held the richest tin deposits in the world, and there were dozens of mines, both large and small, nearby. Tin-ore dealers made a good living, and he could have sent to China for a wife, but he’d heard my mother was beautiful. There were other candidates, of course. Better ones. Women who’d never been married. But it was worth a try. Crouching closer to eavesdrop, I hoped desperately that this man would choose one of them instead, but I had an unlucky feeling about it.
* * *
Shin and I, future step-siblings-to-be, met when his father came to call on my mother. It was a very straightforward meeting. No one bothered to pretend that there was some romantic pretext. They brought Chinese sponge cakes wrapped in paper from a local bakery. For years afterwards, I was unable to swallow those soft steamed cakes without choking.
Shin’s father was a stern-looking man, but his expression softened when he saw my mother. It was rumored that his late wife had also been a beauty. He had an eye for attractive women, though, of course, he didn’t visit prostitutes, the matchmaker had assured my mother. He was very serious, financially stable, and neither gambled nor drank. Studying his face surreptitiously, I thought he looked hard and humorless.
“And this is Ji Lin,” my mother said, propelling me forward. Wearing my best dress, outgrown so that my knobby knees stuck out, I dropped my head shyly.
“My son’s name is Shin,” he said. “Written with the character xin. The two of them are already like brother and sister.”
The matchmaker looked pleased. “What a coincidence! That makes two of the five Confucian Virtues. You’d better have three more children so you can complete the set.”
Everyone laughed, even my mother, smiling nervously and showing her pretty teeth. I didn’t. It was true though. With the zhi in my name for wisdom, and xin in Shin’s for integrity, we made up part of a matched set, though the fact that it was incomplete was a bit jarring.
I glanced at Shin to see if he found any of this amusing. He had sharp, bright eyes under thick brows, and when he saw me looking at him, he scowled.
I don’t like you, either, I thought, overcome with anxiety for my mother. She’d never been strong and bearing three more children would be hard for her. Still, I’d no say in the matter, and within a month, the marriage negotiations were concluded and we were settled at my new stepfather’s shophouse in Falim.
Falim was a village on the outskirts of Ipoh, little more than a few lanes of Chinese shophouses, their long narrow bodies sandwiched next to each other with shared walls. My stepfather’s shop was on the main street, Lahat Road. It was dark and cool, with two open courtyards breaking up its serpentine length. The big upstairs bedroom over the front was for the newlyweds, and I was to have, for the first time in my life, my own room at the back, next to Shin’s. A windowless corridor ran lengthwise beside the two small rooms, which were stacked in front of each other like railway cars. Light entered the hallway only if our doors were open.
Shin had barely spoken to me during the whole rushed courtship and marriage, though he’d behaved very well. We were exactly the same age; in fact, it turned out that we were born on the same day, though I was older by five hours. To top it off, my stepfather’s surname was also “Lee,” so there was no need to even change names. The matchmaker was pleased with herself, though it seemed like a horrible trick of fate to me, shoehorning me into a new family where even my birthday would no longer be mine. Shin greeted my mother politely but coldly, and avoided me. I was convinced that he didn’t like us.
In private, I’d begged my mother to reconsider but she’d only touched my hair. “It’s better for us this way.” Besides, she seemed to have taken an odd liking to my stepfather. When his admiring gaze rested on her, her cheeks turned pink. He’d given us money in red packets to buy a simple trousseau for the wedding, and my mother had been unexpectedly excited about it. “New dresses—for you and for me!” she’d said, fanning the bank notes out on our worn cotton bedspread.
That first night at the new house, I was frightened. It was so much larger than the tiny wooden dwelling, one room with a step-down, earthen-floored kitchen, that my mother and I had lived in. This shophouse was both a business and a residence, and downstairs seemed a vast and hollow space. My new stepfather was a middleman who bought tin ore from small-time gravel pump miners and dulang washers, women who panned tin ore from old mines and streams, to resell to the large smelters like the Straits Trading Company.
It was a silent, dark shop. Prosperous, though my stepfather was tightlipped and tightfisted. Hardly anyone came unless they had business selling tin, and the front and back were shuttered with iron grates to prevent theft of the stockpiled ore. As the heavy double doors banged shut behind us that first day, my heart sank.
At bedtime, my mother gave me a kiss and told me to run along. She looked embarrassed, and I realized that from now on, she wouldn’t be sleeping in the same room with me. I could no longer drag my thin pallet next to hers or burrow into her arms. Instead, she belonged to my stepfather, who was watching us silently.
I glanced up at the wooden staircase that yawned into the darkness of the upper floor. I’d never slept in a two-story building before, but Shin went straight up. I hurried after him.
“Good night,” I said. I knew he could talk if he wanted to. That very morning, when we were moving our last few belongings in, I’d seen him laughing and running with his friends outside. Shin looked at me. I thought that if this were my house and some strange woman and her child moved in, I’d probably be angry, too, but he had a curious expression, almost pitying.