I was still drowsy and thickheaded when I heard someone arguing. I realized I was not in my own room but still in Boulevard. I went to the window and looked out onto the hallway to see the cause of the commotion. The sky was dark gray, at that suspended time between night and morning. The hallways were empty. The windows across the courtyard were black. I turned around and saw a warm sliver of light coming through a small opening of the curtains over the glass French doors. The angry voice was my mother’s. I looked through the curtain opening and saw the back of her head. She had loosened her hair and was seated on the sofa. She had come back from the party. Was anyone else in the room? I put my ear to the glass. She was cursing in a strange low voice that sounded like Carlotta’s deep-throated growl. “You’re spineless … a dancing monkey … as much character as a filthy thief …” She threw down a folded piece of paper. It landed near the unlit fireplace. Was it the letter she had received? She went to her desk and sat down, seized a sheet of stationery, then slashed at it with her dripping pen. She crumpled the half-written page and threw it onto the floor. “I wish you really were dead!” she shouted.
My father was alive! She had lied again! I was about to rush in and demand to know where my father was. But then she looked up and I nearly cried out in fright. Her eyes had changed. The green irises had turned inside out, and the backs of them were as dull as sand. She had the eyes of dead beggars I had seen lying in gutters. She abruptly stood up, turned down the lamps, and went to her bedroom. I had to see the letter. I opened the French doors carefully. It was dark and I had to move forward blindly, sweeping my hands to avoid bumping into the furniture. I went to my knees. Suddenly I felt someone touch me, and I gasped. It was Carlotta. She pushed her head against me, purring. I could now feel the tiles of the fireplace. I patted the hearth. Nothing. I found the legs of the desk, and raised myself slowly. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, but I saw no sign of anything that resembled a letter. I crept out of the room, bitterly disappointed.
The next day, Mother acted as she always had—brisk and clearheaded as she laid out the tasks. She was charming and talkative in the evening, smiling as always at her guests. While she and Golden Dove were busy during the party, I sneaked into Boulevard, opened the French doors just wide enough to push through the curtains and into my mother’s office. I turned on one gas lamp. I opened desk drawers, and one was filled with letters whose envelopes had embossed names of companies. I looked under her pillow, in the little cabinet next to her bed. I lifted the lid of her trunk at the foot of her bed. The smell of turpentine flew out. The source was two rolled-up paintings. I unfurled one and was astonished to see a portrait of Mother as a young girl. I placed it on the floor and smoothed it out. She was staring straight ahead, as if she were looking at me. Over her chest, she held a maroon cloth. Her pale back glowed like the cold warmth of the moon. Who painted this? Why had she been so scantily dressed?
I was about to look at the other painting when I was startled by the approaching laughter of Puffy Cloud. The door to Boulevard opened. I jumped to the side of the office, where she would not be able to see me. She cooed to a client to make himself comfortable. Of all nights for her to be overly popular! Puffy Cloud pulled the French doors closed. I hurriedly put the paintings back in the trunk and was about to turn down the lamp and leave when Golden Dove came into the room.
We both gasped at the same time. Before she could speak, I asked if she had seen Carlotta. As if she had heard me, Carlotta let out a loud wail behind the doors of Boulevard. Puffy Cloud cursed, “I thought that damn cat was a headless ghost!” I went to the French doors and opened them slightly, and Carlotta darted in.
With Carlotta in my arms, I quickly went downstairs to the party, thinking I might spot my father lurking among the guests. But then I realized my father would not have dared show his face there. My mother would have scratched his eyes out. I looked at the guests and played a game of pretend—imagining one man after another was my father. I picked out the traits I liked—the ones who laughed easily, who wore the best clothes, who received the most respect, who winked at me. And then my eye landed on a man with a pinched and unfriendly expression, and another whose face was so pink he looked like he was about to explode.
In bed, before falling asleep each night, I imagined different versions of my father: handsome or ugly, well respected or loathed by all. I imagined he had loved me very much. I imagined he never had.
A MONTH AFTER my eighth birthday, I entered the common room to have breakfast with the Cloud Beauties and their attendants. I went to sit in my usual spot at the table. But I found that the newest courtesan, Misty Cloud, had placed her bottom on my chair. I glowered, and she returned a glance of indifference. She had miniature features set in a plump, round face, which men found attractive for some reason. To me, she had the ugly face of a baby pasted onto the yellow moon.
“This is my chair,” I said.
“Oyo! Your chair? Is it carved with your name? Is there an official decree?” She pretended to inspect the arms and legs. “I don’t see your name seal. All the chairs are the same.”
My temples were beating hard. “It’s my chair.”
“Anh? What makes you think you’re the only one who can sit here?”
“Lulu Mimi is my mother,” I added, “and I’m an American like her.”
“Since when do half-breed American bastards have the same rights?”
I was shocked. Rage was rising from my throat. Two of the beauties put their palms to their mouths. Snowy Cloud, whom I had liked more than the others, told us to calm down. She suggested we take turns sitting in the chair. I had hoped she would have taken my side.
I sputtered to Misty Cloud, “You’re a worm in a dead fish ass.” The maids burst into laughter.
“Wah! The half-breed has such a foul mouth,” Misty Cloud said. She looked around the table to the others. “If she’s not a half-breed, how is it that she looks Chinese?”
“How dare you say that!” I cried. “I’m American. There’s nothing Chinese about me.”
“Then why are you speaking Chinese?”
I could not answer at first, because if I did, I would be speaking in Chinese again and give her the upper hand. Misty Cloud picked up a small oily peanut with her thin pointed chopsticks. “Do any of you know who her Chinese father is?” She popped the peanut into her mouth.
My hands were shaking with anger, and I was incensed to see how calmly she was eating. “My mother will punish you for saying that.”
She repeated what I said in a mocking tone, then popped a pickled radish in her mouth and crunched it, without bothering to cover her mouth. “If you are pure white, then all of us must be, too. Isn’t that right, my sisters?” The other beauties and their attendants tried halfheartedly to silence her.
“You’re a dirty hole!” I said.
She frowned. “What’s the matter, little brat? Are you so ashamed to be Chinese that you can’t recognize your face in a mirror?”
The others looked down. Two made sideways glances to each other. Billowy Cloud put her hand on Misty Cloud’s arm and beseeched her to stop. “She’s too young for you to speak of this.”
Why was Billowy Cloud acting so charitably toward me? Did that mean she believed what Misty Cloud had said? I fell into a cauldron of rage and I pushed Misty Cloud out of the chair. She was too dumbfounded to move for a moment, then grabbed my ankles and pulled me down. I pounded my fists on her shoulders. She grabbed my hair and flung me away from her.
“Half-breed crazy little bastard girl. You’re no better than any of us!”
I hurled myself at her and banged the heel of my hand on her nose. Blood gushed from one of her nostrils, and when she wiped at it and she saw her crimson fingers, she threw herself on top of me again and smeared blood across my face. I was screaming epithets and bit her hand. She screamed, and her eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of her