“Mother, are there Chinese people in San Francisco?”
“Quite a number of them. Most are servants and common laborers, though, laundrymen, and the like.” She went to her wardrobe and considered which of her evening gowns to take. She selected two, then put those back, and selected two others. She chose shoes of white kid leather, then noticed a small scuff on the heel and put them back.
“Are there foreign courtesans or just Chinese ones?”
She laughed. “People there are not called foreigners unless they are the Chinese or the black Italians.”
I felt humiliated. Here we were foreigners by our appearance. A cold thought ran through my veins. Would I look like a Chinese foreigner in San Francisco? If people knew Teddy was my brother, they would know I was as Chinese as he was.
“Mother, will people treat me well when they see I am half-Chinese?”
“No one will be thinking you’re half-Chinese.”
“But if the people there find out, will they shun me?”
“No one will find out.”
It bothered me that she could be so confident over what was not certain. I would have to act as confident as she was to maintain the secret that she had a half-Chinese daughter. Only I would feel the constant worry that I would be discovered. She would remain unconcerned.
“We’ll live in a handsome house,” she went on. She was the happiest I had ever seen her, the most affectionate. She looked younger, almost like a different person. Golden Dove had said that when a werefox possessed a woman, you could tell by her eyes. They sparkled too much. Mother’s eyes sparkled. She was not herself, not since seeing Mr. Lu.
“My grandfather built the house just before I was born,” she said. “It’s not as large as our house here,” she continued, “but it’s also not as cold or noisy. It’s made of wood and so sturdy that even after a very big earthquake shook the city to its knees, the house remained standing without a single brick out of place. The architectural style is quite different from the foreign houses in the French and British Concessions. For one thing, it’s more welcoming, without those tall fortress walls and gatekeepers. In San Francisco, we don’t need to defend our privacy. We simply have it. A hedge in front and a low iron gate is all we need, although we do have fences on the sides of the house and in back. But that is so we can keep out stray dogs and put up trellises for flowering vines. We have a small lawn, just enough to serve as a grassy carpet on the sides of the walkway. Along one fence, there are rhododendron bushes. And on the other side there are phalanxes of agapanthus, scented roses, daylilies, and, of course, violets. I planted them myself, and not just the ordinary kind, but also the sweet violets, which have a lovely fragrance, the scent of a perfume I once wore that came from France. I had many clothes of that color, and I used to eat candies made of sweet violets and sprinkled with sugar. They are my favorite flower and color, your namesake, Sweet Violet. My mother called them Johnny-jump-up.”
“They were her favorite, too?”
“She despised them and complained that I was growing weeds.” She laughed and seemed not to notice my dismay. “Once you step inside the house, you’re in the vestibule. On one side is a staircase, like the one we have here, but a bit smaller. And on the other side is a thick toffee-colored curtain on a brass rod, not as wide as what we have here. Step through the curtain and you are in the parlor. The furniture is likely old-fashioned, what my grandmother placed there. Through a large doorway, you enter the dining room—”
“Where will I sleep?”
“You’ll have a large lovely bedroom on the second floor, with sunny yellow walls. It was my room.”
Her room. I was so happy I wanted to shout. Outwardly, I showed little.
“There is a tall bed next to large windows. One window is next to an old oak tree and you can open the window and pretend you’re a scrub jay in the branches—those are the noisy birds I remember—they hopped right up to me for a peanut. There are plenty of other birds, herons, hawks, and singing robins. You can look them up in the ornithology books my mother collected. Your grandmother’s father was a botanist and a naturalist illustrator. I also have a nice collection of dolls, not the babyish kind you push in a pram. They’re prettily painted. And throughout the house are walls of books, top to bottom. You’ll have enough to read for the rest of your life, even if you consumed two books a day. You can take your books up to the round turret to read. As a girl, I decorated it with shawls and hassocks and Persian carpets to look like a seraglio. I called it Pasha Palace. Or you can look out the windows through a telescope and see clear to the waterfront and the Bay, to the islands—there are several—and you can count the schooners and fishing boats …”
She chattered on, her recollections blossoming. I could see the house in the stereopticon of my mind, a place that took on color and the movement of life. I was dazzled by the thought of room after room with walls of books, of a bedroom with a window next to an oak tree.
My mother was now busy removing her jewelry cases from a locked cupboard. She had at least a dozen each of necklaces, bracelets, brooches, and pins—gifts she had received over the years. She had sold most of the jewelry, and the ones she kept were her favorites, the most valuable. She placed all the cases in her valise. Were we not coming back?
“Once you find Teddy, will he return to Shanghai with us?”
Again, there was an awkward pause. “I don’t know. I cannot predict what will happen. Shanghai has changed.”
A terrible thought sprang to mind. “Mother, will Carlotta come with us?”
She immediately busied herself with hatboxes, so I knew already the answer. “I won’t leave without her.”
“You would stay behind for a cat?”
“I refuse to go if I cannot bring her.”
“Come now, Violet. Would you cast away your future for a cat?”
“I would. I am nearly grown up and can choose for myself,” I said rashly.
All affection left her face. “All right. Stay if you like.”
I had been foiled. “How can you ask me to choose?” I said in a cracked voice. “Carlotta is my baby. She is to me what Teddy is to you. I cannot leave her behind. I cannot betray her. She trusts me.”
“I am not asking you to choose, Violet. There is no choice. We must leave, and Carlotta cannot come. We cannot change the rules of the ship. What you must think instead is that we may indeed return. Once we are in San Francisco, I will then know better what to do. But not until then …”
She continued her explanation, but grief had already set in. My throat knotted up. I could not explain to Carlotta why I was leaving.
“While we’re gone,” I heard my mother say through my haze of misery, “Golden Dove can take care of her.”
“Golden Dove is scared of her. No one loves Carlotta.”
“The daughter of Snowy Cloud’s attendant—Little Ocean—she loves her dearly. She will be happy to care for her, especially if we give her a little money to do so while we are gone.”
This was true. But my worries remained. What if Carlotta loved the little girl more than she did me? She might forget me and would not care if I ever returned. I fell into a tragic mood.
Although my mother had limited me to four dresses, she was quickly becoming more generous with her own allotment. She decided the two steamer trunks she had were not large enough, and because of their rounded tops they could not be stacked, which would limit what she could bring. Also, they were old, what she had brought from San Francisco. She called for Golden Dove to buy