But as a Western lady, she couldn’t venture down the alleys where Wing Sing could be held captive. The bachelors would always turn her away, block her path, or unceremoniously escort her clear out of Tangrenbu. When she asked about a girl in apple-green silk, all she got was a blank stare or a frown.
Now, as an anonymous bachelor, Zhu can go anywhere. No one turns her away from any place in Tangrenbu. Now hands beckon, shadowed doors swing open, secret smiles greet her as she hikes down the sloping block.
“Well done, Z. Wong,” Muse whispers. “Your disguise is working.”
Yes! For the first time in three months, she doesn’t have to hurry through Tangrenbu, searching in vain for Wing Sing. She saunters at her leisure. She belongs. She ducks out of the pedestrian traffic, pauses on a street corner. She takes off the tinted spectacles and looks around.
A certain splendor adorns Tangrenbu. From the plain facades of the Stick houses jut elaborate balconies painted yellow or green. Vermilion paper bulletins punctuated with ebony calligraphy cover every available wall, announcing local and international news. Gilt signs and flowered lanterns hang in doorways. Gleaming brass plaques of the T’ai Chi tacked on lintels bring good luck. Silk streamers tied to railings drift in the wind amid tinkling wind chimes made of abalone shell. Potted geraniums, stunted fuchsia, cineraria, and starry lilies seek sun in stray nooks and corners.
Elaborate gingerbread, a curving roof, and gilt balconies adorn a joss house—one of the multidenominational shrines in which those who worship any number of deities may stop, rest, and contemplate the divine. Zhu peeks in, sees a shrine in the back tucked amid candles, smoking incense burners, and glimmering offerings.
She moves on, passing a few fancy shops amid the vegetable stalls, fishmongers, and butcher shops. She pauses. A shop window displays brocades and embroideries, jade and ivory carvings, painted porcelains, jewelry of pearls and coral. She examines a rack of brooches. Is that the flash of multicolored glass on golden wings, the golden curves of a tiny woman’s body?
Her breath catches.
Oh! Is it the aurelia?
But no. Her eyes have deceived her. It’s only a tiny dragon wrought of jade and gold. Lovely, but not the aurelia. Not what she’s searching for. She pushes the fedora back and rubs her forehead, frustrated.
She presses on, turning off Dupont, and striding freely through a labyrinth of alleys previously denied her. She sees a wizened fortune-teller in his black skullcap and denim sahm crouching on the sidewalk with his low table and a basket of bark, an oracular tome. He had summarily dismissed the Western lady. Now the fortune-teller looks up at the anonymous bachelor and grins, his mouth a black slash. He waves her on. This is the place Muse identified in the Archives as a probable location where Wing Sing could be held captive—Spofford Alley.
Now Zhu hears reedy voices, birdlike but ominously monotone, “Two bittee lookee, flo bittee feelee, six bittee doee.” Tiny clapboard shacks line the alley, two or three cribs per shack. Each crib is six feet wide and set with a sturdy narrow door, relieved only by a small barred window. Girls in black silk blouses stand at each window, beckoning and murmuring, “Two bittee lookee, flo bittee feelee, six bittee doee.”
A skinny arm snakes out between the bars and seizes Zhu’s sleeve. “China girl nice,” the girl says. She pulls her blouse up to her shoulder, and Zhu glimpses slack little breasts, a ribcage. Her front teeth are missing, her cheek bruised blue. Even white face powder can’t conceal the deep, dark circles beneath the slits of her eyes. Tuberculosis, probably. An old woman materializes out of nowhere and smacks the girl’s arm with a stick. The girl whimpers, jerks her arm back inside the crib. She whispers to Zhu, “China girl nice. Five bittee doee, okay?”
Zhu recoils, her blood boiling. Why was she sent here? Why was she sent here if she can’t right this wrong? She reaches in her pocket, rolls the mollie knife in her fingers. How she longs to rip open these cribs, lead these young women to safety, to refuge, to freedom, to the light. To the Presbyterian Mission where she was supposed to have taken Wing Sing.
“Sorry, Z. Wong,” whispers Muse and posts the Tenets in her peripheral vision. “Please review Tenet Three of the Grandmother Principle.”
Tenet Three. Right. Under Tenet Three, she can’t affect any person in the past, and that includes aiding,