Free The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies Page A

plaiting his hair. He had been planning to tell her it had been his idea to cut it, but she didn’t ask, and he felt cheated somehow. He was already in a foul mood from having to wait for her. He’d stormed up and down the boardwalk, the heels of his new boots thundering. In his Western suit and hat, he must have looked like a ghost in the night, and startled Chinese had stepped aside for him, cursed him in Cantonese under their breath. But he had said nothing in return, just as he had said nothing to the ghost boys who had once taunted him. Why? he wondered now, in her arms. What was he ashamed of?
    He’d come to see it as a trade, losing a queue, gaining a handsome outfit—an advantageous one, at that. He’d taken to wearing his new hat tilted forward, low over his eyes, to disguise his shaved forehead. It was the look of a rake, a young tough, and he marveled that now he could stride along the boardwalks of town without anyone expecting him to step aside. It wasn’t only Chinese who mistook him for a white, nor only at night. Once in broad daylight when one urchin shoved another into his path, the one who trod on his toes, besmirching his boots, actually apologized, and Ling found himself clipping the offender around the ear as heartily as he might clap a fellow on the back. He hooked his thumbs in his vest as he’d seen Crocker do, threw his shoulders back as he strode, had to remind himself to round them again as he went about his household duties. When his queue began to grow back, he’d already determined, he’d bind it up under his hat, perhaps even lop it off himself (never mind his promise to Miss Harriet). Time enough later to grow it out before he returned home.
    After they had lain together he had produced a gift for Little Sister—“I almost forgot”—a silver thimble. He had studied the choices in the little haberdashery in a sweat, the storekeep eyeing him narrowly, and finally opted for one with a scrolling band around the base. She held out her hand and he slipped it on, stubbing her finger slightly. She twirled it between them, watching it catch the light. She was laughing, the same low snigger he remembered hearing through her door so many nights. Now he realized it was sobbing.
    He reached for her, but she rolled away, hunching her shoulders, the bones of her back rising and whitening like the knuckles of a fist. His hand hovered over her, stroking the air.
    Finally she started to speak, as if to the wall. “My father said he was taking me to visit my grandmother. I believed him, but my mother must have known. She wept when he took me, called me back, hugged me tight. I said she was being silly—I was a pert one—‘Silly, Ma, I’m only going for the day.’ She didn’t tell me. I used to hate her for that. But I think she just wanted me to be happy for one last hour.”
    He stared at his hands in his lap. He was thinking of the first coin he’d given her, Crocker’s gold piece with the woman’s head on it: Liberty, he’d lately learned. He climbed heavily to his feet, began to dress.
    â€œHow much money do you have now?” she asked, as if she’d read his mind.
    â€œSome,” he hedged. “Not much.”
    But she’d looked at the clothes and not believed him.
    â€œI thought we were partners.”
    He told her he didn’t have enough for that, but she wasn’t satisfied. “I’m a good earner, aren’t I? A hard worker. I have some savings too.”
    â€œYou?”
    She nodded, and he knew she’d been holding out on Ng.
    â€œHow much?”
    But she just shook her head, and he was relieved, in fact. He’d had the sudden fear that she’d saved more than him, that she’d saved every cent he’d ever spent on her. He had to fight the impulse to tear the place apart for it, shake her until her teeth snapped and she told him where it was