Girl in Translation

When she was finally finished, Ma and I took the sacred papers and rice wine downstairs. The backyard of the building was overgrown with weeds and trees that stuck up through the two-foot-high layer of garbage covering the ground. A few days earlier, Ma and I had made a clearing in the trash in preparation. A thin layer of ice covered the ground now. We would burn the papers here.

Ma lit the first papers and dropped them in a metal bucket she’d bought in Chinatown. Then she took the flask and swung a chain of glistening rice wine three times counterclockwise around the bucket. The fire leaped under the alcohol. The wine ensured that the petty spirits hidden in the heavens would not be able to steal these gifts from their intended recipients. As she stirred the papers with a long metal stick, the heat radiating outward from the bottom of the bucket first melted the ice underneath it and then dried the concrete in a widening circle. I pictured the sacred gold and silver paper transforming into heavy gold and silver bars in the heavens, the colored papers into the finest silks. The more we burned, the more money our gods and loved ones would have to spend in the heavens, and the more material they would have to clothe themselves. The burning released the essence of the paper from its ashes and created it anew in the spirit world.

The trees were veiled by a haze of gray smoke and a fu

Ma, her head bowed in prayer, was standing alone at the border of where the earth met concrete in our backyard, and I caught a trace of her words. Merciful Kuan Yin, beloved relatives, please let good people come to us and allow the bad ones to walk away. I went over and linked my arm through hers. I thought, Pa, I wish you were here to help us. Please help me perfect my English so I can take care of us. Ma pressed my hand gently and we prayed together for our future.

The following Sunday, Ma and I had just returned from buying our weekly groceries in Chinatown when I noticed that the lights were on inside Mr. Al’s shop. He also had a large sign in his window that said “Clearance-Everything Must Go.” I looked through the door and saw Mr. Al moving some of his things around inside.

Ma shifted her shopping bags to one hand so she could find her keys. “We shouldn’t bother him. He looks busy.”

At that moment, Mr. Al caught sight of us. He came and unlocked his door. “Come in.”

“No, thank you,” I said. “We have to put food in refrigerator. But why you here on Sunday?”

“I have a lot of things I have to do. Need to sort out which things I want to get rid of, which ones I want to take with me.”

I was aghast. “You are going somewhere?” Mr. Al waved to us whenever he saw us. He was our friend and looked out for us. After we’d gotten to know him better, I told him about the ice-cream-buying incident at the grocery store when the owner had made us pay more than we should have paid.

Mr. Al said, “That guy don’t have any right to rip off decent people like that.” He must have said something to the owner because the next time we came in, the owner gave me a candy necklace for free.

“What’s wrong?” Ma asked me now. She hadn’t understood any of this.

Mr. Al looked concerned. “Don’t you know? Sweetheart, everybody’s gradually moving out of here. This whole area’s boomed.”

“What?” I sounded as confused as I felt.

“Ended. No hope left. The government’s going to build some huge compicks here. All the buildings on this block and across the street are going to be broken down.”

“When?”

“What is happening?” Ma asked again. She was worried.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said in Chinese. I waited for Mr. Al to speak.

He said, “Was supposed to happen next year, but it keeps getting put off. Lots of people are complaining and trying to stop it. Will probably be another ten years before it actually happens, but could be next year too. Ant no one’s going to hang around waiting to get thrown out. This is a sinking ship.” He patted me on the shoulder with his long brown hand. “You ladies are good people. You should get out while you can. Those landlords aren’t going to do nothing for us while we’re waiting. No one wants to put any more money in here. My window’s been broken in the back for months now. Business is bad, everybody’s leaving.”

“When you going?”

“My lease is up March first. I’m going to move near my brother back in Virginia.”

FIVE

In our apartment upstairs, I explained to Ma what Mr. Al had told me.

“This proves Aunt Paula will let us move when a good apartment opens up,” Ma said, smiling. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“But that can take a long time, Ma. And she knew the area would be broken down. Why didn’t she tell us?”

“Maybe she didn’t want to alarm us.”

I was thinking hard. “What this really means is that Mr. N. will never fix the heat or anything else. Ma, we need to find a new place to live.”

She breathed in sharply. “We can’t afford it.”

“Other people from the factory live in apartments too.”

“Don’t forget, the rent is only a part of what we pay to Aunt Paula every month. Our debt is so great. And this apartment isn’t as expensive.”

“Even in Chinatown? They can’t cost too much there.”

“The really cheap apartments go from family member to family member. Nothing opens up. I’ve asked around at the factory.”

My mind was still turning everything over. “I think it’s not even law-following for us to be living here, the building is in such bad shape. That’s probably the real reason Aunt Paula had me use a fake address for school.” I was getting reckless. “Ma, let’s run away. We can find a new job at another factory. Aunt Paula doesn’t have to know.” Back in Hong Kong, I would never have dared to talk to Ma like this, to openly argue with her about such grown-up topics, but I had never had the responsibilities there that I now did. I had never been so desperate to change our living situation.

Ma’s eyes were intense. “And our debt to her, then? She brought us here, ah-Kim. She spent the money to cure me, for our green cards and tickets. It’s not a question of what we can get away with, it’s a question of honor.”

“To her?” I tugged at a lock of my hair, frustrated by Ma and her integrity.

“She’s given us housing and a job. She’s my sister and your aunt. And no matter how flawed someone else may be, that doesn’t give us the right to be less than we are, does it? We are decent people and we repay our debts.”

Some of my anger ebbed away. I hated being tied to Aunt Paula but I could see that Ma would have to be a different person before she could renege on something she owed. “Was Aunt Paula always like this, even when you were younger?”

Ma hesitated. I knew she disliked speaking ill of anyone, especially family. “When we were teenagers alone in Hong Kong, Aunt Paula took care of everything. She was smart and resourceful. She trained as a gold-beater so I could finish high school.” A jeweler who works with gold. “I was supposed to be the one to marry an American Chinese, since I wasn’t good at much except for music, and some people thought I was pretty. But then I started giving music lessons and your pa gave me a job at the school. Soon after that, we were married.”

“Was Aunt Paula angry?”

“Well, yes she was. But she’s always been very practical, and when Uncle Bob arrived, she just married him herself.”

“You were supposed to marry Uncle Bob?” I wasn’t sure I could take all these surprises today.

“He went to Hong Kong to meet a number of people,” Ma said. I knew that meant he could choose from several different girls. “But an acquaintance of ours had given him my picture. In any case, Aunt Paula has been through some hard times herself.”