Chapter Twelve

Tightly holding her letter to Joe, Charity stared at the entrance in front of her, at the scrolls on either side, at the Chinese wind chimes above the door. She fingered the coins Martha had given her, then took a deep breath and went in. The chimes rung loudly in her wake.

Two Chinamen were coming towards her on their way out of the store, each of them clad in a coarse cotton knee-length jacket, baggy trousers and a peaked straw hat. Each man carried a rolled-up length of material under his arm. She stopped just inside the entrance and stood back to give them room to go out.

They glanced curiously at her as they passed, their eyes travelling swiftly from her face to her dress. Unsmiling, they gave her a slight nod. She nodded back. The long black pigtails hanging behind them almost reached to the waist, she noticed, as they went through the doorway. She heard one of them say something to the other and their laughter followed them on to the street.

Looking back along the shop, she saw that Su Lin was at the far end of the left-hand counter, rolling up a bale of material, and hadn’t yet seen her. Charity walked towards her, making her booted feet sound loud on the floor to let Su Lin know she was there.

Su Lin looked up, and her face broke out into a smile of pleasure. Leaving the material where it was, she skirted the end of the counter and hurried up to Charity, the palms of her hands pressed together. Reaching her, she gave her a small bow.

‘I hear chimes. Think chimes say men leave,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I not see you. I very pleased you visit unworthy self today. I likee see you.’ She beamed at Charity.

‘I’ve not come to see you,’ Charity said stiffly. ‘I’ve come to send a letter to Joe; that’s all.’

She saw Su Lin’s face fall, and she felt a stab of guilt.

She opened her mouth to say something friendlier, something that wasn’t being unkind to Su Lin in the way that the children in her school were unkind to her. It wasn’t Su Lin’s fault she was Chinese.

‘I’m not—’ she started. The curtain that covered the doorway at the far end of the shop rustled with sudden movement. Her heart skipped a beat. She stopped mid-sentence and stared past Su Lin to the doorway.

Chen Fai was standing there, holding the curtain to one side, his dark eyes fixed on her. She instantly dropped her gaze to the floor in front of him, and to his feet. His flat black shoes were embroidered with a jumble of colour over the place where his toes must be.

He stood in silence, unmoving.

Gathering courage, Charity raised her eyes from his feet to his black trousers, and up to his yellow tunic made of shiny material, and to his head. He wasn’t wearing the peaked straw hat that most of the Carter Chinamen wore, she saw in surprise; he was wearing a small black cap that fitted on the top of his head.

She looked back at his face. He had a nice face, she thought. And then their eyes met. Open hostility shone from the depths of his dark, dark eyes, and she felt a sudden panic.

He released his hold on the curtain and let it fall back into place as he came forward and stood half in front of Su Lin.

‘Su Lin,’ he said. And not taking his eyes from Charity’s face, he spoke to Su Lin in their language.

Stepping to the side to have a better view of Su Lin, Charity saw her turn without a word when Chen Fai had finished speaking and go across to the curtained doorway, her eyes on the shop floor. She moved the curtain aside and disappeared into the back of the store. Then once again, the curtain closed off the back room.

In the few moments that the curtain had been drawn back, an aroma, strange to Charity, had drifted into the store. She sniffed.

‘What’s that smell?’ she asked without thinking.

Surprise registered on Chen Fai’s face. ‘Roast duck and ginger,’ he said tersely.

She nodded her thanks.

He stared at her, frowning. Feeling the heaviness of his gaze on her face, she stood very still.

‘I tell Su Lin to help honourable father’s second wife with the cooking,’ he said at last, his voice cold. ‘I say to her I serve you.’

Charity bit her lip.

‘What you want?’ he asked shortly. ‘I tell Joe Walker I not wish you to be friends with Su Lin. You collect letter yesterday, Su Lin tell me. So why you come here today?’

Charity glanced at the grilled area, then at Chen Fai. She held her letter out to him.

‘I’ve written a letter to Joe. For when he’s in Buffalo. I wanna post it.’

He took the letter from her, and looked at it. ‘Cost for stamp is forty-nine cents.’

She took the coins from her pocket, counted them out and handed them to him.

‘Now you leave,’ he said. Holding the letter in one of his hands, he slid each hand into the opposite sleeve of his tunic. ‘You not come again unless you must send letter. You not talk to Su Lin, and she not talk to you. I forbid it.’

Charity stared at him in surprise. ‘I don’t wanna be friends with Su Lin. It’s Joe who wants me to be her friend. Why don’t you want that, too?’

‘You got Chinese face, but you American girl,’ he said bluntly.

Charity nodded. ‘I know. But why don’t you want us to be friends if Joe does?’

‘Joe Walker not know Chinese way of things. Su Lin is good Chinese girl, you not. You go now.’

Charity shifted from one foot to the other.

‘Maybe Su Lin’s unhappy she’s not got a friend,’ she ventured.

‘Chinese girl respect parents and obey wishes of parents and brother,’ he said stiffly.

‘Maybe her ma wants us to be friends.’

‘Honourable father’s second wife must obey wishes of son. That also is Chinese way. You go now,’ he repeated. He slipped the hand holding the letter out from the sleeve and pointed towards the entrance.

Charity followed the line of his finger with her gaze, hesitated a moment, then looked back at him.

‘Why’ve you got a braid?’ she blurted out.

A look of amazement crossed his face. ‘Why you ask?’

She shrugged. ‘I wanna know. All the Chinamen in Carter have got one. Why?’

‘Honourable father tell me it from when Manchu conquerors capture China in 1644 and make themselves rulers of all China. It become crime for Chinese man to cut hair. He has head chopped off if he cut hair.’

She pulled a face. ‘But that was years ago!’

‘You not understand – you not proper Chinese person. People who come from China to Gold Mountain—’

‘Where’s Gold Mountain? Joe’s pa used to pan for gold.’

‘Here.’ He indicated around them. ‘Gold Mountain is Chinese name for America. China people who come to America not think they stay here for ever. They think they go back to China one day so they must keep queue. The name for this braid, as you call it, is queue.’

‘But no one in America would chop off your head, so you could cut it off if you wanted.’

A look of shock crossed his face. ‘I not do that. If no queue, Chinese man must wander forever from land of his ancestors. Cannot return to China without queue, which is sign of respect and obedience to emperor,’ he said, his voice grave. ‘Now you leave.’

‘What about Chinese girls? Must they keep their hair long or not be able to go back to China either?’

‘Girls not matter. They not important in China like men. Go!’ he said firmly, and he again pointed to the doorway leading to Main Street.

Not moving, she stared at him for a moment in thought.

‘Annie wouldn’t let me work in her restaurant,’ she said at last. ‘She said I was a Chinese girl and if she took on a Chinese girl, the whites would stop eatin’ there. And the American girls in my school look at my face and say I’m Chinese so they don’t wanna be friends with me.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I very sorry, but you find friend in other place, not in General Mercantile Store.’

Biting her lip, Charity glanced beyond Chen Fai to the squiggly writing on the tins that lined the shelves on the wall behind him, and to the grille, and to the curtained doorway through which Mr Culpepper must walk when he went to play games in the rooms behind the store – the rooms where Su Lin and her ma and pa must now be sitting – and she looked back at Chen Fai.

‘I look like Su Lin,’ she said, her voice taking on a stubborn note. ‘I’m a good girl, too. I always do what Joe and Joe’s ma and pa say.’

He gave a short dismissive laugh. ‘You not taught to be Chinese like Su Lin. You not behave like modest Chinese girl. You not know how to cook Chinese way. You not understand important festivals and how to look after ancestors. Chinese family has much respect for honourable ancestors. Is very important daughter never bring shame on them.’

Charity screwed up her forehead. ‘What’re ancestors?’

He thought for a moment. ‘The people we come from. All the people who come before us in our family: people living; people not living. I explain well, do I?’

She nodded. She stared at him, anxiety clouding her face. ‘Ma died when I was a very little baby. Joe found me down by the river and he kept me. I don’t have ancestors.’

‘I know this,’ he said. ‘Mr Culpepper tell me when I ask. Years ago I see Su Lin want to be friends with you, and I ask Mr Culpepper to tell me about you. Is not good to be without ancestors, not for Chinese girl. You go now.’

Her face fell.

He paused a moment, then added more gently, ‘Is not what face looks like – is what is inside head.’ He touched his forehead with her letter for Joe, and then he slid his hands again into his sleeves. ‘The way you talk to me now, to older man worthy of respect, show you very American in head. I think also you have mother who not have reputation. If you friends with Su Lin, is very bad for Su Lin, so I not let this happen. You leave now. You only come to store if you have letter to send. If letter come for you again, I bring it to you at bakery.’

His face impassive, he raised his eyes and stared above her head towards the doorway. She saw dismissal in the angle of his chin. A sob rose in her throat, and she turned and ran from the store.

Why did she suddenly feel like crying, she asked herself as she hurried along the boardwalk, struggling to hold back her tears. After all, it wasn’t as if she wanted to be friends with Su Lin; she didn’t. So it didn’t matter that her brother had forbidden it. She slipped her hand into her pocket and tightened her fingers around the little golden tiger. Her ma wouldn’t have cried for no reason, and she was going to be strong like her ma.

Nearing the line of miners’ houses, her steps slowed.

What would Su Lin be doing now, she wondered. Would Chen Fai be scolding her for smiling at that American girl? And if he was, would Su Lin be arguing that she should be allowed to have a friend, and that Charity was the only possible friend she could have, even if she was American in her head?

No, she wouldn’t, Charity thought in a rush. Su Lin was a good Chinese girl like Chen Fai said. She wouldn’t argue with her brother; she’d obey him. She wouldn’t try to be her friend again.

She swallowed hard.

What would have happened if it had been someone like Chen Fai panning for gold that day and not Joe, she suddenly thought. She knew that Chinamen looked for gold, too; Joe’s pa had told her that. He’d said they’d seen several Chinese prospectors in the time between leaving the ranch and ending up in Carter. Would she now have ancestors if a Chinese man had found her? Or would he have left her in the open to die, thinking bad things about her ma?

As she approached the Walker house, she saw a row of pails lined up outside the front door, and she speeded up her steps. She’d forgotten that she’d told Joe’s ma she’d take the letter to the store, then come straight back and go to the well for the water, and because of talking to Su Lin’s brother, she’d been longer than she’d expected.

She ran up to the first two pails, picked them up and hurried to the well that lay further down the line of houses. She’d have to be quick as she had the Saturday baking to do after she’d filled the pails, and then she’d been asked to dig up some vegetables from the small patch at the back of the house and clean them.

She had a heap of chores to do that day, but she was glad she did.

All of a sudden, as she’d left the general mercantile, she’d felt lonely. Really, really lonely. She’d never felt like that before.

She reached the well, raised the heavy arm of the pump, and brought it down hard. Was Joe feeling lonely, too, she wondered.