April 7, 1906
Ten days, thirteen hours, thirty-one minutes before the earthquake
Suling had met Alice Eastwood at the second of Thornton’s parties, a month after the first. That time the party was a fundraiser for the California Academy of Sciences, held in the octagon house’s spectacular conservatory. The main attraction at the event was a collection of flowering succulents, but it seemed to Suling that the guests were more intent on impressing one another than admiring the rare plants.
Stationed near the conservatory’s door beneath an arching stem of scarlet bougainvillea, Suling surveyed the room. A middle-aged woman examining a plant caught her interest, partly because the woman’s plain dark dress contrasted with the other guests’ sumptuous finery and jewels, but mostly because Thornton was giving her his full attention.
“Succulents are not my specialty,” the woman was saying, “but I’m certain I’ve never seen one with such characteristics, quite unusual. From the Argentine, you said? I’d like to come back and make a sketch for David Prain, the director of Kew Gardens. He has a particular passion for succulents.”
“No need to come back, Miss Eastwood,” Thornton said. “You’ll have your own cutting tomorrow, delivered to the Academy.”
The woman beamed, the smile deepening the lines on her sun-weathered face. “That’s most kind of you. Well, I’ve stayed longer than planned, thanks to the many fine specimens in this conservatory, Mr. Thornton. But now I really must go.”
“Your kind words about my collection mean more to me than anything else at this event,” Thornton said. He sounded very sincere.
Suling straightened up as they approached the conservatory door and held the tray of champagne flutes a little higher. Thornton smiled at her and picked up a glass. He bowed to the woman and rejoined his other guests.
The woman, however, did not leave. She stared at Suling, puzzled. No, not at Suling. At her hair.
“Is that an iris? But it’s October, how is this possible?” She leaned down and peered at the blooms in Suling’s hair. The woman smelled faintly herbal, of rosemary and bay leaf.
“They’re artificial, ma’am,” Suling said. “Silk.” Sensing an opportunity, she added, “I made them.”
“How astonishing,” the woman said. “They’re entirely lifelike until you get this close. Have you made other plants in silk?”
“Flowers for arrangements in vases,” Suling said, “or hair ornaments like this. I also embroider.”
The woman pulled out a card from her bag. “I’m Alice Eastwood. Would you come see me sometime? I’d like to commission some silk flowers if you have the time. Now I really must go.”
Alice Eastwood. Curator of Botany. California Academy of Sciences.
A woman in charge of something. How very intriguing.
A few days later, Suling had gone to the Academy. The guards at the museum entrance eyed her dismissively, her laundryboy’s clothes and rough boots, and refused to let her in.
“The Academy is open to the public,” Suling pointed out, “and it’s free.”
“There’s the public, and then there’s the likes of you,” one of them said without rancor. “We’ve got garden club ladies visiting and they wouldn’t want to see you in here. Give it an hour till they’re gone, China boy.”
Her journey from Chinatown, while fairly short, had not been easy and Suling wasn’t in a mood to wait for society ladies. She held out Alice’s card. “Miss Eastwood wants to see me.”
“Miss Eastwood.” He sighed. “Of course. Sam, you stay here. I’ll walk this boy to Botany.”
She followed him along back passages and stairs to the sixth floor, where a sign on the black-painted door read Botany. He pushed it open and Suling breathed in the scent of pine needles, a sharp resinous odor, and something that reminded her of roses. Men in shirtsleeves—and quite a few women—worked quietly at large tables, some writing notes, others carefully laying strips of tape over sheets of thick paper that held what looked like pressed leaves.
“This little Chink is here to see Miss Eastwood,” the guard said, to the room in general. “Can I leave him here?”
A young woman got up from the table. “I’ll take him.”
The door to Alice’s office was open. She was seated by a large window, looking into a microscope. “Miss Eastwood,” the woman said, “you have a visitor.”
“Thank you, Emily,” Alice said. She looked up smiling, then looked again at Suling, a frown of confusion creasing her forehead as she crossed the room. “Come in. Where do I know you from?”
Suling stared at Alice Eastwood, at the woman’s odd attire, a brown belted jacket with large box-pleated patch pockets. Strangest of all were the denim trousers, so roomy and wide that if Alice stood still you’d think it was a skirt. And was she in stocking feet? Suling surveyed the office and spied a pair of muddy boots drying on a wooden crate. The scent of roses was stronger in this office, but glancing around the room Suling couldn’t see any such flowers.
She removed the fedora. “I was at Mr. Thornton’s party, Miss Eastwood. My name is Suling. Suling Feng.”
Alice’s smile returned, grew wider. “The young beauty with out-of-season iris in her hair. Come in. But why are you dressed as a boy today?”
“Better to come as a boy,” Suling replied, as nonchalantly as she could.
She wasn’t going to tell this woman about the men who had pulled on her pigtail and pushed her to the ground, laughing and singing “ching chong Chinaman.” She was lucky they didn’t realize she was a girl. Lucky, too, that it was daytime and the men hadn’t started drinking yet. Not that they needed to be drunk to get dangerous. A white woman wouldn’t understand.
But Alice understood. Suling could tell by the change in the botanist’s face, the flush on her cheeks when she realized how thoughtless the casual question had been.
“Well, Miss Feng,” Alice said, all business. “What I have in mind are models of plants made from silk. I don’t know how detailed and accurate you could make them, but let’s see how it goes. By the way, have you ever seen a rose-scented geranium?”
She picked up a small potted plant from the windowsill. “Smell those leaves,” she commanded. “Delightful.”
A quiet but urgent knock from the open door interrupted her. A young man stood at the doorway with an inquiring look on his face.
“What is it, Seth? Oh, that delivery from Colorado. Wait here, Miss Feng, I won’t be long.” Alice bustled out and hurried down the hall with the young man.
Alice Eastwood moved with such purpose, every stride giving the impression that she was prepared, eager, to tackle any challenge. What sort of woman was this, that she could be a curator at such a prestigious institution? That she commanded the respect of a man like Thornton?
After that first meeting, Alice had Suling come to her boardinghouse on Taylor Street. “After all, I only live three blocks away from the edge of Chinatown,” Alice said. “A shorter walk for you.”
Shorter, and safer.
“These are remarkable,” Alice Eastwood said when Suling dropped by the house on Taylor Street with her latest offering. The botanist sat at her dining table and squinted at the stamens on a yellow silk poppy. “Can you get my handbag for me, dear?” She waved vaguely in the general direction of her dressing table and held the flower closer to inspect the leaves.
The curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences lived in a spacious room on the top floor of the boardinghouse, a bedsit with its own small kitchen, large enough for a settee and dining table. The dining table was always covered with books and stacks of pressed plant specimens. Faded curtains in a paisley print were pulled back from windows that gazed out over the city.
The first commission Alice had given Suling was a white flower, a Catalina mariposa lily. Suling crafted it by studying the photographs and drawings Alice provided. Then a pink bush mallow, from drawings and an actual plant. Suling then offered to repair Alice’s one and only evening bag, first replicating its beaded embroidery on a semicircle of heavy black satin, then patching it onto the bag. By Thanksgiving, Alice had persuaded her landlady, Mrs. Browning, to use Fenghuang Laundry for the boardinghouse’s linens.
Suling handed Alice a green leather bag. Alice counted out two quarters.
“No, no, Miss Eastwood,” Suling protested. “Twenty-five cents is plenty.”
Alice shook her head. “Suling, you must value yourself and your work more. Take it.”
“Miss Eastwood, I feel truly terrible for what I must ask,” Suling said, accepting the coins. “I’ve had an order from Mr. Thornton for silk flowers, quite an urgent request. Is it all right if I put off making the Douglas irises?”
She did feel terrible. She would work as quickly as she could on Thornton’s flowers, but the day after he paid for them, she would get on a train for Boston. Or New York. She would never make those irises for Alice.
“Of course. There’s no hurry. May I ask what you’re making for Mr. Thornton?”
“It’s a white flower with rather strange leaves,” Suling said, “and I only have drawings to work from. The name on the drawing is Epiphyllum oxypetalum.” She stumbled over the Latin.
“Queen of the Night flower!” Alice clapped her hands, delighted. “He must’ve acquired a specimen. I’ve never seen one in bloom. Those strange leaves aren’t leaves at all, you know, they’re flattened stems. I must call on Thornton and get a look. The flowers are very complicated, I hope he’s paying you well.”
“He pays very well,” Suling said, “and he’s ordered twenty-five flowers, Miss Eastwood. If I could earn that much every month, I could leave the laundry. But embroidery and silk flowers are just a hobby.”
“Your skills are too good to be considered just a hobby.” Alice snorted. Her praise gave Suling courage.
“Could I ask you a favor, Miss Eastwood?” Suling said, heart thumping. Alice had been so kind to her, but how much of that kindness could she draw on?
The older woman nodded. “Of course, my dear.”
Suling hesitated a moment before speaking. “I would like to support myself, leave the laundry and Chinatown. Perhaps go to the Midwest or the East. Do you know anyone who might need a domestic servant, one who can sew and embroider?” Suling had heard it was more common in the East for white families to hire Chinese women as domestic servants rather than just men. Perhaps Alice had friends in Chicago or New York.
Alice looked thoughtful. “Actually, I do have an idea,” she said, getting up from the dresser. “Just a moment.”
A faint hope stirred in Suling. Alice was so practical. She wouldn’t suggest anything unrealistic.
Alice pulled something out from a steamer trunk, something large and carefully wrapped in tissue paper. A dress. “Here, let me hang it up so it drapes properly,” Alice said, holding it up.
The evening gown was simple and modest, a mossy black silk velvet with a V-shaped bodice. Cream lace over white silk gauze filled the bodice and rose to cover the throat. A pleat of the same lace was set into bell sleeves. The skirt was plain except for some smocking that gathered the lower half of the fabric into just the suggestion of a train. The embroidery around the neckline, however, was what caught Suling’s attention.
Two bands of black velvet crossed to form the V-shaped bodice; the bands were densely embroidered in silk with tiny jet beads that repeated the pattern on the creamy lace. The effect was subtle and at the same time, elegantly opulent.
“This dress is nearly ten years old,” Alice said. “I only wear it to the opera and special parties. It’s from France, the Callot Soeurs atelier. Look at the embroidery and beadwork. Your work on my evening bag is just as good, Suling. I hear that the Callot Soeurs workshop in France employs six hundred people. Apparently they plan on opening a store and workshop in New York soon.”
Suling examined the dress, then looked up at Alice. “The women who do this, do they earn enough to live on?” In Chinatown, women did piecework, embroidered panels of linen and gauze that garment factories used for dresses. The low wages supplemented family incomes, but they weren’t enough to survive independently.
“My dear, the women who do this at fashion houses are considered artists. And you are an artist with the needle.” Carefully, Alice folded her gown into the tissue paper and placed it back inside the trunk. “Your skills are worthy of a career, Suling. There are fashion houses in New York and in Chicago that would value your talents.”
“Do you know anyone at these fashion houses?” Suling asked timidly. In her world, nothing happened without guanxi, connections. Unless Alice could pull strings for her, she couldn’t imagine a fashion house hiring her.
“Let me work on it,” Alice said. “Some of the garden club ladies I’ve gotten to know are also society women who order Paris couture every season. In the meantime, take this.” She held out a Callot Soeurs catalog, a year old.
Suling tried not to look disappointed. Let me work on it didn’t sound as though anything would happen soon. All Suling wanted was to leave San Francisco and support herself; not just to avoid marrying Dr. Ouyang but because every street corner mocked her with memories of Reggie.
“Show me your world,” Reggie had said, and Suling agreed, on one condition. That they would only see how normal people lived. No opium dens or gambling parlors.
“Evil and decadence. It’s what white people think of first when they think of Chinatown,” Suling said, “and yes, there are dozens and dozens of those places. But Reggie, ordinary people also live here, people like me. Shopkeepers and factory workers, children who go to school, men who go out with the shrimp boats. Perfectly ordinary families leading ordinary decent lives. That’s what I want you to see.”
They couldn’t stroll together, not without drawing stares and gossip, but before each little expedition Suling would explain about the streets and buildings, which shops and establishments to enter and what to look for inside. She would walk several paces in front, pause at storefronts or doorways of the places she had described, then wait while Reggie went in and came out again.
The Chinese Theater. The temples, which white people called “joss houses.” Herbalists and restaurants, broom factories and barbers. The Tung Wah Dispensary, a large herbalist shop with a clinic at the back, the closest thing Chinatown had to a hospital. Neighborhoods where children walked hand in hand along the sidewalk, basement diners where the smell of cooking wafting up made them both so hungry that Suling bought some steamed buns stuffed with chopped pork and pickled mustard greens. Then they hurried down to the waterfront and gobbled down the buns, laughing at each other’s greediness.
“So many gambling houses,” Reggie said, after one such day. “Are all Chinese natural gamblers?”
Suling stopped in her tracks. “No. Nor are we inclined to opium. There are hundreds, thousands of unmarried men in Chinatown. They have no families, they don’t speak English well, and they aren’t comfortable going to American theaters or sports stadiums. What can they do for amusement but gamble or go to brothels or the Chinese theater? Most of those who smoke opium do it to forget the misery of their lives.” She was almost shaking with indignation.
After a long silence, Reggie said quietly, “What a bigoted idiot I am, Suling. Please forgive me.”
Suling looked into those green eyes, the concern and affection in their depths, and burst into tears. Tears that soaked into the shoulders of Reggie’s coat as she pressed herself against a warm and comforting embrace. That was when she realized she was falling in love. Something that wasn’t supposed to happen, not with a foreign devil.
But Reggie made it so clear the feeling was mutual, teasing her at first, giving her silly nicknames. China doll. Eastern Lotus. Then, seeing how much Suling disliked these nicknames, Reggie learned how to pronounce her name properly in Chinese. Then how to say Chinese greetings such as “good morning” and “good evening.” How to say “goodbye.” Endearments such as bao bei, airen. Precious treasure, lover.
And then one day, how to say “I love you.”
Something had clenched in Suling’s heart, joy and delight. And dread. She couldn’t say it back. She wouldn’t. But her hesitation didn’t seem to deter Reggie. Who didn’t mind if she pulled back when their kisses grew too passionate, their hands too eager to explore. Sometimes their bodies pressed so close, so deliciously curved together that Suling wanted nothing more than to give in completely. But she fought the desire and Reggie simply said “only when you’re ready.”
And Suling had felt herself ready, felt herself willing to give in. But in February, when they were supposed to meet on Valentine’s Day, Reggie didn’t come to the rendezvous. Suling waited, went back again and again to their usual meeting place, searched for a note. Whenever she and Old Kow delivered laundry to the Thornton mansion, she inquired as discreetly as she could of the servants, but they just shrugged. Apparently, it was a common thing. Their master’s protégés came and went.
There was something strange about it all. Reggie had been so excited to win Thornton’s support, an unexpected and thrilling career boost. Reggie could be impulsive, sometimes annoyingly unpredictable, but when it came to career obligations, Suling had never known Reggie to be anything but dead serious. It must’ve been Thornton’s decision. Had Reggie been disheartened, enough to leave San Francisco without contacting her?
And now the familiar streets of Chinatown taunted her with memories. Reggie, leaning back to look at the gold lettering on Wah Hing Restaurant’s sign. Reggie, watching the sword dancer perform for tourists. Reggie, kneeling down to speak with the fish seller’s daughter, a pretty ten-year-old in pigtails.
“I’d better get home,” Suling told Alice. “The sooner I finish those flowers for Mr. Thornton, the sooner I get paid.”
Suling opened the door, and a cascade of music rolled up the stairs. Singing. A beautiful voice, and unmistakably a trained one. A voice that elicited emotion even just singing scales.
“Our new tenant,” Alice said, coming to stand beside her. “An opera singer. Glorious.” She sighed happily and sat at the top of the stairs. “I’m going to just sit here and listen for a bit.”
There was a pause in the music and then the voice started up again, this time a melody that made Suling’s heart yearn for some unnamed desire. She found herself wishing she could sit on the steps with Alice, just for a few minutes of beauty. But she had to go. She needed that twenty-five dollars. In less than two weeks, she had to be out of San Francisco.
And one more thing. She was done mooning over Reggie. She’d drown any such thoughts the moment they surfaced. No more regrets or yearnings, only plans for her future and the steps she must take. With the Callot Soeurs catalog tucked firmly under her arm, Suling marched down the stairs.