His forehead pinches. “Turtle egg,” he growls, a Chinese insult. “He claims one of the Chinese owed his father money.”
“Who?”
“Someone who left before you were born.” The gray in his brown eyes suddenly looks like iron streaks in ore. “If you see this turtle egg again, stay away from him. We do not need his reek in our nose, hm?”
The streetcar arrives, and we drag our tired bodies aboard, along with other workers. In the streets, a different citizenry moves about. These ride carriages with polished seats, and their eyes roam freely about the scenery.
Old Gin slides in next to me. “On the way home from the baths, I saw twin Shetlands.”
He means the Shetlands belonging to the Bells’ landlord, who only visits when the rent is late. “That’s the third time this year.”
He nods. “If Bells evicted, landlord will build a factory.”
A factory is more lucrative than a single home. We will have to leave when the place is torn down. The memory of Carcass Alley tightens my belly. Where would we go? Southerners donot like the Chinese living among them, as Lucky Yip could have attested. Shiny pink scars covered half of his body from the fire that ruffians set to his shanty in Mississippi, where he was building railroads. The Chinese who drifted this way lived in shadows, and shadows were not easy to come by.
Old Gin notices me grimacing and tsks his tongue. “Do not worry. I have taken steps to ensure our future, even if that future is not in Atlanta.”
His words throw a switch, halting my other thoughts. For all its faults, Atlanta would be a hard city to leave, with its generous sunshine, rolling hills, and ladylike breezes. Seventeen years of living here has mapped its streets and alleyways into my veins. “What steps?”
“Many Chinese in Augusta. Maybe a husband.”
Augusta, Georgia, lies over a hundred fifty miles east, its bachelors mostly men who’d come to dig the canal. Something sour rises in my throat. “I have no desire to be someone’s wife.”
Consternation pulls the wrinkles on Old Gin’s face. “Motherhood is a most noble calling. My own mother was only sixteen when she married, but she raised two good sons.”
It is hard to argue with that. Unlike the other uncles, Old Gin was not one of the laborers brought to Mississippi during Reconstruction, but hails from a line of scholar-officials in the Qing dynasty. His mother was a gentlewoman who attended her sons with great devotion, and was esteemed among his father’s wives.
“What would you do if you did not raise a family? Hats?”
My shoulders droop. Hats had given me a way to put myfingerprint on the world, but Mrs. English had seen to it that I wouldn’t get another apprenticeship here. “Maybe I haven’t discovered it yet. But do you remember when you told Hammer Foot that a cricket is happiest when it sings?”
He nods. “Hammer Foot hated digging ditches. He liked performance.” Hammer Foot could walk a tightrope blindfolded. I’d seen it with my own eyes. He’d headed north, where he hoped to join P. T. Barnum’s Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome. “Of course, not always easy to find work you love.”
“I know. But you did.”
“I told you I have been lucky, hm? Still, a good partner can support you while you discover this purpose. We will find you one with a big nose.”
—
WITH ONEEARstuck to the wall, I listen hard for clues that Miss Sweetie might be making her debut soon. The rumblings from the printing press obscure the conversation, but Nathan eventually takes a break.
“Striking,” he says. “Looks... oriental?”
“Yes,” comes his mother’s voice. “A Chinese girl made it.”
Her hat’s embellishment. My neck aches from the effort of keeping still.
“You don’t say. I ran into a Chinese girl the other day. At least, Bear did.”
“What did she look like?”
“Startled.”
“As did mine. What else?”
“I don’t know, Mother,” he says with impatience. “She had two eyes, two legs...”
I grit my teeth, remembering the exposure of the legs.
