He was angry, but then, it felt almost disingenuous, as if he were only pretending to be angry because this is what they had all come to expect. That made him furious in a different way: Did they think he was so backward, so traditional, so Chinese that he couldn’t accept a Jew? He who had grown up with Jews!
What they didn’t know, what they didn’t need to know, and what he’d never told anyone, was that he’d loved a Jewish girl once. But that had been another time.
Then he saw them. They were approaching on foot; they must have taken the train and walked the mile from the station, hand in hand. Jason and his girl threaded in and out of the lampposts’ glow. Richard felt there was something uncanny about the picture they made—how, from a distance, they resembled each other: both lean, with long dark hair; both wearing shabby hats and plaid scarves.
Startled by this mirage, he lit another cigarette. And then a kindof softness took him. He only knew that there was something those two young people possessed that he did not. They were coming to him, afraid, but hoping that he might recognize what had flowered between them, that he’d treat it with tenderness.
They were two houses away. It was dark, and she had not seen him yet, but Jason had. His son stiffened upon recognition.
His son feared that when they reached the porch, Richard would be obnoxious, that he wouldn’t look Rachel in the eye, that all through dinner, he’d berate Jason for his life choices. That he didn’t understand times were changing.
But his son underestimated him.
“Oh ho ho! That must be Rachel!” Richard called out. He flung the cigarette nub across the lawn, and Jason raised a tentative hand. They reached the steps. “Welcome, welcome!” Richard said, opening his arms wide, and when Rachel reached the top of the stoop, he gathered her bewildered frame into his arms and kissed her cold cheek with all the warmth of a big fat zayde.
He could tell they were perplexed. He led them through the door into the warmth of the kitchen. The table was covered end-to-end with dishes—turkey and sweet potato, yes, but also shrimp in lobster sauce and no mai fan, probably things the girl had not expected to see on Thanksgiving night. When dinner began, he enjoyed the awe on her face as a maze of reaching hands, spoons, and chopsticks crisscrossed like vines in the canopy of a rainforest. Foon Wah ran back and forth pouring apple juice into cups, reheating dishes, and cutting the meat into bites for the grandchildren, while his daughters’ husbands shoveled food into their mouths like unabashed teenagers.
“I grew up in Brownsville. You heard of that neighborhood? Just northeast of here. Back then it was a Jewish neighborhood,” he explained to Rachel. “My friends called me the ‘honorary Jew.’ They even taught me the prayers—Ba-rook, ell-you-hay-new, Adam-noy…”
She laughed in appreciation. He still remembered the melodies:“Ay-ya-yay-yay-yay,” he sang, swaying slightly like he’d seen the rabbis do in the synagogues, delighted as she covered her mouth to stifle another giggle.
“They called me the ‘shabbos goy.’ I was useful because I wasn’t Jewish. Every Saturday, if I stood on the street, I could make five cents an apartment ’cause these Jews couldn’t do anything on a Saturday—they’d have me light the candles, light the stove, and then they’d pay me. But on Saturdays, they can’t touch money either, so they’d lift the tablecloth and there’d be pennies for me on the table. They’d plan it out in advance. And I could make half a dollar a week that way.”
And then, because he was also still Chinese and the head of his house, he urged her to eat and spooned the best cut of fish onto her plate.
“I’ve always known it. Jews and Chinese are the same kind of people,” he rambled on while the women washed the dishes—all but Rachel, who he insisted sit beside him. “Number one, they’re ambitious. Back where they’re from, everyone was poor, so they came over here. Number two,” and he counted these off with his fingers, as Rachel laughed, “they’re good with money and they’re stingy, so everyone hates them.”
His daughters brought the vanilla ice cream to the table, then a pumpkin pie, an apple pie, and a bowl of ji ma wu.
“Number three, education. Study, study, study. Because they came here with nothing, and they want only one thing: to get to the top.” He patted Rachel’s knee. “The Jews and the Chinese. More American than all the others put together.”
SADIE & LINA
Sadie was stunned at the sight: the corner lot on Livonia Avenue looked completely different than it had the prior year when she’d first visited. It had become a community garden, bourgeoning with herbs and flowers.
Ms. Lina stood in the middle of the garden, waiting for Sadie. She leaned on a shovel and surveyed the land. Without her beret, her short silver curls gleamed in the sun, and she looked to Sadie like the Roman statue of Minerva—god of wisdom, justice, and war—that guarded Thirty-Fourth Street’s Herald Square with her spear and shield.
Sadie approached, leaning her forehead against the fence.
“Ms. Lina?”
Ms. Lina turned. She frowned, then waved her in, and Sadie climbed through the body-size hole in the wire.
As she approached, Sadie could feel a change occurring in Ms. Lina’s body. A tightening. A growing heaviness. Like she had just schlepped from one end of the city to the other with all her life in her bags.
They stood next to each other. Sadie could hear the pop of balls at the Betsy Head Park handball court. At first, she felt Ms. Lina’s silence as coldness. Then she realized Ms. Lina was waiting for her to speak.
Sadie breathed in, preparing herself.
“Ms. Lina, thank you for meeting me here,” she said, turning to face her. “I want to apologize for going to your house and not telling you that I was his granddaughter. That was invasive and… and manipulative.”
Ms. Lina listened, her eyes lowered.
“Basically, I lied so I… so I wouldn’t have to deal with whatever the truth was. Or maybe because I wanted to figure everything out on my own. It was wrong. I know I betrayed your trust and I don’t really deserve it back. I’m sorry.”
Feeling not at all sure that her apology sufficed, Sadie looked at her canvas sneakers, at the soil.
“I appreciate that,” said the voice of the elder, and when Sadie lifted her head, their eyes met. “And I appreciate the work you’ve done. The research.”
