The Misfortune Cookie

8 Face

Social credit; crucial to reputation and status, for oneself and one’s family.

When Max and I reached John’s side, I smiled gratefully at him, since he obviously intended to introduce us to Ted. I was even more pleased to discover that John had already broken the ice for me.

“So John says you’re, like, an actress?” said Ted. “And you’re interested in reading for my film?”

“That’s right.” I nodded eagerly.

“So, like, have you done any acting?”

I gave him a verbal rundown of my résumé, which included some TV roles—the best of which had been on The Dirty Thirty—as well as a long list of stage credits, including playing one of the two female leads in the Off-Broadway production of The Vampyre in autumn.

“Whoa, that’s awesome,” said Ted. “You’re, like, a real actress.”

“That’s exactly what I’m like.” Fudging a little, I added, “And I gather you need to cast someone quickly so you can continue production.”

“Well, um . . .”

First I’d get him to offer me the part. Then I’d get Thack to make sure I got paid as much as this production could afford. It was obviously non-union, so this would be a matter of finesse and negotiation.

“I’m free tomorrow,” I said to Ted. “When can we meet?”

“We’re burying my uncle tomorrow.”

Feeling gauche, I said, “Oh, of course. I’m sorry. Maybe a day or two after th—”

“No, no, tomorrow’s cool,” he said absently. “I’m just wondering how long this funeral thing will take.”

John was right; Ted would apparently miss Benny’s money more than he’d miss Benny.

“Mom?” Ted called. “Hey, Mom!”

“Ted, this is a wake,” his mother admonished as she approached us. “We should keep our voices down.”

“Oh, come on, Mom. Aunt Grace and that hooker from Benny’s office just went at it right in front of the coffin like—”

“Ted, please,” said his mother with a long-suffering expression. “Your aunt or your cousins will hear you.”

“By the way, Esther,” said Ted, “the way you jumped in there, walloped Aunt Grace, and threw that girl on the coffin—it was totally awesome!”

“I didn’t wallop your aunt, I—”

“How do you do? I am Lily Yee, Ted’s mother,” the older woman interrupted with a pleasant smile. She spoke English precisely, with a delicate Chinese accent. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

I introduced myself, then said, “And this is my friend, Dr. Maximillian Zadok.”

“How do you do, sir?”

Rather than respond, Max stared mutely at Lily Yee, looking dumbstruck. His blue eyes were wide, his mouth hung open slightly, and he seemed unaware that I had just introduced the two of them.

“Max?” I prodded.

“Hmm? Oh!” He blinked. “Pardon me, madam. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. I, uh . . . I . . .”

He went back to staring at her. And I looked at both of them, wondering at Max’s reaction.

Yes, Lily was a beautiful woman, elegantly dressed, with a gracious manner. I assumed she was at least in her mid-forties, since her daughter looked mid-twenties; and Lily might well be in her fifties, for all I knew. Good bone structure, good skin, and good grooming made her age hard to guess. She wore her black hair in a heavy bun at the nape of her neck, which complimented her traditional dress. Her style was very different from that of her modern American son and daughter, and it suited her well.

Yet there was nothing about her to explain Max’s thunderstruck reaction to meeting her. His great age certainly didn’t prevent him from noticing—and sometimes reacting to—pretty women. But I’d never before seen a beautiful face rob him of the power of speech.

So I looked at both of them, seeking some clue to Max’s odd behavior; but I just couldn’t see anything. Lily seemed a little perplexed by his manner, but not disconcerted, and her smiling courtesy remained unruffled.

“So, Mom,” said Ted, oblivious to the way Max was staring at his mother, “what time will we be done with the funeral tomorrow? I want to meet Esther afterward.”

“Oh, really? How nice!” Lily seemed to think he meant we were going on a date. Given her daughter’s reaction to my being an actress, I decided not to correct her. “You can certainly meet in the evening. Or late afternoon.”

Max stirred himself enough to say, “Er, what is . . .”

We all looked at him.

Apparently unaware that he was interrupting, or even that there was anyone else in the room other than Lily Yee, he said to her, “May one ask your given name?”

“You wish to know my Chinese name?” She smiled. “Of course. It is Xiaoling.”

“Xiaoling,” Max repeated. “How lovely.”

“My late husband called me that,” she added, gracefully imparting the information that she was a widow. “But to almost everyone else, ever since I came to America when I was young, I am Lily.”

“Also a lovely name,” Max said. “Very fitting.”

She smiled again.

“So listen, Esther,” said Ted. “Like, here’s the thing . . .”

“Yes?” I turned to give him my full attention while Max and Lily continued chatting quietly.

“I think it’s cool that you want to read for my film, but you’re a different type than Mary.”

“I’m versatile,” I assured him.

“You heard her résumé,” John said to Ted. “That’s some range. She’d be great in Mary’s part.”

I smiled at him.

“Yeah, but Mary is, you know, a Betty,” said Ted, with a doubtful glance at me. “The actress in this role needs to be really hot.”

“Esther’s really hot.” John added to me, “No disrespect intended.”

“No problem.” I appreciated John’s support, but I hadn’t taken offense at Ted’s comment. This was business, not personal, and actors need to know what people see when they look at us. My looks are all right, but I’m no Hollywood bombshell. On the other hand, I also knew that what Ted was seeing right now was an incomplete picture. I didn’t have any of my headshots with me, and I certainly wasn’t dressed for an audition—let alone to try out for the role of a “really hot” love interest.

So I said to Ted, “Look, I came here through sleet and snow, at the end of a long day of pounding the pavement, and then I wound up in the middle of your aunt’s violent brawl with a hooker and a corpse. So you’re not seeing me at my most attractive. Put me in good makeup and hair, with the right clothes, and I can play a Betty.” And when I did my reading for him, I would convince him by showing up dressed for the role.

“I think you look nice,” said John.

“Well, I suppose I really do need to recast that part,” Ted said unhappily. “Mary says there’s no way she can come back to work. Her broken leg was just one thing too many.”

“I’m not surprised,” John said. “She’s a trooper, but she’s really had a rough time lately.”

“So I guess I should hear you read, Esther,” Ted concluded with unflattering reluctance.

I smiled warmly at him. I wanted work more than I wanted flattery, after all. “Great!”

We agreed to meet late the following afternoon on the set where Ted hoped to resume filming soon. It was a loft on Hester Street, which served as the main character’s apartment in the film.

Then John, who was scanning the crowd, drew in a quick breath. “Look who just arrived.”

Ted followed his gaze, then said with pleasure, “Oh, good, he’s here.”

Other people in the hall were also murmuring about the new arrival, as were members of the Yee family.

Lily paused in her conversation with Max to look in the same direction as everyone else. I noticed that her warm, animated expression suddenly grew cold.

Ted whispered to John, just loud enough for me to hear, “I really need to talk to him.”

Quite curious by now, I watched as the crowd parted to let a short, homely, plump older man in a cheap suit approach the coffin to pay his respects. He bowed three times before Benny with his palms pressed together, then paused at the altar before coming over to greet Grace Yee and her family.

My business with Ted was concluded, so I was reluctant to continue intruding on the family. I tugged on John’s arm to pull him some distance away from them. Max remained with Lily, whose gaze was fixed coolly on the new arrival. It was clear from everyone’s behavior that he was an important man. Grace Yee seemed particularly pleased to see him. Despite her sore leg, she rose from her chair to speak with him.

“Who is he?” I murmured.

“Uncle Six.” John’s answer made me think of Fleming’s Double-Oh-Seven or Star Trek’s Seven-of-Nine.

“Who?”

He smiled. “It’s what people call him. Real name, Joe Ning. He’s head of the Five Brothers tong.”

“Ah.”

“‘Uncle’ is respectful, a way of saying he’s everyone’s benefactor. And six is a good number. It represents wealth, prosperity, and success in business.”

“He doesn’t look wealthy and successful,” I noted.

“He’s one of the most powerful men in Chinatown,” said John. “But he’s traditional. He’s ruthless about maintaining his power, but he doesn’t flaunt his wealth.”

I noticed that Uncle Six was soft-spoken and his manner was humbly courteous. He took time to speak to each member of the Yee family. Due to Max’s proximity to Lily, Uncle Six even made a point of patting Nelli on the head. She accepted this cheerfully, then went back to looking around the room with interest.

When Uncle Six greeted Lily, I was surprised by how friendly she seemed; it was a contrast to the negative way she’d reacted to his arrival. I supposed she didn’t want to slight such an important man, especially not when the rest of the family seemed so pleased by his arrival.

Now that he was closer to us, I could see his features more clearly. His face was chubby and a bit froglike, but there was nothing cute about it. His eyes were too shrewd and intense for that—and also cold, even when he smiled, as he was doing now. Watching him as he spoke with more members of the family, I found it easy to believe that Uncle Six was a ruthless man.

“He’s showing a lot of respect, spending this much time with them,” said John. “It’s a little surprising, since he didn’t like Benny. But it’s good for the family. They’re regaining some of the face they lost when Benny’s girlfriend showed up and Mrs. Yee jumped her. Plus there was this whole thing with a white girl flying through the air and landing on the corpse.”

“You’d have had another body to embalm if I hadn’t done that.”

“True. And killing someone at a wake is such bad manners, the Yees would never be able to regain face if you hadn’t walloped Grace and tackled the girl.”

“I didn’t wallop . . .” I realized he was kidding and rolled my eyes at him. “Anyhow, surely going to prison would have mattered more than losing face?” Having recently been jailed, I had strong feelings on the matter.

“Not around here. Almost nothing matters more than losing face,” John said seriously. “If anything, it’s a custom that’s even stronger in Chinatown today than it was back in the old country. You can survive a prison sentence, or the death of a family member, or anything else as long as you still have face. But without face, life is very tough in Chinatown. And the Yee family is well established, so they have a lot of status to protect. It’s a lot more visible to everyone in the community if they lose face than if a penniless, unknown sweatshop worker with no connections does.”

“Hmm. So maybe Mrs. Yee thought she’d lose more face by letting Benny’s overdressed girlfriend weep over his body in front of all these people than by clobbering the girl in the middle of her husband’s wake,” I suggested.

John smiled and shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe for a few minutes there, Mrs. Yee just wasn’t thinking at all. She’s got a hot temper, after all.”

“So I gathered.” I changed the subject. “By the way, thank you for introducing me to Ted.”

“You’re welcome. I think it would be fun to have you on the film.”

I asked a little more about the Yees and learned that Lily’s late husband, Benny’s younger brother, had died of cancer several years ago, after a long battle with the illness. He had been a successful merchant who’d left Lily a thriving Chinatown souvenir shop that was bequeathed to him by his father—who had cut Benny out of his will for being involved in the criminal world.

It seemed like a complicated family. But as John had said, most things in Chinatown were complicated.

Uncle Six finished paying his respects to the Yee family, then started to mingle with the crowd. He was obviously very well-known around here. I saw Danny Teng approach him and, from then on, stick to him like a burr, which the old man accepted as if accustomed to it. But I also saw perfectly respectable-looking people warmly greet and chat with Uncle Six, and I recalled what John had said about the complex nature of Chinatown’s tongs.

Ted joined me and John then, and the three of us talked a little about his movie. It was called ABC and was the story of Brian, a young man trying to find his own path as a first-generation American in a Chinese immigrant family. His conflict was represented by his attraction to two very different women: Mei, a FOB (Fresh Off the Boat) immigrant living and working in Chinatown, who represented the Old World that Brian found restrictive; and Alicia, a modern American woman who represented the New World and freedom.

I made sure that “freedom” did not mean I’d be expected to take off my clothes.

Ted assured me it wasn’t that kind of movie.

“It’s about ideas and culture, identity and meaning, old values and new temptations.” After a moment, he added, “There are a couple of love scenes, though. That’s okay, right?”

I started to say that it was absolutely fine, as long as certain private parts of my body remained private; but I closed my mouth when I saw Lily approaching us. Max accompanied her, with Nelli at his side.

Lily asked Ted to go find his sister. “It is time to go home.”

Ted said, “Actually, I want to stay a little longer and see if I can talk some more to—”

“We are leaving now, Ted,” Lily said firmly. “Please tell Susan, and then get our coats.”

Ted sighed, said he’d see me tomorrow, and then went off to do as he was told.

Max said to me, “Perhaps we should also depart, Esther.”

I nodded, and John offered to give us a lift home, which we accepted; the hearse was a very convenient way to transport Nelli.

Max turned to Lily and took her hand in a courtly gesture. “It has been a great pleasure to meet you, Lily, and I hope we meet again soon.”

“I hope so, too,” she said with a smile. “You have been very kind.”

We said our goodnights, then made our way to the private back rooms again, where Lucky was waiting to confer with us. After we recounted the evening’s events to him—he’d heard some of the shouting and wondered what was going on—we discussed possible murder suspects.

“You met Danny Teng?” John said to me with a grimace. “I feel like I should apologize to you for that, since it happened in my family’s place of business.”

“Yes, normally a girl has to go into an alley after dark to meet someone like him,” I replied.

“Who is this guy?” Lucky asked with a frown.

“Dai lo of the Red Daggers,” said John.

“Dai lo?” I repeated.

“Gang leader.” John added, “Literally it means ‘big brother.’”

“The Red Daggers.” Lucky nodded. “I heard of them. Bunch of street punks with matching tattoos. Always in a lotta messy trouble. They’re enforcers for the Five Brothers. So, comin’ to Benny’s wake, that guy’s probably just paying his respects, like a good soldier.”

“Probably,” John agreed. “There were other Red Daggers there, too, but they stayed out in the lobby. My father, who’s a braver man than I am, asked them not to come into the visitation room. I think he said their attire might insult the family, or something like that. He’s an elder, so he got away with it, and they stayed out there. But, obviously, he couldn’t ask their dai lo not to come inside and pay his respects directly to the deceased. Danny would lose face, and that wouldn’t be forgiven.”

“This ‘face’ thing really complicates life,” I said.

“You bet,” said John.

“Yes, but having social credit—in other words, maintaining face—is crucial, because social relationships have been the central structure of Chinese society for thousands of years,” Max said, speaking up for the first time since we’d taken our seats in here. He had been unusually quiet and obviously distracted, which I attributed to Lily Yee’s mysterious influence. “The family, the clan, and the community in Chinese society are much more important than the individual. And people in China survived centuries of warring states, civil wars, volatile warlords, foreign invasions, unjust rulers, and colonial domination by relying on their social and personal relationships—rather than on laws or government—for protection, justice, and mutual aid.”

John nodded. “Traditionally, that’s how Chinatown has always functioned, too.”

I was pleased to see Max behaving more like his usual self, so I didn’t interrupt as he continued lecturing—which he was prone to do.

“Therefore, if one person loses face or is dishonored, it doesn’t reflect only on him, but on the whole social fabric in which he is merely one thread. His family, his clan, his guild or brotherhood—any or all of these will endure shame because of his shame. Thus their influence will be reduced and their position damaged in all their social relationships, making them vulnerable and weak, diminishing and even endangering them.” Max said pensively, “It’s a strong enough system to have worked effectively for many centuries, but it is not an easy way of life.”

“And tonight Esther helped the Yee family save face,” John said with a smile, lightening the mood, “when she prevented Grace Yee from committing murder at her own husband’s wake.”

“Good work, kid,” Lucky said to me. “I been to two funerals where someone got whacked before the stiff was even in the ground. I just hate it when that happens. People oughta show more respect for the dead.”