Soon Qin Siyu began his volunteer work at the hospital.
He went there every day, helping out in the emergency department.
Of course, since he was volunteering, Qin Siyu needed to earn a good evaluation.
He brought a gift for everyone. This hospital did treat an ethnic minority like him relatively well. Plenty of people liked him, and he could cooperate with most of them. Most were friendly, or at least outwardly polite. But he could also feel that a few were less than welcoming, much as at school.
He could overlook the others. The problem was that the attending surgeon was also prejudiced against him. Not blatantly so, but he seemed to assume Chinese people lacked decisiveness and creativity and were suited only to working hard without thinking. In his eyes, they weren’t fit to become doctors. That was a headache.
He saw far too much during his time at the hospital.
One night, a man was brought in. He had turned on the gas at home, covered himself with a blanket, and lain down in bed, wanting to die in his sleep. He had been unemployed for two years, looked for work every day, and come home bitterly disappointed every day. The cycle seemed endless.
The medical staff revived him with an oxygen mask, and Qin Siyu cared for him.
The moment he awoke, the man’s face was full of despair. He whispered, “I’m so useless… I can’t manage a single thing… I can’t even die…”
Qin Siyu brought him a blanket. He didn’t know what to say, so he simply bent down, tucked in all its edges with great care, and said, “I heard the thick fog is supposed to clear tomorrow morning… We’ll be able to see a very blue sky.”
San Francisco’s summers were always shrouded in thick fog, damp and chilly, and this summer was no different. But word was that the fog would clear the next morning, the wind would stop, and the following week would bring clear skies, blue ocean, and brilliant sunshine.
Qin Siyu vaguely felt that the Great Depression would eventually end. But for many Americans, the damage it did to their minds might last a lifetime.
Americans believed in hard work and the American Dream. The traditional American view held that if you worked hard you could live well. When the Depression left people unable to earn money or support their families, they blamed themselves deeply. They examined their own faults again and again, always thinking they must be to blame. That heavy doubt and inferiority might follow an entire generation for life.
Now, compared with Hoover, Roosevelt was at least continually telling the people that it wasn’t their fault. At the very least he showed some humanity, rather than nothing but the arrogance of class.
As the months passed, more people found it impossible to believe that everything was their own fault. They had seen too much: an old neighbor who hadn’t been late for work in thirty years losing his job; a restaurant owner who rose at five every morning drowning in debt; enormous harvests raised with a year’s labor rotting in the fields. Something must be wrong with the country. Shame and anger often existed together. Sometimes people felt the problem must lie in themselves. That thought was terribly painful, yet at least it preserved hope, because they could imagine that diligence might still change the future. At other times, after blaming themselves over and over until they were nearly crushed, anger surged to the surface again.
The man said, “Roosevelt said he’d save us. That he’d give us jobs… But I still don’t have one.”
“…” Qin Siyu said softly, “The Public Works Administration was established this month. They say it’s going to employ two and a half million people. But those public works projects are huge, and preparing them takes time. Maybe… maybe we could wait a little longer and see?” All he could do was reassure the man that things would improve. But in truth, who knew?
Fortunately, the man seemed to need only someone who would say something hopeful. He covered his eyes with one arm. “…Mm.”
There was also a man who had worked sixteen hours straight and caught an arm in a machine. Blood spread everywhere, and his screams were terrible.
The nurses said they saw cases like his every month. Roosevelt was trying to limit working hours to increase employment and consumption. Who knew whether it would work?
Some children were so malnourished they were terribly thin and weak.
And there was a girl. She appeared to be Filipino. She’d had a white boyfriend and become pregnant, then developed an infection after an abortion at an unlicensed clinic. Her uterus had been perforated.
Her face was pale and her pulse rapid. Perhaps because they were both Asian, she gripped Qin Siyu’s hand desperately before being wheeled into surgery and begged, “Please call my boyfriend… call him…”
So Qin Siyu called. But the girl’s white boyfriend said indifferently, “We’re just ordinary classmates.” “I don’t know why she’d say it was me.”
Chinatown had seen plenty of cases in which a woman was abandoned by the white boyfriend who had gotten her pregnant.
Qin Siyu said, “Her operation is extremely dangerous. Are you really not going to come see her?”
But the man asked, “What are her chances of surviving?”
Qin Siyu repeated the figure the doctor had given him. “Seventy-five percent.”
The other man actually became angry. “You call that ‘extremely dangerous’?! Are you trying to mess with me?!”
“…” Qin Siyu silently hung up.
He realized the man wanted his girlfriend to die. That way, nobody would ever discover he’d dated an Asian girl and gotten her pregnant at sixteen while she was unmarried. He wouldn’t have to suffer the collapse of his social standing.
A chill ran through Qin Siyu’s whole body.
The girl eventually regained consciousness, but she had lost the ability to bear children.
She asked Qin Siyu, “Where’s my boyfriend?”
Qin Siyu could only tell her, “I don’t know… I called, but the person who answered said I had the wrong number.”
The girl said nothing. She only turned her head quietly and looked out the window.
“Would you…” Qin Siyu asked gently, “like me to call your family or a friend?”
She said nothing, only shook her head.
Qin Siyu felt she must be crying. He took out a towel, dampened it, and handed it to her. She accepted it without speaking. After a while, she covered her face with the towel and began sobbing loudly.
Qin Siyu thought for a moment and drew the curtain, so nobody outside could see her. Then he tidied everything around her. Both her shoes had been tossed aside. He retrieved them and placed them neatly in front of her bed. He folded all her clothes and laid them in a tidy stack. He filled her cup with warm water and lined up the medicine containers, each label facing outward.
When he’d finished, Qin Siyu left her quietly.
Perhaps when a person was sad, having everything clean and orderly might make them feel a little better, might remind them that life was still going on.
Volunteering at the hospital was full of tedious, exhausting tasks. The pressure was heavy, both physically and mentally. Having only just started, Qin Siyu often felt as though a string had been pulled painfully taut inside his head.
Fortunately, June 27 was the Dragon Boat Festival, and Chinatown would have some celebrations. Qin Siyu invited Aston to wander around with him.
Elio’s Notes: The novel places this Dragon Boat Festival celebration on June 27, 1933, which fell on the fifth day of a leap fifth lunar month. In the regular fifth lunar month, the fifth day fell on May 28, 1933, the usual date for the festival. The author’s June date has been retained. Sources: 1933 Chinese lunar calendar and festival dating in leap-month years.
Naturally Aston was happy to go.
The air was fragrant with the leaves used to wrap zongzi. Restaurants, teahouses, and pastry shops were all selling Cantonese rice dumplings. Mugwort and sweet flag hung above the doors of some businesses.
Qin Siyu explained the Dragon Boat Festival to the man beside him. “In summer, southern China is prone to what people used to call ‘miasma,’ which was really infectious disease. So historically, on this day before summer began, people would pray for blessings, drive away evil influences, and ask the Dragon God to protect them. Then, two thousand years ago, there was a man named Qu Yuan…” He chattered on about the story. “That gave the holiday another layer of cultural meaning. In Guangdong, the biggest event on the day is dragon-boat racing. I’ve never seen a dragon boat myself… I hear it’s very lively.”
After explaining the history, he pointed toward a pastry shop. “And people eat zongzi for the festival. See, those things there. My family makes them, too.”
“Are they good?” Aston asked.
“Very good,” Qin Siyu replied.
A white man walking through this neighborhood naturally attracted attention, especially one as conspicuous as Aston, who drew eyes even outside Chinatown.
Aston discovered that many people here knew Qin Siyu. Every so often, someone called, “A-Yu!” or “Sean!”
Qin Siyu smiled at them, exchanged greetings, and chatted with his usual ease. Each person’s eyes shifted to Aston, some staring openly, others studying him more discreetly. Qin Siyu explained, “He’s my classmate. I brought him to have a look around today.”
Aston nodded slightly each time, only to receive another flurry of curious glances. Some young women blushed as they looked at him.
Of course, for the Dragon Boat Festival there were five-colored cords.
A crowd had gathered at a stall where people were braiding them.
Qin Siyu pulled the man beside him over. A pretty girl was teaching everyone how to braid the cords. Qin Siyu took strands of red, green, yellow, white, and black and followed along.
He meant to become a doctor, and his fingers had always been deft. The bracelet he made was almost as beautiful as his teacher’s. He pulled Aston aside. “Here, put this on.”
Aston held out his hand. His fingertips almost reached the buttons of Qin Siyu’s shirt.
Qin Siyu gently fastened the five-colored cord around Aston’s wrist, then adjusted it.
The tendons and veins in Aston’s wrist stood out clearly. Blood surged through them, climbing up along his arm.
As Qin Siyu adjusted the cord, his fingertips inevitably brushed the skin of Aston’s wrist. He lightly hooked his two fingertips on either side of the tendons. Aston’s fingers curled immediately, almost by reflex, then slowly opened again.
Aston raised his eyes to Qin Siyu.
Qin Siyu looked back.
Every time he looked into those blue eyes, his thoughts seemed to stop.
He froze where he stood, unable to move, to breathe properly, or even to speak, like a person drowning.
He lowered his eyes again, took Aston’s hand quite naturally, turned it over, and adjusted the position of the cord on the back of his wrist.
Aston had large knuckles. The combination of the five bright colors and his skin created an unusual effect.
Qin Siyu had never imagined that the first wrist on which he would tie a five-colored cord for someone else would belong to a hand like this.
Large, strong, and cool-white. A man’s hand. A white man’s hand.
“What does this cord mean?” Aston asked.
Qin Siyu laughed. “Long life again.”
Aston shook his head.
A traditional Chinese medicine clinic had set up a stall, too, teaching people to make fragrant sachets.
“These are supposed to ward off evil as well,” Qin Siyu said. “Come on, let’s make a sachet.”
Doctor Huang’s daughter from the clinic was guiding everyone. First, she asked them to draw their desired shape on a sheet of white paper. Qin Siyu drew a perfect circle.
Then he placed the fabric beneath the paper and cut it to shape, leaving a few millimeters around the edge for the seam.
Qin Siyu picked up some mugwort leaves and put them inside. “To ward off evil.”
Next came a little realgar. “This wards off evil, too.”
With his head bowed and the back of his neck as elegant as a swan’s, he put each ingredient inside. “All of it wards off evil.”
Now it was time to stitch the sachet closed.
He sewed dense, neat stitches one after another, closed the opening, inserted and secured a silk cord at the seam, and finally threaded two translucent agate beads onto the cord. The sachet was beautiful.
Naturally, after weighing the sachet in his hand, Qin Siyu wanted to smell it. Aston especially had never smelled anything like it.
But unexpectedly, the two of them lowered their heads and leaned toward it at the same instant.
They also stopped at the same instant, only a few centimeters apart.
Their noses and lips were already very close. Qin Siyu lowered his eyes and observed Aston’s nose bridge, its tip, his lips and chin, from a rare angle.
It almost seemed… that they were actually about to touch.
Those lips looked like a temptation.
The tongue behind them beckoned him even more.
He wanted to abandon everything and satisfy those lips and that tongue, to have them welcome him in delight and excitement and twine around his.
Have I gone mad? Qin Siyu thought. I actually want to kiss him here, at the Dragon Boat Festival in Chinatown, right in the middle of the busiest crowd.
They stayed motionless for several seconds, then straightened at the same time.
Qin Siyu held the sachet a little farther forward. Aston sniffed it and said, “It smells like Chinese medicine.”
“Yes.” Qin Siyu drew it back to his own nose. “But it smells lovely.”
There were more stalls farther ahead, selling sugar figurines, molded dough figurines, paper cuttings, and bamboo-woven zodiac animals.
Aston said softly, “Sean, I want one of those.”
Qin Siyu answered immediately, “We’ll buy it!”
He bought himself a rabbit. “I’m a rabbit.”
And for Aston he bought a tiger. “You’re a tiger.”
Aston took it and turned it over and over in his hand, feeling and examining it.
There was also a stall for carving personal seals. The craftsman was well known in Chinatown. In China, his father had been a stonecutter who carved inscriptions on monuments, but an enemy had twisted the meaning of one inscription, accusing him of anti-Qing sentiment. The family had fled overnight, taking their carving tools aboard a Chinese junk bound for America.
“Uncle Chen,” Qin Siyu asked, “can you carve Western names?”
“Of course!” The stallholder looked as though he’d been insulted. “Plenty of Westerners have come to have seals carved!”
“Wonderful. Hmm…” Qin Siyu began choosing stones. “I’ll use this one for mine, and his can use… hmm, this one. Tell me the total when they’re both done, and give us a discount, all right?”
Uncle Chen chose to carve Qin Siyu’s first. He put on his reading glasses, dipped the face to be engraved in a little water, rubbed it back and forth against a whetstone until smooth, and inspected it again for cracks.
He set it aside and designed the characters on white paper. “Seal script?” he asked, then wrote the name in seal script.
“Not necessary,” Qin Siyu said. “Regular script is fine.”
So Uncle Chen drew the design again, showed Qin Siyu, transferred its reverse image to the stone, and began carving stroke by stroke with a tool.
The work took quite a long time, but Aston watched the carving blade the whole time, seeing Qin Siyu’s name gradually emerge.
Qin Siyu held the paper with Uncle Chen’s sketches and explained, “This is called seal script, an ancient form of Chinese writing. Later it developed into the form on the right. Chinese characters are pictographic, you know. Look at the character yu, ‘feather’: originally, it showed two feathers… And look at Qin. Above is a pestle, with two hands beside it, and below are growing grain stalks. It refers to a place where grain grows. The middle character, si, represents a person bending and standing on the ground while holding something up, meaning ‘to serve.’”
Aston listened intently, finding it fascinating.
When he explained the character si, Qin Siyu even cupped his hands toward Aston as if presenting something in service. “Master~”
Aston glanced at him and lightly tapped his fingertips, making him withdraw his hands.
Once the carving was done, Uncle Chen removed the stone dust, adjusted the details, and polished away the burrs. He opened his ink pad, dabbed the seal against it a couple of times, and pressed the square stamp firmly onto paper.
When he lifted it, Qin Siyu’s name appeared in tidy characters, bright, eye-catching red.
Next came Aston’s seal. Qin Siyu wrote down his name, and Uncle Chen prepared the second stone. This time the craftsman was noticeably more careful and cautious, almost afraid to drop it.
Qin Siyu’s stone had a greenish tint. Aston’s was white with a few streaks of red.
Aston said nothing and simply watched.
After “Kingsley Aston” had been carved, Qin Siyu gave the seal to him and explained, “In China, a seal is the most important thing of all. Without the imperial jade seal, even an emperor wouldn’t be recognized. So you must look after yours carefully.”
They each put away their seals, but Qin Siyu took Uncle Chen’s test-printed paper as well.
He was very careful. First he blew on both stamped impressions to dry them.
Aston’s had been stamped last and needed more drying. Qin Siyu held the paper in his hands and lowered his eyes, blowing from the letter K to the Y, then from the A to the N, several times.
Finally he carefully folded the paper in half along the space between the two seals. The two imprints pressed against one another: border against border, characters brushing characters, the two names rubbing together with no space left between them.
Qin Siyu took a book from his briefcase and tucked the folded paper inside.
Aston watched him.
“Let me calculate… Yours is…” Uncle Chen began.
“Uncle Chen,” Qin Siyu interrupted, “just give me the total.”
“Oh.” Uncle Chen did the arithmetic silently. “Ten dollars fifty for both. I’ll make it ten.”
“All right.” Qin Siyu paid the ten dollars without hesitation.
After they’d walked a little farther, Qin Siyu pointed at a long queue. “The rice dumplings there are particularly good. I’ll get some so you can try them.”
“There are so many people,” Aston said with an air of refinement.
“A crowd’s no problem.” Qin Siyu had it all arranged. “Wait over there for me and watch the children playing pitch-pot. It’s pretty entertaining. I’ll find you when I’ve bought them.”
Aston considered it and said politely, “All right, thank you for the trouble.”
“Mm-hmm,” Qin Siyu replied.
When Qin Siyu went to join the queue, Aston waited quietly for a while, watched the pitch-pot game without much interest, then slipped out of the crowd and returned to the seal-carving stall.
“I’d like to ask,” Aston said, pointing to the stone Qin Siyu had used and then the one used for his own seal, “how much are these separately?”
Uncle Chen didn’t speak English. He stared at him blankly.
Aston could only point at the two materials again and repeat himself more slowly.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Uncle Chen was a businessman, after all, and could understand “how much.” He pointed to Qin Siyu’s stone. “This one, the cheapest ordinary Qingtian stone. Fifty cents!”
Then he pointed to Aston’s, spreading both hands to show ten fingers. “This one is the most expensive stone I have. Qinghua white frozen stone. Ten dollars!”
Aston slowly straightened and nodded. “Thank you.”
Just as he’d thought.
After Aston returned and waited for who knew how long, Qin Siyu finally came running back carrying the rice dumplings.
He peeled one open to inspect it, wrapped it again, then opened the other one to check. He handed that one to Aston. “Here. This one has a little more meat.”
Aston looked at him and suddenly said, “Sean.”
“Mm?”
“It looks sticky.” Aston demanded, “Feed me.”
“…” Qin Siyu could only unwrap the dumpling, use the wrapping leaf to protect his fingers, and hold it before Aston’s mouth.
Aston opened his mouth and bit off the pointed tip.
“Is it good?” Qin Siyu asked.
His eyes were bright with anticipation. Aston nodded with great dignity.
He suddenly remembered something.
He must have been about five. Once, at a formal dinner, a broken porcelain plate had injured his hand. He had wanted to find his mother, but Victoria had said, “Kingsley, sit down and behave with composure. What are you doing in front of so many people? A servant will take you away.”
Because his fingers were bandaged, a maid fed him breakfast the following day. But she wasn’t careful, and the oatmeal scalded his mouth. He ran into his mother’s splendid room, hoping she would feed him. By then he had already learned not to report servants’ misbehavior. He merely rushed over and said he wanted his mother to feed him. But Victoria was trying on jewelry. She didn’t even glance at him, her eyes still on the mirror. She said impatiently, “Kingsley, I don’t have time for these trivialities. Be sensible.”
The dumpling wasn’t large, and Aston ate all of it in small bites.
He ate a little at a time, and Qin Siyu unwrapped a little more each time.
Then Qin Siyu ate his own. Aston noticed that he still ate with the same care, even sticking out his tongue to lick every bit of sticky rice from the wrapping leaf, not wasting a single grain.
It really was sticky. As Qin Siyu licked the rice away, his head bobbed a little like a kitten’s.
Farther along, there was a stall where people painted fan faces. Qin Siyu picked up a small round fan, turned its handle through a half-circle, and held it before one eye. “This is called ‘covering the face’ or ‘screening the face.’ People in ancient times often did it. Very reserved. There’s a gesture like it in Cantonese opera.”
Half of his straight nose bridge showed beside the fan, along with one slightly phoenix-shaped eye. His lips were very red.
Aston realized once again that a face could be both handsome and seductively beautiful.
A temporary stage had been erected outside a theater, and Cantonese opera was being performed.
“That’s Cantonese opera,” Qin Siyu said, tugging Aston. “Shall we watch?”
“All right.”
Onstage they were performing The Legend of the White Snake again. Qin Siyu introduced the story to Aston. “It’s how I got to know Professor Brown. He came to watch The Legend of the White Snake back then.”
With its humans and demons, the opera was very appropriate for the Dragon Boat Festival.
White costumes, green costumes, flowing water sleeves. The stage was full of life.
Qin Siyu kept explaining. “They’re not the same… species. So they aren’t allowed to be together. Fahai is trying to separate them.”
When he said the word “species,” Aston’s eyes turned toward him. “And what happens in the end? Do they get together?”
“They do,” Qin Siyu said. “But they’re separated for eighteen years along the way.”
The crowd was so thick Qin Siyu had to lean close to Aston’s ear to explain.
His breath brushed Aston’s ear. Aston felt a prickling tingle as the gentle yet firm words arrived with the warm air. “They do get together.”
Both men were tall, especially Aston, and blocked other people’s view. Qin Siyu pulled him away to the far side of the road so they could watch the stage from a distance.
Every time he took Aston’s hand, Qin Siyu marveled at the differences between their bodies. There really weren’t men this powerfully built among the Chinese people he knew. Even Aston’s palm seemed solid with muscle.
Across the road stood a row of railings along the curb, separating the roadway from the storefronts.
Qin Siyu was tall, but not tall enough to avoid having his view obstructed entirely. Now and then, the tops of people’s heads bobbed past his eyes, especially when they walked with a spring in their step.
He put a hand on the railing, hopped up, and sat on it. Aston remained standing beside him.
Onstage they reached the scene called “The Startling Transformation.” After drinking wine mixed with realgar, Lady White became sluggish and staggered. Then her serpent nature emerged: her voice grew suddenly shrill, she arched her waist backward and swayed as if revealing a snake’s body. Gongs, drums, and string instruments quickened abruptly; her water sleeves flew, while Xu Xian cried out in horror and collapsed.
The audience applauded and cheered. Qin Siyu joined in.
But he lost his balance for a moment and swayed. Afraid he would fall, Aston caught him around the waist.
His fingers closed against Qin Siyu’s side, and Qin Siyu went rigid.
He lowered his hands and gripped the railing again. But Aston didn’t seem to remove his fingers.
He simply kept an arm around him.
“…” Qin Siyu thought: They were always looking for excuses to touch each other.
As though this alone could satisfy them.
Perhaps sensing that Qin Siyu had become distracted and was no longer watching the performance, even though the best part was unfolding, Aston gave his waist a little tickle with his fingertips.
A jolt of electricity flashed to Qin Siyu’s brain. His whole body tingled and went weak, and he almost fell.
The sensation ran down to his toes. Instinctively he wanted to spread his legs wide, but he restrained himself.
The performance onstage was very loud.
As if to show Aston that he would pay attention to the wonderful scene, Qin Siyu raised his hand and patted twice at the back of the hand resting on his waist.
The fingers stopped tickling him.
But they didn’t withdraw.
Under the excuse of “keeping him steady,” Qin Siyu remained held around the waist, as though that were truly all it was, right through to the end of the play.