“They’re using these investigations as an excuse to deport Chinese,” Lily’s mother explained. “They took his papers, so now he has no record of his citizenship. And he has family in China—you have family in China. You’ve never met them, but that doesn’t mean anything to the FBI. And you were at the picnic, even if you had no idea who the Man Ts’ing are. It doesn’t look good.”
“But . . . they’ll give him back his papers once they realize he hasn’t done anything wrong, won’t they? They can’t deport him, can they?” Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. Every so often Lily overheard talk in Chinatown about how so-and-so had been interrogated by the immigration service, or was about to be sent back to China because they had come here under false documents. And she remembered Aunt Judy talking about how the FBI had detained the Chinese-born founder of the Jet Propulsion Lab under suspicion of Communist ties, even though he had supported the United States during the war.
“All we can do is cooperate with them,” her mother said. “I’m trying to persuade him to sign the statement.”
“What will happen if he doesn’t?” She instantly wished she hadn’t asked; she felt as if saying it out loud would make it come true.
Her mother looked worried. “Let’s not think about that now. What we need to do is make sure we show we’re a proper American family—because we are. That means you study hard, and you don’t have anything to do with the Man Ts’ing.” Her mother stood up. “I’m going to get Frankie, and after Eddie comes home I’m going to talk to both of them about this. You focus on your homework.”
Her mother paused in the doorway and added, “If you suspect that Shirley or any of your friends are still involved with that group, you tell me right away.”
She thought about how Shirley had denied being interested in Calvin. She wondered whether Shirley knew about the Communist connection. The possibility was unsettling.
“Lily, will you tell me?”
She looked up at her mother and said, “I will.”
—1931
Japan invades Manchuria.
—1932
Joseph Hu arrives in San Francisco to attend the Stanford School of Medicine.
—Sept. 23, 1934
GRACE WING meets her future husband, Joseph Hu.
—1936
Grace Wing marries Joseph Hu.
Chinese graduate student Hsue-shen Tsien joins the “Suicide Squad,” a group of rocket scientists at the California Institute of Technology.
—1937
Lily Hu （胡麗麗） is born.
Japan invades China.
—1940
Edward Chen-te Hu （胡振德） is born.
—1941
United States enters World War II.
GRACE
Twenty Years Earlier
The first time Grace Wing noticed him, she accidentally caught his eye while she was waiting to pour herself a cup of coffee in the fellowship hall after the Sunday service. He was standing halfway across the room, eating a sandwich. He didn’t look like the other Chinese men she knew. His shiny black hair had a Clark Gable–like wave at the front, and he wore a gold signet ring on the little finger of his right hand. She thought he was handsome.
When their eyes met, he was still chewing, and Grace was embarrassed to be caught watching. She turned away immediately, wondering who he was. She didn’t think she had seen him during the service. She focused on fixing her cup of coffee, pouring in extra milk and two spoonfuls of sugar, and then took her time selecting a sandwich for herself. As she settled on egg salad on white bread, Mrs. B. Y. Woo waylaid her to ask advice about an ailment she had been experiencing. Grace was only a twenty-two-year-old nursing student, but Mrs. Woo always enjoyed sharing her complaints while Grace listened sympathetically and offered suggestions for treatment, which Mrs. Woo inevitably refused because she didn’t trust Western medicine. Grace was about to launch into her advice when Reverend Hubbard came over to greet them. That wasn’t surprising, but he also had the strange new man in tow. He had finished his sandwich, but Grace noticed a stray crumb clinging to the lapel of his gray flannel suit. Her fingers itched to brush it off.
“Miss Wing, Mrs. Woo, I want to introduce you to one of our newcomers,” Reverend Hubbard said. He was a middle-aged Caucasian man with a balding pate; the skin of the top of his head was particularly bright and shiny that day. “This is Mr. Joseph Hu, newly arrived from China. Mr. Hu is a medical student at Stanford. Miss Grace Wing is a nursing student, so you have something in common.”