Maybe she was hungry. I was hungry too. I found the tin can where Peiyu stored rice. There were only a few grains inside. I threw them all in a pot and set it on the charcoal stove. It occurred to me I needed to start the fire. I had never cooked rice before.
I squatted in front of the stove, threw a match in the furnace, stabbed at some bits of coal, and began to fan the air with my hand. For a long moment the furnace showed no movement. My arms grew sore. But there were still no sparks. I got down on all fours and blew inside the furnace; a blaze shot up and licked my face and hair.
I screamed, and the imp, who was whimpering and hiccupping, began to cry again.
“Stop crying! I told you to stop crying. I’m sick of you.” The flame had burned my bangs, but the coal was burning brilliantly in the furnace. I checked the pot. I didn’t know how long it would take to cook. My stomach was painful with hunger.
After a while I smelled something burning. I picked up the lid. The rice had turned into a layer of black tar. No one had told me to add water to the pot.
I kicked the stove in frustration. What I would have done for the food I used to have and didn’t appreciate: the jelly-like bird nest, the sweet rice ball soup with red dates, the fragrant tea eggs.
It was finally quiet. I looked around. The imp had disappeared. I had forgotten to lock the gate. I searched in the alleyway; she wasn’t there. I went to the street. Under the gray sky, a group of jugglers in costumes were playing in front of an apothecary; near them a barber was cutting a man’s hair and a cobbler filed a wooden shoe. Then I saw Little Star’s sweater in the street among rickshaws and marching Japanese soldiers. She was crying again, and a rickshaw stopped beside her; from inside, a man in a fedora reached out.
“Put her down! Put her down!” I raced across the street and plucked her out of the man’s hands. Carrying her in my arms, I rushed back to the alley, into the courtyard, and locked the gate, my heart pounding. Had I been a few minutes later, she would have been gone. I was not a good person, I realized. I was selfish and pampered, and I cared for myself more than others—more than a child.
I put her down and lowered myself to her level. She had Sinmay’s nose and chin. Even though her face was smudged with tears and dirt and kerosene, her black eyes twinkled. Then, her lips flattening, she began to cry again. Such a small thing, with so much sadness.
I picked up the pot and scraped its bottom with my nails. When a black, crispy piece came off, I picked it out and gave it to her.
She stuffed it in her mouth and swallowed without chewing, her eyes watering.
“Slowly,” I said, and scraped again. Some hard pieces pierced into my nails. I switched to my left hand. “I’m your aunt, Little Star. Do you remember? Your mom will come to get you soon. Until then, I’ll take care of you, and you won’t run away from me, you promise?”
She stared at me, her eyes calm like precious black jade.
“You promise?”
“Ai.”
I bent to wipe off a bit of the burned rice stuck in the corner of her mouth.
We needed food. I took Little Star to the market. I had never shopped for food before—I’d only stepped in the market when I was five with a servant. The market had been a spectacle, with strings of raw meat hanging on ropes, rows of stalls displaying goat heads, buckets of black pig blood, live fish with white bellies, and straw trays with dried squid. But the market near Peiyu’s stone-arch-gate room had only two vegetable stalls selling cauliflower and cabbage and only one meat stall. When I tried to get goods with my signature—the Shaos had always signed with a signature and paid at the end of the month—the vendors laughed at me.
Left with no choice, I took a trip to three pawnshops to sell my mink coat and jewelry. I haggled and bartered, using my businesswoman’s skill, fighting for every penny, only to see thirty new fabi in my hands. I managed to use them to buy two cups of rice.
Each day Little Star cried in hunger; each day I heard my stomach growl. I pawned all my jewelry and my dresses to keep her fed. But the prices of food skyrocketed due to the shortages. A carrot cost fifty new fabi, for which I had pawned a gold necklace, and a cup of rice was equivalent to a jade vase. The Japanese had rations for salt, rice, coal, and soybeans, and we the locals scrambled for whatever could be found.
I went to look for a job. My nightclub was now owned by a Chinese man who licked the Japanese boots, and Ciro’s by a group of gangsters. I went to Ciro’s. Inside the smoky lobby, I joined the dancers in tightly fitted red dresses. When I went to see the man in charge, a man with a gold tooth, he glanced at Little Star in my arms. “If you want to work, leave the tyke home. She’ll turn off customers.”