“It’s not Cheng’s, is it?”
“No.”
“He came several times.”
I had nothing to say. Our talk at the inn had been the last conversation between us.
She frowned. “Did you tell him?”
“No.”
Peiyu sighed. “Who else knows about this?”
“Only Sinmay. Before he left.”
“Ying?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Cheng’s mother?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You should marry Cheng. You can tell him it’s his. He won’t know.”
“Of course he’ll know.”
She threw up her hands. “What’s wrong with the Shaos? Your brother ran away to an American, and you’re pregnant with a foreigner’s seed. Don’t you have a sense of shame?”
Tears stung my eyes. I looked away.
“What are you going to do with the baby?”
I looked down at my stomach, and I wanted to cry my eyes out. All these months of misery, loneliness, and fear, mulling over jumping from the wall, crying myself to sleep, and watching my slim body turn into an ugly barrel covered with stretch marks and dark spots were not enough. I still needed a plan for a baby whom I didn’t care for. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Yes, you will. Because I can’t help you. I have six kids already. Everyone is hungry; the whole household wants to eat. I can’t do it all. If you’re going to stay here, you’ll take care of your own problem. You’ll give away the baby.”
I jerked. “You can’t mean that. Would you abandon your own?”
“You don’t get to ask me this question. You were engaged to a wealthy man, but you got pregnant with another man’s baby. If your mother were alive, she would have asked you to jump in the well.” She left my room.
I had a splitting headache. I didn’t want to have anything to do with this new life. But it would be despicable to give away a child of your own. Yet it would be despicable to live with this child, too.
67
ERNEST
He kept Miriam’s ashes in a jar near his bed. Each evening before he slept, he read a few words from the Webster dictionary like a prayer. A diligent student, Miriam had underlined many difficult words and made notes within the margins. Tears pouring down his cheeks, he traced the handwriting, thinking of her voice, her broad bony shoulders, her head hidden in the hood, and her lively, happy face in the bakery.
There was nothing else he could do other than work. He rose at four o’clock, ate a piece of bread with peanut butter spread and drank soy milk and cheap watermelon juice, and before dawn, he was supervising the baking, wrapping up loaves of bread, and checking the balance sheet. Work was good for him; it took his mind off Miriam.
But grief was a fat bread dough. You punched it down; it still rose up. When Sigmund talked about Miriam, Ernest teared up. When he saw the bike she rode, he broke down. He grew reticent, incapable of comprehending people’s questions, angry at other people’s smiles. All he thought of was his negligence that had cost Miriam’s life; all he saw was the absence of her.
He should have let her go with Mr. Blackstone.
At seven o’clock, Ernest went to bed, exhausted. Sometimes he slept well; sometimes sleep was hard to come by. Loneliness was a fair punishment, yet he wanted Aiyi—her soft hands, her teasing smile, her flowing voice like a spring stream. He wanted to see her put on her high heels, to touch those soft calves, to run his fingers over her naked body.
He slept less and less. And then he couldn’t sleep at all.
He washed his face in a basin, trimmed his stubble, and snipped off his knotty, shoulder-length hair. Then he stuffed all his possessions in his suitcase, locked up the room, and walked away.
In his bakery, he hung up a curtain in a corner near the kitchen and moved a table there. He could afford a large office or move into one of the apartments he’d purchased, but he felt more at home in the bakery; this, after all, had been Miriam’s favorite place in Shanghai.
One evening, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Ernest. Look at you. Are you sick?” Golda said.
It was quiet in the bakery; it was probably two hours after midnight. The workers were dozing off, catching some sleep. He stood up. “No. What time is it?”
She stood in front of him, wearing a red cotton skirt. Her hand traced his chest. He had not buttoned his oxford shirt to keep cool, and now he could feel her hot fingers and smell her scent. She untied his belt; she kissed him.