The Valley of Amazement. Amy Tan

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СКАЧАТЬ might spot my father lurking among the guests. But then I realized my father would not have dared show his face there. My mother would have scratched his eyes out. I looked at the guests and played a game of pretend—imagining one man after another was my father. I picked out the traits I liked—the ones who laughed easily, who wore the best clothes, who received the most respect, who winked at me. And then my eye landed on a man with a pinched and unfriendly expression, and another whose face was so pink he looked like he was about to explode.

      In bed, before falling asleep each night, I imagined different versions of my father: handsome or ugly, well respected or loathed by all. I imagined he had loved me very much. I imagined he never had.

      A MONTH AFTER my eighth birthday, I entered the common room to have breakfast with the Cloud Beauties and their attendants. I went to sit in my usual spot at the table. But I found that the newest courtesan, Misty Cloud, had placed her bottom on my chair. I glowered, and she returned a glance of indifference. She had miniature features set in a plump, round face, which men found attractive for some reason. To me, she had the ugly face of a baby pasted onto the yellow moon.

      “This is my chair,” I said.

      “Oyo! Your chair? Is it carved with your name? Is there an official decree?” She pretended to inspect the arms and legs. “I don’t see your name seal. All the chairs are the same.”

      My temples were beating hard. “It’s my chair.”

      “Anh? What makes you think you’re the only one who can sit here?”

      “Lulu Mimi is my mother,” I added, “and I’m an American like her.”

      “Since when do half-breed American bastards have the same rights?”

      I was shocked. Rage was rising from my throat. Two of the beauties put their palms to their mouths. Snowy Cloud, whom I had liked more than the others, told us to calm down. She suggested we take turns sitting in the chair. I had hoped she would have taken my side.

      I sputtered to Misty Cloud, “You’re a worm in a dead fish ass.” The maids burst into laughter.

      “Wah! The half-breed has such a foul mouth,” Misty Cloud said. She looked around the table to the others. “If she’s not a half-breed, how is it that she looks Chinese?”

      “How dare you say that!” I cried. “I’m American. There’s nothing Chinese about me.”

      “Then why are you speaking Chinese?”

      I could not answer at first, because if I did, I would be speaking in Chinese again and give her the upper hand. Misty Cloud picked up a small oily peanut with her thin pointed chopsticks. “Do any of you know who her Chinese father is?” She popped the peanut into her mouth.

      My hands were shaking with anger, and I was incensed to see how calmly she was eating. “My mother will punish you for saying that.”

      She repeated what I said in a mocking tone, then popped a pickled radish in her mouth and crunched it, without bothering to cover her mouth. “If you are pure white, then all of us must be, too. Isn’t that right, my sisters?” The other beauties and their attendants tried halfheartedly to silence her.

      “You’re a dirty hole!” I said.

      She frowned. “What’s the matter, little brat? Are you so ashamed to be Chinese that you can’t recognize your face in a mirror?”

      The others looked down. Two made sideways glances to each other. Billowy Cloud put her hand on Misty Cloud’s arm and beseeched her to stop. “She’s too young for you to speak of this.”

      Why was Billowy Cloud acting so charitably toward me? Did that mean she believed what Misty Cloud had said? I fell into a cauldron of rage and I pushed Misty Cloud out of the chair. She was too dumbfounded to move for a moment, then grabbed my ankles and pulled me down. I pounded my fists on her shoulders. She grabbed my hair and flung me away from her.

      “Half-breed crazy little bastard girl. You’re no better than any of us!”

      I hurled myself at her and banged the heel of my hand on her nose. Blood gushed from one of her nostrils, and when she wiped at it and she saw her crimson fingers, she threw herself on top of me again and smeared blood across my face. I was screaming epithets and bit her hand. She screamed, and her eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of her sockets. She grabbed me by the neck and was choking me. I struggled to breathe, and in my panic to escape, I punched her in the eye. She jumped up and cried out in horror. I had delivered one of the worst things that could happen to a girl: a black eye. She would not be able to appear at parties for as long as the bruise was visible. Misty Cloud shrieked and lunged at me and slapped my face, vowing she would kill me. The other girls and attendants screamed for us to stop. The menservants rushed in and pulled us apart.

      All at once, everyone fell silent, and the only sounds were Misty Cloud’s curses. It was my mother and Golden Dove. I thought Mother had come to rescue me. But a moment later, I noticed her eyes had gone as gray as knives.

      Misty Cloud cried in a fake way: “She damaged my eye—”

      I put my hand to my neck, as if it hurt. “She almost choked me to death!”

      “I want money for my eye!” Misty Cloud shouted. “I was making more money for you than the others, and if I can’t work until my eye is better, I want the money I would have earned.”

      My mother stared at her. “If I do not give it to you, then what will you do?”

      “I’ll leave and tell everyone that this brat is a half-breed.”

      “Well, we can’t have you going around telling lies simply because you’re angry. Violet, tell her you’re sorry.”

      Misty Cloud gave me a sneer of victory. “What about my money?” she said to my mother.

      Mother turned and left the room without answering her. I followed, puzzled that she had not stood up for me. When we reached her room, I cried, “She called me a half-breed bastard.”

      Mother cursed under her breath. Usually she laughed at people’s insults. But this time, her silence frightened me. I wanted her to quell my fears.

      “Is it true? Am I half-Chinese? Do I have a Chinese father?”

      She turned around and said in a dangerous voice: “Your father is dead. I told you that. Do not talk about this again, not to anyone.”

      I was terrified by the deadness in her voice, by the many fears it put in my heart. What was true? Which was worse?

      The next day, Misty Cloud was gone. She was kicked out, the others said. I felt no victory now, only queasiness that I had inflicted greater harm than I had intended. I knew the reason she was gone. She had spilled the truth. Would she now spread it wherever she went?

      I asked the gatekeeper if he knew where Misty Cloud had gone.

      Cracked Egg was scraping a rusty bolt. “She was too busy spitting insults at your mother to stop on her way out and give me the address of her new house. With that black eye, she might not have anywhere to go for a while.”

      “Did you СКАЧАТЬ