Apartment H was the only red door on the eighth floor, all the others painted a deep brown that suited the tan carpet and dark Taiwanese marble lining the corridor. Red was the color of luck, but behind the door the possessions of the old man were spread out to create the image of a private bordello.
The condo unit had a small living room with a closet bedroom stuck to it and a kitchenette squeezed into the corner. Positioned on the glass end tables and etagere shelves of the living room were assorted mini-pagodas, orange trees, dragon figurines and octagonal bot kwa, I Ching charms to fend off malevolent spirits and the breath of ill fortune. A small bowl of goldfish on a stand faced northeast, a red futon couch stood beneath the picture window, a double-happiness printed loveseat filled the remaining corner.
There was a smiling Buddha Kitchen God above the refrigerator, a lucky calendar behind the front door.
From the bedroom came the cadenced voice of Chinatown radio, the Wah Kite station reporting weather, time, news. A queensized bed filled the bedroom, covered with rose-colored sheets, the faint scent of Chanel on the pillows. Japanese Vogue, Rendezvous, Hong Kong movie star magazines had fallen from the edge of the bed to the floor. A statuette of Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, stood on the windowsill, just above the mirrored dresser covered with jewel-box chinoiserie. Draped on top of a leather ottoman was an Hermes scarf, vividly printed with Buddhist pilgrims, prayer wheels, a stupa, the heavenly Elements of the Universe. Prayers floating in the wind.
Mona, in silky yellow lingerie, stirred beneath the sheets, awoke, roused herself from the bed, moved like a cat across the bedroom, past the kitchenette, then parted the sliding red curtains at the balcony which looked out over Henry Street, eight flights above the noise of bridge trucks and the Kwik-Park garage below. She poured a rice bowl of water into the small pots of jade and evergreen plants that faced to the northwest: good fungseui, harmony with Nature. She had hoped that the various talismans, and her prayers to the Goddess of Mercy, could change her fate.
But her worst demon entered anyway. Uncle Four had the key, owned the apartment, came through the front door.
When she looked out on the street, she could see ghetto detritus on the blackened rooftops below, discarded mattresses and dismembered plastic dolls, tattered laundry drying across telephone wires. In the alleyways lay the carcasses of gutted refrigerators, air conditioners.
Once she saw a black man on top of a woman, doggy style.
The billboard above the China Plaza read:
LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS VIEW OF RIVER, AND CHINATOWN.
It was early morning, a dead gray light. She brewed up a cup of Ti-Kuan Yin, Iron Goddess, spilled some ginseng into it, went over and sat in the red futon by the window. She closed her robe and stared ahead into the far distance, beyond the rooftops and the bridges, into the smog-colored sky.
Her fingers moved back and forth over a small jade charm clutched within her closed right hand, working it like a rosary. She contemplated freedom and death and the tao, the way of her life.
Jade Tao De Ching
The white jade octagon, a bot kwa, an I Ching talisman, was the size of a fat nickel. It nestled neatly in the soft of her palm, dangling from the flat gold Chanel bracelet on her wrist. She caressed it with the tip of her ring finger.
The jade was a translucent mutton-bone white, with a cool vitreous luster that in hard sunlight revealed tiny veins and serpentine, twisting fibers of a smoky-yellow hue. Not Shan, nor Chou, nor Ming dynasty. Quality jade, but not rare. Worthless compared to some of the pieces of jade Uncle Four had given her. But it had come from her mother, her only memento, and had touched three generations of the women of her family. It was her mother's soul.
On its flat sides, in bas-relief, were symbols of the Eight Trigrams. Yin and Yang together representing the Eight Elements of the Universe: Heaven, Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Thunder, Mountain, Lake.
She dragged a red fingernail across one side. Water over thunder. Not propitious to advance, wait and seek help. In the center of the charm she felt the two embryonic snakes chasing each other's tail, forming the forever-changing symbol of the Yin Yang, harmony of the cosmic breath.
She was able to read each symbol, Braille-like, in a single passing of her finger. Then she'd stack the Trigrams in her mind, forming Hexagrams, prophecies, from the I Ching or Book of Changes. Her fingernail slid down. Heaven over Earth. Time of big loss, small gain. Untrustworthy people. Evil comes forth. She flipped the charm, felt for the reverse symbols on the back side.
She felt weary.
Thunder over Earth. Oppression, chaos drains the spirit. Auspicious to appoint helpers. Preparation for action.
Her gaze came back into the apartment, into the faint light. She thumbed the remote toward the cable television, refreshed the Iron Goddess tea with the rest of the vial of ginseng, and saw the words Black Cat take shape from the snow on the screen. Maggie Kahn starring as the Female Assassin. The legend of Fa Mulan came to mind. If the woman warrior could ride into battle against a warlord army, surely she, Mona, could find the resolve to secure freedom from and vengeance against one corrupt old man. She sipped the brew and thought about recruiting help.
Johnny Wong
She knew the type, a young man with a hustler's good looks, always on the move. Waiting for the right dai gajeer, big sister, to come along. She'd seen them plenty in TsimSha Cheui, working the disco circuit in the soo-ga momie pipeline. Uneducated youths working hard at pretending they were international playboys.
Despite the fact that she depended on them, Mona hated men, all men. They were mongrels, stray dogs, attack dogs, bloodhounds. Men wanted one thing only: her most precious part, her sex. They wanted to possess her for a short time, then discard her for someone younger. And there was always someone younger. Except for Johnny, the driver, who had asked for nothing and expected nothing, all the other men in her life had purchased her time, bought her body, played with her mind.
Nothing for nothing, that was the lesson she'd learned a lifetime ago, halfway around the world in Hong Kong, when at fourteen years of age, the Triads had forced her to sell her body to repay her father's gambling debts. When her mother found out, she cursed her husband, then immediately suffered a heart attack. Mona never forgot that extra week in the seedy brothel, on her back, to pay for the funeral.
Her mother's curse came true. In the end, they killed her father anyway, those evil men with snake tattoos and black hearts.
By the time Uncle Four came to Hong Kong, almost three years ago, Mona had been promoted to China City, the big nightclub on Kowloon where hundreds of siu jeer, young ladies, sold themselves while seeking overseas American Chinese with the promise of green cards. She and Uncle Four discovered they had roots in the same province in China, and that had served as convenient-enough excuse for her to follow him to New York City, overstay her visa, and disappear underground.
At first, all had gone well with this older man, at sixty, some thirty years her senior. Although he was married, Uncle Four provided her with the clean co-op apartment, food, fun money for clothes and personal expenses. In return she accompanied him only at night-twice, three times a week-a decoration on his arm that he liked to show off in the gambling houses and karaoke nightclubs.