Halfbreed Page 14

  That day a friend looked after Lisa while I drove home to the house I grew up in. Dad had moved back there after we lost the children. I told him that I felt responsible for what had happened to the kids and that I was sorry for all the trouble I’d caused him. I said I was leaving and would never come back. He held me close and said not to blame myself, that it was not my fault because he had failed me more.

  I lay in bed that night and listened to the frogs sing. I thought of my Cheechum, whose strength and comfort I so desperately missed. I couldn’t go to her because I was ashamed. Everything had gone so wrong.

  Chapter 15

  WE STOPPED IN KRISTEN, ALBERTA, early one morning, where Darrel said we would be spending a few days with his sister Bonny and her family, before going on to Vancouver. Bonny was Darrel’s older sister whom I had met at our wedding. I knew she didn’t like or approve of me and I was frightened to death of her. She was very beautiful, very poised and sophisticated, and also very cold. She met us at the station, and as soon as she walked up to us I felt backward, stupid and clumsy. She could always make me feel this way. She never had to say anything. She was happy to see Darrel and Lisa, making a big fuss over them. However she completely ignored me once she had said hello.

  I felt very lonely on our drive to their ranch. The country seemed so barren and unfriendly. There was nothing except miles and miles of grain or grazing cattle, and the wind seemed to blow forever.

  Their home was beautiful—just like Bonny. I met her husband and two children, and realized at once that she made them feel as I did. She criticized her husband and daughter constantly. It seemed they never did anything right. Her two-year-old son was spoiled and allowed to get away with anything.

  Bonny disliked me and didn’t go out of her way to hide the fact from anyone. When she realized I was afraid of electrical appliances she insisted I use them, and made jokes about my fear of them, as well as about all my other shortcomings, to people who visited her. She would tell her daughter to do something, and if Betty made a mistake, would say, “Do you want to end up like Maria?”

  She also did a lot of drinking, and drank liquor like we drank tea at home. Whenever she’d been drinking too much she would insinuate to Darrel that I was after her husband, and Darrel of course believed her.

  Darrel and Bonny left one morning to go to Calgary, and the house seemed to change as soon as they left. It was almost as though we had been prisoners and were finally allowed outside for some fresh air. Bonny returned a couple of days later. She had been drinking and was in a really bad mood. She was no sooner in the house when she told me I was getting out—right away. She said Darrel wasn’t coming back, and that he’d told her she was to have Lisa. She said I’d lost my brothers and sisters because I wasn’t fit to look after them, and she would have no trouble proving I wasn’t fit for Lisa either. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about until she started to throw my clothes outside. When I started to pick Lisa up, she tried to stop me. I lost all control of myself then and struck her. I threatened to kill her if she touched my baby. John finally separated us and got Lisa and me into the car. Bonny was standing outside screaming that I’d ruined her brother’s life, that I was nothing but a dirty Indian Breed. I felt like I was in a nightmare, and if I’d just wake up it would all go away.

  John drove us to the home of some people he knew, and they agreed to hire me as a housekeeper. He gave me fifty dollars, tried to apologize, and finally left. Mrs. Thompson was a good person and I liked her. My work wasn’t hard and I was alone all day. However it wasn’t long before Mr. Thompson started dropping in and trying to get friendly. I knew what would happen if I stayed and so one day I took Lisa and left. I found out later that they had never been able to keep a girl for very long. He would bother the girls, who would either accept his advances and get fired, or walk out.

  I knew no one in the community and I had only twenty-five dollars left of the money John had given me, so I checked into a hotel. I had never looked for a job in my life, so I didn’t have sense enough to look in a paper. I was too shy and scared to go into a store and ask if they needed help, and even if I had, what was I to do with Lisa? I stayed at the hotel till I had no money left, then I asked the hotel man to keep my clothes. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do. I walked around for most of the day with Lisa. She was hungry and crying but I had no food for her except a bottle of milk. I was walking past a restaurant when I saw a sign in the window that said “Waitress Wanted.” I went inside and sat down. An old Chinese man came over and asked me what I wanted. I told him I was looking for a job and had seen his sign. He said he was sorry but he had just hired someone. Lisa was crying, and listening to the old man say he already had someone made me realize that this was it. I didn’t even have enough money for coffee, so I couldn’t stay there. The old man looked impatient while he waited for me to order something. I didn’t know what to do so I started to cry. A young man came out with an old woman and they tried to talk to me, but once I’d started to cry I couldn’t stop. The old man brought me some coffee and gave me a cigarette, and finally I was able to tell them what was wrong. As I talked the young man translated what I said to the woman, who immediately put her arm around me. They took us to the kitchen, and while I had some soup and Chinese food, the woman changed Lisa and fed her. When I was through, Lisa was asleep in a banana crate. The young man said his name was Leonard. He lived here with his mom and dad, and Grandpa Sing. He said I could have the job and live with them. They didn’t have very much, he said, but they wanted me to know I was welcome. The old woman patted my shoulder and smiled and I started to cry again. I’d thought no one gave a damn, and here they were giving me a home, a job, everything.

  The café was open from nine in the morning till midnight, but was not busy except on weekends, when people would come in for Chinese food. Lisa was happy and comfortable in an old highchair in the kitchen, where Mama Sing talked and sang to her all day. I’d never known any Chinese people before. There had been one old man in Kettle River who ran a café. People said he ate cats, had lots of money and was extremely dangerous. They said he’d even killed a man once with a meat cleaver. But these people were kind and happy. Their food was delicious, and their home above the café, although not fancy, was comfortable and cosy. I grew very fond of them, as they did of Lisa and me. They sent money home to relatives in China each month, and I learned they had other children there too. Grandpa Sing told me he was going back to China someday, to die there. He and I became very close. Grouchy as he looked, he was a very fine and gentle man. He taught me to play poker and chess when the café was empty. I often thought of them when I’d gone to bed. They never had company except for Mama Sing’s brother who came once a month to visit them.

  Most of the people who came to the café were friendly enough in a strange kind of way. Sometimes when they were drunk they called them “chinks” or “yellow bastards,” or would say things like, “Hey Sing, this meat tastes like dog. You sure you haven’t been killing any strays?” I knew Grandpa Sing gave many people money when they were down-and-out or just short. He knew he would never be paid back but he continued to do it. Yet those very same people laughed at him and treated him as though he were a nitwit who had no feelings. Many times in my life after I left them, when I was full of hate and bitterness, I’d try to think of Grandpa Sing and make myself remember that there were some good people like him in the world.

  A rodeo cowboy called Bob used to come to the restaurant a lot when he was in town. He was one of the few men who treated Grandpa like a man. He would sit and visit with him or play cards. He asked me several times to go to a movie with him, but I always refused. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go, because I liked Bob, but I was afraid I’d run into Bonny. Kristen was a small town and I knew she’d done a lot of talking about me already. Most of the people believed her and I was aware of the hostility of the women of the town toward m
e. I didn’t want to see her because I didn’t know how to cope with her.

  Finally Mama Sing told me I should go with Bob. She said it wasn’t good for me to stay home all the time. She’d known Bob since he was a boy and he was a good man. When I told her about Bonny she said Bonny didn’t go to movies, so I went. I enjoyed Bob’s company. He was fun to be with, and when he asked me to go to a dance with him the following Friday, I said yes. It had been a long time since I’d danced and even the thought of Bonny couldn’t have kept me away. We arrived at the dance and it was wonderful to be young again and just dance, but it was over all too soon. Bonny arrived with a crowd of people and it was obvious she had been drinking. She saw me and came over. Bob didn’t know anything about our relationship and ended up being caught in the middle of a really bad scene. I never went out with Bob after that. I refused to see or talk to him.

  I started drinking and partying a lot. I figured “What’s the use?”—people believed I was bad anyway, so I might as well give them real things to talk about. Not too long after that Darrel arrived, saying he was sorry and that he wanted us to come back with him. This time everything would be different. I said yes. I just wanted to get out of Kristen. I didn’t care how.

  The Sings were very upset. They told me not to go, that Vancouver was a big, ugly city and that something bad would happen to us. Mama Sing asked me then if I would leave Lisa with her at least until I got settled in a home. But I said no. Lisa was all I had in the world. I knew Darrel would leave me again, and if I left Lisa here, how on earth would I ever get back to get her? Then there was the fear of Bonny. I knew she’d come as soon as she heard I’d left Lisa and these people would never be able to fight her. They were too gentle.

  Grandpa Sing gave me a gift before I left. Inside a little black box was a jade necklace, earrings and bracelet set in an old-fashioned gold setting. He said, “Someday when Lisa grows up, give it to her, and tell her it belonged for generations to my wife’s family in China.” He told me to call him if I ever needed help. I never saw Grandpa Sing again. Many years later I saw Leonard and he told me that Grandpa had returned to China and had died there.

  Chapter 16

  VANCOUVER! IT WAS RAINING WHEN we arrived. The city was beyond my wildest imagination! It seemed to go on without end. As we drove along in the cab, I pressed my face against the window and drank in everything around me. There were miles and miles of flashing signs and street lights and the tallest buildings in the world. The people all looked rich and well-fed. The store windows were full of beautiful displays, lots of food, clothes and all the things a person could possibly need to be happy.

  I sat back and thought, “Maybe it’s possible now to bring the kids here, where everything will be clean and good for them.” My childhood dreams of toothbrushes and pretty dresses, oranges and apples, and a happy family sitting around the kitchen table talking about their tomorrow came to an abrupt end as I looked out of the window again and saw that we were now in an older part of the city. The buildings kept getting dirtier and dirtier. I had lived in poverty and seen decay but nothing like what surrounded me now.

  The cab pulled up in front of a grimy old apartment block and as Darrel paid the driver I looked about. The street was filthy and I shivered and felt sick as I saw the people who were there. They looked poorer than anyone I’d seen at home; there were drunks, and men who walked aimlessly and seemed not to see anything or anyone; women who appeared as though they had endured so much ugliness that nothing could upset them; and pale, skinny, raggedy kids with big, unfeeling eyes who looked so unloved and neglected. Small as they were, they were frightening.

  The apartment was up two flights of garbage-littered stairs, and the whole place smelled of stale food, dirty bodies and mould. Our apartment had a small living room with a broken-down chesterfield that served as our bed, and a few pieces of old dirty furniture. The kitchen was just big enough for a folding table, a hot plate, a sink and an old fridge. The bathroom was down the hall and we shared it with all the other tenants on that floor.

  I tried my best to clean the place but it made no difference. The kitchen was full of cockroaches which scattered when the light was switched on. Sometimes I had to wait half an hour to use the bathroom. Just waiting was an experience in itself. The most rejected-looking people would be waiting their turns with me. Some tried to be friendly but mostly they were so lost in a world of their own that I doubt if they even saw me. I wondered, as I waited, whether any of them had parents who loved them, or if they had ever laughed, or loved, or hated.

  If Darrel had a job he never told me. He would sleep nearly all day and then leave and not return until the early morning. He never talked to me, only answered yes or no to my questions. I tried to stay busy, but there was really nothing to do and no one to talk to except Lisa. By now she was pale and quite miserable, for she was used to being outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine. I had taken her out once when we first arrived, but after being stopped on the street by a man who desperately wanted money, I was too frightened to go out again.

  Darrel came home one day and said we were going to a party that evening. He’d even arranged for a baby-sitter to come in to look after Lisa.

  We walked into a noisy, smokey apartment full of people drinking and talking. Darrel left me at the door without introducing me to anyone so I sat by myself in the corner. A tall, auburn-haired, striking-looking woman came over and started to talk to me. I liked Lil immediately and we talked about all sorts of things—books, clothes and Lisa. I told her how miserable and disappointed I felt about our life in Vancouver. Before we left she gave me her phone number and we agreed to get together some day soon.

  Things between Darrel and me got much worse till finally one day he just didn’t come home. After about a week, I knew he wasn’t ever coming back and I was in a panic. I was back to no money, no groceries, the rent was due and I had no one to turn to. Then I remembered Lil.

  I could say at this point that I was innocent and had no idea what I was getting into. I have even tried to make myself believe this but that would be lying. I did know. I guess I knew from the moment I picked up the phone and called her. There was all the opportunity in the world to run away those first few months, but instead I made myself believe that one day I would wake up and there would be all the things in life which were important to me.

  I feel an overwhelming compassion and understanding for another human being caught in a situation where the way out is so obvious to others but not to him. Dreams are so important in one’s life, yet when followed blindly they can lead to the disintegration of one’s soul.

  Take for example the driving ambition and dream of a little girl telling her Cheechum, “Someday my brothers and sisters will each have a toothbrush and they’ll brush their teeth every day and we’ll have a bowl of fruit on the table all the time and, Cheechum, they’ll be able to do anything they want and go anywhere, and every day we’ll have a glass of milk and cookies and talk about what they want to do. There will be no more mud shacks and they’ll walk with their heads high and not be afraid.” The little girl’s Cheechum would look at her and see the toothbrushes, fruit and all those other symbols of white ideals of success and say sadly, “You’ll have them, my girl, you’ll have them.”

  * * *

  —

  The first few days seemed like a dream. Lil made arrangements for Lisa to stay at a convent where the nuns would take good care of her. They were gentle and kind and I knew she’d be safe with them.

  I moved into Lil’s house in North Vancouver and she took me to a fashionable dress shop where I was fitted with clothes I never thought I’d wear, and to a beauty parlour where my hair was cut and styled. When I was finally pushed in front of a mirror, I hardly recognized the woman staring back at me. She looked cold and unreal, rich and expensive. “Dear God,” I thought, “this is how I’ve always wanted to look, but do the women who look like this ever fee
l like I do inside?” I wanted to run away, and yet I had to stay.

  I lost something that afternoon. Something inside of me died. Life had played such a joke. I had married to escape from what I’d thought was an ugly world, only to find a worse one. Someday, for certain, I would leave. How, I didn’t know, but until then I would do what I had to do.

  Lil arranged it so my clientele consisted of older, mature men who thought nothing of spending a small fortune. She was an unusual woman. She was kind in her own way, and I got along well with her. Although the girls at the house ate, talked and lived together, no one ever got very close. Each one of us lived in our own little world.

  One Chinese girl, who was part Indian, tiny, fragile and very pretty, had started work a few weeks before I did and was so quiet and gentle that I often wondered how she could stay and not go to pieces. Her room was next to mine and she cried a lot by herself. When I heard her I’d desperately want to go to her and help, but it was impossible. I knew, during all that time in Vancouver, that if I shed even one tear, I would fall apart and be finished. I felt that I’d never be able to pull myself together again so I would try to shut out the sounds of her weeping.

  One afternoon she was missing at the table for dinner so I went to her room and knocked. When there was no answer, I opened the door. She was on the floor—dead. She looked so little, so defenceless and young. I stood there, filled with so much hate I was almost sick. She had died from an overdose of drugs. They gave her a welfare burial, and forgot about her.

  Chapter 17

  MOST OF THE GIRLS AT Lil’s used pills, and once I discovered them the world became a great deal more bearable. I took them like they were going out of style. They helped me to sleep, they kept me happy, and most of all, I could forget about yesterday and tomorrow. I make it sound as though they were really great, but they only helped for a little while. Once my body grew accustomed to them all they did was make me feel worse. But I continued to take them because by that time I was hooked and couldn’t go on without always believing that they would make me feel really good like they had in the beginning. But they never did. I only ended up feeling numb and depressed.