Page 23 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
“History will think we are ridiculous,” he says to her, gulping a mouthful of raw booze. “Do you know that when the Japanese invaded, they had twenty thousand infantry coming across land, twenty thousand men coming from sea, and a battalion of fifty planes in the air? Guess what we had. Guess, guess!”
“I don’t know.” Mei Chi doesn’t really want to hear it, but she feels it would be wrong to walk away.
“Fourteen thousand men defending Hong Kong. Scattered, disorganized, not enough support. Our sea guns did not even face the right way.” Tears leak from the corners of his eyes. “One week. One week for the Japanese to capture the mainland!”
“What about the British?” she says, as much to get him to stop crying as anything else.
“What about them?” he mumbles, wiping his face on his sleeve. “There were Americans, some British, some Canadians. They fought, and we cannot complain about that. But they died or have been captured, now, and their ghosts are as angry and lost as the Chinese ones.” A sobbing laugh. “No, no. Not even ghosts. The Japanese banish our dead, with their Supernatural Forces Division.Have you see them? The soldiers kill, kill, kill. Then the division banish, exorcise, disperse the ghosts. Never in my life have I seen such a thing.”
“Hey, little brother,” Lau Yik says sharply. “Go to bed, you are drunk.”
When the young man protests, Lau Yik walks over, leverages him up, and firmly directs him toward a room to sleep it off.
When he comes back, Lau Yik addresses the room. “We cannot become trapped in our grief for what is lost,” he says. “Keep your eyes forward, my friends. Tomorrow is a new day.”
Tomorrow is a new day, Mei Chi whispers to herself, over and over.Tomorrow is a new day.
8OLD FRIENDS AND NEW FACES
August 20, 1975
All these years later, and a much older Mercy Chan was again looking for the man who knew everyone.
Driving wasn’t a possibility in the Walled City. The roads were too dense and narrow, and some were barely strong enough for pedestrians, let alone vehicles. Once the triad cars reached the walled boundaries, they all climbed out, leaving only a couple of enforcers to park the cars elsewhere in Hong Kong.
Everyone else peeled off and moved rapidly toward Snakeskin headquarters. Mercy, though, had a different place in mind. She needed to find someone she hadn’t seen in over a decade.
She picked her way through streets laden with incense and offers, past priests and hawkers offering last-minute deals on fu talismans. By tomorrow, the shops would be shutting in the early afternoon, ahead of Hungry Ghost Festival. Everyone stayed in and went to bed early on such dangerous evenings.
Rooms and addresses changed often, but Mercy still heard from Lau Yik a few times a year through his letters, and she was fairly certain he was in this part of the district. After a few wrong turns and a little bit of backtracking, she finally found the door she was looking for on the eighth floor of Kowloon Walled City’s westernmost side.
At least, shethoughtit was the door; the address matched. The name on the mailbox outside, however, was someone else’s: a woman Mercy did not know, and had never heard of. It could mean Lau Yik had moved, or perhaps he’d finally gotten married after all these years. One way to find out; she knocked loudly.
The letterbox flap lifted. “Who is it?” A high-pitched voice, irritable and tired-sounding.
“It’s Mercy Chan.” She hesitated, then amended that to, “I used to be called Chen Mei Chi, and I’m looking for a friend of mine. His name is Lau Yik—”
“Buddha’s tits!”
“Excuse me?” she said, taken aback.
“Ugh.” A long-suffering sigh. “Just come in, Mei Chi. Easier to explain in person.”
The bolts drew back, and after some fumbling with locks from the inside, the door swung open.
Mercy squinted in the half-gloom of the alley.
A stranger looked back at her. Well, not quite a stranger. The eyes were the same—wise, dark, slightly crinkled at the corners. The dinted spectacles, so often repaired, remained unchanged. Mercy remembered them well.
But apart from that, the man she’d known as Lau Yik was gone. In his place stood a woman of nearly sixty, lean and compact as Lau Yik had been, wearing a loose black shirt and dark slacks. Long gray hair was gathered in a tidy ponytail, and fine lines etched the handsome face. Her sandaled feet were a little swollen around the ankles.
“The years have been kind to you,” Mercy managed, struggling to hide her surprise. Lau Yik—was that still the right name?—had said nothing about a transformation in those sparse letters. “It’s so good to see you again… big sister.” Not so different from saying “big brother,” she decided.
“Thank you. I’m glad to see you, too.” A tentative smile on that serious face. “I go by the name Erika now.” She gestured. “Please, come in. You too, Bao.”
Bao purred, slinking inside as if he owned the place.
“Erika,” Mercy echoed, stepping across the threshold. “That’s nice. English names are trendy, I hear.” She glanced around at the small flat: clean and minimalist, which had always been her friend’s style. A TV set, some furniture, a small cooker. A bed and a shelf of books. Her friend had always preferred to live simply.
