Two days later, I took time off from work to drive them home for a weekend visit. In the lobby of their hotel, Father and Niang had an argument. Father had directed the concierge to pack their clothes and place their baggage in storage during their absence. Apparently he had not previously consulted Niang.
She countermanded his orders. ‘There’s no need for that. Our clothes should hang in a wardrobe, not wrinkled up in a suitcase. Leave them where they are! We’ll pay for the room while away.’
Father said nothing. There was no doubt as to who was in charge. During the silent fifty-mile drive home, Father fell asleep, looking crestfallen and browbeaten. I glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. His sloping shoulders, drooping head and folded hands were reminiscent of another time, another place. Suddenly I remembered. Yes! Father had begun to resemble Ye Ye in his last years.
I took them to the hospital where I worked, introduced them to my colleagues and visited an apartment complex which I had made an offer to purchase. I was investing in my first income-producing property and, to my delight, perceived that Father wished to participate. Niang was far from pleased and manoeuvred it so that Father and I were never alone.
During their stay, I vacated my bedroom for them. Byron remained upstairs while I slept on the living-room couch. They must have sensed that our marriage was in trouble. Byron, meanwhile, was on his best behaviour. He arranged a big dinner in their honour at a fancy restaurant called Delaney’s and introduced my parents to all his colleagues, forgetting that I had never met his co-workers either.
Father, Niang and I were by ourselves when I drove them back to their hotel. Part of me longed to pour out the sorry tale of my disastrous marriage. Another part wished to maintain the façade of a daughter who was successful in every way: career, home life, health, money, adorable son, handsome husband. I despised myself for keeping up this pretence.
We chatted on and on about inconsequential matters for quite some time when Father asked unexpectedly, ‘Tell me, Adeline, who paid for the dinner at Delaney’s last night?’
His simple question, coming out of nowhere, took me by surprise. Did Byron pay out of our joint account or his separate, personal account? I had no idea.
Meanwhile, Father was waiting for an answer. Somewhat defensively, I said, ‘I really don’t know,’ adding with a forced laugh, ‘Does it matter?’
‘Sometimes,’ he advised, ‘it is wise to pay attention to money matters. At present your career is just starting to take off. You’re young and healthy. The whole world is at your feet. If you’re careful, you have the opportunity to build up a large fortune. But it won’t always be like that. One day you will become old and feeble. Be sure you are prepared when that day arrives. You must arrange things so that you have control over your own money. Trust no one. People change and their feelings change also.’
Niang nodded in agreement. ‘This husband of yours,’ she suddenly asked, ‘is he all right? I mean, is he perhaps a little cracked in the head?’
I was astonished. I had often wondered myself about Byron’s sanity. Not wishing to reveal too much, I answered with a question, ‘Aren’t we all a little crazy? He probably thinks I am the unbalanced one in the family.’
‘The block of apartments you showed us two days ago,’ Father said, ‘the one you are thinking of buying. Whose name will be on the deed as the legal owner?’
‘I have put both our names down as the buyers, Father,’ I answered truthfully. ‘This is the way it’s done in America. When we bought our house, it was also purchased in our joint names.’
‘What you are doing is unwise and will lead to complications.’ Father admonished. ‘ Zhong gua de gua (You plant melons, you reap melons). When Byron was in Hong Kong, he and his father told us they had bought a property in Kowloon. Is your name on the deed there?’
I faltered, shocked. ‘I don’t think so, Father. Byron never asked me to sign any papers.’ The conversation was veering painfully close to a discussion about the state of my marriage.
‘Then why are you putting his name on your apartments when he has not contributed one cent towards their purchase? Don’t be naive, Adeline! Don’t think you are above these money matters, because you are not. Consult a good lawyer and make sure the property is in your name and your name alone. Do you hear?’
A lump appeared in my throat and my eyes were damp with tears. They had seen through my pretences. Father’s stern directives were his expressions of care and concern. He was trying to protect his daughter. I nodded my head and swallowed hard.
As we approached their hotel, Niang added, ‘There is something not quite right about that husband of yours. Remember, no matter what happens, your parents will always be your parents. Listen to your father and do what he says.’ Those were the kindest words she ever said to me.
I mulled over their advice during the long drive back. Though they did not come out and say so, indirectly they were signalling that I should get a divorce. I decided to act and consult a lawyer immediately. They had given me permission to do so.
A few days later, armed with a legal document prepared by a divorce lawyer, I waited for Byron to come home. After we had eaten dinner and Roger had been put to bed, I went into the living-room and sat next to Byron on the couch. Together we watched a televised boxing match. Eventually I plucked up enough courage to hand him the document and explain its contents, informing him that his signature was needed.
Byron glanced glumly at the paper and went back to the boxing while I held my breath. Finally he enquired whether I was asking him for a divorce and was there someone else? Something in the bleakness of his voice touched my heart. I started to cry, ‘No, there is no one. I sincerely believe this is best for all three of us.’ For the first time I saw anguish in his eyes. Wishing to lessen the hurt, I added, ‘I’m truly sorry. We both took a gamble and we both lost.’
A few weeks later Byron did sign as requested. Afterwards he locked himself upstairs, coming down only for his meals, which he took up to eat alone. Having made up my mind, I was strangely at peace and hoped for an amicable parting. That Christmas, I bought him a gold watch, wrapped it in pretty paper and placed it on his pillow. Ginger signalled to me the next day to follow her to the back of the house. There I saw my gaily wrapped gift discarded in the garbage can, unopened and still beribboned.
The day after Christmas Byron was transferred to work in Oceanside. My lawyer served him with divorce papers before he left for Hong Kong again some time in 1971. He offered not to contest the suit if I signed over my half-share of the Fountain Valley house and if I desisted from making demands for alimony or child support. I acquiesced immediately and moved into another house. After the divorce, Byron neither wrote to nor saw his son again.
CHAPTER 19
Xin Ru Si Hui
Hearts Reduced to Ashes
In 1965 while the Vietnam War was raging, Father moved his enamelware factory from Hong Kong to Port Harcourt in Nigeria, with the help of a generous subsidy from the Nigerian government. He went into partnership with his foreman, Mr Fong. It was a major undertaking, including the transport of numerous pieces of machinery and hundreds of skilled Hong Kong workers. Living quarters for the Chinese staff were built in Port Harcourt alongside new factory buildings and administrative offices.
That same year Gregory married Matilda, a Chinese girl whose parents were part of the wave of talent that flooded south from Shanghai in 1949. They appeared overjoyed when their daughter married into our family. At that time, Father was considered one of Hong Kong’s moneyed élite and Gregory, the oldest son, his heir apparent.
Father made Gregory manager of the Nigerian factory. Soon after their wedding, the newlyweds moved into a bungalow next to the plant in Port Harcourt. Away from family and friends, deprived of social and cultural outlets, or even a decent grocery store, Gregory and Matilda found life in Africa harsh and lonely. James continued to work for Father in Hong Kong.
In October that year the Star Ferr
y Company applied for a rise in the fare for the seven-minute ferry ride across Victoria Harbour, at that time the only means of transport between Hong Kong and Kowloon. Though the fare was modest, and had not risen since 1946, there were sit-in protests, demonstrations and rioting which resulted in one dead and many injured.
A collective shudder shook the colony. Suddenly every Hong Kong resident was asking himself, what if the Communists should march into Hong Kong? Where would he go without a valid foreign passport? Who would accept him?
In our family, Father had become a naturalized British citizen in 1955. Niang was a French citizen from birth. Lydia was in Tianjin and, in Father’s view, ‘lost to the Communists by her own choice’. Susan and I, being under twenty-one, had the right to British citizenship when Father was naturalized. My three brothers, however, remained Chinese citizens and this worried them.
In Port Harcourt, Matilda was now pregnant and Gregory wrote to Father suggesting that they should return to Canada where they had both been students and try to obtain Canadian citizenship. Moreover, it would be better for their baby to be born there. During his absence, Gregory suggested that James could take over temporarily in Nigeria.
A few days later, Gregory had second thoughts. Oscillating between his loathing for the Nigerian lifestyle, his fear of statelessness and his concern that James might usurp him, he wrote a follow-up letter asking to remain in Nigeria after all. It was too late. Father wrote to say that he had decided to replace him with James.
His letter continued, ‘The Fongs have brought to my attention that you have been squandering the Company’s money.’ Gregory and Matilda were accused of spending extra money on food and drink, besides taking a nap once after lunch to escape the relentless heat of a West African afternoon. Father ended his letter by demanding a satisfactory explanation for such wasteful extravagance.
No word of thanks for all that Gregory had accomplished, only a trial without jury, dismissal and banishment from Father’s enterprises. Gregory did as he was told but the injustice rankled, and it was hapless James who became the target of his frustrations.
In April 1966, an industrial dispute in Hong Kong led to a clash between strikers and strike breakers. Those were the months immediately preceding the Cultural Revolution which was shortly to convulse China. The chaos on the mainland eventually spilled over into Hong Kong and Portuguese Macau. Leftwing circles mounted full-scale riots against the police. Anti-colonial slogans were plastered everywhere. Loudspeakers blared forth pro-Communist propaganda. Bombs were found in the streets. Stones and insults were hurled at foreigners. In Macau, Portuguese troops opened fire and killed eight people.
Hong Kong residents became panic-stricken when reports reached them about the activities of the Red Guards and their reign of terror on the mainland. Most people were convinced that China was about to take over Hong Kong and drive out the British. Everyone wanted to sell. No one was buying. Properties were being dumped for a song. There was a run on the stock market and prices plunged.
Along with thousands of Hong Kong’s most affluent residents, my parents fled. They went to Monte Carlo, where they bought a flat overlooking the Mediterranean. Father adopted a wait-and-see attitude, transferring most of his liquid assets to Swiss banks, but holding on to his Hong Kong properties. They returned in early 1967, after the Portuguese governor’s startling offer to surrender Macau was dramatically refused by China. This gesture made it clear that both Hong Kong and Macau were to remain western-administered colonies for the time being. Prices remained depressed and did not begin to recover until the end of 1968.
Towards the tail-end of my stay in Hong Kong in 1964, James was seriously dating Louise Lam. Because of his good looks, family background and Cambridge education, James was an eligible bachelor, much fêted by mothers with marriageable daughters. From the beginning I suspected that Louise was special to James because, in her case, Niang was the matchmaker.
Louise’s mother, Beverly, was a friend of Niang’s. It was an unequal friendship, with Niang dominating her friend. Beverly was beautiful and presentable yet self-effacing. Burdened with five daughters and a difficult husband, she found it hard to cope. As soon as Louise was old enough, Beverly relegated her responsibilities to her eldest daughter. While Beverly played with her girlfriends, Louise organized her younger sisters’ daily lives, packed their lunches, arbitrated quarrels and supervised their studies.
Niang encouraged the romance because it suited her to have James take a wife from a family which was neither so poor that the Yens would lose face nor so rich as to undermine Niang’s power and control.
James took Louise out regularly once a week, neither more nor less. He was always gallant and courteous but never intimate. Once Gregory reported, somewhat gleefully, that he had spied Louise dancing with a handsome escort at a well-known night club the previous evening. James merely shrugged. Gregory accused him of feigning indifference but I felt that he was cautiously suspending commitment while awaiting instruction from above. I was certain that if our parents had raised any objections, Louise would have been dismissed at a moment’s notice.
James and Louise were directed by Niang to have a simple wedding in America in 1966, far away from Father’s many friends and business associates who were almost bankrupting themselves on similar occasions. ‘Much more private and romantic’, according to Niang. They married in Maryland at the home of Louise’s uncle. James was ordered not to inform or invite any of his siblings.
Before their wedding, Father instructed James to buy one of his newly constructed flats in Happy Valley, at full price, without regard to the shaky political situation or the deeply depressed state of the property market. For over two years, ever since being told to marry Louise, James had carefully saved up his miserable salary, dollar by dollar, in order to have a small nest egg when he settled down. Now he was commanded to exchange all his savings for one of Father’s speculative units which no one wanted at the time. Resentfully, James complied. When Louise protested that Red Guard sympathizers were practically at their door and his total net worth might be confiscated in one swoop, James threw up his hands and said, ‘Suan le!’ (Let it be). Of the twenty-four flats Father built that year, none of the others were sold.
After Gregory and Matilda left for Canada, James became Father’s right-hand man. For the first ten years of his marriage he worked in Port Harcourt in Nigeria. Louise stayed in Hong Kong with their three children. James was allowed to come home to his family only twice a year: for six weeks from Christmas to Chinese New Year, and for eight weeks in the summer, to replace Father when he and Niang escaped the humid heat of Hong Kong for Monte Carlo.
Almost immediately after James’s and Louise’s marriage, Beverly and Niang had a falling-out. With her daughter safely settled, Beverly became more assertive and made it clear that she was no longer content to be Niang’s handmaiden. Their friendship quickly deteriorated from casual nods at social functions to mutual non-recognition.
After Gregory’s dismissal, James was appointed general manager of the Nigerian branch. Gregory was given 60,000 US dollars as severance pay to establish himself in Canada. He and Matilda bought a house in Vancouver and had two children. Matilda trained as a pharmacist and Gregory gained steady employment as an environmental engineer for the Canadian government. However, he still dreamed of returning to the fold, erroneously believing that Father would recall him back to Hong Kong.
From time to time, he would complain of ‘usurpation’ by James or ‘sabotage’ by Niang. His requests for business loans were invariably turned down. Though Father had a soft spot for his eldest son and looked forward eagerly to Gregory’s letters and visits, he was convinced that Gregory was feckless and incapable. Niang called him hu tu (muddle-headed), lazy and extravagant. As the years passed, Gregory’s dreams of building his own business empire faded. He became increasingly frugal, placing all his hopes in his two children and limiting his ambitions to waiting for his share of the inheritance.
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After medical school, Edgar and I had no contact for many years. Edgar specialized in general surgery. Consultantships were hard to come by for Asians in Britain. Edgar initially moved to Canada in 1969 after receiving his FRCS. Well-paid jobs were scarce and opportunities limited. He decided to join me in California.
In October 1970, while Father and Niang were staying with me in Fountain Valley, a surprisingly civil letter suddenly arrived from Edgar. He expected me to help him get a job in the California hospital where I was working.
My initial reaction was one of pleasure and gratification. I had such hunger for affection from my family that even this sort of olive branch was welcome. I showed Edgar’s letter to Father.
‘Let me ask you this,’ he said. ‘Are you happy where you are? Do you get along with your colleagues and is there a bright future?’
‘Yes. I love my job and can see myself staying there for the rest of my life.’
‘In that case, Adeline,’ Father continued, ‘I strongly advise you not to answer this letter. We all know how Edgar feels towards you. I predict that nothing good will come of it. The more successful you are, the more jealous he will be. You have carved out an excellent career for yourself. Go ahead and pursue it. America is a big country. There is no need for Edgar to come over to your little corner. He has the rest of America in which to create a niche for himself.’