He took his derby hat from a hat stand in the outer office. “This way, if you please. It is only a short walk. I hope you won’t find the heat too oppressive, but it makes little sense to hail a cab for such a small distance.” He led the way down the stairs. Another train rumbled past overhead as we came out onto the street.
“This way. Please watch your step. The street is not the cleanest, I’m afraid.” He took my arm, gripping it firmly above the elbow, and steered me across the street, between a trolley and a knife grinder’s wagon. When we safely reached the curb he released me. “It’s always an adventure crossing the Bowery, isn’t it?” he said. “Never mind, we’ll soon be out of the hubbub.”
I was curious to know where we were going. There was nowhere within walking distance of the Bowery that I could think of as a respectable residence for a rich man, so I presumed we’d be going to another office. Maybe we’d be heading south to Wall Street and my client would be a wealthy banker. Or perhaps he was in shipping, but surely we were walking away from the docks.
“Up here,” he said and steered me into a side street. I looked up and read the street name: Mott Street. I also noticed immediately that it was unnaturally quiet and empty after the hustle and bustle of the Bowery. And looked different, somehow. Brightly colored balconies festooned the buildings, which were topped with ornate curved roof gables. Some of the balconies were gilded and carved with what looked like mythical beasts. Lanterns and bird cages hung on them. Then I noticed the names over stores and restaurants. Yee Hing Co., Precious Jade Chop Suey House, On Leong Merchants’ Association, and notices pasted up on poles and billboards in Chinese characters. I was being taken into a place I had only heard about until now: Chinatown.
Four
At that moment a door opened in a building to our right. A man poked his head out and looked up and down the street before darting out of the doorway and scurrying fast down the block as if the hounds of hell were after him. He was dressed in baggy pants and a dark blue cotton jacket. On his head was a skullcap and down his back hung a long pigtail. It was my first glimpse of a Chinaman and I watched him with interest.
Then all the rumors I had heard about the Chinese and their habits rushed into my head. They smoked opium. They ate puppies. They stole women for the white slave trade. I glanced uneasily at Frederick Lee. Was it possible that I was being stupidly na?ve and was being lured into captivity? My rational brain quashed this instantly. If anyone wanted to capture white women for prostitution, there would be no need to seek out someone who lived miles away in Greenwich Village when there were plenty of girls who were willing and able and already offering their services just around the corner.
“Why do you think that man is running like that?” I asked Mr. Lee. “He looked as if he was in some kind of danger.”
“No Chinese likes to be out on the street longer than he has to,” Mr. Lee said. “Surely you know that our Italian neighbors on Mulberry take great delight at beating and kicking us, even setting our queues on fire.”
“Your what?”
“The pigtails that Chinese men wear. They are a constant torment. Small boys love to tug at them. Larger louts even try to cut them off.”
We passed a storefront. What appeared to be scrawny cooked ducks hung by the necks in a row, and in front was a tank full of live fish swimming around. Two older men were chatting at the doorway, both wearing similar long pigtails.
“Then why continue to wear them if they pose such danger? They do make the Chinese stand out as different, don’t they?”
“It is a hard decision to make, unfortunately. Back in China any man who does not wear his hair in the queue is thereby insulting the Emperor and thus subject to instant beheading. So a man who cuts off his queue can never go home again.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “Barbaric.”
“No more barbaric than the way we are treated in America,” Mr. Lee said calmly. “What about the Chinese out West who were driven from their homes, or locked in their cabins and burned alive? Is that not barbaric?”
“Extremely,” I said. “But why would anyone do this?”
“Because we look different, and because we work hard and prosper. Always a recipe for hate.”
I glanced across at him. “You use the word ‘we,’” I said. “You’re not Chinese, are you? You don’t look like these men.” But as I said it I realized that what I had taken for an arrogant stare was, in fact, a slight difference in facial features—the high, flat cheekbones and the narrower-than-usual eyes.
“I am half Chinese,” he said. “I am one of the few of the first generation to be born here. My father had to flee from the West Coast after the Gold Rush when the persecution started. He came to New York and has prospered. I received a good education. I have been brought up between two cultures but consider myself an American.”