Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [74]
It was almost dawn when he returned to the shack, and Francie and Little Son were sound asleep. As the first gray light stole through the curtain that served as their door Lai Tsin counted his winnings, gasping as he realized the amount. Almost twelve thousand dollars. He touched the pile of money, awestruck, and then he folded his arms and leaned back against the wooden boards, thinking.
He thought about his life, about the hardships, the beatings, the terror and the poverty, about the lack of education that had forced him into the servitude of a peasant when inside he knew he was different. He had worked hard all his life. As a child he had walked behind the water buffalo, dragging his bare feet through the cold mud of the rice fields and he had known there must be something more than just this. He had watched the poor white ducks squabbling endlessly in the village pond, understanding that, like his, their fate was sealed before they were even born. He had felt like a changeling, a prince among the paupers, a scholar among the ignorant. He had no words to describe it but he knew it was all there inside him. And now, with those American dollars won from the men from Toishan, at last he had his chance to become somebody. And he would never gamble again.
He waited impatiently for Francie to wake, wishing there were some magic that would take away the frown from between her brows and the sighs that, even as she slept, escaped her lips. He knew that her troubles were deep and there was gladness in his heart because now he knew he could help her.
When she finally began to stir he went outside and blew on the little charcoal stove until it glowed scarlet. He collected water from the standpipe at the end of the street and put it on to boil. Then he took the little blue-and-white pot with the wicker handle, spooned fragrant jasmine-scented leaves inside it and poured on the boiling water. When he finally went back inside she was sitting up, rubbing her eyes in astonishment at the pile of dollars. “Lai Tsin,” she gasped, “what did you do? Rob a bank?”
He poured the tea and offered it to her. “I had good fortune last night,” he said. “I beat the Toishan gamblers. I let my winnings ride until they had had enough and when I counted them, I had twelve thousand American dollars. It is a fortune, Francie. We are rich.”
Francie stared at him, stunned. Though he had not slept his eyes were clear and alert and there was a new air of confidence about him. Lai Tsin looked like a different person. But twelve thousand dollars was a huge sum, it was more than just shoes for Little Son and candles and bedrolls. It was a stake to build his fortune on and she could not just stand by and see him gamble it away again. “You must start a business with the money,” she told him. “Think of the opportunities the earthquake has made! Why, it’s like the old gold-rush days when my grandfather was a trader. He bought and sold anything that was needed and he made a fortune. Just think what is needed here in Chinatown, Lai Tsin. Chinese spices and special foods, Oriental clothes, shoes, tobacco. They will buy everything you can imagine, because now they have nothing.”
Lai Tsin lit his bubblepipe and she knew he was thinking about what she had said. After a long time he put away his pipe and took a square of scarlet silk from his straw pannier and wrapped the money carefully in it. He walked to the door carrying the money in the scarlet cloth under his arm, but he did not look back and Francie sighed. She had lost, and he was going back to the gambling den after all.
Lai Tsin wended his way through the ruins and knocked nervously on the door of one of Chinatown’s few remaining buildings. The old man who lived there was one of the most powerful Chinese elders in San Francisco. He controlled most of the money loaned in the old southern Chinese system of rotating credit whereby members pooled their money and each member in turn had access to it. Lai Tsin knew that it operated on a system of honor,