Gift of the Golden Mountain Read online

  Also by Shirley Streshinsky

  AN ATOMIC LOVE STORY:

  THE EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN IN

  ROBERT OPPENHEIMER'S LIFE

  AUDUBON: LIFE AND ART IN THE

  AMERICAN WILDERNESS

  GIFT OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN

  HERS THE KINGDOM

  THE SHORES OF PARADISE

  TURNER PUBLISHING

  200 4th Avenue North, Suite 950

  Nashville, Tennessee 37219

  445 Park Avenue, 9th Floor

  New York, NY 10022

  www.turnerpublishing.com

  Gift of the Golden Mountain

  Copyright © 2013, 1988 by Shirley Streshinsky

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Streshinsky, Shirley.

  Gift of the Golden Mountain / Shirley Streshinsky.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-61858-022-1 (alk. paper)

  I. Title.

  PS3569.T6928G5 2013

  813'.54--dc23

  2012040362

  Cover by Gina Binkley

  Designed by Glen M. Edelstein

  Printed in the United States of America

  13 14 15 16 17 18 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Mark

  son, critic, friend

  PROLOGUE

  San Francisco

  April 29, 1975

  MAY IS MISSING. She is somewhere in Southeast Asia, possibly she made it into Saigon on one of the last flights, we can't be sure.

  Strange, how I put off turning on the lights. Sometimes I let the dusk gather so that I can scarcely make out the corner of mother's old cherrywood sideboard, and go banging into it with my wheelchair. I have been holding on to the fading light, trying to deny the darkness. I know it is a futile thing to do. At my age, I know.

  All day long I've been listening to the radio reports from Saigon. I switched to the television for the five o'clock news. The first films were being shown, flickering images of crowds pressing against the gates of the American Embassy, of helicopters landing on the roof of the building, creating dust swirls lit by arc lights, lifting the last Americans out.

  I am transfixed by the scene, the exodus: the fall of Saigon, the true and vainglorious end of the war in Vietnam, as confused and chaotic and humiliating as everything else we have done in that poor, sad country. It is dark now; only the television lights my parlor, sending flickers and flashes and shards of color into the dark corners. I don't think I could bear to see it in full light.

  May is missing. That was the message. We think she got into Saigon, we can't be sure.

  And I think I saw her, in one of the news films. It was only for an instant, she was in the surging crowd outside the American Embassy, her arms were raised, she seemed to be reaching for one of the marine guards. I only had a glimpse but I think it was May. Now I am watching every program, hoping to see her again. After the eleven o'clock news there is going to be a special on the events of the past days in Saigon, and if they show the film, maybe I can tell for sure.

  Two men came to my door late this afternoon. One flapped an official-looking identification card from the U.S. State Department at me and said they wanted to ask a few questions about May. A routine background check, "nothing ominous," he added, with a condescending smile that was supposed to reassure me. They would appreciate my help, he said.

  I have had some experience with these men with their empty eyes and practiced silences, enough to know that it is best to volunteer as little as possible. I was not in a mood to tell them about May, I wanted to stay close to the coverage of this last, big story out of Vietnam. But I knew, too, that they would not easily be turned away, so I motioned them into my parlor but made no move to turn off the television.

  "We would like to ask you a few questions," the older of the two repeated politely.

  "Shoot," I came back, feigning a feistiness that I did not feel, my eyes on the television.

  "I believe you are a sort of historian to the Reade family . . ."

  "Not sort of," I corrected him, "I am the archivist for the Sara Hunt Trust, with responsibility for all of the documents and personal papers of the Hunt and Reade families, two old California clans."

  He cleared his throat, trying, I suppose, to decide how best to approach an old woman who shows signs of not cooperating. He was about to say something when I held up my hand for, silence. The commercial had ended and the television had returned to Saigon; lights flared, you could hear the dull sounds of artillery in the background, the reporter was breathless. The ambassador will be leaving soon . . . The compound is filled with Vietnamese, desperate to get out . . . The American fleet is offshore, waiting . . . The Viet Cong are at the gates of Saigon, closing in . . .

  "Are you associated with the California Historical Society?" the man asked.

  "No," I answered absently, stung by the panic in the Vietnamese faces caught pressed against the bars of the Embassy, "I am employed by the Hunt Trust, though we do cooperate with the Society. Sara Hunt was one of its benefactors."

  "I see," he said, though plainly he didn't. As CBS turned its attention to some other part of the world, I turned mine to the men sitting in my parlor. The older of the two was, perhaps, thirty-five and beginning to bald. His face was curiously nondescript; it might have been handsome, had it any animation. He was wearing a suit and a drip-dry shirt which had not been pressed. I could imagine him solemnly washing it in a basin and hanging it to dry over the bathtub. The other was younger, not more than twenty-five, I think, and his hair was shorter than any of the young men I knew. Even the residents out at the Medical Center wear ponytails and dress in jeans. I wondered if he knew how clearly his appearance marked him.

  "Why exactly are you investigating May?" I asked, to see how they would evade the question.

  "We thought you would be the best person to give us a rundown on her family history—her grandparents, that sort of thing," the older one countered.

  "I suppose I might be," I answered, and left it at that, knowing he expected me to play the garrulous old woman and give him what he wanted for the asking.

  Instead I turned back to the television. Walter Cronkite was intoning the benediction for CBS: "This is a night that history will long remember . . . the last American Marine has left Saigon." And then they showed it again: A woman, tall with long dark hair, her arms raised. May, it could be May.

  "Will you tell us?" the younger of the two, grown impatient, finally asked, causing the older man to frown.

  "Tell you?" I repeated, for a minute thinking they had read my mind, thinking they knew it was May I was straining to see.

  "About the Reade family tree," he said.

  The older man cut in, "Perhaps you could begin by telling us why she uses the professional name of Dr. Wing Mei-jin."

  I laughed out loud, I couldn't help it. They looked at me peculiarly, as if laughter was the last thing they expected. "She calls herself that because it's her name," I told them. "If you don't believe me, check her birth certificate—though you won't find the 'doctor' of course."

  He scarcely took time to smile at my small joke. "Then why did she go by the name 'May Reade' for so many years?"

  "I don't really know," I lied, then added a grain of truth: "Maybe she just wanted to sound more American."

  "But she is American," the younger man said. Suddenly I was weary of the banter; best to give them the information that was on the record and be rid of them.

  "May's father, Porter Reade, grew up on the family ranch in southern California," I began, turning off the
sound but keeping my eyes on the television. "Willa and Owen Reade had come to California in the late 1880s. Unfortunately, Owen died before Porter and Katherine were born in 1904. Katherine is now Mrs. Katherine McCord." I was on thin ice here, I had to choose my words carefully not to lie outright, while keeping the family secrets. "The children . . ."

  "Porter and Katherine were twins . . ."

  It was a statement, I didn't have to answer. "The children were raised by Mrs. Reade's younger sister, Lena Kerr. In those days she was called a spinster, and she lived with the Reades."

  "Why was that?" the younger man asked.

  "Oh it wasn't so unusual for the times," I told him. "After her husband's death, Mrs. Reade was busy running the ranch, an occupation she was good at, and one she enjoyed. Her sister had a natural affinity for children, and they for her. In fact, Lena reared all the Reade children—there were two older boys. It was an arrangement that seemed to satisfy everyone." I turned up the sound on the television slightly, hoping it might get them off the subject. Dear Lena is not in the public domain. Few people now living know that Porter was her child, that Kit was not his twin but his cousin.

  "What about Porter Reade as a labor organizer?"

  I nodded, relieved to be off the subject of Porter's parents. "In the thirties he was active in the labor struggles on the San Francisco docks. And he was in the thick of things during the General Strike and riots in the 1930s. But all of that information is detailed in the files of the House Un-American Activities Committee. If you don't have access to those files," I said, more sarcastically than I had meant, "just read Porter's book, Notes from the Waterfront. You can get it at Moe's bookstore in Berkeley—it was reissued in paperback a year or two ago. Or if you want to know what happened to him as a war correspondent, read Dispatches from the Burma Road. Unfortunately, he didn't get to write about his trials with Joe McCarthy and those characters on the House Un-American Activities Committee who were so certain he was a Communist."

  "That's been pretty well documented," the older man said, "It looks as if Reade is in the process of being historically vindicated." I was disarmed by this sudden breach in intelligence practice. He threw me off guard. Defending Porter had become almost second nature, it felt strange not to have to. I turned back to the silent television and for a few moments stared at a tap dancing peanut. When the young man started to prod me, the older one stopped him. He was going to give me time.

  I cleared my throat, and resumed in what I thought of as my archivist's voice: "May was born in San Francisco on Valentine's Day, 1943. Her father was a correspondent in the China-Burma-India theater, attached to General Stilwell's staff. Her mother was Chinese, a medical doctor and a member of a distinguished Shanghai family. Liao Ch'ing-Ling." I paused a moment and thought about Ch'ing-Ling. Many of the faces from my past are lost to memory now, but not hers. Never hers. I can close my eyes and see her as she looked the day May was born, her jet black hair fanned out against the white of the pillow, that beautiful, porcelain mask of a face, perfectly still, those great black eyes, anguished and determined. I knew then that she would not stay. I believe the others saw it in her face as well, and were helpless against it. I shook myself to continue. "She was working in a hospital in Honolulu when war broke out; it was a rushed, wartime marriage. Porter sent his wife to this country to await the birth of their child. The baby was named Mei-jin. We called her 'Mei.'

  "One month after the birth, Ch'ing-Ling chose to leave the country, giving the child to the care of Katherine Reade McCord and Lena Kerr. We know that May's mother returned to Mainland China, but there has been no trace of her since. May was cared for by Mrs. McCord, Lena Kerr, and a devoted friend, Sara Hunt, in Mrs. Hunt's San Francisco home, until Porter Reade returned from the war, at which time he took complete and loving charge of his daughter.

  "Lena Kerr died not long after Porter's return from the war. Sara Hunt—to whom May was especially attached—died when May was eleven. May and her father were inseparable, though he was embroiled in controversy and was spending most of his time and energy appearing before government committees. May was his constant companion. The two were in a Los Angeles hotel room, waiting to make a court appearance when Porter Reade suffered a fatal heart attack. He died in her arms. She was thirteen years old."

  "Tough break," the younger man blurted, and the phrase hung in the air, awkwardly, until the other banished it with a let's-get-on-with-it question: "What can you tell us about her early schooling?"

  "She went east to boarding school—the Colworth School in Colworth, Maine, where my daughter teaches. May lived with my daughter and her family in town. Then she went on to Mount Holyoke, and graduate school . . ."

  "Yes," he interrupted, as if he knew all that, "I wonder if you could tell us something about her professional career?"

  "Tell you?" I repeated, not quite understanding what it was he wanted to know. "Oh well, she is a geologist, surely you know that. A geologist needs to understand those events which can seldom be directly observed, which are buried in the vast depths of the earth: Her task is to search out secrets which predate human history." I looked into the eyes of the young agent and saw a flicker of confusion. I thought, he does not know if I am rambling or if there is a point to what I say, if I am shrewd or if I am slightly senile. "Geology," I went on, as if warming to my subject, "is the study of indirect evidence—of fault lines and alluvial plains, of glacial scour and eolian deposits . . . the geologist must work out all of the possible combinations of events that occurred ages ago. In short," I said, as pedantically as I dared, "geology probes far beneath the surface, looks to times beyond memory. To do this, a geologist must go into the field, must know where to look for the clues. May's particular field of study is volcanoes."

  I did not tell him that it was not surprising that May should have become a geologist. I did not say that the whole of her life has been a probing for answers buried deep in the bedrock of her past, that all this while she has been searching to discover something about the pressures which caused the slip-fault that occurred before her birth, an event which profoundly shaped the contours of her life.

  The older agent shifted gears. "Can you tell me if her politics are similar to her father's?"

  I wanted to sigh, instead I did the expected and bristled noticeably, making no attempt to hide my annoyance. "May is a geologist, as I told you. She is not political. She is interested in rocks and volcanoes, and that is all I have to say."

  "Is there . . ." he began.

  "No," I answered, "there is nothing more I can tell you."

  It was not true. I could have told him a great deal more. I could have said I was there that Valentine's Day, with Lena and Sara and Kit. My Emilie was in her junior year at Mills College that spring, and she joined us at the hospital. It was wartime, and we were a company of women, closing ranks. It seems to me now that in those dark early years of the war, Ch'ing-Ling's baby became for each of us all the hope that was left in the world. We were determined to make a warm, safe place for this exquisite child, nestled that day in the arms of a mother who had, even then, decided to abandon her.

  I could have told them that it was Porter who decided she should be called "Mei-jin," which means "Beautiful Pearl." He wanted his child to be proud of her Chinese heritage. I could have told them so much more, but I would not. I wanted to concentrate on the new film clips coming out of Saigon, so I could try to catch a glimpse of May in the frantic crowds that were clamoring to escape that lost country.

  Most days are lost in the mists of memory, but the day of Sara Hunt's last visit is not. It was a Thursday in May of 1954, and it stands clear in my mind, all details perfectly intact. I had positioned myself that morning on the daybed on the sunporch so I could look out to the garden and see down the hall as well, to the frosted glass of the front door of the cottage. If I had to stay in bed, as the doctor seemed determined I should, I wanted to be where I could at least see something. Repose is not a natural attitude
for me; I think of myself as being in motion. Folded hands please me in others—I once had a show of photographs called "Hands"—but my own require occupation. I shifted the heavy cast that encompassed one leg and attempted a more comfortable position.

  I thought about taking a photograph of a tall ladder in an empty room, captioning it "On the Humpty-Dumpty front, this is the ladder from which Faith had a great fall . . ." and sending it to friends and clients, to let them know I was going to be out of commission for a time with a shattered leg.

  Looking out the window gave me no pleasure, untended as my garden was these past weeks. It turned out not to be a bright day, as promised, and I was glad. The sun had been erased by a fine white fog that washed in about midmorning, first in quiet reconnoitering puffs, then in strong invading gusts. In the sunlight, the bougainvillea glowed a garish purple against the white glare of the DeLuccis' garage, but in the fog it became a soft, pastel pink. Sara would appreciate the fog. Her eyes had become sensitive to light these past few years.

  Sara. How long had it been since she was here? Almost a year, nine months at least, since she had been well enough to venture out of her house on California Street. Which meant that this trip, even if it was a relatively short distance, would have a purpose. That was what troubled me. I shifted again, determined not to let myself get lost in the vagaries of what Sara might be thinking, or why Sara was coming that morning.

  I had lived in the cottage long enough to know all of its sounds, and I knew how to filter certain of them: the mad whir as the refrigerator switched on, the methodical ticking of the gas heater as it gained momentum, children's laughter lifting from the schoolyard down the hill. If I couldn't move about, I could at least listen to the world outside. I switched on the radio. Static crackled, then an apocalyptic voice from some far place intoned: On this day in a little known corner of the world once called French Indochina, the French army has been defeated by the Vietminh forces of Ho Chi Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Silence then, until suddenly calypso music blasted out and I switched the radio off.