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disgusted face of her mistress. Barefoot, the woman had come into the room so stealthily that Mui Tsai had not heard her footsteps.
    “Get up, you shameless hussy,” she hissed angrily. Her envious eyes roved the youthful body on her bed. Humiliated, Mui Tsai tried to cover her breasts.
    “Get up and cover your itchy body and don’t ever dare fall asleep in my bed again,” she spat. Mui Tsai stumbled to the back of the house to wash. She lay awake and ashamed in her tiny back room until the pale morning came. After that it was often that the master required a massage. Sometimes the master had a need for a massage twice in the same night. On those dreadful days she would hear the soft slapping sounds of his footsteps outside her door and the creak of it as it opened in the dark. For a second in the secret light of the moon and stars she would glimpse the richness of his yellow robe. Then the door would close, and in the darkness of her windowless room she would hear only the soft slapping sound of his silk slippers on the concrete floor and his labored breathing. Then a hand chilled with sweat fell upon her small breasts. In no time she would be enveloped in damp flesh and her nostrils filled with his hot stale breath. The odd jiggling movement would begin all over again.
    Very soon Mui Tsai was with child.
    The master was extremely happy, amazed for his three wives were childless. For a long time now it had been whispered that he was to blame, but now it was obvious that the old hags were the barren ones. Ecstatically he ordered that Mui Tsai be fed with the best so his seed would grow strong and healthy. The mistress was forced to be kind to Mui Tsai, though deep within those slanting eyes lay grievous envy. Often Mui Tsai hid some of her very expensive but horribly bitter special herbs for me.
    “To make the baby strong,” she said in her happy, lilting voice.
    One morning the master came with the news that First Wife wanted to meet the fertile tree that had given life to her husband’s seed. She was a large woman with loose folds of flesh around her jowls, an arrogant tilt to her flat nose, and small, shrewd eyes. Old Soong’s home was filled with furious activity. Choice dishes were cooked, the floors washed and polished, and the best china cleaned and laid out for the scrutiny of sharp eyes.
    “Have you eaten?” she asked in the customary polite Chinese greeting. Her voice was gruff, and her face, though proud, had known sorrow. The sorrow of being replaced in her husband’s affections, the sorrow of being unable to bear children.
    “Yes, she has a very good appetite, elder sister,” Mui Tsai’s mistress replied quickly.
    “How many months more till the baby comes?” First Wife asked regally.
    “Three months more. Have some more tea, elder sister,” Third Wife replied with humble politeness borrowed for the occasion. She rose gracefully to pour the tea.
    First Wife nodded her approval, and thereafter she made a few more visits, always sitting under the assam tree with Mui Tsai. She was kind, seemed genuinely concerned, and showed more and more interest in the unborn baby. She even brought it presents, expensive imported baby clothes in blue and a small quacking duck. Mui Tsai was pleased to have the grand old lady visit. It was an honor to be accepted by First Wife. Perhaps her luck had changed after all. Things would be different after the baby was born. She would be the mother of the heir to the vast fortune.
    One day a fair came into town and settled in the football field by the market. Mui Tsai and I slipped away while her mistress, sluggish after a heavy lunch, dozed under the whirling fan.
    Twenty cents to get in.
    The sweet smell of egg and nut cakes mingled with the greasy smell of fish cakes frying in large vats of oil. The makeshift stage where, nightly, comely girls sat in a smiling row waiting for bashful young men to pay fifty cents for the pleasure of an energetic dance with his chosen