She started up the stairs. I followed. My heart had been beating fast ever since I had found out that Bo Kei was hidden here, but as we climbed flight after flight of stairs, it was positively pounding in my chest. Mrs. McNamara was breathing heavily in front of me and paused on the landing to say, “My old legs are not cut out for this sort of thing any longer. Five flights. It’s too much for a body.”
As she put her hand on the door handle there was the sound of scurrying beyond. The door opened to reveal a white figure, trying to duck down behind the bed.
“It’s all right, my dear,” Mrs. McNamara said. “You can come out. This young lady has come to help you.”
The white figure stood up and I saw that she was wearing a white nightgown. Her black hair hung in a heavy braid over one shoulder and she was looking at me with terrified eyes. I recognized her from her portrait.
“Bo Kei?” I asked gently.
She nodded.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said.
“Who are you?” She said the words carefully. “Why you want me?”
“My name is Molly.” I paused. What did I say next?
“Where go?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“You can’t take her out onto the street around here. She’d be seen,” Mrs. McNamara said. “That man’s spies are everywhere and you can’t let her go back to him, the monster.”
“Did he treat you badly?” I asked.
She nodded. “He make me do bad things. He say I belong to him now. He pay my father plenty money. He want I give him son pretty damned quick.”
“So you definitely don’t want to go back to him?”
“I no go back. I kill myself first.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We must think how to get you away from here, and then we can plan your future.”
“She’ll need some clothes first,” Mrs. McNamara said. “She came here in her nightgown.”
“How did you escape?” I asked.
She gave me a shy smile. “I hear church bell and look down on street. I see there is church, so close. So I wait see which day is Sunday. When it’s hot night, master sleep on roof. He have boy bring me to him, and when he don’t want me no more, he send me away again. So this night he think boy take me downstairs. But I come back up again. I hide on roof. When master sleeps I go on roof as far as I can, and when I can’t go no more, I jump to next roof.”
“Goodness,” I said. “How far was it?”
“Far,” she said.
“Weren’t you scared?”
“I think if I die, is better than to stay with him.”
“How did you get down from the next roof?”
“Down iron stair outside,” she said.
“Fire escape,” Mrs. McNamara corrected. “She came down the fire escape—can you believe the nerve of it?”
“Fire escape,” she agreed. “And then down pipe to ground.”
“Wearing your nightdress? Didn’t people see you?”
“Middle of night. Nobody in street. I wait in alleyway and hide in garbage. When people go church, I go too.”
“In your nightdress? Or did you have clothes with you?”
A sly smile crossed her face. “I steal sheet from laundry hanging on next roof. Throw down to street. I put it over head like this.” She demonstrated. “Make me look like nun. People not look at nun. I go in church and I wait. I think where there is church, there will be nuns. They will help me. They will not want me to live in sin.”
“Live in sin?”
“The brute never intended to marry her. He brought her over here as his concubine,” Mrs. McNamara said, hands on hips.
“I go to hell if I am with a man and not married to him. That is what nuns say.”
I put my hand on her arm. “That’s not true. If you were forced to do things you didn’t want to, then it’s not your fault. You won’t go to hell, I promise you.”
She gave me a sad smile. “When man come to mission and say that rich Chinaman in America want me for bride I am happy. Nuns say Western life very civilized, say it’s good I live in Christian country where women are respected. And I be bride of rich man. Never go hungry. But I come here and I find he already has one wife. He call me wife number two, but that is not true. Jesus say only one wife.”
