Chapter 3 - by Lina Grajales

Solitudes

Jook, this nine year old girl doesn’t make questions about bachelor-men anymore. Maybe she did when she was younger, but not now. She’s used to it. These men who came from far away China to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad are all over her neighbourhood, walking about with scarred faces and limbs, waving hands with missing fingers. Her beloved Wong, had climb up the Rockies himself, and had seen others climb up the steepest mountain slopes, then come skidding down, legs and arms flying, to escape dynamite blasts and rock falls.

But at least they are in peaceful Canada, not in war-torn China…

Jook learned about the Chinese Head Tax Certificate issued to her friend, Wong Suk. And about the $50 he had to pay before entering Canada. That was a lifetime having ice cream with Wong!! …But it was a lifetime for bachelor-men to live far away from their families in China, too.

Being friends with Wong was all that mattered to Jook. It didn’t matter the stone-throwing white boys. That was something her brothers would deal with. She only cared about the stories Wong use to tell. Other stories were hidden within fortress walls in Chinatown…She knew that every brick in Chinatown’s three –and five-storey clan buildings lay like the Great Wall against anyone knowing everything.

It wasn’t war-torn China…but Jook use to hear whisperings of desperate voices coming from somewhere at night. They came from Jewish, Polish, Italian and Chinese voices…