The Year of Finding Memory by Judy Fong Bates Read Free Book Online Page B

into a long, dark, narrow work space. A row of wooden laundry tubs was mounted against one wall. Long tables with layers of cloth pulled tightly over them stood in front of the opposite wall. Off to the side a door led into the windowless bedroom that I was to share with my parents. But standing in the centre of the floor was a massive machine in the shape of a barrel, encased in galvanized steel. This vessel stood horizontally on four legs inside a large metal pan, which, I later learned, would collect the water that spewed from a hose that looked to me like a tail. At the other end of themachine’s round body, instead of a head, there was a wooden frame enclosing several rows of wringers that rose toward the ceiling. That first evening in my father’s laundry, the shadows fell in such a way that the machine looked like a monster from a prehistoric past. I imagined this strange, mechanical creature coming alive and swallowing me into its belly.
    I leaned in even closer to my mother.

    My father’s routine from one week to the next never varied, and my mother fell quickly into the rhythm of his work. On Saturdays and Wednesdays, my parents each sat on a wooden stool and sorted dirty clothes according to light and dark. They turned all the socks inside out and inspected underwear for stains.
    On Mondays and Thursdays, my father started the morning by lighting the small, coal-burning furnace at the base of the boiler. Within an hour hot water flowed from the taps. On other days we heated water in a large pot on the cast-iron stove. Whatever amount we ladled out for washing our faces and for dishes had to be immediately replaced.
    Wash days were especially busy, my parents hurrying from one chore to another. Sorted piles of dirty clothes sat on the floor at one end of the room. Giant wicker baskets waited for wet laundry at the other. And off in a corner, pails of starch for the collars and cuffs of well-made shirts, stood ready.
    My father opened the metal and wooden doors to the barrel-shaped receptacle and stuffed it with soiled laundry.When he turned on the electric motor, the grinding of gears and the sloshing of water were so loud it was almost impossible to speak and be heard. On these days I crouched by the edge of the metal pan and watched the water as it gushed from the tail-like hose, swirling around the drain. Then, without warning, I heard my father singing long, mournful notes from some Chinese opera, his voice rising above the dreadful cacophony. But the lyrics were in classical Chinese, unlike the language we spoke in our home. For me the words were incomprehensible.
    As soon as the song was finished, the corners of his mouth turned down in grim determination. My father rushed between the machine and the wooden tubs where the soapy laundry was rinsed in one tub after another until the water was clear. Next, he fed the clothes piece by piece between the rollers of a hand-cranked mangle that squeezed out all the water. The wrung-out laundry fell from the mangle in graceful, undulating curves into a wicker basket. If the weather was fine, my father hung each wet item on lines outside. At the end of the day, there were baskets stuffed with dried shirts, sheets, towels, underwear and socks, everything stiff and smelling of the sun and fresh air.
    But on rainy days, and also during the winter, my father went into a room at the back of the building and packed coal into a cast-iron furnace that stood in the corner, heating the room to more than eighty degrees. He then took the wrung-out clothes and pegged everything on clotheslines strung just below the ceiling. When it was cold outside, I used to stand in that room, dressed only in panties and an undershirt, justto savour its moisture and warmth. Even on the coldest winter day, he had to open the back door, releasing clouds of billowing steam into the frosty air outside. On those rainy summer days, however, the hot furnace only added to already high temperatures. The