All the Flowers in Shanghai (21 page)

Ba still had not moved except to cross his legs.

Ma leaned back, satisfied I would do her bidding.

We sat in silence for several minutes. Then Ba spoke up.

“You look beautiful, Feng Feng. You have become a woman.”

I smiled at him.

“Thank you, Ba.”

Ma looked at the floor and then around the room.

“Feng, to me you’re not a woman until you fulfill your obligations to your family and show proper respect to your mother,” she said sourly. “We have given everything to ensure this marriage was achieved. Now you must give us the proper face in return.”

“Wasn’t this for Sister?” I asked. “You never intended me to marry.”

“It does not matter which of you eventually married!” Her voice raised, she looked me full in the face.

Silence again. Ma’s face was heavily lined and her mouth bitter and downturned. She had put on more makeup than usual and it sat heavily on her skin, making it appear waxy and lifeless.

“It’s time for you both to go. I have a lunch appointment,” I said, lying.

I stood up and Ba followed me quickly. Ma stood up slowly, looking at me all the time as she did, reminding me that more still was expected of me.

There was nothing more for her here; the only thing she would now gain from my marriage was the knowledge I had taken away what she wanted most.

Yan opened the door to the room and we walked out into the great hallway. As we crossed it to the front door, Ba paused and spoke the last words he would say to me.

“Feng Feng, you must have a glorious life here . . . just like an empress.” His watery smile was quickly lost against the vastness of the hall. “Let us know when you are to have another child.”

Ma and Ba continued to the front door. The doorman opened it and with a last look at each other they left. I stood and watched the door close then turned and went back to my room, dismissing Yan.

I sat at my dressing table. I removed my jewelry and makeup. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw how, in my self-belief, I had transformed myself from my mother’s timid daughter to a member of this family. I thought I had understood what Ming had said that first night, what it was to have married from one family into another, to be swallowed whole. I was a Sang, and now I would learn to take all that was mine.

I was fooling myself.

Chapter 12

M
ore weeks passed. They all left me alone. Then, one afternoon, Ah Cheuk arrived with a request from Xiong Fa. My husband wanted to see me.

As I walked across the landing, I could see fifteen or so relatives below, watching me. Ah Cheuk had obviously shown the message to other servants before coming to me. They stood silently in the hall. I looked up and could see others hanging from the balustrades enclosing the landings of the floors above. Eyes were bulging and necks craned to see me.

Yan and I walked slowly to Xiong Fa’s room and Yan knocked. Xiong Fa himself opened the door. He stood to one side to allow me to enter.

“Come in.” His eyes followed me. “You look like you have recovered. I was very worried.” He paused. “What was wrong with our son?” he asked eventually.

“It was no son, it was stillborn.” I did not bother to soften my words. I wanted to hurt him, always.

“A terrible thing. We lost a little man. What did he look like?”

“Does it matter? We can try again soon.” I had been looking at the selection of food he had ordered. “You do want to try again, don’t you? Or do you want to find someone else?”

He looked lost for a minute.

“Yes, I want a son . . . or a daughter. I would like a child.” He moved toward me then stopped. “Let’s eat. I ordered you some soup, it is what you should eat to strengthen yourself. You must still be very tired.”

We started to eat and after a few minutes’ silence, I said, “I would like to go back to that hotel we visited when I first came here. It had all those beautiful women, dancing and having tea.” I made my request without any pretense at shame while tasting the soup, which was delicious.

Xiong Fa seemed shocked. He did not respond but slowly picked up food with his chopsticks—beef, cabbage, dumplings—and put it in his bowl. He ate slowly, pausing after every few mouthfuls. Occasionally he would look up at me but we ate in silence for the next ten minutes.

“After such a terrible thing, why do you want to go back to the tea dance?” he said finally.

“Because I want to learn to dance, to look beautiful, and meet people again. Weren’t those the best people in town?”

“Yes, they are from some of the most important and notable families in this city, some very influential people,” he agreed, putting down his chopsticks and leaning back in his chair, “but why do you want to go? Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I want you to take me out. I have been in this house for the last eight months and I want to see people and enjoy life in this city with you.” I realized that at that moment, it was the only thing that mattered to me, and it should be mine.

I would fill myself with something more than food and tea. I wanted to take what Ma and Sister had longed for so much. I would fill my emptiness as they had wanted to fill theirs. I would take what had been theirs but was now mine, and I would consume it all.

“I want to live as my sister would have done,” I stated.

Xiong Fa looked at me seriously then he shook his head and smiled sadly.

“You want to become like your sister? Is that all you can think about after what just happened to you?” The smile slid from his face and his eyes narrowed to dark slits, like his father’s. “Are you certain?”

“It will become me. Yes, I want to be the wife your father wanted for you.”

“Wait, I never said anything about what my father wanted.”

“That is who you were going to marry.” I looked up from eating. “But I will be better than my sister.”

“Well then, we’ll buy you new clothes and go out to dance.” He breathed in sharply. “But I’m surprised you want this.”

I watched him through my eyelashes. He noticed and his eyes slid away from mine.

“My parents want us to try for another child as soon as we can.” He got up from the table and came around to me, brushing my cheek with the side of his index finger. “Tomorrow we’ll buy clothes and all the other things you want. Now I must go to work. I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”

I looked up at him.

“Don’t worry, we’ll have another child. I am sure we will give the family a strong heir,” he reassured me.

Fool.

“I’m sure we will, and I’ll respect all that you say . . . but never forget that it was your mother who hit me and caused me to lose your son.”

He said nothing to that but took his jacket from a hanger on the back of the door and left with Ah Cheuk, who had come to escort him back to his car.

I remained sitting and glanced around me. I realized that this place no longer terrified me. It was just a room full of wooden furniture and a few ornaments, all arranged neatly and simply. I looked down at the half-finished bowl of fish soup, which was still warm. I brought the bowl to my face and the warmth fanned my cheeks. I drank the rest and returned the bowl to the table. The soup was enough for me. I stood up to look more closely at the objects in the room.

There was a small glass cabinet standing in the corner of the room adjacent to the main door. It held many little glass bottles of different colors—the prettiest things in the room. They seemed strange things for a man to have, out of place with everything except the toy train. Three or four bottles were placed on the top of the cabinet, within easy reach of anybody’s hands. I bent down and looked closely at one of the bottles, a three-sided yellow one with a tiny silver cap and a beautiful dragon climbing down from the heavens fired onto each side. I could see the distorted outline of the photograph hanging behind it when I looked through it. The picture was of Xiong Fa being held by his mother as a baby. Through the glass, the image of mother and child was tinted with yellow. They looked sick and ghostly, as if captured inside it.

I picked up the bottle by its little cap and held it in front of my right eye, closing my left. I looked at the photo again. Mother and son floated at the bottle’s center. They were not captured but protected, safely locked away. I let the bottle drop to the floor. It broke into many little pieces, some of which I trod on. Without knocking, Ah Cheuk came rushing into the room. He looked at me angrily and knelt down by my feet to look at the damage and started to pick up the pieces.

I stepped back and watched him hungrily collect the tiniest pieces, cutting himself as he did so. Yan arrived some minutes later and, seeing Ah Cheuk at work, looked at me and gave me that sad half-smile that told me she was worried for me.

“It was an accident,” I said. “I’ll go back to my room.” We walked out, Yan first, and I said to her, “I will be rejoining the family for dinner tonight. Tomorrow we are going shopping.”

As we passed back across the landings overlooking the main hallway below, I saw that some of the family members were still standing there, waiting to see what had happened between Xiong Fa and me. Perhaps they thought I would soon become First Wife of two wives.

D
uring the weeks and months that followed, I became the woman you knew. With each day that passed I further indulged myself acquiring all the things that Ma and Sister had longed to have. The prizes they had been denied. I had asked to buy dresses and the day after my lunch with my husband, Ah Cheuk appeared at the door to my apartment to inform me that Xiong Fa was waiting in the car below to take me shopping. Yan led me downstairs to where the car stood waiting at the side entrance to the main building. The compound, for that is what it really was, had a grand front entrance, which gave onto the main street, while at the back was the entrance to the courtyard. Here were the servants’ quarters and working rooms. On the right-hand side of the largest building, which contained the main hallway and our sleeping apartments, was a driveway that could accommodate several cars; Xiong Fa’s was parked there.

The driver opened the car door for me and I saw my husband sitting inside.

“So do you know what you are going to buy? I’ll bet you have no idea,” he said in an indulgent voice.

“I’ll find something,” I said as I climbed in.

“Well, if you’re anything like your sister, I believe you will.”

Once I was seated he signaled to the driver to leave.

As before, the curtains to the car were drawn across the windows but I wanted to see out so I pulled one curtain back.

“I hope you remember our conversation?” Xiong Fa lowered his voice, sounding serious. I didn’t bother to turn around. “You can do nearly everything you want but please be respectful.”

I said nothing but sat back at my leisure watching the city pass by. Everything looked strange to me; it was no longer so important or interesting. I felt disconnected from the streets and the people I used to walk among with Grandfather. I turned to Xiong Fa.

“Where are we going?”

“We are going to the best tailor in Shanghai. A man who once made the Empress Dowager’s clothes,” he said proudly.

“My grandfather said she was a very ugly woman,” I replied forthrightly.

“Yes, I believe she was. In fact, I think that was the main cause of the Revolution. But she wore wonderful clothes!” He laughed, and for the first time I laughed with him.

I returned to looking out of the window and realized we were on the road where I had last seen Grandfather. I stared out of the car window for a few minutes to see if he might be visible but there were just street people selling food. There were beggars and peasants walking slowly along the side of the road, hoping to find a job or be thrown some money. Shortly after that the car arrived outside a small shop and out came a tiny man with a long beard and mustache. This was not Tailor Street but somewhere very exclusive. Xiong Fa got out of the car and the old man greeted him by grabbing his hand in both of his own and shaking it vigorously. The driver opened my car door and I entered the shop.

The interior was beautiful. The famous painter Qi Baishi had given the tailor two great works, which hung between the shelves of cloth. Inside, belying its appearance, the shop was large enough to hold forty people. The floor was tiled with black and white marble, but apart from the shelves, the paintings, a large clean window at the front, and four mannequins, the shop contained only a huge worktable in the middle of the room.

The old man stood me before him and walked around me. He looked at my eyes and felt my arms as First and Second Wife had once done. He checked my legs, ankles, and feet and measured my neck. Then he paced slowly around the shop, looking at various cloths and back at me. Suddenly he started pulling bolts of silk from the shelves and throwing them onto the worktable, causing them to unravel as they landed. Then, once he had finished making his selection, he instructed one of his assistants to take each fabric in turn and hold it against me, while he stood back to observe me and make some notes.

He then presented me with pictures of various cheongsams and a few Western designs, and explained that Xiong Fa had already asked and paid him to make these for me. He asked me whether I had any comments but I was so overwhelmed that I had nothing to say, only nodded my agreement. I was the center of it all for only the second time in my life.

These clothes were but a few of the many that I bought over the following months and years. Once I became known in the shops as an important customer, Yan and I would go out in the afternoons and visit many different tailors and dressmakers, to look at new silks and embroidery. I would go to the most skilled people in Shanghai and they would wait on me, and I learned that I liked to be waited on. I passed my time being served by everyone around me. I could ask for anything, confident I would receive it. Soon I became accustomed to this service and expected it. I arranged my days and nights around pleasing myself. Day would often merge into night, with long hours spent eating eighteen-course banquets accompanied by music, performances, and dancing.