The Painter of Shanghai (28 page)

23

The day the results are posted, Zanhua himself takes her to the academy.

On the drive over, Yuliang looks at her husband just twice. Throughout the holiday they’ve feasted, shopped. They’ve bought new clothes for the New Year, dined with friends, played their poetry drinking game (again she beat him). Lovemaking has been frequent, tender. Throughout it all, though, it’s felt as though some part of her has been tautly waiting. Now that the moment is here, her nerves feel as brittle as the ice that crunches beneath the horse’s clipped hooves.

As they pull up to the academy, Yuliang warily scans the swarm of youth there, chatting, blowing steam and tobacco into the chill. She sees three young men toss their caps in the air. A moment later they’re striding past, arms linked, singing a tune popularized by the cinema. ‘You’re certain you don’t want me to go look for you?’ Zanhua asks as the carriage slows to a stop.

‘No.’ It comes out starkly; chagrined, she takes his arm. ‘I’m sorry. I just – I think I should do this myself.’

‘Don’t apologize.’ He pats her elbow. ‘I felt the same way when I received Todai’s acceptance letter. I all but snatched it from my mother’s hand.’ Sadness shadows his face briefly, as it always does when he speaks of home. Then he brightens. ‘Anyway, I got this for you.’ Reaching
into his pocket, he pulls out something tiny and green. Taking it in her hand, Yuliang sees that it’s a tiny boar carved out of jade. ‘Your sign,’ he says. ‘For good luck.’

She looks up. ‘But you don’t believe in luck.’

‘In times of crisis I do. As long as it’s good.’ He gives her hand a squeeze, then nods toward the waiting bulletin board. ‘Can I at least come with you?’

She removes his hand from her sleeve gently, shaking her head. Then, taking a deep breath, she steps down from her seat.

For a moment she’s back in Zhenjiang, approaching a crowd of fellow passengers on their way to Wuhu. What was it that Wu had said then?
A good woman is not afraid of people
… Yuliang sets her jaw. The crowd, seeming to sense her resolve, makes way for her. She soon finds herself at the board’s base, facing the list.

The names are posted in no clear order.
Zhang Diwa
, she reads.
Wong Zhihou.
In the rear someone curses: ‘Fucking sons of slave girls!’

‘Bad luck, brother,’ says someone else. And then: ‘Bull’s balls. I’m not here either.’

Yuliang reads on:
Ho Shenwan. Li Renju.
Each name that’s not hers is a small weight added to her chest.
Yong Reji. Sen Lishang,
she reads, without blinking.

And the last one:
Yi Leishe.

Three more boys hoot in victory, ‘See you in September!’

I must have missed it
, Yuliang thinks numbly, and pretends to read the list again.

‘Yuliang.’ Zanhua is standing behind her.

She turns to him. ‘It’s not here.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘It’s not here.’

‘A mistake,’ he says, taking her arm. ‘The principal himself wants you here.’

She shakes her head. ‘He lied.’ She starts pushing back toward the car. Thinking:
Little idiot. Stupid whore.
The truth is, Zanhua was right in the argument about her candidacy: the whole city must know of her. And who on earth would want a street chicken in their art school?

Blinking back tears, she glances at her husband.

But he has stopped again. ‘Wait, Yuliang. You dropped…’ He bends down, stands up. Holds out the little green boar.

Yuliang takes it back, though she’s tempted to throw it in the gutter. ‘Let’s go.
Please.’

The crowd around the announcement board is now clearing, but still Zanhua stands there. And when he does finally start walking, it’s not toward the car. It’s in the other direction entirely – toward the school’s entrance.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To make inquiries.’ He strides toward the French doors. Several students look after him, bemused.

Yuliang blinks at them, at their smug, smooth faces, and then hurries after him. ‘We should just go home. We shouldn’t create a stir.’ And when he continues: ‘
Zanhua.
That’s why we left Wuhu, isn’t it? Not to cause a stir?’

He pauses. ‘No,’ he says. ‘We left Wuhu so that we –
you
– would be happy.’

And having made this astonishing statement, he turns back toward the doors. At that precise moment, though, they burst open from the inside.

Two men emerge, walking very rapidly. The first is in his sixties and wears a merchant’s robe. The other looks young enough to be one of the students, although he’s dressed far more elegantly than any of them. Yuliang forms a quick impression: a well-proportioned, amused-seeming face; a strong, square chin; sharp eyes beneath high, well-shaped eyebrows. His voice carries a calm confidence as he shouts after the merchant, who’s now heading for a Bentley parked across the street. ‘The point, Master Chu, is just that. Contrary to your assertions, our school is not a whorehouse. And yes, it would be a most shameful waste of time and money if your son were simply ogling naked women in public. But that is not what he or anyone else at my school is doing.’

The older man turns back, incredulous. ‘Then you’re as blind as you are impudent. In case you didn’t notice, that girl had no clothes on – none at all! And not only has he been staring at her openly for days at a time, but he’s been displaying his pictures of the little chicken to everyone! Including, may I inform you, his future
mother-in-law
!’ He signals to the waiting chauffeur to open the car’s passenger door. ‘Or perhaps I should say now his
former
future mother-in-law.’

He barks to the driver, who hops to the front to crank the engine. Hands cupped to mouth, the younger man shouts over the loud grinding: ‘Within our hallowed walls, the human form is sacred. Nudity is that form’s most natural, pure state. As an artist, your son has the task – no, I’ll say it, the
duty –
of studying it. As a scholar studies the Analects, the Doctrine of the Mean!’

The merchant pokes his face out the window. ‘Now you compare yourself to Confucius!’

‘There is nothing dishonorable in what I’m saying!’ Principal Liu retorts. ‘Western artists have been performing life studies for centuries! In fact, it’s not just artists but all people who should strive to appreciate the body. As Robert Henri said, “When we respect the nude, we will no longer have any shame about it.”’

‘At which point,’ the man barks back, ‘I’ll be leaving China. Along with every respectable person here.’ As the chauffeur guns the engine, he puts his head out of the window again. ‘I’ll send my steward to discuss the bill. Athough I’m not convinced, Master Liu, that either you or your school deserves a single dog-fuck yuan of my money.’

The Bentley leaps forward, nearly hitting an old woman who is passing. Cursing, she fumbles in her pockets and pulls out a small mirror. This she flashes at the retreating vehicle, presumably to deflect evil spirits.

Liu Haisu, for his part, drops his gaze to the ground. He fishes a cigar from his pocket and lights it. A few students hurry up to him with sketches to show, questions to ask. Most, however, have already turned away. Apparently the spectacle is nothing new to them.

Yuliang glances at Zanhua, fully expecting the scene to have weakened his resolve. But he just straightens his hat. ‘Master Liu!’ he calls. ‘A moment, if I may…’ And in a few short steps he’s joined the small crowd gathered around the artist.

Yuliang watches, stunned, as her husband and Principal Liu fall into conversation. Zanhua’s back is to her, his
voice low. But she reads the surprise on Principal Liu’s face easily enough. ‘That’s very odd, Inspector Pan,’ she hears him say, and she is struck by how easily his quiet voice carries. ‘At our last meeting we agreed upon your wife’s acceptance.’ His eyes flick thoughtfully toward Yuliang. His gaze this time is long and leisurely, and not without male inflection. It certainly doesn’t leave Yuliang feeling ‘sacred’ or ‘pure.’ She makes herself look right back at him, holding his gaze.

Liu Haisu smiles slightly. Then, nodding to Zanhua, he walks slowly over to where she’s standing. ‘Madame Pan. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m only sorry to meet under these’ – he flicks a glance at the board – ‘unfortunate circumstances.’

What she really wants to do is throw herself before him.
Please,
she wants to cry.
Please take me. I’ll cause no scandals. I’ll work hard. I’ll
… But even as she pictures doing this, she knows it isn’t the solution. She knows Principal Liu. Or at least has known men who are like him. He may revel in scandal, as everyone says. But a weeping woman at his feet would simply bore him.

Instead, on an impulse, Yuliang lifts her chin. ‘Unfortunate,’ she says, ‘for whom?’

Principal Liu blinks. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Forgive me, but I can’t help thinking that my rejection is less unfortunate for me than for your school.’

Two young women students, overhearing her, stop in disbelief. One titters, elbowing the other.

Principal Liu, however, is looking at her with renewed interest. ‘You do,’ he says.

‘I know I’m being forward. But I was so encouraged
by all I’d read and heard of you and your famous academy. And impressed by how in the past you’ve stood up to narrow minds – minds like those of the man who just left. You made it so clear that his mode of thinking is outdated, and that your goals are indeed noble. And modern.’

Yuliang can hardly believe herself as she goes on. And yet she stands firm: there is too much at stake. Besides – she’s rarely known flattery not to work on large egos. Particularly on large male egos.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he says. He is actually beaming. ‘This school was founded largely for that. Modernity. Art in its truest sense, clothed or unclothed. Male or female.’

‘So I’d thought. Which is why I’m surprised that when a qualified woman presents herself at your doors, you turn her away. Not on the basis of skill, it seems. But on… other things.’ She hears Zanhua take in his breath sharply. ‘If I’m not mistaken, I believe you were quoted as saying that women should play a key role in China’s art revolution. Just as they should in the social revolution that’s to come.’ As Principal Liu frowns, she clarifies: ‘The
Shenbao
. Two weeks ago, I believe.’

‘I may have said that,’ he says, clearly pleased by this evidence of the weight of his own words. ‘Although this city’s reporters are often even greater fabricators than its painters.’ He tosses his cigar to the ground. ‘The truth, though, is that today’s results aren’t about revolution. They’re about history. There are those on my staff who claim that women students are more distraction than boon here. They take criticism badly and drop out the minute they marry or decide to have a baby. In fact, the last one
here left for no better reason than that she was upset by the nude models. Even more than the boys were.’ He snorts. ‘Which is saying quite a lot.’

Yuliang pulls herself up stiffly. ‘I’m not like that.’

He looks at her closely. ‘Tell me how you’re different.’

Because,
she thinks,
it will take more than a pair of bare breasts or a jade gate to make me weep. And because I’ve seen more nudes, in more positions and indignities imaginable, than you or your precious boys will see in their whole lives. Even if they are lucky.

But what she says is simply, ‘I’m better.’

Is she imagining it, or do his eyes take on a keener gleam? ‘Better than the women who’ve come before you?’

‘Better than most students. Men or women.’

It is an indefensible show of arrogance. But as Yuliang watches Liu Haisu react – thinking, looking her over, then finally nodding – she knows again that she has played the moment correctly. Tapping his chin, the principal glances back at the bulletin board, then at the place where the Bentley was parked. ‘We certainly have space for one more now,’ he says at last, a little ruefully. ‘And though I’m younger than many here, I
am
still principal.’

‘So…’ Yuliang hardly dares push her luck further. But he still hasn’t answered her question. ‘So I’m in?’

He looks her in the eye, then bows a sweeping, theatrical bow. ‘You are welcome, Madame Pan, at my poor little school. May you not live to regret it.’

PART SIX
The Academy

Renoir is vulgar, Cézanne is shallow, Matisse is inferior.

Xu Beihong

24

The women recline in postures of rest and gossip, bodies gleaming with scented oils and soaps. Yuliang, huddled behind a bath bench, surveys them tensely, a huntress stalking her quarry.

She sizes up the young girl who stands as slimly straight as a sapling, as well as the stooped grandmother scrubbing her skin six shades of pink. She examines the two middle-aged women who chat in the corner, rubbing rough spots on their heels and elbows with rice cloth. One is thin and sinewy. The other’s twice as broad. Her thighs, breasts, and belly are textured with accumulated fat. Put together and divided evenly (Yuliang ungenerously thinks), they’d both be of average size and weight. Then there’s the girl with the slim wrists and the serious gaze who smiled at Yuliang in the dressing room. She seems young, and has brought a book in with her despite what the steamy air must do to the pages.

Trying to choose just one suddenly seems harder than doing the drawing itself.
Why?
Yuliang wonders, pulling her pencil out from its hiding place. They’re all women, after all. So what makes them seem so different? And why does she automatically think of one version as
pretty
and the others
plain
or even
ugly
? And does she – in the end, merely another woman – really have the power to change that perception, with little more than her bare, damp hands?

Liu Haisu clearly thinks so. ‘It’s your job,’ he told students during his commencement speech for this, Yuliang’s second year at the Shanghai Art Academy, ‘to challenge the assumptions of your viewers. To take a dead flower and show us its hidden life. To take an ugly woman and show us the beauty in her ugliness.’ He neglected to talk about painting men – presumably because he, like everyone else, seems to think it’s somehow even more scandalous to paint them naked than women. At least
for
women. Male-study classes, therefore, are open to male students only. As annoyed by this as Yuliang is (though she can hardly say so in public – they whisper enough about her as it is), she knows that it’s not purely an Eastern phenomenon. Caillebotte’s
Man at His Bath
, after all, shows just the barest dangle of scrotum, yet was considered so shocking in Belgium that it was first exhibited in its very own closet.