The Valley of Amazement (30 page)

I was no longer haughty and naive, spirited and stupid. I did not let my feelings run wild and imagine paid romance was love. I was a popular courtesan and took pride that I could create the most convincing romance possible for each man and that I provided this within the limits of time, be it one season or two. I never accepted a contract that was longer. It was not wise to be out of circulation. I built a reputation as a courtesan who was not dishonest with her clients. And if a suitor made promises, I did not believe him, but I was not cynical about his infatuation. I reminded myself of all this as I considered Loyalty’s request to see me. But still my heart raced.

I had seen Loyalty at parties from time to time—with courtesans and without. He was always polite, and I became more at ease each time, and eventually I discovered I could greet him with the faint affection of former friendship. Finally I was ready to meet him without bitterness or humiliation. As Loyalty once predicted, I would one day see him as a patron who treated me far better than most.

I told Magic Gourd about the request. She made a round mouth and twitched her eyebrows to be humorous. “Could it be he wishes to court you?”

I allowed him into my room. I resolved there would be no favors for old times’ sake.

“I’ve watched you for almost three years,” he said, “and not without a wish we could still enjoy each other. I feared, however, the old pain would return.”

“I was young and naive,” I said.

“You’ve learned so quickly and know more than most, I suspect. I see you have your spirit back, your independence. I wondered if you had truly forgiven me. If only we had met now, for the first time. You would have been able to see me as a patron and we could have enjoyed our time together without the burden of expecting more.”

“You don’t require forgiveness. You did nothing to wrong me. I should ask you to forgive me. I was unbearable, wasn’t I? I look back and wonder why you stayed as long as you did.”

“You were fifteen.” He then gave me the familiar gaze. “Violet, I would like to be your patron for a season. Could you bear to do that, given your past resentment of me?”

I said nothing. I usually had a ready answer to any request a man might make. But this one concerned my once-damaged heart. I had carefully repaired it. I was a different person. My desire for him was so strong I could easily lose myself. The next moment I thought: Why not enjoy a season without having to pretend I was in ecstasy, as I had to do with other men? I would have a holiday from work. Whatever happened, whether heartache came later, I wanted to feel the old addiction of love.

“Before you answer, I need to tell you something else,” he said. “I have a wife.”

The old pain instantly returned.

“We didn’t marry for love,” he said. “Our families have known each other for three generations, and she and I grew up side by side, like brother and sister. From the age of five, we were destined to marry. She delayed the marriage as long as possible, and you’ll be pleased to know the reason. She has no sexual desire for men. Both families believe she is the reincarnated spirit of a nun and they had hoped I would be able to change her religious tendencies. But the real truth is, she loves a woman, my cousin, whom she’s known since childhood. After my wife gave birth to a son, everyone was happy, and those two reincarnated nuns went off to live together in another part of the house. Nonetheless, she is still my wife. I tell you this, Violet, so that you don’t think another courtesan is luring her way into becoming my wife. I have a wife and I don’t want the chaos of concubines.”

As pledged, he was my patron for a season. For that time, I did not have to play a role. I simply gave in to love and pleasure, and put aside the knowledge that I would be wretched later.

When the season was over, Loyalty made a different pledge to me.

“I will always be your loyal friend. If you are ever in trouble, you can come to me.”

“Even when I am old and wrinkled?”

“Even then.”

He had just pledged friendship for a lifetime. He was giving me his loyalty, the meaning of his name. He would always help me. Wasn’t that the same as love? Wasn’t that worth all the seasons over a lifetime? Every few weeks, he would visit me for a night or two. I hoped for another contract each time I saw him. I delayed pressing suitors to become patrons so that I would still be available to him. Finally, I chided him gently. “Instead of having a night with me here and there when I am not busy, why not do a contract and have me at your beck and call whenever you wish.”

“Violet, my love, I’ve told you many times you know me better than anyone else. I have no mirror, but you truly see me. When I’m with you, I feel the old yearning, the vital force, and if I did not resist, I would fill the emptiness, and I would not strive harder. And then I would feel the passage of time, along with the terror that something important had eluded me, my better purpose in life, which I would never find before I died. I would sense the days going by, the edge of life coming closer. I don’t have to say more. You know me better than I do myself.”

“I know that what you just said is stink from a dog fart. If I knew you that well, I’d make you do what I want.” He laughed.

With each question I asked, he gave me a better answer than I had expected, but it was contained within a worse one, a riddle of hope. He had pledged himself to me for life, yet he did not want to ever be fulfilled by me, and so we had to remain apart. What did he think I would fulfill? Why couldn’t I simply fail to fulfill it? What about my yearnings? I felt as if I were running in a labyrinth, chasing after something I could not see yet knew was important. I sensed it was just ahead, and then it would go around a corner, and I would be lost. I would have to decide what to do next, where to go, and what I needed to get out of that confusing place. If I stopped running and stood still, I would be accepting that what I had was all I would ever have. And then I would no longer be lost, because there would be nowhere else to go.

As time went by, I discovered the stranger I had been running after—my happier self, which all my worries and discontent had chased away. I left behind my yearnings, and I continued on with a sharper mind and clearer eyes, ready to take what was in front of me.

CHAPTER
6

A S
INGING
S
PARROW

Shanghai
March 1918
Violet

Spring Festival came and went, and Magic Gourd lamented that I had again failed to become one of the top Ten Beauties of Shanghai. I had not garnered any good gossip worth mentioning in the mosquito press, she said. I had worn the wrong colors. I had failed to cultivate more influential clients. “Do you think those girls who win are prettier or more talented? Not at all! But they don’t lie around cracking watermelon seeds, thinking popularity always goes up and never down.”

The popularity contest was a sham, but she refused to believe it. The courtesans who won worked for houses run by the Green Gang, and the tally of votes by their members outnumbered the competition tenfold. “Even if the contest were not crooked,” I said, “I’m twenty, a picked peach, no longer new and intriguing. And being a Eurasian flower is not an advantage anymore.”

She gave a dismissive sniff. “If you already think like that, you better look now for some way to attract more attention, or you’ll wind up as an attendant to a girl as ungrateful as you.”

The world of flowers was full of Eurasian weeds—half-American, half-English, half-German, half-French—50 percent of a hundred varieties. And there were more in the second-class houses, even more in the opium flower houses. All of us in the first-class houses resented the newcomers, both the sojourners and those who would plant roots and reach out for opportunity. They were changing Shanghai to fill a bottomless greed. The Japanese had taken over more Chinese businesses, buildings, and houses. They owned little shops and big stores. Their geishas had higher status than our first-class courtesans while offering only music that sounded like raindrops, no sex. Why was that popular? If that were all that our flowers offered, they would have been tapping out tunes on a brass begging bowl.

Last week we were surprised to hear that three of the best first-class houses now welcomed foreigners as customers. At Hidden Jade Path, foreigners had come every night, but they had not been allowed in the courtesan house, except as a guest of a Chinese customer. And even then, they could only look and not touch. We heard rumors that the Western customers who visited first-class houses did not follow the customs and protocols. They did not have the patience to woo a beauty for a month. They did not compete with other men.
They flirted and played games, drank, ate, and listened to the beauty sing. The more forceful and generous ones were invited into the boudoir the same night. In our opinion, those first-class houses had fallen beneath the standards of second-class houses. On the other hand, the Westerners left handsome gifts, usually in silver dollars. The houses had been less profitable in recent years. No wonder they were letting exceptions creep in. The jewelry that their Chinese suitors gave them might have been worth more than those dollars, but when the courtesans traded them in at the jeweler or pawnshop, they received less than their value and the money was in Chinese yuan. Many worried that the currency would fall in value with the least little problem among the warlords and the Republicans, but it would be unpatriotic to say so aloud.

What would happen to our house? If we did not take in the foreigners, what else could we offer? There were over fifteen hundred first-class houses, and many had newer and more fashionable furnishings, more card games, radios, and phonographs in each room, as well as modern toilets that carried away the dirtied water with a pull on the chain. Madam Li said she could not afford to change the furniture and decorations whenever a fresh breeze went by.

In the lesser houses and on the streets, there were choices, beyond imagination, for salacious sex. Nothing was sacred or too precious to defile. Some prostitutes were widows of noblemen—so they said—who allowed men to rub off their gilt. The wives who called themselves “half-open” welcomed visitors from morning until late afternoon, when their husbands were away. One aging woman claimed she was a famous singer. She had decorated her room with posters from the days when she was at the height of her fame. We did not think she could possibly be the famous singer we had once admired—but we discovered she was when we went to visit her. For the foreigners, there were Eurasian girls, who claimed they were the daughters of diplomats, pale white girls, who advertised themselves to be the daughters of missionaries, many pairs of virgin twins, and pretty courtesans who were, in reality, pretty men. But the lies still drew the foreigners, who were too ignorant to know they were being tricked or too embarrassed to say so later. Those foreigners, we imagined, would be the same ones who might walk through our doors.

Vermillion was almost twenty-five, past her bloom and luster. She refused to recognize it. Her reputation had carried her far, and she still attracted old-fashioned suitors who threw parties and requested her to play the zither and sing. But now the suitors did not have to wait several weeks before she was available. And not all the suitors were the ones with great power and wealth, although, luckily, some of our longtime customers remained steadfast.

I saw her eyes widen with horror the day when Madam Li broached to her the idea of welcoming foreigners—respected, wealthy ones, she assured her, not sailors or clerks. “It has become not only acceptable, but fashionable,” her mother said. “We will still be selective about our clientele. A foreign guest would have to be introduced by a longtime customer of the house who can vouch for the foreigner’s good standing.”

Vermillion looked as if fire would shoot out of her eyes. “They are crude in manners,” she said, “and they carry gonorrhea, syphilis, and bugs that leave you covered head to toe with red itchy bumps. Do you want me, your beloved daughter, to become a diseased whore overnight?”

Madam Li’s eyes narrowed. “If you want to inherit this house,” she said, “you better take gangsters as your patrons from here on out.”

T
HE FOLLOWING WEEK,
Loyalty Fang told Madam Li he was happy to make an introduction. Our foreign guest would be the American son of a distinguished family whose shipping company had done business in China for over fifty years. Loyalty said he was more than satisfied with their services in transporting his porcelain to Europe and America. This commendation attested to the father’s good character and, apparently, the son’s.

“He’s been in China for nearly a year,” he told me over tea. “Very earnest, but very Western in his thinking. He told me he’s been teaching himself Chinese, although I must say, whatever Chinese he is trying to speak is so atrocious it’s impossible to understand. I have resorted to using my English to converse with the man, and since I’m a little rusty, our conversations have been limited to the weather, the country where his family lives, their state of health, when his grandfather died, the food he has eaten in Shanghai, and whether there was any particular dish that he thought was strange but delicious. It’s laborious making small talk. Every few minutes, I have to use that damn Chinese-English dictionary you gave me. I know how to say in English
vegetable, meat,
and
fruit.
But how do you say
cabbage, pork,
and
kumquat
? Anyway, from those few conversations, I can assure you he is polite, humble, and bashful—ha!—truly unusual in an American, don’t you think? The last time we spoke, he said he wanted to meet a Chinese woman who spoke English well enough that he could enjoy interesting conversations. Of course, I thought of you.”

“So I am no longer your little Eurasian beauty,” I said. “For your friend, I’ve become Chinese?”

“Eh, are you ashamed to be Chinese? No? Then why are you so quick to criticize me? When we met, you were Lulu Mimi’s Eurasian princess. That was how everyone saw you. Since then, I have not thought of you as one race or two. You are simply who you are—a hotheaded vixen who will not forgive me—and for what, you won’t tell me.”