The Painter of Shanghai (12 page)

After the ceremony they all trailed home and did what’s done when a sister dies: they smoked, gambled, and gossiped. They painted their fingernails. They waited, as they must always wait, for the scandal to break. Yuliang didn’t talk to them – she didn’t talk to anyone, unless the words were beaten out of her. For the entire mourning period she sat in her room, in near silence.

The resumption of business as usual took more time than expected, in part because of the Ren family’s high social status. As the men trickled back, tabloids as far-flung as those in Suzhou followed the court’s deliberations, accessorizing the crime with hidden details that their editors claimed to have exclusively unearthed. Some headlines announced that Jinling was a man-hating witch-whore. Others said it was nothing but her own fault – that sex-sickness had driven her young suitor mad. Only one blamed the local police, to whom Godmother paid a monthly sum to turn a blind eye to the Hall’s various infractions. ‘Outrageous,’ huffed Yi Gan when he read
this to Yuliang. ‘Madame Ping may be sharp-tongued, but she’s not a murderess.’ Still, there was a small note of doubt in his voice.

Even this suspicion, however, barely cut through Yuliang’s haze of grief. She trudged through the days with mechanized efficiency, rising, dressing, eating, bedding, and embroidering merely as a means to keep from thinking. At times she almost succeeded. Most times, though, she failed, her legs and arms so heavy she couldn’t rise from her bed. She almost welcomed the beatings that inevitably followed. The leather whip felt like justice, hot and pure on her skin. She’d rise up the next morning aching but strangely purged, as though some guilt had been discharged with her blood.

Winter ended. The flowers awoke one afternoon to discover a new doorbell, installed because it was fashionable. No one could get used to the jangling ring, and the fact that it didn’t discriminate between honored guests and mere walk-ins. Call-cards resumed their rush in and out, and for some reason many of them requested Yuliang’s services. That was when Godmother took the unusual step of skipping naptime, and called Yuliang to her room.

‘You’ve done well this quarter,’ the madam announced, sliding two last beads of her abacus into place. ‘Even with your little set-in-stone face.’

Yuliang, who hadn’t slept in nearly four nights, weathered an urge to take the abacus and slam it down on the fat, smooth chignon. But when the madam beckoned her forward, she obeyed. She let the calculation-callused fingers grasp her chin.

‘You miss her,’ the manager remarked flatly.

You know I do
, Yuliang thought. Just the previous night, Godmother had discovered the kitchen crate on which Yuliang had set candles and the few items of Jinling’s she’d managed to secret away: a silver hairpin; a lipstick case; the phoenix wine cups. She’d also added the sketch of Jinling she’d obsessively struggled over between clients, as though capturing her on paper might bring her back in the flesh. Jinling’s ears were too small, her neck too thin; her delicate nose had come out almost snoutlike. In fact, Yuliang fully expected Godmother to laugh.

To her surprise, though, the madam studied the sketch a moment. Then she pocketed it. ‘Put those flames out,’ she’d said as she left. ‘You know the rules.’

Now, though, she smiled coldly. ‘I know enough, at least, not to get so close to anyone that I’ll have to miss her once she’s gone.’ Turning Yuliang’s face to and fro in the light, she added reprovingly, ‘You’re as thin as a sesame stalk. Still, you’re pretty. And the men seem to associate you with her.’ Her dimpled chin sank to her chest as she pondered. At last she nodded. ‘Very well. Get the man to help you move tomorrow.’

Yuliang jerked her chin free. ‘Move? Move where?’

‘Into Jinling’s room. From now on you’ll take her clients.’

Yuliang gawked at her. ‘You mean…’

The madam sighed. ‘Yes, you little idiot. Congratulations. You’re the new top girl.’

Now gingerly prying Yi Gan’s fingers from her wrist (she can’t sleep with a man’s touch on her body), Yuliang
remembers how the other flowers had muttered about it – Yuliang getting the biggest room and dress budget, the top billing at the gate and at banquets and events. Especially Mingmei, whom everyone had assumed was next in line for Jinling’s job.
She’s been here barely two years!
Yuliang heard her splutter to Suyin.
She’s insufferable, too – won’t smoke, won’t play cards with us or join our chats. She doesn’t appreciate the honor she’s receiving!

Contrary to the gossip, though, Yuliang did appreciate her new post – although not for the reasons the others would have. The heavens themselves couldn’t have handed down a worse penance for her: the endless men, the longer hours, the requests of such casual and cultivated abasement that she sometimes wonders how Jinling rose so brightly most afternoons.

And then, of course, there is this: Jinling’s bed. The site of such delicious, forbidden memories. Yuliang still can’t lie in it without half-expecting Jinling to lie down in it too. She can’t wake in it without reaching for Jinling’s soft, warm waist – and, upon finding Yi Gan’s burly torso instead, being forced to remember. That’s her punishment: remembering everything.

11

‘Ho-ho!’ Merchant Ming shouts in triumph from across the banquet hall: he has just won a round of tiger-stick-insect. ‘Who is next? Lao Yi! Try me!’

‘Not tonight,’ Yi Gan calls back. ‘You’re invincible. I wouldn’t stand a chance.’

‘That’s what your wife says when you put your slippers by her bed,’ Merchant Ming calls back.

As the hot room resounds with manly chuckles, the guild leader leans past Yuliang with the wine pot. He’d carefully seated his guest of honor, the new customs inspector, between Yuliang and Mingmei at the evening’s start. ‘Essential thing, timing,’ he says now, pouring. ‘In drinking as in business. Don’t you agree, eminence?’

‘I know more about business than I do about drinking, I fear.’ Pan Zanhua is a handsome young man, though he sits slightly hunched, as though he’d like to pull his head into his shoulders. He eyes his host coolly, as though Yi Gan were a point on some unpleasant horizon.

‘Ah. Then clearly our lovely companions have something to teach you.’ The merchant’s voice is light. But the look he gives Yuliang is as weighted as his trading scales. Everyone knows about his agreement with the outgoing inspector: tax abatement on the one side, a well-stocked pantry on the other. It is clear to Yuliang, however, that despite his youth Inspector Pan will not
be quite as accommodating: for all their efforts, neither she nor Mingmei has been able to coax so much as a smile from him. He is impeccably civil, utterly unencour-aging. He is, she’s decided, insufferable. But Merchant Yi has ordered them to give his guest ‘special attention.’ So reluctantly, she tries again.

‘Have you tried the abalone?’ she asks, picking out a plump one for him. ‘It’s a specialty here. It’s said the empress dowager had a plate sent out to her barge once. It came back as though it had been licked clean.’

Pan Zanhua looks affronted, as though she’s suggested they copulate on the table. Without a word, he turns toward the next table. Yuliang stares at his clean profile a moment. Then, affronted herself, she plops the greasy morsel gracelessly onto his plate. She knows this type. Oh, yes. He takes every smile, every female glance as a lure into scandal. But he’ll fling his ethics far from his bedside.
One touch
, Jinling used to say.
That’s all it takes. They forget everything.

If only it were as easy for Yuliang.

Sighing, she turns back to her reluctant companion. He is, she must admit, very good-looking. A strong, square jaw. Full, almost womanly lips, though at the moment they are pressed so tightly together they’d have to be pried open for a smile. Yuliang watches him rub his cheek as the merchant leans over with the wine jug, topping his guest’s already full cup a second time. Not surprisingly, some wine slops over. ‘
Aiyoo
,’ the host cries, ‘I missed the mark.’

‘You did,’ Pan Zanhua agrees. Yuliang, already sopping up the spilled drink with her handkerchief, looks up at the tartness of his tone. ‘But really. It’s just wine.’

‘Ah,’ says Merchant Yi, ‘there’s where you’re wrong, if you’ll pardon my rudeness. This
shaoxing
is top-grade. From Sheng Huang Fu’s shop.’ He nods meaningfully. ‘Your predecessor had quite a stockpile, I believe.’

‘A man of taste,’ the inspector observes, ignoring the hint. He reaches out for the hot towel that’s been left for him, and starts as his fingers knock against Yuliang’s.

Yuliang sees him take in the little cloth square in her hand, its floral border, its paired butterflies. When he looks up at her, the pools of his pupils quiver in surprise. She has the strange impression of a great deal of sadness.

‘Master Pan!’ Merchant Ming has arrived at the table. ‘How about a little wager?’

‘I’m afraid I’m no gambler either.’

‘I’ll go easy on you,’ Ming promises. ‘That is, if you will on me. What’s the levy on soaps from Shanghai these days? Ho-ho!’ Without waiting for a response he holds up his fist, chopstick rising from it like an ivory tusk. The inspector’s face stiffens in irritated resignation as his uninvited guest counts: ‘On three. One… two…’

‘Stick,’ Inspector Pan says quietly.

‘Insect!’ shouts Merchant Ming, just a hair after. ‘Ah-ha!’

‘Insect bores stick,’ pipes Mingmei from behind them, as though no one else would make the connection.

An exasperated look passes over the inspector’s face.
He doesn’t want to be here any more than I do
, Yuliang realizes in surprise.

That this important man, fawned over by the town’s most important names, might feel out of place seems very odd. As does the sight of a hand – her own hand –
stretching out to take hold of his cup. ‘Here,’ she hears herself saying. ‘Let me.’

A small silence follows as she picks up the cup and downs the wine. It’s common for girls to drink for favored clients, but Yuliang does it only rarely. And only for her patron. As she sets the cup back down, Yi Gan sucks his teeth.

‘Our honorable guest says he needs more practice drinking,’ she explains. Even to her own ears, it sounds like a protest.

Pan Zanhua stares at her a moment. Then he excuses himself to step outside. As he leaves, Yuliang feels Yi Gan’s hand slide into the high slit of her dress. She clamps her legs shut, mortified at first. But the merchant merely gives her thigh a hard, twisting pinch.

‘Your gesture was kind,’ Pan Zanhua says in a low voice, a little later. He is pulling out a silver cigarette box. ‘But it wasn’t necessary. Why did you do it?’

He’s finally addressed her. Leaning forward with her lighter, Yuliang suppresses a small smile of triumph. ‘I’ve gathered that your eminence doesn’t enjoy drinking

games.’

‘I don’t enjoy the
usual
drinking games,’ he says, watching her keenly through the smoke.

She colors slightly. ‘I apologize.’

‘Please don’t. Women apologize too much.’

Now she gawks at him. No man, not even her eccentric uncle, has ever said anything remotely like this. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says – then, despite herself, she breaks into laughter. ‘I’m a true boar, it seems. It’s my destiny to want harmony.’

‘You let astrologers choose your character?’

‘I didn’t think it had anything to do with choice.’

‘You have much to learn.’

Insufferable
, she thinks again, and she smiles at him sweetly. ‘May I ask what your eminence’s sign might be?’

‘I was born in the rat year.’

‘It seems accurate enough. If you’ll pardon my saying so.’

‘How so?’

She ticks it off on her fingers. ‘You are clearly very intelligent. You’re ambitious and honest. You have an answer for everything.’ Eyeing him sideways, she adds, ‘I wouldn’t be so surprised if you also secretly enjoyed gambling after all.’

He looks startled by the jab. Yuliang hides another smile with a sip of watered wine. ‘Some say rat and boar are destined to be together,’ she adds. A small stab of sadness:
Jinling
.

‘Certainly.’ He snorts. ‘Those who make money out of the union. I will admit, however, that you are right about the gambling. I simply prefer my wagers to be of a more… refined nature.’

‘How interesting,’ Yuliang says, though she is thinking,
How pompous.
‘Perhaps you’ll take the time to teach me one.’

He looks at her strangely, trying to assess whether or not she is serious. Then he glances quickly around the room. No one but Mingmei seems to be noting their discussion. ‘All right.’

He explains the rules: She must come up with a theme.
It must be something literary, something he can link to a poem or a classic. If he does this quickly and successfully, he wins.

‘What happens if you meet my challenge?’ she asks him.

‘You drink. Though if you insist, I will drink for you.’

Now it’s her turn to study him. Is it her imagination, or could his tone almost be described as flirtatious?

Two seats over, Mingmei taps her fan in kinetic rhythm on her shoulder, on the button that fashionably secures her handkerchief there.
Click, click.
Her eyes return to the two of them: twice, three times. Ignoring her, Yuliang runs through her stockpile of
ci.
‘Swallows,’ she says at last.

He lifts an eyebrow, and she sees at once that she’s made the game far too simple. ‘Cold Food Festival, swallows,’ she corrects herself. ‘And – and catkins.’

He blinks at this last clue, frowns. Then he shuts his eyes. His lips move wordlessly, uncertainly. But he starts:

The Cold Food Festival
a quiet and peaceful spring day.
From the jade burner rises the up-curling smoke
of the dying incense.
Dreams came back to me as I slumbered
on the hill-shaped pillow which concealed…

His stumbles, stops. Helpfully, she offers another line: ‘“My hairpins with flowery ornaments…”’