‘Every day?’
‘Oh, yes, mornings, afternoons, sometimes yourself in the evenings, sometimes others. She’s always in demand. We’re extremely proud of her. And often worried that she’ll tire herself out. Isn’t that right, Ren Ren?’
Ren Ren grunted.
‘So you see, De Falang Xiansheng, my difficulty. It’s not a question of money. I must think of my other clients. If she were to go away to live with you, well, she would have to return, morning and afternoon, to fulfil her obligations here. And I don’t think that would be very convenient for you.’
Frank cleared his throat. ‘That’s not exactly what I envisaged. I had hoped for some exclusivity. I thought I had it, an understanding.’
‘Oh, no, De Falang Xiansheng. There’s no exclusivity. This is a working house. Our girls serve all our customers.’
‘Dammit, I’ve always paid you over the odds. I thought Shen Ping was—’
‘Exclusively yours? Oh, no. But she is very happy to look after you when you’re here. None of our girls provide exclusive services.’
‘But what about Major Lin and Fan Yimei? She seems exclusively hitched to Lin.’
‘Fan Yimei? Are you interested in Fan Yimei, De Falang Xiansheng? Well, I can certainly see what I can do.’
‘I’m not interested in Fan Yimei. I … All I wanted was to take Shen Ping away from here, because I thought she … She told me she didn’t have other lovers. Or very few. I—I know what sort of place this is. I wasn’t born yesterday. But she—she said that I was … special. She said I was kind to her.’ Frank’s voice had lowered to an embarrassed croak.
‘Oh, a girl will say anything to make a man happy.’ Mother Liu gave a shrill laugh. ‘That’s part of her job, and her skill. There’s always dissimulation in the art of love. Shen Ping has many lovers. She’s extremely experienced, a credit to our house. Of course, she’s also a very conscientious girl. She has often told me what particularly pleases you—Flute-playing While Drinking at the Jade Fountain, the Frog Dipping Between the Pools, the Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, the Phoenix Sporting in the Cinnabar Grotto, Cicadas Cleaving, Dragons Twisting, Silkworms Entangling—need I go on on, De Falang Xiansheng? You’re such a demanding, energetic man, aren’t you? Naturally I urged her to practise all these things with her other clients so her technique would be even better for you…’
‘She told you that?’ Frank muttered, almost inaudibly.
‘Of course. We spend a lot of time discussing how best to please you, De Falang Xiansheng. You’re a most valued customer. And we discussed this lovely idea of you taking her away. I encouraged her to humour you. Don’t be angry, I assure you whatever she said to you it was with the best of intentions. To increase your pleasure, and happiness.’
‘I believed her. God, what a fool.’
Mother Liu knew when to keep silent. Ren Ren yawned, and spat on the floor. Frank sat miserably in his chair. He coughed, then attempted a wry smile.
‘Well, I seem to have made an ass of myself, Madam Liu. I think I’d better go.’
‘Would you like Shen Ping to wait in the chamber for you?’
‘No, I’m a little tired tonight. Thank you all the same. I—I think I’ll make my way home now, if that’s all right with you. I’ve settled for the dinner. Good night.’
Mother Liu rose to her feet. ‘It is always a pleasure, De Falang Xiansheng. I hope we will see you again soon. A servant will escort you.’
Mother Liu watched him pick up his hat from the hook and, with bowed shoulders, make his way out of the door. Ren Ren slouched to a chair. ‘Well, that was brilliant, Mother,’ he sneered. ‘I think you’ve driven him away for good.’
‘He’ll come back,’ she said. ‘They always do.’ She put a hand to her forehead. ‘I have a headache. It’s been a long day. He may not want Shen Ping again. Just in case, you’d better prepare another girl for the hairy ape.’
‘Fan Yimei?’
‘Fan Yimei belongs to Major Lin. You know that. Try Chen Meina, she’s no good for anything.’ She yawned. ‘Ren Ren?’ she said.
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. You had better give Shen Ping a good hiding, after all. And this time I don’t care if you do mark her. Make her suffer, the little bitch.’
‘With pleasure, Mama,’ said Ren Ren. He yawned, stretched and, singing a snatch from the Peking Opera, sauntered out of the door. The raucous voice faded down the corridor. Mother Liu, left alone in the room, selected a toothpick off the table, and abstractedly began to clean her teeth.
* * *
Major Lin was sprawled on his side on the rumpled bedcovers. Fan Yimei, unable to sleep, lay on her back listening to the soft rumble of his snores. A cool breeze fluttered the silk curtains and rustled the willows outside. Fan Yimei gazed upwards at their reflections in the mirror set in the roof of the four-poster bed. Major Lin was in shadow but she was exposed to the moonlight, which drifted in through the open window illuminating the furniture and tinting her naked body an eerie ivory. The white image of herself, which appeared in the mirror, seemed strangely unreal, like a ghost hanging above her, or a corpse. The face was a shining white oval in a black pool of hair, which seeped over the pillow, lapped over the shoulders and eddied over the arms. Idly she examined the contours of this detached body floating above her, objectively noting the features most admired by her clients: the shadowy curves of the breasts and belly, the dark well of the loins between the white flesh of the thighs, the thin tapering legs ending in the silk stumps and bandages of bound feet—but the skin of this wraithly image was pallid and lifeless. She wondered if this was what she would look like if she were to die and be laid out in the House of the Dead. A hunk of inanimate flesh. A pork slab in the market. As the thought crossed her mind she saw the image of the corpse above her smile. She knew that she was also smiling. Here was a bitter joke. Perhaps the figure in the mirror was the real Fan Yimei, while whatever was lying on the bed below was only a beautiful simulacrum, trained mechanically to go through the art of making love. After all, if the heart and soul were already dead, would not the body be dead too? She had always thought that her life had really ended on the day when her father was buried and she had been brought here. Was this dead creature on the ceiling therefore conjured to remind her of the reality? Li Po’s poem about Chuang Tse came into her head: ‘Did Chuang Chou dream he was the butterfly, or the butterfly that it was Chuang Chou?’ Was reality a long-dead Fan Yimei, now a corpse in the mirror, dreaming about a prostitute who continued to go through the motions of living in the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure? A cloud moved over the face of the moon and the image in the mirror faded. The simulacrum on the bed sighed. She also shivered. The cold was real.
She wrapped herself in a silk dressing gown. For a moment she stood by the bed looking down on the recumbent Major Lin. He had a handsome face, she thought, but even at rest his eyebrows were fixed at a haughty angle and his mouth curved in an arrogant sneer. It made him look cruel. No doubt that expression helped him in his career as a soldier, but it was not reflective of the real man, or boy, as she sometimes thought of him. She felt sorry for him. He was so proud. Perhaps only she recognised the weakness and uncertainty within. Gently, so as not to wake him, she spread a sheet over his limbs. He stirred and muttered in his sleep. After a few moments he began to snore again. These days, he was drinking heavily. She did not mind. When he was drunk he was often violent, but his lovemaking would then be short and perfunctory, and he would fall asleep quickly afterwards. She preferred that to the nights when he insisted on showing off his manly vigour and it would be long hours before he finally achieved the clouds and rain. Sometimes the clouds and rain would not come, and then she would have to beat him with a willow rod until he was ready to try again. She wondered why Mother Liu was spreading the story that he whipped her. The other girls would laugh about this behind her back, knowing that she would hear. In fact, it was always she who wielded the rod. She wondered if t
he pain he wanted her to inflict on him compensated for some shame inside him. She was indifferent. She had had to do much worse with other clients, and with the unspeakable Ren Ren. Major Lin, for all his temperamental moods, was easy to handle.
She supposed that she was fortunate to have Major Lin as her protector. It was a respite from the miseries of the stable, but she had no illusions. For all his possessiveness and the affection he bestowed on her, she believed that one day he would tire of her. And then she would be defenceless against the resentments of Mother Liu and the other girls. Inevitably Ren Ren would exact his vengeance. She had heard the screams that came from the hut at the end of the furthest courtyard where he would lock the girls he had selected for particular punishment. She dreaded the torments she knew she would have to face, and when she thought about it her body would freeze with horror, but she was resigned to ill fortune, and deep inside herself she did not care. She had learned not to expect anything of life.
There were times when she was weak. Sometimes, like tonight, when she looked at the corpse in the mirror above her with envy, she longed for the oblivion of the dead. Once, after an unpleasant, drunken scene with Major Lin, when he had wept self-pitying tears, slapping her and accusing her of being unfaithful (she could not imagine why Mother Liu invented these malicious stories), she had waited until he was asleep. Then, certain that he would leave her the next day and unable to face the prospect of Ren Ren’s tortures, she had climbed on to a stool, flung her sash over the beam with the intention of hanging herself. Her small bound feet had slipped from the stool before she could make a noose, and she had sprawled, a tangle of naked limbs, on the floor. Major Lin had woken and sleepily called her to the bed. He had made gentle love to her, whispering endearments in her ear, and she had lain below his body, shaking with silent sobs, the little girl she had once been calling to her from the emptiness inside her soul.
She found that nowadays she would often think of her father, especially when she was alone in the pavilion. For years she had tried to bury any memory of a previous life. Mother Liu, prevented by her agreement with Major Lin from making her serve other clients, was still ingenious in finding Fan Yimei humiliating tasks to do in the daytime when Lin was away—much of the day was spent carrying the honey buckets from the latrines to bury in the pit, or sweeping the leaves, or cleaning in the kitchens—but this could not occupy all of her time, and the hours by herself in the shady pavilion, playing the chin and looking out of the window on to the willow garden, had become stolen moments of nostalgia. She vividly recalled the sunny afternoons when her father had patiently taught her the same musical instrument, laughing kindly when she made a mistake or proudly accompanying her on a flute when she had mastered a tune. When she was older she had played for him in his study as he stood by his table, brush in hand, painting exquisite pictures of little birds or flowers. He had always treated her like the son he did not have. She hardly remembered her mother but he had never married or taken a concubine after she died. He had taught her to read when she was six, and loved quoting the classics aloud to her, or guiding her hand through the first uneasy strokes of calligraphy. She knew that they were poor and lived off begrudging allowances from her wealthy uncles, but she had not realised how much the latter despised the gentle scholar who had failed the imperial examinations, and had never shown any aptitude for the family business. Childhood was a happy time for her in his company. He was always singing. Most mornings when she was little he would take her to the temple garden to fly kites. She remembered how he used to run down the flowered paths, the big dragonfly kite bouncing on the ground behind him. She remembered him sitting by her bed reading her stories. She remembered the humour in his eyes.
When the plague came to Shishan, they had been oblivious in their own little world. He had made light of the fever and the lump under his arm, but it had grown and one day he was delirious in his bed and did not recognise her. She had heard of the foreign doctor who had come to the town and had a reputation for miracle cures. She had been told the strange story that he received payment only in rats, so she spent a desperate morning hunting for rodents in the wainscots and under the floors. Eventually she had thought of going to the rubbish tip and there she found the corpse of a big black rat, covered in fleas. She had overcome her fear and wrapped it in a handkerchief, then run through the town looking for the doctor. It was evening by the time she found him. It was the first time she had ever seen an ocean devil. With his short stature and funny whiskers he reminded her of a wizened mouse, but his tired eyes were gentle and his smile was kindly. She had unwrapped her gift, and he had laughed. He had allowed her to lead him by the hand to her father’s house. Her father was moaning on his bed, his body running with sweat. Gently the doctor had rubbed him down with a cloth dipped in hot water. After a while a strange foreign woman had arrived. She was dressed in a black robe with a white cowl, but her face was merry with red cheeks like apples although, like the doctor, her eyes were shaded with exhaustion. The doctor had left then, but the woman sat next to her father through the night, washing his body at hourly intervals, occasionally kneeling on the ground with her hands in front of her face. Fan Yimei presumed she was calling on the foreign spirits to help her. The doctor returned with the dawn but by then her father was still. The doctor had examined him briefly then turned to her sadly and embraced her in his arms. She had sobbed on his shoulder. ‘But I brought you the rat,’ she had cried. ‘I brought you the rat.’ He had stroked her hair. ‘I know you did. I know. I know,’ he had repeated, rhythmically stroking her hair. She had looked into his eyes and seen an infinite sadness.
The doctor asked a neighbour to fetch her uncle. He explained patiently that he had to leave her. There were many sick in the town, but the woman, Caterina, would stay with her until her uncle came for her. She hardly remembered the details of the next two days. She remembered the white robes that she and all of her uncles had worn as they followed the municipal death cart to the outside of the city gates. There were no private funerals in those terrible times. She remembered the wailing, the smoke and the stink of the lime. She had been taken straight from the burial pit to the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure. Mother Liu had been kind to her, giving her sweets as her uncle negotiated her price. That night Ren Ren had come to her room. She was four days off her sixteenth birthday.
Fan Yimei sighed and leaned on the windowsill, looking out at the willows. Lin’s heavy breathing rose and fell behind her. The garden was white in the moonlight. She wished she could play the chin, but she dared not wake him. So instead she hummed the tunes silently in her head. She had learned popular airs for her clients, and Major Lin liked the stirring songs connected with war and conquest. When she was by herself, however, she preferred to play the haunting, melancholy poems of the Lady Li Ching’chao, the Song dynasty poetess whose life had been as lonely as her own.
I let the incense grow cold
In the burner. My brocade
Bed covers are tumbled as
The waves of the sea. Idle
Since I got up, I neglect
My hair. My toilet table
Is unopened. I leave the
Curtains down until the sun shines
Over the curtain rings.
This separation prostrates me.
The distance terrifies me.
I long to talk to him once more.
Down the years there will be only
Silence between us forever now.
I am emaciated, but
Not with sickness, not with wine,
Not with autumn.
It is all over now for ever,
I sing over and over
The song, ‘Goodbye For Ever.’
I keep forgetting the words.
My mind is far off in Wu Ling.
My body is a prisoner
In this room above the misty
River, the jade green river,
That is the only companion
Of my endless days. I sta
re
Down the river, far off, into
The distance. I stare far away.
My eyes find only my own sorrow.
She saw two figures move slowly through the garden. Mother Liu hobbling in front followed by a tall man, his features hidden by a black cloak. Some important customer satiated in the misery of one of her colleagues. She knew that she was disliked by the other girls. Most of them were jealous of her. All except Shen Ping. Plain, talkative Shen Ping who loved and was loved by a barbarian, a barbarian who was kind to her. She knew that tonight the lover would be asking for her release. She hoped passionately that Mother Liu would accept the price. There had been precedents. Shen Ping had come to her in the afternoon, her eyes gleaming with excitement. Fan Yimei had congratulated her, her heart heavy that she would lose her friend, but glad at the same time for Shen Ping’s good fortune. They had wept briefly on each other’s shoulders, Shen Ping tears of happiness, Fan Yimei happiness tinged with the regret of parting. Then Shen Ping had run off, fearing that she might be seen.
A cloud briefly obscured the moon. Fan Yimei yawned. She was tired. Tired.
She heard a whimpering sound and then she saw the figure of Ren Ren stride into the courtyard, pulling something behind him. It was Shen Ping. He dragged her by the hair, and she stumbled after him, sobbing with pain and fear. Fan Yimei froze. There was only one place he could be taking her at this time of night. Soon there would be the screams, but too far away for the guests to hear.
Fan Yimei stood silently by the window, a white figure in the moonlight. Her mind was numb again, her feelings buried. After an hour she turned slowly back to the bed, and laid herself softly down beside Major Lin. The moon came out of the clouds and she looked up blankly at the corpse hanging over her head.
* * *
Frank Delamere spent most of the night with a bottle of whisky, and woke in his armchair as sunlight was pouring through the windows and Ma Ayi, his maid, was dusting his rooms. Not surprisingly he had a hangover. His tongue was furry, his mouth and throat were dry and he had a stabbing pain in his temples. It took him a moment to adjust even to half consciousness. Then he focused on the clock on the windowsill and groaned. He was late for his appointment with Mr Ding, the textile dyer from Tsitsihar. He could not imagine anyone whom he wished to see less, not this morning, and he certainly did not feel up to giving a lecture on the manufacturing processes of soap crystals, but Frank had never failed yet in his duty to his company. His friend and partner Lu Jincai was convinced that Mr Ding was going to be the key to a big new expansion of his own alkali and Frank’s washing-soda-crystals business into northwest Manchuria, as far up as Hailar, he promised, so there was no way out of it. For the honour of Babbit and Brenner, Frank left his vague awareness of a broken heart among the dirty ashtrays and empty bottles surrounding his chair and, like a rumpled, sleepwalking walrus, stumbled to the door, somehow managing to mutter a few polite words to a censorious Ma Ayi on the way out.
The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure Page 12