All the Flowers in Shanghai

by Duncan Jepson

  The music changed and a few of the men came over to the table and asked the other women to dance. No servants were needed to pass messages, the men just extended their hands and the women took their lead. I ended up sitting with another woman who had not been asked to dance, either. She looked tired and nervous, hunching in on herself and clenching her arms tight to her sides as if to make herself as small as possible. I recognized this posture.

  The next tune was slow and I saw couples hold each other closer and sway together, moving in faint circles. As they held each other, some of them whispered, sharing intimate jokes and secrets. One couple was very forward: the woman rested her head on the man’s shoulder. Grandfather would have been outraged to see such poor manners.

  The next song sounded similar. To my surprise, Xiong Fa walked up to me then and held out his hand. I blushed and told him that I could not dance; that I was not like Sister. This was the first time I had compared myself to her in front of him and I half-expected him to tell me that he knew this already. But he said nothing, just smiled warmly and continued to look at me while holding out his hand.

  I stood up and he walked me to a space just inside the dance floor. He put my right hand on his shoulder and held my left. Then he put his left hand on my waist and we gently swayed together. I felt strange, momentarily safe in his arms for the first time since entering the house, then I felt his fingers tighten around my waist and hand and for a moment I was reminded of our nights together and my helpless suffocation.

  After several minutes he said I danced very well and that he hoped we would be able to dance together often.

  “I would like to take you to more dances. If that is something you would like to do as well?”

  I did not reply.

  “They have many in the afternoon, lots of different dancing styles. We could learn together.”

  We moved slowly and awkwardly over the wooden floor in silence for a while. I felt embarrassed but excited and happy at the same time, daring to imagine a different life from the one I had endured during the last six weeks. Xiong Fa broke the silence.

  “I remember your sister once said you were always playing in the gardens next to your parents’ house. Would you take me there one day?”

  “Yes . . . Yes!”

  He laughed a little at my enthusiasm but I did not mind. The idea that we might go there made me so happy. We continued the slow dancing for another few songs, after which it was half past five and we had to go home for dinner.

  Xiong Fa walked me to my car, which was parked at the entrance to the hotel, and then went over to his own. On the way back to the house, I pictured us sitting in the gardens together. Perhaps he would fish like Bi had done, and I could tell him the names of the flowers as Grandfather had taught me.

  At the house I sat in my room and waited for dinner. I watched the guards change; saw the old servant feed the fish in the giant Qinghua basin. He’d brought them small pieces of food left over from the kitchens and the fish hungrily snatched at the bits of waste flesh and vegetables as they hit the surface of the water. Even though the largest and most beautiful fish were able to muscle their way past the others to take the best bits, the old man still favored them. He would drop the best pieces near their mouths until they ate their fill and then would simply toss the rest of the food into the water for the others to fight over. I had watched him do this many times and he was never moved to help the smaller fish, who were destined to fight and savage each other every day.

  Usually I felt drained and intimidated by the complexity of my life in this house but attending the tea dance had made me feel different. I felt light and relieved, as if perhaps everything could change. Sister’s bitter warning in the courtyard at home had haunted me every day for the last six weeks but now I dared to imagine that I was finally overcoming my fears and she had been wrong.

  After finishing dinner that night, I was able to spend my usual hour sitting at my window, watching the stars come out. Today had been very different from the rest of my time here. As I sat at the window my imagination drifted through scenes of life as it might be lived in this house after Father-in-law and First Wife were gone, and Xiong Fa and I had taken their place.

  Yan came in and I joined her at the dressing table. She finished preparing me for Xiong Fa and led me to the bed as always, but this time when she sat beside me, she leaned closer. She held my left hand and brought her face so close to it that I thought she might kiss it. Her breath was warm on the back of my hand, and through that little patch of warmth I felt bonded to her. She did not look up at me, just stared at my hand. Then she whispered to me that Xiong Fa’s mother had demanded an heir to the family and said that he and I must do what was necessary to make me pregnant.

  I listened to Yan but did not know what that meant. She looked up at me. I was already doing just what I was asked, everything that he wanted. Yan’s eyes, although small and deep-set in her weathered face, held a brightness that always drew my attention. I had not studied her face so closely before; we do not generally look very carefully at those who serve us. Beneath the warm smile that always greeted me, her skin was rough and torn, unlike the elder women of the Sang family, who, although fat and saggy elsewhere, had oiled and treated their facial skin to keep it smooth. The wear I could see on Yan’s face assured me that she had survived her hard life, had not hidden or sought to be sheltered. She had been scarred and defeated, but she had lived. I could see now that, whatever happened, I would live, too. She would help me, if I would let her.

  But this evening, there was something more. I sensed something would now be different. Yet even in my anxiety I couldn’t move my lips and tongue to ask, I still couldn’t bring myself to behave contrary to my pride. I thought instead about my old life with Grandfather; walking, running, playing, and eating . . . but thinking so little. Now there was so much to understand that was new, but I could not.

  As Yan turned to leave I grabbed her hand and held it, preventing her from going. She looked back at me but still I could not bring myself to say anything, just looked up at her. She was the maid and I the mistress. Even though I was vulnerable and needed her advice, I would rather wait for her to say something than ask her outright. It did not seem fitting that she should know what I did not, it was against the natural order I had been shown by my parents and by our tradition. It was still too much for me to overcome and I let her hand slip from mine. She lingered, perhaps giving me a last opportunity to speak, but I said nothing and finally she left. I closed my eyes and waited.

  Although Xiong Fa was not drunk, I could smell strong rice wine on his breath. He moved quickly to the bed but did not sit on the edge as usual. Instead he moved to the end of it and knelt between my ankles. He pulled back the sheet and took off his robe. He was naked before me at the other end of the bed. It was the first time I had seen a man like this. Xiong Fa’s fatty curves were very close to how I saw him clothed. The skin on his pale thighs and stomach, which sagged around his waist, had none of the sheen and beauty of Bi’s, glimpsed between his shirt buttons. Xiong Fa had hair growing around his nipples, which for an instant struck me as funny. It looked like the hair on an old man’s chin: those lucky hairs that cannot be cut for fear of severing the lines of prosperity.

  I saw that between his legs he had hair like I did, but much more, and nestled in the middle of the blackness was something ugly. He brought himself down on top of me, not yet lying on me but holding himself above me on all fours, his hands placed to either side of my shoulders and knees resting on the mattress between my legs. He looked down at my breasts then lowered himself to lie on top of me. His smell and his breathing were heavy; his large body covered me and pressed down on me. I closed my eyes and thought of Bi holding the corner of my blouse and how I had still sensed all of him even though he was not touching me.

  Xiong Fa smothered me. I could not feel my own body separate from his. My chest felt crushed. I found it hard to breathe. I opened my eyes, expecting to see X
iong Fa’s face looking into mine, but he was moving down to my breasts, sucking them and licking them, while his right hand was moving between my legs.

  Then he stopped touching me and touched himself instead, rubbing and pulling at himself, and after a few seconds his hand returned to me. He had made little noise so far but as he touched himself he started to groan.

  His weight pinned me to the bed. I tried to look past his head but could not. He brought his hands back and placed them above my shoulders and as he did so his whole weight fell between my legs. He started to grunt more and as he did his hips pushed down on top of me as if trying to press me deep into the bed. I lay there and allowed him to do what he wanted, fearing that any movement I made would prevent him from satisfying himself and First Wife’s wishes.

  He grabbed my left hand and forced me to touch him between his legs. I felt his coarse hair then something more, the part of men that had so far been hidden from me. I touched and held it, and he groaned, and it swelled and grew, becoming hard and warm. It felt ugly and alien. I wanted it away from me. I looked up at his face, which was level with my chin. It looked pained. His eyes were tightly shut and his lips parted. His lower jaw jutted out as if he were forcing himself to concentrate.

  Suddenly he lifted himself, propping himself up with his hands placed next to my shoulders. I quickly glanced down. It looked even larger than it felt and so odd that I was scared by what it might do to me. He repositioned his hips and waist between my legs and then I realized that he was going to push it into me instead of his fingers. In my hand it had felt big and I did not want it inside me. I did not know what it would do there and what would happen to me.

  Although I was on my back I tried to move up the bed away from him, but he lowered himself and placed his elbows on the mattress above my shoulders, resting his weight on them and preventing me from moving any farther. So I tried to push him away with my hands but he was too heavy. Then he moved his arms, resting his full weight on me, and grabbed my wrists, holding my arms flat against the bed above my head. I was pressed down hard, all the breath squeezed out of me. I kicked out with my legs, trying to hurt him, and fought to shift my hips away. It was tiring, and my legs kept hitting the wooden posts of the bed.

  I could not escape, no matter how I kept kicking and struggling. I could not keep going. But I was desperate to keep him out of me, for I knew once he was inside me I would be completely under his control. My muscles ached from struggling under his weight and my mind began to slow until my thinking became foggy. Even while I fought him, he still tried to kiss me and moved down to suck my nipples as though his mouth needed them. He raised himself a little and as his weight shifted I fought to struggle from under it. It was hopeless. I could feel his hardness between my legs and was terrified.

  Eventually I stopped struggling and he realized I could no longer fight him. He did not open his eyes or kiss me again but maneuvered his hand between his legs. Suddenly I felt my body burst with pain. I cried out. Memories rushed into my head then: of Sister’s fingers poking into my cheeks in the courtyard at home, and my mother’s smile as I climbed into the bridal palanquin. I cried out again and waited for him to finish. I shut my eyes. I heard nothing but his breathing. Felt nothing but his weight, and the sweat dripping from his brow onto my cheeks and eyelids.

  I thought of our dance earlier that day and the things he had said to me then. He had moved and spoken so gently. I did not understand how this person on top of me, forcing himself into me, could be the same person who had held me so protectively in his arms that afternoon. He had described to me then what my future in his family would be like and how he would visit Grandfather’s gardens with me, and I had believed everything he had said.

  He kept thrusting into me and the pain was almost too much, but then suddenly he stopped. He held himself deep inside me and gasped. Then he pushed once more and after a few seconds withdrew himself. He quickly got up, carelessly throwing on his robe, and went straight to the door. He did not stop to look down at me as he usually did. There was no kiss on the forehead or uncertain smile as before. My husband left with his head bowed, hurrying from the room as if he could not bear to see the scene he had left.

  I was in so much pain I could only lie on my side. I put my hand to myself. There was a lot of liquid there, which was sticky, and when I brought my fingers to my nose there was both the smell of blood and of a heavy salty musk. It was strong and filled my nostrils and head. It was a dirty smell.

  Chapter 10

  Yan entered very quickly after Xiong Fa had left. She looked at me and tears formed in her narrow deep-set eyes. She took my hand by the wrist and carefully wiped my fingers, then slowly and gently moved me onto my back and cleaned between my legs. I promised I’d remain still while she wiped my body down. As she tended me she noted all the bruises on my wrists, thighs, and legs, telling me that she had a special balm used by gong fu boxers, which would help the bruises fade more quickly and take the pain away. Finally she pulled the sheet over my shoulders and tucked it under my chin. She lit more candles and went away, to return with a worn old shawl made of layers of thick gray padded cotton sewn together, and a small pot of balm. She took the sheet away and then made me sit up and wrapped me in the shawl. It smelled of Yan, which I liked as it overpowered any remaining trace of Xiong Fa. She sat beside me on the bed and pushed the hair out of my face.

  “I used this balm on my husband when he would come home from the army. His body was hard and taut but always so cut and sore. He taught me how to make this balm, which he learned in gong fu school during his training. Young students when they first learn to kick and punch have such terrible bruises and scars. First they punch sand, then hot sand, then a pot of small lead balls, and finally wood and stone.” Yan meandered through her story and her soft even tone calmed me.

  As I listened to her I thought of all those young gong fu students trained to fight and kill. They knew how to receive pain and how to give it back.

  “Their hands become so strong that they can punch holes in walls and stop bullets. This balm helps them heal after training so the next day they can fight again,” she continued, looking at me with a wide smile that came from her confidence in her balm. “You just see how well it works.”

  She took my hand then and led me over to my chair while she changed the sheets on the bed. My legs ached and I felt a sharp pain between them from where my husband had torn me slightly. In the candlelight I could see the stains on the sheet. The red had faded from mixing with another, colorless stain, and on the white of the sheet the colors looked like a pretty pink peony coming into bloom.

  Yan sat on the stool next to me. She took some balm and rubbed it gently onto the back of my hand, the one she had held so tenderly only an hour or so ago while trying to warn me of what was to come. She applied the balm to the fingers and palms of both hands and then slowly massaged it into my arms and shoulders. Next she brought over another small stool and placed my feet on it before kneading the balm into my shins and ankles. Then she parted my legs and applied some balm to a silk-and-cotton wadding, which she pressed between them. It felt cool and took the sharp stinging away. I pulled the shawl tighter around me and closed my eyes.

  “Do you know what you must do?” Yan inquired then.

  I could only look down.

  “You must give this family a son. They’ll be happy once they have their heir. This evening is your first time . . . it’ll get better as you become more used to it.”

  She came closer to me and held my face gently in her hands as Bi had done. Her skin felt rough against my cheeks and in any other situation I would never have let her touch me that way, but she cupped my face so lightly while still giving me a warm feeling of protection that I wanted to sleep there until dawn. I closed my eyes but I could feel Yan’s kindly gaze on me. She stroked my hair and caressed my cheek.

  “Your husband must visit you every night until you’re pregnant. He has no choice. But I’ll be here with you
.”

  Now at last I understood what the lady at the dance had said to me only that afternoon . . .

  Yan pulled out a broken and frayed wuxia novel and gave it to me. I had not read many myself but Grandfather had read some to me when I was a child. He had told me, laughing, that they were Grandmother’s favorites, and when she was reading one no one could distract her, because she was so gripped by their tales of courage and romance. While Yan applied more balm I read.

  Wuxia stories are about brave swordsmen and boxers who go on many dangerous adventures and carry out heroic deeds. Over the many nights that were to follow this one, I read of lone heroes, rogues, drunks, cruel merchants, and beautiful concubines. My favorites were the stories of the heroes who fell in love with the concubines they must rescue, all the time knowing that their love could never be consummated as the concubine must be returned to her rightful owner, the Emperor. These stories had a void and an emptiness that comforted me in mine.

  Xiong Fa came back each night after that first time. At first I would fight until he was forced to tear into me. After a while, though, I could no longer resist, still aching from the previous night or else too tired to struggle under his weight. He would finish quickly and go. Each time he was done I would see that he simply wanted to leave the room, could barely bring himself to look at me. I thought he seemed disappointed by my behavior, and felt guilty that I was not able to do what he needed me to do.

  Yan would enter shortly after Xiong Fa left. Sometimes I could not speak to her and she went about her work, cleaning me and the bed in silence, while I sat in the chair and watched her. She made sure our eyes never met then. She knew when I wanted to talk, and when I just wanted to listen, and she knew when I was lost in fear and anger and needed only to hurt myself or others.