Memoirs of a Courtesan

by Mingmei Yip

  15. Wait for the right moment.

  The ancient philosopher Laozi said, ‘In action, watch the timing.’ The even older Book of Changes teaches that the same strategy may work at one time but not at another. Or it might succeed for one person but not for someone else. Failure may just be bad timing.

  16. Live in fear.

  Fear motivates and concentrates the mind – for a spy it might be the fear of having to kill someone and, even more, the fear of being tortured or killed oneself.

  Not only did I have to remember all these principles, I had to practise constantly – watching myself in the mirror as I put on different facial expressions, wiggled my body seductively or struck elegant poses such as shredded-golden-lotus steps and orchid-in-the-breeze finger configurations. At the same time I had to appear mysterious yet innocent – not an easy task, since these traits are usually at odds with each other. Mystery piques a man’s sexual curiosity and makes a woman more alluring, but innocence is useful, too, because it can arouse a man’s protective instincts. On an even more subtle level, if a woman emits the right fragrance, a man might be intoxicated by her without knowing why.

  Some girls might be born with a fragrance, but this is very rare. None of the girls at Bright Moon Nightclub possessed this gift of nature. Many used Chanel No. 5, but this meant that their scent was all Chanel’s, and they all smelled boringly the same.

  Therefore, though I received many costly perfumes as gifts, I only used them occasionally. To attain my special body fragrance, I had two procedures. Every morning I would bathe in a basin in which my amah, Ah Fong, had soaked fresh flowers – camellia, rose, lotus, lilac, water lily and sometimes others. Every evening, she’d put flowers mixed with sweet-scented herbs underneath my pillow so the fragrance would permeate my hair, face, body, and even my dreams.

  Even these efforts were not enough for my boss, Big Brother Wang, however. Still not completely certain of my charms, he had decided to do something unusual – and dangerous. He had long ago bought an esoteric, Qing-dynasty recipe from a one-hundred-year-old eunuch. This desexed, antique man had been the imperial herbalist who concocted perfumes for the emperors’ favourite concubines. Wang had paid a huge amount for the recipe but had no one to experiment on until his underling Mr Ho found me.

  Of course I’d never been allowed to see this priceless recipe, but I had heard about its legendary origin. Consisting of thirty-eight different precious herbs, including the most expensive ginseng, ground pearl powder, fresh honey and the morning dew gathered from lotus leaves in the West Lake during spring, it was said that the recipe was invented by a doctor in the Tang dynasty during the reign of Empress Wu. Supposedly when the notoriously lustful empress had heard about this cosmetic genius, she’d summoned him to court to serve her exclusively. Then, fearing that the doctor would try to profit by selling the feminine secret to other equally lustful and scheming women, the empress had him castrated and kept him like a pet in her inner palace. In the thousand years since then, the recipe had been buried, stolen, destroyed, rediscovered and probably forged many times. The secret was always kept within the eunuchs’ communities.

  It is claimed that if a woman takes this concoction for a year, the herbs will saturate her entire body, from her skin to her internal organs. The result will be a natural body fragrance so enthralling an aphrodisiac that no perfume, no matter how rare and expensive, can compete with it. In addition, the concoction should render a woman’s complexion taut, translucent and glowing. Big Brother Wang was the only person who possessed this recipe, and I was the only girl ‘honoured’ to be used for this experiment.

  I had earned the right to take on Master Lung only after my earlier successes in destroying lesser men as proofs of my training and ability. Hence my hard-earned ‘skeleton woman’ status. I credited the natural beauty that fate had awarded me, and my Heavenly Songbird’s voice, together with the cunning to skillfully deploy my feminine assets. However, my boss was convinced that his concoction played a significant part in my accomplishments and insisted that I drink it every day. But it was rumoured that the longer a woman drank this bizarre cocktail, the shorter would be her life. This would not matter to Wang once I had served my purpose, but it certainly did matter to me!

  So my longevity depended on making Lung’s life as short as possible. Though I was frightened of the consequences if I botched Lung’s final exit, delay was even more dangerous. For me, there was no way to escape the clutches of the Red Demons gang.

  However, though afraid of taking this unsavoury potion, I was equally afraid of stopping. Was Wang right that this was the secret of my heavenly scent, my beguiling voice, my power to bewitch? Deprived of the potion, would my face suddenly look like the ripples on Huangpu River? With or without secret potions, the beauty of a face does not last forever, and that is why I kept working hard on my singing, knife-throwing and contorting.

  Knife-throwing had not been planned as a part of my original training. But one time Mr Ho saw me throw a stone to kill a rat with such accuracy that he suggested to Wang that I had a talent that could be used for throwing things more lethal than rocks. And so I was trained in knife-throwing. To my surprise, I found that I really appreciated this art. From it I learned the importance not only of accuracy but also of speed. As the Chinese saying goes: ‘He who attacks first wins: he who attacks second is a corpse.’

  My training in contortion was inspired by the rumour that Master Lung was addicted to perverse sex and would keep a woman longer if she continued to provide new variations. But, Lung apart, I also enjoyed gymnastics. I liked the idea that my body had a life and will of its own but with intense practise could be brought under my mind’s control. Watching my contorted self in the mirror was an eerie, out-of-body experience. My limbs could become a brood of snakes, an intricately composed sculpture, the snarled roots of an ancient tree or complicated calligraphic strokes. It was liberating to feel such complete control over my body. While my limbs were twisted into impossible visual images, my head would seem to separate from my body, like a big crystal ball foreseeing future events. But it was nearly always others’ futures I saw, not my own.

  My control was such that I could feel my way into receptacles seemingly far too small for me – a box, a suitcase, an urn. However, one time after I successfully got inside an ornamental urn, I crawled right back out, because the story of Empress Lu forced its way into my mind.

  Lu was King Liu Bang’s wife during the Han dynasty. However, the king’s favourite woman was not his wife but his concubine, Lady Che. Lu had been extremely jealous of the beautiful, flirtatious Che but failed to destroy her while the king was alive. So as soon as Liu Bang’s demise was announced, Empress Lu ordered that the concubine’s limbs be cut off. After that, Lady Che was stuffed into an urn with only her head sticking out so she could be fed and kept alive for more suffering.

  Lady Che’s life was exactly what is meant by ‘better dead than alive.’ Her sad story was also a warning of the dangers of depending on your beauty and attractiveness to men. Often I could not help imagining the anguished woman in her vase and wondering if I would end up like her. Her tale always made me fear that if I didn’t get out of my present situation in time, I’d share the concubine’s fate.

  But how to escape and be master of my own fate?

  I wished I had magic – not like Shadow’s, but real magic, to actually disappear and leave my troubles behind …

  16

  Peony Pavilion

  Of course I knew well that my troubles were far from being over; indeed, they were about to multiply.

  One day Jinying called and invited me to see the Chinese opera Peony Pavilion at the Xinguang Theatre. Though I’d never been to the famous place located on Ningbo Road, I’d heard many interesting things about it. It was here where the first Shanghai film with sound, The Sing-Song Girl, had been shown. Here, too, the famous American comedian called Char-Lee Cha-Biling had attended a Kun opera performance and met Mei Lanfang
, a female impersonator and China’s most beloved opera singer.

  So I shared Jinying’s excitement when his voice rippled over my eardrum, telling me about the opera.

  Of course I was eager to see this famous opera in the equally famous theatre, but I tried to hide the excitement in my voice and asked instead, ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be away in Peking for a week.’

  My ears perked up. ‘What’s he doing there?’

  ‘I have no idea. He left in a hurry.’

  ‘Does he know about this?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That you’re taking me to see an opera while he’s away, for heaven’s sake, Young Master!’

  ‘He likes me to go around and do things in Shanghai. And I don’t have to tell him that I’ll be going with you.’

  ‘Jinying, we might have already been seen together at Shadow’s castle show. Don’t you realise you’re playing with fire, and you – and me, too – will be burned sooner or later?’

  An uncomfortable silence hung in the air until his voice, deflated like a balloon, continued. ‘I don’t care what the others say. I’ve been living my whole life under my father’s control, and I’m really sick of it. I just want to be with you …’

  ‘It’s not whether you care or not. It’s that if we are not on our guard, the consequences will be dire.’

  ‘But how? Since my father is so powerful, no one would want to hurt him. I’ll bet no one dares to tell him. Please Camilla …’

  ‘Maybe not, but we can’t count on that.’ I paused to think, then said, ‘If we go, we will have to be in disguise. Also, don’t get those expensive box seats, just ordinary ones, so we can blend in.’

  So the following Monday, I put on an ordinary, deep blue Chinese cotton dress, wore no make-up, and braided my hair into two pigtails. I was sure no one would recognise me as the famous Heavenly Songbird, but if anyone noticed me, they would take me for a student, a factory worker, or a young housewife.

  We met outside the red-brick theatre. I was pleased to see the boss’s son had replaced his expensive, tailor-made Western suit and Italian leather shoes with a grey cotton Chinese gown and cloth slippers. Instead of looking like a spoiled young man with a rich, powerful father, he looked refreshingly like a university student or a young professor.

  I thought, how wonderful it would be if we could be what we were disguised as, an ordinary couple living a simple, happy life. Why had our fates made an ordinary life seem impossible to attain?

  Jinying looked surprised. ‘Camilla, I never saw you dress like this. You look so fresh. I like that.’

  ‘You look very good yourself.’

  Silently we followed others into the theatre’s lobby. The walls were covered with movie posters, of which one was a Paramount Film, Forty Winks. Viola Dana, the star on the poster, looked like she was startled to see me, but in reality no one paid us any attention. People are so easily fooled by appearances!

  Soon we settled into seats near an aisle. I immediately liked this cosy place with rows of plush red chairs sloping towards the stage, which was swathed in matching red curtains. Jinying looked around the packed hall, then waved to a boy vendor. He bought almond tea, hot towels, sesame cakes, sugared ginger and roasted watermelon seeds, then handed me my share.

  He squeezed my hand. ‘Camilla, I’m so happy. We should do this more often.’

  He looked so pleased that I didn’t have the heart to say that this should be our last outing together; otherwise, sooner or later we would be spotted. So I did not reply but turned my attention to the program. The reason I’d never seen Peony Pavilion was because it was filled with sentimentality about love and its power, precisely the feelings that were absolutely forbidden to me as a cold-hearted informer.

  Jinying leaned to whisper in my ear. ‘Camilla, you have no idea how thrilled I am to watch this opera with you.’

  I snapped, ‘But this story is completely unrealistic. A fairy tale.’

  He looked upset. ‘But that’s what we need in this cold, cruel world.’

  Just then the curtain rose amid the audience’s enthusiastic clapping. Although I didn’t care about the love story in Peony Pavilion, I found the acting elegant and the singing beautiful and intriguing. Chinese operatic singing is very different from what Madame Lewinsky taught me. The performers seem to sing from their throats, not their chests. To me, the effect is like squeezing lemons and tasting the tart drops. I like it because it is so different from the kind of singing I do and because the ‘strangled’ style fits well the desperation of the star-crossed lovers.

  My ears and eyes were both captivated by the actress in a long, flowing, white dress and veil, singing lyrics from the act ‘Strolling in the Garden’:

  Ah, the colourful flowers bloom everywhere.

  Sadly, all end up withered in an abandoned well.

  A pleasant evening, beautiful scenery …

  What family so fortunate as to enjoy this?

  Colourful clouds, silk-like rain, and thread-like wind …

  After more lemon-squeezing singing, accompanied by gesturing of delicate fingers and flowing sleeves, came the famous scene, ‘Interrupted Dream.’ A woman, Liniang, has a dream in which she meets a young scholar. He tells her how much he loves her, that he has been searching for a woman like her his entire life. Overcome by their passion, they consummate their love right where they are, inside the peony pavilion, where flower fairies provide them cover.

  The dream was so real and the passion so deep that when Liniang awoke, she was filled with longing for her dream lover. However, he never returned to her dreams, and gradually she wasted away and died. Before she passed away, she painted a portrait of herself and buried it under a rock in her garden. She did this to leave a sign that she once lived in this world and that she’d had a handsome lover. In her portrait she would escape the ravages of time and remain beautiful forever.

  Soon Liniang, as a ghost, appeared in the scholar’s dream to charm him. Upon awakening he sought her but learned that she had long been deceased. But he was so infatuated that he decided to visit her grave, where the intensity of his love brought her back to life.

  I found myself fascinated by this strange love story in which a man and a woman make love in each other’s dreams. A love that crosses the boundary between life and death. I could not help but think of Lung’s making love to me, for wasn’t I about to make him a dead man? I felt a shiver rise up my spine, intensified by the scratchy, high-pitched music.

  Then I felt my hand being squeezed by Jinying’s. I turned and saw tears glisten in his eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  He shook his head, dabbing his eyes with his white handkerchief.

  As I was about to tease him for his sentimentality, his sad, piercing look touched something in me, and I suddenly looked at him in a different light. My hand involuntarily reached to take his.

  ‘Jinying, please don’t be sad. Everything will be all right.’

  ‘You think so?’ He looked a little happier.

  I nodded, not believing it.

  When the play was finally over, we hurried out of the theatre and hailed a rickshaw.

  Inside the vehicle, Jinying asked me eagerly, his eyes curious, ‘You liked the play?’

  ‘The music yes, but not the story; it’s silly, making love in dreams and resurrecting a dead woman!’

  His eyes told me that his feelings were hurt and that he thought just the opposite. ‘Camilla, I know you think I’m being sentimental, but I’m not ashamed to say that I’m very touched by it, even if you find it silly.’

  Before I could reply, he lifted my hand to his lips, then said, ‘Camilla, why can’t we live in a dream for a while? You are always so serious about life.’

  If only he’d known why I was so serious. Did I have a choice? I didn’t choose to be an orphan, or to live the life of a spy!

  Before I had a chance to respond, he went on. ‘What
the playwright, Tang Xianzu, expresses through his opera touches me deeply.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  He held up his program. ‘According to this, Tang said, “No one knows where love arises, but it is so deep that it possesses the power to end life and resurrect the dead. If you are not willing to die for the one you love, or if the dead will not come back to life for you, it’s because the love is not deep enough.”’

  His eyes tried to search mine. Could he see deeply enough to discover that my loveless life was filled with cunning and scheming?

  ‘I hope our love is also powerful enough to resurrect the dead,’ he whispered.

  Feeling bad for him, I murmured, ‘I hope so, too.’ But I could not believe in what we said.

  He sighed.

  ‘What is it?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  Of course I knew why he sighed. Deep down, neither did he believe any of this. Two lovers, two strangers, so close to each other and yet so far apart. Whose fault was this situation that was likely to end in hurt? Was it mine? No. Instead, blame my parents for leaving me an orphan, blame Big Brother Wang for taking me under his wing and blame both Master Lung and his son for falling for me.

  Blame fate!

  Jinying pressed me. ‘You don’t believe in the power of love, do you?’

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t grow up with love but with hatred, scheming and heartlessness. As a spy, I couldn’t trust any person, let alone something as abstract as love. Yet I had read that some young girls were so touched by the power of love portrayed in Peony Pavilion that they even killed themselves. One girl wrote a poem after seeing the play:

  Ignoring the cold rain by my window’s curtain,

  I am reading Peony Pavilion under the lamp.

  Is there anyone in this world more infatuated than I?

  Am I the only one who is so sad beyond words?

  The young master suddenly threw me a request. ‘Camilla, run away with me.’

  I sighed in the shadowy confines of the rickshaw.