Memoirs of a Courtesan

by Mingmei Yip

  ‘No, it’ll be all ours.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I’ve given everyone who works there some time off. Camilla, keep this top secret. Only me, Mr Zhu, Gao and a few close bodyguards know about his secret hiding place.’

  ‘But your father knows that you’ll be there?’

  ‘He gave me the key. He only trusts me because he figures I have no one to tell, since I’ve just come back from America. Promise me you won’t say anything about this to anyone.’

  ‘I promise. And you trust me enough to let me know?’

  Even though I was Lung’s favourite woman, he didn’t trust me enough to take me there, but his son did. Was it love or naivety? Probably both.

  But the boss’s son’s answer was simply, ‘Camilla, I love you so much.’

  I quickly changed the subject. ‘Jinying, how about you pick me up tomorrow? And we should dress down. We don’t want to attract attention.’

  After my conversation with Jinying, I started to think that this might be a good chance to escape from both Lung and Wang. Escaping from Lung would be dangerous for me, but so would killing him. And maybe his protective star was still shining strong. After all, he’d escaped the other times I had set him up. I was starting to think that, evil as Lung was, heaven did not want him killed, at least not yet, or not by me. And whether Lung lived or died, Wang was probably just as dangerous to me. After all, in these men’s eyes, women could never be trusted. So, given what I knew and that I had served my purpose, as the Chinese say, ‘When the rabbits are caught, the hounds are cooked.’

  So at this point, escaping seemed the most likely way to prolong my stay in this dusty world. After all, of the famous Chinese thirty-six stratagems, the one universally considered best was: ‘When you run out of schemes, just run away.’ Once I was gone from the Shanghai scene, everyone would quickly lose interest in me. As the saying goes, ‘When the birds are gone, the bows are put away.’

  At first I thought I would not report to Big Brother Wang the location of Lung’s villa. But I realised that that would be not just be death for me but a lingering and horrible one. If I were away for more than a day, my driver and amah would report to Wang and he’d track me down. He was probably having me followed at all times, anyway. He’d warned me many times that his men were everywhere, but I had no idea who they were.

  So with great reluctance, I called Big Brother Wang to report. Needless to say, he was more than happy to grant me this ‘working vacation.’

  ‘Report back to me right away as soon as you find anything.’

  ‘Of course I will, Big Brother Wang.’

  Then, to my great disappointment, my boss said, ‘I’ll send a few men to follow you to the villa and stake it out, in case Lung shows up there.’

  So the next afternoon, Jinying came and picked me up. As he was driving us across the bridge over the Huangpu River, there was a sudden downpour, so there was not much chance to talk while Jinying concentrated on finding our way. I stared out of the window, my thoughts as gloomy as the weather.

  I kept looking back as discreetly as I could to see if we were being followed. I was sure Wang’s men must be behind us somewhere, but they did a good job, for I couldn’t tell which was the gangsters’ car. Or maybe there were several, acting as camouflage for each other. After a while, I dozed off, until I was awakened by a warm hand on my thigh.

  ‘Camilla, we’re almost there.’

  Now Jinying drove off the main road onto a narrow path half-hidden by tall poplar trees. Water was still dripping from the boughs, but the rain had stopped. After another five minutes he pulled to a stop in front of a grand white mansion.

  I looked around and felt great relief that I didn’t see any other car. Had Wang’s men lost us in the rain? I hoped so.

  The two-storied mansion peeked at us through towering trees, shrubs, luscious plants and exotic flowers that emitted a rich fragrance after the rain. I saw at once that the front faced the sea, and the back was towards a mountain. Lung must have chosen this place through the advice of his feng shui master. Beishan Mianhai, ‘backed by the mountain, faced by the sea,’ is the best feng shui location. Not only because it brings good luck, but also because the mountain in back protects, and the sea in front can be an escape route.

  Jinying carried our suitcases into the foyer, dropped them and before even closing the door kissed me passionately.

  I mumbled between his mouth’s attacks, ‘Jinying … where’s … everybody else?’

  He smiled mischievously. ‘I told you there won’t be anyone here, not even a ghost. We’ll have this place all to ourselves.’

  ‘Good. Then I’ll make you the world’s happiest man tonight.’

  ‘Why not every night?’ He winked as he lifted me up and gave me a twirl.

  ‘Every morning, too, if that’s what you wish. Young Master, I’m at your service.’ I giggled nervously, feeling dizzy from being swung – and from the possibility of finding secret lists and bank accounts.

  He put me down, his brow slightly knotted. I immediately realised that, for this lawyer who had graduated from a prestigious university in America, it was the confident and independent Camilla he loved, not the submissive and obsequious one who was his father’s mistress.

  ‘Camilla, you already make me the happiest man just by being who you are.’

  ‘Sorry, Jinying.’

  ‘No need to apologise. Just be yourself.’

  Not so easy, since I’d been pretending to be someone else all my life. There was an awkward silence, so I took the chance to look around. By the main entrance, huge urns stood guard. I wondered if they had been used, at least on occasion, to store dead bodies. The foyer alone was bigger than the entire apartment of a poor Shanghai family. A family probably made poor because the father had lost his life’s savings at Lung’s gambling house, where he also smoked the opium that Lung had bought and resold for fifty times what he paid. Lung profited still more when the bankrupted father sold his daughter to Lung’s prostitution house to pay off his ever-increasing gambling debts. So, if Wang succeeded, even without my help, in getting rid of Lung, it would be Lung’s own bad karma, not mine. Or so I hoped.

  ‘Let’s move,’ Jinying said, interrupting my thoughts.

  He took my hand and led me inside the living room. Here, gold and yellow were the dominant colours, accented by Chinese red. Everything was as lavish and expensive as possible: a yellow silk sofa with a gilded frame, Chinese landscape paintings mounted on gold-speckled scrolls, a red cabinet filled with celadon plates and white jade carvings … everywhere there were expensive curios.

  In a corner behind the sofa stood a white grand piano. Of course this had been purchased for the young master. Even though Lung disapproved of his son’s love for music, he still wanted to show his love by buying him this expensive, ostentatious object. Seeing this, I felt a wave of unutterable sadness. I had grown up without parents to love me and had lost my baby before having a chance to hold him in my arms or even see him.

  The young master cast me a concerned glance. ‘Camilla, are you all right?’

  ‘Yes … I’m fine. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because you look distracted and … sad.’ Jinying kissed my forehead. ‘Camilla, you can sit on the sofa and rest while I take the luggage to the bedroom upstairs.’

  ‘I can come and help.’

  ‘I don’t need help. Just relax here, and I’ll be right back.’

  I happily agreed, because now I could snoop around.

  Then he said, ‘If you’re hungry, we can eat soon.’

  ‘So are we driving back to the city?’ In case Wang’s men really had lost us on the way, I did not want to give them another chance to find us.

  Oblivious of my thoughts, Jinying looked completely happy. ‘No, we’ll eat here. I’m the cook tonight.’

  ‘I didn’t know that you could cook.’

  Jinying smiled mischievously, and I felt dangerously attracted to him.

&n
bsp; ‘There are still a lot of things we need to find out about each other, aren’t there?’

  This last remark gave me a small jolt of anxiety. I wanted to find out more about him and his father, but definitely not the other way around.

  Preoccupied with what Wang’s so-far invisible men might be doing, I was in no mood to hear Jinying chatter about his cooking, but I did my best to look interested.

  ‘I learned to cook during my years in America. My friends and I alternated cooking for one another, sometimes even gourmet dishes. It’s a lot of fun. I especially love to listen to music while I cook.’ He smiled meaningfully. ‘Camilla, I may have a rich father, but I am not spoiled.’

  Of course, compared to myself and Shadow, he was quite spoiled, but I kept that thought to myself. Though I was curious to know more about his life in America, I wanted to avoid our talk becoming more personal.

  As soon as Jinying went upstairs with our luggage, I went to the windows to look for any sign of Wang’s men. As far as I could tell, there was nobody around. Next I took a quick tour of Lung’s house, starting with his spacious, book-lined library. I was sure the leather-bound books that filled its shelves were only for decoration. There seemed to be plenty of places here where he could hide secret papers. My eyes scanned the room to plan what to search when I had a chance later. I paid special attention to the bookshelves, as well as the paintings and calligraphy hanging on the walls. I also peeked into vases and other receptacles but saw nothing unusual. Next was the dining room, where there was nothing unusual either.

  When I walked back to the living room, I noticed an antique scholar’s table against the wall. On top of it was the usual scholar’s paraphernalia: a brush stand in the shape of a mountain with three hills, a roll of rice paper, a lotus-shaped ink stone, and a set of three ink sticks engraved with the scholar’s ‘three friends’ – bamboo, pine and plum blossom.

  In the corner next to the table was an imposing grandfather clock. Although I doubted that Lung would notice or care, this seemed not to fit with the rest of the decor. Yet I found it attractive in an odd, ponderous way. Still, it seemed to belong in a Western household rather than here. The reddish brown wood was finely grained and polished so it was as smooth as a young woman’s skin. The polished metal pendulum shone with a mysterious luster. But what I liked most of all was its powerful and mysterious presence.

  Two red scrolls beside the clock were inscribed with a couplet, Ten thousand taels of gold; money rushing in like a river.

  To my exploring eyes, the writing table and the grandfather clock stood out, as they should have been in the library. Moreover, the perfectly arranged scholar’s objects looked more like props than for use. Then why were they here?

  I studied the clock and the table for long moments before I went up to inspect the timepiece more closely. I found myself fascinated by the luminous, mirrorlike pendulum. Then in it I saw Jinying’s reflection behind mine, our faces dyed a metallic bronze, as if we inhabited another world even stranger than this one. For a moment, I imagined that we lived in this pendulum world, so we’d be far away from our present tribulations. Then I realised that the pendulum was not swaying and that this other world had stopped sometime in the past.

  ‘Jinying.’ I turned to face him. ‘Do you know that this clock’s not working?’

  He nodded. ‘I told father a few times, but he has never got around to having it fixed.’

  ‘But now it’s of no use.’

  ‘He said he bought the clock as an antique, and someday he will have it fixed, but he likes looking at it, anyway.’

  ‘It does look nice.’

  ‘Yes, I like it, too. Only after he bought it did he realise that it was broken. But because he’s superstitious, he doesn’t want to say so. Besides, he can’t stand to think he was cheated.’ He paused, then suggested, ‘Now let me show you the library, unless you are hungry and would rather eat something first.’

  Indeed I was getting hungry but was more concerned to continue my survey of the villa. So I told him I would rather see the library, not mentioning that I had already looked it over by myself.

  Jinying said, ‘I really love to come and read here; it’s so calm and quiet. But I don’t have much chance, because this is where my father discusses his business with Zhu.’

  ‘Does he entertain other guests here?’

  ‘No,’ Jinying answered sharply. ‘This house is only to relax or discuss top secret business. No one can know I brought you here. If my father finds out, I don’t want to imagine the consequences.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Jinying, my lips are sealed as tightly as your father’s safe.’

  Yes, he must have a safe, but where?

  As we walked around, I praised the antique furniture and various curios in the spacious room, but what really occupied my mind was discovering where Lung’s money and accounts were hidden.

  When we had finished looking around the library, we walked back into the living room.

  Jinying said, ‘You must be hungry, Camilla. I will fix us some quick noodles, and then I can show you the rest.’

  31

  The Garden

  Later, after we had finished our noodles and set our chopsticks down on our gold-rimmed bowls, Jinying said, ‘Camilla, if you’re not too tired, do you want to see the garden?’

  I doubted Lung would hide anything there, but you never know.

  So I feigned excitement. ‘The garden? Of course, I can’t wait!’

  ‘Come,’ he said, taking my hand.

  Jinying took me through a hidden passageway towards the garden. The secrecy didn’t surprise me, since Lung was paranoid about assassination, and with good reason. I suspected that this must be the route to his most secret hiding place, in case his enemies found out about the villa and pursued him here.

  In a few moments we had exited from the passageway into the garden, where we found ourselves beside a huge tree.

  Jinying stopped and took my hand. ‘Camilla, let’s make a pledge under this ancient tree and have it witness our love.’

  Maybe he was inspired by Emperor Xuanzong and his beloved concubine Yang, who had pledged their undying love under the ancient moon. But if so, this was a dreadful omen. Didn’t he know that Xuanzong, the most powerful man under heaven, was later forced by his army to kill this woman he loved so immoderately?

  But then Jinying began to recite from Bai Juyi’s ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow,’ a poem that recounts Emperor Xuanzong and concubine Yang’s heartbreaking tragedy:

  In the sky, we are two birds flapping our wings side by side. On earth, we are plants whose roots are forever interlocked …

  He stopped, and I guessed that these two famous lines were all he, a Western-educated lawyer, knew. Maybe it was a good thing, for the next two lines are:

  Even heaven and earth may perish,

  But my regret knows no end.

  This was the emperor’s bitter remorse, because his most beloved woman had been strangled by his most trusted imperial soldiers. He spent the rest of his life trying to contact her in the other world.

  ‘Camilla, what’s on your mind? Don’t you like the poem?’

  Seeing that I didn’t respond, the young master pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

  When he let go, I asked, ‘Jinying, do you really believe that love can conquer all?’

  ‘Of course, and you don’t?’

  ‘I’m a practical person.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, you’re romantic.’

  ‘How are you so sure?’

  ‘Your singing. It is filled with love and dreams.’

  Was it possible that he was right about me, and I was wrong? Either way, now that he had said it, I hoped it was true.

  I was silent, and finally he said, ‘Now that we are here together, we can live together in our dream for a few days.’

  ‘But, Jinying, I worry that dreams can turn into nightmares.’

  Once Wang’s men arrived, they would find us quick
ly. Or maybe they already had. I felt my spine turning into an icicle.

  Of course Jinying had no idea what was on my mind. ‘Camilla, what’s wrong with you? Why are you always so pessimistic? Even if you have some insufferable secret, I want you to share your life with me.’

  I swallowed my answer, No, you would not want to share my life if you knew the truth about me. Instead I said calmly, ‘Jinying, I’m fine, really.’

  He seemed to know that I was not going to promise anything to him, so he silently took my hand, and we continued walking.

  Jinying picked a camellia and slid it into my hair. ‘This is for you. Camilla. You are so beautiful, I wish—’

  I put a finger across his lips. ‘Please, let’s just enjoy this magical moment.’

  Silence fell between us until he spoke again, now looking happier. ‘Camilla, a walk in this garden is an adventure, so be prepared.’

  He had no idea that I was always prepared, because I had to be.

  As we walked further into the garden, I was startled to see two tigers pacing in a huge cage. Worse, they looked as if they were seriously considering me as a nice dinner, or perhaps just dim sum. I involuntarily stepped back. Now I remembered the rumour that Lung had fed his enemies and troublesome ex-mistresses to tigers.

  Suddenly one of the tigers dashed to the front of the cage and roared through the metal bars as it bared its pointed teeth. Were it a human, I might have bluffed, yelling back to show that I was not afraid. But it was pointless with these beasts who lived only to satisfy their appetites. We are of no interest to them unless they are hungry.

  As I was feeling a chill inside, Jinying spoke. ‘My father keeps these as pets. He thinks they are the most beautiful animals in the world, and he tries to imitate their fierce energy.’

  Jinying put a protective arm around me. ‘You all right? Don’t worry, they cannot escape from their cage.’

  But of course the tigers I really feared were the human ones, Lung and Wang, and neither the police nor government officials nor anyone else could confine them.