The Courtesan

by Alexandra Curry

  Air moves in the room, ruffling the mounds of Timu’s black hair freshly cut from her horrible, naked scalp. Jinhua’s breath comes in small gasps, and Timu takes a step closer to the bed. Tiny shoes peek out from the hem of her gown. They are watermelon red, embroidered bridal shoes.

  “Your Baba has gone to the Western Heaven to join the ancestors,” she says now. The white thing hangs limply from Timu’s hand, not quite touching the floor—and what is Timu saying? Jinhua sees loose threads, a coarse weave, a ragged hem, a sleeve. She is shivering. It is a gown in Timu’s hand. It is white, the color for mourning, a xiaofu. It is what people wear to weep and wail when a person is dead.

  “Get up now, child. Put this on to show your grief,” Timu says, and something as large as an egg lodges in Jinhua’s throat. It feels as though it will be there for a long time, and the gown looks far too big—and Baba always comes back after a while. He always does, but where is he now?

  Timu is speaking quickly, and she is offering the xiaofu with two hands outstretched as though she were giving a gift, the prayer beads dangling at her wrist, the gown moving like a demon, a white one, slowly closer to Jinhua. And Timu is talking, talking, talking, and her eyes and lips and teeth are leaping from her face, and now the prayer beads are as shrill as a whistle close to Jinhua’s ear. Timu says that Baba is dead. She says that the sword to cut off his head was the emperor’s sword, and it was sharp. The sleeve of the white gown is a blur touching Jinhua’s cheek, her ear, her forehead, brushing against her skin, hurting her. She covers her ears with her fists, and there is no air to breathe—and all that she can think about is that Timu is a liar. She should go away and please, please stop talking, stop saying those things about Baba. And while she thinks these things Jinhua is becoming more and more afraid—and can it be true that the emperor’s sword has cut off Baba’s head?

  There is a sudden silence. Timu’s breath is close, and her ears bloom neat and small against her hairless head, and she is perfectly still for a moment. Then she wails, “We must both strive for virtue, child, you and I.” And she howls, “Shi bu zai lai.” Time that has passed will never come back.

  Jinhua goes limp. Light streams through the open door like narrow fingers; outside in the street a bucket of water hits the ground with a loud smack, and Jinhua folds herself around her knees. She bites down hard into her kneecap with her front teeth, and there is a gap for the one that fell out this morning, and she knows that Baba isn’t coming back. And she knows more than this. She knows that it is the emperor who has cut off Baba’s head with his tiger sword that has sharpness on two sides—and Jinhua’s own words, the words she said to Baba, are in her ears now, clear and huge and terrifying: “Baba, I wish that you would disobey the emperor . . .”

  Timu is nodding as though she knows all this, and Jinhua has a question, and the question is urgent. She asks it in a whisper that is like a sob.

  “Who will look after me now?”

  Timu covers her face with her hands. “I cannot give you an answer,” she says. “I am wind blowing from an empty cave, and I am neither more nor less than this.” And then, with two fingers extended from her fist, Timu makes the round gesture of chopsticks fetching food from a bowl, and the sound of the prayer beads is softer than it was before.

  “There is rice on the table. Eat it, child. Today you will need yuanqi—you will need all of your strength when the go-between comes to get you.”

  4

  ONE FOOT CANNOT STAND

  Jinhua

  “Is Timu coming back?”

  Clouds have stained the sky an icy white, and it is cold outside because it is the time of Autumn Begins and soon it will be winter. Jinhua is standing in Timu’s courtyard, where “Light is better for looking,” the go-between said as she sat herself on the garden stool where only Timu ever sits with the tomcat curled at her feet. Jinhua has covered her naizi and her sichu as best she can with just two hands, and her teeth are chattering, and chicken-skin bumps are forming on every part of her naked body. Timu has gone, but the cat is there at the go-between’s feet as though it doesn’t matter that his mistress has abandoned him and Jinhua, both.

  “You never mind about your Timu.” The go-between is frowning. She is loud and fat, and there are not enough hairs to cover her head—and Jinhua doesn’t understand why Timu has allowed this person to come into her courtyard and to sit on her stool. “Where she go and where you go now not same. Not same at all like emperor’s palace”—the go-between pauses, looking around, and Jinhua can’t stop staring at the wart on her eye that wobbles when the go-between blinks—“not same like emperor’s palace and pot for shitting. Not same like this place and that thing or that place and this thing.” The go-between hisses at the cat, and the tomcat stares back, unafraid, untouchable, and she hisses again, this time at Jinhua.

  “You turn around.” With a crooked forefinger the go-between gestures a circle the size of an orange. Her fingernail is dark like strong tea, and her feet are planted, her trousered thighs widely parted. She is looking straight at Jinhua’s naizi.

  “Hold arms up, zheme yang,” she says. Like this. The go-between’s hands fly skyward, and her dark blue bosom heaves, and Jinhua notices a crusty stain on the sleeve of her jacket right at her elbow—and it is hateful. A gust of wind makes oak leaves crackle overhead; red tassels tremble on the lanterns; a shutter makes a sudden banging sound—peng peng. Jinhua clutches herself in the two places that must be hidden. Timu said, “You must do as the lady tells you,” but this is not a good thing that this person is making her do. It is not virtuous for a girl to be naked and barefoot outside in the courtyard with someone who is mean and dirty and hissing at the cat even though the cat has not done anything—and what if a man comes and sees her standing here like this, without any clothes, and why is Timu letting this happen?

  She is being punished.

  “You not sick, little girl,” the go-between says now. “You not hungry. You not die from this. Why you make face like that?” She struggles to her feet and hawks first from her nose and then from her throat. She grabs both of Jinhua’s arms and pulls and spits, and a bone cracks in Jinhua’s shoulder. The wart on the lady’s eye is close and red and angry, and it looks as though it might sprout legs and crawl across her face.

  “Look-look first, then business. Not business, then look-look,” the go-between is muttering. Jinhua is breathing only through her mouth, and the go-between’s fingers catch her nipple—which Jinhua doesn’t expect—and she twists it painfully. Jinhua shrinks back and wants to drop her arms and crouch, to hide what no one should ever look at. With a snarl and a slap, the go-between says, “Be still,” and her hands move across Jinhua’s chest with flat palms that hurt her bones. Bamboo groans nearby, and the wind is blowing more and more, and the go-between’s hands keep moving.

  Jinhua whimpers, “I want Baba,” even though Baba is dead, and she knows that—she knows it is true.

  The go-between sneers. “Your Baba is a rotting-no-head-dead-body-corpse,” she says, and she is laughing now. Huo-huo-huo—huo-huo. Her fingers reach quickly for Jinhua’s throat and then her mouth; they pry her teeth apart, circle her gums, stop at the gap where her tooth is lost.

  Baba is not what the go-between said. He is dead, but he isn’t that. Jinhua’s tongue uncoils; she screams, and the go-between says, “Hè,” and, Yes, Baba is that thing that she said, and Jinhua is the one to blame. A new stink explodes from the go-between’s mouth, and Jinhua retches but nothing comes out because she could not eat the rice that Timu brought for her. It is the smell that is making her sick. It is the dirty fingers that were in her mouth, her empty stomach, and being so terribly cold. It is what the lady is saying about Baba—and what Timu said—and what Jinhua said to Baba when it was time to go to sleep.

  The lady’s hands are moving again, forcing Jinhua upright, then groping downward, pausing at her belly. A finger pokes her belly hole; a hand slides down to paw her bottom, the backs of her thighs, h
er knees, and her calves; both of the go-between’s hands linger at her feet, first one foot, then the other, bending and pinching and twisting. The go-between’s hands are now at her ankles, between her legs, moving up and up and up. The touch is lighter than before, the fingers like crawling, scary spider feet. Now they reach for the place where Jinhua pees. A finger bores inside. Jinhua’s teeth sound like breaking dishes in her head, and she can’t make them stop, and she can’t stop thinking about rotting-no-head-dead-body-corpse. A long cry comes out of her. It is the same noise that an animal makes when someone kills it. It is because the go-between is touching her, and because Baba is dead, and because there is nothing she can do, and because Timu said, “Shi bu zai lai.” Time that has passed will never come back.

  But now it is finished. The go-between lady has pulled her finger out of Jinhua’s bottom. She steps back and lifts the finger to her eye. She tilts her nose to sniff; she brings the finger to her tongue, which is as wide and pink as a slab of pig-meat. She smacks her lips. “Tasty,” she says. “Sweet, like dates. Just what man like. Now get dressed. Wear beautiful clothes, not ugly xiaofu.”

  The go-between says she will give Timu only six silver coins even though Jinhua is seven years old. “Because feet not bound,” she says, “girl worth only six and not seven.” Timu nods and says, “Qing bian.” As you please. Jinhua looks down at the legs of her bright trousers that are for the New Year festival; she looks past them at her very special shoes with happy tiger faces embroidered on the toes. A memory comes. Sitting on Baba’s lap watching fish play in water. Timu interrupts, pushing Meiling in front of her. They don’t care about the fish the way Jinhua and Baba do, how they swim over and under one another in happy, graceful circles that go on forever and for always; how they jump and splash and hide under lotus leaves. Timu pokes Meiling with a finger, prodding her to say something that she can’t say herself.

  “The mistress wants to know, Master, when you will have the foot binder come to bind her feet?”

  “Yongbu,” was Baba’s answer. Not ever. He said it twice. “My daughter’s feet will not be bound. I will not subject her to this foolish, harmful thing.” Jinhua was glad that Baba said this. If her feet were bound, the tiger shoes would be too big, and she would sway from side to side when she walks like Timu and Meiling do, and she would not be able to run even a few steps, or skip, or play. And worst of all, a husband would come to take her away from Baba if she had beautiful, tiny feet, and she would not like that at all.

  Now the clang of six heavy silver coins hurts Jinhua’s ears. The go-between puts them on Timu’s table one coin at a time, counting them out, glancing to see whether Timu is watching. “This is my dowry for the temple,” Timu says as though she had never been silent, never stopped speaking, always said what she had to say.

  “No matter,” the go-between replies. “Qian jiu shi qian.” Money is money. She holds out her hand, and Timu gives her a piece of paper, and the paper has writing and chop marks on it. The go-between folds it twice and then once more and tucks it into her sleeve, and Jinhua wonders what is written on this paper.

  Now Timu is leading the way to the third gate, the one that faces the canal and makes a noise like a baby crying when Cook opens it to squabble with the boat people about fish and onions and radishes—and money. The go-between has taken Jinhua’s hand and is pulling her. In her other hand, Jinhua has the three bright kumquats that Timu has given her. “In case you get hungry,” Timu said, “on your journey.”

  “Where am I going on my journey?” Jinhua asked her in a voice so small that her own ears almost couldn’t hear. She didn’t expect an answer. No one is answering questions today, not the way that Baba always does, or Meiling, or Old Uncle Xu—the gardener—as long as the question is about a blossoming tree, a fern, a piece of Taihu rockery—and does it resemble an old man weeping or a nesting loon?

  But this time Timu did answer in a whisper. “You are going to your fate,” she said. “And I to mine. It is the Will of Heaven.” The go-between nodded and her teeth flashed a brownish-gray color, and Jinhua thought, No, it is not the Will of Heaven. It is because Timu took the silver coins and put them in her money pouch and doesn’t want me to be where she is. Her eyes felt wide and full, and then she thought, And it is because I told Baba to disobey the emperor.

  Now Timu is straining to open the gate; she isn’t strong like Cook is, and the crying-baby noise has started. Timu is holding on to the edge of the door as though she needs that just to stand up. The go-between’s grip on Jinhua’s hand has tightened, and Jinhua is pulling back, looking at Timu because Timu is the only person she knows who is left.

  They step over the high threshold that stops evil spirits from coming inside, the go-between first and then Jinhua. Her legs feel strange, and Jinhua remembers that no one has combed her hair today or tidied her braids or washed her face. The air outside the wall smells sour, and the sky is turning gray, and the water in the canal is flowing strongly to the east as though it were running away from the west. Jinhua turns. Timu has stayed inside the gate; her hands are clasped in the traditional way to say good-bye, and her elbows are tight against her waist as though they were holding the two sides of Timu together. Jinhua calls out. It is the last possible moment to say this—or anything. “Why do I have to go on a journey? Why can’t I stay here with you, Timu? I will be good forever—and for always; I will look after you, I promise, now that Baba is a rotting-no-head-dead-body-corpse.” When Jinhua says this by accident, Timu’s eyes turn shiny. Her teeth are tightly shut. The gate is closing, slowly, stretching the baby’s cry into a wail that lasts for a long time—and then Timu’s face is gone.

  5

  THE HOUSE WITH THE

  WIDE GATE

  Jinhua

  Stone steps lead from the street to the canal, and a boatman poles his boat close. He is naked from the waist up, brown and as thin as a scallion. A straw hat hides his face, and he calls out, “Taitai, dao nar qu?” Where to, Lady?

  “To House with Wide Gate on Cangqiao Lane.” The go-between turns her head to hawk a glob of spit into the canal. Jinhua watches as it foams for a moment and then is lost amid floating bits of garbage, full of color, things that nobody wants to have. She rolls the three kumquats that Timu gave her in the palm of her hand and thinks of eating one, and then thinks, No, I will save them for later.

  “How much?” The go-between is pushing her down the steps, slippery with green slime, and Jinhua worries about the leap she will have to take from the bottom step to reach the boat. She worries about her special tiger shoes; they will get wet and dirty. They will be ruined. The boatman reaches to lift her, as though he knows about her worries, and says without looking at the go-between, “My price is fair.” His hands make a tight circle around Jinhua’s waist, and Jinhua notices that his number four finger is gone from one hand.

  When the go-between clambers in, the boat shudders and the boatman takes his pole in two hands and stands, balancing, wind blowing the legs of his trousers, feet on two sides of the gunwale at the back. His bare toes are dark and knobby. They grip like fingers. A spray of pussy willow tied with a hairy piece of string dangles inside the boat between his feet. Slowly the boat moves away from Cook’s third gate. The man is careful, leaning into his work, splashing only a little, making tidy, beguiling sounds as his pole dips in and out of the water. He poles the boat under a humpbacked stone bridge and crouches down. They turn a corner and they are gliding now farther and farther away from the gate, and home, and Timu, who doesn’t want Jinhua—and before Jinhua is ready, the boatman calls out, “Yijing daole.”

  We have already arrived.

  Jinhua doesn’t know this place at all. Above the boat, ancient streets hug the canal on two sides, and gray roof tiles stacked like leaning coins cap the dirt-stained walls of houses. Dark dragons twist and writhe along the eaves. The boatman lifts his pole. He is as graceful on water as a girl dancing.

  “What happened to your number four f
inger?” Jinhua asks. Sitting, she can see the boatman’s eyes beneath the brim of his hat. She can see the stub where a finger should be.

  “Lost, facing down the enemy,” he replies, and Jinhua asks him, “Will it grow back?”

  The boatman makes a strange motion with his hand touching his forehead, then his brown and naked chest, his left shoulder and his right. “It will not grow back,” he says. “But it is only one finger, and I have learned to live without it. My Heavenly Father has made me strong enough to bear this and other things.”

  The go-between shifts on the seat, and the boat heaves. “That heavenly-father-your-god is a filthy, hairy, big-nose, foreign devil,” she says, and she spits for the second time into the water—and it is not right to speak in this way to an old person who has lost his finger—and why would the go-between say these things?

  The crusty stain on the go-between’s sleeve touches Jinhua’s arm, and the go-between says the words foreign devil and filthy a second time. The boatman coughs and holds his stance and coaxes the boat into position next to a bank of stone steps. A two-stringed erhu wails nearby, and Jinhua hears Baba’s voice, almost. “One day I will take you—”

  From the bottom step she calls to the boatman. “Uncle,” she says, “would you like a kumquat?” He bows, removes his hat, and reaches with his poor, four-finger hand.

  “Wait a moment,” he says, and the boatman springs to the back of his boat. He unties the pussy willow spray and tosses the hairy piece of string aside. “May the Lord, my god, make you strong too,” he says, putting the spray in Jinhua’s hand, taking the kumquat she has offered him. Unable to stop this, the go-between has turned her back and is making her way up the steps to the street. “Hurry,” she says, wheezing.

  But Jinhua waits, stretching the moments, clutching the pussy willows, watching the boatman balance himself so perfectly on the water. She is glad she has seen his walnut face. She is glad, too, that she has given him one of her kumquats; and she is worrying, a little, about the boatman’s enemy and whether he is really strong enough.