The Nine Fold Heaven

by Mingmei Yip

Rainbow’s seductive alto voice went on. “The ambassador did go back to America…” She paused, then lowered her voice. “But as a corpse.”

  “What?! Where did you hear this?”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you. Ha-ha!” She laughed again. “Everyone knows my pen can determine their fate, so they tell me anything I want.”

  Even if it’s not true. If it’s bad, you believe it. And you make up the rest, I thought, but didn’t dare to say.

  “How did he…?” The word die just refused to step out from my mouth.

  “The gangs did not plan to kill him, just a warning to the Americans that they better not mess with the Chinese. They know that if Miller were to succeed with gambling, he’d go after other businesses, too—whores, smuggling, loans… anything he can stick his big, itchy nose in.

  “After they snatched him, the foreign ghost struggled so hard and screamed so loud that one of the gangs lost his temper and strangled him. Then they decided to quickly bury him under the Maple Bridge where their car was passing.

  “Then, after the gangsters threw the last shovelful down the freshly dug hole, they heard muffled sounds from below. They turned and ran, terrified it was the foreign ghost’s ghost—funny, isn’t it? But then one of the gangsters asked, what if the general was still alive? What if he could dig his way out?

  “However, no one dared to shovel away the mud, so finally one of them fired his gun into the grave to make sure that what they had buried had really become a ghost….”

  I pressed, my voice urgent. “Then what happened?! Did Miller…”

  She went on excitedly. “Just then a bright light flashed across the dark sky.” Rainbow paused, for suspense, I supposed. “You know what that means?”

  “No, Rainbow, just tell me.”

  “When a great, virtuous person, like Buddha or Confucius, appears in the world, his birth and death are announced by unusual signs in the sky. So now the gangsters realized that the general was someone they shouldn’t have killed. They fear his ghost will come back to exact his bloody revenge. You know, like General Guan, by chopping them in half. Ha, ha, ha!”

  When she finished enjoying her own imaginary revenge, I asked, “Rainbow, did you just make this all up?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then how come you didn’t write it in your column?”

  “Have you noticed that most newspapers are mum and vague about this? So why should I? Besides, I profit from his death anyway.”

  “An ambassador’s death is big news. Why wasn’t it in the newspapers?”

  “Let me tell you, Camilla, because none of the other foreigners are sorry to be rid of Edward Miller.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of him, they stopped getting ‘lucky money’ from the Chinese, that’s why. So even his close colleagues are happy that he went back home, I mean his eternal home.”

  I was tempted to call Emily again to find out if Edward was alive but decided to leave the matter alone. I could not risk becoming further entangled. Emily was honest and Rainbow was a liar. But just in case it was Rainbow who was telling the truth, I decided to burn offerings and say a prayer for Edward, wherever he was, this world or the next.

  Either way, I knew my affair with him was over and there was no possibility that we would see each other again. Worse, here in the city, the dangers that I faced had only increased. If the gangsters could send an ambassador to heaven, they sure could send a singer to hell. I was surprised that I had not been found by the gangs or the police. Of course, it could be that besides Rainbow Chang, no one knew I was back. Except that she could tip them off at any moment.

  Though I had served Big Brother Wang, I was well aware that a spy is like a yehu, a “chamber pot”: When the master needs to pee, it is needed right away; but when he doesn’t, the pot is but a stinking eyesore. So I, once the most talented and beautiful singer, after I’d served my purpose, was but a stinking chamber pot! Or, as the Chinese say, “After the rabbits are caught, the hounds are cooked.”

  I had served my purpose. So now that his rival Flying Dragons gang was disintegrating because of my doing, I had caught my rabbit. Maybe the reason Wang hadn’t tracked me down and killed me was because he had been too busy taking over all Lung’s evil businesses—gambling, opium, prostitution, loan sharking, and probably others I did not want to think about.

  I feared I was running out of options. My little Jinjin had been adopted, his father Jinying had left Shanghai to look for me, and Gao was on the run, nowhere to be found. Shanghai didn’t seem like the right place for me to be right now.

  Maybe I should go back to Hong Kong, to stay in relative safety while I thought things through. But I decided before I left I would go to the orphanage to keep my promise to see the little blind girl, this time to say my last good-bye.

  So a few days later, I returned to the Compassionate Grace Orphanage. I walked past the receptionist, a bored-looking middle-aged woman who was absorbed in her newspaper. Once past her, I dashed up to the third floor where the older children lived. I peeked into each room. A few orphan girls stared back at me with sad eyes, their hands busy stitching some animal toys that they’d never have the chance to play with or dote on.

  I asked no one in particular, “Little sisters, anyone of you know where Peiling is?”

  One tilted her head toward the window.

  “Thank you.”

  Yes, maybe the blind girl was in her “secret” garden practicing her singing. So I hurried down the back stairs and out into the yard, which was still overgrown with weeds emitting an unpleasant stench. I looked around but didn’t see anyone. Then I heard talking, followed the sound, and found Peiling sitting behind a huge rock.

  To my surprise, she was not alone, but talking to a baby. I hurried to her side.

  “Peiling, you’re not singing today?”

  She raised her head and looked toward me with her cloudy eyes. “Big Sister! I thought you’d never come back, I’m so happy!”

  “I’m happy to see you too.” Then I sat next to her. “Who is this?”

  Peiling had a stunned expression. “You don’t remember? He’s Baobao, my little treasure!”

  In order not to hurt a blind girl’s feelings, I replied, “Of course I remember. How old is Baobao?”

  “I don’t know exactly. No one will tell me anything. How old do you think he is?”

  “Six or seven months maybe.”

  I studied the baby and he gave me what seemed the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. I mussed his full head of black, curly hair. “Little baby, how are you?”

  He giggled and reached his chubby arms out to me. I felt surprised and touched by this babyish move. Peiling let me hold him. He kept giggling and rubbing his round head against my chest.

  Peiling asked, her eyes darting around. “Baobao, are you troubling Big Sister?”

  Of course the baby didn’t respond, so I did for him. “No trouble, Little Sister.”

  Peiling suddenly asked, “Miss Camilla, can you sing us a song? I’m sure Baobao would love your singing.”

  I felt a jolt. “Peiling! I told you I’m not Camilla, but just a fan. My name is Jasmine Chen, please remember. Just call me Big Sister.”

  “Yes, of course, you’re Jasmine Chen, Big Sister. So, now can you sing me and Baobao a song?”

  A strong and demanding little girl!

  With everything on my mind, I wasn’t in the mood for singing. But since this would be the last time I saw her and her Baobao, I agreed.

  As I was about to put down the baby, he had fallen asleep in my arms, his saliva making a dark stain on my blouse, Peiling reached her hand to take Baobao and placed him in her lap.

  “Which song would you like to hear?” I asked.

  “‘Looking for You.’”

  As usual, I imagined that I was staring at the Huangpu River and waiting for the morning sun to rise.

  You are the floating cloud in the clear sky,

  The fleeting star at mi
dnight.

  My heart is caught in a pool of passion.

  How can I hold myself back,

  Hold myself back from looking for you…

  Though this is a romantic love song, it did suit my present situation looking for Jinjin and Jinying.

  Peiling smiled happily. “Big Sister, your singing is so beautiful!”

  “Thank you, Peiling. If you practice hard, someday maybe you’ll sing like me.”

  “You think so?”

  Just then Baobao woke up crying.

  Peiling said, “Can you hold him for a while? Baobao’s hungry, let me get him something to eat,” she said, then walked away.

  The little one rubbed his head on my chest, his lips found my breasts as if seeking milk. I caressed his head and planted a kiss on his chubby cheek. Such a handsome baby, why would his parents have the heart to leave him as an orphan?

  Seconds later, Peiling came back with what looked like a leftover bit of bun. She put it in her mouth, chewed it briefly to soften it, then put it on her finger and then into Baobao’s mouth. Baobao sucked with all his strength.

  “Sorry, little baby, that’s all I could find.”

  After the baby finished eating, I said, “Peiling, I need to go now, please take very good care of yourself and Baobao.”

  I took several bills from my handbag and secretly put them in her pocket.

  “Can you come back soon to sing and hold Baobao?”

  “I’ll try,” I said, blinking back tears.

  I wish I could.

  PART FIVE

  17

  Goddess Behind the Secret Gate

  After an uneventful voyage back to Hong Kong, I took a taxi straight back to my apartment, a small, inexpensive one in the Wanchai district, next to Victoria Harbor. The neighbors paid no notice of my leaving or coming back. It was a big building where people rented, sublet, even sub-sublet. Tenants tended to ignore each other and go about their own business like ghosts wandering in a cemetery.

  So I found myself back in this run-down neighborhood of blue-collar workers, street vendors, shady businessmen, and families down on their luck. There was also a large contingent of foreigners, seeking the favors of the ladies of Hong Kong’s most famous red light district, especially those vagina-starved young men from the sea—American sailors. These transients sailed away soon after their nights of luxury between accommodating thighs, but left behind exotic, mixed-race children. In this atmosphere, a young single woman would not stand out as she might in a more respectable district.

  My two-bedroom apartment had everything I needed, including a kitchen and even a flush toilet, so I didn’t have to share either the preparation of my food, or its end result, with denizens of the other apartments.

  Lonely again, my only comfort in this place where I knew no one was gazing out my window overlooking Victoria Harbor. I liked to watch the fishing boats come and go, and steamships depart for remote places. In the mornings, when the ladies of the night were still asleep, I’d go out and take a walk, then either buy one of the long doughnuts or dim sum wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper.

  Other times, I would go to a working men’s tea house and sit by myself amidst the din, reading my newspaper and enjoying a pork bun or flat rice noodles with shrimp. But my preoccupation was trying to figure out my next move. Unfortunately, there was not much news about Shanghai in the Hong Kong papers, so I still had no idea what had happened to the Shanghai gangs, my little Jinjin, his father, Jinying, and my other lover Gao, the bodyguard.

  Jinying’s diary said he was in Hong Kong looking for me. But how could we find each other in this dense city of several million? We couldn’t put a missing person ad in a newspaper, or post flyers on lampposts and walls. Unless I used a fake name, but then how would he know it’s me?

  The people close to my twenty-year-old life, whether enemies or loved ones, had vanished like the fogs above the Huangpu River. Feeling totally disheartened, I thought maybe I should just accept the fact and move on. But to where, and for what? I didn’t think my life would be complete without my Jinjin and his father.

  I felt my life was like a train that kept rushing forward and never stopped at a station.

  My young, torturous life that seemed to pass so quickly in Shanghai. Now in Hong Kong, it seemed to wobble along at the pace of a tortoise. I had to admit to myself that I missed the life I had striven so hard to escape.

  Maybe I should take a break. Since I had money, why not explore Hong Kong while fate was giving me a respite? Maybe what I needed was some diversion to recharge my energy and give me some ideas as how to find my baby and his father. I’d never had a real vacation, or even thought it would be possible for me. True, I’d gone to Paris with Lung, Jinying, and Gao, but every moment was haunted by the possibility of Lung’s imminent murder.

  So during the following weeks, I tried to put aside my worries and live in the here and now, letting myself do whatever I felt like: read, stroll, sleep, sing. Leisure was a luxury I’d never experienced before.

  My life had seemed like a slippery fish always about to slide out of my grasp. Yet, now, after days of touring the city and the outlying islands in a tourist’s frame of mind, I began to think it might be possible to get a life, a normal one, even if only temporarily.

  One day, flipping through a tourist guidebook, an area called Shek Tong Tsui caught my attention. A decade ago this place, which was close to Wanchai, not far from where I now lived, had been famous for prostitution houses. Like Shanghai Lily on the screen, Shek Tong Tsui’s night ladies had to “sell their smile,” meaning their body, to survive. Since I was an orphan and a spy, I felt a certain bond with women who live by love at society’s margins: prostitutes, mistresses, concubines.

  I decided to visit this place where once lived these “goddesses behind the secret gate.”

  So, on a pleasant, balmy evening, I found myself seated on the more expensive upper deck of a tram rumbling its way to Shek Tong Tsui. What you got from the extra ten cents difference was having a wide seat without being forced to rub your arms, back, and bottom against those of your fellow passengers, or of having their offensive body parts massage yours.

  However, the young couple across from me who’d together splurged an extra twenty cents, only used the opportunity to rub against each other like their poorer comrades downstairs. A middle-aged man two rows in front of them was holding a radio from which spilled the song “When Will You Come Back?”

  Flowers bloom but once,

  Good times never last.

  After our parting tonight,

  When will you return?

  Let me finish this glass of wine,

  And the delicate dishes.

  How many times in life can one get drunk?

  If we don’t enjoy ourselves tonight,

  Will there be another night?

  The unexpected bittersweet tune brought tears to my eyes. Could this man be playing this song because he somehow knew what was in my heart?

  I thought of how this song was composed. A woman, after her husband had been killed by the black society, escaped with her small child to Hong Kong. Having no friends or money, she had no choice but to work as a prostitute in Kowloon Walled City, a lawless district even the police were afraid to enter. Every morning after work, she would lean on the door and sing to her vanished husband, “I’ll always be waiting for you, why don’t you return?”

  With this song ringing in my ears, my question was: “Jinying, when will you come back to me?”

  Soon the tram reached Shek Tong Tsui and I quickly got off, leaving behind the heartbreaking melody, but not my broken heart. I walked slowly by the harbor to enjoy the salt-smelling breeze and the twilight on the waves. Along the roadside in front of dilapidated buildings, a few women leaned by doors, chatting, smoking, and throwing hopeful glances. Despite the British having recently banned prostitution in their colony, it was obvious that these gaudily dressed and flirtatiously acting women were not here to appreci
ate the view, but to practice women’s oldest profession.

  Among them, a fortyish one, her face plastered with white powder like a geisha’s, yelled toward me, “Hey, little beauty, if you were a man, I’d give you a big discount!”

  I smiled back but didn’t respond.

  Her “colleague,” another past-her-prime goddess, laughed hilariously. “Ha! A discount? Are you joking? If Little Miss Beautiful were a man, it’d be free!”

  A third grandmother echoed. “Free? How about I pay him for it?”

  The whole group burst into thunderous laughter. Of course they were joking to make the best of their lot. Business was bad and they were bored. No man would pay for these pathetic women except the equally old, ugly, and poor. But once they had been young, pretty, and highly sought after.

  I felt a chill. If I didn’t start to really plan for my future, near or far, would I end up like these women? I had some money, but what would my future be?

  Just then, suddenly there appeared a group of fiftyish men in rags, smoking, stinking of alcohol, and talking loudly, their conversation mainly insults regarding each other’s parents’ sex organs.

  Once the run-down goddesses saw the even more run-down coolies, instead of running away like ghosts from daylight, they flocked to them like moths toward light. But the coolies outnumbered the goddesses. So the former clustered around to wait for their turn.

  I overheard one of the women say, “Three dollars for five minutes. Five for ten, and one hundred overnight.”

  One coolie laughed. “Grandma, you have a mirror at home? If not, I’ll bring you one next time, on the house.”

  Now all the coolies burst out laughing like there was no tomorrow.

  I wondered about these women who were the age my mother would have been, had she lived. They all must have sad, convoluted tales of how they ended up on this ill-reputed street selling their smiles.

  Seeing these near-destitute women, I wondered, had any been the beautiful mistresses of wealthy men? I had read so many tragic stories about courtesans who prospered from the scholar-officials and rich dandies who were infatuated with them, only to be discarded because of pressure from their lover’s powerful families. It seemed that no love, however deep, could survive the threat of disinheritance.