The Painter of Shanghai

by Jennifer Cody Epstein

  ‘How old did you say she was?’ he asks.

  Yuliang awaits the inevitable sixteen; everyone at the Hall is always sixteen. To her surprise, though, the madam stays silent.

  ‘My understanding,’ the lawyer says, easing back in his chair, ‘is seventeen. Which means she was fourteen when you bought – I’m sorry. Took her in.’ He smiles, baring a mouthful of smoke-stained teeth. ‘Which is a bit of a problem, since the law prohibits children under sixteen from living in a brothel.’

  ‘I know the law,’ the madam says sharply. ‘She’s my daughter. Where was she to sleep? In the street? Who was going to protect her?’

  Yuliang thinks of the Christian who sank his teeth into her foot. Of the water-dealer, who likes to pay girls to urinate for him and then beat them for being ‘dirty.’ She thinks of the dead flower found in Wuhu Lake, and of Jinling bound and mauled in an automobile’s trunk. A helpless fury begins to build as the manager-mother’s smirk widens.

  ‘Judge Li is a friend,’ Godmother continues. ‘He assured me that there are certain… exceptions.’ As the barrister raises an eyebrow, she adds hastily, ‘He’s never had one of my girls, of course.’ It’s also against the law for civil officials to frequent flower houses, a fact Yuliang well knows after smuggling several of them out her windows.

  Attorney Wen laces his fingers together and stretches his arms over his head. The room resonates with the soft patter-pop of ligaments cracking beneath the skin.

  ‘Either way,’ Godmother huffs, ‘the girl owes. She owes plenty. Many people – hardworking people – depended on her for their livelihoods. It wasn’t just me she robbed.’

  ‘No one’s robbed anyone,’ Zanhua snaps, himself forgetting Attorney Wen’s injunction.

  The madam just smiles indulgently, as at a whining child. ‘Besides,’ she continues, ‘it’s costly to take a girl’s name down. The censors want fifty taels just to switch her status on the registry.’

  Yuliang looks at her lawyer: it hasn’t occurred to her that her name is still hanging outside the Hall. Although of course, now that she thinks about it, it would be. A brothel’s lineup is its official roster. It’s the way authorities keep tabs on who has come and left, who has died and who has disappeared. Essentially, in the end, who is taxable. The thought unsettles her more: it is as though the wind-fluttered characters have more truth and substance than the girls whose false names they advertise.

  ‘Then there’s her debts,’ the madam is saying. ‘Seven weeks of missed appointments.’

  ‘Five weeks, six days,’ Attorney Wen counters.

  ‘And her dressmaker’s bills,’ the madam continues, eyeing Yuliang’s dove-gray tunic with disdain. ‘Gorgeous things. But exorbitant. I know – I paid for most of them. I’d give a bit of that back for the embroidery work she did for us sometimes. But the quality was terrible…’ Yuliang clenches her fist beneath the table. ‘And the smoking!’ Godmother shakes her head.

  It’s too much. ‘I don’t smoke!’ Yuliang says shrilly. ‘You’re a liar!’

  The outburst is followed by a small, shocked silence. Godmother twists her lips victoriously.

  ‘Please, Zhang xiaojie,’ Attorney Wen says quietly.

  ‘And there was damage to her room,’ the madam continues. ‘Did you know, eminence, that this girl likes to light fires?’

  ‘How much?’ Zanhua says between gritted teeth. ‘Just a figure.’

  Godmother waits a beat, an actor delivering a key line. ‘Two thousand yuan,’ she says.

  Yuliang looks at Zanhua in time to see him wince. That is it, she thinks. It’s the end. She waits for Attorney Wen and Zanhua to stand in outrage. To throw up their hands, stalk out of her life. To her surprise, though, both remain in their seats, although it does seem to her that Zanhua shifts away slightly. Toward the window, the costless cheer of the blue sky.

  ‘You’ve made your point,’ Attorney Wen says dryly. ‘The girl is profitable. Especially since two thirds of her time with you was tax-free.’ He picks up his abacus and begins flicking beads, his fingers so long they look like they are tangling. ‘Let me see. Even assuming you paid the proper taxes… the fine per day… what was it, ten? Twenty?’

  ‘No one pays attention to that rule,’ the woman protests. ‘We already pay the police their cursed protection money. If I pay taxes too, how do I compete?’

  ‘That, unfortunately, is not the law’s concern,’ Attorney Wen says. But he’s made his point; he sets the abacus back down. ‘I’d also suggest you take the honorable Master Li’s advice with a small grain of caution. There’ve been complaints about him recently. New China, new morality. All of that. Some say flower houses will be outlawed altogether. But I’m sure he’s told you that.’

  The madam’s mouth, a rouge-smeared bud, purses as she turns viciously on Yuliang. ‘You’re such a little fool,’ she spits. ‘You think he’s rescuing you.’ She flicks her painted eyes toward Zanhua. ‘You know, don’t you, Master Inspector, that these girls never really change? Oh, you can pluck them away from us. But you can’t dig up the roots. You can’t fight fate.’

  Zanhua’s lips tighten. As his eyes meet Yuliang’s, she attempts a small smile. He just looks away.

  ‘Madame Ping,’ Attorney Wen says coolly, ‘bear in mind whose protection the plaintiff enjoys. His eminence can still have quite an impact on your customers’ fortunes.’

  ‘And they on his,’ she retorts ominously.

  ‘I’ll also point out that no court that I know of would send down an order for more than a thousand. Not even’ – he sniffs – ‘the honorable Judge Li’s.’

  ‘Thievery. Thievery! I’ll be driven from business.’ The madam raps her fan against her shoulder in anger.

  ‘I’m sorry to say that I doubt that.’ Attorney Wen pushes his chair back and stands. ‘Still, we’re willing to see this to the courthouse, if you insist.’ He turns, signaling his clients to follow. The madam watches them go with narrowed eyes, fan still tapping in anger. It’s a gesture Yuliang knows well. At the Hall it often foretells a beating: even now her back tightens instinctively.

  But it’s not until she’s past the threshold that the brothel manager speaks again. ‘Eighteen hundred,’ she barks. ‘I’m fond of the girl. I want her happiness.’

  ‘Fifteen,’ Attorney Wen says curtly.

  ‘You’re heartless,’ the madam wails. ‘I’ll end up in the paupers’ graveyard. No money even for my own coffin.’ Heaving herself to her feet, she hobbles over to Yuliang. ‘Like your friend, my dear. You’ve told your savior here about Jinling?’ She beams sweetly. ‘Such a shame that no one got there in time. Of course, if you’d told the truth to us from the start…’

  For a moment the world wavers like a heat mirage. Yuliang blinks. Zanhua takes her arm. ‘Walk,’ he mutters. ‘Walk with me.’

  But Yuliang shakes him off. Without thinking twice, she steps right up to the madam, close enough to smell her old owner’s scent: a sick-sweet blend of chrysanthemum and ginseng.

  What she wants, more than anything, is to see her dead. She contents herself with finally speaking her true thoughts. ‘May the heavens forbid,’ she hisses into the broad, damp face. ‘May the heavens keep you from ever being anywhere near her. I’ll dig you out myself if you do. You ox-skinned old cunt.’

  Shock blots the madam’s thick features. She wheezes quickly, then lifts a plump palm. Do it, Yuliang dares her. Give me a reason to strike you back. At last.

  But instead of slapping her the madam snaps open her black fan. For several seconds the only sound is the swish of warm air batted into her crimson mouth. When she recovers herself, she snaps the fan shut again and begins hobbling toward the door.

  ‘Write it up,’ she snaps. ‘I’ll send for the money in two weeks’ time. If it isn’t ready, the deal is off.’

  ‘The funds will come,’ the lawyer says shortly. ‘But regardless of the timing, my client remains under our protection.’

  The heavy woman stares at him. Then
she looks Yuliang over again. A barbed smile spreads across her red mouth. ‘I wouldn’t,’ she says, ‘be so sure of that, if I were you.’

  That evening they make love, with the strange and hesitant intensity that has come to mark the act each of the few times they’ve performed it. Which is (Yuliang counts quietly on her fingers) now eight.

  It seems an absurdly small number given how long she’s been under his roof. Even more absurd to be counting at all, now that there’s no money involved. No account book to report to. Still, she can’t help it. Keeping track of her acts remains an ingrained habit, like staying up until dawn, and checking glands and feet for signs of sex-sickness. Lying here now, her damp back pressed against Zanhua’s smooth chest, she wonders if at seventy she will be the same. Still tensing at the sound of heavy feet on a stairwell. Still worrying when a man looks her over, and panicking if he looks away in disinterest.

  In her initial weeks here, of course, Yuliang couldn’t help but worry. She spent those first meals, walks, and nights alone deep in doubt; not about her ‘savior’s’ noble intentions, but about the apparent lack of carnal interest behind them. For all of Zanhua’s talk about ‘natural dignity’ and ‘equality of the sexes,’ she fully expected him to appear some night in the guest bedroom where he’d installed her. Any other man in his position would certainly have seen this as his right. When Pan Zanhua apparently didn’t, she was at first relieved. But as night followed solitary night, her uneasiness grew.

  It wasn’t that she was eager to get in to bed with him. At that point, she’d have been quite happy never to touch a man again. But in her experience, normal men didn’t take whores into their homes – not, that is, unless they planned to really take them. And they certainly didn’t waste time lecturing them about the world unless they planned on sending them back out into it.

  And so she waited, obediently listening when he took it upon himself to talk about his politics or some French or American or Ming Dynasty philosopher. She shared her opinions when asked for them, which was surprisingly often. She smiled and smiled, waiting for some signal or sign that would define what was between them.

  Nearly five weeks had passed before such a sign arrived, in a way she’d curse herself for not expecting.

  She’d been gazing (as she often does, despite Qian Ma’s continuing disapproval) at the mountain poem-picture in the hallway. Drawn to it as always, Yuliang had reached out and unthinkingly touched a finger to the glass.

  ‘Ah,’ Zanhua said. ‘You’ve discovered old Shi Tao.’ He was standing right behind her – she hadn’t heard him come in.

  Withdrawing her hand quickly, Yuliang saw that she’d left a faint print on the glass. ‘I – I’ve admired it,’ she stammered, watching the tiny, whorled mark fade.

  ‘It’s quite old. More than four centuries.’

  ‘It must be very precious,’ Yuliang said, recalling Qian Ma’s first words to her: It’s worth more than your whole life, from start to finish.

  ‘In value? Yes.’ Zanhua considered it a moment. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Yuliang said it firmly, both because his tone seemed somehow to challenge her not to like it, and because the word like failed to describe her feelings so completely.

  Her host ran his finger down the spidery script, reading aloud to her out of habit: ‘“Heavy rainfalls and fierce wind blows attend the spring. The door is shut at dusk; the season cannot stay.”’ He seemed to contemplate this a moment. Then, abruptly, he turned to face her. ‘It was a gift. On my wedding day.’

  For a moment Yuliang found she couldn’t breathe. ‘I’m sure she’s very beautiful,’ she managed finally. The response was reflexive. It was what she always said when men produced their wives from thin air, like magicians.

  ‘My parents chose her. We were children.’ She felt his eyes on her face. ‘I argued against it, of course. They’d sent me to Tokyo to learn all the new ways, only to ship me home again and undo it all.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose, as though the memory were lodged there like a headache, or the beginnings of a cold. ‘Refusing would have dishonored everyone involved. Also the girl threatened to kill herself. So I married her.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Of course, when I joined the secession movement they all but declared me dead anyway. Marrying simply stayed the execution.’

  ‘Execution?’

  ‘A turn of phrase,’ he said shortly.

  Yuliang bit her lip. ‘Are – are there children?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘A son?’

  He nodded. ‘Born last year. She’s remaining in Tongcheng until he’s old enough for school. Her parents are there. It makes it easier. But,’ he went on, ‘that isn’t what matters.’

  ‘What matters?’ she asked. Not snidely, but with strange urgency: suddenly, she really needed to know.

  Zanhua moved his lips silently for a moment. ‘She doesn’t suit me,’ he said at last.

  Yuliang ducked her head suppressing a smile that had little or no humor in it at all. Out of everything men said to justify what they did or didn’t do (or didn’t do to their wives but did with vehemence to paid companions), She doesn’t suit me was by far the most common. She remembered Suyin announcing to lunchtime titters, ‘What he really means is She doesn’t fuck me!’ And someone else – Xiaochen? – squealing: ‘No, no! She doesn’t let me release my great jade stalk into her ruby rear portal!’

  For the briefest – just the briefest – moment, Yuliang actually felt a faint surge of something not completely unlike longing. Not for the Hall itself, of course – not for the men, the long hours, the numbing shame of it all. But for the immunity it provided from this particular and peculiar sort of vulnerability. From this tiny voice that now drummed in the back of her head: He lied. And now he’ll leave.

  ‘The reason I didn’t tell you,’ he said, as though he hears it too, ‘is that she matters not at all. In my mind, it was never a true marriage.’

  At this Yuliang couldn’t help laughing. ‘Why not?’

  ‘A true marriage is made through the meeting of minds and hearts. Not of matchmakers and potential in-laws. A true marriage is one where the husband and wife find each other for themselves. A true marriage…’ He stared at her a moment, his breath fast and his color high. Then, abruptly, he pulled her close.

  He’s going to kiss me, Yuliang thought breathlessly. Right here. Right now. She felt his scholar’s hands, surprisingly strong against her waist, and shivered as his lips brushed her ear. She heard his heart, pounding so hard it seemed almost impossible to her that it wasn’t inflicting damage in his chest. She also heard the telephone releasing its metallic shriek, causing both of them to jump.

  Zanhua groaned, then released her. ‘I should go,’ he said, through the second harsh jingle. ‘We’ll talk more later.’

  ‘When?’ she asked weakly.

  ‘When I return from Shanghai. I’ll be back in a week.’

  And he retreated. She heard him answer the phone in a voice that seemed far too loud (‘Wei! Inspector Pan here. Yes, operator, put him through…’), even given that it had to project itself to some unknown town or city. Yuliang, for her part, walked slowly out to the courtyard, where she sat for several moments in the afternoon’s slanting light.

  Through the moon-shaped gateway floated calls and clatters of commerce: night-soil men banging tin drums, a tiger-meat vendor with his greasy paper packages (‘Cure your asthma! Be fierce and mighty with the girls!’). A dog barked, and she wondered vaguely whether it was a market dog or a pet until a man barked back, ‘Napoleon! Move it along, you wrinkly whelp!’

  Yuliang tilted her head back to feel the sun on her face. She shut her eyes, and watched the light filtering in red through her eyelids. She pictured her, the da taitai, the first wife. Dressed in a red dress, riding her red sedan chair to her unseen betrothed’s house. She saw her sipping her wine from a cup bound to Zanhua’s by a red cord. Exchanging vows, her red-shrouded head bowed demurely. Never a true marriage, he’d
said. And yet when a strange sensation crept thickly up her throat, it took just a moment to recognize it as jealousy.

  Yuliang always thought of envy as a sickness. But for some reason it didn’t feel like one in this case. Its vinegary fumes didn’t so much turn her stomach as clear her thoughts. And when she opened her eyes, she had made a decision.

  Late that night, after lights had been lowered and Qian Ma had shuffled off to her quarters, Yuliang threw back her quilt. Rising, she combed her hair loose and powdered her face lightly. Then she crept up the creaking stairs to the master bedroom. She presented herself warily, half expecting him to send her away in disgust. Or, worse, for sex to work its peculiar inverse alchemy turning him from her savior into just another man who lied to her, bedded her, and then left.

  And yet Pan Zanhua did none of those things. He stared at her hard, as though she were a poster he was trying to read at a distance, or in rain. He asked her if she was sure. And when Yuliang nodded laying down beside him in silence, he seemed strangely on the verge of tears.

  Throughout what followed, he held her eyes in a way no one else had. He seemed aware of her mind, her heart, her pleasure. He asked her questions that, in their newness, left her speechless: Am I hurting you? Is it too fast? Most astonishingly of all, though, was the gentle way in which he touched her. As though she were as pure and fragile as the first thin ice of winter.

  All in all (Yuliang reflects now, cautiously touching his hair), it was the oddest and most inexplicably gentle way that a man had ever touched her. And while his lips and fingertips didn’t coax quite the same delicious quivers that Jinling’s had, they did stir up a sensation almost more powerful: a sense of security. An all-enveloping safeness. Yuliang felt it again when he took her to bed twice on his first day back from his trip. Every day since they’ve made love at least once more, each time conquering more of the stiff distance between them.