The Valley of Amazement

by Amy Tan

  I picked up Carlotta. As she purred, I reminded her of the boy she nearly killed. She was as happy as I was that he had returned.

  The gossip from the first party was reported in all the tabloids. “She is Eurasian and accomplished in both languages.” “Her storytelling was charming and natural in an unrehearsed way.” “She was at ease entertaining men of importance, conversant on all topics, even those concerning foreign control.” All the tabloids dropped names of the famous and powerful: Eminent Tang, who had formed a partnership with several banks to finance the construction of new buildings that were rising along the Bund. Perceptive Lu, whose father had met with the United States consul general to discuss foreign loans. One man was dating a famous actress. Another had an enviable collection of rare scroll paintings.

  Most of the gossip concerned Loyalty Fang, the host. The gossip columns in the mosquito press mentioned the shipping companies he owned, the favorable trade routes he had managed to negotiate. They listed his porcelain factories in Hong Kong and Macau. They touted that his family was among the most distinguished of the literati in Shanghai who had been important in building the new Republic. And every one of the tabloids reported that the virgin courtesan Violet had a Chinese face and Western green eyes, which she inherited from her mother, the famed American madam, Lulu Mimi. “How lucky that the House of Vermillion was able to capture this unusual flower. What gifts will he next bring her? Will it be teacups and saucers or large tureens with foreign family crests? Whose family crest would appear on hers? That of her American mother?”

  Eurasian looks had become my advantage and not my flaw. Besides Loyalty, eleven men hosted debut parties for me. Madam Li boasted about the number by saying it was excessive to call them debuts after two. None was more lavish than my first debut, which was the one hosted by Loyalty. I sat at the table beside him. The courtesans sat behind the men who were Loyalty’s guests. The banquet had foods more rare than the last—tastes no one had ever had, food for the gods. He hired musicians, and, in my honor, they included an American who played the banjo, an instrument I had never heard and which sounded to me like a zither whose musician had gone mad.

  I expected Loyalty would come daily and ply me with gifts to increase his yearnings in anticipation of my defloration. Instead, he came once every five or six days and would then be absent for one or two weeks, with not even a card to tide over the period in between. Magic Gourd sent messages to his house, using all kinds of pretexts: “Violet will perform a new song tonight.” “Violet will wear a new jacket, made possible by your generosity.” The answer was always the same: “He is away from Shanghai.”

  Without notice, he would appear in the late afternoon when the house was quiet. He always brought an unusual gift. One was a goldfish in a large bowl with seven goldfish painted on the interior. “This little fish is the lucky eighth. With so many painted fish, he will not be lonely.”

  “You must leave me with seven replicas of you so that I am not lonely as well.” After that, I did not hear from him for ten days. When he showed up—unexpectedly, as usual—I had to keep my growing annoyance hidden. I could not presume I could make demands. Our romance was clouded by commerce. He spent money on me, gave Magic Gourd tips and me gifts. Meanwhile, Madam Li and Magic Gourd were tallying the amounts, calculating how much more he might be willing to spend. “We can’t expect the amount will be as big as what Vermillion received,” Madam Li said. Back in my room, Magic Gourd said, “You will fetch more than Vermillion. And then we’ll show Madam Li to never underestimate us.”

  Two and a half months before my scheduled defloration, Loyalty arrived and stayed only an hour. He told Magic Gourd and me that he was leaving for the United States on a business matter. He said it nonchalantly. I knew it would take a month to simply reach San Francisco! If he did go, he might not return in time for the bidding of my defloration. Maybe he would never return, like my mother.

  I had assumed too much. He wanted an unconsummated romance. I was naive. I did not understand him, or Chinese men, or the purchase of sexual favors.

  “You will be gone so long,” I said, “you will likely miss my fifteenth birthday on February twelfth.”

  He frowned. “When I return, I will make amends with a lovely birthday gift.”

  “Madam Li expects my defloration will take place at the same time.”

  He frowned again. “I did not realize … This is unfortunate timing. I know it’s disappointing.” He took my hand but did not say he would cancel his trip. I fell mute with disappointment.

  Magic Gourd tried to dissuade Loyalty from making the voyage. She cited the recent sinking of Titanic. A Japanese ship also went down not that long ago. Ice and typhoons were very bad this year.

  A month later, Madam Li told me that eleven men who had hosted parties for me were eager to buy my defloration. Loyalty Fang was not among them. She patted my arm. “I called. I asked the secretary to send a cable urging him to consider. The secretary said it was hard to reach him, even by cable. But she said she would try.”

  Madam Li went on to review the men who wished to bid. For the first time, I had to confront the fact that one of those eleven men would win the privilege of breaking me open for business. I could not recall a single one who did not repulse me in that regard. Would it be the blowhard, or the man old enough to be my grandfather, or the one covered in oily perspiration even on the coldest days? What about the dimwit with ridiculous opinions? There was one who frightened me: a thin man with small eyes and a piercing stare. He never smiled. I thought he was a gangster. There were a few who would not have been objectionable to other courtesans. They did not mind if they were dull, as long as they had money. Those same men did not ask for my opinions. They did not expect me to understand their conversations with their friends. They did not compliment me on my high spirit. They were not interested in me, only in the prize that lay between my legs. At their dinner parties, they asked only that I tell the story “Peach Blossom Spring.” They had read in the tabloids that I did this quite well.

  A date was announced for my defloration: February 12, 1913, the day of my fifteenth birthday, the one-year anniversary of the emperor’s abdication. A doubly auspicious day to be celebrated. I did a quick calculation. It was five weeks away. Was Loyalty on his way home?

  More parties were thrown in my honor. But Madam Li said I was so listless she had to tell each man that I was suffering from a headache.

  The contenders were allowed into my boudoir for tea. Magic Gourd was always present to make sure no man pried from me an early sample. I could no longer ignore the inevitable. I imagined each man touching my pristine body. They were all revolting trespassers.

  The days went by with relentless speed. I was always cognizant that Madam Li would soon make her final decision based on the offers received. I begged her to consider my feelings and wait for Loyalty Fang to return. I would not be able to hide my disgust with any of the current prospects, I explained, and they would feel cheated. If the man proved brutal, I might never overcome the horror of the first time. It would ruin me for any future courtships. For once, she seemed a little sympathetic.

  “I felt the same with my defloration,” Madam Li said. “I hoped for one suitor and won a different one, a man old enough to be my grandfather. I thought of killing myself. When the time came, I kept my eyes shut tight and pretended the man was someone else. I pretended I was someone else. I was somewhere else. When he broke through my gates, there was so much pain I genuinely forgot who I was. I realized the pain would have been the same, regardless of who might have broken me open. The man told me afterward that just as he was making headway, I shouted for him to take back his money. And then I fainted. The man was pleased about that. He said it was proof that I had been a virgin. You can pretend to faint. It may also happen without pretending.” Madam Li’s words were not consoling.

  One afternoon, with less than two weeks before my scheduled defloration, Madam Li ran on and on about a suitor who own
ed seven factories that manufactured parts of things: headlamps for automobiles, pull chains for porcelain toilets, and the like. Every year, his wealth tripled. He was not from the most prestigious family, but in today’s Shanghai, prestige could be bought and people did not care as much about your origins. The offer he made was so large compared with the others that it would be foolish to refuse. Until then, she would not tell me whose offer was the highest. That was a matter I should not be concerned with. But now the highest bidder was growing impatient. He would wait another three days and then his offer would evaporate. If that happened and news of it went around, the others would rescind their offers as well. And the bidding would begin again with lower offers because the men would then know that time was too short to recover from the rejection. She told me with an apologetic face that the one who would likely buy my defloration was the thin man who never smiled.

  “This is not a tragedy. If you delight him, you can change his expression into smiles,” she said. “Then he will look less unappealing.”

  For two days I could not sleep or eat. I pitied myself. On the second day, I loathed myself. On the morning of the third, I recalled what Madam Li said about closing my eyes and pretending I was someone else. I did not want to be a girl who had no mind of her own. That would be a brainless living death. I wasn’t going to stand around like an ornament or wear a simpleton’s smile all night long. I did not want my happiest emotion to be relief.

  I recalled that hated phrase my mother used: “a matter of necessity.” I once thought she applied that like a tarp over selfish desires. It occurred to me that she also used that view to accept a bad situation, to let go of how she thought of herself. She did what was a matter of necessity. “Every difficult situation has its particular circumstances,” she had said, “and only you know what those are. Only you can decide what is necessary to achieve the best possible outcome.” I thought about my circumstances. I did not know what the best possible outcome might be. I did not know what I would decide was necessary to achieve it. But I resolved I would not kill myself nor lose myself. And with that, I no longer pitied or loathed myself. I was no longer helpless in spirit. But it did not remove my disgust for the bony man.

  That afternoon, just before Madam Li was supposed to give her answer to the bony man, a cable came from Loyalty notifying Madam Li that a letter would arrive that day. “It concerns the privilege of Violet’s defloration. Please forgive the tardiness of my offering. I will explain in person why it was delayed.”

  For two hours, I paced, wondering if the offer would be large enough. When the letter arrived, Madam Li took it into another room. A minute later, she emerged, and quickly nodded her head with a big smile. “All that you wish,” she said.

  I should have been jubilant. But fear prickled me. We began with the romance that we would always yearn for each other and never be fulfilled. All that I wished might not be all that I received. I was afraid to trust happiness. Why did I hear nothing from him for so long? I lay on my bed, away from everyone, to think about what I wished. I had a sobering thought: I was entering into the life of a courtesan—willingly. Before, I had no choice but to become one. Now I chose to be with Loyalty. Within this life was all that I wished. But I also knew what lay ahead: all the changing futures of being a courtesan. Even if I could leave the courtesan world one day, I would not be able to completely shed that I had once been a courtesan, not in my mind and not in the mind of others.

  Two days before the defloration, Loyalty returned. He begged forgiveness for the torment I had been through. He had prepared his offer long ago, he said, and his secretary was supposed to deliver it. She never did. It was found on her desk below another letter she had written to him. He showed it to me:

  I am a virtuous woman and a faithful employee. For three years, I have done all that you asked without complaint, without mistake. It is my own misfortune and fault that I harbored love for you, and it was increasingly unbearable that you never noticed. I could have continued in obscurity. But I could not see you give yourself to a creature with no morals, who wants none of your goodness and only your money. I apologize that I did not do as you asked. It is the only time I have disobeyed you.

  “She hanged herself in my office after everyone had left for the day,” he said. “That was how I learned that my letter to you had never been sent.”

  I was horrified. I imagined her pain. I, too, harbored love for Loyalty. I would not have been able to hide it for three years. But I would not have killed myself.

  FOR MY DEFLORATION ceremony, Madam Li, with Magic Gourd’s encouragement, chose to hold a mock Western wedding. Loyalty’s offer had included a contract to be my patron for one year. I allowed myself to believe I would not be simply a bride but a wife. I had already started yearning to be a real one.

  The day before the wedding, a dress arrived, a gift from Loyalty. It was an American wedding dress, made in New York, ivory silk with seed pearls, which flowed in one piece from bosom to ankles, wrapping around the shape of my body. He included satin shoes with heels, and, by his written instructions, I should let my hair hang loose, unbound, with only the pearl beaded veil of organza over my face. When I looked in the mirror, I did not recognize myself. I was not a young naive girl. I looked sophisticated and modern, elegant and elongated. I turned my hips one way and then the other. The veil wafted upward, and I gasped to see a different face. And then it was gone. I turned sideways and again I saw the other face. This time I recognized my mother’s features in me. I had never seen them so clearly. This was the sort of dress she would have worn. This was how she would have turned her hips. This was the look on her face, knowing a Chinese man—my father—would soon bed her.

  Loyalty was pleased to see me in the wedding clothes. He wore a tailored English suit. I leaned against him and whispered that I would be his fairy maiden tonight, the one he had wished to court in Hidden Jade Path. After twelve banquet dishes, Loyalty’s wedding gifts were toted out, which would enable me to refurnish my boudoir: a dining table and chairs in the latest Western style, an armchair, sofa, and chaise longue, three flower stands, a desk, a bookcase, novels in English, a bureau, two wardrobe closets, a Western canopy bed, a Persian carpet, three Tiffany lamps, and a tabletop Victrola. At the very end of the ceremony, he placed on my finger a jade-and-diamond ring. He discreetly left on one of the flower stands a red silk envelope of money, which I saw Madam Li take away.

  We thanked the wedding guests and made our way to the boudoir. As I passed Magic Gourd, she gave me a nod of encouragement but her face bunched into worry. Or was it sympathy in knowing what awaited me?

  The doorway was hung with dozens of red banners, and pots of flowers crowded the entrance. Inside, two lamps glowed and the room was scented with roses and jasmine. The marriage bed was enclosed within golden curtains of silk batiste.

  Magic Gourd entered bearing hot towels and tea. She held the matches we would use for the Lighting of the Big Candles.

  “We don’t need to perform those old-fashioned customs,” Loyalty said. I was disappointed. I liked the mock-wedding rituals I had watched as a child. He gave Magic Gourd a tip, an indication that she should leave. The door closed, and we were alone for the first time.

  “My little captive,” he said, and stared at me fully, head to toe. He kissed me. Magic Gourd had not allowed the actor to do that. He ran his hands over my back, my sides, and kissed my neck, and my eyes blurred with the sensation. He returned to my mouth. This was the feeling of love. He unbuttoned my dress. Everything was happening so quickly I could not remember what I was supposed to do. I was glad he had not asked me to sing a song. The dress fell to my ankles. He lifted off the slip, and as he removed the rest of my clothes, he kissed each newly revealed part of me. He freely inspected me, touched my breasts. This was love.

  He motioned for me to go to the bed. I slipped behind the curtains and lay as gracefully as I could on my side. Through the golden scrim, I watched his shadow as he lazily removed his c
lothes. I saw he was already aroused when he parted the curtain. I had expected this would not occur until later. Suddenly I became frightened. I knew what would come, the cracking of the watermelon, the burning rocks, Peach Blossom Spring gushing blood. He lay next to me and inspected my face and stroked the slopes of my cheek, chin, nose, and forehead. When he touched my trembling mouth, my lips naturally parted.

  “Keep your lips sealed. Do not open them, no matter what I do. Do not make a sound.” He again traced the curves of my face and I closed my eyes. Suddenly I felt his hand cup my pudenda. I gave out a gasp of alarm, then murmured I was sorry.

  He laughed. “Ah, good, this was not rehearsed. It is truly you.” He reminded me to close my mouth. He squeezed my pudenda softly, as if determining the ripeness of a peach. I pressed my eyes closed as he parted the lips of my pudenda. “There it is, the pearl, the center of you,” he said. “Such a lovely pale pink. I chose the color of your pearl necklace correctly.” He showed me the necklace and then tucked the beads along my cleft. “There,” he said, “pearls joining the pearl.” He suddenly drew the necklace upward, and I caught my breath with a spasm of surprise.

  “Keep your mouth closed,” he ordered firmly. I was disappointing him. I clamped my lips tightly, and over and over, they opened, despite my efforts. He tucked pillows under my hips so that my pudenda was lifted high. My panic was growing. Was this Climbing the Mountain? He bent my legs and pressed them wide open. Double-Winged Bird? Seagull Wings on the Edge of the Cliff? He knelt between my knees. I felt his stem nudge my opening and he slowly pushed in the tip, and I prepared myself for pain. But now we were rocking from side to side. Pair of Swooping Eagles. I smiled at him, thinking he had already entered me. He lifted his hips away from me. I assumed he was one of those men who finished quickly. No matter. The defloration was a success. I would tell Magic Gourd she was wrong. There was no pain.