Shanghai (71 page)

It was as if the entire room held its breath.

Then Meyer Vrassoon, the handsome, swarthy head of the Vrassoon house, stepped forward and repeated the question, this time in a louder, more openly accusatory voice. “And your brother, how did he die?”

“Beneath the hooves of a Vrassoon racehorse, face up, staring at the glorious sun, whose light and power he resembled more than any man I've ever known.”

As one, the attendant crowd exhaled and a cheer slowly swelled from them.

Silas smiled and then said, “We must not remain strangers in our homes. We must not be separate from the owners of this place. Yes, the Chinese own this place.” For a moment he thought of his father's cautionary opium
dream—“
They were expecting us. Expecting us to do something—something for them
.” Silas shook the thought from his head and repeated, “We must not, I emphasize,
must not
reap the benefits of this country and then bring that money back whence we came. Shanghai is my home, and I will invest my earnings—
all
my earnings—
from
this place
in
this place.”

A few men rose to applaud. Many others sat in stony silence.

Silas looked around. Every face was watching him. He said simply, “I vote for the proposal and put up ten thousand English pounds to begin the process.” An audible gasp came from the crowd. Silas was envied for his wealth but hardly noted for his philanthropy. In fact, most of the men in the room thought philanthropy to be a kind of insanity visited upon aged men who tried to buy their way into Heaven after years of doing as much evil as they could manage. Then they noted something truly odd. Silas Hordoon was laughing. Giggling, really. Quite out of control. Finally he stopped himself with a strange spluttering sound and said, “While I have your full attention, I have an announcement of a personal nature to make.”

This was truly unique. Something personal from the famously private Silas Hordoon?

“Yes, personal. I invite you all to my wedding.”

A cheer came from the crowd, although the head of the Vrassoon household thought it odd that a man of Silas's years should remarry—not unlike Sarah giving birth to Abraham's child at the age of one hundred. Then it struck Vrassoon, and he shouted furiously, “Who's the bride?”

Silas took a breath and relished the moment. Then he let all hell loose in the room by simply saying, “Mai Bao, Jiang's middle daughter.”

“You could be of great value to us,” Ch'iu Chin said to Yin Bao.

“Us?”

“Those of our sex,” Ch'iu Chin replied as she reached across the table and took a small handful of pickled watermelon seeds from the delicate porcelain bowl. Then she flipped one into her mouth. She was having fun. Her boss, Charles Soong, had given her a free hand in “finding out what you can about this Yin Bao. Push her. Challenge her.” Ch'iu Chin bit down and swallowed the tasty seed almost at the same time as she spat the shells to the floor—like a man, a working man.

Yin Bao was taken aback.

Ch'iu Chin noticed. “You are offended! The whore is offended!”

Yin Bao sprang to her feet and opened her mouth to speak, but Ch'iu Chin spoke first. “There is no real difference between men and women.”

Yin Bao's mouth opened even farther, but now there were no words there to answer what she thought of as the most extraordinary comment she had ever heard.

“We're all the same, just different plumbing,” Ch'iu Chin said as she nonchalantly spat a stream of watermelon seed shells to the floor, then said, “These are pretty good. Not the best I've ever tasted, but good. Not as good as I thought they would be, though, considering how much they are charging you.”

Yin Bao found that she had sat down but didn't remember doing so. Nor did she remember why she had allowed this—person—to sit at her table. Yin Bao never paid for the food or drink she consumed. The client always paid. Always. She reached out and pulled the bowl of pickled watermelon seeds away from this strange women and said, “I am not paying for you. You are paying for me.”

“I think not, Yin Bao. I'm not a client. Is that what you call the men you charge to fuck you?”

“If you are not a client, what are you?”

Ch'iu Chin smiled. “I don't find you attractive. You're only famous because you're famous, and that's why I'm here.”

“I still don't understand. What are you?”

“A fighter for women's rights.” Ch'iu Chin handed a pamphlet to Yin Bao. “Can you read?”

Yin Bao put the pamphlet aside. “Of course I can read.”

“Good, then read this,” Ch'iu Chin said as she got to her feet, “and I'll be back to chat with you about it.”

“Just a moment.”

“Yes?”

“Men and women are not the same. How can you claim such a thing?”

“Because you are going to prove that I am right. You are going to do something that up until now only men could do.”

“Stand up to pee?”

“No, I'm sure that you are supple enough to do that already.”

“Then what?”

“Choose the person you're going to marry—and I'm going to help.”

“You?”

“Yes, I'm quite well thought of in the newspaper world. Perhaps you know my boss. His name is Charles Soong.”

—

The “accidental” meeting of Yin Bao with Charles Soong was not an accident by any definition of the term. It had cost Jiang a fortune to get Charles's matchmaker to introduce the “next fine, young, and eligible marriage prospect.” Covering Yin Bao's courtesan background was impossible, but not completely necessary. Jiang's spies had told her of Ch'iu Chin's dinner with Yin Bao and assumed that the woman had reported back to her boss. The remaining stumbling block Jiang saw was Charles's demand that his wife be a Christian.

“A what?” Yin Bao had demanded.

“A Christian,” Jiang said sweetly.

“Do I have to wear a smelly old black robe?” Yin Bao asked in real distress.

“No, those are Jesuits, and I believe only men are permitted—”

“Jesuits? Aren't they Christians?”

“Yes, but Charles Soong is another kind of Christian.”

“What kind?” Yin Bao asked without a hint of sarcasm.

“The kind that could well get you named Jiang—that kind of Christian,” Jiang said, and kissed her daughter on the forehead. Then she added, “It's time you thought of children. Remember, as Jiang you would be responsible for producing at least two females.”

Yin Bao wanted to say, “Who could forget?” but she chose to smile in a manner she thought of as demure. It caused Jiang to laugh.

“What, Mother?”

“That smile needs some practice.”

“Then I'll practise,” Yin Bao said, and turned from her mother.

And Jiang knew that she would practise as much as was necessary to get what she wanted. In all her years of dealing with girls she had never experienced a more strong-willed woman than her daughter Yin Bao. When, on her twelfth birthday, Jiang had asked Yin Bao what she wanted as a gift, the girl had astonished her by saying, “I want my feet bound to complete my undeniable beauty.” Jiang had protested vigorously, but the girl had simply threatened to have it done without her mother's permission.

“But the pain will be terrible,” Jiang had finally said.

Yin Bao had just shrugged and said, “What of value comes without pain?”

Jiang had finally relented, although she did insist that her doctor do the operation and then oversee the recovery.

—

The initial operations took place the following week. Jiang stood by her daughter's side as the doctor inserted over thirty acupuncture needles into Yin Bao's torso and legs. The girl never winced. Jiang looked to the doctor, who responded by raising his shoulders.

Before they had begun Jiang had asked the doctor, “Will she feel pain during the procedure?”

He'd looked at her as if she'd asked him if there was water in the ocean, then said, “I'll be breaking bones in each of her feet, then forcing her toes under toward her heel. I may have to cut through muscles, and I'll definitely have to cut at least two major tendons. Wouldn't you assume that would cause some pain?”

Jiang nodded. The doctor picked up his bag and headed toward the room that had been prepared for the operation when Jiang stopped him.

“Could she die?”

The doctor put down his bag and shrugged his shoulders. “We all can die. It is our nature.”

“Yes, but can this operation …”

“Kill her? Certainly. The acupuncture needles should be able to block the paths of pain, but the body is wise. It knows when it is being invaded and it seeks ways to warn the brain of the threat. Pain is the body's way of warning the mind that it is in danger. So, although my acupuncture needles will fend off the initial pain, the body will find new tracks to the mind to warn it.”

“And when that happens?”

“If she's not strong enough she'll go into shock … from which she may never recover.”

The breaking of the tiny bones was awful. Each let out a cracking sound like the wishbone of a chicken when it is snapped. But Yin Bao remained very still and kept her eyes shut. She held her mother's hand. Then the doctor made the first incision to cut a tendon and blood fountained up, splashing on Yin Bao's thighs. Her eyes snapped open and Jiang held her breath.

“Mother!”

“What, Yin Bao? Close your eyes.”

“No, Mother.”

“What do you want me to do? Do you want me to stop this?”

“No. Cover my dress, Mother. It's made of purest Chinkiang silk. You know how hard it is to get blood out of silk.”

Jiang looked from Yin Bao to the doctor, who smiled as he cut through the tough tendon.

Jiang found herself studying her daughter's face during the surgery. She was appalled by Yin Bao's insistence on wearing silk. It was forbidden for any Jiang to wear silk because it was made from the tears of women. The girl stifled a cry of pain and Jiang thought,
You are willing to endure this but unwilling to give up your silk dresses!

Yin Bao's recovery was slow, and she kept herself scrupulously out of public view, allowing only her maid to see her. The girl redressed her wounds, then wound the long, strong bandage around her broken feet tighter and tighter every day. Yin Bao took her food in her private room and didn't leave. Despite Jiang's pleading, she refused to allow her mother to see her. Rumours of her demise began to spread, and the newspapers leaped on
the possibility that the great Jiang had lost her youngest daughter.

Weeks became months. Every morning the maid entered Yin Bao's room with a hundred-foot length of clean white cloth and a half hour later emerged with a blooded, smelly length of cloth of a similar size. Jiang would send each of these cloths to her doctor, along with Yin Bao's night-soil. Each evening the doctor would sit over tea with Jiang and give her his report on both the dirty cloth and the night-soil. Finally, by the end of the third month, the doctor's reports stopped using terms like “we may be all right” or “this is troubling.”

Near the end of the sixth month Yin Bao's maid approached Jiang and said that Yin Bao would like to see a dressmaker.

“Her eldest sister?”

“No, sorry, madam, she was insistent that it not be anyone of her family. She would like it to be a man.”

—

Chen was noted for two things: his expertise with needle and thread, and the pronounced ugliness of his features. He had come from the country as a child. The rumour was that he had been abandoned by his parents once they had seen that his features weren't going to change. Be that as it may, he was a lonely but talented man who worked out of a small shop whose back wall was the wall of the Old City itself. When the renowned courtesan Jiang flung open the door to his workshop, he fell to his knees to hide his face from this celebrated beauty.

Chen listened to the courtesan's request without getting up from his knees or lifting his head. He even bargained the price from that position.

“Will you be standing when you come to my daughter or will you be crawling like a crab?” Jiang asked, honestly not knowing the answer to her question.

“With your permission, I will walk,” he said.

“Fine. I grant you permission to walk. Now stand up.”

He did.

Jiang had seen a lot of deformity in her life. Often men with physical deformity could find sex partners only when they paid for it. But there was something else in this man's face. Something that made her want to say awful things to him. Something that seemed to say “hurt me.” She resisted, but didn't speak for fear of what would come from her mouth. She just put her payment on the table, turned, and left.

Chen came to Yin Bao's room on the following day. When he entered he was happy to see that the draperies had been drawn and that the light was dim. The woman on the divan, facing away from him, didn't rise, but signalled with her hand that he was to approach.

He did.

Again he was pleased that the light source was behind him so that his face was in shadow. But the light graced the beauty of this girl's face. He noted that her feet were covered with a tightly wound silk cloth. She wore a beautifully embroidered robe that was slightly open to expose much of her leg and a patch of her thigh, and loosely enough tied that he could see the swell of her small breasts.

“Don't be afraid,” she said.

Her voice was surprisingly deep. He stepped closer, being careful to keep the light directly behind him.

“Closer,” she said.

He felt his heart jump in his chest.

“You will make me the most beautiful dresses that anyone has ever seen,” she said as her left hand came up and pivoted, then, to his shock, settled on his thigh.