The Courtesan (12 page)

THE EYE WILL SEE

Suyin

When Suyin opens the gate, she thinks,
This man has come to the wrong house.
He is a
gao guan,
a high official. Probably he is looking for one of the
changsan
houses on the other side of the bridge, where the wine is not thinned with water and where the guests are rich men who have three or four or five concubines, and each of them has her own courtyard.

This is what Suyin thinks as she cracks the gate open just wide enough for one eye to see who has rung the bell. The man is standing there alone, studying the girls' nameplates on the wall outside, his hands clasped behind his back. He is wearing a velvet winter hat with a gold ornament at the top, which is how Suyin knows that he is a very important man. Suyin opens the gate a little wider now to look with two eyes, and the creaking of the hinges frightens a pigeon overhead. The bird flies off the roof, making a tight snapping sound with its wings. Suyin and the man both look up. The pigeon makes a circle and comes back to land on the roof of the
hall. It comes right back to where it started.
Foolish bird,
Suyin thinks.
It can fly away. It doesn't need to come back to the Hall of Round Moon and Passionate Love.
She sees now that the man is wearing a gown that is neither blue nor black nor green nor gray, but all four colors woven together like the feathers on the pigeon's breast, and Suyin can see right away that the cloth is of a fine quality from the way the threads gleam in the sun.

It is early still, not even noon. Suyin has been doing the washing in the courtyard and the wind has been blowing cold and her hands are raw and red. She had just been thinking that it is time to send for the window-paper man to repaper the windows for the cold weather that lies ahead. And then she remembered that today is the eighth day of the eighth moon, which is the day, six years ago, that Aiwen ate opium. Thinking about Aiwen, Suyin couldn't cry this morning. Not at first. But then she remembered Aiwen in a bright dress hugging her, for no real reason, in a way that made her feel warm and good. It was the first time Aiwen called her Little Sister, and Suyin wished for the hug never to end. With Aiwen's arms around her like that she felt as though maybe someone could love her deeply and forever, and remembering that made the tears come after all, the way they do when she thinks about the past.

The man is telling her his name now. “I am Subchancellor Hong,” he says, and Suyin's hands and her sleeves are wet from the washing, and her nose is running, and she is sure her eyes are as red as the tassels on the lanterns outside. She didn't expect such a fine man to be there, or she would at least have gone to blow her nose first. He asks if he may come inside. He bows deeply although Suyin is only a maid, and he doesn't seem to be mocking her. She sniffs and pinches the cold tip of her nose and invites him in because it is the only thing to be done even though it is early—too early for
banquets or opium or bed business. The girls are all asleep after a hard night of working.

Suyin doesn't like to go to the gate, and usually she doesn't. She doesn't like to know that people are looking at the back side of her when she leads them through the hall. She worries that they will think she is nothing but an old cripple. Some people call her
bozi
out loud, as though she didn't know herself that she was one of those, and it makes her feel ashamed.

Subchancellor Hong takes one last sideways look at the nameplates on the wall, and then he steps through the gate. The soles of his velvet boots are almost perfectly white, as though he has never worn them before or maybe everywhere he goes he is carried in a sedan chair. Suyin shows him into the parlor and brings a tray of scented towels, three of them, steaming hot and neatly rolled. He has put on a pair of round eyeglasses and is studying the erotic paintings on the wall, leaning in to see them closely. Seeing the towels, he bows and apologizes for bringing Suyin trouble and seems embarrassed. She offers tea. She is unused to such courtesies, and she, too, is embarrassed by this important man's politeness. When he takes a towel and dabs at his forehead, Suyin notices that the man's hands are elegant. He is wearing a mahogany ring on his thumb.

And now she has to wake Lao Mama, who is sleeping soundly, snoring loudly after the goings-on last night. The shutters in her room are closed, and it smells bad in here. Suyin calls Lao Mama's name in a whisper and carefully touches her wrinkled old shoulder. When Lao Mama rolls over in her bed, Suyin can see that she is naked underneath the quilts with the little dog curled up beside her, and before a single word comes out of Lao Mama's mouth, Suyin knows she will be angry and say rude things.

“Stupid cow,” Lao Mama says before her eyes are even half
open. “Cunt.” She lifts a hand to her forehead, and Suyin sees the flash of her emerald ring, which she always wears so that no one can steal it.

“An official in the parlor,” Suyin tells her. “Waiting.”

“An official?” Lao Mama sits up, clutching the quilt to cover herself. Her eyes are open now.
“Fang ni made pi,”
she says. “What does he want at this ridiculous hour?” And then she says, “Official or not, he will have to wait.”

Of course. Rousing the girls. Painting the eyebrows, the lips, the face. Arranging the hair. Deciding the clothes. These things take time.

“Tell him just a moment,” Lao Mama says. “Tell him that I have many beauties, that no matter his taste I have a girl for him. Go on, you worthless slave of a daughter, tell him that.”

Subchancellor Hong is sipping tea in the parlor when Suyin returns. Already she is wondering which of the girls a man like this will choose. Always, she hopes, it will not be Jinhua. Often it is, because she is the youngest and most beautiful—she has the gift of talking nicely and remembering songs—and she has more charm than anyone.

Bowing, Suyin says, “Please. If the honorable guest would wait for just a moment, the girls will come, and you will doubtless find one, no matter your taste.” She is trying hard to speak in a way that is suitable for a man like this.

Subchancellor Hong nods. He seems a decent man but a strange person. “I am looking for one courtesan in particular,” he tells Suyin. “She is the one I must find, and no other.”

Jinhua

Jinhua is last in line. Lao Mama has arranged the girls in the parlor—all six of them painted, powdered, and sleepy. She has lined them up like teeth in a comb so that the important man can have a look. Jinhua is trying not to yawn.

“The venerable subchancellor does us a profound honor with his presence in our humble hall,” Lao Mama is saying, bowing deeply. She has never said such a polite thing before. She never bows so low for anyone. The man does not rise from his stool. He is neither handsome nor ugly. He has a straight, thin nose, a well-shaped head, and small shoulders. He is older than some who come here, but not as old as others. He isn't fat.

Lao Mama unfolds herself from her bow. “Have a look.” She gestures with her hand toward the line of girls. Her ring flashes. Her voice goes up and down. It has a shape today. It curls and swivels; it is like a needle hidden in a silk glove.

“Take your time,” she says to the man.
“Man man kan.”

The man says nothing. He doesn't look in Lao Mama's direction. He is making her wait.
It is as though,
Jinhua thinks,
he is thinking of someone or something that is not here.
All of the girls are fidgeting, swaying on their feet. Jinhua is swaying too, and wondering.

“No charge at all for looking at my fragrant beauties,” Lao Mama says now, as though the man's silence must be filled with words. “Or maybe I, who am humbler and lower than you, can be of assistance in your selection.” She has two hands on Qingyue's arm. Qingyue is her favorite. Always first in line. Qingyue steps forward and giggles as though she were timid and bashful, but she isn't timid at all—or bashful either.
Please,
Jinhua is praying to the
god of wealth on the other side of the room—or to any god who will listen—
let him choose her and not me.

The man removes his glasses, wipes one round lens and then the other with a white cloth. He is pale and looks uncomfortable. He has slender, nervous hands.

“Might I suggest, Your Excellency, that you try this lovely person, whose name is Qingyue. She is very skillful, if you understand my meaning.” Lao Mama poses for the man, hands clasped. Her smile is sly and red.

“A girl like this is good for your vitality. She knows more than thirty positions that help the
yangqi
to arrive and stay strong,” she is saying now. “Qingyue has memorized the methods of each one of them. She has her favorites, but the choices are yours, Honorable Gentleman. Choose one position—choose thirty. Up to you, Venerable Sir. Your decision, your honorable selection.”

Lao Mama is walking back and forth. Taking tiny steps. “Take all the time you need,” she says. “A
gao guan
like yourself deserves to have what pleases him. He deserves the best that money can buy.”

The man holds one hand up, palm flat, indicating,
No,
not her.
Not that girl.
The expression on his face cannot be read.

“Or perhaps the subchancellor would prefer a girl of less experience.” Lao Mama tries again. “Take a close look at Sibao. She is
ba mian linglong.
Charming on eight sides—and exquisite. She has almost never been touched in all of her life.”

The man rises from the stool. He isn't smiling or telling jokes or cracking seeds with his teeth. He isn't licking his lips the way some men do while they decide, and what Lao Mama says is not true. Sibao is not charming on eight sides—or exquisite. She has teeth like a mule. She has been touched a great many times in her life.

“No,” the man says. “She is not the one I am looking for either.”
For an instant Jinhua thinks it is sadness she hears in his voice. He looks away from Sibao, away from the line of girls. It is as though he were remembering something.

“The girl I seek,” he says, coming back to Lao Mama, “is beautiful and virtuous, and I love her.” Qingyue giggles out loud. Lao Mama's painted eyebrows lift an inch or two into her forehead and Jinhua thinks briefly of Nüwa. “I have only girls of the finest character,” Lao Mama says, “and every one of them is beautiful and virtuous, and they have many other fine qualities that would lead a gentleman such as yourself to fall in love.”

There is a black smudge under Lao Mama's left eye, and surely everyone in the room sees it, but no one says,
Your eye is smudged—you should wipe it clean.

The man is looking now at Cuilian, who is wearing a new blue tunic embroidered with butterflies. He is frowning, trying to choose. He moves on with his eyes, quickly, and it is Jinhua he is looking at now. The foreign clock Lao Mama has just purchased from a Shanghai merchant is ticking—
di da, di da.
It has golden needles that turn around and around but only very slowly. No one knows why Lao Mama bought the clock, and no one knows how to read the mysterious writing on the front of it.

“The most beautiful flowers grow at the back of the garden,” Lao Mama is saying now. It is what she always says when a man comes to the end of the line and she doesn't want him to go without choosing a girl. Jinhua is trying to clear her mind, to give nothing away, to wear her empty-rice-bowl face. And the man is still looking at her, looking for a long time without saying anything. And then he nods, and she knows what she must do. She bows her head. She walks to the door. She leads the man up the stairs. Her hips sway. She knows his eyes are on her back, and she knows that Lao Mama's eye is watching.