The Painter of Shanghai (19 page)

The park is thinly populated when they reach it; as they wander down the dirt paths, they pass children on outings, university students, visitors from various other parts of the country. There are foreigners as well: a khaki-suited man and his wife, a black-robed Jesuit sketching by a
pond. As they pass him, Yuliang looks over his shoulder to see a delicate scene depicted in black charcoal. The big man has deftly captured the gentle bend of the willows, the pale bursts blossom against black waters below.

Zanhua, noting her interest, slows down as well. When the priest glances up, his eyes are as pale as the first chill wash of morning. ‘
Bonjour, mon père,
’ Zanhua says, practicing the French he learned from a Russian tutor in Tokyo.

‘I didn’t know they drew flowers,’ Yuliang murmurs, as they continue along the pathway. ‘I thought they only drew pictures of their god’s son. And their virgin.’

‘They draw and paint many things. They were the first to bring Western art to China. Have you heard of Lang Shining?’ Yuliang shakes her head. ‘His real name was Giuseppe Castiglione. He came from Italy – a priest, like that one back there. Only earlier, about three hundred years ago. He lived in the Forbidden Palace, where he studied
guohua.
’ He checks his watch, for the third time that morning.

‘Are we meeting someone?’ Yuliang asks, puzzled.

He shakes his head. ‘Just habit. I’m not used to taking holidays.’

Neither am I
, she almost says, but doesn’t. Instead she says, ‘He painted like a Chinese, this Casti – Casti – this Italian?’

‘He endowed Chinese art with Western elements. You’ve heard the saying “Chinese spirit, Western technology”?’ She nods. ‘He was among the first to apply the idea to art. He understood, you see, that the traditional ways don’t have to resist newer ones. That the one might
well complement the other, like yin and yang. They don’t have to be in opposition.’ He indicates the receding priest. ‘The Jesuits also set up a Western-style art school for boys in Shanghai. It’s called – what was it? Siccawei, I think.’ He strokes his cheek thoughtfully. ‘My friends in Shanghai say another’s been started in the French Concession. Some young fellow who used to paint backgrounds for photo studios – I can’t recall his name. But apparently he’s set off a furor by bringing in naked girls.’

‘To the school?’ she asks, shocked.

He smiles wryly. ‘Just so the boys there can draw them.’

Yuliang glances at him. ‘So this school takes only boys?’

‘I believe so.’ He quirks an eyebrow. ‘Why? Are you thinking of enrolling?’

For some reason she blushes. ‘Oh, no. Of course not.’ And yet there’s a small thrill at the thought: a school to study art! It seems almost revolutionary, like the goals of Zanhua’s beloved Dr. Sun, which he’s had her practice writing until she knows them by heart. One: Expel the Manchus. Two: China to the Chinese. Three: Establish a republic. Four: Equalize landownership. Yuliang tries to imagine what such a place might be like. But her only schooling has been with her uncle. And after that, at the Hall.

‘Speaking of studies,’ Zanhua is saying, ‘I’d like to add some political tracts to our reading. Have you heard of the periodical
New Youth
? It promotes developments in science, democracy. It was started by a good friend of
mine, Chen Duxiu. He’s in Japan now. But we fought together for the republic… Little Yu, where are you going?’

‘What?’ Yuliang pauses. Unwittingly, she’s turned back toward the priest.

‘Are you tired?’ he is asking. ‘We can go back.’

‘I’m fine.’ She resumes walking, but not before giving the artist one last glance. His sketchpad is no more than a tiny white rectangle now, and his robe a black blur against sun-silvered water.

For two days Zanhua leaves for work each morning and returns at supper as usual. He reads the news to her and writes out relevant terms for her to copy
(Capitalist:
. Hegemony:
.
Freedom:
). When Yuliang finally gathers courage, on the third morning, to stammer her question to him, he cuts her off with a curt ‘Yes.’ Both his expression and his tone tell her this is as far as he’ll engage with the subject. And so she goes through the next day in a state of suspended relief. She is aware of her freedom (
). But she is not convinced. And it’s not until evening that she understands, at last, how he did it.

On the way to the courtyard to study in her favorite light of the day (the cotton-soft luminescence of early evening), Yuliang stops short in the front hallway. Tucking her copybook beneath her arm, she runs her fingers over the wall, and her entire being thrums in disbelief.

The wall is bare. There is no sign at all that the Shi Tao ever hung there.

‘Qian Ma!’ she calls. The old servant appears, a pitcher
and basin balanced on her tray. ‘The – the picture,’ Yuliang says shakily.

‘Which picture?’

‘
The
picture,’ Yuliang says, pointing. ‘The Shi Tao. How long has it been gone?’

Qian Ma sucks tooth. ‘Why, the man just came for it on Wednesday.’

‘What man?’

‘The man who was sent here to fetch it,’ Qian Ma says. Quite slowly; as though Yuliang is an idiot. ‘The man the master said to expect.’

Wednesday,
Yuliang thinks.
Wednesday.
For a moment her scattered thoughts can’t even place the day. Then she remembers: Wednesday was their journey to the gardens. A trip Zanhua had made seem like a last-moment impulse. It’s only now that Yuliang realizes he didn’t notify anyone else about it. No runner to the docks, no call placed through to his office. He must have notified them in advance.

Stricken, she stares at the wall. ‘What – what did he look like?’

‘The
master
?’ Qian Ma says, with exaggerated surprise.

‘No, no. The man.’

Qian Ma, savoring Yuliang’s frustration, ponders a good twenty seconds. ‘Big,’ she says finally. ‘Strange haircut. No queue. But not one of those ocean-devil styles either. More like he’d done it himself.’

The Hall manservant
. Shaken, Yuliang touches the wall again. The empty space before her is all the evidence she could need that Zanhua has kept his word, that she will stay. And yet, staring at the blank expanse, what she feels
is not relief, but grief over the loss of what she now realizes was a little daily miracle for her. A small wonder of ash, water, and brush. It’s
worth
more than your whole life, from start to finish, Qian Ma had said, and at this moment Yuliang fully believes this.

‘Lady?’ The amah’s tone deflates the title of all deference.

Yuliang tears her gaze away. ‘Yes?’

‘This tray is heavy on my old arms.’

Yuliang holds Qian Ma’s rheumy eyes for a moment. And it’s in that moment that she senses that something else has changed as well: she has finally moved beyond the scope of the old woman’s spite. Not that Qian Ma has stopped feeling it. Simply that now, in this new and Shi Tao–less order, it has ceased to have relevance.

‘Yes,’ Yuliang says cautiously. ‘I mean, go. Go, but come back immediately. After you’ve filled those for Master Zanhua, go and heat water for me.’

The weathered face furrows further. ‘What’s that?’

‘
Water
,’ Yuliang says. ‘Hot water. Lots and lots of it.’

She doesn’t need to elaborate, not to a mere servant. She does anyway. Just to hear herself say it: ‘I think,’ she says, ‘I shall take a bath.’

16

‘Salt Guild dinner,’ Zanhua says with a groan a week later, having arrived home to find an invitation waiting in the hall. ‘It’s bad enough that they all pretend to care for me now that General Sun is back.’

‘You should go,’ Yuliang chides from the doorway. ‘You have a duty.’

‘To whom?’

‘To – to the nation,’ she says, waving vaguely. ‘If you won’t accept their money, at least don’t insult their food.’

‘It’s not their food, Yuliang.’ He snorts. ‘It’s paid for by funds all but stolen from my own office.’

‘But how will it look? It’s the third trade dinner you’ve refused.’

Which is true: it’s the third time in three weeks Zanhua has declined an invitation from one of the groups he polices. And it worries her. For while she welcomes Zanhua’s growing attentions – almost as much (it should be said) for their own sake, as for the continued proof they offer of her place here – she is also fully aware of how tenuous his own place is in the porous hierarchy of Wuhu’s business world. Yuliang knows these men he’s snubbing – all too well, in some cases. She knows how ruthlessly they can act. The Hall has feasted politicians who then fell from grace so fast
that a month later they were hiding from Godmother’s debt collectors.

‘What’s the problem, little Yu?’ Zanhua is asking. ‘Want me out of the house already?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Good. I brought you something. This is the periodical I told you about.’

Yuliang takes the magazine. ‘
New Youth
?’ she reads slowly.

‘Good. Yes.’

A small flush of triumph. But Yuliang’s attention turns quickly to the artwork on the cover. It shows two strong hands stretching across a giant globe to clasp together. One is slightly darker, callused and muscled like a peasant’s. Curious, her eyes home in on the small artist’s chop below the logo. Of course she can’t yet read it. She contemplates asking Zanhua, but he’s already striding to his office.

Sighing, she sets the journal down, giving it one last, faintly envious stroke with her own hand, which (she can’t help but notice), looks small, and oddly vulnerable by contrast.

Zanhua dines in the next night as well, and breakfasts late both days, displaying an almost rebellious leisure in his meals, his talk, his plans. They live as Yuliang sometimes imagines newlyweds in exotic places like New York, Shanghai, and Paris live: eating, talking, retreating often to his bedroom to make love. He touches her frequently as he reviews her writing, brushes hair from her eyes, dusts lost lashes from her cheek. Yuliang still rarely reciprocates
such gestures. But bit by bit, she finds herself sharing with him not only her day’s work but the small thoughts that occur in his absence. She talks about Qian Ma’s latest superstitions: ‘She thinks Western cars have evil spirits in them!’ About an etching of an English factory; ‘Was this what you mean by labor and capital?’ About a foreign woman she has seen whose hands and feet seemed almost as small as her own: ‘Are you
sure
they don’t bind them?’ He shook his head: ‘Positive. But some of them do bind their waists.’