The Valley of Amazement

A maid whispered to another that she thought a virgin courtesan from a first-class house would have worn nicer clothes than a dirty Yankee costume.

“I’m not a virgin courtesan!” I said.

A squat woman of around fifty waddled toward me, and by the watchful expressions on everyone’s faces, I knew she was the madam. She had a broad face and an unhealthy pallor. Her eyes were as black as a crow’s, and the hair at her temples had been twisted into tight strands that pulled back her skin and elongated her eyes into catlike ovals. From her lipless mouth, she said, “Welcome to the Hall of Tranquility!” I sneered at how proudly she said the name. Tranquility! My mother said that only second-class houses used good-sounding names like that to convey false expectations. Where was the tranquility? Everyone looked scared. The Western furniture was shiny and cheap. The curtains were too short. All the decorations were imitations of what they could never be. There was no mistaking it: The Hall of Tranquility was nothing more than a brothel with a sinking reputation.

“My mother is a very important American,” I said to the madam. “If you do not let me go this instant, she will have you convicted in an American court of law and your house will be closed forever.”

“Yes, we know all about your mother. Lulu Mimi. Such an important woman.”

The madam beckoned the six courtesans to come meet me. They were dressed in bright pink and green colors, as if it were still Spring Festival. Four of them looked to be seventeen or eighteen, and the other two were much older, at least twenty-five. A maid, no more than ten, brought steaming towels and a bowl of rose water. I knocked them away and the porcelain smashed onto the tile with the bright sound of a thousand tiny bells. While picking up the slivers, the frightened maid apologized to the madam, and the old woman said nothing that would assure her that the damage was not her fault. An older maid gave me a bowl of osmanthus tea. Although I was thirsty, I took the bowl and threw it at the banners with my name. Black tears ran down from the smeared characters.

The madam gave me an indulgent smile. “Ayo! Such a temper.”

She motioned to the courtesans, and, one by one, they and their attendants politely thanked me for coming and adding prestige to the house. They did not appear genuinely welcoming. When the madam took my elbow to guide me toward a table, I yanked back my arm. “Don’t touch me.”

“Shh-shh,” the madam soothed. “Soon you will be more at ease here. Call me Mother and I’ll treat you just like a daughter.”

“Cheap whore!”

Her smile disappeared and she turned her attention to ten plates with special delicacies that had been set on a tea table. “We’ll nourish you for years to come,” she said, and blathered on with other insincere words.

I saw little meat buns and decided I would spare the food from being destroyed. A maid poured wine into a little cup and set it on the table. I picked up the chopsticks and reached for a bun. The madam tapped her chopsticks on top of mine and shook her head. “You must drink the wine before eating. It is custom.”

I quickly swallowed the foul liquid, then reached again for a bun. With two claps and a wave of her hand, she wordlessly signaled that the food be taken away. I thought she intended that I eat in another room.

She turned to me and said, still smiling, “I’ve made a hefty investment in you. Will you work hard to be worth the burden of feeding you?”

I scowled, and before I could call her foul names, she delivered a fisted blow to the side of my head next to my ear. The force of it nearly snapped my head off my neck. My eyes watered and my ears rang. I had never been struck before.

The woman’s face was contorted and her shouts were faint, distant. She had deafened one ear. She slapped my face and more stinging tears rose. “Do you understand?” she said in her faraway voice. I could not gather my senses long enough to answer before more slaps followed. I threw myself at her and would have pummeled her face if the arms of the menservants had not pulled me away.

The woman slapped me again and again, cursing. She grabbed my hair and yanked back my head.

“You brat, I’ll beat that temper out of you even after you’re dead.”

She then let go and shoved me so hard I lost my balance, fell to the floor, and into a deep dark place.

I AWOKE IN a strange bed with a quilt on top of me. A woman hurried toward me. Fearing it was the madam, I wrapped my arms around my head.

“Awake at last,” she said. “Vivi, don’t you remember your old friend?” How did she know my name? I unlocked my arms and opened my eyes. She had a round face, large eyes, and the questioning look of one raised eyebrow.

“Magic Cloud!” I cried. She was the Cloud Beauty who had tolerated my antics when I was a child. She had come back to help me.

“My name is now Magic Gourd,” she said. “I’m a courtesan here.” Her face looked tired, her skin was dull. She had aged a great deal in those seven years.

“You have to help me,” I said in a rush. “My mother is waiting for me at the harbor. The boat is leaving at five o’clock, and if I’m not there, it will sail away without us.”

She frowned. “No words of happiness for our reunion? You’re still a spoiled child, only now your arms and legs are longer.”

Why was she criticizing my manners at a time like this? “I need to go to the harbor right away or—”

“The boat has left,” she said. “Mother Ma put a sleeping potion in your wine. You have been asleep most of the day.”

I was stunned. I pictured my mother with her new trunks stacked on the dock. The tickets had gone to waste. She would be furious when she learned how cleverly Fairweather had tricked her with his greasy words of love. It served her right for being in such a rush to see her son in San Francisco.

“You must go to the harbor,” I said to Magic Gourd, “and tell my mother where I am.”

“Oyo! I am not your servant. Anyway, she is not there. She is on the boat and it is already sailing to San Francisco. It cannot turn back.”

“That’s not true! She would never leave me. She promised.”

“A messenger told her you had already boarded and that Fairweather was looking for you.”

“What messenger? Cracked Egg? He did not see me go in or out of the consulate.” To everything Magic Gourd said, I countered senselessly, “She promised. She would not lie.” The more I said this, the less sure I was.

“Will you take me back to Hidden Jade Path?”

“Little Vivi, what has happened is worse than you think. Mother Ma paid too many Mexican dollars to the Green Gang to leave even the smallest crack for you to slip through. And the Green Gang made threats to everyone at Hidden Jade Path. If the Cloud Beauties help you, they would be disfigured. They threatened to cut all of Cracked Egg’s leg muscles and leave him in the streets to be run over by horses. They told Golden Dove the house would be bombed and that you would suffer the loss of your eyes and ears.”

“Green Gang? They had nothing to do with this.”

“Fairweather made a deal with them in exchange for settling his gambling debt. He got your mother to leave so they could take over her house without interference from the American Consulate.”

“Take me to the police.”

“How naive you are. The chief of the Shanghai Police is a Green Gang member. They know about your situation. They would kill me in the most painful way possible if I took you away from here.”

“I don’t care,” I cried. “You have to help me.”

Magic Gourd stared at me openmouthed. “You don’t care if I’m tortured and killed? What kind of girl did you grow up to be? So selfish!” She left the room.

I was ashamed. She had once been my only friend. I could not explain to her that I was scared. I had never shown fear or weakness to anyone. I was used to having any predicament solved immediately by my mother. I wanted to pour out to Magic Gourd all that I felt—that my mother had not worried enough for me, and instead she became stupid and believed that liar. She always did, because she loved him more than she loved me. Was she with him on that ship? Would she return? She had promised.

I looked around at my prison. The room was small. All the furniture was of poor quality and worn beyond repair. What kind of men were the customers of this house? I tallied all the faults of the room so I could tell my mother how much I had suffered. The mat was thin and lumpy. The curtains that enclosed the frame were faded and stained. The tea table had a crooked leg and its top had water stains and burn marks, making it suitable only for firewood. The crackle-glazed vase had a real crack. The ceiling had missing plaster and the lamps on the walls were crooked. The rug was orange and dark blue wool woven with the usual symbols of the scholar, and half of them were worn bare or eaten by moths. The Western armchairs were rickety and the cloth was frayed at the edge of the seats. A lump grew in my throat. Was she really on the boat? Was she worried sick?

I was still wearing the hated blue-and-white sailor blouse and skirt, “evidence of my American patriotism,” Fairweather had said. That evil man was making me suffer because I hated him.

At the back of the wardrobe, I spied a tiny pair of embroidered shoes, so worn there was more grimy lining than pink and blue silk. The backs of the shoes were crushed flat. They had been made for small feet. The girl who wore them must have wedged her toes in and walked on tiptoe to give the effect of bound feet. Did she rest her heels on the backs of the shoes when no one was looking? Why had the girl left the shoes behind instead of throwing them away? They were beyond repair. I pictured her, a sad-faced girl with large feet, thin hair, and a gray complexion, worn down like those shoes, a girl who was about to be thrown away because she was no longer of any use. I felt sick to my stomach. The shoes had been placed there as an omen. I would become that girl. The madam would never let me leave. I opened the window and threw them out into the alley. I heard a shriek and looked down. A ragamuffin rubbed her head, then grabbed and clutched them to her chest. She stared at me, as if guilty, then ran off like a thief.

I tried to recall if Mother had worn a guilty expression as I was leaving her side. If so, that would be proof she had agreed to Fairweather’s plan. When I had threatened to stay in Shanghai with Carlotta, she might have used that as an excuse to leave. She might have said to herself that I preferred to stay. I tried to remember other fragments of conversations, other threats I had made, promises she had given, and protests I shouted when she disappointed me. In those pieces was the reason I was here.

I spied my valise next to the wardrobe. The contents would reveal her intentions. If they were clothes for my new life, I would know she had abandoned me. If the clothes were hers, I would know she had been tricked. I slipped over my neck the silvery chain with the key to the valise. I held my breath. I expelled it with gratitude when I saw a bottle of Mother’s precious Himalayan rose oil perfume. I petted her fox stole. Underneath that was her favorite dress, a lilac-colored one she had worn on a visit to the Shanghai Club, where she had boldly strolled in and seated herself at the table of a man who was too rich and important to be told that women were not allowed. I hung this impertinent dress on the wardrobe door and placed a pair of her high-heeled shoes below. It gave the eerie appearance that she was a headless ghost. Below that was a mother-of-pearl box with my jewelry: two charm bracelets, a gold locket, and an amethyst necklace and ring. I opened another small box, which contained lumps of amber, the gift I had rejected on my eighth birthday. I lifted out two scrolls, one short, the other long. I unwound the cloth wrapper. They were not scrolls after all, but oil paintings on canvas. I put the larger one on the floor.

It was the portrait of Mother when she was young, the painting I had found just after my eighth birthday, when I rifled her room for a letter she had just received that had upset her so. I had had only enough time for a glimpse before putting it back. Now, while examining it closely, I felt a peculiar discomfort, as if I were staring at a terrible secret about her that was dangerous for me to know—or perhaps it was a secret about me. Mother’s head was tilted back, revealing her nostrils. Her mouth was closed, unsmiling. It was as if someone had given her a dare and she had taken it without hesitation. Although, perhaps she was also frightened that she had done so and was trying to hide it. Her eyes were wide open and her pupils were so large they turned her green eyes black. It was the stare of a fearful cat. This was who she was before she had learned to disguise her feelings with a show of confidence. Who was the painter enjoying her state of fright?

The painting was similar in style to that of European portraits commissioned as novelties by rich Shanghainese, who had to have the latest luxury that the foreigners enjoyed, even if they were renderings of other people’s ancestors in powdered wigs and their beribboned children with spaniels and hares. They were popular decorations in the salons of hotels and first-class flower houses. Mother had mocked those paintings as poorly executed pretensions. “A portrait,” she had said, “should be that of a person who was breathing at the time it was painted. It should capture one of those breaths.”

She had held her breath when this portrait was done. The longer I looked at her face, the more I saw, and the more I saw, the more contradictory she became. I saw bravery, then fear. I recognized in it something vague about her nature, and I could see she had already possessed it when she was a girl. And then I knew what that was: her haughtiness in thinking she was better than others and smarter than them as well. She believed she was never wrong. The more others disapproved of her, the more she showed her disapproval of them. We ran into all sorts of disapproving people while walking in the park. They recognized her, “The White Madam.” Mother would give them a slow appraisal head to toe, then a sniff in disgust, which always sent me into near fits of giggles as the recipient of her stares and rebukes came undone and retreated speechless.