The Valley of Amazement

Usually she gave no further thought to people who had insulted her. But the day she received the latest letter from Lu Shing, she had a festering anger. “Do you know what morals are, Violet? They’re other people’s rules. Do you know what a conscience is? Freedom to use your own intelligence to determine what is right or wrong. You possess that freedom and no one can remove it from you. Whenever others disapprove of you, you must disregard them and be the only one to judge your own decisions and actions …” On and on she went, as if an old wound still festered and she had to cleanse it with venom.

I looked hard at the painting. What conscience did she have? Her right and wrong were guided by selfishness, doing what was best for her. “Poor Violet,” I imagined her saying. “She would be taunted in San Francisco as a child of questionable race. Much better that she stay in Shanghai where she can live happily with Carlotta.” I became incensed. She had always found a way to defend her decisions, no matter how wrong. When a courtesan was forced to leave Hidden Jade Path, she said it was a matter of necessity. When she could not have supper with me, she would tell me it was a matter of necessity. Her time with Fairweather had always been a matter of necessity.

A matter of necessity. That was what she said to suit her own purposes. It was an excuse to be selfish. I recalled a time when I had felt sickened by her lack of conscience. It happened three years ago, on a day that was memorable because it was strange in so many ways. We were with Fairweather at the Shanghai Race Club to watch a Frenchman fly his plane over the track. The seats were filled. No one had ever seen an airplane in flight, let alone right above their heads, and when it soared up, the crowd murmured in unison. I believed it was magic. How else could you explain it? I watched the plane glide and dip, then tilt from side to side. One wing fell off, then another. I thought this was meant to happen, until the plane flew into the center of the racetrack and cracked into pieces. Dark smoke rose, people screamed, and when the mangled aviator was dragged from the wreckage, a few men and women fainted. I nearly vomited. The words dead, dead, dead echoed through the stands. The debris was hauled away, and fresh dirt was poured over the blood. A short while later, the horses entered the track and the races began. I could hear the departing people angrily say that it was immoral to continue the races and shameful that anyone would enjoy them. I thought we would also be leaving. Who could stay, having just seen a man killed? I was shocked that my mother and Fairweather had remained in their seats. As the horses pounded the track, my mother and Fairweather cheered, and I stared at the moist dirt that had been poured to hide the blood. Mother saw no wrong in our watching the race. I had no choice but to be there, and yet I felt guilty, thinking I should have told them what I thought.

Later that afternoon, as we walked back to the house, a little Chinese girl, who might have been around my age, ran out of a dark doorway, and claimed to Fairweather with her smattering of English words that she was a virgin and had three holes for a dollar. The slave girls were a pitiful lot. They had to take at least twenty men a day or risk being beaten to death. What more could we give them besides pity? And even that was difficult to do because there were so many of them. They darted about like nervous chickens, tugging on coats, beseeching men, to the point of being a nuisance. We had to walk briskly past them without giving them a glance. That day, my mother reacted differently. Once we were past the girl, she muttered, “The bastard who sold her should have his little cock cut off with the guillotine for a cigar.”

Fairweather laughed. “You, my dear, have bought girls from those who sold them.”

“There’s a difference between selling a girl and buying her,” she said.

“It’s the same result,” Fairweather said. “The girl becomes a prostitute. It is a collusion of seller and buyer.”

“It’s far better that I buy a girl and take her to my house than for her to wind up as a slave like this one, dead at fifteen.”

“To judge by the flowers in your house, only the pretty ones are worth saving.”

She stopped walking. The remark had clearly riled her. “That is not a reflection of my conscience. It is pragmatism. I am a businesswoman, not a missionary running an orphanage. What I do is a matter of necessity based on the circumstances at hand. And only I know what those are.”

There were those words again: a matter of necessity. Right after she said them, she abruptly turned around and went to the doorway where the girl’s owner sat. She gave the woman some money, then took the girl’s hand and rejoined us. The girl was petrified. She glanced back at her former owner. “At least her eyes don’t have the deadened gaze that most slave girls have.”

“So you’ve just bought yourself a little courtesan,” Fairweather said. “One more saved from the streets. Good on you.”

My mother snapped, “This girl won’t be a courtesan. I have no need of one, and even if I did, she’d never be suitable. She’s already ruined, deflowered a thousand times. She would simply lie on her back with a beaten look of submission. I’m taking her as a maid. One of the maids is marrying and going to her husband’s village.” I learned later that no maid was leaving. I thought for a moment that she had taken the girl because she had a good heart. But then I realized it was her arrogance in showing up anyone who had disapproved of her. She had stayed at the race club for that reason. She bought the girl because Fairweather had made fun of her conscience.

I scrutinized again the oil painting, noting every brushstroke that had created her young face. Had she possessed more sympathy for people when she was my age? Had she felt any for the dead pilot or the little slave girl? She was contradictory, and her so-called matters of necessity made no sense. She could be loyal or disloyal, a good mother, then a bad one. She might have loved me at times, but her love was not constant. When did she last prove that she loved me? I thought it was when she promised not to leave me.

On the back of the painting were these words: “For Miss Lucretia Minturn, on the occasion of her 17th birthday.” I did not know my mother’s birthday or her age. We had never celebrated them and there was never any reason to know. I was fourteen, and if she had given birth to me when she was seventeen, that would make her thirty-one now.

Lucretia. That was the name on the envelope of Lu Shing’s letter. The words below the dedication had been lashed to oblivion by the dark lead of a pencil. I turned the painting faceup and found the initials “L.S.” at the bottom right corner. Lu Shing was the painter. I was certain of that.

I unrolled the smaller painting. The initials “L.S.” appeared on the bottom of that one as well. It was a landscape of a valley, viewed from the edge of a cliff, facing the scene below. The mountain ridges on each side were ragged, and their shadow silhouettes lay on the valley floor. The pendulous clouds were the shade of an old bruise. The upper halves were pink, and the clouds receding in the background were haloed in gold, and at the far end of the valley, an opening between two mountains glowed like the entrance to paradise. It looked like dawn. Or was it dusk? I could not tell whether the rain was coming, or the sky was clearing, whether it was about arriving there with joy or leaving it with relief. Was the painting meant to depict a feeling of hope or was it hopelessness? Were you supposed to be standing on the cliff charged with bravery or trembling in dread of what awaited you? Or maybe the painting was about the fool who had chased after a dream and was looking at the devil’s pot of gold that lay in that glimmering place just beyond reach. The painting reminded me of those illusions that changed as you turned them upside down or sideways, transforming a bearded man into a tree. You could not see the painting both ways at the same time. You had to choose which one it was originally meant to be. How would you know which was right unless you were the one who had painted it?

The painting gave me a queasy feeling. It was an omen, like the worn slippers. I was meant to find it. What happened next was salvation or doom. I felt certain now that the painting meant you were walking into the valley, not leaving it. The rain was coming. It was dusk, turning dark, and you would no longer be able to find your way back.

With shaky hands, I turned the painting over. The Valley of Amazement it said, and below that were initials: “For L.M. from L.S.” The date was smeared. I could make out that it was either “1897” or “1899.” I had been born in 1898. Had Mother received this one along with her portrait? What was she doing before I was born? What was she doing the year after? If Lu Shing had painted this in 1899, he would have still been with my mother when I was a year old.

I threw both paintings across the room. A second later, I was overcome with fright that some part of me would be thrown away and destroyed, and I would never know what it was. She hated Lu Shing for leaving her, so there must have been a very strong reason she had kept the paintings. I ran to claim back the paintings. I cried as I rolled them up, then shoved them into the bottom of the valise.

Magic Gourd walked in. She threw two cotton pajama suits on a chair—loose jackets and pantalets, green with pink piping—the clothes worn by small children. “Mother Ma figured these clothes would keep you from trying to escape. She said you are too vain to be seen in public dressed like a Chinese maid. If you keep your haughty Western ways, she’ll beat you worse than what you already received. If you follow her rules, you’ll suffer less. It’s up to you how much pain you want to endure.”

“My mother is coming for me,” I declared. “I won’t have to stay here much longer.”

“If she does, it won’t be soon. It takes a month to go from Shanghai to San Francisco and another month to come back. If you’re stubborn, you’ll be dead before two months pass. Just go along with whatever the madam says. Pretend to learn whatever she teaches you. You won’t die from doing that. She bought you as a virgin courtesan and your defloration won’t happen for at least another year. You can plot your escape in between times.”

“I’m not a virgin courtesan.”

“Don’t let pride make you stupid,” she said. “You’re lucky she isn’t making you work right away.” She went to my valise and dipped her hands inside and pulled out the fox stole with its dangling paws.

“Don’t touch my belongings.”

“We need to work quickly, Violet. The madam is going to take what she wants. When she paid for you, she paid for everything that belongs to you. Whatever she does not want she will sell—including you, if you don’t behave. Hurry now. Take only the most precious. If you take too many things, she’ll know what you’ve done.”

I refused to budge. Look what Mother’s selfishness had done. I was a virgin courtesan. Why would I want to cling to her belongings?

“Well, if you don’t want anything,” Magic Gourd said, “I’ll take a few things for myself.” She plucked the lilac dress hanging in the wardrobe. I stifled a shout. She folded it and tucked it under her jacket. She opened the box with the pieces of amber. “These aren’t good quality, misshapen in a dozen ways. And they are dirty inside—aiya!—insects. Why did she want to keep these? Americans are so strange.”

She pulled out another package, wrapped in paper. It was a little sailor suit, a white and blue shirt and pantalets, as well as a hat, like those worn by American sailors. She must have bought those for Teddy when he was a baby and was planning to show them to him as proof of her enduring love. Magic Gourd put the sailor suit back into the valise. Madam had a grandson, she said. She picked up the fox wrap with its dangling baby paws. She gave it a wistful look and dropped it back in. From the jewelry box, she removed only a necklace with a gold locket. I took it from her, opened it, and peeled out the tiny photographs on each side, one of Mother, one of me.

And then she fished in deeper and pulled out the two paintings. She unrolled the one of my mother and laughed. “So naughty!” She laid out the one with the gloomy landscape. “So realistic. I have never seen a sunset this beautiful.” She put the paintings in her pile.

As I dressed, she recited the names of the courtesans. Spring Bud, Spring Leaf, Petal, Camellia, and Kumquat. “You don’t have to remember their names for now. Just call them your flower sisters. You’ll know them soon enough by their natures.” She chattered on. “Spring Leaf and Spring Bud are sisters. One is smart and one is foolish. Both are kind in their hearts, but one is sad and does not like men. I will leave it to you to guess which is which. Petal pretends to be nice, but she is sneaky and does anything to be Madam’s favorite. Camellia is very smart. She can read and write. She spends a little money every month to buy a novel or more paper for writing her poems. She has audacity in her ink brush. I like her because she’s very honest. Kumquat is a classical beauty with a peach-shaped face. She is also like a child who reaches for what she wants without thinking. Five years ago, when she was with a first-class house, she took a lover and her earnings dwindled to nothing. It’s the usual story among us.”

“That was the reason you had to leave, wasn’t it?” I said. “You had a lover.”

She huffed. “You heard that?” She fell silent, and her eyes grew dreamy. “I had many lovers over the years—sometimes when I had patrons, sometimes when I did not. I gave too much money to one. But my last lover did not cheat me out of money. He loved me with a true heart.” She looked at me. “You know him. Pan the Poet.”

I felt a cool breeze over my skin and shivered.

“Gossip reached my patron that I had sad sex with a ghost and that he was stuck in my body. My patron no longer wanted to touch me and asked for his contract money back. Puffy Cloud spread that rumor. That girl has something wrong with her heart. In every house, there is one like her.”

“Did you really have the Poet Ghost in your body?”

“What a stupid thing to ask! We did not have sex. How could we? He was a ghost. We shared only our spirit, and it was more than enough. Many girls in this business never experience true love. They take lovers and patrons, hoping they will become concubines so they can be called Second Wife, Third Wife, even Tenth Wife, if they are desperate. But that is not love. It is searching for a change of luck. With Pan the Poet, I felt only love, and he felt the same for me. We had nothing to gain from each other. That was how we knew it was true. When I left Hidden Jade Path, he had to remain because he was part of the house. Without him, I felt no life in me. I wanted to kill myself to be with him … You think I’m crazy. I can see it in your face. Hnh. Little Miss Educated American. You don’t know anything. Get dressed now. If you’re late, Madam will poke another nostril into your face.” She held up the pajamas. “Madam wants all the girls to call her Mother. Mother Ma. They are just sounds without true meaning. Say it over and over again until you can swallow them without choking. Mother Ma, Mother Ma. Behind her back, we call her the old bustard.” Magic Gourd imitated a big squawking bird flapping its wings and swooping around to guard her flock. And then she announced: “Mother Ma did not like your name Vivi. She said it made no sense. To her, it was just two sounds. I suggested she use the Chinese word for the violet flower.”

She pronounced the word for “violet” as zizi, like the sound of a mosquito. Zzzzzz! Zzzzz!

“It’s just a word,” she said. “It’s better that they call you that. You are not that person. You can have a secret name that belongs to you—your American nickname, Vivi, or the flower name your mother called you. My courtesan name is Magic Gourd, but in my heart I am Golden Treasure. I gave that name to myself.”

At breakfast, I did as Magic Gourd had advised. “Good morning, Mother Ma. Good morning, flower sisters.”

The old bustard was pleased to see me in my new clothes. “You see, fate changes when you change your clothes.” She used her fingers like tongs to turn my face right and then left. It sickened me to be touched by her. Her fingers were cold and gray, like those of a corpse. “I knew a girl from Harbin who had your coloring,” she said. “Same eyes. She had Manchu blood. In the old days, those Manchus were like dogs who raped any girl—Russian, Japanese, Korean, green-eyed, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, yellow or red hair, big or tiny—whatever was in grabbing distance as they raced by on their ponies. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a pack of ponies that are half-Manchu.” She grasped my face again. “Whoever your father was, he had the Manchu bloodlines in him, that’s for certain. I can see it in your jaw and the longer Mongolian taper of the eyes, and also their green color. I heard that one of the concubines to Emperor Qianlong had green eyes. We’ll say you’re a descendant of hers.”

The table was set with savory, sweet, and spicy dishes—bamboo shoots and honeyed lotus root, pickled radishes, and smoked fish—so many tasty things. I was hungry but ate sparingly and with the delicate manners I had seen courtesans use at Hidden Jade Path. I wanted to show her she had nothing to teach me. I picked up a tiny peanut with my ivory chopsticks, put it to my lips and set it on my tongue, as if it were a pearl being placed on a brocade pillow.

“Your upbringing shows,” the old bustard said. “A year from now, when you make your debut, you can charm men to near insanity. What do you say to that?”

“Thank you, Mother Ma.”

“You see,” she said to the others with a pleased smile. “Now she obeys.” When Mother Ma picked up her chopsticks, I had a closer look at her fingers. They resembled rotting bananas. I watched her peck at the remaining bits of food on her plate. The sneaky courtesan Petal stood up and quickly served the madam more bamboo shoots and fish, but did not touch the last of the honeyed lotus root. She waited until Spring Bud helped herself to the last big piece, then said in a chiding tone, “Give that to Mother. You know how much she loves sweets.” She made a show of shoving her own lotus root pieces onto Madam Ma’s plate. The madam praised Petal for treating her like a true mother. Spring Bud showed no expression and looked at no one. Magic Gourd looked sideways at me and whispered, “She’s furious.”

When Mother Ma rose from her chair, she wobbled, and Petal ran to steady her. The madam crossly swatted her away with her fan. “I’m not a feeble old woman. It’s just my feet. These shoes are too tight. Ask the shoemaker to come.” She lifted her skirt. Her ankles were gray and swollen. I guessed her feet under her bindings were even worse.

As soon as the madam left the table, Camellia said to Magic Gourd in an overly polite tone, “My Peer, I cannot help saying that the peach color of your new jacket flatters your coloring. A new client would think you’re at least ten years younger.”

Magic Gourd cursed her. Camellia smirked and walked away.

“We tease each other all the time like that,” Magic Gourd said. “I flatter her thin hair. She flatters my complexion. We laugh rather than cry about our age. The years go by.” I was tempted to tell Magic Gourd that the peach color did not flatter her at all. An older woman wearing a younger woman’s colors only looks as old as she is pretending not to be.