Shanghai Girls Read online

  “Really? How?”

  “We will march to Washington,” he responds, returning to English. “Yankee girls will do our laundry.”

  He laughs. I laugh. And on it goes.

  As soon as the hour’s up, I take my meager payment and go home. May’s asleep. I lie down beside her, put a hand on her hip, and close my eyes. I long for sleep, but my mind batters me with images and emotions. I thought I was modern. I thought I had choice. I thought I was nothing like my mother. But my father’s gambling has swept all that away. I’m to be sold—traded like so many girls before me—to help my family. I feel so trapped and so helpless that I can hardly breathe.

  I try to tell myself things aren’t as bad as they seem. My father even said May and I won’t have to go with these strangers to a city across the world. We can sign the papers, our “husbands” will leave, and life will go on as before, with one big difference. We have to get out of my father’s house and make our own living. I’ll wait until my husband leaves the country, claim desertion, and get a divorce. Then Z.G. and I will get married. (It will have to be a smaller wedding than I imagined—maybe just a party in a café with our artist friends and some of the other beautiful-girl models.) I’ll get a real job during the day. May will live with us until she marries. We’ll take care of each other. We’ll make our way.

  I sit up and rub my temples. I’m stupid with dreams. Maybe I’ve lived in Shanghai too long.

  I gently shake my sister’s shoulder. “Wake up, May.”

  She opens her eyes, and for a moment I see all the gentle and trusting loveliness she’s held inside her since she was an infant. Then her eyes turn dark as she remembers.

  “We’ve got to get dressed,” I say. “It’s almost time to meet the husbands.”

  What should we wear? The Louie sons are Chinese, so maybe we should wear traditional cheongsams. They’re also Americans, so maybe it would be better to wear something that shows we’re Westernized too. It isn’t to please them, but we can’t ruin the deal either. We slip on rayon dresses with floral patterns. May and I exchange glances, shrug at the uselessness of it all, and leave the house.

  We flag down a rickshaw boy and tell him to take us to the place my father has arranged for the rendezvous: the gate to the Yu Yuan Garden in the center of the Old Chinese City. The driver—who has a bald head scarred by ringworm—pulls us through the heat and crowds across Soochow Creek at the Garden Bridge and along the Bund, passing diplomats, schoolgirls in starched uniforms, prostitutes, lords and their ladies, and black-coated members of the notorious Green Gang. Yesterday this mingling seemed exciting. Today it looks sordid and oppressive.

  The Whangpoo River slinks past us to our left like an indolent snake, its grimy skin rising, pulsing, slithering. In Shanghai, you can’t escape the river. It’s the dead end for every eastbound street in the city. On this great river float warships from Great Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and the United States. Sampans—hung with ropes, laundry, and nets—cluster together like insects on a carcass. Nightsoil boats jostle for right-of-way through ocean-liner tenders and bamboo rafts. Sweating coolies stripped to the waist clutter the wharves, unloading opium and tobacco from merchant ships, rice and grain from junks that have come from upriver, and soy sauce, baskets of chickens, and great rolls of rattan matting from flat-bottomed riverboats.

  To our right rise grand five-and six-story edifices—foreign palaces of wealth, greed, and avarice. We wheel past the Cathay Hotel with its pyramid-shaped roof, the Custom House with its great clock tower, and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank with its majestic bronze lions, who beckon passersby to rub their paws to bring good luck to men and sons to women. At the border of the French Concession, we pay the rickshaw puller and then continue on foot along what becomes the Quai de France. After a few blocks, we turn away from the river and enter the Old Chinese City.

  Coming here is ugly and hardly auspicious, like stepping into the past, which is precisely what Baba wants us to do with these marriages. Still, May and I have come, obedient as dogs, stupid as water buffalo. I cover my nose with a lavender-scented handkerchief to help block the smells of death, sewage, rancid cooking oil, and raw meat for sale spoiling in the heat.

  Ordinarily I ignore my home city’s ugly sights, but today my eyes are drawn to them. Here are beggars with eyes gouged out and limbs burned into stumps by their parents to make them all the more pitiable. Some have putrefying sores and horrendous growths blown up to disgusting size with bicycle pumps. We make our way through alleys strung with drying bound-foot bandages, diapers, and tattered trousers. In the Old Chinese City, the women who wash these items are too lazy to wring them out. Water drips down on us like rain. Every step reminds us where we might end up if we don’t go through with these marriages.

  We find the Louie sons at the gate to the Yu Yuan Garden. We try English, but they don’t seem interested in responding to us in that language. Their father is from the Four Districts of Canton, so naturally they speak the Sze Yup dialect, which May doesn’t know, but I translate for her. Like so many of us, they’ve taken Western names. The older one points to himself and says, “Sam.” Then he gestures to his younger brother and declares in Sze Yup, “His name is Vernon, but the parents call him Vern.”

  I love Z.G., so no matter how perfect this Sam Louie is, I’m not going to like him. And May’s groom, this Vern, is only fourteen years old. He hasn’t even begun to grow into manhood. He’s still a little boy Baba neglected to mention that.

  We all look from face to face. None of us seems to like what we see. Eyes dart to the ground, to the sky, anywhere. It occurs to me that maybe they don’t want to marry us either. If that’s the case, we can all consider this a commercial transaction. We’ll sign the papers and go back to our regular lives, with no broken hearts or hurt feelings. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t awkward.

  “Maybe we should walk,” I suggest.

  No one responds, but when I start to walk, the others follow, our shoes scuffing along the labyrinthine pathways past pools, rockeries, and grottoes. Willows sway in the hot air, giving the illusion of coolness. Pavilions of carved wood and gold lacquer evoke the deep past. Everything is designed to create a feeling of balance and unity, but the garden has broiled under the July sun all morning, and the afternoon air hangs heavy and viscous with fecundity.

  The boy, Vern, runs to one of the rockeries and scampers up the craggy wall. May looks at me, silently asking Now what? I don’t have an answer and Sam doesn’t volunteer one. She spins away, steps down the slope to the foot of the rockery, and begins calling softly to the boy to coax him back down. I don’t think he understands what she’s saying, because he stays on top, looking a bit like a pirate at sea. Sam and I continue walking until we come to the Exquisite Jade Rock.

  “I’ve been here before,” he murmurs tentatively in Sze Yup. “Do you know the story of how the rock came to be here?”

  I don’t tell him that I usually avoid the Old Chinese City. Instead, trying to be polite, I say, “Let’s sit down and you can tell it to me.”

  We find a bench and stare at the rock, which seems like any other rock to me.

  “During the Northern Sung dynasty, Emperor Hui Tsung had a great thirst for curiosities. He sent envoys across the southern provinces to find the best examples in the land. They found this rock and loaded it on a ship. But the rock never made it to the palace. A storm—perhaps a typhoon, perhaps angry river gods—sank the ship on the Whangpoo.”

  Sam’s voice is quite pleasant—not too loud, bossy, or superior. As he speaks, I stare at his feet. He stretches his legs out in front of him with his weight resting on the heels of his new leather shoes. I get my nerve up to look from those feet to his face. He’s attractive enough. I’ll go so far as to say he’s handsome. He’s quite thin. His face is long like a rice seed, which seems to exaggerate the sharpness of his cheekbones. His skin tone is darker than I like, but that’s understandable. He comes from Hollywood. I’ve read that movie s
tars like to bathe in the sunshine until their skin turns brown. His hair isn’t pure black. Touches of red catch the sunlight. Here it’s said that this color variation comes to those too poor to have a proper diet. Perhaps in America the food is so plentiful and rich that it also causes this change. He’s smartly dressed. Even I recognize that his suit has been recently tailored. And he’s a partner in his father’s business. If I weren’t already in love with Z.G., then Sam would seem like a good prospect.

  “The Pan family pulled the rock from the river and brought it here,” Sam continues. “You can see that it satisfies all the requirements for a good rock. It looks porous like a sponge, it has a handsome shape, and it makes you think of its thousands of years of history.”

  He falls silent again. In the distance, May circles the rockery, hands on her hips, her annoyance radiating across the garden. She calls up one last time, then looks around to find me. She raises her hands in defeat and begins walking toward us.

  Next to me, Sam says, “I like you. Do you like me?”

  Nodding seems the best response.

  “Good. I will tell my father that we will be happy together.”

  AS SOON AS we wave good-bye to Sam and Vern, I find a rickshaw. May climbs in, but I don’t follow her.

  “You go on home,” I tell her. “I have something I need to do. I’ll catch up to you later.”

  “But I need to talk to you.” Her hands grip the rickshaw’s armrests so hard that her knuckles have gone white. “That boy didn’t say a word to me.”

  “You don’t speak Sze Yup.”

  “It’s not just that. He’s like a little boy. He is a little boy.”

  “It doesn’t matter, May.”

  “You can say that. You got the handsome one.”

  I try to explain that this is just a business deal, but she won’t listen. She stamps her foot, and the puller struggles to keep the rickshaw steady.

  “I don’t want to marry him! If we have to do it, let me have Sam.”

  I sigh impatiently. These flashes of jealousy and stubbornness are so like May, but they’re as harmless as rain on a summer afternoon. My parents and I know the best way to handle them is to indulge her until they blow away.

  “We’ll talk about it later. I’ll see you at home.” I nod to the puller, who gives the rickshaw a heave and trots on his bare feet down the cobblestone road. I wait until they turn the corner and then walk to the Old West Gate, where I find another rickshaw. I give him Z.G.’s address in the French Concession.

  When we arrive at Z.G.’s building, I run up the stairs and pound on the door. He answers it wearing a sleeveless undershirt and loose khakis held up with a tie wrapped through the belt loops. A cigarette dangles from his lips. I fall into his arms. All the tears and frustration I’ve held inside pour out. I tell him everything: that my family’s broke, that May and I are to be married to foreign Chinese, and that I love him.

  On the ride here, I thought of the different ways he might react. I considered that he might say something along the lines of “I don’t believe in marriage, but I love you and want you to live here with me.” I thought he might be valiant: “We’ll get married. Everything will be fine.” I thought he would ask about May and invite her to live with us. “I love her as a sister,” he would say. I even considered that he might get angry, rush out to find Baba, and give him the beating he deserves. In the end, Z.G. says the one thing I didn’t expect.

  “You should marry the man. He sounds like a good match, and you have a duty to your father. When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son. We all know this is true.”

  “I don’t believe in any of that! And I didn’t think you did either. That kind of thinking is for my mother, not for you!” I’m hurt, but more than anything I’m angry. “How could you say that to me?” I demand. “We love each other. You don’t say things like that to the woman you love.”

  He doesn’t speak, but his expression manages to convey weariness and irritation that he has to deal with someone so childish.

  Because I’m bruised, indignant, and too young to know any better, I flee. I make a great show of stomping down the stairs, crying, and making myself look foolish in front of Z.G.’s landlady by acting as spoiled as my sister. It doesn’t make sense, but many women—and men too—have acted just as rashly. I think … I don’t know what I think… That he’ll rush down the stairs after me. That he’ll sweep me into his arms like in the movies. That he’ll whisk me away from my parents’ home tonight and we’ll elope. Even if worse comes to worst, I’ll marry Sam and then have a lifelong affair with the person I love, as so many women in Shanghai do these days. That isn’t such an unhappy ending, is it?

  When I tell my sister what happened with Z.G., her face pales in compassion.

  “I didn’t know you felt that way about him.” Her voice is so soft and comforting, I barely hear her.

  She holds me as I weep. Even after I stop crying, I feel sympathetic trembling coming from deep within her. We couldn’t be closer. Whatever happens, we’ll survive together.

  I’VE DREAMED OF my wedding to Z.G. for so long, but what I get with Sam is nothing like what I imagined. No Chantilly lace, no veil eight yards long, no fragrant cascades of flowers for the Western ceremony. For the Chinese banquet, May and I don’t change into red embroidered gowns and phoenix headdresses that quiver when we walk. There’s no big gathering of the families, no gossiping or jokes traded, no small children running, laughing, and hollering. At two in the afternoon, we go to the courthouse and meet Sam, Vern, and their father. Old Man Louie is just as I remembered him: wiry and stern-faced. He clasps his hands behind his back and watches the two couples sign the papers: married, July 24, 1937. At four, we go to the American Consulate and fill out forms for nonquota immigration visas. May and I check boxes verifying that we’ve never been in prison, an almshouse, or a hospital for the insane, that we’re not alcoholics, anarchists, professional beggars, prostitutes, idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded, epileptic, tubercular, illiterate, or suffering from psychopathic inferiority (whatever that is). As soon as we sign our forms, Old Man Louie folds them and tucks them into his jacket. At six, we meet our parents at a nondescript hotel that caters to Chinese and foreigners down on their luck, and then we have dinner in the main dining room: four newlyweds, my parents, and Old Man Louie. Baba tries to keep the conversation going, but what can anyone say? The orchestra plays, but none of us dance. Dishes come and go, but even the rice seems to choke me. Baba tells May and me to pour tea, as is the custom for brides, but Old Man Louie waves away the offer.

  Finally, it’s time for us to retire to our respective bridal chambers. My father whispers in my ear, “You know what you need to do. Once it’s done, all this will be over.”

  Sam and I go to our room. He seems more tense than I am. He sits on the edge of the bed, hunched over, staring at his hands. If I’ve spent hours imagining my wedding to Z.G., then I’ve also spent hours envisioning our wedding night and how romantic it would be. Now my mother comes into my mind, and I realize at last why she always speaks so poorly of the husband-wife thing. “You just do it and then you forget about it,” she’s often said.

  I don’t wait for Sam to come to me, hold me in his arms, or soften me with kisses on my neck. I stand in the middle of the room, unbutton the frog at my neck, move my fingers to the one above my breast, and then undo the top one under my armpit. Sam looks up and watches as I open all thirty frogs that go from my armpit down my right side. I let my dress slip off my shoulders. I sway unsteadily, chilled even on this hot night. My courage has brought me this far, but I’m unsure what to do next. Sam stands, and I bite my lip.

  It’s all very awkward. Sam seems nervous about touching me, but we both do what’s expected of us. One burst of pain and it’s over. Sam stays on his elbows above me for a moment and looks into my face. I don’t meet his gaze. Instead, I stare at the braided sash that holds back the curtain. I was so intent
on getting this over with that I didn’t close the curtains. Does that make me brazen or desperate?

  Sam rolls off me and turns onto his side. I don’t move. I don’t want to talk, but I can’t fall asleep either. Maybe this one night and this one time won’t matter out of a lifetime of nights with my real husband, whoever he might be. But what about May?

  I get up while it’s still dark, take a bath, and dress. Then I sit in a chair by the window and watch Sam sleep. He wakes with a start just before dawn. He looks around, seemingly unsure of where he is. He sees me and blinks. His features are open, raw somehow. I can guess what he’s feeling: supreme embarrassment at being in this room and something like panic that he’s naked, that I’m sitting a few feet from him, and that he somehow has to get out of the bed and get dressed. As I did the night before, I look away. He slides to what had been my side of the bed, slips out from between the sheets, and pads quickly into the bathroom. The door shuts, and I hear the tap begin to flow.

  When we get to the dining room, Vern and May are already seated with Old Man Louie. May’s skin has taken on the color of alabaster—white with a green tint hidden beneath the surface. The boy scrunches the tablecloth with his fists. He doesn’t look up when Sam and I sit down, and I realize I have yet to hear Vernon speak.

  “I’ve ordered already,” Old Man Louie says. He turns his attention to the waiter. “Make sure everything arrives at the same time.”

  We sip our tea. No one comments on the view or the hotel’s decor or what sights these Chinese from America might take in today.

  Old Man Louie snaps his fingers. The waiter returns to our table. My father-in-law—the title alone is strange to consider—motions the waiter to lean down and then whispers in his ear. The waiter straightens, purses his lips, and leaves the room. He returns a few minutes later with two maids, each carrying bundled cloth.

  Old Man Louie signals one of the girls to approach and takes the bundle from her. As he pulls the fabric through his hands, I realize with absolute horror that he has the bottom sheet from either May’s or my bed. The diners around us take this in with varying degrees of interest. Most of the foreigners don’t seem to understand what’s happening, although one couple does, and they look appalled. But the Chinese in the room—from the customers to the hotel staff—seem amused and curious.