Cloud Mountain

by Aimee E. Liu

  They stared at each other for several minutes without speaking. In the harsh yellow light of the electric candelabra, Paul appeared to Hope exhausted—drawn and pale and frightened, disillusioned and out of place. She might have been looking into a mirror.

  3

  The next day, he dutifully toured them around Shanghai, and Hope began the long, ambivalent process of adopting a new hometown. Setting aside for the moment Paul’s grim prognosis for the new Republic—and forbidding herself to give another thought to his pigheaded mother—she decided that Shanghai at least lived up to its reputation as a city of paradox. There were streetcars with bells that a blind man would swear sounded just like San Francisco’s, gleaming Packards with canopy tops, victorias drawn by ponies that looked almost like horses, if smaller, shaggier, heavier-hoofed. There were the facades of great imposing banks, office buildings, department stores with flashing electric billboards, shop windows festooned with Christmas evergreen and tinsel, signs worded boldly in guidebook English … SINGER MANUFACTURING COMPANY: Needles, Patterns, Oil, and Parts. RUSSO-CHINESE BANK. INTERNATIONAL BICYCLE COMPANY: Bicycles, Typewriters, Sporting Guns. WALTER DUNN: Wine Merchant, Bookseller, Generalist. MAITLAND & CO., PUBLIC AUCTIONS. DENNISTON & SULLIVAN: Kodak Film, Development, Cameras.

  But the streets were also filled with hooded rickshaws, wheelbarrows heaped high with cargo and passengers, sedan chairs swathed in silk—all pulled by ragged, starve-faced men. Every block had its beggars and sidewalk vendors, peasants trotting with impossible loads strung from shoulder poles. And while most signs along the wide avenues were painted in roman letters, the vertical banners that festooned the side streets bore exclusively Chinese characters.

  As contradictory as Shanghai’s sights were its smells, which seemed to Hope to mingle the highest and lowest elements of humanity. Urine from the open latrines, incense from the open temples, rotting garbage from the open sewers, fumes of ammonia and Jeyes’ Liquid from the open windows of European-style villas and apartment blocks. All of this swathed in the briny mist that welled up off the open Whangpoo. “If the spirit is willing,” Hope found herself muttering as their carriage skidded on the icy cobbles. It was a favored phrase of Mother Wayland’s in times of distress—as when young Frank sliced the last joint off his finger while chopping wood or Margaret was knocked unconscious by a falling tree and didn’t wake up for a week. Thinking about her foster family right now hurt, but at least she had the consolation of having said goodbye to them. Her father—well, he’d always told her, as a child, he would never say goodbye, because he would never really leave her…

  “This is the Chinese City,” Paul said.

  She looked up.

  “You must understand, Hope. Shanghai is not China. It is taken from China as a spoil of the Opium War. Only seventy years ago Britain brings her gunboats, the coward Manchus bow and quiver, and now here is this Western city, ruled by foreign powers according to foreign law. Great center of foreign commerce and opium trade, where Chinese people are the conquered natives. In Shanghai, Chinese have their Chinatown just as in San Francisco.”

  He stopped the carriage and pointed toward a high crenellated wall pierced by an open gate and surrounded by a moat filled with reeking, trash-strewn mud. The street life visible through the gate made Hope think of a squeezed accordion. Dark, slicing corners teemed with buyers, sellers, deal-makers shouting and raising fists. Men wore felt hats pulled down to their eyes—hats filled, Paul told her, with queues that they refused to cut for fear the Manchus would rise again. Above the medieval alleys jutted poles dangling trousers, vests, long streaming white bandages.

  Made stupid by the collision of images and smells, and Paul’s cynical tone, she asked, “Why so many bandages?”

  “Binding cloths. Women’s feet.”

  She shuddered. “I thought that was going to be outlawed under the new Republic.”

  He pointed grimly at an ornate sedan chair being trumpeted through the pinched streets. Accompanying musicians banged gongs and cymbals, while the bearers leapt side to side. Hope thought the chair’s occupant must be green with seasick, especially as the heavy red enclosure permitted no view out.

  “Chinese wedding,” Paul said. “This, too, was to be outlawed.”

  On Christmas morning beneath the crippled monkey pine, he showered them with gifts. For Pearl, a set of polished black wooden peaches, the largest as fat as a cantaloupe clicking open to reveal another and another and another inside, the smallest the size of a pea. And a baby doll with porcelain head and lace cap and gown and eyes that rolled open and shut—a deep oceanic blue. “Like Mama’s,” Paul said, meeting Hope’s gaze. There was a jade horse, a small satin jacket embroidered in the design of a phoenix. And finally, wheeled in with a flourish by Joy, a red-enameled tricycle tied with a chrysanthemum bow.

  Pearl squealed and flung her arms around her father’s neck. He lifted her high and dropped her down onto the tricycle’s seat. Her round legs did not quite reach the pedals, and she didn’t understand the principles of propulsion, so had to be pushed at first, but she inched forward and found her footing and soon was off down the parlor with a whoop of freedom that made Hope want to cover her eyes. Instead she and Joy flew through the room gathering all the vases, sculptures, and breakable objets—which was to say virtually everything in the room—and placing them out of harm’s way.

  “Pearl, the tricycle is for outside, please!”

  But Paul said, “Let her enjoy her first Christmas in China. I want her to remember this day.” He turned. “And you, Hope.” He laid in her palm a cerise silk pouch that felt like a heavy cloud.

  She hesitated. Paul had always given her Christmas presents. In their five years together he had given her a blue fountain pen, a tortoiseshell comb, a book of poems by Emily Dickinson, and a genuine Dunlap fedora. She, in turn, had given him sweaters and mufflers she’d knitted, a porcelain jar for his writing brushes, a pair of genuine Australian kangaroo bluchers. This year she had brought him a blanket, butterscotch color, in soft but durable Scottish Shetland wool. By mutual understanding, their gifts had always been sensible, secular, economical. She could tell at a glance that this one broke form.

  Clucking his impatience, he took the pouch back and emptied it unceremoniously into her hand. The blue stones shimmered like drops of water.

  “Paul! What have you done!”

  “You do not like?”

  “Of course, it’s exquisite, but it’s too much! What will I do—”

  Pearl came barreling over, colliding with Hope’s slippered feet and jumping for a peek at the necklace. She held it up. “Ooh, flowers, Mama. Bootiful flowers and pearl, like me! Ooh la la!”

  They both stared at their daughter. “Ooh la la?” Paul repeated.

  “Joy teached me. Ooh la la!”

  The amah’s face turned as red as the pouch. “I hear the French girls say.”

  They looked at each other then, a moment of utter, delicious disbelief, before laughter swept them away. It burst the tension that had been pulling against them for the past two days, and they swooped their daughter up between them, sounding a singularly undignified and impromptu chorus. “Ooh la la!” The other servants came running. Yen appeared, his shaved head hatless, with his usual consternation. Hope took one look at him. “Ooh la la!” Renewed gales overtook them. Pearl pumped her arm and escalated the cry, the chrysanthemum ribbon a crown in her hair. “Ooh la la! Ooh la la!”

  Paul waved his hand ineffectually at the servants, who stared as if he were mad. He was chortling, crying, clutching his foreign wife and child. Yen didn’t recognize him. Paul didn’t recognize himself. The servants fled. Pearl went back to play, and gradually the spell subsided, but now he felt a new wave of emotion.

  Hope was holding up the necklace, smiling and shaking her head. “How can we afford this? And where on earth would I wear it?” He led her to the foyer looking glass before fastening the strand around her throat. The aquamarines and tiny seed pearls
were even more beautiful against her skin than he had expected.

  “I tell you. Everything is different here, Hsin-hsin. You are my American princess. You will wear tomorrow night.”

  She eyed him suspiciously in the mirror. “What is tomorrow night?”

  “Governor’s ball. To welcome Dr. Sun.”

  “A ball? Paul, you must be joking.”

  But he had dropped down and was searching behind the spindly tree for one last gift.

  “Really, I—”

  He stood up holding a large oblong box covered in blue sateen. A La Parisienne was stamped in gold filigree on top. She groaned. “What are you thinking? I’ve never been to a ball in my life, and I’m five months pregnant! I thought you Chinese kept your women out of sight.”

  He grinned at her teasing. “No, no. I want all Shanghai to know my wife.”

  He pressed the box on her until finally she relented, lifting from the tissue the first ball gown Paul had ever purchased, the first she had owned. As the Spanish shopgirl had described it, the dress was midnight blue silk velvet with cap sleeves, a dipping neckline that would expose enough skin to show off the necklace but not as much as Europeans considered vogue, and an Empire waistline that would help to disguise his wife’s “embarazo.” The fabric had felt as supple as flesh when he touched it in the store. Now his eyes did not leave Hope’s. “Good?”

  “Tomorrow.” She pursed her lips doubtfully, holding the dress up to the glass. “You don’t give a girl much time, do you?”

  4

  By six o’clock the following evening Hope was bathed and dressed and nervous as a fish on a line. Sun Yat-sen’s homecoming, with the requisite meetings, receptions, and banquets, had kept Paul out all the previous evening and today since early morning. Now, as the hours passed and her husband still failed to return, she began to fantasize that the ball had been called off and she would not have to go through this public exposure after all. But just as Hope was settling down to read Pearl her bedtime story, Paul stormed past the nursery. “It’s all a sham,” he said when she caught up with him in their bedroom. “Sun has caved in. Yüan Shih-k’ai has played the mirror game.”

  “You mean Sun won’t take the presidency?”

  “Oh, he takes it—and then he will give it away.”

  She trailed him into the bathroom, watched the knobs whirl, drops fly. Stripped to the waist he attacked his exposed flesh with a steaming white cloth that left patches of hard red burn. He grimaced at the scent of her lavender soap. He delivered a muffled yell into the cloth when he held it over his face, then balled the cloth and hurled it into the tub so hard the copper reverberated like a bell. Hope stood out of the way as he strode back into the bedroom and attacked his evening suit. She expected him to calm down at some point, but he was trembling so he could not deal with his tie. She took it into her own hands and began folding the bow. “Is this going to be the tenor of the whole evening?”

  “This evening is a farce.”

  “Then why are we putting on these silly costumes? Why pretend to honor Sun Yat-sen if you don’t believe in what he’s doing—”

  He had reared his head back, squeezing his eyes so tightly his whole face seemed to fold over. At first she thought she was choking him, and released the bow. Then, astonished, she realized he was crying. “Paul!”

  But he shook his head so violently she was forced to back away.

  “Go,” he said. “Wait downstairs.”

  “But we don’t have to—” He silenced her not with thunder or rage but by hiding his face in his hands.

  An hour later their hired carriage drew up before a massive gothic establishment, whether consulate or private estate was unspecified, but it had all the trappings of arrogant European wealth—carriage gates leading from Bubbling Well Road to a long macadamed drive, vast lawns and formal gardens, a ponderous porte cochere attached to four stories of stone intercut with small leaded windows. All this wavering in gaslight.

  “I feel like Cinderella,” whispered Hope as they stepped down.

  Paul, who had sat rigid and speechless during the twenty-minute ride, attempted a smile. “Do not dance with the prince.”

  “What prince?”

  “You will see soon enough,” he said.

  Before she could press him further a white-jacketed servant had ushered them into the massive oak vestibule and another stepped forward to take Hope’s cloak, yet another to direct them toward the ballroom, and suddenly her concern for Paul’s grim mood was overtaken by the pageantry of their surroundings. It was like a scene from a fairy tale. Red carpet flowing down a long marble staircase. Chandelier dripping cut glass tears, which in turn scattered rainbow diamonds across the cream-colored walls. Polished brass rails and potted palms and more mute, white-gloved attendants lined the upstairs foyer, which otherwise was empty.

  As they approached the ballroom, a tide of light and music poured toward them, but before they could enter they were accosted by a dwarf with a pale mustachioed face pinched between top hat and frock coat. “Liang!” he shrilled.

  “Homer Lea, I present my wife, Hope.”

  “Enchanted, madame.” The hunchback, for she now realized he was not actually a dwarf, grabbed her hand and very nearly rubbed it against his sickly lips. She pulled back, reflexively, but was then ashamed of her repulsion. He shrugged as if to say, it happens all the time.

  “Could I borrow you for a few, Liang?”

  “I—” Paul’s dark eyes lowered apologetically to Hope’s.

  Lea stroked his sateen lapel with imperious patience. “Sun wants to make sure we’re all on the same battle plan.”

  “I’ll wait over there.” She nodded past the sea of heads to a windowed alcove in the corner.

  But as Paul vanished behind the wall of strangers, she realized this was the first time she had been out alone since leaving San Francisco. On the trip, she’d had Pearl. Then Paul had met them, and in the last few days, if no one else, there had been the servants. She smiled, scolding herself. What were Joy and Yen and the others if not total strangers become familiar? She must find someone here to talk to, that was all. Only, where to begin? The diversity of this gathering was as daunting as it was impressive. There were bright kimonos, dark scholar’s robes, both Victorian and décolleté ball gowns, full tuxedos, military men dressed in the uniforms of the Kaiser, the Tsar, American and British Marines. The fluid tones of French and Mandarin and the rapid fire of Japanese syllables collided with the heavy clip of Queen’s English and the guttural pounding of Russian and German. Meanwhile, the orchestra’s merry waltz promised to weave them all peaceably together. The music tweaked Hope with the memory of Frank Pearson trying to teach her to dance. They’d been standing on the verandah kissing good night when Eleanor started up the Graphophone inside. Frank had insisted and she protested, and finally he’d instructed her to stand on his toes and she’d clung to his neck and tried to follow, instead managing to trip him. “That’s the trouble with you damn suffragists,” he’d said in exasperation, “you always want to lead.”

  A passing waiter offered her champagne, and she gratefully took a glass.

  “Don’t you love it! Here we are, their worst nightmare being trotted out like mascots.”

  A kid-gloved hand descended on Hope’s wrist and she realized with a start that the voice was addressing her. She looked up into a pair of laughing green eyes set into a face of handsome angles. They competed for attention with opulent breasts and an emerald necklace that made Hope’s aquamarines and pearls look like trinkets.

  “No need to look so shocked.” The woman released Hope and adjusted her auburn curls with one hand while the other fingered the plunging neckline of her sea green shantung gown. “It’s all in the architecture. French woman over on Nanking Road works wonders. I’m a good bit smaller than you, as I recall.”

  Hope was squeezing her glass so hard that it cracked. “Sarah Lim,” she breathed. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Chou, now.�
� Sarah handed Hope a napkin to blot the wine from her gloves and deposited the oozing champagne flute in a nearby spittoon.

  “What are you doing here! And where—What did you say?”

  Sarah laughed. “Chou. Yes, dear, I’ve moved on. Tsing-lee, otherwise known as Eugene. He’s a banker, up to his sweet ears in the change from Manchu taels to Republican dollars. Paul knows him, I think, has courted him for Sun Yat-sen over the years, but Gene’s thrown his hat in now with the prince.”

  Hope was lost. “What prince?”

  “Yüan Shih-k’ai. There, that fat man. And the broad-shouldered fellow with the big chin is Eugene.” She nodded toward a cluster of bowing Orientals on the other side of the ballroom. The man she’d described as Eugene was turned sideways to Hope, but even from this distance, she could see the power and confidence in his bearing. He talked with his hands, and snapped his head back for emphasis. His animation contrasted with Yüan Shih-k’ai, who posed beside him in full military regalia, one hand planted on his gold sword and the other in Napoleonic fashion across his ample chest.

  “Why does everyone call him that?”

  “Because he tried to usurp the prince’s position in the old Manchu court, and now some say he aims to crown himself Emperor of the Republic.”

  Paul hardly need worry about her dancing with him, thought Hope, but she could understand her husband’s concern at this cold-eyed martinet presiding over China.

  “All right.” She pointed Sarah to a pair of chairs by the wall. “Tell me what has happened to bring you here.”

  “What has happened to me?” Sarah lifted one eyebrow as if Hope had told a naughty joke. “No more than’s happened to you by the look of it. When’s your baby due?”

  “April.”

  “Is it your first?”

  Hope flinched. “Second.” She paused. “We have a daughter, Pearl. She’s three.”

  “Well, you’ll need some help with her, then, at the—”

  Hope cut her off. “How long have you been here, Sarah?”