by Tan, Amy
I was about to look at the other painting when I was startled by the approaching laughter of Puffy Cloud. The door to Boulevard opened. I jumped to the side of the office, where she would not be able to see me. She cooed to a client to make himself comfortable. Of all nights for her to be overly popular! Puffy Cloud pulled the French doors closed. I hurriedly put the paintings back in the trunk and was about to turn down the lamp and leave when Golden Dove came into the room.
We both gasped at the same time. Before she could speak, I asked if she had seen Carlotta. As if she had heard me, Carlotta let out a loud wail behind the doors of Boulevard. Puffy Cloud cursed, “I thought that damn cat was a headless ghost!” I went to the French doors and opened them slightly, and Carlotta darted in.
With Carlotta in my arms, I quickly went downstairs to the party, thinking I might spot my father lurking among the guests. But then I realized my father would not have dared show his face there. My mother would have scratched his eyes out. I looked at the guests and played a game of pretend—imagining one man after another was my father. I picked out the traits I liked—the ones who laughed easily, who wore the best clothes, who received the most respect, who winked at me. And then my eye landed on a man with a pinched and unfriendly expression, and another whose face was so pink he looked like he was about to explode.
In bed, before falling asleep each night, I imagined different versions of my father: handsome or ugly, well respected or loathed by all. I imagined he had loved me very much. I imagined he never had.
A MONTH AFTER my eighth birthday, I entered the common room to have breakfast with the Cloud Beauties and their attendants. I went to sit in my usual spot at the table. But I found that the newest courtesan, Misty Cloud, had placed her bottom on my chair. I glowered, and she returned a glance of indifference. She had miniature features set in a plump, round face, which men found attractive for some reason. To me, she had the ugly face of a baby pasted onto the yellow moon.
“This is my chair,” I said.
“Oyo! Your chair? Is it carved with your name? Is there an official decree?” She pretended to inspect the arms and legs. “I don’t see your name seal. All the chairs are the same.”
My temples were beating hard. “It’s my chair.”
“Anh? What makes you think you’re the only one who can sit here?”
“Lulu Mimi is my mother,” I added, “and I’m an American like her.”
“Since when do half-breed American bastards have the same rights?”
I was shocked. Rage was rising from my throat. Two of the beauties put their palms to their mouths. Snowy Cloud, whom I had liked more than the others, told us to calm down. She suggested we take turns sitting in the chair. I had hoped she would have taken my side.
I sputtered to Misty Cloud, “You’re a worm in a dead fish ass.” The maids burst into laughter.
“Wah! The half-breed has such a foul mouth,” Misty Cloud said. She looked around the table to the others. “If she’s not a half-breed, how is it that she looks Chinese?”
“How dare you say that!” I cried. “I’m American. There’s nothing Chinese about me.”
“Then why are you speaking Chinese?”
I could not answer at first, because if I did, I would be speaking in Chinese again and give her the upper hand. Misty Cloud picked up a small oily peanut with her thin pointed chopsticks. “Do any of you know who her Chinese father is?” She popped the peanut into her mouth.
My hands were shaking with anger, and I was incensed to see how calmly she was eating. “My mother will punish you for saying that.”
She repeated what I said in a mocking tone, then popped a pickled radish in her mouth and crunched it, without bothering to cover her mouth. “If you are pure white, then all of us must be, too. Isn’t that right, my sisters?” The other beauties and their attendants tried halfheartedly to silence her.
“You’re a dirty hole!” I said.
She frowned. “What’s the matter, little brat? Are you so ashamed to be Chinese that you can’t recognize your face in a mirror?”
The others looked down. Two made sideways glances to each other. Billowy Cloud put her hand on Misty Cloud’s arm and beseeched her to stop. “She’s too young for you to speak of this.”
Why was Billowy Cloud acting so charitably toward me? Did that mean she believed what Misty Cloud had said? I fell into a cauldron of rage and I pushed Misty Cloud out of the chair. She was too dumbfounded to move for a moment, then grabbed my ankles and pulled me down. I pounded my fists on her shoulders. She grabbed my hair and flung me away from her.
“Half-breed crazy little bastard girl. You’re no better than any of us!”
I hurled myself at her and banged the heel of my hand on her nose. Blood gushed from one of her nostrils, and when she wiped at it and she saw her crimson fingers, she threw herself on top of me again and smeared blood across my face. I was screaming epithets and bit her hand. She screamed, and her eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of her sockets. She grabbed me by the neck and was choking me. I struggled to breathe, and in my panic to escape, I punched her in the eye. She jumped up and cried out in horror. I had delivered one of the worst things that could happen to a girl: a black eye. She would not be able to appear at parties for as long as the bruise was visible. Misty Cloud shrieked and lunged at me and slapped my face, vowing she would kill me. The other girls and attendants screamed for us to stop. The menservants rushed in and pulled us apart.
All at once, everyone fell silent, and the only sounds were Misty Cloud’s curses. It was my mother and Golden Dove. I thought Mother had come to rescue me. But a moment later, I noticed her eyes had gone as gray as knives.
Misty Cloud cried in a fake way: “She damaged my eye—”
I put my hand to my neck, as if it hurt. “She almost choked me to death!”
“I want money for my eye!” Misty Cloud shouted. “I was making more money for you than the others, and if I can’t work until my eye is better, I want the money I would have earned.”
My mother stared at her. “If I do not give it to you, then what will you do?”
“I’ll leave and tell everyone that this brat is a half-breed.”
“Well, we can’t have you going around telling lies simply because you’re angry. Violet, tell her you’re sorry.”
Misty Cloud gave me a sneer of victory. “What about my money?” she said to my mother.
Mother turned and left the room without answering her. I followed, puzzled that she had not stood up for me. When we reached her room, I cried, “She called me a half-breed bastard.”
Mother cursed under her breath. Usually she laughed at people’s insults. But this time, her silence frightened me. I wanted her to quell my fears.
“Is it true? Am I half-Chinese? Do I have a Chinese father?”
She turned around and said in a dangerous voice: “Your father is dead. I told you that. Do not talk about this again, not to anyone.”
I was terrified by the deadness in her voice, by the many fears it put in my heart. What was true? Which was worse?
The next day, Misty Cloud was gone. She was kicked out, the others said. I felt no victory now, only queasiness that I had inflicted greater harm than I had intended. I knew the reason she was gone. She had spilled the truth. Would she now spread it wherever she went?
I asked the gatekeeper if he knew where Misty Cloud had gone.
Cracked Egg was scraping a rusty bolt. “She was too busy spitting insults at your mother to stop on her way out and give me the address of her new house. With that black eye, she might not have anywhere to go for a while.”
“Did you hear what she called me?” I was anxious for the answer that would tell me how far the lie had spread.
“Ai-ya. Don’t listen to her. She’s the one who has mixed blood,” he said. “She thinks the white part of her makes her as good as you.”
White? Misty Cloud had dark eyes and dark hair. No one would mistake her for bein
g anything but pure Chinese.
“Do you think I look half-Chinese?” I asked him quietly.
He looked at me and laughed. “You look nothing like her.” He went back to scraping the bolt.
I was relieved.
And then he said, “Certainly not half. Maybe just a few drops.”
A cold fear ran from scalp to toes.
“Eh, I was only joking.” He said it in a soft tone, one that was too comforting.
“Her mother was half-Swedish,” I later heard Cracked Egg tell an attendant, “married to a Shanghainese, who soon died and left her all alone with a baby. Her husband’s family refused to recognize her as his widow, and since she had no family of her own, she had no choice but to turn tricks on the streets. And then, when she saw men asking for Misty Cloud when she was only eleven, she sold her to a first-class courtesan house, where she would at least have some chance at a better life than hers. That’s what I heard from the gatekeeper at the House of Li where Misty Cloud worked before she came here. If she had not thrown a fit at the madam there, she might have been able to come back.”
Later, in my room, I sat on my bed for an hour, holding a looking glass in my lap, unable to bring it to my face. And when I finally did, I saw my green eyes and brown hair and sighed with relief. I put down the mirror. The worry soon returned. I pulled my hair back and tied it with a ribbon so that I could see my face fully. I held my breath and picked up the mirror. Again, I saw nothing Chinese. I smiled, and as soon as I did, my plump cheeks tilted my eyes at the outer corners, and this instant change sent my heart pounding. I recognized too clearly the signs of my unknown father: my slightly rounded nose, the tipped-up nostrils, the fat below my eyebrows, the smooth roundness of my forehead, the plump cheeks and lips. My mother had none of these features.
What was happening to me? I wanted to run and leave behind this new face. My limbs were heavy. I looked in the mirror again and again, hoping my face would change back to what I used to see. So this was why my mother had no special affection for me anymore. The Chinese part of my Chinese father was spreading across my face like a stain. If she hated him enough to wish he did not exist, she must feel the same about me. I unbundled my hair and shook it so it fell like a dark curtain over my face.
A cool breeze swept over my arms. The Poet Ghost had arrived to tell me that he had known all along I was Chinese.
I USED A spyglass to observe every Chinese man who came to Hidden Jade Path. They were the educated, the wealthy, and the powerful men of the city. Were any of them my father? I watched to see if my mother showed greater affection or anger toward any of them. But, as usual, she appeared to be as interested in one as in another. She gave them her special smile, her intimate laugh, her well-acted sincere and special words meant only for each and every one of them.
I was aware of only one Chinese man whom she treated with genuine honesty and respect: Cracked Egg, the gatekeeper. She saw him every day and even took tea with him downstairs. He knew the latest gossip about the men on the guest list. The gatekeepers of all the houses saw and heard everything and shared it among themselves. My mother often remarked to Golden Dove about Cracked Egg’s loyalty and sharp mind.
How Cracked Egg got his name I could not imagine. He was hardly stupid. Whatever my mother told him about those businesses, he was able to keep in his head. He could neither read nor write more than a few words, but he could read people’s character. He had sharp eyes for recognizing which guest should be welcomed, and what their social standing was. He spotted the faces of their sons who stood awkwardly at the gate, and he made them especially welcome, knowing this visit would be their initiation into the world of male pleasures. He memorized the names of all the wealthy and the powerful who had not yet visited the house. From the particular type of eagerness that a man displayed upon presenting himself at the gate, Cracked Egg could determine what the man intended to do that night—whether to court a Cloud Beauty or a business partner—which he then reported to my mother. He noted the man’s appearance—from the grooming of his hair to the heels of his shoes, the tailored details of his clothes and his comfort in wearing them. He knew the hallmarks of longstanding prestige that might separate the man from those who had more recently acquired it. On his rare days off, Cracked Egg dressed in a fine suit, a castoff left by a client. From years of observation, he could imitate the manners of a gentleman, even in his speech. He always kept himself groomed; his hair was barbered, his fingernails were clean. After Cracked Egg said I had drops of Chinese blood, I considered he might be the one who was my father. Even though I liked him, I would be ashamed if he was. And if he was, perhaps my mother was too ashamed to tell me. But how could she have taken him as a lover? He was not cultivated, nor handsome like her other lovers. His face was long, his nose too fleshy, and his eyes were far apart. He was older than my mother, perhaps forty. Next to my mother, he appeared slight of frame. What’s more, thankfully, I did not resemble him in any way.
But what if he was my father? His character was good, that’s what mattered. He was always kind. To those men on the list who came to the gate and did not meet his standards, he would be apologetic that there was an excessive number of guests who had arrived unexpectedly for a large party. To the young students and foreign sailors, he gave an uncle’s advice: “Cross Beaten Dog Bridge and try the opium flower house called Silver Bells. A great old gal named Plume will let you have a go at her once you’ve bought a few pipefuls.”
Cracked Egg had a special fondness for Plume, who had once worked at Hidden Jade Path until she was too old. She’s like a daughter, he’d say. He was protective of all the girls, and they often expressed their gratitude by telling stories to others about his efforts to protect them. Cracked Egg feigned he was not listening, and the girls would call out every now and then, “Isn’t that what you did?” He would give them his most baffled look.
If my father was indeed Chinese, I would want him to be someone like Cracked Egg. But then I heard Snowy Cloud tell a story a month after the debacle with Misty Cloud. We were having breakfast in the common room.
“Yesterday a drunk came to the gate,” she said. “I was sitting in the front garden, just out of view. I could tell by the cheap and shiny clothes that he was one of those overnight successes, no meat to his words, just yellow fat floating in cold broth. He was not an invited guest and would not have been allowed one step over the threshold. But you know how polite Cracked Egg is with everyone.
“This man asked, Hey, are your whores good at acrobatic feats? He patted a fat purse. Cracked Egg put on his sorry face and told him that all the girls in Hidden Jade Path used a technique called ‘stiff corpse.’ He went on to demonstrate that our limbs were locked in one position by rigor mortis and our mouths were frozen into a grimace. For that, he told the man, they charge three times as much as the loose-limbed girls in the Hall of Singing Swallows on Tranquility Lane. So the man happily toddled off to that low-class brothel, which I heard has just had an outbreak of syphilis.”
Everyone laughed uproariously.
“Plume told me he came by last week and smoked a few pipes,” she added. “He told her not to cry, that she was still lovely. She wept in his arms. He always shows her his concern and generosity. Every time they have sex, she said, he insists on paying her twice the usual amount.”
Every time they have sex. I imagined Cracked Egg crawling over my body, his long face looking at my scared one. He was not my father. He was the gatekeeper.
I ASKED MY mother if we could visit an orphanage for abandoned half-breed girls. She did not hesitate in agreeing it was a good idea. My heart beat in alarm. She gathered up some of my old dresses and toys. At the orphanage, I carried them into a large room crowded with girls of all ages. Some looked entirely Chinese, and others purely white—until they smiled and their eyes tilted upward at a slant.
Now, whenever Mother was too busy to see me, I took this as evidence that she had never wanted me. I was her half-American, half-hat
ed child, and I guessed the reason she could not tell me the truth: She would have to admit that she did not love me. I was always on the verge of asking her about my father, but the question remained lodged in my throat. This new knowledge now sharpened my mind. Whenever the courtesans or servants looked at me, I detected sneers. When visitors gave me more than a passing glance, I suspected they were wondering why I looked half-Chinese. The older I became, the more this side of me would show, and I feared that over time, I would no longer be treated like an American, but as no better than other Chinese girls. And thus I sought to rid myself of whatever might suggest I was a half-breed.
I no longer spoke Chinese to the Cloud Beauties or to the servants. I used only pidgin. If they talked to me in Chinese, I pretended I did not understand them. I told them again and again that I was an American. I wanted them to recognize we were not the same. I wanted them to hate me, because this would be proof that I did not belong to their world. And a few of them did come to hate me. Cracked Egg, however, laughed at me and said he had had both Chinese and foreigners treat him worse. He continued to speak to me in Shanghainese and I had to acknowledge that I understood, because he was the one who told me when Mother had returned, or that she wanted to speak to me, or that she had asked that the carriage be brought around to take us to a new restaurant for lunch.
No matter what I did, I feared the stranger-father within my blood. Would his character also emerge and make me even more Chinese? And if that came to pass, where would I belong? What would I be allowed to do? Would anyone love a half-hated girl?
