Memoirs of a Courtesan

by Mingmei Yip

  Of course, I never told him, or anyone, how hard I’d been working to improve my voice. I’d rather they thought it was all natural talent. Nobody wants to hear about the painful years of tedious, bitter practise: only their pleasurable result.

  What no one knew was that when my act finished, I would sleep for a while, if I was allowed to evade Master Lung’s clammy hands, then walk to the Bund and sing to the sun as it rose, then to its reflection on the Huangpu River. This way my voice would absorb the powerful yang energy from the rising sun and the yin from the softly flowing river. I hoped to expand my range up to heaven and down to earth, so that when it reached the highest register, instead of cracking, it would be as soothing as the morning light. And when it reached the lowest register it wouldn’t disappear, but would be as deep and fathomless as the sea.

  I knew the truth of the Chinese sayings: ‘One minute onstage is worth ten years’ cultivation offstage,’ and, ‘You plant a melon, you harvest a melon; you plant a bean, you harvest a bean.’ Success will not arrive at your doorstep if you just mope around the house instead of getting out and taking action.

  But I doubted anyone in the audience tonight cared about the long, arduous hours I’d spent to perfect my four minutes of singing ‘Night-time Shanghai.’ However, that innocent but intelligent-looking youth I’d noticed earlier at the adjacent table, maybe he could understand.

  ‘Thank you, Master Lung.’ I smiled, taking a delicate sip of his whiskey as if swallowing all the bitterness that came with my practise. As I felt my tongue pricked by the rough-tasting liquid, in my peripheral vision I spied a pair of eyes fixed on me like a mistress’s on her patron. Just then Lung signalled to the next table, and the shy, fresh-faced young man hurried over. His tall, slim frame was covered in a grey pin-striped suit set off by a silver tie with a pearl tie pin.

  I wondered, what did this refined-looking young man have to do with the uncouth Lung?

  Gao, Master Lung’s most trusted bodyguard, stood up to pull a seat out next to Lung. ‘Young Master, please.’

  Lung smiled till his eyes became two slits. ‘Camilla, meet my son, Jinying.’

  Could he really be Lung’s son? Maybe he was adopted, or a guoji, a child given to a childless man by a male relative – a gift to maintain the family tree.

  The young man and I shook hands. Wrapped around mine, his palm felt warm and cosy, like a cocoon. If I was a yin type of person – remote, cool, calculating, meticulous – then he was definitely a yang type – warm, straightforward, impetuous.

  Now Lung smiled a proud, open-mouthed smile, revealing a few sparkling gold teeth. It was the first time I had detected anything like tenderness or kindness in the underworld boss. ‘My son just came back a few days ago from studying in the US.’

  I smiled. ‘That’s very impressive. May I know what subject the boss’s son studies?’

  The young man smiled, blushing slightly. ‘Law—’

  Lung interrupted. ‘At Ha Fuk.’

  The son corrected his father. ‘Father, it’s Harvard University, not Ha Fuk.’

  The father laughed, watching his son admiringly, as if now he were his son’s underling. ‘Yes, Harr … Fud.’

  ‘Father, you’re embarrassing me!’

  ‘So-ri, so-ri, son,’ Lung apologised in pidgin English. The most powerful gangster in Shanghai, who never hesitated to eliminate fools, now looked like a fool himself.

  I suppressed a smile. Even this ruthless gangster chief had his soft spot. No one is invincible; it’s just a matter of finding his weakness and waiting for the right time to attack it.

  The young master ignored his father and turned to me. ‘Miss Camilla, you have the most beautiful and intriguing voice I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, not really meaning it. I’d been taught not to fall for flattery, because to be distracted would ruin my mission. I never forgot that even though people might praise me, it was unlikely they cared for me beyond my beauty, celebrity and talent to entertain.

  Oblivious of my bitterness, Lung again cast his son an appreciative look. ‘I want Jinying to help me in my business, but maybe he won’t do a good job, because he only cares about music.’ He paused to pinch the sleeve of his son’s suit. ‘See? I even have this suit made for him at Gray to suit his Hardfud-lawyer status.’

  Gray was the most expensive tailor in Shanghai, even more outrageous than the famous Paramount. I heard that each suit would cost nearly three times what it would at the expensive Paramount, which meant a tael of gold.

  The young man, red-faced, turned away from his father and said to me, ‘Miss Camilla, my father told me about you and your legendary voice, and it’s such a pleasure and honour to finally have the chance to hear you sing and then meet you tonight.’

  I was astonished that the son of the most feared gangster in China would act and talk in such an elegant and courteous way. With such a powerful father, no one would imagine that he spoke that way from weakness. However, his father might have taken it that way, because he cast his son a disapproving look.

  Abruptly, Lung stood up and held out his hand to me. I let him lead me to the glass dance floor amid the scraping of patent leather shoes and stiletto heels. Lung put his arm around my waist, and we began gliding to the dreamy tune of the ‘Blue Danube’ waltz. Some of the men, when they waltzed near us with their partners, bowed their heads respectfully as they said, ‘Good Evening, Master Lung.’ The boss returned these greetings with a simple nod.

  As we swirled in circles, my eyes glanced alternately at the orchestra and the audience. I peeked towards the young master Jinying, who was intensely watching us. I found myself tightening my arm around Lung. I’d only just met this young man; I wondered, why should I want to arouse jealousy in him?

  Finally, when we had made enough dents on the dance floor, Lung and I returned to our seats. But Jinying’s friends kept calling him back to his own table, so he quickly apologised to us and left. Then Mr Zhu, Lung’s right-hand man, picked up a newspaper and handed it to me, pointing to an article. It was the latest gossip column by Rainbow Chang.

  A Naked Shadow

  We can now reveal the identity of the girl who plunged to her disappearance three days ago. This stunning escapade was staged by a magician, Miss Shadow.

  The incident was a prelude to promote her show opening on Thursday at the Ciro Nightclub, the upcoming rival of the older and more classy Bright Moon Nightclub. With this fanfare, Miss Shadow has instantly become the talk of the town. So I believe that the Ciro Nightclub will steal many customers away from Bright Moon.

  We were also told that the night she jumped, Miss Shadow was not really naked but wearing a flesh-toned tunic. The blood, of course, was fake, probably from a slaughtered chicken or pig or dog.

  Like me, many of my readers must wonder what will happen now to Camilla, our beloved Heavenly Songbird. Will she still dominate the Shanghai nightclub scene, or will she soon be pushed into the turbulent sea? Who will be our supreme entertainment queen? Who will be Shanghai’s ultimate skeleton woman?

  Well, we will soon find out.

  One question to Miss Camilla: how will you feel when you finally meet your worthy rival?

  More to follow …

  Rainbow Chang

  I bit my lip, then quickly regained my focus and conjured up my most flirtatious smile. ‘Master Lung, have you read this?’

  ‘Do you think I’d waste my time on gossip?’

  Good. ‘Will you be here Thursday night?’

  He cast me an amused look. ‘Depends. Why?’

  My heart suddenly turned cold, like the ice floating in my drink. I couldn’t bring myself to ask if he would go to Ciro to see the naked magician and her show.

  Back in my apartment, I couldn’t shut my eyes. Sipping wine, I could only think of this new rival, her inconceivable trick and her genius in getting attention. Why did she call herself Shadow; did she not have a real existence? Was she a ghost? The name was fake, of course
, just like mine. Not that this Shadow, having already bewitched Shanghai, would need a response from me. Did she want to replace me as the number one nightclub attraction? Or maybe Rainbow Chang had guessed wrong. Maybe Shadow’s target was not me but someone else. My heart rose in alarm. Could that someone else be … Master Lung?

  Of course, I was smart enough to realise that this Shadow had not jumped to her death and was not a ghost but a human rival.

  So of course I was smart enough to deal with her. I remembered the lines from Sunzi’s Art of War:

  Know when to attack and when to wait.

  The essence of warfare is not attack but strategy.

  Know yourself, and know your enemy even better.

  Yes! That’s it. Know yourself, but know your enemy even better. Knowing her would be the next step towards clearing this weed on my path to completing my mission of eliminating Lung.

  Thus resolved, I reached to turn on the radio. As if on cue, a recording of my singing ‘Night-time Shanghai’ began to flood the room.

  They only see my smiling face

  But never guess my heart’s pain …

  I sighed, then downed the whole glass of wine.

  3

  Madame Lewinsky

  As a spy, I had to study strategies about scheming. My favourite was the Art of War by the most famous military strategist, Sunzi, who lived twenty-five hundred years ago.

  Everything I learned from this book can be summarised in one sentence:

  Build your presence, and use your cunning.

  Sunzi says that on a battlefield there are only two realities: win or lose. So there is no room for virtue, unless being virtuous or being a gentleman is your strategy. To win, every position has to be thoroughly known, every plan meticulously studied and every act carefully worked out. As there is no room for virtue, there is no such thing as ‘a glorious failure.’ On the battlefield, ‘honour’ is just an empty comfort for losers.

  Losers don’t get sympathy; they get killed.

  History is written by the victors. So no matter how heartless and dishonest you are, after it is written, if you win, you’ll be remembered as a paragon of virtue and honour. The Chinese say, ‘Those who win become kings, those who fail, thieves.’ Steal a nail, you’re a thief, steal a nation, a king.

  You must show no weakness, no human feeling. Like King Liu Bang, who lived over two thousand years ago.

  When they were battling for the kingdom, Xiang Yu kidnapped Liu’s father and threatened to cook him alive. Expecting his rival to surrender, Xiang Yu was shocked when Liu Bang exclaimed, ‘No problem. After you’ve cooked my father, don’t forget to save me a piece for dinner!’

  In war, you have to be that ruthless.

  Having studied the Art of War, the Thirty-Six Stratagems and all other major works on strategy, I believed no one, trusted no one. So I’d already guessed that little naked Miss Shadow had not plunged to her death – and was probably not really naked, either. I didn’t trust my own shadow, so why would I trust anyone else’s?

  To decide how to deal with Shadow, I needed to talk to my real boss, Big Brother Wang.

  A bodyguard let me into Wang’s spacious study, filled with antiques, polished redwood furniture and string-bound books. My boss sat at a massive desk, where smoke curled up from a cone of incense nestled on a celadon disk. He was reading a book cradled in his jade-ringed, long-nailed fingers. Above him on the wall was a calligraphic scroll:

  Befriend all scholars under heaven; study all books written by sages.

  So I worked for a scholar-gangster. Maybe that was why he had never been able to beat the cunning, streetwise Master Lung.

  The door closed as quietly as a drop of water in a bucket. Staring at the bald spot on Wang’s lowered head, I could see that he would not look up at me until he finished the page. I was curious to know what he was reading, but kept my lips tight to prevent questions from popping out of my itchy mouth. Instead, I glanced at his many books on the shelves.

  Trained to be aware of everything in my surroundings, I wanted to know what these books were about and why, as a gangster, Wang liked to read. In addition to his more active pursuits of cheating, scheming, gambling, threatening, kidnapping, torturing, killing and, of course, womanising.

  Despite this last proclivity, Big Brother Wang had never tried to seduce me or even force me to have sex with him. This was not because he respected me but because I was the queen on his chessboard. If the pieces on the chessboard of the gangster world shifted, I would have to shift in response, even at the risk of sacrificing my life. But not my happiness, because I’d never known that sort of emotion.

  Wang put down his book. His eyes searched mine, gazing intensely above the gold-rimmed reading glasses perched on his square-jawed face.

  I straightened myself, cleared my throat and spoke in my most respectful tone. ‘Big Brother Wang …’

  ‘This is my study time. Do you have a good reason for interrupting me?’

  As I told him about Shadow, he closed the book. I saw that it was the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the story of endless battles among feudal lords during the most chaotic time in Chinese history.

  ‘So, do you think this Shadow will be an obstacle?’ he asked.

  ‘She will be if Lung stops coming to my show and goes to hers instead.’

  ‘You think that will happen?’

  ‘It must not happen, Big Brother Wang.’

  ‘You can prevent it?’

  ‘Yes, but I need to get to know her first.’

  ‘You think she’s working for someone else?’ he asked.

  ‘You mean as a spy for another warlord?’

  ‘Yes. But I can’t see who at this point.’ He knit his brows in thought. ‘I can make her disappear.’

  Fearing he would give this order right away, I said urgently, ‘Big Brother Wang, if I may give my opinion …’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘She is a woman and hasn’t made any trouble for us, so if you—’

  Wang cut me off. ‘All right, I understand. You’ve got a point there. I have to protect my gang’s reputation.’

  Even a gangster had his reputation and honour to protect! But the real reason I didn’t want Shadow killed was not because I had any sympathy for her, but because of my own excruciating curiosity. I wanted to find out just how clever and scheming she was in comparison to me. Besides, I was dying to put more of my secret training and abilities to use.

  So I said, ‘Big Brother Wang, I will handle her.’

  ‘Good.’ Wang spoke in his gravelly voice. ‘We spent a lot of time and money training you. So don’t disappoint. You understand? You must not let Lung fall for this girl. Report to me soon.’

  Though my boss for the past four years, Wang remained an enigma to me. He talked only about what was necessary for business. I knew only what he did, not why he did it or how he felt when doing it – if he felt anything at all. If I tried to probe, my questions, like bullets hitting a metal wall, just bounced right back.

  I thanked him, bowed, then started to walk to the door.

  Wang spoke to my back, the temperature of his voice dropping. ‘Camilla, do not come here again. You may telephone me when absolutely necessary. You got it?’

  I understood. Since Master Lung was getting serious about me, his men might be watching me closely. Though a little disappointed not to be able to visit this gangster with literary tastes, I was pretty sure he did not want to stop seeing me, either, for he often looked at me like a cat does a fish. However, I was just a woman, and what he wanted was something much bigger – to topple the invincible Lung and replace him as Shanghai’s number one boss. To achieve this, my boss was more than willing to send me into the tiger’s mouth.

  Of course, Big Brother Wang might have more personal plans for what to do with me after I’d eliminated Lung. But by then I’d be a different woman, not the innocent little girl he’d rescued from the orphanage. I would be the poisonous skeleton woman,
the ultimate nemesis.

  After I left Wang’s place, I decided to go to my singing teacher, Madame Lewinsky, whose apartment was situated in a quiet spot inside the French Concession. I needed to relax after my meeting with the gangster. Wang’s presence seemed to deplete the very air around him. Since I had no friends or relatives, Lewinsky was the only person I could go to. Moreover, she’d always pamper me with her delicious home-cooked soup and gooey, oven-baked cookies dipped in warm milk. Best, unlike my boss, she never scolded, only praised me.

  When my teacher opened the door, a big smile bloomed on her heavily made-up face. Her distinctive perfume snaked its way into my nostrils, soothing my nerves.

  ‘My darling Camilla, what a surprise! Come on in. I’ve been practising on my own.’ Her big-boned figure was encased in a flowered dress topped with a black-tasselled shawl.

  The neat, cosy apartment smelled of delicious food. Of all the houses and apartments I’d visited, I liked Lewinsky’s the best. The sun filtering through the lace curtains boosted my energy and lifted my mood. I imagined that the velvety chocolate sofa was having a pleasant conversation with its matching floral pillows. Plants crawled leisurely down from the tall bookcases stuffed with books and music scores. Atop her grand piano were arrayed miniature busts of famous composers and knick-knacks she’d collected over the years, all seeming to have interesting stories to tell. A vase was filled with fresh cut flowers. Were they from an admirer? I wondered.

  Entering her apartment was like entering another world, softer and more human. Perhaps like being back in my mother’s womb – if I had known who my mother was.

  I sat on the sofa, my teacher studying me closely.

  Then she told me, ‘You look too thin, Camilla. Let me get you something to eat and drink.’

  Madame Lewinsky then disappeared into the kitchen, only to reappear moments later with two steaming bowls atop a lacquered tray. Setting the tray down, she seated herself in a rocking chair across from me. ‘This is authentic Russian soup from my mother’s recipe. Very nutritious.’