by Mingmei Yip
De nodded. "Yes, of course, of course."
There was a dead silence; then, under Mama's icy stare, De excused himself.
After he left, Mama said, "Put your clothes back on."
I did. Now the same pair of eyes cast me a meaningful glance. "Xiang Xiang, you're an extremely desirable virgin except for one thing. "
"What is it?"
"That's it, too many questions! A virgin should be docile and gentle. Before you meet Big Master Fung, you better learn how to behave. Now go to Pearl and ask her how being nice and gentle to a jade stalk will bring you lots of money, let alone endless pleasures." She winked. "Pearl is an expert in the secrets of the bedchamber. Ha! Ha! Ha! " After that, she picked up the books, thrust them back into my arms, and gave me a push toward the door.
Pearl was preening in front of the mirror. After I closed the door, she stared at my hair and exclaimed, "Xiang Xiang, you look very pretty!" She patted the chair next to her. "Come sit by me."
A long silence passed during which she was staring at my hair in the mirror.
"Sister Pearl, don't you like my new hairstyle?"
Pearl didn't answer my question; her expression turned sad and serious. "Did Mama also buy you ice cream, feed you with soup, then show you those strange books?"
I nodded.
"Xiang Xiang, you're going to be fucked by a man!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Hai, my little sister, why do you think they've been treating you like a princess?"
"I think because ... because I'm just lucky."
"Lucky, eh?" She sneered. "If there's luck in this whorehouse, then we'd all be princesses, not prostitutes. But too bad, because you're going to be a real whore, you understand? Do you want me to draw out the entrails for you?"
Silence dropped in the room like a gutted corpse.
"And this," she snatched the books from my arms and threw them on the table, "is to prepare you to change from a virgin to a woman;" she paused to cast me a bitter glance, "or from a virtuous woman to a wicked whore."
She picked up one of the books and flipped through the pages with the illustrations. "If you study all these positions thoroughly and master them, they'll help you to become prestigious, so prestigious that men will pay several silver coins just to sniff the fragrance wafting from your body, and lots of gold ones to taste it!"
I gasped for air, reluctant to face the ugly truth that I'd been so stubbornly avoiding.
"Xiang Xiang." Pearl patted my head. "It's no use to worry too much, just learn it, all right? I'm right here to help you."
I nodded, squeezing out a bitter smile.
"Good. We'll start the lesson now." She winked. "There's a saying `Die under a peony grove and be a licentious ghost,' meaning a woman can make a man so happy that he doesn't mind dying while having sex with her."
I was silent, trying to absorb what she'd said.
Then she began to explain to me words like red pearl, lute strings, slippery noodles, and all the strange metaphors such as chopping open the melon and tasting its juice; the jade stalk delving into the golden gate; yin juices flowing like a well ...
By the end of the lesson, I was in awe of Pearl's deep knowledge of these abstruse matters but completely exhausted.
Suddenly Pearl exclaimed, "Oh damn! Xiang Xiang, now I have to entertain a big shot. So why don't you go study and come back to my room tomorrow?"
When I was at the door, she called to my back.
I turned and saw her sad face.
"Xiang Xiang, I like you very much." She paused, then said, "You better grasp your last chance to enjoy your girlhood-"
I didn't know how to respond.
"Now why don't you go and have fun with Spring Moon?"
"But if Mama knows, she will-"
"Don't worry, since I'm sure Big Master Fung has already paid a lot for you, she'll be in a good mood and won't be too harsh on you. Go and have fun in the garden near the temple. "
But I'd heard that garden was haunted by some ill-fated sisters who'd committed suicide! Of course, no one dared to ask Mama whether it was true or not. But when I turned back to ask Pearl, she'd already shut the door.
8(
The Haunted Garden
. -pushed open the door to Spring Moon's room and stepped in-side. She was sitting on her bed, which was strewn with several books that looked familiar to me. She shifted her body and patted the empty space next to her. "Xiang Xiang, come sit down."
I sat, then gestured to the books. "You understand all of them?"
"Of course I do, Xiang Xiang." She looked at me curiously. "You mean you don't?"
"Only some, but then Sister Pearl explained everything tome."
I went over in my mind the things that Pearl had told me. Clouds and rain on the Wu Mountain means coupling between a man and a woman. Rain comes from the man's yang part, and clouds come out of the woman's yin part. During coupling, a man's jade stalk (I used to call it "little chick" but Pearl said that refers only to a child's) will insert into a woman's precious gate. After that, the man will spill out a slimy liquid (it sounded to me like a form of concentrated pee mixed with milk, but Pearl insisted that they were completely different) into the woman's body so that she'll make a baby-but that only worked for women outside the turquoise pavilion; flower girls here were not allowed to have babies. That was why Mama made me drink that tonic-or toxic as Pearl called it-soup.
But Spring Moon already knew everything. I asked, "How did you find out about all this?"
Her expression turned sad. "From my fiance. Yuguan is a very handsome man and a very good lover. He would do anything to please me. Anything at all."
"You mean like sucking your tongue, savoring your saliva, biting your ear, and letting his tall peak play around your jade gate?" I got out in one breath.
I couldn't believe that she actually nodded.
"Air-ya, Spring Moon, don't you find these sickening?"
She blushed, yet her voice turned vehement. "No, of course not! They are the most pleasurable things in the world!"
Judging from her vehemence, there might be some truth to what she'd said, but somehow I had to deny it. "No, it's sickening," I spat, "and perverse!"
"Then your parents did sickening and perverse things, too."
My ears on fire, I felt obliged to defend my parents' honor. "No, they did not!"
"If they didn't, then what do you think you came from? Unless you didn't crawl out of your mother, but burst from a stone, or were picked up from a garbage bin."
This was exactly what Little Red had said.
As I was struggling to think of a clever reply, images of my parents flashed through my mind. On the Wu Mountain, my quiet, demure mother and my scholarly, elegant father were passionately sucking each other's tongue, tasting each other's saliva, and then ... that stalk of my father's was nearing that crevice of my mother's.
While my whole body felt hot, another image forced itself into my mind-I, a baby, without a single thread on my semened and secretioned bloody body, crawling out from that valley of my mother-like a crab scurrying out from a crevice. Instantly my parents picked me up and huge grins broke out on their faces. I had never seen them look happier.
Spring Moon's voice woke me from my reverie. "Xiang Xiang, what are you thinking about?"
Now I felt like a punctured frog. "Maybe you're right after all." A silence, then I asked, "Where's your fiance now?"
"I heard that he is engaged to someone else. He comes from a respectable scholarly family, but they're very poor. So I don't think he has the money to pay my debt to leave Peach Blossom. And even if he did, how could he disgrace his family by bringing a flower girl into its household?"
Seeing that she was on the edge of crying, I hastily said, "It's too hot here, so let's go out!"
Spring Moon remained silent while twisting her handkerchief. Then she changed the subject. "Xiang Xiang, has Mama told you who is going to chop open your melon?"
"I think it'
s the old and all wrinkled Big Master Fung." I made a face. "What about you?"
"There's some rich businessman ... anyway, I'll find out next week. Mama said he wanted me the moment he saw my feet."
I looked down-Spring Moon did have the tiniest feet of all the sisters in the pavilion. Pearl had told me some customers liked to kiss, even suck their women's feet. And the smaller the feet, the more desirable, since these perverse chou nanren could stuff the whole "three inches golden lily" into their mouth to savor its taste.
"Aii-ya!" I spat.
"Something wrong, Xiang Xiang?"
"Oh no." I quickly changed the subject. "But I thought you're not a ... virgin anymore."
"But I am."
"Then what about all those things you did with your fiance?"
Spring Moon blushed. "His jade stalk never entered my jade gate. He mostly used his other stalk."
I nodded knowingly, although I had no idea what "his other stalk" was. Since I felt too intimidated to further inquire, I asked instead, "Spring Moon, why don't we go out now?"
"But we can't leave this place without Mama's permission."
"We can go to that old temple in the garden. Since no one goes there, no one will see us there."
"Because it's haunted! One time they stripped a sister naked, then hung her upside down and whipped her thirty times till her bottom rotted. Then they cut her down and left her in the garden. The next day Mama found her body, in a red dress, dangling over the altar in the temple."
"But you told me she'd been stripped naked."
"Mama didn't whip her to death. The sister was so humiliated that she committed suicide." Now Spring Moon lowered her voice as if there were an invisible third party in the room. "People said she deliberately wore a crimson outfit on her way to the Yellow Springs to see the King of Hell so she'd return as a bloodthirsty ghost!"
My heart began to pound. Spring Moon went on, "Another time when a sister was pregnant by her secret lover, she went and jumped into the garden's well. I heard Mama felt very sorry when she died."
"Was Mama specially fond of her?"
"No. But because right after she died, a customer came and asked for a pregnant sister." Spring Moon lowered her voice. "Over the years at least three sisters have ended their lives there."
"But Sister Pearl told me that since Mama can't bear to lose her investments, she won't let the sisters die."
"Exactly. That's why they killed themselves-to spite her."
A long, ghostly silence fell in the room. Finally I spoke. "I don't think there are any ghosts anyway."
"Xiang Xiang, you must be really out of your mind! "
"Spring Moon, don't be a coward. Let's go! "
"Then what if there really are ghosts?"
"Then I'll protect you. I know kung fu." I shot up from the bed and did a high kick.
The moon was luminous and the stars burned glittering holes in the sky. Spring Moon and I held hands as we inched cautiously along the meandering path through the bamboo groves. The night noises of the pavilion-chatting, singing, laughing, pipa playingreceded as we walked deeper and deeper into the heavy-foliaged alley leading to the haunted garden. After fifteen minutes, all we could hear were cries of insects, the rustling of leaves, and faint, mysterious sounds. The moon was half-veiled by bands of clouds like wisps of long hair streaking the face of a woman ghost. The air was hot like Mama's tonic soup; I felt Spring Moon's palm sweating in mine.
"Xiang Xiang," her voice came out as a whisper, "I'm scared; why don't we go back?"
"Too late now."
"Xiang Xiang! I thought you knew your way! "
"No, I've never been here. I only heard about it from Pearl and the other sisters."
"Xiang Xiang, take me back, right now!"
"But Spring Moon," I lied, "you can't turn back midway."
"Why not?"
I racked my brain for a good reason. "Because ... because I was told those who'd turned back all died a mysterious death. Once you're on the way, you have to follow the qi leading you to the garden. You can't walk back against the qi."
"Oh heaven, then what are we going to do?"
"Go to the garden first before we decide."
We continued to walk in a silence as heavy as our hearts. Now Spring Moon held my arm so tightly that her fingernails cut into my flesh. But I didn't dare utter the slightest complaint. The path was moist, smelling of a mixture of fresh and rotting vegetation. From time to time, we had to sweep aside overgrown branches and leaves. My five senses were achingly aware of the lightest sound, smell, and movement. I could hear Spring Moon's heavy breathing punctuating the dense night air.
"Xiang Xiang," finally Spring Moon broke the silence, "you really don't think there are ghosts?"
"Maybe there are; I don't know."
Her voice trembled a little. "What about if we do run into one?"
"Since there's no turning back, we can only face it and maybe even ask, `How are you, pretty ghost, should we sit down to have a cup of tea and chat?' "
Several beats passed before we burst into nervous laughter.
"I like you, Xiang Xiang. Not only that you're so pretty, you're funny."
Before I had a chance to reply, I noticed we'd already reached an opening. "Spring Moon, look, we've made it."
The underbrush opened to a level field flooded with silvery moonlight. In the distance rose a small temple with upturned eaves from which dangled two big, unlit lanterns. Swaying in the breeze, they peered through the foliage like the blinking of two sightless eyes. In front of the temple gate, leaves of ancient trees rustled like someone whispering, or crying, desperately trying to tell a woeful tale.
I felt my elbow nudged. "Xiang Xiang, what's glittering on the ground?"
"I don't know. Let's go and take a look," I said, pulling Spring Moon forward.
To my surprise, the glitterings were reflections of the moon in puddles.
Spring Moon danced around, chanting. "How wonderful, moon in a puddle." Then she screamed, startling me. "Xiang Xiang, what's that?"
I followed her finger and saw clusters of light floating here and there. A silence, then I said, "Don't worry; they're fireflies." But I didn't go on to explain that I'd been told the favorite places for fireflies were cemeteries. My breath was chilled as I exhaled.
Spring Moon now looked up to gaze at the heavenly disk. Long moments passed before she asked, "Xiang Xiang, do you remember that poem about the moon-"
I gazed at the moon and recited, "One moon is reflected on all the waters, all waters are embraced by one moon."
"I like that. I like you, too, Xiang Xiang; you're so smart. Oh, I'm so happy here."
"Me, too," I responded, "I feel free here. No Mama, no De, no dark room, no favored guests-"
"But also no food, no fragrant tea. Oh, I'm starving." She put her hand on her belly. "And I have to pee."
"Me, too," I said, then an idea hit me, "Spring Moon, let's pee on the moon."
She chuckled.
I said in a singsong tone, "I'm Chang E, regretting swallowing the elixir I stole from my husband; I flew to the moon ..."
"Stop that, Xiang Xiang, you're not Chang E; you can't pee on the moon!"
I walked to one of the puddles, squatted down, pulled down my pants, and peed on the reflection of the moon. When I finished, I cocked an eye at Spring Moon. "See?"
She chased and hit me with her fist. "You cunning fox! I should have thought of that first!"
I was running and panting. "But you didn't!"
Finally we reached the temple.
"All right, Spring Moon," I said, "now tell me about you and your fiance."
Spring Moon pressed her finger tightly against her lips. "Shhhh . . Xiang Xiang, do you hear something?"
I strained my ears to listen. "It's just the wind."
"No, listen more carefully."
"Some cats crying?"
"No."
"Oh, maybe it's the ghost of that sister who hung herself
after she'd been stripped naked and whipped till her bottom rotted! Listen, it's screaming like she's being slashed!"
"But Xiang Xiang, if a ghost is dead, how can it scream?"
"From a nightmare, I guess."
"Do ghosts dream?"
"How do I know? I'm not dead yet!"
"Oh," Spring Moon nudged me harder, while still whispering, "Listen, Xiang Xiang, now the ghost moans, and gasps."
"Then this one must be a hungry ghost! "
To my surprise, now Spring Moon giggled, "I think maybe it's not a ghost, but someone's stirring up the clouds and the rain."
"But this is not the Wu Mountain."
Spring Moon took my hand. "Don't be silly. Now let's go and take a look."
"You're not afraid of ghosts anymore?"
"Shhh, be quiet. I'm sure it's not a ghost. Come, follow me."
We walked around for a moment, then she pointed to a gap in the temple wall. Spring Moon stooped to walk in and I followed her. We felt our way along, trying very carefully not to bump into anything. After a while, it seemed we were getting closer to the source of the sound. Finally Spring Moon stopped by a doorway from which heavy sighs poured.
