by Mingmei Yip
"But Sister Pearl, it's not true. You're still the most admired sister here, and you have many more rich and powerful customers than Red Jade."
"Yes. But I'm also a couple of years older than she. And that makes a big difference. She has all the time in the world to catch up. I don't mean in the arts, since I don't think she cares, but in taking over my status."
Although this had not been a worry on my mind, I didn't know how to relieve Pearl's. Finally I said, "Sister Pearl, I don't think she can be that admired."
"I certainly hope not."
Now I started to read the newspapers. In keeping with my ming ji status, clients often contributed poems addressed to me. While the main news never interested me, I was curious to read anything about myself. Here were some that really made me happy:
Embracing the moon and playing with the wind, Voice soaring with the clouds and resonant as the clicking of mala beads.
I especially liked this one, which cleverly used my name:
Lips pout like cherries breaking open. The three-thousand-threads-of-beauty tremble over a pair of green jade earrings.
Precious body emanating the fragrance of Orchid, An immortal descending on the red dust.
There were many more like these. Actually, I read them with some trepidation because if a sister's luck changed, the poems would shift from veneration to merciless sarcasm. I was sometimes shocked at how the process could be reversed overnight, literally. But fortunately, my luck seemed to hold, and so did Pearl's.
She had once said, "Because we're Guan Yin. Not only that we're invulnerable, we're bestowing compassion on those pitiful, stinking males."
So Pearl and I continued to be, without shame, the Goddesses of Sexual Mercy.
Not all the poems were published in newspapers. Some were executed with elegant brush strokes on rice paper sprinkled with gold flakes or bordered with colorful flowers. While I felt these customers' passion blossom all the way from their fingertips to their brush and onto the rice paper, a sadness would also surge in my heart. I liked the poems about me but, unfortunately, none of the men who wrote them. They were either young, awkward-looking bookworms, middle-aged businessmen with protuberant bellies, or arrogant, heartless dandies.
I'd ask lao tianye-the God of Heaven-was there someone handsome and romantic hiding somewhere and secretly composing a poem to win my heart? If so, why didn't he come out of hiding? If he was there, perhaps he was too poor. I'd sigh. Please come to me; I'll serve you free-for love.
As a child I had loved the legend of the cowherd and the spinning girl. They were so in love that they neglected their work and so the God of Heaven placed them in the sky as constellations, separated by the Silver River of Heaven-the Milky Way. Once a year, on the seventh evening of the seventh month, a flock of magpies, taking pity on the lovesick couple, fly to the sky and form a bridge so that they can meet. On this night all over China, women make offerings to these stars, hoping for love.
So I'd written this poem:
Though the cowherd and the spinning girl meet but once a year, they would still be in each other's arms. While my arms, used as a pillow by a thousand guests, had never possessed the luck to hold the man I loved.
With a heavy heart, I'd stand by the window and recite my poem, hoping the yuelao-the old man under the moon-would hear my heart's prayer and tie the red thread to connect me and my future lover, whoever and wherever he was. My virginity was already lost to that human-skinned wolf Wu Qiang, but I still could hope for true love. Someone who could appreciate my talents, my feelings, sympathize with my fate, then take my hand to lead me past all the endless sufferings of this ten-thousand-miles of red dust.
Now that I was expected to entertain guests constantly, it was a rare moment when I could visit Pearl. The times I could were very precious, especially so because she'd agreed to teach me all her favorite qin pieces: "Spring Morning at the jade Pavilion"; "Parasol Leaves Dancing in the Autumn Wind"; "Water Immortal"; "Dialogue Between the Fisherman and the Woodcutter"; "Geese Descending on Sandbank."
One time Pearl abruptly stopped in the middle of her playing and said, her voice filled with emotion, "Xiang Xiang, the qin is all we have here in Peach Blossom."
"What do you mean?"
"Qin music is purifying, so playing it gives me the strength to resist the evils of the world." She paused, then went on, "Xiang Xiang, you remember I told you to keep your qin playing secret? It's not what I told you that no one would appreciate your talent. Nor is it true that by the time you've mastered the instrument, you'll have lost both your youth and beauty."
She plunged on, "The real reason is that the qin is our pure land. By not playing it I keep something of myself that customers can't buy. When I cultivate myself by playing the qin, I know I'm not a complete whore. You understand?"
"I think so, Sister Pearl," I said, digesting her saying. "You want me to play the qin only for myself."
"Exactly. So it's not a prostitute who is playing it." She looked almost in tears. "Xiang Xiang, you must promise me that you'll never play the qin to make money, or to please those stinking males. "
I nodded, then asked tentatively, "But what about if the man is not a stinking male, but a real gentleman?"
Pearl looked at me curiously. "Do you mean you have someone in your heart?"
I shook my head. "I wish I had. But Sister Pearl, I ... did play the qin to a customer."
"Who?"
"Mr. Anderson, and I don't think he's a chou nanren." I went on to tell Pearl how and why I'd played the qin for him.
She said, "I wonder how a barbarian comes to appreciate our three-thousand-year music heritage." Then she cocked a suspicious eye at me. "Xiang Xiang, are you in love with Mr. Anderson?"
"Oh no, of course not! He's old enough to be my father. I only respect him for being a real gentleman."
Pearl sighed. "I wonder why he and Mr. Ho have stopped coming. But Xiang Xiang," she looked at me with a serious expression, "if he ever comes back and offers to pay your debt or even proposes marriage, accept right away even if you feel no love for him."
I didn't know how to respond to this.
She went on, "This kind of chance only happens here once in a lifetime. You understand?"
I hoped there could be more than one chance in life. But I nodded anyway.
"Poor girl." Pearl reached to tousle my hair. "I'm sure someday you'll meet someone you love."
"But how?"
"Hai, there I can't help you."
"But you told me that in a turquoise pavilion there's always a solution to any problem."
Her eyes looked sad. "Yes. But meeting someone you love is not a problem to be solved, it's Karma."
"Then what am I going to do if it's not my Karma to be loved?"
"Don't worry, Xiang Xiang. Just be patient, I'm sure you will soon meet a young, handsome, talented man, leave Peach Blossom, get married, and have many sons."
"Why sons?"
"Because sons will never have a chance to repeat our fate."
Pearl looked down at her qin for long moments before she lifted her fingers and started to pluck the silk strings. Then she asked me to sing "Beyond the Yang Pass" as she played.
I could not sing these words without thinking of my mother. An unspeakable sadness swelled my heart to the verge of breaking. Then, remembering my promise to Pearl that I wouldn't let it break, I bit my tongue and hardened my spirit.
One afternoon as I was readying myself to answer a party call, there was a knock on my door, and a bit to my surprise, Pearl entered. These days it was rare for her to come to my room.
She perched herself elegantly on a stool next to me. "Xiang Xiang, I hope you have been working extra hard on singing and playing the pipa."
"But Sister Pearl, I never miss my practice."
"Xiang Xiang, next week you and I are invited by the Flower Moon News to a dinner party at Fortune Garden Restaurant on Nanking Road. Besides us, there'll also be many sisters from other turquo
ise pavilions. All the sisters will be participating in the Flower Contest."
Of course, I'd heard about the flower contests-pageants organized by customers, mainly scholars and poets, to elect the three most beautiful "flowers." Though only a very beautiful courtesan could win, she would also have to prove her accomplishment in the arts.
"Though they won't say so," Pearl winked at me, "we'll also be judged by our technique of the bedchamber." She chuckled, "Ha, Xiang Xiang, while these chou nanren would be offended by anyone even mentioning their wives, they openly discuss us and compare our sexual skills. If we were decent, married women and had sex with any man other than our husband, we'd be stripped naked and stoned to death. Yet as prostitutes, we sleep with as many men as possible. And they even honor what we do in the bedroom by publishing poems about us in the newspapers!"
Pearl kept laughing, though I didn't find this a bit funny.
She went on, "The sisters who win will become even more prestigious, while those who fail will become laughingstocks."
How cruel, I thought. "Sister Pearl, do you want to be in the contest?"
"Of course. That will make me even more sought after."
Although Pearl and I had already become prestigious, our status was informal-merely agreed upon by our customers. Not until we'd won the contest would our title become official. I understood Pearl's eagerness-she wanted both the fish and the bear's paw.
"Then why didn't you enter in the past?"
"Because after Ruby's death, I didn't feel right about it. Now seven years have passed and it's time for my mourning to end." She considered for a moment. "Somehow I know she wants me to participate."
"But Sister Pearl, she's dead." I hated to remind Pearl of her sister's death, but I regretted her morbid attachment to a ghost.
Pearl ignored my remark. "Last week I dreamed of a yellow butterfly hovering over a newspaper printed with a winning poem about me." A dreamy smile broke out on her face. "I think this was extremely auspicious. Ruby was telling me that I should participate." She paused, then, "And I'll win."
"But Sister Pearl, I'm not interested."
Pearl cast me a curious glance. "Why not? You also have a good chance, Xiang Xiang."
That was exactly the reason I didn't want to participate. It would be fine if Pearl did become the champion-it must have been on her mind that she'd win the first place and I the second. But what would happen if I was the one who took first place? I feared that would be the end of our friendship as well as our sworn blood sisterhood.
I just couldn't afford to win the title and lose our friendship. So my only way out was not to get involved in the first place. Besides, what if neither of us won? I did think Pearl was the most beautiful and talented courtesan in Shanghai, but she was not the most flirtatious. Despite her excellence in teaching the art of pleasing, Pearl, in reality, was too proud to lower herself to flatter.
"Sister Pearl, I have no interest in this contest."
"Xiang Xiang, I don't think you can turn down the Flower Moon News's invitation. If you do, you'll be in great trouble."
"What can they do to me?"
"People call them the `mosquito press,' because they sting. They can ruin you by bad-mouthing you in their newspaper." She threw me a meaningful glance. "Sometimes that can be as bad as shooting you, only there'll be no bloodletting. Xiang Xiang, let's do it together, for Ruby's sake."
When Pearl and I arrived at the Fortune Garden Restaurant, it was packed with heavily made-up and gorgeously dressed-up sisters. I spotted Spring Moon, Jade Vase, Brocade Tune, and several others from our pavilion plus a few guards and male servants. Pearl pointed out other courtesans from competing establishments: The Silver Phoenix, Sleeping Flower Pavilion, Temple of Supreme Happiness, and Moon Dream Pavilion.
Then she nudged my elbow. "Look, those in the far corner are from Qinghe Lane's chicken alleys. I admire their guts even to show their faces, let alone to compete with us. How ridiculous!"
I craned my neck and saw faces as round as my washing basin and lips as gross as sausages.
Now all sisters stopped what they'd been doing-chatting, sipping tea, cracking roasted watermelon seeds-to stare at us. Pearl halted by the door and swept her eyes across the room as our presence generated heated whispers and jealous glances.
She whispered into my ear, chuckling. "We're delicate, fine porcelain, while they're all crude earthenware; don't you think?"
I slightly nodded.
"Except maybe that whore."
I followed Pearl's eyes until I spotted Red jade in a dazzling, gold-threaded gown. Unlike the other sisters, she seemed unflustered by our presence. While fanning herself indolently, she noisily cracked red-dyed watermelon seeds, then nonchalantly spat out the husks. Noticing our gaze, she even nodded slightly to us with her licentious smiling eyes.
"Wok-sizzled bitch!" Pearl spat. "But I do appreciate her sang froid and her honest hypocrisy."
Is there such a thing as honest hypocrisy?
Just then a fortyish man with bushy eyebrows and a flat face hurried up to us. He grinned as if he'd run into two thick sticks of walking gold. "Miss Pearl, welcome!"
Pearl made a brief introduction for both of us. Mr. Zhu, chief editor of Flower Moon News, scrutinized me for long moments, then said in an excited voice, "No need to introduce, I've heard of Miss Precious Orchid's flowery name for a long time. What a pleasure to welcome you both tonight."
With much ceremony, he led us to seats at the front table and announced that the proceedings were to begin.
The formal session lasted for an hour during which snacks, food, tea, and water pipes were served while Mr. Zhu explained the rules of the contest.
There would be "arts" winners and "flower" winners. Both, of course, had to be beautiful but the former would also be based on cultivation in the arts, and the latter on cultivation in bed. The winners would be decided by vote and awarded the titles of president, vice president, and prime minister. The poems praising them would be published in the Flower Moon News.
"This year," Mr. Zhu added, "we'll introduce something newthe weeds list."
Voices stopped and sisters perked up to listen. Zhu went on, "Not only will we elect the most beautiful and talented sisters, we'll also elect the most detestable."
A tense silence intervened before a gentle voice piped up, "How detestable?" followed by laughter sprinkled here and there, some jovial, others nervous.
I turned and saw Red jade smiling ominously.
Mr. Zhu held up his hands for silence, then looked around the room. "The most ... lazy, stupid, and"-he paused for a few beats before spitting out-"ugly to death! "
Collective laughter erupted in the room.
Pearl nudged my elbow. "Poor girls. But we don't need to worry about this, do we?"
Zhu went on, "The detestable sisters' names will be published on the weeds list, as opposed to the flower one."
Red jade asked again, her voice sounding as if soaked in syrup, "Mr. Zhu, then will there also be poems about those who're elected to the weeds list?"
"Of course, no partiality."
Some sisters giggled, others sighed.
Pearl turned to wink at me. "I'd like to read some of these poems, that would be fun. Don't you think?"
I remained silent, remembering Pearl's dream of the yellow butterfly hovering over the newspaper.
17
The Ways Out
he voting was supposed to go on over the next few weeks as - readers sent in their ballots. Each day, the Flower Moon News published the latest tally. As expected, Pearl took an early lead. I tagged behind her in second place, and Red Jade was right behind me in third. Sisters from other turquoise pavilions spread the rumor that Fang Rong and Wu Qiang had bribed Mr. Zhu to fake the poll and make the three of us winners. I doubted this, for Temple of Supreme Happiness and Sleeping Flower Pavilion were equally rich, so if they competed with Peach Blossom to bribe Mr. Zhu, the price would be pushed up to an astronomical figu
re. I thought Mama and De would rather die than pay that much money. The reason that we were leading in the poll was simple: We were the most beautiful courtesans (even if Red Jade was not as talented). Especially Pearl, as the final stage of the competition was getting close, she looked even more beautiful and confident than ever, and kept telling me of her repeated, auspicious dreams of the yellow butterfly.
Then, one week before the announcement of the winners, something strange happened-Red jade seemed to be getting more and more votes. The situation was inexplicable and alarming. Why? I kept asking myself and Pearl.
But she cast me a sharp glance. "Stop worrying, Xiang Xiang; that whore isn't going to win. It's just not going to happen, period."
Although I admired Pearl's seeming confidence, I was not so sure about her prediction. Besides, occasional frowns and sighs betrayed her inner disturbance.
