Shanghai Story: A WWII Drama Trilogy Book One

by Alexa Kang

  “There he is! Buck Clayton.” Wen-Li pulled Eden’s arm and pointed to the musician blowing the trumpet.

  “Who’s Buck Clayton?”

  “He’s an American jazz musician. I’ve heard his music on the radio. He and his band usually play at the Canidrome. You know? The greyhound racetrack and amusement park on Rue Lafayette? There’s a ballroom there, too, except we’re not allowed in.”

  “Why not?”

  “The Canidrome is for foreigners. Chinese can go only for special occasions.”

  Hearing this put a damper on Eden. What a confusing, prejudiced world they lived in. A black musician performing for the entertainment of white people in a venue in China where they excluded Chinese. Even away from Munich, she couldn’t get away from senseless racial divides.

  At least Wen-Li was still thrilled. “Such a special treat he’s playing here tonight.” Her enthusiasm was contagious. Eden didn’t know if she should be glad or sad. Wen-Li and everyone else seemed resigned to the fact that they were being discriminated against in their own country. They weren’t even affected by it like she was.

  The hostess led them to their table by the edge of the dance floor close to the stage. Eden couldn’t be happier when Clark sat down beside her. Whether it was intentional, she could not tell. She hoped it was.

  “Have you been to any other big dance halls yet?” He placed the napkin on his lap.

  “No. This is my first. I heard there are many great ones in Shanghai. I do hope to visit some other ones when I get a chance, like Ciro’s.”

  Their waiter popped open a bottle of champagne. Clark leaned aside toward her to let the waiter fill his coupe. Their arms were so close. Close enough to touch. A fainting rush ran through her body.

  Was she attracted to him?

  The thought confounded her. All her boyfriends in the past had been Jewish, except for Karl Drechsler, who was German, and they were only sixteen at the time. She hadn’t considered the possibility of being romantically involved with someone Chinese. She had never even met anyone Asian before leaving Munich.

  “What else have you been doing to entertain yourself if you haven’t been visiting ballrooms?” Clark asked.

  “I’ve met a lot of new friends,” Eden answered, hoping she wasn’t showing too much of her private musings. “Speaking of which, I recently met a very interesting American socialite. Her name is Ava Simms. She’ll be taking me and my friend Lillian Berman to Blood Alley for drinks next weekend.”

  “Blood Alley?” He nearly spilled his drink.

  “Yes. Ava said a person hasn’t really seen Shanghai until he’s seen Blood Alley. Although, my friend Miriam Stein won’t come with us. She was born here. She grew up in Shanghai. She doesn’t think Blood Alley is anything worth seeing.”

  “She’s right. It’s a dangerous place. I wouldn’t recommend going, especially if it’s just the three of you ladies.”

  “But I want to go. I’m curious.” Eden tilted her head, giving him a teasing glance. “You’re not worried about me, are you?”

  “I am,” he said with all earnestness. “You’re still new to Shanghai. There are all kinds of people here. You can’t begin to imagine how bad some of them can be. Remember the scammers who lied to the police that you pushed the child.”

  “In that case,” she said, taking a sip of her champagne, “why don’t you come with us? You can protect us.”

  Looking unsure, he studied her face. “Are you seriously inviting me? Or are you joking?”

  “I’m inviting you. For real. Unless you’re afraid of the ‘bad people’ too.“

  He gazed at her. Realizing she was goading him, a smile slowly came to his face. “Well then, I will come. I am terrified, but I can’t turn down the pleasure of having the company of three ladies on account of ‘bad people.’ Can I?”

  Lowering her eyes, she dipped her chin to hide her own smile.

  Their dinner courses began to arrive. What an amazing feat for the wait staff to seamlessly satisfy the requests of what must be more than one thousand guests in the ballroom. Such extravagance too. Their dinner began with caviar, shrimp cocktail, and oysters, followed by poached salmon and filet mignon, plus an impressive sampler of desserts. All their wines and champagnes were imported from France. Their Arabic coffees were the best she had ever tasted, and she didn’t even have a chance to try their Assam tea.

  “I hope you like the food,” Estella said to her. “The Western cuisine here must pale comparing to what you’re used to in Europe.”

  “Not at all.” Eden patted her lips with her napkin. “Actually, it’s far better than anything I’ve had in Germany. I’ve never had such fantastic seafood or wines.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Clark beamed and signaled the waiter to pour them more drinks.

  “Oh, I have some good news to tell you,” Eden said to him.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got a new job. I’m now a reporter for the China Press.” She took a business card out of her purse and gave it to him.

  He held it up and read it carefully. “Congratulations! I didn’t know you were interested in journalism.”

  “I needed something to do. The extra income won’t hurt. What’s more important is that the editor-in-chief, Mr. Zelik, wants me to write a weekly column about my experience in Shanghai as a Jewish escapee from Germany.”

  “You mean I’ll be able to read about your life in the newspaper? That’s wonderful. You’ll be famous. I’ll be your biggest fan.”

  “You’re teasing me.” She looked away. A burning heat rose to her cheeks. “I’ll be reporting on local news as well. What I really want for that is to report on local Chinese news. One thing that has troubled me since I came to Shanghai is that a lot of foreigners live here but they’re very disconnected from the Chinese. Maybe some of them don’t care and don’t want to know, but maybe some simply have trouble with the language barrier. A lot of the foreign-language newspapers here only report on what’s happening to foreigners and things that affect foreigners. I want to try to report on news involving local Chinese people whenever I can.”

  As she’d observed of him, he didn’t let on a whole lot of what he thought with words. “Thank you,” was all he said. His voice sounded ever so light, almost a whisper. Only a tinge of emotion on his face showed that what she said must have touched him.

  What was that emotion? Gratitude? Not quite. Was he impressed? Not exactly. It looked something more . . . personal.

  Before she could figure it out, he picked up his wine glass. “Let’s make a toast. To your new job.”

  “All right.” She picked up her own glass and clinked it against his.

  “Eden,” he said before she sipped her wine, “if you ever need help, call me. I have contacts in Shanghai. You never know. I could be one of your sources.”

  “Why, thank you. I appreciate that,” she said. Having Clark as someone to rely on did give her a shot of confidence. Zelik thought she was an inexperienced nobody. Little did he know, she had a foreign affairs agent with the Chinese government and a member of a prominent Shanghai family in her corner.

  While they drank, the band played on. Jazz music was another great thing she’d discovered since coming to Shanghai. Her friend Miriam was a fan. The recordings of Bing Cosby, Glenn Miller, and Artie Shaw often played on the American radio stations XMHA, XMI-IA, and SMI-IC. Miriam even took her to smaller nightclubs where Russian musicians performed. She’d promised they’d go see Oleg Lundstrem and his orchestra play next.

  Back in Munich, her friends never listened to jazz. The German people knew almost nothing about it. A few recording studios did distribute jazz albums, but hardly anyone knew where to find places that sold these records. Hitler detested this music. He called it “American nigger kike jungle music.”

  All the more reason for her to fall in love with jazz. Here, in Shanghai, she could listen to this “degenerate” music to her heart’s content.

  She watched Buck Clayt
on tap his fingers on the trumpet’s valves. The songs he played here tonight sounded different. They were jazz all right, but with a Chinese spin. How extraordinary. As much as people segregated themselves, their cultures still melded as their lives crossed. When Clayton played at the Canidrome, did he perform strictly Western tunes? Or did he interject Chinese influences into his act? If he did, then what did the Shanghailanders think when they listened to him? Did it occur to them that even as they shut out the Chinese people, the essence of China seeped in nonetheless?

  The band finished its last song with a roiling roll of drums. The audience’s applause thundered, easing down only when a tuxedo-clad emcee took to the stage. He began speaking in Chinese into the microphone, followed by the announcement in English, “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you, China’s own Golden Voice, the one and only, Miss Zhou Xuan!”

  The grand curtain lifted and the spotlight shone on a lone woman standing at the center of the stage. She had a slender frame, making her appear almost fragile, but she carried the distinct aura of a star. Her dark eyes captivated like magnets, drawing everyone’s eyes to her alternately innocent and seductive face, colored by an elusive shade of sorrow.

  The music began and she wrapped her hands around the microphone. Her singing spread across the room. She held everyone’s attention. It took a while for Eden’s ear to get used to her high-pitched, girly voice. But what range! Easily, she hit the high notes, as well as any opera soprano. And she was smooth. Eden couldn’t understand the words and lyrics, but each syllable rolled off the singer’s tongue like sweet honey.

  The audience received the first song with an enthusiastic round of applause. No one was more impressed than Wen-Li. “Did you like it?” She tugged Zi-Hong by the arm. “Did you like it?”

  Zi-Hong shrugged. “Nothing special. To be frank, I’ve never seen her in person. I came tonight to see for myself whether she’s worth all the praise people heap on her. What a disappointment to see this is what the population likes to listen to.”

  “I thought she was delightful,” Tang Wei said. “What don’t you like about her singing?”

  “For one thing, why does it have to be so Westernized? The songs are all derivatives of foreign music. Isn’t it enough the foreigners are here lording over us? When we adapt their music, it’s like we are kowtowing to our colonial lords.”

  “Zi-Hong!” Estella interrupted him. Her stern look puzzled him until he noticed Eden staring at him. Like the night they had dinner at the Yuans, he looked as if he’d forgotten Eden existed.

  Clark, holding his fist, eyed Eden to apologize. He started to say something to Zi-Hong, and only stopped when Eden put her hand lightly on his forearm.

  She didn’t want them to get into an argument. No need to ruin a perfectly fine evening on her account.

  Not that she didn’t feel annoyed. That Zi-Hong was the rudest person she had ever met. What did the adorable Wen-Li see in him?

  Zi-Hong brushed it all off with an indifferent raise of an eyebrow. “Anyway, this is all pointless. Music ought to be something more than pedestrian entertainment. Especially now that we can broadcast far and wide with the radio. Music should be used to educate the populace.”

  “Educate them about what?” Tang Wei asked.

  “How to build a better nation, for starters. Music should inspire people to mobilize for a cause, like fighting the Japanese.” He pointed at the Zhou Xuan on stage. “What she’s doing up there is distracting people from the real problems in this country. She makes everyone lazy and stupid. When people worship her, they get bewitched by everything weak and feminine. China needs to be tough and strong, especially now. She sings to sell products. It’s capitalism at its worst. She’s offering commercial garbage,” he said. His voice became more and more passionate as he talked.

  All the while, Wen-Li’s face grew more distressed. Finally, she cried, “I don’t like you talking bad about my favorite star.”

  Only then did he pause and notice she was upset. “I only want to make a point—”

  Too late. She pushed her seat away from the table and stomped away.

  “Wen-Li!” Zi-Hong leapt to his feet. “Wen-Li, wait! I’m sorry,” he shouted and ran after her. This was the first time Eden had seen him care about anything other than his own opinions. His affection for Wen-Li, at least, looked genuine.

  Across the table, Estella rubbed her forehead. Tang Wei snickered and lit a cigarette. “Telling me about educating the populace.”

  The music continued and Zhou Xuan began singing a new song. Clark gazed out to the couples doing variations of the foxtrot, then to Eden. “Would you like to dance?”

  “Yes.” Definitely. She’d been wondering all night when he would ask.

  If he wasn’t Chinese and she wasn’t Jewish—or white, in his mind—would he have taken so long?

  What would he do if she gave him a subtle hint that this wasn’t a barrier for her? Would it be imprudent of her to try to find out?

  She followed him to the dance floor. Slowly, he took her hand and put his arm around her. Still maintaining a respectable distance, their bodies began swaying to the tunes. She moved a tad closer.

  He either didn’t notice, or didn’t realize she did it on purpose. “I hope you weren’t offended by what Zi-Hong said earlier. If you were, I apologize on his behalf.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “You’re not responsible for what he says or what he does. I can see how frustrated you are with him.”

  His tensed arm loosened on her back. “He’s what we Chinese people call a frog in the bottom of the well.”

  “A frog in the bottom of the well?”

  “It’s an old folktale. Once upon a time, there was a little frog that dwelled at the bottom of the well.”

  “Yes?” She followed his lead and turned.

  “One day, the frog met a turtle from the sea. The turtle said to him, ‘I floated on the sea watching the boundless, spectacular sky.’ The frog didn’t believe him. He said, ‘The sky? There’s nothing spectacular about the sky. It’s just a small circle.’ The turtle then realized the frog, having never gone outside of the well, thought the sky was only as big as what he could see when he gazed up from the bottom of the well.”

  Zi-Hong, the ignorant frog? The thought made her laugh.

  “Please don’t mind him. Most likely, he doesn’t realize it when he says something that offends you. I don’t think he even realizes you’re a real person who can hear and understand what he says. His world is very limited, and you’re too foreign to him. I don’t know how to explain it. To him, you’re just there.”

  She knew what he meant. Many Shanghailanders felt the same way about the Chinese. To them, the Chinese were just there.

  “I don’t understand why Mei Mei is with him,” Clark said. “She’s free to choose whoever she wants.”

  Eden noted the tone of envy in his voice. Gathering her nerve, she asked, “What about you? Are you not free to choose whoever you want?”

  “Me?” He seemed surprised. “I . . .”

  She peered into his face.

  “I am bound, in some ways. I’m my family’s only son, and the oldest. That means my family has a lot of expectations.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as expectations for me to get married, and have sons to carry on the family name.”

  That didn’t sound so hard. Everyone would get married eventually and start a family. What he didn’t say, and what she could already guess, was that his family probably had an expectation for him to marry a certain ‘right’ type of woman.

  But what did he want? “Would you be happy?” She lowered her hand from his shoulder to his arm. “Could you live your life following their wishes and be content?”

  “I don’t know.” His brows creased. “Chinese families take these things very seriously. Personal happiness doesn’t factor in.”

  Was this what held him back? “What if you fall in love with a woman different fr
om what your family expects?”

  He chuckled. “Love is a very new concept to the Chinese. Especially to the older generations. If someone defies his family for love, everyone would think he’s very selfish.”

  “I see.” It would be disingenuous to say she was not disappointed. Maybe she shouldn’t be. After all, he’d never done anything overt to suggest he had any interest in her.

  What about the way he looked at her? She saw it. The way he looked at her when he arrived at her home earlier tonight, and the way he always found reasons to be close to her whenever they were together. She was sure she felt something, and that he felt it too. She felt the rising urge to find out what would happen if she dared to take a jump and fall for a man who wasn’t anything like herself or anyone she had ever known, and to experience an affair completely in defiance of social norms.

  Perhaps she had too active an imagination. Perhaps she’d been too caught up in this new city, with all its promises of thrills and adventures. As she dreamt of the fantasy of a wild romance that would break all bounds and ties, she’d neglected the fact that Clark might not want the same thing at all. Maybe he didn’t even feel anything toward her.

  No. He had to be feeling something. Even now, she could see the latent passion in his eyes.

  The music changed. The singer was now singing a different song. The melody had a distinct Chinese spin, with an infusion of ballroom dance beat. She’d never heard anything like it.

  “What is this song?” she asked as he swirled her farther away from their table.

  “It’s called ‘When Will You Come Back?’ The singer said before she began that it’s a new song recently composed by a good friend of hers. The lyrics are somewhat sad.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s a song sung by a woman to a man. She’s telling him that good times won’t last. She wonders when they will meet again after tonight. The blossoming flowers, the shining moon, the fine spring evening, all will pass. She tells him they should drop all their worries, enjoy their feast of dishes, and drink till they’re intoxicated. A moment of time is worth a thousand pieces of gold. They should drink to their heart’s desire, because, when will he come back again?”