by Mingmei Yip
The women, once their looks had begun to fade, were abandoned, while the men, passion cooled, would marry proper women chosen by their parents. After years of tedium with an increasingly demanding wife, the man would be worn down with the pressures of supporting the family. All that was left of his earlier, seemingly unquenchable passion for the beautiful courtesan was mere memories. As more years went by, and his grandchildren were nearly grown, he’d begin to wonder if this love affair really happened, or was but a fragranced figment of his youthful imagination?
Of course, a young scholar might break off with his family and marry his beloved courtesan. And they would live happily ever after—for a few years. But sooner or later the money would run out and the man would have to work, perhaps as a tutor, or even by setting up a stall on a busy street to provide letter-writing services to the poor and illiterate. The wife would be forced to supplement his meager earnings as a maid or perhaps selling home-cooked food on the street. Even combined, their earnings would not pay for an amah to look after their children. So the wife would drag her brood along to her stall and the children would become street kids, taunted by the better-off children on their way home from school.
But no matter how hard the couple worked, their financial situation grew ever more dire. So the lovers who could never live without each other began to quarrel. As time went by and the exchanges of words became nastier, hate began to seep in. And now the man bitterly regretted that he hadn’t listened to his parents in the first place. And his wife began to ask herself, why did I waste my beauty and my life on this man, instead of staying with a rich patron?
I sighed inside. For I feared to think that Jinying’s love for me would be the same as these men’s. And that, if fate brought us back together, as the years passed, we’d forget the love we once cherished and end up hating each other.
I tried to suppress these unpleasant thoughts and continued to walk. Soon I entered the busy part of the street where crowds milled around shops and stalls. I felt some relief becoming one of the crowd—like a drop of water in the sea.
Happy for the distraction, I enjoyed the sights: street vendors selling cigarettes, chestnuts, bowls of steaming red bean soup, towels, blouses, underwear, mahjong sets, and anything else one imagine one needed. For the better off there were restaurants, Cantonese opera theaters, gold stores, and many others.
At the red bean soup stall, a young mother was feeding her child by first sloshing the hot liquid in her own mouth, then spewing it between her toddler’s lips. This way the hot soup cooled more quickly, I assumed.
At one stall a child about ten stood by herself, selling something sticky, gooey, but strangely appealing.
I walked up to her and asked, “Little friend, what is this?”
“Lomaichi with black sesame filling, very sweet and tasty, have one,” she said, already thrusting one patty into my hand.
I paid, took a bite, and immediately felt the sesame oozing into my mouth and warming my palate. It was as sweet and tasty as the little girl had promised.
She looked so vulnerable here by herself that I was tempted to ask, “What if gangsters come here to demand protection money?” but decided to swallow my words.
In between chewing and swallowing, I asked instead, “Where are your parents?”
“They are selling other things over there.” She pointed with her dirty little hand. But there were so many pedestrians and sellers that I couldn’t possibly tell whom she meant.
“Good luck, little friend,” I said, then swallowed the whole lomaichi. But this time the glob of sesame burned my mouth. As if a foretaste of the hell that awaited me because of my bad deeds.
I resumed walking and soon passed by a grand restaurant with a huge signboard surrounded by flowers and blinking lightbulbs:
HAPPY NUPTIALS BETWEEN SU AND HO
HUNDRED YEARS OF HARMONIOUS UNION
Though I could not see the happy couple, I envied them. Would I ever find my own happy nuptials and hundred years of harmonious union? My life so far had been a matter of kill or be killed. I had not allowed myself to think so far into the future, since my concern was usually surviving the next few days. Happiness seemed as out of reach as the dead rabbit dangling in front of a race dog.
Into the gaily decorated restaurant flocked a procession of guests, men in Western suits or Chinese silk gowns, women in the latest Paris frocks or fancy embroidered cheongsams. Their happy laughter and congratulatory sayings only intensified my loneliness.
18
The Shen’s Circus
I kept walking until I found myself in front of a huge tent with a signboard proclaiming:
SHEN’S CIRCUS AND FANTASTIC MAGIC SHOW!
The words “fantastic magic show” sparked my interest because of my magician friend Shadow, who’d disappeared during our last show the “Great Escape.” I went up to the reception area and bought a ticket from the young sales girl.
Seeing there was no other people around, I asked, “Young sister, can you tell me something about this circus?”
“Oh, I don’t work for the circus, but the landlord. Anyway, the circus is only here until my boss is ready to turn this place into a theater. You know, the animals are very expensive to train and feed, so he thinks a theater will be better.”
“Who are the magicians?”
“Miss, you bought your ticket, so go in and find out for yourself. It’s already started.”
Shrugging, I walked into the tent. Immediately music struck my ears, lively but with an undertone of melancholy. I was suddenly overcome with a dreamy, nostalgic feeling, whether happy or sad, I was not quite sure. It made me feel that I might be close to finding happiness, but fearful that it would elude me still. Then I realized that the music reminded me of the day Jinying took me to Big World Amusement Park in Shanghai where the same kind of dreamy music smeared the air like thick paint.
I looked around. Only half of the seats were occupied, so I could see why the landlord was unhappy with his revenue. But the audience looked happy chatting, snacking, laughing, or focused on reading their programs. Children in colorful clothes either ran around or ogled the clowns performing tricks inside the big ring. I had paid for a good seat in the third row. Once I sat down, I hailed a hawker and bought a bag of peanuts fried with fish flakes, another bag of sugared plums, and a lidded mug of tea.
I stuffed a few coins into the boy’s pants pocket, and he rewarded me with a smile that seemed to spill outside his face. “Thank you, miss, and enjoy the show!”
Because of my spy’s training, I always looked around to see if anyone was paying me an unusual amount of attention—even here in Hong Kong. But everyone around me in the tent looked quite ordinary—a few middle-aged couples, a group of giggling teenage girls, and young couples with excited children.
Inside the roped area in front, clowns with big red noses, colorful shirts, and loose pants danced clumsily. Some juggled small bars, others balanced on big balls or rode monocycles forward and backward, like a horizontal seesaw. Although I found them more tedious than entertaining, the children paid rapt attention. And when the children laughed, their parents laughed with them.
Then the clowns ran, or rode, offstage, and the animals made their entrance. Around the ring, elephants padded majestically, tigers jumped through flaming hoops, girls balanced on trotting horses. Entertaining but not particularly interesting to me.
Finally, when both the animals finished their acts, it was time for the magic show—what I’d bought the ticket to see. The orchestra changed to a new tune, no doubt meant to seem mysterious, as a woman magician and her two male assistants walked briskly to the center of the ring. A round of applause burst from the audience. Suddenly, it crossed my mind that she might be Shadow. So I craned my neck and squinted my eyes, but unfortunately I couldn’t tell. Like Shadow, this woman was tall, but her hair was black instead of dark brown, and she seemed to have thinner legs and a narrower waist than my friend.
Her mag
ic was not particularly impressive either. It was usual stuff—making purses disappear and reappear, changing a pigeon into a rabbit, disappearing from the stage, then reappearing among the audience. Nothing grand like Shadow’s making a castle disappear or jumping off a tall building in the nude and disappearing.
I felt both relieved and disappointed that the magician was not Shadow. Relieved because she might be angry about my cutting off part of her finger, disappointed because she was the rival I tested myself against.
The magician and her assistants ran from the ring, which was empty for a few moments as the orchestra changed to an even more rousing tune. It was time for the finale, the most dangerous, heart-stopping kongzhong feiren, “high trapeze.” Three figures appeared, two women and a man, high up on a wooden platform.
I thought one of the girls was the magician from the previous act but could not be sure, since the tall woman, instead of a black tuxedo, was now wearing purple tights with her hair tied up. The other girl, in turquoise tights, was smaller in statute, and the man, in white, was tall and muscular.
In a moment, all three were swinging elegantly and performing body-twisting gymnastics to Johann Strauss’s “Tales from the Vienna Woods” waltz. Next their movements took on speed and complexity as the trio began to change swings, and the man did a double somersault. The audience burst into cheers and enthusiastic clapping.
If the audience thought this was the climax of the show, then they were wrong. The MC went to the middle of the tent and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, now please don’t blink your eyes so you can watch our trapeze artist somersault through burning hoops.”
Instead of applause, the audience emitted a collective sigh like a huge deflated balloon.
The MC smiled. “Don’t worry. Miss Melodie is perfection itself. Are we all ready to have our eyeballs stunned?”
“Yes,” boomed back the audience.
“She better not fall!”
Three burning hoops dropped down and hung in midair, suspended from ropes. At first, Melodie swung back and forth, spun around, and somersaulted as the audience held its collective breath.
Probably charged by her unstoppable adrenaline, the purple girl, after she landed on the small wooden platform for a few seconds, leaped through the air, sailing smoothly through the three fiery hoops. But just then all the lights inside the tent went off!
There was a shocked silence, then a low murmur from the audience.
Someone shouted, “Turn the lights back on!”
In a few seconds, to everyone’s delight, the tent was lit up again. But our shock was not over.
The daredevil was gone! But spread on the ground was her purple outfit. Then I realized the trapeze artist “Melodie” was no other than my former friend and rival, the magician Shadow, performing another version of her famous “jump to disappear” act.
Now though the lights were back on, everything was a blur to me as I made my way out amidst the crowd.
I decided to see the show again to be certain it was Shadow and not an imitator. So the following evening, after I bought the ticket, instead of going through the main entrance, I sneaked around to the back area, quietly moved aside a flap, and peeked inside. There was no doubt. This tall and imposing magician/trapeze artist was the recurrently vanishing Shadow. When I’d last seen her she was thrashing and choking on stage in a tank of water, now she was sitting calmly in front of a mirror and meticulously painting her brow. Times must not have been easy for her of late, because she’d lost some weight and had a careworn expression. Yet she was still beautiful, despite her recent hard times.
Other performers milled around or made last-minute changes to their outfits to ready themselves for their next plunge into the illusory, aerial world inside the tent. With their heavy makeup and shiny costumes, in contrast to Shadow, they looked somewhat crude close-up. Mirrors were propped erratically at various angles, making the performers appear to possess multiple selves as their faces were reflected at odd angles. The impression they created in the eerie yellowish light of the improvised powder room was of ghosts floating.
Shadow was still fussing with her face powdering, adding layer after layer until her face became a mask. I decided that for now I would leave her face-to-face with her own mirrored illusion and not accost her until after the show, then maybe even take her out for a nice dinner so she could start to regain some of her vanished pounds. Shadow would not be performing in such a dingy place unless she had run out of money. Had she come here for work since our last show together was ruined?
My magician friend had been able to leave Shanghai and get this job in Hong Kong, though it was barely above being a street performer. I had come out the better of the two of us, because I had more money than I could spend, at least for now, but I guessed that she barely made enough to feed herself.
I’d find out more after tonight’s show.
Back in the tent and seated among the audience, I patiently waited through the clowns, animals, and magicians for the long-awaited entrée—the trapeze. Like last night, Shadow, now “Melodie,” and her aerial partners started their performance with immaculate precision and the audience became instantly enthralled. Though the performance was the same as last night’s, I had a sense of foreboding, an inexplicable feeling that something was going to go wrong. I had no idea what. But as a spy, I had stayed alive by not ignoring such feelings.
Seeing Shadow, I thought of our days together back in Shanghai, when I’d performed my contortionist knife-throwing with her as my target. And I thought of how she’d paid me back in our last show together. She was supposed to jump into a water tank and then appear dry among the audience. Instead, she pretended to drown and then disappeared.
So tonight, would she again ruin the show to spite the other girl, probably her new rival?
Soon we collectively held our breaths as we watched the beautiful daredevils flipping, twirling, somersaulting, and crossing high in the air. Lively music mixed with gasps and scattered applause.
Finally, when burning hoops were put out for the climatic act, I felt my neck tightening and my armpits sweating. I already knew the procedure: Shadow would jump through all the hoops unscathed, the light would go off seemingly by accident, then back on. All that would be visible of Shadow would be her costume on the floor until, seconds later, she’d reappear on the trapeze waving at the audience.
When the flaming hoops had appeared, something different happened. The girl suspended on the wooden plank next to Shadow held up a megaphone and addressed the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, those of you who have already seen our unbelievable Miss Melodie should know that she is also invulnerable. So, should we take down the safety net?!”
Voices exclaimed simultaneously. “Yes, take it away, that’s more exciting!”
Other voices gasped. “Oh, no, don’t! What if she falls?!”
The other girl said, “She won’t. Melodie is the best. Just be ready to watch the surprise of your lifetime!”
I couldn’t tell from Shadow’s expression if she looked confident or alarmed. Did she expect this, or was it a malicious trick by her partner? Several workers appeared and removed the safety net. The band struck up the same rousing tune as last night, Shadow’s cue to start. Like last night, Shadow performed a few flips and twirls in the air to build up the audience’s anticipation for her ultimate show—sailing through the rings of fire. All eyes were fixed on her, anticipating the impossible aerial choreography about to unfold.
Alas, this time the light went off only a second after she had leaped toward the hoops. In another second it was back on and, of course, Shadow was not to be seen frolicking in the air between the hoops. Her costume was on the ground, just like last time, but this time it appeared as if she was still in it, sprawled motionless. I fear that this was not another trick but something gone seriously wrong!
But I was not sure. I hoped that the body on the sawdust was just a dummy—like in her famous show in Shanghai. In a moment, two
uniformed men rushed out with a stretcher, and a collective scream burst out from the audience. No doubt the manager had seen what had happened and did not want the audience to think that there had been an accident. Just then the orchestra changed to play an extremely cheerful and playful tune. The clowns from the warm-up show reappeared with two pretty girls dancing around the ring, trying to cheer up—or distract—the audience.
Things happened so fast that I wondered if Shadow had really fallen or if my eyes had deceived me. Could it have been only my imagination? I looked around and saw that except for a few, the audience now seemed quite happy watching the clowns and the girls in front of them. Their fears of a few moments ago had already faded into the air like a whiff of incense smoke.
Ignoring the clown’s ad-libbing, I slipped through the audience so I could go backstage to see how badly Shadow was injured—if at all. But two burly men stood blocking the back entrance.
One yelled to me. “Just leave.”
“But, I want to see if Sha… Miss Melodie is all right.”
The other grunted, “Nothing happened, you got it?”
19
Hospital Visit and a Plan
The next morning, I dashed down to the street to buy newspapers to read about last night’s calamity. Only one minor newspapers reported the incident.
A Flying Girl’s Fiery Hell
The audience attending Shen’s Circus last night witnessed a tragedy when the lights failed, and magician and trapeze artist Melodie, performing without a net, fell to the ground.
Melodie was badly injured and is now being treated at Kwong Wah Hospital. It is rumored that Shen’s Circus, a family business, will now close down permanently. After years of financial struggle, they can no longer afford to pay the staff and feed the animals. There is suspicion that they plan to declare bankruptcy so as to avoid paying Melodie’s hefty medical bills.
