The Painter of Shanghai

by Jennifer Cody Epstein

  As she approaches him she tries to ignore the look of panic on his face, the way he leans back as though to maintain distance between them. As she leans over, she has a fleeting glimpse of his neck. Like his hands, it is white and taut. She’d planned to sit in his lap. Facing him now, though, she sees that this would be as graceful as standing on her head. She kneels instead. ‘It’s late,’ she whispers. ‘Aren’t you tired?’ Taking his palms in hers, she lifts his hands to her cheeks, half worrying that he’ll see how they are shaking. After the callused press of Yi Gan’s thick fingers, Pan Zanhua’s feel as soft as a woman’s.

  Then, quite suddenly, her cheeks are cold. He is pulling her to her feet. ‘I’d like,’ he says, ‘for you to leave.’

  ‘Leave?’ She opens her eyes.

  ‘I can’t do this.’

  She stands shakily. ‘It’s all right,’ she tells him. ‘Really. It’s all taken care of. I am, I mean. Even if you don’t want – this. The money.’ She holds it out. But he strikes her outstretched hand away from him, almost violently. Bills scatter to the floor like debris. Yuliang blinks in surprise. She hadn’t thought he’d be a beater.

  She steps back warily. But he doesn’t touch her again. He just runs his palm down his left cheek. Where the smudge is. ‘I didn’t mean to do that,’ he says hoarsely. ‘It’s just that you are… that I’m not…’ He covers his eyes. ‘Aiyya. Don’t you see? This is just the sort of thing I’ve come here to fight.’

  ‘Love?’ she asks, idiotically.

  His lips twitch. ‘Corruption. Exploitation of society’s vulnerable elements. You’re a beautiful girl…’ he continues. Then stops. ‘You see? I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘It’s Yuliang. Zhang Yuliang.’

  ‘Of course. Good Jade.’ A wry smile. ‘The little jade boar.’

  She nods numbly. She’d forgotten their brief talk about birth signs.

  ‘You know, don’t you, Zhang xiaojie,’ he continues, ‘if you stay here, then they’ve won. Not only will I be in their debt, but they’ll be able to hold our – hold whatever would happen over me. That’s what they really want.’

  Her head is spinning, though even through her confusion what he is saying does make a sort of sense. Pan Zanhua will pay if he sleeps with her tonight. The same way she’ll pay if she doesn’t sleep with him. Yuliang snatches desperately at solutions. She could stay with the amah for a few hours. She could go back in the morning, just as though she’d completed her mission. Give them the deposit money, say the rest was coming soon. It could work. For a while, anyway…

  But really, it couldn’t. Yuliang knows that. She imagines the conversation the young inspector would have with Yi Gan later: Did you enjoy our gift, Master Inspector? Oh yes. She slept on the floor with my amah.

  ‘I can’t just go,’ she says.

  ‘Why not?’

  She kneels, scraping the scattered money toward her. He crouches beside her, hands her two bills that have landed near his feet. ‘All right, then. Here’s what you will tell them. Tell them I wasn’t feeling well tonight.’ He’s still frowning, working it out as he speaks. ‘Tell them that you… caught me off guard. That I’m not refusing their gift, I’m just postponing it. I’ll take it in a different form. Not as…’ He gestures awkwardly. ‘But as something else. As a tour of the town.’

  ‘A tour?’ Her first thought is that it’s one of those rare trade terms she hasn’t learned yet, the same way climbing beneath the warm quilt is a euphemism for early morning visits to the Hall.

  But he means just what he’s saying. ‘We’ll take my chair into town. You can show me key landmarks. Help me know what’s what. It will be a business-related service.’ He looks over her shoulder; she follows his gaze to the tall boxed clock by the window. ‘We’ll leave here at nine,’ he concludes, authoritatively.

  ‘Nine,’ Yuliang repeats in dismay.

  It’s sheer madness; the mere idea of leaving now, at three, then coming back just six hours later exhausts her. Then there’s the thought of the two of them traipsing about town together. Does he really think that will save him from the gossip? You don’t understand this town, she wants to tell him. It’s not Shanghai.

  And yet as he helps her up, neatly stacking the bills and folding them warmly into her hand, Yuliang finds herself looking into his eyes, and again, there is that sense of interest. That feeling that he is not just looking back at her but listening to her. Even when she isn’t speaking at all.

  Which, perhaps, is why she finds herself taking the money and nodding obediently. As though this all made all the sense in the world.

  It takes more than an hour for Yuliang to convince Godmother that she hasn’t failed her, and another to convince the madam to let her leave again, alone. In the end she gains permission only after swearing that this day, at least, will end up in the bed business that was supposed to begin it.

  ‘I’ll say this once,’ Godmother says grudgingly. ‘Think of this as a test. If you come back without his seed inside you and his money in your hand, you will have a worse time of it than Mingmei did.’

  When the madam finally dismisses her the sun is already rising. Yuliang flees to her room and paces, too apprehensive to sleep. As the light strengthens, she sits at her toiletry table, doodling aimlessly with a pencil. Images rise and fall: the wispy sorrow of the painting’s painted mountain. The feel of his palms on her face. The strange, sharp stirring she’d felt reciting ‘Ai Lian Shuo’ for him… She imagines that things had gone differently. That rather than leaving her face, his hands had done what she’d expected and lingered. And descended. If they had she could sleep now without worry of punishment or humiliation. But then she probably wouldn’t be seeing him again, either.

  The thought is inexplicably depressing. As she climbs into bed, a vague, leaden sadness seems to coil itself in her chest.

  Still, two hours after finally sleeping, she leaps up easily. She even hums a little as she gets ready. She sees for the first time the way morning sun forms rainbows in the glass’s edges, surrounding Mirror Girl with all the colors in the world. Yuliang washes and dresses with care, in her soberest clothes. She dusts her face with powder and leaves everything else bare. She even arranges her hair in a virgin’s style. Why not? she thinks. Why not?

  And the oddest part is, it works. This time when she knocks, the amah doesn’t even recognize her: ‘Come in,’ the old woman says, with just a hint of hesitation. Not about Yuliang’s identity. Rather, about why a clean-faced young woman would be knocking on her master’s door, alone and at this hour. Which is early, but still unmistakably respectable.

  13

  A half-hour into ‘sightseeing,’ Yuliang is forced to realize how little she knows of her own town. She knows the restaurants and the teahouses. The opium dens, of course. And she knows the flower-boat brothel on the river, the Hall’s main competitor. But she is suddenly struck by how little else she has seen of this bustling city. Standing at the stone tablet touted as the town’s most ancient landmark, Yuliang can’t tell Pan Zanhua anything about it at all, other than that it is very old. That, and the fact that two coppers will buy materials to make a rubbing of the gritty text. But even this information is superfluous, since she gathers (too late) that it’s already scrawled on the charcoal-vendor’s sign.

  ‘I think the text tells a story,’ she concludes weakly, as her companion hands the man his coins. She looks at the little picture etched into the granite: the grainy outline of a beak, a wing. ‘Something about a bird.’

  Pan Zanhua studies the delicate tracks, rubbing his cheek. Last night’s ink streak, in that precise spot, has disappeared. Yuliang pictures him over his washbasin, water coursing in clear sheets down his face.

  ‘This was written by Mi Fu,’ he says. ‘You know about him? One of the great artists of the Song Dynasty.’ He traces the text with a finger. ‘It tells the story of the crane and the tortoise. The tortoise got tired of living in mud, so he asked the crane to take him up into the sky.
They did it with a bamboo pole. Each animal clamped an end of it in his mouth.’

  ‘And that worked?’ Yuliang yawns, feeling thick-headed after her long night.

  ‘Apparently.’ The young official takes the vendor’s little roll of thin paper and removes the hemp cord that keeps it tied tight. ‘Must’ve been a quiet trip, though. They both knew that if either of them opened their mouth, the tortoise would fall to his death.’

  Yuliang lets her gaze trace the eggshell-like delicacy of the strokes in the rock. The writing is worn and antiquated in style. She thinks for a moment that perhaps she sees heaven, and mountain. Then his hand is in front of her, holding the lump of charcoal.

  ‘Here, Zhang xiaojie,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you? I’m sure you’re the more talented of us.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Yuliang replies, laughing. But she takes the lump, strokes it a moment. Then, with a few swift motions that are inexplicably satisfying, she blackens the page, watching the image appear like magic.

  As they continue on Pan Zanhua explains his work – what he’s been sent here to do, why it is so very important to him. ‘It’s a disgrace,’ he says. ‘A calamity. It’s the real reason this country is so weak compared to the modern nations of the West.’

  ‘That taxes are too high?’ Yuliang offers this with some confidence. It’s what Yi Gan cites for the nation’s problems in general.

  But he snorts. ‘That half the time they aren’t paid at all. And half of the half that are finally paid end up in the wrong people’s pockets.’ He picks up a small tin of tea from a nearby vendor. ‘A question: how much will he sell? Probably more than two dozen tins today, wouldn’t you say?’ He shakes the can, which rustles weakly. It doesn’t sound like it’s got much inside. ‘Multiply that by a thousand,’ he says. ‘A million. How many versions of this are there nationwide? Then multiply that by millions more. Think of all the goods that change hands every day.’

  Yuliang thinks of clients coming, groaning, leaving. Of tips tossed onto her nightstand. Like everyone else, she hides half of them. The other half gets whittled away by the dues owed the maids, the manservant, and Godmother herself. She thinks of Godmother’s neat account books and the occasional visits of the old customs inspector on feast days. His bills were always sent straight to Merchant Yi: the memory dawns with a new sense of understanding.

  Pan Zanhua puts the can back, picks up another. On its label, a willowy woman waves a fan. ‘Special slimming tea,’ the vendor offers. ‘Latest scientific formula.’

  The inspector smiles. I wonder what he’s like in bed, Yuliang thinks abruptly. The thought startles her; she’s never curious about men and their bedding habits. She simply accommodates them, takes their gifts, tries to forget them. With this one, though, it’s somehow different. He speaks politely, warmly. He looks at her not in annoyance or lust, but as though he honestly cares that she is listening. He is very, very careful not to touch her.

  ‘Our economy is enormous,’ he’s saying, waving his free hand. ‘Western and Japanese businesses flock here every day, hoping to sell just one thing – a cheap hat, a bar of soap – to each national. Because if they did, that makes for half a billion – half a billion – sales. And yet even with all that commerce, the government has to keep begging abroad for more cursed foreign loans.’

  ‘I’ll give you a good price,’ the vendor wheedles. ‘Even better for two – one for you, one for the pretty little lady.’ He grins suggestively. His prey simply ignores him.

  ‘We can’t begin to afford all the new schools we need to catch our people up with the world,’ the inspector says. ‘All our major railroads are owned by outsiders. The Japanese are turning our officials into puppets.’

  ‘Didn’t you live in Japan?’

  ‘I went to university there.’

  ‘That must have been exciting.’

  He shrugs. ‘It was different from what I expected.’

  ‘How was it different?’

  ‘I thought that with all the modern ways and teachings there, I’d feel more at home. But after four years I still felt like a foreigner there as well.’

  As well? Yuliang pauses, struck suddenly both by the words’ implication and the way they unexpectedly sum up her own feelings. She’s never thought of herself in such terms: as a foreigner. But it occurs to her that that’s precisely what she feels like at the Hall. With its preening, chattering flowers, the petty clients they compete over. With its secret dramas, its tiny tragedies and triumphs. Try as she might, Yuliang has never been able to understand, much less care about, any of it. It’s true, she thinks, strangely electrified. They may as well be speaking a foreign language.

  ‘Do you need to rest, Zhang xiaojie?’

  Seeing her stop, he has paused too. ‘What? Oh. No. It’s just…’ Yuliang hurries to catch up.

  If he’s aware of having said anything unusual, he doesn’t show it. ‘Look at that.’

  Following the gesture, she sees a skeletal man marched past by constables. ‘After half a century of trying, we still haven’t stamped out the poison smoke that’s rotting our core.’

  ‘But is that possible? To stamp it out?’

  ‘Anything is possible, with the right leaders and right spirit.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that.’

  ‘Did anyone believe the Japanese could defeat a Russian navy?’

  ‘The Japanese must have, surely.’

  He blinks, then laughs. ‘My point exactly.’

  The old vendor pipes up, sensing he’s losing a sale. ‘Would your eminence like a sample? I can give you a free can. If you like it, you can tell your other lady friends.’ He glances down the road to where the sedan chair sits in full view, official blue curtains stirring in the wind. Pan Zanhua follows his gaze, then looks back at Yuliang. For the first time today, she sees him waver. Now he’ll do it, she thinks, stiffening. He’ll realize how bad it looks to be with me. And that will be the end.

  But he simply shakes his head. ‘No, thank you,’ he says.

  They move on, passing fish stalls, their rainbow-scaled offerings dying and drying in piles, and pause before tumblers tossing and bending as though they had no bones at all. ‘When I was a child,’ he tells Yuliang, ‘I saw a pair of Mongolian twins doing this. One of them gave me the prettiest smile from between her toes.’ He laughs. ‘I’d just spent ten hours in a dark study, writing and rewriting classics. The girl looked like heaven. For weeks after that I dreamed of joining the troupe.’

  ‘Could you have?’

  He shakes his head. ‘My father was a scholar – a jinshi, under the old system. His father had been too. It would have dishonored him immeasurably.’ He looks at her sidelong. ‘What was it you said about fate last night? That you didn’t think you’d been given a choice?’

  It’s the first time he’s mentioned last night. Suddenly for some reason, Yuliang looks away, toward an old woman at a table that is covered with charts of hands and faces. ‘Do you think others can read it?’ she asks. ‘My uncle called them tricksters.’

  Pan Zanhua laughs. ‘There are women who can do anything, if you pay them enough.’

  She stops again, feeling herself flush. He looks back, at first surprised and then, registering the gaffe, visibly shaken. ‘Zhang xiaojie. You must – surely you know I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Yuliang’s eyes are glued to the ground.

  ‘Please. You mustn’t think –’

  ‘This is foolish,’ she interrupts harshly. ‘You must know it only hurts you to be seen with me like this.’ She drags her gaze back to his. ‘Why did you bring me?’

  To her surprise he looks pensive, as though he’s actually pondering her question. ‘I suppose that also comes back to what you said to me last night,’ he says at last.

  ‘About fate?’

  ‘About rooting ourselves in the present.’

  It’s such an absurd answer that she almost laughs. But then he steps toward her, his face still somber.
For the first time since they’ve met, he touches her intentionally, placing his hand gently on her forearm. Yuliang flinches. But she doesn’t pull away.

  ‘It’s always been my belief,’ he says softly, ‘that if heaven does hand us our fate, it also hands us the tools to shape it.’

  ‘“Man is his own star,”’ she murmurs slowly. ‘“And the soul that can render an honest and a perfect man commands all light, all influence, all fate.”’ The thought of her uncle brings a quick lurch to her stomach.

  Pan Zanhua stares at her a moment – again that look, as though trying to grasp something just beyond his reach. Then, shaking his head, he turns to the blacksmith’s table they’ve stopped next to. ‘I was wondering where these came from. I’ve received half a dozen as gifts.’ He picks up one of the wares on it: a small picture of a lotus, forged entirely from black metal.

  This, at least, is something she can speak to. ‘It’s a tradition here. They say it began with an argument between a blacksmith and a painter. The painter told the blacksmith that his work wasn’t art, that a hammer could never do what a brush does. The blacksmith said he was wrong. He went right to his anvil and created Wuhu’s first iron picture.’

  He picks up one of the palm-sized images: a bulky orchid. It seems to suck in the sunlight. ‘That painter may have been right.’

  Yuliang feels a flash of empathy for the artisan, a big-handed young man with resigned eyes. ‘I don’t think they’re all bad,’ she says. ‘It takes some talent to bend hard metal into something beautiful.’

  ‘At the very least, a strong supply of determination.’ He holds it up. ‘May I buy this for you?’

  Yuliang gazes at the souvenir, recalling suddenly the very first iron picture she ever saw. She sees her uncle staring at it intently while behind his back, a strange woman stares at his niece…

  ‘Is something wrong?’ the inspector is asking.

  Yuliang looks at him. For one inexplicable instant she almost wants to strike him. But she just shakes her head. ‘No… no. It’s just…’ Looking away, she spots another vendor. He is handing a roasted yam to a young monk. The latter’s robe, she can’t help noticing – for she always notices these things – is almost the exact same shade as his free meal.