The Painter of Shanghai

by Jennifer Cody Epstein

  ‘Paris. We occupied the legation. You didn’t hear?’

  Yuliang shakes her head – she still doesn’t read the papers regularly. ‘I would have thought you learned your lesson.’

  He snorts. ‘What we learned in Lyon is that we need to fight harder. And that we can’t trust old dogs who hold hands with imperialists.’ Reaching over, he points at a small black dot in a ground-floor window. ‘That’s me,’ he adds proudly. ‘We took over the whole of the first and second floors.’

  Yuliang squints. ‘But if you were inside, who is that marching outside?’

  ‘The PJC.’

  ‘Le Parti des… what? Jeunes Communistes?’

  Xudun snorts. ‘They’re as Communist as the old Dragon Lady was.’

  She tries again: ‘Jeunes… Chinois?’ She says it hesitantly: the blizzard of factional acronyms into which China’s two thousand students here divide and subdivide themselves continues to daunt her.

  But Xudun nods. ‘Although jeunes fascistes is more like it. They’ve attacked us more than once, even shooting into one of our meetings. We’ve all bought guns since. For protection.’

  ‘You have a gun?’ she asks in disbelief.

  Xudun waves dismissively; as though pocketing arms were no more alarming than putting on a tie. ‘They weren’t even protesting the May 30 massacre. One of their idiot chemists blew himself up in Billancourt.’ He runs the back of his hand across his wet lips, a rough gesture that Yuliang can’t help thinking Zanhua would never make. And yet, oddly, it makes her warm to him even more. ‘They wanted the legation to pay to send the body back to China. And for once in his life, that motherless bastard Chen did the right thing and refused them.’

  ‘Not that you’ve forgiven him.’

  ‘Not in this life. Or the next.’ He stretches. ‘The massacre made the major papers here, I assume?’

  Silently, Yuliang vows to start following the news more carefully. ‘The one I read blamed radical student elements,’ she says cautiously.

  ‘That’s dogshit,’ Xudun says angrily. ‘It started with the Japanese. They locked their Chinese workers out of one of their factories. When the workers tried to break in, the guards shot them point-blank. One fellow was killed.’

  ‘A friend of yours?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  Chastised, she drops her gaze to her hands.

  ‘Some of my friends are still in jail, though,’ he goes on. ‘The ones who protested his murder. So there was nothing “radical” about the May 30 march. It was simply to protest the hypocrisy of it all: our leaders letting the Brits and radish-heads not only exploit our workers but shoot them. With no consequences.’

  ‘It was a peaceful demonstration.’

  He nods. ‘In the beginning. You’ve marched, haven’t you?’

  ‘Not much,’ Yuliang admits. Actually, she has never marched at all. Somehow, her own crises have always seemed more pressing than her nation’s.

  To her relief, though, Xudun lets this pass. ‘The march,’ he continues, ‘went past police headquarters in the British Concession. The constables there shot them.’

  ‘I read that it was warning shots.’

  ‘Eleven people died. If that was from warning shots, I’m the son of a slave girl.’ Draining his beer, Xudun sets down his glass. ‘Guifei was wounded too.’

  Yuliang looks up, shocked. ‘She was?’

  ‘Along with twenty others,’ Xudun nods, grimly. ‘I’d have written you if I’d known where to send the letter. The bullet shattered her shoulder. Last I heard, she wasn’t allowed out of bed.’

  Yuliang stares at the marble tabletop. For an instant, all she can think of is the famed Han-era beauty after whom her friend was named. The thought brings a chill, for in the end Yang Guifei, not her infatuated imperial husband, paid for her nation’s defeat and was beheaded.

  I’m so selfish, she thinks miserably. On another day, perhaps, this thought would sink Yuliang into one of the dark, dense moods that sometimes closes over her here like an icy pool. But when Xudun’s foot brushes hers briefly beneath the table, it startles her from her gloom. Blushing, she tucks her legs primly beneath her seat.

  ‘My husband,’ she says, twisting her wedding band, ‘writes that even more conservative Republicans will ally with the CCP now. For the nation’s sake.’

  ‘If anything, it’s a marriage of convenience.’ Now he looks straight into her eyes. ‘And one I doubt will last.’

  This time it is impossible to misinterpret his meaning, and Yuliang’s heart all but stops. I should leave, she thinks. But she does not.

  ‘How about another coffee?’

  ‘Too much makes me jumpy,’ she snaps. ‘It interferes with my brushstrokes.’ Tensely, she transfers the the last of the milk to her cup.

  ‘At least tell me about your work these days.’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘It’s changed a bit.’

  ‘May I come and see it sometime? Or, better yet, watch you paint? I’ve always wanted to.’

  The image that comes to Yuliang (herself, naked, painting herself naked; him, fully clothed, watching her) feels like such a transgression that her heart seems to pound in her ears. And yet part of what disturbs her is its illicit appeal. The thick streak of excitement that, like crimson swirled into black, only makes the black seem blacker.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asks, intensely aware of his gaze.

  When he glances at his watch it’s an almost physical relief. ‘Nearly twelve.’

  ‘I – I really should leave now. I have work.’

  ‘I thought you work here.’

  ‘I’m not getting much done, though, am I?’

  This, too, emerges more tartly than she’d planned. Flustered, Yuliang stands. She doesn’t realize she is holding her breath until he stands as well, rising to his full and shocking height. ‘I’ll walk out with you. I have an appointment.’

  ‘I thought you were meeting your friends.’

  ‘I’ll come back. They’re here every day. As you must have noticed.’ Seeing her fumble with her bag for her change purse, Xundun reaches out and catches her hand. The warmth of his fingers travel, directly to her stomach. ‘I’ll get this.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘I consider it an investment.’

  ‘In what? Slow waiters?’ She pulls away trying uncomfortably to smile.

  ‘In one of China’s greatest new artists.’ He says it without a hint of irony. ‘Actually, is your deadline so pressing that you can’t spare an hour or so?’

  ‘No,’ Yuliang says, though this couldn’t be less true. What am I doing?

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘At midnight?’

  But by this point even she recognizes the words as purely symbolic. And when he offers her his arm, the gesture doesn’t seem alien or forward so much as simply inevitable.

  As does her response: linking her own arm right through it.

  33

  They stroll by the river, arms still linked, the warm wind smelling of summer. As they walk, Yuliang ponders this unexpected meeting, this odd moment. This intimate silence between them, so easy to maintain and yet more complicit, somehow, with each languid step. He’s just Xudun, she tells herself. There’s no reason to worry. And yet what she is feeling isn’t worry – not quite. It’s a low-lying, tingling tension somewhere just below her belly. And if she’s truthful, it’s not entirely unpleasant.

  They walk on southward, in silence. Eventually Yuliang realizes he is steering her toward the Petit Pont and the cathedral, though of course the massive church must be closed.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asks. But Xudun just puts a broad finger to his lips.

  He leads her through Notre Dame’s courtyard, across the square. They pass the enormous rose windows that Yuliang has sketched and painted several times, and are just reaching the tower’s entrance when a diminutive figure peels itself free from the shadows. It solidifies, step by step, into a short Frenchman in thick glasses.r />
  ‘Monsieur Xing?’

  ‘Monsieur Barton,’ Xudun replies in French. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. I hope you don’t mind – I brought a friend, Mademoiselle Pan.’

  Madame, thinks Yuliang. But what she says is, ‘Enchantée.’

  ‘Monsieur Barton controls admissions here,’ Xudun explains, still in French. ‘We met at a workers’ rally two weeks ago.’

  ‘What a coincidence.’ She smiles. And in Chinese: ‘Why are we here?’

  ‘We’re going up.’

  ‘Can we do that?’ Yuliang glances at Barton, for the first time noticing the impressive ring of brass keys slung at his hip.

  Barton intuits her meaning, or else is unexpectedly conversant in Chinese (and knowing Xudun’s friends, she would be surprised by neither). ‘Well,’ he says, ‘in truth it’s against the law. But the sight at night is magnificent. This trip is a gift I give to only a few good friends.’ He beams. ‘Like your young man here.’

  ‘He’s not –’ Yuliang starts.

  ‘Alors,’ the Frenchman continues. ‘We shouldn’t stand here much longer. If we’re seen, my job –’ He draws a line across his neck with his thumb and makes a sound like a gagging cat. ‘Also, from this point on, no cigarettes. No fires, no light. Not a match. Not a spark.’ He winks. ‘Follow me.’

  He unlocks the great doors, cracks them open. When he steps in, the damp darkness of the church seems to swallow him whole.

  Yuliang looks at Xudun uneasily. ‘Should we really be breaking laws?’

  ‘Some laws are meant to be broken,’ he whispers, and takes her hand.

  Crouched like thieves, the three of them creep through the sanctuary, passing hulking shadows of pews and pulpit, the looming Mary, a wall of angels. The enormous stained glass rose, so vivid by day, now appears closed against the night. Stripped of color by the darkness, it makes its splendor known only by its subdued, jewel-like glints. But when they reach the Western Tower even that meager light is snuffed out as Barton quietly shuts the doors behind them.

  ‘Allons-y,’ he says. ‘Be careful where you step.’

  They begin the climb in near-total darkness and Yuliang combats a surge of panic by silently reciting Li Qingzhao’s ‘Like a Dream’: I always recall the sunset/over the pavilion by the river/so tipsy, we could not find our way home… Each step is echoed by Xudun’s, right behind her.

  ‘Doing all right?’ He whispers it, though the closest set of hostile ears couldn’t be any nearer than sixty meters below them.

  Too winded to answer, Yuliang simply nods. She wordlessly chants her way to the top, where they break through the arches and onto the first level.

  A blast of warm and rain-scented air greets them. Stepping toward the platform’s edge Yuliang surveys the Île de la Cité, her eyes tearing in the wind. Leaning over the balustrade, she takes in the glimmering city below: the misty play of the shadows and the light. The looming façades of the great buildings – the Hôtel-Dieu, the Tour St.-Jacques – look as if they’re sculpted from black paper. Testing her own terror, she leans out a little over the railing until her feet lift slightly from the ground. If she squints, the harsh lines and angles blur, and she can almost – almost – imagine she is looking not at the Seine, but at the Yangtze.

  How did he die? she mouths into the starry darkness.

  The answer comes so clearly she almost can see him: her uncle, standing merrily at the prow of The Crying Loon. He died the same way you very well might, he says, if you’re not careful. Where is he now, she wonders, her ageless trickster of an uncle? Rotting in prison? Sprung free by one of his opium allies? And what on earth would he think if he could see her here now?

  Yuliang pushes herself a tiny bit more forward. A little further, really, is all that it would take. She can picture so naturally what would come next: the stomach-tumbling chaos, the soft gray sky at her feet. The moon a sideways smile, encouraging her down. Any farther and you’ll fall right over…

  ‘Attention!’ Barton exclaims.

  ‘She’s just taking in the view,’ she hears Xudun say. But he leans down to her. ‘A bit too far, don’t you think?’

  Tilting her head, Yuliang meets his gaze. Like the man himself it is strong and solid, without a wisp of pretense.

  ‘Come here,’ he says quietly, and reaches for her. She studies his big hand a moment – the same hand she first saw on New Youth. The fingers are improbably thick, the knuckles raw. With an odd sense of portent she finally accepts it, and he pulls her from the edge to the center of the viewing platform. As they stare at each other, there’s a sudden giddy sense that he has seen something no one else ever has. Or perhaps, more astonishingly, that she has let him.

  Xudun smiles again, as though to seal in their secret. ‘On peut?’ He indicates the next staircase.

  The Frenchman puffs out his cheeks. ‘Moi, non… I climb to this spot and back three times every day as it is. You go, though.’ He winks again. ‘Take your time.’

  ‘He thinks we’re sweethearts,’ Yuliang whispers, mortified, as Xudun steers her toward the next landing.

  ‘Mais oui,’ he replies smoothly. ‘He is French.’

  ‘But…’ For an absurd instant she is convinced that she has to set the record straight, with this odd little man she’s just met. Step by step, however, the impulse dwindles, until once more there is just the sound of their climb together: leather soles, stepping lightly and in rhythm.

  Now that Barton is no longer with them, they climb side by side. Xudun’s closeness is initially distracting. Counting her steps, Yuliang holds on tight to the small boar in her pocket, although she has no idea what she is wishing for.

  ‘Voilà,’ Xudun says at last. ‘La Galerie des Chimeres.’

  The Seine curves below, limned in reflected light. Yuliang, awed, lets out her breath. ‘Oh, I wish I’d brought my sketch pad!’ She traces the arching line of the river with the tip of her index finger.

  ‘Sketch it up there.’ He taps his head.

  ‘I can’t paint life from memory. Or from a postcard, like Utrillo.’

  ‘I agree with that. Pictures from pictures… I far prefer his mother’s work.’

  ‘Valadon,’ Yuliang murmurs. Another small thrill, at how easily they understand each other.

  ‘Are you too cold?’ He is reaching into his jacket pocket – for a lighter, she assumes.

  ‘No flames,’ she reminds him. ‘Or guns.’

  ‘This’ll only put fire in your belly.’ He pulls out a little silver flask. ‘Smirnoff.’

  He looks so proud of himself she can’t help but laugh again. ‘Didn’t they ban liquor in Russia?’

  ‘I bought it here. They’ve just opened a factory.’ He twists off the cap. ‘I had to line up behind a dozen Americans to get this. They can’t drink there now either, you know.’

  Yuliang nods. Actually, she knows little about Americans. But she certainly remembers the Russians who’d poured into Shanghai after the czar was overthrown. Many ended up indigent, playing cards on the street outside the China Inland Mission, waiting for handouts of rice and drinking water. Passing was like passing through a liquored cloudbank. ‘Imagine Russians not drinking,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t think they can imagine it. It’s the one area where their revolution might not succeed.’ He takes a swig, grimaces appreciatively, and hands over the flask. When Yuliang hesitates – she’s never had vodka before – he says, ‘Go on – it’s very pure. It won’t slow you down tomorrow, even if we drink a lot.’

  ‘Are we drinking a lot?’ she asks warily.

  ‘Not if you don’t care to.’

  For some reason, it sounds like a challenge. ‘I do care to,’ she says defiantly. And drinks.

  The liquid simmers in her nose and eyes, swells her throat. The second swig goes down more smoothly, although she still feels her gut convulse as she hands it back. She coughs lightly. ‘Are you certain this isn’t paint thinner?’

  He laughs. ‘Positive. I haven’t picked
up a paintbrush in nearly a year.’

  She eyes him curiously. It’s like hearing him admit that he hasn’t eaten bread, hasn’t sipped water. ‘You’re only drawing, then?’

  ‘The occasional cartoon. And woodcutting.’ He stretches his long arms up above him, rolls his neck.

  ‘You like woodcutting?’

  He nods. ‘There are those who claim it’s not real art at all. But of all I’ve done, I find it the most satisfying. It’s a challenge, combining sculpting with drawing. Deciding where shadows fall with an awl.’

  ‘How did you start?’ she asks.

  ‘Woodcutting?’

  ‘No. Painting. Art.’ It strikes her suddenly as odd that she doesn’t know this.

  ‘I fell into it,’ he says. ‘My father was a farmer. He sent me to a tutor so I could read for him and do the accounts.’ He laughs. ‘I did learn to read. But I spent most of my time copying the images and engravings I found in his almanacs. And you?’

  ‘My mother embroidered for a living. Before she died.’

  It is all she offers. He doesn’t press her. When he hands the flask back, Yuliang takes it, her fingertips sensing warmth left on the metal by his larger fingers. Her head swims from the unaccustomed strength of the drink. But it also eases that anxious tingling in her gut. Yuliang drinks again and holds out the flask to him, barely conscious that she is shifting not just her hand but her whole body toward him.

  Above, the stars are coming out again in full force now, sapped by the city’s lights, but still plentiful. ‘Xu Beihong – you know him?’ She is slurring slightly now, she realizes. ‘He hates Van Gogh, calls him a fool. He says Starry Night could have been painted by a child in primary school. I think he’s a genius.’

  ‘Xu Beihong?’

  Yuliang giggles; then is faintly shocked by the sound. ‘In his own mind, certainly. But I meant Vincent.’

  ‘Maybe all artists are both fools and geniuses.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m a fool?’ she asks, with unaccustomed playfulness. (I am getting drunk, she thinks hazily.)