The Valley of Amazement

by Amy Tan

  Then, all at once, his stem thrust hard into me, farther this time, through my center, gutting me inside out. Against everything Magic Gourd had warned me not to do, I screamed and tried to push him off. He pinned my arms down and stared at my mouth. “Now you can keep your mouth open. The other mouth is open, too.”

  Nothing had prepared me for this. Magic Gourd’s instructions, her warnings, his nostalgia, my urges, the actor’s lessons, our yearning, unfulfilled and filled—all vanished as I pleaded for him to stop.

  But why should he stop? This was not romance or yearning. He had paid for my pain. This was business.

  YEARNING RETURNED, UNFULFILLED.

  All that I wished became an illusion the moment he deflowered me and I saw victory in his face. He had instantly satisfied his own dream as a seventeen-year-old boy—to have any of the flowers he desired at Hidden Jade Path. I thought our romance was love, but it was the commerce of romance that had brought us together and would also lie between us for the duration of his contract as my patron.

  As I lay clutched with pain, he murmured, “You were expensive, Violet, nearly twice what I gave to another popular courtesan.” He must have expected I would be pleased to hear this kind of flattery. Instead, I felt I had instantly become a whore. He had wooed me, as any suitor would his favorite courtesan. He wanted the chase and capture, the self-denial and mock agony in between. My agony was real.

  Magic Gourd brought me a soup with special herbs that she said would ease my suffering and allow me to sleep. Only then did Loyalty ask in surprise if I was in pain. He had not considered that his ecstasy might not be mine. He helped me up and carried me to the divan. Each of his steps jostled my wounded body. Magic Gourd removed the bloody sheets and quilt. Loyalty studied it with solemn interest. “I did not realize there would be so much blood.”

  The next morning, when I awoke, I thought I was swaying in a boat. Magic Gourd was nearby. “I gave you too much soup.” The scorching pain had been replaced with a dull ache. Loyalty had left for a business meeting, and she arranged for dinner to be brought to my room when he returned in the evening. Persian pajamas and a robe lay on the bed.

  “Rest,” she said. “I’m sorry you suffered so much. Some girls have brief pain and then it is over. Others are like you and me. You had your gate locked with two bolts. The harder it is to break in, the more pain. You will feel better by tomorrow.”

  I did not believe her. “Will I have to endure this again tonight?”

  “I will speak to him. You have a year together. I will suggest he explore your mouth instead. He may be kind and simply let you rest.”

  That evening, he was kind. He asked many questions about the pain. Was it stabbing or searing or pounding … He almost seemed proud that he had injured me. He lay on the bed, facing me. There was no longer any need to be flirtatious or mysterious. That had been our intimacy, and I did not yet know what would replace it. I was no longer the virgin and I did not know whom I should mimic. His face looked larger and his features had changed slightly, as if he were the brother of the man who had once ached for me.

  “Was it my free spirit that made you think I was more valuable than the other courtesan?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Your spirit always invigorates me—suddenly.”

  His penis was standing straight up like a soldier. “What part of my spirit did you like best?” I said tersely. “Was it my business advice? If you made money because of my advice, would you have paid more?”

  He was quiet, then turned my face toward him. “Violet, I misjudged you. You weren’t ready for this life, and now you find it demeaning to be here. But don’t demean me as if I were an inconsiderate customer.”

  “You paid for my bud, not for my spirit.”

  “My words have always been true. You are my living dream. I met you when I was the awkward boy who became a successful man and is beside you now. You took me to my past and back again, and when I am with you, I feel you know me—or did, until I became your patron and made you regret this change.”

  “Please take me away from here.”

  “How can I do that? Where would you go?”

  “Your house.”

  “Now you’re asking the impossible.”

  He was saying I did not belong in his society. He would never take me as his wife, and since he had no wife, he could not take me even as a concubine. I would have refused to be one, in any case.

  “We have a year together, Violet. We’ve pledged fidelity. Here we are lovers, together in a world like Peach Blossom Spring. We can freely enjoy romance and pleasures. You have freedom from worry for a year. Let’s be happy.”

  “Freedom from worry is happiness? What happens at the end of the year?”

  “When a contract is over,” he said carefully, “my affection for you will remain. The expectations will be different. But I will still visit you, if you let me.”

  “Will you have affection for another and visit her as well?”

  “This talk has become absurd! You lived in a courtesan house nearly all your life. You saw the nature of that world. Yet now you cannot understand how it possibly pertains to you. Yankee privilege. I will not give that back to you. And I don’t want to speak about this again.”

  “I cannot speak? Have you bought my mind and words as well?”

  He dressed, and when he stood in the doorway, he said with surprising gentleness: “You are overwrought and my presence makes it worse. So I’ll leave you to reflect on what I’ve said over the months since we first met. Ask yourself whether I have ever been dishonest. Did I delude you? Why am I here? I won your heart because you won mine.”

  I was afraid he was leaving for good and that he would ask Madam to cancel the contract.

  But then he said, “By tomorrow, you’ll be better rested and your mind will be clearer. I have a little gift for you, but I prefer to wait until tomorrow.”

  The following night, I pretended to be calm. I apologized. I said it was true that I found it hard to accept my new station in life. He gave me a bracelet of twisted gold braid. There was only a little pain when he entered me this time, and he murmured endearments, which eased my heart and mind: “You are my timeless dream;” “Our spirits are together;” he thanked me tenderly for bearing the pain and his ignorance that I had suffered. He said that I would always be his timeless dream.

  Over the next year, we had many arguments. When he paid his generous stipend each month, instead of being grateful, I was reminded that I had been purchased. He did not visit every day. Sometimes I did not see him for a week. “Business in Soochow,” he said. Soochow—the city of the most desired courtesans, who had soft voices. Shanghai courtesans lied and said they were from Soochow. And he went there for business! I wanted him to take me along. Madam Li had allowed me to go on carriage rides with him into the countryside, believing I had no desire to run away from the house. But I did want to run away—to his house, if only he would take me. I held out hope that he would change his mind. I was faithful, of course, but I did not believe he was. At parties, I saw him give his seductive gaze to many women—to even the attendants. He protested to me that he had no such “mesmerizing eyes,” as I had accused him of having. “I have two eyes like everyone else.”

  The thought of his future delight with other women tormented me. Another woman would feel this same pleasure with him. She would have his seductive gaze, intimate words, his mouth, tongue, and cock, his understanding of her, his love. She would convince him he could not live without her, a woman who was purely Chinese and did not bear the stigma in elite society of careless breeding. With each wave of joy came another one of fear. Perhaps his love was only temporary as well, a season’s worth.

  “This is the jealousy I warned you against,” Magic Gourd said. “It is an illness. It will destroy everything. You’ll see soon, if you cannot stop it.” She repeated her warnings every day, and they stayed in my head like the noise of mosquitoes in my ears.

  The noise in my head
disappeared in the summer. As if it were a sign of our future together, Carlotta rubbed against him and allowed him to pick her up. We had a season of calm, a lull in worries. He visited me at night nearly daily. At the parties, he gave his gaze to me alone. We laughed and did not argue. I made an effort to show him the endless joy we would have during a lifetime of Peach Blossom Spring. He was more attentive to me and I was inattentive to what I imagined were his faults.

  On hot afternoons, we lay naked atop the sheets and took turns fanning each other. We poured cool water over our necks as we lay together in the tub. On some evenings, I teased and seduced him, and on other nights, he seduced me and I succumbed. We talked about the past, about our childhoods. We often retold how we met in Hidden Jade Path. The next day, we would lavish the story with more details. He imagined the delights he would have enjoyed if Carlotta had not wounded him. Whatever he imagined, I fulfilled. I, in turn, told him about my loneliness, my abandonment by both my mother and father. Just in telling it, my loneliness vanished. He laughed as I recounted the naughty things I had done to the courtesans when I was growing up. He asked about the American details of my life—what was the famous Lulu Mimi like? “She was driven by success,” I said. “Like you.”

  He lit incense coils to keep the mosquitoes away, and I took those small gestures as love. He often said the words I wanted to hear: “I am consumed by you.” “I ache for you.” “I adore you.” “I love you.” “You are the greatest treasure of my life.” I had never before felt the wideness of love.

  And then the fears began when I saw him speak to his former favorite courtesan at a party. She flirted, and he seemed delighted. We argued that night, and I continued to press him on his feelings for me compared with others, questions he refused to answer because, he said, it was like feeding stones into a deep well. He knew how angry I could become, and that was also knowledge of me he would take when he left, along with the secrets I had confessed about my childhood and loneliness and pranks. He possessed an understanding of my needs, and yet he would no doubt roll and twist his body in bed with another woman after I had become a former favorite in his lifetime of conquests and stipends.

  “It pains me, Violet,” he said, “that I am the source of your greatest unhappiness when I had once been the opposite.”

  Two months before the end of the contract, when we were having the usual late-night tea, snacks, and arguments, he said he did not want to be drawn into any more of my endless misery. “I was enchanted with your free spirit, and jealousy has killed that in you. You live in a prison of fear and suspicion. The truth is, I’ve indulged you in ways no patron ever would have. You say my words were never genuine. A patron is not required to be genuine and yet I have been. I know you will never stop with this harangue unless I ask you to marry me, and that I will never do. Even if society let me, I would not consign myself to a wife who berates me, imagining that I have withheld part of me that does not exist. Since we are both unhappy, I think it’s best that I not visit you anymore. You should use these two months to prepare yourself to be a real courtesan. You will learn the difference, and in time, I hope you look back and appreciate my feelings for you.” He gathered his coat and hat. “Accept love when it’s offered, Violet. Return love and not suspicion. Then you’ll receive more.”

  He continued to pay the monthly stipend. I waited for his anger to subside, as it always had, and for him to return to me. I waited for two months. He was considerate enough to wait until the contract had officially ended before he pursued a popular courtesan. When I heard this news, I refused to be brokenhearted. Every day I refused.

  THREE MONTHS AFTER the end of the contract, I was invited to attend a party hosted by Loyalty’s friend Eminent Tang. He said he had been interested in me when he saw me at Loyalty’s party, but he could not say anything once he saw Loyalty was besotted.

  Magic Gourd was quick to tell me Eminent Tang was a good prospect. She reminded me that he was the one who had made a fortune in the construction of new buildings along the Bund. He was bound to grow even richer as Shanghai grew. As she had hoped, Eminent became my most ardent suitor. He was also my first customer and not someone I loved or yearned for. When I imagined him touching me, I felt neither dread nor excitement. “Are you losing your eyesight?” Magic Gourd said. “That man is pleasing enough to look at all day without blinking. After you’ve been on your knees as long as I have, you’ll kowtow to the gods to finally have a client who won’t cause you to pretend he is someone else.”

  He was thirty-two, and every time I saw him, I noticed he wore shoes of another kind of leather—lamb, calf, young snake, baby alligator, baby ostrich … How many times would I see him before he ran out of a variety of baby animal skins? His shoes made me think he was eccentric. I hoped he was not a member of the Green Gang. If he was, I would not be able to bear touching him. I had accepted my life in the world of flowers, but I would never accept what the gangsters had done to bring me here.

  “If you refused every man who has dealings with the Green Gang,” Magic Gourd said, “you would be without half of your customers. They are part of government and business. Even some of the police in top positions are members. They are not all terrible people. In any large society, you have good people and bad.” She pointed out Eminent Tang’s good qualities: He was the favorite customer of many courtesan houses in Shanghai and had had his share of great beauties. If I secured his patronage it would increase my status. This, to my mind, did not sound like a recommendation of fine qualities.

  “He’s dull,” I said.

  “Oyo! He is not there to entertain you. Just make sure you are not dull. You are the one who has to provide excitement, and in the ways they want but don’t yet know it. This is not like being with Loyalty Fang. He was different. You were lovers. That does not often happen.”

  She allowed Eminent to visit me in my room for tea. The boudoir was behind a twelve-panel screen, and Magic Gourd had positioned the screen so that part of the bed could be seen. It was glowing by lamplight. She found an excuse to leave, letting us know she would return in ten minutes. This would discourage him from starting his patronage without a contract. Eminent rushed to tell me how much I occupied his mind. He never forgot the business advice I had provided at Loyalty’s party last year. In fact, he said, whenever he recalled it, his admiration for me rose. They were the same words Loyalty had used to joke that he had an erection. Eminent Tang, however, said them with such seriousness, I knew he meant it was admiration alone and that I should not laugh.

  He requested me at parties hosted by his friends at other houses. He had a businesslike demeanor with everyone, except me. When his eyes found mine, he grinned and became boyish. Magic Gourd had pointed out to me that every suitor who was infatuated with a courtesan transformed into his youthful self-being at that stage of his life when his sexual urgings were new. When suitors became boyish they were reckless and vulnerable to being generous.

  Eminent Tang had given me extravagant gifts over the past month, including a ring with rare imperial green jade and diamonds. I allowed him to visit my boudoir twice more—tea and snacks only. He professed that he was besotted to near insanity and wanted nothing more than to please me—and I understood his meaning: He wanted to please me in my bed. Tedious politeness. Magic Gourd advised that I invite him to spend the night when we met at the next party he hosted. “Do so with the same subtlety he uses with you. While admiring the banquet food, say you would enjoy learning about his mother’s Shanghai cooking, what his favorite dishes are. This subject is always very special to a man. They all have a warm feeling with this sort of talk. When he asks when he can see you, simply say, ‘Tonight, if you are not too tired of talking.’” As Magic Gourd had predicted, his mother’s cooking put him in an erotic mood. The party ended early that night.

  Magic Gourd had already prepared my room by placing gifts from other men in places where he would see them. Mosquito coils were lit, so that we could be naked without slapping and s
cratching. “We will allow him intimate favors this first night and then he will need to wait another three. Then he can have a second. If necessary, we may need to let him have a third. But if you do, don’t provide him with everything he wants. Put him off without being obvious. Promise to provide more the next time, but then let him know that you will also be seeing another suitor the next night. In all likelihood, he will offer to be your patron so that no one else can have your attentions.”

  “Perhaps he will lose his admiration for me after one night and not care if I withhold anything after that,” I said. I was certain I could not feign the same intimate feeling or excitement I had with Loyalty. He would be merely a customer.

  In the early evening, just an hour before the party, Magic Gourd told me that Loyalty would attend as well. “He is, after all, a friend of Eminent Tang’s.”

  ”He must know I’ll be there. Everyone knows Eminent Tang is wooing me.” She said quietly that he was bringing his favorite courtesan. “What do I care which giggling girl he brings?” I was angry that Magic Gourd told me this and then tried to console me. He was a past client. That was all. I was inexperienced at the time and allowed myself to expect too much.

  “Madam Li was wrong to let you take a contract with Loyalty for a year. You had the glimmer-eyed look of a girl who thinks she will marry. Loyalty led you to think this by being too good to you. Of course, you confused that with love. If Eminent Tang becomes your patron, act like a true courtesan and make him feel carefree and so happy that he reports nothing but praise to those who gossip.”

  Eminent Tang greeted me with his besotted, boyish face. He invited me to sit next to him rather than have me stand. He encouraged me to eat special dishes he had ordered. I was about to invite him to spend the night when I saw Loyalty enter with his favorite. He came toward me. But it was only to politely greet Eminent Tang, the host. He then greeted me warmly yet with the distance of politeness. He complimented my jacket, one of the three I had made with the money he gave me to replace the one ruined by his brother. I regretted wearing it, but I thanked him for the compliment.