The Courtesan (8 page)

Art of the Bedchamber

THE ELEVENTH YEAR OF
THE GUANGXU REIGN

1886

Hall of Round Moon and
Passionate Love

Suzhou

WHAT IS UNENDURABLE

Jinhua

Jade gate, cinnabar hole; children's palace and red pearl. These are words Jinhua has learned. They are all names for a girl's
yinbu.
A man has a jade spear, a golden hammer; a yang sword tip, a turtle head. Jinhua has also learned the Nine Postures with animal names like Roe Deer Butting and Monkey Squat; Toad in the Moon and Fishes Gobbling. And then there are the Ten Enhancements; the Eight Methods; the Five Sounds: breathing, panting, moaning, exhaling, and biting.

All this she is learning because Jinhua, like everyone else, is afraid of Lao Mama's whip and her tongue, and because Lao Mama says that one day soon Jinhua will have to do these things and know the names for them. Suyin says so too. Suyin says that Jinhua is eating brothel rice and that when Lao Mama says something will be so, it must be so, and this is true because of the whip and because of Lao Mama's cruel tongue. Because she has paid money. “You do not own yourself, Jinhua,” Suyin says over and over, and
although she never mentions it, Jinhua knows that Suyin doesn't own herself either.

Jinhua is almost twelve years old, but not quite, and she has learned all of these things very quickly; she can recite the Ten Enhancements and the Eight Methods and the Five Sounds forward and backward, and her feet are small, and she can play the lute and sing a great many songs, but not very well. Lao Mama says that it is good enough and at this rate she will be in her coffin before Jinhua sings any better. She says that all men want a virgin who is twelve years old, so that is more important than anything.

Yesterday, Lao Mama made Jinhua sing for a man. Put your lips next to his ear, she said, and whisper the song right there so that only he can hear it. Jinhua closed her eyes while she was singing because there was a speck of food on the man's mouth, and a clump of whiskers growing from his ear, and there was grease on his cheek; and these things made her feel sick in her stomach. The man smelled bad and didn't seem to mind that her eyes were closed. He said that Jinhua has
meili
—the charm of a demon. He said, “When this one is ripe for eating I will be back for a big bite. I will not forget her, ever.” He said this ten times or maybe more, and Lao Mama looked happy each and every time he said these words,
I will be back for a big bite
.

After singing for this man, Jinhua told Suyin about feeling sick and the man's hairy ear, and Suyin gave her special tea with honey. And then she took Jinhua onto her lap and told her one of the secret stories that they have invented together about two girls who escape from a cruel fox woman who looks—
just—like—Lao Mama.
In the stories the girls have very strong feet, and the name of one of them is Younger Sister, and the name of the other is Elder Sister. They can both run fast in their shoes, and their feet are neither bound nor crippled, and they are clever about finding places to
hide. They can swim all the way across the river and climb trees and mountains and leap through the sky by doing somersaults.

When the story was finished, and when they had laughed and made themselves feel happy, Suyin sighed and said, “You will have to do these things for men even if it makes you sick. There are no cheap choices for girls like you in a place like this, Jinhua.”

Jinhua is afraid of being twelve years old, now that it is happening so soon. She has seen what the other girls do, night after night. Hongyu, Qingyue; Chunfeng, Sibao, and Cuilian. All five of them, but not Suyin because she is ugly and can only be a maid. Jinhua will be the number six girl when she is twelve years old, like it or not. Suyin says that time is passing, and the passing of time must be endured. She says that there is no arguing about this. She says, “No use fooling ourselves with what is not real, Jinhua.”

But still, she likes the stories, Suyin does, and Jinhua likes them too.

Everyone puts their fingers in their ears when they hear it. It is like the sound of wet laundry being beaten against the pavement. Or the sound a piece of meat makes when Cook slaps it onto his chopping block and stands there with his butcher's knife held over it. It is a wet and heavy sound. Today it is the sound of Lao Mama's hand on Suyin's cheek and then the other cheek and the top of her head and her arm and her back. She is smacking, hitting, punching, Suyin.

Lao Mama is very strong, and you can't wear clothes for quite a few days when she has given you a large beating. Worst of all is when she whips you on the soles of your feet, and you can't walk or run away—or when she says she will throw you into the street where the dogs will bite you to death.

A bad thing has happened, and Lao Mama has been wearing her face that looks like Gong Gong, the sea demon who has twenty-one toes and sharp eyebrows and is always angry. The bad thing is that the two houseboys are gone, and they have taken their bedding and their rice bowls that were chipped and an old lantern that was almost broken. Lao Mama sent Old Man to find them and bring them back—and all of the things they took. “Every single thing,” she said. “I will beat first one and then the other to a corpse when we find them,” she has been saying all morning. The sound of that word—
corpse
—makes Jinhua feel ill in her heart and her stomach, and she can't move when she hears it, and in her head she hears
rotting-no-head-dead-body-corpse
even though Lao Mama did not say that. Lao Mama told Cook to check whether anything else is missing and she said
fang ni made pi
because the gatekeeper has gone to his
laojia
in the country to mourn his mother for a hundred days and cannot help with looking. He left the guard dog, who is barking now.

Old Man has come back but he didn't find the houseboys yet, and this is why Lao Mama looks even more like a red-faced demon, and it is why she is beating Suyin. She says that Suyin is to blame about the houseboys and the things they took because she is the one who should have been watching. Jinhua wanted to say that it is not Suyin's fault, and she was going to say this out loud, but then Lao Mama said that word again,
corpse—
“I will beat you to a corpse”
—
and Jinhua couldn't speak at all or even move, and all she could think of was
rotting-no-head-dead-body-corpse
—again. When Lao Mama had finished screaming, she grabbed Suyin's pigtail and wrapped it three times around her knuckles. She pulled Suyin out into the courtyard, and now there is that terrible meat-smacking sound, and the sound of Lao Mama's voice shrieking and the guard dog barking. And Jinhua is crouching down on the floor, squeezing
her eyes shut, covering her ears, and saying, “I wish—I wish—I wish—that just wishing something could make it true.”

She doesn't believe in wishing anymore, because too many bad things happen and you can't do anything about it. When things happen, Suyin always says,
Mei banfa.
There is no solution, but maybe one day Lao Mama will die of her anger; this is something that Jinhua still can hope for. She wishes it could be soon, before Suyin is dead from being beaten. She wishes that everyone did not have to be so afraid. Everyone is afraid of the street and the biting dogs and of being beaten. Even with her fingers in her ears, Jinhua can still hear the smacking sounds, and she hopes that the houseboys are in a hall with a better mistress, one that is very far away so that Old Man won't find them even if he looks for a very long time. And more than anything, Jinhua hopes that Suyin will be all right.

Lao Mama has gone to smoke her pipe and be by herself. Suyin is lying on the ground outside, and her teeth are pink with blood. Her eyes are swollen shut, and Jinhua thinks she might be dead this time, so she is grabbing Suyin's arm and shaking her, saying, “Please, Suyin, don't be dead.”

And now tears are squeezing out through Suyin's eyelashes, and dead people don't ever cry, so Suyin must be alive after all.

Jinhua brings warm tea in a bowl. Suyin is moaning like a person who is very, very sick. Two of her teeth are loose in the front of her mouth, she says, and Jinhua tells her they won't fall out—probably—but really she thinks they will because Lao Mama hit her so hard. She leans over Suyin and whispers in her ear, quietly so that no one else can hear. “We will run away like Younger Sister and Elder Sister do in our secret stories,” she says, “as soon as you
are better.” Suyin shakes her head, and it looks as though it hurts her to do even this—
No.
And then she moans again. She is very, very tired. Too tired to run away right now. But maybe when she is better. This is something else to wish for.

Old Man says he cannot find the two houseboys. Suyin is out of her bed, but her eyes don't open all the way and she is moving like an old person, sweeping the floor in the banquet room, and it is taking her a long time to finish. Jinhua would like to help her, but Suyin says she is better now; she can do it by herself. Jinhua can see from the way she is leaning on the broom that she is not much better yet. The marks on Suyin's face are still there. They have changed from angry red to brown. But at least the two front teeth haven't fallen out of her mouth. That is one good thing. And Suyin can walk a little farther each day.

When no one is listening, Jinhua talks some more about running away. “Like the two houseboys,” she tells Suyin. “They have been gone for eight whole days and no one can find them.” And then she says, “I have been watching for the boatman from my window. The one who brought me here. He has a lord and a god and a heavenly father, who protect him and make him strong. One day I will see him. I will call out to him, and he will remember me because of the kumquat that I gave him. He will remember me, and he will save us, Suyin, and help us run away from here.”

Suyin keeps on sweeping, moving her body only a little. “This is just a story you are telling yourself, Jinhua,” she says, “and it is not real. I am a cripple, and because of the foot-binding sickness I cannot run a single step even with the help of your boatman. As for you, Jinhua, you are going to be Lao Mama's best money tree now
that you are twelve years old and your feet are small. If you run away Lao Mama will not give up until she finds you wherever you go, wherever you hide. The man with the hairy ear will not forget you, and she will not forget, and when she finds us, I will be punished and so will you. Remember, Jinhua, we don't own ourselves. And there is one more thing—with money a person can command the devil. But without it, even a boatman cannot be expected to help.”