Free The Painter of Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein Page A

click of tiles. They pass the musician with her lined face and tired arias, fending off groping hands and twisting themselves away from ubiquitous, lumpy laps. (‘No laps!’ orders Godmother. She will beat them if she finds them there, even involuntarily.) They watch older girls rising, leaving, returning, smudged and flushed or bored, or simply tired. Did the old buzzard get it up all right? the men shout. Did the old cannon manage to blast?
    Godmother serves and observes, banters and barters. She writes sums owed and paid in her books. She samples food, waves it on, although sometimes she sends it back. She creeps up to the night wing, listening at closed doors for unsanctioned trysts, unreported tips and gifts, and sounds more alarming than the flesh-slap of a rough tumble. And occasionally cries of real pain do drift in: Aiiiiiii. Stop it – stop it! Help!
    The shrieks float like ghosts into the mirth and smoke, make little dents of silence amid the clamor. Usually it’s Godmother who heaves onto her little feet when this happens, and bustles heavily up the stairs into the night wing. A little commonplace beating is expected, she says. But killing or disfiguring her girls is not. It will result in surcharges and doctor’s fees. The very worst cases will go to court.
    ‘What are the very worst cases?’ Yuliang asks Jinling, early one morning after Mingmei is attacked. The soft-spoken girl from Suzhou erupted from the night rooms with red cords trailing from her wrists and ankles. Blood ran in a thick stream down her left leg. The cut was high on her thigh, nearly half a finger deep in some places. A soldier wearing the slapdash uniform of some warlord’s private army followed her out, smoking, smiling. Still tying his trousers. The knife had slipped, he said, shrugging. They were playing a game. He called the wound a scratch , Mingmei an actress . He threatened not to pay; he hadn’t had a chance to finish. But Godmother demanded and received payment – and well more than a single night’s price. She tacked onan inflated estimate for the doctor’s fee, and a penalty for the scar Mingmei would have later. She demanded a fee for not taking the soldier to court, and a fee for cleaning the bloody footprints off the floor. In the end, with the help of the manservant and several guests (including a judge), she succeeded in emptying the man’s wallet. ‘Good iron is not used for nails,’ she’d said later, almost fondly. ‘Good men do not become soldiers.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ says Jinling grimly now, as young sunlight seeps through the window. ‘I don’t know what the worst cases are.’
    She grimaces as Yuliang yanks at a pearl-sized frog button on her qipao , one of the dozens that run from knee to nape. The top girl can never undo them all herself. When she’s drunk or tired she sometimes rips them right off.
    Her dark eyes meet Yuliang’s in the faint light of the mirror. She is lavender, gilded by the nascent light. Yuliang thinks: She looks older. It’s not a criticism, for she’s not a man, or Godmother. She just forgets sometimes how tired even Jinling, flawless Jinling, can get here.
    She lets her fingers descend to her mentor’s neck, then from there to her shoulders. She shapes softly descending circles with her thumbs, then her forefingers. She presses tentatively at first, then – as Jinling shuts her eyes and leans her head back into Yuliang’s belly – with more force. She leans forward to massage the spare flesh shielding the top girl’s lungs, her heart. Her own pulse quickens. ‘Is this all right?’ she murmurs.
    Jinling opens her eyes. She looks confused, as though she’s torn between two answers. But all she says is ‘Yes.’ And, sighing, shuts her eyes again.

7
    The holidays end in a whirlwind of prayers and bright light. Over Yuan Shikai Hall, fireworks etch flaming fish and dragons into the sky. At the other Hall – of Eternal Splendor – those who are able clear