Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

“Mama, sorry that I will not be able to see you for too long. I can’t tell you what I have been doing. Because if I do, you heart would be broken. Although you’re expert in breaking others’ hearts, including my baba’s, Uncle Gao’s, Aunty Shadow’s, as well as mine. But you are my mama and so I will always love you—”

I reached to touch him, but he immediately stepped back.

“Mama! Please listen to me till I finish.”

“All right son, go on.”

“Every day I visit Uncle King of Hell to serve him—cooking him tea, preparing him snacks, combing his hair, massaging his shoulders that get sore from torturing people all day. But he’s nice to me because I amuse him by jumping around and looking cute.

“You know why I do this? So he’d have mercy on me, release me back to the yang world so I can see you!

“Mama, I hope you’ll do something good so you don’t waste your life, or mine. I want to be a normal baby, not a heartbroken one anymore!”

After that, he disappeared.

A strange and disturbing dream. Was it really Jinjin or just my imagination? Was he somewhere in this world, or in the next?

I willed myself to stop thinking of Peiling and “her” baby. I needed to look for Jinjin, not wallow in the sentimentality of a little blind girl who could sing like me. Visiting the Compassionate Grace Orphanage had not yielded any information and it would be dangerous to go back, now that Peiling had recognized my voice and the new director was a fan of mine.

The only hope I had for finding my son was through Madame Lewinsky. Since she was no longer living in the same apartment, the only way I could try to locate her was to ask around in the small Russian community inside the French Concession.

So the next day I took the tram to “Little Russia.” I walked along with the other pedestrians, passing a church, an herbalist’s shop, a restaurant, a bank, the Paris Theater, the Cathay movie theater, and banners advertising instruction in Russian, music, and mathematics. Finally, I stood in front of a tea house a few blocks from where Madame Lewinsky used to live.

I had noticed this place, simply, but appropriately, called Russian Tea House, when I’d come to this area to take lessons from my teacher. Visiting her had given me almost the only relief I had from the tension of my life among gangsters. I remembered the little luxury of drinking sweet tea with cream from her dainty cups decorated with blue flowers.

I braced myself to enter the tea house. Not that I feared I might be recognized by the Russians, but that I’d be unable to get news of Lewinsky’s whereabouts.

Inside, it was a cozy little place decorated with small paintings and delicate tea sets on shelves. Russian folk music flooded the place, probably to make us forget that we were still in Shanghai. Russians, with a few Chinese here and there, were drinking, snacking, and chatting. A language I didn’t understand filled the air accompanied by animated gestures. Now I was no longer the heavily made-up and lavishly dressed-up Heavenly Songbird Camilla, but a student in a white blouse studying philosophy or literature. I even carried my favorite book, Sunzi’s The Art of War, as a prop. Only a couple of foreigners bothered to look at me.

I settled at the counter and ordered tea and a cake. After eating my cake and reading for a while, I looked around, ready to make conversation. I ordered a second cup of tea, then, speaking Shanghainese, asked a middle-aged Russian man at the counter, “Mister, do you happen to know a Madame Julie Lewinsky?”

He made a gesture to indicate he didn’t understand much what I said. Then he beckoned to a fiftyish woman with gray hair tied up in a bun.

I repeated my question to the woman, who cast me a strange look. “So you’re looking for Lewinsky?”

Good, as I’d hoped, she could converse sufficiently in my language. I nodded.

“Who are you?”

“A friend’s friend.” I made the relationship vague. “You know where she is?”

She nodded. “Yes, she came here often to have her afternoon tea.” The gray-haired woman cast me another look. “You took lessons from her?”

“Yes, I used to. I have something for her.”

“Then that’s too bad. She’s been very sick. She moved out of her apartment, maybe went back to Russia.”

“What about her baby?”

She thought for a moment, then split a smile, “Oh, you mean the Chinese baby? Very cute. She said the baby’s mother died.”

“What happened to the baby after Lewinsky moved out?”

“That I don’t know. But wait… one time she mentioned the Sacred Heart Convent. You know the place not too far from the big orphanage? Maybe you could go there and ask the sisters, they might be able to help you.”

But I was not so sure. I’d never known any nuns, but without any husband it seemed they must have only yin in their life but no yang for balance. I had also heard that they could be very severe if you don’t act just right to them. But I had not much choice, so I got directions to the Sacred Heart Convent.

I thanked the Russian lady, gave her some lucky money, and quickly left.

I wondered, though, why would an “orphaned” baby be taken to a convent instead of an orphanage, especially when one was so close by. Then a disturbing thought flashed across my mind: Would a nun, depressed at her childlessness, take my baby to raise as her own?

To visit the nunnery, this time I again dressed like a student with a white shirt, black skirt, but with a new twist—two short, bouncing pigtails. I’d thought to disguise myself as a man but realized it might make it more difficult to deal with the nuns. I wondered if some didn’t secretly fancy a warm, muscular body next to their own, forcing them to conceal their emotions, while resisting the demon inside. Or maybe they genuinely didn’t want men, I had no idea.

Both the orphanage and the nunnery were on Avenue Joffre, but a mile or two apart. They shared the same architectural style, which was grand but ominous. Entering the grounds, I spotted white-attired nuns pacing around the yard. I didn’t know much about their religion except that they believed in an Almighty God who could strike you down by lightning at his whim. I also heard that He is always angry. There’s always good reason to be angry with people, but why God was not used to all the bad things we do, I didn’t know.

Unfortunately, though, I didn’t believe in this Western God, neither did I believe in any of the Chinese ones either, including Buddha, Guan Yin the Goddess of Compassion, the whole plethora of Daoist gods and goddesses, or even Laozi, the old sage, and Confucius, the great teacher.

In my twenty years of life, I’d been taught to believe in one thing and one thing only—my mission, which was to eliminate Master Lung, a task I could not expect any god to help me with. If I had gods, they were cunning, scheming, ruthless. However, now that I had escaped from the black societies, I just wanted to find my son, Jinjin, and his father, Jinying. I’d found Gao by chance, but sadly, lost him again.

An older nun saw me and asked, wrinkling her face with a smile, “Young lady, what can I help you with?”

“Sister, I’m here looking for someone,” I said respectfully, and bowed slightly.

“May I know your name?”

“Jasmine Chen, Sister.”

“And whom may be the person you’re looking for, Miss Chen?”

“Madame Julie Lewinsky, a singing teacher.”

“Hmm… I think we know her. Why don’t you come in and follow me to our abbess’s office, she may be able to tell you more. Abbess has books that record of all our visitors. Please come with me.”