Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

After we released from each other, I asked, “You all right, Jinying?”

Tears glimmered in both our eyes. He nodded. “And you, Camilla?”

“As you can see.”

“How did you find me?”

“It’s complicated. I’ll tell you everything after we go back to the hotel.”

He thought for a second, then asked, “Did you come back for me?”

I sighed and slumped back against the seat, having no energy left for such an obvious, or stupid, question.

Back in the hotel, Shadow said to us, her face flushed, “How could you make me do this? We made it, but we almost didn’t. This is what you meant by us being allies?” She entered her room, slamming the door behind her.

But I didn’t have time to deal with her feelings, not now. Now that Jinying and I were finally by ourselves, we didn’t say much to each other but plunged right into frenzied lovemaking instead.

Though Jinying looked gaunt and weak, I was happy, and surprised, that sexually he became as fierce as a tiger. He urgently tugged off my clothes, tossing them on the floor, one by one. When my panties were finally gone and my body naked under his relentless scrutiny, my knees weakened and I sank onto the bed, ready to be consumed by this man, whom I’d lost and now found.

In a moment he was lying on top of me, kissing and caressing me, as if fearing this would be our last moment together. In response, I sank my teeth into his shoulder as my nails dug into his back.

When at last we were spent, I lay next to him, suddenly feeling terrified that we would be separated again. We mortals can never know what heaven has in store for us. But I pushed these worries from my mind and instead just let myself feel his warmth beside me.

After a long time, Jinying said, “Oh, Camilla, I thought I’d never see you again….”

“Of course I came back for you.”

“You saved my life and I love you. Tell me everything.”

I started to, but he had already drifted into sleep.

I took a big envelope from my purse, tiptoed out of our room, closed the door softly, and went to knock on Shadow’s door.

I said in a heated whisper, “Shadow, it’s me, please let me in.”

The door was opened and the aroma of alcohol meandered to my nostrils. I closed the door behind us and followed her inside. She plopped on the bed, and I pulled a chair to sit across from her.

“What more do you want after you took me through hell?”

“I know you’re still angry at me, Shadow, but”—I put the manila envelope next to her on the bed—“you may have been through hell, but you now have a generous reward to enjoy paradise on earth.”

I pointed to the bulging envelope. “Shadow, this is extra I pay you to compensate for tonight’s trepidation.” I paused, then added, “And don’t forget, in a few days you’ll get more when you’re getting closer to your paradise of early retirement.”

I didn’t wait for her response but left her behind to enjoy her bonus wealth and her pungent whiskey.

The next morning, I awakened with Jinying’s arms around me. After another round of lovemaking, we ordered breakfast and sat in bed talking. We were both eager to learn what had happened to the other. If anything, he was even more eager than I, so I went first.

I told him about my escape to Hong Kong, my unexpected meeting with Shadow, and her terrible accident. Of course, I had to leave out much: how Gao helped me after the shoot out at Master Lung’s secret villa, how I saved him from execution, my meetings with Edward Miller. Most important, I did not mention the likelihood that our son Jinjin was still alive somewhere. Though I knew that Jinying would be elated at this news, I could not bear to raise his hopes until I was certain.

Then I asked him to tell me about his struggles. He had gone to Hong Kong to find me, just as Rainbow had said in her column. Of course he accomplished nothing there. He realized, as I did, that putting an ad in the paper was a bad idea, so he hired a private detective instead. But weeks had passed with no news about me. Finally, he realized that the “detective” was fake and was doing nothing except take his money.

Soon Jinying found a more reputable one, but he declined to take on the assignment because there was not enough information for him to go on. Sadly, we’d never even had a picture taken together. Jinying had some cutout photos of me from newspapers and magazines, but they were not sharp enough for me to be clearly recognized.

Finally, feeling hopeless and running low on money, Jinying became discouraged and returned to Shanghai. He’d gone to see Madame Butterfly to try to relive our time together in Paris, when we had watched the same opera together. But as he was leaving the opera house, Wang’s men abducted him.

When he finished, I asked, “Jinying, did they torture you?”

“No, but they starved me. The meals were rotten vegetables over equally rotten rice. Sometimes they didn’t bring me food at all, but what they called soup served with a few drowned cockroaches. And the water I had to drink was what my father called ‘foot-washing’ water.”

“How horrible. I’m so sorry, Jinying.” Then another question came to my mind. “Why do you think they didn’t torture you?”

“The only reason I can think of was they feared they might end up killing me and then I’d be no use to them. By starving me, I wouldn’t have any energy left to escape.”

“Have you heard anything about your father? Do you think he’s still alive?”

He shook his head. “Unfortunately, nothing. I do fear that he’s dead. But then sometimes I think he may still be alive. For as Rainbow wrote, if he’s dead, then where’s the body?”

Jinying paused, then spoke again. “Camilla, I did think of suicide once.”

“Please, Jinying…”

I didn’t know what more to say. A few months ago I’d attempted suicide myself—jumping into the Seine when Master Lung and his entourage were in Paris. I was still on earth only because Jinying had jumped into the cold water, to save me. We’d been watching Madame Butterfly together—it was her suicide on stage that had triggered my sudden despair. I wondered, what had triggered the same hopeless feeling in Jinying?

He went on. “I lost my father, you, and our baby. Eventually, Wang would have me killed in the most painful way possible, so I thought I’d get it over with painlessly.”

I stroked his sunken cheek, not knowing what to say.

“But I didn’t because I still hoped we would be together again somehow. Or, if we never found each other, I’d go back to the US, hoping to leave behind all my bad luck and sad memories. I would try to sustain myself with my only good memories—those of our times together.”

I slid a finger across his lips. “Jinying, we’re together now.” “Camilla, you know what I feared the most? That we would one day just rub past each other, but then lose each other in the crowd.”

We remained silent, imagining this sad possibility.

Then I suddenly realized Jinying must be ravenously hungry after so many weeks of bad food, so I opened the steamer tray, took out some leftover buns, then poured tea from the hotel thermos.

“Jinying, you must be starving. Have these now. We’ll soon have a big meal, shark fin soup, roast pig, juicy little buns…

I felt happy seeing him hungrily swallowing the buns and felt a warm wave of love.

When he finished, I said, “Jinying…”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

He sighed, pulling me to him, and kissed me. “We’re really back together, aren’t we?”

Then a worried look spread over his gaunt face. “Camilla, I think we had better leave for Hong Kong on the next ship. Wang is going to be looking for us.”