Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

I made up a reason. “I’m worried about her….”

“Oh, she looks pretty good to me, very tall and pretty.”

Annoyed, I raised my voice. “Can you just tell me if she has checked out?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

I took out a few bills and slapped them down on the counter. “All right, stop acting like a reluctant virgin when you’re but a whore. Let me repeat my question: Has. She. Left?!”

He immediately grabbed the money and broke into a slutty, whorelike smile. “Yes, she checked out about an hour ago.”

Damn. “Did she leave a note or say anything?”

“Hmm… now you reminded me. Yes, in fact, she did.”

“What?”

He looked deep in thought, probably just faking it. So I had to take out another bill and slap it down, this time louder.

Again, he grabbed it like a beggar a bun and handed me the note. It said:

If you look for me, I’ll jump to my disappearance, this time for real.

Not bothering to thank him, I immediately turned and dashed back upstairs to my room. I understood Shadow was telling me not to look for her because she did not want to be found. Sighing, I shuffled back but realized that in my haste I had not taken my key.

So I knocked until Jinying opened the door, looking as if he were sleep walking.

“Something wrong, Camilla?”

Right after he closed the door behind us, I pulled him to me and kissed him passionately on his lips. Then I pushed him down on the bed and began my skeleton woman’s preying game.

“Camilla, slow down, I’m not awake yet.”

“Well, then wake up. You know that as a skeleton woman, I’m not going to take no for an answer,” I said matter-of-factly, beginning to pull down his pajama pants.

“Camilla, you don’t want to wake up our neighbors!”

“Don’t you realize, time is always running out, for you, for me, for everyone?”

My lover’s eyelids kept drooping as he said groggily, “Of course…”

It was surprisingly urgent, despite our exhaustion. Afterward, Jinying and I cuddled with each other, savoring the lingering warmth—and love.

He planted a kiss on my forehead. “Camilla, I’m worried about you, you look a bit—”

“A bit what?”

“Hmm… out of sorts. Please tell me what’s on your mind?”

I really didn’t think he’d understand my relationship with Shadow, so I simply said, “Shadow checked out early this morning. She left me a letter but refuses to say where she is going. She doesn’t want us to see each other ever again.”

Jinying’s reply surprised me. “Good.”

“Why good?” I was annoyed, for Shadow was no longer an enemy or just a partner, but a friend.

“I never liked the woman, so I’m glad she’s finally out of our way.”

“But she did us a big favor and I miss her.”

“You do, why? She’s never been nice to you.”

I sighed. “ Hai, Jinying, I don’t think you’ll understand. Ever.”

“Then explain to me.”

“You shouldn’t hate her. Understand that she’s just like I was, struggling all alone to survive in the boiling cauldron of Shanghai.”

He didn’t respond, so I went on, my tone definite. “I’ll find her.”

Jinying looked horrified. “No, Camilla!”

“Why not?”

“You should respect her wish to be left alone. Let go! I’m sure you two can do very well without each other.”

I didn’t respond to this. I was thinking how ironic that once I lamented that heaven had thrust Shadow onto my path to compete with me, yet now wished she’d stay and be my friend!

I sighed inside. No matter how I missed my friend and would like to look for her, maybe I should listen to Jinying.

Yes, I’d let go of Shadow, but there was another person even harder to let go of. I wanted to see Gao one last time before we vanished from each other’s lives forever. But, of course, this was not something to discuss with Jinying. Anyway, with Wang on his way out, we could at last focus completely on what was most important—finding our baby, Jinjin.

Every day, Jinying and I eagerly opened the newspapers to see if there was anything about Lung or Wang. It seemed that no one knew Lung was dead, as his burial was secret. Or perhaps it was simply that no one cared, as he’d already been missing from the Shanghai scene for months. While there were brief mentions of Wang every day, they gave no specific details. No reporter wanted to be caught seeming to back the wrong side.

Wang’s hospitalization must have created great excitement among the other warlords, who had long been vying to replace him. However, they were stepping cautiously as, unlike me, they could not be certain his condition was fatal. Should he come back from near death, he would not be kindly disposed to anyone who had tried to usurp his place. But I knew that it would be only a few more days until he would set out upon the immortal’s journey. Indeed, he was already as dead as the pig chosen for his birthday banquet.

It was now inevitable that the Shanghai underworld would undergo a huge transformation. As the Chinese saying goes, all the gangsters were “rubbing their fists and flexing their arms,” ready for the fight of the century to slash throat and grab the throne. Master Lung of the Flying Dragons, of course, was not in the running, and I suspected that his men were nervously trying to decide which of the competing gangsters to seek employment with, their former boss already as forgotten as the last emperor. But not Gao. Not only did he not seek employment elsewhere, he’d even risked his life trying to revenge Master Lung. Was he still alive somewhere?

As men of the underworld were preoccupied with seeking gold, Jinying and I were busy planning how to find our son. Jinying and I had taken to going to a dingy eatery nearby for breakfast of soy milk and long, straight Chinese doughnuts. In this crowded, modest place I could feel secure that no one was paying any attention to us. After seeking notice as an entertainer for so long, I felt strange now having to struggle to avoid it.

We endlessly discussed what to do next.

I suggested, “I can go back to the Sacred Heart Convent and beg the nuns to tell me who has adopted Jinjin. I’ll start by telling them we want to be sure he is raised as Catholic.”

Jinying took a meditative sip of his tea, then looked around and lowered his voice. “What about if they won’t tell you? Besides, you have no proof.”

I took a big gulp of my own tea, burned my lips, and blurted out, “All right, then I’ll go to the abbess’s office at night to steal the file. I have the special Open-One-Hundred-Doors key that Big Brother Wang gave me.”

Jinying thought for a while, then said, “Camilla, our son’s name is Jinjin. But you don’t know what Lewinsky named him?”

“I believe she named him Anton Lewinsky—it was on Madame Lewinsky’s gravestone.”

I went on. “But I still need to get ahold of Lewinsky’s file to see who adopted Jinjin.”

“All right, let’s give it a try. We’ll go together.”

Alarmed by his statement, I quickly said, “No, Jinying, they are very suspicious of men. I’ll go by myself. I’ve been a spy, so I know how to navigate such things, but you don’t.”

He didn’t like this suggestion. So I added, “Jinying, if you come along and something happens, it’s much harder for two people to get away than one. If we get caught, I don’t want to imagine the consequences.”

He looked at me anxiously. “All right, Camilla. But remember, Jinjin is our son.”

Thus decided, on the next Wednesday, which I assumed would be a quiet time in the convent, I set out in the deep womb of the night, expecting everyone to be sound asleep. When I arrived at the Sacred Heart Convent, the sky was inky black and there were no other pedestrians, nor any sounds other than the distant rumble of traffic. I wore dark peasant’s clothes to be as close to invisible as possible.