Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

I told the puller to stop in front of Lewinsky’s building, paid him, and hopped off. I climbed the stairs to her apartment, remembering her patient teaching, polished piano playing—followed by homemade cookies with warm milk.

Before knocking, I hesitated. What would I say to her? And what if my baby was really dead as she’d told me? Would she report me to the police? And if Jinjin was really alive and living here with her, what should I do? Grab him, dash down the stairs, hail a car to the harbor, and find a way to leave Shanghai? Although Jinjin called me mama in my dreams, in real life, he’d think his mother was Lewinsky. So when I took him into my arms, he’d probably cry and struggle to get free so he could go back to his “real” mother.

With these thoughts, my heart sank, but I raised my fist to knock on my teacher’s door. Just like my visit to Jinying, the only response was a ghostly silence. Disheartened, I was about to leave when a neighbor’s door opened and out peeked a middle-aged woman, with a puffy face, disheveled hair, and faded pajamas.

She gave me a suspicious once-over. “Are you looking for the Russian ghost?”

I nodded. “Yes, do you know her whereabouts?”

“Oh, you don’t know?”

“No, what happened?”

“She moved away. I heard that she was sick. She’s probably dead now.”

My heart fell inside a dark well. “Then what about the little boy?”

I was surprised that I asked the question naturally, as if I was sure that my little Jinjin was alive.

I felt faint as she went on, “Oh, yes, that’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen. But”—she leaned toward me—“I always wondered how that woman could have a baby at her age? She didn’t look a day under fifty, if you ask me. And the baby looked Chinese to me—”

I cut her off. “You know where this baby is?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want to pry into other’s business, especially not a ghost’s. And especially not if the baby was stolen, which happens so often nowadays. Anyway, I didn’t see them much. She seems to be very secretive about herself and the baby, so I’m sure he’s stolen goods.” She paused, then said, “You know what? That’s why she moved out.”

My heart was now almost at the bottom of the well. “When was that?”

“About three months, I can’t really remember.”

Suddenly she cast me a wary look as her tone turned belligerent. “Who are you anyway?”

“Oh, one of her music students.”

“How come I never saw you?”

I smiled. “But I never saw you either.”

She smiled back, wrinkling the corners of her darting eyes. “Yes, I’ve only lived here for a few weeks.”

Once outside Lewinsky’s apartment, I could only wander around the streets aimlessly, unable to calm myself, feeling both elated and devastated. Yes, little Jinjin was alive somewhere! But where? And if Lewinsky was really dead, as the woman suggested, how and where was I going to find my baby? And what if I never found him?

Without a mother, anything might happen to him. He might be abandoned, like a stray dog, crawling around garbage bags scavenging for food. Or, like me, raised by some gangster for evil purposes. Or deliberately crippled to beg for his master. The baby I’d rescued in Hong Kong, dangling on a ledge about to fall to… Could this be an omen about my little Jinjin?

Trying to push these disturbing images out of my mind, I continued to walk with a heavy heart and brimming tears. I was oblivious to everything around me, until I felt something bump my arm, waking me from my reverie. It was a young man who cast me a dirty look, then hurried away.

“Jerk!” I spat.

An old woman with a cane wobbled past me, casting me a disapproving look. I reminded myself not to lose my temper. I had to keep in mind that now I was not an admired celebrity in Shanghai, but a fugitive, a wanted criminal, the main suspect in the bloody shooting of a gangster head. During the uproar, I’d also helped myself to gobs of my boss Big Brother Wang’s rival Master Lung’s money and treasure.

I suddenly realized that the young man hadn’t bumped into me by accident. I looked down at my handbag and found that it was open and my wallet gone!

I was carrying two thousand dollars in cash, and that was most of what I had in Shanghai, the rest was sitting in a bank in Hong Kong. I had plenty of money, which I had helped myself to from Master Lung’s safe hidden in his secret villa. This was just in the nick of time, as moments later shooting broke out between the Flying Dragons and the Red Demons.

The money I took to Shanghai was not just for daily expenses or emergencies, but also in case I needed to bribe my way around. Fortunately, I’d only put five hundred in the wallet, the rest was in a zippered compartment in my handbag. I also had some cash back in the hotel hidden on top of the ceiling fan. But I was worried I might need more cash suddenly.

Feeling completely drained and unbearably sad, I stepped into an empty alley to release my tears to the outside world. Afterward, walking back to the main street, I felt a hand, warm and large, placed on my shoulder. I was about to grab the hand in case it was trying to steal from me again, but instead, when I turned I saw a refined-looking foreigner. I guessed he was in his late thirties or early forties, tall, with blond hair and a neatly trimmed mustache.

He looked at me sympathetically. “Young lady, something wrong? Any way I can help you?”

To my surprise, this white ghost spoke accented, yet fluent, Mandarin. “Thank you, sir, but I don’t think so.”

“Miss,” his tone was serious, “you look too sad to be left alone all by yourself. Besides, it might be dangerous here. Can I take you home?”

I almost blurted out that I didn’t have one to go back to.

But my answer was: “Sir, I don’t know you.”

He swiftly took a card from his pocket and handed it to me.

Wah, Consul General, something like an ambassador, a very high position. My spy’s mind clicked swiftly like an abacus calculating what was transacting. If I could befriend him, I might get some protection in case my identity was revealed and my life was endangered again. I smiled inside—not to mention this man was nice looking and refined acting.

Everyone knows that in a prosperous, sophisticated, evil city like Shanghai, “having a protector” is of utmost importance. That was the reason all the gangsters bribed the most influential politicians, and the entertainers, in turn, paid off the gangsters. It is never clear who ends up ahead, but the relationships are necessary to all involved.

It’s well-known that all prostitutes here pay protection fees, and the more powerful the recipient of their forced generosity, the more prosperous their establishment. Without the provision of protection money, the signboard of your prostitution house would be torn down, and a chopped-off chicken head dripping blood would be nailed to your door to warn you of your impending demise. And rumors would reach your clientele that all your ladies would give them bad luck—and syphilis. So, without a protector, a lady of the night would only end up a “wild chicken” spreading bruised legs in a garbage-strewn alley servicing coolies and lepers.

That’s why the Chinese say, Sifang renyuan, bafang guanxi (“Know everyone in the four directions and eight paths.”). Meaning, always make as many good connections as you can. You never know which you will need in the future.

So I put on a sweet, innocent smile and said demurely, “Sir, you are so kind to help me. You’re from America?”