Lisa See: Shanghai Girls

“Are you asking if we love our country?” Z.G. asks. “There are two kinds of love, wouldn’t you say? Ai kuo is the love we feel for our country and our people. Ai jen is what I might feel for my lover. One is patriotic, the other romantic.” He glances at me, and I blush. “Can’t we have both?”

We leave the café at close to five in the morning. Betsy waves, gets in her father’s car, and is driven away. We say good night-or good morning-to Z.G. and Tommy, and hail a rickshaw. Once again, we change rickshaws at the border between the French Concession and the International Settlement, and then we clatter down the cobblestones the rest of the way home.

The city, like a great sea, has never gone to sleep. The night ebbs, and now the morning cycles and rhythms begin to flow. Nightsoil men push their carts down the alleyways, calling “Empty your nightstool! Here comes the nightsoil man! Empty your nightstool!” Shanghai may have been one of the first cities to have electricity, gas, telephones, and running water, but we lag behind in sewage removal. Nevertheless, farmers around the country pay premium prices for our nightsoil because it’s known to be rich from our diets. The nightsoil men will be followed by the morning food vendors with their porridges made from the seeds of Job’s tears, apricot kernels, and lotus seeds, their steamed rice cakes made with rugosa rose and white sugar, and their eggs stewed in tea leaves and five spice.

We reach home and pay the rickshaw boy. We lift the latch to the gate and make our way up the path to the front door. The lingering night dampness magnifies the scent of the flowers, shrubs, and trees, making us drunk on the jasmine, magnolia, and dwarf pines our gardener raises. We climb the stone steps and pass under a carved wooden screen that prevents evil spirits from entering the house-in deference to Mama’s superstitions. Our heels sound loud as they hit the parquet floor in the entry. A light is on in the salon to the left. Baba is awake and waiting for us.

“Sit down and don’t speak,” he says, motioning to the settee directly across from him.

I do as I’m told, then fold my hands in my lap and cross my ankles. If we’re in trouble, looking demure will help. The anxious look he’s been wearing these past few weeks has turned into something hard and immobile. The words he next speaks change my life forever.

“I’ve arranged marriages for the two of you,” he says. “The ceremony will take place the day after tomorrow.”

“THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” May laughs lightly.

“I’m not joking,” Baba says. “I’ve arranged marriages for you.”

I’m still having trouble absorbing what he said. “What’s wrong? Is Mama ill?”

“I already told you, Pearl. You need to listen and you’re going to do as I say. I’m the father and you’re my daughters. This is how things are.”

I wish I could convey how absurd he sounds.

“I won’t do it!” May cries indignantly.

I try reason. “Those feudal days are over. It’s not like when you and Mama married.”

“Your mother and I were married in the second year of the Republic,” he says huffily, but that’s hardly the point.

“Yours was an arranged marriage nevertheless,” I counter. “Have you been answering inquiries from a matchmaker about our knitting, sewing, or embroidery skills?” Ridicule creeps into my voice. “For my dowry, have you bought me a nightstool painted with dragon-and-phoenix motifs to symbolize my perfect union? Will you give May a nightstool filled with red eggs to send her in-laws the message that she will have many sons?”

“Say what you want.” Baba shrugs indifferently. “You’re getting married.”

“I won’t do it!” May repeats. She’s always been good with tears, and she lets them flow now. “You can’t make me.”

When Baba ignores her, I understand just how serious this is. He looks at me, and it’s as though he’s seeing me for the first time.

“Don’t tell me you thought you were going to marry for love.” His voice is oddly cruel and triumphant. “No one marries for love. I didn’t.”

I hear a deep intake of breath, turn, and see my mother, still dressed in her pajamas, standing in the doorway. We watch as she sways across the room on her bound feet and sinks into a carved pearwood chair. She clasps her hands and looks down. After a moment, tears fall into her folded hands. No one speaks.

I sit up as straight as I can, so I can look down at my father, knowing he’ll hate that. Then I take May’s hand. We’re strong together, and we have our investments.

“I speak for both of us when I respectfully ask for the money you’ve put away for us.”

A grimace passes over my father’s face.

“We’re old enough now to be on our own,” I continue. “May and I will get an apartment. We’ll earn our own way. We plan to determine our own futures.”

As I speak, May nods and smiles at Baba, but she’s not her usual pretty self Her tears have turned her face splotchy and swollen.

“I don’t want you girls to be on your own like that,” Mama finds the courage to whisper.

“It’s not going to happen anyway,” Baba says. “There is no money-not yours, not mine.”

Again, stunned silence. My sister and mother leave it to me to ask, “What have you done?”

In his desperation, Baba blames us for his problems. “Your mother goes visiting and plays games with her friends. The two of you spend, spend, spend. None of you see what’s happening right under your noses.”

He’s right. Just last night I’d thought that a kind of shabbiness had settled over our house. I’d wondered about the chandelier, the wall sconces, the fan, and…

“Where are our servants? Where are Pansy, Ah Fong, and-”

“I dismissed them. They’re all gone, except for the gardener and Cook.”

Of course he wouldn’t let them go. The garden would die quickly and our neighbors would know something was wrong. And we need Cook. Mama only knows how to supervise. May and I don’t know how to make a single thing. We’ve never worried about it. We never expected that skill would be necessary. But the houseboy Baba’s valet, the two maids, and Cook’s helper? How could Baba hurt so many?

“Did you lose it gambling? Win it back, for God’s sake,” I spit out. “You always do.”

My father may have a public reputation as an important man, but I’ve always seen him as ineffectual and harmless. The way he looks at me now… I see him stripped to his core.

“How bad is it?” I’m angry-how can I not be?-but I feel a creeping sense of pity for my father and, more important, for my mother. What will happen to them? What will happen to all of us?

His head lowers. “The house. The rickshaw business. Your investments. What little savings I had. Everything is gone.” After a long while he looks back up at me, his eyes filled with hopelessness, misery, and pleading.

“There are no happy endings,” Mama says. It’s as if all her dour predictions have finally come to pass. “You can’t fight fate.”

Baba ignores Mama and appeals to my sense of filial piety and my duty as the elder daughter. “Do you want your mother begging on the street? And what about the two of you? As beautiful girls you’re already this close to becoming girls with three holes. The only question that remains is: Will you be kept by one man or fall as low as the whores who ply Blood Alley looking for foreign sailors? Which future do you want?”

I’m educated, but what skills do I have? I teach English to a Japanese captain three mornings a week. May and I sit for artists, but our earnings don’t begin to cover the cost of our dresses, hats, gloves, and shoes. I don’t want any of us to become beggars. And I certainly don’t want May and me to become prostitutes. Whatever happens, I need to protect my sister.