The Last Rose of Shanghai(34)

When he went to the school, Miriam shuffled toward him wearing his other oxford shirt, the only decent shirt he’d given her, and black pants. She looked miserable.

“Are you ready?” When he found a job again, he would buy her decent girls’ clothes.

“You’re too late, Ernest.”

“What time is the ceremony? You said it was in the morning, wasn’t it?”

“It was. But the ceremony was yesterday. Yesterday!”

He wanted to kick himself. He had forgotten Miriam’s bat mitzvah. And she had gone through the most important ritual in her life alone. “I’m so sorry, Miriam. I’ve been—”

“You don’t care about me. Nobody cares about me. The service was horrible. It wasn’t like a boy’s bar mitzvah. They didn’t have a full aliyah to the Torah, they had all of us crowded together, and they wouldn’t let me read the Torah.” She sobbed.

“But it’s still—”

“This place hates me; everyone hates me.”

Poor Miriam. She had wanted to get a job but was robbed, then wanted to have a proper bat mitzvah but had her heart broken. No reading of the Torah, no attendance of her family.

He apologized, over and over, but Miriam just sobbed and sobbed. When she finally calmed down, he asked her about school. She replied in her listless voice that she studied prayers, music, and the English language, and she’d just started to play the violin. She wanted to take the Oxford and Cambridge overseas examinations before her graduation, because Mr. Blackstone said once she passed them, she could go to Vassar College in America. Mr. Blackstone even let her borrow his Webster dictionary, and she had been reading it before bed every night.

“America?” That was where Mr. Blackstone was from, but it was far.

“That’s what Mr. Blackstone said.”

“Well, he’s a good man. You should be grateful to him. I’m grateful to him.” Ernest made a point of telling her, even though he didn’t know much about the man with a baritone voice. “How’s Mrs. Blackstone?”

She had migraines, disliked noise, and lay in bed all day. But they ate well, had peas occasionally, a glass of milk every day, and meat loaf every Sunday, Miriam said, her voice monotonous.

When it was time for her to leave, Ernest tried to give her a hug, but she turned away, gave him a cold stare, and left.



Near dusk, Ernest went to the nightclub. He wanted to see Aiyi and explain why he wasn’t in the club. Perhaps he could get his job back. He needed money desperately to pay the school’s monthly fee, the examinations Miriam mentioned, his hospital visit, and of course, the rent. But most importantly, he wanted to see Aiyi.

When he arrived in front of the building, manager Wang greeted him, his eyebrows two squiggles of apology. Ernest was probably the only foreign friend he would have, he said, but he couldn’t allow Ernest to enter the club. Cheng had given his order.

“Is Miss Shao feeling better?” Ernest asked.

Manager Wang shrugged.





25


AIYI


Two days later, I returned to work. But Ernest was gone. I was furious. For the first time in my life, I argued with Cheng. “Why did you let him go? Didn’t you see how successful he’s made my club?”

“The club will be fine without him,” Cheng said in his low but fuming voice.

“You shouldn’t have done that. This is my club.”

“I’m your fiancé.”

“I’m going to hire him back!”

Cheng pulled his purple tie and glared at me with a look like an animal that was ready to bite but was holding back. “Then I’ll fire him again.”

I took my purse, ran down the staircase, and got in my Nash. I told my chauffeur to drive to Ernest’s apartment as fast as possible. As the car wove through the narrow lanes, veered around the red-brick buildings, and rushed by the plane trees, each squeak of the rickshaws, each honk of the trolleys, and each creak of the ox carts pierced me with fear that I would never see Ernest again.

I found his apartment—he was still there! “Come,” I said, beckoning him.

“Aiyi! I was fired, did you know?”

He looked pale but happy, his eyes clear like fine blue glaze on a porcelain vase. “I just heard. This is upsetting. But would you come with your former employer?”

“Where are we going?”

“To the cinema.”

But when the Nash arrived at the Cathay Cinema with its movie posters, I told my chauffeur to keep driving.



It was a small inn, a one-story building hidden among rows of residential homes in an alley, a place for secret rendezvous, a temporary shelter for poor out-of-towners before they got on their feet—nothing like a luxury hotel.

With steady steps, I walked in and asked for a room from the proprietor, a short woman with a bun, who kept glancing at Ernest beside me. Once we entered the room, I bolted the door, kicked off my high heels, and kissed him with the recklessness girls of my upbringing were lectured against, the boldness that seemed to be part of him, the keenness that was unfamiliar to me. I was happy, grateful, and I never wanted him to leave again.

“I love you,” he said, his body a powerful instrument inside me.

Throbs of happiness, relief, and gratitude flowed in my veins. A virgin I had been, but no more. I was glad. This was what I wanted, his face, his voice, his arms, his embrace, all of him. I kissed him, leaning against his shoulders, close to his heart, to his skin.