The Last Rose of Shanghai(65)

“You are engaged. Everyone in Shanghai knows.”

“I want to rethink my future.”

“Your family makes decisions for your future.”

I turned to Cheng. “Would you talk to me, in private?”

Cheng struck the desk with his fist. “You want to leave me for a foreigner? Is that it? Did you fuck him? Did you?”

“Do not talk to me like this—”

Sinmay yanked me. “You slept with a foreigner?”

Cheng grabbed me to face him. “I knew you lied to me. I knew. You lied to me.”

Sinmay yanked me again. “You better explain this, or I’ll never forgive you.”

Dizzy, I backed away from them, my back hitting a swinging door. Cheng’s face was the face of a bully and Sinmay’s was that of a furious superior. I, a woman of twenty-one, was a person of no importance, a trifle.

Cheng laughed. A terrible sound. “Have you thought of me? How does this make me look? People will laugh at me! You can’t do this to me!”

“We won’t face this shame. We will not mention this to your mother. The wedding will go on as scheduled,” Sinmay said, his face pink with rage. “It’s not up to you, Aiyi. You’ll marry him. As the oldest brother, I order you. Oldest brother acts like Father,” he said, quoting a proverb.

I hugged my chest, but I wouldn’t look away.

“If you won’t listen to me, you should leave. And never come back,” Sinmay blustered, pointing at the courtyard.

Outside, the courtyard was cloaked in a pale gloom, the sunlight banished, the ground laid in shapes of diamonds and circles wet with yesterday’s rain. If I left, I would never be allowed to step inside again, and my place in the family would be erased. I might as well never have existed. This was what happened to my disgraced sister who became a concubine to a tycoon in Hong Kong.

I refused to be banished. “Emily was right to leave you. She’s better off without you.”

His arm swung; my head was thrown back. The slap, crisp and loud, tore at my ear.

I had never been slapped before, not even pinched by a rough hand. I held my face, the door of childhood memory flung open like a storm. All those years I watched and shivered as my addict father grew mad, throwing tantrums, cursing, and beating Mother when she hid money from him. I never thought I would be a victim of violence, hit by my own brother.

“Sinmay!” Peiyu’s voice.

“She disobeys me!”

Somehow Cheng stood in front of me. His black eyes furious, he looked wild as a raging feline. “You don’t deserve this. I would never hurt you. But I hate you. I hate you so much. I’ll never forgive you.”

He walked out. In the courtyard, the engine roared, let out a loud wail, and then faded.

Sinmay was raging. “Go to your room!”

In a daze, I went obediently; my head ached and my eyes burned. There was a voice in my head telling me this was the right thing to do, but the other voice, calm and aloof, said I had made a terrible mistake and thrown my life away. Both voices agreed that my life was now like a decorated paper lantern adrift in the wind.

“Do you need a handkerchief? Or some cream for the swelling, little sister? Here, take my handkerchief.” Peiyu’s voice was sympathetic. She meant well. She had watched, unable to help.

“I want to lie down,” I said.

And I slept. For the first time since the loss of my business, I saw no shadows, heard no ghost murmurs. I dreamed of Mother, a vivid vision behind the incense smoke. I saw myself, too, a seventeen-year-old wearing a mourning hemp cloak beside her coffin. So young I was; the depth of her death hadn’t hit me yet, and I only felt the unaccustomed emptiness, like a precious jade bangle that I had worn for years but had slipped off.

When I awoke, the burning sensation on my face was gone. I leaped from my bed and pulled at the door.

It wouldn’t budge—locked from outside. I shouted; my butler, who always napped in the garden, answered, his voice blurred from constantly swallowing his saliva.

Sinmay hadn’t thrown me out; he had locked me in.





50


ERNEST


When he finally made it to his apartment, it was empty. He would need to search for Miriam later. He sat down on the bed, groaning in pain. All his bones seemed to crack, and if he lay down, he would be unable to get up. He looked down at the red scarf in his lap and tried to untie it with his shaky fingers. Maybe there was a message from Miss Margolis. His fingers were too weak. It took him a while to loosen the knot and unfurl it.

A piece of paper. With two signatures at the bottom. Actually, it was a power of attorney regarding the execution of a relief loan, valued at half a million dollars, between Miss Margolis and some attorney called K. Bitker. Ernest sat up. Why would Miss Margolis toss him this important paper? Did she wish him to keep it? What was he supposed to do with it?

Too exhausted, he put the paper aside, picked up the messenger bag, and took out the camera he’d saved. A miracle—after all the falls and crashes, it remained intact. He was going to put the bag away when an album fell out. It was thick and wide, dated 1940; the cover showed two naked women sunbathing on a yacht’s deck. He grew nervous. Was Aiyi inside? If he saw her, would that violate her will? She had been adamant about keeping the secret from him. And would he be calm, his eyes on her naked skin?