The Last Rose of Shanghai(84)

He wanted to make more money, both for his own survival and for the refugees who depended on him. When the puppet government led by Wang Jingwei ordered all Nationalist currency off the market and replaced them with its own notes, new fabi, at a rate of two to one, the cost of living doubled overnight, and so did the value of the apartments Ernest had acquired. He sold them promptly.

With the cash he had, he bought bags of rice, flour, wheat, dried beans, dried fish, dried sweet potatoes, laces, bolts of silk, straw hats, cotton coats—anything he could get his hands on through his Chinese business associates. He also asked Mr. Bitker to introduce him to the wealthy Chinese merchants who sold coal, seasonings, and kerosene.

It was easy for him to do business, for word spread that he was reliable and generous. With Mr. Bitker’s help, Ernest made friends with the Swiss, the Canadians, and the Americans who had escaped from the Japanese dragnet. Through his own connections, he did underground business with the local Shanghai families, textile factories, and packaging companies. The Chinese liked him, and sometimes they even invited him for tea.

Once he let it slip that he had fallen in love with a Chinese girl, and she loved him as well, but he had let her go. The Chinese businessmen nodded. It was wise of him, they said; people from different countries shouldn’t marry.

In November, he heard a Japanese battleship was capsized by the USS Washington in the Solomon Islands, and Japan, with its assets frozen in the US, ordered the Wang Jingwei puppet government to provide all essential food supplies such as rice, oil, coal, and salt to support their soldiers in Shanghai. A major shortage of essentials haunted the city. Inflation, which had been a plague, worsened. A single grape cost thirty cents in American dollars. Ernest resold the bags of merchandise at skyrocketing prices.

He became a wealthy man.





68


AIYI


On a cold morning in December, I threw myself against the headboard, sweat raining down my face, onto my neck, and down to my naked stomach. After two days of howling and groaning, tormented by waves of contractions, I was utterly spent, my legs sprawled, my bottom stuck to the pool of mucus on a thin sheet. It was such a relief to know I had pushed it out; my body was free.

But I felt no happiness, no peace, only this hollowness, this bottomless grief. I had been a beautiful girl, a desirable woman, a shrewd businesswoman who would have been the wealthiest woman in Asia. Yet here I was, sweating, hemorrhaging, bloating, giving birth to a child I didn’t want, a woman forsaken, a helpless thing with no future. How did I let my life get out of my control?

In the air floated a series of strange sounds, vulnerable and heartbreaking, like notes of his piano. A mockery of the jazzy past that had fooled me.

“A worthless girl,” Peiyu muttered, swaddled the slippery bundle in a few expert tugs, and put her thumb in the baby’s mouth to silence her.

I remembered what she had urged months before. After all these days of self-loathing and regret, I still didn’t know what to do with the baby. “Give her to me.”

“You shouldn’t. Once you hold her, you won’t let her go. She’s ruined your life. If you keep her, you’ll ruin the Shaos’ reputation.”

I shook my head, yet words failed me. The baby kicked, loosening the cloth that swaddled her, revealing a patch of birthmark on her right ankle. “Please. Just for a moment.”

Peiyu stared at the bundle. “What are we women? Only birth tools. Man takes us, puts his penis in us, and then goes on with his life with his other women. We are left to swallow our tears and raise his children. Yet children are no better. They have no gratitude, and they want to be fed and fed, want more and more.”

I wished she could say something else, or give me a pat, or tell me I had done well. Or maybe she would leave me alone and let me sleep in quiet. For I was spent, and my body was torn, and my tears wouldn’t stop.

There came that faint voice again, like that of a trapped animal. I elbowed up. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

“I’m doing you a favor, little sister. You have no husband, no place of your own, no money. Your mother would have done the same thing if she were alive.” She was standing at the door.

“Come back. Let me at least see her. Please, let me see her.”

She wouldn’t come closer. I pushed, an agonizing pain shooting through my lower body. My arms gave out. “I can’t see. Let me see.”

Peiyu lowered her arms. I heaved, my damp hair in my mouth, craning my neck. A tuft of down, a pale face with red pimples—the thing gazed at me with Ernest’s eyes.



I slept, wept, and slept more. I drank little, ate little. Bound to the room, I was weak, drowsy. I hallucinated. I dreamed of Ernest’s eyes.



It was a chilly winter. I drifted through the days like the wind sweeping through numbed fingers. The pale morning light doodled at my feet as I rose from bed; the silvery twilight curdled as I padded across the bedroom to the courtyard and to the reception hall. When I gazed at Peiyu’s face, it was like seeing through a glass window. Where is she?

She wouldn’t tell me.

I had lost my daughter because I didn’t fight for her, because I didn’t love her.



Cheng’s voice came from outside the door. He had brought glutinous rice with chicken, which the entire household had devoured. He asked if I wanted to have some.