Read Online The Painter of Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein - Free Book Online Page B

promise’ in entertainment. The truth, of course, is that Yuliang already knows most of the pieces. It’s one of her uncle’s few and sad little legacies.
    In ‘love’ classes, the girls pull the pleasure beads strung on a stained silk cord through their fists. They study pictures in the seventeenth-century classic Gold Plum Vase, or the Adventurous History of His Men and His Six Wives , and puzzle over little statues of people portrayed at various intersects. The books are Godmother’s, the statues brought by the Taoist nun who teaches them about bedding matters. The girls drone the names of the positions like insects in summer: Dragon Turning. Tiger Slinking. The Rabbit Nibbling the Hare. ‘In Cicada Clinging,’ the nun instructs, ‘the woman lies on her stomach. The man stands behind her. He pulls her hips right into his. His jade stem is plunged so deeply within that it isn’t visible at all.’
    ‘If it’s Feng Yitmien’s jade stem,’ Suyin whispers to Yuliang, ‘then it’s barely visible to begin with.’ Feng Yitmien is a tea vendor who visits Mingmei. His hands and feet are as dainty as a woman’s.
    ‘Ideally,’ the nun continues frowning, ‘the man thrusts fifty-four times. Fifty-four brings mutual pleasure.’
    Godmother, who has poked her head in to supervise, objects. ‘If he wants to push two thousand times, so be it,’ she says. ‘So long as you finish the job.’
    It is one of her most frequent injunctions: no matterhow a job goes, you must finish. And it isn’t just advice. Those who don’t finish, who don’t have an excuse – and for Godmother, only bloodshed is an excuse – are beaten. Often (ironically) until they bleed.
    In the evenings Suyin and Yuliang sometimes go on call with older girls. Their first job is to take the card and the required deposit from the runner bearing them. The deposit is generally fifteen percent of a night’s total, which can vary, depending on how elaborate the client’s demands are. The card comes originally from the girl herself, who will have left stacks of them at restaurants or with favored clients. On the front is the girl’s name and the Hall’s address. On the back the client will have filled in the location the girl is being summoned to: the opera, a banquet, a party for a birthday or a business achievement. Godmother will read them: Zao Tong requests Lirong’s honorable presence at the Jade Garden Restaurant, the back courtyard. Hu Zinyang aks Dai to Yuan Shikai Hall. The madam will carefully count out the deposit, mark it down, and give it and the card back to Yuliang or Suyin. The girls will then help the girl on call dress and powder, and then climb into one of the Hall’s two sedan chairs. Whichever of the virgins has been chosen to go along will follow her on the manservant’s shoulders.
    On these nights, her feet interlocking like little charms under the manservant’s chin, her hands clutching his rough-cut, greasy hair, Yuliang snatches glimpses of life beyond the Hall walls. She sees mostly men, jostling their way through the streets, coming home from work, going to dinners or meetings. Occasionally she’ll see foreigners from one of the churches: pasty, large-limbed people indark clothing. One woman outside the foreign settlement has hair the color and texture of stiff wet straw, bunched awkwardly on the back of her head. A little girl with the woman has locks of almost the same color. They flow like a tangled mane down her back. The girl says something to her mother as Yuliang and the man pass. Her voice hisses like a little snake’s. Yuliang, intrigued by words that sound and seem so very different from her own, leans over enough to throw off the manservant’s balance.
    Once at the event, Yuliang waters the older girl’s wine cup so she doesn’t get too tipsy as she talks and flirts. She keeps track of call-cards and is careful to keep them in order. She’s under strict instructions not to leave the manservant’s