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

casually, as though it’s something he does often – and slings her over his shoulder like a sack of corn. He smacks her bottom, makes another salty comment she doesn’t understand. Then he carries her to a dark room, where he throws her down amid oil urns and baskets of onions. When he leaves, he shuts and locks the door.
    Xiuqing lies in the Hall’s pantry for several hours, motionless. She watches light from the one window make a single shifting square across the room. Sensation returns with its orbit: her feet hurt. Her eyes sting. Her skin smarts wherethe woman’s leather whip landed. She becomes aware of smells; garlic, peanut oil, spicy beef. After dark, laughter bubbles through the walls. There are sounds of glasses clinking, of passing plates and girls complaining. A slap rings out like a firecracker. ‘I don’t care if he’s got every illness known under heaven,’ Godmother cries. ‘You borrowed the money, now you earn it back. You always finish the job.’
    Later come the men’s voices. First the manservant’s, just inside the main gate. It drones a steady stream of names: Master Kai. Master Peng. Master Yao. Sometimes simply Honored Guest. Xiuqing identifies Master Gao, who for some unfathomable reason the girls here all seem to call Papa. Other men’s tones blend in slowly, adding banter and shouts. Shrieks merge with heavy footsteps, doors slammed and reopened. A zither sounds like the sobbing of a child. It is one of her favorite of Li Qingzhao’s ci, ‘The Double Ninth Festival.’ Xiuqing mouths the words against the darkness:
Light mists and heavy clouds
Melancholy the long dreary day
In the golden censer
the burning incense is dying away.
    Somehow, though, the very familiarity of the lyrics makes her feel even more displaced. It’s as though the meanings of even known things are shifting.
    It’s well into the next day when Godmother unlocks the door. She asks if Xiuqing has come to her senses. Xiuqing replies quietly that she has.
    Wordlessly, the young girl follows the older woman down the Hall’s tunnel-like corridors, past the room where she’d heard the men and music. Then there were the odors of incense, spicy beef. Now the smell is of stale plum wine and vomit.
    Xiuqing follows Godmother to the bathing room and strips down as directed. She steps, shivering, into the cold tin tub. The water is filthy, full of strands of hair floating in dreamy squiggles, clumps of sloughed-off skin like dirty snow. But Xiuqing savors it anyway; it’s the first bath she’s had in nearly a week. She tries to disregard the way Godmother studies her naked body, though when she’s made to strut back and forth, dripping, she can’t help flushing.
    ‘A name,’ the madam says briskly.
    ‘What?’
    ‘You’ll need a new name.’ And as Xiuqing blinks at her blankly: ‘ Aiyaaa. As stupid as a wooden chicken.’ Covering her eyes, she heaves an injured sigh. ‘I pay too much. I trust people…’
    When Godmother removes the hand, her eye makeup, dislodged by her palm’s pressure and the room’s steam, drips a single black tear. Xiuqing waits, hiding her privates with her palms.
    ‘I think,’ Godmother says finally, ‘we’ll start with Yuliang. Good Jade.’ She cocks her head thoughtfully. ‘Zhang Yuliang. Yes. It suits you well.’ She looks balefully downward. ‘Your feet are too big, of course. But we can work on the rest. Yes, certainly. Zhang Yuliang.’ She hands Xiuqing her clothes.
    ‘What about my own family’s name?’
    ‘Don’t you know that troubles come to those who are talkative? Especially here. Men don’t like it when women natter the nights away.’ Godmother wipes her dripping brow and glowers. Then, as though explaining the sky’s color to a small child, very slowly and simply, she says, ‘We’re your family now. We’re all our own family. We’re all that any of us need.’
    Xiuqing’s head reels as she is led, damp but dressed, to the kitchen. Zhang, she is