These generous words pouring from her mouth now sounded to me as enchanting as qin music! Holding bolts of floral satin against my skin, I felt weak with happiness. Jade Vase oohed and aahed and aii-ya-ed while her fingers ran over rolls of silk that cascaded before us like rainbowed waterfalls. Even Spring Moon’s sad, watery eyes now sparkled.
Half an hour later, when the shopping spree had finally come to an end, Mama asked cheerily, ‘All right, it’s hot, so do you girls want some ice cream to ease the heat before we go back?’
Ice cream? I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. Baba had tasted it only once – at the warlord’s house – and had told me it was something soft as silk and sweet as sugar. It melted so fast in your mouth that you had to lick it hard like you did a wound.
It took the three of us a few seconds to absorb the good news before we blurted out together, ‘Yes, Mama!’
Sauntering down the busy boulevard with the glittering star-studded sky on my head, visions of new dresses, and the ice cream melting tenderly in my mouth, I’d never felt luckier. The corners of my lips kept lifting despite my efforts to press them down – people on the street might think that I was crazy smiling to myself!
I delicately licked my ice cream, trying my best to prolong the enjoyment of its soothing coolness and sweetness. My eyes were taking in the colourful displays of merchandise behind shop windows. While watching, I noticed we were also being watched. Young girls stared at us with envy while suppressing giggles. Some men threw lewd glances in our direction. Workers blew whistles. Several tai tai pointed red-nailed fingers at us and whispered to each other, sneering.
I turned to ask Fang Rong, ‘Mama, why do these people keep staring at us?’
She put on an air like the Empress Dowager’s. ‘Ah, my daughter, what a silly question. Why? Because they’re jealous of you, that’s why!’ She pointed to a bony girl of ten in rags begging at the curb, ‘You think people will find her pretty?’ then to a middle-aged, stooped amah, ‘or her?’ finally to a flat-chested and plain-faced girl selling pancakes at a street stall, ‘or this bamboo pole?’
Mama burst out laughing. ‘Ha, ha, ha, my gorgeous little treasures,’ she paused to scan the three of us before turning to pinch my cheek, ‘especially you, Xiang Xiang, you’ll be the queen of attention soon, very soon!’
As she said this, it seemed now that all eyes were riveted on me. Feeling dazed and dreamy, I licked hard at the ice cream, savouring its fast-melting sweetness, while assuring myself that all this good luck did not merely exist in a dream. I touched my Guan Yin pendant and secretly prayed that this day would go on forever.
Just when I was relishing the tender softness on my tongue, suddenly I felt my arm being bumped. Before I knew what had happened, commotion stirred around me like oil hissing on a hot wok.
Mama’s voice clanged like a broken gong, shaking the air around her. ‘Catch the little thief!’
It was then that I realised my ice cream had gone. It was now tightly held in the filthy hand of a bony, ten-year-old boy. He was desperately licking it while trying to dash across the street infested with swishing cars.
‘Watch out!’ I screamed to him.
Mama smacked my star-studded sky while casting me a murderous glance. ‘Are you out of your mind? Don’t you think this brat deserves to be hit?’
When a gap appeared in the heavy traffic, the boy sprinted, followed by a cacophony of screeching, honking, shouting, and cursing.
‘Oh my heaven! He’s going to get killed!’ I yelled again.
Mama, after glaring at me with another killer look, hurried with the three of us to see what had happened.
To my great relief, the little boy was not killed – he was not even hit. But his feet seemed rooted to the ground, and his face was so pale that he looked like someone who had just emerged from the yin world, with ghosts still clinging to his legs to try to pull him back. The ice cream had spilled on the ground and was draining down the gutter like blood scared white.
The driver jumped out from the car and spat. ‘Fuck your mother’s cunt, you dog-fucked little bastard! Next time watch before you cross!’ With that, he shoved the dazed-looking boy back onto the pavement. Before the driver got back into the car, he again hollered, ‘Get out of the way! I’m driving to pick up the president of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce!’ Then he slammed the door and sped away. After that, traffic immediately resumed.
Spring Moon clapped. ‘Mama, he’s fine!’
Now it was her head that was jolted by Mama’s slap. ‘Why do you feel so happy about this little piece of dirt? He should be smashed like ground beef!’
Then, to my surprise, she flung her big torso toward the boy and grabbed him. Mama was as strong as a bull. The boy, thrashing bony arms and legs, screamed like a chicken being slaughtered. Almost in no time, a few hooligans began to gather around us, cheering and hollering.
‘Yes, strangle that little beggar!’
‘Wah! A woman beating a man to death!’
‘Hey, come and watch Peking opera, free!’
Just when they were fanning up the fire of this street drama, a fortyish man with blonde hair and a white suit appeared from nowhere. He stepped toward the two blurs of jostling flesh and, with a move of his sinewy arms, disentangled them.
Silence instantly fell among the watching crowd. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the foreigner, waiting to see what direction the drama would take. To my surprise, instead of losing her temper and cursing this yanggui zi – foreign ghost – Mama squeezed a big grin and spoke in accented English. ‘Sorli, sorli, mister. Miss understanding, miss understanding.’
Still more to my surprise, the ‘barbarian’ spoke, in perfect Mandarin. ‘What happened?’
Mama replied in Mandarin, her grin stretching bigger and bigger, until it almost reached outside her face. ‘Meishi, meishi.’ Nothing, nothing.
‘Nothing?’
Right then Jade Vase chimed in, pointing to the little boy. ‘He tried to rob my sister Xiang Xiang’s ice cream.’
The man turned to scrutinise me. His eyes were two blue beads, strangely cool yet soothing – like my vanished ice cream. Just when I felt colour rising to my cheeks, he turned to look at the boy, who was shivering in his rags under the hot sun. ‘Are you very hungry?’
The boy nodded until his head almost dislocated from his neck. ‘My mother is sick and we haven’t had food for three days.’
To everybody’s surprise, the foreign devil took out his leather purse, pulled out several copper coins, and gave them to the boy. ‘Now buy some food for the family and go home.’
The boy snatched the money, plopped down on the ground and kowtowed, then scurried like a mouse across the busy boulevard.
Abruptly Jade Vase went up to the foreigner and grinned. ‘Mister, thank you for your kindness, please come and visit us in the pavilion.’
He frowned, scanning the three of us. ‘What pavilion?’
Mama, now looking very excited, piped up, ‘The Peach Blossom Pavilion in Si Malu.’
Instead of answering Mama, the foreign devil turned to look at me for long moments, his eyes sparkling with kindness, then, without saying another word, walked away. The onlookers ejected a few disappointed curses before they quickly dispersed.