The painting gave me a queasy feeling. It was an omen, like the worn slippers. I was meant to find it. What happened next was salvation or doom. I felt certain now that the painting meant you were walking into the valley, not leaving it. The rain was coming. It was dusk, turning dark, and you would no longer be able to find your way back.
With shaky hands, I turned the painting over. The Valley of Amazement it said, and below that were initials: “For L.M. from L.S.” The date was smeared. I could make out that it was either “1897” or “1899.” I had been born in 1898. Had Mother received this one along with her portrait? What was she doing before I was born? What was she doing the year after? If Lu Shing had painted this in 1899, he would have still been with my mother when I was a year old.
I threw both paintings across the room. A second later, I was overcome with fright that some part of me would be thrown away and destroyed, and I would never know what it was. She hated Lu Shing for leaving her, so there must have been a very strong reason she had kept the paintings. I ran to claim back the paintings. I cried as I rolled them up, then shoved them into the bottom of the valise.
Magic Gourd walked in. She threw two cotton pajama suits on a chair—loose jackets and pantalets, green with pink piping—the clothes worn by small children. “Mother Ma figured these clothes would keep you from trying to escape. She said you are too vain to be seen in public dressed like a Chinese maid. If you keep your haughty Western ways, she’ll beat you worse than what you already received. If you follow her rules, you’ll suffer less. It’s up to you how much pain you want to endure.”
“My mother is coming for me,” I declared. “I won’t have to stay here much longer.”
“If she does, it won’t be soon. It takes a month to go from Shanghai to San Francisco and another month to come back. If you’re stubborn, you’ll be dead before two months pass. Just go along with whatever the madam says. Pretend to learn whatever she teaches you. You won’t die from doing that. She bought you as a virgin courtesan and your defloration won’t happen for at least another year. You can plot your escape in between times.”
“I’m not a virgin courtesan.”
“Don’t let pride make you stupid,” she said. “You’re lucky she isn’t making you work right away.” She went to my valise and dipped her hands inside and pulled out the fox stole with its dangling paws.
“Don’t touch my belongings.”
“We need to work quickly, Violet. The madam is going to take what she wants. When she paid for you, she paid for everything that belongs to you. Whatever she does not want she will sell—including you, if you don’t behave. Hurry now. Take only the most precious. If you take too many things, she’ll know what you’ve done.”
I refused to budge. Look what Mother’s selfishness had done. I was a virgin courtesan. Why would I want to cling to her belongings?
“Well, if you don’t want anything,” Magic Gourd said, “I’ll take a few things for myself.” She plucked the lilac dress hanging in the wardrobe. I stifled a shout. She folded it and tucked it under her jacket. She opened the box with the pieces of amber. “These aren’t good quality, misshapen in a dozen ways. And they are dirty inside—aiya!—insects. Why did she want to keep these? Americans are so strange.”
She pulled out another package, wrapped in paper. It was a little sailor suit, a white and blue shirt and pantalets, as well as a hat, like those worn by American sailors. She must have bought those for Teddy when he was a baby and was planning to show them to him as proof of her enduring love. Magic Gourd put the sailor suit back into the valise. Madam had a grandson, she said. She picked up the fox wrap with its dangling baby paws. She gave it a wistful look and dropped it back in. From the jewelry box, she removed only a necklace with a gold locket. I took it from her, opened it, and peeled out the tiny photographs on each side, one of Mother, one of me.
And then she fished in deeper and pulled out the two paintings. She unrolled the one of my mother and laughed. “So naughty!” She laid out the one with the gloomy landscape. “So realistic. I have never seen a sunset this beautiful.” She put the paintings in her pile.
As I dressed, she recited the names of the courtesans. Spring Bud, Spring Leaf, Petal, Camellia, and Kumquat. “You don’t have to remember their names for now. Just call them your flower sisters. You’ll know them soon enough by their natures.” She chattered on. “Spring Leaf and Spring Bud are sisters. One is smart and one is foolish. Both are kind in their hearts, but one is sad and does not like men. I will leave it to you to guess which is which. Petal pretends to be nice, but she is sneaky and does anything to be Madam’s favorite. Camellia is very smart. She can read and write. She spends a little money every month to buy a novel or more paper for writing her poems. She has audacity in her ink brush. I like her because she’s very honest. Kumquat is a classical beauty with a peach-shaped face. She is also like a child who reaches for what she wants without thinking. Five years ago, when she was with a first-class house, she took a lover and her earnings dwindled to nothing. It’s the usual story among us.”
“That was the reason you had to leave, wasn’t it?” I said. “You had a lover.”
She huffed. “You heard that?” She fell silent, and her eyes grew dreamy. “I had many lovers over the years—sometimes when I had patrons, sometimes when I did not. I gave too much money to one. But my last lover did not cheat me out of money. He loved me with a true heart.” She looked at me. “You know him. Pan the Poet.”
I felt a cool breeze over my skin and shivered.
“Gossip reached my patron that I had sad sex with a ghost and that he was stuck in my body. My patron no longer wanted to touch me and asked for his contract money back. Puffy Cloud spread that rumor. That girl has something wrong with her heart. In every house, there is one like her.”
“Did you really have the Poet Ghost in your body?”
“What a stupid thing to ask! We did not have sex. How could we? He was a ghost. We shared only our spirit, and it was more than enough. Many girls in this business never experience true love. They take lovers and patrons, hoping they will become concubines so they can be called Second Wife, Third Wife, even Tenth Wife, if they are desperate. But that is not love. It is searching for a change of luck. With Pan the Poet, I felt only love, and he felt the same for me. We had nothing to gain from each other. That was how we knew it was true. When I left Hidden Jade Path, he had to remain because he was part of the house. Without him, I felt no life in me. I wanted to kill myself to be with him … You think I’m crazy. I can see it in your face. Hnh. Little Miss Educated American. You don’t know anything. Get dressed now. If you’re late, Madam will poke another nostril into your face.” She held up the pajamas. “Madam wants all the girls to call her Mother. Mother Ma. They are just sounds without true meaning. Say it over and over again until you can swallow them without choking. Mother Ma, Mother Ma. Behind her back, we call her the old bustard.” Magic Gourd imitated a big squawking bird flapping its wings and swooping around to guard her flock. And then she announced: “Mother Ma did not like your name Vivi. She said it made no sense. To her, it was just two sounds. I suggested she use the Chinese word for the violet flower.”
She pronounced the word for “violet” as zizi, like the sound of a mosquito. Zzzzzz! Zzzzz!
“It’s just a word,” she said. “It’s better that they call you that. You are not that person. You can have a secret name that belongs to you—your American nickname, Vivi, or the flower name your mother called you. My courtesan name is Magic Gourd, but in my heart I am Golden Treasure. I gave that name to myself.”
At breakfast, I did as Magic Gourd had advised. “Good morning, Mother Ma. Good morning, flower sisters.”
The old bustard was pleased