I saw how she entranced the men. They acted as if they were in love with her. However, they could not make any confessions of ardor, no matter how true. The warning went around that she would not view them as genuine feelings of love, but trickery to gain unfair advantage. She promised that if they tried to gain her affections, she would banish them from Hidden Jade Path. She broke that promise with one man.
BEHIND THE BALCONIES were two hallways, and between them was a common room, where we took our meals. On the other side of a round archway was a larger room we called Family Hall. It contained three tea tables and sets of chairs, as well as Western furnishings. Here my mother met with the tailor or shoemaker, the tax official, the banker, and others who conducted boring business. From time to time, the occasional mock wedding took place between a courtesan and patron who had signed a contract for at least two seasons. When the room was not in use, more often than not, the Cloud Beauties drank tea and ate sweet seeds, while chatting idly about a suitor no one wanted, or a new restaurant with fashionable foreign food, or the downfall of a courtesan at another house. They treated one another like sisters, tied by their circumstances to this house and this moment in their brief careers. They comforted one another, gave encouragement, and also bickered over petty matters, such as their shared expenses for food. They were jealous of one another but also loaned one another pins and bracelets. And they often told the same stories of how they were separated from their families, culminating in all sharing a good long cry of mutual understanding. “No one should have to bear fate this bitter” was the common refrain. “Fuck that lousy dog” was another.
A hallway led to a courtyard flanked by two large wings of the house, laid out as quadrangles around a smaller courtyard. To the left was the southwest wing, where the Cloud Beauties lived. A covered walkway ran along all four sides, which was how each courtesan reached her room. The lowest-ranked courtesan had the room closest to the hallway, which afforded her the least privacy, since all the other courtesans had to walk past her door and window to reach their rooms. The highest-ranked courtesan had the room farthest from the hallway, which gave her the most privacy. Each long room was divided into two parts. On one side of a tall lattice screen, the Cloud Beauty and her guest could have an intimate dinner. Behind the screen was her boudoir. It had a window facing the inner courtyard, and this was ideal for moon watching. The more popular a beauty was, the more well appointed her room, often lavished with gifts from her suitors and patrons. The boudoirs were more Chinese in style than the furnishings in the salon. No patron wanted to puzzle over which divan to recline on for a smoke, where he could relieve himself, or where he might sleep when he had exhausted himself, or was about to do so.
My mother, Golden Dove, and I lived in the northeast wing. Mother had separate rooms on two sides of the building. One was her bedroom and the other her office, where she and Golden Dove met to discuss the evening’s guests. I always joined her during her late-midday meal, and also remained with her as she readied herself in her bedroom for the evening. This was the happiest time of my day. During that lean hour, she would ask me about the subjects I was learning, and she often would add interesting facts. She would ask about my reported transgressions: what I had done to cause one of the maids to want to kill herself, whether I had been sassy to Golden Dove, how I had torn yet another dress. I offered my opinion on a new courtesan, or on a new hat Mother was wearing, or on Carlotta’s latest antics, and other similar matters that I thought were important to the management of the household.
Mother had another room adjoining her office. These two rooms were separated by French glass doors with thick curtains for privacy. That room was called Boulevard, because its windows faced a view of Nanking Road and it served several purposes. During the day, I took my lessons there with my American tutors. However, if Mother or Golden Dove had guests from out of town, the visitors were given that room as their accommodations. On occasion, a courtesan showed poor planning or excessive popularity by booking two clients for the same night. She would entertain one client in Boulevard and the other in her boudoir. If she was careful, neither client would know of her duplicity.
My room was on the north side of the east wing, and being close to the main corridor, it enabled me to hear the gossip of the four maids who stood just around the corner from my window while awaiting orders to bring tea, fruit, or hot towels and such. As they served the courtesan, they were privy to how well she was succeeding with a new admirer. It always puzzled me why the courtesans assumed the maids were deaf.
“You should have seen her face when the necklace he showed her was worth less than half what she had hoped for. I wasn’t surprised.”
“Her situation is dire. Within a month, she’ll be gone. Ai-ya, poor girl. She’s too good for this kind of fate.”
In the early evening, at least one Cloud Beauty would lead her patron to the larger courtyard below for romantic talk about nature. I stood on the walkway and listened to those rehearsed murmurings so often that I could recite them as wistfully as the courtesans. The moon was a topic they brought up often.
I should be happy seeing the full moon, my love. But I feel sick, because I’m reminded my debts are waxing and your ardor is waning. Why else have you not given me a gift lately ? Should my devotion be rewarded with poverty ?
It did not matter how generous the patron was. The beauty would press him for more. And often, the long-suffering patron would sigh and tell his courtesan to not cry anymore. He would agree to whatever formula of happiness would quench the girl’s complaints.
That was usually how it worked. But one night, I heard with glee as a patron said: “If you had your way, there would be a full moon every day. Don’t harangue me with this moon nonsense ever again.”
In the late morning, I would hear the girls talking in the courtyard among themselves.
“The cheapskate pretended to be deaf.”
“Just like that, he agreed. I should have asked months ago.”
“His love is genuine. He told me I’m not like other flower beauties.”
By the light of day, they saw different meanings in the sky. How changeable those clouds were, just like fate. They saw ominous signs in wispy streaks high in the sky, noting that they were so far away. They rejoiced when the clouds were as fat as babies’ bottoms, and they were fearful when those babies turned over, showing underbellies that were black. So many Cloud Beauties before them had seen their fates change in one day. They had been warned by the older flower sisters that popularity was as lasting as a fashionable hat. But as their reputations grew, most would forget the warning. They believed they would be the exception.
On cold nights, I cracked open the window and listened to the maids. On warm nights, I opened wide the window and stood quietly in the dark behind my lattice screen shutters. Carlotta sat on my shoulder, and together we listened to the maids talk about what was happening in the rooms of the courtesans. Sometimes they said words I had heard the Cloud Beauties use among themselves: Threading the Needle, Entering the Pavilion, Rousing the Warrior, and many other expressions that made them laugh.
How could a child not be curious about the source of that laughter? I satisfied that curiosity the summer I was seven. An opportunity arose when three maids and a courtesan were wretchedly ill from eating rotted food. The remaining maid was called away, to tend to the vomiting courtesan. I saw Rosy Cloud and her suitor walk past my window and toward her boudoir. After a few minutes, I darted to the west wing and crouched under her window. I was not tall enough to see into the room, and most of what I heard was tedious pleasantry.
You’re looking well and happy. Business must be good. I imagine your wife singing like a joyful bird.
Just when I was about to give up and return to my room, I heard a