“The class will be over in just a few minutes,” the girl persisted. “Is she new? Can I take her around?”
Silver hesitated for a second, as though remembering important tasks much more worthy of her time, then dismissed them both with a flick of her hand. The girl took Jade by the elbow and led her along the hallway.
“I’m Lotus. Thanks for getting me out of class.” She giggled. “What’s your name?”
“Jade.”
“That’s a nice name. You probably won’t need to change it,” Lotus said, opening another sliding door. In this room, slightly smaller than the first room, a set of students were practicing watercolor paintings on one side and calligraphy on the other.
“Did Mama tell you about the five arts of a courtesan? Here are three and four: painting and poetry . . . We also take Korean, Japanese, and arithmetics here. You get tested on every subject once a month, and if you don’t get everything correct, you have to repeat that month.”
“Even Japanese and arithmetics?” Jade asked, feeling troubled.
“Aye, especially those two.” Lotus nodded gravely. “I’ve been held back from moving on to second year for a while now. But that means we can be in the same class!”
Lotus giggled and ran up the flight of stairs to the second floor, and Jade followed her, breathless with laughter. Here, Lotus pulled Jade into the biggest classroom she had seen yet. This room was empty, its polished wooden floor shiny with wear. There were masks and colorful robes hanging on the walls; in one corner, stretched-leather drums and other instruments were neatly stacked one on top of the other.
“This room is for the fifth art of a courtesan—dance. You start learning it in the second year,” Lotus said. “So this is it for our school building. Let me show you where you’ll sleep.”
The girls’ dormitory was a single-story villa behind the school. They were crossing the courtyard toward the first years’ bedroom when a dazzlingly beautiful girl came out of the kitchen wing. Jade could see that she was not a servant, however, from her costly outfit and the haughty way she was nibbling on a piece of rice taffy. She caught sight of them and started heading in their direction.
“My older sister Luna,” Lotus whispered. Luna was unmistakably her mother’s daughter. She resembled Silver the way the moon’s reflection on the river mirrored its source.
“You’re the new girl,” Luna said, playing with the end of her braid, which was as thick and fluffy as a leopard’s tail. Her face was so radiant that Jade could only steal glances in bits and pieces, a nose here and a mouth there.
“Yes, I’m Jade,” she answered with a timid smile, and Luna broke into a splendid laughter.
“You’d be pretty if your teeth weren’t so bad. They look like tombstones,” the older girl taunted.
“And you have a brain like tombstones,” Lotus said without missing a beat. But even the flush of rage did nothing to mar Luna’s face and only made her look more like an adolescent empress. Despite her physical resemblance to Silver, Luna was more lively and cruel, with none of Silver’s statuesque graciousness toward the less fortunate.
“You unruly girl. This is why no one loves you, even Mama,” Luna said. Her younger sister just held her gaze until she swept away in contempt.
That night, Jade lay awake in her cot, wondering how she would last a month at the school, let alone graduate and become a courtesan. If she failed her exams, perhaps Silver would turn her into a servant after all. Even now, she was not far ahead of a servant in the household’s hierarchy, and making an enemy of Luna was an inauspicious beginning. Complete obedience to the older students and courtesans was surely the most basic tenet at the school. Jade could tell that there were numerous other unspoken rules and expectations at play, and Silver was the undisputed judge who presided over them all.
Nevertheless, Jade soon learned that the mistress didn’t take her position for granted. Nor was she a mystical being who never raised her voice except to pronounce platitudes. She exacted punishment on young apprentices who defied older courtesans, and older courtesans who spread gossip or hid their earnings from the house. Bedspreads soiled with menstrual blood, a filched hairpin, even a pot of honey from which a few spoonfuls kept disappearing—nothing escaped her notice. Although she became involved in the pettiest issues, her face remained gravely detached with the impassive attitude of a pale-faced beauty in a seventeenth-century painting. Jade saw that in all aspects Silver cultivated an antique aura, by both natural disposition and conscious decision. Her huge braided crown—a mix of her own hair and wig—would have been old-fashioned and fattening on many women. On her, it spoke to a romantic attachment to the past, a poetic sensibility.