“I was not in the exhibit, which is understandable. But did your interviewees mention me? A Chinese girl who got involved with Ernest?” I ask.
She hesitates. “I’ll need to think about it, Ms. Shao.”
But by the look in her eyes, I can tell she doesn’t need to. “Do you believe what they said?”
Something in me has not changed after forty years. I still care about people’s opinions of me.
“Well . . .”
I take a deep breath. I should have presented my donation earlier, and now it looks like a bribe. “Ms. Sorebi, I forgot to mention that if you agree to make a documentary about Mr. Reismann, I shall donate the Peace Hotel to you.”
Her jaw drops. “This hotel?”
I see she understands the value. The Peace Hotel, opened in 1929, was originally named the Cathay Hotel. It had guest rooms from floors four to nine inside the towering Sassoon House. Described by many as the Waldorf Astoria of the East, it’s a valuable asset culturally, historically, and financially. In the course of the fifty years since it opened, the hotel has had different owners: Sir Victor Sassoon, the Nationalist government, and the pro-Japanese Wang Jingwei government, and now it’s my property. I have had it privately evaluated, and it is said to be worth at least ten million dollars.
“But I have a request. You must listen to my story.”
“I’d love to, Ms. Shao.” She turns to her fringed bag and tries to dig something out but stops. Her hands are shaking. My offer has taken her by surprise, and she obviously doesn’t know how to react yet. “I’m honored to make this documentary about Mr. Reismann, but I must make it clear, and I don’t mean to be rude, Ms. Shao, but as a documentarian, I’m not allowed to twist the truth or distort the history.”
“Of course. So you must hear my story.”
“But why donate this hotel? You know the value of it. It can make thousands of documentaries.”
“I’ve told you Mr. Reismann is precious to me, and I’m an old woman with one foot, as you can see. I only wish to have no regret before I go to my grave.”
She cocks her head, looking skeptical.
“I shall put this into writing, if you still have doubts. And one more thing, Ms. Sorebi. Please do me a favor and don’t call me ma’am.”
“Why, of course, Ms. Shao.” She’s smiling to placate me, or perhaps to try to forget the unfavorable description of my association with Ernest that she has heard.
I lean back in my wheelchair. “The first thing you need to know, young lady, is the truth: in Shanghai, if you’re a woman and a business owner, you cannot climb through a tunnel of spiders without catching some cobwebs in your hair.”
I was the seventh and youngest child of the Shaos, one of the wealthiest families in Shanghai, and people called me a jade leaf growing on a gold branch, Jin Zhi Yu Ye. My illustrious grandfather, whose name was on many lips, had modernized the mud town Shanghai and founded many enterprises in the late 1800s—a railway company, a telegraph firm, a large iron-and-steel joint venture, and a university still prominent today. He was a prime minister of the collapsed Qing dynasty. When he died, his funeral procession was attended by officials and ambassadors from Russia, Britain, Germany, the United States, and even Japan. It extended from the west end of Nanjing Road to the Huangpu River. He had left my family the great fortune we relied on as well as a legacy of patriarchy my brothers seemed all too happy to carry on.
My father, who had lived like a typical dandy, was an intrepid mayor of Shanghai for years before his opium addiction. I had few memories of him; all were unpleasant, including his bouts of anger. Maybe he felt threatened by Mother, the oldest child of a powerful warlord. A woman with bound feet but an excellent skier who took trips to the Alps, she was known for her shrewdness and clever maneuver of finance. Thanks to her, in the throes of my father’s opium addiction the bulk of my family’s wealth was squirreled away.
As a child, I grew up in an enclosed compound, educated by an aging tutor who lectured on obedience and family honor, pampered by an army of servants, and screened from the vileness and violence of the world. As a young woman, I was materialistic, in love with dresses and purses, lipsticks and limelight. But I knew my future as soon as I could understand things: I would marry Cheng, my cousin, and after marriage, I would become a mother and produce as many children as possible. As a child, I hadn’t known better and had gone along with this plan, since this was what Mother had arranged for me—but it would become the biggest sorrow of my life.