He took off his shirt and wrapped it around her. He held her close to his heart so he would never forget how precious she was to him. Gratitude and relief made him tearful again. “I will. I’ll do anything for you.”
The next day after work, he took Miriam to Shanghai Jewish Youth Association School. Founded by Sir Horace Kadoorie, a wealthy Jew in Shanghai, the school was located on the far west end of Bubbling Well Road, miles away from where he lived. It was a one-story building with a courtyard surrounded by a high brick wall. The school taught first grade to eighth, with courses in religion, music, Chinese, and English. Miriam’s English was not proficient enough, so she would be put in the sixth grade. But this was the end of the spring semester; she would need to wait to enroll and attend classes in the fall. Enrollment included the registration fee, a monthly fee of five American dollars, and a fee to a host family the school arranged—it was too dangerous for children to commute. A sum of twenty American dollars. Given the accelerating inflation and fluctuating exchange rate between the Nationalist currency and American dollars, he estimated it would be the equivalent of six hundred Chinese fabi.
He was in luck, for after all these months of work he had saved just about six hundred Chinese fabi.
19
AIYI
I went to Sassoon’s hotel a few weeks after speaking to my brother. In the bright lobby, I encountered no hostile foreigners this time, to my relief.
It was easy to spot Emily Hahn, slouching on a burgundy chesterfield near the Jazz Bar, scribbling something on a notepad, her lipstick dark, her eyebrows two dramatic arcs.
Emily, a reporter originally from St. Louis, had published many essays about Chinese people in the New Yorker, shedding light on China, an unfamiliar country to many Americans. The only female foreign journalist I knew, she managed to establish her literary reputation among the privileged—and opinionated—Chinese scholars like Sinmay and became the go-to essayist for many foreign publications by writing insightful articles as an American in Shanghai. She had been reporting in Nanjing about the massacre there and also writing a book about the Soong sisters.
Referred to as Big Bottom by Peiyu, Emily was not beautiful to traditional Chinese eyes: her face was too full, her profile too sharp, and she was too tall and fleshy. She didn’t have the coyness that Shanghai girls were trained to learn. Her wantonness, as many remarked, was legendary—first Sassoon, then Sinmay. And if I was old to Peiyu at twenty, Emily was ancient at thirty-five.
But I didn’t mind what they said about Emily. I had hoped she could be my ally, or a friend—I’d have liked to have a friend, for since Eileen left for Hong Kong, I had been very lonely. When I saw Emily at Sinmay’s literary salon six months ago, I had attempted to befriend her by introducing my seamstress to her. But Emily, talking about writing a biography about Madam Soong and her sisters, looked irritated. She blew out a stream of smoke in my face, mocked me, calling me a brainless and boring girl, and shooed me away.
I was not quite ready to forgive her, so I stopped at a good distance from the chesterfield, waiting for a right moment. Then suddenly, she threw down the pen. Her shoulders quavered; a sob escaped her.
Writers, they were like babies. They needed long hours of creative slumber and whined and threw tantrums constantly, but they also needed to be held once in a while.
I dug out a handkerchief from my purse and handed it to her.
She raised her head. Her dark eyes were large and watery, her complexion ghastly pale, like Sinmay’s. They were both addicts. “What are you doing here, little girl?” She took the handkerchief, folded it over her nose, and blew into it like a trumpet.
That was how different we were: American women blew their noses like opera, while Shanghai girls like me were taught to play it down to an unnoticeable diminuendo. And being called little girl in that unflattering tone was rather humiliating. But I needed her help. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
“What do you care?”
The same old arrogant, whiny Emily, but I knew she could also be perceptive, from all her articles I’d read. I had to put up with her. “Well, if you have time, I’d like to tell you something newsworthy. I hired a pianist. A European pianist. He’s the newest sensation in Shanghai. You might want to interview him.”
She sniffled. “You come here to tell me that? After you got attacked by the foreigners?”
So she had heard. “They were drunk. They wouldn’t be that violent if they were sober.”
“Clearly you’re going to get yourself killed someday.”