“I’m leaking again. Where’s the baby? I shouldn’t have let the wet nurse go. Don’t forget to mail the wedding invitations with your notes and personal seal, Aiyi.” She waddled away on her tiny, bound feet.
I took out the stack of invitations and placed them next to the lotus seed soup. It was my marriage, my future, except it felt like a time bomb.
“What’s wrong?” Emily Hahn stood in front of me. Her voice was husky, like smoke, and slow, like Sinmay’s. But she looked sober, her eyes discerning. She wore a navy-blue cotton shirt with sailor front and wide-legged black trousers with a sash, the style of my favorite movie star, Hepburn.
“Nothing.” I gathered the invitations. She didn’t come here often.
“You won’t thank me for the article?” She went to sit on a rosewood chair, a gift from the late empress of the bygone dynasty.
Emily had done a lot for my family. When the Japanese won the war, they had tried to confiscate Sinmay’s printing press imported from Germany, which had the world’s most sophisticated technology. Without it, his publishing business would collapse. Emily went to great lengths to save it. She produced a marriage certificate with Sinmay, sealed by the American consulate, and argued that the printing press belonged to her, an American citizen, so it couldn’t be confiscated. And she succeeded. She relocated the press to a warehouse in the Concession, essentially saving Sinmay’s publishing business.
“I suppose so, but was it a favor?”
She lit a cigarette. “You’re right. It wasn’t. I wrote that because it was newsworthy, like you said. So thank you for the lead, little girl. Frankly, I was rather surprised. An aristocratic Chinese woman who had the audacity to hire a Jewish refugee, who somehow won over the motley crew of locals. I didn’t expect that. It was a good article. You’re a businesswoman, a woman with brains. You’ve grown up.”
A surprise to hear that from her, and gratifying. Perhaps Emily would be my friend now. I longed to have a friend again—to go shopping, get a drink in a bar, or go to tea. “So will you not call me little girl?”
“It’s a term of endearment, but fine, Aiyi.”
Her Chinese was impressive. She even got the tones of my name right. “So you saw my pianist. He’s brilliant, could you tell? A brilliant pianist. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
Emily gave me a look. In that instant I knew why she could make a living as a journalist.
“A warning, Aiyi. Falling in love is like teetering on the edge of a precipice blindfolded. It’s wonderful, but it might cause life-threatening injuries.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Fortunately, Peiyu was not around.
“You don’t like me talking about your secret? I’ll tell you mine.”
“You’re pregnant.”
She nearly choked on the smoke. “What made you say that?”
“You rarely come here. It must be something important.”
“So you assume I’m pregnant? Why do you Chinese like children so much? Sinmay wants me to get pregnant. He said Chinese people love children.”
“Not me.” I disliked those infinitely annoying brats. Once my nephew had set off a firecracker in my bedroom, and another nephew had added rat droppings to my tea. Not to mention all the candies they stole from my drawer. “I’ll never have children.”
She shrugged. “I came here because I’m miserable. I don’t like Shanghai anymore. I used to be loved by poets and plutocrats, female friends and male friends. Look at me now, ostracized, lonely, and poor.” She was the woman on the chesterfield again, distant and irascible.
“Come on. It’s not that bad. You still have your job.”
She sniffled, and her husky voice was drenched with sadness. “Actually, I just lost it.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I guess the saying is true: salt and sugar should not mix. Remember that.” She laughed, her mouth open, pink tongue visible, and her voice, untrammeled, all sadness.
Sinmay walked in, his long robe swaying. “There you are, my love. You look like you need a good smoke. Shall we?”
“I can’t live like this anymore. I want to leave. You must go to Hong Kong with me, Sinmay. I beg you. If you don’t go with me, I’ll die.” Her short hair bounced around her ears, her lipstick flat like a scar.
Sinmay whispered in her ear. There was agony in his eyes, I believed. As selfish a brother as he was to me, he loved Emily—but he was the father of six children, the firstborn son of the Shao family.