I felt only the flame in my heart.
He was not going to come; he had changed his mind.
A tap came on the door. I leaped, unlatched the door, and saw the most beautiful face in my dreams. I jumped on him and threaded my arms around him. Ernest was sobbing, or maybe I was. I cupped his face and wiped off his tears. We laughed, twirled, jumped around, and tumbled on the bed.
I kicked off my high heels, took off yesterday’s stockings, and unbuttoned my red dress. I helped him take off his jacket, his shirt, and his trousers until he was naked, until I was naked. I slid back on the bed to make room for him. I opened my arms and parted my legs. I had made love to him before, in the same inn, in the back of my Nash, and in Sassoon’s hotel; I was familiar with his body and my desire, yet this felt like it was our first time. I kissed him urgently, greedily, desperately. When he held me, when his body became part of mine, I cried out. From now on, there would be no more secrets, no more hesitation, no more separation, no more him, no more me. Only us.
Later, he kissed my forearm, my knuckles, and my shoulder, his stubble pricking me, a happy ache of a seedling breaking out for the warmth of the sun. Lying on my stomach, I turned to him, my hair damp, my head a roaring engine newly greased.
“I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine.” His fingers were playing with my earlobe.
I took his finger and bit it. Just hard enough so he could feel me. “Chinese people don’t talk about love.”
“Why not?”
“Because we think love is fleeting, fickle, and simply frivolous. Life, however, is a mysterious well of infinity and profundity. So we talk about life and fate. We also believe life is a cycle of chances, karma, and reincarnation.” I climbed on top of him, my stomach on his stomach, my palms to his palms, my body taking flight on the rise and fall of his breath. “There’s karma between lovers, too; we call it yuan. It’s like a predestined chance or like a divine coin of happiness for lovers. You earn them by making good choices in this life, and you’d be paid in the next life.”
“How do you say that? Yang?”
“No, yuan.”
“Got it. Yang.”
I laughed. “I was so worried about you. I thought you were sent to a camp.”
“Everyone is worried about that. I’m hoping for the best. I’m stateless, so maybe the Japanese will leave me alone. You’ve lost weight. You’re so thin. Tell me what you were doing.”
I told him all: the fight with Cheng and my family and the lockup in my own room. And he told me of the messenger bag, the album, and the ten thousand American dollars. Him purchasing a bakery and more. He was no longer a penniless refugee. He was a businessman with assets.
I nodded. He had a sharp mind and a poise that seemed to sharpen at moments of distress. Given opportunities, he could build an empire.
“Sassoon took some pictures of me. I wonder if that album has my photos,” I said. No more secrets from him. I reached out and cupped his face, watching the blue glaze in his eyes, ready to kiss him and placate him.
A flicker. He would never get over the fact that I took off my clothes in front of Sassoon. But he held my hand. “I burned it. It’s gone.”
“You did the right thing.” I was sore, my legs weak, but I was alive, fresh, and fiery. “Can we do it again?”
55
ERNEST
He loved the smell of her, the shape of her hands, the way she put on her high heels, crossing her legs, her back curved, the arc of grace and seduction. He ran his hands over her taut calf and played on her skin, a sonatina of beauty and harmony. He could live like this, watch her put on her shoes, and make love to her every day for the rest of his life.
It was a punishment to let her out of sight, which he never wanted to happen again, but he had to run the bakery. Still, he made plans with her. He would like to move into the apartment he had bought, but that wouldn’t be safe for him. Perhaps she could move into the apartment she had rented for him? She shook her head. She would be a mistress in Chinese people’s eyes, and she was reluctant to dishonor her family’s name.
So she had no choice but to stay in this inn, where she’d registered with a pseudonym. He came to see her every day but left at night before the curfew. She negotiated a good rate, and he paid it. For three months.
In the bakery, it was a different world.
Rumors swirled every day, shifty and chilly like gusts of wind through a dark winding alley: The Japanese had placed Mr. Komor, the organizer of the Jewish charity group that helped him get settled upon his arrival, under house arrest. The Embankment Building was shuttered. A Japanese soldier had flipped a refugee into the Huangpu River when he was too slow moving out of the way on the street.