Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls 1)

“I didn’t know you felt that way about him.” Her voice is so soft and comforting, I barely hear her.

She holds me as I weep. Even after I stop crying, I feel sympathetic trembling coming from deep within her. We couldn’t be closer. Whatever happens, we’ll survive together.

I’VE DREAMED OF my wedding to Z.G. for so long, but what I get with Sam is nothing like what I imagined. No Chantilly lace, no veil eight yards long, no fragrant cascades of flowers for the Western ceremony. For the Chinese banquet, May and I don’t change into red embroidered gowns and phoenix headdresses that quiver when we walk. There’s no big gathering of the families, no gossiping or jokes traded, no small children running, laughing, and hollering. At two in the afternoon, we go to the courthouse and meet Sam, Vern, and their father. Old Man Louie is just as I remembered him: wiry and stern-faced. He clasps his hands behind his back and watches the two couples sign the papers: married, July 24, 1937. At four, we go to the American Consulate and fill out forms for nonquota immigration visas. May and I check boxes verifying that we’ve never been in prison, an almshouse, or a hospital for the insane, that we’re not alcoholics, anarchists, professional beggars, prostitutes, idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded, epileptic, tubercular, illiterate, or suffering from psychopathic inferiority (whatever that is). As soon as we sign our forms, Old Man Louie folds them and tucks them into his jacket. At six, we meet our parents at a nondescript hotel that caters to Chinese and foreigners down on their luck, and then we have dinner in the main dining room: four newlyweds, my parents, and Old Man Louie. Baba tries to keep the conversation going, but what can anyone say? The orchestra plays, but none of us dance. Dishes come and go, but even the rice seems to choke me. Baba tells May and me to pour tea, as is the custom for brides, but Old Man Louie waves away the offer.

Finally, it’s time for us to retire to our respective bridal chambers. My father whispers in my ear, “You know what you need to do. Once it’s done, all this will be over.”

Sam and I go to our room. He seems more tense than I am. He sits on the edge of the bed, hunched over, staring at his hands. If I’ve spent hours imagining my wedding to Z.G., then I’ve also spent hours envisioning our wedding night and how romantic it would be. Now my mother comes into my mind, and I realize at last why she always speaks so poorly of the husband-wife thing. “You just do it and then you forget about it,” she’s often said.

I don’t wait for Sam to come to me, hold me in his arms, or soften me with kisses on my neck. I stand in the middle of the room, unbutton the frog at my neck, move my fingers to the one above my breast, and then undo the top one under my armpit. Sam looks up and watches as I open all thirty frogs that go from my armpit down my right side. I let my dress slip off my shoulders. I sway unsteadily, chilled even on this hot night. My courage has brought me this far, but I’m unsure what to do next. Sam stands, and I bite my lip.

It’s all very awkward. Sam seems nervous about touching me, but we both do what’s expected of us. One burst of pain and it’s over. Sam stays on his elbows above me for a moment and looks into my face. I don’t meet his gaze. Instead, I stare at the braided sash that holds back the curtain. I was so intent

on getting this over with that I didn’t close the curtains. Does that make me brazen or desperate?

Sam rolls off me and turns onto his side. I don’t move. I don’t want to talk, but I can’t fall asleep either. Maybe this one night and this one time won’t matter out of a lifetime of nights with my real husband, whoever he might be. But what about May?

I get up while it’s still dark, take a bath, and dress. Then I sit in a chair by the window and watch Sam sleep. He wakes with a start just before dawn. He looks around, seemingly unsure of where he is. He sees me and blinks. His features are open, raw somehow. I can guess what he’s feeling: supreme embarrassment at being in this room and something like panic that he’s naked, that I’m sitting a few feet from him, and that he somehow has to get out of the bed and get dressed. As I did the night before, I look away. He slides to what had been my side of the bed, slips out from between the sheets, and pads quickly into the bathroom. The door shuts, and I hear the tap begin to flow.

When we get to the dining room, Vern and May are already seated with Old Man Louie. May’s skin has taken on the color of alabaster—white with a green tint hidden beneath the surface. The boy scrunches the tablecloth with his fists. He doesn’t look up when Sam and I sit down, and I realize I have yet to hear Vernon speak.

“I’ve ordered already,” Old Man Louie says. He turns his attention to the waiter. “Make sure everything arrives at the same time.”

We sip our tea. No one comments on the view or the hotel’s decor or what sights these Chinese from America might take in today.

Old Man Louie snaps his fingers. The waiter returns to our table. My father-in-law—the title alone is strange to consider—motions the waiter to lean down and then whispers in his ear. The waiter straightens, purses his lips, and leaves the room. He returns a few minutes later with two maids, each carrying bundled cloth.

Old Man Louie signals one of the girls to approach and takes the bundle from her. As he pulls the fabric through his hands, I realize with absolute horror that he has the bottom sheet from either May’s or my bed. The diners around us take this in with varying degrees of interest. Most of the foreigners don’t seem to understand what’s happening, although one couple does, and they look appalled. But the Chinese in the room—from the customers to the hotel staff—seem amused and curious.

Old Man Louie’s hands stop when he comes to a bloody splotch.

“What room did this come from?” he asks the maid.

“Room three hundred seven,” the girl answers.

Old Man Louie looks from one son to the other. “Who had that room?”

“It was mine,” Sam answers.

The sheet falls from his father’s hands. He motions for May’s sheet, and he once again begins his nasty pawing. May’s lips part. She breathes softly through her mouth. The sheet keeps moving. People around us stare. Under the table, I feel a hand on my knee. It’s Sam’s. When Old Man Louie comes to the end of the sheet without finding a bloodstain, May leans over and throws up all over the table.

That ends breakfast. A car is ordered, and within minutes May, Old Man Louie, and I are on our way back to our parents’ home. Once we arrive, there’s no small talk, tea served, or words of congratulation, only recriminations. I keep my arm around May’s waist when Old Man Louie begins speaking to my father.

“We had an arrangement.” The tone is harsh and doesn’t allow room for discussion. “One of your daughters failed you.” He holds up a hand to prevent my father from offering an excuse. “I will forgive this. The girl is young and my boy …”

I’m relieved—beyond relieved—that Old Man Louie has made the assumption that my sister and Vern didn’t do what they were supposed to do last night, instead of that they did it and she wasn’t a virgin. The result of that second possibility is almost too gruesome to contemplate: an examination by a doctor. If things were found intact, then we wouldn’t be any worse off than we are now. If they weren’t, there’d be a forced confession from my sister, the dissolution of her marriage on grounds that May had already done the husband-wife thing with someone else, my father’s money problems returned to us and perhaps multiplied, our futures once again unstable, not to mention that May’s reputation would be forever marred—even in these modern times—and the chances of her marrying into a good family—like that of Tommy Hu—destroyed.

“Never mind all that,” the old man says to my father, but it feels as if he’s responding to my thoughts. “What matters is that they are married. As you know, my sons and I have business in Hong Kong. We are leaving tomorrow, but I’m concerned. What guarantee do I have that your daughters will meet us? Our ship sails to San Francisco on August tenth. That’s only seventeen days from now.”

My insides feel like they’ve fallen through the floor. Baba lied to us again! May breaks away from me and runs up the stairs, but I don’t follow her. I stare at my father, hoping he’ll say something. But he doesn’t. He wrings his hands, acting as subservient as a rickshaw puller.

“I’m taking their clothes,” Old Man Louie announces.

He doesn’t wait for Baba to argue or for me to object. When he starts up the stairs, my father and I follow. Old Man Louie opens each door until he finds the room with May crying on her bed. When she sees us, she runs into the bathroom and slams the door. We hear her vomit again. The old man opens the closet, grabs an armload of dresses, and tosses them on the bed.

“You can’t take those,” I say. “We need them for modeling.”

The old man corrects me: “You’ll need them in your new home. Husbands like to see pretty wives.”