We changed in a big tent with no privacy and no heating. Somehow, although I dress my daughter every day, her auntie took charge, slipping off Joy’s felt jumper and helping her step into trousers that were as dark, dirty, and loose as the ones May and I wore. Then we went to hair and makeup. They hid our hair under black cloths wrapped tightly around our heads. They tied Joy’s hair with several rubber bands until her head looked like it was sprouting exotic black plants. They smeared our faces with brown makeup, bringing back memories of May coating my face with the mixture of cocoa and cold cream. Then we went back outside, so we could be spattered with mud from a spray gun. After that, we waited in the fake Shanghai, our wide black trousers fluttering in the breeze like dark spirits. For those born here, this is as close as they’ll ever get to the land of their ancestors. For those born in China, the set allows us a moment to feel as though we’ve been transported across the water and back in time.
I have to admit I love seeing how much the crew likes my sister and the way the other extras respect her. May is happy, smiling, greeting friends, reminding me of the girl she used to be back in Shanghai. And yet, as the night drags on, I see more and more things that disturb me. Yes, a man sells live chickens, but behind him a group of men squat on their haunches and gamble. In another part of the scene, men pretend to smoke opium—right on the fake street! Nearly all the men have pigtails, even though the story not only takes place after the Republic was formed but has as its background the dwarf bandits’ invasion twenty-five years later. And the women …
I think about The Shanghai Gesture, which May, Sam, Vern, and I saw earlier this year at the Million Dollar. Josef von Sternberg, the director, had spent time in Shanghai, so we thought we might see something that would remind us of our home city, but it was just another one of those stories where a white girl was led into gambling, alcohol, and who knew what else by a dragon lady. We laughed at the movie posters, which read, “People live in Shanghai for many reasons …most of them bad.” Toward the end of my days in Shanghai, I’d thought that was true, but it still hurt to see my home city—the Paris of Asia—painted in such an evil light. We’ve seen this kind of thing in movie after movie, and now we’re in one.
“How can you do this, May? Aren’t you ashamed?” I ask.
She looks genuinely confused and hurt. “About what?”
“Every single Chinese in this film is portrayed as backward,” I answer. “We’re made to giggle like idiots and show our teeth. They make us pantomime because we’re supposed to be stupid. Or they make us speak the worst sort of pidgin English—”
“I suppose, but are you telling me this doesn’t remind you of Shanghai?” She looks at me, hopeful.
“That’s not the point! Don’t you have any pride in the Chinese people?”
“I don’t know why you have to complain about everything,” she replies. Her disappointment is palpable. “I brought you here so you could see what Joy and I do. Aren’t you proud of us?”
“May—”
“Why can’t you have a good time?” she asks. “Why can’t you take pleasure in watching Joy and me earn money? I admit we don’t make as much as those guys over there.” She points to a gaggle of fake rickshaw pullers. “I got them a guaranteed seven fifty a day for a week, so long as they kept their heads completely shaved. Not bad—”
“Rickshaw drivers, opium smokers, and prostitutes. Is that what you want people to think we are?”
“If by people you mean lo fan, what do I care what they think?”
“Because these things are insulting—”
“To whom? They aren’t slurs against us, you and me. Besides, this is just part of an evolution for us. Some people”—meaning me, I suppose—“would rather be unemployed than take a job they feel is beneath them. But a job like this gives us a start, and it’s up to us to go from here.”
“So today those men will play rickshaw pullers and tomorrow they’ll own the studio?” I ask skeptically.
“Of course not,” she says, finally annoyed. “All they want is a speaking role. There’s a lot of money in that, Pearl, as you know.”
Bak Wah Tom has been enticing May with the dream of a speaking role for a couple of years now and it still hasn’t happened, although Joy has already had a few lines on different films. The bag where I keep Joy’s earnings has gotten quite fat, and she’s still a small child. In the meantime, Joy’s auntie yearns to make her own twenty dollars for a line, any line. By now she’d settle for something as simple as “Yes, ma’am.”
“If sitting around pretending all night to be a bad woman offers such opportunity,” I say rather pointedly, “then why haven’t you gotten a speaking role?”
“You know why! I’ve told you a thousand times! Tom says I’m too beautiful. Every time the director chooses me, the female star shoots me down. She doesn’t want my face to fight with hers because I’ll win. I know that sounds immodest, but that’s what everyone says.”
The crew finishes positioning people and adding a few more props for the next part of the scene. The film we’re working on is a “warning” movie about the Japanese threat; if the Japanese can invade China and disrupt foreign interests, shouldn’t we all be worried? So far, from my perspective, having spent a couple of hours shooting the same street scene over and over, it has little to do with what May and I experienced on our way out of China. But when the director describes the next scene to us, my stomach tightens.
“Bombs are going to drop,” he explains through a megaphone. “They aren’t real, but they’re going to sound real. Next the Japs are going to rush into the market. You have to run that way. You, over there with the cart, tip it over on your way out. And I want the women to scream. Scream really loud—like you think you’re going to die.”
When the camera begins to roll, I hold Joy on my hip, give what I think is a pretty good fake scream, and run. I do it again and again and again. Even though I’d had a momentary fear that this would bring bad memories, it doesn’t. The fake bombs don’t shake the ground. My ears don’t go deaf from the concussions. No one loses their limbs. Blood doesn’t spurt. It’s all just a game and fun in the way it had been years ago when May and I used to put on plays for our parents. And May was right about Joy. She’s good at following directions, waiting between shots, and crying when the camera starts rolling, just as she was instructed.
At two in the morning, we’re sent back to the makeup tent, where they daub fake blood on our faces and clothes. When we return to the set, some of us are positioned on the ground—legs splayed, clothes twisted and bloody, eyes unseeing. Now the dead and dying lie around us. As the Japanese soldiers advance, the rest of us are supposed to run and scream. This isn’t hard for me. I see the yellow uniforms and hear the stomp of boots. One of the extras—a peasant like me—bumps into me, and I scream. When the fake soldiers run forward with their bayonets before them, I try to get away, but I fall. Joy scrambles to her feet and continues to run, tripping over corpses, getting farther away from me, leaving me. One of the soldiers pushes me down when I try to get up. I’m paralyzed with fear. Even though the men around me have Chinese faces, even though they’re my neighbors dressed up to look like the enemy, I scream and scream and scream. I’m no longer on a movie set; I’m in a shack outside Shanghai. The director yells, “Cut.”
May comes to my side. Her face is etched with concern. “Are you all right?” she asks as she helps me up.
I’m still so upset that I can’t speak. I nod, and May gives me a questioning look. I don’t want to talk about what I’m feeling. I didn’t want to talk about it in China, when I woke up in the hospital, and I still don’t. I take Joy from May’s arms and hug my baby tight. I’m still shaking when the director saunters over to us.
“That was terrific,” he says. “I could have heard you scream two blocks away. Could you do it again?” He eyes me appraisingly “Could you do it several more times?” When I don’t answer right away, he says, “There’s extra money in it for you, and the kid too. A great scream is a speaking part as far as I’m concerned, and I can always use a face like hers.”
May’s fingers tighten on my arm.
“So you’ll do it?” he asks.
I push the memory of the shack out of my mind and think about my daughter’s future. I could put a little extra money aside for her this month.