The Whangpoo River slinks past us to our left like an indolent snake, its grimy skin rising, pulsing, slithering. In Shanghai, you can’t escape the river. It’s the dead end for every eastbound street in the city. On this great river float warships from Great Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and the United States. Sampans-hung with ropes, laundry, and nets-cluster together like insects on a carcass. Nightsoil boats jostle for right-of-way through ocean-liner tenders and bamboo rafts. Sweating coolies stripped to the waist clutter the wharves, unloading opium and tobacco from merchant ships, rice and grain from junks that have come from upriver, and soy sauce, baskets of chickens, and great rolls of rattan matting from flat-bottomed riverboats.
To our right rise grand five-and six-story edifices-foreign palaces of wealth, greed, and avarice. We wheel past the Cathay Hotel with its pyramid-shaped roof, the Custom House with its great clock tower, and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank with its majestic bronze lions, who beckon passersby to rub their paws to bring good luck to men and sons to women. At the border of the French Concession, we pay the rickshaw puller and then continue on foot along what becomes the Quai de France. After a few blocks, we turn away from the river and enter the Old Chinese City.
Coming here is ugly and hardly auspicious, like stepping into the past, which is precisely what Baba wants us to do with these marriages. Still, May and I have come, obedient as dogs, stupid as water buffalo. I cover my nose with a lavender-scented handkerchief to help block the smells of death, sewage, rancid cooking oil, and raw meat for sale spoiling in the heat.
Ordinarily I ignore my home city’s ugly sights, but today my eyes are drawn to them. Here are beggars with eyes gouged out and limbs burned into stumps by their parents to make them all the more pitiable. Some have putrefying sores and horrendous growths blown up to disgusting size with bicycle pumps. We make our way through alleys strung with drying bound-foot bandages, diapers, and tattered trousers. In the Old Chinese City, the women who wash these items are too lazy to wring them out. Water drips down on us like rain. Every step reminds us where we might end up if we don’t go through with these marriages.
We find the Louie sons at the gate to the Yu Yuan Garden. We try English, but they don’t seem interested in responding to us in that language. Their father is from the Four Districts of Canton, so naturally they speak the Sze Yup dialect, which May doesn’t know, but I translate for her. Like so many of us, they’ve taken Western names. The older one points to himself and says, “Sam.” Then he gestures to his younger brother and declares in Sze Yup, “His name is Vernon, but the parents call him Vern.”
I love Z.G., so no matter how perfect this Sam Louie is, I’m not going to like him. And May’s groom, this Vern, is only fourteen years old. He hasn’t even begun to grow into manhood. He’s still a little boy Baba neglected to mention that.
We all look from face to face. None of us seems to like what we see. Eyes dart to the ground, to the sky, anywhere. It occurs to me that maybe they don’t want to marry us either. If that’s the case, we can all consider this a commercial transaction. We’ll sign the papers and go back to our regular lives, with no broken hearts or hurt feelings. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t awkward.
“Maybe we should walk,” I suggest.
No one responds, but when I start to walk, the others follow, our shoes scuffing along the labyrinthine pathways past pools, rockeries, and grottoes. Willows sway in the hot air, giving the illusion of coolness. Pavilions of carved wood and gold lacquer evoke the deep past. Everything is designed to create a feeling of balance and unity, but the garden has broiled under the July sun all morning, and the afternoon air hangs heavy and viscous with fecundity.
The boy, Vern, runs to one of the rockeries and scampers up the craggy wall. May looks at me, silently asking Now what? I don’t have an answer and Sam doesn’t volunteer one. She spins away, steps down the slope to the foot of the rockery, and begins calling softly to the boy to coax him back down. I don’t think he understands what she’s saying, because he stays on top, looking a bit like a pirate at sea. Sam and I continue walking until we come to the Exquisite Jade Rock.
“I’ve been here before,” he murmurs tentatively in Sze Yup. “Do you know the story of how the rock came to be here?”
I don’t tell him that I usually avoid the Old Chinese City. Instead, trying to be polite, I say, “Let’s sit down and you can tell it to me.”
We find a bench and stare at the rock, which seems like any other rock to me.
“During the Northern Sung dynasty, Emperor Hui Tsung had a great thirst for curiosities. He sent envoys across the southern provinces to find the best examples in the land. They found this rock and loaded it on a ship. But the rock never made it to the palace. A storm-perhaps a typhoon, perhaps angry river gods-sank the ship on the Whangpoo.”
Sam’s voice is quite pleasant-not too loud, bossy, or superior. As he speaks, I stare at his feet. He stretches his legs out in front of him with his weight resting on the heels of his new leather shoes. I get my nerve up to look from those feet to his face. He’s attractive enough. I’ll go so far as to say he’s handsome. He’s quite thin. His face is long like a rice seed, which seems to exaggerate the sharpness of his cheekbones. His skin tone is darker than I like, but that’s understandable. He comes from Hollywood. I’ve read that movie stars like to bathe in the sunshine until their skin turns brown. His hair isn’t pure black. Touches of red catch the sunlight. Here it’s said that this color variation comes to those too poor to have a proper diet. Perhaps in America the food is so plentiful and rich that it also causes this change. He’s smartly dressed. Even I recognize that his suit has been recently tailored. And he’s a partner in his father’s business. If I weren’t already in love with Z.G., then Sam would seem like a good prospect.
“The Pan family pulled the rock from the river and brought it here,” Sam continues. “You can see that it satisfies all the requirements for a good rock. It looks porous like a sponge, it has a handsome shape, and it makes you think of its thousands of years of history.”
He falls silent again. In the distance, May circles the rockery, hands on her hips, her annoyance radiating across the garden. She calls up one last time, then looks around to find me. She raises her hands in defeat and begins walking toward us.
Next to me, Sam says, “I like you. Do you like me?”
Nodding seems the best response.
“Good. I will tell my father that we will be happy together.”
AS SOON AS we wave good-bye to Sam and Vern, I find a rickshaw. May climbs in, but I don’t follow her.
“You go on home,” I tell her. “I have something I need to do. I’ll catch up to you later.”
“But I need to talk to you.” Her hands grip the rickshaw’s armrests so hard that her knuckles have gone white. “That boy didn’t say a word to me.”
“You don’t speak Sze Yup.”
“It’s not just that. He’s like a little boy. He is a little boy.”
“It doesn’t matter, May.”
“You can say that. You got the handsome one.”
I try to explain that this is just a business deal, but she won’t listen. She stamps her foot, and the puller struggles to keep the rickshaw steady.
“I don’t want to marry him! If we have to do it, let me have Sam.”
I sigh impatiently. These flashes of jealousy and stubbornness are so like May, but they’re as harmless as rain on a summer afternoon. My parents and I know the best way to handle them is to indulge her until they blow away.
“We’ll talk about it later. I’ll see you at home.” I nod to the puller, who gives the rickshaw a heave and trots on his bare feet down the cobblestone road. I wait until they turn the corner and then walk to the Old West Gate, where I find another rickshaw. I give him Z.G.’s address in the French Concession.