Shanghai Girls: A Novel Part 3

A Cicada in a Tree NOW THAT THIS whole upsetting and exhausting episode is over, May and I retreat to our room, which faces east. This usually leaves the room a little cooler in summer, but it's so hot and sticky that we wear practically nothing--just thin pink silk slips. We don't cry. We don't clean up the clothes Old Man Louie threw on the floor or the mess he left of our closet. We eat the food Cook leaves on a tray outside our door, but other than that we do nothing. We're both too shaken to voice what happened. If the words come out of our mouths, won't that mean that we'll have to face how our lives have changed and figure out what to do next when at least for me my mind is in such a turmoil of confusion, despair, and anger that I feel like gray fog has invaded my skull? We lie on our beds and try to ... I don't even know the word. Recover?

As sisters, May and I share a particular kind of intimacy. May is the one person who'll stand by me no matter what. I never wonder if we're good friends or not. We just are. During this time of adversity-as it is for all sisters-our petty jealousies and the question of which one of us is loved more dissolve. We have to rely on each other.

Once I ask May what happened with Vernon, and she says, "I couldn't do it." Then she begins to weep. After that, I don't ask about her wedding night and she doesn't ask about mine. I tell myself that it doesn't matter, that we've just done something to save our family. But no matter how many times I tell myself it wasn't important, there's no getting around the fact that I lost a precious moment. In truth, my heart is more broken by what happened with Z.G. than by my family losing its standing or by having had to do the husband-wife thing with a stranger. I want to bring back my innocence, my girlishness, my happiness, my laughter.

"Remember when we saw The Ode to Constancy?" I ask, hoping the memory will remind May of when we were still young enough to believe we were invincible.

"We thought we could put on a better opera," she answers from her bed.

"Since you were younger and smaller, you got to play the beautiful girl. You always played the princess. I always had to be the scholar, prince, emperor, and bandit."

"Yes, but look at it this way: You got to play four roles. I only got one."

I smile. How many times have we had this same disagreement about the productions we used to stage for Mama and Baba in the main salon when we were young? Our parents clapped and laughed. They ate watermelon seeds and drank tea. They praised us but never offered to send us to opera school or to the acrobatic academy, because we were pretty terrible, with our squeaky voices, our heavy tumbling, and our improvised sets and costumes. What mattered was that May and I had spent hours plotting and staging in our room or running to Mama to borrow a scarf to use as a veil or begging Cook to make a sword from paper and starch for me to fight whatever ghost demons were causing trouble.

I remember winter nights when it was so cold that May crawled into my bed and we snuggled together to keep warm. I remember how she slept: her thumb resting on her jaw, the tips of her forefinger and middle finger balanced on the edges of her eyebrows just above her nose, her ring finger lightly placed on an eyelid, and her pinkie delicately floating in the air. I remember that in the morning she'd be cuddled against my back with her arm wrapped around me to hold me close. I remember exactly how her hand looked-so small, so pale, so soft, and her fingers as slender as scallions.

I remember the first summer I went to camp in Kuling. Mama and Baba had to bring May to see me, because she was so lonely. I was maybe ten and May only seven. No one had told me they were coming, but when they arrived and May saw me, she ran to me, stopping just in front of me to stare at me. The other girls teased me. Why did I need to bother with this little baby? I knew enough not to tell them the truth: I longed for my sister too and felt like a part of me was missing when we were separated. After that, Baba always sent the two of us to camp together.

May and I laugh about these things, and they make us feel better. They remind us of the strength we find in each other, of the ways we help each other, of the times that it was just us against everyone else, of the fun we've had together. If we can laugh, won't everything be all right?

"Remember when we were little and we tried on Mama's shoes?" May asks.

I'll never forget that day. Mama had gone visiting. We'd sneaked into her room and pulled out several pairs of her bound-foot shoes. My feet were too big for the shoes, and I'd carelessly discarded them as I tried to squeeze my toes into pair after pair. May could get her toes in the slippers, and she'd tiptoed to the window and back, imitating Mama's lily walk. We'd t.i.ttered and frolicked, and then Mama came home. She was furious. May and I knew we'd been bad, but we had a hard time suppressing our giggles as Mama tottered around the room, trying to catch us to pull our ears. With our natural feet and our unity, we escaped, running down the hall and out into the garden, where we collapsed in laughter. Our wickedness had turned into triumph.

We could always trick Mama and outrun her, but Cook and the other servants had little patience for our mischief, and they didn't hesitate to punish us.

"Pearl, remember when Cook taught us to make chiao-tzu?" May sits cross-legged on her bed across from me, her chin resting on her bunched fists, her elbows balanced on her knees. "He thought we should know how to make something. He said, 'How are you girls going to get married if you don't know how to make dumplings for your husbands?' He didn't know how hopeless we'd be."

"He gave us ap.r.o.ns to wear, but they didn't help."

"They did when you started throwing flour at me!" May says.

What began as a lesson turned into a game and then finally into an all-out flour battle, with both of us getting really mad. Cook, who has lived with us since we moved to Shanghai, knew the difference between two sisters working together, two sisters playing, and two sisters fighting, and he didn't like what he saw.

"Cook was so angry that he didn't let us back in the kitchen for months," May continues.

"I kept telling him I was just trying to powder your face."

"No treats. No snacks. No special dishes." May laughs at the memory. "Cook could be so stern. He said sisters who fight are not worth knowing."

Mama and Baba knock on our door and ask us to come out, but we decline, saying we prefer to stay in our room awhile longer. Maybe it's rude and childish, but May and I always deal with conflicts in the family this way-by holing up, and building a barricade between us and whatever has harmed us or we don't like. We're stronger together, united, a force that can't be argued with or reasoned with, until others give in to our desires. But this calamity isn't like wanting to visit your sister at camp or protecting each other from an angry parent, servant, or teacher.

May gets off her bed and brings back magazines, so we can look at the clothes and read the gossip. We comb each other's hair. We look through our closet and drawers and try to a.s.sess how many new outfits we can make from what we have left. Old Man Louie seems to have taken almost all our Chinese clothes, leaving behind an a.s.sortment of Western-style dresses, blouses, skirts, and trousers. In Shanghai, where appearances are nearly everything, it will be important for us to look smart and not dowdy, fashionable and not last year. If our clothes seem old, not only will artists no longer hire us but streetcars won't stop for us, doormen at hotels and clubs might not let us in, and attendants at movie theaters will double-check our tickets. This affects not only women but men too; they, even if they're in the middle cla.s.s, will sleep in lodgings plagued by bedbugs so they can afford to buy a nicer pair of trousers, which they put under their pillows each night to create sharp creases for the new day.

Does it sound like we lock ourselves away for weeks? Hardly. Just two days. Because we're young, we're easily cured. We're also curious. We've heard noises outside the door, which we've ignored for hours at a time. We tried not to pay attention to the hammering and thumping that shook the house. We heard strange voices but pretended they belonged to the servants. When we finally open the door, our home has changed. Baba has sold most of our furniture to the local p.a.w.nshop. The gardener is gone, but Cook has stayed because he has nowhere else to go and he needs a place to sleep and food to eat. Our house has been chopped apart and walls added to make rooms for boarders: a policeman, his wife, and two daughters have moved into the back of the house; a student lives in the second-floor pavilion; a cobbler has taken the s.p.a.ce under the stairs; and two dancing girls have moved into the attic. The rents will help, but they won't be enough to care for us all.

WE THOUGHT OUR lives would go back to normal, and in many ways they do. Mama still orders around everyone, including our boarders, so we aren't suddenly burdened with carrying out the nightstool, making beds, or sweeping. Still, we're very aware of how far and how quickly we've fallen. Instead of soy milk, sesame cakes, and fried dough sticks for breakfast, Cook makes p'ao fan-leftover rice swimming in boiled water with some pickled vegetables on top for flavor. Cook's austerity campaign shows in our lunch and dinner dishes too. We've always been one of those families who have wu hun pu ch'ih fan-no meal without meat. We now eat a coolie's diet of bean sprouts, salt fish, cabbage, and preserved vegetables accompanied by lots and lots of rice.

Baba leaves the house every morning to look for work, but we don't encourage him or ask him questions when he returns at night. In failing us, he's become insignificant. If we ignore him-demeaning him by our inattention and lack of concern-then his downfall and ruin can't harm us anymore. It's our way of dealing with our anger and hurt.

May and I try to find jobs too, but it's hard to get hired. You need to have kuang hsi, connections. You have to know the right people-a relative or someone you've courted for years-to get a recommendation. More important, you need to give a substantial gift-a leg of pork, a bedroom set, or the equivalent of two months' salary-to the person who will make the introduction and another to the person who will hire you, even if it's only to make matchboxes or hairnets in a factory. We don't have money for that now, and people know it. In Shanghai, life flows like an endlessly serene river for the wealthy, the lucky, the fortunate. For those with bad fates, the smell of desperation is as strong as a rotting corpse.

Our writer friends take us to Russian restaurants and treat us to bowls of borscht and cheap vodka. Playboys-our countrymen who come from wealthy families, study in America, and go to Paris on vacation-take us to the Paramount, the city's biggest nightclub, for joy, gin, and jazz. We hang out in dark cafes with Betsy and her American friends. The boys are handsome and adamant, and we soak them up. May disappears for hours at a time. I don't ask where she goes or with whom. It's better that way.

We can't escape the sense that we're slipping, dropping, falling.

May never stops sitting for Z.G., but I'm uncomfortable going back to his studio after having made such a scene. They finish the advertis.e.m.e.nt for My Dear cigarettes, with May doing double duty, modeling for Z.G. in her original spot and then taking my position on the back of the chair. She tells me this and encourages me to help with another calendar Z.G.'s been commissioned to do. I sit for other artists instead, but most of them just want to shoot a quick photo and work from that. I make money, but not much. Now, instead of getting new students, I lose my only student. When I tell Captain Yamasaki that May won't accept his marriage proposal, he fires me. But that's only an excuse. Across the city, the j.a.panese are acting strangely. Those who live in Little Tokyo pack up and leave their apartments. Wives, children, and other civilians return to j.a.pan. When many of our neighbors desert Hongkew, cross Soochow Creek, and take temporary quarters in the main part of the International Settlement, I attribute it to the usual superst.i.tious nature of my countrymen, especially the poor, who fear the known and the unknown, the worldly and the unworldly, the living and the dead.

To me, it feels as if everything has changed. The city I always loved pays no attention to death, despair, disaster, or poverty. Where once I saw neon and glamour, I now see gray: gray slate, gray stone, the gray river. Where once the Whangpoo appeared almost festive with its warships from many nations, each flying colorful flags, now the river seems choked by the arrival of over a dozen imposing j.a.panese naval vessels. Where once I saw wide avenues and shimmering moonlight, I now see piles of garbage, rodents boldly scurrying and scavenging, and Pockmarked Huang and his Green Gang thugs roughing up debtors and prost.i.tutes. Shanghai, as grand as it is, is built on shifting silt. Nothing stays where it's supposed to. Coffins buried without lead weights drift. Banks hire men to check their foundations daily to make sure that the tonnage of silver and gold hasn't caused the building to tilt. May and I have slid from safe, cosmopolitan Shanghai to a place that's as sure as quicksand.

May's and my earnings are our own now, but it's hard to save. After giving Cook money to buy food, we're left with practically nothing. I can't sleep for all the worry I feel. If things continue this way, soon we'll be subsisting on bone soup. If I'm to save anything, I'll have to go back to Z.G.'s.

"I'm over him," I tell May. "I don't know what I ever saw in him. He's too thin, and I don't like his gla.s.ses. I don't think I'll ever marry for real. That's so bourgeois. Everyone says so."

I don't mean a word I say, but May, who I think knows me so well, responds, "I'm glad you're feeling better. I really am. True love will find you. I know it will."

But true love has found me. Inside I continue to suffer with thoughts of Z.G., but I hide my feelings. May and I get dressed, then pay a few coppers to ride in a pa.s.senger wheelbarrow to Z.G.'s apartment. On the way, as the wheelbarrow pusher picks up and drops off others, I agonize that seeing Z.G. in his rooms, where I held such girlish dreams, will leave me shredded with embarra.s.sment. But once we arrive, he acts as if nothing's happened.

"Pearl, I'm almost finished with a new kite. It's a flock of orioles. Come take a look."

I go to his side, feeling awkward to be standing so close to him. He chats on about the kite, which is exquisite. The eyes of each oriole have been fashioned so that they'll spin in the wind. On each segment of the body Z.G. has attached articulated wings that will flap in the breeze. On the tips are little feathers that will quiver in the air.

"It's beautiful," I say.

"The three of us are going to fly it once it's done," Z.G. announces.

It isn't an invitation, just a statement of fact. I think, if it doesn't bother him that I made a fool of myself, then I can't let it bother me either. I have to be tough to bear my deeper feelings, which threaten to overwhelm me.

"I'd love to do that," I say. "May and I both would."

They smile at each other, clearly relieved. "Great," Z.G. says, rubbing his hands together. "Now let's get to work."

May steps behind a screen and changes into red shorts and a cropped yellow top that ties behind her neck. Z.G. puts a scarf over her hair and ties it beneath her chin. I slip into a red bathing suit decorated with b.u.t.terflies. It has a little skirt and a belt cinched at the waist. Z.G. pins a red and white bow in my hair. May gets onto a bicycle, one foot on a pedal, the other balancing on the floor. I place one hand over hers on the handlebar. My other hand steadies the bike on the back of May's seat. She glances over her shoulder at me, and I stare at her. When Z.G. says, "That's perfect. Hold it," not once am I tempted to look at him. I stay focused on May, smile, and pretend that I couldn't be happier than to push my sister's bike along a gra.s.sy hill overlooking the ocean to promote Earth fly and mosquito spray.

Z.G. recognizes that holding this particular pose is difficult, so after a while he lets us have a break. He works on the background for a time, painting a sailboat on the waves, and then he asks, "May, shall we show Pearl what we've been working on?"

While May goes behind the screen to change, Z.G. puts away the bike, rolls up the backdrop, and then pulls a low chaise to the middle of the room. May returns, wearing a light robe, which she drops when she gets to the chaise. I don't know what's more startling-that she's naked or that she seems utterly at ease. She lies on her side, her elbow bent and her head resting on her hand. Z.G. drapes a piece of diaphanous silk over her hips and so lightly across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s that I can see her nipples. He disappears for a minute and returns with some pink peonies. He snips the stems and carefully places the blossoms around May. He then unveils the painting, which has been hidden under a cloth on an easel.

It's almost finished, and it's exquisite. The soft texture of the peony petals echoes that of May's flesh. He's used the rub-and-paint technique, working carbon powder over May's image and then applying watercolors to create a rosy complexion on her cheeks, arms, and thighs. In the painting, she looks as though she's just stepped from a warm bath. Our new diet of more rice and less meat and her paleness from the events of the past days give her an air of languorous la.s.situde. Z.G. has already dotted the eyes with dark lacquer so they seem to follow the viewer, beckoning, luring, and responding. What's May selling? Watson's lotion for p.r.i.c.kly heat, Jazz hair pomade, Two Baby cigarettes? I don't know, but looking from my sister to the painting, I see that Z.G. has achieved the effect of hua chin i tsai-a finished painting with lingering emotions-that only the great masters of the past realized in their work.

But I'm shocked, deeply shocked. I may have done the husband-wife thing with Sam, but this seems far more intimate. Yet again, it shows just how far May and I have fallen. I suppose this is just an inevitable part of our journey. When we first sat for artists, we were encouraged to cross our legs and hold sprays of flowers in our laps. This pose was a wordless reminder of courtesans from feudal times whose bouquets had been between their legs. Later we were asked to clasp our hands behind our heads and expose our armpits, a pose used since the beginning of photography to capture the allure and sensuous availability of Shanghai's Famous Flowers. One artist painted us chasing b.u.t.terflies in the shade of willow trees. Everyone knows that b.u.t.terflies are symbols for lovers, while "willow shade" is a euphemism for that hairy place on women down low. But this new poster is a long way from any of that and further still from the one of the two of us doing the tango that so upset Mama. This is a beautiful painting; May has to have lain naked for hours before Z.G.'s eyes.

But I'm not just shocked. I'm also disappointed in May for allowing Z.G. to talk her into this. I'm angry at him for preying on her vulnerability. And I'm heartsick that May and I have to take it. This is how women end up on the street selling their bodies. But then this is how it is for women everywhere. You experience one lapse in conscience, in how low you think you'll go, in what you'll accept, and pretty soon you're at the bottom. You've become a girl with three holes, the lowest form of prost.i.tute, living on one of the floating brothels in Soochow Creek, catering to Chinese so poor they don't mind catching a loathsome disease in exchange for a few humping moments of the husband-wife thing.

As disheartened and disgusted as I am, I go back to Z.G.'s the next day and the day after that. We need the money. And soon enough, there I am practically naked. People say you need to be strong, smart, and lucky to survive hard times, war, a natural disaster, or physical torture. But I say emotional abuse-anxiety, fear, guilt, and degradation-is far worse and much harder to survive. This is the first time that May and I have ever experienced anything like this, and it saps our energy. While I find it almost impossible to sleep, May retreats to those numbing depths. She dozes in bed until noon. She takes naps. Some days at Z.G.'s she even starts to nod off as he paints. He lets her out of her pose so she can sleep on the couch. While he paints me, I look at May, her fingers placed just so but still not entirely covering her face, which is pensive even in sleep.

We're like lobsters slowly boiling to death in a pot of water. We sit for Z.G., attend parties, and drink absinthe frappes. We go to clubs with Betsy, and let others pay for us. We go to movies. We window-shop. We simply don't understand what's happening to us.

THE DATE NEARS when we're supposed to leave for Hong Kong to meet our husbands. May and I have no intention of getting on that boat. We couldn't even if we wanted to because I threw away the tickets, but our parents don't know that. May and I go through the motions of packing so they won't be suspicious. We listen to Mama's and Baba's travel advice. The night before our scheduled departure, they take us out for dinner and tell us how much they'll miss us. May and I wake up early the next morning, get dressed, and leave the house before anyone else rises. When we return home that evening-long after the ship has sailed-Mama weeps with pleasure that we are still here and Baba yells at us for not doing our duty.

"You don't understand what you've done," he shouts. "There's going to be trouble."

"You worry too much," May says in her lightest voice. "Old Man Louie and his sons have left Shanghai, and in a few days they'll leave China for good. They can't do anything to us now."

Baba's face roils with anger. For a moment I think he's going to hit May, but then he squeezes his hands into fists, marches off to the salon, and slams the door. May looks at me and shrugs. Then we turn ourselves over to our mother, who takes us into the kitchen and orders Cook to make tea and give us a couple of precious English b.u.t.ter cookies he has saved in a tin.

Eleven days later, it rains in the morning, so the heat and humidity are not as bad as usual. Z.G. splurges and hires a taxi to take us to the Lunghua PaG.o.da on the outskirts of the city to fly his kite. It isn't the most beautiful place. There's an airstrip, an execution ground, and a camp for Chinese troops. We tromp across the field until Z.G. finds a spot to stage the flight. Some soldiers-wearing ripped tennis shoes and faded, ill-fitting uniforms with insignia pinned to their shoulders-abandon a puppy they're playing with to help us.

Each oriole is attached by a hook and separate string to the main line. May picks up the lead oriole and lifts it into the air. With the soldiers' a.s.sistance, I add a new oriole and its string to the main line. One oriole after the other takes off, until pretty soon a flock of twelve orioles swoosh, swoop, and dip in the sky. They look so free up there. May's hair flies in the breeze. Her hand shields her eyes as she gazes into the sky. Light glints off Z.G.'s gla.s.ses, and he grins. He motions me to him and hands me the control of the kites. The orioles are made from paper and balsa, but the pull of the wind and the sky is strong. Z.G. moves behind me and puts his hands over mine to steady the control. His thighs lie against mine and my back against his torso. I breathe in the sensation of being so close to him. Surely he has to be aware of what I feel for him. Even with him there to hold me, the pull from the kite is so powerful that I think I might be lifted up to fly away with the orioles into the clouds and beyond.

Mama used to tell us a story about a cicada sitting high in a tree. It chirps and drinks in dew, oblivious to the praying mantis behind it. The mantis arches up its front leg to stab the cicada, but it doesn't know an oriole perches behind it. The bird stretches out its neck to snap up the mantis for a midday meal, but it's unaware of the boy who's come into the garden with a net. Three creatures-the cicada, the mantis, and the oriole-all coveted gains without being aware of the greater and inescapable danger that was coming.

Later that afternoon, the first shots are exchanged between Chinese and j.a.panese soldiers.

White Plum Blossoms.

THE NEXT MORNING, August 14, we wake late to the sounds of movement, people, and animals outside our walls. We draw back the curtain and see streams of people pa.s.sing the house. Are we curious about them? Not at all, because our minds are on how to get the most out of the one dollar we have to spend during the shopping expedition we're planning. This isn't some shallow thing. As beautiful girls, we require fashionable ensembles. May and I have done what we can to mix and match the Western outfits Old Man Louie left behind, but we need to keep current. We aren't thinking about the new fall fashions, because the artists we work for are already creating calendars and advertis.e.m.e.nts for next spring. How will Western designers modify the dress in the new year? Will a b.u.t.ton be added to a cuff, the hem shortened, the neckline lowered, the waist nipped? We decide to go to Nanking Road to look in the windows and try to imagine what the changes will be. Then we'll stop by the notions department in the towering Wing On Department Store to buy ribbons, lace, and other trim to freshen our clothes.

May puts on a dress with a pattern of white plum blossoms against a robin's egg blue background. I wear loose white linen trousers and a navy blue short-sleeved top. Then we pa.s.s the morning looking through what's left in our closet. It's in May's nature to spend hours at her toilette, choosing the right scarf to tie at her throat or purse to match her shoes, so she tells me what we should look for and I write it down.

It's late afternoon when we pin on hats and pick up our parasols to protect us from the summer sun. August, as I've said, is miserably hot and humid in Shanghai, the sky white and oppressive with heat and clouds. This day, however, is hot but clear. It might have even pa.s.sed for pleasant if not for the thousands of people who crowd the streets. They carry baskets, chickens, clothes, food, and ancestor tablets. Grandmothers and mothers with bound feet are supported by sons and husbands. Brothers lug poles across their shoulders coolie-style. In the baskets at the ends are their little brothers and sisters. Wheelbarrows transport the aged, sick, and deformed. Those who can afford it have paid coolies to bear their suitcases, trunks, and boxes, but most of the people are poor and from the country. May and I are happy to get in a rickshaw and separate ourselves from them.

"Who are they?" May asks.

I have to think about it. That's how disconnected I am from what's happening around me. I mull over a word I've never before spoken aloud.

"They're refugees."

May frowns as she takes that in.

If I make this sound like this sudden turbulence has come out of nowhere, that's because it has for us. May doesn't pay much attention to the world, but I know a few things. Back in 1931, when I was fifteen, the dwarf bandits invaded Manchuria in the far north and installed a puppet government. Four months later, at the beginning of the new year, they crossed into the Chapei district across Soochow Creek right next to Hongkew, where we live. At first we thought it was fireworks. Baba took me to the end of North Szechuan Road, and we saw the truth. It was horrible to see the bombs exploding and worse still to see Shanghailanders in their evening clothes, drinking liquor from flasks, nibbling on sandwiches, smoking cigarettes, and laughing at the spectacle. With no help from the foreigners, who got rich off our city, the Chinese Nineteenth Route Army fought back. j.a.pan didn't agree to a cease-fire for another eleven weeks. Chapei was rebuilt, and we let the incident go out of our minds.

Then last month shots were fired on the Marco Polo Bridge in the capital. The official war began, but no one thought the dwarf bandits would come this far south so fast. Let them take Hopei, Shantung, Shansi, and a bit of Honan, the thinking went. The monkey people would need time to digest all that territory. Only after establishing control and snuffing out uprisings would they consider marching southward into the Yangtze delta. The sorry people who would live under foreign rule would be w.a.n.g k'uo nu- lost-country slaves. We don't grasp that the trail of refugees crossing the Garden Bridge with us extends for ten miles into the countryside. There is so much we don't know.

We view the world very much as peasants in the countryside have for millennia. They've always said the mountains are high and the emperor is far away, meaning palace intrigues and imperial threats have no impact on their lives. They've acted as though they could do whatever they wanted without fear of retribution or consequence. In Shanghai, we also a.s.sume that what happens elsewhere in China will never touch us. After all, the rest of the country is big and backward, and we live in a treaty port governed by foreigners, so technically we aren't even part of China. Besides, we believe, truly believe, that even if the j.a.panese reach Shanghai, our army will beat them back as they did five years ago. But Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has a different idea. He wants the fight with the j.a.panese to come to the delta, where he can arouse national pride and resistance, and at the same time consolidate feelings against the Communists, who have been talking about civil war.

Of course, we have no inkling of that as we cross the Garden Bridge and enter the International Settlement. The refugees drop their loads, lie on sidewalks, sit on the steps of the big banks, and crowd onto the wharves. Sightseers gather in cl.u.s.ters to watch our planes try to drop bombs on the j.a.panese flagship, the Idzumo, and the destroyers, mine sweepers, and cruisers that surround it. Foreign businessmen and shoppers determinedly step around what's at their feet and ignore what's happening in the air, as though things like this go on every day. The mood is at once desperate, festive, and indifferent. If anything, the bombings are an entertainment, because again the International Settlement-as a British port-isn't under any threat from the j.a.panese.

Our puller stops at the corner of Nanking Road. We pay the agreed-upon price and join the throng. Each plane that sweeps overhead brings whoops of encouragement and applause, but when every single bomb misses its target and falls harmlessly into the Whangpoo, cheers turn to boos. Somehow it all seems a funny game and eventually a dull one.

May and I stroll up Nanking Road, avoiding the refugees and eyeing Shanghainese and Shanghailanders to see what they're wearing. Outside the Cathay Hotel we run into Tommy Hu. He wears a white duck suit and a straw hat tilted back on his head. He seems thrilled to see May, and she melts into her flirtatious mode. I can't help wondering if they arranged to meet.

I cross the street, leaving May and Tommy with their heads together and hands gently touching. I'm just in front of the Palace Hotel when I hear a loud rat-a-tat coming from behind me. I don't know what it is, but I duck instinctively. Around me, others fall to the ground or run for doorways. I look back toward the Bund and see a silver plane flying low. It's one of ours. Antiaircraft fire sprouts from one of the j.a.panese ships. At first, it seems like the dwarf bandits missed their target, and a few people cheer. Then we see smoke spiral out of the plane.

Crippled by the antiaircraft fire, the plane veers over Nanking Road. The pilot must know he's going to crash, because suddenly he lets the two bombs attached to the wing drop. They seem to take a very long time to fall. I hear whistling and then feel a sickening lurch accompanied by a shattering explosion as the first bomb lands in front of the Cathay Hotel. My eyes go white, my eardrums go silent, and my lungs stop working, as if the explosion has punched out my body's knowledge of how to operate. A second later, another bomb goes through the roof of the Palace Hotel and explodes. Debris-gla.s.s, paper, bits of flesh, and body parts-hurtles down on me.

It's said that the worst part of the bombing experience is the seconds of total paralysis and silence that immediately follow the initial concussion. It's as though-and I think this is an expression used in every culture-time stands still. That's how it is for me. I'm frozen in place. Smoke and plaster dust billow. Eventually I hear the tinkle of gla.s.s falling from the hotel's windows. Someone moans. Someone else screams. And then total panic engulfs the street as another bomber wobbles through the air above us. A minute or two later, we hear and feel the impact of two more bombs. They land, I find out later, in the intersection of Avenue Edouard VII and Thibet Road near the racecourse, where many refugees have gathered to receive free rice and tea. Altogether the four bombs wound, maim, or kill thousands of people.

My immediate thought is for May. I have to find her. I stumble across a couple of mangled bodies. Their clothes have been ripped, shredded, and bloodied. I can't tell if they were refugees, Shanghainese, or Shanghailanders. Severed arms and legs litter the street. A stampede of hotel guests and staff pushes and shoves through the Palace's doors and pours out onto the street. Most of them are screaming, many of them bleeding.

People run over the injured and the dead. I join the panicked scramble, needing to make my way back to where I left May and Tommy. I can't see anything. I rub my eyes, trying without success to rid them of dust and terror. I find what's left of Tommy. His hat is gone and so is his head, but I still recognize the white of his suit. May isn't with him, thank G.o.d, but where is she?

I turn back toward the Palace Hotel, believing I missed her in my rush. Nanking Road is carpeted with the dead and dying. A few badly injured men lurch drunkenly down the middle of the street. Several cars burn, while others have had their windows blown out. Inside them are more injured and dead. Cars, rickshaws, trams, wheelbarrows, and the people inside them have been pitted by shrapnel. Buildings, billboards, and fences are spattered with flecks of humanity. The sidewalk is slippery with clotted blood and flesh. Shattered gla.s.s glitters on the street like so many diamonds. The stench in the August heat burns my eyes and clogs my throat.

"May!" I call and take a few steps. I keep shouting her name, trying to hear her response through the panic that whirls around me. I stop to examine every injured or dead body. With so many dead, how can she have survived? She's so delicate and easily hurt.

And then, amid all the blood and gore, I see through the crowd a patch of robin's egg blue with a white plum blossom pattern. I run forward and find my sister. She's partially buried in plaster and other debris. She's either unconscious or dead.

"May! May!"

She doesn't move. Fear grips my heart. I kneel beside her. I don't see any wounds, but blood has soaked into her dress from a gruesomely injured woman lying next to her. I brush the debris from May's dress and lean down close to her face. Her skin is as white as candle wax. "May," I say softly. "Wake up. Come on, May, wake up."

She stirs. I coax her again. Her eyes blink open, she groans, and closes her eyes again.

I pelt her with questions. "Are you hurt? Do you feel pain? Can you move?"

When she answers with a question of her own, my whole body relaxes in relief.

"What happened?"

"There was a bomb. I couldn't find you. Tell me you're all right."

She twists first one shoulder and then the other. She winces, but not in agony.

"Help me up," she says.

I put a hand behind her neck and pull her into a sitting position. When I let go, my hand is sticky with blood.

All around us people moan from their injuries. Some cry for help. Some gurgle final, tortured gasps for life. Some scream from the horror of seeing a loved one in pieces. But I've been on this street many times, and there's an underlying silence that's chilling, as if the dead are sucking sound into their dark emptiness.

I put my arms around May and get her to her feet. She sways, and I worry she'll lose consciousness again. With my arm around her waist, we take a few steps. But where are we going? Ambulances haven't arrived yet. We can't even hear them in the distance, but from neighboring streets come people-unhurt and in surprisingly clean clothes. They rush from corpse to corpse, from injured to injured.

"Tommy?" May asks. When I shake my head, she says, "Take me to him."

I don't think that's a good idea, but she insists. When we reach his body, May's knees crumple. We sit on the curb. May's hair is white with plaster dust. She looks like a ghost spirit. I probably look the same.

"I need to make sure you aren't hurt," I say, partly to take May's attention away from Tommy's body. "Let me take a look."

May turns her back to me and away from Tommy. Her hair's matted with already clotting blood, which I take to be a good sign. I carefully part the curls until I find a gash on the back of her head. I'm not a doctor, but it doesn't look like it needs st.i.tches. Still, she's been knocked out. I want someone to tell me it's safe to take her home. We wait and wait, but even after the ambulances come no one helps us. Too many others need immediate attention. As dusk settles, I decide we should go home, but May won't leave Tommy.

"We've known him our entire lives. What would Mama say if we left him here? And his mother ..." She trembles, but she doesn't cry. Her shock is too deep for that.

Just as furniture vans arrive to take away the dead, we feel the concussion of bombs being dropped and hear the rattle of machine guns in the distance. None of us in the street has any illusions about what this means. The dwarf bandits are attacking. They won't bomb the International Settlement or any of the foreign concessions, but Chapei, Hongkew, the Old Chinese City, and the outlying Chinese areas have to be under fire. People scream and cry, but May and I fight our fear and stay with Tommy's body until it's loaded onto a stretcher and put in the back of one of the vans.