Peach Blossom Pavilion. Mingmei Yip

myself just in time.

      Right then we heard Fang Rong’s voice shooting up from downstairs. ‘What are you two doing upstairs, discussing Confucius’ classics? Come down at once!’

      And that ended our conversation. Hastily Little Red helped me put on fresh clothes, then accompanied me down to the ground floor.

      In the corridor heading to the dining room, I almost fainted from the smell of food. Then I saw the dishes – steamed whole fish, garlic shrimp, crabs in ginger and scallion, braised eel in roasted garlic sauce, rabbits’ legs, deers’ tongues, tortoise soup – and started to drool. Fang Rong waved Little Red away, then signalled me to sit between her and Wu Qiang.

      She smoothed my hair. ‘See, Xiang Xiang, if you behave, you’ll always have goodies like this. Now eat and drink.’ She and Wu Qiang began to pile food onto my dish and pour wine into my cup.

      ‘Thank you, Mama and De,’ I said, now feeling truly grateful.

      Then I gobbled and drank until I passed out again.

       4

       The Elegant Gathering

      After that time in the dark room, I realised that at Peach Blossom Pavilion, life was not as good as it had seemed. I’d also become, however reluctantly, a woman. Nevertheless, as time passed, I was too busy occupying myself in learning the arts – and too scared – to reflect on my future. Every week I had to take lessons in singing, pipa playing, painting, and calligraphy, and every day I had to practise five or six hours with no rest.

      One time I was so exhausted that I asked Mama for a break. A huge grin broke out on her fleshy face. ‘Aii-ya! Xiang Xiang’ – she tapped her chest – ‘you think I’m the one who’ll be benefitting from all this practising?’ Then she put her pudgy finger at my forehead and gave it a push. ‘It’s you, silly girl, YOU!’ She paused to catch her breath. ‘Wait until you get famous, maybe then you’ll show some appreciation for your mama who has made you take all these lessons!’

      Among all the arts, I liked playing the pipa – the four-stringed lute – the most. Partly because I liked the pleasant sound of the instrument, partly because I liked Pearl, my teacher. It gave me endless pleasure to watch her tilted chin, pouted lips, and slender fingers hover over the instrument like butterflies dancing from flower to flower. Also, her room was not like mine. Its silk curtains, embroidered sheets, marble-topped dressing table, gilded mirror, ornate Western clock, and paintings of pretty women fascinated me. Whenever I was there, my eyes would be busy exploring the beautiful objects while I inhaled the fragrances mingling from the flowers, the incense, and her perfumed body.

      Moreover, I was intrigued by Pearl’s magical power – men would turn hungry and naughty whenever they were within a fifty-yard radius. Upon spotting her, they would, like cats reaching their paws for fish, eagerly reach out for – a cheek, an arm, a leg, a hip, a breast.

      Now in Peach Blossom, due to my busy schedule, I didn’t have much time to think about my ‘great-aunt,’ nor the ‘fucking’ described by Little Red.

      But since that day, Little Red had been so busy carrying out errands that, whenever we ran into each other in the corridor or in the courtyard, we could never finish our conversation. As to Fang Rong, although she’d promised she’d soon enlighten me about fuck, she was in fact either too busy scolding the sisters, kowtowing to the important guests, or gloating over her account book while flicking the fat beads of her abacus with sausage fingers.

      However, I was still able to snatch tidbits of this mystery here and there in Peach Blossom.

      ‘Good heavens, how can he possibly think he can go in me when my great-aunt is right there between us!’

      ‘Is it true that his little brother is malnourished?’

      ‘Do you know how it feels when a toothpick drops into a well?’

      Although now I was not completely ignorant about this fucking business, it still seemed, in many ways, unintelligible to me. But whom to ask? Of course I’d already tried Pearl toward the end of my pipa lessons, but she’d either look tired or in a hurry to entertain a guest.

      ‘Ah, Xiang Xiang,’ she’d say apologetically, ‘Mama has asked me to teach you but I’m just not in the mood right now.’

      I had no idea whether she was really that exhausted and busy or simply reluctant to tell me, but since Mama had assigned her to be my teacher, I deemed it her duty to satisfy my fucking curiosity.

      But there was no chance to question Pearl again because now everybody in Peach Blossom was busily preparing for the Lunar New Year. Mama had ordered the servants and maids to wash windows, scrub floors, and polish furniture. Doors were hung with colourful lanterns and pasted with red scrolls for good luck. Servants took out the red drape embroidered with one hundred fruits (for longevity) to cover the big luohan chair in the welcoming-guests room. The sides of the chair were tied with two poles of bamboo symbolising frequent promotions (since bamboo grows high). On New Year’s Eve, we all sat and waited to see which guest would arrive first and be the one to light the red dragon and phoenix candles.

      On New Year’s Day, male servants lit firecrackers to send off the old year, welcome the new, and scare away evil spirits. Laughter, jokes, and words of good luck filled Peach Blossom’s guest, business, and banquet rooms. After Mama and De had led us to pray in front of all the gods and goddesses, Aunty Ah Ping brought out four big silver trays filled with dim sum. In the spirit of the new year, customers indulged themselves in spending sprees – overpaying for the food, tipping everybody in sight, and gambling for high stakes.

      On the tenth of January, I counted my lucky money and was elated to find almost ten silver coins – only to have it snatched away by Mama. To pay bills, she said. Feeling distressed, I went to the kitchen to find Guigui for solace. The puppy was so happy to see me that even in the middle of gobbling down the leftover food, he looked up and wagged his tail.

      I picked him up and rubbed my face against his warm, fluffy fur. ‘Guigui, have you been a good baby?’

      He nodded, then licked my face, leaving bits of half-chewed meat on my cheeks.

      A few days later, when the tumult of the New Year had finally died down, I went to Pearl’s room for another pipa lesson. It surprised me that Pearl didn’t have her pipa out as she usually did. Instead, she was carefully pencilling her brows in front of the mirror, while humming a tune. Why was she fretting over two thin lines instead of tuning the four strings?

      I put on my best smile. ‘Sister Pearl, aren’t we having a lesson today?’

      She lifted her brow and cast me a curious glance in her gilded, elaborately carved mirror. ‘Forget the pipa lesson. Tonight I’ll teach you some other lessons instead.’

      Before I could ask, ‘What about a fucking lesson?’ she squinted at me with her elongated phoenix eyes. ‘I heard that you were locked in the dark room some time ago?’

      I nodded.

      ‘So have you learned your dark room lesson?’

      I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I nodded again.

      ‘Why did you run away?’

      ‘To see my mother off.’

      ‘That was a high price to pay.’

      I remained silent; she asked, ‘Where did she go?’

      ‘To take refuge as a nun in a Buddhist temple in Peking.’

      Pearl burst into laughter until tears rolled down her cheeks. Her hand trembled and made a wrong move, leaving her brow crooked. When she’d finally calmed down, she pulled a silk handkerchief