七部小说 · Seven Novels

第三章 ——《廊上白珠》

百乐门的礼拜日是长的一日。茶舞四点开场，晚餐场八点起，舞会场一直跳到两点，再上去——天台的散场后场——是给那些银行家、外交官、自以为是外交官的男人的，要到点灯人在霞飞路上把灯一一熄掉、清晨五点钟才散。到礼拜日清晨五点，白珠已经在脚上立了十三个钟头，在香烟上撑了九个钟头。这栋楼里没人能把天台场做得比她更好。她也不格外喜欢做。她说天台上的银行家就是二楼那批银行家，只不过桌上规矩更糟——一个二十五岁、对这一物种渐失耐心的女人说起银行家来，便是这么个说法。

那礼拜日我没有天台的活。我午夜里收了第二节，便在化妆间走廊里同二号单簧管吃了一小碗凉芝麻面——那是一个从澳门来的广东男孩，叫汤尼，至今不肯到伙房里吃饭，只因为三月里同主厨为芫荽吵过一架——一点钟坐人力车回了家。我在林姨弄堂里穿着衬裙睡了四个钟头，窗朝弄堂开着，蝉已经叫起来了，因为六月已经松了筋骨。

正午我又坐电车过外白渡桥回租界，沿四川路一路绕远走进白日的腹心，因为我要让自己累。累了的身子不会想心事。累了的身子会把音节唱准，因为它没有多余的力气去倚。我一路走过一九三六年六月那个礼拜日的上海——外滩上穿围裙的小女孩、在交易行排队买冰淇淋的英国太太、仁济医院街角拎鸟笼的老人——我要把自己走得够累，累到不去想那地窖。

没用。我整个下午都在想那地窖。

到五点上百乐门屋顶时——是被一张字条招上去的，是白珠的笔迹，写在一片牛皮粗纸的杂货纸上，送到化妆间门口：上来我快死了——我已经把那地窖想了四十一个钟头。

六月里礼拜日清晨日出时的天台，是这城若有一天还能拼起来你该上去看一回的东西之一。百乐门那根霓虹柱四点熄掉——伙计们一把扳暗——塔上只剩下值班灯那点低低的黄光。玻璃柱不再是一座灯塔，成了一件高瘦的物事，里头是黯然的灯丝和一点轻微的嗡鸣。东边，外滩的煤气路灯还亮着；岸壁上的点灯人离这儿尚有两里地，要再过四十分钟才能走到南端。西边，跑马厅一片漆黑，只有更夫烧的小堆煤火冒着小团云。这一切之上，天把那塔显过的四种颜色——蓝、玫瑰、琥珀、冰——倒过来再走一遍，走得慢些，因为天的时间多。

白珠在天台一角倚栏，穿一件绿绸晨衣，那衣裳一九三四年是我的，如今已不是了，发披着，鞋脱了，妆已极倦。她身边那张小锌桌上，三只烟缸里各点着一根烟，那是她拿不定主意要哪一根时的脾气。她手里有杯无色的东西，要么是水，要么是琴酒。

「过来，」她说。「站到我边上，跟我讲一桩上了四个钟头的旧闻，新闻我此刻还顶不住。」

我过去了。我把手肘倚在栏上。霓虹柱在我们身后嗡嗡作响。栏下，二楼舞厅那道长长的石板屋顶分三面斜下去，一直斜到万航渡路那道檐口，今晨晾衣绳已被一个我不认得的菲律宾男孩拉出来晾衣了。三件菲律宾乐手的白外套在小小的风里挂着，一排晾着。

「一九三二年，」我说，「霞飞路电车上一个俄国姑娘告诉我，她房东太太告诉她说，百乐门里闹鬼。她是听一个裁缝讲的。那裁缝又是听一个屠户讲的。说法是，这楼是盖在一个仓库上头的，那仓库一九二三年里头死过一个人，造塔时建筑师懒得请人来开光镇地。」

「这是上了四个钟头了，」白珠说。她拣起中间那根烟。「那裁缝可有说那人是死于什么？」

「不曾说。」

「他们从来不说。」她抽了一口。「裁缝又怎么晓得建筑师开了光没有？裁缝对仓库镇不镇地又怎么有意见？」

「因为这一带各处，」我说，「裁缝是唯一一个跟谁都讲话的人。」

白珠笑了，是她认下一句话时那种干瘪的小笑。她把烟递给我。我吸了两口。我从不曾享受过香烟；我没有那副肺；可我已经学会，跟白珠一起抽烟是一种不必出句的谈话，礼拜日清晨五点钟我亦无句可道。

「婉吟，」她说。她没看我。她朝东望那一排长台，望向外滩的煤气灯。「姚四点钟上来过。」

我没动。

「他在我身后那桌坐下，」她说。「喝他的茅台，抽一支雪茄。问我三个问题，我答了三个。我没骗他。我也不必骗他。我若骗了他，我会告诉你。我不替他做事。」

「问了什么。」

「他问我礼拜五你是不是病了。我说你是累了。他问我你在外头是不是见着了什么男人。我说你礼拜二在新雅同《字林西报》一位英国先生学英文，那先生已婚，规矩，不算什么事。他问我杜月笙有没有打过电话给你。」

「然后？」

「然后我说没有，因为杜月笙不曾打过电话给你。」白珠把烟在栏上敲了一敲。烟灰落了三层楼远，散了。「然后他说：告诉她我今晚第二节听了喜欢。告诉她她得了我的眼。告诉她——她什么时候候得了——华格臬路上那栋公馆从三月里就候着，候不到八月底了。」

我让三息过去。菲律宾男孩晾的白外套在风里动，到底有一只袖管擦上了晾衣绳。

「他说八月，」我说。

「他说八月。」

「你晓得这是什么意思。」

「我晓得这是什么意思。」

「他要我去公馆里唱。」

「他要你去公馆里唱，小囡，他还要你陪他唱给的那些男人喝酒。他要你晓得，这事不是一首歌的事。」白珠又抽了一口。「他还要你晓得，他是在耐着性子的，因为姚是那种相信耐心特别招他这样的人喜欢的男人。这位先生从来不急。这位先生今年四十六。他有的是时间。他手里有码头工人，有湖北路烟馆的牌照，浦东有一房太太，霞飞路上有两房姨太太——他打从心底里相信——他真心相信——他叫我把这话带给你，而不是叫人把你押上车，已经是对我的客气。」

我说，「他押不动我的。」

「婉吟。」

「他押不动。」

「婉吟。」白珠回过身。绿晨衣的腰带散了，她也不重新系。「你于我是顶亲的。我有一句话要讲，讲过这一回，我不再讲第二回。姚三爷可以在这城里任何一日的任何一个钟点，把你押上车，从外滩到跑马厅之间的任何一条马路上他都办得到，他只要打两个电话，一个是法租界的捕房专线，一个是公共租界的捕房专线，世上没有哪条捕房专线会在那第二个电话之后替你出力。挡在你和那部车之间的，只有一桩——他自己的虚荣心，加上几桩生意上的考量，使他宁可把你当一件礼来收，而不是当一件麻烦来除掉。挡在中间的只有这一桩。你若把这一桩错认成护佑，那你犯下的错，我们这些人是替你收拾不了的。」

烟烧得快没了。她不去掐它。她又慢慢吸了一口，弹了灰，斜着眼看我，是她一九三四年决意要告诉我太阳穴上那道粉痕时看我的那种眼神。

「小囡，」她说。「听我说。这城里的女人个个都是要卖的。窍门，就在做那个开价的人。」

她说时不曾笑。她说得就像告诉一个姊妹这屋的房钿从哪一处出。她这才把烟掐了。她不曾再点一根。

「我没认错的，」我说。

「你两天不出声了，」她说。「礼拜五乐池上你就不出声，从那之后一直不出声。礼拜五两节里你都不曾倚那个香字，吉米·金一直拿那种眼光看我，像我会晓得为什么似的，我又不晓得为什么，因为我从不在吉米跟前说你的谎，所以我一径告诉吉米我不晓得——那么今晚吉米就要那么看你了，那种看法你是不会受用的。怎么了，小妹。」

我看那菲律宾男孩晾的白外套。

「我礼拜五怪怪的，」我说。

「这不算答。」

「我礼拜六更怪。」

「这也不算答。婉吟。看着我。」我看她。她已把眼妆卸了。少了唇上那一抹胭脂，她在白净的清晨里像是另一个人——二十岁时的她，原本不该长成今日这个她。她原是宁波鱼贩家的女儿。她手上的茧是拿柠檬遮起来的。一九三四年里，她教我在化妆间洗脸盆里用冷水洗脸，使粉卸得干净，太阳穴上不留那道小小的灰线。「看着我。我不必晓得是什么事。我必得晓得的，是这事是不是一个男人。倘若是一个男人，我必得晓得：这男人有没有家室，是不是中国人，晓不晓得姚的事，他手里有没有什么本事能护你，还是只够把你害死。这就是我必得晓得的。我不必晓得名字。我不必晓得地址。我不要一首诗。」

我心里盘了四种答法。给了她第五种。

「不是一个男人，」我说。「是一首歌。」

她看了我很久。她让晨色又转淡一层。天从琥珀转到冰。外滩上点灯人把最后一盏灯灭了，我们便隐隐看见他那一小串去路渐渐消去。

「好罢，小囡，」她说。「是一首歌。」她又点了一根递给我。「等这歌成了人，你会告诉我。是不是？」

「是。」

「等它成了姚三爷的人，你要更快告诉我。是不是？」

「不会成的。」

「是不是？」

「是。」

她点了一下头。她不再追问。白珠这人，我说过，是个寡原则、却有几条迷信的女人——其中一条迷信，是说追问姊妹这事，便如同在睡着的猫身上展开扇子，于这屋子不利。

我们又在栏边站了半个钟头。霓虹柱嗡着。万航渡路那一线树里，蝉不知在哪一棵上叫起来了。一辆汽车从东边愚园路上来，慢慢地，在大堂门口停了下来，下来一个穿白亚麻西装的男人，他几个钟头之前是来茶舞场接女儿的，在长酒吧滞留得太久了，此刻正用一种很英国的派头向夜班门房道歉。门房——这两年都是我的门房，叫我苏小姐，从不曾抬眼看过我下巴以上的脸——以一种既不退让又不需更进一步道歉的方式接下了那人的歉意。

白珠说，「那是恩斯利先生。他四月里就这么干起来了。女儿十六岁半。圣诞前她要嫁给一个英国银行的青年，外滩酒店和华懋饭店都想接这单婚宴，最后恩斯利会包百乐门。我听人说的。听他太太说的。这位太太在中英儿童医院的董事会做了九个月了，决意要靠慈善把自己的身价做回来。我又听说，她正爱着一位法国纺织进口商，那位先生已经不在上海了。这桩事不会有什么好下场，可恩斯利会拿下这婚宴。」

「你怎么晓得这么多？」

「领班告诉我的。我也讲了些事给领班听。我们打从我十九岁起就这么换着货。」

她吸完那根烟。她系上绿晨衣的腰带。她把鞋穿上。她身量这般高，脚却小。她有一回——一九三五年——告诉我，她母亲给她妹妹缠了两年的脚，又改了主意，从此她妹妹走路就一长一短。

「下楼去，」她说。「我要去睡四个钟头。今晚吉米·金要那么看你。你要把第二节那句的第三个音节给他一倚，因为姚要在廊座里，因为姚已决意每礼拜二、每礼拜五都要在廊座里坐着，直到你点头为止——我们就在礼拜二、礼拜五哄着他，直到——小囡——直到你拿定了主意，这是你自己的主意，不是我的，可在歌这一面，姚听了喜欢的歌，便是姚听了喜欢的歌。是不是？」

「是。」

「你不会把自己押上车的。」

「不会。」

「拿件东西起誓。」

「我拿我娘的评弹起誓。」

她锐利地看了我一眼。这五年里我不曾向她提过我娘，她也不曾问。她让这一眼过去了。

「这就够了，」她说。

我们从后梯下到三楼走廊。她关了她的门。我进了我的。

化妆室仍如我离开时一般。镜子四周八只灯泡都熄着。梳妆台上的水瓶半满。林姨年轻时那张小相框还摆在惯常的角度。手袋放在第三只抽屉里，是我清晨五点钟放进去的，内袋扣着，两张纸——原先那张压三字与新近那段同一笔的过门——叠在《申报》后面。

我换衣裳。我把银色旗袍重新挂回衣架。这礼拜日，我本不打算穿银的——银袍是礼拜五穿的，礼拜日我穿鸽灰，银袍是给银行家说「只在礼拜五」的——可我不想把它留在衣架上，自己去屋顶找白珠，所以我把它带进化妆室，挂在屏风后头，挡在更小、更素的、五点钟我换上去屋顶穿的藏青双绉之后。此刻我把银袍从屏风上取下，要挂回衣橱。

一张纸从衬里掉了出来。

它本是塞在丝面与棉里之间，正在右侧裉缝下方，那道缝从腋下走到髋——那处地方裁缝不会想到去查，因为裁缝不会把手伸进一件做好的旗袍里头去，除非把里子拆开。我清晨一点钟把这旗袍挂进衣橱。清晨五点到五点半我和白珠在天台。昨晚一刻钟到七点起我就在化妆室里，直到午夜下楼；午夜到四点我在地窖；四点上楼；四点把旗袍挂回去。这旗袍在上了锁的衣橱里已经十三个钟头。衣橱有钥匙。钥匙在我手里。安雅手里有一把，那是梳头娘的钥匙。管事手里有一把，那是管事的钥匙。木匠胡先生在一九三三年说过，这栋楼里所有的锁是按三套总钥匙打的，他那套钥匙能开三楼二十一道门——他这一辈子也只用过一回，是开门让一位比利时女小提琴家进屋，她清晨六点钟把自己关在走廊里哭。

我把那张纸拣了起来。

是乐谱稿纸。便宜的百代五十张一沓那种，跟先前的一样。五线由人手用直尺画的。八小节，誊得很漂亮。和弦名标在上头。下面是唱词，是我此刻已认得的那种小而干净的中国行书。不是《五月的细雨》。是我不曾听过的一首歌。词是：

夜来香未眠 —— 三更月正寒

小桥流水声 —— 何处问平安

我读了一遍。今夜的夜来香尚未睡去——三更的月色正寒。小桥，流水之声——何处去问一声平安。

这是我不曾听过的一首歌。

在印刷曲谱上发行人具名的那个位置，他写的是：为银袍而作，第七小节。

我在贵妃榻上坐下。我不曾把纸放下。我又把那行词读了一遍。何处问平安——何处去问一声平安。这是一句一场尚未承认是战争的战争开战第二礼拜才会问出的话。这一句话，在一九三六年六月里是不该问的，那时《申报》还把卢沟桥唤作谈判。这句话，以它的语言而论，比那场战争老，比这座城老——这一句出自一首半记得、半改写的唐诗的问，落在一个曾上过音乐学院的人的笔下。

我把那张纸放进手袋的内袋里，叠在另外两张之后。

我在贵妃榻上坐着，看衣橱镜里自己的影子。这面镜子老旧，朝前微微一倾，使得人在衣橱镜里的影子总比本人略略高些。这五年里我不曾去校正过那个倾角。我隐隐地，喜欢那个略高一点的版本。

今晚，在灯火的黄里，那个略高的版本是一位陌生人。那个略高的版本被一个不是我的人套进了银袍——是被安雅、被夜、被这间屋子套进去的——走了四十二级阶，在一架她看不见手的钢琴跟前唱了一段过门，又回来了。那个略高的版本如今手里有一首新歌。

我去就寝。

起头睡不着。我躺在贵妃榻上——我没脱衣；榻是丝绒的，丝绒有一种你不会把光肌肤伏上去的、又暖又冷的脾气——看着天井里那扇窗如何换气。窗本是漆成黑的，可在最底下边缘有一道小裂，这个时辰会漏进一线灰光，那线随着天明在漆玻璃上一寸一寸往上挪。四年里我看着那条线挪了四百回。它今晨挪的速度跟以往每个晨同。漆黑之外，那座城，还是同一座城。

我已不是同一个歌女了。

白珠说过：等这歌成了人，你会告诉我。我说是。我会告诉她，我想，等我手里有了那男人的名字。我会告诉她，我想，等那男人把他想说的话讲完——他还没讲完。我会告诉她，我想，等我能确信这首歌是一首歌，不是一只隔墙伸过来的手。

我后来还是睡了。我多年来第一次梦见吴县的河岸，梦见母亲的嗓音唱着一首我已不记得词的歌。梦里那嗓音是从化妆室的地板下漫上来的，是一段长长拉住的音，底下垫着一个小三度——我没醒。

午后是热的。三点钟愚园路的电车带着铃声驶过。点灯人还要好几个钟头才上街。这礼拜日的六月里，我不晓得自己是哪一国的国民。租界是一座岛，这岛本该天长地久。海军陆战队增援虹口驻防。礼拜五那天我把那张报纸折了两折，塞进手袋里那些我尚不愿再看第二眼的东西里。如今紧挨着它的，是三张乐谱稿纸。一切之下，是那把铜钥匙。

化妆间走廊里，晚场第一节开演之前那个钟头，菲律宾男孩们已经在乐手房门里笑成一团。汤尼，二号单簧管，在跑音阶。安雅一刻钟到七点敲门。

我让她进来。她替我梳通。她替我扣上珍珠耳坠。她把我转过来对镜。

「你今晚像个女人，不像个女孩，」她用带俄国口音的上海话说——这是她礼拜日里厌烦时也说的话。

「谢谢，安雅。」

「你没睡。」

「我睡了四个钟头。」

「四个钟头算睡。革命那年我才叫睡。一九一九年起我便不曾睡过。来，胭脂。」

她替我上胭脂。她不直视我的脸，只在镜里看。我意识到，她已六个月不曾直视我的脸。她六十一岁。她带了两个女儿一只箱子来到这里，一九二三年里在哈尔滨埋了一个女儿，另一个女儿是礼查饭店的打字员，安雅每月第二个礼拜日同她吃茶。她一九三五年二月里一个清闲的礼拜二告诉过我这事，此后不曾再提。

我说，「安雅。我可以问您一件事么。」

「你尽管问，」她说。她没转过身。她正在描唇线。

「这间化妆室。有没有别的进路，不从门进。」

她没顿手。她描完上唇，开始描下唇。她说：「你镜子背后有一扇板，我不去看。」

「镜子背后。」

「裉缝的转角处。左侧下方，那处墙纸贴得不平。我晓得已有两年了。我不曾按过。我不曾看过。我没拿过看那处的钱。我也没拿过不去看那处的钱。这栋楼就是这般规矩，bárinya。许多间屋子里都有那种板。我之前那位俄国梳头娘——塔季扬娜，后来嫁了天津路上一位化学师就辞了——我刚来时，她跟我说这条走廊上有三处板。她不曾告诉我你这间屋里的那一处。我自己在一九三四年十月里寻到的，那回你坐电车迟了，我在屋里候着。我不去按那处。别处的我也不按。我已经太老，不接那种钱了。」

我感觉自己很静。安雅描完下唇。

「别人晓得么，」我说。

「白珠不晓得。白珠那间屋里没有。周璇小姐那间屋里有，周璇小姐不晓得。白虹小姐礼拜二里来的那位，也不晓得。木匠胡先生晓得。总电工原来晓得，他去年八月里死了。管事不晓得。这名单我有九成把握。我有八成把握，姚三爷不晓得。我有六成把握，用你这间板的那个人，不是姚三爷的人。在这栋楼里，能有这样的把握，就算到顶了。」

「您怎么晓得不是姚的人。」

「因为姚的人会留下别的东西。姚的人会带走东西。姚的人不留乐谱稿纸。姚的人不留钱。姚的人不会用红墨水替你改一段过门。姚的人没那耐心改过门。」

我在镜里看她。她不回看。

「那是什么样的男人会，」我说。

她替我扣上最后一只珍珠耳坠。她把我转了四分之一寸，让灯光接住我右脸。

「一个寂寞的男人，」她说。「一个机灵的男人。一个晓得这栋楼是怎么造起来的男人。一个有时间的男人。一个候了两年的男人。我不晓得他是谁。我没叫你听他的。我也没叫你别听他的。我只跟你讲，他不是姚三爷的人，这便是我所晓得的。好了，起来。第二节还有十一分钟开。东边那盏吊灯已修好了，可孩子们说那链子还不老实。第二段副歌时你别站在它底下。」

我起身。

我顺廊上的梯下去。下方吉米·金的单簧管把一道半音阶跑上高 D-flat 又跑下来。吊灯按它们那种缓慢的礼仪渐次亮起。白珠在梯顶，今晚穿一件浅玫瑰色旗袍，叼一根新点的烟，她对我什么也没说——这是她整个周末待我最体贴的一件事。

我唱了。

第一节我把那一句的第三个音节给吉米·金一倚，因为姚在廊座里，因为姚在看，礼拜日晚九点半不是兴一场你还没有把握收场的架的时辰。第二节里，到那段过门，姚出了廊座两分钟——是去接一个电话，领班后来告诉我，那是福州路上一家粤菜茶馆里某位先生打来的——这两分钟里，我又把那段过门唱了一遍，极轻，是我在地窖里唱它时的那个声口。

吉米·金在第七小节那里斜着眼看了我一眼。

这一节散后我顺梯上来，过了白珠和她那个问，回进化妆室，在梳妆台前坐下，拿起粉盒，把盒子里那面小镜倾过来，照见大镜左边的墙。

在墙纸的转角处，裉缝下方，有一道极细的发丝纹。

我看了很久。我不曾去按它。

然后我把粉盒放下，抹了一道我并不需要的口红，便又下去唱第三节，因为第三节是舞会场，舞会场是给姚的。姚为第三节在廊座里坐着，他的茅台搁在小铜盘里，左右各一个副手——他在第二支歌的过门里抬了两个指头，我就把第三个音节给他一倚，因为今夜不是开价的夜。

今夜是查清楚卖主是谁的夜。

Chapter Three — Pearl on the Gallery

Sunday at the Paramount is the long day. The tea dance opens at four, the dinner sets begin at eight, the gala set runs until two, and the after-hours on the Sky Terrace — for the bankers and the diplomats and the men who think they are diplomats — go until the lamp-lighter is putting the lamps out on Avenue Joffre at five. By Sunday at five Pearl had been on her feet for thirteen hours and on her cigarettes for nine. She did the Sky Terrace better than anyone else in the building. She did not particularly like it. She said the bankers on the terrace were the same bankers on the second floor with worse table manners, which is a thing one says about bankers when one is twenty-five and has begun to lose patience with the species.

I was not booked for the terrace that Sunday. I had finished my second set at midnight, taken a small supper of cold sesame noodles in the dressing-room corridor with the second clarinet — a Cantonese boy from Macau named Tony who did not, even now, eat in the kitchen because of a fight with the head cook in March about coriander — and gone home in a rickshaw at one. I had slept four hours in Auntie Lin's lane, in a slip, with the window open onto the lane and the cicadas already starting because June had loosened.

At noon I had taken the tram back across the Garden Bridge to the Settlement and walked the long way down Sichuan Road into the heart of the day, because I wanted to be tired. A tired body does not think. A tired body sings the right syllable because there is not enough strength in it to lean. I had wanted, walking through the Sunday Shanghai of June 1936 — the small girls in pinafores on the Bund, the British wives queuing for ice cream at Chiyu Trading, the old men with bird-cages at Renji Hospital corner — to be tired enough not to think about the basement.

It had not worked. I had thought about the basement all afternoon.

By the time I went up to the Paramount's roof at five — sent for, by note delivered to me at the dressing-room door, in Pearl's handwriting on a slip of brown grocery paper, come up I'm dying — I had been thinking about the basement for forty-one hours.

The Sky Terrace at sunrise on a Sunday in June is one of the things you should see once, if the city ever puts itself back together. The neon column of the Paramount goes off at four — the staff snaps it dark — and the only light left on the tower is the low yellow of the working lamps. The glass column stops being a beacon and becomes a tall narrow object, full of dim filament and a faint hum. To the east, the Bund's gas lamps are still lit; the lamp-lighter on the seawall is two miles away and will not reach the south end for forty minutes yet. To the west, the racetrack is dark, with the small clouds the night watchmen burn coal in. Above all of it, the sky goes through the four colors the tower has been showing — blue, rose, amber, ice — in reverse order, and slower, because the sky has more time.

Pearl was at the corner of the terrace by the railing, in a dressing-gown of green silk that had been mine in 1934 and was no longer mine, with her hair down and her shoes off and her makeup very tired. She had three cigarettes lit in three different ashtrays on the small zinc table beside her, which was her habit when she could not commit to any of them. She had a glass of something colorless that was either water or gin.

"Come here," she said. "Stand next to me and tell me a piece of gossip that is older than four hours, because I cannot bear the new gossip yet."

I went. I leaned my elbows on the railing. The neon column hummed behind us. Below the railing the long slate roof of the second-floor ballroom ran in three planes to the Wanhangdu cornice, where the laundry line had been put out for the morning by a Filipino boy I did not know. Three Filipino white jackets were hanging in the small breeze, drying in a row.

"In 1932," I said, "a Russian girl on the Joffre line told me that her landlady had told her that the Paramount was haunted. She had heard it from a dressmaker. The dressmaker had heard it from a butcher. The story was that the building was on a warehouse, and that the warehouse had had a man die in it in 1923, and that the architects had not bothered to bless the ground when they raised the tower."

"That is older than four hours," Pearl said. She picked up the middle cigarette. "Did the dressmaker say what the man died of."

"She did not."

"They never do." She drew on the cigarette. "Why does the dressmaker know what the architect did and did not bless. Why does the dressmaker have an opinion on the consecration of warehouses."

"Because the dressmaker," I said, "is the only person in any of these neighborhoods who talks to everyone."

Pearl laughed, the dry small laugh she did when she had decided to like a sentence. She gave me the cigarette. I took two pulls. I have never enjoyed cigarettes; I do not have the lungs for them; but I have learned that smoking with Pearl is a form of conversation that does not require sentences, and on a Sunday at five in the morning I had no sentences I wished to put down.

"Wanyin," she said. She did not look at me. She looked east along the long terraces toward the Bund's gas lamps. "Yao came up here at four."

I did not move.

"He sat at the table behind me," she said. "He drank his Maotai. He smoked one cigar. He asked me three questions and I answered them. I did not lie to him. I did not have to lie to him. I would tell you I did, if I had. I do not work for him."

"What were the questions."

"He asked me if you had been ill on Friday. I said you had been tired. He asked me if you had been seeing a man outside the club. I said you saw an Englishman from the Daily News on Tuesdays at Sun Ya for English lessons and that the Englishman was married and decent and that was nothing. He asked me if Du Yuesheng had spoken to you on the telephone."

"And?"

"And I said no, because Du Yuesheng has not spoken to you on the telephone." Pearl tapped the cigarette over the rail. The ash fell three stories and dispersed. "Then he said: tell her I am pleased with the second set tonight. Tell her she has my attention. Tell her, when she is ready, that the mansion at Rue Wagner has been waiting since March and will not wait past August."

I let three breaths pass. The Filipino boy's white jackets moved in the breeze and a sleeve, finally, brushed the line.

"He said August," I said.

"He said August."

"You know what that means."

"I know what that means."

"He wants me to sing at the mansion."

"He wants you to sing at the mansion, sweetheart, and he wants you to drink with the men he sings you to. He wants you to know it is not a question of song." Pearl drew on the cigarette. "He also wants you to know that he is being patient, because Yao is a man who believes patience is a virtue particularly attractive in him. The man has never been in a hurry. The man is forty-six. He has time. He has the dock workers and he has the franchise on the Hubei Road dens and he has a wife in Pudong and two concubines on Avenue Joffre and he believes — he genuinely believes — that he is being courteous to me when he tells me what he wants me to tell you, instead of having someone walk you to a car."

I said, "He could not have me walked to a car."

"Wanyin."

"He could not."

"Wanyin." Pearl turned. The sash of the green dressing-gown had come undone and she did not retie it. "You are very dear to me. I am going to say a thing because I will not say it again. Yao Sanye could have you walked to a car at any hour of any day in this city, on any street between the Bund and the Race Club, and he could do it with two telephones, one of which is the police line in the French Concession and one of which is the police line in the Settlement, and there are no police lines in the world who would do anything for you after the second call. The only thing standing between you and the car is that he prefers, for reasons of vanity and a few reasons of business, to obtain you as a gift rather than as a removal. That is the only thing. If you mistake that for protection you are going to make a mistake the rest of us cannot fix."

The cigarette was burning low. She did not put it out. She drew on it once more, slowly, and tipped the ash and looked at me sidelong, the way she had looked at me in 1934 when she had decided to tell me the thing about the powder on the temple.

"Sweetheart," she said. "Listen to me. Every woman in this town is for sale. The trick is being the one who sets the price."

She said it without smiling. She said it the way one tells a sister where the rent is paid from. She put the cigarette out then. She did not light another one.

"I am not mistaking it," I said.

"You have been quiet for two days," she said. "On Friday you were quiet at the bandstand and you have been quiet ever since. You did not lean on fragrant in either set on Friday and Jimmy King has been looking at me as if I would know why, and I do not know why, because I never lie to Jimmy about you, and so I have been telling Jimmy that I do not know, which means tonight Jimmy is going to be looking at you, which is a thing you will not enjoy. What is going on, baby."

I looked at the Filipino boy's white jackets.

"I had a strange Friday," I said.

"That is not an answer."

"I had a stranger Saturday."

"That is not an answer either. Wanyin. Look at me." I looked at her. She had taken her eye makeup off. Without the carmine on her mouth she looked, in the white morning, as if she had been a different person at twenty than the person she had become. She had been a fishmonger's daughter from Ningbo. Her hands had calluses she covered with lemon. She had taught me, in 1934, how to wash my face in cold water in the dressing-room sink so that the powder came off without leaving the small dust-line at the temple. "Look at me. I do not need to know what it is. I need to know whether it is a man. If it is a man, I need to know whether the man is married, whether the man is Chinese, whether the man knows about Yao, and whether the man has the means to be useful to you or merely the means to get you killed. That is what I need to know. I do not need a name. I do not need an address. I do not need a poem."

I considered four answers. I gave her the fifth.

"It is not a man," I said. "It is a song."

She watched me for a long time. She let the morning get one shade lighter. The sky went from amber to ice. The lamp-lighter on the Bund put out the last of his lamps and we could see, faintly, the small chain of his progress vanishing.

"All right, baby," she said. "It is a song." She lit a fresh cigarette and gave it to me. "When the song becomes a man, you will tell me. Yes?"

"Yes."

"And when it becomes Yao Sanye's man, you will tell me faster. Yes?"

"It will not."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

She nodded once. She did not press it. Pearl, I have said, is a woman of few principles and several superstitions, and one of her superstitions is that pressing on a sister is, like opening a fan on a sleeping cat, bad for the room.

We stood at the rail for another half hour. The neon column hummed. The cicadas started somewhere in the trees of Wanhangdu Road. A motor car came up Yuyuan Road from the east, slowly, and stopped at the lobby and let out a man in a white linen suit who had come to fetch his daughter from the tea dance hours ago and had stayed too long at the Long Bar and was now apologizing to the night doorman in a heavily British way. The night doorman, who has been my doorman for two years and calls me Miss Su without ever having looked at my face above the chin, accepted the man's apology in a way that conceded nothing and required no further apology.

Pearl said, "That is Mr. Ainslie. He has been doing this since April. The daughter is sixteen and a half. She will marry a young man from the British Bank by Christmas and the Bund Hotel and the Cathay will both want her wedding and Ainslie will rent the Paramount. I have been told. By the wife. The wife has been on the Council board for the Sino-British Children's Hospital for nine months and has decided she is rebuilding her standing through philanthropy. She is also, I am told, in love with a French textile importer who is no longer in Shanghai. None of this is going anywhere good but Ainslie will get the wedding."

"How do you know all of this."

"The maître d' has told me. I have told the maître d' things in return. We have been trading since I was nineteen."

She finished her cigarette. She tied the sash of the green dressing-gown. She put her shoes on. She had small feet for a woman of her height. She had told me once, in 1935, that her mother had bound her sister's feet for two years before changing her mind, and that her sister had walked unevenly ever since.

"Come down," she said. "I am going to bed for four hours. Jimmy King is going to look at you tonight. You are going to give him the lean on the third syllable on the second set, because Yao is going to be in the gallery, because Yao has decided to be in the gallery every Tuesday and every Friday until you say yes, and we are going to keep him pleased on Tuesdays and Fridays until — sweetheart — until you have decided what you are going to do, which is your decision, and not mine, but on the song side of the room, the song that pleases Yao is the song that pleases Yao. Yes?"

"Yes."

"You are not going to get yourself walked to a car."

"I am not."

"Promise me on something."

"I promise on my mother's pingtan."

She looked at me sharply. I had not, in five years, mentioned my mother to her, and she had not asked. She let the look pass.

"That will do," she said.

We went down to the third-floor corridor by the back stair. She closed her door. I went into mine.

The dressing room was, again, as I had left it. The eight bulbs around the mirror were dark. The carafe of water on the vanity was half full. The small framed picture of Auntie Lin when she was young was at its accustomed angle. The handbag was in the third drawer where I had put it at five in the morning, with the inside pocket buttoned and the two papers — the original 压三字 and the new bridge in the same hand — folded inside, behind the Shenbao.

I changed. I put the silver qipao back on its hanger. I had not, this Sunday, planned to sing in the silver one — Sundays I wore the dove-grey because the bankers said the silver was for Fridays only — but I had not wanted to leave it on the rack while I was on the roof with Pearl, and so I had brought it into the dressing room and hung it on the back of the screen, behind the smaller, simpler navy crêpe-de-chine I had put on at five to go upstairs in. Now I lifted the silver one off the screen to hang it back in the wardrobe.

A piece of paper fell out of the lining.

It had been tucked between the silk and the cotton interlining, just under the right side seam, where the seam runs from the underarm to the hip — a place no fitter would think to look, because fitters do not put their hand inside a finished qipao without ripping the lining. I had hung the qipao in the wardrobe at one in the morning. I had been on the Sky Terrace with Pearl from five to half past five. I had been in the dressing room from a quarter to seven last evening until I had descended at midnight; I had been in the basement from midnight until four; I had come up at four; I had hung the qipao at four. The qipao had been in the wardrobe behind a locked door for thirteen hours. The wardrobe had a key. I had the key. Anya had the housekeeper's key. The housekeeper had the housekeeper's key. The carpenter Mr. Hu had said, in 1933, that all the locks in the building were keyed in three master sets, and that his key opened twenty-one of the third-floor doors, and that he had only ever used it once, which had been to admit a Belgian violinist who had locked herself out and had been weeping in the corridor at six in the morning.

I picked up the paper.

Manuscript paper. The cheap Pathé pad-of-fifty kind, the same as before. The staves drawn by hand with a ruler. Eight measures, beautifully copied. The chord names above. The lyric line below, in a small clean Chinese cursive I now knew. Not Drizzle of May. A song I did not know. The lyric ran:

夜来香未眠 — 三更月正寒

小桥流水声 — 何处问平安

I read it. Tonight's jasmine has not yet slept — the third-watch moon is cold. The small bridge, the flowing water — where shall one ask after peace.

It was not a song I had ever heard.

It was written, in the place where the publisher's name would go on a printed sheet, as: for the silver qipao, the seventh measure.

I sat on the chaise. I did not put the paper down. I read the line again. 何处问平安 — where shall one ask after peace. It was a question one asked in the second week of a war one had not yet admitted was a war. It was a question one did not yet ask in June of 1936, when the Shenbao was still calling Marco Polo Bridge a negotiation. It was a question, in the language of the lyric, that was older than the war and older than the city — a question that came from a Tang poem, half-remembered, half-rewritten, in the hand of someone who had been to the Conservatory.

I put the paper in the inside pocket of the handbag, behind the other two.

I sat on the chaise and looked at my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. The mirror was old and tilted forward slightly so that one's reflection always looked, in the wardrobe mirror, faintly taller than one was. I had not, in five years, corrected the tilt. I had liked, faintly, the taller version.

Tonight, in the lamp's yellow, the taller version was a stranger. The taller version had been put in the silver qipao by someone other than me — by Anya, by the night, by the room — and had walked down forty-two steps and sung a bridge in front of a piano she could not see the hands of, and had come back up. The taller version had a new song on her hands.

I went to bed.

I did not sleep at first. I lay on the chaise — I did not undress; the chaise was velvet and the velvet had a particular warm cold to it that one does not lie on in skin — and I watched the dawn change the air in the airshaft window. The window was painted black but it had a small crack at the bottom edge that let in a thin gray line at this hour, and the line moved an inch up the painted glass as the morning came. I had watched the line move four hundred times in four years. It moved at the same speed it had moved on every other morning. The city, outside the painted black, was the same city.

I was not the same singer.

Pearl had said: when the song becomes a man, you will tell me. I had said yes. I would tell her, I thought, when I had a name for the man. I would tell her, I thought, when the man had finished telling me what he wanted, which he had not. I would tell her, I thought, when I was sure the song was a song and not a hand offered through a wall.

I slept eventually. I dreamed, for the first time in years, of the riverbank in Wuxian, and of my mother's voice singing a song I no longer remembered the words of. In the dream the voice came up through the floor of my dressing room, in a long held note with a minor third underneath, and I did not wake.

The afternoon was warm. The tram on Yuyuan Road went past at three with its bell. The lamp-lighter would not come for hours yet. I did not, on this Sunday in June, know what country I was a citizen of. The Settlement was an island and the island was supposed to last forever. Marines Reinforced at Hongkou Garrison. I had folded that paper twice on Friday and tucked it into the handbag where I kept things I was not yet ready to look at twice. Beside it, now, there were three sheets of music paper. Below all of it, the brass key.

In the dressing room corridor, in the hour before the evening's first set, the Filipino boys were already laughing through the band-room door. Tony, the second clarinet, was running scales. Anya knocked at quarter to seven.

I let her in. She combed me out. She fastened the pearl drops. She turned me toward the mirror.

"You look like a woman tonight, not a girl," she said in her Russian-accented Shanghainese — which was what she said on Sundays, too, when she was bored.

"Thank you, Anya."

"You did not sleep."

"I slept four hours."

"That is sleeping. Slept is what I did during the revolution. I have not slept since 1919. Come, the rouge."

She put the rouge on my cheeks. She did not look at my face except in the mirror. She had not looked at my face directly, I realized, in six months. She was sixty-one. She had had two daughters and one suitcase and she had buried one of the daughters in Harbin in 1923 and the other daughter was a typist in the Astor House Hotel and Anya saw her on the second Sunday of every month for tea. She had told me this on a slow Tuesday in February of 1935 and not mentioned it since.

I said, "Anya. May I ask you a thing."

"You may always ask," she said. She did not turn. She was working the lip pencil.

"This dressing room. Is there a way into it that does not go through the door."

She did not pause. She finished the upper lip and started the lower. She said: "There is a panel behind your mirror that I do not look at."

"Behind my mirror."

"At the corner of the seam. On the left side at the bottom, the wallpaper does not lie flat. I have known it for two years. I have not pressed it. I have not looked. I have not been paid to look. I have not been paid to not look. That is the way of this building, bárinya. There are panels in many of the rooms. The Russian dresser before me — Tatiana, who left to marry the chemist on Tianjin Road — told me about three of them on this corridor when I started. She did not tell me about the one in your room. I found it myself in October of 1934, when you were late from a tram and I was waiting. I do not press it. I do not press the other ones. I am too old to be paid for that."

I felt very still. Anya finished the lower lip.

"Do the others know," I said.

"Pearl does not know. Pearl's room does not have one. Miss Zhou Xuan's room has one and Miss Zhou Xuan does not know. Miss Bai Hong, when she comes Tuesdays, does not know. The carpenter Mr. Hu knows. The chief electrician knew but he died last August. The housekeeper does not know. I am ninety percent confident of this list. I am eighty percent confident that Yao Sanye does not know. I am sixty percent confident that whoever uses the panel in your room is not Yao Sanye's man. That is as confident as one is in this building."

"How do you know it is not Yao's man."

"Because Yao's man would have left something else. Yao's man would have taken something. Yao's man does not leave music paper. Yao's man does not leave money. Yao's man does not leave a note in red ink correcting your bridge. Yao's man does not have the patience for a bridge."

I looked at her in the mirror. She did not look back.

"What kind of man does," I said.

She fastened the last of the pearl drops. She turned me a quarter inch so that the lamp caught the right side of my face.

"A lonely one," she said. "A clever one. A man who knows how a building was built. A man who has time. A man who has waited two years. I do not know who he is. I am not telling you to listen to him. I am not telling you not to. I am telling you he is not Yao Sanye's man, and that is what I know. Now stand up. The second set begins in eleven minutes. The chandelier on the east side has been fixed but the boys say the chain still complains. Do not stand under it on the second chorus."

I stood up.

I went down the gallery stair. Below us Jimmy King's clarinet ran a chromatic up to the high D-flat and back down. The chandeliers brightened in their slow ceremonial way. Pearl was at the top of the stair in a pale rose qipao tonight, with a fresh cigarette, and she did not say anything to me, which was the kindest thing she had done all weekend.

I sang.

I gave Jimmy King his lean on the third syllable in the first set, because Yao was in the gallery, and Yao was watching, and one does not start a fight one is not prepared to finish at half past nine on a Sunday. In the second set, on the bridge, Yao stepped out of the gallery for two minutes — to take a telephone call, the maître d' would tell me later, from a man at the Cantonese teahouse on Fuzhou Road — and in those two minutes I sang the bridge again, very quietly, the way I had sung it in the basement.

Jimmy King looked at me sidelong on the seventh measure.

When the set ended I came up the stair, past Pearl with her question, into the dressing room, and I sat at the vanity and I lifted the powder compact and I tilted it so that the small mirror inside reflected the wall on the left of the larger mirror.

In the corner of the wallpaper, at the bottom of the seam, there was a thin hairline.

I looked at it for a long time. I did not press it.

Then I put the powder compact down and I put on lipstick I did not need and I went back down to the third set, because the third set was the gala set and the gala set was for Yao. Yao sat in the gallery for the third set with his Maotai in the small brass tray and his two lieutenants on either side of him, and he lifted two fingers on the bridge of the second song, and I gave him the lean on the third syllable, because tonight was not the night to set the price.

Tonight was the night to find out who was selling.