Chapter Twenty-Eight — The Offer / The Departure
Wednesday the sixth of October.
Yao Sanye sat on the chaise.
He had come up the back stair without knocking and had let himself in at the second hour of the rehearsal, when I had been alone at the vanity in the silver under-slip Miss Liu had set out for the fitting of the silver gala qipao. He had not removed his hat at the door. He had not waited at the corridor. He had sat at the chaise the way Yao Sanye sat at any chaise — knee crossed at the second crease, the right hand in the trouser pocket, the left hand at the rim of the felt hat at his knee, the small forefinger and second finger holding the brim with the small particular adjustment of a man who had carried that hat with that adjustment for fifteen years.
He had on the suit of dark wool Mr. Hong Xiang had cut for him in the third week of September. He had on the tie of dark grey silk Mr. Hong Xiang's wife had picked. He had on the pocket-square of white silk at the breast pocket. He had on the shoes of black calf the Shenghua bootmaker at the corner of Nanjing Road had set at the rack on Tuesday. The whole suit was the suit of a man who had, since the third week of August, been dressing for an interview he had been waiting fifteen years to give.
He looked at me at the vanity.
I did not turn. I set the small jasmine eau de toilette of the Sun Sun department store at the chignon. I set the second comb. I waited.
He said: I will be brief. The Paramount has reopened at the eight o'clock. The Paramount has been at the hour of eight on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays and Saturdays. Mr. Du has set the season because Mr. Du has set the season. The contract.
I waited.
The contract has at the ledger of the Paramount syndicate, at the office at the third floor at the corner of Bubbling Well and Sichuan Road, the balance of three thousand seven hundred and forty silver dollars. This is the balance of a singer of twenty-three who has been at the Paramount for five years and three months and has five years and six months left. I am at the offer.
The offer is the offer Mr. Du has set. The offer is of three things.
He set the felt hat at the chaise. He laid the left hand on the knee. He used the four fingers of the left hand to count off the three things at the knee, the way a man counted off the legs of a stool at a furniture market.
The first thing is the clearance of the contract. The contract will be clear. The second thing is the French Concession protection papers. They will, by the hour, be at the ledger of the Sûreté, at the desk of Inspector Charvet, on the filing of the third Tuesday of October. The third thing is the one-room apartment at the corner of Avenue Joffre and Rue Bourgeat, second floor of the building of Mr. Sá the Portuguese tenant. The lease will be at the name of Miss Su Wanyin on the first of November.
I set down the comb.
I turned, the small turn one made at the vanity when one wished to look at a man one had been looking at, for eleven months, in the mirror.
I said: Three things.
He said: I am at the asking. The asking is of one thing. The thing is from the Major. The Major has, by the note at the Wuhan Road consulate, asked the singing of the inaugural broadcast of the Japanese radio station at Hongkou. The station is on the third floor of the building at the second corner of Boone Road and the alley. The inaugural broadcast is, by the Major's information at the consulate, on the second Thursday of November at eight. The programme will be three songs in the warm contralto of Miss Su Wanyin, selected by Miss Su Wanyin in consultation with Mr. Mendelsohn at the Pathé studio on Avenue du Roi Albert on the morning of the second Wednesday of November at half past nine. Six days. Six days to decide.
I said: Six days.
He said: Six days from this hour. The Major has also sent a folded note.
He took from the inner pocket of the suit a folded cream-paper envelope. He set it on the vanity at my left, between the small jar of the jasmine eau de toilette and the second comb. The envelope had, at the front, in the hand of a Major of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the second Friday of September, Miss Su. He had not been the one to write the address. The envelope had been sealed with a single small drop of red wax, with the seal of the Major's mother's family from Sendai — a chrysanthemum of nine petals — that the Major had been using since 1930 because the Navy seal made too much of an impression at the Wuhan Road consulate post bag.
I did not open it.
I set it at the inside pocket of the handbag, behind the brother's letter, in front of the cup at the chip.
He said: Six days.
He stood. He took the felt hat from the chaise. He went to the door. He turned.
I had, for eleven months, learned to read the small specific way a man at a chaise stood up from the chaise — the angle of the right knee, the lift of the chin, the small unconscious touch of the pocket-square. Yao Sanye, this evening, stood up from the chaise the way a man stood up who had decided, at the third year of his asking, to ask once more before the asking became the wrong kind of asking. He stood at the door. He looked at me.
He said: I have not raised my hand to a woman.
I said: No.
He said: I would not start with you.
I said: No.
He said: I am only telling you that the city is changing, and the men who change with it eat well, and the men who do not are not buried. They are simply not invited to the meal. Six days.
He set the felt hat at the head. He went.
The door closed. The vanity mirror gave me, for the count of nine, the room — the chaise with the small dent on the third cushion where Yao Sanye's hip had been; the door of the wardrobe with the silver gala qipao on its cedar hanger; the lamp on the small table by the window, turned to the second wick. My own face in the mirror was the face of a Suzhou-born singer of twenty-three who had spent eleven months learning what shape a face made when it had decided not to give the man in the chaise the satisfaction of any expression.
I sat with the face for the count of nine.
I took the folded cream-paper envelope from the handbag. I broke the small seal of red wax. The seal cracked at the second pressure of the thumb. The chrysanthemum of nine petals lay on the vanity in two halves.
Inside the envelope was a single sheet of cream paper, folded once. The hand was the hand of a Major of the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was the hand I had seen on the cards at table eleven on the second Friday of April, on the second Friday of June, on the second Friday of August at the eight o'clock at the bandstand when the carafe of water had come without a glass. The hand had not, between April and September, changed. The ink was the dark blue Pelikan he used for personal correspondence, not the black Navy ink. He had written:
Miss Su. The inaugural broadcast is, by the hour, the inaugural broadcast. I will, by my own hand, at the control room, be there. I am asking. — K.
The hand of the Major was the hand.
I read it twice. I folded the sheet back into the envelope. I set the envelope at the inside pocket of the handbag with the folded note from the eighth of April and the folded note from the second Friday of August at the eight o'clock. The inside pocket had eighteen objects. I had been counting.
I looked at the woman in the mirror.
I said: Set the price.
I said: Set it high.
The woman in the mirror said it back, in her own voice, in the dry even register Pearl had used at the bed at the third floor at the East end of the French Hospital at the corner of Avenue Joffre and Rue Lafayette eleven days before. The register was Pearl's register. The voice was mine.
At quarter past two on the morning of the seventh of October, after the second set, I took the coat.
I went out by the service corridor — past the boiler at the end of the second hall, where the third pipe of the second furnace had been ticking the small dry tick it had ticked, on a Wednesday after the second set, for five years and three months. I went down the back stair to the kitchen level. I went past the cook's prep table, where the second cook of the second shift was wiping down the chopping board with a damp grey cloth, and out into the cold-storage room.
The dust-grey sparrow was not at the skylight. The cook was not at the kitchen. The pipe was not on the first ledge: it was on the second ledge, which Mr. Hu the carpenter had built at the wall at two feet from the first ledge in February of 1936 because the first ledge had become the sparrow's. The pipe was at the second ledge because the cook had set it down before going up to the back lane to fetch the second bowl of rice congee from the Sichuan-Road vendor at half past one.
The cold-storage room had on its left the hams hanging from the second hook and on its right the crates of the Russian vodka the Paramount kept for the third table at the cargo line club. The room was, at quarter past two on a Wednesday morning in October of 1937, the same room it had been at quarter past two on a Wednesday morning in October of 1935 when I had first gone through the arch at the back. The room did not, on the surface of it, know that the city had fallen at the corners. The room was the room. The arch was the arch.
I went through the arch.
I went down the forty-two steps. The candle at the wall ledge above the second-to-last step had been lit, and the small saucer of brass beneath it was waiting at the second-to-last step the way it waited on any Wednesday when I had been told, in pencil at the vanity, to come down.
Tonight I had not been told. Tonight I had decided.
I went through the second arch at the bottom of the stair.
Feng Sheng was at the Bechstein.
He was at the Bechstein not playing.
He was at the Bechstein with both gloved hands at the music desk and the leather case open at his right, and beside the leather case, the small lacquer box the diary lived in, taken from the third crate, and the second piece of brown packing paper Mr. Hu the carpenter had brought down the steps on a Tuesday with three small slips of twine. The grey wool coat was on him. The grey felt hat was at the corner of the Bechstein, on the small ledge a Bechstein upright of 1924 had for the candle dish above the keyboard. The porcelain mask was on him. The gloves were on him.
The leather case had inside it: the diary at the lacquer box at the third crate. The lacquer ledger of the Pathé studio with the score of the third verse. The passport of Lu Jiyuan that Dr. Morancy had handed to him at half past three on the third Saturday of October of 1935 at the parlor at the second floor of the French Concession apartment of Dr. Morancy, with an envelope of two hundred and forty silver dollars and a forged Tsvetkov-line travel paper of the Macau line. The brown packing paper. The twine.
He had been packing the leather case.
He looked at me.
For the count of nine he did not say anything.
He said: I am leaving.
I said: No. No, Jiyuan. No, Jiyuan.
He said: I have, in the third week of September, after Dr. Morancy at the second Saturday of September, been the man at the brick room without the man at the brick room. I had decided. I had decided in the third week of September. I did not tell you. I have, for two weeks and three days, been the man at the Bechstein who has been doing the dishes the man at the brick room does. I have been doing them. I have not been the man.
I said: No. No, Jiyuan.
He said: I am going on the third Saturday of October by the coal carrier at the third pier at six in the morning, under the forged Tsvetkov papers Mr. Sá's cousin has prepared. The carrier is the Lyngen. The Macau line goes to Hong Kong on the second Tuesday of November. Mr. Sá's cousin has set the passage at Macau. I am going.
I had been walking.
I had crossed the brick room.
I do not remember, in the second second, the deciding. I remember the third second: my right hand at the porcelain at the left side of the porcelain at the edge of the mask, the porcelain not moving, the small dry crack of the air between my palm and the cool of the porcelain in the slap.
The porcelain did not move.
The porcelain set a red mark at the pad of my right hand.
I do not, in the months that followed, regret the slap. The slap was the slap. The slap was the only sentence I had not, in the eleven months at the brick room, ever spoken to him, and the only sentence I would, in the third year of the brick room, ever speak. The slap was, in its way, the third verse.
He did not say anything for the count of nine.
He said: I am sorry. I will not leave. I will not leave because I could not. I have packed the leather case for the count of three nights. I have not, at the hour, been able to close it. I could not.
I had not moved my hand from the porcelain.
I said: Then we do this differently.
I took the leather case from the music desk. I set it at the Bechstein at the distance of three inches from the desk. I set my left hand at the porcelain mask at the edge of the red mark, the place the pad of my right hand had left the small heat. I set my forehead at the porcelain.
I said: We will, on the second Thursday of November, at the eight o'clock, at the station on the third floor at the second corner of Boone Road, do this together. We will, on the morning of the second Thursday of November, at the Pathé studio on Avenue du Roi Albert, with the Mendelsohn, at half past nine, press the small black disc. We will press three. Teddy will, by the hour, take the first to Hong Kong by sea, with the typed transcript to the North-China Daily News. Mr. Sá will, by the hour, take the second to Manila by air. Liang will, by the hour, take the third by rail to Chongqing. The third verse will go out before the country can cut it. On the morning of the second Thursday of November, at the Pathé studio. Take off the mask.
He said: On the morning of the second Thursday of November.
The candle at the wall ledge above the second-to-last step had burned to the second mark.
I set my head at the hollow of his shoulder, where the porcelain met the white shirt at the seam. The porcelain was cool. The white shirt was warm.
For a long while he did not say anything. The brick room held the silence the way it held the dark — softly, with the small dry whisper of the second wick of the candle, with the small low breath of the second wick of the lamp on the small table by the Bechstein, with the very faint above-the-head sound of a wireless that someone in the second corridor of the second floor of the Paramount had left on, playing very softly, what I thought might be the Mainichi and might not.
He said: I am staying.
He said: I am staying because you have set the price.
He said: And the price is also mine. Tell me the names. Tell me the seven.
I lifted my forehead from the porcelain. I sat at the small wooden stool he had set, in March, at the distance of two feet from the keyboard of the Bechstein, at the angle that placed the singer at a six-paces-from-the-candle distance from the man at the piano. I sat. I said the seven names.
The seven names were:
Constable Wu of the Settlement police.
Mr. Hong Jingming's nephew at Sun Ya.
Inspector Hua of the Songhu Garrison Command.
Mr. Chen the printer of Zhabei, who had been at the list at the rear of the third printing press.
The Japanese consulate clerk in the dark coat at the corner of the lane.
Mr. Pang the Yu Garden tea-house proprietor.
Mr. Yao Sanye.
He did not, at the seventh, lift the head. He did not, at the second, lift the head. He had known six. He had not, until I said the third, known Inspector Hua of the Songhu Garrison Command by the second name. He had known him by the third — the small detail he had not, in 1934, been told. He took the third name into the diary at the lacquer box without opening the lacquer box, in his head, where the diary was also kept in a second copy he had been keeping for two years and seven months in case the first was, at some hour, taken.
He said: Seven.
I said: Five weeks. Five weeks to the eight o'clock. Five weeks to the third verse. Five weeks to the morning of the second Thursday of November. Five weeks to the mask.
I sat at the stool at the distance of two feet from him. He sat at the bench at the Bechstein. He set the leather case back at the third crate, slowly, the way a man set down a thing he had been carrying for three nights without yet, in the third night, having closed it.
He opened the score of the third verse at the music desk.
He set the candle at the dish at the second wick.
He played the bridge of the third verse.
The bridge was the bridge. The bridge was in C-sharp minor and the bridge had the small half-step rise at the third measure that he had heard in his head for the count of nine days in June and had written, in red ink, in his cursive, at the margin: the rise is small, but it is the rise the second verse has been asking for the count of nine months. I had been singing the second verse to this rise for the count of nine months without knowing the rise was coming. The rise had come.
I sang.
I sang the bridge. He played. He did not, at the bridge, breathe with me at the half-breath — he had to play, and a man at a Bechstein in C-sharp minor at the bridge of the third verse could not, at the bridge, breathe. I breathed for both of us. I held the small half-step rise. I let the third syllable of the rise sit where the composer had set it, low, on the breath he had taught me, in the chest he had taught me to sing from. The chest, this evening, was the chest of a singer who had decided that the price was the third verse going out.
He stopped at the last chord.
He set both his gloved hands at the keyboard, palm-down, for the count of nine.
He said, in the dry low Friday-evening register: The third verse holds.
I said: Yes.
The brick room at half past three on the morning of the seventh of October of 1937 was the brick room.