She gave hers to Lin. “I can’t. Tell me what it says.”
He tore it open. “You’re free. He renounces the claim on your family’s property.” She sagged in shock while he read his own. “Me too, free. He gives us each a thousand in severance pay.”
“Ge,” she said quickly, Elder Brother. “Take mine. You need it for Pearl.”
His face twisted. “I need more than that for Pearl. And how could I take your severance? You have nothing, Meimei.”
Her face closed, pulling down the curtain. She could go with Thomas now, or north to join the cause, and in either case a thousand meant nothing next to the diamonds. But what she said was “I don’t care about the money. Just being free is enough.” And that was true.
“He could have kept you another-”
“Ten years,” she said abruptly, because she had always known, every day, every minute, how much longer it was. Now, after they had said dazed good-byes to Kung and stepped back out into the December cold, she tore the flowers from her hair and threw them on the sidewalk; never would she wear them again.
Lin watched the fragile blooms turn quickly to pulp under the careless boots of passersby. “What are you going to do?”
She could be with Thomas, walk into his arms right now, abandon her country and stay with him forever. The thousand was just enough to buy them two tickets, and she could surprise him with the diamonds at sea.
Or she could go north, and reach the culmination of the dream she had been living for all this time.
Not both.
“Well?” he said.
“I don’t know yet. But before I go anywhere, may I borrow the key to the padlock at Rue Wagner? I need to go back for something.”
“Du cursed the place. He said none were to enter it.”
“Du’s gone. One hour, and I’ll bring the key back to you.”
“Gowns, furs, what?” He dug in his pocket. “You always said you hated that stuff.”
“I do hate it. It’s something else, of no value to anyone but me.” She took the key. “Just a picture on the wall.”
That night, when the Kings closed out their last set and came back for the encore, Thomas was halfway through a highly embellished, rhythmically arch version of Rhapsody in Blue when he looked up and saw something he had never before seen, Song entering by herself. Instead of climbing the stairs to the balcony box, she walked straight into the ballroom, looking different, her delicate frame overwhelmed by a mannish wool overcoat. She stood watching him as he faltered, recovered his place in the music, and made it to the end only because he had played the Rhapsody so many times. When it was over, the applause roared up, crested, and dribbled away as the lights winked up and he flew to her, presto agitato.
“What’s happened?” She wore no earrings, no rouge, just her skin, clean and plain. She had never been more beautiful.
“Du’s gone.” She took both his hands in hers, something she would never have dared in public before.
“I ran to the mansion when I heard-it was locked up-I looked everywhere.” He blinked. “What do you mean, gone?”
“He insulted the Japanese General who came to negotiate with him, and now he cannot come back. I am free.”
“And your family’s debt?” he said.
“Forgiven.”
He took her hand then and led her straight out to the lobby, returning only to get his coat when she insisted. For the first time since the night they opened, he bypassed the crowds who congregated around the door, and fled directly into the street. “Du has put me in a small apartment for a week,” she said as she beckoned to a pedicab with an awning-covered seat. They spread their wool coats over them like blankets and nestled in deep beneath the awning, hidden from view, for the long ride across Frenchtown and then into the circular labyrinth of the Chinese City. Finally, was all he could think. He knew she had her life, her cause, and he wasn’t going anywhere near all that. But he also wasn’t going to let her go again, not if he could help it.
Once inside her room, they did not leave again until noon the next day, when the need for tea and something to eat finally drove them downstairs. Outside, Thomas found the world transformed, animated, vibrant, the lane bright and clattery with vehicles and voices. The winter walls on either side were strung with banners, and the cobblestones coursed with folk in padded coats. On the bottom floor of her building was a rice shop with gunnysacks of grain stacked almost to the ceiling, and it seemed like the center of the world, with customers streaming in and out all day. He was awake to life.
And hungry; he was sure he had never been so ravenous. “Here,” she said, stepping into a sesame cake shop, and soon they were sitting on porcelain stools, washing down crullers called you tiao with scalding tea.
“I love this,” he said.
“Me too,” she said, thinking he referred to the breakfast. “It’s simple. When I was a child, it made me proud to be rich. Not now. All that time I lived in Du’s mansion, I didn’t like any corner of it.”
“I know,” he said. “But I meant you,” he said. “Being here. Waking up with you.”
Her eyes shone with agreement and her hand sought his. “I have never known anything like this.”
“Come home with me. Come meet Charles and Ernest, they’ll just be having breakfast.” It was disarmingly casual, and to his joy brought a grin of agreement from her. He hadn’t expected her to say yes, any more than he had expected himself to ask, but this was Song, and now she was free and everything was different.
He knew somehow during those weeks that no matter how long he lived, he would never feel anything higher or better. First she moved into the studio, after the room Du had rented ran out. Whereas Anya had filled the room to overflowing with her clothes and shoes and hatboxes and assorted treasures, Song brought almost nothing with her, a small square suitcase which held several plain, side-slit qipao dresses, and a spare pair of shoes. Aside from her overcoat, she kept everything folded in the suitcase. He said something about the bureau being almost empty, but she used only the suitcase, and he did not suggest it again. It pained him a little to see it there, packed and ready, even when they were naked and she was abandoning herself to him completely. In time this would be something he understood about her, that she needed an out, even from love, even when she told she had been waiting for it all her life, even when they both could feel it growing, in their little room, night after night.
He did not mention the future, and he did not ask her what she did all day, either, for when they arose at midday, she always left, and did not rejoin him until she arrived at the Royal sometime that night. He understood her commitment, so he kept quiet, afraid to ask her to choose.
Outside their door, the city was sliding. The Green Gang was rudderless without Du, causing all the areas of Shanghai life it had once controlled to tip into disorder. The guilds of beggars and undertakers, peddlers, touts, and night soil collectors all ceased to function. Somehow the trains ran, though the station itself was a shell, and every train leaving Shanghai seemed to be full of residents streaming out of the city.
Yet those who remained kept coming to the Royal, frantic, determined, wading through hillocks of rubble in their silks and flashing jewels, crossing into the blessedly unoccupied areas of the French Concession and the International Settlement, now dubbed the Gudao, or Lonely Island. The drinks flowed, the restaurants served, The Good Earth played at the Grand Theater, and when darkness fell and the Kings stepped out on the stage to a full house, it felt almost like it had felt before.