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Faraway gunshots echoed under the bright sky as Baizhu’s coffin was lowered into the ground. Yun Jin looked away as Hu Tao began to fill the grave. The other attendees also stood with hands clasped somberly: Baizhu’s blue-haired Japanese friend with the mole under his eye, who watched Hu Tao stoop down with a content smile on his face, his gaze wandering down her thigh to her slick black high-heels; Baizhu’s red-haired German friend with the perpetually stoic face, eyes unmoved yet moving to take in the curves of Hu Tao’s black qipao accented with splashes and lines of red and gold; the German man’s Chinese wife with the long white hair and golden-colored qipao sporting a thigh slit that wasn’t quite as high as Hu Tao’s, eyes peering down her nose between puffs of pipe smoke at the woman shoveling dirt in her stylish permed hair, lingering over the lipstick that was just a smidge brighter than hers. She spared no attention for Yun Jin and her cheap lipstick or her drab, grey robe that looked like it belonged in a May Fourth demonstration. Thirteen years since those days when the students marched through the streets of Beijing with their sights fixed on the Japanese and the other Allies and the old feudal order, thirteen years since Hu Tao turned from her and stormed off into the snow.
Hu Tao finished filling in the grave with a few firm pats from the back of the shovel and said a few final words. Her audience kept their gaze on her. When she finished, Yun Jin didn’t stay to see the Japanese man exchange some further pleasantries with Hu Tao and jot down a quick note for her before the three of them headed for their cars. Yun Jin walked down the street, dodging rickshaws and playing children amid the stream of pedestrians, the colorful shopfront signs, and the bright red turbans of the Sikh policemen, the only islands of stillness on the street. The funeral guests’ sleek black cars, winding amid the narrow, crowded street untouched by the honeyed promises of modernity, made for enough of an oddity that Yun Jin found herself watching them painstakingly negotiate the flow of people, and didn’t hear the growing sound of heels clacking behind her.
“Yun Jin!”
She turned, and Hu Tao ran up to her, one hand keeping her handbag from bouncing around wildly like her necklace was.
“Hu Tao?” Yun Jin put up a persuasive, polite smile, rehearsed on and off the stage for a lifetime.
“It’s been a long time!” Hu Tao smiled and caught her breath as she fell into step next to Yun Jin. “Are you heading back to your place?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Can I walk you back, then?”
“Don’t you have somewhere to go?”
“I took a day off to do the funeral, so I don’t have anywhere I have to be today.”
Yun Jin couldn’t reject her outright. “All right, then.”
“Do you want a cigarette?” Hu Tao produced a pack from her handbag.
“I don’t smoke.” Of course Hu Tao had imported cigarettes. Yun Jin wouldn’t be surprised if she was going to light one with a Zippo next.
Instead, Hu Tao put them back into her handbag. “Suit yourself. I didn’t expect to see you end up here.”
“Is that surprising? Everyone’s ending up here.”
She nodded. “Things have been getting better now, though. I heard Beiping was very chaotic. Is that why you came here?”
Yun Jin sighed. Chaotic was the least of words to describe it. “Yes, after you, Xinyan left in ’22 after the Fengtian and Zhili Cliques went to war, Chongyun left in ’26 right before Zhang Zuolin took the city, and Xiangling left a bit before him, after March Eighteenth. I tried to hang on, but the opera troupe fell apart, and then the Japanese invaded. They stopped before reaching Beiping, but there’s no truce yet, so I don’t trust things.”
Hu Tao nodded. “Yeah, it’s better here, but there’s still war; you just don’t see it during the day.”
Yun Jin shook her head. They crossed the street and walked under streaming banners with the names of businesses written in big, bold characters and letters. “But with the Westerners, no one would bring an army here.”
“That didn’t stop them from shooting all the Communists in ’27 though,” Hu Tao muttered, just loud enough for Yun Jin to hear. Her head jerked towards her at her words, but Hu Tao only asked, “Is Xingqiu still in Beiping?”
“No, he left in ’21. His family went back to Guangzhou to try to serve the KMT.”
“Ah, so maybe he would be in Nanjing. How’d you get here? Did you see him?”
“I took a train to Tianjin, then got on a boat here.”
“When’d you arrive?”
“About half a year ago now.”
“Ah. Did you know anyone here?”
“My uncle. He died right after I got here, though.”
“Oh…I’m sorry.”
Yun Jin shook her head. “It’s fine. I met Baizhu.” She bit her lip. Had it been thirteen years ago, she would’ve told Hu Tao everything. Still, she had gotten no better at lying. Hopefully Hu Tao wouldn’t press it.
“Ah. So now you don’t know anyone here anymore?”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we found each other then!” Hu Tao smiled.
“Yeah, you must be doing well for yourself.”
“Not really,” she laughed. “I dressed so well today because it’s a funeral, after all. I should look my best. Would you have guessed that it took me two years to save up for this?”
“I’m surprised you’re still doing funerals.”
“This was a one-off, actually.” Hu Tao lifted her voice as they passed by the din of Dashijie, the Great Big World. “Qiqi—the orphan girl Baizhu took care of—I’d told her that I used to do funerals before, and she came to me one day saying that Baizhu wanted a Western funeral with traditional elements and that he couldn’t find anyone who could do that.”
“He must’ve paid you well, at least.” He had left Yun Jin just enough money for one more month at the hotel.
“It’s decent. It was enough to let me pay for a day off and also cover the pay I would've received for today.”
Yun Jin shivered at the confirmation.
“So, I get a free day off, but tomorrow, it’s back to the textile mill.”
“You work at a textile mill?” Yun Jin glanced over at Hu Tao.
“Yeah. It’s tiring, hot, and boring, but they were willing to hire me, and it pays enough if I’m careful about spending. That’s how I managed to buy this. Now I’m trying to save enough to go see if I can get a job as a clerk or something.”
“It’s surprising someone like you would still need to work in a textile mill,” Yun Jin couldn’t hold herself from remarking.
Hu Tao chuckled. “That’s flattering. The Japanese gentleman gave me a note, actually. Can you believe it, the first man to make an advance at me in four years since I bought this?”
“Congratulations to you.”
“Come on, don’t you want to know what Mister…” Hu Tao dug the note out of her handbag. “Kamisato said?”
Yun Jin bit her lip. “…What did he say.”
“He gave me his name and the address of a dance hall. He said he’d be in next Tuesday at 5 till 8 in the evening waiting for me.” Hu Tao grinned.
“That sounds like a good opportunity. He looks pretty rich.”
“I know, right?” Hu Tao laughed. “Too bad I’m not interested. He didn’t give me anything to cover clocking out early, and even if he had, did you see the way he looked at me?” She made a face. “I bet if it was just the two of us there at night, he would’ve done it over Baizhu’s fresh grave.”
Yun Jin grimaced. As always, Hu Tao’s most insightful quips were reserved for the most unconventional language. “But if you became his lover…”
“Nope. You can’t trust these rich types. Come on, you’ve read the newspapers. You can see it in the stuff they call us, ‘parasitic,’ ‘decadent,’ ‘degenerate,’ and then they ogle us, at a funeral no less, and make us raise our slits from knee-height to thigh-height and then to our hips and now to our armpits even, and they still won’t hire anyone who doesn’t have permed hair and a powdered face. Doesn’t ‘improve the workplace atmosphere’ enough, they say. And that’s the Chinese ones; Heaven knows what the foreigners really think of us.”
Yun Jin had nothing to say. Cheers rang out from the whites-only horse racing course across the street.
Hu Tao sighed. “All that said, we should still get you a qipao. That way at least you won’t look like a clueless country girl, and fewer people would try to take advantage of you.”
“And do what? Seduce some sailor and have him carry me off to England or America to become his good little housewife?”
“If you have the stomach for that, sure. I’m pretty sure if I married one of those types down by the docks, I’d end up choking him to death in his sleep. I don’t have family in Malaya, but if you want to go down to the southern seas we could try going to Hong Kong.”
Yun Jin scoffed out a laugh. “That seems likely. Maybe I’ll go work in a cabaret or as a singing girl. Sure they'd want me.”
“You don’t have work now?”
Yun Jin felt like her blood froze, though her legs kept moving mechanically. “No,” she slowly said, “I…don’t.”
“Oh? Then how’ve you gotten by?”
Yun Jin closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I was his lover.”
“Oh.” Hu Tao fell silent. Across the street, a vendor hawked his wares and a streetcar’s bell rang. “I’m sorry you—”
“He was fine. He took care of me,” Yun Jin interjected.
Hu Tao nodded. “Um, I can try to get you a place at the textile mill. They are looking for people.”
“There’re lots of people coming here. They wouldn’t want me.”
She shook her head. “Don't say that. You’re still young, you can work, and you’d look nice enough in a qipao, even without your hair permed.”
“You think so?”
“Yep. Or we can look for an opera troupe for you!”
“No one’s listening to Jing opera here.”
“That’s not true. There’re performers in Dashijie.” They crossed a street and looked curiously at a horse-drawn carriage that passed in front of them. “Wonder how that opera troupe in Suzhou’s doing?” Hu Tao asked quietly, as if to herself.
“What?”
“Oh, I ran into a Jing opera troupe heading this way when I was passing through Suzhou coming here. I was just wondering if they’re still active here and how I could find them.”
“What were you doing in Suzhou? I thought you came here directly?”
Hu Tao shook her head. “It’s a long story.” When Yun Jin didn’t say anything, Hu Tao glanced over at her. “Well, we first went back to Wuchang,” she sighed, “But when my father died, we went to work in Hankou. When the KMT came north, we tried to go to Nanjing, but we only made it to Jiujiang before they took the city, so we tried to stay, but then Sun Chuanfang’s soldiers came. Have you heard what they did?”
“I haven’t.”
“They started killing people. Looking for the ones that supported the KMT. They didn’t really give a shit, of course. Otherwise, they wouldn’t’ve killed my mother too.”
“Oh…” Yun Jin chose to believe that "kill" was the only thing that happened to them.
“So I kept running from the war. I heard they did the same thing in Nanchang. But by the time I was getting near Nanjing, the KMT were attacking the city. I’d heard that they’d taken Shanghai already, and I figured I should just try my luck here. Whatever happens, they’ll never kill people like that with the Westerners here. Well, I was wrong, but there’s nowhere to run to now. So that’s where I went after Beijing, and that’s how I passed through Suzhou.”
Yun Jin stared down at the pavement. She couldn’t say anything.
Hu Tao chuckled. “Don’t worry, that’s all in the past now. I’m doing all right for myself here. If I make it, then it’ll have been worth it.”
Yun Jin stayed silent and turned off the street into a hotel lobby.
“You live in a hotel?” The lobby was nothing like that of the opulent faux palaces built around downtown.
“Mmhmm.” She led Hu Tao past the reception and up a flight of stairs.
“He paid for it?”
“He did.”
“Oh…how much time did he leave you?”
“A month.” They went down a narrow, low hallway.
Hu Tao didn’t speak until Yun Jin brought a key out from her handbag. “I’ll see what I can do at the textile mill. If they hire you, they provide lodgings.”
“It’s all right.” Yun Jin pushed open the door. Inside, there was an austere, freshly made bed, a cheap electric chandelier, a dressing table with a slightly smudged mirror, and a small closet opposite the curtained window. A few of Yun Jin’s personal effects decorated the surfaces, but she hadn’t unpacked much out of the case she’d carried all the way from Beiping.
Hu Tao shook her head. “I’ll look for job listings on the way back. We can meet up next week if you have time?” The door closed behind them.
Yun Jin sat on the bed. “There’s no need, really. I’ll find something on my own.”
“Or, we can find you somewhere else for you to live that I can cover for, while you find work.”
“You should keep your savings.”
“Hey.” Hu Tao took a step forward. “I have enough to help you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“What if I want to?”
“Why would you?” Yun Jin shot back. Nothing made sense anymore, nothing, not her, the opera singer, looking down the precipice of ruin at the end of her concubinage, sapped of any more dreams but to simply survive.
“Because you’re the only one I have left.” And across from her, the modern girl with imported cigarettes next to her lipstick in the handbag she slung over her qipao.
The next moment, Yun Jin’s face was buried in silken fabric and cheap embroidered thread, sobs racking her body. Hu Tao’s arms held her tightly, hands stroking her back. Yun Jin’s arms wrapped themselves around her waist as she stained Hu Tao’s collar with tears. “Shhhh,” she said to Yun Jin’s choked attempts at an apology, “Don’t worry, just let it out.” And so she cried, she wailed, she wept at the lives that had flickered into and then vanished from her life, and the country’s slow, unstoppable death spiral that slowly rendered her obsolete and caught her and all its people in its grip that drove her and thousands of others away from home, sinking into the mire of desperation, and most of all, forgiveness undeserved.
When her sobs slowly subsided, Yun Jin tightened her grip around Hu Tao, lest she slip out of her arms again, and savored her warmth against her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she eventually whispered into her qipao.
“I can wash this; it’s no problem.”
“I’m sorry for what I said to you.”
Hu Tao’s hands slid upwards to softly stroke the back of her head. “I forgive you.” She sighed. Yun Jin shivered at her words. “I shouldn’t’ve said that either. It’s all so silly now.”
“What did we know?”
“Xingqiu was right.”
“But I was too prideful to apologize.”
“It wasn’t hard to avoid you. I just had to walk around the opera house.”
“And then you left.”
“I’m back now.” Hu Tao gingerly rested her cheek on Yun Jin’s head.
“You don’t have to. I don’t want to be dead weight.”
“Then I’ll make enough money for the two of us.”
“That’s just not possible.”
“Watch me.” And there was Hu Tao, still the bright-eyed girl she’d met in a Beijing alley one winter afternoon, ready to upend the world at a moment’s notice. Even though she’d learnt how to sell herself to men’s eyes, curated herself in the latest fashions, and took to the whirling, fickle streets of Shanghai like a duck to water, she was still Hu Tao. “There’re thirteen years I have to make up to you, and I won’t make you wait another day.”