11. Mongolian Princess
On Sunday morning, Annie asked me to accompany her to Mass at St. Ignatius Cathedral in Zikawe. It was then that I discovered she was a Catholic.
"My ancestors came from Ireland, and my whole family is Catholic," Annie said.
St. Ignatius Cathedral in Zikawe is the largest Western-style church in Shanghai. This area is said to have been a gathering place for Catholics during the Ming Dynasty (15th century). In fact, the name "Zikawe" refers to the place where the family of Zi Kuangchi, the first Catholic in China, lived. It is said that Zi Kuangchi was also the prime minister of the court at that time.
Recently, I gradually learned about Annie's family background. Annie's great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from his hometown in County Wexford, Ireland in the mid-19th century due to potato pests and famine. Her father was involved in gangs with Italians in New York when he was young. At the beginning of this century, he went to Texas to explore for oil and made a lot of money. After that, he went around the world to do oil trading and became a member of the international oil gang. The characteristic of such people is that they have no fixed place to live and make their home wherever they go. So Annie was born in Shanghai in 1908.
Annie's father, Stephen, now trades crude oil in Singapore. He has close ties with the Italian Mafia in New York and also had dealings with Chinese organized crime groups like the Ch'ing Gang when he was in Shanghai, which is how he met Huang Jinrong. wanting to establish connections with the American underworld, deliberately cultivated Stephen's favor and even became Annie's godfather.
Annie grew up in a very wealthy family, and as an only child, her father doted on her, buying her almost anything she wanted, which fostered her spoiled personality. Annie was very intelligent and had a smooth academic journey; she attended Harvard University and even learned to fly a plane, her first teacher being Charles Lindbergh.
Annie seemed quite familiar with the priests here, which is understandable, as she was baptized here and they've all watched her grow up! After Mass, she went to the pipe organ, sat down, and began to play a piece of Bach sacred music. I sat in the congregation and watched her focused expression as she played, a stark contrast to her usual frivolous demeanor. The solemn notes echoed under the church dome, a truly moving experience.
I recall what my father wrote in his autobiography, "The Princess of Loulan": "...She put the flute in her mouth and played several long notes. The sound of the flute seemed to attract a gust of wind that blew through the stone pillars of varying lengths in the long corridor of the stone chamber on both sides, producing a heavenly sound like the pipe organ of a European cathedral..." That's probably the feeling I'm hearing now!
"Are you Annie's friend?" the priest asked, sitting down next to me. "What a wonderful girl! Everyone has always doted on her since she was little!"
"Then let's go to the Shanghai Club!" The Shanghai Club I'm referring to is the place where Korniloff used to work as a doorman. "You mean the British Club on the Bund that only Westerners can go in? That's so boring! How about this! I'll take you to Le Cercle Sportif de Changhai (the French Club in Shanghai), there are more Chinese people there, it'll be more interesting!" Annie said. "Then it's your way!" Annie is a native of Shanghai and speaks Shanghainese, so I have no choice but to listen to her in this regard.
"Getting to know more Chinese people here might help my intelligence work!" I thought to myself. Just then, Annie nudged me with her elbow and gestured for me to look at a couple across from us who seemed very affectionate. "Look, sitting over there is Lu Xiaoman, Xu Zhimo's newlywed wife!" "Xu Zhimo?" I immediately recalled my encounter with Lin Huiyin in England: "That man was Xu Zhimo?" "I don't think so..." Annie examined him for a moment and said, "It seems to be Weng Ruiwu, who's connected to Jiangnan Shipyard? I heard he's a playboy!" As soon as Weng Ruiwu saw Annie, he immediately came over to greet her. It turned out that Annie was now a major client of Jiangnan Shipyard, so how could he not try to curry favor with her? Soon after, several more Chinese people entered. One of them, a man in a long robe with an elegant demeanor, went to Lu Xiaoman's table, greeted her, and then returned to his own seat. "Hehe! I know that man in the long robe!" Annie said, "He's Shao Xunmei! His father used to be the mayor (Daotai) of Shanghai, and his family is very rich! Those people next to him are his wife's family. Look, those are his wife's seventh and eighth aunts." I turned to Annie and asked, "How are you so amazing? You even know several of his aunts?" I think the three women are all around the same age. "Didn't you read the newspapers? The hottest news in Shanghai lately is that the unmarried seventh and eighth daughters of the Sheng family have teamed up with their three brothers and two nephews to fight a lawsuit over a 3.5 million tael inheritance. Tens of thousands of people watched the court hearing three weeks ago; it was quite a spectacle!" "The Sheng family?" "The Sheng family is the richest family in all of China!" Annie said. "Those two are the seventh and eighth young ladies of the Sheng family. Next to them is Sheng Peiyu, Shao Xunmei's wife. She is both the granddaughter of the Sheng family and Shao Xunmei's cousin." "Why is it so complicated?" "The Chinese say that marriage between relatives makes the family stronger! I'll go over and say hello." Before long, Anne brought them all over, and her aunt and cousin introduced them one by one. I greeted Mr. Shao in Chinese, but to my surprise, he replied in the most authentic and cultured English. The beauty of his rhetoric and the precision of his word choice were something even I, a person from England, could not match. "I am Shao Shunmei, you can just call me Sinmay." "Sinmay majored in English Literature at Cambridge University!" Annie said.
Mr. Shao doesn't dance much, and when the ladies occasionally pull him off the dance, it seems his dancing skills are really lacking. So we mostly just watched from the sidelines and chatted.
The dance hall had strict rules at the time; all guests had to wear formal attire and bow ties to enter. However, I noticed Mr. Shao was wearing a silk robe, which puzzled me. Mr. Shao was very understanding; he probably sensed my confusion in my eyes and explained, "A robe is our Chinese formal attire. Although I received a Western education, I don't like wearing Western-style formal wear, so I always wear a robe when I come here. It's a special permission granted by the French club!"
"Sinmay, do you come here to dance often?"
"I come here often, but I don't dance often. I'm not a good dancer, but I like the atmosphere here."
After the dance ended, the ladies returned to their seats. Miss Sheng said, "You see, Chinese people love to dance just like Westerners, but apart from the barely decent the Majestic Hotel, there isn't a single good place to dance in all of Shanghai. If we opened a place in Shanghai specifically for Chinese people to dance, with the most luxurious decor and the best band, it would definitely make a fortune. Don't you think so?"
At the time, I was talking to Mr. Shao about my father being a member of the British Parliament when Mr. Shao suddenly had a bright idea and said, "Parliament? Then let's call it Paramount!" Four years later, in 1932, the seventh Miss Sheng Aiyi indeed used the money she won from her lawsuit to open a dance hall exclusively for Chinese people, and the name was "Paramount"!
The Majestic Hall, mentioned by Sheng Aiyi, hosted Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling's wedding at the end of last year. Soong Mei-ling's brother, T.V. Soong, was Sheng Aiyi's first love, but her mother, Madam Zhuang, opposed their relationship because she felt the Soong family's social standing was insufficient. Disappointed, T.V. Soong left Shanghai in 1923 to join the Kuangchow government, precisely when my father and I visited Sun Yat-sen in Kuangchow. With the Kuomintang unifying China and his sister's marriage to Chiang Kai-shek, T.V. Soong has now become a rising political figure; if Sheng's mother were alive, she would surely regret it deeply. These are all common gossip topics in Shanghai, and Annie recounts them with remarkable detail.
We left Mr. Shao and returned to our seats. Just then, the band on the dance floor started playing foxtrot music. Annie pulled me aside and said, "You're my date, why didn't you ask me to dance? It's so embarrassing!" "I...I can't dance!" "It's okay, I'll teach you!" I was half-heartedly pulled into the dance floor, where several couples were already dancing the foxtrot. Although Annie patiently guided me, I didn't have the talent, and I also had to be careful not to step on her feet, so it wasn't really fun. After a while, my steps came to a halt. "Not dancing? Then let me have this beautiful lady?" I turned around and saw a Chinese woman wearing a long, soft black silk robe, with a slender waist bent over, looking at Annie with mysterious, cat-like eyes, emanating a captivating, almost witchcraft-like power. Annie was led to the dance floor as if she had lost her soul, and then the two women embraced each other and swayed like water snakes. I returned to my seat alone to watch their performance. The woman in black hugged Annie from behind and provocatively moved her hands over Annie's body. Annie, in turn, tossed her blonde hair and leaned against the woman in black in a languid pose, swaying in unison. The sexy and alluring dance moves of the two beauties, one on the east and one on the west, attracted everyone's attention, and they all made way for them to perform. The band also played jazz music with a decadent flair.
"Have we met before?" the woman in black unexpectedly asked first. "No way?" I said. "We must have met before!" the woman in black said decisively. "It must have been when we were very young. Where were you then?" "I...I've lived in Tiantsin and Peking." I racked my brains, searching my memory bank: "Then you are...." "Paul!" the woman in black suddenly exclaimed excitedly, "I'm Dongzhen! Don't you remember? Back in 1912, I played with you and Puyi's cousin in the palace..." "Dongzhen? Princess Kim Bihui?" Could this slender young woman with an oval face, willow-leaf eyebrows, and phoenix eyes, with glossy black hair, really be the chubby little princess from back then? In 1912, the Ch'ing Dynasty, which had controlled China for over three hundred years, had collapsed. The last emperor, Puyi, was only seven years old at the time, yet he was still allowed to live in the Forbidden City. My father, then the Consul General in Tiantsin, was already well-acquainted with the royal family and often took me to the palace during his trips to Peking. Dongzhen was also frequently brought to the palace by her father, Prince Su, and the children played together. The palace teachers hoped to find some playmates for Puyi, preferably those who could speak English, so I became the best candidate. "You can also call me Yoshiko Kawashima, or Princess Consort of Mongolia." "Are you married?" "Forget it! Let's not talk about this marriage." Dongzhen turned to look at Annie and said, "Your wife? How beautiful! Can I borrow her for a few days?" She asked me in a lewd tone. "No, no! I didn't mean no... I mean, she's not my wife!" "If she's not your wife, then she must be your mistress? Hahaha..." Dongzhen laughed wantonly. "How's it like in bed? Tell me, Paul, I want to try it too..." Dongjin leaned close to me, her body, still damp from dancing, exuding a scent of sweat and perfume that resembled the odor of an animal in heat, clearly conveying her desire. "Don't talk nonsense!" I turned around and saw that Annie's face was already flushed, so I quickly tried to smooth things over: "Annie is my boss, I'm her pilot, and she brought me here." "Airplane pilot? That's even more exciting! Let's have the three of us play together!" Dongzhen secretly reached behind me and pinched my butt. I quickly pushed her hand away. Seeing that Dongzhen was getting more and more outrageous, I had to change the subject. "Are you still in contact with Henry?..."
"Henry?...Oh, you mean the Emperor? No!"
At this point, Annie interjected, "You said you were also called Yoshiko Kawashima, and a Mongolian princess. What's that all about?"
"I was adopted by my father's Japanese friend, Kawashima Naniwa, when I was young, so I was renamed Kawashima Yoshiko. I grew up and was educated in Japan. From a young age, my father and adoptive father instilled in me the idea that I should contribute to the restoration of the Ch'ing Empire, including my marriage..." Dongzhen said.
"How so?"
"The Manchus and Mongols were originally allies, and in order to win over the Mongols, they arranged for me to marry Prince De. I knew from the start that it was a political marriage, but that Prince De was so cowardly; being with him was a waste of my youth. I'm going to do something great, Paul, will you help me?"
Dongzhen brought her face close to me and gently bit my ear. I gently pushed her away, but accidentally bumped into a man next to me.
"I'm sorry, sir!" I apologized to him.
"It's alright..." Dongzhen ignored our conversation, because the music on the dance floor started again, and she pulled Annie back onto the dance floor. I glanced at the man. Hmm? Could this be the guy Willie showed me the picture from a few days ago? What's he doing in Shanghai instead of Mukden?
The French Club was definitely more interesting than the Shanghai Club! But I was getting sleepy, and Annie didn't want to leave, so I had to go back to my place first. I heard that Kim Bihui and Annie partied until midnight that night, and even went back to the Palace Hotel where Annie was staying at the Nanking Road intersection to spend the night.
Later I learned that Kim Bihui had won the ballroom dance competition here and was quite famous in Shanghai dance halls.
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