Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [218]
“I will tell you the true story of Mayling. But to do so I must first reveal the Untruths. Let me explain it to you now.
“Mayling was thirteen years old and Lai Tsin was nine when they were sold by their father. The selling of women was big business in the Chinese provinces. Men made fortunes abducting young girls who would then be sold and resold many times. Despite her harsh life and the violence of her father, Mayling was a joyful, happy little girl with merry dark eyes. Her hair fell a smooth glossy black to her waist, and she wore it braided, the way all Chinese girls did. Sometimes she would fantasize about how she would look when she became a woman, and she would comb her shiny hair and sweep it into a bun, stabbing it through with blades of straw in place of ornamental jade combs to keep it in place. She would pretend she was wearing a beautiful silk cheongsam, and saunter elegantly up and down, imagining she was a great lady, the Number One wife of a rich and kindly man, with servants to care for her and children of her own to play with. Sadly, it was only a dream.
“When the flesh-peddler tore Mayling away from her brother that night on the junk at Shanghai, her whole life changed. And when he took her to his cabin and touched her secret places she screamed so much he struck her across the face. And still she screamed. He put his hands on her throat, contemplating strangling her, he was so angry, but then he remembered how much he had paid for her and thought greedily of his profit. There were a hundred other girls he could have who would cause less trouble than Mayling, and besides, if he sold her as a virgin his profit would be even higher.
“He struck her a few more blows around the head to teach her a lesson, then he flung a piece of sacking over her and carried her, wrapped like a dead dog, off the junk and into a sedan chair.
“Mayling’s ears were still ringing from his blows, her head was bursting with pain and she lay stunned on the floor of the sedan chair as it jogged through the streets of Shanghai. She prayed for escape, but it was not to be. The sedan stopped and the man flung her out onto the dark street. He dragged her by her pigtail inside a dark building and down an ill-lit passageway. In the room at the end an old man was sitting at a table. He had a wizened face and eyes so narrow, Mayling wondered how he could see, but she still felt his appraising stare.
“The flesh-peddler jerked her pigtail, forcing her to stand taller. He prodded her flesh with his fingers, extolling her qualities and especially her virginity, until she blushed with shame. The old man behind the desk named his price and the flesh-peddler harangued him as a thief, but after much shouting a bargain was struck and he left her alone with her new owner.
“Mayling cowered back against the wall, but the man did not touch her. Instead he bade her to follow him and she was too frightened not to obey. He led her down some steps into a cellar and left her there, bolting the door so she could not escape. Mayling sat on the steps in the dark, crying. A rat rustled past her and she screamed and leapt to her feet, but nobody came to save her. She thought of her brother and knew she would never see him again. She was alone in an evil world she did not even understand.
“When the cellar door finally opened again, she was too stupefied with fear to cry or scream anymore, and she followed the man obediently into a waiting mule cart. Her hands and feet were bound and she was covered with straw and the cart moved slowly out of the city streets into the countryside.
“Mayling did not know how many hours it was before the cart stopped and she was bundled out again, but she saw they were on the outskirts of a large village. The driver took her to a wooden hut and thrust her through the door and bolted it. She heard a sound and peered into the darkness. A