穆時英， 上海的狐步舞 

Shanghai Fox-trot

A short story by Mu Shiying

This story first appeared in the journal Xiandai (“Modern”) Vol. 4 no. 2 1934.  It has been reprinted many times, for example in Wu Huanzhang, ed. Haipai xiaoshuo jingpin (“The best of Shanghai-style  stories”)  (Shanghai:  Fudan Daxue chuban she, 1996) 525-535.  Translation from Chinese into English by Andrew Field—words in bold appear in English in the original text.

Shanghai.  A heaven built upon a hell!

Huxi, a large moon climbs the sky, shines over a vast field.  Ashen field, blanketed with silver-gray moonlight, inlaid with deep-gray shadows of trees and row upon row of farmhouses.  On the field, steel rails draw a bowline, following the sky out to the horizon.

Lincoln Road.  (Here, morality is trampled underfoot, while evil is elevated in the mind.)

Gripping a food basket, he walks alone, one hand in pants pocket, watching his hot breath escape his mouth and float slowly into the azure night.

Three human shadows wearing black silk robes and jackets appear before him.  Three faces, only noses and chins visible under their hats, block him.

“Go slowly, pal!” they say.

“Got  something to say, then say it, amigo!” he replies.

“As the old saying goes, ”Every injustice has its origins, every debt its creditor.”  We ain’t got nothing against you, but every man has to answer to his boss.  We need to eat too, so don’t take this personally.  Next year this day will be your anniversary, remember!”

“That’s a laugh!  Not that we aren’t friends---“ tossing his food basket, with one hand he grabs his gun in a flash.

Bang!  The hand lets go, the man falls down, clutching his stomach.  Bang!  Another shot.

“Punk!  The nerve!”

“See you again this life, friend!”

Black Silk Gown takes the pile of hats, shelves them on his head, crosses the steel rails and is gone.

“Help!”  one man crawls a few steps.

“Help!” he crawls another few steps.

With a clang, a headlight shines out from beyond the horizon.  The steel rail rumbles, its wooden bed crawls forward like a centipede in the light, electricity poles appear then are immediately hidden in the darkness, a “Shanghai express” pushes out its belly, “ta ta ta,” in the rhythm of the fox-trot, holding its “night pearl,” dragon-like it rushes by, rounding the bowline.  It opens its maw with a “kong,” and a trail of black smoke reaches out to its tail, its headlight penetrates the horizon and in a moment is gone.

Again it becomes quiet.

The traffic gate of the tracks interlocks with car headlights, the controller of the traffic gate holds red and green flags, pulls open the white-faced, red-lipped, ruby-earringed traffic gate.  Immediately, the cars fly by in a long series.

Onto white painted street tree legs, electricity pole legs, inanimate legs-----like a revue, girls’ powdered legs crisscrossing outward…. A series of white painted legs.  Following the quiet avenue, from the windows of houses, like the eyes of the city, penetrating the window shades, seeping out pink, purple, green, everywhere lights.

The car stops in front of a small western-style villa and honks its horn.  The coral knot on Liu Youde’s “watermelon skin” hat pokes out the car door, out of two pockets of his black velvet waistcoat hangs a gold chain, its gold links tittering, taking him out of the car and carrying him into the house.  He tosses a half-finished cigar out the door, and walks into the guestroom.  Just as he sits down, the light patter of heels glides down the stairs. 

“You’ve returned?”  vivacious laughter, a woman who in age could be his daughter-in-law but by law is his wife runs into the room, pulls his nose and says “Quick!  Sign me a check for three thousand dollars.”

“You’ve already used up last week’s money?”

She doesn’t speak, but hands him a pile of bills, pulls him by his blue gown sleeves into the library, sends a pen into his hand.

“I said…”

“What did you say?” she purses her little red mouth.

He stares at her a moment, then signs.  She leans down and kisses him on the mouth.  “You can take care of dinner yourself, I’m going out with Xiaode.”  Laughing she runs out, and bangs through the door.  He pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his mouth.  On the kerchief is a tangee mark.  Just like my daughter, all day bothering me for money.

“Pop!”

Xiaode slides in from nowhere, stands at his side, like a rat who’s just seen a cat.

“Why have you come back again?”

“Auntie called me to come here.”

“For what?”

“Money.”

Liu Youde finds it funny.  These two are up to something.

“Why would she ask you to come back and ask me for money?  It’s not like she doesn’t get enough?”

“It’s me who wants money.  Auntie asked me to take her out.”

Suddenly the door opens, “Do you have cash?” Liu Yan Rongzhu runs in again.

“I’ve only…”

A hand that just applied nail polish shoots into his pocket and pulls out his wallet!  Red polished nails count out bills:  one five, one ten, two tens, three hundreds.  “I’ll leave you fifty, and I’ll take the rest.  If I give you more I’ll have to come back.”  She casts a seductive glance, then pulls her lawful son and goes.

The son is a clothing rack.  All day he reads fashion magazines meant for a gigolo.  He dons a black velvet cape ironed with large folds and broad pleats, a tie knotted in the middle, and escorts his mother by the arm out to the car.

Onto white painted street tree legs, electricity pole legs, inanimate legs-----like a revue, girls’ powdered legs crisscrossing outward…. A series of white painted legs.  Following the quiet avenue, from the windows of houses, like the eyes of the city, penetrating the window shades, seeping out pink, purple, green, everywhere lights.

Driving a new 1932 Baker, but with a lovers’ style of 1980.  The deep autumn wind wails, blowing about the son’s tie, the mother’s hair.  Everything feels a bit cold.  The lawful mother snuggles into her son’s embrace and says:

“It’s a pity that you’re my son.”  Chuckling.

The son kisses the little mouth that his father kissed, and almost drives the car onto the sidewalk.  Neon light stretches out a colored finger and writes a large character in the black-ink night.  An English gentleman stands in front, wearing a red swallow-tail coat, gripping a cane, vigorously striding along.  Below his feet is written:  “Johnny Walker:  Still Going Strong.”  By the side of the road on a small plot of grass has opened a real estate company’s utopia.  Above it an American smoking Lucky brand cigarettes looks on as if to say, “Too bad this is a small-world utopia.  Won’t that big field out there give me a foothold?”

Before the car appears an individual shadow, honk honk, the person turns his head and stares and slides out from in front of the wheels and over to the sidewalk.

“Rongzhu, where are we going?”

“to whatever cabaret to kick up a fresh one; I’m sick of the Astor House and Majestic.”

On the rooftop of the horse race track, a golden horse weathervane seems to kick its legs towards the red moon.  Over all directions of the large field of grass shimmers a sea of light, evil waves.  The Moore Memorial Church permeates the dark, kneeling, praying for these hellbent men and women.  The Great World tower refuses forgiveness, stares arrogantly back at this priest, flashing its lights.

The azure dusk blankets the whole scene.  A saxophone stretches out its neck, opens its great mouth, and blares at them, “woo woo.”  Inside on the smooth floor, floating skirts, floating robes, exquisite heels, heels, heels, heels, heels.  Free flowing hair and men’s faces.  Men’s white-collared shirts and women’s smiling faces.  Arms outstretched, kingfisher-green earrings dragging on shoulders.  A group of tightly arranged round tables, but with scattered chairs.  Waiters in white stand in dark corners.  Scent of alcohol, perfume, smoke…someone sits alone in the corner holding a coffee to stimulate his energy.

Dancing:  the waltz melody enwraps their legs, their legs stand on the waltz melody floating, floating.  The son whispers in his mother’s ear:  “there are many things that can only be said during a waltz, and you are the greatest waltzing partner—but, Rongzhu, I love you!”

She lightly kisses his temple, mother snuggles into son’s embrace, snickering.

A Belgian jewel broker passing himself off as a French gentleman whispers into the ear of movie star Yan Furong saying, “Your smile makes all other women in the world envious—but, I love you!”

She lightly kisses his temple, snuggles into his embrace, snickering. Suddenly she sees that on her finger is another diamond ring.

The jewel broker sees Liu Yan Rongzhu and nods to her over Yan Furong’s shoulders, smiling.  Xiaode looks back and stares at Yan Furong, lifting his eyebrows like a gigolo. 

Dancing:  the waltz melody enwraps their legs, their legs stand on the waltz melody floating, floating.  The jewel broker whispers into Liu Yan Rongzhu’s ear, saying:  “Your smile makes all other women in the world envious—but, I love you!”

She lightly kisses his temple, snuggles into his embrace, snickering, and puts a lipstick mark on his white shirt.

Xiaode whispers into Yan Furong’s ear saying, “there are many things that can only be said during a waltz, and you are the greatest waltzing partner—but, Furong, I love you!”

She lightly kisses his temple, and snuggles into his embrace, snickering.

A lone man sits in the corner holding a coffee to stimulate his energy.  Scent of alcohol, perfume, smoke…waiters wearing white stand in dark corners.  Chairs are scattered about, but tables are lined up neatly.  Kingfisher pendants drag on shoulders, outstretched arms.  Women’s smiling faces and men’s white collared shirts.  Men’s faces and free flowing hair.  Exquisite heels, heels, heels, heels, heels.  Floating robes, floating skirts, in the midst of a smooth polished floor.  “Woo woo,” blaring at them, that saxophone stretches out its neck, opens its big mouth.  Azure dusk blankets the whole scene.

Pushing open the glass door, this fragile fantasy world is broken.  Running under the steps, a pair of rickshaws stop at the street.  The car attendant stands.  In the middle is a road lit up by houselights, competing with “ricksha?” are Austins, Fords, Baker sports cars, Baker little nine, eight cylinder, six cylinder….the great red-faced moon limps along above the broad field of the race track.  On the street corner, a vendor selling the Shanghai Mercury and Evening Post uses the voice of a pancake vendor, screaming “Evening Post!”

An electric trolley “ding ding” rides by, covered with advertsement posters for great big sales and company trademarks, carrying them dangerously along.  Bicycles ride alongside the trolley, looking pitiful.  Sailors sit atop the rickshaw, blinking their drunken eyes.  Seeing the rickshaw puller miss a step, they laugh loudly, “ha ha.”  Red traffic light, green traffic light, traffic light pole and Sikh traffic guard stand upright on the ground.  Traffic light flashes and lets forth a torrent of people and a flood of cars.  These people look like a pack of mindless flies!  A fashion model wearing clothes from her shop passes herself off as an aristocratic woman.  The elevator speeds along at fifteen seconds per floor, carrying people to the rooftop garden like commodities.  A female secretary stands at the display window of a silk shop, staring at a full silk French crepe, thinks of her manager’s smiling face scarred by a knife above the mouth.  Ideologues and party members holding large propaganda posters stroll by, thinking, if we’re caught then we’ll make a speech right here.  Blue eyed girls wear narrow skirts, black eyed girls wear qipao.  Their legs all have the same charming aspect.

On the side of the road in an empty lot towers a large pyramid-shaped wooden scaffold, its crudely built legs stuck in the mud, set with a flood light on the roof, shining downward, shining on every person on the wooden slats on the street.  These people yell “ai ai ya!” as atop the roof of the several-hundred-foot-tall wooden structure, wooden pilings fall down, bang! Three large crude wooden columns slam into the mud, flood lights set up in all four corners, the vicious light shines over the entire empty lot.  In the empty lot:  crisscrossing ditches, steel girders, piles of tiles.  Men carrying large wooden columns walk along the ditches, dragging their long shadows.  The man in front slips and falls, the wooden column presses down his back.  His back breaks, and blood pours from his mouth….flood light…bang!  Wooden pilings flow up the wooden structure….A naked child rolls a copper along the coal rubble of the street….the flood light atop the large wooden structure looks just like the moon in the night sky….a young woman picking up dregs of coal…there are two moons…the moon is swallowed up by the astral dog—the moon is gone.

The dead body is carted away.  In the empty lot:  crisscrossing ditches, steel girders, tiles, and a pool of his blood.  On the blood they pour cement, creating the iron infrastructure, and a new hotel is built!  A new dance hall is built!  A new inn is built!  His strength, his blood, and his life are pressed underneath, just like other hotels, just like the Huadong Hotel that Liu Youde just stepped into.

Inside the Huadong Hotel----

Second floor:  white painted rooms, the sweet old coppery smell of opium, mah-jongg tiles, “Silang Visits his Mother,” [a Peking opera tune] “Courtesan Scolds the Little Whore Tanbai,” Old Dragon perfume and the scent of lechery, waiters in white, prostitutes and pimps, kidnappers, conspiracies and traps, White Russian gigolos….

Third floor: white painted rooms, the sweet old coppery smell of opium, mah-jongg tiles, “Silang Visits his Mother,” [a Peking opera tune] “Courtesan Scolds the Little Whore Tanbai,” Old Dragon perfume and the scent of lechery, waiters in white, prostitutes and pimps, kidnappers, conspiracies and traps, White Russian gigolos….

Fourth floor: white painted rooms, the sweet old coppery smell of opium, mah-jongg tiles, “Silang Visits his Mother,” [a Peking opera tune] “Courtesan Scolds the Little Whore Tanbai,” Old Dragon perfume and the scent of lechery, waiters in white, prostitutes and pimps, kidnappers, conspiracies and traps, White Russian gigolos….

The elevator spits him out at the fourth floor, Mr. Liu Youde crooning “Silang Visits his Mother” strides into a room filled with the sounds of clacking tiles, lights up a cigarette, writes out a summons for a prostitute.  In a moment, he is sitting at a table, taking a zhong feng, using well-practiced hands he pulls it in, on the one hand saying: “how is it I can’t grab anything good,” the face of an inveterate gambler, on the other hand listening carefully to the words of Precious Moon Old Number Eight, who because she does not bind her breasts is known as “Sullivan Bread:”  “Sorry, Master Liu, I’m on another summons, in a moment when I’m finished you can come over and sit.”

            “Come home with us to sit awhile!”  standing on the street corner, one can only see a stone-gray face with black eyeballs, crouching in the dark corner of a building, yelling at the people going by, like an auctioneer; an old procuress dragging behind like a tail.

            “Come home with us to sit awhile!” that ugly mouth is saying, purposely bumping against a flat face.  The flat face laughs, and stares awhile, pointing at his nose, searching his brain:  “Would you like to meet a nice old widow, Master?”

            “When youthful, friends are important!” Ugly Mouth laughs.

            “Never thought that this little Indian sugar baby would be picked up,” hand rubs her face, then leaves.

            On the side a long-haired unshaven writer is enjoying the spectacle, and he thinks of a topic:  “the second round of investigations—city’s dark side investigation sonata;”  suddenly he sees Ugly Mouth’s eyes sweep along his face, and immediately he rushes along.

            Stone-gray face crouches in the dark shadows, the old procuress dragging behind like a tail----crouching in the dark shadows a stone-gray face, stone gray face, stone gray face….

            (the writer thinks to himself:)

            First round of investigations gambling halls second round of investigations street hookers third round of investigations dance halls fourth round of investigations then to East Asia Literary Monthly Journal Art Monthly first sentence write the big road Beijing Road street hooker meeting house…..no, that won’t do----

            Somebody pulls at his sleeve:  “Mister!” he glances around and sees an old woman making a bitter face.  He lifts his head and looks at her.

            “Whaddya want?”

            “Please read a letter for us.”

            “Where’s the letter?”

            “Please come to my house to get it, it’s just in this alleyway.”

            He goes with her.

            China’s tragedy here is definitely material for a novel 1931 is my year Asia Novel Dipper each month one entry one version translated into Japanese one into Russian one into each language all published Nobel Prize great riches….

            Pulled into a little alleyway, so dark he can’t see a thing.

            “Where’s your house?”

            “It’s just here, not far, Mister.  Please read a letter.”

            There in the alleyway is a yellow street lamp, below the lamp is a girl, head lowered, standing there.  The old woman suddenly makes another bitter face, grasps his sleeve and says:  “Mister, this is my daughter-in-law.  My son is a mechanic, he stole somebody’s things, he was caught and taken away, we poor women haven’t eaten in four days.”

            (isn’t that so?  Such a good material skill no problem her speech consciousness surely accurate don’t mind others saying I’m a philanthropist….)

            “Mister, have pity, give me some money. I’ll let my daughter-in-law stay with you for a night.  Save our two lives!”

            The writer is shamed.  The girl lifts her head; two shadows drag along her emaciated cheeks, the corners of her mouth lift in a smile.  The corners of her mouth lift in a smile. A Belgian jewel broker passing himself off as a French gentleman whispers into the ear of Liu Yan Rongzhu saying, “Your smile makes all other women in the world envious—have a drink!”

            Over a tall-stemmed glass, Liu Yan Rongzhu’s pair of eyes are smiling.

            In the Baker, those two eyeballs saturated with cocktail are smiling out of tousled hair.

            In the hall of the Huamao Hotel, those two eyeballs saturated with cocktail are smiling out of tousled hair.

            On the elevator, those two eyeballs are smiling out of purple eye shadow.

            On the seventh floor of Huamao Hotel inside a room, those two eyeballs are smiling above fiery red cheeks. 

            The jewel broker discovers those smiling eyeballs under his nose.

            Smiling eyeballs!

            White bed sheets!

            Sighing…

            Sighing they move onto the bed.

            Bed sheets:  melted snow.

            “Set up an international club!”  suddenly getting the idea, face sweating in thin trickles.

            Sweating, on a quiet street, pulling a drunken sailor into a bar.  On the streets, no patrolmen, that quiet, like a dead city.  The sailor puts his leather shoe on the rickshaw man’s spine, voice echoes in the building walls:

            Later…later

            Later

            Later….

            On the rickshaw man’s face, sweat; in the rickshaw man’s mind, money rolling, flying and rolling.  Drunken sailor suddenly jumps down, disappears into two glass doors.

            “Hullo, Master! Master!”

            So crying he chases him to the door.  A Sikh patrolman holds his club out and blocks his way, laughing he squeezes out the door, aroma of alcohol squeezes out the door, Jazz squeezes out the door…..the rickshaw man pulls his rickshaw along, battering him is the river wind of December, a cold month, a deep port inside a large building.  Thrown out of happiness and fun, he doesn’t think of suicide. “Fuck! fuck!” he swears aloud, then heads towards life.

            Empty, the rickshaw departs, only moonlight on the street.  The moon shines on half the street, leaving the other half immersed in darkness.  In the darkness crouches that bar, above the door of the bar is a green lamplight, under the green light stands a fossilized Sikh patrolman.  He opens the door again and again, like a parrot saying:

            “Goodbye, sir.”

            Out of the glass door walks a young man, a cane hanging from his arm.  He heads out of the light and into the darkness, then from out of the darkness he walks into the moonlight.  He rests a spell, sidles forth, a lover thinking about sleeping in somebody else’s bed.  He walks along the river, stands by the railing nervous and scared.

            Dawn in the East, sunlight, like a golden eyeball opens up in the fog.

            In Pudong, the high pitched voice of a man:

            “ai….ya…..ai…..”

            flies up into the sky, together with the first line of sunlight.  Joining him is a chorus of majestic voices.  The well-slept buildings stand up, lift their heads, remove their gray pajamas, the water “wa la wa la” flows towards the east, factory steam whistles sound.

            Singing about a new life, the fate of people in a nightclub!

            Wake up, Shanghai!

            Shanghai, a heaven built upon a hell!