Our Violent Ends

February 1927

Juliette meets Roma outside the French Concession. Roma is cold and refuses to be drawn into conversation. They agree, however, that they are both impressed and disgusted by the International Settlement. Roma and Juliette enter a swanky club. An American woman tells them Chinese people are not allowed but backtracks nervously when she recognizes them. Juliette is angry that she must be polite to these colonizers, who don’t even provide useful information. They’re more interested in why Roma and Juliette are together, failing to notice Roma’s resentment.

A British man, Clifford, approaches and rudely asks when gangsters started being admitted to the club, then passes his comment off as a joke. Juliette knows what he really means is “Chinese” and “Russians.” Juliette mocks Clifford in French to the two women he is with, making him the one who is excluded. Roma joins in. Clifford picks up on the mockery and departs, leaving Roma and Juliette with the Frenchwomen. Roma and Juliette turn the conversation to the monsters, and the women give them a flier advertising vaccines at an address in Kunshan, in a different province than Shanghai.

Roma points out that the blackmailer is smart to advertise only in French—he can profit off the foreigners’ fear while keeping them safe, so only the gangsters remain vulnerable.