Album Notes

Yeo took the job singing in the Bitter Melon, Yelena’s club in Shanghai, in February 1930. But it was almost July before he began to suspect. He discounted the pale skin, because the Russians all looked like something out of a ghost story to him anyway. And the way she never left the club or her apartments upstairs between dawn and dusk held no mystery either, because he knew enough about her business affairs to know that her contacts and her clients all shunned the light of day as well. This was Shanghai, after all, and the dangerous pleasures of sex and money and drink and opium and gambling were easily found by moonlight.

By the time Yeo was sure that something was odd about her – there was the way delivery men sometimes went up and never came down, for one thing – he was too in love with her to particularly care. And she loved him in return, and so she gave him the most precious gift she could offer. (Once he was able to walk about the city again, they went to see the premiere of a moving picture: “The Jazz Singer.” You could hear the actors talking and singing. They took it as a sign that the world was getting more exciting all the time, and they looked forward to watching it do so in each other’s company.)
For those with romantic notions about such things: immortality doesn’t mean that love lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever. But they were both grownups, and the end of the affair did not lead to grand acts of mutual destruction. Opera wasn’t their style. They preferred jazz, the new force that was washing over Shanghai and the world: rather than letting the blue notes stop the fun, they improvised, and let life go where it would. When the war made Shanghai a dangerous place for anyone, human or otherwise, the Bitter Melon closed its doors and its owners parted company.

Yeo has run nightspots all over the world by now, in desert cities and mountain cities, on small islands and on broad prairies. (Although he goes by Julian these days.) He stays for a few years, learning to speak the language and cook the cuisine and romance the bright and beautiful. And then he moves on. When he crosses paths with Yelena, there are stories and wine and fine meals – vampires can enjoy food and drink just like you do, darling; they just get their nutrients elsewhere – and promises to stay in touch.

If you’re lucky enough to find yourself in his club, ask him to sing. When he tells you to close your eyes and relax, do. If he offers to cook you a meal, by all means accept.
But make sure someone knows where you are.
--Andrew Willett