The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel

by Maureen Lindley

  Such was the ethos in Shanghai in those days that I was not particularly surprised. I knew that given the passing of a few weeks, Mari would be completely forgotten. It frightened me to think that if I upset the wrong people, what had happened to her could easily happen to me. It was tragic that Mari, so fastidious and obsessively tidy in life, should end up mingling her blood with the pungent ooze of Shanghai's night soil. I dreamt of her lying at the bottom of a lake, her dark hair tangled in weeds, her huge eyes translucent and hopeless.

  Perhaps I should have left Shanghai then, when I was still afraid and still able to be shocked. Instead I bought myself a small pearl­handled revolver, and although I felt a little ashamed not to be pursuing justice for Mari, I went on with my life. I whiled away the next couple of days in the company of opium and an assortment of unexceptional men and agreed to go with Valerie to the New Year's Eve party at the Cathay Hotel.

  By the time we arrived at the Cathay's splendid ballroom it was crowded to capacity with Shanghai society, the orchestra was in full swing and Valerie and I had to shout at each other to make ourselves heard. The singer, a Chinese boy, polished to perfection, looking like a ventriloquist's dummy in a western tailcoat with white tie, was crooning a song about the moon and love. His hair was slicked back and glossy to match his shoes and I remember noticing that he wore make-up. The huge ballroom was extravagantly decorated with hundreds of tiny lights strung around the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, which were set in ornate plaster frames. White lilies garlanded the malachite pillars that supported the domed ceiling of the vast chamber in which no space had been left unembellished.

  Shanghainese, White Russians, the British, of course, and quite a lot of Japanese who looked bemused by it all lined themselves three deep at the bar and crowded the dance floor. There were stars from the new film studios, dressed in satin evening dresses and wearing spectacular faux jewellery, their eyes dark as ink in their over­powdered faces. American sailors in white uniforms that looked too small for their big bodies stood heads above everyone else. Beautiful Chinese and Russian girls with their gangster lovers flaunted their imported dresses and freshly permed hair. There too, attempting to look as though they were enjoying themselves, were the mournful-eyed Jewish Russians who drank too much and took snuff. I saw the manager from the Venus Cafe with his exquisite half-French, half-Chinese boyfriend and the girl who had dressed my hair that afternoon in the beauty parlour in the French concession.

  By the time I had drunk two vodkas and the best part of a bottle of champagne with Valerie and some others we had picked up at the bar of the Central, I was feeling lively and looking for fun. Amongst our party was the pink-skinned German who had been in the pool of the Shanghai Club. This time he was with a Chinese girl dressed in a tight gold cheongsam as bright as Natsuko's lucky carp. Mari's two Koreans joined us with their new partner, a fat little Russian who chained-smoked and had a habit of polishing his bald patch with his hand every couple of minutes. They were drinking malt whisky and flirting with Valerie who looked wonderful in an evening dress of cloudy white chiffon that she had bought in Cairo in more affluent days. I had chosen chiffon too, but a sea-green one with silver shoes. I had silk wisteria in my hair and I was wearing the moonstone ring that Mari had given me. Valerie said that she had never seen me looking more beautiful.

  It was well into the evening before I noticed the taller-than-usual Japanese soldier who was leaning against one of the pillars, staring at me. He had a huge head, a thick, straight moustache and was wearing high boots that needed polishing. He wore the uniform of a Japanese line officer with the jacket flung over his shoulders in the American fashion. Despite the crush there seemed to be a space around him, as though people didn't care to get too close.

  For reasons that I can't remember now I went over and introduced myself to him as the Princess Eastern Jewel. Perhaps I wanted to impress him, wanted to stand out amongst the glittering guests at the Cathay that evening. It was an odd thing for me to do, because I always wanted to be accepted as Japanese, especially when in their company. I had grown to despise the subservient nature of the Chinese, who I rarely claimed as my kinsmen. As it turned out it didn't matter how I introduced myself. Captain Tanaka Takayoshi already knew who I was. He knew everyone who was important or interesting in Shanghai, as you would expect of the director of Japan's secret service in the city. I had heard of his arrival in the city some months before but hadn't come across him. We had moved in different circles and I particularly avoided Japanese officials, fearing that Kawashima or Kanjurjab would discover my whereabouts.

  Tanaka found us a table and we drank and flirted for the rest of that evening. Every so often someone would make their way to the table and thank him for some favour or ask his opinion on something. I could tell that he was considered important and I enjoyed being in his company. I was surprised to discover that the Captain knew about my life in Kawashima's home and about my marriage to Kanjurjab. He was amused and impressed at my escape from Mongolia and told me that he had been watching me for some months, knew where I lived and thought the villa too secluded for a Japanese woman living alone. It pleased me that he considered me Japanese. I commented that I was rarely alone, and he nodded knowingly. I was disturbed that he knew so much about me when I had not the slightest suspicion that I was being watched.

  I was so fascinated by him that I left Valerie to fend for herself and allowed him to take me home in his car, which he drove himself. I was sure Tanaka desired me, but try as I might on that first night to entice him to my bed, he refused on the grounds that he was not my social equal, as I was a princess and he a commoner. He took sake with me and told me to be more cautious about locking my doors and suggested that I consider moving back to the Central.

  'The Chinese are like a thousand flies buzzing about with their irritating insurrections,' he said. 'If they continue, we'll teach them a lesson they won't forget, but you should be careful.'

  He left me his card and said that if he could ever be of use to me he would deem it an honour to assist me.

  For days after our meeting, I couldn't get him out of my mind or forget the scent of him, which was as warm as ripe quince. I recalled that he hadn't smiled once in the time we had spent together, although I had felt his approval. I was hugely attracted to him and the fact that he was a spy quite thrilled me. I waited as long as my patience would allow for him to contact me, but eventually I took matters into my own hands. I think that had I not, Tanaka would not have come to me and an eternity might have passed before his desire would have overtaken his inverted class snobbery. Valerie said that I would be better off without the friendship of a man like Tanaka. But I had the bit between my teeth, and what did she know of him anyway?

  Remembering Tanaka's offer of help if I ever needed it I called at his apartment and asked if I could borrow one hundred and fifty American dollars from him. He gave it to me without hesitation. I offered to pay him back in his bed but he wouldn't hear of it. So I devised a plan that eventually not only seduced him, but also released him from the boundaries of social class he had imposed. Ours was a pairing of like with like, and I know now with hindsight how dangerous such a union can be. A saint and a sinner would work well for each other, but two sinners are a volatile mix. It would have been better if we had never met, for once united there was no way that we could survive each other intact.

  I began to call on him daily, always requesting money, which he never refused. The amounts I borrowed got bigger and bigger until one day he told me that I would have to wait a little as he didn't have that many dollars on him. I told him that I could wait forever but that he didn't have to.

  'Tanaka, I may be a princess,' I said, 'but I am also a woman who needs your protection. See how small my hands are compared to yours, your body could crush the breath from mine without effort. Where I am weak you are strong. How can you deny this compatibility when it is so obvious?'

  I slipped off my dress and let it fall to the floor. Then I
turned my back to him, bent over and slowly undid the little buckles of my ankle-strap shoes, so that I was left standing in just a suspender belt and the sheer-seamed stockings that Valerie had given me for Christmas. They were so fine that as I undid them from the clasps that held them they slid down my legs like a silken snake and drew a sigh from Tanaka. I sat on his bed and told him that he must take me or I would forever be in his debt, something that a commoner should not allow a princess to suffer. I am not sure whether it was my nakedness or my appeal to his honour that finally brought an end to our fencing with each other. But under his mosquito net that smelled of camphor, Tanaka took me for the first time.

  He was a huge man in every aspect, enjoyed sex as much as I did and in its throes he could be cruel and tender, master and slave, never scared of hurting me, never scared to be gentle. His skin tasted of lemons and salt and I liked the way his dark hair slipped through my fingers.

  He was secretive and daring and loved danger for its own sake. His hunger for information was endless, his memory so extraordinary that he never forgot a name or date, and could remember conversations verbatim. I had met my match, but too late in my life to be satisfied with one man, or to be able to take a subservient role in his life. Besides, I had left a large portion of my heart with Yamaga, and I had vowed never to love again.

  Tanaka's sexual tastes knew no boundaries other than that of gender. He had never made love with a man, even though he enjoyed it when I dressed as one. He liked me naked, liked me in silk, liked me dressed as a boy, dressed as a girl, liked me in high heels and particularly in boots. He regularly visited a Cantonese prostitute in a bordello where he also gave private banquets for like-minded friends. The woman was rumoured to be tiny in stature and to have the smallest bound feet in Shanghai, but she could satisfy not only him but also as many of his guests as he wished to treat. Girls with bound feet were not usually to the taste of Japanese men, but in my experience the idea of a woman physically altered to appeal to a man heightens their appetite. Think of the painted face of the geisha, her red lips signifying the passion her naturally pale ones might deny, or the dark, kohl-rimmed eyes of the concubine, which mimic the lust of sexual arousal.

  After that first time under his mosquito net in the sparsely furnished room that smelled of camphor, we began to spend more time with each other, and although it wasn't always my bed that Tanaka's boots hung over, it didn't matter as neither of us was sexually faithful to the other. I cared nothing for his infidelities and Tanaka, apart from the occasional lapse into jealousy, seemed not to mind my adventures.

  He was for me the combination of lover and protector that I had been seeking all my life. I think that for him I was a force of nature that simply overtook him. And this developed a bond of loyalty that was somehow tied up, not only with each other, but also with Japan and its ambitions. We saw ourselves as children of the new Japan, the Japan that would conquer the world and share with us the respect and privilege that came with power.

  Valerie began to draw away from me, for she did not like Tanaka. But I was so caught up with him that I let her go without a fight. It was the first time in my life that I had a man who accepted and knew me for what I was. I believed that whatever happened in our lives, it would never be finished between us.

  In those early intoxicating months of our relationship we would often have sex several times a day. Sometimes we would share a lover or we would go our own ways for a few days to return refreshed. We grew closer and closer, without the usual sentimentality that goes with such intimacy and I Came to know that the dark side of Tanaka's character was as out of control as that of my own. He liked to hear of my exploits, but every so often there would be one lover who fuelled his anger and put him into one of his long sulks. He would threaten to have the man killed unless I gave him up, and on occasion I was tempted not to, just to see what would happen, but it never came to that. Despite our straying, the passion between us seemed boundless, our loyalty unshakable. Before I met Tanaka, lies came easily to me, but if I lied to him it felt as though I had betrayed myself. There was nothing I couldn't be honest with him about; he was the one person who understood the good and bad in me and liked them both. But I always knew when he was lying because his body would go still and he would look me straight in the eye, something people don't usually do in general conversation.

  Tanaka's connections in Shanghai were myriad. He had access to places that I had never been to and wherever he went he was treated with great respect. I don't recall him having special friends, but he had so many acquaintances that he gave the impression of being popular. In fact, people were afraid of Tanaka and ill at ease in his company. He took comfort in our partnership; I was his one true friend and he enjoyed showing me off.

  We would go to the boxing matches at the Sokols, the Russian sports club, to watch beautiful young men pit their strength and skill against each other. I preferred it to Sumo wrestling as the contestants were better-looking, the audience more interesting, and the smell of blood and vodka quite intoxicating. Valerie came with us once, but she hated what she called 'the cruelty' of it, and I know that she didn't care for Tanaka's company much. Like Mari, Tanaka loved horse racing and would take me to the Shanghai Race Club on Nanking Road. He preferred it to the one way out beyond Hangkou Park that she had favoured. Mostly we lost money, But on the occasions that we won we would celebrate with sex and champagne. Sometimes we would take over the Ambassador Club and invite everyone that we considered important to drink with us till dawn. Tanaka paid the cabaret girls to sleep with his guests in the dark little rooms above the lushly decorated club. We drank in his officers' mess, where only the best sake was served and our gambling partners were the arrogant young officers from Hirohito's cabal.

  Tanaka loved good food and took me to houses in the Chinese quarter where it was cooked with reverence. For a price, you could eat rice-maggot omelette, or wild boar that had been trapped in the forest near Kyoto and drowned in honey from bees that had fed on white clover. We ate wonderful sweetmeats made from almonds and pear syrup, and invariably ended the banquet with a soup of samphire or chestnuts. The cooks were superb, but then it has to be admitted that it is the Chinese with their exceptional greed who excel in the art of cuisine.

  In those narrow streets of the Chinese quarter where there was never a time free from the clatter of mah-jong, where pet finches sang at the doors of the crowded tenements and washing hung from poles between the houses, Tanaka began introducing me to his network of so-called spies, who were in reality the thugs and thieves of that district.

  By the Gate of Longevity, in a house of mean appearance, I met a shrivelled old woman referred to as Mother. Her boys were legion, although not of her blood. With a nod from Mother they would obey any order that Tanaka gave them. Mother always wore a scarf tied in a knot at the back of her neck and a cheaply dyed padded jacket to protect her chest, which she said was weak. Tanaka said that she wore the scarf because she was bald and that the jacket was padded with money.

  She told Tanaka that I was as beautiful as jade, but that my nature was fashioned from iron. I reminded her, she said, of herself when young, and she hoped that I would have the good luck in my life that she had experienced in her own. It was hard to imagine that she had ever been a beauty and I didn't enjoy being likened to her. I hated the idea of ageing and never allowed myself to dwell on my own mortality. You cannot enjoy your youth unless you defend yourself against the idea that you will lose it. In any case it was obvious that she was from peasant stock and, like unwatered fruit, her type dry up while still on the branch.

  Mother owned a few houses in the quarter, one where she kept girls from the villages, who she sold according to their looks. If ugly, they became overworked teahouse waitresses, if pretty, prostitutes. Tanaka had his pick for free and sometimes chose the plain over the pretty.

  As I became more and more involved with all aspects of his life, my dark days were fewer and the need to protect myself from bore
dom disappeared. And so it was strange that my dreams at that time were of the land that I stood on falling into the sea, leaving me to float in a sky so silent that I could hear the beating of my own heart.

  As Tanaka learnt more of my nature and discovered that he could trust me with any secret, it occurred to him that I would make a fine spy, and before long it was I who was taking his orders to Mother, I who knew her boys by name. In an effort to make me even more useful, he sent me to the best language school in Shanghai to improve my English. He put me on the payroll of the Special Service Organ and at my request arranged for me to take flying lessons. Thus I came to fulfil my ambition to fly a plane, one that I had carried with me since that first flight from Tokyo to Port Arthur with Kawashima and Nobu. I wished Nobu could have seen me flying, he would have had to eat his words.

  Under Tanaka's tutelage, I learnt the trade quickly. I learnt how to position myself in restaurants so that I could hear conversations three tables away, and how to conceal myself in powder rooms, where I often picked up surprisingly useful information. I became skilled at making friends with the most unlikely people, such as the indiscreet wives of high-ranking American naval officers, who thought it bohemian to be my friend. I would court them at the bar of the Palace Hotel where, bored with shopping, they gathered to drink pink gins or disgusting-looking cocktails laced with so much fruit that they looked more like food than alcohol.

  As a general principle it seemed that they admired the Japanese, aspired to be like the British aristocracy and thought of the Chinese only in terms of servants and merchants. Their chatter was of clothes and perfume and the indiscretions of their husbands' fellow officers. They spoke of where they were being posted and what had been discussed in the mess the night before. Free to be themselves, unlike Japanese wives, they took full advantage of their liberated state, doing and saying what they wished, even to the extent of ridiculing their husbands to each other.