Miss Jill

by Emily Hahn

  The hotel room was ugly and much too silent. It seemed a long, long time since Jill had talked to Mrs. Evans on board the ship, and she told herself sorrowfully that by this time the Evanses had probably tried to find her at the Y and given her up in disgust as a lying adventuress. Perhaps, even, they had somehow found out about Botchan. Or if they hadn’t yet found out they would certainly come across the truth sooner or later, and then if she were working for them she would get into trouble. Mrs. Evans would never forgive her for having come close to her precious Junior; Mrs. Evans would feel that Junior had been irrevocably soiled by contact with her. No, it would be better not to find the Evanses. Or, even if she did find them, what sort of life would it be? Could one really reform, Jill asked herself, after such a sin as she had been committing all these years? Only a confessor could tell her, and it was too late for that, or was it? Perhaps if she went to Mass on Sunday, and thought about it … But it was a long stretch of days before Sunday, and anyway she wasn’t at all sure that confessors knew enough.

  The room was quite dark now, and Jill’s mood was darker.

  She decided to go down to the lounge for a sherry before dinner. Any decision was cheering after those black moments face to face with herself. Turning on the light, she was surprised to find how early it still was. She combed out her long fair bob, brushed off her navy-blue shoulders, adjusted her hat, and went down. There were not many people in the public rooms, and when she had found a small table and a seat against the wall she was immediately aware of the man who sat at the bar, staring at her.

  He was young, with sparse light hair and blue eyes. He was smartly dressed; rather too carefully turned out, she decided, for an Englishman. Nor was his manner English, for his admiration was not at all hidden. He stared as if he wanted almost to bully her with praise. Without looking at him directly Jill knew exactly when he turned to the bar or swiveled around on his stool to look at her again. A large mirror hanging behind the bottles made it easy for her to maintain a shy, lowered-eye reserve while she observed him and wondered how to manage the situation.

  Botchan would not have liked it at all. This was just the sort of young man Botchan hated and made scenes about when he noticed their admiring stares in hotels or theaters. But Botchan was in Tokyo now and had given her up; she would not have to fear his midnight quarrels and lectures ever again. She could talk to this young man if she wanted to, and Botchan wouldn’t ever know. If the young man tried to talk to her, that is; perhaps he would just sit there staring and then go away, leaving her to spend the evening alone.…

  No. He had made up his mind to try his luck, at any rate. Still uncertain, rendered timid by Jill’s excessively young, protected air, he was nevertheless going to have just one little try. He sauntered to the small table next to hers, sat in the chair nearest hers, flicked one more glance over her, and smiled tentatively.

  Jill’s reply was not exactly a smile, it was more a gasp, but it was not forbidding.

  “Have you just arrived in Shanghai?” asked the young man.

  It is difficult to say how long Count Konya was puzzled by his new conquest. For all his most practiced questioning on that first evening, he was baffled when he left the little blond girl at the door of the hotel. She couldn’t possibly be as innocent as she seemed, he must have reflected; nobody was that innocent. Besides, why should she be on her own, living in a hotel, if that were so? In all Konya’s rather specialized career he had never encountered anything that looked quite so easy. It was enough to make anybody suspicious, and the count was suspicious by nature to begin with. It was only natural that in reaction most people promptly suspected him in return. Young women didn’t, however. The girls whose hearts he was fluttering at Shanghai dances, the girls he met later in the evenings in the brothels, and his new little blond friend, all threw themselves at Konya with a simple fervor he had come to expect and to depend upon.

  Following his advice, Jill allowed the Evans matter to drop.

  “How could I see you as often as I want if you were working for these dreadful Americans? Don’t you know what your duties would be? You couldn’t come out in the evenings, my little Jill; you would have to sleep in a tiny bed next to the child’s. Perhaps once a month you would get a Friday off for the cinema.”

  “Oh no!” Jill giggled. “They aren’t like that at all.”

  “But they are sure to be; employers always are. And that man, that Evans, whoever he is, he will try to sleep with you. Yes, he will come sneaking into the nursery after dark–they always sleep with the nurse, I assure you. And I would have to kill him, and it would get into the papers. No, no, stay the way you are. You are happy at the hotel, aren’t you?”

  “Well-ll …” Jill hesitated. She was happy now and then, on the days when she had a date with Konya, but the time in between seemed to drag worse than ever. She told him so, delicately.

  “I know. Poor little one.” He smiled. “But one day it will all be over. We will be married, and I will take my contessina home to my people, and we will never be parted again. You will like that?”

  “Oh, Sanyi!” she sighed.

  During the long, long evenings she spent alone, dining in the echoing grillroom and then sitting in her room–for Sanyi didn’t want her to sit alone in the lounge any more–she dreamed about the house in Hungary. She found it rather uncomfortable to dwell very much on the domestic side of it; she almost trembled at the thought of his parents and sister, though he loved to describe them. She thought instead, in a fuzzy rosy picture, of the grandeur of her position; she thought of long white marble staircases leading up mountainsides to castles, or of great social functions. She saw herself always in evening dress, leaning on Sanyi’s arm, and of being called “Countess” by gentlemen in tails.

  “They will love your golden beauty,” Sanyi had said. “Men will follow you in the streets and wait outside the door all day for a glimpse of you, until I drive them away.”

  Thinking of this, Jill smiled seraphically, forgetting to read her book, Europa. Sanyi had given it to her, saying he knew most of the people in it.

  There would be the Riviera too. Years and years of happiness in which to forget Botchan and the house of Kikusan. After all, the evenings did not pass too slowly, even though Sanyi was out at a party somewhere dancing with other girls. He said he didn’t care for those girls, anyway; he said there was nothing to them.

  “They are mercenary, not like my beautiful Jill, who loves me, who is always giving love and asking nothing.”

  It was a full month before Sanyi began to talk about money, but when he did he started bang in the middle. He paid the bill one night at a roadhouse, and when he picked up some of the change he counted it over with an anxious air.

  “There it goes, Jill,” he said. “I’m broke.”

  She stared at him anxiously. He had never said a word about being hard up. Never had she heard any man talk about money worries. She had come to think that poverty was something only women experienced. The men her mother knew, the men of Botchan’s circle, the men the geisha discussed at Kikusan’s were always the owners of the world in which women dwelt by virtue of men’s largehearted gifts. At Kikusan’s indeed, it was the chief topic of conversation, how this girl had made her fortune literally overnight, and that girl had been wise enough to save up and buy herself a house. The source of all this wealth, whether it was wasted or hoarded and invested wisely, had been the men.

  Jill stared stupidly at this strange man Sanyi, who was broke.

  “But you’ll be getting some more,” she said, “from home, surely?”

  Sanyi shrugged and laughed. “Oh, not so surely. I have been a bad boy, and I think they are cross with me. It is not the first time. Once in Paris after I lost everything at the tables …” He embarked on an amusing story of his adventures trying to earn his living as a dishwasher. He followed it up with another one about running out on bill collectors in New York. In both anecdotes he gave full credit to his companions, spirite
d young men, it seemed, also of title.

  “So you see it is nothing new, little Jill,” he finished. “The question is, as usual, what one does now. I do not want to run away from Shanghai.” His voice grew tender, and he took her hand. “Not from my little Jill, when I have just found her, after looking for her all my life.”

  “Oh no, no! Not unless I come too, Sanyi.” Her voice almost broke. If you had asked Jill what she felt about Konya she would have replied without hesitation that she loved him madly. He was so sweet to her, he said such nice things, he always brought flowers, he was so polite! It was wonderful that he was a count, of course, and that she would be a countess, but that wasn’t the main thing. The main thing, though she did not think of it like that, was that he was there, someone she knew, who knew her. He took her out to dinner, alone among all the strangers; he held her elbow crossing streets; even more than Botchan, he could make her feel as if she were something rare and lovely. If he were to go away from Shanghai…

  “You mustn’t think of going,” she said in terror.

  “Not even if I promise to send for you later?”

  “But why must you go at all? I have money—I have lots of money.”

  “Oh,” said Sanyi. He sat back and looked at her and relaxed. “So,” said Sanyi.

  “You may have it all,” said Jill.

  “Dear little Jill. You are wonderful.”

  Jill’s money did not last as long as she had thought it would. She could not quite figure out at the time why it disappeared so fast, though Sanyi explained in a way. He said that women had no head for figures and were always puzzled by money matters.

  “If you had to pay for one of our simple little evenings, Jill, you would be quite amazed at the way the money goes. But there, you could not keep track of it for two hours. It is bad enough for me, I tell you; I have no head for figures myself, but for a woman it is hopeless. When I come into the estate I will let an agent take care of it. That is what my father does, and his father did it too. We will spend all our time in Rome and Paris, little Jill; it is too dull in my country.”

  It was mysterious, too, that after Sanyi got the money he spent far less time with Jill than he had done before, and as even then their meetings had been limited to twice or three times a week, she found herself with too many hours even to use up in dreaming about the future. He took to making all his appointments with her late at night, after his parties, and as often as not he would telephone at one in the morning to say that he could not get there after all. It did no good, she learned, to sulk about these matters. Sanyi was lightly charming when she pouted, but if he failed to coax her out of her mood after one or two attempts he stopped trying and became sulky himself. Once or twice they parted in anger, but after Sanyi stayed away for three days and did not speak to her on the telephone Jill tried to control her resentment. Sitting alone in the hotel room all that time, not daring to leave the phone for meals, was too horrible. When he came back and accused her of having been unfaithful while he stayed away Jill was so happy that she could not pretend his suspicions might have been justified.

  The only person aside from Sanyi whom she got to know during that time was the hairdresser in the hotel, a Russian woman of twice her age. They never achieved any true intimacy. Jill was in such a hurry to cover up her past that she told a whole string of lies about it, and the Russian, guessing that the young girl was hiding something, took it as a personal insult. She saw Sanyi once taking tea with Jill.

  “If that’s your boy friend, you be careful,” she said darkly the next day, when Jill stopped in for a vinegar shampoo. “I’ve seen him around. Watch your step.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Jill. “Where have you seen him?”

  “Oh, here and there.” She rubbed vigorously at the fair hair. “I suppose you know what you’re doing, but just be careful, that’s all.”

  “I know what I’m doing. Don’t you worry about that.”

  “I hope so,” said the Russian.

  Jill tried to toss her head, but instead had to bend forward over the hot water. “She’s just jealous, that’s all,” she reflected silently.

  It was a warm day in spring. Sanyi had come over early in the afternoon, and they spent an hour walking in Jessfield Park with his dog. Chinese children played in their rather subdued fashion, trotting along behind their ambling parents. Sanyi was particularly charming that day, so attentive and full of anecdotes and compliments that Jill felt like purring when they stopped in at a confectioner’s for tea and ice cream.

  “That is a charming hat,” said Sanyi. “I have always loved that hat. But don’t you think you should have a new one now? Let us go tomorrow and find a new bonnet pretty enough for my girl.”

  “Oh yes, let’s. What time?”

  “We can go to lunch first,” said Sanyi, “and then—” His face fell. “I am so stupid,” he sighed. “I forgot. I have no money.”

  “None at all, Sanyi? But—”

  “Now you are not to worry,” said Sanyi gaily. “This time I am not such a bad boy. I have been thinking, yes, thinking very deeply, little Jill. I am going to be a family man soon, so I must learn to be serious. That is what I told myself last night, when I could not sleep for worrying about the money.”

  “Poor Sanyi.”

  “And I have come to a conclusion. This is what we can do, Jill, to earn enough to live on, and also to save up for the future. We need not work very hard. All we must do is to take the modern point of view. I do not quite know how you will feel about it, but all the smartest women do it without giving it another thought.”

  “What is it, then? Do tell me.”

  Konya took her hand and held it on the table. He leaned forward. “Haven’t you ever thought it might be nice to meet some other people?” he asked. “I have never introduced you to my friends because I am such a jealous fellow. Oh, I was afraid I might kill some man for making love to you, I am so violent. But we must be modern, and I have said to myself, ‘If some rich old man, not too young, not too attractive, if some rich fellow should like my little Jill very much, I would be a selfish animal to stand in her way.’ If— No, no, little Jill, wait a minute. If you were to meet such a man, and if you promise me not to stay with him and not to forget for a moment that you belong to Konya, why, then Konya will promise to be a good boy. He won’t make a scene about it, though it will be very difficult. Jill, dear little Jill, why should you cry? It is nothing, I swear it. All the ladies of fashion in Budapest—– Why, I could tell you about a dozen of them, of the very best blood, too. Think how nice it will be when this is all over and we can be married and go back to my home proudly, in the state that befits us. You must not be silly, my love. Let us be brave about this.”

  “And anyway, why should you care?” he asked her later. “You have been wailing and weeping all this time about being dull. Now you will not be dull; you will be meeting many people.

  “Besides,” said Konya, “I am the one who suffers. For you it will be just like going to a party every night!

  “That’s a good girl,” said Konya. “Let me see you smile again. I love your smile. Dear little Jill.”

  V

  Konya had made his plans in a sort of a way, but Jill was forced to admit to herself much later that these were amateurish. Perhaps it was the first time he had gone in for such a career; more likely, however, it was Jill’s own inexperience which spoiled his technique. As he often complained, he had never in his life before known such an odd girl. The two ends of the social railway were familiar enough for Konya: he was at home in a brothel or a palace–at least in a Shanghai palace. Whatever truth may have been lacking in his stories of Hungary or Italy, Konya made out very well at Shanghai parties. But between these termini he was lost, and Jill could do nothing but follow his lead.

  This led to a few quiet dinners à trois with men to whom he had sold Jill in advance. Sanyi would introduce her to their client, steer the conversation if it languished during the meal, and
then drift tactfully away, leaving the rest to her. She was painfully nervous the first time, and unhappy in spite of all Sanyi’s last-minute promises and threats. The man, a gray-haired Frenchman, seemed to expect her to know all the ropes and insisted that they visit her room at the hotel. Jill felt very uncertain about that matter among many others; the hotel staff had never made any objections to Konya’s nighttime visits, though to be sure they always added something to the bill after he had been there, but she feared they would not relish any additional visitors. In a way this comparatively trifling worry was a blessing. It took her mind off the magnitude of what she was doing. It made her indifferent, so that the adventure itself, though not a success from Konya’s point of view–the Frenchman never asked for another date–was not violently unpleasant. And anything after that was never again the first time, as Sanyi often pointed out. It couldn’t be so bad, he said scoffingly. Not after the first time.

  “For me it is different,” he said. “Picture to yourself what agonies I go through, thinking of you every minute of the night. It grows worse for me every time.” He sighed. “But it will not be forever. We have made money this month, Jill. I have put one thousand dollars in the bank. Remind me to show you the book.”