Benchley, Peter - Novel 01

by Time (and a Ticket) (v2. 0)

  "Why did that come out? Because he has felt all his life that the white men consider him inferior. We all feel this, because it is true. For years we have been put down by the white men—by the British, by everybody. It is a natural reaction."

  "You mean you think you've been kept down because of your skin color? In India, where skin colors vary from as white as me to as dark as an African Negro?"

  "Yes. Some people say it is nationality, not color. But that is not true. The colored man has always been considered inferior. Why do you consider colored people inferior?"

  "Me! How did I get into this? What makes you think I consider colored people inferior?"

  "I'm sure you do. Let me ask you this. Would you marry a colored woman?"

  "What do you mean by colored woman? Any woman whose skin isn't white?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you a colored woman?"

  "Yes."

  "Then yes, I would."

  She was embarrassed, but she wanted to press her point. "Then would you marry a Negress?"

  "If I were in love with her."

  "That is hedging. Could you fall in love with a Negress?"

  "Probably not."

  "Why not?"

  "Partly because of the way I was brought up. But it isn't purely a matter of color distinction, or anything quite so simple as that. It's a matter of cultural differences, of differences in background and opportunity, the same differences that would make it difficult for a Negress to find me attractive. Also, such a marriage would involve innumerable difficulties on both sides. The problems we as a couple would encounter in everyday life would probably make both of us hold back."

  "Now there is what I mean," she said. "The problems. Forgetting for a moment you as an individual, why does your country have such a prejudice against colored people?"

  "There's no simple answer. But you have a prejudice here that is somewhat the same. Look at the difficulties you would encounter if you married an Untouchable. India has age-old class prejudices. The prejudice in the United States is against the Negroes. Thirty or forty years ago, it was against Jews."

  "Would I be discriminated against in your country?"

  "Probably not, no."

  "What do you mean, 'probably not.' Can you not give me a yes or no answer?"

  I was ashamed, but I felt I had to tell her what I knew to be the truth. "You would not be discriminated against," I said, "if you wore Indian clothes."

  "Oh, so now it is a clothes prejudice. You mean if I wore a blouse and a skirt, European clothes, I would be considered black. If I wore a sari, I would be considered white. Or not white, perhaps, but at least not colored. I could go anywhere, eat with anyone, sleep in any hotel."

  "I'm afraid so."

  "And you wondered," she said slowly, "why that man this morning cursed you white men?"

  15

  In Thailand, the subtitles on English-language films run down the right side of the screen. Charlie and I were watching pretty Natalie Wood and robust Warren Beatty pour out their supposedly teen-age souls over social taboos and the problems of adolescent sexuality, and every teary, halting word was written on the side of the screen in floral Siamese script. We had not intended to go to an American movie our first night in Bangkok, since this hardly seemed the best way to see a new city, but circumstance after circumstance had driven us toward the gaudy modern theater and Splendor in the Grass.

  We arrived late in the afternoon from Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, aboard Royal Thai Airlines. In Kuala Lumpur, where we had gone after two uneventful days in Singapore (called by all airline crews "the poor man's Hong Kong"), we had been taken under the wing of ray godfather, a bright, dedicated, charming man named Harry Casler who works for USIS. The city itself, the capital of Malaya, is modern, prosperous, and beautiful, a sort of lively and tasteful Brasilia growing in the middle of the Malayan jungle. It was a curious sensation to leave a cocktail party in the most modern of houses and be advised not to stray off the paved roads and into the jungle for fear of pythons and elephants. At first, we were skeptical of the warning, convinced that this was the standard ribbing given to newcomers to Kuala Lumpur. Then one morning I leafed through a copy of the Malaya Straits Times, and found the following article:

  ELEPHANT WRECKS CAR HOUR AFTER IT'S BOUGHT

  Ipoh, Wed.—Inche Noordin bin Shaari, 24, will never forget the night he met an elephant on the road to Grik.

  Mainly because the truculent tusker ("It was huge") charged and damaged his pride and joy—a brand new 4500 dollar car delivered to him a few hours earlier.

  The elephant evidently knew the location of its wheeled adversary's "heart," for it concentrated its attack on the vehicle's bonnet, plunging a tusk through it and bashing it in with a flailing trunk.

  Inche Noordin, an assistant rural industries officer at Kuala Lipis, told his story today:

  It began early on Monday when he went to Kuala Lumpur with a 4500 dollar government cheque, paid it to a motor firm and took delivery of a new Morris Minor 1,000.

  "I was anxious to drive to Grik to show my parents the car," he said.

  "However, my friend—and my girl friend—advised me to spend the night either in Ipoh or in Kuala Kangsar. I reached Kuala Kangsar at about 6 p.m. intending to spend the night there at my sister's. But my eagerness to get home was too strong.

  "So I set off again. I was about ten miles from Grik at about 10:30 p.m. when I saw a huge elephant standing in the middle of the road.

  "I stopped and after a few minutes switched off my headlights hoping it would go away. After ten minutes I turned the lights on again.

  "The brute was still there. Suddenly it trumpeted loudly and charged."

  Inche Noordin hastily abandoned the car and ran to a nearby kampong for help.

  When he returned with villagers armed with shotguns and lights the elephant had finished savaging the car and gone— leaving a trail of 18-inch prints in the road.

  Trunk note: When Inche Noordin finally reached Grik at 4 a.m. it was to find that has father had gone to Kroh, a town several miles away on the Malaya-Thailand border.

  We had not reserved a room in Bangkok, and so when we arrived at the airport, we began making the tedious inquiries as to what was available, how much it cost, and how close to the center of town it was. One of the airline personnel handed us a bunch of cards on which were written the names and addresses of hotels. We picked one at random, a red card with the name "Sana Kit" and an address that we were told was within walking distance of the center of Bangkok, hailed a rickshaw taxi, and started off.

  The Hotel Saha Kit admirably fulfilled one of our demands: it was cheap. Clean, it wasn't. Comfortable, it never had been, not the day it was built. For the amenities of a regular hotel (a bar, a restaurant, and privacy), it substituted an attraction not uncommon to hotels all over the world, but seldom so blatantly displayed: a flophouse, the Saha Kit was a cathouse as well. As soon as the manager had ascertained that we were not from Interpol or some international vice squad, he made it clear to us that we could commandeer any number of young ladies. When we declined, he got suspicious again, and was surly and unpleasant as he showed us to what served as our room.

  The room was no more than eight feet wide and fifteen feet long. Somehow, probably by building the room around the furniture, the management had squeezed in two beds end to end. At one end of the room, by the narrow window that looked out on a courtyard crisscrossed with sagging laundry lines, was an open stall that contained a cold-water-only basin, a cold-water-only shower, and a commode that functioned when and if it chose to. At the other end of the room was the door, the bottom half wood and the top half wire screening, which afforded neither privacy nor silence at any time of the day.

  Like many hotels that cater to more than one animal need, the Saha Kit ran on a two- to three-shift, twenty-four hour basis. Some people rented rooms from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, some from four to twelve, and some from twelve to eight. Some peo
ple rented rooms for half an hour. Families of four and more lived in double rooms: the father worked from six in the morning till six at night, the children from four in the afternoon till midnight, and the mother at all odd hours, so somebody was always awake making noise. Those that were fortunate enough to work only a ten-hour day, usually late into the night, partied and chattered and fought until the early morning, when they shoved somebody to the other side of a bed and climbed in for a few hours rest.

  Women in dressing gowns padded up and down the halls at all hours of the day and night, giggling at the gooses of groping customers. I had lain down for a few minutes nap as soon as we had paid the manager in advance for one night, but sleep, I soon discovered, was impossible. Passers-by stopped at our door and pushed their noses flat against the wire screen and giggled and yelled and banged on the door.

  At seven o'clock in the evening Charlie and I fled, desperate to find something to do that would keep us away from the Saha Kit until we became so tired that we could sleep through the chaos. We had dinner, and then walked around the city in search of entertainment. But we didn't want to go to a nightclub, and the only other entertainment that seemed to be available was expensive and perhaps diseased. So when we saw the marquee for Splendor in the Grass, we darted inside, more to escape from the passion merchants than to see a movie, and spent two glorious hours dramatically involved with other people's problems.

  Some cities, like Paris and Rome and Hong Kong, are havens for all kinds of travelers. There are sights to see, and when the sights have been seen, one can live a fascinating, entertaining existence just walking around the city, eating in the myriad restaurants, going to the theater, sitting in the piazzas and pares or on the hills overlooking the sea, and poking around the shops that sell everything from Chinese sculpture to medieval firearms. Bangkok is a city for tourists and silk and jewel buyers only. There are about two days worth of sights to see—the klongs, or canals, the Temple of the Dawn, the gold Buddha, the palace, and the other temples which, to the eye untrained in Thai art, look very much alike—and there are two superb silk stores—one, Star of Siam, in a hotel, and the other, Thai Silk Co., Ltd., owned by an American named Jim Thompson. The good hotels are frightfully expensive, and the others, like the Saha Kit, do not encourage long stays. Aside from the dollar-and-a-half-a-drink spectaculars at the big hotels, there is no night life for foreigners.

  When we had seen the sights and bought silk to send home, Charlie and I were ready to leave. We knew no one in Bangkok, and knowing people is the only thing that makes cities like Bangkok and Teheran bearable for more than two days. We stayed one extra day to see some Thai boxing matches. Thai boxing utilizes both the hands and feet, and some of the most severe blows are delivered by knees to the kidney and feet to the head. We sat through six matches in the crowded arena, listening to the frantic shouts of bettors all around us and the whining ritual music played all through the fights. The first five fights were draws or decisions, patty-cake matches by young fighters who kicked and swung wildly and with little grace. The sixth fight, the main event, ended when the man in red trunks kicked the man in blue trunks in the temple and knocked him flying through the air to come down on the canvas with a thud like a sandbag dropped on a wooden floor. The man in blue trunks lay crumpled on the floor until his trainers carried him out of the ring. Not once did he stir or open an eye as they put him on a stretcher and took him from the arena.

  As we waited to board the plane for Hong Kong, I spied a thin, elderly lady, whom I recognized as a friend of a friend, coming down the ramp from a plane that had just landed.

  I went over and introduced myself to her as she stood in line for customs inspection. She said that she had recently lost her husband, and since she had nothing to keep her home, she was taking a trip around the world.

  "But darling, it's so expensive!" she said. "All this traveling first class."

  "You could go tourist," I said.

  "I would have, darling, but I couldn't, not with four suitcases. The overweight charge would have been fantastic."

  "Four suitcases! Why do you need four suitcases? Are you going to a ball every night?"

  "It's not clothes, for pity sakes. Who needs that many clothes?"

  "Not clothes?"

  "Metrecal, darling. Two suitcases of Metrecal and two of clothes, all wash and wear. Very practical, don't you think?"

  "Metrecal!" I said. "It's a curious time to go on a diet."

  "Oh, but I'm not on a diet. I was told, by people who ought to know, that one just can't eat the food in India. So I decided not to take any chances."

  If you have heard nothing else about Hong Kong, you have heard about its tailors. You have seen friends come home from Hong Kong with beautiful English suits and heard them say, with forced casualness, "Oh, this thing? This was only thirty-five dollars. Custom made, of course. Silk lining." You have read about how you are greeted at the airport, in the cab, on the bus, in the lobby of your hotel, and finally in your room by little men with tape measures, and about how tailors are the first and last people you see every day. They have a reputation for being the fastest (they arrive in your room, if not before you, at least before the man who is following you with your baggage), the most persistent (phone calls, letters in your mailbox, ads slipped under your door), and the most persuasive (no one ever spends more than twenty-four hours in Hong Kong without leaving with at least two suits and five shirts) merchants in the world.

  The reputation is deserved, but it is incomplete. They are the fastest, the most persistent, and the most persuasive, but they are in mortal competition with another group of merchants who are but a wink behind them and may soon overtake them. The tailors are running neck and neck with the procurers, and if it were not for the tailors' determined spurt at the finish line, they would long since have disappeared from first place. Just as everyone knows the name of the heavyweight champion of the world but has no idea who the top contender is, so everyone has heard of the tailors but knows nothing of their pursuers.

  The pimps are at one disadvantage: they have less experience in daytime fighting than the tailors. By tradition they are night fighters, when skulking rather than running is the necessary talent, and their ranks are as yet not deep enough in good sprinters. Regardless, they perform admirably.

  Charlie and I arrived in Hong Kong at five in the afternoon. As we stood in the customs area, we could see crowds of men in dark suits clustering around the exit gate, and we were grateful for time to prepare ourselves in the quiet of government sanctuary for the onslaught ahead. We did not realize that the rank and file of government employees could be infiltrated.

  I was standing next to my suitcase, waiting for the man to come and put the chalk mark on it so I could pass. He opened the bag of a woman standing next to me, asked her if she had anything to declare, closed her bag, marked it, and came to me.

  "Anything to declare?" he asked.

  "No."

  "American?"

  "Yes."

  He took up his pad and made believe he was writing something on it. "You like nice girl?" he whispered.

  "No, thank you."

  "Real nice girl. English schoolteacher."

  "No, thank you."

  "Sure? Any size, shape, color you like. Real nice girl."

  "If they're so nice, what are they doing in this business?"

  He hesitated. "Okay, Joe," he said, and he scribbled the pass mark on my bag.

  We had just arrived in our room and had lain down for a moment before unpacking, when there was a hard bumping against our door, followed by a few sharp words in Chinese and then a quick knock. I got up and opened the door. A Chinese in a well-cut black suit stood in the doorway with a briefcase.

  "May I come in?" he said.

  "Sure," I said. "What was all the racket?"

  "Oh, that. It was nothing."

  I let him in and then looked down the hall. The room boy was sitting disconsolately on his little stool at the end o
f the hall. When he saw me, he gave me a broad smile and a wave. I went back to the room and shut the door.

  The man was already working on Charlie. "I am the hotel tailor," he said. "Private representative, guaranteed by the hotel. I would like to take your orders."

  "Take our orders!" said Charlie. "How do you know we want anything?"

  The man looked astounded. "You mean you are not going to have a suit made? In Hong Kong?"

  "We haven't decided. And even if we do, maybe we won't want to use you as a tailor. Maybe we want to look around."

  "Of course, of course. But you will not find a better tailor than Harold Kwang, of that you can be sure."

  "I'm sure," said Charlie. "When we decide, we'll let you know."

  "How long are you staying in Hong Kong?"

  "A week. Maybe ten days."

  "I would advise you to order now. The more time we have, the more fittings we can arrange. Also, you can buy more suits if you like the first one."

  "I think we'll wait and see," said Charlie.

  "I will call you tomorrow and see if you have decided."

  "No, don't call us. We'll call you if we want anything."

  "As you wish. But when you decide, you can get me direct through my hotel extension, 100. Here is my card." He bowed and w r ent out.

  I didn't even have time to lie down again before there was a knock on the door. I opened it, and the room boy stood there, holding a pitcher of water.

  "I bring you water," he said.

  "Okay. You can set it over there."

  I left the door open while he set the water down. He came back, and I held the door for him. "Thanks," I said.

  "No," he said. He moved me away from the door and shut it firmly. "You like nice girl?"

  "No, thanks."

  "Very cheap, too. Any kind you like." He moved his hands four ways, for short girl, tall girl, fat girl, and thin girl.

  "Do you want one, Charlie?"

  Charlie shook his head. "Thanks anyway, but not at six o'clock in the afternoon."