The Empire Trilogy

by J. G. Farrell

  Vera Chiang was the Eurasian girl whom Joan had seen arrested by the Japanese in Shanghai three years earlier and then met again on the boat to Singapore. Nothing had been heard of her for a couple of years during which Joan had wondered idly once or twice what had become of her … but after all she was just another tiny drop in the flood of Chinese immigrants, legal and illegal, who had been pouring into the Straits Settlements now for three decades. Then some nine months earlier Walter had been visited at his office on Collyer Quay by an official of the Chinese Protectorate. A young Eurasian woman, picked up in connection with the General Labour Union-inspired strike at the Singapore Harbour Board and faced with a deportation order, had given his name and Joan’s as credentials. As there was no direct evidence to implicate her personally with the Communist-infiltrated General Labour Union’s subversive campaign, and as the name of Blackett carried considerable weight in the Colony, it had been decided not to proceed with the deportation order if the Blacketts were prepared to vouch for her.

  Walter had little appetite for vouching for people, even former employees: at best, it was a waste of time, at worst, a source of future trouble. Moreover, he himself did not know the girl and Joan had long since lost interest in her. Above all, he had a great deal of work to do and, as ill luck would have it, old Mr Webb had chosen that particular day to make one of his rare ceremonial visits to Collyer Quay and for the past hour had been sitting in Walter’s office, wasting his valuable time. If Walter had been by himself he would have dismissed the matter in a moment: as it was, for form’s sake and the benefit of Mr Webb who seemed to be taking an interest in it, Walter had felt obliged to ask if anything else was known about her. Not a great deal, it transpired. She had been the friend or concubine of a Communist sympathizer, deported the year before to an uncertain fate at Chungking; despite the rapprochement between the Communist and the Kuomintang he had most likely been done away with by the latter. Since then Miss Chiang had been scraping a living as a taxi-dancer or, more likely, as a casual prostitute and bar-girl, not a profitable profession to follow these days. The most suspicious thing about Miss Chiang, the man from the Protectorate had declared becoming voluble and oddly intense (‘Who on earth is this chump and why must he come and waste my time?’ Walter asked himself sourly), was that she was extremely well-educated and spoke excellent English! Walter, who had heard enough, had risen impatiently to escort the fellow to the door, saying that, in the circumstances, he did not think…

  Walter had been conscious for some time that Mr Webb was shifting uneasily in his chair but at this point the old chap had suddenly burst out in anger: ‘And why shouldn’t she be educated? Eh? Tell me that! How will the Chinese ever pull themselves together unless they build up their minds and bodies? Tell me! And you can stop grinning like that, too. I was in this Colony before you were born!’

  The old man had stood up, white with anger. The man from the Protectorate, taken aback by this sudden outburst, muttered : ‘When they’re educated it can mean that they’re Comintern agents, that’s all I meant,’ but at the same time his eyes had narrowed suspiciously, as if he were wondering whether Mr Webb, too, might not be a Comintern agent.

  ‘Well, I shall vouch for her if Blackett won’t! Here’s my card. Webb’s the name. Send her to me if she needs a job. I’ll give her one. And another thing, any more impertinence and I shall be in touch with your superior. The first thing you have to learn is to take your hands out of your pockets when you are talking to someone.’ With that, Mr Webb had stalked out of the office, leaving the man from the Protectorate, (whose name was Smith, it turned out) with his hands half out of his pockets, licking his lips in an odd sort of way, and grinning at Walter. And that had been that.

  Vera Chiang, reprieved, had taken up residence with Mr Webb at the Mayfair. Her duties there were vague: most likely she helped her employer to hire destitute young women whose bodies needed building up. She certainly gave English lessons for on one occasion Major Archer, taking an unsuspecting stroll through the compound of the Mayfair, had come upon her giving instruction to a small, naked class in the use of the verbs ‘to do’ and ‘to make’, so he had informed Walter. He had beaten a hasty retreat, needless to say. Strangely enough, despite her past reputation and present employment the Major had taken a liking to her, and so had Mr Webb, though he had never mentioned her name in Walter’s presence. As for Joan, though she had visited Miss Chiang once or twice and brought her some of her own clothes which she no longer needed, it would have been difficult for her as a European to become the bosom friend of a Eurasian girl, however well-educated. Such friendships were considered unsuitable in the social climate of Singapore. By a curious coincidence her clothes fitted Miss Chiang to perfection without the least alteration, and Joan had been startled to see how pretty she looked in them. Even Walter, seeing a familiar blue and green dress and a young woman posting a letter at the corner of the road, had slowed his car to give his daughter a lift, only to accelerate muttering to himself a moment later. Walter, in any case, could not have permitted Joan to be friendly with Miss Chiang, given her dubious relationship with Mr Webb.

  All this time Joan had been prevented from answering his question by the fact that the moist, pink tip of her tongue was firmly gripped between her strong white teeth, an outer sign of the mental concentration required to tie a bow-tie on the neck of another person, particularly when the tie was of modest length and the neck, like Walter’s, resembled the bole of an oak. At last she had finished, however.

  ‘I haven’t seen her for some time but I think she’s still living there.’

  ‘The point is,’ said Walter, going to the mirror to inspect her handiwork, ‘that we don’t want a young woman of that sort turning up at Mr Webb’s hospital bedside. You know how people gossip. If necessary we might have to consider giving her some money to stay out of the way. This, my dear, is a beautiful job!’

  8

  Walter slowly descended the stairs, brooding again on Harvey Firestone’s skill in engendering male babies. How on earth did he do it? Pausing with his hand on the banister, Walter experienced that unnerving feeling which no other businessman had ever produced in him of being outclassed. Not three or four, but five! That was luck of a very high order … or no, not just luck, it was … how could one put it? … from the business point of view, correct behaviour, a mixture, very hard to define, of luck, certainly, in large part but also of opportunism, skill and rightness. Walter had been almost overpowered on the occasion of his first visit to Akron, Ohio, by this sensation of the right thing being done at high intensity all around him, and not only in the production of male babies but in that of motor tyres and rims, too. Perhaps it was just as well that he and Firestone were on opposite ends of the rubber business.

  Walter sank a few more steps and paused again, his mood of self-doubt having passed. Rubber these days was in demand in a way it had never been before. This was, to some extent, thanks to the war and to the fact that the British and American governments were trying to acquire reserve stocks against a breakdown in supplies. But above all it was due to the determination of a few men, Walter among them, who had argued that rubber producers could and must agree to limit the amount of rubber they released to the market. There was no other answer (except ruin). His brow, which had furrowed like a stormy sea at the thought of Harvey Firestone, returned to more placid undulations as he recalled how the doubters had argued that it had been tried before (they meant the Stevenson scheme from 1922–8) and had failed. Walter had not been daunted. The Netherlands East Indies, the only country to come close to Malaya in rubber production, had not agreed to take part in the Stevenson scheme so of course it had failed. This time the NEI must be made to see reason. They had vast areas of rubber smallholdings; nobody, not even the Dutch administration knew their extent. With all this rubber about to reach maturity and start flooding the market the entire rubber business could collapse. It was obvious that a reasonable price would have to be maintaine
d artificially by a cartel of producers or rubber would become worthless. So Walter and his allies had argued against the doubters, who included, needless to say, old Solomon Langfield, and in the end they had won.

  Under the new scheme (somehow Langfield had wormed his way on to the assessment committee despite his earlier opposition) an estimated annual production was established for each country: for Malaya, for the NEI, Indo-China and the other smaller producers. Then an international committee was set up to decide, quarter-yearly, what percentage of the total rubber production of all these countries might be released to the world market without risking a drop in price because there was too much of it about. As a result it had become possible to allot a specific tonnage of rubber to each country and declare that this quarter they might export so much and no more.

  Think of this rubber not as the solid elastic sheets resembling bundles of empty flour sacks in which it was actually exported but as the milky latex in which, very slowly, it seeps out of the trees. Walter and his fellow-producers now had a tap in the shape of the restriction scheme with which they could control the flow of latex on to the market. Around this tap were gathered the thirsty manufacturers of the industrial nations, and none more parched than the men from the American motor-tyre industry, the Goodyears, the Goodriches and, of course, the Firestones. Open the tap and they would drink their fill, splashing about as if latex were as worthless as water. Close it, though, and you would soon see their lips begin to crack and their tongues to swell. Let them get thirsty enough and they would not mind what they paid.

  Walter had watched the manipulation of the tap with interest. In the years following the Depression demand for rubber had been slack. But by 1936, thanks to an increase in motorcar production and a miserly hand controlling the flow, the price of rubber had begun to rise and there had been a boom in rubber shares. At the end of that year the manufacturers had croaked a request for the producers to release a higher percentage in the coming year. The Restriction Committee had maintained its strict hand on the tap, however, and when criticized by the Americans for the rubber shortage in 1937, had artfully replied that even if it had raised the percentage released there would still not have been any more rubber available. Why not? The manufacturers had been floored by this paradox. Well, because there was a shortage of labour for one thing. For another, from February to April is when the trees are ‘wintering’ and production always falls. For those who knew the rubber business this was not very convincing but never mind, it would serve.

  Walter had now reached the bottom of the stairs and the last traces of scowl had disappeared, giving way to an expression of beatitude. For when the restriction scheme had been set up it had been understood that available rubber stocks should not be allowed to fall below the equivalent of five months’ absorption by the manufacturers: this was in order that their businesses, and a possible expansion of demand, should not be put in jeopardy by shortages or delays in supply. And, mind you, the official policy of the Restriction Committee was not to make a killing out of rubber but merely to ensure, in a silky phrase worthy of Solomon Langfield himself, ‘a reasonable return to an efficient producer’. It had come as no surprise to anyone in Singapore, least of all to Walter, when stocks fell below the promised five months’ absorption and the price began to rise. Presently, the Committee’s idea of what represented ‘a reasonable return’ began to rise, too. Seven pence a pound, eight pence, nine pence … The scheme was working. Walter had watched, enthralled. Standing at the foot of the stairs he suddenly flourished his fist in the air. That had been one on the nose for the Firestones!

  Walter, returning to his senses, now realized that Abdul, his Malay major-domo, had approached silently and was eyeing him with concern.

  ‘What news, Master?’

  ‘Good news, Abdul,’ replied Walter conventionally. The fellow clearly wanted to tell him something. He bent an ear.

  ‘A what, Abdul? A yogi?’ Walter stared in amazement at the elderly Malay who had been in his service for some years and for whom he felt a considerable affection and respect.

  The major-domo explained. The yogi had come to entertain the guests. It was the idea of the young Tuan Blackett.

  ‘Well, tell the bloody man to go away again. It’s supposed to be a dinner-party, not a circus.’

  ‘Yes, Tuan.’ The old man smiled faintly for there was a bond of sympathy between him and Walter when it came to the behaviour of the younger generation and it was clear that he, no less than Walter, had found the idea of a yogi at a dinner-party outrageous.

  ‘But no, wait, Abdul. On second thoughts we must let Monty make his own decision about the yogi. He’ll never learn if we always have to tell him what’s what. I shall let him take charge of the dinner-party this evening. There probably won’t be more than a dozen guests or so and they can be served in the breakfast-room. Tell him, will you, that I won’t appear until after they’ve eaten. I’ve work to do.’ And as the old servant was leaving Walter added: ‘The boy must learn by his own mistakes, Abdul. There’s no other way, I’m afraid, no other way.’

  Alone in his study Walter was once more preoccupied with his family, this time with his son. Monty had energy and he worked hard. He had done a good job in reorganizing the administration of their estates when business was expanding again after the Depression. He was doing a good job now of pushing through the replanting, very often against opposition from estate managers who could not see the logic of it when rubber was booming. He even had some business sense which, with experience, might be developed. But the boy was erratic, there was no other word for it. Every now and then he would produce some wild idea that made you wonder whether he had understood anything at all. A yogi to entertain at supper on a day like this! True, he had not known that Mr Webb would collapse, but all the same! And they had barely recovered from the Chinese band he had insisted on having at the garden-party.

  Moreover, Monty was no longer, strictly speaking, a boy. He was thirty. If he were ever going to learn by his mistakes it was high time that he started. Walter could not help comparing him, unfavourably, with a photograph he had once seen of the five young Firestones, each one as neatly brushed, as smartly turned out in his identical dark suit as his four brothers. And each one, no doubt, with a perfect command of that day’s Wall Street Journal. You would not catch the young Firestones inviting fakirs to dinner-parties.

  Monty had certain good qualities but he was seriously lacking in judgement. Perhaps this would not have mattered if it had been merely a question of the occasional bizarre idea for amusing guests, but alas, it was not. In 1936 Monty had been sent to take charge of the London office for a few months to learn the European side of the business and, while he was there, he had got Blackett and Webb involved in something that anyone with common sense would have avoided. Towards the end of that year Monty had lent the authority of the firm to a great wave of speculation which was being generated by the rubber dealers and brokers in Mincing Lane. Mincing Lane’s market analysts, peering into the swirling mists of the future, had perceived not only an approaching shortage of rubber but, stretching beyond that shortage, higher prices as far as the eye could see (that is what they said they had perceived, anyway). The brokers’ market reports were in little doubt, they declared, but that the Restriction Committee had decided on maintaining higher prices indefinitely; after all, it could make little difference to the manufacturers who would simply pass the increases on to their customers. And even if the Committee had not decided on a higher price it was well known, in Mincing Lane if not in Malaya, that not enough rubber could be produced to meet higher percentage rates of release. Besides, there was a shortage of labour. Besides, it was well known that once the native smallholders, who produced almost half of Malaya’s rubber, made a little money, as they would with present high prices, they had the amiable habit of downing tools instead of pressing home their advantage, preferring to doze the day away in hammocks. So, one way or another, a shortage of rubber was inevitab
le. There was a quick fortune to be made.

  Well, promotion of this sort, designed to make your mouth water, is what one must expect of a commodity broker. After all, such a fellow has to make a living somehow and Walter was the last person to hold that against him. But a steady market is not much good to a broker: he wants prices to rise or fall (he does not mind which provided they do one or the other). And if the market declines to fluctuate of its own accord it must be encouraged to do so. A cold night in Brazil and frost has wiped out the coffee plantations. A high wind in Jamaica and it’s goodbye to bananas. Fair enough. Walter did not expect the commodity broker to emerge clad in different stripes simply because he was dealing in rubber. But for Monty to give Blackett and Webb’s support to such devious special pleading struck Walter as so foolish as almost to amount to the work of an imbecile. Perhaps he had made some money for himself from a judicious trading of rubber shares, yes, perhaps even a large amount, though, if so, he had evidently lost it again gambling. But that was not what he was there for. Fluctuating markets do not help producers because an artificial boom brings with it inevitably its dark shadow, a collapse. And a collapse in prices brings for more difficulties for the producer that the boom earlier brought advantages. But what really angered Walter was something different, something even less tangible. It was the damage which had been done to Blackett and Webb’s good name.

  Walter got to his feet and stretched wearily. A murmur of voices from another part of the house told him that Monty’s guests had arrived. He hoped that the boy would behave in a suitably subdued manner, given the circumstances. Presently, he himself would have to put in a brief appearance. ‘Poor old Webb!’ he thought as he settled down at his desk and began to read through the bundle of cables which had been steadily collecting on it all afternoon in his absence. But as he sat there, deep below the surface of his working mind, a disturbing thought shifted imperceptibly once or twice. To whom would Mr Webb leave his share of the business?