But he had not come to the most exciting city in the Orient to dwell on the misery beneath its hectic gaiety. Though he had other business as well, his business that night was to enjoy himself.
Just six months past his twenty-third birthday in May 1925, Jonnie prided himself on his capacity for drink. Alternatively stern and tolerant, the Jesuits of Stonyhurst had not only polished his accent and honed his mind, but had also taught him to carry his liquor. Yet he was already glowing with the Hennessy brandy he had consumed during dinner at the Sunya Restaurant. His glass was never empty, for his middle-aged half-uncles, Gregory and Sydney Sek, had constantly proposed new toasts. His raffish uncles had also insisted on visiting the Alhambra, the current favorite among dozens of nightclubs where White Russian refugees danced and drank with the clientele for a small fee. Most of the distressed “countesses” and “baronesses” offered more intimate services for a slightly higher price. Scrabbling for survival, all dreamed of security with the desperate yearning of the dispossessed. Jonnie had required little persuading to visit the Alhambra, though his business was with the financier Judah Haleevie and his inclinations turned toward Haleevie’s vivacious twenty-year-old daughter, Sarah.
A revolving globe of a thousand mirrors hung from the ceiling. Its many-colored rays pierced the dimness to play on bored hostesses in low-cut evening-gowns and five sweating Filipino musicians in frilled flamenco shirts, who pumped out their syncopated rendition of “Valencia.” An obsequious headwaiter led them through the smoke-wreathed din that astonished Jonnie. British Hong Kong took its pleasures more staidly or, at least, more discreetly.
Once seated on the red-velvet banquette, his uncles demanded champagne and hostesses in the same breath. Unaware of the whispered comments and stealthy glances that greeted their entrance, Jonnie stared at the doily-sized dancefloor.
A six-foot python writhed around a dancer whose golden hair cascaded over her shoulders and bosom. Her harem-dancer’s diaphanous pantaloons revealed minute black-lace panties, and her breasts were free under an open bolero. She caressed the drowsy snake provocatively. Her mouth gaped slackly wet in simulated passion, and her cornflower-blue eyes were half-closed above broad Slavic cheekbones. She slithered to the floor, and her hands guided the snake’s head between her outspread thighs. As the python attained the lacy triangle, the spotlight dimmed. The audience shouted obscene protests into the blackness in French, English, and Shanghai dialect.
The entrance hall bustled with new patrons, eight burly Chinese wearing blue workmen’s jackets, who were obviously out of place amid the perfumed, self-conscious decadence of the Alhambra. They elbowed hostesses, waiters, and patrons, peering at their faces in the beams of small flashlights.
Jonnie turned to Sydney in mute inquiry, but his uncle’s hand clasped his arm to counsel silence. The other patrons betrayed neither surprise nor even awareness when two of the intruders stationed themselves beside the service doors; two more stood sentry at the entrance; and the remainder dispersed through the nightclub.
A slender Chinese wearing a black-silk tunic secured by looped frogs entered between another pair of bodyguards. The sleek headwaiter bowed so low his head almost touched the floor. Mincing backward as if for royalty, he showed the slight figure toward a front table where two additional bodyguards stood alert, their hands resting on the butts of revolvers revealed by their loose tunics. The new arrival paused and inclined his head to the Seks. His features were reptilian, and his slitted eyes shone like flat black beads.
“Well met, Elder Brother,” he said in the sibilant Shanghai dialect. “I trust you are well.”
Gregory and Sydney Sek replied in the same elaborately courteous manner, but Sydney’s hand on Jonnie’s arm urgently deterred his question. When the ostentatiously sinister figure moved beyond earshot, Sydney, the elder Sek, spoke to his nephew.
“Tu Yueh-shen, a most important man,” he breathed in English.
“Who is he?” Jonnie demanded. “Why all the fuss?”
“All that fancy education didn’t do so much good, did it?” Sydney Sek spoke in slurred treaty-port English seeded with second-hand American slang.
“Afraid not, Uncle Syd,” Jonnie acknowledged cheerfully in his Stonyhurst drawl. “But who is the chap?”
“The most powerful man on the China Coast. Didn’t the old man or Charlie tell you about Tu Yueh-shen?”
“Afraid not. Grandfather’s bringing me along slowly. He says I’m a dunderhead, and he’s afraid to cram too much into my brain. But, more important, who’s that dancer? Is she … ah … available for light conversation?”
Gregory Sek guffawed appreciatively and snapped his fingers at a rat-faced waiter. After issuing rapid instructions in sizzling Shanghai dialect, he spoke softly to his nephew.
“All fixed. She’ll turn up when she’s dressed. But you must know Green Dragon Tu.”
“Let me tell him, Greg,” the older brother interrupted. “Tu Yueh-shen’s Grand High Dragon of the Green Band. You know the Societies, don’t you, kid?”
Jonnie nodded. However sheltered, no native of Hong Kong was unaware of the powerful Secret Societies. The Green and Red Bands were, however, much more powerful in Shanghai, where vice, crime, and, occasionally, even virtue were far less inhibited than they were in the Crown Colony.
“His big card’s opium, ten times as profitable now it’s illegal. But his hand’s in everything—gold, girls, gambling, protection, even a dozen legal businesses. He can put ten thousand Braves into the streets by winking an eye. So who’s gonna argue with him? The Police Commissioner comes running when Tu Yueh-shen calls. That Bolshevik fellow, Harry’s buddy Chiang Kai-shek, is his sworn blood-brother. Green Dragon Tu’s a big man, but you saw he respects us.”
“And we? Are we still in opium, Uncle Syd?”
“No chance, kid. The old man won’t touch the stuff with a barge pole. Anyway, Dragon Tu’s got it all sewed up.”
“This town’s different from sleepy old Hong Kong, ain’t it, young feller?” Sydney’s mock-American bonhomie was overwhelming.
“Perhaps,” Jonnie replied defensively, a touch of his father’s occasional pomposity suffusing features that were a fined-down replica of his father’s. “But not that different. Just more open. British colonial rule requires a decent pretence of morality.”
“Where are the dames?” Gregory asked impatiently. “There’s plenty more where they come from if they can’t get their fannies over here quick.”
“Yeah, there’s plenty of Russian stuff,” Sydney laughed. “Most of ’em princesses or countesses, they say. But they’re all eager, young feller, real eager. They’ll do anything—and I do mean anything—for a passport. More marriages’ve broken up since the Russky ladies came to town than in a hundred years before. Just play ’em along, and don’t get committed. They’re hungry.”
Jonnie nodded with the solemn sagacity of semi-inebriation. His half-uncles’ crude affability accorded with his own mood. He thought of the snake-dancer, and his blood raced. The rat-faced waiter whispered in Sydney’s ear while refilling their glasses.
“Getting themselves dolled up,” the older Sek said. “Be here in a coupla minutes. Meanwhile, let me finish filling you in. Last few years, thousands of Russkis’ve turned up in Shanghai. The dames make out okay, the young ones. The guys, that’s another story. They take any job they can get from doorman to taxidriver. So help me, I’ve even seen Russkis pulling rickshaws.”
“But good fighters,” Gregory added judiciously. “Don’t sell ’em short. Funniest damn thing happened the other day. All this warlord pressure’s making the Settlement’s Commissioners nervy. So they organized their own Russky battalion. Who comes along but Old General Chang? Thinks he owns Shanghai just because he’s boss of Kiangsu Province. He sends his own Russky battalion forward, so we send out our Russkis. Damned if they don’t look at each other and turn around and chase away Old Chang’s Chinese troops. Now we’ve got two Russky battalions.”
/> Jonnie laughed uproariously. The champagne following brandy made the incident hilarious.
“And all those warships with the big guns,” he chortled. “No fear here.”
“Yeah, kid, we’re pretty safe in old Shanghai,” Sydney guffawed. “The rest of China can tear itself apart. Big warlords marching back and forth in every province, big fake battles, big squeeze. Why that screwball Harry had to get himself so mixed in I don’t see. But Shanghai’s okay. No danger. Ding gwah-gwah!”
“Here come the dames,” Gregory interjected. “Jonnie, this one’s on me. Don’t put your hand in your pocket. Make better use of it.”
The girls were young and fresh-faced, by no means the hard-eyed professional ladies of the evening Jonnie had expected. Two were vividly dark, while the snake-dancer’s long hair was so fair it shone silver. In their short-skirted, low-waisted dresses with swaying silken fringes, they might have been his sisters’ friends. His fleeting pang of conscience was overcome by the blond dancer’s appeal. Her make-up was subdued, and her air of refinement accentuated her sensuality.
“I am Titanya Kerelenkova.” Her accent was charming. “One calls me Tanya.”
“Yeah, princess,” Sydney interjected before his nephew could speak, “and this is John Stone.”
“And Mister Stone, are you English?”
“Quite,” Jonnie fell in with his uncle’s deception. “John Stone, Esquire.”
The Sek brothers were already fondling the brunettes, but mutual timidity separated Jonnie and the shy blond girl who had minutes earlier performed the explicit danse de ventre. Tanya sipped her champagne and smiled broadly.
“But it is real!” she said with surprise. “And … how do you say it?… lovishly sec.”
“Of course it’s real,” Jonnie said indignantly. “What do you think I am?”
“I do not know, do I? But I meet very strange mens …”
“Well, I’m not strange. Not at all.”
Tanya placed her white hand on his thigh, and he covered it with his own.
A shout across the dancefloor broke their self-absorption. A tall young man with fair hair swayed drunkenly before the table where the Green Dragon, Tu Yueh-shen, sat. Two bodyguards closed upon him.
“Damned cheat … took me for every penny.” Tears runneled the foreigner’s flushed cheeks. “Your crooked roulette wheel … loaded dice. Every penny.”
The foreigner lunged at the unruffled gang leader. A knife flashed, and he staggered. As his assailant fell, Tu Yueh-shen shifted a highly polished black shoe. When the bodyguards dragged the bleeding form away, the fair head trailed on the crimson carpet.
“Christ!” Sydney Sek exclaimed. “Let’s get out of here before the cops …”
“Self-defense, Syd,” his brother observed equably. “No worry. Clear self-defense. But he must’ve been a big loser.”
“Let’s get out anyway,” Sydney urged. “They’ve gotta call the cops, and I don’t wanna get stuck here. Let’s go!”
The former major of Imperial Russian Cavalry still guarded the Alhambra’s portals, and the dank night was still illuminated by the neon sign. In the sickly violet light, the beggar lay stiff and cold. Her infant clung to her cold breast, and Jonnie’s silver dollar had vanished from the enamel basin.
“Reserved a room for you at the Majestic.” Sydney bustled Jonnie and the dancer into a taxi. “Name of Stone. Enjoy yourself. And remember, not a penny to the dame. It’s on me.”
Jonnie woke to a throbbing champagne hangover. Beside him, Tanya’s face was childlike in sleep. She had been surprisingly tender, though her imaginative virtuosity had astonished him. She had led him to a plane of experience utterly different from his fumbling with sweaty Lancashire village girls or the passive acquiescence of pallid Hong Kong flower girls. He was totally drained and absolutely content.
He padded barefoot across the thick-piled cream rug to the vestibule where the North China Daily News had been slipped under the door. He turned the pages silently to avoid awakening Tanya, for he owed her much more than his uncle could possibly pay.
He found no report of the knifing in the Alhambra. A short item told a tangled tale: Chinese students demonstrating against “exploitation of the workers” by Japanese textile-mill owners and against the suppression of striking workers by Japanese and British troops “had compelled” a Sikh police detachment led by an English lieutenant to fire upon them on Nanking Road. Eleven students had been killed and a greater number wounded.
Tanya called: “Jonnie! What is it you are doing?”
She was sitting up, her arms open and the roseate nipples of her full breasts erect. He sauntered across the room feigning nonchalance he certainly did not feel.
“Bolshoi … harusho,” Tanya murmured. “What a magnificent … how do you say it?… lusty young one.”
Jonnie dropped the newspaper and forgot the world to immure himself in her beckoning arms.
The elder Jonathan Sekloong had been awake for several hours in the Kwok Family Mansion in the Western District of Canton when his grandson plunged again into the full-blooded pleasures he had discovered with Titanya Kerelenkova. Sir Jonathan had in 1912 bought his grandfather’s walled compound a few hundred yards from Shameen Island where the European factors were confined to their factories before the First Opium War of 1839. The new Republican Government, prodded by his son Harry, had allowed him to cut the legal tangle created by the claims of his numerous legitimate cousins—and to thwart the Wheatleys’ claim through his own mother. A possessive passion had driven him to reclaim his heritage by rebuilding the tumbledown stone mansion, though he deprecated the project as “a sentimental gesture, no more.”
Wearing a cotton robe, Sir Jonathan sat in a straight ebony chair with marble back. In the damp heat of morning rivulets of perspiration dripped down his lean chest, but his rigidly disciplined spirit was untouched by physical discomfort. Shaded by upcurled eaves above broad verandas, the spacious bedchamber where his own mother had been born in 1833 was furnished exactly as it had been by his grandfather Kwok Lee-chin. The ebony altar-table and the scrolls extolling filial piety and frugality as mankind’s chief virtues were depicted in George Chinnery’s pencil sketches of the Kwok Family Mansion dated 1837. The essential bribes, legal fees, reconstruction, and refurnishing had cost Sir Jonathan some £28,000 when the pound sterling was worth almost five American dollars and men considered themselves not merely comfortable, but modestly wealthy on an annual income of £1,000.
“Sentiment comes high, and I don’t often indulge it,” he had replied defensively when Mary twitted him about the unproductive investment. “But I can afford this sentimental gesture.”
Another Sekloong investment was half-concealed by the marquee-like mosquito net that draped the raised bedstead. A slim golden foot and the strawberry-tipped swell of a single breast peeped from the bedclothes. Sentiment had not dictated his acquisition of eighteen-year-old Yuk-lan, “Jade Lotus,” who had originally been purchased at the age of eleven by a retired courtesan for training in the amatory arts. Her maidenhead had cost Sir Jonathan £1,000, but he considered the cost well justified. Jade Lotus was a necessary comfort, a proper business expense. Though he felt himself no less vigorous at seventy-one than he had been ten years earlier, her erotic skills reawakened his ardor while her warmth was comforting during the dank winter. By serving his body’s needs, Jade Lotus helped relieve the tensions induced by his complex business affairs. Besides, the old Chinese belief that a young bedmate kept a man youthful was by no means unfounded.
Sir Jonathan removed the eggshell lid of his blue-and-white porcelain teacup and sipped the steaming amber liquid. Despite the muggy, 890 heat of Canton, he had no patience with the younger generation’s passion for iced drinks. A cup of green mountain tea infused with white ginseng, the mandrake root from Korea, was more cooling and more invigorating. He sighed, and his hazel eyes stared unseeing at the half-revealed figure in the canopied bed. The flimsy-paper file of the Re
uter News Agency, delivered by special messenger a half-hour earlier, lay untouched on the ebony side table. Preoccupied, he merely brushed the crackling sheaf with his fingertips.
His own affairs, like the affairs of China herself, were confused—at once promising and threatening. It might have been different if Sun Yat-sen had not resigned the presidency in 1912, and, the next year, broken with the National Government in Peking to form his own Provisional Government. It would certainly have been different had Dr. Sun succeeded in his mission to the Northern Warlord Clique undertaken on the last day of the previous year, 1924. But Sun Yat-sen had failed to “save the country in cooperation with the warlords,” as he had confidently predicted. Instead, Tuan Chi-jui, the presumed ally of the Nationalists, and Chang Tso-lin, the master of Manchuria, had together proclaimed a new “National Government” that excluded the Nationalists. Worse, Feng Yü-hsiang, the volatile Christian General who baptized his troops with fire-hoses and flirted indiscriminately with reactionaries, Nationalists, and Communists, had withdrawn from Peking to sulk in his stronghold at Kalgan beneath the Great Wall, where he still threatened the capital ninety miles away.
Feng Yü-hsiang’s defection and the duplicity of the Chang Tso-lin–Tuan Chi-jui alliance negated Dr. Sun’s efforts. A Chinese solution to China’s problems became impossible. By applying to the Soviet Union for the arms, technical assistance and funds the West would not provide Dr. Sun had already virtually destroyed hopes of China’s being united under a liberal regime that would encourage commerce. In return for aligning himself with the Russians, transforming his Kuomintang into an authoritarian party, and taking the fledgling Communist Party into the Kuomintang as Moscow wished, he had received few material benefits, not even the airplane corps of which Harry Sekloong dreamed. The Western powers would not sell aircraft to the Kuomintang, while the Soviets could not. The new infantry battalions and artillery batteries training at Canton and the elite officer corps being created by the Whampoa Military Academy might, in time, bring the Kuomintang to power. But not, Sir Jonathan feared, as an independent, nationalistic Chinese government.
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