“Now, you needn’t worry on that score, Bob,” he interrupted. “Because I know that solitude is very, very precious to a painter, and I shall treat your room as if there was a plague warning on the door.”
“Actually, there’s another thing,” I said, growing a little bolder. “You see, as the only resident here I’ve got a rather privileged position—”
“Sure, I gathered from Suzie that you were practically Jesus Christ to all the girls down in the bar.” He smiled charmingly. “Well, you needn’t be afraid that I’ll horn in on that racket, because nobody’s going to mistake me for Jesus Christ.”
This struck uncomfortably near the mark; for however ludicrous his analogy, the ignoble truth was that I was jealous of my position among the girls, and didn’t want anybody “horning in.” I wanted to continue my solitary enjoyment of their esteem. I resented competition.
I deflated like a punctured tire. “Well, of course you must come here if you want.”
“Thanks, Bob. That’s very generous of you. And I know we’re going to become very, very great friends.”
And the next morning he moved in, taking a room on the same floor, next but one to mine. He was installed by nine o’clock—showing an alacrity which wasn’t bad going, I thought, for such a hopeless neurotic.
II
Rodney’s presence, as it turned out, made no difference to my status at the Nam Kok, though it did cause a certain wonderment at my choice of friends. For the girls, whose shrewdness in judging character never failed to astonish me, saw through him at once: they pronounced him to be a phony, and not to be trusted farther than you could throw the juke box. However, taking cynical approval of his prodigious wealth, they set themselves out to be nice to him, while all the time watching him from withdrawn half-amused little eyes, keeping all but their bodies locked up from him. They nicknamed him “The Butterfly”—and indeed never before had there been seen in the bar such an unequivocal flutterer. He was the butterfly to end all butterflies—a self-proclaimed butterfly who made no secret of his tendency to lose interest in a girl after he had slept with her once. He called this “my little peculiarity.”
And his sexual capacity was astonishing. The girls, who after all should have known, declared it to be a phenomenon, and it had soon become a humorous yardstick by which others were judged, and the subject of numberless jokes. He pursued love-making joylessly, with that dogged perseverance with which other men pursue their careers, as though under some obligation to get through the work however much, at times, it might go against the grain; and he discussed his activities in a matter-of-fact manner like the day’s affairs at the office. He seemed virtually indifferent to his partner’s age, shape, or size: the only condition he imposed was novelty. And thus in a remarkably short time he had disposed of all the Nam Kok girls who were willing, including even old Lily Lou and Doris of the Rimless Glasses—both of whom, indeed, survived their innings, whereas the poor Gwenny Ching was thrown out of his room after only half an hour, for what he afterwards described to me as “lack of imagination and bone laziness,” and replaced by another girl summoned by telephone from the bar.
He paid the girls on the whole generously; but now and again he would suffer an acute attack of meanness, when he would haggle over fifty cents, lose his temper, accuse girls of trying to exploit him, and swear never to touch any of the mercenary bitches again. He would also, at such times, accuse waiters of shortchanging him—though if I happened to be with him, he would take good care to disappear before the arrival of the bill. These attacks occurred unpredictably and also became a stock joke among the girls, who claimed they could tell if it was one of his mean days the moment he entered the bar: they said it made his face look pinched and cold.
There were only two girls who refused to go with Rodney. One of these, Wednesday Lulu, had refused on principle, since his prior liaison with several of her girl friends would have made her own relationship with him practically incestuous. The other dissident, Minnie Ho, had simply taken an intense dislike to him: an astonishing departure for Minnie, who usually bestowed her kittenish affections indiscriminately, and whom I had never known to take a dislike to anybody before. However, she could not bear so much as to speak to Rodney; and if he sat down at her table she would become petrified, like a hypnotized rabbit awaiting the strike of a snake.
These two girls, who became known as “the conscientious objectors,” were a constant source of vexation to Rodney. He discussed them with me interminably, brooded about them, and finally resorted to various highly involved tricks to try and break down their resistance. On one occasion he engaged a room on another floor, and somehow had word conveyed to Minnie that an old sailor boy friend awaited her there. The unsuspecting Minnie duly arrived upstairs; but after the first minute of total petrification she unfroze, and proving that the affectionate little kitten had the makings of a tigress, scratched his face and fled.
Rodney afterwards explained to me that the scratches had been inflicted by a drunken matelot who had assaulted him in the street. This was unlikely enough in itself; and in any case he must have known that the truth was bound to reach my ears in the bar. Yet for days he kept stubbornly returning to this absurd story, each time adding fresh description as though to make it convincing by the sheer weight of detail. He even insisted on taking me out for a walk to show me the exact spot where the incident was supposed to have occurred; and on another occasion he pointed to a sailor passing in a rickshaw, claiming to recognize the man as his assailant.
“Well, there’s a policeman over there,” I said. “Why not have him arrested?”
“I’ve no witnesses. He would just deny it.”
I knew better than to declare my disbelief outright. It would have meant an emotional scene, with bitter accusations of disloyalty and betrayal of friendship, and no doubt even tears. And in the end I would have to pretend to believe him about the drunken matelot just for the sake of peace.
But if the two conscientious objectors were thorns in Rodney’s flesh, it was still Suzie who preoccupied him most. Now I never saw her alone. He had somehow wheedled from me a promise that whenever she came to see me I would let him know; and although it was a promise I would have had little compunction about breaking, he left me no opportunity to do so, for he would always manage to recognize her step in the corridor, and would be out of his room in a flash, before she had reached my door. And if he happened at that moment to be ensconced with another girl, no matter: Suzie came first, and he would simply abandon the other girl and come hurrying to join us. He had become quite obsessed with her. He declared himself wildly in love, and said she was the only girl he had met since leaving America to whom his “little peculiarity” would not apply. He called her “my Goddess.”
One night, after Rodney had been at the Nam Kok a month or so, Suzie dropped into my room about eleven o’clock. She closed the door with a look of disgust.
“What’s the matter, Suzie?”
“I just saw that butterfly man go into his room with a street girl.”
Suzie characteristically avoided using the proper names of people she disliked, and just as Betty Lau was always “that Canton girl,” so Rodney was always “that butterfly man.” She had recognized the street girl by her cotton pyjamas, a form of dress disdained by dance girls and bar girls. In fact it was by no means Rodney’s first, since by now he had exhausted the resources of the Nam Kok, and with a peculiar preference for girls of the lowest class, he had resorted to the streets rather than the dance halls. But it was the first that had come to Suzie’s notice.
She shuddered. “Ugh, he is filthy!”
Just then Rodney came in. He pretended to be struck dumb at the sight of Suzie’s beauty, and fell to his knees at her feet—a pantomime that by now had become a familiar accompaniment to his entrance. He kissed her hand.
“My Goddess!”
Suzie wit
hdrew her hand contemptuously. She said, “You better get back to that street girl.”
“What street girl?”
“That street girl in your room. You can’t keep a street girl waiting, you know. They’re too busy with all those coolies from the docks.”
“I never had a street girl in my life.”
Suzie ignored him and began to talk to me. Presently she mentioned that tomorrow, since Ben had a business lunch, she would not be keeping her usual lunchtime appointment; and Rodney, trying to regain favor, proposed a picnic and bathing party, for which he would provide a hired car and packed lunch from a restaurant.
Suzie, after first declining, finally agreed on condition that I would also agree to come. I had been hesitating on account of work but let myself be persuaded. However, Suzie had no sooner left us to go home than Rodney, speaking mysteriously of some proposition that he wanted to make to her, begged me to cry off the next morning at the moment of departure so that he might have Suzie to himself; and when I refused to take part in such trickery, he made a minor scene, which was only brought to an end by my agreement to a compromise: I would go along for the picnic, but after lunch would feel overcome by a need for solitude and retire, leaving them alone for a minimum period of half an hour. And my peace thus purchased, I was allowed to go to bed.
The next morning a huge sleek Buick stood awaiting our pleasure outside the Nam Kok. The chromium head lamps glittered in the sun; the polished body work shone like a mirror, reflecting the astonished faces of Little Alice and old Lily Lou, who were waiting on the pavement for an escort into the bar.
A uniformed Chinese chauffeur held open the rear door. We sank into—no, not sank, but floated upon—the buoyant cushioning; waved our good-bys; and bouncing in gently sprung luxury, were borne up the twisting escarpment road. We crossed the shoulder of the Peak and began the descent to the south coast of the island. We passed through Repulse Bay with its big hotels, its modern white houses and flats, its crowded popular beach, its fake English castle built by a Chinese millionaire, and somewhere beyond found a charming little beach to ourselves.
Suzie, who adored bathing, put on her costume and dashed first into the sea. We followed her. She swam and splashed and laughed; but all her enjoyment was directed at me, as if she was not even aware of Rodney’s existence. We had a tremendous splashing match. It continued until we were both rendered helpless by laughter. Then Rodney, struggling manfully against his discomfiture, shouted, “Come on, I’ll take you on next,” and submitted Suzie to a tentative spray.
Suzie stopped laughing. She looked at him coldly. “What’s the matter? You want to drown me or something?” And turning her back on him, she laughingly resumed her sport with me.
Rodney showed more resilience than usual. He refused to be daunted. And as we extended ourselves on the sunny beach he fell on his knees before Suzie, indulging his taste for histrionics, and kissed her pink-tipped feet.
“My beautiful Goddess! I prostrate myself!”
Suzie gave him a brief contemptuous glance, withdrew her feet from his reach, and turned away as if she had already forgotten him. Rodney was left kneeling there absurdly. I was afraid for a moment that he was going to cry. And I was so sorry for him that for the next half-hour, as we ate the superb cold buffet that he had provided at prodigious cost, I made a persistent effort to manipulate the conversation so that Suzie was obliged to recognize his existence. She gradually forgot her hostility; and by the end of the meal she was speaking to him quite naturally and warmly. I decided that the time had arrived to carry out the terms of my agreement with Rodney. I got up.
“Nature calls,” I said, and made for the rocks.
I found a comfortable niche in the rocks, and was soon lulled into a doze by the suck and surge of the water. I was wakened by a sudden loud gollop-gollop as the tide invaded some new chasm in the rocks and then noisily withdrew. I looked at my watch. Three quarters of an hour had passed. I decided to interpret the terms of the contract generously, and lay for another fifteen minutes, then aroused myself and started back.
I met Suzie scrambling over the rocks in search of me. She scolded me indignantly. “What happened? Why did you go off like that, and leave me with that terrible butterfly man? I am very angry. No, don’t laugh! I mean it!”
“I’m awfully sorry, Suzie. But he was so anxious to have you alone.”
“Yes, you know what for? He wants to take me to—where’s Bangkok?”
“Thailand.”
“Yes—Thailand—he wants to take me there. He offered me three thousand dollars a month.” She stopped being angry and giggled. “Yes, honestly. He told me, ‘I will give you three thousand dollars—three times what you get now from Ben.’”
I stared at her. “Suzie, you didn’t accept?”
“Accept?” She looked disgusted. “Pouf! You think I would accept to go away with that butterfly man?”
“I’m so glad, Suzie. I was quite scared for a minute. I’d have missed you.”
“I wouldn’t go with that man, not for ten thousand dollars. I told him, ‘Why don’t you take that street girl—give her a rest from those coolies?’”
Her refusal, I gathered, had sent Rodney into a tantrum: he had pleaded with her, wept, and finally turned nasty, calling her a cheat, an ingrate, a dirty little sailor’s whore. There had been such a dangerous light in his eyes that she had been quite scared; she had quickly made her escape, and come to look for me. Now she thought it likely that we should find he had gone off in dudgeon in the car, and left us stranded.
However, as we climbed over the last rocks we saw him still lying there on the beach. He rose at our approach, grinned, and stood at military attention before Suzie. He performed a mock salute.
“Lieutenant Tessler reporting. He wishes to apologize, and say that he is very, very sorry for the way he spoke to his Goddess. I guess he just got so sore he didn’t know what he was saying. O.K., is he forgiven? One nod for ‘no,’ two for ‘yes.’” Suzie vaguely shrugged assent. “Well, that’s good enough for me. And if that guy Tessler ever speaks to you like that again, just let me know and I’ll wring his neck myself.”
I said, trying to help lighten the atmosphere, “Well, Lieutenant Tessler certainly did us proud with that lunch. It was a triumph.”
Rodney ignored me and, turning to Suzie, said, “What about another bathe?” I stared in puzzlement, uncertain for a moment whether or not this was a deliberate snub. But he continued to avoid my eyes. I realized that he had not looked at me once since we had rejoined him.
I. laughed and said, “Oh, dear, I’m not in the doghouse now, am I?” Rodney kept his face turned away, pretending not to hear. I said, “Oh, come off it, Rodney. What am I supposed to have done?”
He gave me a brief look, his eyes glassy and remote. “Nothing that I know of,” he said. And turning back to Suzie, he forced a casual grin and said, “Now, come on, I want to see you in that bathing costume again, because I don’t mind telling you, it makes you look very, very cute.”
An hour later as we started home he was still ignoring me. Suzie sat between us in the back seat of the Buick, and he tried to hold her attention with a flow of conversation. Suzie hardly listened: she was silent and pensive, absorbed in thoughts of her own. Presently she interrupted him, turning to me and saying, “I must go to my fortuneteller this evening. You want to come?”
Rodney said quickly, “Sure, we’ll go this evening—that’ll be fine.”
Suzie ignored him, and went on, “I think I will go to that Tibetan monk. It is a long way, but he speaks Shanghai. None of the fortunetellers in Wanchai speak Shanghai, and it is very important with a fortune to understand properly. It is no good running risks.”
There followed an absurd three-cornered conversation in which Rodney and I addressed ourselves to Suzie but not to each other, and Rodney took no
account of any remark that I made unless Suzie relayed it—but in which it was somehow established that we would drop Suzie in Wanchai, so that she could go back to her room and see her baby, and that she would pick us up later at the Nam Kok, when we would proceed to the fortuneteller’s in a threesome.
Suzie’s street was too narrow for a car, and we dropped her at the nearest point in Hennessy Road; then Rodney and I drove back in silence. The silence continued in the lift at the Nam Kok, and we separated in silence to our respective rooms. I knew that Rodney was incapable of keeping his grievance to himself much longer, and waited for something to happen.
I did not have to wait long. After five minutes there was a knock on the door and Ah Tong entered, looking uncomfortable and puzzled, as if he suspected that he was being made the victim of some practical joke. He handed me a letter. He said, “From your friend, sir.”
He stood watching curiously as I opened the envelope. Inside was a note in Rodney’s small, neat, rather old-fashioned hand, with big twirling capital letters like an illuminated manuscript. The message occupied a perfect square, about the area of four postage stamps, in the dead center of the page.
May I take it that, according to the arrangement made in the car, I am to escort Suzie to the fortuneteller alone, and that you will not continue to interfere and to willfully spoil our pleasure?
Rodney Tessler.
I laughed, and told Ah Tong to hang on a moment. And I scribbled underneath:
No, you may not take it, you silly old idiot!
P.S. Thank God somebody else splits infinitives!
I dispatched this reply with the bewildered Ah Tong, who ten minutes later returned with another sealed envelope, and his face now pained to a really pitiable degree by his frustrated curiosity. I drew out a fresh sheet of notepaper and read:
World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) Page 16
