“That’s marvelous, Suzie. Where shall we go?”
“Some small place. No, I think some big place. Yes, let’s go to some big stuck-up place with music, and make that man give us a good time!”
We settled on a restaurant in Kowloon where there was dancing and cabaret, and since this meant that Suzie would have to change we arranged to meet in three quarters of an hour at the ferry. I went back to my room to put on jacket and tie, and then passed the time strolling along the quay. I arrived first at the ferry and stood watching three men and a woman playing mah-jongg in a sampan tied up near the pier. It was dark and they played by the light of a hurricane lamp, squatting round a low packing case, indifferent to the little vessel’s bobbing and lurching. It made me seasick even to watch and I turned away, just as Suzie came up in a rickshaw. She wore a little Chinese brocade jacket over a plain white silk cheongsam, and white shoes. She carried a gold handbag to match the gold thread of the brocade. Her nails were freshly painted.
“Suzie, you look marvelous,” I said. “And you’ve been so quick about it.”
“I’m so angry—I tore my stocking getting into that rickshaw.” She craned backwards to examine one of her nylons.
“Have you dabbed it with spit?”
“Spit?”
“Don’t you know? I’ll show you on the boat.”
She held my arm as we went to the turnstile. “I feel happy now, you know! I feel beautiful!”
Her gaiety was a trifle forced, and the hurt was still visible underneath; but she had accepted the situation now as a fait accompli, and had made up her mind that she was not going to let it get her down. And on the ferry she gaily pretended that we were on a steamer bound for America, and waved her handkerchief as though to Ben, saying, “Good-by! Good-by! So sorry to leave you, only I’m off to marry a rich Yankee!” And when we disembarked on the other side, she said, “I never knew there were so many Chinese in New York—it looks just like Kowloon!”
We decided that on Ben’s money we could afford a taxi, but there was no taxi to be seen so we took two rickshaws. We turned into Nathan Road, twisting in and out of the congested buses and cars, the rickshaw men keeping up a steady jog trot, their broad bare calloused feet padding the hard city street. The shirt of my man was in holes, I could see his shoulder blades working. We halted at traffic lights, turned off to the left, stopped outside a building with a red neon sign. The sign cast a glow on the pavement. The sign went out and the glow vanished; then, as the Chinese characters came alight again one by one the glow reappeared, becoming redder each moment like the reflection of a fire being fanned by the wind. We went up in the lift to the restaurant on the top floor, where the Chinese manager in white dinner jacket led us through the crowded room. There were parties of both Chinese and Europeans at the tables, many in evening dress, and there was a dance floor and a Filipino band. Suzie followed the manager with poise: in her early days in the dance halls she had been brought often to such places, and she was more accustomed than I was to their sophistication.
The manager took us to a table within a few feet of the band. I was about to accept it meekly, but Suzie said, “There is too much noise here. There is a better table over there.”
“It is reserved,” the manager grinned. “You see the notice—Reserved.’”
“We will go deaf at this table,” Suzie said.
“I am sorry, it is the only table.”
“All right, we will go somewhere else. You charge a big price in this restaurant, and we are not going to pay a big price to go deaf.”
“Well, perhaps the party that reserved the other table will not turn up. I will take a chance.”
He took us to the reserved table, removed the sign, deferentially lit my cigarette, and gestured to a waiter who was busy at another table to come and attend us. After he had gone I laughed and said, “He was fearfully impressed, Suzie—and so am I. You’ve got such aplomb.”
“What does that mean, ‘aplomb’?”
“It means you could wipe the floor with any other woman in this room.” I nodded to the menu that the waiter had put into her hands. “Now, what do you fancy?”
She gave me an odd look, and I suddenly remembered that she could not read the menu. I laughed and said, “Suzie, how ridiculous of me! Well, that just goes to show. You’ve got so much aplomb that I’d completely forgotten.”
“And now you feel ashamed of me.”
“Ashamed! Suzie, if you say anything like that again I’ll turn you upside down and spank you like Ben—because I’m so proud of you that I have to keep looking round to make sure that people are watching us.”
I did really feel proud of her, for I thought she looked lovelier than I had ever seen her in the white silk cheongsam, with the black smooth hair falling to her shoulders and framing the little white face with the high Mongolian cheekbones and the long black elliptical eyes. And then there was a kind of old-fashioned primness and modesty about her appearance, due partly to her prim erect Chinese manner of sitting without leaning against the back of the chair, and partly to the tall collar of her cheongsam, reminiscent of those high neckbands worn by Victorian ladies to effect the maximum concealment of skin; and this appearance amused and enchanted me, all the more so because of its incongruity.
Suzie said, “They are eating Pekin duck over there. You like Pekin duck?”
“I only had it once, it’s so expensive—but I loved it. And let’s have some Chinese wine.”
“Hot?”
“Oh, yes, hot.”
The food was delicious, but Suzie had become rather silent and preoccupied and ate little, and we did not talk much, except to discuss the Pekinese singer who had appeared at the microphone with the Filipino band. She wore a long shiny black cheongsam with sequins, and looked like a beautiful stiff china doll, and she sang with doll-like mannerisms as if she was operated by strings. The collar of her cheongsam was even stiffer and taller than Suzie’s, and made her look like a giraffe-woman with elongated neck. She had appeared first in a jacket of white fluffy fur, that you wanted to blow like the fluff of a dandelion to see how many blows it took to make it disappear; and this now lay behind her on the grand piano like a gigantic powder puff of swan’s-down. She looked no more than twenty-five across the room, but according to Suzie she was at least forty, and was the concubine of a rich businessman who had brought her out of China with his wife and children before the revolution.
She sang Mandarin songs in a small squeaky plaintive voice, going on and on with that characteristic Mandarin monotony, with the same tone and the same stiff doll-like mannerisms whether the songs were happy or sad.
“I think you sing just as well, Suzie,” I said. “And you certainly manage to look more human about it. But I suppose it’s remarkable that she can sing at all in that collar.”
“It is very smart, that collar,” Suzie said, a little envious that it was taller than her own. “Oh yes, a tall collar is very smart.”
“Let’s dance.”
I was a poor dancer but Suzie, like many dance girls, danced beautifully; and moreover she had that art of transmitting her skill, while seeming to remain all the time passive and as light as a feather, so that her partner might believe it his own. And as I abandoned myself to this beguiling illusion, and seemed to blossom with new talent, my usual self-consciousness on the dance floor miraculously vanished. I had never enjoyed dancing so much before. And whereas before I had always been puzzled by the vast enjoyment that ballroom dancing apparently gave to others, now all at once, as the rhythm spun round us a silken thread and sealed us together inside a cocoon, and our limbs moved intricately and magically together like the limbs of a single being, the secret revealed itself: we had created a unity that answered the yearning of loneliness. We had been two imperfect halves that had come together and made a perfect whole; and this merging of sel
ves had no parallel except in the act of making love.
The music ended; the silken cocoon that had held us together as a single being was suddenly gone; we fell apart. The perfect whole had split again into its two imperfect halves. It was like the shock of amputation; and in my solitary imperfection I felt self-conscious and awkward and rather absurd. I sensed that Suzie, too, had felt a kind of amputation. We returned to the table in silence. We did not talk for several minutes.
And then Suzie said, looking me evenly in the eyes: “You think Ben will be happy now with his wife?”
“I rather doubt it, Suzie,” I said. “Not for long.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I think Elizabeth’s bound to start nagging and becoming overpossessive again.”
“You blame her? You think it is all her fault?”
“I think it’s mostly her fault. Don’t you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“But I thought you did,” I said, surprised. “In my room you were blaming her for everything.”
“I was still upset in your room. I said anything that came into my head. But I don’t think it is her fault. I think she is very unhappy, his wife.”
And she proceeded to express her view which, summed up in terms that she herself would probably not have understood, was to the effect that Elizabeth’s nagging and over-possessiveness were due to her feeling insecure and unloved, and that Ben’s incapacity to feel real love for any woman was basically at fault. She realized now that she had become blinded to Ben’s character by her infatuation, and that her first judgment of him had been correct.
“He is not a bad man,” she said. “He doesn’t want to hurt anybody, you know. He is good, nice, kind. But he has got a small heart—too small to hold much feeling. Maybe just enough for himself, but not enough feeling to give out to anybody. He couldn’t really love anybody, that man.”
“You’re awfully bright, aren’t you, Suzie?” It was not the first time that her perception had proved more acute than my own; and I found the truth of her observations all the more astonishing when I remembered that she had not even met Elizabeth. “Anyhow, if that’s how you feel about Ben, perhaps you won’t mind so much about what’s happened.”
“I still feel hurt, you know. My pride is hurt, because he made me lose face. I feel hurt just like I did when the father of my baby left me, and went away to Borneo. I did not love him either, it was just hurt pride.”
Presently we got up to dance again. As I followed Suzie out between the tables I heard someone call, “Hullo there!” and saw one of the assistants from the bank where I had my account. He was a young Scotsman called Hamilton, who was always very friendly in the bank, and ready to help with one’s troubles. I smiled “Hullo” and went on, because I was too impatient to reach the dance floor to stop and talk. I watched Suzie’s back as she went ahead of me, with the white silk cheongsam molded into her waist and out over her hips, taut as a cheongsam should be, and the smooth black brushed hair ending in uneven little tails. I felt very touched by the little tails of hair, I did not know why. Then she was slipping into my arms, and a moment later the miracle had happened again, and the rhythm had enfolded us in a cocoon, and the two imperfect halves had merged together into the perfect whole; and we floated in our element of music as a sea gull floats in the air, soaring, turning, hovering, and there was no time any longer, no place, only the joy of movement as a single being.
And when the dance ended I could not bear the sudden dismemberment and kept hold of Suzie’s hand as we left the floor. Then I remembered Gordon Hamilton from the bank, and released her to go back to our table while I went over to exchange a polite word. He wore a black tie and kilt, and had rather an absurd handle-bar mustache, but nice amused twinkling little eyes. He introduced me to his wife, who wore a long evening dress, and then his eyes twinkled and he said, “I’ve just been telling Isobel about that water-front place where you live. I hope you didn’t mind me giving away your secret.”
“It’s no secret,” I said.
“It sounds absolutely intriguing,” his wife said, in the tones of a nice well-brought-up young girl being determinedly broad-minded. And as added reassurance that she belonged to the modern generation, not to her mother’s, she gave me an eager smile, as though linking us in conspiracy against our unenlightened parents.
“I say, you’ve got a smasher in tow tonight,” Hamilton twinkled. “And you were certainly doing all right on that dance floor!”
“Practically indecent,” his wife said, because the modern generation was permitted such remarks.
“A real corker,” Hamilton said. “What is she? Some rich old taipan’s daughter? Bags of money and her own car?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, don’t tell me she’s one of your water-front girls—not a corker like that?”
I was about to deny it but hesitated, something inside me protesting against the simple lie. I said, “Yes, she is, as a matter of fact.”
“Good God! I say!” Hamilton grinned and rolled his eyes and pulled at the handle-bar mustache. “Well, well! If I wasn’t a married man—hum-hum!”
His wife looked completely mystified and said, “I’m sorry to be so stupid, but she isn’t—I mean, of course she isn’t, but I thought for a minute you meant she was one of the girls from your hotel.”
“That’s just what he’s told us,” Hamilton said. “That’s what she is.”
“But I thought they were—I mean—well, for the sailors. . . .” The full horror began to dawn. She remembered us dancing and glanced at the dance floor, then flushed and became confused; and I felt very sorry for her, because she meant well and was now upset because she was afraid she had embarrassed me with her stupid lack of tact.
“Don’t worry, Isobel’s still a bit innocent,” Hamilton winked, trying to make light of it. “I’ll have to teach her the facts of life.”
I said good-by and left them, hoping that Suzie had not noticed the glances in her direction and guessed that we had been discussing her. Then I saw her watching me as I approached, her face expressionless, and I knew that she had seen.
I sat down, and after a minute she said, “You were talking about me?”
“Yes, it’s a man from the bank. He said he thought you were a ‘corker.’”
She said, “That woman kept looking at me.”
“That’s his wife.”
“She was thinking, ‘That girl’s dirty. She’s a dirty little yum-yum girl.’ You told her?”
“I told her you worked at the Nam Kok.”
“Why? Why did you tell her?”
“I don’t know, Suzie. I just found that somehow I couldn’t tell her a lie about you. I don’t know why.”
She was silent, her face still without expression, except for her eyes, which showed the careful deliberate thought going on somewhere behind. The silence continued a long time, and I turned to watch the beautiful giraffe-necked Pekinese doll, whose squeaky monotone in amplification was again being carried on the flood of music that swamped the room. Then I looked back at Suzie, and to my astonishment saw on her face a glow of satisfaction, a secret smile.
“Suzie!” I laughed. “I thought you were angry with me!”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Well, you’ve every right to be. Anyhow, that’s marvelous—now we can have another dance.”
She hesitated, as though puzzled. “You want to dance again?”
“Certainly. Don’t you?”
“Yes.”
We had several more dances, and when we went out to the dance floor Suzie walked quite slowly, taking the shortest route past the Hamiltons’ table instead of avoiding them by a longer way round, and keeping herself very straight and poised, and holding up her chin to show she was not ashamed; and when the dance
s ended we came back holding hands. Her face still wore that secret glow, but I could not understand what had caused it.
We had a last dance, then I paid the bill and we went down in the lift, and walked along the pavement looking for a taxi and still holding hands. There was no taxi to be seen, and Suzie found it difficult to walk in her high heels, so I called two rickshaws from across the road.
“I wish they had double rickshaws, then I wouldn’t have to let go of your hand,” I said.
“You would rather go by bus?”
“Which would you rather? Bus or rickshaw?”
“Bus—keep hands.”
I gave the rickshaw men a dollar between them for coming across the road, which Suzie thought needless extravagance, although I still had half Ben’s money left over. We went round the corner to the bus stop in Nathan Road and caught a double-decker bus, which was exactly like a London bus except that it was green instead of red; and we climbed up the narrow steep stairs to the top deck and sat in the front left-hand seat, which in London buses had always been my favorite: front for view, and left-hand for comfort, since in the right-hand seats you were tilted out into the gangway by the camber of the road.
Suzie still radiated that glow of satisfaction and wore that secret smile, and I said, “Suzie, I wish you’d tell me why you’ve been looking so pleased with yourself.”
She said, “Because of what you told that Englishwoman. Because you told her I was a dirty little yum-yum girl.”
“I didn’t put it quite in that way. Anyhow, what’s so good about that?”
“‘My girl friend is a bad girl, she does a dirty job,’ you said—or something like that. Only you didn’t look ashamed. You looked proud, as if you were talking of some decent good girl. And then you asked me to dance. You took me out to dance in front of that Englishwoman, and held my hand. Yes, held the hand of a dirty little yum-yum girl in front of that Englishwoman! And you still didn’t look ashamed, you looked as proud as if I was some princess! So I felt very good. I don’t think anybody ever made me feel so good before.”
World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) Page 19
