World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399)

by Mason, Richard

  “You’re hopeless, Suzie.”

  “And anyhow, she slept with you. I feel jealous of every girl who ever slept with you.”

  “It’s a good thing I don’t feel the same about your boy friends.”

  “There, you still don’t understand about love! Because that was quite different with my boy friends. That was just for money.” And once launched on that topic, we were all set for a couple of hours.

  I also worked a good deal, and I painted well after we were married. Our room was cramped and poorly lit and I missed my balcony at the Nam Kok, but in my happy frame of mind the material conditions seemed of little account. And indeed it was in that poky little Macao bedroom that I painted my favorite picture of Suzie, which I still think is the best piece of work I have ever done. I began it in the heat of the afternoon, three days after we were married, as she lay on the tumbled bed. She herself looked gloriously tumbled, with her limbs sprawled at absurd angles as if she had been dropped there from a height; and she had no intention of moving, for she was quite obviously deriving profound satisfaction from her own complete wreckage. She radiated a glow of fulfillment that was as womanly as a breast swollen with milk. It was thus that I had intended to paint her; but as I studied her from across the room her expression changed. For no doubt I had been looking too pleased with myself, too smugly satisfied with the scene of destruction and my role of conquering male—and now there came into Suzie’s eyes a twinkling half-mocking defiance, which might have been expressed in these words: “All right, you may have conquered me—but only because I wanted to be conquered, and in a minute, when I’ve savored my destruction a bit longer, I shall become independent again.” And so that was how I tried to paint her, showing the reassertion of individuality that must always follow total surrender in love.

  We also spent a good deal of time gambling. Sometimes we patronized the hotel casino on the top floor—a big ornate shabby room which in Macao’s heyday had been the scene of extravagant splendor—but more often we went to the dim smoky Chinese gaming-house in the Beco da Felicidade, which had the atmosphere of an opium den. It was always packed to the doors, with barefoot coolies and trishaw drivers, and opium smugglers in clogs and battered felt hats, and rich taipans in long gowns, and the stakes varied from twenty cents to thousands of dollars.

  We would climb a dark creaking staircase to the first floor where balconies looked down onto the tables below, and lower our stakes in little baskets on strings. Then we would hang over the rail to watch the croupier’s pointed stick scooping away the white plastic buttons four at a time from a pile. The winning number, for there were only four possibilities, was the number of buttons that remained for the last scoop. But long before then a great sigh would have passed through the crowd, whose quick eyes had counted the buttons ahead of the croupier’s baton.

  I was an impetuous gambler and always lost, but Suzie was cautious and played to a system and won on balance every time. But the nervous strain and stale smoky atmosphere were bad for her, and she would leave the tables exhausted; and so after a time I put my foot down and stopped her going to the gaming-house, and we confined our gambling to short spells at the hotel casino.

  We often met English people from Hong Kong in the casino, but it still made Suzie nervous to talk to them. And I told her that she must tell herself, “I’ve nothing to feel ashamed about. I feel proud. I’m as good as you.”

  “But I do feel ashamed,” she said. “It’s no good saying I am not ashamed if I feel it.”

  “Then just imagine what it would feel like if you weren’t ashamed. Think, ‘I may or may not be ashamed of myself, but this is how someone would feel if they weren’t ashamed—if they were proud.’”

  And soon she was going about really looking proud; and although at first after we were married she had stopped calling me “my husband,” as if it would have been somehow presumptuous, she now began to say it boldly, and to look at strangers with calm level eyes.

  “My husband is a painter,” I once heard her telling a curious Englishwoman who had been questioning her in a loud patronizing Kensington voice.

  “But how fascinating!” the woman exclaimed falsely. “What does he paint?”

  “He is painting me just now,” Suzie said.

  “Not with all those clothes on, I bet,” winked the woman’s husband. “Oho, I know these artists—I bet he’s painting you in the nude, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  And she said this “Yes” so simply and with such dignity, and with her eyes so clear and unashamed as she met the husband’s gaze, that, insensitive though he was, he was made to feel a fool. And I felt such pride in her at that moment that I could have cried.

  And now that we were married I felt more tender toward her than ever before, and also more possessive. Indeed my possessiveness threatened to become absurd: if she went out to buy me cigarettes and was not back in ten minutes I would grow anxious, and start imagining all the disasters that might have befallen her; and when she eventually returned I would either let fly at her for being away so long, or else burst into joyful relief as if she had returned from the dead. I hated her out of my sight. I was all the more astonished at myself because before the marriage I had half feared that I would regret the tie and think myself a fool; whereas in fact the very opposite had occurred. I had even begun to experience quite unwarranted pangs of jealousy. Previously the floor boy’s efforts to conscript Suzie’s services had only amused me; but now when I heard that he had spoken to her again I lost my temper, and the next time he came to the room I let him know it, and drove him out with my boot at his backside. And then in the casino I took exception to a man who kept staring at Suzie and undressing her with his eyes, and who in fact was to prove the ruin of our last night in Macao. I had seen him often at the tables, gambling with great wads of hundred-dollar notes and showing ostentatious indifference to both wins and losses. He was a Eurasian, with high cheekbones and narrow black eyes, though in Europe he might quite easily have passed as pure Portuguese. He wore an electric blue jacket with padded shoulders and long American lapels, and a gaudy Waikiki tie. He looked a real slicker. And whenever we were at his table he would fix Suzie with that stare, interrupting it only to place bets or rake in winnings, and indifferent to my presence at her side.

  “I can’t stand your friend,” I told Suzie once as we were leaving the casino. She looked blank and I explained, “That slicker in the blue jacket who can’t take his eyes off you.”

  “Off me? I never noticed.”

  She obviously hadn’t. She was too taken up with the gambling. But the following night, when she was having a run of bad luck, she pointed him out to me across the table, saying that for the last hour he had done nothing but win.

  “That’s the man I was talking about,” I said.

  “I never noticed him stare.”

  “Well, he’s staring now.”

  She glanced across the table without interest. She was interested only in the placing of his stakes. Presently he tossed two five-hundred-dollar notes onto the table, folded into little squares, and with studied carelessness motioned to the blue-smocked woman croupier to put them neatly in place; then he resumed his scrutiny of Suzie, with those narrow black contemptuous eyes that seemed to say, “You’ll be easy enough like all the rest.” And he went on staring until the pile of white buttons had been reduced to two. He had won again. The croupier added six five-hundred-dollar notes to his stake on the table, and pushed the eight notes across to him with the stick.

  “Look!” Suzie gasped. “Look at all that money!” She watched him rake in the money indifferently, his hand protruding from three inches of silk cuff. She caught his eye and smiled across the table. “Next time I shall follow you!”

  The man acknowledged her remark with a careless wave of the hand as if her attention meant nothing to him. He did not speak. But his eyes were
saying, “She’ll be even easier than I thought.”

  “Suzie, I’m dying for a drink,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “No, I must win back my money. I can’t go until I have won it back.”

  “We’ll try again later.”

  “No, I must follow that man—he’s so lucky!”

  “Well, I’m going. Aren’t you coming?”

  “No, I must win back my money first.”

  I did not really want to leave her but now felt perversely committed, and so I went off through the curtained archway to the big gloomy bar. It was empty except for the barman. I sat down on a bar stool and ordered a double brandy, and when I had drunk it I felt better and thought, “I’m being a fool. As if she’d have any truck with a slicker in a Waikiki tie! I must go back and be nice to her.” I paid for the brandy and went back into the casino—but then abruptly stopped. For the slicker had moved round the table and was now seated beside Suzie. They looked very happy together, and Suzie’s face was radiant. I turned and went back to the bar.

  I had drunk two more double brandies before Suzie appeared. She came in looking flushed and excited.

  “I won everything back, and then five hundred dollars! Look! Look at all this money!”

  I said, “I’m thrilled.”

  She stopped being excited and looked at me.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Are you angry?”

  “Angry? Why should I be angry?”

  “I think you’re angry because I stayed to win back my money.”

  “I’m glad to know that’s what you stayed for.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Nothing. I don’t mean anything. I’m just hungry. Come on, let’s go and eat.”

  We left and went to the lift, cut off from each other by my ridiculous mood. But although I knew it was ridiculous I could not change it, and I could not speak without nastiness coming into my tone, so I remained silent. Then as we came out of the lift and crossed the hall the clerk at the reception desk said “Oh, sir!” and held up a telegram, and I knew it must be from Kay, and I went over and tore it open, and it said that there would be a vacancy for Suzie at St. Margaret’s tomorrow.

  I told Suzie and said, “That means we’ve got to take the morning boat.”

  Suzie looked distressed. She did not know how long she would be in hospital and how long we would be parted. She said, “Couldn’t we stay one more day?”

  “No, they won’t hold the bed for you.”

  “Then it’s our last night.”

  “Yes, our last night in Macao.”

  And then we were holding hands in the back of a trishaw on the way to the pigeon restaurant in the Beco da Felicidade, and all the jealousy and nastiness inside me was gone, and I was loving her again and trying not to think of being parted; and at dinner I drank a whole bottle of Portuguese wine, which made me rather drunk after the brandies, but not too drunk, and we were both very happy. Then Suzie wanted to pay a last visit to the Chinese gaming-house, and since it was only just across the street from the restaurant, and I wanted to indulge her on her last night, I agreed provided that we only stayed half an hour. However, I forgot the time until I looked at my watch and saw that we had been there an hour, and by then Suzie had lost four hundred dollars and wanted to recoup, and in the end we stayed over two hours and it was after midnight when we left.

  There was no trishaw outside so we had to walk back to the hotel. On the way the heel came off Suzie’s shoe and she limped along holding my arm. She held my arm across the hotel foyer and into the lift. As we stepped out of the lift on the fourth floor Ah Ng, the floor boy, was standing in the alcove opposite the lift gate. He was talking to somebody seated in an armchair. He broke off and watched us in silence with the smoldering eye. The chair was in shadow and the occupant’s face was only a vague white blob, but his arm hung over the chair arm and caught the light from the landing, and I recognized the electric blue sleeve and the white expanse of silk cuff, and the ostentatious cuff link with the big blue vulgar stone. Then as we turned down the landing and passed closer I saw the Waikiki tie with the palm trees and the pink bathing girls in bikinis, and the face with the high Chinese cheekbones and the contemptuous watching eyes. I felt the eyes watching us as we walked on, the eyes of the Eurasian and the smoldering eye of Ah Ng, and I was certain they had been waiting for us to come.

  Suzie had also noticed the man in the chair and I had felt her stiffen on my arm, but they had exchanged no sign of recognition, and I thought this strange after they had sat together at the table, and won money together, and looked as intimate as lovers.

  I said, “That was your friend.”

  “What friend?”

  “Your friend from the casino.”

  “Oh, I never noticed,” she said vaguely. I only just saw him in the casino across the table.”

  “I thought he’d sat with you.”

  “No.”

  But she had no sooner made the denial than she realized that I must have seen them, and I felt the tension in her arm again, and I knew without looking that the blood had rushed to her cheeks. I opened the door of our room and she detached herself from me with relief, and kept her face turned away in case it should further betray her. She undressed quickly and got into bed, and lay with her back turned and her eyes closed as if utterly exhausted.

  “We played fan-tan too long,” she said. “We stayed too long in that smoke.”

  “Yes, it was silly.” I glanced at her as I undressed, trying to make out if her exhaustion was genuine or if she was only pretending. There was a knock on the door and Ah Ng entered with a flask, saying with a false seedy grin, “I brought some hot tea, sir.” It was the first time he had ever done this without being asked.

  “Put it on the dressing table,” I said.

  “Yes, sir.” But he ignored the instruction and went quickly across the room to put it on the pedestal table by the bed, at the same time fixing Suzie with the greedy burning eye and breaking into rapid Cantonese. The walleye gazed upwards with mocking innocence like a gray blob of jelly. I knew the numerals in Cantonese, and I heard him say a number and then repeat it. It was a three-figure number like the number of a room.

  I said angrily, “Get out.”

  “Sir, I only just—”

  “Get out!”

  He went out grinning. Suzie closed her eyes again with a long weary sigh. I said, “What did he want?”

  “I don’t know—nothing.”

  “Now tell me the truth.”

  “He just talked about the heat. He said Macao was so hot.”

  “And particularly hot in Room No. 343?”

  She opened her eyes and stared at me miserably. “Why do you hate me today?”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Yes, you hate me. I knew this evening when I came into the bar, and you looked at me, and I thought, ‘My husband hates me.’”

  “I hate you to tell me lies, that’s all.”

  And then she began to cry, and she admitted that the Eurasian had joined her at the table, and had paid her compliments and tried to arrange a meeting; and she had meant to tell me all about it, but had been too frightened to do so after finding me in such a nasty mood at the bar. And it had also been from fear of upsetting me, and spoiling our last evening, that she had pretended not to recognize the man at the lift. The floor boy, of course, had come on the man’s behalf, with an offer of five hundred dollars for the night. He had suggested that for a half-share I might be willing to relinquish her—for such deals to accommodate all parties concerned were commonplace in Macao.

  I laughed and forgave her, and said, “My God, what a town! It’s a good thing we’re getting out before it corrupts us—and before I wring Ah Ng’s neck.”

  “I’m sorry I li
ed,” Suzie said, still crying. “But I am so scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “Scared to lose you. Oh, Robert, I’m always so scared.”

  I slipped beside her into bed, and she clung to me very tightly, but without passion; and she said that she was ashamed because she was so exhausted and on her last night was failing me.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t think I’d be much good myself tonight.”

  I turned off the light. I was really feeling worn out and I began to fall off at once. I was vaguely aware of Suzie lying wide awake beside me. I thought she must be worried because she had told lies, and with a last effort of consciousness I whispered that I was so happy with her, and I kissed and caressed her, and then sleep shut down its lid; and then I knew nothing more until a noise in the room penetrated my ears, and I half-woke and felt for Suzie, and I found that she was gone and I was alone in the bed. And then I woke properly and opened my eyes, and in the dim light from the window saw Suzie over by the dressing table, standing rigid with suspense as if afraid that I had been wakened by the noise she had just made. I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing but my tongue froze in my mouth: for at that moment I noticed that she was wearing her cheongsam. She was dressed.

  No, I thought. No, she can’t be going to him. No, it’s impossible.

  My body had become petrified by the suspicion. I could not utter a sound. I watched her move again cautiously. I recognized the familiar shape of her silhouette as she stooped, slipping her foot into a shoe.

  And then suddenly with great joyous relief, I understood. She was just going to the bathroom. She was using the cheongsam as a dressing gown. She had not been able to lay her hands on the cotton wrap that she usually used for the purpose, and had not wanted to wake me by turning on the light. So she was using the cheongsam.

  And now she was softly opening the door. She hesitated as a narrow shaft of light from the corridor penetrated the room. She glanced toward the bed. Then she opened the door quickly and slipped through and closed the door again, pausing outside to release the handle without sound. And I knew that in a moment my mind would be set at rest—that I should hear her take a few steps to the left, enter the bathroom next door.