A Most Immoral Woman

by Linda Jaivin

  A cheery baritone cut into his thoughts. ‘And what are you frowning about to yourself on such a fine day as this, Dr Morrison? Is the war not going to your satisfaction?’

  Morrison looked up with some chagrin. ‘Ah, Mr Egan. What a surprise.’

  The men shook hands. Egan’s grip was strong, assured, his smile as big and white as a sail. He easily matched Morrison in height and athletic physique, though being ten years younger than the Australian was trimmer and tauter of build. Morrison had always found Martin Egan disconcertingly hale and hearty. He possessed the sort of bold good looks that his American self-assurance had a way of amplifying until they reached a state of near caricature. The United States may have been a place full of teeming slums and political corruption, barely recovered from civil war and only recently clean of the stain of slavery, and Americans could be presumptuous and their culture crude, but you couldn’t beat the New World for its confidence, idealism and optimism. All the world loved America for its belief in progress, democracy and a better future for all, and admired its ruddy, irresistible youth. Egan’s grip and his smile spoke of all this.

  Morrison recovered his hand. ‘What brings you to Peking?’ He suddenly remembered Mae saying she’d met Egan in Tientsin and wondered how well he knew her. ‘I heard you were in the country.’

  ‘A bit of business, a bit of pleasure,’ Egan replied. He had recently joined the Associated Press after a stint with the San Francisco Chronicle, and headed up the AP’s bureau in Tokio. ‘The bureau can run itself for a few weeks. There’s no place like Peking, is there? Imagine, the capital of three dynasties and the current one alone older than the United States.’

  ‘Five dynasties. Liao, Chin, Yuan, Ming, Ch’ing,’ Morrison corrected. He then recalled that Egan had lent Mae his book. He owed the man for that. His tone softened. ‘Of course, the first two were relatively minor as dynasties go.’

  ‘I must read more Chinese history,’ Egan conceded. ‘I always thought the Mongol Yuan was the first. I do wonder what goes on in there.’ He gestured towards the Forbidden City. ‘It’s like a dream of the Orient.’

  ‘A dream of Oriental despotism more like it.’

  Egan pursed his lips in thought. His lips were full, pouty, on the border of feminine, and Morrison experienced a flicker of revulsion.

  ‘I always understood Oriental despotism, at least as Aristotle described it, to be despotism by consent, which implicates the people in their own slavery. I may be wrong.’ Egan’s relentless affability was getting on Morrison’s nerves.

  ‘But then again, your personal enmity towards the Old Buddha is well known.’

  ‘There is nothing personal about it. You know what the Chinese call this gate here?’ Morrison pointed at the wall’s southeast corner. ‘The Devil’s Pass. That’s because of the tax collectors there, imposing tariffs on rice and salt and cigarettes and the rest. Every Chinaman knows it only goes to keep the Old Buddha in fancy soaps and face powder, just as she diverted the funds for naval defence to construct her marble pleasure boats at the Summer Palace. The woman is a jezebel.’ That should shut him up.

  A camel train approached from the west and Egan pointed at it. ‘I always wonder what marvels these caravans are bringing to market. I imagine beautiful tapestries or woven rugs, furs—’

  ‘Coal. From collieries in the Western Hills.’

  Egan shook his head in admiration. ‘I only have to be in your company five minutes and I’m reminded why you’re the doyen of the correspondents!’

  Morrison mined for respect like other men prospected for gold. He decided he didn’t really mind Egan. The man was not such bad company after all.

  Egan then mentioned that the famous American novelist Jack London had arrived in Japan to cover the war for Hearst’s newspapers.

  ‘Ah yes. My colleague at The Times, Lionel James, said they were on the same ship over from San Francisco to Yokohama.’

  ‘Yes, London remembers James well. Said it was the talk of the ship that he was travelling with a valet! The Americans were all greatly amused. Turns out—’

  ‘Yes, I know. The so-called valet was in fact our colleague David Fraser. The Times said Fraser could cover the war if he paid his own way. Got a cheap ticket under the guise of being James’s valet. Apparently the ribbing still hasn’t ceased. As for London, James said he was good company. Drank everyone under the table. Young bloke too, apparently.’

  ‘Yes, Jack is still short of thirty. Two years my junior. Have you read any of his books?’

  ‘I enjoyed The Call of the Wild. I’m not convinced that he is the American Kipling, as some would claim, though I speak as an ardent fan of the English poet. I’m certainly not an admirer of London’s socialist ideas. But he writes well. Manly sort of prose.’

  ‘Jack and I are good friends—mates, as I think you say in Australia. It’s true he still swaggers and drinks like the sailor he was. He’s challenged me to arm-wrestling in bars once enough whiskies are down the hatch, but he’s educated himself well, lived hard and is the best raconteur I’ve ever known. I must introduce you. I’m sure you’d like him. In spite of his socialism.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ said Morrison, privately dismayed at the thought of another boisterous American. One who arm-wrestled in bars, at that.

  ‘He’s on his way to the front now.’

  ‘Ha! Let him get past the Japanese. He’ll be the first. One month into the war and they’re still not giving anyone permission to get to the front.’

  ‘Jack says the Japanese aren’t going to stop him.’

  Morrison raised an eyebrow. ‘He underestimates their determination.’

  ‘Oh, if anyone will get there, it’ll be Jack. What’s more, he says he’ll report the real face of war—the mud on the soldiers’ boots, the look in their eyes, the sizzle of their cookfires, the smell of gunpowder. Already he’s got one of the Japanese soldiers to empty out his kit so he could take notes on it!’

  ‘That’s all very well for a novelist. A journalist requires harder facts.’ Realising that Egan was about to launch into what would no doubt be a rather tedious defence of his friend, Morrison quickly switched the subject to that which was most on his mind. ‘I hear you’ve been spending some time in Tientsin lately.’

  ‘I certainly have been,’ Egan replied with a broad smile, and Morrison was once again struck by how alarmingly white and orderly were the American’s teeth. ‘The attractions of that entrepôt have increased enormously in recent months. In saying that, I confess to feeling somewhat guilty. I promised someone there I would introduce you. A visiting American lass. She’s very keen to meet you. I must say, however, that it’s been hard not to try to keep her for myself.’

  Morrison did not like the sound of that. ‘You are speaking of the delightful Miss Perkins, I assume.’

  ‘Ah, so you’ve met her already.’

  ‘Only recently. At Mountain-Sea Pass. She was there with Mrs Ragsdale.’

  ‘Her poor chaperone.’

  ‘To all appearances, Mrs Ragsdale was rather enjoying Miss Perkins’s company. It was probably far more agreeable than that of her husband.’

  ‘Ha!’ The American, laughing heartily, slapped Morrison on the back.

  Brash pup.

  Encountering one possessed of genuine youthful ardour left Morrison feeling considerably less suffused with that quality himself. Those teeth. Ridiculous. An infected molar suddenly pierced Morrison’s jaw with arrow-like pain. As though the toothache opened a door through which other ailments could rush in, rheumatism flared through his joints and the damned spear wound threatened a nosebleed. He wondered how, just two days earlier, he could have felt so mindless of anything but the pleasures of the flesh when once again all he knew were the pains.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Grand. Never been better. But I must be off. Much to do.’ Espousing an imprecise intention to see Egan again soon, and shaking hands with a grip that he thought compared well, Morrison too
k his leave and marched off with an air of purpose that he did not feel.

  In the west, the sunset overlaid the violet hills with crimson and gold. The roofs of the Forbidden City fell into silhouette. His hand searched his pocket for Mae’s handkerchief. She had still not written, though he realised it had only been two days since they’d met. Yet he had found the time to write and he was a busy man; he didn’t understand why she hadn’t even dropped him a postal.

  He told himself to stop being obsessive. His mind wrapped itself around myriad anxieties.

  He would try to get to Tientsin as soon as possible.

  The following day, Morrison arrived home from a walk to discover Kuan in conversation with Cook’s wife, Yu-ti. She scurried off at Morrison’s arrival.

  ‘Is she settling in all right?’ Morrison asked.

  ‘Yes. Oh, and I have asked one of the coolies to buy a pair of wedding quilts as a gift from you to her and Cook.’

  ‘Very good. Hen hao.’ Morrison shot his Boy a look of appreciation.

  ‘Oh, and could we pay Yu-ti, too?’

  Morrison’s expression dimmed slightly. Cook, who earned twenty-five silver dollars a month, was the highest paid servant in his household after Kuan.

  Kuan read his master’s expression. ‘Yisi, yisi,’ he said, using the Chinese term that meant ‘just a token’ but managed to imply both a negligible amount and a burden of thoughtfulness at the same time.

  Morrison nodded, abashed at his own transparency and, thinking of how Maysie might view his natural parsimony, obscurely ashamed. ‘You look after it.’

  Later, en route from his library to the house to retrieve a book he’d left in the parlour, he spotted Yu-ti chopping vegetables in the courtyard. She was absorbed in her task and did not notice him at first. He tried to imagine how she might have felt when her red wedding veil was lifted and she first laid eyes on her middle-aged husband.

  Morrison had heard Chinese defending the system of arranged marriage, saying that the love that grew out of it was stronger and more secure than that enjoyed by the romantic but fickle Westerner. The custom of arranged marriage did have a long history in the West as well of course. And he had certainly appalled himself several times in the past by his passionate attachment to women such as Mary Joplin who, in the end, proved less than deserving. His thoughts resting on Mae, he suffered a moment’s doubt, then excoriated himself for it. She is nowise like the others!

  Yu-ti bowed her head, colouring. ‘Master,’ she said in Chinese.

  He realised he’d been staring. ‘Carry on.’ He strode back to his study, having entirely forgotten the errand that had brought him out. He would have liked to talk to Yu-ti about her father and her upbringing. According to Kuan, Cook did not know about his father-in-law. Then again, Cook had always refused to be drawn on the subject of politics, saying he was a simple man and that his concerns in life had to do with the freshness of garlic shoots and the quality of bacon.

  The next afternoon a telegram arrived from Moberly Bell. His editor wanted him to write six hundred and fifty words for The Times on the progress of the war. Well, here at least is good news!

  Morrison had every reason to travel to Tientsin now. As the hub of financial, academic and journalistic activity in north China, and a leading trade entrepôt, Tientsin was full of useful contacts—foreign and Chinese. It was said that whilst decisions were made in Peking, to hear of them one needed to travel to Tientsin. Morrison had no need to convince himself of the benefits of going to Tientsin. He would depart forthwith.

  In Which We Are Introduced to Major Menzies

  and the Sound of a Lady’s Footsteps Rattles Our

  Hero’s Teacup

  ‘You looking forward to Tientsin, Kuan?’ Master and servant were at Ch’ien-men Station waiting for the train to Tientsin. It was Saturday, the fifth of March. ‘Good chow there, right?’

  ‘Number one. You want to eat Doggy Ignores Us buns?’

  ‘Mmm. Maybe.’ On their last trip, Kuan had taken him to a local eatery where Morrison had tried their famous meat buns, kou bu li b’ao-tzu. The buns were so popular that the chef, old ‘Doggy’ Kao, was too busy to chat to his customers, hence the name. Morrison was not entirely sure what distinguished them from other such buns he had tasted but he was reluctant to admit it. As Kuan suggested other local specialties they could try, including fried dough twists and mung-bean-and-sesame omelettes, Morrison’s mind wandered.

  How shall we greet each other in company? He wondered again why she had not written.

  Around them in the train carriage the vapours of a dozen cigars mingled with the invisible exhalations of men with rotting teeth and inflamed gums, reminding Morrison that he needed to make an appointment with the British dentist in Shanghai. Bothered by a sudden vision of Egan’s excellent teeth, Morrison levered open the window by his seat and was rewarded with a gust of cold air. He wrestled the sash back down. Noticing a Russian colonel he’d once met seated a few rows ahead, he got up to say hello but was unsurprised when his greeting wasn’t returned with much bonhomie.

  After some four restless hours, Tientsin appeared, rising from the alluvial plains. Though here too the Allied troops had laid waste to the centuries-old city walls, the odd gate and tower still stood sentinel. The train trumpeted its arrival into the station that serviced the foreign settlements with a long, piercing blast of its whistle.

  Stepping onto the platform, Morrison breathed deeply of the Tientsin air, saltier and more invigorating than that of closed, dusty Peking. He scarcely had time to stretch his legs when a clamour of ricksha pullers descended upon him and Kuan. Following a short but intense negotiation during which Kuan strode away twice, only to be rapidly called back, a pair of runners efficiently packed them and their belongings onto the cushioned seats.

  Morrison’s runner stepped smartly over the shaft and lifted the ricksha with such vigour that Morrison was forced to grab the side rails for balance. They took off at a trot, tracked briefly by a brown hawk in the cloudless blue sky.

  Morrison’s heart beat in time with the quick rhythmic slap of the runner’s feet on the macadamised road. As they crossed into the Italian Concession, the runner stopped to pay boundary tax to a pockmarked Chinese policeman and his curly-haired Roman counterpart. The transaction seemed to take forever. Then, crossing the iron bridge over the Pei-Ho River, they passed through the French Concession, its grey-tiled chateaux a mirage of Paris. Another taxation stop at the stone boundary post for the British Concession, a salute from a black-turbaned Sikh with a waxed moustache, and at last they joined the busy traffic of Victoria Road, Tientsin’s own Wall Street: hustling rickshas, broughams and drays; pale, important-looking men on horses; swarthy farmers with produce-laden wheelbarrows; and peddlers whose wares bounced off the ends of their carrying poles. North China’s richest city had electric lights and a working telephone exchange; the ricksha in which he was riding even had rubber tyres. Westerners, Russians, Japanese and Chinese traders, entrepreneurs and investors bustled in and out of the grand public buildings, banks, trading firms and mining companies that lined the street.

  If Peking was like a slow-moving, silk-gowned Mandarin who received his guests with rituals so arcane that one could learn more of his intentions from one’s place at his table than from his words, Tientsin—the foreign sector, anyway—was a smartly dressed comprador with a trilby and fluency in two or three languages, one of which was always business. The solidity of Victoria Road’s colonial architecture announced the British presence in the Far East as formidable and permanent. But on this day at least, the glories of empire were not foremost on Morrison’s agitated mind.

  Finally, they arrived at Victoria Park, a public garden built on land that was once a noisome swamp. A wrought-iron bandstand, paved walkways and an imposing fire bell adorned the park, which was intended for the pleasure of the foreign community—Chinese were admitted only if they were looking after the children of foreigners. Gothic Gordon Hall, with its cren
ulated battlements, guarded one side of the path and the colonnaded veranda of the Astor House Hotel, Morrison’s destination, faced another.

  In Tientsin the Boxers had fired more shells into the concessions than had fallen on South Africa’s Ladysmith during the famous four-month siege of the Boer War earlier that same year. The luxurious Astor House had taken its share of hits but was now restored to its former magnificence. It was a sign of the economic vigour of the foreign concessions—and the reparations forced upon the humiliated Chinese government—that the Astor House bore fewer scars than did the Great Wall at Dragon’s Head.

  Whilst Kuan looked after the runners, Morrison swept past the potted palms and into the elegant lobby, boots squeaking on the lindenwood parquet. The manager, Mr Morling, looked up from his desk under the regal staircase, his look of surprise quickly giving way to deference. ‘Dr Morrison. A pleasure to see you again.’

  ‘A pleasure to be back.’ Burning with impatience, Morrison followed the hotel boy down wood-panelled corridors to his room overlooking Victoria Park. It was fitted out with a pair of armchairs covered in an identical floral chintz to the curtains, a small table on which stood a porcelain vase of silk flowers, a dresser, a wardrobe and a double bed with an eiderdown quilt. The bedposts were turned in the Portuguese manner to resemble stacked wooden balls. It was not the grandest of the Astor House’s rooms and suites, but it was the best Morrison could afford. Seating himself at the escritoire whilst Kuan unpacked his bags, Morrison fired off a series of chits for Kuan to convey to his contacts in the city, letting them know that he would be calling. Dumas, sadly, was out of town until the morrow. He then strode through the pale sunshine of early spring to the home of a fellow Australian, Major George Fielding Menzies.