Juan in China

by Eric Linklater

  Eric Linklater

  JUAN IN CHINA

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  A Note on the Author

  NOTE

  The earlier adventures of Juan Motley – a lineal descendant of Byron’s Don Juan – were recorded in Juan in America.

  Towards the end of his sojourn in America, Juan met a young lady from China to whom he was much attracted. Circumstances, however, prevented him from pursuing the acquaintance.

  Some weeks later, when misfortune had temporarily reduced his spirit, he was rescued from defeatism – he had almost decided to enter his grandfather’s bank – by a newspaper paragraph that fortunately gave him news of Kuo Kuo and her intentions.

  She was going to join a Nudist Colony, governed by the well-known Dr Salvator, at Arroyo Beach on the coast of California. Juan immediately discovered that his plan of settling-down was premature, and determined to follow Kuo Kuo.

  His meeting with her, at Arroyo Beach, is described in the introductory chapter.

  END-PIECE

  Naked and ashamed, Juan had been a member of Dr Salvator’s Nudist Colony for five unhappy days. He had lived healthily in the sun, he had been urged to play solar games, to dance eurhythmically, and attend lectures on the Ethics of the Neo-Pagan Zeitgeist; and he had escaped these revolting activities only by insisting that what he most urgently needed was solitary meditation. His recent misadventures had somewhat diminished the natural fortitude of his spirit, and the proximity of so much obviously corruptible flesh was beginning to create in him an almost vegetarian disfavour. Nostalgic thoughts came to his mind of tweed suits, white waistcoats, and fine frocks for ladies; and he listened angrily to Mr Lippincott, the oldest nudist, who sat beside him in a deck-chair.

  ‘In the midst of an effete and decadent civilization,’ Mr Lippincott was saying, ‘we nudists stand for an heroic effort to recapture the grand old virtues and the vital body-urge of primitive man.’

  ‘I deny your assumption,’ said Juan rudely. ‘From China to Spain the world is seething in war and rebellion, hissing with industrial strife, bubbling over with military philosophies and martial economies. How can you say that our civilization is effete when its most obvious symptoms are the warts and pimples and boils of an indecently robust adolescence?’

  ‘That is a very interesting point of view,’ said Mr Lippincott. ‘But the unnatural standards of modern life and the hectic gaiety of our great cities… Pardon me while I go fetch that ball.’

  He rose from his chair and amiably pursued a large red-and-white air-ball that rolled flightily down the beach to a whispering blue sea. He was a shrivelled little man with rimless eye-glasses and a gallinaceous rump. Forty yards away, slender, expectant, and golden-brown, stood three ripely nubile girls who had lately, with graceful movements, been tossing the ball from one to another. In a rude arc of the neighbouring cliffs was another group of nudists, some twenty-five or thirty, many of them middle-aged and scarcely at ease as they squatted on the sand. They were listening to a deep-chested woman who, in a hoarse contralto, stood in their midst, and recited a poem by Gertrude Stein. Her words reached faintly to the sea’s antiphon that rustled the sand:

  ‘If she bowed. To her brother. Which was. A fact. That is.

  If she bowed. Which. If she bowed. Which she did. She bowed to her brother.

  Which she did. She bowed to her brother. Or rather. Which she did. She bowed to her brother. Or rather which she did she bowed to her brother.’

  Scattered along the beach, ambulatory or in supine contemplation of the sun, were the other members of the colony. Few could claim aesthetic justification for their nakedness, but those who had less cause for pride in it were more conscious of their merit in its display. Juan, bare as the others except for a hat – the sun shone hotly – deflected his gaze from the three young women who were waiting for their ball, and looked instead at two elderly thigh-shrunken gentlemen whose conversation, as they walked to and fro, was earnestly of lumbago and the healing power of light. After five days in the colony he was still subject to occasional embarrassment.

  He was, moreover, worried by the non-appearance of Kuo Kuo. He had come to Arroyo Beach in the expectation of finding her already in residence, but despite the difficulty of recognizing anybody except the most intimate of friends, he had soon made sure that she was not there. Now he wondered uneasily whether she had changed her mind and had no intention of coming. If that were so, he was wasting his time in this unnecessary New Congo, and had shocked his modesty for nothing. He had no faith in the benefit of gregarious nakedness, and there was no pleasure to be got from looking at it. To contemplate it was either aesthetically distressing or socially disconcerting. He wished he had been less headstrong in his movements, and had learnt what Kuo Kuo’s plans really were before trying to anticipate them.

  Mr Lippincott returned to his chair. ‘As I was about to say,’ he continued, ‘the current trend towards elementals is an index of man’s capacity for survival. There is, in our racial preconsciousness, a system closely akin to the traffic lights in our great cities. We call that system Instinct or Intuition, and when it shows the red light we know it’s time to turn around and ride back to Nature.…’

  Again Mr Lippincott was interrupted. With a sudden exclamation Juan sat up and stared at two figures walking towards them along the level beach. One was Dr Salvator, decently clothed in the lion-skin he used for the receiving of visitors; the other, slim as a reed, was a girl in a pale green Chinese dress, a narrow dress as straight and nearly as simple as the green skin of a reed. She came nearer with small quiet movements, like tall grass shaken by the wind, and her hair was bright as black lacquer in the sun. Juan was immediately torn by the most painfully conflicting emotions. He was delighted to see her, and appalled at the prospect of being seen. He was very excited, and exceedingly abashed. He acutely despised the disorder of his mind, and was ill-naturedly jealous of Mr Lippincott’s equanimity. ‘An Oriental, I presume,’ said Mr Lippincott. ‘There’s room for many guests in Nature’s mansion.’ Juan was tempted to flee, and prevented by fear of seeming still more ridiculous. Before he could resolve his emotions Dr Salvator had turned towards them, waved a muscular arm in their direction, and confronted them with a countenance as leonine as his costume.

  ‘Mr Lippincott and Mr Motley,’ he exclaimed. ‘Let me present Miss Kuo Kuo; Mr Lippincott, Mr Motley. Miss Kuo Kuo is a visitor from China.’

  Juan raised his hat. ‘How do you do,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you remember me.…’

  Suddenly as the serenity of a goldfish-bowl is ruffled by a cat’s paw, the ivory smoothness of her face was ruffled by laughter. Neither recognition, nor surprise at the circumstances of recognition, had changed the placidity of her eyes or the soft firmness of her lips, but laughter in a moment took and dispossessed them of calm. She laughed aloud, and louder than anyone could have expected. It was very musical and pleasant laughter. At another time and in another place it might have been compared to the ringing of many little bells among a greenery of bamboos; or to the filling of the summer air w
ith the music of pigeon-wing pipes, as the Chinese so agreeably practise. But it was more unexpected than the former, and louder than the latter. It was incongruously loud and hearty, coming as it did from a person of so delicate a shape and such exquisite features. Dr Salvator was manifestly indignant. Mr Lippincott took off his eye-glasses, felt for a handkerchief with which to polish them, and failed to find one. And all the surrounding nudists, rising like penguins at a zoo when the keeper comes with fish, rose and came slowly, slow and bewildered, towards the noise of the little bells in the spinney of bamboos, to the shrilling of the pigeon-wing pipes.

  Furiously angry, Juan put on his hat and walked stiffly away. He squared his shoulders. His demeanour was extraordinarily dignified, but his straw hat seemed either redundant or inadequate. He felt, in his dignified retreat, its redundancy – or inadequacy – and threw it away. Kuo Kuo was still laughing.

  ‘To hell and disaster with nudism!’ Juan exclaimed. ‘That’s the finish of it for me. I’ll take off my clothes to swim and to sleep and to die and make love, but God forsake me if ever again I undress on principle.’

  With force and ingenuity he continued to curse himself for his folly and Dr Salvator for his charlatanism till he came to the colony’s headquarters. There, from a Filipino servant, he demanded his suitcases, and rapidly dressed. After the indignity of five days of nudism, the humiliation of being laughed at was unbearable. He was going to leave the colony at once.

  He filled the tank of his shabby second-hand motor-car with Dr Salvator’s petrol, and drove to the imposing iron gates that protected the nudists from the world without. While he was waiting for them to be opened he heard Salvator’s voice booming and thundering behind him, and turning he saw the Doctor and Kuo Kuo, with servants pursuing them who carried a steamer trunk, a cabin-trunk, three suit-cases, a dressing-case, and a couple of hat-boxes. Perceiving the civilized profusion of Kuo Kuo’s wardrobe, and correctly guessing that she had already been expelled from the colony, Juan was immediately conscious of a warm and grateful sympathy with her. – Being decently dressed, he was again capable of generous emotion. – He got out of his car and waited.

  ‘Why, Mr Motley, you’re not leaving us, are you?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘I am,’ said Juan.

  ‘Now I realize you’ve been grossly insulted, and believe me I deplore it. But this is the first time our colony has been profaned by foolish laughter, and I give you my word that never again will you suffer a like embarrassment.’

  ‘I certainly shall not.’

  ‘The human body—’

  ‘Is greatly indebted to human tailors, shirtmakers, breeches-makers, bootmakers, couturiers, milliners, and haberdashers. If nudism prevails, then all will be ruined; and their faculty of invention – so much more ingenious than Nature’s, which can’t give us any larger variety than a chest and a breast – will be entirely lost. And why should Nature be flattered for doing slovenly, slipshod, ill-cut work that no tailor would be seen dead with? Look at Mrs Wibloe, Miss Urt, and Mr Lippincott: do you think any decent tailor would sell you a suit as badly cut, poorly finished, and shoddily lined as they are? You can have Nature if you want her, but give me tailors. For their sake I’m going to remain orthodox, unnatural, and well-dressed; so if you’ll tell your servants to put Miss Kuo’s luggage in my car…’

  ‘I have rather a lot, I’m afraid.’

  ‘The more the better,’ said Juan.

  ‘You are throwing away your chance to lead a simple healthy life in communion with the primal forces of earth,’ shouted Dr Salvator; and clutched his lion-skin.

  ‘That is my exact intention,’ Juan answered, and noisily started his engine. ‘Where shall I take you?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kuo Kuo. ‘What a pity I laughed. Now I shall have all the trouble of making new plans.’

  The admirable road stretched smooth and almost white before them. It was made of cement and stained by the excreted oil of many motorcars. There was nothing natural about it. It was a magnificent road, and it ran for hundreds of miles through country in which Nature was everywhere in obvious and proper servitude to humanity. Villas and oil-wells spoke of her subjection. Spanish architecture and gas stations proved it. Straight-eights, high-tension cables, and hot-dog stands triumphantly proclaimed the sovranty of Man. To hell with Nature, thought Juan, and was happier than he had been for a week.

  ‘I’m going to San Francisco,’ he said. ‘To the biggest, newest, noisiest, most abominably over-heated, and absurdly luxurious hotel I can find.’

  ‘It sounds horrible.’

  ‘It sounds delightful. After five days of nudism one has a craving for the superfluities of civilization.’

  ‘Why did you go to Arroyo Beach?’

  ‘I thought you were going.’

  ‘And if I had gone there first, and you had come later and seen me undressed, you might have been the one to laugh.’

  ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t.’

  ‘There is a great difference between men and women,’ said Kuo Kuo.

  ‘Life has its compensations,’ answered Juan. ‘Why not come to San Francisco with me?’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be rather improper, as we are almost strangers?’

  ‘How nice of you to take it like that.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t, if that isn’t what you meant. In any case I am certainly not going with you, to San Francisco or anywhere else.’

  ‘But we aren’t really strangers. We’re acquaintances, and I’m very fond of acquaintances. I’ve always been willing to give two old friends for one new acquaintance. It takes so long to get used to an old friend.’

  ‘But if acquaintances live more lightly, it is because they have no burdens to carry, of friendship and consideration.’

  ‘I dislike burdens,’ said Juan, ‘and at my back I often hear Time’s winged chariot changing gear.’

  ‘That is nonsense. In China we are never afraid of Time. The days are our servants, not our masters.’

  ‘So in China the business of courtship is a fairly long one?’

  ‘Very long indeed,’ said Kuo Kuo.

  ‘And are Chinese marriages always happy?’

  ‘No, not always. It depends on who is married, of course. My father had seven wives – my mother was the fifth – and they were all rather frightened of him. They used to run and hide when he came in. But most of them were quite happy, I think.’

  ‘And would you be happy with a husband who had seven wives?’

  ‘Why not, if they were all friendly and agreeable?’

  ‘You must come to San Francisco,’ said Juan.

  ‘But I am really a serious person, and I cannot go idly to places, for no purpose or reason.’

  ‘Then why were you going to Arroyo Beach?’

  ‘Because I thought there would be very silly people there, and I could learn things from them that can’t be learnt from wise people.’

  ‘I often behave foolishly myself.’

  ‘But are you as foolish as your actions?’

  ‘Most decidedly not.’

  ‘Then what could I learn from you?’

  ‘If I were a jazz singer, a torch singer, a radio minstrel, a whispering baritone or a crooner, I might tell you. But the words have been battered and tattered and flattened and flayed till everyone else is ashamed to use them.’

  ‘I think I shall not come to San Francisco,’ said Kuo Kuo.

  Juan stopped the car. ‘I think you ought to.’

  Kuo Kuo twisted round, lifted her knees on to the seat, and gravely faced him. Her eyebrows were outward-curving, black and thin, as proud and delicate as a peewit’s crest. Her lips were like the rose-flaws in a pied magnolia, her chin was narrow and round. ‘I am Chinese,’ she said, ‘and in China to-day there is so much misery that to look for pleasure would make me a traitor to my country.’

  Juan was unwilling to accommodate his mind to such heroic seriousness. He was fairly ignorant about China. The name created for him
little more than a blurred image of enormous yellow plains, a gigantic and crenellated brown wall, pagodas, umbrella’d armies, sampans in the deep gorges of the Yangtze, and Li Po fishing for the moon. ‘I think you’re taking too solemn a view,’ he said. ‘If we were all as preoccupied as that with our national problems…’

  ‘We might solve our national problems.’

  ‘Now you’re being totally unreasonable,’ said Juan. ‘You’re talking like the guest of honour at a Rotarian breakfast who’s graduated from selling bonds to selling Utopias. I believe – well, I’ve never thought about it till now, but I’m quite sure I believe – that the world is spasmodically getting better, but that nine out of ten amateur reformers only succeed in leaving banana-skins on the pavement. The less we interfere with a biological process the better.’

  ‘That is a very Chinese thing to say. For four thousand years we have done nothing but mind our own business, and now China is being destroyed by bandits and Communists and opium and the Japanese and our own inefficiency.’

  ‘But I don’t see what you can do…’

  ‘When the proper time comes, I can fight.’

  Juan looked sceptically at her hands and narrow wrists.

  ‘You do not need much strength to fire a machine-gun,’ she said. ‘When I came to America, which is the modern country of the world, I thought I would meet some philosopher who knew as much about modern times as Confucius knew about his. But the most honest man I have met was a soldier. So I asked him to teach me about machine-guns; and he did.’

  Juan by chance had stopped the car about fifty yards from a wayside petrol pump. Beside the pump was a stall displaying cigarettes, chewing-gum, crackers, fruit, and soft drinks. The pump was a golden yellow, and the framework of the stall was bright red. They looked very smart, and compared with the grey thought of machine-guns they were comforting to the mind and agreeable to the eye. Juan got out and bought two cardboard-sealed bottles of milk.

  ‘You’ll need to build yourself up if you’re going to handle a machine-gun,’ he said. ‘Have you ever fired one?’