Juan in China

by Eric Linklater

  A large fish, very ugly to look at and dressed with a sweet-sour sauce, was brought in and rapidly pulled to pieces. Then came a couple of chickens, chopped into gobbets, and after them a great bowl of vegetable soup. A dish of pork succeeded that, followed by bean-curd and a fat duck. Intermittently they drank hot wine, poured from a tea-pot into little cups. It seemed that the polite and friendly thing to do was to salute one of the party with a cry of ‘Kanpei!’ – which was Chinese for No Heel-taps, or Bottoms Up – and swallow the wine at a gulp. Conscious of his deficiency with chopsticks, Juan determined to show his proficiency with wine. ‘Kanpei!’ he exclaimed to Miss Min. ‘Kanpei!’ she whispered in reply. He drank Kanpeis with everyone whose eye he caught. He drank one with Kuo Kuo, who sat farthest from him.

  ‘I wish you’d tell me what you’re all talking about,’ he said to her.

  ‘We’re discussing terms for uniting the Conquering Youth of China with the Student Volunteers and the Death-Defying Corps of the National Salvation Association.’

  ‘I hope the Japanese don’t get to hear about that,’ said Juan.

  ‘They have many spies in Shanghai,’ said Mr Min.

  Juan turned to Miss Min. ‘Are you interested in politics?’ he asked,

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then what do you do on a wet afternoon?’

  Softly she breathed, ‘I go to the pictures.’

  More dishes were brought to the table, which was now so crowded that it was impossible to distinguish them or remember the sequence of courses. None of the earlier dishes had been removed, and a great confusion lay there of broken meats, abandoned fish, and little birds limed in dark gravy. Juan drank Kanpeis with a man who wore hornrimmed spectacles, and with another who grew a soft thin beard. The wine was not strong.

  ‘Who is your favourite film star?’Juan asked Miss Min.

  She hung her head and murmured shyly, ‘I don’t know.’

  After a long time, when the table was unbelievably congested, the dinner came to an end. Apparently some conclusion had also been reached in the discussion about the union of the Student Volunteers, the Conquering Youth, and the Death-Defying Corps of the National Salvation Association; for after a violent coda the conversation suddenly expired, and everybody got up and prepared to go. They all spoke politely to Juan – but in Chinese – and he felt as remote from the party as the Severn from the Yellow River.

  He was last, and alone, as they left the derelict room. Passing an open door some two or three yards along the passage, he saw, at a half-disclosed table, a Japanese who had been aboard the Empress of Hawaii, and with him a figure so familiar, and so wholly unexpected, that for a second Juan stood motionless in the hypnotism of utter astonishment. It was a bulky and tough-seeming man with a face carved out of brightly coloured rock – blue where he shaved and elsewhere brick-red – and the last occasion on which Juan had seen him was when, with Red-eye Rod Gehenna and Wonny the Weeper, he had come with equal unexpectedness to Egret Island. It was Rocco, Red-eye’s bodyguard, who had punched him with merciless force and precision, at Red-eye’s orders, because his daughter Lalage said she had been integrated. Where was Lalage now, and who shared with the palms and the azure sea the solitude of that lovely island? And what was Rocco doing in Shanghai?

  Juan went into the room, and the Japanese immediately rose with an exclamation of pleasure and a smile that revealed several gold-capped teeth. He had joined the Empress of Hawaii at Yokohama, and as they were both of a friendly disposition, he and Juan had rapidly become acquainted. His name was Hikohoki.

  ‘Mr Motley!’ he said, ‘I am rejoiced to see you again. You will join us and have some refreshment? Let me introduce my friend Colonel Rocco.’

  Recognition showed in Rocco’s bright little eyes. ‘Well, for Christ’s sake!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘We’ve already met,’ said Juan.

  ‘I’ll say we have.’

  ‘Your promotion’s been rapid, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe it has.’

  ‘So you are old friends?’ said Hikohoki. ‘That will aggravate your pleasure considerably, and we must celebrate your happy reunion. Sit down, Mr Motley, and we shall drink some Chinese wine.’

  ‘I’d like to, but some people are waiting for me outside.’

  Hikohoki, hissing politely, expressed his regret.

  ‘But perhaps we shall meet again,’ said Juan.

  ‘I am rejoiced to think so.’

  ‘Good-bye, Rocco.’

  Rocco made a surly gesture of farewell, and Hikohoki bowed from the waist. Very much puzzled by Rocco’s presence in Shanghai, and his acquisition of a military title, Juan left them and hurried down the narrow stairs. Outside he heard a confusion of human noise, as though a great crowd were passing. The pavement was filled with the untidy fringes of a procession. The main body had passed, with banners and torches. There was a good deal of thin shouting.

  ‘That was a demonstration, I suppose,’ thought Juan, and looked for Kuo and her friends.

  But they had disappeared. They had either been swept into and away by the crowd, or come out in time to escape it. There was no sign of them. In the wake of the procession the street was almost empty. Its innumerable coloured banners, painted with Chinese cryptograms, depended on vacant pavements. They were red and black, red with black ideographs, and black with gold. They were red and gold, and red and white. Red was a brave colour in a crowd but sinister in the shuttered half-darkness of an empty street. And Juan had forgotten the way back to his hotel.

  He turned left, by chance, and walked for some distance under the gently moving banners. The unmeaning characters fascinated him, and the more he looked at them the stronger became his conviction that their purpose was rather to delight the eye than inform the mind. Instruction or communication was a secondary affair, significant form came first. The Chinese were artists, and so long as their writing was aesthetically satisfying, what matter though its meaning were dubious or none at all. ‘Kanpei, China!’ he exclaimed, and was startled by the sound of his voice in the quiet street. It occurred to him that Chinese wine might be less innocuous than he had supposed. And what, he thought again, what was Rocco doing in Shanghai?

  He continued a little farther, and presently, on either side of the street, he was surprised to see Roman characters easy to decipher. The Daisy, he read; Happyland, Forget-me-not, and Tumble Inn. These, he decided, were some of the several hundred resorts where Shanghailanders – those famous night-hawks – took their nocturnal pleasure. Their occupants would therefore speak English, and so could direct him to his hotel. He chose the modest entrance of The Daisy, and, passing a somnolent Chinaman, opened a frosted glass door and looked inside. Opposite him, in a silent row, were seven youngish women with blank expressions, and one older, with copper-coloured hair and a robust figure. She rose briskly as Juan looked in.

  ‘Zdrástvitye!’ she greeted him. ‘Come inside. Come and have a good time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Juan. ‘Merci bien,’ he added, deciding with an assurance clarified by Chinese wine that French was the more appropriate language for such an occasion.

  ‘Je serais ravi,’ he continued…

  ‘Ce serait tout le contraire,’ Madame courteously interposed.

  ‘… de faire la connaissance de toutes vos jeunes filles – bon soir, mes chères – mais il y a une faite intransigeante qui m’empèche. Je cherche mon hôtel.’

  ‘Mais pourquoi?’ said Madame. ‘Vous l’avez trouvee.’

  ‘Pas du tout,’ said Juan firmly. ‘Je veux dire, j’ai perdu ma route, et si vous aurez la bonte de me montrer la vie…’

  ‘Bien sûr! Par ici, m’sieur!’

  ‘Non. Non pas la vie. Je veux dire la rue. Ou la route. La route à mon hotel.’

  ‘You don’t speak any English?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Juan indignantly.

  ‘Then sit down and let us have a drink. Boy!’ she called. ‘Piva! It is good beer, only the best
. Put on the gramophone, Sonia. The gentleman wants to dance.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Juan. ‘I want to go back to my hotel.’

  ‘You like blonde or brunette? There is Stasha, she has a good figure. She dances well, too. Stasha, come and dance with the gentleman.’

  A fair-haired young woman, apparently the youngest there, came and stood so close to Juan that her corsage brushed his cheek. Madame took his hat and gloves. ‘Help him. lift off his coat,’ she said.

  Still protesting, Juan was pulled to his feet, his overcoat was removed, and Stasha, tightly holding him, bunted him into the middle of the narrow floor. A desolate wild music came from the gramophone. It was the gipsy song Black Eyes. Stasha, her mouth at his right ear, began to sing it in a hard and vibrant tone. In a futile effort to escape this irritation, Juan danced with great energy.

  The song finished with a scratch, the needle scraped, and the noise stopped. Juan turned and saw all the young women sitting at the table with bottles of beer in front of them. A Chinese waiter gave him the bill.

  ‘Now look here,’ he said. ‘I really am going. I must go. And if you’ll tell me the way…’

  ‘Drink your beer,’ said Madame. ‘It’s early yet. We’ll have a good time.’

  ‘Za váshe zdaróvye!’ cried the young women, and drank heartily.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Juan. ‘But I simply can’t stay.’

  ‘Maybe you like a brunette better? Try Olga next time,’ said Madame.

  Before Juan could answer, the door was smoothly opened, and to his great relief Mr Hikohoki came in.

  ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘So we have met again already. You like girls? So do I. They have always been my principal hobby.’

  ‘I only came in to ask the way to my hotel,’ said Juan. ‘I’m in a great hurry to get back.’

  Mr Hikohoki made a hissing sound that indicated sympathy. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘This is not a very good place. But there is a better one not far away. Really high-class. I will take you there.’

  This suggestion was instantly and angrily opposed. The young women grew shrilly indignant, and Madame – her mind in a tumult that revealed itself in the agitation of her hands, her bosom, her eyes, and her speech – assailed Mr Hikohoki with indescribable fury; who answered her with equal vehemence. They argued in a mixture of Russian, Japanese, and English, and Hikohoki, though the poorer linguist, had so much the better of the debate that in a few minutes Madame was reduced to impotent muttering.

  ‘Let us go now,’ said Mr Hikohoki.

  ‘He must pay for the beer,’ said Madame.

  ‘Of course!’ said Mr Hikohoki.

  Juan paid the bill, and wished the ladies good night. They did not answer.

  ‘And now,’ said Mr Hikohoki, ‘we shall go to a more fashionable place, where there is very good tone and many high-class girls.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Juan, ‘but I’m going straight to my hotel.’

  Having protested and pleaded and word-painted in vain, Mr Hikohoki shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘As you will. There are times when I also do not care for even the most refined pleasure. You are staying at the New Celestial Hotel, are you not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That is where I am, so we can go together. It is a good hotel, but do not buy anyjade from the shop they recommend. It is too expensive. Also silk. There is very good jade, very good silk, in Shanghai, but if you want the best and also the cheapest you must buy at some places I shall tell you. I shall arrange special low price for you, which I always do for my friends.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘It is nothing. I am rejoiced to be helpful.’

  ‘How did you persuade that woman to let me out of her nightclub?’

  Mr Hikohoki made his amiable hissing noise. ‘It was quite easy. I told her she would be discharged for rudeness to a customer. We have a motto, in such places, that the customer is always right.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I am a director of The Daisy. I am also a director of The Happy Valley, to which I would have taken you. It is a most interesting avocation, to be a director of night-clubs.’

  ‘And profitable?’

  ‘Sometimes it is happily remunerative, but we have suffered from the depression, of course. And now, when we of the business community desire only the loyal co-operation and esteem of China and the rest of the world, we are encountered with waves of hatred and suspicion. They are difficult times, but I am not without hope for the future.’

  Dark banners and the golden ideographs hung over tenantless streets. From the innumerable town behind them came faintly, because they were far off and untranslatable, the sounds of anger and excitement. In front of them rose the tall and solid strength of European buildings, and yellow in the misty darkness shone the lights of ships in the river. Mr Hikohoki spoke of Japan’s unbounded sympathy for China.

  ‘What,’ said Juan, ‘is Rocco doing here?’

  ‘Colonel Rocco? He is Military Adviser to a Chinese general called Wu Tu-fu.’

  ‘Good God!’

  They crossed a bridge. In the Soochow Creek lay a countless fleet of sampans, side by side, odorous and over-populated and twinkling with the glow of their little fires. ‘The Orient,’ said Mr Hikohoki, ‘has been lashed and washed by the stormy waves of civilization, but undoubtedly the present crisis is merely lurking under the verge of a golden age. Japan is forging ahead with full sail on the sea of world politics, and both emotionally and rationally we perceive that our destiny is to establish order out of chaos in the whirligig of the Far East. May I inquire whether you are interested in Life Insurance?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ said Juan.

  ‘You are making a great mistake. If you are staying in Shanghai there will certainly be danger to your life and limbs, and it is your duty to think of the plight of your near and dear ones should their breadwinner become demised.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever done much breadwinning.’

  ‘That is only a figure of speech. It includes the other comestibles and necessaries of life. Now I am agent for the Nippon Provident and Mutual Welfare Insurance Company, Incorporated, and as your friend I shall see that you will get the most highly favourable terms. We can also insure your personal effects against fire and burglary at excessively low rates.’

  ‘What are your rates for happiness?’ said Juan gloomily.

  They had come to the elaborate bronze doors of the New Celestial Hotel, and Juan was suddenly afraid that Kuo might not be there. Love’s cowardice attacked him, and he thought the roaring procession might have confused her; or she had deserted him, being more deeply in love with China. Abruptly he said good night to Mr Hikohoki, avoided him, and caught an ascending lift.

  Kuo Kuo was in their room. She also had been afraid. She ran to him, and threw her arms round his neck, and clung to him.

  ‘You’re making a fool of me,’ said Juan. ‘I was frightened you wouldn’t be here, and my bowels felt like a cold sponge.’

  ‘Where have you been? I thought you were lost, and I remembered I had treated you badly – I didn’t speak to you at dinner, I wasn’t nice to you – and I was miserable. Juan, do you love me?’

  ‘I love nothing else.’

  ‘But where have you been?’

  Juan picked her up, carried her to a deep chair, sat down, and settled her on his knee. ‘I took the wrong turning,’ he said, ‘and you’ve got to thank Hikohoki – you remember him on the Hawaii? – for bringing me back to you. He found me at; a critical moment, when hope was waning, and led me home.’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘We discussed international politics. He told me that Japan was China’s truest friend, and tried to sell me life insurance.’

  Kuo Kuo sat up. ‘He is a spy,’ she said. ‘He is in the Secret Police.’

  ‘Honeyheart,’ said Juan, ‘milk of Paradise, blissful, heartsease, my soul’s adrenalin; you’re talking nonsense. He told me the best
place to buy silk underwear.’

  ‘That is his cover. He is either engaged in espionage or counterespionage. That means he may think that you are a spy.’

  ‘My darling…’

  ‘Don’t call me darling in that tone of voice.’

  ‘Well, you’re talking poppycock, balderdash, and double-bottomed hooey. Hikohoki’s a tout, and nothing more.’

  ‘I know more about affairs in China than you do.’

  ‘And I know more about every thing else.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you learnt to be sensible?’

  ‘Campaspe by her beauty,’ said Juan, ‘so enslaved the philosopher Aristotle that she could, when she so desired, drive him round the town like a beast of burden. And who was Campaspe? A Peloponnesian trollop, a fly-by-night under the Acropolis, a two-dollar pushover in Piraeus. Shall I compare her to you? A short-in-the-heel garlic-eating Greek? Compare her with white jade and the first day of spring, which are the only things to be remotely compared with you? The mere thought of it shames me. Nor shall I put myself on a par with Aristotle. But if he was a fool for Campaspe, haven’t I a lien on lunacy under the new moon of China?’

  Kuo sighed. ‘You do talk a lot.’

  ‘We men of action are incurably loquacious,’ said Juan complacently.

  But when he turned out the light and opened the window he felt less assured; for the silver shafts that tunnelled the darkness over Shanghai were not the rays of a Chinese moon but searchlights from a Japanese cruiser.

  Chapter 2

  Frightened people from the outer parts of Shanghai were beginning to invade the Foreign Settlement. They came in motor-cars, on foot, in rickshaws, and pushing wheelbarrows. The more prosperous brought such of their possessions as they thought were valuable or immediately useful; the poor,took with them everything they could carry. The rich could afford to be sensible, to abandon the greater part of their property; but to the poor it seemed that every trifle they owned was part of their lives, and they had burdened themselves with all the penny furniture of their tiny rooms. The less poor, the not-wholly poor, sat four or five together in rickshaws, huddled on each other’s knees, children in the crook of an arm or the corner of a lap, with that gift for occupying a minimum of space which is a pitiful faculty of all the poor. Their possessions were tied in dark bundles, and often there was a girl who carried a bird in a yellow cage. The rickshaw coolies, sweating in front of such heavy loads, moved slowly with bent shoulders. They scowled and grimaced as they strove to keep their places in the fleeing column, but their expression had no more meaning than the solemnity of an old horse in a mill.