Juan in China

by Eric Linklater

  It’s too long a story.’

  ‘I can listen.’

  ‘Not profitably. How do you like Shanghai?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I’ll give you another chance: why are the Chinese so different from us?’

  ‘That’s easy. They’ve never been taught that God made them in His own image.’

  ‘So they’ve avoided our particular kind of seriousness?’

  ‘Yes; they’ve very little sense of tragedy – some of the younger ones have, but it’s not native to China – because they don’t feel our ingrown belief in the special importance of Man. Their world isn’t as anthropocentric as ours.’

  ‘That sounds very authoritative.’

  ‘It’s my business to say things that sound authoritative.’

  Juan looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘So you’re not one of my devoted readers?’ asked Harriet.

  ‘God save us, are you an author?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you like them?’

  ‘I knew a girl once, who was writing a novel, and she took notes of every word I said to her and every movement I made.’

  ‘We’ve got to live, you know. And it’s a hard life for the modern hack. We work all over the world nowadays, not in Grub Street. I was in Harbin a week ago, and only got out by the skin of my teeth.’

  Harriet’s profession was the purveying of vicarious adventure to people whose circumstances or temperament made it impossible for them to enjoy any personal experience of antres vast or anthropophagi. She had a talent for writing, which had grown with practice; a taste for reckless experiment and distant scenery, which time was diminishing; and a very reasonable contract with a fairly good publisher. At twenty-eight she had walked across the Congo, the Kalahari Desert, and part of Cambodia; she had been the mistress of a Mexican general, a Rumanian poet, and a very good-looking American marine; and she had written several books in which she described – often quite truthfully – the peculiarities of the countries she had visited and the persons with whom she had associated. In spite of the exacting demands on her mind and body that a life so arduous had made, her constitution was unimpaired, and her mental attitude was healthy, humorous, and fresh. She was about to visit Bias Bay in company with a former pirate who had become a convert to the Christian faith, and amassed a respectable fortune; a project which everyone assured her was extremely rash.

  ‘I fling my soul and body down for literature to plough them under,’ she said, ‘and every year I come up as green as ever.’

  ‘But you can’t enjoy things very much, when you’re doing them deliberately to fill another chapter.’

  ‘Oh yes, you can. You cut and dry your plans, but enjoyment comes of its own accord.’

  Juan was disposed to see in this last statement an approximate truth. His own enjoyment had grown so imperceptibly, yet with such steady progression, that to have accounted for its nourishment in terms of food and wine and Harriet would have been possible only to the most inhuman intelligence. That Harriet was chiefly responsible for its production he readily admitted. But did Harriet behave so agreeably to everyone she met? Perish the thought. Their mutual benevolence was unique; between Harriet and anyone else there might have arisen a kindness of some sort, but a kindness that was subtly different and certainly inferior to this that now filled him with such pleasure. Harriet was a gallant creature. Lovely, bedworthy, and full of character. He was very fond of her, and detected a responsive warmth. Hence, of course, enjoyment. A bio-chemical reaction. But was it worth the trouble to find a formula for it? It was easier, and perhaps more amply true, to say that it came of its own accord. Putting the cart before the horse, he then decided that enjoyment was the most superlative kind of eye-opener, for now he could see that Harriet had such a catalogue of beauty as had seldom been entrusted to five and a half feet of female being. Her hands were slim and finely shaped; good. Her hair was brown and bright as a hazel-nut; excellent. Her eyes were candid and sea-gull grey, her mouth wide and well-shaped, her breasts as round and seeming-firm as demi-oranges; the world was God’s great success. And who had ever seen a more agreeable waist, an ankle more trimly turned, a neater nose? The world went singing through galactic space.

  ‘Let’s go and dance,’ he said.

  There was, on the topmost floor of the New Celestial, a little ballroom where people, on a space inadequate for dancing, could nevertheless circulate in a close embrace for which music provided the conventional alias, The orchestra consisted of a piano, two steel guitars, and a serpentine, green-gowned, husky-throated lady from the Philippine Islands.

  The floor was even more crowded than usual, for all but two or three of Shanghai’s innumerable night-clubs had been closed because of the war. – Through one of the windows the sky shone red as blood, and into the scarlet firmament leapt windy tongues of flame and fountains of bright sparks. All afternoon Chapei had been shelled and bombed, and now the squalid streets were burning like a palace. There were forty two-backed dancers, swimming up the current of the steel guitars like elvers in a moonlit ditch, with pliant limbs and mutual come-and-go, who performed their ritual exercise in honour of new-born Aphrodite. The green-gowned lady from the Philippine Islands leaned over the piano, lavishly displaying her teeth and her tongue, the gulf of her bosom and the whites of her eyes, and sang more sweetly than honey, as sweet as saccharine:

  ‘Kiss by kiss, you’re making me care,

  Kiss by kiss, I’m falling in love with you!’

  Like seaweed in this compulsive tide, the double spines of the dancers swayed, their heads precariously balancing on toppling piles of vertebrae, their thighs in restless apposition.

  ‘Wonderful child, I’m nearly wild,

  Love was a stranger to me.’

  sang the priestess of Aphrodite; an Aphrodite not born in the foam, in the fair-haired waves of the sea, in the brine and the desolate beauty of the ocean, but in the heavy black fields of America’s Congo, to drowse an exile and to comfort slaves.

  ‘This,’ said Juan, having danced for ten minutes or more, ‘is not what I want. I’m no snob, and I am not repelled by other people’s idea of pleasure. But, at the moment, this is not my cup of tea.’

  ‘Nor mine,’ said Harriet.

  They left the hotel and walked on the riverside of the Bund. The bridge that crossed the Soochow Creek was heavily guarded, but in the Creek there were still sampans tied side by side, and families living in them by the heat of a diminutive fire. The black water was striped with the reflection of flames from the red sky over Chapei, and in the night air was the bitter smell of burning.

  Juan and Harriet turned and walked the other way. The Bund was almost deserted, but here and there, on a high sentry-box, stood a Sikh policeman muffled in his greatcoat. They could faintly hear the roar and crackle of the burning streets.

  ‘I’ve no sentimental objections to war,’ said Harriet. ‘I only resent its dullness.’

  ‘The poor alternative of kill or be killed?’

  ‘The worse alternative of right or wrong; which is like walking with a patch on one eye.’

  ‘War’s degenerated,’ said Juan. ‘It used to be a craft, but now it’s only a factory-product.’

  ‘Yes; but don’t let’s get serious about the world. It’s crazy, but I like it’

  ‘So do I. But I thought you hankered after melancholy and I was doing my best to help you. Where do you live?’

  ‘In a very small furnished flat off Nanking Road,’

  ‘Can we go there?’

  ‘I suppose so. But…’

  ‘The only choice for a sensible mind is to be in love or to laugh at things. Heads is Venus, and tails Voltaire, if you like to put it so. And I prefer Cyprian obverse, because too much laughter is rather sterilizing. Also I like the shape of your finger-nails, the sound of your voice, and the thirty-eight other parts of your whole perfection. So I think we ought to go to your flat.’

  An amah, with a face like a shrivelled fruit
, opened the door and let them into a small and not very comfortable apartment. Juan helped Harriet to take off her coat.

  ‘You haven’t even the excuse that you admire my books,’ she said.

  ‘Doesn’t a female author like to be loved for herself alone?’

  ‘Yes, terribly. But I’d like you to read my books as well.’

  ‘I shall. All of them. But not to-night.’

  ‘I’m not really used to this sort of thing. I mean so suddenly. I’ve generally had weeks and weeks to make up my mind, as well as the most serious attentions.’

  ‘But you’re only going to be here for a few days longer. And there’s a war.’

  ‘And you won’t think that this is how I always behave?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You said this afternoon that a woman should be chaste.’

  ‘Rules of conduct only apply to people who have no standards of taste.’

  ‘But what are your standards?’

  ‘I love the loveliest when I see it.’

  An hour or so later Juan said, ‘It’s just occurred to me that I only know your Christian name. So how am I going to buy your books?’

  ‘One of them has a picture of me as a frontispiece.’

  ‘I could find them more easily if you told me your name.’

  ‘You’ll have to get someone to introduce us,’ said Harriet sleepily.

  In the morning they were wakened by the sound of guns, and looked at each other in mild surprise.

  ‘Your necklace goes well with the morning light,’ said Juan idly.

  ‘It was terribly dear, but it’s very good jade. I got it in a shop called the Dernier Cri Antique Store, in Nanking Road.’

  ‘They make their Ming on the premises?’

  ‘They’ve plenty of rubbish, of course, but there are lots of good things too. You should ask for the proprietor if you go there. He’s a little Japanese called Hikohoki.’

  Chapter 13

  Before returning to Min Cho-fu’s, Juan went to the Dernier Cri Antique Store, and found it shuttered and tenantless. On several occasions the Chinese students had led angry processions down Nanking Road, and a good many of the Japanese shops there were similarly closed and deserted. It was very disappointing; but nevertheless he thought that Kuo would be glad to know where Hikohoki did business, or some part of his business.

  Neither he nor his news, however, were received with any warmth. Peony had recovered consciousness soon after he left, and Kuo had not only discovered for herself the address in Nanking Road, but having gone there had found the shop abandoned. She was, therefore, quite unimpressed by his report, since it was both stale and profitless.

  There was a faint smell of opium in the house. Peony was still there, and seemed likely to stay: for Miss Min, having been forced unwillingly to receive her, was now completely captivated by Peony’s conversation and inexhaustible store of gossip, and had spent most of the previous day in her company. She had also determined to cure Peony of her addiction to opium, by gradually reducing her number of pipes. There was every prospect, then, that Peony would be well looked-after for several months to come.

  Kuo was now the unhappiest member of the household. Indeed the only unhappy one, for Min, though not permitted to be alone with Peony, was allowed to go in and look at her some two or three times a day. But Kuo had nothing to distract her from thoughts of failure.

  She could, of course, distribute the blame for failure. Min was most obviously culpable. Juan had not been faultless, and the office-bearers of the Conquering Youth of China had grievously disappointed her. Their organization, if it ever existed, had melted away, and they themselves had vanished. Some, it seemed, had gone into hiding, being romantically convinced that there was a price on their heads; others had joined rival societies; and two of them, immersed in debate about the meaning of the difficult word chinch‘ing, had entirely forgotten the present crisis.

  But for the first mistake, the eldest of the brood of errors, Kuo could blame only herself. It was she who had postponed the great attack that was to have been the vanguard of resurgent China. She had indeed postponed it for good reasons; because Lo Yu’s plan promised something better – a policy of salvation instead of a call to arms – and because she had inopportunely remembered that Confucius had once clearly said that he would never entrust military command to a man who would attack a tiger unarmed, or cross a river without a boat, or sacrifice his life without regret. Confucius was right, of course; and she was still quite certain that Lo Yu’s plan was what China really needed. But the plan was lost, and the Conquering Youth had melted like butter in the sun.

  Perhaps she would have done better and done more had she led her thousand young patriots – but would they have followed her? – to an exemplary death on the guns of the invader. She had, at one time, seen quite clearly the necessity of sacrifice. It had then appeared a necessity far transcending the in dispensability of a policy. And then she had hesitated, vacillated, partly because of something Confucius had said; though Confucius also said that the wise man does not vacillate, the man of natural goodness does not fret.

  The deduction was obvious. She was neither wise nor naturally good, and therefore in desiring to save China she was presumptuous, since neither by sagacity nor by virtue was she fitted for so great a task. But how, loving China, could she be idle and do nothing to help it in its distress? How at a time like this could even the Superior Person, as Confucius declared, be calm and serene? Kuo found it quite impossible; and Juan suffered.

  He, having been unfaithful, was eager to be kind; but Kuo would not let him. He would have liked to do something for her; but Kuo had no time for attainable desires. He was willing to sit and talk about anything in particular or everything in general; but Kuo’s mind was busy with its own unceasing and profitless debate. They spoke a little about the progress of the war, and Kuo said there was great activity in Nanking. But even such a topic as that could not make her forget her own troubles. She asked Juan to stay to lunch, but without warmth in her invitation, and the meal was a poor scanty affair such as women eat alone. So Juan, having done his best, said good-bye and went to the Club.

  He found Flanders there, as he had hoped; who had the grace to look ashamed. Juan had not seen him since they went, singing Sleep, Pretty Wantons, to Min Cho-fu’s flat, and Flanders like a coward left him to face alone the anger of Kuo and Miss Min. But now, to cover his embarrassment, Flanders put on a manner of great heartiness and welcomed Juan somewhat noisily.

  ‘God’s my life and lord!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m glad to see you! I’ve been looking for you these three days, and not a finger to be seen. I thought you’d been murdered or trepanned or gone home in the ship that sailed the other day. – She went down the river with shells dropping in her wake like boys pelting an otter. – Now what will you drink? There’s no security in the world. None at all. What’ll you drink, Motley?’

  Anything, said Juan, that would take the taste of smoke out of his mouth. The wind had shifted, and Shanghai was covered with a dark brown roof blown thickly from the smouldering streets of Chapei.

  ‘There’s the stink of hell in the air,’ said Flanders. ‘The odour of greasy corruption. I was all but killed myself on Tuesday, and that would have made matters worse. I’d have basted the whole city, the Bund would have gone up in flames if my fat had run, and all the hungry mouths in the Orient, the whole forty million, would have gathered like paupers round a roast ox to suck the mere steam of it. But I escaped, thank God. I was standing near the Creek, watching the seaplanes going like seagulls in and out of the smoke, and dropping their excrement in the town. There were bullets going whisss here, and whisss there, and ping on the houses; and anti-aircraft shells bursting like a drum full of ruptured bagpipers. But I paid no attention to them. Not a scrap. And then I moved a little, and heard a groaning about my ankles. So I looked down and saw I was standing on an old Chinese woman about eighty years of age, with a wem on her right cheek. And that wasn
’t all. She had the whole family with her, her son and two grandsons, a grand-daughter suckling her six-weeks child, three or four tidy girls, a couple of gaping hobbledehoys, and eight or ten children playing marbles or piddling in the dark of my penumbra. She had the whole tribe, twenty-eight or thirty of them, taking shelter under the overhang of my belly. They were using me like a bridge or the side of a hill. If I’d stayed another hour, they’d have lighted a fire, and coupled and brought forth, and buried their dead in the shadow of my paunch. When I moved a step or two they all looked up as though the roof had come off. They blanched in the sun, and gibbered, and took to their heels, and ran. So I thought of my own danger, and came away too.’

  ‘And I expect you disappeared quicker than they did.’

  ‘Now what’s at the back of that?’

  ‘You’re very good at disappearing. You vanished from Min Cho-fu’s the other night like a cat going over Niagara.’

  ‘And a good thing for you I did,’ said Flanders. ‘I can explain that. It was for your sake I went. For no other reason in the world.’

  ‘You ran away. You said you could persuade Kuo to do anything you wanted, but when you saw the temper she was in, you cleared out and left me.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Motley. By God, you’re wrong. I went because of a borborygmus, a great rumbling in the belly.’

  ‘That wouldn’t have worried me.’

  It would have deafened you. It would have filled the room with the noise of a mill-stream, the pealing of bells, and passing thunder. You may say a borborygm is common property, that all the world has heard a squeak and a running bubble in his neighbour’s bowels, and thought no more about it. But here’s a belly that gives more room than the majority. It’s none of your penny cadenzas or pipings on a single flute when I begin, but the whole band of the Brigade of Guards. I took’ such a hullabaloo, I remember, last Good Friday, that Wagner himself could have made no better. There was wood and brass in it, a very good glockenspiel and a cor anglais. It was orchestrated. My duodenum declared the theme of vacancy, and a bassoon in the southwest corner made pretty play with that. Then the ileum comes in with its variation, and hunger’s the new subject. There were fiddlers in my jejunum, tubas in my transverse colon. Modulations followed, development, decoration, counterpoint under the liver, and a double-bass on Poupart’s ligament. They took hunger to the tonic, recapitulated, and finished with a coda like the death of a pig. It was better than Sir Henry Wood, and all who heard it stood up and cheered till they were hoarse.’