Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘We’re taking you directly into the theatre next door as soon as Doc Light comes in. We’ve both been up all night. He’s gone home to have a shower and a bit of breakfast. Jimmy’s in the ward demanding something to eat and Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan is asleep.’

  I then noticed how exhausted she looked. ‘You’d better get home,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, sure. Matron’s already in, but I’d like to attend to you first. It was lucky I was on night shift when Jack McGinty called – he’s been at the Gazette monitoring your progress for two days.’ She smiled. ‘You’re making a habit of being a hero, Jacko.’

  ‘Hero? No, no, no! Jimmy’s the hero!’ I started to cough, and thought I was going to die. Cracked ribs or otherwise, coughing hurt like hell.

  Sue held me down. ‘No more talk, Jacko – just lie still, breathing in as shallowly as you can.’

  ‘No,’ I managed to say, ‘I have to tell you about Jimmy. I don’t want people thinking I’m the hero.’

  Sue could see I was distressed. ‘Take it easy, Jacko – it can wait.’

  But it couldn’t. So I told her about Jimmy diving in to save me with a fractured skull when I was washed overboard and was hanging onto the rope I’d used to drag in the dinghy. How miraculously he clung onto the boat when a big wave took us close to the side again, and how he dragged me back on board.

  ‘You sure he’s okay?’ I asked, suddenly suspicious. ‘Sue, don’t lie to me!’

  She laughed. ‘No, honestly – he’s fine. But we didn’t really know until about three this morning, when he finally came around. There seemed to be only an extradural haematoma and no apparent bleeding into the brain, but we couldn’t be absolutely certain there hadn’t been any brain damage until we spoke to him.’

  I was glad I’d been out to it – with my imagination I’d have resigned Jimmy to being a gibbering idiot with it all being my fault. ‘You mean he could have been zonked in the head?’

  Sue shrugged. ‘You never know. A lot of things can happen if there’s an internal haematoma – that is, bleeding into the brain. But fortunately there wasn’t. First thing Jimmy said when he woke up was, “How’s Brother Fish?”’

  I laughed, even though it hurt like hell. Sue, suddenly serious, said, ‘Jacko, I’ve got to get you ready for theatre. Doc Light will be here any moment.’

  ‘You haven’t told me about Nicole ma’am. How bad is she?’

  ‘She cracked her forehead, which required twenty stitches. Earlier she was still in shock and kept asking about the two of you, apologising for being so useless in the crisis. I gave her something to put her to sleep.’

  Doc Light arrived shortly after and examined my hand. ‘Dislocation at the knuckles. I’ll give you an injection, but it’s going to hurt like hell when it wears off. Sister McKenzie will have told you there’s nothing much we can do for your ribs. We’ll strap them, although I’m not sure that’ll help much – they’re going to be painful for some time. We’ll need to keep an eye on you, young Jack. If your ribs play up you may have to go to Launceston to be X-rayed. But for the time being the three of you will stay here for the next few days. You’re exhausted, and likely to suffer some trauma from the shock of the impacts you’ve taken.’

  By the following morning Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan seemed quite chirpy, and made Jimmy and me go through the whole business blow by blow while she scribbled it all down furiously. By that afternoon the story had been dispatched on the wire service and was to appear as a feature article in newspapers throughout the nation. The report of the hurricane and the story of the Janthe had been broadcast on ABC radio. Four boats had gone down in the storm, with all their crews lost, and while we’d evidently been caught in the worst of it, we’d been the lucky ones. None of the boats lost at sea was from the island, as the local fishermen out to sea had been on the eastern side of the island and had all headed for Tussock when the one o’clock sched we’d originally missed had come through.

  Of course, I didn’t mention the methedrine and the experts were all saying that I had shown unbelievable stamina to remain at the helm for thirty-six hours. If ever we got wealthy enough to do without the Janthe, then Mike Munday was getting it back for a song. Gloria had yet another bonanza for her scrapbook, and later when I read some of the articles it was clear to me they’d made much too much of my part in the whole thing. One smart-arse journalist even doubted the veracity of Jimmy’s rescuing me.

  On the afternoon of our second day in the cottage hospital, the three of us sat in the hospital’s garden while Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan told Jimmy and me the final part of her story, which she referred to as ‘From Raisins for the Masses to Caviar for the Few’.

  ‘I had gone through my father’s papers to find the names of some of the people who might still be working in the production of caviar in what was once my father’s family business and was now, I discovered, a commune. After several months of writing letters I finally received one in return from an ex-manager, Pyotr Kuzmich Ivanov, who was in charge of the caviar commune and remembered my father with fondness. Over a period of time we established a rapport and a system of payment, and he would send me only the best. He still worked with Roman Sotnikov, thought in my father’s day to be the best caviar salter in Russia, so I knew my caviar would be the optimum – though not always the small golden eggs of the sterlet sturgeon but also beluga, osetra and sevruga. The most delicate caviar is known as malossol caviar, which means that it contains not more than five per cent of the salt from the seas of the Astrakhan Steppe. Malossol is also the most perishable and I wasn’t able to send it to America on the long sea voyage, but it nevertheless fetched a good price in Shanghai, and Sir Victor’s Cathay Hotel soon became famous for its malossol caviar. The Americans went for beluga, which produces large, loose, glistening dark berries, and I’m sure that’s why beluga is now considered the finest of the caviars. I personally think some of the others have a more subtle, delicate flavour, and that the caviar from Azerbaijan is the finest of them all.’

  She paused to explain the circumstances that had made going into caviar possible. ‘Exporting caviar was really a hobby, one that Big Boss Yu allowed me to indulge in always provided I financed it myself. While it made a nice profit – up until the Great Depression, at least – the supply, like so much happening in the new Russia, was unreliable. This was partly compensated for by Sir Victor, who had kept his promise and introduced my caviar into the very best New York circles so that whenever a consignment arrived in New York it was immediately snapped up. Its very rarity became its greatest advantage. As I’ve mentioned before, perception is everything. “Kuzmich Beluga”, the name I’d chosen to honour Pyotr Kuzmich Ivanov’s family, was considered the best caviar in New York, and became the standard by which all other caviar was measured.

  ‘I was still expected to run what had become a veritable raisin empire. Big Boss Yu also set up a business importing frozen fish, which he handed over to me to develop as well. In addition he started a mill to produce cotton and shantung silk, which I also set up for him and supervised. He had come to believe that everything I touched would lead to success, and I dreaded the time when something I’d been asked to control didn’t achieve the accustomed expectations.

  ‘I was constantly at his side at all of Shanghai’s important business functions and lavish parties, and was his so-called business partner. My impeccable English accent and my increasing business acumen and reputation allowed us many an introduction to local and foreign businessmen. The foreign taipans ran companies that might not otherwise have had dealings with a Chinese businessman whose past business affairs were known to be somewhat clandestine and who had gained control of Shanghai’s labour force without ever holding an official position with the government.

  ‘Of course I was aware that Big Boss Yu’s business affairs were not always squeaky clean. The Chinese have a different morality to our own. The family and then the clan come first. If either benefits from a business deal or opportunity, then the mor
al question doesn’t arise. It wasn’t until Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Nanking Government, secretly recruited members of the Green Gang – a Shanghai Triad secret society whose Chinese name was Cb’in Pang, meaning Green Circle Society – to kill communists that I eventually discovered the truth. Nor did I know until later that the Three Musketeers of the French Concession belonged to this Green Gang and that Du Yu-sen, known as Big Ears Du, was its dragonhead, Smallpox “Million Dollar” Yang his “white paper fan” or trusted assistant, and the last of the three, Chang Shig-liang, his second in command.

  ‘Because I had met them in the General’s Retreat in Harbin, where Big Boss Yu seemed to be in command, I had always assumed they were simply three gangsters he knew. I thought that perhaps they were sometime collaborators in seemingly legitimate business deals. The English-speaking newspaper, North China Daily News, while not condoning communism, was nevertheless highly indignant about Chiang Kai-shek’s reputed alliance with the Triads, but such was the power of the gangster leaders that their names were never mentioned. I took little interest in local gossip and it all seemed rather remote from my everyday world of raisins, fish imports, caviar, cotton and silk. That is, until one night when, working back late, I left my office to fetch some papers from nearby “Ticking Clock House”, which was the Chinese name for the San Peh Steam Navigation Company.

  ‘I’d been doing paperwork all afternoon and late into the evening and decided to walk rather than wake Ah Chow, who would be asleep in the car waiting to take me home. As I drew closer to the headquarters of the San Peh Steam Navigation Company, I could see what looked to be a devil of a row going on among a group of Chinese on the street outside. I gave them a wide berth and entered the building from the back. The papers I needed were on the same floor as Big Boss Yu’s office and, somewhat to my surprise, the lights were on. The stairs leading up to the second floor were rather ostentatiously carpeted, and I didn’t call out but walked silently up the stairs to where I needed to go. Arriving at what was predictably known as Ticking Clock Floor, also fortuitously carpeted, I had to pass Big Boss Yu’s office. I could hear a loud voice as I passed to get to the small accounts office to retrieve the papers I needed. On my way back, looking into Big Boss Yu’s office I noticed that a small sliding grid in the wall was open. It was customarily used to speak through by the accounts clerk and others who were thought too humble to enter the Ticking Clock Room. I crept up furtively and looked in.

  ‘Apart from the Three Musketeers of the French Concession, I was surprised to see the incense master, the old priest who I’d consulted at the temple about cutting my hair. Big Ears Du, who’d hardly said a word that first night in the club in Harbin, was holding the floor, demanding that Big Boss Yu send his people into the International Settlement to kill communists. His Green Gang, he contended, had accounted for twenty deaths the previous night whereas what he referred to as “9X” had only killed three.

  ‘I’d done my best to avoid the three gangsters since that initial meeting in Harbin. Of course, when I handed over the crockery factory to them I’d briefly met Big Ears Du at close quarters again, although it had been Smallpox “Million Dollar” Yang, the youngest of them, who had subsequently taken all the instructions and to whom I’d handed the company accounts. Now, as I watched Big Ears Du remonstrating with Big Boss Yu, I realised how frightening he was. He was tall – not simply tall for a Chinese but truly tall, over six feet, very thin, and his face seemed hewn from granite pierced by small, very black eyes that were too close together.

  ‘While Big Boss Yu, with his purple-ringed eyes, seemed like a Chinese movie gangster, Big Ears Du was truly evil-looking. In his long Chinese silk gown and with his enormous feet in pointed, crocodile-skin European boots that protruded like instruments of torture from the end of his gown, he was the stuff of nightmares. On the carpet beside his chair was a black-silk top hat. When he wore it he was close to seven feet tall – a frightening spectre that made the coolies run for their lives and the better-class Chinese citizens stand aside and bow as he passed.

  ‘He was obviously angry at Big Boss Yu, who remained expressionless, and I wondered what had made Big Boss Yu sell the crockery factory to him in the first place, as there can’t have been much love lost between them. I decided it must have been for some or other favour granted elsewhere. Big Ears Du was shouting. “You are the dragonhead of 9X and you are not killing enough communists. We have orders from Chiang Kai-shek and you are not doing your share in the International Settlement.”

  ‘“The English newspaper is making a big fuss – I must wait until it dies down. Then we will do our share of the killing,” Big Boss Yu replied calmly. Then he added, “What happens in the International Settlement is my affair – you take care of the French Concession, Du Yu-sen! In this business of killing communists we must work together, but each of us must choose the time and method in his own way. I will not disappoint Chiang Kai-shek, who is one of us.”’

  ‘Countess, yo’ one brave lady, dat foh sure,’ Jimmy said with admiration.

  Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan smiled smugly. ‘I do sound very intrepid, don’t I? I have to tell you I was absolutely terrified – so much so that my knees began to knock and I was forced to crawl on all fours down the carpeted passageway until I eventually escaped down the stairs. The row was still continuing in the street and I now realised it must be between guards from two Triad gangs who’d become involved in the argument. The two dragonheads would have assumed the building to be heavily guarded.

  ‘I crept away into the surrounding darkness with my life suddenly and completely shattered. My patron and protector was a gangster and murderer of the very worst kind. I now realised that it was his position as dragonhead of the International Settlement that gave Big Boss Yu so much power. As its gangster boss he had the ability to virtually dictate how the 400 000-strong labour force that worked in the International Settlement would cooperate with the European taipans.’

  Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan stopped to catch her breath, which gave me the opportunity to ask a question before I forgot. ‘Do you mean to say that General Chiang Kai-shek was part of a Triad? Didn’t the Americans back him against the communists?’

  ‘The past has a short memory, Jack. There is a Chinese saying, “It makes no difference if the cat is tabby or black, as long as it catches mice.” Pragmatism has always been the deciding factor in any alliance. But, of course, US support of Chiang Kai-shek would happen much later, after the Americans had helped the Kuomintang leader to fight the Japanese. It must also be remembered that Mao Zedong joined Chiang Kai-shek to fight Japan, certainly an even more absurd alliance. War traditionally makes strange bedfellows.

  ‘However, during my time in Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek greatly feared the emerging communist movement that was rapidly spreading in China, and his murderous alliance with the Triads was one of the ways he devised to keep communists on the run. The Triads was a secret society with literally hundreds of thousands of members, and the communists never knew whether one of them had been planted in a cadre. It was a clever though bloody alliance, and tens of thousands of communist Chinese lost their lives as a consequence.’

  ‘Yoh in big, big trouble, Countess,’ Jimmy said, not wanting to change the subject. ‘How yoh gonna get yo’ ass out dat San Peh Steam Nav-ee-ga-tion Company?’

  ‘Well, yes, indeed, James. I now faced two problems. I was, in effect, working for the Triads, and I was having an affair with the most powerful European taipan in China. I was caught on the horns of a dilemma. If I went to Big Boss Yu and told him I knew he was the dragonhead of 9X and no longer wished to work for him, I would certainly be severely punished. If it was subsequently discovered that I was having an affair with Sir Victor, I could lose my life. Big Boss Yu wouldn’t know how much I knew about his underworld affairs – which, of course, was very little, but he wouldn’t be convinced. Even very little was too much. If he witnessed me running into the arms of Sir Victor, who was in a position to do him a great
deal of harm, he would almost certainly be forced to take some sort of drastic action.

  ‘Powerful as Big Boss Yu undoubtedly was, if it became openly known among the European taipans that not only was he a Triad but also a dragonhead, his legitimate business affairs and real-estate development in the Bund would be severely affected. Big Boss Yu exerted a great deal of influence on the International Settlement and could probably bring a great part of the workforce to a standstill. Nevertheless, his legitimate financial base depended on the goodwill of the Settlement’s foreign businessmen. While he might make a fortune in crime he had to launder the money somewhere, and by being allowed to take part in the development of Shanghai he had the perfect mechanism to do so while seemingly growing ever more respectably powerful.

  ‘It was also a matter of face. His reputation as a legitimate ship owner, exporter and importer and property developer was of critical importance to him. While some of his business affairs and sources of income were perhaps obscure, he had never been directly implicated in any criminal activity. He happily promulgated the notion among the Europeans that he was “old school Chinese” – respectable, conservative and even admired for the quaint fact that he kept close to a dozen concubines in luxury. He liked it to be said that he was born in an obscure Chinese village and remained at heart a peasant who, by dint of determination and hard work, had become a great Chinese taipan.’

  ‘But how the hell did he get away with it, Countess?’ I asked, perhaps naively.

  ‘Well, except where it affected the Europeans, the foreign-controlled areas had largely turned a blind eye to Chinese corporate crime. Shanghai was a dangerous, corrupt and violent city. Street crime was common, as was the next layer of criminal activity – extortion, armed robbery, drugs, kidnapping and even gunfights between Chinese gangsters and the police, who were understaffed and poorly paid. But as long as it didn’t unduly affect the European society, expatriates largely ignored it. While they thought of prostitution and gambling as unfortunate, and such vices were often the subject of editorials in the North China Daily News, the municipal authorities quietly regarded both as peripherals to any great maritime port. In this teeming, bursting-at-the-seams city, crime was a matter of fact. But, in truth, the Triads in Shanghai ran an underworld that reached into almost every household, European or otherwise. The young European population was increasingly experimenting with, and becoming addicted to, morphine and cocaine. Both were readily available in Triad-owned nightclubs and dance halls, where marathon dancing had become the latest craze from America. Opium had become as easy to purchase as a bag of sugar, and the Europeans had at last begun calling for a crackdown on the “invisible” gangster chiefs.