Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘In business terms, with the Triads controlling much of the labour force, this created a quandary among the great European taipans. Nevertheless, something had to be seen to be done, though, of course, only minor tongs, the drug peddlers, thieves, extortionists, confidence men and the like were arrested. The North China Daily News kept up its campaign to “catch the big fish” and every once in a while a gangster of some level of notoriety, of which there were dozens, would be brought in. But the big Triad bosses were too powerful and influential to arrest. Outward respectability in the International Settlement was of the utmost importance to Big Boss Yu, unlike Big Ears Du in the French Concession, and this was not the time, if ever there was one, when he wished to be exposed. Because I ran much of his legitimate affairs outside shipping and real estate, he knew that if I exposed him I would be believed. I also knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if it meant protecting his position in Shanghai society.

  ‘I couldn’t escape from Shanghai, as I had no papers. As I have already mentioned, the White Russians were stateless people. I was too well known to approach any of the embassies, and sooner or later it would be brought to Big Boss Yu’s attention. He would have seen this as a blatant betrayal. Now that I knew he was the dragonhead, the least I could expect for disloyalty was to have my hand chopped off with a doh, a meat cleaver, the traditional Triad punishment for betrayal.

  ‘I went to see Sir Victor, entering his apartment using a private lift that could be reached by a small locked door leading directly into a narrow, dark alleyway at the back of the hotel. To the casual user the lift ostensibly stopped at the ground floor, but with the use of a special key it could in fact travel further down the lift well to the door that led into the alleyway. Victor used it when he didn’t want to be seen coming or going and, of course, for exactly the same reason, I had the key to both the door to the alleyway and the lift. It was a pointless subterfuge – the Chinese staff always seemed to know one’s comings and goings – but once again, perception is everything. If I hadn’t been seen entering or leaving the hotel or the tower then I couldn’t possibly have been there. No mention was ever made of the unmarked basement destination of Sir Victor’s private lift. The door leading to the alleyway had a skull-and-crossbones sign on the outside that read “Danger – Electricity” written in both English and Cantonese. Sir Victor’s personal servants, I believed, were very fond of me. I would often delight them with regional delicacies from the Chinese City that they would not have been able to find for themselves, so it was not unreasonable to presume that they would remain completely discreet, even though the Chinese by nature are terrible gossips.

  ‘When I told Sir Victor about Big Boss Yu being the dragonhead, he was fairly sanguine. “My dear, he is an important component in the labour relations of Shanghai and it has been customary to turn a blind eye to what might be some of his more obscure sources of income. It does not surprise me that he is the dragonhead for the International Settlement, just as Big Ears Du is known to be the dragonhead for the French Concession.”

  ‘“But how am I to continue to work for him, knowing all this?” I protested.

  ‘“This is China, darling – what the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over,” he answered platitudinously.

  ‘“You’re patronising me!” I said, upset.

  ‘“No, that’s not true, we all try to avoid dealing with the big Chinese taipans, both here and in Hong Kong, but Triad roots run deep and spread widely – chances are that Big Boss Yu’s ancestors have been Triads for over 300 years.” He shrugged. “Sometimes one cannot choose one’s bedfellows.”

  ‘“I’m not dealing with him, I’m working for him, Victor! Besides, he isn’t a bedfellow – he’s been a surrogate father to me!”

  ‘“Then you must behave like a dutiful daughter,” he replied, remaining frustratingly calm.

  ‘“And if I can’t?”

  ‘“Then you’ll have to leave Shanghai.”

  ‘“And go where? Victor, I’m a stateless person! I don’t have a passport. Technically, I’m still a refugee.”

  ‘“Of course – I keep forgetting you’re not English. I could probably get you into Hong Kong, but you wouldn’t be safe there. And without papers it would take a long time to get you to England.”

  ‘My heart sank – he was one of the world’s richest men, and I felt sure he could have arranged almost anything. He plainly didn’t want to get involved, or simply thought of my predicament as a storm in a teacup. “Oh, Victor, I’m so terribly frightened,” I said, close to tears.

  ‘He smiled. He had an irresistible smile. “Come to bed, darling,” he said, taking me into his arms.

  ‘Afterwards he poured two glasses of champagne and brought them back to bed with him. “Cheers,” he said, and after we’d clinked glasses and taken a sip, he cleared his throat. “Are you sure you want to go through with this business of leaving Shanghai, Nicole?” I was about to say something when he held up his hand. “No, listen to me first – then you can comment.” I remember thinking how terribly English he was. “You have to be practical, my dear.”

  ‘I felt warm and secure after having made love, so I settled down to listen. Victor always reasoned things out with a lack of sentimentality, taking every circumstance and fact into consideration. It was for this reason that his advice, financial and otherwise, while often enough quite blunt, had always been so helpful to me.

  ‘“Practical? What do you mean?” I said, ignoring his demand that I should first listen to what he had to say.

  ‘“Shush! Listen, Nicole,” he reprimanded, with just a trace of impatience. “I’m going to ask you a series of questions and you must answer them as honestly as you can. Please don’t avoid the difficult ones.

  Will you promise?” I nodded. “No, that’s not enough, you must say it.”

  ‘“I promise, Victor.”

  ‘“Good. The first is simple enough. How long have you known Big Boss Yu? Please, refresh my memory of how you came to meet.”

  ‘“Since I was fifteen. We met in a nightclub in Harbin where I sang and played the piano.” I explained the circumstances to Sir Victor to the point where Big Boss Yu had invited me to come to Shanghai. “I think he was intrigued that I sang and spoke Cantonese like a native of China,” I concluded.

  ‘“And when you arrived he arranged for you to live in the Chinese City. Did you not think that strange?”

  ‘“Strange? Perhaps, but I was sixteen years old, my father had committed suicide, and I was a refugee. At least he seemed to care about me. I obeyed his instructions and did as I was told.”

  ‘“And subsequently? You’ve never moved into the European area and remain living among the Chinese.”

  ‘“It’s home. I know the locals, and while at first I was protected by Big Boss Yu that’s not necessary now.”

  ‘“Have you never felt constrained? I recall on my frequent visits when you were playing the Palace you would go home to the Chinese City immediately after every show. You had no fun as a young person. Did you not long to be free?”

  ‘“Of course, but I didn’t know how to be. Big Boss Yu wanted me home, so what could I do?”

  ‘“And your career. You really were very promising – even Noël Coward said so. Were you not terribly upset when Big Boss Yu demanded you give it up? I remember at the party I threw for you on your eighteenth birthday how shocked we all were at the news and how I promised you top billing when I built this hotel.”

  ‘“I cried myself to sleep for days. I recall Big Boss Yu had dismissed what was so very important to me as ‘playing the herdsman’s flute’ – a euphemism for doing something entirely pointless.”

  ‘“Would that not have been the moment to resist him?” Victor asked me.

  ‘I thought for a moment, then tried to explain – Sir Victor seemed to have no notion of my true position. “Victor, you are reasoning with me as if I was an upper-class English girl, whereas I am a White Russian refugee. But not
even that. From the age of thirteen, when my amah took me to her village in Manchuria, I have been brought up as Chinese. I sometimes even dream in Chinese. I did what my patron, guardian, surrogate father – whatever you wish to call Big Boss Yu – desired or ordered. I didn’t believe I had any rights of refusal – or any rights at all, for that matter. That is the way of the Chinese daughter.”

  ‘“Surely there was someone – some European you could have turned to for help?” he persisted.

  ‘“Who, may I kindly ask?” I remember inquiring, a little frustrated. “Poppy? Commander Duncan? The ghastly Mrs Worthington? The best European friend I had at the time, and still have – after you, of course – is Zhora Petrov, Georgii, the doorman here at the Cathay and formerly at the Palace. I knew you, of course, and you were lovely to me when you visited from England and Hong Kong, but you were hardly in a position to act as my protector, even if I’d asked you – though, of course, I’d have done no such thing. I fell head over heels in love with you the first night we met. I made rather a fool of myself by crying and you ordered me a strawberry milkshake. ‘Strawberry’s best!’ you said – and, of course, you were right.”

  ‘Sir Victor smiled. “You were just a gawky schoolgirl at the time, though a very talented one.” He then leaned over and kissed me on the nose. “Look at you now, a beautiful woman . . . and, if I may say so, at this moment a very confused one.”

  ‘“What must I do, Victor? You’re perfectly right, I am confused.”

  ‘“Forgive me for putting you on the spot as I’ve just done, but if I was right about strawberry being the best then I might just be right about what I’m about to say. As you know, I’m a pragmatist and I’m also a Jew.”

  ‘“What has the one got to do with the other?” I asked.

  ‘“Well, quite a lot really.” He grinned suddenly. “Why do more Jews play the violin than play the piano?”

  ‘“I don’t know,” I answered.

  ‘“Because you can’t escape with a piano under your arm. That’s why pragmatism and being Jewish usually go together. My people have faced persecution and banishment for hundreds of generations. Being able to start from scratch when you’ve lost everything is an ability we almost take for granted – from riches to poverty and all the way back again. What we have learned is always to be ready for difficult times. We move our assets around the world just in case, we are always looking over our shoulders, reading the signs and portents, preparing for the worst. History shows that every time the Jews become complacent, disaster strikes. So what I am suggesting is that you prepare yourself.

  It is not yet time to run from Shanghai and there is much to be gained if you keep a cool head. You have proved yourself to Big Boss Yu. He trusts both you and your judgement.”

  ‘“He thinks I am his good joss.”

  ‘“Indeed, and therein lies your safety. Now let us look at your immediate options. With the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange we are now in the midst of a worldwide recession. Your caviar business has collapsed in the States because many of your former customers are financially ruined. But, curiously enough, Shanghai is one place on earth that will not be greatly affected by the current global economic predicament. We have enough silver deposits and hard currency to see this thing out. So much so that I intend to invest heavily in real estate on the Bund and to build another great hotel I shall call the Metropole. This is perhaps the only place remaining on earth where one’s money is safe. In fact, Shanghai is an opportunity to make money.” He paused. “How much money do you have?” Then, before I could answer, he said, “Did you send any to Hong Kong as I suggested?”

  ‘“Yes, I invested it and I have about 20 000 dollars here.”

  ‘“In the bank?”

  ‘I grinned. “I’m a Chinese peasant, Victor. I do not trust banks – nor do I any longer trust shares.”

  ‘“But you invested half your Hong Kong money in shares, at my suggestion?”

  ‘“Yes, and I’ve lost the lot in the crash.”

  ‘He looked momentarily crestfallen, although to a man of his enormous wealth the 20 000 Mexican dollars I’d lost must have seemed a pittance. “Bring me your dollars,” he grinned. “Where do you keep them – in a shoebox under your bed?”

  ‘“No, in a tin box, buried in a safe place, along with my Russian icon.”

  ‘“I’m sorry I’ve let you down with the shares, darling. Give me what you’ve got in cash and I’ll convert it directly into gold and place it in a safety-deposit box in the Bank of China in Hong Kong, and only you shall have the key.”

  ‘“Will you put the icon there as well?” I asked.

  ‘“Is it valuable? Icons vary a great deal . . . ”

  ‘“I have no idea. It’s been in my family a long time. If nothing else, it has sentimental value.” I couldn’t tell him it was all I had left of a past life in Russia I’d almost forgotten.

  ‘“I’ve picked up several very good ones from local White Russians – if it’s a good one, it’s worth keeping. Certainly I’ll take it with me. I’m going to Hong Kong on the Thursday ferry and will be away a week or two. Let me have it, and also the money, by tomorrow.”

  ‘“Thank you, Victor,” I said quietly, then added, “But I’m still not absolutely sure what you want me to do. Do you want me to continue with Big Boss Yu?”

  ‘“It’s not what I want, Nicole, it’s what appears to be the sensible thing to do. The world is in a mess at the moment, and we don’t know how long the situation is going to last. My guess is at least three years. Your raisin business should hold up as you are importing and not exporting. With the caviar gone, your share of the raisin business is important. Not much call for silk shantung in the next couple of years I shouldn’t expect, but your fish imports might still work.”

  ‘“You’re saying I must turn a blind eye and pretend nothing has happened?”

  ‘He seemed to grow a little impatient. I usually grasped his ideas quickly, and now I was making him spell things out. “Darling, if you hadn’t overheard the business between the two dragonheads in Ticking Clock House you’d be none the wiser, would you?” He rose from the bed and started to dress. “It’s time you used Big Boss Yu for a change. When things get better in a couple of years, I’ll help you to get papers to get away from China.”

  ‘And so I took Sir Victor’s advice. While morally it was reprehensible to continue as if nothing had happened, there was little else I could do. I imagine if I’d continued to persist, Sir Victor may have smuggled me onto a boat to Hong Kong and, with the contacts he had, eventually got me to England. But he hadn’t suggested that he do this – in fact, he’d advised against it. I also realised that his advice, while sound enough if one’s principles were neglected, was also self-serving. If he was seen to help me escape, Big Boss Yu could make it almost impossible for him to obtain a labour force for his massive building developments in Shanghai.

  ‘I loved Victor Sassoon with all my heart, but I also knew that the love of a woman does not take precedence over a rich man’s business affairs or ambition. Besides, while I think he loved me in his own way, it wasn’t to the same degree that I adored him. Sir Victor was a confirmed bachelor and I accepted that I may not be the only woman in his life.’

  She looked up. ‘So you see, I really was more Chinese than European. Few Western women would tolerate such uncertainty in their status or infidelity in a lover, whereas to a Chinese woman it isn’t a matter of how many other women are in a man’s life, but rather whether you are the number-one concubine.’

  Just then a nurse’s aide called us in for afternoon tea, so we all traipsed back to the verandah where the ladies’ auxiliary had prepared tea and scones for the patients. I took one look and gave the scones a big miss. Sue’s scones were the yardstick by which all scones were measured, and these looked hard as cobblestones. With my dodgy ribs all I needed was a severe bout of indigestion.

  During afternoon tea I thought about what Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had to
ld us and whether I might have acted differently in the same predicament. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place! She’d apologised for the morality of her decision to continue with Big Boss Yu, but I could very well see she’d had no choice. Morality doesn’t dictate that we get ourselves killed or have a hand chopped off to honour our principles. Like her, I would have shut my mouth and stayed put. When we returned to our seats in the garden, Jimmy, who’d gulped down half-a-dozen scones, urged her to continue.

  ‘It’s a good thing that Chinese men are notoriously indifferent to a woman’s feelings,’ she began. ‘I was having difficulty pretending nothing had happened, but as I saw Big Boss Yu on no more than a weekly basis he didn’t seem to notice any change in my behaviour. Then about a month after I’d had my talk with Sir Victor, Big Boss Yu called me into Ticking Clock House.

  ‘With even less than the usual lack of ceremony, he declared, “No Gin, you will take control of the Red Dragon China and Crockery Factory, as well as the export business.”

  ‘“But loh yeh, we do not own this. Did you not sell to Smallpox “Million Dollar” Yang, Chang Shig-liang and Du Yu-sen?”

  ‘“It was an arrangement. Now I have it back again.”

  ‘“But loh yeh, with the depression in America it will not be a viable business – we will lose money.”