World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399)
Read World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) Online
Authors: Richard Mason
Praise for
The World of Suzie Wong
“Reminiscent of Somerset Maugham at his storytelling best . . . Suzie Wong is enchanting.”
âNew York Herald Tribune
“One of the most tender and enchanting heroines to find her way into print in a long time.”
âSaturday Review
“A thrilling, imaginative experience.”
âThe Washington Post and Times Herald
“Refreshingly different . . . excitingly real and vivid.”
âThe Boston Globe
“One of the tenderest, most beautiful, agonizing and interesting love stories of the year . . . magnificently effective.”
âSan Francisco Examiner
“The reader falls in love with Suzie as Mason weaves his magic spell.”
âThe Detroit News
PENGUIN BOOKS
The World of Suzie Wong
RICHARD MASON
was born in Manchester, England, in 1919. He joined the Royal Air Force, where he learned Japanese, in 1939. After the war, he lived in Hong Kong, where the intersection of East and West inspired him to write
The World of Suzie Wong,
his third novel, which was published in 1957. He traveled widely throughout his life, touring Africa and Europe in the 1950s with his first wife, Felicity Ann Cumming, restoring an apartment in Rome in the 1960s, and raising sheep on an estate in Wales with his second wife, Sarette. He remained close friends with both of his ex-wives. In the early 1970s, Mason returned to Rome, where he met his third wife, Maggie Wolf. They had two children together and were popular hosts in Rome. In addition to his novels, Mason also wrote screenplays and sculpted. He died in Rome in 1997.
The World of Suzie Wong
Richard Mason
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by World Publishing Company 1957
Published by Signet Books 1958
Published in Penguin Books 2011
Copyright © Richard Mason, 1957
Copyright renewed Richard Mason, 1985
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mason, Richard, 1919â1997.
The world of Suzie Wong / Richard Mason.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-57239-9
1. BritishâChinaâFiction. 2. PaintersâFiction. 3. ProstitutesâFiction. 4. Hong Kong (China)âFiction. I. Title.
PR6025.A79275W67 2012
823'.912âdc23 2011031965
Designed by Elke Sigal
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise\, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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1
The Girls
Chapter One
S
he came through the turnstile and joined the crowd waiting for the ferry: the women in cotton pyjama suits, the men with felt slippers and gold teeth. Her hair was tied behind her head in a pony tail, and she wore jeansâgreen knee-length denim jeans.
That's odd, I thought. A Chinese girl in jeans. How do you explain that?
I watched her hold out a coin to a squatting vendor in a battered old felt hat. The vendor twirled a piece of Chinese newspaper into a cone, shoveled in melon seeds, and exchanged it for the girl's ten cents. She turned away, absently picking into the seeds with red-painted nails, and stopped only a yard from me.
Probably some wealthy taipan's daughter, I thought. Or a student. Or a shopgirlâyou never could tell with the Chinese.
She cracked a seed edgewise between her teeth, peeled back the shell, popped the kernel into her mouth. Next to her an old man in high-necked Chinese gown leaned on an ebony stick, stroking his white, wispy, foot-long ribbon of beard. A baby peeped from its sling on a woman's back, blinked its black contented eyes in perfect infantile security. A youth in horn-rimmed glasses and threadbare open-necked shirt held a book close to his nose. He was studying a graph. The book was called
Aerodynamics.
The girl nipped another seed between her white even teeth. Just then her eyes caught mine. They seemed to linger, so I said, “I wish I could do that.”
“Hah?”
“Crack melon seedsâI've never been able to learn.”
“No talk.”
She turned her face away haughtily, looking over the barrier behind which swarmed the ten-cent passengers for the lower deck: the coolies in blue tattered trousers and the remnants of shirts, the Cantonese fisherwomen in conical straw hats and shiny black suits. She chewed self-consciously.
I tried not to feel snubbed. Well, I was always hopeless at pickups, I thought. I haven't the nerve.
And then she seemed to be . . . yes, she was relenting. Giving me a secret glance from the corner of her eye. Wondering if she had misjudged me.
She looked away quickly. Stole another glance. Then said guardedly:
“Are you sailor?”
“Me a sailor? Good Lord, no!”
She relaxed a bit. “You're sure?”
“Oh, positive.”
“All right, we talk if you want.”
“Well, that's fine,” I laughed. “But what have you got against sailors?”
“Not meâmy father.”
“You mean your father doesn't like sailors?”
“No. He says sailors catch too many girls, make trouble.”
“So he won't let you talk to them?”
“No. He says, âIf you talk to sailor, I beat you!'”
“Well, he's probably very wise.”
“Yesâwise.”
The ferryboat came churning alongside and the crowd moved forward. We jostled together up the gangplank and chose one of the slatted bench seats on the covered top deck. The ferries were Chinese-owned and run, and very efficient, and we had hardly sat down before the water was churning again, the engines rumbling, the boat palpitatingâand we were moving off busily past the Kowloon wharves, past anchored merchant ships, past great clusters of junks. Ahead, on the island across the channel, was Hong Kong, squeezed into a coastal strip a few hundred yards wide, with the miniature skyscrapers in the center and on either side the long water front, stretching for miles, wedged with sampans and junks; and behind rose the steep escarpment of the Peak, shedding the town and the lower social orders as it climbed, until at the higher altitudes there remained only a sprinkling of white bungalows and luxury flats inhabited by the elite.
We rounded the tip of the Kowloon peninsula, heading slantwise across the channel for Wanchai, the most populous district of Hong Kong's eastern flank. I turned to look at the girl beside me. Her face was round and smooth, her eyes long black ellipses, and her eyebrows so perfectly arched that they looked drawnâbut in fact they had only been helped out with pencil at their tips. Her cheekbones were broad, with hints of Mongolia.
“Aren't you a northerner?” I said.
“Yes, Shanghai.”
“But now you live in Hong Kong?”
“North Point.”
“That's a good district.” And it accounted for her being on this ferry, since North Point lay beyond Wanchaiâthe expensive suburb beyond the slumsâand the Wanchai pier was the nearest ferry point.
“Yes, only I like Repulse Bay better. Nicer house.”
“You mean you've got two houses?”
“Four.”
“Four?”
I knew that Chinese taipans, who made the richest Europeans seem like paupers, often owned two or three houses, but four was surely a record. “You mean all in Hong Kong?”
“Yes, Hong Kong. My father is very rich, you know.” She looked pleased with herself, boasting with the naïveté of a child.
“Well, so I gather. And where are the other two houses?”
She counted off the first two on her fingers and went on, “Number three, Conduit Road. Number four, Peak. Number fiveâ”
“Not
five!
”
“Yes, I forgotânumber five, Happy Valley. But that's just small, you knowâonly ten rooms.”
“Oh, nothing at all,” I laughed. “And what about cars? How many of those has your father got?” The Chinese collected cars even more assiduously than houses.
“Cars? Let me think.” She puckered her brow, counting on her fingers again, then gave up with a giggle. “Oh, I forget how many cars.”
“I suppose you've a car of your own?”
“No, I'm too scared to drive. But I don't mind tramcars, you knowâI like riding in tramcars.” She proferred the ten cents' worth of melon seeds in their newspaper cone. “You want one?”
“Yes, but I honestly can't open them,” I said. “You'll have to teach me.”
“Try first.”
I tried several, but one after another the seeds splintered between my teeth, crushing the kernels inextricably. My ineptitude sent the girl into delighted giggles; she buried her face in her hands, her pony tail comically whisking and bobbing, then recovered herself, still twinkling with merriment, and gave me a demonstrationânipping a seed edgewise, peeling back the shell, handing it to me with kernel intact.
“Well, that's exactly what I did,” I said. “Yours must have been an easy one.”
“No, all same.”
“Then I give up. What's your name?”
“Wong Mee-ling.”
“Mee-lingâthat's charming.”
“And you?”
“Robert Lomaxâor Lomax Robert, your way.”
“Lobert.”
“No, âR.'”
“Robert. Where do you live?”
“Well, actually . . .”
“Peak?”
“Well . . . yes, mid-level. I live in a boardinghouseâSunset Lodge.” Well, it was nearly trueâI had lived at Sunset Lodge until a few days ago, before moving down to Wanchai. And I couldn't very well tell her about the Nam Kokânot, at least, without knowing her better.
“You work Government? Bank?”
“No, neither. I used to be a rubber planter, but I chucked it up a couple of months ago to try and paint.”
“Paint?”
“Pictures.” I started to feel for my sketchbook to show her, then remembered that all the sketches were of the Nam Kok and thought better of it.
“I knowâartist.”
“Well, I don't call myself that yet.” Then, since we seemed to be getting on so well, I asked her if I could take her out to dinner one night; but she flatly refused.
“Then lunch?” I said.
“No.” She shook her head firmly so that the pony tail wagged.
“But I'd love to see you again, Mee-ling. Can't we meet sometime?”
“No.”
“But why not?”
“I get married soon.” The marriage, she explained, had been arranged by her parents, according to Chinese custom, and she had not yet met her husband-to-be, though she had seen his photograph and thought him very good-looking. He also had plenty of money. However, even if she had not been getting married she could not have met meâfor Chinese girls were not permitted the same liberty as English girls. The latter, she knew, could have boy friendsâcould even allow their boy friends to anticipate the role of husbandâwithout seriously prejudicing their chance of marriage. She had even heard of one English girl, from the upper contours of the Peak, who had taken four boy friends in as many years, and then been married to a high-ranking Government official in the Hong Kong cathedral. But for a Chinese girl such behavior was unthinkableâfor purity was an indispensable condition of marriage, and on the day of marriage the husband's relatives were traditionally entitled to seek proof. And if the girl was found wanting the contract would be annulled; there would be nothing left for her but the streets.
“So you see, I have never had a boy friend,” Mee-ling declared solemnly. “I have never made love yet.”
“No?” I said, startled by such frankness.
“No, not once.”
“Well, you've still plenty of time.” I wondered if this kind of conversation, at first meeting, was typically Chinese.
She looked at me innocently. “What do you call that in English?”
“Call what exactly?”
“I mean, if you have not made loveânot with anybody.”
“Well, you call it âbeing a virgin,'” I said.
“âVirgin'? Like that?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, virginâthat's me.”
She said this pointing to herself with a red fingernail. I burst out laughing.
“Mee-ling, you're marvelous!” I said. “Anyhow, now we've got that point cleared up, won't you have dinner with me? I mean, if I promise not to try and spoil your record?”
She shook her head again stubbornly. “No.”
“But I'd love to paint you.”
“No. We say good-by in a minute.”
The boat shuddered through its frame as the engines went into reverse. It nudged against the Wanchai pier. The gangplank clanged down and I followed Mee-ling off the boat in the crush of passengers. We paused outside on the quay where a group of rickshaw men sat idly between the down-tilted shafts of their rickshaws. Only a hundred yards along the quay was the Nam Kok, and I could see the blue neon sign over the entrance, and my corner balcony on the top floor, and my easel standing out on the balcony with the white-square of canvas: the painting of Gwenny that I had started this morning.
Mee-ling followed my glance.
“What's that place?”
“Which . . . ?” I said vaguely. Then I quickly reclaimed her attention, saying, “Where are you going now?”
“Hennessy Road.”
“To catch a tram?”
“No, there is a car to meet me in Hennessy Road.”
“Can I come with you to the car?”
“No, the driver might tell my father.”
“And I suppose your father would beat you?”
“Yesâperhaps.”
“And you won't be a devil and change your mind about dinner?”
“No. I go now.”
She held out her hand for a formal good-by, gave a sudden little giggle as I took it, as if at the daring of our encounter, then turned and bolted off down the side street to Hennessy Road, her heels flying, her plume of hair bobbing. She looked back, briefly fluttered a hand at me, then was swallowed up by the food stalls and rickshaws and pedestrian swarms.
Gone, I thought, gone.
Partir c'est mourir un peu.
 . . . And I turned away and crossed the quay to the Nam Kok; and as soon as I got up to my balcony I stood the drawing board on the easel over the canvas of Gwenny, found a piece of charcoal on the cluttered table, and made a quick sketch of Mee-ling while the memory was still fresh. I sketched her with that mischievous-innocent look in her eyes, one hand holding the melon seeds, the other pointing to herself; and underneath I wrote, “Yes, virginâthat's me.”
It was not very good, but it made me smile, and I kept it. I have just looked at it again now. It is very smudged, and has been tornâby Mee-ling herself, who did not like itâand repaired with Scotch tape. But it still amuses me, because it was my first sketch of her. And I have been wondering how many times I have sketched and painted her since. Well, I could never count. But probably more times than there are melon seeds in that cornetâand more times than there are hairs in that pony-tail plume.
