World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) (32 page)

And that left only Haynes. And so I set off to Hennessy Road and boarded a tram, which clanked and tunneled its way through the heat-stuffed streets, shoveling the heat back through the open windows into the passengers' faces. I arrived at Haynes's office already exhausted by two minutes' walk and a climb up a short flight of stairs. The office was a large old-fashioned room, unsuitably hung with mirrors presented by satisfied Chinese clients. The chair at the desk was empty and there was no sign of life. Then I noticed movement behind the glass door of a kind of plasterboard den built into one corner of the room, like the kitchen of a converted mansion flat. A clerk came out and held open the door, and I stepped through into a chilly air-conditioned atmosphere that turned my damp shirt clammy and made my perspiration run like iced water. It was like walking out of a boiler room straight into a deepfreeze.

“Much cheaper than air-conditioning the whole—ah—office,” Haynes said. “And after twenty years out here I still can't stand the infernal heat. How's it outside now?”

“Pretty hot.”

“And I've got the afternoon in the court.”

He looked miserable. He was a tall anxious man with big hands, and knees that he had difficulty in fitting under the tiny desk, which was not a quarter the size of the big desk in the office outside.

“Well, I can't say that I view our prospects with much ah—enthusiasm,” he said gloomily. “I only hope we don't get Freddy Gore.”

“Who's that—the magistrate?”

“Yes, decent fellow, Freddy. But always hard on these—ah—girls. We must just cross our fingers and hope we get Charlie Kwok. Though I'm afraid even Charlie will give her a month or two.”

“You mean gaol?”

“It's no use my trying to paint you a rosy picture. You see, the way she'd thought it out—gone specially to buy those scissors—”

“Oh, no,” I said. “She'd had those scissors for weeks.”

He blinked at me.

“Well, I'm afraid that—ah—whenever they were bought she was carrying them in her handbag. And unfortunately the facts suggest a certain deliberate—ah—intention. I mean, to open her bag and take them out—”

“But they were already out. She was in the middle of using them.”

“That isn't what the young—ah—lady told me.”

“How's your Chinese?” I said.

“My Chinese? I don't speak a word.”

“Well, her English is hopeless. It was obviously a misunderstanding.”

He gave me a long look, and then dropped his eyes and began to shift his knees about uncomfortably under the tiny desk.

“Yes—ah—of course. Only I'm afraid the police will call witnesses, whose impressions may possibly prove contradictory.”

“That's all right,” I said. “There were only four people who saw what happened, and I know their impressions were all the same.”

“Well—ah—in that case we can form a different view.”

“And so what's the worst that can happen to her?”

“Well, let's say it's Charlie Kwok. Then it might be three hundred dollars.”

“And if it's Freddy Gore?”

“Five hundred.”

“They couldn't send her to gaol?”

“They could. But they—ah—won't.”

“And when's the hearing likely to be?”

“I'd say in four or five months.”

“Months?”

“They're queuing up for the courts, you know.”

“Well, we'd better put five hundred dollars on one side.”

He saw me to the door of the air-conditioned compartment but no farther. He said good-by rather awkwardly. Then after a hesitation he added:

“By the way, about that—ah—misunderstanding over the young lady's English. I forgot to say that I used an—ah—interpreter.”

I could think of nothing to say.

“Now excuse me if I shut you out. We're—ah—letting the hot air in.”

Chapter Four

“S
uzie, now that we're doing so well as partners in conspiracy, I think we should extend our partnership to other fields. Such as marriage. Will you marry me, Suzie?”

“What's happened? This heat gone to your head?”

“I thought about getting married long before it got hot. Will you, Suzie?”

“Sorry, my husband.”

“Don't be silly, you can't call me ‘my husband' and refuse to marry me in the same breath. Anyhow, why not?”

“You're a big man. Maybe one day they will make you a Lord. Mr. Lord Lomax.”

“What's that got to do with it?”

“Then I'd be Mrs. Lord. Mrs. Lord Bar Girl. ‘How do you do, Mrs. Lord Bar Girl? I hear you had two thousand sailors before you were married.'”

“I don't care how many sailors you had. You've got to marry me so that I'll always have you as a model.”

“Sorry, my husband. You go and marry some English girl.”

I was painting her lying relaxed on the bed in the heat, one hand idly picking at a saucer of melon seeds. I laid down my palette and sat on the bed beside her. Her small Chinese breasts were very white and smooth, like an immature girl's, but the nipples were mature and wrinkled and proud. Her baby had been a biter.

I laid my hand on her thigh.

“You've got Japanese thighs, Suzie.”

“How do you know? You told me you never had a girl in Japan.”

“I didn't.”

“I think so. I think you had a girl.”

“All right, I had a girl.”

“Then I will kill you! Pass me some scissors, please, my husband! I want to stick you!”

“Will you marry me, Suzie?”

“No, you go and find some English girl.”

II

“You like my new shoes?” old Lily Lou said.

“Sure,” Typhoo said. “Now listen while I tell you about this Yankee.”

“Forty-two dollars, they cost me, these shoes,” Lily Lou said.

“This Yankee asked me ‘How much one short-time?'” Typhoo said. “I said ‘Fifty dollars.' He said ‘Sure.' I thought he must be crazy—fifty dollars for a short-time! Then he gave me some money, and I said, ‘Hey, what's that? That's not Hong Kong money.' He said, ‘No, American money. You said fifty dollars, didn't you?' And you know how many Hong Kong dollars you get for fifty American dollars?”

“I never paid so much for shoes before,” Lily Lou said.

“Two hundred,” Typhoo said. “Two hundred Hong Kong dollars!”

The harbor had been packed with American ships for the last four days. The girls had known for a week beforehand that they were coming, because ships were their bread and butter and they knew more about the movement of ships than the Navy Department or the Admiralty. They had said there would be seventeen. Then one morning I had gone out onto the balcony and they had arrived. But there had only been sixteen, and I had teased the girls down in the bar that their information had been faulty and that they were slipping. But the laugh had been on me, for they had blithely pointed out that in my ignorance of naval matters I had left one ship out—the aircraft carrier which never came into the harbor, but anchored round the corner in Joss House Bay.

Typhoo said, “Two hundred dollars—for one short-time!”

“I got an all-night last night,” Lily Lou said. “Sixty dollars.”

“I get worried with too much money,” Typhoo grinned. “When I got no money, I got no worries. Money just makes me worried.” She looked across the table at the luscious little Jeannie. “Hey, what you doing?”

Jeannie was too preoccupied to answer. She was putting ticks against a list of numbers written on a paper serviette—the numbers of the seventeen American ships. She hesitated over the last. She pulled at the sleeve of her latest boy friend sitting beside her. He had been drinking and had passed out.

“Hey, Joe, what number you said your ship?”

The American opened bleary eyes. “Come again.”

“Your ship—what number?”

“Four-two-six.”

Jeannie ticked off the last number on her list and turned to Typhoo with a look of satisfaction.

“You know something? I got one boy friend in every ship in the fleet.”

III

“That word you just read—what does it mean?”

“Matador? It's a Spanish bullfighter.”

“What's a bullfighter?”

“Well, bullfighting is a very popular sport in Spain. They let a very fierce bull into a ring, and a man has to kill it with his sword, and there are thousands of people watching and they all shout ‘
Ole!
'”

“Aren't Spanish people Christians?”

“Yes, very much so. And so are English people who hunt foxes and otters with dogs.”

“But that book you read last week said that Christians must be kind to animals, because they were made by God just like men.”

“I know, Suzie, but the human brain is a wonderful organism. It can believe almost anything that happens to suit it. It can believe that black is white today, and red tomorrow, or even that it is both at the same time. You should never underrate the ingenuity of the human brain.”

“Then perhaps one day Christian people will say, ‘A man must have twenty wives.'”

“Yes, the Mohammedans already say you can have several, and they believe in the same God.”

“All right, go on reading.”

“No, let's talk a bit more about wives. Suzie, I'm so ridiculously happy with you. Let's go mad and get married.”

“No, you go and find some virgin girl. Christian men are supposed to marry virgin girls.”

“Perhaps one day they will say you can only marry a girl who has worked two years at the Nam Kok. Anyhow you are a virgin.”

“You think so? Well, you said the brain can believe anything!”

“You're an intellectual virgin. That's what I love about you. It makes me feel like a Pygmalion.”

“What's that?”

“Never mind. Will you marry me?”

“No.”

“You didn't say ‘No,' Suzie?”

“Yes.”

IV

The telephone rang and Suzie picked it up.

“No, he's busy. . . . All right.” She handed me the receiver. “It's that man.”

I thought for a moment, from the disdainful way she said “That man,” that Rodney must have turned up again. But it was Haynes.

“Well, we're not going to have to wait so long after all,” Haynes said. “There's been some re-shuffling at the court, and the hearing's been fixed for next week. Anyhow, we've got the right magistrate. We've got Charlie Kwok.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Should have a bit of fun with old Charlie. He's got rather an eye for the—ah—girls.”

Suzie was delighted when I told her the news. She was looking forward to the hearing as an opportunity for letting off steam about Betty.

“I am going to tell them that girl is no good,” she said. “I am going to tell them everything.”

“You're not, Suzie. You're going to tell them only what I told you to tell them.”

“I forget what you said.”

“Don't worry, I shall remind you.”

The hearing was on a Thursday, and on the previous afternoon I spent an hour putting Suzie and the four girls through their paces and firing tricky questions to try and catch them out. The next morning we all set off to the Central District by tram—minus only Little Alice, who had disappeared to another hotel with a boy friend the night before and failed to reappear. We left the tram and climbed up through the steep narrow streets. The magistrate's court was next to a police station and the old city gaol. There were several courtrooms and the entrance hall was crowded with people assembling for the various hearings. Suzie went off cheerfully to surrender to her bail. The three girls, who were all much more nervous than Suzie herself, stood in a silent anxious little group, glancing about sheepishly at the khaki-clad policemen. I led them to the room where witnesses had to report and then went and sat in the empty courtroom. It might have been a London magistrate's court except for the heat and the fans. The hot damp heat was appalling even at half-past nine in the morning, and my shirt and trousers were sticking to my body after the climb up the hill. Presently Haynes arrived, wiping his neck with a handkerchief, and said miserably, “I wish our hearing was in the High Court.”

“The High Court?” I said, alarmed. “Why?”

“The High Court's air-conditioned.”

I had sat down on one of the public benches, but he told me to move up to the press bench because there would be nobody else there, and I would “feel more one of the family.”

Soon the court began to assemble desultorily and the hearing began. And the atmosphere was so friendly and informal that it did indeed seem almost like a family party, and it was all I could do to stop myself butting in: I felt sure that nobody would have minded. Charlie Kwok, who was Cantonese but very westernized, was small, twinkling, and birdlike. He punctuated the proceedings with chatty and humorous asides. And even the police prosecutor, a young Chinese inspector, seemed to bear no ill will, and his manner was so obliging and gentle that I felt quite ashamed to think we were taking advantage of him.

The first witness to be called was Doris. She was the girl in whom I had the least confidence, for I would not have put it past her to turn against us in the witness box and expose our conspiracy. I sat watching anxiously. But I need not have worried, for she gave her answers drily but exactly as she had been drilled, and the nice Chinese inspector asked no awkward questions and made no attempt to trick her.

The proceedings were slow because the language of the court was English and the interrogation of witnesses had to be conducted through an interpreter—a small sleek conceited young Chinese with an impeccable Palm Beach suit and a taste for difficult and technical words. Doris was in the box for about fifteen minutes, and as she left the courtroom Charlie Kwok turned to the inspector and said with a twinkle, “I shouldn't think she gets much business, does she?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“I mean, those glasses,” Charlie Kwok chuckled. “I shouldn't think she gets much business with those glasses. Still, I remember when I was a student in London—you'd hardly believe it—I mean, some of those girls in the streets! Well, certainly not my cup of tea! I suppose it's still like that in London, isn't it, Mr. Haynes?”

“Well—ah—yes, I suppose so.”

“Now, let's get on. What else have you up your sleeve?”

Gwenny and Wednesday Lulu both gave their evidence without a slip. Then Betty Lau herself was called. She had only been out of hospital a few days and I could hardly recognize her, for she wore no make-up, no false eyelashes, and she crossed the courtroom with scarcely a sign of a waggle. She was very subdued in the witness box, and less concerned with making things awkward for Suzie than with whitewashing herself. She maintained that at the Nam Kok she had never gone upstairs with sailors: she had only gone to the bar to talk and drink with them. This pretense, which cast doubts on the truth of her other evidence, made her unwittingly more of a help to Suzie than otherwise. And when Haynes asked her what she had said that had provoked Suzie, she was evasive. She had to be pressed. Finally she yielded, and the natty young interpreter rendered her reply in his technical English:

“‘I told her what I had heard about her boy friend—that he was perverse and vicious, and addicted to a certain unnatural practice.'”

Charlie Kwok chuckled and said, “Well, she went into rather more detail than that—but evidently our interpreter doesn't think it fit for your ears, Mr. Haynes. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes, I think the witness has made her attitude sufficiently—ah—clear,” Haynes said. “I have nothing more to ask.”

Then Suzie was called and came down out of the dock. She was looking very pretty in a blue silk cheongsam and as she crossed the court Charlie Kwok twinkled appreciatively and winked at the prosecutor, “I'd like to wrap her up and take her home.” And he spoke to her in the witness box like an uncle talking to a pretty niece with whom he is regretfully aware that on account of family relationship he is obliged to behave.

However, it was Suzie herself who came nearest to ruining her own case. She was still so convinced of the justice of her attack on Betty that soon she had thrown all my warnings to the winds; and thrusting aside the questions of the kindly prosecutor, she tried to address herself directly to the magistrate. She just wanted to tell him what a nasty wicked person Betty Lau really was. She knew he would understand. And Charlie Kwok was obliged to rebuke her for these indignant outbursts and call her to order.

“Well, she's got spirit, I will say that for her,” he twinkled.

Then Haynes cross-examined her, and all went well until he asked for her assurance that her attack on Betty had been committed thoughtlessly, in a sudden access of anger, and that she was now sorry for what she had done. This was too bitter a pill to swallow. Sorry? For hurting that Canton girl? For punishing her for saying that spiteful dirty thing? I saw her struggle with herself. My heart stopped beating. And then all at once she burst out in Chinese and I could not understand what she was saying but I knew that it meant she was not sorry at all because Betty had deserved it, and—

And then she stopped. She had caught my eye. She looked defiant for a moment, and I went on holding her eyes and trying to exert my will on her; and then she began to look a bit ashamed, and after another moment she glanced at the interpreter and said something in a tone that meant that she did not believe what she was saying, in fact she could see no earthly sense in it, but that she was saying it nevertheless to please her boy friend who had the silly idea that she could be sent to the monkey-house for committing an act of justice.