I sipped away at the bottle, each sip sending me to a higher realm of ecstasy. The night was beautiful with colour, strange beasts, deliciously vile and lovely women and music beyond compare. I took the last drops with the bottle clamped between my lips, imagining that it was one of the multiplex teats of Diana of Ephesus.
One thousand years later a savage blow across the face brought me back to this base and venal world. I opened a languorous eye. The afternoon sun was entering the window: clearly, it was tomorrow. Above me towered a huge, angry man with whiskers. Behind him whimpered and cowered the boy “You”. “Fetched a doctor, Sir,” he squeaked, “I fought you was a stiff’un, I swear I did. I hope I did right.”
I mumbled something in Dutch which I forget now and, in any case, could not commit to paper; then I sank back into delicious sleep.
Another savage blow lashed my face; I scarcely winced, reasoning that to ignore it would make it stop. It did not stop. The doctor had a wet towel in his hand and, when I finally opened an eye, seemed ready to use it again. And again.
“If he dares to strike me again,” I thought, happily, “I shall rise up like an avenging angel and tear his throat out with my long, red, jewel-encrusted finger-nails, then feed him to my leash of dragon-dogs, to the tinkling laughter of my hundred odalisques.”
He hit me again with the wet towel. His fate was sealed. Alas, though, I found that I could not get up: each time I attempted to do so the stately pleasure-domes of my inflamed mind gave place to an intense desire to vomit. I decided to give him best, he was but a mere mortal. I went back to sleep. He hit me again. There are few ecstasies which can withstand repeated blows with a wet towel. I commenced to weep. He yanked me to my feet and shouted to “You” to bring some hot, strong coffee.
“Couldn’t drink it,” I mumbled.
“You are not going to drink it,” he said with some satisfaction, walking me up and down the bedroom and flicking my behind and, once, my privates, with the cold, wet towel. When I grew tired he put a bottle of smelling-salts under my nose, which made my head explode into coloured lights like the fireworks at a Holland Kermesse. Hooking my arm about his neck, so that I could not lie down, he opened his bag and drew out a hideous object, all nozzles and tubes and a gutta-percha bulb. Then “You” brought the hot coffee and the doctor threw me on the bed, face down. I went gratefully to sleep but, within a moment, something dreadful happened to me from behind; an invasion and a scalding influx.
You do not wish to learn more, nor I to recount it.
Later, I do not know how much later, he was pulling open my eyelids, studying my pupils, waking me up. This was too much.
“Go away, or I shall kill you,” I said.
“Six and eightpence,” he said. I was by now awake enough to offer him six shillings for prompt cash; he took it, but the expression on his face did not make me feel brave and clever.
“How long have you been swilling this filth?” he asked, as he packed his bag.
“This is my first time,” I answered.
“Then you’re a damned imbecile. Ten grains of opium in that bottle, the dose for a confirmed addict. Lucky to be alive. If that’s the way you want to die, don’t call me in again; if you think I enjoy clystering out your back passage you’re mistaken, I promise you. Even for six shillings, ready cash. Next time, get your brat to call in the Chinee quack in Villiers Street, probably do it for half a crown.”
He left without saying “good-day” and I sank back under the blankets and wept bitterly. I was stricken with home-sickness for that beautiful, hot, swinish land where the opium had transported me; it was better to be dead there, there amongst the colours, the vile ladies and the strange music, than to be alive above a shop near the street called Strand in London, hundreds of miles from my Mama. It seemed sensible to me to obtain some more opium, nothing else would do. I banged upon the floor, perhaps feebly.
In a little while the boy “You” entered, carrying a bowl which steamed, smelling of rich meat.
“Out,” I screamed, “OUT!”
“Yes, Sir, but, please Sir, the doctor give me thruppence to buy gravy-meat for to make you this beef-tea; pray drink it, Sir, do; he made me swear to get it down you. It’s for your health, you see Sir.”
I gagged it down with but ill grace. To be candid, I wished to beat someone painfully but I had not the strength to beat even “You”.
“What is in that other basin?” I asked sternly.
“Nothing Sir, not yet, Sir. The doctor said that your stomach was weak and that you might not keep the beef-tea down first time.”
“My stomach is strong,” I replied, “and the doctor is an impudent fellow. If there is any unused coffee left, you may bring me some; it was but a momentary weakness.” He brought me some coffee, which I drank, in the ordinary way that one takes coffee. The desire for the absurdly beautiful lands of opium-eating was dwindling: I knew that I must never travel those wondrous jungle-paths again unless I was prepared to eschew all the more solid pleasures of this fat and splendid real world, where a clever man may become rich and famous, if he keeps his head clear. I cleared my head peremptorily.
“Bring me my breeches!” I cried. He brought them. I felt in the pockets.
“Do you see these two sixpences? Now, hold, one of them is for you, to spend upon nourishing food. The other you are to hide, ‘You’, and the next time I bid you go out and buy me opium, either tincture or in the lump, you are to take that sixpence into the street and hire a hulking carter, drayman or vegetable porter from the market and bid him come in here and beat me about the head until I fall unconscious. This will be both cheaper and better for my health. Is that clear?”
He did not like this, he shifted from foot to foot, but in the end his intelligence grasped him, for he was not really a stupid boy.
“Yes, Sir,” he said.
I told him that I was going to sleep and that I wished to be called early.
“Finish the beef-tea,” I added, “for it will make you big and strong.”
I did not sleep at once, however; I lay awake considering what had happened to me and wondering at the power of this opium, which could almost kill me yet make me lust for more of it, even as I quaked and retched. Clearly it was a more powerful commodity than Demon Rum and one that could be dealt with profitably if the vendor abstained from it himself.
My thoughts turned to Lord Windermere and the twelve hundred and fifty pounds – some sixteen thousand gulden. His selection of my stock had been strongly in favour of Ming and Kang H’si wares and their finest imitators: I did not know where I could get more, of that quality, short of going to China myself and I could not envisage a future of picking a living as a dealer in the commoner pottery. My thoughts went round in a circle. The opium dreams had been delicious. I fell asleep.
I spent the whole of the next morning virtuously; I rearranged what was left of my stock to its best advantage and stuck little numbered pieces of paper onto everything and wrote descriptions and prices in a “Long Tom” ledger so that “You” would be able to sell when I was out. Then I drank some glasses of sherry white and walked to the “Piazza” where I found my good Mr Jorrocks and his friend Sir Tees, in the Corner box arguing about the relative merits of skylarks and wheatears. Mr Jorrocks, it seemed, thought nothing of driving all the way to Brighton to eat wheatears at the Star and Garter when they were in season (the shepherds on the South Downs catch these little birds in horsehair snares) but Sir Tees scoffed at this, saying that they were no better than pudding-sparrows. I quietened this argument (for we do not eat such things in Holland) by inviting them both to see whether they could eat as many mutton chops as I could.
“A trifle early for me,” said the Yorkshireman, pulling out a silver half-hunter.
“Werry early,” agreed Mr J, pulling out a gold half-hunter.
“But …?” I said, fumbling in my waistcoat but not pulling out my gun-metal “turnip” watch.
The mutton chops were very good
, although the boiled potatoes and cabbage were not: the British do strange and disgusting things to their vegetables. We all fortified ourselves heroically. Our little dinner was only marred when a barrel-organ outside struck up the popular air “If I Had a Donkey Vot Vouldn’t Go”. Mr Jorrocks rose to his feet, tore off his wig and dashed it to the floor.
“By all that’s impure!” he bellowed, “shall I never be free of the warmint? I swears he follows me all over London! Waiter, waiter I say, take this penny and implore that pernicious dinner-spoiler to move into the next street before I does him a mischief.”
“You are not, then, fond of music, Mr J.?” I asked carefully, when the music had stopped.
“Knows only two tunes,” he grunted. “One of them is ‘God Save The King’ and the other – hisn’t.”
We called for more chops, again and again; my Mama would have been proud of me. Then we went into the reading-room to snooze a little. (I should explain that in England you sleep in the reading-room, just as you eat in the coffee-room, smoke in the study, spend the afternoon in the morning-room, drink tea in the drawing-room and, unless you happen to be in love with your wife, sleep in the dressing-room whilst your wife, quite likely, is committing adultery in her sewing-room. It is all very strange. There is now a book called Alice in Wonderland which explains how the English system works, although in veiled language.)
This snoozing of mine was not long, for my friends snored like Dutchmen. I crept out without awakening them, paid the bill and took a cab to the dealers’ part of London which in those days was a few mean streets to the South of Piccadilly Road, near the Palace of St James’s. I sauntered about, for I was in my fine new coat, a coat in which one could saunter with confidence, looking carefully at things in windows and even more carefully at their prices. Whilst I was looking carefully into such a window, of a shop kept by someone of a Jewish name and no ignorance, the proprietor opened the door of the back room and came into the shop. While that door was briefly open I had a brief vision, in the back room, of what seemed to be an incomparable set of five “Lange Lyzen” vases, quite beautiful. Although the dealer was, from his goods and their prices, not a man of ignorance, I felt drawn into his shop as though by invisible cords. We looked at each other, then nodded perfunctorily as people of our religion do when we meet each other but not in the bosom of our families.
I browsed around the shop, looking at this and that, while he pottered in and out, he knew I would not steal anything. I chaffered for, and bought, a fine eggshell cup and saucer of the real Imperial Yellow; also a good rice-bowl with the “leaping boy” decoration. They were not too dear, for it was a slack season; also, he was overstocked (which is the besetting vice of us Jews) and, at that time of the afternoon, neither of us was in the mood for protracted bargaining: we both knew what I would pay and we did not care to go through the usual long agony – or ecstasy – of reaching that figure.
As I was leaving I said “Ah, by the way …”
He did not say “Oy veh!” and he only sketched out the gesture of slapping the palms of his hands to the forehead. What he said was: “So. A ‘by-the-way’ asker, already. You have perhaps an expensive mistake you wish to pass on to a fellow-dealer? Or you have heard of my beautiful daughter with the large dowry?”
“Neither of those,” I said politely; “I just wished to say that I might be interested to buy a set of good Lange Lyzen if the price were right.” He shuffled his feet, avoiding my gaze. “Only the ones in the window,” he said at last.
“They are pretty,” I said politely, “but they are not quite as good as I require; moreover, they are but three and I wish for a full set of five, such as those I chanced to notice in your back room when you opened the door.”
“Not for sale,” he said gruffly.
“A pity. But perhaps, all the same, I might be permitted to look?” He hesitated, then agreed. “But you will promise to keep your mouth shut, eh?”
I promised, thinking that perhaps the person he had bought them from might not have been quite entitled to sell them. He read my thoughts.
“They are honestly come by,” he growled. “If you are as clever as you think you may be able to guess why I cannot sell them.”
The more I looked at the beautiful vases – the finest I had ever seen – the more puzzled I became. They bore a fine set of six-character marks and there was no visible flaw. When I made as though to pick up the last one the old dealer lifted an admonitory finger.
“Look only,” he said; “don’t lift.” I thought about that, then lifted up one of the others, looked at the bottom again, felt it. The glaze there was very odd to the touch. I took it to the light: there was no doubt, it was not glaze but a clear varnish over white paint on which the marks had been forged. But why? It was baffling, for the pots themselves were as genuine as golden sovereigns.
“Forged marks on genuine vases,” I said to the shopkeeper. “What was the need? And why does this prevent you from selling them? You have but to scrape off the paint.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I scraped; oy, I scraped. See.” He handed me the fifth pot. He had indeed scraped to good purpose: half-revealed on the bottom was a beautiful, delicate, detailed painting under the glaze. It depicted five most gifted Chinese persons engaged in a complicated act of quite unbelievable indecency; I found it entrancing: my face and neck became hot. He took the vase out of my hands.
“Don’t enjoy!” he said sternly. “Two hundred pounds I gave for these paskudnyaks – you are a mavin, you know that was a metsieh but not robbery – and now I dare not show them at all. Even if the police did not send me to prison, who would buy? Collectors of porcelain are respectable people, ladies and gentlemen; noblemen some of them.”
“Yes,” I said reflectively. “How much of a loss would you take? I think I know a meshuggener who might take them.”
“Loss?” he asked suspiciously, “loss? Who’s talking of loss? Maybe only a small trifle of a profit …”
We settled down to haggle in earnest. He was an old man much frightened of the authorities, for in those unenlightened days our race was much persecuted; every time I slipped the word “prison” into my talk he covered his eyes and said either “Zeeser Gottenyu!” or “Gevald!”
It was half an hour before I saw that his price was hardening at one hundred and ten guineas. I trimmed the shillings off and paid one hundred and ten pounds, leaving him keening at the loss but, clearly, relieved to be rid of the dangerous vases.
I told my cabbie to take me home via Eaton Square, where I left a note for Lord Windermere, urging him to call on me as soon as might be, lest he miss an incomparable purchase.
At the shop, the boy “You” told me that he had sold his first pot, for five-and-seventy shillings. He was very proud. Also, his new suit of “duds” had arrived and he asked me shyly whether he might put them on and go to the Foundling Hospital to visit his little mates there, for it was the first Friday of the month, when such visits are permitted to the little “come-by-chance” inmates. I agreed.
“But first,” I told him, “you are to climb onto the roof and break off a little piece of lead, about so big, for I wish to scrape a bottom.” He sped off on this mission without question, for he had long ago decided that I was insane.
“You” was out, scrubbed and shining, and I had almost finished scraping the varnish and paint off the bottom of the second pot when Lord Windermere arrived in his Clarence. The Clarence was, I thought, a sign that he was in a buying mood, for it is a roomy rather than a dashing vehicle.
“Well now, what’s all this, what’s all this, burst me? Can’t a man enjoy his whore and his bottle of port without being summoned like a footman by every Jew hawker in London?”
He was not being rude; in those days when an Englishman wished to make it clear that you were accepted he called you terrible names, it meant that he thought you were British enough to take British jokes. They were quite mad. Now they are still mad but more polite;
I think I liked them better when they were mad and rude. I truly believe that Lord Windermere thought Holland a possession of Great Britain; they teach them Horace and Virgil at school, scarcely any of them knows that the Dutch Navy once smashed its way up the Thames Valley to London and then sailed out again unscathed. The only Britishers with a sense of history are the Irish, but with them it is a disease.
I laid out the “Lange Lyzen” on the gleaming mahogany counter. He looked at them hungrily.
“These,” I said, “are one thousand and one hundred and ten pounds. To you, that is, of course.”
He gaped.
“Are you out of your senses?” he said at last. “Curse me, you said you’d rob me one day but you’re coming on too fast, too fast; they’d be dear at seven hundred and you know it.”
I showed him one of the bottoms. He gaped again, then roared with delight and laughter. “Done!” he bellowed, “done! Rot me, you knew I’d have to have ’em, you sod.”
He gave me a draft on Mr Coutts’s excellent bank and I showed him how to scrape with the piece of lead. We spent a happy evening, drinking three bottles of Madeira between us and scraping, scraping; hooting with pleasure as each lubricious scene became manifest.
“Smash me!” he cried at one point, “oh I say smash my eyes, d’you see this feller’s rump-splitter? Demme, it’s a good thing I’m a bachelor, couldn’t keep all these nudgers and fannies if there was a Lady Windermere about the house, could I?”
When all five of the vases’ bottoms were clean – if that is an appropriate word – and blazing in all their wonderful filthiness, Lord Windermere clapped me on the shoulder in the friendliest fashion, said that he’d never done a better day’s work in his life and vowed to send me a dozen of his prime Sercial as a “sweetener”, first thing in the morning.
All the Tea in China Page 7