Miss Jill

by Emily Hahn

  “Well-ll, yes,” said Babe doubtfully, “but you wouldn’t, see? Us girls can’t go everywhere. The law, you know.”

  “Law? I never heard of a law that—”

  “Police. We got one beach where they let us go, but it’s better even then to wait till dark.” Babe lit a cigarette and glanced around the room disparagingly. It was about two in the morning, and business was slow. “Oh, Honolulu’s okay, but I like the Coast here too. I don’t have much use for these mugs; I like the slants.”

  “Slants?”

  “China boys.” She looked around again and her voice rasped even more than usual. “Jees, just look at ’em. I got a mind to go out on the line instead tomorrow. Come along, kid, it’s easy. All you do is walk along the Bund and make it cheap–a dollar or two-and you get all the work you can handle. It’s easy as hell, kid.”

  Jill was shocked. “You mean–ricksha coolies and all like that? Oh, I couldn’t.”

  “And why not?” demanded Babe, hurt. “Who are you, for God’s sake?”

  “Sanyi wouldn’t like it,” said Jill hastily.

  “He wouldn’t mind once he counted the take. Okay, let it pass. You look kinda dragged out, kid; here, take this.”

  Without asking what it was, Jill swallowed the black pill; she knew by this time, after some experience, that it was opium. A few minutes later she felt much better. The ache was gone from her legs and the uneasiness from her heart. She could dance for hours, she felt, and Sanyi, when he called for her, would be sweeter than he had recently proved himself. Of course he would. She sat back and smiled, her eyes roaming the room for a likely prospect.

  “There, that’s better,” said Babe. “And that’ll make it a dollar you owe me. You think it over, about going out on the line.”

  “No, honestly, Babe, Sanyi wouldn’t let me.”

  “Phooey to Sanyi, kid. You better play it alone.”

  Jill giggled but made no promise.

  “Okay,” said Babe. “You’ll learn. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

  “What is that?” asked the ever-watchful Konya, pouncing on a letter that was waiting on the bureau. “From Japan, it is.”

  “Oh, let me see it, quick!” She snatched it from him and ripped open the envelope.

  “Ha.” Sanyi folded his arms and scowled histrionically. “The old boy friend, is it?”

  “No, no, Sanyi darling; it’s a girl; it’s Hidei. She says—Oh, and look, here’s a check.… She congratulates me on our marriage. She says her parents join her in wishing me eternal happiness. How sweet of them. Oh, that is nice. When are we going to be married, Sanyi?”

  “Soon, my little love, soon. Let’s see that check.”

  VI

  Babe’s suggestion stuck in Jill’s mind like a dart smeared with curare. Until the American girl with the whisky voice had taken it so for granted, Jill’s actual standing in the world had seemed to herself to be a secret shared only with her conscience, saved up there in the dark, perhaps someday to be shown, but only to her father-confessor. She had always thought of herself as a special being, an interesting specimen, the only one of her kind. That was how Botchan had treated her, and Sanyi always assumed the same attitude. She was Jill the courageous but sweet; Jill the adventuress. Jill the nebulous, for that matter–never once had she accepted for more than a second any one word that would describe her peculiar quality. Considering the tenderness with which she regarded herself, it was a nasty shock to find a common, ordinary tart like Babe hailing her as colleague.

  “It serves me right,” thought Jill, “for working in that low-class place. Sanyi ought to know better.”

  Sanyi, however, was obtuse when she complained to him. She had been getting on quite well, he reminded her; why allow a moron like Babe to upset things?

  “It is only temporary,” he argued. “Once we are clear of this place we can forget it all, like the dream it is. In the meantime what difference does it make where you work? At the Casino you have the best chance to be seen by people. You have met some quite rich men there. This fellow from the shipping company, do you not meet him today for tea?”

  “Yes,” said Jill, and made a face. She was eating breakfast at two in the afternoon, and she did not like the idea of tea at five. “He asked me where we could go afterward,” she added. “We can’t use his hotel, he says. What do you think, Sanyi?”

  Sanyi clicked his tongue impatiently. “Why must they worry you with such questions? Let him make his own arrangements. A man truly comme il faut would know enough to take you to Annette’s, for example. I am always being surprised by these people; one must do everything for them.… No, little Jill, do not be silly, and tell this Baby woman to hold her tongue. The Casino is very good for you.”

  “Oh, Sanyi, I am so tired of it. I never get any sleep.”

  “Poor little girl.” He softly rubbed her arm. “Wait just a little longer.”

  Nevertheless, Jill was able to give up the Casino shortly after this trifling argument with Sanyi’s full consent. One Saturday evening she noted with apprehension a large party of well-built, swarthy young men pushing their way through the crowd and demanding a good table. She recognized them, as did most of the other hostesses: they were the jai alai players on whose games the sporting inhabitants of Shanghai lavished bets every night. The jai alai team had enjoyed popularity for some months now, and the members of it were so spoiled as to be insufferable. They were tough, too.

  “I think those handsome boys are looking for trouble,” she said to Sanyi. He had dropped in rather early and was waiting about until it should be time to take her home.

  Sanyi shrugged. “Let them find it somewhere else, then,” he said. “They never spend money if they can help it. Come on, Jill, we had better dance before one of them thinks of wasting your time.”

  The crush on the dance floor carried them around in a circle, allowing little choice of action. Just as the music paused for breath they came abreast of the jai alai players’ table, and one of the men, a big fellow in a purple suit, ogled Jill. As the music struck up again he stood on his chair and leaned over, intending to pick her up by grasping her under the arms. Konya saw his intention and with a lithe twist maneuvered his partner out of reach.

  The jai alai player screamed a foreign word at Konya and spat at him.

  “Here !” protested a woman on the dance floor. “Be careful, can’t you?” Then the music covered all the noise, and Jill, with Konya, was swept away. To her surprise she felt him trembling, and when she looked at his face she saw that he was white.

  “We must go,” he said between his teeth. “No, never mind the last dance; we will go now. Otherwise I will not be responsible.” He was still white, still shaking with rage in the taxi. “The insult!” he kept saying. “The shame!”

  “Sanyi, what was that word he called you? It sounded like ruffiano.”

  “It was.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  Konya inhaled sharply. “It means ‘pimp,’” he said. “Jill, you must never go back to that place. It is a low place; I cannot allow you to dance there any more.”

  She understood thoroughly, and thoroughly sympathized. Even though Sanyi was a ruffiano, it could not have been very nice to be called one.

  “You’re absolutely right, darling,” said Jill.

  Annette’s, after the hurly-burly of the Casino, was a cozy quiet house in which to spend one’s time. There at least one could feel as Sanyi had promised falsely about the Casino, that one was going to a party every night. At any rate, it was the sort of party Jill preferred–a tea party, or, when Annette’s was particularly busy, a reception. One began by going to Annette’s as to an exclusive hotel: Sanyi telephoned Tony in advance and ordered a private dinner in one of the small rooms, or at any rate made arrangements so that Jill and her client could come in and go out without speaking to the girls and men who sat in the drawing room. After a time, of course, one got to know Annette fairly well. She was a friendly woman an
d made a most satisfactory fuss over Jill, inviting her to lunch and talking to her about cooking, or pets–Annette was fond of dogs and birds–or dressmaking, or anything in the world but men and business.

  After a few weeks of this Annette suggested introducing Jill to some of her own friends. “If it’s all right with your count, that is,” said Annette. “I think it will be, but you’d better check up. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.”

  It was all right with the count. Jill began to spend more time at Annette’s than she did in her own lodgings.

  “I don’t really see why you shouldn’t move over here,” said Annette, “do you? You’ll save the rent, anyway, and it’ll be nice company for you.”

  So that was that.

  Annette’s was a large house, with many people living in it. Some of the population, some of the girls, came and went, staying at the house for a few days, or weeks, or months, and then moving on for reasons of their own, but three inhabitants never went away at all. These were Annette, her Chinese major-domo Tony, and Bob. Bob was Annette’s common-law husband, a short, stocky Englishman who liked to talk about the old days when he was with the Indian police. He had also been with the Shanghai police, but he preferred to talk about India. Jill had the impression that he had held a better job in India than he had done in Shanghai in more recent days. Annette was proud of Bob and hoped, she said, that they could retire someday to a ranch in Canada (she was Canadian). Bob was a gentleman farmer at heart, she explained; his people still had a farm in Yorkshire. For the time being Bob satisfied his rural yearnings as many men did in Shanghai by walking in the garden behind the house, exercising the dogs, and keeping a more or less sharp eye on the gardener. He never did anything else. He would have liked to drive the car, but Annette kept a Chinese chauffeur for that. He would have liked to go to the races, too, but Annette didn’t like betting, and why else should he go to the races? Bob was as unobtrusive as the furniture of which Annette was so proud.

  Annette was much more of a housewife than Jill had ever expected her to be. With her large body wrapped in a pinafore-apron she inspected the house every day, gave hell to the servants, constantly ordered more vigorous cleaning, and haunted the kitchen, where she often pushed the cook into a corner and did a bit of cooking herself. She also went to the market, though she hated going out, and bargained for ducks, chickens, and vegetables. Her table was one of her great prides, and her rooms were another. Everything at Annette’s was always clean; all the rooms were kept as well brushed and aired as a careful housewife could make them. That is, considering the girls who occupied some of them.

  Girls, said Annette with a deep sigh, were dirty animals. She did her best, not only by precept and example, but by constant watchfulness and nagging, to keep her girls in order in that way, but it was an endless task.

  “I will say that for you, Jill,” she often remarked, “you’re tidy. You’re a lady. Some of these girls!” She shook her head and clicked her tongue, and Bob clicked his tongue too. “And then they wonder why I don’t have them in more often for a quiet evening,” she added bitterly. Jill sometimes did spend a quiet evening there playing cards. Sometimes, but not often.

  Considering her sentiments, Annette did wonderfully well in her management of the dirty girls. There were usually at least three or four steady boarders and as many more who came and went in the manner of Jill’s early days. There was in fact a well-marked hierarchy among them: Jill and the other inmates stood at the top of the list in Annette’s estimation, the birds of passage came next, and at the foot of the list were the others, the outcasts who were brought in for an occasional night by some client who paid Annette well for the privilege. These included girls from other houses, those which were kept by Annette’s hated rivals in Kiangse Road and elsewhere. There were also the “call girls,” who lived by themselves or in pairs in private apartments, and who were ready to answer telephone calls from Annette in cases of emergency, when she ran short of her own material. Besides these, Annette confided to Jill, there were non-professionals, married women who wanted adventure or extra cash. They, too, held themselves ready to answer telephone calls on occasion.

  “But how do you get in touch with them in the first place?” asked Jill.

  “Oh, they get in touch with me,” said Annette proudly. As an afterthought a moment later she added, “Mostly through dressmakers, it is. You’d be surprised, too, the number there are. But it’s a risky business, and I won’t touch it unless I’m sure about the husbands one way or another.”

  The arrangement of the hierarchy was not a matter of public interest, Jill soon discovered. The customers had certain prejudices and it was as well to pander to them. Many a man, for example, liked to entertain the illusion that his particular girl friend of the evening was an amateur, called in only this one time for his own special delectation. A wise girl, even if she actually lived in the house, took this idiosyncrasy so for granted that she good-naturedly went through an elaborate mummery in order to keep her clients happy. After her temporary bed-fellow had paid his fee, said good night, and gone, she would dress herself in outdoor clothing instead of merely slipping into her lounging pajamas or hostess gown, and when she had been assured by Tony or an underling that the coast was clear, she would trip out of the house by a back door and enter again through the front, gloved and hatted like a new arrival. Men who were lingering in the drawing room, waiting to make their choice, were gratified to see her come in. The fact that she had evidently not yet gone to bed with anyone that evening lent her the same attraction, though in a small way, a virgin is supposed to possess.

  Even when the weather was bad, rendering that little act impracticable, Jill learned to maintain the illusion in another way. When a man asked her, “How many men have you had this evening?” she invariably replied, “None. You’re the first.”

  An odd little ceremony, but she grew accustomed to it. Nearly every man she met asked the same question, and they always seemed eager to believe the answer.

  It was a very normal-looking house, Annette’s. Like its neighbors, it had extensive gardens; unlike its neighbors, those grounds and the house itself had a well-kept look. There were ivy on the walls and cheerful drapes at the windows. The only unusual thing about Annette’s place, perhaps, was the number of doors and staircases in it. You could come in and go out, if you knew your way and if Tony knew you, without meeting anybody else at all. Like many other houses, this one took on some of the qualities of its owner. Like Annette, it was big, cheerful, and healthy-looking, but there was a lot more to it than one might realize at first glance. It was a deep house.

  When Jill first moved in she found three other girls there as well. She supposed they were on the same terms as herself. Annette, when the actual moving in took place, broke the news carelessly that she liked to have a contract of at least six months with her girls. A six-month contract was drawn up and ready for Jill to sign, which she amiably did, in the presence of Sanyi. Sanyi had not liked the sound of it, he told her in private, but … “It wouldn’t hold in a court of law, anyway,” he said. “The old girl wouldn’t dare bring it to court. She breaks contracts herself whenever it suits her.”

  “Oh, surely not, Sanyi!” said Jill. “She’s too nice.”

  Sanyi laughed. “I know a few things about her,” he said. “There was one girl—”

  “What about her, Sanyi? Why do you stop talking? Did you know her?”

  But Sanyi was already talking about something else.

  The other three girls were named Violet, Iris, and Margaret. Violet had red hair, flamingly, arrogantly, falsely red, and she said she was Italian but spoke with a strong American accent. Iris had yellow hair which was probably really fair, though she kept bleaching it to make sure. Margaret was dark and claimed to be Georgian until she was certain that Iris was a genuine Russian, and then she said she was Spanish. The constant fluctuations of fact and fancy which surrounded Jill irritated her at the beginning, but in time sh
e recognized in them a similarity to her own, and then she discounted them mechanically and paid no more attention. All these women told lies with a rich, profuse carelessness, and the lies were usually romantic, harmless, childish ones. It was as if the storytellers could not stop putting on costumes in the morning, after being on the stage and acting their parts all night.

  The men came in the evening, usually, either to meet a girl with whom they had already arranged the appointment, or to meet someone new. Annette liked to start things off in a properly conventional way; that is, she introduced her girls to the men, or the men to the girls, if not exactly like a mamma, at any rate like a benevolent aunt. After that it was up to Tony to see that they were served when they wanted to be, and up to Tony and the girls between them to make sure the men did not leave the premises without paying or at least, if they were well known in the town as responsible people, signing a chit.

  Everyone came to Annette’s, she often claimed, and if it was not exactly everyone, at least there were representatives of every class of which she approved. There were businessmen, idlers, bankers, lawyers, newspapermen, police, Army, Navy, doctors, brokers–there were Frenchmen, British, Americans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Russians, Germans–anyone who could afford Annette’s rather high tariff and who knew how to behave himself according to her lights came to see the place and perhaps to start a series of visits. Often in the past her girls had graduated to the dignity of their own establishments, as mistresses or wives; Annette never liked this when it happened, but she boasted about it afterward.

  “The difficulty these days is to get the girls,” she would say in moments of confidence. “My clients, they’re always asking me for somebody new, and they don’t realize there aren’t so many white girls around these days. The Chinese are the worst like that, always wanting somebody new. You take a Jap, he doesn’t care if the same girl takes care of him for months and months. The Japs are no trouble at all. But these Chinese bankers!”