by Emily Hahn
Jill looked sulky and remained silent.
“Why you couldn’t have strung that old devil along is more than I’ll ever understand,” continued Annette. “You know well enough what a headache he can be.” She paused disapprovingly as Jill muttered something. “Now that will do, Jill. I’ll have no language like that, and you ought to know it by this time. You’re getting very bad habits lately, I’ve noticed. Why can’t you be a lady like you used to?”
Jill was stung to speech. “Look what happens when I act like a lady,” she said. “I try to act like a lady with that filthy old Frenchman and what does it get me? The sack.”
“There’s no call to say that,” said Annette in reasonable tones. “I’m only suggesting a little vacation until this trouble blows over. You ought to have a change anyway. You’ve been here without a break now for quite a while, and a change never hurt any of you girls yet. Why don’t you try Honolulu? Marie in Honolulu is still trying to get you.” She paused for a second and glanced shrewdly at Jill. “I had a letter only this morning from her,” she said. “She mentioned you again.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? You’re doing a deal with Marie. Then how am I to know there’s any trouble at all with the police here, really?”
Annette said grimly, “You stick around awhile and you’ll find out for yourself.… Come on now, Jill, be reasonable. I’m telling you the truth, the way I always do.”
Jill laughed, and Annette grew angry.
“I don’t know what to do about you, and that’s a fact. You’re smoking too much mud, that’s one thing; it’s no use lying to me, Jill, because anybody can see from your eyes. No black to them at all, hardly. You’d better go slow or nobody’ll be wanting you, Marie or anybody else. It isn’t everybody would take you on again after you walked out on them the way you did on me. Now pay attention. Here’s Marie more than ready to take you on for a few months. ‘I’ve got to have Jill,’ she says–I’ll show you the letter if you like–’I’ve got to have Jill,’ she says. ‘You can take any two other girls I’ve got for her, but I want Jill.’ There now, what do you say to that?”
A vain smile, unwilling but persistent, twitched Jill’s mouth.
“And Honolulu, too,” said Annette, pursuing her advantage. “Sea bathing, and palm trees, and I don’t know what all. You’re a very lucky girl.”
“No,” said Jill.
“But why not?”
“Not Honolulu, not if I know it. Three dollars on payday is what you get there; remember what Fifi told us? And a turnover, maybe as much as a hundred, Saturday nights.”
“Fifi,” said Annette, “is a big-mouth. You’re a fool if you listen to her.”
“Filipinos at that,” said Jill. She blew out her lips.
“Nonsense. The fleet–––”
“Except when the fleet’s in,” said Jill, “and then you’re worked to death. I’m not having any, thanks just the same. You ought to be ashamed to suggest it to a girl, Annette. Why, with those Filipinos you take a mat and a pillow and go outdoors, right out in the field, one after another!”
“Jill, I never in my life heard such foolishness. As if Marie would run a place like that! Marie is––”
“No,” said Jill. “Not Honolulu.”
Annette accepted defeat without struggling any further. She sighed and remained silent, but her small eyes were thoughtful.
“I did think about Tientsin,” said Jill, “but it’s cold this time of year. There’s Hong Kong, of course, and Singapore. I’ve been saving Singapore, sort of.”
“There’s always the Sultan of Johore,” said Annette.
“That’s what I mean. I’m saving up the Sultan.”
“Well, you make up your mind.” Annette stood up and shook out her apron. “Think it over and we’ll do something about it in the next day or two. You can come back once it’s all quiet. I’m always glad to have you, Jill, you know that.”
Later Jill used to wonder suspiciously if Annette knew Mr. Yeh as well as she claimed to the night he suggested that he manage Jill’s trip. Certainly he had often been to the house, sometimes to introduce friends of his to girls who lived there and other times as escort for new girls who wanted to meet Annette. But there were always plenty of characters like him hanging around, with their good European clothes and their shining black hair. Annette could not have been completely truthful when she said he was one of her oldest, most trusted contacts; a man who had managed dozens of her girls before. Not considering what happened later.
At first, however, he was completely satisfactory. He thought that Hong Kong would be the best place for Jill’s little holiday, and he certainly did arrange everything efficiently. He went down to Hong Kong on the boat before Jill’s and was there to meet her at the dock. The trip had been pleasant and good for her nerves; Mr. Yeh had fixed it in advance with the chief steward so that she could smoke opium when she wanted it. Looking around at the city, so much cleaner than Shanghai, so beautifully set among the contours of its mountain, Jill sighed with satisfaction.
“It’s like old times, isn’t it?” she said to Mr. Yeh. “No war or anything. All that seems miles away.”
Mr. Yeh agreed amiably. He had brought a car and a chauffeur to the ship, and when he talked to the chauffeur Jill tried to understand what he was saying, but it was difficult. “I’ll have to learn more Cantonese,” she said. “There were a lot of Cantonese people I knew on the boat. Everybody seems to be moving down here, don’t they? Where are we going now?”
“West Point,” said Mr. Yeh. “That’s where you’re going to stay while you’re here.”
“But I thought that was all cabarets or fish markets.”
Mr. Yeh laughed. “You’d be surprised. All the big men in town spend their time in West Point; you don’t think they’d live in fish markets, do you? We’ve got a lot of clubs there. You wait. They don’t have anything near as good in Shanghai. Hong Kong’s the place.”
She grew more dubious as the car picked its way through slummy streets, up steep hills, and around blind curves. The buildings were forbidding edifices of stone or brick, close up to the pavement, and where in a few cases they had grudging little gardens at the door, these plots of ground were guarded by iron grilles and large padlocks. Looking wistfully back toward the bay and the Peak, she could see other sorts of houses, gracious-looking places with generous lawns.
“Isn’t that the place where most people live?” she asked Mr. Yeh. Neither of them noticed the incongruity of the question, though the car moved slowly against milling crowds of Chinese who all too evidently lived in the slums.
“Oh, those are English houses,” he said. “No Chinese are allowed to live on the Peak. That’s the rule.”
“No? But that’s awful! I never heard of such a thing. Why, in Shanghai––”
“Hong Kong’s different,” said Mr. Yeh.
“But I think that’s terrible!”
Mr. Yeh shrugged. “Sure, but who cares? You wait till you see West Point. The English don’t know what they’re missing. And someday we’ll get rid of them. It won’t be long now.”
Jill suddenly recalled that she had allowed him to think her a White Russian. She often did practice that deception, especially with people of Mr. Yeh’s mentality. The truth always made the Mr. Yehs rather tiresome; either they kept asking surprised questions, or they told her she was a liar. They were more used to White Russians. They had dealt with White Russian girls all their lives, treating them with familiarity, bestowing on them charity or contempt, and sometimes arranging to procure for these luckless, stateless women Portuguese passports from Macao. If Mr. Yeh had known Jill was British he would not have been on such easy terms with her.
“Well, here we are,” he said suddenly. “Don’t be worried, and don’t judge from outward appearances. Just trust me.”
Jill wrinkled her nose at the scene and the advice. They were standing at a small shabby door set in a large wooden wall that looked like the entrance to a garage
. Somewhere nearby, she knew, was the water front; they had caught glimpses of it through cross streets as they drove. Mr. Yeh gave orders in Cantonese, and the chauffeur walked off to the back with her bags, while Jill and her manager went through the door and climbed a steep dark stair. On a landing they stopped, and he rang a bell. To her surprise, for the landing in the half-light was tumble-down and ancient, a very modern-looking lift rolled down behind the wall with smooth silence and halted where they stood. A small boy held open a hidden door for them; they rolled upward for a long way, past several floors, and stepped into a startling room.
“Well!” said Jill, staring.
“What did I tell you?” said Mr. Yeh.
The floor was polished and the walls were clean. Small round windows, set into red frames, shed a discreet light from high up near the ceiling, but the inevitable Chinese electric light was on, full blast, nevertheless. There was a high counter near the lift, there were tables scattered about, and another room showed the brilliant green of a billiard table. To a European it would have seemed bare, but Jill knew it was luxurious.
“Pretty good, huh?” said Mr. Yeh.
He showed her to her room, which was one of a number of small cozy cubicles along a side corridor. Each had its little bathroom and a bed with a European mattress.
“Mostly the fellows use the place just to drop in on,” Mr. Yeh explained, “or we can put up visitors from Shanghai or Java, when they don’t want to go to a hotel. The food’s the best in town. I’ve ordered lunch and you’ll see. I guess you’ll be okay here.”
“I should just guess so,” said Jill with enthusiasm. “Am I alone, or aren’t there some other girls?”
Mr. Yeh showed a slight embarrassment. “No others like you,” he said, “I mean, with your class. Next door there’s a singsong house, and there’s a sort of special door between the two places so the girls can come in when they’re invited. But you wouldn’t like them. They’re not the same class.”
“Oh?”
“They can be pretty tough, these Cantonese girls on the water front,” said Mr. Yeh. “I’m not saying some of the fellows don’t bring in better girls sometimes. They do. Well, you’ll see. Lunch ought to be ready; come on.”
“I’d like to go out this afternoon and look around,” said Jill. Again Mr. Yeh looked uneasy. “I could take you in the car,” he said. “It wouldn’t matter this once, I guess. I don’t think you ought to go around alone very much, though.”
“But why not? In Shanghai––”
“Don’t you forget what I told you; this isn’t Shanghai.” He led the way to one of the little tables in the large room with the high windows. It was set with bowls, chopsticks, and the four cold dishes with which a Chinese meal begins. Two waiters attended them; no one else was eating, but Jill saw two men in shirt sleeves playing billiards. They were too well bred to stare at her, but she was conscious of a number of servants outside the doors peering in.
“This is a little town,” explained Mr. Yeh, eating with gusto. “I’m referring to the English, naturally. They’ll spot you if you’re around in the middle of town very much, and they’ll get nosy. The police don’t like too many white girls being friendly with the Asiatics, do you see? The ones that live in town, they know them all, and they keep an eye on any new ones. I’m not saying they’d get nasty in your case, but what’s the use of inviting trouble?”
“I see.”
“What I mean, if you’re only going to be here a little while, staying at the club, you might as well be quiet about it. Now if I’d made other arrangements, if you wanted to live in a regular uptown house with the girls the English know––”
“Annette thinks I’m better with the Chinese,” said Jill.
“I know; she told me. Here, take some of this fish; it’s a specialty of the club. It’s called garoupa and you don’t get it farther north. Isn’t that something? What I was saying, you won’t be badly off here; you’ll see. You can have whatever you like, when you like it. What would you want to go out for? If you want the big smoke, you get the best stuff right here in the club, and they’ll give you one of the boys to cook it if you like.”
“All the comforts of home,” said Jill. “All right, I don’t mind. But I’d like to take a walk now and then. I get nervous staying indoors all the time. You know how it is.”
“Oh well,” said Mr. Yeh, making a large gesture, “that ought to be okay. You don’t know anybody here, anyway, I guess.”
“Nobody who wouldn’t be coming to the club,” said Jill. “No foreigners.”
That afternoon, in Queen’s Road, she met Ray Macklin.
He was walking along with his head up, hatless, and looking sunburned, like most of the Europeans of Hong Kong. He had almost passed her before he saw who she was, and she never knew if she would have hailed him or not. She knew only that she had no thoughts at all for a second and then that she had too many.
“Oh, hello,” said Ray. “Why,” with mounting delayed surprise at seeing her, “hello! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Oh, visiting,” said Jill. “What about you? I thought you went home.”
“I did. I was sent back just last week.”
“That was quick, wasn’t it?”
“Planes are quick these days. I came by ship from Manila.… What the hell are we talking like this for? Come on and have a drink.”
He took her arm and pushed her along to the Hong Kong Hotel. In the lounge, sitting at a corner table, he looked into her face and smiled. “Same old Blondie,” he said. “Same hair.”
“Well, what else would you expect?”
“I dunno,” said Ray. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you, and I don’t know what I expected.”
She pushed her glass around in a little circle on the table, watching it absorbedly. “Where’s Dorothy?” she asked.
“At home.”
“California, you mean?”
“No,” said Ray, “here in Hong Kong. She doesn’t dare leave the joint for fear they won’t let her come back in. She’s English by birth, and everybody says they may crack down on the women out here one of these days.”
“But would she mind that?”
“Very much,” Ray said promptly. “There’s another fellow in the picture now and so she’s still wondering about a divorce. He’s in the Navy and spends a lot of time in Hong Kong.”
“My word,” sighed Jill, “these good women.”
“Now, Blondie.”
“You don’t seem to care much one way or the other.”
“Well, who am I to criticize?”
“I suppose it’s convenient for you to be married,” she said to the glass. “Just as convenient for you as for her.”
“I wish you weren’t so bitter,” Ray said.
“Bitter? I’m not bitter. I just try to see things and people the way they are.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Ray. “Bitter.”
“It was getting cold in Shanghai when I left,” said Jill. “Proper autumn weather. Do you ever see Jeff and Gert?”
After that meeting she felt no great urge to go out for walks. Mr. Yeh introduced her to a few of the wealthy members of the club and then disappeared on a mysterious journey, leaving her to their hospitality. They were in the main generous and polite, and during the day they left her alone most of the time. She found herself smoking opium for longer intervals and at more regular times than she had ever before been able to do under Annette’s disapproving chaperonage. After each meal alone in the large echoing room she would go back to her cubicle, and when she saw the tray of implements on the bed it was easier than not to lie down next to it and light the lamp. As soon as a servant passing by smelled the fumes he would send in her special small boy, who would crouch down by the bed and cook the pellets for her as fast as she wanted them.
They were crowded hours after that; she would lie for a long time watching the thoughts pass through her brain. It seemed to her that she had never before done eno
ugh quiet reflecting. She had spent all her life being aimlessly busy, immersing herself time after time in some emotion. Now she felt that she could lie forever across the wide bed, free at last of that emotion; she watched herself passing through those storms of yesterday; she observed and became wise long after the event. Idly twirling the needle in the flame, cooking a bead of opium that she did not really want now that she smoked so many, she fitted together bits of a jigsaw puzzle which had never before been complete. She observed herself and the other people she had known with what seemed to be equal understanding. She knew why she had behaved as she had, and she knew as well why they had done what they did, and yet out of her new wisdom she was quietly sure that they had all managed very badly.
Most of the time she felt good will toward everyone in the world. When her new friends arrived in the evening she was ready to make them enjoy their dinner. Like the servants, she was smiling and gentle to everyone, even when the men in their cups forgot their manners. There were days, however, when the golden peace did not descend on her, when she was frightened for no definite reason of the past as well as the future, and then she smoked more and more, and instead of feeling good will she was irritated by everything. She would send away the little boy and weep, alone in her room.
One afternoon she thought poignantly of Botchan. Perhaps it was because of an incident of the night before. Some of the Cantonese merchants, who nearly all felt a deep resentment against the British, sometimes forgot to conceal it. Some of the men who knew she was British betrayed this resentment in their treatment of her. They were usually courteous enough, but now and then if they had been drinking they exulted unpleasantly over her for being one of their girls, a thing for which they ordinarily flattered and praised her.
A little fellow named Wu, running dog for a millionaire who owned a large part of West Point, had begun to pick at her in company, jeering at her and telling her to go back to the brothels of London. His master promptly shut him up, but Jill knew the servants had overheard, and she was in a touchy mood the next day.