by Brian Aldiss
Of course she had been with the shagging Japs, and it was well known what terrible diseases they brought with them out of the jungle. When you caught that sort of thing, the MO gave you a pack of K-rations and ordered you to march off into the bush and die.
Despite my unease, the bloody thing was stirring in my hand. What fucking impertinence! As if it had not had enough – more than enough – on the previous day … I tucked it away under the towel where it could not see me, the way old ladies cover the cage when the parrot swears too much.
‘I am sorry to have to tell you that we were ambushed by extremists. Things have got much worse here since you left.’
Worse for the Dutch, better for the British. Worse for just about everyone, except the British, who are pulling out. Presumably it was a gross military error to send us here in the first place. Some sort of mad global strategy involving the lunatics in command: those well-known good guys, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Harry Truman, swathed in a welter of cigar-, pipe- and fag-smoke, had called together such chums as Chiang Kai-Shek and Smuts and de Gaulle, and cooked up a series of instructions for various admirals and generals hanging about in the ante-chamber. Accordingly, with a rattle of sabres, Zhukov, Montgomery, Eisenhower, and MacArthur trotted off with Poland, the Suez Canal, half of Berlin, and all the Pacific in their respective fangs. Lord Louis Mountbatten got lumbered with the NEI. Well done, master-strategists! The Americans had been so busy clobbering British imperialism that they had hardly noticed the way the Soviet Union was sweeping various European states up its left trouser-leg.
You can see with hindsight how the NEI fell a bit beyond any major sphere of interest, leaving aside the simple geographical fact that it lay somewhere to the south of Singapore. The only advantages accruing from the whole farcical operation was that the British, under the splendid General Templer, became experienced enough to cope with Communist infiltrators in Malaya, to kick them out and keep them out; also we acted once-bitten, twice-shy thereafter and refused to get involved in reinstating the French in Indo-China. The good old Americans stepped in to help promptly there. So what if they lost the war: they got lots of publicity.
‘Internationally, things seem to be in a terrible mess as before. Whatever became of Peace? I’m sure you will weep and ask yourself that.’
Poor dear Addy! And everyone else will ask themselves the same question. Alas for Hope! What should have happened in our time is simple. The us should not have been so isolationist in the thirties. Then her diplomats and all the rest of them who proved so bloody unrealistic would have understood that the most feasible plan for world peace lay with the English-speaking world – by which I include people who can nearly speak English, like Indians, Australians, and Norwegians. Then the States would not have hung about on the touch-lines for three years while Britain took such a pasting from the fucking Krauts (who, grant them that, respected the British Empire more than the old Yanks did).
Mind you, it’s possible that the Yanks saw through the British. We’ve fumbled all our chances: the twentieth century hasn’t even begun in England yet – how we came out on top in two world wars, I’ll never understand. You have to admit, we did need the Americans to bale us out.
Right, so the Soviet Union signs that pact with Hitler, thereby showing its true colours, underlining the basic similarity between fascism and communism. So when Hitler starts invading Russia, the Allies cease chivvying him in the West and let him get on with it Bombing Germany stops and, with the aid of the good old Duke of Windsor, and Mrs. Simpson, Hitler agrees in exchange to stop mopping up the Jews so fast.
While this is going on in Europe, similar crafty moves are afoot in the East. The Japs are allowed to march into India. The Wogs are permitted to see how much they fucking well enjoy that; within a year, they are on their knees, begging the British to come back. None of our brave buggers are lost in one single lousy jungle out there, throwing away their lives for sod all. The Japs, who never know when enough’s enough, stream northwards out of the Khyber Pass and start attacking the USSR through Georgia. The USSR strikes back. Jap kamikazi planes strafe Vladivostok. Soviet Air Force bombs Imperial Palace. Jap sub fleet takes Leningrad.
Gradually, the whole war is centred on Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union, right across to the Pacific and including the Japanese Islands. British and Americans sit back peacefully, now and then grabbing odd bits of the globe, such as Borneo, Malta, Africa, the West Indies, Iceland, and Tierra del Fuego. No one mucks about with poor old China. Meanwhile, we’re making a whole mass of A-bombs.
When the Germans, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Kurds, the Japs, and anyone else who gets in the way, are down to a few platoons slugging it out in Yakutsk, or some other dreadful place nobody has heard of, the British and the Yanks plaster the whole damn place with A-bombs. We wipe out every single city, and put the entire area under the plough, from the Rhine right the way east to the Pacific, including Japan. Plant the whole bloody sheebang with oak or pine or whatever suits, with barbed wire all round the perimeter and huge signs saying TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
Peace-loving people who do not or prefer not to speak English – such as the Basques, the Israelis, and the Welsh – are settled in new homelands in Inner Mongolia. The Arabs – not to put too fine a point on it – get the Gobi. Quiet reigns.
The rest of the world receives free English lessons. When you can speak English as fluently as any inhabitant of Detroit or Liverpool, which isn’t asking much, you get a World Passport – not before. Then all we have to do really is conquer South America, discover a final solution to the Irish problem, and sort things out with the Blacks. In comes an era of world peace such as has not been known before. The Chinese will be encouraged, particularly the women. Chinese restaurants and knocking-shops in every village.
It’s a simple plan, it could work. But what good are such utopian schemes? Supposing you did all that, bastards like Tertis would still float to the top and spoil it all.
‘Ernst and his two pals were shot down in cold blood. I shall be attending the funeral today and will think of you at the graveside.’
Fat lot of good that will do Addy or Ernst. God, I’m such a shit. That sod Hamil should really have done for me too, instead of handing me a chit saying, ‘British, excused Death’. I mishandled that and I’ve mishandled the business with Margey. It’s no good, I’ll just have to go home tomorrow as ordered. As directed by global strategy. Fucking global strategy. It’s just a few bastards at the top. The trouble is, there’s always a constant supply of bastards underneath …
‘There is so much I could say which I can’t write. Perhaps we shall be able to meet some day somewhere in Europe. Ernst was very brave, so you must be brave and try not to grieve too much. I hope there are people to comfort you in Leiden. I send love and kisses to you from poor old broken-down Medan. Yours lovingly.’
It was difficult to imagine Leiden, or any Dutch town. Had I once seen one of those traditional Netherlands paintings, showing chaps and girls skating on ice with folded arms, and windmills and little brick Brueghelesque houses complete with stalls and ox-roasts, labelled ‘Leyden Fair’? I had left England when I was a mere kid. Now I was virtually an old man, and Europe was all a story to me.
The whole world was a story. A sprawling picaresque, telling itself on and on until some sort of contrived happy ending became possible. Last night, when I took Katie Chae for a meal, she had regaled me with episodes from her past life. There was an exotic tale indeed!
Katie had been born the only daughter of a rich Chinese merchant in the Province of Sinkiang. Since I was forced to reveal that I had no idea where Sinkiang was, Katie imperiously summoned a waiter and had paper and pen brought to our table. She drew a map which I have to this day. A big X marks the spot where Katie Chae was born. It is one of the westmost parts of China, almost as far west as Delhi, though thousands of miles north of Delhi. Sinkiang lies north of the Himalayas, north of Tibet, and borde
rs on Afghanistan and some of the grottier bits of the Soviet Union. The sort of remote place that no right-thinking Englishman could ever get straight in his mind.
In the prosperous Chae household, three languages were spoken: the Sinkiang tongue, which was the grand language; the Uighur tongue, which was the language of servants; and the Kazakh tongue, a language used only for boasting and swearing. The Chaes had two homes, a stone house in the mountains for summer, a wooden one for winter in the plains, in the city of Urumchi.
One spring, the young Katie and her mother and her two brothers were being driven to their summer residence. Bandits appeared and captured them. They were taken into the mountains to await ransom. The bandits were fierce Kirghiz tribesmen of nomadic habit and, for three years, Katie was continually on the move with them over the limitless grasslands of Central Asia. This was her formative period. She learned to ride ponies like the wind. On this unending trek, her mother died. The ransom was never paid.
During a drunken fight, the chief bandit suffered a head-wound. The tribe made its way to a desolate region of mudflats which extended further than eye could see. In the distance, snow-capped mountains floated on blue air. Everyone tied planks to their feet to serve as skis while they waded across the dangerous mudflats. They walked over the mud for four days. Bandits and dogs drowned in the clinging stuff.
The survivors arrived at a low island rising above the mud. It was no more than two hundred yards long, and covered with stinking weed.
As the party dragged themselves exhausted on to the eminence, they saw that on its far side lay a sullen river, winding into the distance among shoals. On the island, remarkably, a large wooden house had been built; its windows were shuttered, it was deserted.
Here the bandits remained, week after uncharted week. They pulled fish from the sullen river and hunted crabs and a species of wild cat found on the mudbanks. The chief bandit was going mad from his wound, and filled the house night and day with his cries. One of Katie’s brothers drowned in the river whilst swimming.
The day dawned when a boat was sighted distantly on the waters. The bandits became alarmed. Katie was sent out to signal to the craft. The bandits took cover. The boat pulled in to the island; a handsome white man reefed the sail and climbed out. The bandits sprang from their hiding places and seized him. They flung him in the cellars of the house and tortured him. This torture continued for many weeks.
One moonless night, the bandit chief went raving mad. He broke his bonds, burst through a wooden wall, and fired a musket at all and sundry. He killed Katie’s surviving brother. In the general panic, Katie crept down to the cellar and released the white man. Together, they escaped to his boat and cast off into the darkness. When they had drifted some distance from the house – from which shots and cries came faintly – they ran up the sail. By morning, the old wooden building was almost out of sight.
The man’s name was John. He was an English explorer. He spoke a little Kazakh, and he and Katie conversed in that language. He said that he had escaped from Kazakhstan, where he had been held prisoner by Russians. He was gentle and kindly, and took Katie’s virginity in the bottom of the boat before the sun was an hour above the horizon.
As, during our meal, dish followed dish, so adventure followed adventure. Katie and John were completely lost. At one time, they remained many months in a country where the people were so impoverished that they lived off dried apricots and small birds caught during annual migrations. In another place, John performed simple conjuring tricks which so alarmed the inhabitants that they presented him and Katie Chae with their one means of transport, the ancient village yak, on condition that John left immediately and never returned.
They rode the yak for a period which could have been two years, forging ever eastwards until, one bitter night, the animal died. They passed days beside its carcass, drying strips of its meat, curing the hide to make themselves warmer clothes, and eating the brains and more tender parts. By now, Katie spoke fairly fluent English and could recite those parts of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám which John remembered.
As they were leaving the bones of the yak, they were attacked by two savage brothers, one of whom had had his tongue cut out by Chinese soldiers. Both of them had their way with Katie, who was now possibly fifteen. After that, they proved friendly, promising to escort John and Katie towards the fabulous city of Peking. That haven was still a thousand miles away over impossible territory.
The incidents in the story multiplied richly. There is delight in hearing tales of starvation whilst tucking into great bowls of fried rice, crab, octopus, sea cucumber, and nameless things. Katie and I refilled each other’s glasses with a poisonous wine while I goaded her on with her story. I came to the conclusion that she had invented all of it, just as one of my first loves, Virginia, had invented a more desirable version of her past. Such tactics seemed to me then, and still do, a recipe for misery – except, of course, for the listener, and even he has to have a special taste for such inventions.
Among other highlights in her imaginary career, Katie claimed that she and the mysterious Englishman, John, were captured at a Customs post ruled over by a luxurious customs official called Ha Ha Bum, a name not lightly forgotten. Attracted by Katie’s youth and beauty, Ha Ha Bum made her his favourite concubine. John was imprisoned, and each one of Ha Ha Bum’s fornications was scored upon John’s back with a leather whip.
One day in spring, the customs post was attacked by a party of men from the hills. They claimed they were not bandits but revolutionaries. Their conduct was not easy to distinguish from banditry, since they killed Ha Ha Bum, took John prisoner, set fire to the customs post, and raped Katie, although they read passages from Karl Marx while so doing.
The revolutionaries formed a small communist army. They numbered some two hundred men. They had a stronghold in the hills, together with a very old armoured car which had to be pushed everywhere. Women and children lived among them. The communists were suspicious of all foreigners. After a mock-trial, they decided to execute John as an Imperialist before the entire company; they heard him recite passages from Omar Khayyam, and that was enough. Katie, however, discovered their plans from one of the women, and persuaded the leaders that John could be exchanged for another armoured car, or possibly for petrol, when they reached civilisation. Katie gave birth to a child in this camp. A little girl with fair hair who was put to death after another mock-trial.
‘You must have wept!’ I exclaimed.
Katie Chae laughed. ‘I wanted to weep a lot,’ she said, ‘but the climate was plenty dry.’
A plate full of satie came along. As we tucked in, she continued her saga.
Leaving the hills behind, the ragged army entered a terrible barren area, destitute of grass, destitute even of a single stone. It was a frigid desert of rock, in which some of the revolutionaries went mad from drinking their own urine.
In the middle of a dust storm, they stumbled upon an amazing city, built of white marble and totally uninhabited. The city was constructed in the shape of a great square, with sixty-four buildings to a side. The outermost buildings facing the desert were modest, but each succeeding row of buildings as they progressed towards the centre became larger and more grand.
Finally, in the centre of the four thousand and ninety-six buildings, they came across a gigantic structure where the centremost four buildings merged into one. This structure towered to the heavens. Its ante-chambers were panelled with gold.
The army crouched in the golden ante-chambers and slept until the sandstorm passed. Such were the resonances the buildings set up with the wind currents that by morning the whole city was swept clear of sand. In this way, the city could never be buried.
Katie Chae had been pressed into military service as a nurse. She was tending the sick when scouts came in and reported that this magnificent token of human life in the midst of the death of nature was nothing more nor less than a mortuary. The thousands of houses were but glorified tombs, ea
ch enshrining a mummified corpse. The central building enshrined the king of this lost nation. In alarm, the revolutionaries rapidly quitted this megapolis of death and shrine of capitalism. They forged eastward again.
Eventually, they entered the Inner Kingdom through a break in the Great Wall. John had by now been elected a leader of the revolutionaries. His manner became remote and dedicated. Katie went through a form of marriage with one of the other leaders, bearing him two more children, both boys. Somewhere in the north of Shansi, the main body of the army was ambushed in a pass and had to fight. John was slain. Katie was captured and, of course, raped. Some time later, they arrived by boat at a port on the Gulf of Chihli. Katie fell desperately ill. Some Spanish nuns looked after her and with one of them, Maria, Katie had a lesbian affair which aided her convalescence.
In the town, she met a Chinese journalist and fell in love with him – her first real love affair – only to find that he was one of her older brothers, who had long ago left Sinkiang for the cities. The Japanese armies were advancing; she and this brother were the last to escape from the port, both disguised as nuns. Following many travels, they found sanctuary in Sumatra. After a year, the Japanese entered Medan, and there was no further escape. She showed me a photograph of her brother over a last glass of wine. It was the journalist Chae, who called himself Tiger Balm. Perhaps her incredible story was partially true.
We staggered back to her flat, arm in arm. I spent the night with her, lying in her spotless arms, embracing history, geography, as well as a tender female body. She woke me just before dawn, and I made my way grudgingly back to our lines with my revolver ready in my fist.
I owed her fifteen hundred cigarettes.
It was one of those mornings. Sunday. Heat. Guilt. At least I had written to Addy; that was a decent act. Even shits act decently on occasion, since doing good is as tempting as doing harm.