An animal with shiny fur, advancing stiffly with a swift, sure gait, head high, mouth open a little, ears perked, like a police dog that knows where it is going without needing to nose about to the right or left in order to find its way, nor even to sniff the ground where the scents are blurred among the garbage and the various stinks. Delicate spike-heel shoes whose gilded leather thongs crisscross three times around the tiny foot. A clinging dress, streaked at each step by slender shifting wrinkles across the hips and belly; the shiny silk gleams in the light from the shop lanterns like the dark fur of the animal walking six feet ahead, pulling just enough on the leash, held at arm’s length, to keep the leather braid taut without forcing the girl to change the speed or the direction of her route, which passes straight through the crowd of pajamas as if the place were a deserted square, the young woman keeping her whole body motionless, despite the quick and regular movement of her knees and thighs under the hobble skirt, whose lateral slit more-over permits only tiny steps. The features of her face, under the black hair, accentuated by a red hibiscus flower over her left ear, also remain as motionless as those of a wax mannequin. She does not even glance down toward the displays of squid, green fish and fermented eggs, nor turn her head, right or left, toward the faintly illuminated signs whose enormous characters cover all the available space on the walls as on the square pillars of the arcades, or toward the newspaper and magazine vendors, the mysterious posters, the bright-colored lanterns. It is as if she sees nothing of all this, like a sleepwalker; nor has she any need to look at her feet to avoid obstacles, these seeming to disperse of their own accord to leave her path clear: a naked child sprawling among the orange peels, an empty crate which the hand of someone out of sight removes from her path at the last moment, a rice broom which brushes the pavement at random, unnoticed by a distracted municipal employee in over-alls, whose sleepy eyes soon abandon the leg’s brief periodic appearances between the flaps of the slit skirt, turning back for a moment to his work: the bundle of rice straws whose tip, curved by use, sweeps toward the gutter a motley image: the cover of a Chinese tabloid.
Under a horizontal heading in large, square-cornered ideograms, which fill the whole upper part of the page, a crude drawing represents a huge European salon whose walls, elaborately decorated with mirrors and stucco, must be meant to suggest great luxury; some men in dark clothes or cream or ivory dinner jackets are standing here and there, chatting in little groups; in the middle distance, to the left, behind a buffet covered to the floor with a cloth on which are arranged many platters filled with sandwiches or cakes, a waiter in a white dinner jacket is about to serve a glass of champagne, on a silver, tray, to a fat important-looking man who, his arm already extended to take his glass, is talking to another guest much taller than himself, which obliges him to raise his head; in the background, but in an empty area which makes it possible to notice them at first glance—especially since it occurs in the center of the picture—a large double door has just opened, letting in three soldiers in battle dress (camouflaged green-and-gray parachutist uniforms), who, each one holding a machine gun motionless at hip level, ready to fire, train their weapons in three divergent directions, covering the whole of the room. But only a few people have noticed their sudden appearance in the noise of the festivities: a woman in a long dress, directly threatened by one of the gun barrels, and three or four men very close by; a recoiling movement affects their heads and the upper parts of their bodies, while their arms are frozen in instinctive gestures of defense, or surprise, or fear.
Everywhere else in the room, local involvements are sustained as if nothing were happening. In the foreground, for example, to the right, two women quite close together and evidently linked by some momentary concern, although they do not seem to be in conversation, have still seen nothing and continue the scene they had begun, without concern for what is happening thirty feet away. The older of the two, sitting on a red velvet—or rather yellow velvet—couch, smiles as she looks at the younger one standing in front of her, but turned so that she faces in another direction: toward the tall man who was absently listening, just a moment ago, to the champagne drinker near the buffet and who, alone now, stands apart from the crowd, facing a window whose curtains are drawn. The young woman, after a few seconds, looks back toward the seated woman; her face, seen straight on, seems grave, exalted, suddenly resolved; she takes a step toward the red couch and very slowly, raising the hem of her gown a little with a supple and graceful gesture of her left arm, rests one knee on the floor in front of Lady Ava, who quite naturally and without concern, still smiling, holds out a sovereign or condescending hand to the kneeling girl; and the girl, gently taking the fingertips with their lacquered nails in her own, bends down to rest her lips on them. The bent nape of the neck, between the blond curls . . .
But the young woman straightens up immediately with a rapid movement and, standing now, turns away and walks boldly toward Johnson. Then things happen very fast: the various conventional phrases exchanged, the man bowing ceremoniously to the young woman whose eyes remain modestly lowered, the Eurasian servant girl, who enters by parting the velvet curtains, stopping a few steps away from them and stands watching in silence, her features, as motionless as those of a wax mannequin, betraying no feeling whatever, the glass falling to the marble floor and breaking into tiny, gleaming pieces, the young woman with blond hair staring at them blankly, the Eurasian servant girl moving like a sleepwalker amid the debris, still preceded by the black dog pulling on its leash, the delicate gold slippers vanishing along the dubious shop fronts, the rice-straw broom, completing its curving trajectory, pushing the illustrated cover of the magazine into the gutter, whose muddy water sweeps along the colored image swirling in the sunlight.
The street, at this hour of the day, is nearly empty. The air is sultry and heavy, even more oppressive than usual at this time of the year. The wooden shutters of the little shops are closed. The big black dog stops of its own accord in front of the customary entrance: a narrow, dark, very steep staircase which begins flush with the façade, with neither door nor hallway of any kind, and rises straight up into depths where the eye is confounded. The scene which then takes place lacks clarity. . . . The girl glances left and right, as though to make sure no one is watching her, then she climbs the stairs as rapidly as her long, clinging dress permits; and, almost immediately, she would come back down clutching to her breast a thick, bulging, brown paper envelope which seems to have been stuffed with sand. But what would have become of the dog this time? If, apparently, it has not gone up with her, has it waited calmly at the foot of the stairs, no longer needing to be kept on a leash? Or would she have attached it to some ring, bolt, or railing (but the stairway has no railing), some knocker (but there is no door), hook, or rusty old nail stuck in the wall here and clumsily twisted upward? But this nail is not very solid; and the unwonted presence of such an animal, clearly marking the house, would then unnecessarily attract the attention of possible observers. Or else the agent was standing in the shadows, almost at the bottom of the stairs, and all the Eurasian servant girl has had to do is walk up two steps, without letting go of the leash, and extend her hand toward the envelope—or the package—which the invisible person would hand her, in order to return without further delay. Or rather, there was actually someone at the bottom of the stairs and he was certainly there for an appointment, but all he has done was hold out his hand to take the end of the leash which the servant girl has given him, while she rapidly climbed the little staircase in order to reach the agent still in his room, or his office, or his laboratory.
Here the objection of the too obvious dog would recur, unfortunately, in full force. And in any case, the end of the episode is not suitable, since it is not an envelope which is being picked up, but a very young girl, who according to her face must be Japanese, moreover, rather than Chinese. Now they are all three on the glistening sidewalk near the entrance that is growing increasingly dark: the servant girl in the cl
inging dress with its slit skirt, the little Japanese girl in a black, full, pleated skirt and a white school-girl blouse, the kind of girl one meets by the thousands in the streets of Tokyo or Osaka, and the big dog that approaches the newcomer to sniff her at length, raising its muzzle. This part of the scene, in any case, leaves no doubt: the dog’s muzzle sniffing the terror-stricken young girl, back to the wall against which she must submit to the contact of the disturbing muzzle from thighs to belly, and the servant girl watching her coldly, while giving the leather leash enough play to permit the animal to move its head and neck freely, etc.
I believe I have said that Lady Ava gave performances for habitués on the stage of the little private theater of the Blue Villa. It is probably this stage which is involved here. The audience is in the dark. Only the footlights are on when the heavy curtains part in the center, opening slowly on a new scene: the high wall and steep narrow staircase against it, descending straight from somewhere invisible in the shadows after ten steps or so. The wall of huge rough stones suggests a cellar or even an underground dungeon, given the meager limits imposed by the side walls on the left and right. The crudely paved floor is shiny in places with wear or moisture. The only opening is that of the narrow, arched staircase, breaking the rear wall at about a third of its length from the right corner. Here and there, irregularly scattered on the three visible walls of the cell, several iron rings are set into the stone at various levels. From some of them hang thick rusty chains, one of which, longer than the rest, reaches to the floor where it forms a kind of loose S. One of the rings, placed just to the right of the stairs, has been used to attach the free end of the dog’s leash, the dog lying in front of the bottom step, head raised as though it were guarding the entrance. The spotlights gradually focus on the animal. When nothing more can be seen but the dog, all the rest of the scene being plunged into darkness, a rather bright but remote light comes on at the very top of the stairs, and it then appears that the staircase ends in an iron grille, whose unornamented pattern of vertical black lines is now silhouetted against the pale background.
The dog has immediately risen to its feet, growling. Two young women appear at this moment behind the grille, which one of them—the taller—opens in order to let both of them through while she pushes her companion ahead of her; the door is then closed once more with the metallic sound of creaking hinges, a bolt shot home, and chains rattling. Soon no one can be seen any more, the two girls having been swallowed up by the shadows, one after the other, from the legs up, as soon as they have begun coming down the stair-case; they reappear only at the bottom, in the focus of the spotlights. They are, of course, the Eurasian servant girl and the little Japanese girl. The former immediately detaches the end of the leather leash—which she will hold throughout the scene—while the new arrival, frightened by the animal’s threatening growls, takes refuge against the rear wall, in the area to the left of the stairs, where she backs against the stone. The dog, which has received special training for this purpose, must entirely undress the captive, whom the servant girl indicates with her free arm, pointing toward the pleated skirt; down to the last triangle of silk, its fangs rip off the garments, tearing them away in strips, gradually, without ever piercing the flesh. Accidents, when they occur, are always superficial and without importance; they do not lessen the interest of the act, quite the contrary.
The girl playing the role of the victim holds her arms out on either side of her body, pressing against the wall as if she wanted to become part of it in order to escape the animal; perhaps a realistic staging would instead suggest that she use her hands to protect herself. Similarly, when she turns around, face against the stone, still on the pretext of the unthinking terror she is supposed to be feeling (and which perhaps she really is feeling, tonight, since she is a beginner), raising her arms higher, elbows bent and hands near her hair, this mode of defense can be explained only by an aesthetic preference for introducing some variety into the audience’s view. The spotlights, whose rays are still focused on the dog’s head, illuminate the area—hip, shoulder or breast—the animal is concerned with. But each time that the servant girl, who directs the operation by slackening the leash, considers that a particularly decorative stage of the undressing is attained—as a result of the new surfaces revealed, or of the rips that happen to be made in the materials—she tugs on the leather leash, murmuring a brief “Stand!” which hisses out like a whiplash; the animal draws back, as though reluctantly, into the shadows, while the circle of light, remaining on the prisoner, widens in order to reveal her entirely, either from the front or the rear, depending on the way she is facing the audience at that moment.
Among the audience of the little theater, some comments are then exchanged in low voices and in polite tones. When the actress is a new one, as this evening, she obviously enjoys special attention. Some blasé spectators nonetheless take this occasion to return to the subject that concerns them: the movement of ships, the Communist banks, life in Hong Kong today. “In the antique shops,” says the fat man with the red face, “you still find those nineteenth-century objects Western morality considers monstrous.” He then goes on to describe, as an example, one of the objects in question, but in a voice too low, whispering as he brings his mouth very close to the ear which his interlocutor offers him by bending down. “Of course,” he says a little later, “it’s not the way it used to be. With patience, though, you can get the addresses of secret brothels the size of palaces, whose special features, salons, gardens, secret rooms, defy our European imagination.” Then, without any apparent connection, he begins describing the death of Edouard Manneret. “There was a character for you!” he adds by way of conclusion. He raises to his lips the champagne glass that is already three-quarters empty and finishes it in one swallow, throwing back his head with an exaggerated gesture. And he sets the glass down on the wrinkled white cloth near a faded hibiscus blossom the color of blood, one petal of which is caught under the crystal disk forming the foot of the glass.
The two men then cross the salon where the last guests seem to have been forgotten in little, irresolute groups; and they doubtless separate almost at once, since the following scene shows the taller of the two—the one called Johnson, or even often “the American,” although he is English and a baron—standing near one of the large, curtained bay windows, in conversation with that blond young woman whose name is Lauren or Loraine, who a few moments before had been on the red couch beside Lady Ava. The dialogue between them is rapid, a little distant, reduced to essentials. Sir Ralph (known as “the American”) never loses his almost scornful, in any case ironic, half-smile, while he stiffly bows to the young woman—one might say in mockery—and gives her brief indications of what he expects of her. Raising her large eyes, which she had hitherto kept stubbornly fixed on the ground, she suddenly turns toward him her smooth face with its excessive, consenting, rebellious, submissive, blank, expressionless gaze.
In the next scene, they are climbing the enormous grand staircase, her eyes lowered once again, her neck bent, and holding in both hands, on each side, the hem of her white bouffant dress, which she gradually raises in order to keep it from sweeping at each step the red and black carpet whose thick brass rods are held at the ends by two heavy rings and terminate at each tip in a tiny stylized pineapple, he following slightly behind and watching her with an indifferent, enthralled, icy gaze which rises from the tiny feet on their high spiked heels to the bent neck and bare shoulders whose skin gleams with a satiny luster when the young woman passes under the bronze three-branched lingam-shaped sconces, which one after the other illuminate the successive flights of the staircase. On each floor, a Chinese servant stands guard, petrified in an improbable, twisted posture characteristic of the ivory statuettes in the Kowloon antique shops; one shoulder too high, one elbow forward, one arm bent with the fingers against the chest, or the legs crossed, or the neck twisted in order to look in a direction which the rest of the body resists, they all have the same
slanting, nearly closed eyes insistently fixed on the approaching couple; and with a movement suggesting the efficient mechanism of a robot, one after the next pivots his waxen face very slowly from left to right in order to accompany the two persons who pass without looking at them, continuing their regular ascent toward the next landing between the successive sconces and the vertical balustrades supporting the railing, crossing from step to step the horizontal bars that attach the thick black-and-red striped carpet to each stair.
Then they are in a room whose decoration is vaguely oriental, dimly lit by small lamps whose shades shed a reddish glow here and there, most of the rather large room remaining in obscurity. Such is the case, for example, in the area around the entrance, where Sir Ralph has come to a stop after having closed the door behind him and turned the key in the massive lock with its baroque ornaments. Leaning against the heavy wooden panel as if he were forbidding access to it, he stares at the room, the canopied bed covered in black satin, the fur rugs and the various refined and barbarous instruments which the young woman, also standing but in a somewhat brighter zone of light, motionless and her eyes on the floor, tries not to see.
The fat man with the red face then doubtless begins to describe one of these instruments, but his voice is too low, and it is just at this moment that the performance continues on the stage, after a pause of several seconds. The Eurasian servant girl takes a step forward. An imperative “Go!”, accompanied by a precise gesture of the left arm pointing toward the belly of the little Japanese girl, indicates to the dog the piece of cloth it must now rip away. And the lights focus once again on the designated spot. Henceforth nothing more can be heard in the silence of the theater but the brief hissing orders of the nearly invisible servant girl, the muffled growls of the black dog, and at moments the victim’s gasping breath. When she is entirely naked, but with a certain pause immediately after the widening of the circle of light cast by the spotlights, there is a spatter of polite applause. The young actress takes three dancing steps toward the footlights, and bows. This entertainment, traditional in certain interior provinces of China, has been, as always, highly appreciated this evening by Lady Ava’s English or American guests.
La Maison de Rendez-Vous and Djinn Page 11