It is as if everything has come to a stop. Lauren reattaches the gilded thongs of her sandal. Johnson watches her, standing a few yards behind her, in a curtained window recess. The fat man with the red face lost the thread of his story when the champagne glass broke on the floor, and now he raises his blood-shot eyes—filled with something like panic, or despair—toward the tall American whose silent face is bending over him, no longer even trying to conceal the fact that for some time now he has been thinking about something else altogether. Edouard Manneret, at his desk, carefully erases the word “clandestinely” so as to leave no trace of it on the sheet of paper, then he writes instead the words “to foreign parts.” Lady Ava, sitting alone on her varicolored couch, suddenly looks worn, faded, tired of struggling to keep up appearances which no longer deceive anyone, knowing all too well in advance what will happen: the abrupt collapse of Lauren’s marriage, her fiancé’s suicide near the clump of traveler’s palms, the discovery by the police of the little heroin laboratory, the venal and impassioned liaison between Sir Ralph and Lauren, the latter insisting on remaining an inmate of the Blue Villa and agreeing to meet him only in one of the rooms upstairs reserved for such transactions, where she has given herself to him for the first time, and he finding at first only an additional pleasure in this situation and contriving to pay more and more for more and more exorbitant services, and she lending herself exultantly to everything, but never failing to ask afterward for the sums due according to their agreements and according to the rates in effect in the house, thereby insisting on her status as a prostitute each time, although she also refuses—always, moreover, according to the same agreements—all the other propositions formally made by Lady Ava, in whose roster she nonetheless remains as one of the girls at the disposal of any rich client, and Sir Ralph, far from complaining about this, savoring it as something humiliating for his mistress, something excessive and cruel. But now he asks her to renounce this as well, to abandon a situation which is merely a pretext, to give up everything in order to leave with him. He must return to Macao on business and can no longer do without her, even for a single day, if only in the reception rooms of the Blue Villa, on the occasion of dances, or on the stage of the little theater where she continues to play the role of the heroine in that play of Jonestone’s entitled: “The Murder of Edouard Manneret,” and to act in several other dramas, sketches, or tableaux vivants.
So he wants to take her to Macao, to have her live with him, in his own house. But she refuses, of course, as he doubtless expected: “What reason would I have for leaving?” she asks, lowering her darkened eyelids a little over her green eyes. She is happy here. He should leave if he wants to. There are plenty of old millionaires in Kowloon and in Victoria to replace him. In any case, she has no desire to bury herself in that provincial little town where you bore yourself to death playing Russian roulette, and where everyone speaks Portuguese. She is lying on her back on the furs and the black satin of the canopy bed and stares, above her, at the mirror set in the canopy in which her body is reflected, keeping throughout the scene the exact pose of “Maya,” a famous painting by Manneret and the goddess of illusion. Sir Ralph, who has finished what he had to say, strides up and down the big room, alternately passing the square bed on the right and left side without even glancing at the object of his demands, exposed there nonetheless in all her pink and blond luster. Occasionally he speaks a few more words, but to no purpose: arguments he has already employed ten times, reproaches meaningless in their mutual situation, promises he knows perfectly well he cannot keep. She is no longer listening. She draws a fold of black silk over one of her hips, the top of her thighs and half of her belly, as if she were cold, although the heat in the room tonight is overpowering. Sir Ralph, who is still wearing his tuxedo and tie, seems on the verge of exhaustion. “Then you don’t love me at all?” he asks, at the end of his resources. “But,” she says, “there’s never been any question of that.”
Then he offers her money, a great deal of money. With a smile she asks how much. He will give her whatever she wants. “All right,” she says, and immediately sets the figure, with the calm assurance of someone who has long since calculated what this acceptance was worth. And to seal the bargain, she insists further that the sum be paid this very night, before daybreak. It is a considerable amount, much higher than what he can get hold of in so little time. Yet Johnson does not protest. He abruptly stops walking and finally glances toward the bed, as if he were discovering the young woman’s presence there, at that moment. He stares at her in silence, but it seems as if his gaze passes through her without seeing anything. Lauren has turned her head toward him, though she does not lift it from the pillows. Very slowly, with a supple and graceful hand, she slides the black silk over her hip and shoves it completely to one side, doubtless wanting her lover to reach a knowledgeable decision and to be able, among other things, to appreciate the value of the marks still visible on her flesh.
Sir Ralph’s gaze, however, remains motionless and blank, still seeming to pass through Lauren and to focus, beyond her, on some fascinating object, some imaginary scene. Then he says: “I’ll do it,” without its being quite clear whether he is speaking of the payment and its terms, or else of some other project; then, emerging from his reverie, he finally meets her huge, green, burning, intense, icy, irrational eyes. He tries for a moment to regain control of himself but, suddenly determined, he commands in a voice that admits of no appeal: “Wait for me here,” heads for the door, turns the key, flings open the door, leaves the room.
And now he is striding through the dark grounds, now he is in a taxi driving too slowly toward Queens Road, now he is climbing a steep narrow staircase in the dark. And now he is leaning across a desk covered with a clutter of papers, toward a Chinese of no particular age sitting in front of him, or rather below him, whose wrinkled face preserves a polite calm before this fanatic in a tuxedo who is talking so fast, gesticulating and threatening. Now Sir Ralph again climbs a staircase identical to the first, leading from one floor to the next in a single straight flight, without a railing to hold onto despite the narrowness and steepness of the steps. And now he is in a taxi driving too slowly toward Queen Street. And now he knocks on the wooden door of a very tiny shop on which can be read, in the pale light of a street lamp, the word “Exchange” written in seven languages. He pounds furiously with both fists, making the empty street echo faintly with the sound, at the risk of arousing the whole neighborhood. When no one answers, he presses his mouth to the crack of the door and calls: “Ho! Ho! Ho!”, which is perhaps the name of the person he is trying to awaken. Then he pounds again, but already less violently, like someone whose hope is fading.
Moreover, nothing has stirred in the neighborhood, despite the racket, no sign of life has been made; this setting, too, would be empty, without depth, with no more reality than a nightmare; that would explain the muffled artificial sound made by the pounding on the wooden door. Johnson, at this moment, notices an old man in black cotton pajamas sitting in a recess of the façade next door. He immediately goes toward him, runs toward him, more exactly, and shouts several words of English, asking if there is anyone in the shop. The old man begins to give long explanations in a slow voice, in a language which must be Cantonese, but which he pronounces so indistinctly that Johnson does not grasp a single sentence. He repeats his question in Cantonese. The other man answers with the same slowness, the same fullness; this time, what he says sounds more like English, though only the word “wife” is recognizable, actually recurring several times. Johnson, growing impatient, asks the old man what his wife has to do with it. But the Chinese then launches into a new series of incomprehensible comments, from which this word has entirely disappeared. No gesture, no expression of his face manages to explain the obscure meaning of his words. The man remains seated on the ground without moving, his back to the wall, his hands clasped around his knees. There is something hopeless in his voice. The American, exasperated by this floo
d of lamentations, begins shaking his interlocutor, leaning over him to seize him by the shoulders. The old man leaps up at once and utters piercing shrieks with an unexpected energy, while, just at that moment, the siren of a police car is heard a few streets away; the howling quickly draws nearer, rising and falling in a cyclical modulation which repeats the same shrill notes.
Johnson lets the old man go and quickly walks away, soon beginning to run, pursued by the shrieks of the Chinese standing in the middle of the road, making huge gestures with both arms in his direction. According to the sound of the siren, the police car must certainly be coming from there. Johnson turns around as he runs and sees the yellow headlights as well as the flashing red beacon on the car roof. He turns sharply up a steep street, with the evident hope of reaching a stairway before being overtaken by the car which could not then pursue him any farther. But the car, having taken the turn immediately after him, has already caught up. Adopting the manner, although a little late and not very naturally, of the innocent by-stander, he stops at the first command to do so; three British policemen jump out and surround him; they seem surprised and favorably impressed by his evening clothes. They are in khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirts, low shoes and white knee socks. Johnson thinks he recognizes the lieutenant as the one who burst into the large salon of the Blue Villa this very evening; the two policemen accompanying him are also, probably, the ones who disturbed the party’s end. Asked to show his papers, Johnson offers his Portuguese passport which he takes out of an inside coat pocket.
“Why were you running?” the lieutenant asks.
On the point of answering mechanically: “To keep warm,” Johnson catches himself in time, thinking of the tropical temperature, his heavy black tuxedo, his sweating face. “I wasn’t running,” he says, “I was walking fast.”
“It seemed to me you were running,” the lieutenant says. “And why were you walking so fast?”
“I was in a hurry to get back.”
“I see,” the lieutenant says. Then after a glance up the street where the broad stairs littered with garbage vanish between increasingly wretched wooden shop fronts, he adds: “Where do you live?”
“Hotel Victoria.”
The Hotel Victoria is not situated in Victoria, nor even on the island of Hong Kong, but in Kowloon, on the mainland. The officer leafs through the passport; the residence indicated there is in Macao, of course. The officer also looks at the photograph and then stares at the American’s face for nearly a minute.
“Is this you?” he says at last.
“Yes. It’s me,” Johnson answers.
“It doesn’t look like you.” He is speaking of the picture, of course, and not of Johnson’s face.
“Perhaps it’s not a very good photo,” Johnson says.
“And it’s not very recent.”
The lieutenant, having again considered for a long time the face and the photograph, then the detailed information which he reads with the help of his pocket flashlight and subsequently compares with the model, finally hands back the passport, but declaring:
“This isn’t the way to the Hotel Victoria, you know. The ferry’s in the other direction.”
“I don’t know the city well,” Johnson says.
The lieutenant stares at him a moment longer without a word, shifting the flashlight beam across his forehead, his eyes, his nose, thereby changing their outlines and expression. Then he remarks in an indifferent tone (in any case, it is not a question): “You were at Madame Eva Bergmann’s just now.” Johnson, who has been expecting this remark from the start of the interview, is careful not to deny it.
“Yes,” he says, “as a matter of fact I was.”
“Are you a habitué of the house?”
“I’ve gone several times.”
“People enjoy themselves there, it seems.”
“That depends on your tastes.”
“Do you have an idea what the police were looking for there?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“Why was that old man shouting in the middle of the street?”
“I don’t know. But you could ask him.”
“Why were you taking an uphill street, if you wanted to get back to the harbor?”
“I told you, I was lost.”
“That’s no reason to look for a boat on top of a mountain.”
“Hong Kong’s an island, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course, so is Australia. Have you walked from Madam Bergmann’s house?”
“No, I came by taxi.”
“Why didn’t the taxi let you off at the dock?”
“I had him stop on Queens Road. I wanted to walk a little.”
“The party was over long ago. How many hours have you been walking?” But without waiting for an answer, the lieutenant adds: “At the rate you were going, you must have come a long way!” Then in the same tone of voice which attaches little importance to all this: “Did you know Edouard Manneret?”
“Only by name.”
“Who have you heard talking about him?”
“I don’t remember.”
“And what did they say?”
Johnson makes a vague gesture with his right hand, accompanied by a shrug of uncertainty, ignorance and unconcern. The lieutenant continues:
“You didn’t happen to have dealings, more or less indirectly, with him?”
“No. Certainly not. What business is he in?”
“He’s dead. Did you know?”
Johnson feigns astonishment: “No! I certainly didn’t. . . . How did he die?” But the policeman goes on:
“You’re sure you never met him at the Blue Villa, or in other such places?”
“No. No. . . . I don’t think so. But how did he die? And how long ago?”
“It was tonight. He committed suicide.”
The officer knows, apparently, that it was not a suicide. Johnson detects the trap and makes no remark which might suggest that this version seems contestable to him, even for psychological reasons, because of Manneret’s character. Johnson decides to say nothing and to withdraw into a kind of abstraction, which he considers suitable for the occasion. One thing especially disturbs him: why did the police car head straight for him, instead of stopping where the old man was shouting, which happened to be on its way? Besides, since this lieutenant seems to be so involved with the Manneret case, what has he been doing between his departure from the Blue Villa and this unexpected patrol, still in the company of the same two soldiers? One of the latter has returned to sit behind the wheel during the first questions of the interrogation, doubtless deciding that the suspect was not dangerous. The other has remained at attention two steps from his chief, ready to intervene if the occasion arose. The lieutenant, after a rather long silence, then says (and his voice is increasingly indifferent, detached from what it is saying, as if he were talking to himself about a very old story): “Ralph Johnson, that’s a funny name for a Portuguese from Macao. . . . There’s a Ralph Johnson who lives in the New Territories, but he’s an American. . . . He’s been growing Indian hemp and opium. . . . Small amounts. . . . Have you ever heard of him?”
“No, never,” the American says.
“Lucky for you. He’s been involved recently in a nasty white-slave case, and he’s a Communist agent. . . . You should have the photograph on your passport changed to one that looks more like you. . . .” Then, abruptly changing his tone, he asks with no transition, raising his eyes: “At what time tonight did you arrive at the house of the woman you call Lady Ava?”
Without stressing the fact that Lady Bergmann has not yet been designated by this name during their entire conversation, Johnson, who has had time to prepare himself for this question, immediately begins the account of his evening: “I arrived at the Blue Villa around ten after nine, by taxi. Wooded grounds surround the enormous stucco house, whose elaborate architecture, the exaggerated repetition of ornamental, nonfunctional motifs, the juxtaposition of disparate elements, the unusual color—ar
e always a surprise when the house appears at the turn of a path in its frame of royal palms. Since I had the impression I was somewhat ahead of time, that is, among the first guests to arrive, if not the first, since I saw no one else, I decided not to go in right away, and I turned to the left to take a stroll in the pleasantest part of the garden. Only the immediate environs of the house are illuminated, even during parties; very soon, thick clumps of trees cut off the light from the lanterns, and even the blue glow reflected from the stucco walls. Soon nothing more can be distinguished than the general shape of the . . . , etc.”
I also skip the sound of the insects, already alluded to, and the description of the statues. I come immediately to the scene of Lauren’s breakup with her fiancé. And when the lieutenant asks me the name of this person, who has not yet been mentioned, I answer quite at random that his name is Georges.
“Georges who?” he says.
“Georges Marchat.”
“And what does he do?”
I answer quickly: “Businessman.”
“Is he French?”
“No, Dutch, I think.”
He is sitting alone on a white marble bench, under a clump of traveler’s palms whose leaves shaped like broad leaves shaped like broad hands hang in a fan around him. He is leaning forward. He seems to be staring at his patent leather shoes, a little darker against the background of pale sand. His hands are resting on the stone bevel on each side of his body. Coming closer, as I continue along the path, I notice that the young man is holding a pistol in his right hand, his forefinger already on the trigger, but the barrel aimed at the ground. This weapon, moreover, will cause him considerable inconvenience, a little later, during the general search of the guests by the police.
La Maison de Rendez-Vous and Djinn Page 14