Encouraged by Monty’s grunt of interest in what he had been saying, Matthew went on to explain that his own arrival in Geneva had coincided almost to the day with that fateful explosion beside the South Manchurian Railway in 1931. He had seen it all at first hand, from the first angry denunciations by China’s representative, Dr Sze, of massacres by Japanese troops and the reply of Yoshizawa (the same chap who had just recently been in Java demanding oil and minerals from the Dutch) that the troops were merely defending Japan’s enormous interests … to what had happened much later: to the devious, hypocritical, perfectly disgraceful support given to the untenable Japanese position by Sir John Simon and the Foreign Office, not to mention the British Press. Only the Manchester Guardian had condemned the Japanese and their British supporters.
Monty, peering out at the shadowy streets of Singapore as they fled by on either side of the cab, mumbled that he had been ‘in the dark’ about all that side of things. He belched dejectedly (perhaps he should not have bolted his fish and chips and beer so greedily at The Great World).
‘You see, Monty, so much depended on how the League reacted. It was the first time the Council had had to deal with a quarrel involving a major power and it set the style for everything that has happened since … for everything that will happen, even if one day they manage to revive the League, for years to come. Because at that time people all over the world still believed in the League. When the Manchurian crisis broke out it was almost like some medieval tournament. People flocked to Geneva to see the respective delegates do battle. Each side spent vast sums of money, which their countries could ill afford, on propaganda and entertainment to try and win people over to their side. The Chinese took over a luxurious suite on the Quai Wilson, got hold of a French chef and some vintage wines and started giving magnificent dinner-parties.
‘Meanwhile, as a sort of counter-attack the Japs staged a colossal reception in the Kursaal at which tons of food and gallons of wine were funnelled into the open mouths of the plump burghers of Geneva as if into Strasbourg geese … In return they made everyone watch a dreary propaganda film which they showed in the empty, echoing opera-house next door (both places had been shut down for the winter) all about the benefits of the South Manchuria Railway Company. Dismal isn’t the word. It did no good, anyway, because of the Lytton Report. You know all about that, I expect?’
Hoping to forestall further revelations Monty murmured that, as a matter of fact, he was rather well-informed on that … er … particular subject … er … But Matthew willingly set to work to refresh his memory, just in case. ‘This fellow is a serious menace,’ thought Monty, glancing at the stout, bespectacled figure of his companion.
What had happened was that the League, this was actually a temporizing device, sent a commission of enquiry composed of a German doctor, a French general, an Italian count and an American Major-General under the chairmanship of Lord Lytton to Manchuria to establish the disputed facts of the matter. It had taken them a year but when they finally published their report, they made no bones about it: Japan was roundly condemned … no doubt to the horror of Sir John Simon and his ilk. They concluded that Manchuria was an integral part of China, that the Japanese action could not be justified as self-defence, that Jap troops should be withdrawn and a genuinely Chinese régime restored. ‘That really set the cat among the pigeons, as you can imagine!’
Whether Monty could imagine or not, all he said was: ‘This place is usually full of troops at this time of night. It’s funny, there must have been a police raid or something.’
The taxi had come to a halt in a sleazy rubbish-strewn street lined with the usual two-storey shophouses but wider than the streets they had come through. Matthew, still in Geneva, stared out in a daze. Washing, hanging over the street from a forest of poles, tossed and billowed in the light breeze like the banners of an army on the march. Here and there dim electric lights glimmered, emphasizing the darkness rather than shedding light. Monty was speaking.
‘Sorry, what’s that?’
‘I said I thought we might have a beer before going home.’
One moment the street was deserted except for a few shadowy figures playing mah-jong under a street-lamp, the next it suddenly began to fill up; men were scurrying out of doorways, pedalling up on bicycles, galloping towards them in the shafts of rickshaws, even slithering down drainpipes. Nearby a manhole cover where the pavement spanned the storm-drain popped up and men began to pour out of that, too. All these men were converging on one place, the taxi in which Matthew sat in a trance with his thoughts struggling back like refugees from Geneva. He roused himself at last. ‘What’s all this?’
‘They’re just looking for customers for their girls,’ said Monty who had been paying the taxi-driver. ‘Come on, and hold on to your wallet.’
Before they could set foot on the pavement they were surrounded by dim, jostling figures. Words were whispered confidentially into Matthew’s ear as he waded after Monty … ‘Nice girl’ … ‘Guarantee virgin’ … ‘You wantchee try Singapore Glip? More better allsame Shanghai Glip!’ (‘Do I want to try what?’ wondered Matthew unable to make head nor tail of this rigmarole.) … ‘Oil massage number one!’ … Hands flourished grubby visiting-cards. ‘You want very nice pleasure!’ bayed a giant, bearded Sikh, placing himself menacingly in their path. ‘You coming please this way.’ But Monty brushed him aside and dived into a lighted doorway beneath a sign reading: ‘Dorchester Bed and Breakfast. Very select. All welcome. Servicemen welcome.’ Matthew, one hand anxiously gripping his wallet, plunged after Monty. His head was reeling again. ‘I must be ill,’ he thought giddily as he clambered up a smelly flight of stairs. ‘What am I doing here? I should be at home in bed.’
At the top of the stairs an Indian with oiled black hair and a dark, pock-marked face was waiting to greet them. His smile revealed very white teeth among which nestled here and there a glittering gold one; the glitter of his teeth was echoed by the glitter of a row of gold-topped fountain pens and propelling pencils in the breast pocket of his shirt, by the fat gold rings on his fingers, and by the steel watch on his wrist: all this combined to give him a disagreeably metallic appearance. Around his waist he had wound what at first appeared to be a white sarong; on closer inspection it proved to be merely a bath towel with the words Hotel Adelphi Singapore in blue. Was this his normal attire or had they just surprised him in his bath? For a moment it was hard to be sure.
‘Very kind lovely gentlemen,’ he said, putting his palms and long, delicate, glittering fingers of both hands together in graceful gesture, ‘please coming this way please.’
They were shown into a small, dimly lit room. An elderly and very fat Indian lady, who had evidently been asleep there on the floor, was making a hasty exit and dragging her bedding with her. Monty ordered beers and they sat down, Monty on a bamboo chair, Matthew on a broken-backed couch. The Indian had disappeared down a passage. Matthew stared round the room uneasily. What strange places Monty frequented!
On the wall there were two calendars: one, for 1940, advertised the Nippon Kisen Kaisha and showed an enormous ocean liner with Mount Fuji rising improbably out of the mists behind it; the other was for 1939, advertizing Fraser and Neave’s soda water: a healthy-looking European girl, whose rather blank, flawless face bore an odd resemblance to Joan’s, was holding a tennis racket in one hand and a glass in the other: two men in tennis flannels in the background, very much diminished by perspective, whispered together beneath her outstretched arm and eyed her with interest. Nearby was another picture, this time a photograph torn from a magazine and framed. Matthew gave an exclamation of surprise when he saw who it was: for how often had he not seen that familiar face coming or going in the lobby at the Hôtel Beau Rivage in Geneva! For what hopes and, ultimately, for what despair had its owner not been responsible when he had faced Mussolini over the Abyssinian crisis! With excitement he summoned Monty to join him in gazing at the foxy, handsome features of Anthony Eden.
&n
bsp; Monty, however, declined to move. Either he was an habitué of the establishment and had already seen the picture, or else he had no particular interest in Anthony Eden; it might be, too, that he feared another discourse on world affairs for he winced visibly as Matthew, reminded of Geneva by the picture of Anthony Eden, suddenly resumed his harangue on the Lytton Report.
‘As I was saying, it set the cat among the pigeons, of course it did! The Lytton Report condemned Japan. Result? China could now demand action under Article 16 according to which the other members of the League could be asked to sever trade and financial relations with Japan. This was something that the Big Powers did not want to do: both Von Neurath, for Germany, and the bald baron, whatever his name was, for Italy, made it quite plain in the Assembly debate on the Lytton Report that they wouldn’t put up with any positive action. For three days the matter was thrashed out by the whole assembly in one of the larger rooms of the Disarmament Conference Building, where, as I expect you know, another long-running tragedy was playing at the same time, but among the Big Powers it was our man, I’m afraid, Sir John Simon, who really took the biscuit …’
While Matthew, who had sprung up from the couch again and was striding up and down the room making the floorboards creak, had been discoursing the Indian had reappeared with two bottles of beer with straws in them. He looked unsurprised to find one of his customers striding up and down shouting; odd behaviour was by no means unusual under his roof, but he was inclined to take it philosophically, reflecting that every profession must have its disadvantages. He handed one bottle to Monty and the other to Matthew who took it without noticing.
‘Simon, believe it or not, managed to give such a selective interpretation of the Lytton Report that anyone who hadn’t read it might have wondered whether it wasn’t the Chinese who had invaded Japan instead of vice versa. Not surprisingly, the smaller nations were indignant. Before their very eyes all the fine words and noble undertakings were proving to be gross hypocrisy. “If the League does not succeed in securing peace and justice,” the Norwegian delegate declared angrily, “then the whole system by which right was meant to replace might will collapse.” And he knew what he was talking about, as it has turned out. One of the Finns then wanted to know if the League was merely a debating club. I don’t know if you can imagine, Monty, the shock and anger and disappointment we all felt at the way Simon and our Foreign Office destroyed, with the help of their cronies, what was without doubt the best chance the world had ever had to institute a system of international justice!’ Matthew, making a violent gesture with his beer bottle, had caused the liquid inside it to foam out of the neck and spill over his hand. He paused for a moment to brood and lick his knuckles.
In the meantime the door had opened and half a dozen women had been shown in; they went to sit in a glum row on a bench against the wall.
‘You picking please woman at your disposition,’ said the Indian politely.
Four of the newcomers were middle-aged Chinese women with scarlet cheekbones; two of them started a whispered conversation in Cantonese, a third puffed smoke-rings from green lips, a fourth took out her knitting. The other two women were much younger, mere girls; one was a flat-nosed, round-faced Malay, the other a plain, pallid Chinese with neat pigtails; this latter girl took out a school exercise book and a text book and began to do her Latin homework. Monty looked them over without excitement and belched: the beer seemed unusually gaseous this evening. He was uncomfortable and out of sorts, no doubt about it. He felt, in particular, that there was still another bubble of air lodged distressingly inside him. Would it soon rise to the surface? He waited, surveying himself internally and thinking what a wretched evening he was having.
Suddenly, from some other part of the building through the thin walls there came a drunken Scandinavian voice. ‘You say you are a wirgin. I say you are not a wirgin!’ This was followed by an alarming crash.
‘But,’ said Matthew, who had taken a gulp of beer and was striding up and down once more (he was sweating copiously and felt by no means sober though he had had little to drink all evening), ‘the Report was there and there was nothing they could do about it. That Report had stuck in the gullets of the Great Powers. They could neither swallow it nor spit it out. In fact, the only thing they could think of to do was, of course, what they always did in Geneva when they found themselves at a loss: they formed a committee … this one was to report on the Report! Ludicrous! It was called the Committee of Nineteen. It wasted no time in settling down to the stern task of fostering sub-committees of its own in the best Geneva tradition, in particular a sub-committee for conciliation. What a farce! At one time the cynics were saying that they would soon have to have a report on the report on the Report. And yet the Report itself was plain enough. In due course the Committee of Nineteen produced its report on the Report, however. They even went so far as to broadcast it from the League’s new wireless station in Geneva. And yet again the Big Powers found themselves with egg on their faces! Japan was plainly condemned. Chinese sovereignty should be restored. Members of the League should not recognize Manchukuo. But ironically enough, at the very moment that Japan was being condemned at Geneva she was preparing to invade Eastern Inner Mongolia as well.’
‘I say you are not a wirgin!’
‘But even so, most likely the Western powers would not even have made the effort they did make to condemn Japan’s aggression, had the Japs not attacked Shanghai …’
The young Chinese girl with pigtails, on instructions from the management, had unfastened her bodice, allowing a small lemon-nippled breast to shudder free of its constraining buttons. Meanwhile, its owner pouted over a perplexing sentence she was invited to translate: ‘Romulus and Remus, you are surely about to jump over the walls of Rome, are you not?’ (Question expecting the answer ‘Yes’). What did this mean? Was it gibberish deliberately planned as a snare to the unwary, perhaps designed to make one lose face in some subtle occidental way? Surely it could be nothing else? (But wait! That, too, was a question expecting the answer ‘Yes’. She had the feeling that an invisible net had been thrown over her and that an unseen hand was beginning to pull the cords tight.) Well, she could not spend all night trying to penetrate the mysterious workings of the occidental mind so, with a sigh, she passed on to the next question.
‘To be frank, Monty, outside Geneva who cared a damn about Manchuria, or a music-hall place called Eastern Inner Mongolia? But Shanghai was different. When the Japs sent in troops from the International Settlement and bombed unarmed civilians in Chapei, people began to realize that Western business interests were threatened. There were limits, after all. But in the end what action did the Big Powers take?’
Again a dreadful crash! This time it was against the very wall of the room in which they were assembled: the whole building seemed to shake and the framed photograph of Anthony Eden cantered clippety-clop against the wall for a few seconds. ‘I give you “wirgin”!’ came a hoarse voice accompanied by a woman’s cry.
The row of women stared at Matthew with dull eyes. The Indian, disappointed with the effect they were having on his two customers, had encouraged them to unbutton their blouses and undo their skirts or sarongs in order to present themselves more advantageously. The young Chinese girl, having finished her Latin as best she could, had turned to arithmetic. Now she was sitting, stark naked, sucking her pencil over a problem which involved the rate at which a tap filled a bath. What, she wondered, was a tap? And what, come to that, was a bath? She would have to consult her aunt who was one of the older women with scarlet cheekbones.
The Indian was hurrying along beside the stout gesticulating figure of Matthew, trying to draw his attention to the enhanced appearance of his girls. The far door opened a crack and the fat Indian lady, his mother, peered in. She was still holding her bedding and anxious to resume her slumbers. He motioned her away crossly.
‘Uh … uh … uh …’ Monty could feel that bubble of air rising.
‘Very you
ng! Soft as rising moon! Or perhaps nice gentleman preferring experience lady with wide knowledge all French and Oriental techniques? Are they, sir, not what doctor ordering?’
‘What?’
‘Experience lady … wide knowledge …’
Matthew, sweat pouring off his brow in torrents, gripped him by the arm and said, blinking fiercely: ‘You may well ask! As a gesture the British, several months too late, declared an arms embargo … but on both sides, as if both had been equally guilty. In a couple of weeks it lapsed anyway because the arms manufacturers were big employers and there was a lot of unemployment at the time. So, the Japs had plainly broken the Covenant and got away with it. They left the League, of course, or at least Geneva, the following day. I watched them go myself in a great procession of motor-cars from the Metropole where they’d been staying … There was something horrible about it because it meant the end of everything. I was standing near the Pont de Mont Blanc as they went by on their way to the Gare Cornavin. They went by in silence. Each car that passed was like another support being pulled out from under the League. That was the last we saw of them in Geneva but they left the League in ruins … they and the Big Powers between them. Why? Because this sad defeat of principle at the hands of expediency, this old way of having things settled behind the scenes by degenerate foreign ministries had set a precedent from which we never recovered. Ah, you say that History will find them guilty? Nonsense! History is too muddled and nobody gives a damn about it anyway. Disarmament! Abyssinia! Spain! The same thing was to happen again and again!’ Matthew released the Indian and staggering to the couch, sat down with his head in his hands.
The Empire Trilogy Page 108