Please Enjoy Your Happiness

by Paul Brinkley-Rogers

  I stared at her and she flinched. ‘Do not look at me with such eyes,’ she said suddenly. ‘Do not look into my eyes. Do not look at me. Do not look . . . Enjoy!’

  This was not what I expected.

  This was no sing-song girl. This was not a River Blossom or a Belle Tang or a Flora Zhan shyly tempting me. There was no slit skirt, no cheongsam, no golden legs, no teasing, no featherlike touching or sudden groping, no deep kissing, no rubbing, no writhing, no clutching, no ecstasy at all.

  ‘I am sorry, Madame,’ I said. ‘This is not what I was looking for.’

  I expected her to be angry. But she looked forlorn and gave a smile of regret.

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘You are polite. That is nice. Go quietly. Leave me now.’

  She went back to the sofa and arranged her body and her nightgown and her hair as if she were laying herself in her grave.

  ‘One of these long, long days,’ she said, ‘after you get much older, you will know what it is like to lose your precious youth.’

  ‘This is not about youth,’ I tried to explain. ‘This is about something I wanted to remember forever, and that something does not exist. I guess I was looking for paradise.’

  I looked down at her.

  I reached out to touch her hand. She flinched.

  ‘No. Please,’ Madame Veronika said. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t be gentle with me. If you do that I will cry, and that will never do. I do a lot of weeping on bright sunny days like this when I am shut up in the Hall of Flowers.’

  17

  Inappropriate Thinking

  I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? I also said that the tsar of Russia, the emperor of China and Japanese imperialism were all paper tigers. As we know, they were all overthrown. US imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.

  FROM A SPEECH BY MAO TSE-TUNG AT THE MOSCOW MEETING OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS’ PARTIES, 18 NOVEMBER, 1957

  I made a quick exit from the Hall of Flowers. Cloudlet was not visible, but I could hear her singing somewhere, a cheerful children’s song that found its way out through the iron bars over the open windows. It was a lullaby, maybe. But who would sing lullabies to a baby who would end up working in a place like this? What would be your opinion, Yukiko? I was left with such a strange feeling. What a world it is, I told myself. The song went on and on, and in the streets below young sailors were making pilgrimages to the Hall of Flowers, as we had done. They were laughing and shouting. None of the Chinese in the street appeared to pay any attention to them. They were too busy hawking their dumplings and pocketing coins. This was all commerce and profit. I vowed to try to find Paul Feng and to thank him once more for An Outline History of China, which examined the many humiliations China suffered at the hands of foreign powers but did not mention the existence of anything like the Hall of Flowers.

  I was embarrassed and disgusted and intrigued, all at once. Was there an adjective for that triple combination, I wondered? If not, maybe it was my responsibility to invent one. What kind of human being would employ a child who got high marks at school to guide sailors at a place like that? I was hit by an involuntary shudder, mixed with guilt, thinking about it. Cloudlet, skilled at sizing up clients and selecting appropriate prostitutes, was in some ways more of an adult than I was. What would be her fate? Where were her parents? Would she get a scholarship to go to university? Or would she become a sing-song girl, and then a madam, and was this how capitalism worked?

  I remembered something else Cloudlet had told me on the way up the stairs, Yuki.

  ‘Sing-song girls are like the moon. Doesn’t it make you feel good to look at that new moon? But then the moon becomes an old moon. No one wants to look at that. Do you know what I mean? Have you tried looking at the moon?’ She said the girls looked at it all the time at the Hall of Flowers. They saw the moon when they looked in the mirror. A moon face stares back at them. It is a very long stare indeed.

  Was Cloudlet talking of the impact that the wear and tear of a hard life had on one’s beauty, or was she talking about the nature of beauty, I wondered? Was she talking about beauty and tragedy, or are those two things related, Yuki? Maybe I should have asked her. Child that she was, she probably would have known the answer. I thought of you and all those phases of your life I knew so little about, despite many hours of conversation, despite friendship, despite an intimacy I did not understand.

  I was picking my way among a squatting swarm of street vendors who had steaming white dumplings packed with shrimp and other morsels of the sea laid out on huge bamboo trays. I was heading first for the Hong Kong ferry and the short trip across the harbour to Kowloon, where Chaplain Peeples had asked me to meet him at three o’clock sharp to help distribute toys from Operation Handclasp to orphans housed on the edge of what he called the Walled City. It was like the Casbah of Pépé Le Moko, he said: a six-acre citadel of ten thousand people off-limits to foreigners and full of Communists and criminals who were so dangerous that the Hong Kong police did not dare to enter its densely packed hideouts where even sunlight did not penetrate. And yet Hong Kong was a British crown colony. The British – my countrymen – knew about the Hall of Flowers. They knew about the Walled City. They knew about the gambling, the opium, and the regular Triad gang killings done by the 14K and the Sung Yee On. But they welcomed our sailor dollars. They had their clubs, their privileges, their cricket pitch, their churches, their mansions. Some kept Chinese mistresses. They were comfortably pink and fat. They claimed to be champions of democracy. But it was all a house of cards, I decided in a fit of rage. It was a lie, as was the slogan used by the Shangri-La in the publicity for Operation Handclasp: ‘Man o’ War with Men of Peace.’ I was so embarrassed by the fact that I dreamed up that slogan without much thought, not understanding that its contradictory nature could give comfort to those who might wage nuclear war. Maybe I should ask Chaplain Peeples about these facts of life, I thought. ‘These are moral issues, right?’ I was in an indignant hurry now. ‘These issues are packed with moral contradictions.’ But who can define what is moral and what is not? The United States? Britain? China? Japan? Who could I ask about this? So far, no one was listening. If Chaplain Peeples could not enlighten me then I would turn to you, I decided.

  The chaplain had given me some Hong Kong dollars to pay for a taxi ride to the orphanage. I arrived just before the appointed hour. The staff was gathered in front of the small brick building with about thirty of the children, who ranged from infants to teenagers. When I stepped out of the cab they began applauding, but then the applause stopped when they saw it was just a sailor, and the sailor was not hauling a big bag of candy and toys. A small man with a raisin-size pimple on the tip of his nose shook my hand. He was talking to me rapidly. I could only understand bits and pieces of his English. And I was distracted by the pimple. So I smiled and nodded and hoped that Chaplain Peeples would not be far behind.

  A couple of the little boys were curious about my uniform, Yuki. Oh, you would have laughed, you would have laughed! They pulled at the white cotton legs of my pants. One boy lifted up the cuff and began pulling at the hair on my leg. I looked at the small man for help. He used the flat of his hand to whack the boy behind the ear, and the boy began howling. Then a lot of the children started crying. It did not seem to be a very auspicious start to what the chaplain believed would be a joyous occasion of great benefit to the public image of the United States and its navy. About thirty minutes went by, and I was becoming anxious. A young woman who appeared to be a nurse asked me in good British English if the gifts were really coming. She was annoyed.

  ‘I told our director that this would be a publicity stunt,’ she announced. She looked at me: ‘False promises. Late. They don’t telephone to say sorry . . . typical Americans,’ she said.<
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  ‘I agree,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean by “I agree”? You are one of them.’

  I shook my head. ‘I am wearing this uniform but I am not an American citizen.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I am sorry. Well, look. I look as if I am Chinese and I am wearing this nurse’s uniform. I am a nurse. But actually I am British.’

  ‘I am British too.’

  We started laughing. She threw her hands in the air and directed a stream of rapid-fire Cantonese at the small man with the pimple, who was obviously the director. He clapped his hands and laughed, and the children started laughing too.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ asked the nurse, whose name was Lydia Wong. It was the first time I had tasted Lapsang Souchong, which smelled of burnt pine and tar. If I drink it nowadays I am reminded immediately of that day when I was a stand-in for the US Navy. ‘Do you like this tea?’ the nurse asked. ‘This is a poor man’s tea, made from the most inferior tea leaves. It is roasted, and that way the flavour is released. It is very good for sex. It is good for women before sex. I always drink it.’

  A horn honked at the approach to the orphanage. It was Chaplain Peeples, resplendent in his tropical whites and gold gilt and displaying an array of campaign ribbons across his chest. He paused to wipe a streak of dirt off his white shoes. He was purer than purity itself. The children were astonished but then they surged towards him when the taxi driver began extracting six sacks of those toy firearms and teddy bears out of the cab.

  ‘Rogers,’ he bellowed. As usual, he was angry with me, for which there would be no explanation. ‘Get over here!’

  I looked at the nurse and gave her a wink, Yuki. The wink made her blush. She was still sipping her cup of Lapsang Souchong.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. I was grinning because I wondered, in a moment of fantasy, if he would ask me whether I had brought the sex manual with me when I went to the Hall of Flowers. But he said nothing about that. He was huffing and puffing, and I sensed he was displeased that I had arrived before him.

  So, to embarrass him, I asked what had made him late. I made sure the director and the nurse were close enough to listen in. I also was wishing the director would unleash those two little boys again so Chaplain Peeples could have them pull at his hairy leg. ‘I am sorry you were late,’ I said. ‘What held you up, sir?’

  Behind me, I heard Nurse Wong say, ‘Yes. Why are you late, Chaplain Peeples?’

  The chaplain did not answer because the kids were swarming the sacks. He began gently pushing the children back, patting them on the head, which I knew from the cultural awareness class I had attended on the ship was an offence to human dignity in many Asian cultures, as was displaying the sole of one’s shoe.

  I wagged my finger at him.

  ‘What are you attempting to do, Rogers?’ he demanded.

  I did not feel like explaining myself. ‘It is nice to see you here, sir,’ I said. ‘The children are very excited. We were all worried about you. Nurse Wong was very nice. She brought me a cup of amazing tea, which she said she also drinks because it is—’ I caught myself and stopped.

  Of course, Yuki, the children had a wonderful time chasing the chaplain and me around the school grounds. There must have been about twenty toy rifles as well as assorted toy handguns, guns that fired caps – bang, bang, bang – and even a BB gun or two that went pop, pop, pop. The chaplain was saying ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ in a very loud voice, as if it were Christmas and not a very hot afternoon in late August. After the kids had ambushed and killed him several times, the chaplain made a speech. I knew what he was going to say because I had written it.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen. On behalf of the United States of America and the United States Navy and also with the best wishes of the children of the United States, we hope you enjoy these gifts given to you as part of Operation Handclasp. These gifts came to you from freedom-loving boys and girls who hope you share their democratic values. I hope you have fun. Thank you to the director for inviting us to come here.’

  I heard Nurse Wong translating the speech for the director. The director was shaking his head and looking chagrined. I asked the nurse if there was a problem.

  ‘No problem,’ she said quietly. ‘Except that we did not issue an invitation. If we knew he was going to make a speech like that we would have preferred to come to your ship ourselves to pick up the gifts. I said this was a publicity stunt, and it is.’

  The chaplain and I shared a taxi for the ride back to the ferry. He sat there, erect, his knees touching each other, his officer’s peaked hat squarely on his head, his hands clasped in front of him as if he were the torchbearer for Operation Handclasp, which of course he was. I was just his minion.

  ‘Nice speech,’ he said. ‘Good job!’

  ‘Chaplain, I have a question,’ I said respectfully. ‘I need your opinion. I need guidance, I guess.’

  ‘Yes, son,’ he replied.

  ‘Sir, I don’t understand the contradictions I see everywhere here,’ I began. ‘This is a British-run colony. According to the material you gave us that was published in the ship’s newspaper, this is a democracy. To me, democracy means moral government as well as personal freedom within the framework of the law. But let’s face it: Hong Kong is a dump. It is full of vice. Children work in the brothels. The US Navy comes in and out of the harbour, and the guys go ashore and drink and spend their money – on vice. Even this toy thing doesn’t sit squarely with me. We used a warship to bring toys. We talk about democracy and freedom. But isn’t this really an attempt to buy the loyalty of people who are not necessarily America’s friends?’

  Chaplain Peeples stared at me. He looked deeply offended.

  ‘Rogers . . . Rogers. You have a very cynical view of the world for someone so young and naive. Who have you been listening to recently? What have you been reading? You write a wonderful speech like that for me, but it sounds like you detested the whole thing. You detest the United States Navy! You are an immigrant . . . don’t forget that. You enlisted in this man’s navy . . . don’t forget that. We are not perfect, but we really are the hope of the world.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Yes, sir. But I am confused.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Nothing makes sense. Nothing! I have just turned twenty and I thought I would not have these kinds of doubts any more. But I do. One of my supervisors told me that the US Navy did not pay me to think. But I can’t help thinking. I can’t help noticing certain discrepancies, like this whole “freedom” and “democracy” thing. I don’t know who or what to believe any more, because these concepts don’t match reality.’ I am sure we talked about this paradox, Yukiko, in one of those long conversations at the White Rose. I don’t remember Mama ever telling you to serve other customers. She would lean against one of the columns festooned with plastic white roses, and she would stare, and stare, and stare.

  ‘You are an honest person,’ the chaplain said. ‘But this is really inappropriate thinking. You need to get shipshape and get over it. What if there was a war? If you had to drop a bomb or fire a gun, would you engage in this kind of internal debate?’

  We had arrived at the ferry near the grand old Peninsula Hotel, which had a line of Rolls-Royces parked in front and groups of foreign businessmen in pressed suits, and navy officers in full-dress regalia, milling about outside. I said goodbye to the chaplain and left the scene as quickly as I could to catch a ferry that looked as if it was close to departing.

  The chaplain headed for the hotel, with the big loping strides of an athlete, not pausing to look this way or that but cutting across a street full of taxis and trucks as if he were a torpedo. Unexpectedly, I felt a twinge of sympathy for him. He was single-minded, like a torpedo. But was that bad? Was it pathetic? What had they taught him when he studied theology?

  Thirty minutes later I was back in ‘The Wanch’, as we sailors called Wan Chai, cutting through the streets to look for the bookstore where I had met Paul Feng in June. It took
me a while to locate it. I was distracted by all my nagging doubts. But there it was. There was a display of the latest issue of China Reconstructs in the window. The yellow cover was decorated with black paper cut-outs of butterflies, water buffalos, men and women carrying burdens, peasants hoeing fields. It was almost dusk. I did not think that Paul Feng would be there but then I heard his voice from behind the cash register saying, excitedly, ‘Mr Paul! Mr Paul! Here you are again.’

  He rang up my copy of China Reconstructs and asked me whether I would like to attend ‘a meeting’. He said he had told his friends about his ‘young American friend’ and he wanted me to meet them. I expressed some concern, explaining that I would probably get into trouble if I did not head straight to the bars and get drunk but instead socialized with intellectuals. Paul Feng laughed at this. ‘It’s very funny,’ he said. ‘You are developing an acute sense of irony. I think you will be appreciated.’

  I did not have much judgement, I suppose, at that age. You told me, Yuki, ‘A man should do what is right. Use your instinct. Use your mind. You don’t have much experience. So you don’t have much choice when it comes to making a decision. Just do what you have to do, learn from your mistakes, and enjoy everything else . . . Go out into the world. Of course, if you make mistakes, I want to hear about them. I make many mistakes. I have many regrets. That is what makes me such an interesting woman.’

  You had given me once, written on a scrap of paper, the lyrics to ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’, a song by Don Raye. Billie Holiday recorded a famous version of it. ‘Keep this and read it later, dear Paul, and read it and read it again,’ you said. I noticed you had that look on your face that told me this was a lesson I had to learn. ‘Sometimes in this life you have to risk everything, or else you will never know. Sometimes you have to crash, you have to burn. You have to cry out in pain. You have to experience something that cannot be understood just by reading books or writing poetry, like love. You have to go to the highest mountain. You have to go to the deepest valley. You have to search for the love that is waiting for you. And when you find it, please remember those who have gone before you to find what cannot be denied.’