The Other Nineteenth Century

by Avram Davidson

  “How’s about we bring some women?” the Gunny said; ribbing Howard as usual. “Nice Chinee girl, huh? One for you and one for me?”

  “Chacun à son goût,” was Howard’s answer. And he told Gunny Jack he was thinking of asking a former official of the Imperial Court to join them over the kow yahdza, or roast duck; promising him that this man was worth meeting. “Okay by me,” said the Gunny. And he curled his long and black handle bar mustache. This gunnery sergeant was tall and dark and fierce-looking and had a dent in his nose. Like so many others in the Corps then stationed in China, he led a rather dissolute life. Indeed, he once persuaded Bill Howard to accompany him to a place called The Palace of All Seasons.

  “Let your hair down, damn it,” he said. The place was full of smoke and noise and everyone was drinking freely. A Chinese woman came and sat down, uninvited, next to Howard, and tried to show off that she knew a little English. She called in a coarse voice to another woman, “Sister! Come over here, Sister! I want you to meet this nice American.” And the other woman, also garishly painted, came and sat down on Howard’s other side. From the ribald comments of the other Marines he gathered that these women were not “hostesses” as they claimed to be, but just common prostitutes, so he made only perfunctory replies to their questions and they finally let him alone. The older one, Blossom, was a disgusting sight, with cigarette smoke dribbling out her flat nose; but the younger one, May (or “Sister”), was rather pretty underneath the paint. It was too bad she lived a sinful life.

  On this particular afternoon Corporal Howard and Gunnery Sergeant Jackson got into two rickshaws and went off through the maze of crooked streets and dirty alleys until they reached the place where Old Mr. Chen lived, somewhere in the quarter known as the Imperial City. The elderly gentleman was obviously very pleased to see them, and when Bill Howard said to him (in Chinese, for, instead of wasting time talking pidjin-English to prostitutes, he took Chinese lessons at the Y), “Chir fahn, low yay”—“low” rhyming with “cow”—which is to say, “Sir, I invite you to dinner,” he agreed at once. The old man put on a robe of black silk or satin, with a flowery design, over his knitted upper and lower garments, and they hired a third rickshaw and off they went. Jackson was moody and silent, which pleased Howard just as well because, once or twice before, Gunny Jack under the slight influence of liquor had called out something in a loud voice which amused the rickshaw-coolies and other lower-class Chinese very much, until Howard asked him not to. The Gunny protested it was the only Chinese he knew. Indeed, this friendship, with two people so different in their habits and whole outlooks, was rather puzzling to some people. Only the wonderful esprit-de-corps of the Marines could explain it.

  As the three rickshaws rolled down the street and the shouts of the coolies mingled with the cries of the street vendors and the sound of the phonographs playing Chinese music in the shops crammed with strange merchandise, Bill Howard felt as if he were witnessing something unreal from a novel by Mrs. Pearl S. Buck or other commentators on the Oriental scene—picturesque and exciting, but impossible to understand despite the many attempts he made to do so because of the importance of China in the world scene. They crossed Morrison Street and rolled to a stop inside the East Bazaar. This was a large building containing stalls and shops where absolutely every kind of ware was sold, and upstairs was the Mohammedan restaurant where they were going to eat. Two of the coolies accepted their money at once, but the third one demanded more. At this Old Mr. Chen made a noise of shock and outrage and he took the Americans by their hands and stalked them away like an indignant old grandmother. While they were walking past the curio section he stopped and began to talk to a man who had a briefcase under his arm. This man wore a very tired-looking felt hat and on the whole looked the picture of failure, but he turned out to speak perfect English. It seemed that Old Mr. Chen asked him to join the party to interpret, and although for a moment Bill was annoyed—because each time he came here to eat he seemed fated to feed half the population of Peiping—it was just as well, because his own knowledge of Chinese, while equal to the stresses and strains of shopping, was certainly inadequate for conversational purposes, and there was absolutely no point in just feeding Mr. Chen.

  He wanted him to talk about the old days before the monarchial system was overthrown, and he wanted to see if he could get some interesting stories out of him. Something that, in the future, in later years, when he was a father and had all his children gathered around him, he could say, such as, “Listen closely, now, and I’ll tell you a story that an old Chinese nobleman told me once.” And they would shush one another and snuggle up close.

  So the four of them went upstairs, and by some miracle they were still only four when they reached their private dining room (actually a small cubicle with a curtain across the door). A fat man with a wispy mustache had set up a cry as soon as he saw them come in. Little Mr. Wong (this was the interpreter’s name) fiddled with his dirty fedora and started to speak to him, but the fat man interrupted after a few words. Mr. Wong laughed. The Chinese laugh when they are embarrassed or when they hear bad news or even when they tell it. One of them had said to Bill Howard once, “My concubine dies last week, hah-hah-hah!” and Howard did not know whether to be more shocked at this easy confession of loose living or at the callous way the man laughed, but after a while he came to understand the Chinese character better. And it must be admitted you cannot judge them altogether by American standards: first, because they are not a Christian nation, and second, because they have been so long engaged in unremitting struggles for their liberties against external and internal enemies.

  The time before, when Howard was here in this restaurant, and roast duck was ordered, a delicacy for which Peiping is famous, there took place an amusing incident. The waiter had led him downstairs and out through the kitchen, which was full of steam and sizzling and half-naked men shouting and little boys running about, down to the backyard where there was a pen full of white ducks quacking around, and the waiter asked him to pick out the ducks he wanted! This time he told them to fix a duck they had on hand ready to go, but they still insisted on bringing in several plucked ducks, with the heads still on them, for him to pick. Meanwhile Sergeant Jackson was getting restless.

  “How’s about some beer?” he demanded. “And some whiskey?” And he said loudly, “Hey, boy, got-chee bee’jo? Gotchee whiskeyjo?”

  “Oh, never mind that pidjin-English,” Howard protested. “That’s what Mr. Wong is here for, to interpret. Not that we aren’t glad to have you with us anyway, I mean, Mr. Wong.” Mr. Wong sat up straighter and opened his mouth. He looked kind of sad and soiled and crumpled.

  “Bring three piecee bee-jo, chop-chop,” the Gunny said.

  The waiter, who was just a boy in a dirty apron, yelled something. Outside, someone yelled back.

  “They have no whiskey,” Mr. Wong explained. “They have wine. I shall order wine?”

  “You’re doggone-ay right, order wine,” said the Gunny, only he used another word instead of doggone. Mr. Wong spoke to the boy, and looked more cheerful. Mr. Chen just sat back and smiled blandly and benevolently. The table was spread as follows: a clay pot (with a wire tripod around which was coiled a long piece of glowing punk to light cigarettes on) to hold the ashes, three tall brown bottles of lager beer, glasses, five pairs of chopsticks (one to serve with), some squares of soft paper (to wipe the chopsticks on), two teapots, cups, and four small dishes of chopped raw vegetables. These last Howard would not have sampled at any price because what the Chinese use to fertilize their vegetables with is too disgusting to mention. Jackson and Wong began drinking the beer and the wine and Howard and Old Mr. Chen had tea. Then the old man had some beer and wine, so that left only Howard sticking to tea.

  “Very good wine,” Mr. Wong said. His cheeks were flushed. The wine was in one of the teapots, as is seen in moving pictures about Prohibition days. It wasn’t really wine, but was distilled from grain of some sort and was a very pale
yellow. “You are a Moslem?” Mr. Wong asked.

  “No, I just don’t drink,” Howard said.

  “Have you been long acquainted with famous Mr. Chen?” On hearing his own name, the old man beamed and nodded.

  “What makes him famous?” asked the Gunny, wiping beer off his long mustachioes and pouring his cup full of “wine.”

  “Oh, he is a very famous eunuch.” (Gunnery Sergeant Jackson said, “Well, J——————C———————!”) “Oh, yes. You see his eyes? They are eunuch’s eyes. His face is the face of a eunuch. All have the same eyes, face. The lids—see how they droop? The face has no hair, only a soft down, it is like a face made of very pure but unbleached beeswax, in which grooves have been scored with a hot knife—no wrinkles. And his voice is the voice of a eunuch.”

  Mr. Wong, his tongue perhaps loosened by his potations, went on to explain that the Imperial Government used the eunuchs as a kind of civil service. There were two grades. One was recruited from the lower classes to be servants of the Imperial Family—barbers, valets, and so on. The other was recruited from the upper classes, and these became government officials.

  “They don’t do that any more, do they?” the Gunny asked.

  “No, not since the tyrannous Imperial power was overthrown. It was a very wicked government.”

  Corporal Howard quoted the text from Mark which says, “Some are eunuchs from their mothers’ wombs, some are made eunuchs by men, and some become eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. He that can receive it, let him receive it.”

  “Well, don’t look at me,” the Gunny said. Mr. Wong drank some more wine. “The Chinese Revolution was nurtured in the United States,” he said. Then he belched. The Chinese consider this the height of politeness. “It is one reason why I love the United States,” he said. Then he made quite a speech about Sun Yat-Sen and the wonderful work Chiang Kai-Shek (which he pronounced Jong Gay-Shur) had done, and the traditional friendship between the United States and China.

  “I’m getting hungry,” the Gunny interrupted. He, too, had been drinking, not wisely, but too well. “How about a oyster, Samivel,” he said. “Or a srimp?”

  The Corporal asked, “What?” Just then they brought in a great big fish with the head still on it. In fact, the Gunny mumbled something to the effect that in China they leave the heads on everything but the people. Old Mr. Chen took the extra pair of chopsticks and was about to start serving the fish, but Mr. Wong took them away and poured hot tea over them and wiped them clean and gave them back. After Mr. Chen had very deftly taken off the skin and then all the fish on the top side, he turned it over and as he was carving it out he said something. Mr. Wong translated.

  “Ah, yes, you see, this is very interesting: at the table of the Empress Dowager, whose aide he was, they only served the fish on top. As it was beneath their dignity to turn the fish over, the rest was sent to the servants. See, how proud and haughty the Manchus were. Now everything is democratic.”

  “Does Jong Gay Shoo give his servants half his fish?” the Gunny asked.

  “Mohammedan cooking is very good,” Mr. Wong said, ignoring this foolish question.

  The Gunny wiped his mouth. “By Allah, yes,” he said. “I desire more.

  But the fish was already gone. They brought in a big plate of shrimp cooked in some kind of yellow batter, and after that there was paper-thin mutton and vermicelli, cooked together over charcoal, with cabbage, and about ten different sauces. Old Mr. Chen asked if they had vermicelli in America.

  “Yes,” Howard told him. “Marco Polo brought it from China to Italy, and the Italians brought it to America.”

  “The trouble is, the old man really does not understand anything foreign,” Mr. Wong said. “Certainly nothing modern. If you ask him about Russia, for example, he will tell you about the presents of Catherine the Great to Ch’ien Lung.”

  “If you ask me about Russia, for example,” said Gunny Jack, “I will tell you the following story: when I was a young and ardent sixteen, and had not yet developed these bar-muscles amidships, my father was convinced there would be war with Russia at any time, and he sent me to military school. One morning while we were very spartanly getting in some mileage in the streets near the school, clad only in sneakers and shorts, I chanced to see a very pretty woman giving me the eye as I jogged by her house. So I let everyone else get ahead of me, then I jogged back, straight to her welcoming arms, and there I stayed for two days and two nights, practically a prisoner, as she refused to get me any clothes. Finally, unable to continue my feats of war on a diet of soda-crackers and peanut butter, which was all she had in the house, I departed. When I got back to school I told them I’d had amnesia and remembered nothing. This important part of my education I owe entirely to the Russians, and I have endeavored to show my gratitude to the women of that nation here in Peiping.”

  Howard didn’t know exactly what to say, so he asked Mr. Wong his profession.

  “I am a school teacher. Soon I shall tell my classes of this meeting of ours, how two young Americans in military service spent time in inquiring of the Old China and the New …”

  Corporal Howard was very glad he had gotten the floor away from Gunny Jack. As soon as the latter had a few drinks his whole manner changed, including his manner of speech. This had proven embarrassing before. And then the Gunny broke in.

  “If I might ask the New China a question?”

  “Why, certainly,” Mr. Wong said, very politely.

  “You’re a sympathizer of the Kuomintang?”

  “Oh, yes. For over thirty years—”

  “And the school teachers are on strike?”

  Mr. Wong laughed in embarrassment.

  “Because they can’t get their salary, right?” Mr. Wong looked at his plate. “And the government said it will give them free cornmeal, didn’t it? And the teachers won’t go back to work until they get the cornmeal, right?” Mr. Wong’s cheeks were very red. He nodded. “Well, doesn’t the New China notice that plenty of people are making plenty of money? Why doesn’t it raise hell? Less corn and more hell; I mean, more hell to get more corn.”

  Mr. Wong said, “It is the Communists. The war is costing our government too much money, that is why.”

  Old Mr. Chen drank some tea. The boy felt the teapot and yelled and another boy, even smaller, came and brought a fresh pot and took away the old one. There was no more food on the table. Then they brought in the duck, a beautiful golden brown color, and a platter of wheat cakes like flapjacks, and green onions or scallions, and a soya sauce. They carved pieces of duck meat and sliced the green onions and put them on wheat cakes with sauce and rolled them up. All four began to eat. Mr. Chen made loud noises, to show how good it was. He shoveled rice into his mouth, holding the bowl right under his lips.

  “Oh, boy, how the people here cheered when the Marines came to town!” said Gunny Jack. “You cheer, too, Mr. Wong?”

  “I wept with joy,” Mr. Wong said.

  “Will you cheer when the Communists march in?”

  “They will never come. The Chinese and American people will never permit it.”

  “Roger and wilco,” the Corporal said.

  “Oh, don’t be so damned gung-ho,” the Gunny said. “What do you know about real fighting? Okie was practically secured by the time you got there. Don’t you know by this time that nothing short of full-scale intervention can stop the Reds? And don’t you know that there isn’t going to be any?”

  “Then the Chinese will fight alone!” cried Mr. Wong.

  “When? They’re not doing it so far. A wonderful series of strategic retreats. Nope. Uh-uh. The Reds will march in, all right. And when they do, you will cheer, all right. And you’ll tell your classes to cheer. Know why?”

  Mr. Wong appeared very angry. “Why?” he asked. He was trembling.

  “Because otherwise you won’t get any cornmeal, that’s why. And I am greatly afraid you won’t get any more roast duck, no matter how loud you cheer. So eat
up now, my brave Pekinese.”

  Once again Corporal Bill Howard felt constrained to change the subject. Besides, the purpose of this gathering was not being achieved. So he asked Mr. Chen questions about his career. The old man began to tell scandalous stories of the Empress Dowager, of whom, for some reason, he seemed quite proud, despite everything. She became empress simply because she bore a child to the then emperor, and this was typical of her life, because she was never really married to him. Then there was the Boxer Rebellion, and she pushed her nephew’s concubine down the well—actually, she had some eunuch do it, Mr. Chen very calmly said—and kept him, her nephew, the emperor, locked up because he disobeyed her and she was very strong on filial piety. But this wasn’t what Bill wanted, either. He asked Mr. Wong to ask Mr. Chen to tell them a story. Mr. Chen thought very deeply in silence. Then he began to speak.

  “In the palace there was a drum made from the skin of a dragon. When there was a bad drought, the emperor—but only he—would beat upon this drum, and it would rain and the crops grow again.”