“And after you’d bought the scissors?”
“I put them in my handbag to keep ready. Then the next afternoon that Canton girl came past the table like I told you, and she said that same bad thing again, so I took out the scissors, and she was just walking way, so I said, ‘You’ve got a dirty, filthy mind, you dirty Canton girl,’ and she turned round and I stuck her with the scissors between her titties. I wouldn’t mind if I had hit her titties after what she said, but the scissors went between. Then I pulled them out to hit her again, but Gwenny and somebody stopped me, and that Canton girl just fell on the floor with a lot of blood, making a silly noise—but she wasn’t half so bad as she pretended.”
“Well, thank God for Gwenny, that’s all I can say.”
“No, I wanted to kill that girl. I was very sorry that Gwenny pulled me off.”
“But you’re not still sorry?”
“Yes, of course. I warned her the day before, so she deserved it. She had no excuse. I feel angry when I think that Gwenny pulled me off.”
I said, “Listen, Suzie. I don’t think you’ve any idea how serious this is, even though you didn’t kill her. Frankly, I’m only surprised they gave you bail.”
“I’m not worried. You ask anybody downstairs, they all say, ‘Suzie you did a good thing.’ I shall just tell them in court what happened. I shall tell them that I warned that Canton girl first, so they will understand.”
“They’ll understand far too much,” I said. “We’ve got to do some hard thinking, Suzie. And first of all you must tell me what Betty said to you, because I can’t help you until I know. Now what was it?”
“I can’t tell.”
I said, “Suzie, for God’s sake! Can’t you understand what this means? You’re in danger of going to prison.”
“They won’t send me to the monkey-house when I tell them what happened.”
“But they will! That’s exactly what they will do! You didn’t just attack Betty on the spur of the moment, but threatened to kill her and then tried to carry out the threat. And we’ve got to work out some damn good story, and before we can do that I’ve got to know what she said. Now, come on. Tell me.”
“No.”
And then I lost my temper. I lost it as I would never lose it in the cool weather but only in the damp sticky heat, which causes little knots of rage to grow inside you as it causes fungus to grow on your shoes, and I vituperated at her so furiously that she began to cry; but I still went on swearing at her and chastising her for her stupid idiotic pride—for it could only be from fear of losing face that she refused to repeat what Betty had said. And I told her that so far from saving her face in my eyes she was rapidly destroying the last shreds of my respect for her.
And at last she said in tears, “All right, I will tell you.”
“Well, thank God for that. Thank God I’ve at last knocked some sense into you.”
And then she told me, and all my anger promptly went and I felt bitterly ashamed—because it was not her own face that she had been trying to save, but mine.
And it made it no better that it was all so trivial. It appeared that Betty had simply taunted her with the malicious little invention that I was a blankety-blank (or whatever was the Chinese word), meaning one of those men who favored an unorthodox manner of sexual union which the girls found repugnant. She had told Suzie that on the occasion of her visit to my room I had invited her co-operation in this matter, and that she had refused; but that I had admitted to practicing it with Suzie, who she understood had been more obliging.
On the following day, in the bar, she had simply tossed the one word “blankety-blank” at Suzie en passant. And it had been enough to bring Suzie within an ace of a capital charge.
“Because I will kill anybody who tries to make you dirty,” she said. “I told her, ‘You can make me dirty, but not my boy friend’—because dirt doesn’t show on a dirty little yum-yum girl who is dirty already, but it shows on you because you are a good man, and you have got no dirt on you, not inside or outside or anywhere, and I will kill anybody who tells lies about you and throws dirt.”
I said, “Suzie, I don’t know what to say. Except that I’ve never felt dirtier than I do now, after all those things I just said.”
“I don’t mind. Not now you understand that I did a good thing, sticking that Canton girl with the scissors.”
“I still wish you hadn’t done it, Suzie. I’m terribly worried about it.”
“You worry too much.”
“What did Haynes say?”
“Oh, he is just a stupid old man. He couldn’t understand anything. He said, ‘Maybe they will send you to Laichikok’—that is the woman’s monkey-house. But I heard that the judge is a very kind, good man, and has a very good heart—so he will understand.”
“The trouble is, Suzie, that although the magistrate might be very good-hearted, the law’s got no heart at all. And the law doesn’t happen to approve of assassination with scissors, even if the victim deserved it.”
But I could not make her understand how serious her position was, and presently I went out on the balcony to think it over. I remained there for about twenty minutes, and then returned to the room.
“Suzie, there’s one lesson I’ve learned from you,” I said, “and that is that whatever one decides to do, good or bad, one must stick to one’s own decision and act on it boldly. Well, we’re going to do something bad. We’re going to commit a terrible offense called perjury. And that means we’re going to work out some lies very carefully, and learn them by heart, and tell them in court, although we’ll have sworn by all that’s holy to us that we’re telling the truth. Because if we don’t they’re going to send you to Laichikok for six months, or even a year, and I’d perjure myself into hell sooner than let them do that. Now, let’s think about those scissors. When did you buy them?”
“I bought them after that Canton girl first said that dirty thing to me.”
“No, you didn’t. You bought them weeks before. You bought them after your house fell down and you’d lost all your possessions. And you bought them at a street stall, not at that shop in Hennessy Road—because we don’t want the police investigating.”
“I don’t want to tell lies. I will just tell the truth, what really happened.”
“Suzie, you’ve just got to believe me that if you do you’ll be sent to gaol. And if you can’t understand yourself why that should be so, you must take it from me on trust.”
“All right, if you want.”
“Good. Now, when did you buy those scissors?”
“After my house fell down.”
“And where?”
“Street market.”
“And where do you usually keep them?”
“Top drawer.”
“No, you don’t. You keep them in your handbag because you’re always using them for your sewing or knitting in the bar. And where were they when Betty passed your table and flung that taunt at you?”
“In my bag.”
“No, they were in your hand. You were using them for your sewing. And when you lost your temper and threw yourself at Betty you just struck out at her blindly, without even realizing what you were doing.”
“No, that lie is no good, because other girls saw. They saw everything.”
“How many girls? How many were near enough?”
“There was Gwenny and Little Alice, and Wednesday Lulu, and Doris Woo. Four girls—they all saw.”
“Well, go and get them. Go and tell them we’ve got something very important to discuss and ask them to come up here.”
The four girls all proved more amenable than I had dared to hope. I had expected the most difficulty from Wednesday Lulu, thinking that her high principles might well be inexorably opposed to organized perjury in the witness box; however, since one of he
r foremost principles was loyalty to colleagues in trouble, other scruples were overridden and she entered into the occasion calmly and contributed several good suggestions. Doris had also seemed a likely stumbling block; and for a while she did indeed remain noncommittal and aloof, her schoolmarm mouth set with disapproval and her eyes blinking and withdrawn behind the rimless glasses. Her only comment, when it came at last, was the pointed reminder that by attending court as a witness she would be losing business in the bar; so when the others left I asked her to remain behind and gave her fifty dollars, and promised another fifty when the job was successfully done. For having entered on a course of corruption, I saw no reason to jib at a little bribery.
And that left only Haynes. And so I set off to Hennessy Road and boarded a tram, which clanked and tunneled its way through the heat-stuffed streets, shoveling the heat back through the open windows into the passengers’ faces. I arrived at Haynes’s office already exhausted by two minutes’ walk and a climb up a short flight of stairs. The office was a large old-fashioned room, unsuitably hung with mirrors presented by satisfied Chinese clients. The chair at the desk was empty and there was no sign of life. Then I noticed movement behind the glass door of a kind of plasterboard den built into one corner of the room, like the kitchen of a converted mansion flat. A clerk came out and held open the door, and I stepped through into a chilly air-conditioned atmosphere that turned my damp shirt clammy and made my perspiration run like iced water. It was like walking out of a boiler room straight into a deepfreeze.
“Much cheaper than air-conditioning the whole—ah—office,” Haynes said. “And after twenty years out here I still can’t stand the infernal heat. How’s it outside now?”
“Pretty hot.”
“And I’ve got the afternoon in the court.”
He looked miserable. He was a tall anxious man with big hands, and knees that he had difficulty in fitting under the tiny desk, which was not a quarter the size of the big desk in the office outside.
“Well, I can’t say that I view our prospects with much ah—enthusiasm,” he said gloomily. “I only hope we don’t get Freddy Gore.”
“Who’s that—the magistrate?”
“Yes, decent fellow, Freddy. But always hard on these—ah—girls. We must just cross our fingers and hope we get Charlie Kwok. Though I’m afraid even Charlie will give her a month or two.”
“You mean gaol?”
“It’s no use my trying to paint you a rosy picture. You see, the way she’d thought it out—gone specially to buy those scissors—”
“Oh, no,” I said. “She’d had those scissors for weeks.”
He blinked at me.
“Well, I’m afraid that—ah—whenever they were bought she was carrying them in her handbag. And unfortunately the facts suggest a certain deliberate—ah—intention. I mean, to open her bag and take them out—”
“But they were already out. She was in the middle of using them.”
“That isn’t what the young—ah—lady told me.”
“How’s your Chinese?” I said.
“My Chinese? I don’t speak a word.”
“Well, her English is hopeless. It was obviously a misunderstanding.”
He gave me a long look, and then dropped his eyes and began to shift his knees about uncomfortably under the tiny desk.
“Yes—ah—of course. Only I’m afraid the police will call witnesses, whose impressions may possibly prove contradictory.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “There were only four people who saw what happened, and I know their impressions were all the same.”
“Well—ah—in that case we can form a different view.”
“And so what’s the worst that can happen to her?”
“Well, let’s say it’s Charlie Kwok. Then it might be three hundred dollars.”
“And if it’s Freddy Gore?”
“Five hundred.”
“They couldn’t send her to gaol?”
“They could. But they—ah—won’t.”
“And when’s the hearing likely to be?”
“I’d say in four or five months.”
“Months?”
“They’re queuing up for the courts, you know.”
“Well, we’d better put five hundred dollars on one side.”
He saw me to the door of the air-conditioned compartment but no farther. He said good-by rather awkwardly. Then after a hesitation he added:
“By the way, about that—ah—misunderstanding over the young lady’s English. I forgot to say that I used an—ah—interpreter.”
I could think of nothing to say.
“Now excuse me if I shut you out. We’re—ah—letting the hot air in.”
Chapter Four
“Suzie, now that we’re doing so well as partners in conspiracy, I think we should extend our partnership to other fields. Such as marriage. Will you marry me, Suzie?”
“What’s happened? This heat gone to your head?”
“I thought about getting married long before it got hot. Will you, Suzie?”
“Sorry, my husband.”
“Don’t be silly, you can’t call me ‘my husband’ and refuse to marry me in the same breath. Anyhow, why not?”
“You’re a big man. Maybe one day they will make you a Lord. Mr. Lord Lomax.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Then I’d be Mrs. Lord. Mrs. Lord Bar Girl. ‘How do you do, Mrs. Lord Bar Girl? I hear you had two thousand sailors before you were married.’”
“I don’t care how many sailors you had. You’ve got to marry me so that I’ll always have you as a model.”
“Sorry, my husband. You go and marry some English girl.”
I was painting her lying relaxed on the bed in the heat, one hand idly picking at a saucer of melon seeds. I laid down my palette and sat on the bed beside her. Her small Chinese breasts were very white and smooth, like an immature girl’s, but the nipples were mature and wrinkled and proud. Her baby had been a biter.
I laid my hand on her thigh.
“You’ve got Japanese thighs, Suzie.”
“How do you know? You told me you never had a girl in Japan.”
“I didn’t.”
“I think so. I think you had a girl.”
“All right, I had a girl.”
“Then I will kill you! Pass me some scissors, please, my husband! I want to stick you!”
“Will you marry me, Suzie?”
“No, you go and find some English girl.”
II
“You like my new shoes?” old Lily Lou said.
“Sure,” Typhoo said. “Now listen while I tell you about this Yankee.”
“Forty-two dollars, they cost me, these shoes,” Lily Lou said.
“This Yankee asked me ‘How much one short-time?’” Typhoo said. “I said ‘Fifty dollars.’ He said ‘Sure.’ I thought he must be crazy—fifty dollars for a short-time! Then he gave me some money, and I said, ‘Hey, what’s that? That’s not Hong Kong money.’ He said, ‘No, American money. You said fifty dollars, didn’t you?’ And you know how many Hong Kong dollars you get for fifty American dollars?”
“I never paid so much for shoes before,” Lily Lou said.
“Two hundred,” Typhoo said. “Two hundred Hong Kong dollars!”
The harbor had been packed with American ships for the last four days. The girls had known for a week beforehand that they were coming, because ships were their bread and butter and they knew more about the movement of ships than the Navy Department or the Admiralty. They had said there would be seventeen. Then one morning I had gone out onto the balcony and they had arrived. But there had only been sixteen, and I had teased the girls down in the bar that their information had been faulty and that t
hey were slipping. But the laugh had been on me, for they had blithely pointed out that in my ignorance of naval matters I had left one ship out—the aircraft carrier which never came into the harbor, but anchored round the corner in Joss House Bay.
Typhoo said, “Two hundred dollars—for one short-time!”
“I got an all-night last night,” Lily Lou said. “Sixty dollars.”
“I get worried with too much money,” Typhoo grinned. “When I got no money, I got no worries. Money just makes me worried.” She looked across the table at the luscious little Jeannie. “Hey, what you doing?”
Jeannie was too preoccupied to answer. She was putting ticks against a list of numbers written on a paper serviette—the numbers of the seventeen American ships. She hesitated over the last. She pulled at the sleeve of her latest boy friend sitting beside her. He had been drinking and had passed out.
“Hey, Joe, what number you said your ship?”
The American opened bleary eyes. “Come again.”
“Your ship—what number?”
“Four-two-six.”
Jeannie ticked off the last number on her list and turned to Typhoo with a look of satisfaction.
“You know something? I got one boy friend in every ship in the fleet.”
III
“That word you just read—what does it mean?”
“Matador? It’s a Spanish bullfighter.”
“What’s a bullfighter?”
“Well, bullfighting is a very popular sport in Spain. They let a very fierce bull into a ring, and a man has to kill it with his sword, and there are thousands of people watching and they all shout ‘Ole!’”
“Aren’t Spanish people Christians?”
“Yes, very much so. And so are English people who hunt foxes and otters with dogs.”
“But that book you read last week said that Christians must be kind to animals, because they were made by God just like men.”
“I know, Suzie, but the human brain is a wonderful organism. It can believe almost anything that happens to suit it. It can believe that black is white today, and red tomorrow, or even that it is both at the same time. You should never underrate the ingenuity of the human brain.”
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