Quin?s Shanghai Circus

by Edward Whittemore

  Hey, yelled Big Gobi. Hey that’s my ticket.

  Thirty days, said the driver.

  Big Gobi was bewildered. He wandered down a street vaguely aware that his hands were creeping around in the air. Suddenly remembering that he hadn’t eaten in weeks, he got into line outside an office where men were being hired.

  In his confusion he didn’t understand what they said to him. He signed a paper and found a bus token in his hand. The bus took him to the docks, he was directed to a gangplank. The next day, on his knees chipping paint, Big Gobi sailed under the Golden Gate on a freighter bound for Asia.

  From east Asia the ship sailed to India and Africa and South America. Although the other sailors frequently went ashore, Big Gobi missed one port after another. Once he had the watch, another time he took the watch for a sailor who promised to bring him a present. A third time he took the watch for a sailor who said he had relatives ashore, a fourth time for a sailor who said he had to see a dentist.

  He had been on the ship about a month when the cook began to slip things into his soup, sometimes broken egg shells, sometimes pieces of a light bulb. He could fish them out, but when lumps of grayish foam began to appear in the bowl he didn’t know what to do. The lumps dissolved when he touched them.

  Big Gobi spied on the cook and discovered the lumps were seagull droppings. For over a year he ate the contaminated soup without getting angry, reminding himself what had happened with the tuna fish.

  Three days before Christmas, during a snowstorm, the freighter docked in another port. To his surprise Big Gobi learned they were in New York.

  That night he went ashore for the first time in a year and started running. He ran the length of New York City and reached the suburbs. There he asked directions and set off again cross-country. He ran all day and all night and all the following day and night. On Christmas Eve he found he had made several wrong turns and was still far away from the orphanage. Nevertheless he reached it late on Christmas Day, having run six hundred and forty miles in eighty-eight hours, the entire last stretch through the worst Massachusetts blizzard in several decades.

  Big Gobi collapsed on the steps of the orphanage and was admitted once more to his old home, this time as a laborer on the farm run by the orphanage. There he remained until a wheezing giant who said his name was Geraty arrived from Japan some years later to present him with two stolen objects, a worthless green paperweight and a small gold cross that had originated in Malabar around the beginning of the Middle Ages.

  Oysters. Television. The army. Seagull droppings soup.

  While crossing the Pacific Big Gobi had told Quin all his secrets but one. That last one he had put off and put off until all at once it was their last day at sea and he had no choice. The next morning they were due to dock in Yokohama, and if he were ever going to confess his final secret he had to do it while they were still out of sight of land.

  He didn’t know why that was so but all the same he knew it. He knew he was so ashamed of that secret the truth of it could only be spoken where flux was all around him, where space turned without boundaries upon itself, where time and reach and movement were endless and indistinguishable. That is, in a desert or at sea.

  It was toward the end of the afternoon. Quin sat in his chair, Big Gobi beside him on the deck. Big Gobi kept his head down so that Quin wouldn’t be able to see his face. He was pretending to study the small gold cross.

  Hey, Quin, sometimes things happen by accident, don’t they? I mean even bad things can be mistakes, can’t they?

  Right, Gobes, that’s the way it is.

  Even the worst things? Between people I mean.

  Well maybe, but maybe not. The worst things may not be accidents.

  You really think so?

  Yes, I guess I do.

  Big Gobi turned away. He had always wanted to think the tuna fish was an accident, a mistake. He had been only eighteen then, it was the first time he had left the orphanage. They wanted to see if he could do regular work, so they found him a job in Boston unloading fish. He moved to a foundling home near the harbor and went to work every morning at six. In the evenings he watched television. On Saturday night he went to the movies.

  One Saturday he stayed late to help the foreman. They worked alone, only the foreman knew he was there and not at the movies. Big Gobi was moving crates of fish in the freezer locker, stacking the crates along one wall. He had to walk around a frozen tuna that was lying in the middle of the floor, a fish about six feet long. All at once he realized the eye of the fish was staring at him. He swung his foot and the foreman yelled.

  What the hell?

  For a moment Big Gobi didn’t know where he was. He looked down and saw that he had kicked a hole in the fish. A large chunk of flesh had fallen out of its belly.

  I’m sorry, he said, I must have slipped.

  He got down on his knees and stuffed the chunk of flesh back into the hole in the belly, but when he removed his hand the chunk fell out on the floor.

  What the hell, yelled the foreman, what are you doing now?

  Don’t worry, whispered Big Gobi, I can fix it.

  He ran out the door and came back with a bucket of wet fish slops and a piece of rope. The foreman watched him plaster the hole with fish paste, refit the chunk, and tie the rope around the fish.

  You’ll see, said Big Gobi, we did it all the time at the farm. You cement around the stone and then the cement hardens and the wall’s perfect. This slop will freeze in no time, you’ll see.

  Freak, shouted the foreman.

  Like new, whispered Big Gobi. I promise.

  Promise your fucking ass off. That’s fish, not stone.

  I tripped, whispered Big Gobi.

  Tripped my ass. You kicked that fish and you’re going to pay for it. Don’t you know you can’t go around destroying things?

  The bucket of fish slops was still in Big Gobi’s hand. He groaned and his hands came together. The metal snapped, crumpled, fell in a ball at his feet.

  A mistake, he whispered.

  You idiot freak, yelled the foreman.

  Big Gobi remembered telling himself he didn’t destroy things. He whispered it and shouted it as loud as he could, shouted so loud his ears were still ringing when he opened his eyes and saw the foreman’s head in his hands, blood on the man’s mouth, the broken neck twisted away from the body.

  Big Gobi dropped the body and ran out of the freezer, ran until he was exhausted, hid in his bed in the foundling home.

  The foreman was found in the locker on Monday morning. His neck was broken and the upper part of his body was crushed. Apparently he had returned to the freezer sometime during the weekend and slipped and struck his head, losing consciousness. He had left the door open, which caused the temperature to rise inside the freezer. During the thaw a stack of heavy crates had become dislodged and come crashing down on him.

  Shortly after that it was decided at the foundling home that the experiment with Big Gobi had failed. Working with other men seemed to depress him, the traffic in the city frightened him, the noise kept him awake at night. He was better suited to the solitude of the farm where he had grown up. The fathers at the orphanage agreed with the fathers in Boston, and he was sent back to the Berkshires.

  The deck beneath his eyes had blurred. Big Gobi had kept his head down so that Quin couldn’t see his tears.

  You really think so, Quin?

  Yes, I guess I do. It just seems that’s the way it has to be.

  Sure, Big Gobi had whispered. Sure, of course it does. It just has to be, that’s all.

  He had squeezed his eyes closed then, felt the tears burn, been furious with himself for being too afraid to tell Quin his last secret before they landed in Japan, a mythical land of princesses and palaces and dragons that had been tenderly described to him one winter afternoon and evening by a hulking giant, the ragged clown and impostor who had been his father’s closest childhood friend.

  Angry with himself and yet sad as w
ell. For if he couldn’t tell Quin it meant he could never tell anyone.

  No one. Ever. He would have to bear one secret on his own, carry alone and forever one terrible inexplicable mystery.

  Big Gobi had said nothing about the Japanese crew during the Pacific crossing because he knew all freighter crewmen were ugly regardless of nationality. But the morning the ship docked in Yokohama he clutched Quin by the hand.

  What is it, Gobes?

  Big Gobi pointed at the official who was stamping his passport, a short, stunted man with narrow, puffy eyes and skin that was sickly and discolored. The official had looked with apparent interest at the glass paperweight Big Gobi claimed was jade, and he had even listened politely while Big Gobi described Geraty’s famous emerald palace beneath the sea and asked where it might be found. But when the official opened his mouth he didn’t say anything. He only made odd squeaking noises.

  What’s the matter? said Quin.

  Big Gobi gripped his hand and peeked at the other people who were standing around on the pier. They were all making the same queer sounds and they all had the same disease, the same sickly skin, the same half-closed puffy eyes.

  Big Gobi was terrified.

  Hey, Quin, don’t you see what Geraty did? He lied to us. This isn’t the emerald kingdom, it’s a leper colony.

  Quin didn’t know why Geraty had sought him out that late winter night in the Bronx. He didn’t understand how the old buffalo had known which bar to go to, only one of many in the neighborhood but the one where Quin and his friends always happened to do their drinking. Nor even how he had known it was Quin’s neighborhood in the first place. And above all, why the fat, muttering giant had lied so outrageously about Father Lamereaux, himself, Quin’s parents, everyone and everything.

  Quin completely distrusted the old buffoon, but there was nothing to be done now but to find him and to try to get him to reveal some small part of the truth, or some clue that would lead to the truth.

  Geraty hadn’t been seen in the Tokyo bar he normally frequented for six months, but Quin was told there was one place he might look, an abandoned empty warehouse in a slum on the outskirts of the city. In the past Geraty had been known to disappear in the vicinity of the warehouse for certain periods of time, a few days or weeks, perhaps even a month, never longer than that. He claimed these disappearances had to do with religious meditation, but of course no one believed that. Obviously Geraty’s retreats from society were caused by his basic condition, that is, advancing age, advanced alcoholism, general disability, and total poverty.

  Exactly why Geraty had a fondness, or compulsion, for lurking near a warehouse no one knew. There was nothing whatsoever distinctive about the warehouse in question. It was merely an abandoned, empty place, roofless, in a slum on the outskirts of the city. But since he did spend periods of time there, it was probable he had built some sort of shelter for himself next to the warehouse. Quin would have to look for that. A taxi driver was called into the bar and given directions.

  They found the small warehouse after nearly an hour of driving back and forth through the tiny alleys of the slum. But as soon as they pulled up before it Quin saw what he was looking for on one side of the warehouse, a shack made out of flattened gasoline cans that had been left behind by the American army after the war.

  The shack was about as high as his shoulders. A burlap sack hung across the opening. Quin went up to it and rapped sharply on the roof.

  For a minute or two he heard nothing. Then there was a heavy groan, a sneeze, a single violent cough. He pulled aside the burlap and saw the huge fat man sitting on the ground. He was squatting with his legs beneath him in the manner of a giant immobile Buddha, his greatcoat wrapped around him as a blanket. The space was so narrow Geraty could neither lie down nor stretch his legs, yet even in that cramped position his enormous body completely filled the shack.

  Quin turned his head away from the stench of sweat and horseradish. Geraty cursed in several languages, finally in English.

  Is this America? Have I died and gone to hell? Why are you disturbing the anchorite in his cave?

  Up, buffalo. Outside. We’ve got some things to talk about.

  Geraty scratched his belly. He moaned.

  If that’s really you, nephew, you might as well know I can’t move. I came here to die and I’m staying here. He that is mighty hath done great things to me.

  What?

  Combined all the maladies known to man and visited them upon me. Laid me low at the end of life with a condition that amounts to general and extreme fatigue of the spirit. In other words I’ve given up. I’m never going to leave this cave again. So drop the curtain and leave me alone with the saints who have succored me in my years of torment, drop it and good-bye.

  A drink, buffalo?

  Geraty’s arms and legs began to move. A moment later the giant was outside gathering himself together, swatting at the clumps of mud that covered him. Despite the warm weather he still wore the thick layers of clothes Quin had seen in New York. His eyes rolled as he retied the piece of red flannel around his neck.

  My condition is delicate, nephew. I have to be careful when exposing myself to the night air, even the air of summer. Did you come here looking for a game of liar’s dice?

  But Geraty didn’t smile, nor did Quin. Quin rocked back on his heels and poked the fat man sharply in the ribs. Geraty hiccupped.

  What’s this about the priest, buffalo? They tell me he’s dead.

  No hope of that.

  Well, is Big Gobi his son or not?

  Him? A son? Are you mad? I don’t know who could have given you that idea.

  Quin nodded. He rocked on his heels. It had been his own idea, and he was beginning to realize that with Geraty it was better never to have any ideas of your own.

  The truth, buffalo. That’s what I want this time.

  He hath filled the hungry with good things. Where are my documents?

  Quin held them out, the forged Canadian passport and the two forged Belgian passports. As Geraty secreted them in his greatcoat the black bowler hat crept back on his head, his mouth opened, a wheezing cough struck Quin in the face. The fat man was laughing.

  That? Just that? But you should have said so before, nephew. Right this way for the illusive dream often sought and seldom found, or to be exact, often found but seldom recognized.

  Abruptly Geraty turned away and lurched into an alley, his immense shadow moving surprisingly fast down the narrow passage. As much as it bothered him, Quin had no choice but to trot along behind recalling a scene only recently described to him, Geraty leading one of his customers off at midnight to some interminable obscene performance that existed only in his own mind, if it existed at all.

  They sat on stools at a pushcart beside a vacant lot where a few vagrants were already asleep on the sand. The pushcart served boiled vegetables and cheap liquor. Geraty ignored the owner and fished in the pan of steaming water with his hands. He threw a bamboo shoot over his shoulder, grunted a few words, wiped his hands on his sweaters.

  A bowl of horseradish appeared followed by two glasses of raw sake and a plate of turnips. Geraty dipped a slice of turnip into the horseradish and chewed.

  The priest, buffalo.

  Geraty swallowed and threw off one of the glasses. His eyes bulged.

  Could it be that we are both referring to the hero who shortened the Second World War and thereby saved millions of lives? A man whose vocation is the alleviation of suffering? An elderly drunkard and pederast, now reformed and retired, who once sent reams and reams of valuable secret information to the West? Is this the heroic figure before us at tonight’s turnip bar of history? Look now behind you at those wandering Japanese poets curled up on the sand in the spacious urinal they have found for themselves in a slum of the world’s largest city. Note that they sleep soundly because of what a frail, gentle man once did for them three decades ago. The sacrifices were his. The courage was his. Save for him they might never have ret
urned from China. Their bones might be bleaching at this very moment on a Pacific atoll. But do they know it? Have they heard his name even once in the waves and the desert and the wind?

  The priest, buffalo.

  Geraty stuffed horseradish into his nose. He sneezed, coughed once.

  An anonymous Jesuit once known for his Friday night performances? Precisely that frail, gentle man who wears the buttons on his coat in a totally personal configuration? Yes, I thought so, I was sure that’s who we were talking about. A genuine article and rare. Rare? Rare by God, you never met such a man in the Bronx. When you see him you’ll find out for yourself, but I suggest you not expect too much at first. His memory was phenomenal once but now, as I say, he’s reformed and retired. To have some idea of what he’s done for people in the past, savor the name of St. Brigid. Recall her sanctity and her miraculous powers, above all her hospitality to the poor and the suffering, her charity to slaves. Most of us are slaves of one kind or another, to one thing or another, and the alleviation of suffering, nephew, is the path this Jesuit has followed. But also remember that path has been in Japan for fifty years, fifty years of speaking nothing but Japanese. You’ll have to adopt their manner of circumlocution with this rare man, you’ll have to talk about nothing at first and sniff the air for clues. Clues? Sniff the air and chat about this and that, whatever comes up, slip from one unrelated and unresolved topic to another, and all the while circle your man the way a puppy circles a wise old hound, waiting for a whiff of his hindquarters, waiting to find out who he is in fact. Backward it may seem to you, coming up from behind it might appear to be, but that’s the way it’s done over here. Why? For He hath exalted the humble and put down the mighty from their seat. The sergeant who wore this overcoat the day they took Nanking could tell you what that means, could tell you just as he told me years later on a beach south of Tokyo, a beach in Kamakura, the same beach where they put on gas masks and had the picnic that saved Moscow from the Germans.