‘You should have had it recorded,’ said Juan.
‘There was a man called Philpotts who made me a very good offer for gramophone rights, but I said no. There’s unemployment already among musicians. Times are hard, competition ruthless, and I’m an amateur. I’ll use no mechanical invention, I said, to take the bread out of anyone’s mouth. And there was an end of it. But tell me what happened with the Sinologue. Did you handle her? Was she plastic? Did she come for sugar?’
‘I had an uncomfortable half-hour, but I got the better of the argument at last,’ said Juan; and briefly described his adventure into Chapei and its lack of success.
‘So you’ve heard nothing of Sergeant Blowfly, of that dog Rocco?’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘Rocco and Hikohoki,’ said Flanders. ‘I want one and you want the other, and if we had them both wTe could breed polecats. I could have told you about the shop in Nanking Road, if I’d thought it was any use to you. I’ve done business there myself, selling a few things that came into my hands in one way or another. Hikohoki paid little enough, but he asked no needless questions. He has a house, I’ve heard, outside Shanghai, but where it is I don’t know.’
‘He’s a hard-working fellow.’
‘With money in the bank. He’s got money, Motley. That lovely word, and lovelier thing. I think of ten thousand pounds – no, five thousand – as a fine young man will dream of love, or a mountaineer of the top of Everest. Have you got money?’
‘Very little. None of my own.’
‘You need none in youth. Room for action is all youth needs to make it happy. But come to my age, and you want room to live; to be, and digest, and comfort your five senses, and count the sunsets; and a little money will buy you such a room.’
‘Have you seen Harris to-day?’
‘Harris? No! I want to see a free-handed millionaire who’ll give me ten thousand pounds as I’ve given shillings, which were greater in comparison with my no-fortune, to blind beggars and stumping matchsellers. But charity doesn’t grow with the store, and a million pounds are stuck tight together.’
‘I heard this morning that Wu Tu-fu was coming down from Nanking, and I thought Harris might have some definite news about him.’
Flanders took off his spectacles, polished them, and replaced them on his fine fleshy nose. ‘Does Sergeant Blowfly come too?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. But Harris may have heard.’
‘We’ll wait for him. He’ll be here before long.’
It was an hour before Harris arrived. He came in yawning, his hands in his pockets. His look of dishevelment was increased by a cigarette, sticking to his lower lip, that he did not bother to remove. ‘As soon as this bloody war’s over,’ he said, ‘I’m getting right down to steal Rip Van Winkle’s record. Let’s go to the bar. You get your drink quicker there, and I’ve got to be off again in ten minutes.’
Harris drank his whisky greedily, gulping it down. His face was grey, his collar dirty, and he had a sty at the inner corner of his right eye. But his mind was active, his spirit undiminished. He had no time to shave, but none to worry about not shaving.
‘What’s the news?’ asked Juan.
‘Upwards of a thousand casualties in the 19th Route Army; but they’re holding on. There’s nothing left of the North Station except a few broken walls. You should have seen it last night. Blazing like a bloody furnace, like a bloody great lantern. But they’re holding on. The Japs can’t shift them. They’re damned good soldiers, those Cantonese. Have a drink?’
‘What’s moving in Nanking?’ said Flanders.
‘A whole lot,’ said Harris. ‘They’ve got four tanks for the Ever Invincible Tank Corps, and General Wu Tu-fu’s bringing them down at the beginning of next week. I believe that’s authentic’
There’s an American called Rocco…’
‘I know him. He used to be a gunman, and now he’s Wu Tu-fu’s Military Adviser.’
‘A gunman, a bruiser, a sergeant in the American army, and a blowfly into the bargain,’ said Flanders.
It’s funny,’ said Harris. ‘Wu Tu-fu’s a good man. Clever, well-educated, nice to talk to, and as honest as they make them nowadays. What he sees in Rocco I just can’t understand, but he uses him for a whole lot of things. I suppose it gives him face to have a foreign adviser.’
‘You haven’t heard if Rocco’s coming here with Wu Tu-fu?’ asked Juan.
‘No. But he’s sure to. Do you want to see him?’
‘I do,’ said Flanders.
‘What for?’
‘To wring him like a dirty rag and squeeze ninety thousand dollars out of the tallow in his bones.’
‘You can’t do that under the eyes of Wu Tu-fu and the guns of the Ever Invincible tanks.’
Flanders leaned against the bar, a heel on the brass rail, his belly to the front like a round tower in the wall at Carcassonne; but when he folded his hands upon it, it looked like a barrel that he was straining to embrace. He frowned and muttered, and then as gruffly as he could, Til take nothing to do with the tanks,’ he said, ‘nor with Wu Tu-fu, nor anyone but Rocco. The tanks are their concern, not mine. But let me have Rocco alone, Rocco in a quiet corner, out of sight and earshot.’
‘I can’t bring him to you on a plate,’ said Harris. ‘As soon as I hear that Wu Tu-fu’s arrived, I’ll be going out to see him; and if you like to come along on the chance of finding Rocco, you may; but that’s ail I can do for you.’
‘It might be a good idea to tackle him in front of Wu Tu-fu,’ Juar suggested.
‘It’s private business,’ said Flanders testily. ‘I want no audience for my private affairs.’
‘What have you been up to?’ asked Harris. ‘What have you been selling? Guns?’
‘Nothing of the sort.’
‘A rubber estate full of nice dead trees? A mining concession that wasn’t yours and can’t be worked?’
‘D’you take me for a swindler? Do you call me a sharper?’
‘Not if it hurts your feelings.’
Juan looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said.
‘Same here,’ said Harris. ‘I’ve a date with the Japanese. I’m going to talk to them about their civilizing mission in Asia, and ask them to show me their new batteries at Hongkew Park and the Rifle Range. We’ve just time for a quick one, haven’t we?’
They had another drink and said good-bye to Flanders, Harris again promising to let him know when the Ever Invincible tanks and their pair of generals should arrive. But Flanders was still surly, and with a small gesture of farewell he turned his back – a back like the gable of a house – and spoke imperatively to the nearest barman.
Harris and Juan put on their coats.
‘Rocco’s double-crossed him, has he?’ said Harris. ‘Well, Flanders ought to have known better. He’s not exactly the white flower of innocence himself. He’s been living on his wits ever since I’ve known, him.’
‘I like him,’ said Juan.
‘I’ve known better men that I disliked more. What are you going to do now?’
‘I’m taking a girl out to dinner.’
‘Got any more engagements in Chapei?’
‘I hope not.’
‘I heard about you from the fellows down at Windy Corner. They showed me the cards you chucked over the gate, and I remembered giving them to you. What were you doing?’
‘Nothing very much. We nearly got into trouble, but not quite.’
Harris looked at him with speculation in his eyes. ‘If you get hold of anything that’s news – real news – you’ll let me know?’ ‘I will,’ said Juan.
They parted, Harris to talk disingenuously with a Japanese colonel, Juan to dkie with Harriet. She was in very good spirits, and soon after dinner they returned to her flat.
Chapter 14
Juan spent the whole of Saturday with Harriet. He had become so fond of her that he was tempted to tell her about Kuo Kuo; but fortunately he had enough sense to restrain so
foolish an impulse, remembering that even the most delightful young women were apt to be unsympathetic towards other young women, especially if they discovered they were sharing a lover.
It was natural, however, that he should want to talk about Kuo, for she had hurt his feelings badly by her neglect and indifference. She had shown, again and again, that she believed the welfare of China to be more important than a love affair. This, however, Juan might have forgiven – for his nature was essentially tolerant – had she been reasonably polite about it, and preferably apologetic. But she had shown not the slightest inclination to apologize. She was, it was clear, unaware that any cause for apology might exist; she was now, indeed, almost unaware that he existed. This blank in difference was very humiliating, and Juan could only comfort himself by realizing which he did with ever increasing clarity – that politics were inevitably the enemy of human happiness.
Their love had been shipwrecked on the dangerous coast of China. So much was obvious, though the wreck had been gradual, the bark had not broken at once. On their first night in Shanghai, when he had lost his way after leaving the Mei-sum restaurant, Kuo had been anxious for his safety and glad when he returned. For a few deceptive hours her love had been richer than ever, and more generous. Her love for China, flowering in its native air, had embraced him also, because he had come to China with her. But that was a brief and illusory effect. Her patriotism had got into difficulties, the bloom was shed, and nothing left but an indigestible green fruit, whereon love and Juan starved. Once or twice, indeed, she had shown him something of her old affection; when she returned from Nanking in the unwarranted flush of a triumph that did not materialize; and for a few minutes, when she admitted failure, in Peony’s house in Chapei. But these were exceptional instances. They were eddies from an outgoing tide. It was very sad; and whenever Juan thought about it his mind played with these sad metaphors of shipwreck and falling blossom and the ebb-tide.
But fortunately he was never given to any great extravagance of regret. His nature was not envious, he was generally contented to be where he found himself, he inclined to believe that the unattainable was undesirable, and so far as women were concerned he was disposed to admit the good sense of ‘If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?’ He was disposed to admit it; but he could not forget the idyllic months he had spent with Kuo in America. They had declared their love on the warm cypress-guarded coast of California; they had taken it to the mountain-walled orchards of Oregon; they had esteemed it the more by a lonely stream in the green solitude of Vancouver Island. And wherever they went they had lived under the blue sky and golden light of their happiness; which was a climate even more perfect than California’s.
An idyll on the edge of the world; but they had crossed the sea, and the idyll had not survived the huge Pacific. It had gone sour, like a delicate wine that will not travel.
It would have been pleasant, after a melancholy fashion, to talk about it and discuss the vagaries and the vanished charm of Kuo. But pleasures are so frequently antipathetic and mutually exclusive that of all people the Cyrenaic must learn to select, and to practise renunciation; so Juan put away the temptation to tell Harriet about Kuo, and consoled himself by telling her more acceptable things.
Her small flat was stuffy and tawdrily over-furnished. – Its previous occupant had been another young woman who had left in a hurry to take up residence in a similar establishment in Manila. – But Harriet was not dependent on a domestic background to show off her complexion and her character; and Juan’s constitution was too robust to be upset by the tastelessness of any household furniture. Indeed the insistent and rather untidy feminality of Harriet’s flat was in welcome contrast, he thought, to the uncompromising masculinity of the Shanghai Club. Sometimes the world of men grew very tedious. Its self-importance, its ponderous surroundings, were like a dull play more dully acted. Female society, on the other hand, had the pleasing simplicity of a music-hall. And there were times when a good nimble girl who could sing a little, dance a little, toss her head, and do her stuff, was worth the whole company of serious playwrights of the last hundred years.
Juan, in a dressing-gown, lay on a yellow-cushioned day-bed and watched Harriet – in a dressing gown – who was brewing coffee in a percolator.
‘In the extensive grounds of my father’s house,’ he said, ‘there is a coppice of fig-trees grown from seeds that my great-grandfather picked from his teeth after breakfasting with the Prince Regent at Brighton.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Probably not. I was just thinking that if I were an author, like you, I might begin my first novel with those words. I should also write a short story, a love story, a simple little thing, very delicately told, and finish it with the consolatory sentence, “And then they were divorced and lived happily ever after.” How often have you been in love?’
‘Just this once.’
‘Me too. Isn’t it marvellous?’
‘The worst sort of men for a girl to fall in love with are the conscience-stricken ones who say, “I leave it to you.” They’re often quite nice, but they’re a terrible drain on your strength.’
‘I don’t like girls with a hare-lip or a devoted family. Otherwise I’m pretty tolerant. If I were a politician I think I’d be an anarchist.’
‘I once knew a politician,’ said Harriet. ‘He was an emotional Socialist, but intellectually pre-Tory. He wanted to make love to me, but he was so awfully humble about it that he made me frightened. I thought his gratitude would be overwhelming.’
‘Humility in love,’ said Juan, ‘is like poor relations at a wedding. They take up a lot of your time and only make you feel uncomfortable.’
‘But arrogance – bone-headed male arrogance – is just as bad. There are lots of men who think that a girl is amply rewarded for taking off her skirt if they succeed in enjoying themselves.’
‘Do you know any women novelists?’
‘Dozens of them.’
‘The kind that specialize in describing the tortures and agony of childbirth?’
‘Yes. That’s because they’ve got narrow pelvises. Or sometimes it’s a sympathetic husband who’s unhappily married to a narrow pelvis.’
‘It must be fun,’ said Juan, ‘to be an author and to know these things.’
‘I’d rather be a scientist. I would have been, if my father could have afforded to send me to the university.’
‘Science,’ said Juan, ‘is also good fun. I remember reading that the universe will ultimately reach a state of complete disorganization, which will be the end of the world. Nothing more will happen, except that the universe will gradually swell. There, if you have the mind to appreciate it, is the fourth dimension of fun.’
‘And the electron travels at a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, and puts on weight all the time.’
‘We do know a lot,’ said Juan. ‘Let’s pool our knowledge.’
‘I really don’t know very much. Only gossip, and what I’ve seen. There was a paramount chief in Nigeria, when I was there, who had the most embarrassing kind of flatulence. So wherever he went he took with him a young man whose job was to take the blame for any noise that occurred.’
‘The ancient kings of Egypt,’ said Juan, ‘hadn’t nearly as much sense. They wouldn’t drink wine, because they thought it was the blood of rebels who had fought against the gods. The rebels were killed, their bodies rotted, and out of them grew vines whose grapes contained a tincture of rebellious spirit. Therefore the kings were teetotal. Which seems to me absurd.’
‘Once,’ said Harriet, ‘I got a little bit drunk – just lightly and superficially tight – in a bathing suit.’
‘It’s a delicious sensation.’
‘It’s like the realization of all romantic ideas about beachcombing.’
‘It takes a good man to be a beachcomber. What do they do when they get toothache?’
‘I suppose there’s always a medical missionary somewhere about,’
‘I suppose there is. Are you religious?’
‘Not really. But I’d be much happier it I were sure, one way or the other.’
‘Aristotle thought that God had begotten the world in a moment of absent-mindedness, and was ignorant of its actual existence. Like an eighteenth-century aristocrat and one of his bastards.’
‘Don’t let’s talk about God or bastards. One’s never quite safe from e idler of them.’
‘Just as you like. Is there any more coffee?’
‘Plenty. Are you going to get dressed before lunch?’
‘I don’t think so. We’ll go out somewhere afterwards.’
‘I’m not going to look at the war. It sounds horrible to-day.’
The irregular thunder of the Japanese bombardment was indeed almost continuous. Explosion followed explosion like links in a chain, each new crash entering the expanding echoes of the one before it. Then would come a frenzy of gun-fire, a thudding crescendo, intolerable to the ears. A little interval of peace might follow, but so brief that to the listener the air still seemed full of tumult, like a seashell that holds the roaring of remembered tides. Then, into that fancied vibration, more violence detonated, and echoes almost as loud would boom anew. While Harriet was still speaking a confusion of shell-fire jarred the window-panes and set the coffee-spoons chattering in their saucers.
The battle-front was now more definitely established. The Japanese had advanced into that part of Chapei which Juan and Kuo had so rashly visited, and their line was somewhat behind a continuance of North Honan Road on the other side of the railway. – A line from Judd Street to Camden Town Station, if Juan’s comparison of Shanghai and London be remembered. – The Chinese were still in possession of Euston, though Euston was torn and shattered beyond recognition. They were still, with remarkable tenacity, holding a ragged position against the slowly extending attack, though their artillery was far inferior to the Japanese guns. And Chapei was still burning, and yet not wholly deserted despite fire and the dropping of countless bombs. When the wind blew from the smouldering streets it carried the smell of burning flesh.
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