Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Her own distress seemed to calm me somewhat. “Help!” I mumbled. ‘With tears streaming down her face she attempted to untie the by now very tightly knotted silk stocking that bound and gagged me, her fingers pulling frantically but making no impression on the knots as she panicked and moved from one to the other. “Aieeyaaa!” she wailed again. She hurried out of the room, her small hands fluttering in panic, and returned with a pair of dressmaker’s scissors. With dangerously trembling hands, weeping and crying out, she finally managed to cut my gag and bonds.

  ‘She bathed me, rubbed salve into my wrists and ankles and attended to the cuts made by the wineglass. Fortuitously, the jagged glass had cut into the inside of my left leg and not the part it had been intended for. Later Ah May fetched a Chinese doctor who asked no questions but stitched the two larger cuts, bandaged my leg, took his fee and departed almost wordlessly. Ah May told me how she had been gagged and bound in a foetal position so she couldn’t move by the two men who had attacked me, and then locked in a large cupboard in the cooking area. One of the men had returned, which must have been when I heard the front door open, cut her bonds and departed so that she could come to my aid.

  ‘I was finally too exhausted to weep and fell into a troubled sleep. I woke early feeling bruised and sore, but mostly dirty. To be violated is never to feel completely clean again and I bathed myself once more, then dressed, and was making green tea when Ah May finally stirred from her narrow bed where she slept in a pantry-like annexe to the kitchen.

  ‘“What shall we do?” I asked her, not expecting an answer. She was gung yun, a working person with no rights.

  ‘“It was the tongs,” she said in a frightened voice. “There is nothing . . . ” She did not complete the sentence.

  ‘My heart filled with terror. What if Ah Chow arrived, as he always did, to take me to my office? How must I act? Would Big Boss Yu call me to the Ticking Clock House? But the big black Buick did not arrive at the appointed hour. Then half an hour later there was a knock on the door. I knew it couldn’t be Ah Chow – he would simply have waited in the car until I emerged. Instead of letting Ah May go to the door I did so myself, limping slightly as the wound to the inside of my leg had caused it to stiffen. I opened the door to be confronted by two Sikh policemen and a European police officer. He handed me a warrant. “What is this?” I asked, taking it.

  ‘“Lily No Gin,” he announced, then quickly consulted a slip of paper, “also known as Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, I am placing you under arrest. You are implicated in the export of opium to the United States of America.” I was too stunned to answer him. “Come along,” he said, without raising his voice. “If you cooperate, we won’t need to handcuff you.”’

  Just when I had thought Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan’s story could get no worse, it just had. She sighed heavily before resuming her tale, and I was struck by what an extraordinary survivor she was.

  ‘I was taken to Central Police Station,’ she continued, still visibly shaken, ‘and later that day arraigned before a magistrate and then returned to the police cells, where I remained for a week while the police raided my offices and went through my papers. I was then charged officially and refused bail by the British judge, a man I had previously met at receptions and the like with Big Boss Yu. Sir Victor was in Hong Kong but I was able to get a message through to his partner, Commander Duncan, who immediately arranged for a lawyer to represent me but did not wish to otherwise be involved.

  ‘The story then emerged for the first time. Customs in San Francisco had discovered the opium in the imported vases and had arrested the local Chinese importer and directed the American consul in Shanghai to notify the Shanghai authorities to make the appropriate arrests at that end. The Red Dragon China and Crockery Factory had been directly implicated. The police had visited Big Boss Yu, who professed astonishment and pointed to the fact that he was not the owner. While he admitted he’d supplied the initial finance to start the factory, he claimed it had been given to me as a gift of gratitude in return for the raisin business I had developed on his behalf. He insisted that he’d never interfered with its operation or received any profits from it, and invited the investigation officers to inspect his books. Moreover, he conveyed that he was deeply disturbed at my corrupt behaviour and ingratitude, as everyone was aware he had treated me as a favoured daughter, and announced that he would have no further dealings with me.

  ‘In reality, the Triad society had managed to get a message to Big Ears Du in time for him to make a deal with Big Boss Yu to return the crockery factory to me. He’d understood that, through the network of agents I’d created along the southern China coastline and with his own ships doing the transport, the raisin business no longer needed my know-how and could be run easily enough by an efficient manager. The fish business was not yet sufficiently big for it to be a financial concern of any great importance, and the cotton and shantung silk mill had all but collapsed with the Great Depression. In his eyes my good joss was spent and I would be the scapegoat for Big Ears Du’s opium exports. But in return Big Ears Du had to give Big Boss Yu the satisfaction of punishing me in a more direct way to demonstrate that I had betrayed his trust by having an affair with Sir Victor.

  ‘I was too well known in Shanghai to be murdered at the command of Big Boss Yu. Even had I been disposed of, found with my throat cut in some dark alley of the Chinese City stinking of excrement, this would not have served his reputation as a legitimate businessman and trusted Chinese personality, the so-called “unofficial” mayor of Shanghai. His revenge for what he saw as my betrayal needed to be both personal and public. Smallpox “Million Dollar” Yang was his personal revenge. My conviction as a drug dealer was to be my public destruction, with the intention of sending a clear message to Sir Victor Sassoon not to tamper in Big Boss Yu’s affairs by getting involved in my defence. Commander Duncan, Sir Victor’s business partner and finance director, clearly understood the implications and, while he did hire a good lawyer for me, arranged it so that the legal fees would be paid directly into the lawyer’s bank account without any invoice being rendered.

  ‘He hired an Australian barrister named John Robertson, a man with a very good reputation who, it was rumoured, was headed for the bench. Robertson was a straight-shooting, no-nonsense lawyer who soon became convinced of my innocence, but was not at all sure that he could bring a case against Big Ears Du or Big Boss Yu.’

  She paused to explain the challenges involved in mounting a case against Big Boss Yu. ‘It would take simply ages to go through the legal ramifications, and I’m sure you’d both find it tedious in the extreme. But there were four factors that made it difficult for John Robertson to mount a case. Both Big Boss Yu and Big Ears Du sat on the Opium Suppression Bureau and the Chinese Advisory Committee on the Shanghai Municipal Council. While it was an open secret in the French Concession that this enabled Big Ears Du to run his narcotics business freely, the same was not true of Big Boss Yu, who cherished his good reputation in the Settlement. Both men were decorated with the Order of Brilliant Jade, one of the highest orders of merit in the Republic of China, which made them virtually untouchable. Both, as I mentioned earlier, enjoyed a Triad alliance with Chiang Kai-shek, which meant no authority outside the Concession areas had the courage to indict them. And lastly, the European taipans had no wish to rock the boat and jeopardise their lucrative business interests.

  ‘However, the American Government wanted something done, and so as to avoid unwelcome scrutiny of the affairs of the International Settlement, a culprit, almost any culprit, had to be found, as long as the matter was cleared up quickly. As John Robertson pointed out, I was the most available scapegoat. The contract giving me the ownership of the crockery factory could only be disproved if he could show that I hadn’t been anywhere near the factory for three years and that Smallpox “Million Dollar” Yang had, in fact, been responsible for running it. We both knew it would be impossible to find a Chinese witness who would testify in court that this w
as the case. The factory staff were all Chinese and feared the Triads far more than they did the law. They would swear on the graves of their ancestors that I had been in control all along and had personally directed the concealment of opium in the special vases.

  ‘Meanwhile Sir Victor, who had returned to Shanghai and had no doubt been briefed by Commander Duncan as well as taken independent legal advice, stayed completely away from me and from John Robertson. Although bitterly upset, I was forced to accept that his huge construction works were a great deal more important to him than a little Russian refugee who, like so many women in his past and probably the present, had shared his bed from time to time. With the very rich, pragmatism is the substitute for conscience. I was emotionally expendable and my case financially supportable, provided always that John Robertson’s fees were not traced back to the Sassoon name.

  ‘After bail was refused a second time and I’d spent three weeks in the cells at the Central Police Station, I was placed in the women’s section of Ti lan Qiao, the giant prison all the foreign-controlled areas shared with the Chinese authorities. My only support came from Elizaveta and Georgii Petrov. Leza visited me every day with food, and supplied anything else I might need. Georgii would come with Leza whenever he could, and once said that Sir Victor had stopped briefly on his way into the hotel and said gruffly, “Tell her I’m doing all I can.”’

  ‘What happened to Ah May?’ I asked, with my usual need to tie up the small and, to everyone else, irrelevant details.

  ‘She disappeared. She would have been sent back to her village with the very real threat of death if she returned to Shanghai. It would have been entirely unreasonable to expect her to defy her employer, who, after all, in the original sense was Big Boss Yu.

  ‘And then I missed my period. The following month I knew I was pregnant. John Robertson was doing all he could to get me out on bail or have my case brought before a judge. This occurred on several occasions but always ended in chaos with my return to my prison cell. I was a stateless person and a White Russian and John Robertson explained that because I had no extraterritorial rights, I wasn’t liable to be tried by a British judge and was subject only to Chinese law. He cited the clause in the alliance that spelled out the situation:

  ‘“Subjects of China who may be guilty of any criminal act towards citizens of the United States of America shall be arrested and punished by the Chinese authorities.”

  ‘On the other hand, the lawyer for the American Consulate argued that the crime of opium smuggling had been committed through the Port of Shanghai and was therefore a matter for the British/American Legal Alliance established in 1844, and that I must be tried under their jurisprudence. Furthermore, as a stateless person I was not technically a “subject of China”. There was much speculation over the issue in the North China Daily News. According to Georgii Petrov I had become the major subject of gossip among the cognoscenti, who seemed to be split evenly between those who thought I was guilty and those who didn’t. “Those who think you are guilty point to the fact that you are a White Russian and have tried to conceal this with your perfect English accent, therefore you must be guilty because you cover your true identity.” This ethnic detail was, it seemed, constantly pointed out in the English newspaper, where my stage name, Shanghai Lil, was also frequently used with perhaps the unwritten but implied suggestion that this suited the persona of a drug smuggler – although, I must be fair, the newspaper also asked constantly why a pregnant woman who may well be innocent should be kept in prison because of bureaucratic bumbling. But the American Consulate was insistent that I remain in custody, pointing out that the crime of drug smuggling did not allow for bail.

  ‘Finally, after seven months it was decided that I came under the legal authority of the Chinese Government and would be tried in what was known as the Provisional Court. My trial was set for three weeks from the announcement and I was moved to the Chinese-run Lunghua Prison, south-west of the Bund. Awful as my previous cell had been, at least it was clean and vermin-free. This one was even smaller and stank of excrement and urine, and the hard mattress was infested with bed bugs and lice. I was forced to wrap my head in a towel when I slept so as not to be bitten by the rats that wandered, unafraid, into my cell.

  ‘By the time my trial was to have taken place I was heavily pregnant. Despite Elizaveta’s daily food visits I had lost weight, but fortunately the baby was well and the Russian couple had personally paid for a doctor to see me once a week. I was also fortunate that I hadn’t suffered morning sickness earlier in my pregnancy.’

  I had to interrupt Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan at this point. ‘What about Sir Victor? Was there still no word from him?’

  ‘Well, when the decision was made to hear my case under Chinese law, I received another message from him via Georgii Petrov. “Tell her I will fix things, but only under certain conditions.” That was all he’d conveyed to the puzzled doorman. Then a week later John Robertson told me what these conditions were to be and presented me with a contract of sorts to sign. I was to make no claims, financial or otherwise, on the Sassoon family in the future, and the child was not to be given the Sassoon name. A settlement of 10 000 dollars would be deposited in the name of Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan in the Bank of China in Hong Kong. Furthermore, I would relinquish any claims on the father of the child, and no future payments or entitlements would be made to me as the sole parent of the child. When I asked John Robertson what I might receive in return for signing the document, he pointed out that the document had come to him from an “unknown” source and that he wasn’t free to ask. “That’s the problem with the very rich,” he explained. “They insist on contracts when it affects them and abhor them when it concerns others. I confess that as a lawyer I’m not happy, but we’ll have to accept him as a man of his word.” Of course, Sir Victor didn’t know about the rape and naturally assumed that I was pregnant to him, which I dare say I may have been. Naturally I signed the document.

  ‘And then while I was in Lunghua Prison, the totally unexpected happened and the Japanese, who some time earlier had invaded Manchuria, attacked the outskirts of Shanghai. The attack was unexpected, that is, for the international community, although not entirely so for the Chinese living outside the foreign-controlled areas who bore the brunt of the attack. The Japanese had been inventing quarrels with the Chinese Government for some time. They’d marched in and annexed Manchuria on a trumped-up excuse, and so the Chinese army, made up mostly of young boys, had prepared trenches across Kiangwan racecourse and thought themselves well prepared. But when the attack eventually came they proved no match for the Japanese artillery. After only a few hours the trenches were piled high with dead Chinese. The village of Kiangwan Chen was razed to the ground, with not a living creature left to be seen. Hundreds of naked bodies, with their flesh torn from the bone, and charred corpses lay in the streets and ditches of the town. In the countryside, where people had attempted to flee, the dead lay in masses among the horses, pigs and sheep.

  ‘Of course I had no way of knowing all this at the time, but later I received the information in a letter from John Robertson that told of how the Japanese made no attempt to bury the Chinese but instead, while banning foreigners and foreign journalists from the battlefield, invited the Shanghai Japanese community on sightseeing tours among the decaying corpses. Some of the local Japanese made it a family outing and fathers, often carrying rusty swords, would take their sons to see the havoc and witness for themselves the scenes of horror wrought against anyone who dared to come up against the Emperor’s Imperial Army.

  ‘I could hear the artillery from my prison cell but didn’t know what was going on and, unable to sleep, I lay awake, fearfully expecting the prison to be bombed. At two in the morning three female Chinese prison guards entered my cell and told me to dress. What clothes I possessed were hastily stuffed into a rice sack, and one of the female guards opened my handbag. She was going to steal what little money was in it, but I was helpless to do anything abou
t it. One of the guards was demanding in a loud whisper that I put on my shoes. Then I saw my handbag dumped into the rice sack and was grateful to have it returned. It contained my make-up, my mother’s pearl earrings and a letter she had written to me from hospital before she died. I was led from the cell by the three guards to a steel grille and door at the end of a long passageway. This was unlocked and I entered a continuation of the passage with two of the female guards, the third remaining behind and locking the steel door. I followed the two guards through a series of zigzagging damp and narrow passageways ever sloping downwards, some used for sewage disposal and others as water drains. I was frequently required to stoop over, and once to crawl through excrement. With my pregnant tummy this proved difficult. I was aware of the impatient sighs of the two guards, one now leading and the other behind me and both carrying torches. I recall the constant squeaking of rats, and on one occasion a large rat ran over my foot. Finally we arrived at a vertical steel ladder that led up to an open manhole. I could see the stars as I looked up, and was struck by how sharp, clean and bright they appeared. Climbing the ladder proved very difficult and I only just fitted through the manhole. The two guards remained behind to return the way we’d come. I hoped they’d been amply rewarded. In the darkness I was then summarily grabbed and bundled into the back of a van, and driven to the docks.

  ‘An hour later I found myself howling and frightened in a tiny cabin below the decks of a merchant freighter, the Eastern Star, moving downriver towards the open sea. During this entire process, from the moment I’d been led out of my prison cell to my being placed in the tiny, bug-infested ship’s cabin, not a word had been spoken, and I had no idea where the ship was going. Apart from a brief and very stilted conversation with the captain, I hadn’t spoken to a soul on board the ship for the entire four days of the voyage. Ironically, the cargo the freighter carried was cheap crockery – mostly rice bowls – packed in straw in crude wooden crates.