World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) (25 page)

And then all at once I recognized her: the slow teetering on the high heels, the waggling of the buttocks. She was just passing the main entrance of the Nam Kok. She went on to the bar entrance and stopped, collapsing her umbrella.

Well, that's all right, I thought. Betty Lau's all right. Betty Lau won't have any scruples about Suzie.

She cupped a hand over her eyes to peer through the glass door. She rapped on the glass with the fingers of the other hand, trying to attract the attention of a sailor inside so that he would come out and take her in. She heard my approaching footsteps and looked round. She began to smile and flutter her big eyelashes and coo, “Oh, Robert!” She laid a caressing hand on my arm.

“Robert, you're always so sweet. You'll take me in, won't you?”

“Yes, of course, Betty,” I said. “But through the other door.”

Chapter Eight

B
etty Lau was one of those girls, probably more common to the West than to China, who compensate for frigidity with an exaggerated outward display of sex; who exude an aura of enticement, hinting that at the first sign of temptation they are already lost, and who lead men on indiscriminately, dangling their sexual promise before the nose like a carrot, right up to the bedroom door—only to utter a cry of outraged virtue and slam the door in their victim's face.

Betty Lau did not slam the door in my face because it was her bread and butter not to do so; but once sure of me, she shed the outward display like a superfluous garment and became mercenary, cold, impatient, wooden. I overcame my inner recoil and acquitted myself. Later, as she prepared to leave, she donned that invisible sexual garment again with her clothes; for now, having played out my role as a victim, I had returned to the status of a potential victim who must be re-attracted. Yet her change of manner was quite unconscious, a conditioned response, and it did not occur to her what she was doing. Nor did it occur to her that she had failed to please me: she had paid up on demand, and since she had always been frigid, she did not know that payment could be made in more than one way.

But now I was only disgusted by that empty display: by that low husky voice, those intimate lingering looks, those fluttering eyelashes. And I could not even bring myself to look at that gross suggestive waggling as she went out of the door.

I did not have Betty to my room again, nor any other girl, but the harm was done. Betty displayed my scalp indefatigably, so that by the next day there was not a girl at the Nam Kok left in ignorance of what had occurred. Moreover she exploited the incident in every way possible to discountenance Suzie, taking pains to give the impression that she had replaced Suzie in my affections and that our affair still went on; and whenever I appeared in the bar she would eagerly greet me, sit down with me, and appear to be exercising a permanent girl friend's rights of possession.

I do not think the other girls were altogether deceived by this; but it made little difference, for my single lapse had been enough in itself to destroy their special regard for me. They remained polite, and if they found me alone and not monopolized by Betty they would still come over and talk, for they were too well-mannered not to try and bide their change of feeling; but they no longer asked favors, discussed Suzie, or joked with me at their ease. And even Gwenny, the most conscientious of them all in matters of friendship, was subtly changed in her manner. I had appeared to her before as a superior being, and now I had turned out after all to be no different from the sailors.

I began to avoid the bar as much as possible, and took to going on long walks by myself over the hills behind the town. Gradually the worst of my desolation passed; my interest in life re-awoke. And one day, to my infinite joy, I discovered inside myself a tiny flicker of flame—a flicker from the ashes of that fire which I had feared had gone out, and which alone could make painting more than meaningless drudgery; and which indeed was the only part of myself for which I jealously cared, the only ingredient of my nature that enabled me to think, “I would rather be myself than anyone else.” I nurtured the flame with tenderness and love. And soon I was working again; and digging out that letter from Mitford's, I re-read it with as much pleasure as if it had only just arrived, and answered it with a promise of some more pictures within a month, including one or two “background” pictures such as Mr. Weinbaum had suggested.

One day I was sketching near the Central District, with one of these pictures in mind, when I saw a European girl struggling to start a little Morris car with the handle. I went over to help, but at the second swing sprained my wrist, thereby bringing my manly intervention to an abrupt and ignominious end. Next I investigated the engine to try and revive the self-starter, but found the leads eaten right through with acid spilled from the battery, so that we were obliged to call in a garage.

A mechanic arrived and began to tinker. “Come and have some coffee,” I said to the girl; because I thought her quite pretty, with merry brown eyes and a mouth made for laughing, and I had been thinking of saying this for some time.

We went into the Dairy Farm Cafe near by. She had noticed my sketchbook, and after asking about it she said, “I thought artists were always hopelessly unpractical. But you seemed to know an awful lot about cars.”

“I used to have my own car when I was planting in Malaya. What do you do?”

“I'm at St. Margaret's.”

“What's that, a school? You're not a schoolmistress?”

“No, it's a hospital. I'm a nurse.”

Her name was Kay Fletcher. We met again that night for a Chinese dinner, and then again four days later; and then we began meeting every other evening, and always on her weekly day off. I told her about the Nam Kok and Suzie, and she did not seem to mind, though she was shocked to hear of O'Neill's recommendation that I should take on Suzie regardless of sailors. However, I did not tell her about Betty. I was too ashamed of the episode and wanted to forget it myself; and besides, I was afraid that if I did so, and explained how much I had needed a girl in that way, she would apply the situation to herself, and suppose that I must either be restraining myself or else did not want her. Whereas in fact neither was true, and I just wanted to let matters take their course.

One evening we went over to Kowloon to see Mandarin opera, and afterwards, walking back down Nathan Road to the main ferry, Kay stopped at a shopwindow and pointed to a tartan bush-shirt, saying, “That's what you need. You haven't got a single shirt in a state of repair—at least if you have, you never wear it with me. And that sort won't show up the dirt.”

“That sounds rather a backhanded remark,” I said. “Well, all right, it looks cheap enough.”

It was an Indian shop and still open despite the late hour; but the shirt in the window was too small for me, and there was none of my size in stock. The fat Indian proprietor beamed, rubbed his hands, and said, “I will get it for you by tomorrow. You will come again tomorrow afternoon, isn't it?”

Outside Kay said, “I should give him until the day after tomorrow to be on the safe side.”

“Or until the day after that.”

In fact I forgot all about the shirt for nearly a week, and then went over to Kowloon one afternoon on the main ferry. The shop was only a few hundred yards from the pier, in a street running alongside the Peninsula Hotel. The Indian recognized me at once as I entered. He beamed, shook my hand, and said, “You come for the shirt, isn't it?”

“That's right.”

“Please come again tomorrow.”

I told him that it was too much bother to keep coming over, but he reduced the price to persuade me, and indeed finally reduced it so far, while still clearly content with his margin of profit, that I felt chagrined to remember my meek acceptance of the first price he had asked. And so eventually I promised to return, and extending my hand for another damp flabby squeeze, I left the shop.

Across the street stood an airline bus, parked outside the Airways Terminal which was at this end of the Peninsula Hotel, and the sight of it made me think of Suzie and Rodney; I wondered if they had gone to Bangkok yet, or were still out in the New Territories. And this thought had no sooner occurred than I caught sight of a familiar figure standing on the hotel steps—Rodney himself!

But at that moment another airline bus pulled up, blocking him from view, and I knew I must have been mistaken. Obviously my brain had been playing that familiar trick of pinning on a stranger the image of the person who had just been in mind.

Still, it was worth making sure. I crossed the road, passing between the two parked buses onto the pavement. The man still stood on the steps, but now with his back turned. I took in the suede shoes, the English-tailored suit, the familiar shape of the head under the
en brosse
hair. I had not been mistaken after all—it
was
Rodney. And I fancied that he must have seen me and turned away to avoid recognition, for although he stood staring so fixedly through the open doorway, there was nothing to be seen there but an empty hall.

“Rodney!”

My voice acted like a starter's pistol: he shot forward without looking round and disappeared inside. A hostess, who stood on the pavement checking passengers into the bus, glanced up and said, “Now where's Mr. Tessler off to?”

I ran after him up the steps. He was standing with his back turned before a showcase of Chinese silks, a Pan-American airbag slung from his shoulder. I caught his arm.

“Rodney!”

He turned unwillingly. His eyes were remote, glazed, hostile. “Oh, hello, it's you.”

“Rodney, are you off somewhere?”

“Sure, I'm just off now,” he said. “I'm just leaving.”

I saw Bangkok stamped on the airline tag attached to his bag. “Where's Suzie?” I said.

“Look, I'm sorry. I've got to beat it now,” he said. He turned away toward the entrance, but I held his arm.

“Rodney, where's Suzie?”

The air hostess appeared at the top of the steps and said, “Oh, Mr. Tessler, do you mind?”

“I'm coming right now,” Rodney said.

“Rodney,” I said, still holding him. “Where is she?”

He turned on me with a sudden flush of anger. “Listen, I don't know, and I don't care—and I've got no time to stand here talking crap.”

He jerked himself free. He ran down the steps, past the hostess, across the pavement, into the bus. I followed down the steps and asked the hostess, “Can I go on the bus to the airport?”

“You're welcome, but it's five dollars.”

Rodney was furious when he saw me getting on the bus and would not make room for me on the seat, so I took the seat behind. I leaned over to talk to him but he turned away his face. He would not speak a word all the way out to the airport. However, at the airport I still clung to him, following him out of the bus and into the departure hall, and I kept on badgering him while his ticket was examined and his baggage weighed. The clerk said, “You've half an hour before you'll be wanted in Customs, Mr. Tessler. You can get coffee in the lounge,” and I followed him into the lounge and sat down with him at a table. I was still badgering him, and after a minute he buried his face in his hands and began to shake as if he was crying, and he said through his hands, his voice emotional and muffled, “All right, if you want to know—she despises me.”

“Suzie?”

“They'll ask me back home what I did in Hong Kong. I'll tell them, ‘I slept with dirty little water-front whores—and they despised me.'”

It appeared that for the first week or two he and Suzie had not got on too badly; but he had become increasingly jealous of her, until he could not even bear her out of his sight. The chief object of his jealousy had been her baby, for when she went to visit it in the village she would never allow him to go with her; and he had begun to throw scenes, accusing her of not going to see the baby at all, but of going to meet a Chinese lover.

He had known this to be untrue, because once he had followed her into the village, watched her enter the house where the amah and baby were staying, waited for them to come out, then followed them down to the beach. However, later, telling her that he had followed her, he had declared that he had seen her go into another house and come out with a man. He had embellished this absurd story with elaborate circumstantial detail, in the same way that, after his abortive attempt to seduce Minnie Ho, he had embellished his story about the drunken sailor who attacked him; and just as then he had claimed in my presence to recognize his assailant in the street, so now he had actually pointed out to Suzie some passer-by in the village, maintaining that it was the man with whom he had seen her leave the house. The fatuity of such an invention, since Suzie had naturally not known the man from Adam, had been perfectly obvious even to himself; yet somehow he had found himself caught up in it, and once involved in the story, had felt obliged to continue doggedly with his fanciful elaborations. Perhaps he had subconsciously wanted to make her hate and despise him; and if so, he had certainly succeeded, for soon he had seen hatred and contempt in her every look. He had tried to counter this by making her a generous gift of money, in addition to her agreed allowance; but had promptly stolen it back from her and accused her of losing it, and of not being sufficiently impressed by the gift to look after it better. It seemed that he had to show himself that not even his money was appreciated; that not even his money could save him from being despised.

Finally his behavior had become too much for Suzie, and after he had twice frustrated her open attempts to leave him, she had resorted to subterfuge and one morning had simply disappeared with amah and baby. He had been furious. He had found a suitcase missing, and had determined to prosecute her for theft and get her sent to gaol. But he had no sooner formulated this vindictive plan than the local taxi driver, who had driven Suzie into Kowloon, had turned up with the suitcase, and Suzie's apologies for having had to make use of it in the haste of her departure.

That had been two weeks ago. Rodney had returned to Kowloon and put up at the Peninsula; and deciding that the time had arrived to move on to the next stage of his world tour, he had booked the first available air passage to Bangkok. A few nights later he had run into Suzie in Nathan Road. He had begged her to come back to him, and had been ready to cancel his onward flight if she had agreed; but she had categorically refused. She had told him that she had taken a room in Kowloon, and was working in a Kowloon bar. He had let her go, followed her, but lost her in the crowd. It was the last time he had seen her.

I asked Rodney, “Didn't she say anything more about the bar where she was working?”