Brother Fish (106 page)

‘I grinned. “I'm a Chinese peasant, Victor. I do not trust banks – nor do I any longer trust shares.”

‘“But you invested half your Hong Kong money in shares, at my suggestion?”

‘“Yes, and I've lost the lot in the crash.”

‘He looked momentarily crestfallen, although to a man of his enormous wealth the 20 000 Mexican dollars I'd lost must have seemed a pittance. “Bring me your dollars,” he grinned. “Where do you keep them – in a shoebox under your bed?”

‘“No, in a tin box, buried in a safe place, along with my Russian icon.”

‘“I'm sorry I've let you down with the shares, darling. Give me what you've got in cash and I'll convert it directly into gold and place it in a safety-deposit box in the Bank of China in Hong Kong, and only you shall have the key.”

‘“Will you put the icon there as well?” I asked.

‘“Is it valuable? Icons vary a great deal . . . ”

‘“I have no idea. It's been in my family a long time. If nothing else, it has sentimental value.” I couldn't tell him it was all I had left of a past life in Russia I'd almost forgotten.

‘“I've picked up several very good ones from local White Russians – if it's a good one, it's worth keeping. Certainly I'll take it with me. I'm going to Hong Kong on the Thursday ferry and will be away a week or two. Let me have it, and also the money, by tomorrow.”

‘“Thank you, Victor,” I said quietly, then added, “But I'm still not absolutely sure what you want me to do. Do you want me to continue with Big Boss Yu?”

‘“It's not what I
want
, Nicole, it's what appears to be the sensible thing to do. The world is in a mess at the moment, and we don't know how long the situation is going to last. My guess is at least three years. Your raisin business should hold up as you are importing and not exporting. With the caviar gone, your share of the raisin business is important. Not much call for silk shantung in the next couple of years I shouldn't expect, but your fish imports might still work.”

‘“You're saying I must turn a blind eye and pretend nothing has happened?”

‘He seemed to grow a little impatient. I usually grasped his ideas quickly, and now I was making him spell things out. “Darling, if you hadn't overheard the business between the two dragonheads in Ticking Clock House you'd be none the wiser, would you?” He rose from the bed and started to dress. “It's time you used Big Boss Yu for a change. When things get better in a couple of years, I'll help you to get papers to get away from China.”

‘And so I took Sir Victor's advice. While morally it was reprehensible to continue as if nothing had happened, there was little else I could do. I imagine if I'd continued to persist, Sir Victor may have smuggled me onto a boat to Hong Kong and, with the contacts he had, eventually got me to England. But he hadn't suggested that he do this – in fact, he'd advised against it. I also realised that his advice, while sound enough if one's principles were neglected, was also self-serving. If he was seen to help me escape, Big Boss Yu could make it almost impossible for him to obtain a labour force for his massive building developments in Shanghai.

‘I loved Victor Sassoon with all my heart, but I also knew that the love of a woman does not take precedence over a rich man's business affairs or ambition. Besides, while I think he loved me in his own way, it wasn't to the same degree that I adored him. Sir Victor was a confirmed bachelor and I accepted that I may not be the only woman in his life.'

She looked up. ‘So you see, I really was more Chinese than European. Few Western women would tolerate such uncertainty in their status or infidelity in a lover, whereas to a Chinese woman it isn't a matter of how many other women are in a man's life, but rather whether you are the number-one concubine.'

Just then a nurse's aide called us in for afternoon tea, so we all traipsed back to the verandah where the ladies' auxiliary had prepared tea and scones for the patients. I took one look and gave the scones a big miss. Sue's scones were the yardstick by which all scones were measured, and these looked hard as cobblestones. With my dodgy ribs all I needed was a severe bout of indigestion.

During afternoon tea I thought about what Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had told us and whether I might have acted differently in the same predicament. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place! She'd apologised for the morality of her decision to continue with Big Boss Yu, but I could very well see she'd had no choice. Morality doesn't dictate that we get ourselves killed or have a hand chopped off to honour our principles. Like her, I would have shut my mouth and stayed put. When we returned to our seats in the garden, Jimmy, who'd gulped down half-a-dozen scones, urged her to continue.

‘It's a good thing that Chinese men are notoriously indifferent to a woman's feelings,' she began. ‘I was having difficulty pretending nothing had happened, but as I saw Big Boss Yu on no more than a weekly basis he didn't seem to notice any change in my behaviour. Then about a month after I'd had my talk with Sir Victor, Big Boss Yu called me into Ticking Clock House.

‘With even less than the usual lack of ceremony, he declared, “No Gin, you will take control of the Red Dragon China and Crockery Factory, as well as the export business.”

‘“But
loh yeh
, we do not own this. Did you not sell to Smallpox “Million Dollar” Yang, Chang Shig-liang and Du Yu-sen?”

‘“It was an arrangement. Now I have it back again.”

‘“But
loh yeh
, with the depression in America it will not be a viable business – we will lose money.”

‘“No, your joss is good,” he said, with the slightest hint of a smile. Then, to my surprise, he said, “You have brought me good fortune in the past, but now things are bad.”

‘I looked at him, astonished. “But there is a global depression – the markets have collapsed,
loh yeh
. Now is not a good time to have bought the business back. I have run down our stocks of cotton and silk so that we can close the shantung factory until the market improves, maybe in a couple of years' time.”

‘He nodded. “But you will keep the crockery factory and export business going because I have decided it will be your reward. See – I have all the papers here for you to sign.”

‘“But it will lose money,
loh yeh
.”

‘“That will be for you to decide. You are good joss – we have never lost money before. The raisins are still selling well.” I couldn't tell him that this was because I'd had the benefit of advice from Sir Victor and others, particularly with the raisins. “Put your chop on these papers, No Gin.” It was more of a command than an invitation. I took the papers and hurriedly turned the three pages. The contract wasn't a complicated one and gave me sole rights to the crockery factory and its profits, as well as to the export business. There was only one anomaly. The entire contract was backdated five years.

‘“
Loh yeh
, this contract is backdated to when I first opened the factory.”

‘“That is right, please sign.” He was visibly impatient.

‘“But it is not correct – I have never earned a single dollar from this business.” Then I added, “May I see the books?”

‘“It is not in debt,” he replied.

‘“Why does it not show the names of the previous owners?” I asked, desperately.

‘“They are not men of good reputation. I do not want you to own a concern that once belonged to gangsters.” Then he added, “I will lose face. You will sign now.”

‘“I am greatly honoured by such a gift,
loh yeh
, but I must decline as I am not worthy,” I said softly, trying to keep my voice under control.'

She turned to us to explain. ‘In Chinese, this would be seen as a polite but firm refusal. Big Boss Yu's purple-ringed eyes blazed as he stood up from his enormous desk. “Have I not given you everything you needed? Have I not changed your fortunes when you were nothing but street trash? You have no country, you have lost your ancestors.
I
am your country now. I have fed and clothed and housed you. I have changed you into an English lady from a Russian whore and a sing-song girl! Now I give you a gift from my heart and you refuse it? Sign! Put your chop on those papers!” That's as close as I can get to a translation of what he said in Chinese, but what it amounted to was that he had complete control over me and I had no choice but to sign. So I signed the papers giving me a completely useless crockery business and making me its owner from the very beginning of its existence.

‘The gift, in the peculiar way in which the Chinese think, was to be considered an insult – though why, I couldn't be sure. Perhaps Big Boss Yu had lost money and wanted me to know that my good joss wasn't holding up. I imagined I would never know. So I decided to make the best of the situation. Quite plainly there wasn't much of a market left in America, but I'd keep a small part of the business going. Even in times of depression crockery breaks and needs to be replaced, and mine was cheap. The rest of the business I would mothball until better times came along when I could sell it and make my escape. By giving it to me, Big Boss Yu could boast at parties and receptions that he had been generous, giving me the finance to create the crockery factory and export business – the same way he had taken the credit for the caviar business, which, in his own mind, he had also allowed me to own. I had made him a great fortune from raisins, but he never mentioned that I had created and run every aspect of the business while receiving only two per cent of the profits. But that was the Chinese way, and I felt no resentment. My only concern was the backdating of the ownership of the Red Dragon China and Crockery Factory. Even this was pure Chinese lopsided logic. Big Boss Yu may have wanted to dissociate himself from the Three Musketeers of the French Concession. If their names didn't appear on any paperwork involving his business concerns he could never be implicated directly with the tongs or gangsters.

‘With the gift of the crockery factory my fortunes began to change for the worse. I had occasion to have lunch with a business acquaintance at the Cathay Hotel as I often did, this time an Australian from Victoria seeking to renew a contract. As raisin importers, we were now of true significance – China had become perhaps the greatest raisin consumers in the world. Afterwards I called on Sir Victor at his apartment in the tower. He was once again leaving for Hong Kong and I hoped to say goodbye in an appropriate way. He'd invited me to come up and I used the lift from the hotel. I had already been seen in the hotel, so going up to see him in broad daylight would not have been considered unusual. After making love and saying our goodbyes I called the ever-faithful Ah Chow, my chauffeur, to pick me up in the new big black Buick that was now mine exclusively, and went down to the hotel entrance to wait for him.

‘Georgii Petrov, the doorman I'd befriended since meeting him on my first awkward visit to the Palace Hotel, approached me with a concerned look on his face. “May I speak to you, Nicole?”

‘“What's the matter, Georgii?” I asked.

‘“Can we go around the corner?” he asked quietly. I followed him and we stood together around a small, curved buttress, the huge doorman with the almost transparent blue eyes towering over me.

“Nicole, I don't know how to say this – God knows, everyone is sleeping with everyone else in Shanghai. If you only knew what goes on here – who and when and where – you would be astonished.” Georgii wasn't known for his subtlety, but then he said, “You're a single woman and he's a bachelor – so what's the harm, eh?”

‘“What are you trying to say, Georgii?”

‘“You and Sir Victor. Nicole, all the Chinese staff are talking.”

‘“That's very unfortunate,” I said, my heart thumping. “They know the hotel rules, the three monkeys – see, speak, hear no evil. It was drummed into all of us when I worked at the Palace.”

‘“Yes, of course, Nicole. But there was an incident last night just as the cocktail hour began and the foyer was full of people. Sir Victor dismissed the Chinese second chef for being drunk, and he later came down into the foyer and yelled out to all the guests that Sir Victor was, you know, ‘doing it' to you – only he used the dirty word. There must have been a hundred people who heard.”

‘“Did he make this announcement in Cantonese or English?” I asked. I knew the man in question, a sullen character who caused trouble among Sir Victor's other servants. Victor had considered dismissing him several times, but he was an exceptional French pastry chef and so had been tolerated.

‘“Of course I dragged him out by the collar, boxed his ears and threw him into the street,” Georgii said in digust. “But several people followed him out and others were arriving, some of them bigwigs. He wouldn't let up and threatened to tell your taipan, Big Boss Yu. So I ran after him and grabbed him and handed him over to a Sikh policeman, saying that he'd threatened me with a
doh
. He had his chef's cleaver in the bag he carried over his shoulder, so it sounded quite plausible.”

‘I must have looked like a ghost. “Thank you, Georgii Pavlovich Petrov,” I said, using this formal address to show my respect and gratitude.