Collection 1980 - Yondering (v5.0) (19 page)

For a minute I thought he was kidding, and then I was sure it couldn’t be anything else. “Not today,” I said. “I’ll try Leacock.”

When I remembered it afterward, I remembered he had not seemed to be kidding. He had been perfectly serious and obviously embarrassed when I put him off so abruptly. He hesitated, then put the book away, and when I returned the next day, the book was no longer on the shelf. It had disappeared.

It was that day that I guessed his secret. I was reading at the time, and it just hit me all of a sudden. It left me completely flabbergasted, and for a moment I stared at the printed page from which I was reading, my mouth open for words that would not come.

Yes, I told myself, that had to be it. There was no other solution. All the pieces suddenly fell into place, the books scattered together without plan or style, with here and there books that seemed so totally out of place and unrelated.

That night I read later than ever before.

Then I got a job. Dou Yu-seng offered to keep the rent paid on my apartment (I always suspected he owned the building) while I took care of a little job up the river. I knew but little about him but enough to know of affiliations with various war lords and at least one secret society. However, what I was to do was legitimate.

Yet when I left, I kept thinking of old Mr. Meacham. He would be alone again, with nobody to read to him.

Alone? Remembering those walls lined with books, I knew he would never actually be alone. They were books bought here and there, books given him by people moving away, books taken from junk heaps, but each one of them represented a life, somebody’s dream, somebody’s hope or idea, and all were there where he could touch them, feel them, know their presence.

No, he would not be alone, for he would remember Ivan Karamazov, who did not want millions but an answer to his questions. He would remember those others who would people his memories and walk through the shadows of his rooms:
Jean Valjean, Julien Sorel, Mr. John Oakhurst
, gambler, and, of course, the little man who was
the friend of Napoleon
.

He knew line after line from the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare and a lot of Keats, Kipling, Li Po, and
Kasidah
. He would never really be alone now.

He never guessed that I knew, and probably for years he had hidden his secret, ashamed to let anyone know that he, who was nearly seventy and who so loved knowledge, had never learned to read.

A
F
RIEND OF THE
G
ENERAL

They knew each other by name and sometimes by sight. Occasionally those who were in the city would have a drink together at the Astor Bar or a lesser known place, off the beaten track, called the International. In the years from 1920 until the beginning of World War II it was the place to which they came. The war lords were hiring men who had specialties, although it was the flyers who were most in demand. Some of their names became legend; some were never known but to each other and those who hired them. There were others who never came to Shanghai but whose names were known, for they were men of a kind. One-Arm Sutton, General Rafael de Nogales, Joseph Trebitsch-Lincoln, and, of course, their long-dead predecessor, Gen. Frederick Townsend Ward, commander of the “Ever-Victorious Army” to whom the Chinese raised a statue
.

They were soldiers of fortune, men who made their living by their knowledge of weapons and tactics, selling their services wherever there was a war
.

The munitions dealers were there, also, mingling with diplomats and officers of a dozen armies and navies. Thirteen flags, it was said, floated over Shanghai, but there were always visiting naval vessels from still other countries
.

The terrorist tactics that have become so much a part of world news in these later years were an old story in Shanghai. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese gunmen killed each other with impunity, and if one was discreet, one avoided the places where these affairs were most likely to take place. There were a few places frequented by each group, and unless one enjoyed lead with one’s meals, it was wise to go elsewhere. The Carlton, fortunately, was not one of these places, and they had boxing matches as part of the floor show. A fighter who did not become too destructive too soon could make a decent living there and at a few other spots. The secret was to win, if one could, but not so decisively as to frighten possible opponents, for there were not too many fighters available
.

When I first met the general, I had no memory of him, but a chance remark brought it all back. He had been a regular, always sitting close to the ring and giving the fights his full attention. My time in Shanghai was too brief to really know the place, although some of my friends knew it about as well as one could. From them I learned a great deal, and with some small skill I had for observing what goes on, I learned more
.

I
T BEGAN QUITE casually as such things often do, with a group of people conversing about nothing in particular, all unsuspecting of what the result might be.

My company was quartered in the chateau of the countess, as during the war she had moved into what had once been the gardener’s cottage. It was the sort of place that in Beverly Hills would have sold well into six figures, a warm, cozy place with huge fireplaces, thick walls, and flowers all about.

The countess was young, very beautiful, and clever. She had friends everywhere and knew a bit of what went on anywhere you would care to mention. I was there because of the countess, and so, I suppose, was everybody else.

Her sister had just come down from the Netherlands, their first visit since the German occupation. There was a young American naval attaché, a woman of indeterminate age who was a Russian émigré, a fragile blond actress from Paris who, during the war, had smuggled explosives hidden under the vegetables in a basket on her bicycle. There was a baron who wore his monocle as if it were a part of him but had no other discernible talents and an American major who wanted to go home.

The war was fizzling out somewhere in Germany, far from us, and I wondered aloud where in Paris one could find a decent meal.

They assured me this was impossible unless I knew a good black-market restaurant. Due to the war there was a shortage of everything, and the black-market cafes had sprung up like speakeasies during the Prohibition era in the States—and like them you had to know somebody to get in.

Each had a different restaurant to suggest, although there was some agreement on one or two, but the countess solved my dilemma. Tearing a bit of note paper from a pad, she wrote an address. “Go to this place. Take a seat in a corner away from the windows, and when you wish to order, simply tell the waiter you are a friend of the general.”

“But who,” somebody asked, “is the general?”

She ignored the question but replied to mine when I asked, “But suppose the general is there at the time?”

“He will not be. He has flown to Baghdad and will go from there to Chabrang.”

I could not believe that I had heard right.

“To
where?
” the naval attaché asked.

“It is a small village,” I said, “near the ruins of Tsaparang.”

“Now,” the Russian woman said, “we understand everything! Tsaparang! Of course! Who would not know Tsaparang?”

“Where,” the naval attaché asked, “are the ruins of Tsaparang?”

“Once,” I began, “there was a kingdom—”

“Don’t bother him with that. If I know Archie, he will waste the next three weeks trying to find it on a map.”

“Take this”—she handed me the address—“and do as I have said. You will have as fine a meal as there is in Paris, as there is in Europe, in fact.”

“But how can they do it?” Jeannine asked. “How can any cafe—”

“It is not the restaurant,” the countess said, “it is the general. Before the war began, he knew it was coming, and he prepared for it. He has his own channels of communication, and being the kind of man he is, they work, war or no war.

“During a war some people want information, others want weapons or a way to smuggle escaped prisoners, but the general wanted the very best in food and wine, but above all, condiments, and he had them.”

The general, it seemed, had served his apprenticeship during Latin American revolutions, moving from there to the Near and Middle East, to North Africa, and to China. Along the way he seemed to have feathered his nest quite substantially.

A few days later, leaving my jeep parked in a narrow street, I went through a passage between buildings and found myself in a small court. There were several shops with artists’ studios above them, and in a corner under an awning were six tables. Several workmen sat at one table drinking beer. At another was a young man, perhaps a student, sitting over his books and a cup of coffee.

Inside the restaurant it was shadowed and cool. The floor was flagstone, and the windows hung with curtains. Everything was painfully neat. There were cloths on the tables and napkins. Along one side there was a bar with several stools. There were exactly twelve tables, and I had started for the one in the corner when a waiter appeared.

He indicated a table at one side. “Would you sit here, please?”

My uniform was, of course, American. That he spoke English was not unusual. Crossing to the table, I sat down with my back to the wall, facing the court. The table in the corner was but a short distance away and was no different from the others except that in the immediate corner there was a very large, comfortable chair with arms, not unlike what is commonly called a captain’s chair.

“You wished to order?”

“I do.” I glanced up. “I am a friend of the general.”

“Ah? Oh, yes! Of course.”

Nothing more was said, but the meal served was magnificent. I might even say it was unique.

A few days later, being in the vicinity, I returned, and then a third time. On this occasion I was scarcely seated when I heard footsteps in the court; looking up, I found the door darkened by one who could only be the general.

He was not tall, and he was—corpulent. He was neatly dressed in a tailored gray suit with several ribbons indicative of decorations. The waiter appeared at once, and there was a moment of whispered conversation during which he glanced at me.

Embarrassed? Of course. Here I had been passing myself as this man’s friend, obtaining excellent meals under false pretenses. That I had paid for them and paid well made no difference at all. I had presumed, something no gentleman would do.

He crossed to his table and seated himself in his captain’s chair. He ordered Madeira, and then the waiter crossed to my table. “Lieutenant? The general requests your company. He invites you to join him.”

A moment I hesitated, then rising, I crossed over to him. “General? I must apolo—”

“Please be seated.” He gestured to a chair.

“But I must—”

“You must do nothing of the kind. Have they taught you nothing in that army of yours? Never make excuses. Do what has to be done, and if it fails, accept the consequences.”

“Very well.” I seated myself. “I shall accept the consequences.”

“Which will be an excellent meal, some very fine wine, and I hope some conversation worthy of the food and the wine.” He glanced at me. “At least you are soldier enough for that. To find a very fine meal and take advantage of it. A soldier who cannot feed himself is no soldier at all.”

He filled my glass, then his. “One question. How did you find this place? Who told you of me?”

Of course, I could have lied, but he would see through it at once. I disliked bringing her into it but knew that under the circumstances she would not mind.

“It was,” I said, “the countess—”

“Of course,” he interrupted me. “Only she would have dared.” He glanced at me. “You know her well?”

It was nobody’s business how well I knew her. “We are friends. My company is quartered in her chateau, and she is a lovely lady.”

“Ah? How pleasant for you. She is excellent company, and such company is hard to come by these days. A truly beautiful woman, but clever. Altogether too clever for my taste. I do not trust clever women.”

“I rather like them.”

“Ah, yes. But you are a lieutenant. When you are a general, you will feel otherwise.”

He spent a good deal of time watching the court, all of which was visible from where he sat. He had chosen well. The court had but one entrance for the public, although for the fortunate ones who lived close there were no exits, as I later discovered.

Not only could he not be approached from behind, but anyone emerging from the passage was immediately visible to him, while they could not see him until they actually entered the restaurant.

On our second meeting I surprised him and put myself in a doubtful position. I was simply curious, and my question had no other intent.

“How did you like Chabrang?”