World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) (4 page)

“Actually, I am not very popular with the sailors,” said Gwenny Lee. “I am too thin. Too skinny.”

“But you're very pretty, Gwenny.”

“No, I'm much too skinny. And I have no sex appeal. It is sex appeal that really matters.”

She clicked away with her knitting needles. The juke box was playing “You Can't Tell a Waltz from a Tango,” the second favorite to “Seven Lonely Days” which had just been played three times in succession. The grizzled, middle-aged matelot at the next table comfortably sucked at his pipe, with the calm satisfaction of a man at his own fireside, while a girl snuggled kittenishly in his arms. The atmosphere was smoky and the table tops smelled of spilt beer. It was still early and there were not more than a dozen sailors scattered round the tables; they were all English, except for three Americans who Gwenny had explained were regulars from the U.S. Station Ship—there were no visiting American ships in port at present. The girls outnumbered the sailors, and at one table five girls sat by themselves looking bored.

Gwenny Lee broke off her knitting to free some more wool from the ball in the bag beside her. She had joined me at my table soon after I had sat down, and we had been talking for an hour. She was a thin girl of twenty-six with a pale triangular face and gentle eyes. She wore a Western-style cotton dress, instead of the cheongsam worn by most of the girls, and a crucifix on a thin gold chain round her neck: she was a Catholic, educated at a mission school in China. Now she lived in one room in Wanchai with her mother and sister, whom she supported financially. She was determined that her sister should stay respectable and make a good marriage; and once this happened, she would be able to give up working at the Nam Kok.

“Yes, it is sex appeal that counts,” she went on philosophically. “Some girls who are not at all pretty make much more money than I do. That girl, for instance—Typhoo.” She nodded to a girl across the room. “She is not pretty, but she has sex appeal. Also, of course, she is not so skinny.”

“You're not as bad as all that, Gwenny.”

“Oh, yes, look.” She put down her knitting—it was a yellow jumper that she was making for her sister—and pushed up the sleeve of her cardigan. Her arm was pathetically thin and shapeless. “I always have to wear something to hide my arms. It is very annoying in summer when it is hot.”

“You must appeal to some men very much, Gwenny,” I said.

“Well, sometimes. I had one boy friend called Chuck. He was an American. His ship stayed in Hong Kong five days, and I was very fond of him. I took him to the Tiger Balm Pagoda and the Peak. He was very nice. Sometime I will show you the letter he wrote me.” She picked up the beer bottle on the table and drained it into my glass. “You would like another San Mig?”

“Yes, but won't you have something, too?”

“No, Chinese women don't drink much, you know. None of the girls here drink.” She beckoned a waiter and ordered a San Mig, then said, “I think I will fetch that letter now. I would like you to see it.”

“Isn't that a nuisance, Gwenny?”

“No, I live quite near. And it is such a nice letter. I think you will enjoy reading it.”

She left her knitting on the table and went out through the door onto the quay. The record on the juke box came to an end and Typhoo, the girl whom Gwenny had pointed out, got up and held out her hand to her matelot companion for a coin, wiggling the fingers impatiently. She was as ugly as a little monkey, but had a beautiful figure and legs. The split in her skirt rose to immodest heights and showed a long white sliver of thigh. The matelot gave her a coin. She noticed as she turned away that he was still wearing his hat and playfully grabbed it, giving him a great broad grin over her shoulder as she stuffed it on her own head. She sauntered over to the juke box and inserted the coin. She pressed one of the buttons to select a record, then stood back to watch the mechanical antics behind the glass, her legs planted firmly apart, her scarlet-nailed hands on her hips, her split skirt gaping, her little monkey's face craned towards the machine, her eyes like two bright-pointed blackberries, and the matelot's hat sitting rakish but forgotten on her head.

Look at that, I thought. Look at that face, at that stance. A Chinese girl in an English sailor's hat gazing into an American juke box. What more could you want than that?

A matelot at a near-by table noticed her gaping skirt. He nudged his companion, winked, and dipped his forefinger in his beer. He leaned over from his chair and ran the wet finger down the sliver of Typhoo's thigh. Typhoo turned on him furiously.

“Hey, what you think I am? Street girl?”

At that moment the music from the juke box burst upon the room, drowning the rest of her vituperation. She gesticulated at him for a minute, then made a face of “Pouf! You're beneath my contempt,” and walked away. She sat down at her table and began to tell her own matelot about it, with an expression that suggested she was saying indignantly, “Some of your friends make me sick. I've got pride, you know! What do they think I am?”

I sat smoking and sipping the cool beer. Presently Gwenny returned, taking from her handbag an envelope that was rather grubby and dog-eared. She handed it to me across the table, saying, “You will see, it is a very nice letter. He was a very nice boy.”

The envelope was addressed to
Miss Gwenny Lee, Nam Kok Hotel (Bar), Wanchai, Hong Kong, China
. The postmark was over a year old, and the letter inside was disintegrating along the folds like an Indian bearer's testimonial.

Gwenny watched, glowing with pleasure, as I began to read.

 

Dear Gwenny.

Well, don't die of shock, I expect you will to get a letter after all this time, anyhow it's never too late to keep a promise so here goes.

Well, Gwenny, I sure was a lucky fellow meeting a girl like you, especially just after getting that letter from my girl back home, when I was feeling so sore. She was no good that girl, Gwenny. I only wish she could have met you. I guess she thinks Chinese girls still wear grass skirts or something, she'd have got a big surprise to find someone as swell as you. I had to hide in the heads when we left Hong Kong (“No kidding!”) so as the other fellows wouldn't see me cry. Well, we've been in about every port out East since then and I won't say I haven't looked at another girl, because I know you wouldn't believe me, but I've not met another to touch you, Gwenny, and that's honest to God.

Now for the good news, we just heard we're heading back for the old U.S. next month, but wish we could have called at Hong Kong again first.

Well, good-by, Gwenny, you really are a swell girl, so thanks again.

Chuck.

Gwenny smiled at me over her knitting.

“Well?” she said. “Don't you think it is a nice letter?”

“Very nice, Gwenny. You must have been very kind to him.”

“Of course some of the girls have many letters. Suzie, my best girl friend, has had five. She had one only last week. It was very passionate. It was from somebody called Joe. But she could not remember him because there are so many sailors called Joe.” She broke off, looking at me. “What's the matter?”

I nodded towards the door from the quay, which had just swung open to admit a posse of four naval policemen, two British and two American, equipped with boots, gaiters, armbands, and truncheons. They filed into the bar briskly and aggressively.

“What on earth is it?” I said in alarm. “A raid?”

Gwenny gave them a brief glance. “Oh, it's only the S.P.'s,” she said, and resumed her knitting.

“Only?”

“They are very nice. They only come round to see there is no fighting.”

The patrol, consisting of one officer and one sergeant from each navy, had divided into national pairs. The two American S.P.'s strolled past our table. Just then one of the sailors from the American Station Ship caught sight of them and called out, “Hi, there!” He had his arm round a girl. He stretched out his other arm to pull up an extra chair, but could not reach it without relinquishing the girl, so extended his leg and pulled up the chair with his foot. The Sergeant sat down, while the Officer pulled up another chair for himself, saying, “Well, boys? How are we doing?”

The two British S.P.'s chose an empty table on the other side of the bar. The Sergeant pulled out a chair for the Officer, then they both seated themselves stiffly, removed their caps, placed them upside down on the table, and took out their handkerchiefs. They methodically mopped their brows. The matelots at neighboring tables looked sheepish and pretended not to notice them.

The manager of the bar limped out from behind the bar counter. His slight limp, in conjunction with his shaved head and black suit, made him look a trifle sinister, like a Chinese version of Goebbels, though according to Gwenny he was very kind-hearted and popular with the girls. He approached the two British S.P.'s rather obsequiously, offering them a drink on the house, but they shook their heads, and he limped over to the Americans, who refused likewise.

“But hey, come here, feller,” the Sergeant said, catching him by his sleeve as he was turning away. “You got any more of those chopsticks with the name of this dive on, like you gave the Lootenant? O.K., but they gotta have the name on, see? I want 'em for a souvenir.” The manager limped away and returned with the chopsticks, and the Sergeant said, “Yeah, those'll do, I guess.”

Gwenny glanced at me over her knitting and said, “I have never met an artist before. But I once saw a film about an artist at the Roxy. It was very beautiful. He also painted in a bar. But he was a dwarf.”

“I expect it was Toulouse-Lautrec,” I said.

“I don't remember his name. But I remember reading in the newspaper that the actor had to walk on his knees. He wore boots on his knees instead of his feet. It was very clever.”

“I didn't see the film, but I've seen his drawings in a book,” I said. “They were wonderful.”

“I'm sure yours are better.”

“I wish they were, Gwenny,” I laughed.

“If I was a painter, I would paint pictures of hills. Why don't you paint hills? Why do you want to paint inside a bar?”

“Because I'm really only interested in people,” I said. “I think there's more beauty in people.”

“It is funny your coming to live here. Nobody has ever lived here before. I must introduce you to the other girls—they will be very interested.”

Later several of the girls came and joined us, including Typhoo, Little Alice, and Wednesday Lulu. Little Alice was a plump little partridge of a girl, loaded with bangles and dangling earrings, who shook like a jelly with perpetual giggles. Wednesday Lulu was silent and watchful, with a round smooth face in which her eyes looked like slits cut from an alabaster mask. She never spoke without deliberation. Typhoo, however, gabbled irrepressibly, and was presently launched into an account of a curious experience the night before, when she had been told by one of the waiters that there was a man outside the bar who wanted a girl but refused to come in. Typhoo had gone out onto the quay and found the man seated in a rickshaw. He had been the captain of a merchant ship. She had been very impressed.

“Sure, he was proper ship captain—big man,” she said. She talked with the vivacity and gesticulations of a Latin. “Sure, proper big man. He say, ‘How much all night?' I say, ‘Hundred Hong Kong dollar,' because a big man like that must get plenty lot of money. But he get chokka, he say, ‘What you take me for? Yankee? Me no Yankee—me English. I give you thirty Hong Kong dollar.' I say, ‘What for? Short-time?' He say, ‘No, all night.' I say, ‘I know you're ship captain but you must be crazy in the head!'”

They had finally compromised at sixty dollars—about four pounds—and had gone up to one of the rooms. Presently, after the Captain had worked off his first ardor, Typhoo had felt like a gossip with her girl friends before settling down for the night, and had asked the Captain to excuse her for half an hour. However, upon reaching the bar she had found herself without her handbag, which she had left upstairs—and which contained, among other items, the Captain's sixty dollars paid in advance. But after all, she had thought, a ship's captain was a man to be trusted. She wouldn't bother to go back for it. However, half an hour later, returning to duty, she had been greeted on the landing by the floor boy, announcing, “Typhoo, your boy friend went off twenty minutes ago.” Well! So he had pinched the money after all! A ship's captain—a big man like that! She had dashed along to the room. Her handbag had still been on the dressing table where she had left it. She had wrenched it open—and gaped in astonishment. The money was still there—every cent of it!

And now Typhoo was really worried. If he had not stolen anything, why on earth had he gone off? She could not understand.

“He pay out plenty money altogether, you know,” she said. “Rickshaw, ten dollar. Room, ten dollar. Make-lovey, sixty dollar. Altogether eighty dollar! All right, then why he run off after one short-time? Why? What happen?”

Little Alice was simmering with giggles. “Maybe he no like the way you make lovey,” she said, and the giggles boiled over.

Typhoo grinned. “Everybody like the way I make lovey. Plenty boys tell me, ‘Sure, you got a funny face, Typhoo, but I sooner have a short-time with you than all night with a big-bosom Yankee film star!'”

Wednesday Lulu, who had been thinking very hard, said carefully, “I think he had a wife.”

“That ship captain?” Typhoo said. “Sure, he told me. He got a wife back in England.”

“Then perhaps it was like this,” Wednesday Lulu said solemnly. “First he wants a girl very badly, so he forgets about his wife. He catches a girl, makes love. Then inside he feels different. He remembers his wife. He thinks, ‘I'm bad, very bad!' He feels very ashamed. So he runs off.”