World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) (40 page)

And then suddenly I found I could talk—about art. Gone were the days when I was inarticulate about painting, and could only mutter about myself, “I see something I want to paint, and try to paint it,”—for now all at once I had perceived significance in my own paintings and had begun to spin them round with webs of theory, using high-flown professional words whose meaning I had only just learned. I could be eloquent, I could be amusing; and at dinner parties, where formerly I would have talked only to my nearest neighbors, I was quite ready to take on the whole table. For after all I was an authority now. I was somebody.

One night at Roy Ullman's house I had been holding forth like this at dinner, and after the ladies had retired one of the guests, a producer for television, asked me if I would be prepared to give an illustrated talk.

“In fact we might discuss the idea of a series,” he said.

I said I wished that he had asked me a month ago—it was too late now, for we had only three days left in England. We had air passages booked for Japan—with a night stop at Hong Kong en route when we would stay at the Nam Kok.

Roy Ullman examined his manicured nails. “Of course I don't want to influence you—but not even an artist can afford to ignore his public. And taking the long view, I believe the advantages of your staying in England a bit longer might be simply, simply enormous. . . .”

I was soon won over, and when Suzie returned to the room I put the same arguments to her, and eventually she said without much enthusiasm, “All right, I don't mind,” and Ullman, who really disliked her, said, “Hurrah, the little lady agrees,” and rang up the airline for us and canceled our bookings.

On the way home Suzie was silent and remote and I was a little piqued, for I felt very flattered at being asked to talk on television and I would have liked her also to be pleased. Her mood was a challenge. I had to reconquer her. But when we were in bed and I made the familiar overtures she said she was tired and withdrew from me, and I turned away feeling rebuffed and annoyed.

However, the next morning, as I was trying to get on with a half-finished portrait of her which was the only work I had done in London, I noticed a spark in her eye, accompanied by other invisible but provocative feminine emanations which meant only one thing: that she herself now felt disposed toward what last night she had denied me. I laughed and teased her for a bit, and then went to her; and when later I asked her to explain her unusually capricious behavior she said, “I like you today. I like you when you work, and wear that dirty old coat full of paint.”

“And when don't you like me?”

“When you get stuck-up and talk too much, and go boom! boom! boom!”

She gave an imitation of me pompously holding forth. I was very hurt and flew to my own defense, saying that after living so long in the artistic vacuum out East it was wonderful to be among people who talked the same language and who appreciated one's work, and that I was deriving great benefit from mixing with other painters, and with critics and connoisseurs.

“I don't think so,” she said. “I think in England you just get hard. Too many people. Too much talk. Too much boom-boom-boom. You get hard inside.”

“You know what's the matter with you?” I said. “You're jealous. You're jealous of my success at parties—and of all those pretty girls who come up and tell me I'm wonderful.”

She shook her head.

“Of course you are—you're exhibiting all the classic symptoms. Go and look at those green eyes in the mirror!”

I was delighted at the way I had turned the attack, and remained well-satisfied with myself all day. And it was only that night, after I had lain awake for a long time in the dark with a gnawing uneasiness, that all at once I saw the truth of Suzie's caricature of me—saw myself smugly seated at some dinner table, dogmatically holding forth about things of which I had scarcely an inkling, contriving theories to boost my own work and belittle the work of others. Thinking “I'm somebody” because really, deep down, I was afraid of being nobody. Talking instead of doing. Criticizing instead of creating.

Oh, God, it was horrifying—those smart sterile cocktail parties, that aesthetic chitter-chatter, that endless boom-boom-booming that made you feel big but that killed you inside—that killed that little flame that needed so desperately to be nourished. And I was seized by panic, and the wild urge to escape before it was too late, and I woke Suzie and switched on the light and said, “Suzie, I've been a fool—a perfect fool.”

“What's happened?” she said. “What's the matter?”

“You were right, Suzie. I'm just destroying myself here. We mustn't stay.”

“What about your talks?”

“To hell with the talks.”

“But you like talking. You won't be able to talk in Japan.”

“I don't want to talk. I want to paint.”

And the next morning we went to the airline office and got back our old bookings, and five nights later we were back at the Nam Kok.

II

And I do not think there has been another night like it at the Nam Kok before or since. The girls were far too excited by Suzie's return to think of working, and they ignored the sailors and stood crowded round our table so that we could hardly breathe, and they would not move except to feed a new coin into the juke box; and they played “Seven Lonely Days” in our honor all evening. And each time the record restarted there were ironical catcalls from the sailors, and I could not help sympathizing with them because the girls' neglect was quite sufficient hardship in itself without such musical monotony to drive them mad.

Suzie had brought presents for all the girls, and they opened them with suitable exclamations of surprise and delight. The only girl who remained apart was Doris Woo who sat primly alone in the corner, blinking like a schoolmarm behind the rimless glasses, until at length two rather drunk sailors started a row over her because she was the only girl going. However, as she got up to leave the room with the winner Suzie called to her to come for her present, and the other girls joined in the exhortations and made way for her to approach.

“I don't want anything,” she snapped. “Who was it meant for?”

“For you,” Suzie said. “It is a present from London for you.”

“I don't believe you,” Doris said bitterly.

She tore the paper off the little parcel as if she was doing us a favor, saying she knew better than to believe that in London we had ever given her a thought; but her words were cut short as she saw the contents, a little leather note-case with
Doris Woo
in gold letters across the corner. She stared at it in silence, her glasses misting. She could not say anything for a long time, but remained at the table; and when the drunk sailor impatiently summoned her she just shook her head, and the other girls pushed him away. Then Doris asked Suzie how much it cost to go to London, not because she wanted to know but just to show interest, and I told her the cost by sea, saying “That's in pounds,” and the comedienne Fifi said, “Well, what does that make in short-times?” And this provoked such an outburst of merriment that nobody noticed “Seven Lonely Days” come to an end, until a sailor had seized his opportunity and some other tune had burst upon the room, whereupon they all turned on the poor matelot with cries of anger and dismay.

Then Typhoo asked if there were many Chinese people in London, and Suzie said we had been to a Chinese restaurant with a Cantonese cook and waiters, but the food had been a travesty of real Chinese food; and then the luscious little Jeannie wanted to know if there were any Chinese bar girls or dance girls in London.

“They do not have any bar girls or dance girls in London,” Suzie said. “Only street girls.”

“Ugh!” shuddered little Alice, who had a new expensive hair-do of tight little curls, and she shook with giggles.

“And they are all European,” Suzie said. “But some of them are very beautiful, and wear beautiful furs.”

“How much do they charge?” Jeannie asked. She looked tired and much older and was just beginning to run to seed, so that soon she would no longer be luscious, but just fat; and I had a sudden distressing vision of the old overblown whore, calling from some darkened doorway, that would be Jeannie in ten years.

“I think they charge more than—than us,” Suzie said. She had been about to say “more than you,” but had been afraid to sound stuck-up.

Old Lily Lou leaned across the table. “What about the Queen?” she whispered huskily. “Did you see the Queen?”

“Yes, as close as you,” Suzie said. “Oh, yes, she was very pretty.”

“That's right, I've seen her in the cinema,” Lily Lou said in a voice like coarse sandpaper. She turned to the others. “Suzie's quite right—she's really pretty, Queen Margaret.” There was laughter and somebody corrected her. She looked rattled and said, “All right, I know what I'm talking about. I know, you needn't tell me.”

Just then about a dozen sailors with red pom-poms on their hats came in from the quay.

“Sorry, Frenchee-boys,” Typhoo said. “No make-lovey tonight.”

“So sorry,” everybody said happily in chorus. “We're busy. Closed for repairs. You better go somewhere else. So sorry. Good-by.”

However, the sailors did not go, and presently the manager limped up to intervene on behalf of the disgruntled clientele. The girls groaned and drifted sulkily back to work, except for Gwenny and Mary Kee who remained. The floor round the table was scattered with paper from the presents. On the table one present remained unopened: a handbag we had bought in Regent Street for Wednesday Lulu. But we had arrived too late, for a week ago Wednesday Lulu had made her decision and gone back to China—back to her mother, and rehabilitation, and work in a factory or the fields.

Suzie noticed a big blue and yellow bruise on the upper right arm of her former protegee, Mary Kee. “What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing, only a sailor who was a bit drunk,” Mary said.

“I told you before, you shouldn't go with drunks,” Suzie said. “Some girls can manage drunks, but you get too scared.”

“It has been such a terrible month, we have not been able to pick and choose,” Gwenny said. “There have been no ships at all until yesterday.”

“I suppose I ought to go and work,” Mary said, and glanced nervously at two matelots at a neighboring table. “But I think they're just drinking—they haven't come to catch girls.”

“The fair one wants to catch a girl,” Suzie said. “You must learn to tell. He wants a girl but is scared. You must go and be very soft and nice.”

“Well, I'll try.”

Suzie looked troubled as she watched Mary go off. I turned to Gwenny and said, “Gwenny, what about your sister? Isn't she married yet?”

“No, the parents of the man she was to marry found out where I worked, so they broke it off,” Gwenny said. “But now we have arranged another marriage. It will be next month.”

“And then you'll be able to give this up?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“No? But Gwenny, why not?”

“The man is very poor. I will have to help them. He will only marry on condition I help.”

Suzie said, “Gwenny, how awful! How terrible!”

“She's getting married, that's all that really matters.” She turned her face away. “Oh, look, there's Mary going upstairs—wasn't she quick? Well, I had better go and try my luck, though I hate leaving you.” She went and sat down with a French sailor, but twenty minutes later gave it up and came back, saying, “I couldn't understand a word. He just pinched my arm and held up five fingers. I suppose he meant I was too skinny, and only worth five dollars. But I haven't descended to five yet.”

Suzie said, “Gwenny, you know where that Canton girl lives? You know, Betty Lau—the girl I stuck with the scissors?” Gwenny nodded, and Suzie carelessly pushed over Wednesday Lulu's parcel. “She can have this if she wants.”

“You mean you've forgiven her?” Gwenny said.

“Of course not,” Suzie said quickly. “I'd never forgive her—not for all those dirty things she said. I just don't want that bag, that's all. It's just a nuisance. Isn't it, Robert?”

“An awful nuisance,” I said, and gave Gwenny ten dollars to have Wednesday Lulu's initials taken off and Betty's put on.

“Well, I will go home now,” Gwenny said. “And I will come in the morning and see you off.”

It was after midnight. The juke box was silent. The only girl left was Minnie Ho, who was snuggling in the arms of a Frenchman. They got up and went out through the swing door.

“Poor Gwenny,” Suzie said. “I thought this evening, ‘Anyhow, Gwenny will be all right when her sister is married. That means two of us are all right.'”

“Come on, Suzie, let's go to bed.”

We went out to the hall. Minnie and the French sailor came from the reception desk and followed us into the lift. Minnie took the sailor's hat from his hand and nuzzled the red pom-pom, and then put the hat on her own head and entwined herself around his arm. She rubbed her cheek against his sleeve. “I love you,” she giggled, looking up at him. “Love—you understand ‘love'?”

The sailor glanced down at her cynically, a Gauloise drooping from his mouth.

“
Bien sûr,
” he said in a tone of “So what?”

“He doesn't understand,” Minnie said: “You speak French, Robert? Tell him I love him.”

She watched his face as I told him. The sailor said with a bored cynical smile, “I know this innocent virgin sort. They're the ones who always give you a packet.”

“What did he say?” Minnie said.

“He said you're just like a little kitten, Minnie,” I said.

“To speak frankly, I prefer yours,” the sailor said, the Gauloise waggling in his mouth and his eyes narrowed against the smoke. “I like her bottom. I noticed as she entered the lift. She has a real peach of a bottom.”