World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) by Richard Mason Page B

blanket on the balcony and it would crawl about in its red corduroy rompers, which had animals on the front with “Gee-gee,” “Moo-cow,” stitched underneath in English. And Suzie, crawling behind in her jeans, would pretend to chase it; and when she finally caught it and tickled its ribs, it would nearly choke with delight. Then she would take it down to the old blue-trousered amah waiting outside on the quay, and place it in the sling on the amah’s back, where it would fall promptly asleep. She would watch the amah shuffling off, calling, “Good-by, mind you be a good baby! Yes, mind you behave!” And then she would turn and go into the bar.
    She would also bring her girl friends up to see me; and with a good deal of showing off would treat them to a conducted tour of my room, showing them my pictures and possessions with emphasis on their imagined value. “This hairbrush—it’s real silver, you know.” (It wasn’t.) “Now I show you my boy friend’s cuff links—real gold. Maybe worth three hundred dollars. . . .” And pulling open a drawer, “No, don’t worry, my boy friend doesn’t mind . . .”
    Finally there was the
pièce de résistance,
the tape recorder, on which she had fixed the fictitious price of two thousand dollars rather than admit that it was only hired; and I would be called upon to make a recording of the girl friend’s voice while Suzie, behaving as if the machine had been her own invention, stage-managed the performance. Then before the girl friend had begun to feel too much at home in my room Suzie would usher her out, explaining that I had work to do; and as they went off down the corridor I would hear her saying importantly, “My boy friend’s a big man, you know. One day he will get five thousand dollars for those pictures. . . . Oh, no, each!”
    And even boy friends would be brought along—usually to break the tedium when she had been engaged for “all night.” Thus some unfortunate young matelot with tattooed arms and untidy hair, dragged unwillingly out of bed and dressed only in a singlet, would stand there blinking and bewildered while Suzie gave him the conducted tour, wondering nervously if I was a policeman working under cover. Then she would lose interest in him and start chattering to me, until eventually I would feel so sorry for the matelot, for whom the night had cost half a week’s pay packet, that I would pack them off back to their room. On one occasion, however, I became so engrossed in argument with a young American intellectual, a law student on naval service, that we were still talking at five o’clock in the morning. Suzie had long since grown bored and retired to sleep. Finally, after nearly losing our tempers, we shook hands, both confessing that we had been vastly overstating our views. I apologized for keeping him so long away from Suzie.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m not interested in her that way—if you know what I mean.”
    â€œNo?” I said, astonished. “Then what on earth are you doing with her?”
    â€œWell, it’s like this. The boys on the ship think I’m a bit of a prig. So I came along with them tonight, and took a girl just to show them I was a ‘regular guy.’”
    â€œThen you’d better not tell them you sat up all night discussing communism,” I said.
    â€œYou bet I won’t. I’ll tell them I beat all their records.”
    But more often, when Suzie had an all-night boy friend, she would simply abandon him and come along by herself for a chat; and if we happened to be hungry she would pick up the telephone and call a near-by restaurant. Fifteen minutes later, notwithstanding that it was two o’clock in the morning, a coolie would arrive at my door with a bamboo carrying pole over his shoulder, from which trays, as on an