Jade Woman

4

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KAI TAK International Airport’s runway stretches out into Hong Kong Harbor. For all that, the aerodrome has the same sterility that adorns these terminals. So why was I bewildered? Tired. Deafened by the din, I blundered through presses of tour couriers with stick placards. It was pandemonium. I’d never heard so many people talk so loudly. Everybody seemed to be shouting in Chinese, laughing, hurrying. Signs were in English and Chinese, with me peering and reeling, out on my feet. Jet-lagged or dying didn’t matter anymore. In that first moment Hong Kong established itself irrevocably in my mind: brilliant colors and indescribable noise. Somebody asked was this my only baggage, slurring r’s in staccato English. Then I was through. I started staggering about the melee looking for Algernon, but the idiot was nowhere.

After an exhausting hour of this, my stunned brain asked, since when has Algernon ever been on time? So get your head down, lad, search later. I trudged round in the turmoil among a zillion passengers swirling as baffled as I was.

In my delirium I tried to work out possibilities. I could stay here in the clamor, or go to Macao and search for him and his lunatic motor-racing pals there. But where the hell was Macao? I decided to give the nerk one hour more, then make my own way as best I could. I slumped against a wall—even that was burning hot—and gaped blearily at the throngs of milling Chinese.

My eyelids flickered as fatigue took hold. No real need to nod off, I told myself, not really, because hadn’t I just survived a year-long flight dozing and noshing? Yet the draining heat and drugging air reduced me to a dazed, baffled robot. I thought, well, Lovejoy, no harm to shut your eyes for a couple of seconds, eh? Algernon’d find me when he arrived.

All doubts and cautions logicked to extinction, I rested. Delirium passed me to oblivion.

People may have pushed by me now and again but I wasn’t having any and slept determinedly on, safe, for wasn’t I practically at the ends of the earth? Once I dimly felt somebody give my shoulder a shake, but my stunned brain knew that importuners can’t be trusted. My neurons vanished me, and I was glad.

Isn’t it odd that promises of Heaven are impatient, even frenzied? Hell, on the other hand, is a patient villain. Unbeknownst to me, it stood doggedly by while I reposed against the wall of Kai Tak’s arrival lounge. Another curiosity is that it isn’t restfulness that wakes you. It’s expectation. I awoke hungry, my belly clamoring for food. My mind was still obstinately befogged when I opened my eyes to a horrendous zoom, clang, crash.

And closed them again to shut out the tumult while I remembered. Bailiffs, Janie, BJS, my escape flight, the non-Algernon. And open, to the cacophony, the noisy press, queues, the clashy announcements of this flight and that. Stiff as a poker, I clambered erect and stood blinking owlishly. No Algernons abounded. I realized with surprise that I was a bit taller than average, an unexpected novelty. Still, no good standing here gaping inanely. Off to Macao.

It seemed brighter than when I’d dozed off. I never carry a watch, so absolute time always escapes. Yawning and stretching, I realized I must have slept longer than I’d assumed. Maybe I’d even arrived in the early evening and slumbered all night? Certainly there was a morning air about, a relative freshness. I saw a multilingual legend and an arrow: “Taxis This Way.” Great. I’d go and throttle Algernon—always start as you mean to go on, I always say. I reached for my bag and… and a quick puzzlement while I turned round once, searching the floor.

No bag.

Well, no matter. There hadn’t been much in it except a dated map of Macao. Somebody must have taken it by mistake while I’d dozed. And I still had my money wadge, Janie’s travelers’ checks… I went cold.

Nothing.

Malaise swept me. Illness. Nausea. Panic. My hands poked, probed frantically.

Sweating, I spun, looked round at the marble floor, took a pace, retraced, delved and searched in a fever of fright. Nothing. My forehead went clammy, shoulders, hands.

Suddenly I was drenched and ill; Christ, how ill. No money. No checks, passport, driver’s license, checkbook. Everything gone. Everything. I still had a hankie in my left trouser pocket, my comb, and nothing else.

My mind spun. I don’t know if it has ever happened to you. It’s the most sickening feeling on earth. I felt so nauseated I almost fainted. I’d been cleaned out as I slept.

Blindly hating, I stood glowering at the throngs. Maybe they hadn’t got far… But who were the thieves among this massive congress? Worse than any football crowd. And in which direction? My mind interrupted with Surely it couldn’t have happened, Lovejoy?

You’re the scourge of the Western world, never the victim. Simply stay calm, reason it out. Search again. Hot and cold in waves, I hunted the linings. Make sure of every cranny, all the pockets. Above all, think. Had Algernon come, seen you exhausted, taken your belongings into safe custody? Was he in fact waiting in the bar restaurant…

? I was fooling myself. I’d been robbed, done over.

Of course I’ve been burgled before now, and a right rotten sickening experience it is.

It’s rape, destruction of the only self-image the world lets you have. The hands of malevolent strangers had delved through my clothes, filching, thieving… I almost vomited, had another frantic wash of panicky searching in case I’d overlooked some nook.

Cool, Lovejoy. Slowly as you can. It’s happened. Okay, it’s terrible, but all is not lost. I stood forlorn as the mobs coursed past, all laughing in that astonishingly vigorous Chinese. I tried lecturing myself. You can phone Janie to cable more money, throw yourself on the mercy of the airline, find the police. Or the Embassy? Explain to those superb civil servants… but did a Crown Colony have an ambassador? What was it, a governor? Get a lift to Macao. The landward route was probably out, but I mean boats must be going there all the time, right?

After a ten-minute struggle I got to the airline’s information desk and was greeted by a smiling lass. God, I was glad to see her. Efficiency. Above all, help for the wanderer. I loved the unwavy dark hair, the oval eyes, pretty features. My spirits rose.

“YescanIhelp you?” she said, staccato but all in one.

“Er, please. I’ve had my money stolen. I was—”

Her face ponded over. Her gaze unfocused. “MayIseeyourticketplease?”

“That’s the trouble, miss. They took my ticket too. But I did travel on your airline.”

Her gaze was ice. A policeman appeared at her shoulder. He was smart, crisp. Khaki drill, belt, red tabs. He didn’t go through the smiling phase at all. He had a miniature squawk-box on his Sam Browne.

“Passport, please,” he said.

I explained. “They took everything.”

“Where it happen?” asked the cop. His eyes never left me.

“Over there.” I indicated. “I was sitting on the floor, asleep, when they—”

“Sleep on floor? You on floor?”

Sweat seeped around my middle. It wasn’t heat. It was fear.

“Why you sleep on floor?”

“Well, I was tired, waiting for my friend.”

“When you come?”

“From London. This morning.”

The eyes were flint now. “No flight from London today.” He said a couple of barkish words to his intercom and two more policemen materialized, one each side of me.

Crisply clean, khaki shorts, belts. And holsters. Some Chinese travelers stopped, smiling with pleased interest, crowding around. They discussed me briefly in that up-and-down language. I wilted with dejection. This was a bigger mess than I’d escaped from. I was giddy with hunger, thirst, confused out of all reason.

“Who your friend? Where your identity card?”

“Algernon. He’s in Macao,” I said desperately. “Racing cars, in a big race.”

“Macao? You Macao?” The tension eased fractionally. Instantly I recognized the signs of cops in search of a problem-disposal system.

“Macao.” I nodded eagerly to help it along. All I wanted now was to get away. “Today.

Portuguese Macao.”

The first policeman wanted to be sure. “You go to Macao?”

“Yes,” I agreed in despair. “For car racing. Me mechanic.” I almost said I’d flown in on the big white bird, but caught myself. These cops looked shrewd, knowing. And back in East Anglia maybe the tax bailiffs were already hunting me for faking antiques with malice aforethought. No, helpful police were the last people I wanted. The only way out was to transform myself into a trouble-free bona fide passenger. “I’m looking for the Macao, er, ship, er, ferry. Could you tell me how I get there, please?”

“Taxi,” they told me firmly. “Ten minutes Macao ferry.”

“Good, good!” I beamed them one of my special sincerities. “Thank you very much for your help. I’d better get going!” I said good-bye and marched off into the throng.

The loos were sign-posted. I went in to wash, and drank myself full more to ablate my growing hunger than to quench thirst. Ten minutes and I was out of the building.

The heat blammed me. White-hot air enveloped me so, I actually caught my breath.

The aerodrome concourse must have been air-conditioned to Hong Kong’s version of coolth. Uneasily I viewed the traffic swarms, the acres of parked cars, the distant fawn hills hazed and shimmering, that incredibly blank blue sky. I’m not good in heat. In this oven I knew I’d be terrible. I almost turned back, but two policemen were looking out at me through the glass. I gave them a confident smile and briskly stepped out.

Ten yards, fine. I like walking.

A hundred yards, not so fine. My clothes were sweat-drenched. My face dripped. Cars were roaring and squealing. I actually glanced around. Surely this nasty sun’s pressure couldn’t keep on all frigging day? Two hundred yards and I was exhausted. Instinctively I turned left and down towards the maximum density of habitation.

Three hundred yards and I had to stop, gasping, under the shade of a tree. It too seemed to be having a hard time of it, managing somehow without real roots and clinging to a vertical roadside of sand-colored rocks. Saloons, taxis, lorries topped with green canvas, passenger coaches, the lot fumed past in dust clouds. For the first time I really began to feel a bit frightened. It’s unusual in me—no, honestly it is, because I can scratch survival anywhere, make do with practically nothing. Here, I was literally evaporating in an alien world. Already I felt light-headed. Thirst thickened my throat. I waited for two lorries loaded with vegetables to clatter by and resumed my plod. The terrible sun stood heavily on my crown as soon as I ran out of shade.

The road appeared hewn from the mountain. Closer, it was nothing but dry sandy stuff interspersed with giant granite slabs. Here and there a greenish scumble of vegetation hung on for grim death. Small water grooves showed where trickles had cut. At least that meant they sometimes had rain, thank God. I trudged on.

Ahead traffic columns, slower now, obscured any view to my left, but up ahead I could see tall off-white tower blocks of flats. Soon I was among them. I’d never seen so many. I began to pass small side roads leading in. And, oddly, came across a team of road menders laboring fast and hard at a subsistence. Odd because they all were women, attired in loose black pajama suits with black-fronded cartwheel hats made of wicker. They all grinned and called. I grinned back and said hello. They were slogging against time, straw baskets of rubble on their shoulders and trot-walking in plastic sandals to discharge the burden down a worn wooden chute. I’d never seen so many gold teeth. There was an important lesson for me in all this, if I hadn’t been too bemused to spot it. Trudge.

Gradually the occasional bus began to emerge. I was thankful only for some different color than fawn and white. Among the high-rise apartment blocks I saw a patch of pale green, gardeners stooped over bushes, but the scene only made me feel homesick and I piked on under that oppressive sun. I’d had the sense to knot my hankie as a hat—did no real good—and to pause in every bit of shade I could find, but could still feel myself petering out. Once, a curve in the road cast a thin shadow and I halted there, semi-collapsed, honestly wondering whether to go back to Kai Tak and start explanations all over again to the police, the reception-desk girl, continue waiting for Idiot Algernon. At least there’d been drinking water and a place to sit down. But the hostile police… I began to remember tales of Hong Kong’s drug problems, smuggling, gangsterism, its secret societies—they must have suspected all sorts. No. Soldier on. Before long I should begin to acclimatize. This dreadful exhaustion would dwindle, and maybe by then I’d have reached Macao.

Nape dripping, seeping soggily at every pore, I wended through the cacophony and dust under that bloody-awful sun. The few European faces that stared at me from passing saloons showed a mild curiosity—was I letting the side down?—and taxis slowed hopefully. By then I was too defeated to think. It’s a dangerous condition, perhaps the worst plight of all. You can hardly see, let alone work out opportunities, chances, dredge up some scam. It’s the way cattle must feel on their last truck. Except, being human, I suppose, a kernel of fury was germinating within at my abject condition. Somewhere in me as I hoofed towards Kowloon, rage started seething.

Somebody was going to pay for this. All right, so now I had and was nothing. Wholly negligible. But destitution’s not just poverty; it’s humiliation. I wasn’t going to stay on zero.

Besides the heat there were Hong Kong’s planes. God, but they flew low. I found myself ducking as roaring engines came strafing in. Look up, you see the aircraft’s vast underbelly slide across over the street. It’s in my mind yet. How the Chinese in those narrow Kowloon alleys manage, God alone knows. It’s madness. Their pot plants tremble on the balconies. I even saw the washing wafted on their projecting bamboo poles, pennants in some berserk secret charge. And beneath that frightening howl Hong Kong gets on with things without a glance. Noise has no market.

As the streets and pavement shops of Kowloon began to crowd in, I felt that I’d kill to climb out of the gutter. I wish I hadn’t told myself that, not now, but honestly the deaths weren’t my fault, and in any case what else could I have done? Life’s nobody’s fault either.

So it came to pass, gentle reader, that, murderously vowing hatred against persons known and unknown, desiccated as a coconut, delirious from the heat, penniless and weary, I limped into Hong Kong proper, Pearl of the Orient and the brilliant Fragrant Harbor of the legendary China Coast. Okay, it didn’t need me. It hadn’t even noticed me. But it had got me for better or, as I found, worse.

In the next twenty-four hours Hong Kong noticed me all right. To this day I wish it hadn’t.