Saint Jack (28 page)

“That's okay if you want one picture,” I said. “But one's not enough. There must be another way.”

I paced the room. “Henry says the general's room is just like this one, right? Bed here, chair there—” The three men looked from object to object as I named—“bureau there, desk over there—
wait!
”

Over the desk was a large rectangular mirror, reflecting the room; Mr. Khoo, Jimmy Sung, Henry Chow, seated uneasily on the bed. A mirror, distracting for anyone using the desk, made it useful as a woman's dressing table.

“We can't photograph the bed,” I said, “but we can make a small hole in the wall and aim the camera at that mirror. It's right across.”

“Wide-angle lens,” said Jimmy.

Henry Chow smiled.

This time Mr. Khoo used his drill like a chisel, to loosen plaster and scoop out brick from our side of the wall. He made a niche for the camera and punched a small lens hole through to the other side. Jimmy Sung fitted the camera with a plunger on a long cable, and fixed the camera against the hole, bandaging it into the niche with adhesive tape.

“I guess that wraps it up,” I said.

Mr. Khoo wiped his drill with a rag.

“This calls for a drink.”

Henry said no. Mr. Khoo shook his head. Jimmy Sung scratched his head nervously and said he had to take his wife shopping.

“Come on, I'll treat you,” I said. “They've got everything at this hotel. We could have lunch sent up. Anything—you name it. No charge!”

Mr. Khoo muttered something in Chinese. Henry looked embarrassed. Jimmy said, “Seng Ho want money,” and winced.

“Anything you say.” I paid them off, and when I did they edged toward the door. I said, “What's the rush? It's early. Stick around.”

There is a Chinese laugh that means “Yes, of course!” and another that means “No, never!” The first is full of sympathy, the second is a low mirthless rattle in the throat. They gave me the second and were gone.

“So long, boys.” I was alone. It was bright and noisy outside, but waiting I felt caged in the dim cold room of the Belvedere's ninth floor. On the far wall was the print of an old water color, Fort Canning, ladies with parasols, children rolling hoops, the harbor in the distance. I became aware of the air-conditioner roar, and shortly it deafened me and gave me goose flesh. In my bedroom in Moulmein Green I had a friendly fan that went
plunk-a-plunk
and a scented mosquito coil; a fig tree grew against the window. An old phrase came to me, my summing up:
Is this all?
I looked at the completed handiwork and hated it. The problem of eavesdropping had been complicated and nearly innocent. The solution was simple and terrible, the sticky tape, the wires, the mirror, the black contraptions, the violated wall.

C
RASH, BANG
. The general went to his room after lunch, and my tape recorder amplified the racket of his entry to a hurried blundering. The door banged, the fumbled bolt was shot. Footsteps and belches and undressing noises, the flip-flap and yawn of a shirt being stripped off, coins jingling in lowered trousers, the bumps of two discarded shoes. Then bedsprings lurching, sighs, yawps. I stood on a chair and peeked through the camera's view finder. No girl; he napped alone, his arms surrendering on his pillow. He slept, snorting and shifting, for over an hour, awoke, changed into a green bathing suit, scratched his chest, made a face at me in the mirror, and went out in clunking clogs, with a towel scarflike around his neck—I guessed he was going to the swimming pool on the roof.

He needed tempting. But I had a sprat to catch this mackerel.

“Madam Lum? Jack here. Thelma busy? Yeah, right away. You're a peach—”

Thelma Tay goggled at the room. “Smart,” she said, pronouncing it
smut.
She tossed her ditty bag on the bed and went over to the window. She worked the Venetian blinds and said, “Cute.”

“It's great to see you,” I said, giving her cheek a pinch. “I've been going out of my gourd.”

She glided up and down, sniffing, touched the ashtray, turned on the bedside lamp, felt the curtains. She was no beauty, but I knew she was capable and had the right enthusiasm. Her glossy black hair was carefully set in ringlets and long curls and crowned with a small basket of woven plaits; she had the lovely hollows in her face that indicate in a Chinese girl small high breasts. She kicked off her shoes and smoothed her shiny belted dress. She posed and said, “Wet look.”

“It's catching on,” I said. “Very classy.”

She undid the belt and pulled the dress over her head, and then, in her red bra and red half-slip, walked over to me and leaned her soft stomach into my face. “You ready?”

“Wait a sec, Thelma,” I said, looking up. “It's next door.”

She stepped back. “You not want?”

“Not me—the feller in there,” I said, pointing to the broken wall. “He just stepped out, but he'll be back pretty soon.”

“Oh,” she said. She sat on the edge of the bed and found something on her elbow to pick.

“How's Madam Lum?”

“Is okay. Not so busy.”

“It's hard all around,” I said. “Not like it used to be. These people from the package tours—they're all ninety years old. God knows why they come here.”

Thelma wasn't listening. She made a meowing sound in her nose—a Chinese pop song.

“Seen any good films lately?”

“Dracula,” she said. “At Cathay.”

“How was it?”

“I was scared-
lah!
” She laughed.

I poured myself a neat gin. “You want one?”

“Soft drink,” she said. “Got Green Spot?”

“Thelma, anything you want—”

Crash, bang.

“It's him,” I whispered. “Wait here. The lift boy's going to introduce you.” I tiptoed over to the chair and looked through the viewfinder.

A dark Chinese girl in a frilly bikini walked past the mirror. The door banged, and my tape recorder spoke:
No, really, I think you were getting the hang of it. You've just got to remember to keep your legs straight and kicking and paddle like this
—

“You dirty devil,” I mumbled, fiddling with the volume knob.

“I go now?” asked Thelma. She held her shiny dress up.

I drew her over to the bed. “Apparently,” I said, “it's all been fixed.”—

—
no, keep your fingers together. That's right. Here, hop on the bed and I'll show you
—

“I'm sorry about this,” I said. “Wait a minute. I'll explain.” I grasped the plunger and snapped a picture, then went back and sat on the bed next to Thelma. “It looks like I got you up here for nothing.”

“You no want fuck?”

“I've got my hands full,” I said. “Don't worry, I'll pay you just the same. In the meantime let's watch our language?”

“Mushudge?”

“Oh, I don't know,” I said.

—
lift those arms up! Like this
—
keep kicking! Sort of move your head
—

Thelma started kneading my shoulders, working her way down, and then pinching my backbone. It was soothing. I got down on the bed and she took my shirt off and straddled me, hacking at my shoulders and back with the sides of her hands, rubbing, clapping, like someone preparing a pizza.

“Gosh that feels good.” I closed my eyes, enjoying it, feeling my muscles unknot.

—
breath control's very important. Take a deep breath
—
way down. Beautiful. Now let it out real slow, and twist
—

“Hop off, Thelma,” I said. I went over and looked through the view finder. The general crouched next to the girl in the bikini who was stretched out and making loud sounds of breathing. I snapped two pictures.

Thelma had stripped, and bare, seemed serious and businesslike, her nakedness like a uniform. She saddled herself on the small of my back and dug her knuckles against my ribs, and then went through the kneading and pinching routine again, neck, shoulders, and spine, warming me all the way down to my kidneys.

“Gorgeous,” I said. Her knees were tight against my ribs, and still she rode me, jogging slightly as she massaged.

—
that's what we call the crawl. Now let me show you the breast stroke. This is a very useful one. All you have to do
—

“Picture,” I said, and Thelma slid off. I wound the film and shot.

“Turn over,” said Thelma when I crept onto the bed again.

“Hey, wait a minute—”

But she had already unbuckled my belt, and laughing softly, explored me as she shoved my trousers down to my ankles.

—
push those hands all the way out
—

“You say no, but he say yes.”

“He? Who's
he?
” I looked at the tape recorder.

“This one,” said Thelma. She gave my pecker a squeeze and made it look at me with the single slit eye on its rosy dome.

“Oh, I see,” I said. “Our friend here.”

—
pretend you're flying. That's it
—

I disengaged myself and hopped to the wall to take another picture.

“You very sexy, mister,” said Thelma. “Look!”

“That's right,” I said, “broadcast it.”

“He
like
me, mister.”

“Not so loud,” I hissed.

“What style you wants?” She lay flat and put her hands behind her head, as if responding to the swimming lesson coming over the tape recorder's speaker:
Floating on your back is easy if you know how
—. Then Thelma did an extraordinary thing; she knelt in a salaaming position, an expressive and dainty obedience, and put her face against the pillow, and raised her buttocks into the air. She laughed and said what sounded like, “Woof, woof.”

“Let's keep it simple,” I said. I stood thoughtfully between the camera and the bed, holding my pecker the way a patient fisherman holds his pole. “And don't be surprised if I hop up in the middle of it. I've got a job to do, Thelma.” I shuffled over to the bed, muttering, “And honestly it's a very ticklish business.”

I embraced her, holding her tightly with my eyes shut; she rotated, helping me, and at once my engine began turning over, quietly rousing my body, warming old circuits in my belly and beyond. I had taught myself and shown others that love was the absence of fear; so this sexual veneration, pure joy, made the past accessible. I was raised up, a prince at the parapet of his castle tower, to look over a bright kingdom of memories. Today, without inviting him, I saw Roosevelt Rush, a black deck hand on the
Allegro
, who called me “Flahs” and slept with a nylon stocking drawn tight over his hair. One hot night, anchored in Port Swettenham, he stood in the engine room carefully pouring whiskey over his pecker. I remarked on the quality. “Black Label,” he said: “Ain't nothing too good for this banana,” and he kept pouring. He flicked drops from his business end and explained, “Think I got me some clap from a ‘ho'.” I'd had it myself seven times, and got used to the progress of the complaint I called a runny nose: the unusual sting on the third day, the sticky dripping, the pinching pain of leaking hot needles, and the itch that was always out of reach. I knew tropical pox doctors by the solidly painted windows of their storefront clinics, and was treated by men with degrees from Poona who jammed syringes into my arm as if they were celebrating Thaipusam, said “drink plenty bottles of beer,” gave me capsules the size of Mexican jumping beans, and offered to waive the ten-rupee fee if I'd help them emigrate to Canada.

Thelma groaned; I rode her like a dolphin and plunged back into my memory: I was lying on Changi Beach eating a melting ice cream with Tai-ann and Choo-suat; in the Botanical Gardens hearing a smart Sikh regiment of bagpipers play, “Will You No Come Hame Again”—and I cried then into my hands; in my narrow back garden discovering with surprise and pleasure a wild orchid fastened to my elastic fig; in a cool bedroom in Queen Astrid Park with that beautiful woman who panted “Jim, Jim” into my ear, and then laughed; in that noisy little hotel on Prinsep Street one afternoon, where I held a short-haired girl from behind and was jerked from my towering reverie by a screech of brakes in the street below, a wicked bump, a howling dog that went on howling even after I stopped. That memory froze me today.

And of course there were the pictures.

Sexual desire, a molehill for a boy of twenty, gets steeper with age, and at fifty-three it is a mountain. You pant up slowly at a tricky angle; but pause once and you slide back to where you started and have to begin all over again.
You're learning real quick
, the general said; and
Try it this way
—
don't be shy;
and
Let me hold you.
The interruptions of these three pictures almost undid me, and at the end Thelma said, “
Ai-yah!
Like Mr. Frank!”

“You've got the wrong end of the stick there, sugar,” I said. Frank, one of the balding “eggs” from the Cricket Club, supported his lovemaking with an assortment of Swedish apparatus. The pesky things were always slipping or jamming and needed constant adjustment. One day I met the old feller on Bencoolen Street. He was smiling. He took an ugly little cellophane-wrapped snorkel out of his briefcase and said proudly, “I think this is the answer, Jack. She runs on batteries.”

Thelma shook her head. She was amused but nevertheless disgusted.

“This is official business,” I whispered. “You wouldn't laugh if you knew what.”

“Like Mr. Frank!”

“Have it your way,” I said, and paid her. “Feel like sticking around?”

She counted the money and put it into her purse. “Madam Lum say come back with legs on. If I late she scold-
lah
.”

“Stay till six,” I said. “For old times' sake.”