“I would wake in the mornings and even if it were raining I would walk to the fish market. Their fish are almost the same as ours and the basic food fish is the red grouper. But they had very fat and shining pompano and huge prawns, the biggest I have ever seen. The fish market was wonderful in the early morning when the fish were brought in shining and fresh caught and there were quite a few fish I did not know, but not many and there were also wild ducks for sale that had been trapped. You could see pintails, teal, widgeon, both males and females in winter plumage, and there were wild ducks that I had never seen with plumage as delicate and complicated as our wood ducks. I would look at them and their unbelievable plumage and their beautiful eyes and see the shining, fat, new-caught fish and the beautiful vegetables all manured in the truck gardens by human excrement, they called it ‘night-soil’ there, and the vegetables were as beautiful as snakes. I went to the market every morning, and every morning it was a delight.
“Then in the mornings there were always people being carried through the streets to be buried, with the mourners dressed in white and a band playing gay tunes. The tune they played oftenest for funeral processions that year was ‘Happy Days Are Here Again.’ During a day you were almost never out of sound of it, for people were dying in great numbers and there were said to be four hundred millionaires living on the Island besides whatever millionaires were living in Kowloon.”
“Mostly Chinese millionaires. But millionaires of all sorts. I knew many millionaires myself and we used to have lunch together at the great Chinese restaurants. They had several restaurants that are as great as any in the world and the Cantonese cooking is superb. My best friends that year were ten millionaires, all of whom I knew only by their first two initials, H.M., M.Y., T.V., H.J., and so on. All important Chinese were known in this way. Also three Chinese generals, one of whom came from Whitechapel in London and was a truly splendid man, an inspector of police; about six pilots for the Chinese National Aviation Company, who were making fabulous money and earning all of it and more; a policeman; a partially insane Australian; a number of British officers and— But I will not bore you with the rest of them. I had more friends, close and intimate friends, in Hong Kong than I ever had before or since.”
“I am trying to think what
“Make it good because I’m already a little tired by China.”
“You wouldn’t have been. You would have been in love with it as I was.”
“Why didn’t you stay there, then?”
“You couldn’t stay there because the Japs were going to come in and take it at any time.”
“
“Yes,” said Thomas Hudson. “I agree.” He had never heard Honest Lil use such a strong word and he was surprised.
“
“Me, too,” said Thomas Hudson. “I’m very tired of it. But I’m never tired of thinking about Hong Kong.”
“Tell me about it then. It is
“Actually everything was so interesting that there was not much time for love.”
“Who did you make love to first?”
“I made love to a very tall and beautiful Chinese girl who was very European and emancipated but would not go to the hotel to sleep with me because she said everybody would know about it and who would not let me sleep at her house because she said the servants would know about it. Her police dog already knew about it. He used to make it very difficult.”
“So where did you make love?”
“The way you do when you are children; in any place I could persuade her to and especially in vehicles and conveyances.”
“It must have been very bad for our friend, Mister X.”
“It was.”
“Was that all the love you made? Didn’t you ever sleep a night together?”
“Never.”
“Poor Tom. Was she worth all that trouble?”
“I don’t know. I think so. I should have rented a house instead of staying on at the hotel.”
“You should have rented a Sin House the way everyone does here.”
“I don’t like a Sin House.”
“I know. But after all if you wanted the girl.”
“The problem was solved another way. You’re not bored?”
“No, Tom, please. Not now. How was the problem solved?”