Edward Whittemore - Quin’s Shanghai Circus

Someone had brought a crude set of chimes. Someone else had brought a drum. The chimes clanged and the drum boomed as they climbed through the rice paddies into a pine grove, along a ledge above the sea, through a defile in the rocks that led to an open clearing. Two hundred feet away a small Japanese house stood on the very edge of the promontory.

The policeman waited until the entire procession had wound through the rocks and entered the field. When everyone was standing along the fringe of the forest he bowed his head and clapped three times.

Galatiiii , he shouted.

Galati-ti-ti , chanted the congregation.

The policeman turned and went to stand with the rest of the crowd. The dwarf gave Quin’s sleeve a final tug and hobbled off on her cane. The crowd waited. Quin was alone in the middle of the clearing.

At last the door to the little house opened. A huge figure dressed in kimono wallowed out into the sun. He was enormous, his white hair long and silky. He smiled and benignly raised his arms. The multitude bowed.

Three claps from the giant. One hand went up, the forefinger and middle finger pointing skyward, the medicine and little fingers held down by the thumb to make the pillar and the circle, the symbol of life, the sign of the preacher.

A deep and resonant prayer in Japanese, a short sermon, a rousing benediction. Three loud claps again to end the ceremony. The crowd laughed happily.

Galatiiii , whispered a reverent voice.

Galati-ti-ti , shouted the multitude.

Chimes tinkled, the drum struck a beat. The villagers began to file out of the clearing, the old men rocking on the even ground, the women cackling noisily, the children pushing and pulling, the ancient dwarf rattling the stones with her cane. Quin stared at the huge fat man in kimono.

Buffalo. What in God’s name is going on here?

The giant tossed his head, his hair flew, he burst into laughter. Tears ran down his face, he choked, his massive belly heaved up and down. He howled and his feet broke into a clumsy dance that carried him across the clearing, an enormous Buddha prancing in the afternoon sun. He crashed into the trees and came thundering back grunting and wheezing, gurgling, spinning in circles. He staggered, caught himself, hiccuped.

In God’s name, he moaned. That’s what you said, nephew, don’t deny it. That’s what you said, and as it happens the work that goes on here is no more and no less.

They sat on the narrow terrace of the house, the sea breaking on the cliff a hundred feet below. Behind Geraty lay the bay, the harbor, on the far side the fishing village.

He was wearing a formal black kimono and the short black jacket that went with it. A layer of immaculate white undergarments showed at his chest. The pock-marks had all but disappeared, his eyes no longer bulged from his head. He was heavier than ever, but his deeply tanned face and long, flowing hair gave him a robust appearance. A seagull glided over the house and dipped down the cliff. Geraty followed its flight.

Buffalo. Why did you really walk into the bar that night in the Bronx?

Geraty stirred. He turned away from the sea and gazed at Quin.

Because of my mother. Because I hated to think of her being forgotten after the way she died.

How did she die?

In more agony than you’ll ever see. We watched her. The old man insisted she be sterilized and took her to a quack doctor. He and the quack had some drinks and by the time the quack opened her up he was drunk. Instead of tying the fallopian tubes he tied a part of the intestines. She lasted three days.

How old was Maeve?

Eight. Only eight, saints preserve us. There were just the two of us, and I was old enough to take it but she wasn’t.

What happened to her?

A couple of years later the old man was locking up the bar one night. Drunk? Stinking as usual. He saw a light in the pool hall across the street and let himself in the back door to see what was going on. What was going on was three of his customers fucking Maeve on a pool table. He laid them out and then beat her until she was unconscious. The next day, when he saw what her face looked like, he locked himself in the cellar with a case of gin and swallowed the key. Planned to starve himself to death but it was winter, too cold for him down there. He died in that cellar all right, but not the way he expected. He ruptured his bowels digging for the key.

Then what? The war?

The war, the Great War. Eddy Quin signs up to be a hero and comes home with his leg full of shrapnel. I didn’t see much of him then, I was traveling for a drug company.

How did Maeve get to Shanghai?

Delicate fingers. Somehow she got mixed up with an Indian after the war who had delicate fingers. He was passing himself off as a Hindu prince fighting for the motherland. He talked her into joining the cause and coming back to India with him, but when they got there it turned out the prince’s father was a half-caste, mostly white, a butcher who made his living slaughtering sacred cows and selling the beef to the English. Maeve got back on the freighter and ran out of money in Shanghai.

Where she met Adzhar?

Where she met Adzhar. She was hysterical and conceited but she appealed to men, some men, young ones who liked her looks or older ones who liked the way she believed in things, tried to believe in things. Adzhar took care of her and got her going, even bought her a bookstore so she could make a living. If he hadn’t been so kind, maybe she would have grown up and stopped talking about causes and heroes with delicate fingers. Adzhar’s friends used to come to the bookstore, revolutionary exiles most of them. One of them was a young man he’d recruited back in Paris when he was still working for Trotsky, the hero with the shrapnel in his leg who used to play stickball with me as a kid. Maeve hadn’t known him before really, she was too young, but she got to know him then.

Did he tell you what he was doing?

No, she did. She told me all about it and how she was helping him, she was proud of that. A year or two after she went to Shanghai, there were some investigations in the drug business in the States and I had to get out of the country. I went to Canada, and the only job I could find was with a company that had just decided there was a fortune to be made peddling leprosy drugs in Asia. Leprosy drugs? For some reason they thought Asia was full of lepers waiting to buy an American cure. But I needed credentials, so I took the job and got sent to Tokyo. A little later Maeve showed up with the baby she’d had by Kikuchi. She told me all the wonderful things she was doing for the world and then she mentioned the baby. She wanted to get rid of it and asked me to help. I went to Lamereaux.

Did he know who the father was?

Of course. I told him.

Well, when he took the child to Lotmann to raise, did he tell Lotmann who the father was?

No. Buddhist custom doesn’t work that way. You’re not supposed to know who the child belongs to. You take it as an act of charity.

One of them was a Catholic priest and one of them was a Jewish rabbi. What’s Buddhist custom got to do with it?

Japan. They were both living in Japan.

I got it, buffalo. Charity. That’s the word, isn’t it? Well, that brings us up to the Gobi network and the end of the Gobi network. You weren’t working then, were you? During the eight years the net was running?

No, I had money saved from the States.

Sure you did. Sure.

Quin sat a minute or two in silence. When he got to his feet he moved slowly. It was something he hadn’t done in a long time, measuring that kind of distance. He pushed his left shoulder out and swung from far back, putting all his weight behind the fist.