Paul Theroux - Saint Jack

The feller sniffed: he knew where he was. In the room, as in all brothel rooms, a carnal aroma hung in the air, as fundamental as sweat, the exposed odor from the body’s most private seams.

“Ordinarily,” I said, “Mr. Sim wouldn’t have opened up for just anyone. Like I say, he knows me. They all do. Not that I’m bragging. But it’s the convenience of it.”

“I’m very grateful to you,” he said. He was sincere. The house on Muscat Lane was a classic Asian massage parlor and brothel. If it had been a new semidetached house on a suburban street he would not have stayed. But when he spoke there was the same nervous quaver in his voice as when he had spied the rat. He was trembling, massaging his knees.

That made half the excitement for a feller, the belief that it was dangerous, illegal, secretive; the bewildering wait in a musky anteroom, swallowing fear in little gulps. A feller’s fear was very good for me and the girls: it made the feller quick; he’d pay without a quibble and take any girl that was offered; he’d fumble and hurry, not bothering to take his socks off or get under the sheet. Fifteen minutes later he’d be out of the room, grinning sheepishly, patting his belt buckle, glancing sideways into a mirror to see whether he was scratched or bitten — and I’d be home early. I disliked the fellers who had no nervous enthusiasm, who sat sulkily in chairs nursing a small Anchor, as gloom-struck and slow as if they were at the dentists, and saying, “She’s too old,” or “Got anything a little less pricy?”

“I wonder what’s keeping your friend,” said the feller, leaning over to look through the door. The movement made him release one knee; that leg panicked and jumped.

“He’ll be along in a jiffy,” I said. “He’s probably getting one all dolled up for you.”

“I was going to ask you something,” the feller said. “The purser on the ship said there were pickpockets here. People in Singapore are supposed to be very light fingered.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said.

“I was just asking,” he said. “The purser lost a month’s salary that way.”

“It happens, sure,” I said. “But no one can take that fat pig-skin thing you cart around.”

“How did you—?” He hitched forward and slapped his backside. “It’s gone! ”

I pulled his wallet out of my pocket and threw it over to him. “Don’t get excited. I pinched it when we saw the rat. It was hanging out a mile — I figured you might lose it.”

The explanation upset him. He checked to see that all the money was there, then tucked the wallet inside his blazer. “So it was a rat.”

“Well—” I started, and tried to laugh, but at that moment Mr. Sim came through the door with Betty, who was carrying a tray with two beers and some cold towels on it. “Hi, sugar,” I said.

The nutcracker, I called her, because her legs were shaped exactly like that instrument; she was not simply bowlegged — her legs had an extraordinary curvature, and the way they angled into the hem of her skirt gave no clue to how they could possibly be hinged. Her legs were the kind a child draws on the sketch of a girl, a stave at each side of a flat skirt.

Betty poured the beers and handed us each a cold towel with a pair of tongs. She took a seat next to the feller and waited for him to wipe his face with the towel and have a sip of the beer before she put her brave hand casually into his lap. The feller clutched his blazer, where he had stuck the wallet.

“You like boochakong? ” asked Betty.

The feller looked at me. “They understand that my ship is leaving at six-twenty?”

“She know,” said Mr. Sim. “I tell her. Betty very nice girl. She… good. ”

“She’s a sweetheart. She’ll really go to town on you,” I said to the feller; and to Betty, “You take good care of him — he’s an old pal of mine.” I stood up. “Well, nice meeting you.”

“You’re not going, are you?” said the feller. He plucked Betty’s hand out of his lap and stood up.

“Things to do,” I said, burying my face in the cold towel. “I’ve got to get some rest — the fleet’s in this week. Those fellers run me ragged.”

“I’ll never find my way back.”

“Can ring for a taxi,” said Mr. Sim. “Where you are dropping?”

The feller was beside me. “Stay,” he whispered, “please. I’ll pay for your trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” I said. “I just wanted to help you out. You looked lost.”

“I’ll treat you to one,” he said confidentially.

“It doesn’t cost me anything,” I said.

“I thought maybe you were doing this for the money.”

“I get my share from Mr. Sim,” I said. “Don’t worry about that.”

“So there’s no way I can get you to stay?”

“You can ask.”

“I’m asking , for Pete’s sake!”

“Okay, I’ll hang on here,” I said. “Take your time.”

“Thanks a million,” he said, and nodded in gratitude.

“What your name?” asked Betty, steering him out of the room, carrying his glass of beer.

“Oh, no you don’t!” I heard the feller say to her on the stairs.

“He’ll be back in ten minutes,” I said to Mr. Sim.

“No, no!” said Mr. Sim. “Rich fella — old man. Halfhour or more- lah. ”

“Bet you a fiver.”

“Bet,” said Mr. Sim, eager to gamble.

We put our money on the table and checked our watches.

“Quiet tonight,” I said.

“Last night! English ship! Fifty fella!” He shook his head. “All the girls asleeping now. Tired! You like my new wireless set?”

“Nifty,” I said. “Nice tone. It’s a good make.”

“The fella come back, he want me to eat a mice?”

It was Mr. Sim’s party trick. He ate live ones whole to astonish and mortify rowdy seamen; he appeared beside a feller who was getting loud and offered a handful of them. When they were refused, Mr. Sim would dangle one before his mouth, allowing it to struggle, and then pop it in like a peanut, saying, “Yum, yum!” It was a shrewd sort of clowning, and it never failed to quiet a customer.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Might give him a fright. He’s scared of rats.”

“Rats,” Mr. Sim laughed. “During Japanese occupation we eating them.”

“Rat foo yong ,” I said. “Yech.”

“No,” Mr. Sim said, seriously. “Egg very scarce. We make with tow foo , little bit chilies, and choy-choy. ” He wrinkled his nose. “We hungry- lah .”

“I’m not scared of rats,” I said. “But I really hate cockroaches. I suppose you could say I’m scared of them.” And what else? I thought — odd combinations: locked rooms, poverty, embarrassment, torture, secret societies, someone in a club asking me “Who are you,” death, sun-bathing.

“Aren’t you scared of anything, Mr. Sim?”

“No,” he said firmly, and he looked handsome.

“What about the police?”

“These Malay boys? I not scared. But they making trouble on me.”

“Buy them off,” I said.

“I buy- lah ,” he said. “I give kopi -money. Weekly!”

“So what’s the problem?”

“These politics,” said Mr. Sim. “The other year some fella in here shopping votes—‘Okay, Sim Xiensheng , vote for me- lah ’—and now they wanting close up house. Pleh!” He laughed — the insincere, unmodulated Chinese cackle, the mirthless snort of a feller surprised by a strong dig in the ribs. It was brief, it had no echo. He said, “They close up house — where we can go? What we can do?”

“Go someplace where they can’t find you,” I said. “I know a few. I’ve been playing with the idea of starting up on my own, something really fancy.” Mine would be at the edge of town, a large house with stained-glass windows — dolphins, lilies, and white horses — to keep the sun out; an orchestra in the parlor — six black South Indians with brilliantined hair, wearing tuxedos, playing violins; silk cushions on the divans, gin drinks and sweet sherbets. “Jack’s place,” they’d call it.