Paul Theroux - Saint Jack

I knew the girls too well to think of them as kindly and cheerful, but they understood their cues and were dependable. Observe what virtue was in them: obedience, usefulness, reliability, economy — not mortification and solitary prayer. On one occasion, boarding a launch for a run out to a ship, Doris Goh (never absent, never late) stumbled and fell into the water at the quayside. She could not swim and went rigid as soon as she went under. I hauled her out; soaking wet, her dress stuck to her, her make-up was streaked, and her nice hairdo became a heavy rope of loose braid. I told her she could go home if she wanted to, but she said no and soldiered on, earning forty dollars in the wheel house while her dress dried on a hanger in the engine room. They were unambitious in some ways, but not at all lazy and didn’t steal.

So it surprised me — my amusement crept upon by an old slow fear — when I opened the Straits Times and saw, under ISLAND-WIDE VICE RING BROKEN — JOO CHIAT RAID NETS 35, a photograph of five girls being dragged by the arms toward a police van while grim Malay policemen watched, sturdily planted on widely spread bandy legs, holding trucheons and riot shields. The girls’ faces were very white from the flash bulb’s brightness and their astonished eyebrows were high and black, their objecting mouths in the attitude of shouting. That they were objecting did not surprise me — they were indignant, an emotion as understandable in them as in any harmless lathe operator yanked from his machine. But that particular raid was a great surprise: the Joo Chiat house was thought to be safe, with a Chinese clientele, protected by the fierce Green Triangle secret society whose spiderlike and pockmarked members could be seen at any time of the day or night playing cards by the back entrance, their knives and bearing scrapers close to hand. The article in the paper said this was “the first raid in an all-out campaign launched by the P.A.P. to rid the island of so-called massage parlors.”

There were two raids the following day. One at an opium den resulted in the arrests of seven elderly men, six of whose worried, sunken-eyed faces appeared in the paper; the seventh was pictured on a stretcher with his hands clasped — he had broken his leg when he slipped trying to escape across a steep tile roof. The second raid was at a massage parlor very close to Muscat Lane where all the girls, and the decor, were Thai. The raids disturbed me, but the picture I made of it in my mind was not of the girls — it was the terrifying vision of the old addict being hounded in his pajamas across a clattering rooftop.

I decided to lie low that night at the Bandung. “You don’t understand the political background, Jack,” Yates said. “I’d steer clear of Chinatown if I were you.”

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” said Yardley.

“I never go to Chinatown,” said Froggett. “Bloody waste of time.”

“Harry Lee’s putting the boot in,” said Smale. “I hate that little sod.”

“I was just wondering what was going on,” I said.

“Nothing that concerns you,” said Yardley. “So keep out of it.”

The next morning I went to see Mr. Sim. He seemed suspicious at my arriving so early, and reluctantly let me in. I asked him about the raids.

“Must be careful,” he said. “How Kheng Fatt is keeping, okay?”

“Hing? He’s doing all right. I’m only putting in a couple of hours a day, unless I’ve got business on a ship.”

“So what you are worried? You got a job, neh?”

“If you want to call it that. Look, I earn peanuts there — little-little money. I can’t bank on it. If they go on closing the houses down and arresting the girls I’m going to be out of luck. And so are you!”

“Better than in jail.”

“What are you going to do?”

He didn’t look at me, but he showed me his face. He said, “Funny thing. You know new wireless I got? Yes? It don’t work now. I enjoy that wireless set, but it need repair.”

“Where are you planning to go?” I asked.

He discovered his shirt and smoothed the pockets.

“They say a lot of the cops are plainclothes men,” I said. “You know, Special Branch fellers wearing shirts like mine and plain old pants, pretending they want a girl. They pay up and just before they get into the saddle they say, ‘Okay, put your clothes on — you’re under arrest.’ I think that’s terrible, don’t you?”

Mr. Sim twisted the tail of his shirt, and he worked his jaw back and forth as he twisted.

“I’ll level with you, Mr. Sim. The reason I came over is I’ve got a plan. We know they’re trying to close things up — they’ve already nabbed about a hundred people. So why wait? Why not just put our heads together and set up somewhere safe. Like I was telling you. We’ll go where they least expect us, rent a big house up on Thomson Road or near a cemetery, get about ten girls or so and run a real quiet place — put up a sign in front saying ‘The Wongs’ or ‘Hillcrest’ or ‘Dunroamin.’ What do you say to that?”

“It is a very hot day.” He went imbecilic.

“Come on, we haven’t got much time. Are you interested or not?”

“It is a hot day,” said Mr. Sim. “I am expecting my auntie.”

“No taxis allowed — only private cars, no syces. Girls by appointment. If you think the Dunroamin idea is silly we can put up a sign saying ‘Secretarial School — Typing and Shorthand Lessons.’ No one’ll know the difference.”

He had twisted his shirttail into a hank of rope and now he was knotting it. “My auntie is very old. I tell her to stop so much smoking — forty-over sticks a day! But old peoples. Kss!”

“Okay, forget it.” I stood up.

Mr. Sim let go of his shirt and leaped to the door. “Bye-bye, Jack. See you next time. Don’t mention.”

That night I brought a feller to Muscat Lane. I had met him in a bar on Stamford Road. He had asked me if I knew a good “cathouse,” and I told him to follow me. But the house was in darkness, the shutters were closed, and the red light over the altar was turned off. I rapped the lock against the gate bar, but no one stirred. Mr. Sim had run out on me.

“This looks like a washout,” the feller said. “I’m not even in the mood now.”

“They’re worried about the cops. There’s a political party here that’s putting the heat on — trying to close down the whole district. They’ve got everyone scared. It didn’t use to be this way, but maybe if we walk over—”

“I don’t know why it is,” said the feller, “but people are always saying to me, ‘You should have been here last year.’ It really burns me up.”

“That’s natural,” I said. “But you gotta understand the political background, you see.”

“Political background is crap,” he said. “I’m going back to the ship.”

“If there’s anything else you want, anything at all,” I said. “I could find you a gal easy enough. Fix you up in a hotel. Bed and breakfast.”

He shook his head. “I had my heart set on a cathouse.”

“We could try another one,” I said. “But I don’t want you to get in dutch. How would it look if you got your picture in the papers — cripe!”

“Makes you stop and think, don’t it?” he said.

“Sure does,” I said. “But if there’s anything else—”

“Naw,” he said, but saying so, he laughed and said again, “Naw,” as if he was trying to discourage a thought. I was hoping he didn’t want a transvestite — it would be hours before they’d be on Bugis Street.

“What is it?” I asked in a whisper. “Go ahead, try me. God, you don’t want to leave empty-handed, do you?”

“Naw, I was just kicking around an idea that popped up,” he said, laughing down his nose. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen one.”