"I just knew about it, Dad."
"Did you. Do you come here often, then? Do you know what kind of a place this is? It's a haunt of gangsters, unmoral women, all kinds of riffraff!"
Karl looked at his father's young friend.
"That young lady is the daughter of a business associate," said Mr. Glogauer. "I brought her here because she said she wanted to see some New York nightlife. It is not the place for a boy of fifteen!"
Nancy got up. "I think I'll get somebody to call me a cab," she said. She paused, then took her drink and swallowed it all down. Karl ran after her and caught her at the checking desk. "There's another place I know, Nancy," he said.
She stopped, pulling on her hat and giving him a calculating look. Then her expression softened. "We could go back to my place? My Mom and Pop are out."
"Oh, great!"
On the way back to Nancy's place in the car she put her arms round his neck and nibbled his ear and ruffled his hair.
"You're just a little boy at heart, aren't you?" she said.
His knees shook. He had heard that line earlier tonight and he could guess what it meant.
He knew he would always remember this day in September.
— Thanks. Karl accepts the cup of coffee his friend hands him.—How long have I been asleep?
— Not long.
Karl remembers their scene. He wishes it hadn't happened. He was behaving like some little fairy, all temperament and flounce. Homosexual relationships didn't have to be like that now. It was normal, after all. Between normal people, he thought. That was the difference. He looked at his friend. The man was sitting naked on the edge of a chest of drawers, swinging his leg lazily as he smoked a cigarette. His body really was beautiful. It was attractive, in itself. It was very masculine. Oddly, it made Karl feel more masculine, too. That was what he found strange. He had thought things would be different. He kept being reminded of some quality he had always felt in his father when his father had been at home.
— Did you dream anything? asked the black man.
— I don't remember.
You are married with a family and you live in a small apartment in the city, reasonably close to your work.
You learn that your mother has become very ill and can no longer look after herself.
You hate the idea of her coming to live with you in your already cramped conditions, particularly since she is not a very nice old woman and tends to make the children nervous and your wife tense. Your mother's house is larger, but in a part of the world which depresses you and which is also a long way from your work. Yet you have always sworn that you will not let her go into an Old People's Home. You know it would cause her considerable misery. Any other decision, however, would mean you changing your way of life quite radically.
Would you sell your mother's house and use the money to buy a larger flat in your own area? Or would you move away to a completely different area, perhaps somewhere in the country, and look for a new job?
Or would you decide, after all, that it would be best for everyone if she did go into a Retirement Home?
11
Shanghai Sally: 1932:
Problems of Diplomacy
In Shanghai is one of the most extraordinarily gruesome sights in the world. I have never seen anything to approach it. Parts of Chapei and Hongkew, where fighting was hottest, are in ruins paralleling those of the Western Front in France. The Japanese looted this area, which comprises several square miles, not merely of furniture, valuables, and household possessions, but of every nail, every window wire, every screw, bolt, nut, or key, every infinitesimal piece of metal they could lay hands on. Houses were ripped to pieces, then the whole region set on fire. No one lives in this charred ruin now. No one could. The Japanese have, however, maintained street lighting; the lighted avenues protrude through an area totally black, totally devoid of human life, like phosphorescent fingers poking into a grisly void.
What is known as the Garden Bridge separates this Japanese-occupied area with one rim of the International Settlement proper. Barbed wire and sandbags protect it. Japanese sentries representing army, navy, and police stand at one end. British sentries are at the other. I have seen these tall Englishmen go white with rage as the Japanese, a few feet away, kicked coolies or slapped old men. The Japanese have life-and-death power over anyone in their area. Chinese, passing the Japanese sentries, have to bow ceremoniously, and doff their hats. Yet the Japanese—at the same time they may playfully prod a man across the bridge with their bayonets—say that they are in China to make friends of the Chinese people!
Lest it be thought that I exaggerate I append the following Reuter dispatch from Shanghai of date March 30, 1938: "Feeling is running high in British military circles here today as a result of an incident which occurred this morning on a bridge over the Soochow Creek... Japanese soldiers set upon and beat an old Chinese man who happened to be on the bridge, and then threw him over into the water. The whole action was in full view of sentries of the Durhams, who were on duty, at one end of the bridge. The British soldiers, unable to leave their posts, were compelled helplessly to watch the old man drown, while the Japanese soldiers laughed and cheered."
— We protect ourselves in so many foolish ways, says Karl's friend.—But let the defenses drop and we discover that we are much happier.
— I don't feel much happier.
— Not at present, perhaps. Freedom, after all, takes some getting used to.
— I don't feel free.
— Not yet.
— There is no such thing as freedom.
— Of course there is! It's often hard to assimilate a new idea, I know.
— Your ideas don't seem particularly new.
— Oh, you just haven't understood yet, that's all!
Karl is sixteen. Shanghai is the largest city in China. It is one of the most exciting and romantic cities in the world. His mother and father came here to live two years ago.
There are no taxes in Shanghai. Great ships stand in the harbor. War ships stand a few miles out to sea. Anything can happen in Shanghai.
— Why do people always need a philosophy to justify their lusts? Karl says spitefully.—What's so liberating about sex of any kind?
— It isn't just the sex.
Black smoke boils over the city from the north. People are complaining.
— No, it's power.
— Oh, come, come, Karl! Take it easy!
Karl Glogauer is sixteen. Although a German by birth, he attends the British school because it is considered to be the best.
— Who do you like best? — asks Karl.—Men or women?
— I love everyone, Karl.
KARL WAS SIXTEEN. His mother was forty-two. His father was fifty. They all lived in the better part of Shanghai and enjoyed many benefits they would not have been able to afford in Munich.
Having dined with his father at the German Club, Karl, feeling fat and contented, ambled through the revolving glass doors into the bright sunshine and noisy bustle of the Bund, Shanghai's main street and the city's heart. The wide boulevard fronted the harbor and offered him a familiar view of junks and steamers and even a few yachts with crisp, white sails, sailing gently up towards the sea. As he creased the crown of his cream-colored hat he noticed with dissatisfaction that there was a spot of dark grease on the cuff of his right sleeve. He adjusted the hat on his head and with the fingers of both hands turned down the brim a little. Then he looked out over the Bund to see if his mother had arrived yet. She had arranged to meet him at three o'clock and take him home in the car. He searched the mass of traffic but couldn't see her. There were trams and buses and trucks and cars, rickshaws and pedicabs, transport of every possible description, but no Rolls-Royce. He was content to wait and watch the passing throng.