“My friend,” Sou Ha explained, “I call him ‘Sin Sahng’, which is Chinese for ‘First Born’, and is applied to teachers. And this,” she said to Clane, “is Juanita...”
“Mandra,” the other interrupted, as Sou Ha hesitated for a moment.
Sou Ha asked a question with her eyes.
“We were married,” the woman said, flinging out the words defiantly, “secretly married. There is no longer reason for concealment. I now take my rightful name.”
Terry bowed acknowledgment of the introduction, and his bow was completely wasted. Juanita didn’t so much as glance in his direction. Her eyes, hot with sudden emotion, were fixed upon the Chinese girl.
“I knew,” Sou Ha said simply, “that you loved him. After all, does anything else matter? The fire started by a match is no hotter than that which starts from a bolt of lightning.”
“Come in,” Juanita invited.
They entered the softly lit apartment. The hot vitality of this dusky-skinned young woman filled it, as the vibrations of a temple gong fill a room with a resonant sound, searchingly insistent, but not loud.
The room held too many objects, yet each one of those objects in some way reflected the individuality of the woman who had selected them. A floor light filtered diffused rays through rose silk. Outside, the cold fingers of drifting fog beaded the windows. The mournful cadences of fog signals from the bay sounded a soul-chilling chorus of drab monotony. An electric heater in a corner of the room threw a warm splotch of orange light along the floor.
Juanita indicated chairs.
Sou Ha deftly crossed the room so that she seated herself in the chair which Terry Clane had been about to take. Nettled, yet trying to keep from appearing awkward, he crossed to another chair, started to lean back against the cushions and suddenly stiffened to startled attention.
In the corner, directly in front of his eyes, standing behind a table upon which were stacked newspapers, ornaments, half-filled ash trays, and a cigarette case, was an unframed canvas some three feet long by two and a half feet wide.
The dark background of the portrait matched perfectly with the deep shadows which were behind it. It was all but impossible to tell where the sombre background of the canvas melted into the shadows of the corner.
The face of Jacob Mandra stared with mocking insolence from the canvas. The dominant feature of the painting was the eyes, eyes which held at once an expression of cynical distrust and a yearning desire for that which the very cynicism of the man had thrust from his life. In some unexplained manner, then, this portrait must have passed from Alma Renton to the woman who claimed to be Mandra’s widow.
“You will,” Sou Ha was calmly asking, “claim your rights as his widow?”
Juanita’s eyes were sullenly defiant. “I have taken the bitter,” she said, “and now I will have the sweet.”
“There will, perhaps, be a lawsuit?” Sou Ha asked.
“With whom? He left no relatives and no will.”
“You are certain — about the relatives?”
“Yes. He had many mistresses, but only one wife.” She beat her chest with a passionate palm. Her voice rose as she half-screamed defiantly. “You hear me, Sou Ha? He had but one wife!”
Sou Ha, without seeming to shift her eyes, managed to glance significantly at Terry Clane.
“Many mistresses?” she inquired.
“Many mistresses. There was a rich woman who came to see him twice a week, painting his picture. Bah! There was the cashier in the restaurant; the blonde usherette of the movie theatre. He didn’t fool me. I knew them all, from the young woman whose father’s chauffeur drove her from Communist meetings to the arms of my Jacob, down to the cigarette girl in the night club. He hypnotized women. He mocked them, laughed at their weaknesses — and he married me!”
She faced Sou Ha and said, speaking so rapidly the words rattled in a fierce crescendo upon the ear drum: “Do you know what attracted women to him? It was because he was lonely, and after they had given themselves to him he remained more lonely than ever. They were fascinated by this, as a bird is fascinated by a snake. The vanity of woman makes her feel that the spell of masculine loneliness must dissolve in the warmth of her favors. They came to him. He did not go to them.
“At first I was no different to him than the rest. But I am different now. I was his wife! I am his widow! Let the mistresses come into court. Let them fight me! Now there will be no more slipping up the back stairs while a liveried chauffeur waits in front. Now there will be no excuses of portrait painting. Now they will have to come out in the open and fight!”
Sou Ha did not nod; only her eyes showed she had heard. “Who killed him?” she asked.
Sheer surprise showed for a moment on Juanita’s face. “Why, I thought you knew. It was the mistress who painted his picture!” She spat out the words with a venom which surcharged the air with hatred.
Sou Ha arose slowly. “Perhaps it is fitting to leave you alone with your grief.”
Juanita laughed bitterly.
“My grief... He would have broken my heart had he lived. He was going to divorce me! I am like a moth when the light is snuffed out. Had it not happened, I would have burnt off my wings. But I loved him! I alone really loved him, because I alone really understood him. It is the nature of my race to understand those whom we love... My race you ask? Ha! No one knows it. There are children who have no fathers. I am not only fatherless, but motherless... I alone know my race, just as Jacob alone knew his.”
She sighed, went on in a lower voice. “It was nice of you to come, but I can’t talk calmly. I had a lover once who had his arm shot away in battle. He told me that when he looked down and saw that his arm was gone, he felt no pain. He was a fool, this lover. He told me of his war experiences, in the moonlight, when words could have been employed to better advantage. Perhaps it was because I was very young and very angry with him for this talk that what he said made such an impression upon me. I can never forget it. And now I am like that: my lover is gone and the pain is too great for me to feel. Later on I will feel the pain, and then I will throw myself through that window.
“Do I shock you, my friend? Do I shock this man who is with you? I am not sorry. You came to see me. I did not invite you. I am glad that you came, but I will not suppress myself. I have never done so, and I will not begin now. Woman was made for emotion. I know your race pretends it is not so. You talk of learning and say nothing of emotion, yet beneath your veneer you bubble and boil like water in a covered pot.”
Sou Ha caught Terry’s eye and nodded. In the doorway she gave Juanita her hand. “Good-bye,” she said.
Juanita flung out both arms and crushed the Chinese girl to her, then stepped back and tossed her head in a gesture of abandon.
“Come and see me again,” she said, “and if the window is smashed, look for me in the yard below!”
The slamming door punctuated her farewell.
Sou Ha turned to Terry Clane. “You saw the portrait?” she asked, in a low half-whisper.
Somberly, Terry Clane nodded.
8
Terry Clane turned his car into Grand Avenue and slowed to a scant ten miles an hour. Sou Ha, seated at his side, stared straight through the windscreen with expressionless eyes. She had said no word since leaving Juanita Mandra’s apartment.
Seeking to fit the events of the last hour into their proper place in the pattern of things, Terry was grateful for her silence. The Chinese, he knew, were like that. She had made her point and she was finished. Where a girl of his own race would have indulged in a chatter of speculation, or confronted him with a barrage of questions, Sou Ha would take refuge in the sanctity of her own thoughts, and leave him to do the same.