THE POLICEMAN: You stay here. He catches hold of him.
Where d’you get those cakes from?
THE BOY: Over there.
THE POLICEMAN: Aha. Stolen, eh?
THE WOMAN: We knew nothing about it. It was the boy’s own idea. Little wretch.
THE POLICEMAN: Mr Shui Ta, can you throw any light on this?
Shui Ta remains silent.
THE POLICEMAN: Right. You all come along to the station with me.
SHUI TA: I am exceedingly sorry that anything like this should happen in my shop.
THE WOMAN: He watched the boy go off!
SHUI TA: I can assure you, officer, that I should hardly have invited you in if I had been wanting to conceal a robbery.
THE POLICEMAN: I quite see. You realise I’m only doing my duty, Mr Shui Ta, in taking these persons in custody. Shui Ta bows. Get moving, you! He pushes them out.
THE GRANDFATHER, peacefully from the doorway: Hullo. Exeunt all except Shui Ta. Enter Mrs Mi Tzu.
MRS MI TZU: So you are the cousin I’ve heard about? How do the police come to be escorting people away from my building? What does your cousin mean by starting a boarding-house here? That’s what comes of taking in people who a moment ago were in cheap digs, begging for crusts from the baker on the corner. I know all about it, you see.
SHUI TA: I do see. People have been speaking against my cousin. They have blamed her for being hungry! She has a bad name for living in poverty. Her reputation is the worst possible: she was down and out!
MRS MI TZU: She was a commom or garden …
SHUI TA: Pauper; let’s say the nasty word aloud.
MRS MI TZU: Oh, don’t try and play on my feelings. I am speaking of her way of life, not her income. I have no doubt there was an income from somewhere, or she would hardly have started this shop. No doubt one or two elderly gentlemen looked after that. How does one get hold of a shop? This is a respectable house, sir. The tenants here aren’t paying to live under the same roof as that sort of person: no, sir. Pause. I am not inhuman, but I have got my obligations.
SHUI TA, coldly: Mrs Mi Tzu, I’m a busy man. Just tell me what it will cost to live in this highly respectable house.
MRS MI TZU: Well, you are a cold fish, I’ll give you that!
SHUI TA takes the form of agreement out of the drawer: It is a very high rent. I take it from this agreement that it is to be paid monthly?
MRS MI TZU, quickly: Not for your cousin’s sort.
SHUI TA: What does that mean?
MRS MI TZU: That means that people like your cousin have to pay six months’ rent in advance: 200 silver dollars.
SHUI TA: 200 silver dollars! That is plain murder! Where am I to find that much? I cannot count on a big turnover here. My one hope is the girls who sew sacks in the cement works, who are supposed to smoke a lot because they find the work so exhausting. But they are badly paid.
MRS MI TZU: You should have thought of that sooner.
SHUI TA: Mrs Mi Tzu, please have a heart! I realise that my cousin made the unforgiveable mistake of giving shelter to some unfortunates. But she will learn. I shall see that she learns. Against that, where could you find a better tenant than one who knows the gutter because he came from there? He’ll work his fingers to the bone to pay his rent punctually, he’ll do anything, go without anything, sell anything, stick at nothing, and at the same time be as quiet as a mouse, gentle as a fly, submit to you utterly rather than return there. A tenant like that is worth his weight in gold.
MRS MI TZU: 200 silver dollars in advance, or she goes back on the street, where she came from.
Enter the policeman.
THE POLICEMAN: Don’t let me disturb you, Mr Shui Ta!
MRS MI TZU: The police really seem remarkably interested in this shop.
THE POLICEMAN: Mrs Mi Tzu, I hope you haven’t got a wrong impression. Mr Shui Ta did us a service, and I have come in the name of the police to thank him.
MRS MI TZU: Well, that’s no affair of mine. Mr Shui Ta, I trust my proposition will be agreeable to your cousin. I like to be on good terms with my tenants. Good morning, gentlemen.
Exit.
SHUI TA: Good morning, Mrs Mi Tzu.
THE POLICEMAN: Have you been having trouble with Mrs Mi Tzu?
SHUI TA: She is demanding the rent in advance, as she doesn’t think my cousin is respectable.
THE POLICEMAN: And can’t you raise the money? Shui Ta remains silent. But Mr Shui Ta, surely someone like you ought to be able to get credit.
SHUI TA: I dare say. But how is someone like Shen Teh to get credit?
THE POLICEMAN: Are you not staying here then?
SHUI TA: No. And I shall not be able to come again. I could only give her a hand because I was passing through; I just saved her from the worst. Any minute she will be thrown back on her own resources. I am worried as to what will happen.
THE POLICEMAN: Mr Shui Ta, I am sorry to hear that you are having trouble over the rent. I must admit that we began by viewing this shop with mixed feelings, but your decisive action just now showed us the sort of man you are. Speaking for the authorities, we soon find out who we can rely on as a friend of law and order.
SHUI TA, bitterly: To save this little shop, officer, which my cousin regards as a gift of the gods, I am prepared to go to the utmost limits of the law. But toughness and duplicity will serve only against one’s inferiors, for those limits have been cleverly defined. I am in the position of a man who has just got the rats out of his cellar, when along come the floods.
After a short pause: Do you smoke?
THE POLICEMAN, putting two cigars in his pocket: Our station would be sorry to see you go, Mr Shui Ta. But you’ve got to understand Mrs Mi Tzu’s point of view. Shen Teh, let’s face it, lived by selling herself to men. You may ask, what else was she to do? For instance, how was she to pay her rent? But the fact remains: it is not respectable. Why not? A: you can’t earn your living by love, or it becomes immoral earnings. B: respectability means, not with the man who can pay, but with the man one loves. C: it mustn’t be for a handful of rice but for love. All right, you may say: what’s the good of being so clever over spilt milk? What’s she to do? When she has to find six months’ rent? Mr Shui Ta, I must admit I don’t know. He thinks hard. Mr Shui Ta, I have got it! All you need do is to find a husband for her.
Enter a little old woman.
THE OLD WOMAN: I want a good cheap cigar for my husband. Tomorrow is our fortieth wedding anniversary, you see, and we are having a little celebration.
SHUI TA, politely: Forty years, and still something to celebrate!
THE OLD WOMAN: As far as our means allow! That’s our carpet shop over the way. I hope we are going to be good neighbours, it’s important in these hard times.
SHUI TA spreads various boxes before her: Two very familiar words, I’m afraid.
THE POLICEMAN: Mr Shui Ta, what we need is capital. So I suggest a marriage.
SHUI TA, excusing himself to the old woman: I have been allowing myself to tell the officer some of my private troubles.
THE POLICEMAN: We’ve got to find six months’ rent. Right, we marry a bit of money.
SHUI TA: That will not be easy.
THE POLICEMAN: Why not? She’s a good match. She owns a small and promising business. To the old woman: What do you think?
THE OLD WOMAN, doubtfully: Well …
THE POLICEMAN: An advertisement in the personal column.
THE OLD WOMAN, reluctant: If the young lady agrees …
THE POLICEMAN: Why shouldn’t she agree? I’ll draft it out for you. One good turn deserves another. Don’t think the authorities have no sympathy for the small and struggling shopkeeper. You play along with us, and in return we draft your matrimonial advertisement! Hahaha!
He hastens to pull out his notebook, licks his pencil stump and starts writing.
SHUI TA, slowly: It’s not a bad idea.
THE POLICEMAN: ‘What respectable gentleman … small capital …
widower considered … desires marriage … into progressive tobacconist’s?’ And then we’ll add: ‘With charming attractive brunette.’ How’s that?
SHUI TA: You don’t feel that’s overstating it?
THE OLD WOMAN, kindly: Certainly not. I have seen her.
The policeman tears the page out of his notebook and hands it to Shui Ta.
SHUI TA: With horror I begin to realise how much luck one needs to avoid being crushed! What brilliant ideas! What faithful friends! To the policeman: Thus for all my decisiveness I was at my wit’s end over the rent. And then you came along and helped me with good advice. I really begin to see a way out.
3
Evening in a Public Park
A young man in tattered clothes is watching an aeroplane, which is evidently making a high sweep over the park. He takes a rope from his pocket and looks round him for something. He is making for a big willow-tree, when two prostitutes come up to him. One of them is old, the other is the niece from the family of eight.
THE YOUNG ONE: Evening, young fellow. Coming home with me, dear?
SUN: It could be done, ladies, if you’ll stand me a meal.
THE OLD ONE: Are you nuts? To the young one: Come on, love. He’s just a waste of time. That’s that out-of-work pilot.
THE YOUNG ONE: But there won’t be a soul in the park now, it’s going to rain.
THE OLD ONE: There’s always a chance.
They walk on. Sun looks round him, pulls out his rope and throws it over a branch of a willow tree. But he is interrupted again. The two prostitutes return rapidly. They do not see him.
THE YOUNG ONE: It’s going to pelt with rain.
Shen Teh is walking up.
THE OLD ONE: Hullo, here she is, the bitch! She got your lot into trouble all right!
THE YOUNG ONE: Not her. It was her cousin. She took us in, and in the end she offered to pay for the cakes. I haven’t any bone to pick with her.
THE OLD ONE: I have. Loudly: Why, there’s our fancy friend with all the money. She’s got a shop, but she still wants to pinch our boys off us.
SHEN TEH: Don’t jump down my throat! I’m going down to the teahouse by the lake.
THE YOUNG ONE: Is it true you’re marrying a widower with three children?
SHEN TEH: Yes, I’m meeting him there.
SUN, impatiently: Do your cackling somewhere else, will you?
Isn’t there anywhere one can get a bit of peace?
THE OLD ONE: Shut up!
Exeunt the two prostitutes.
SUN calls after them: Scavengers! To the audience: Even in this remote spot they fish tirelessly for victims, even in the thickets, in the rain, they pursue their desperate hunt for custom.
SHEN TEH, angry: What call have you got to slang them? She sees the rope. Oh!
SUN: What are you gooping at?
SHEN TEH: What’s that rope for?
SUN: Move on, sister, move on! I’ve got no money, nothing, not a copper. And if I had I’d buy a drink of water, not you.
It starts raining.
SHEN TEH: What’s that rope for? You’re not to do it!
SUN: Mind your own business! And get out of the way!
SHEN TEH: It’s raining.
SUN: Don’t you try sheltering under my tree.
SHEN TEH remains motionless in the rain: No.
SUN: Why not give up, sister, it’s no use. You can’t do business with me. Besides, you’re too ugly, Bandy legs.
SHEN TEH: That’s not true.
SUN: I don’t want to see them! All right, come under the bloody tree, since it’s raining!
She approaches slowly and sits down under the tree.
SHEN TEH: Why do you want to do that?
SUN: Would you like to know? Then I’ll tell you, so as to be rid of you. Pause. Do you know what an airman is?
SHEN TEH: Yes, I once saw some airmen in a teahouse.
SUN: Oh no you didn’t. One or two windy idiots in flying helmets, I expect: the sort who’s got no ear for his engine and no feeling for his machine. Gets into a kite by bribing the hangar superintendent. Tell a type like that: now stall your crate at 2,000, down through the clouds, then catch her up with the flick of the stick, and he’ll say: But that’s not in the book. If you can’t land your kite gently as lowering your bottom you’re not an airman, you’re an idiot. Me, I’m an airman. And yet I’m the biggest idiot of the lot, because I read all the manuals in flying school at Pekin. But just one page of one manual I happened to miss, the one where it says Airmen Not Wanted. And so I became an airman without an aircraft, a mail pilot without mail. What that means you wouldn’t understand.
SHEN TEH: I think I do understand all the same.
SUN: No, I’m telling you you can’t understand. And that means you can’t understand.
SHEN TEH, half laughing, half crying: When we were children we had a crane with a broken wing. He was very tame and didn’t mind our teasing him, and used to come strutting after us and scream if we went too fast for him. But in the autumn and the spring, when the great flocks of birds flew over our village, he became very restless, and I could understand why.
SUN: Stop crying.
SHEN TEH: Yes.
SUN: It’s bad for the complexion.
SHEN TEH: I’m stopping.
She dries her tears on her sleeve. Leaning against the tree, but without turning towards her, he reaches for her face.
SUN: You don’t even know how to wipe your face properly.
He wipes it for her with a handkerchief.
SUN: If you’ve got to sit there and stop me from hanging myself you might at least say something.
SHEN TEH: I don’t know what.
SUN: Why do you want to hack me down, sister, as a matter of interest?
SHEN TEH: It frightens me. I’m sure you only felt like that because the evening’s so dreary. To the audience.
In our country
There should be no dreary evenings
Or tall bridges over rivers
Even the hour between night and morning
And the whole winter season too, that is dangerous.
For in face of misery
Only a little is needed
Before men start throwing
Their unbearable life away.
SUN: Tell me about yourself.
SHEN TEH: What is there? I’ve got a small shop.
SUN, ironically: Oh, so you haven’t got a flat, you’ve got a shop!
SHEN TEH, firmly: I’ve got a shop, but before that I was on the streets.
SUN: And the shop, I take it, was a gift of the gods?
SHEN TEH: Yes.
SUN: One fine evening they stood before you and said: Here’s some money for you.
SHEN TEH, laughing quietly: One morning.
SUN: You’re not exactly entertaining.
SHEN TEH, after a pause: I can play the zither a bit, and do imitations. In a deep voice she imitates a dignified gentleman: ‘How idiotic, I must have come without my wallet!’ But then I got the shop. The first thing I did was give away my zither. From now on, I told myself, you can be a complete jellyfish and it won’t matter.
How rich I am, I told myself.
I walk alone. I sleep alone.
For one whole year, I told myself
I’ll have no dealings with a man.
SUN: But now you’re going to marry one? The one in the teahouse by the lake.
Shen Teh says nothing.
SUN: As a matter of interest, what do you know of love?
SHEN TEH: Everything.
SUN: Nothing, sister. Or was it perhaps pleasant?
SHEN TEH: No.
Sun strokes her face, without turning towards her.
SUN: Is that pleasant?
SHEN TEH: Yes.
SUN: Easily satisfied, you are. God, what a town.
SHEN TEH: Haven’t you got friends?
SUN: A whole lot, but none that like hearing that I’m still out of a job. They make a face as if someone w
ere complaining that the sea’s wet. Have you got a friend, if it comes to that?
SHEN TEH, hesitantly: A cousin.
SUN: Then don’t you trust him an inch.
SHEN TEH: He was only here once. Now he has gone off and is never coming back. But why do you talk as if you’d given up hope? They say: to give up hope, is to give up kindness.
SUN: Just talk on! At least it’s something to hear a human voice.
SHEN TEH, eagerly: There are still friendly people, for all our wretchedness. When I was little once I was carrying a bundle of sticks and fell. An old man helped me up and even gave me a penny. I have often thought of it. Those who have least to eat give most gladly. I suppose people just like showing what they are good at; and how can they do it better than by being friendly? Crossness is just a way of being inefficient. Whenever someone is singing a song or building a machine or planting rice it is really friendliness. You are friendly too.
SUN: It doesn’t seem hard by your definition.
SHEN TEH: And that was a raindrop.
SUN: Where?
SHEN TEH: Between my eyes.
SUN: More to the left or more to the right?
SHEN TEH: More to the left.
SUN: Good. After a moment, sleepily: So you’re through with men?
SHEN TEH, smiling: But my legs aren’t bandy.
SUN: Perhaps not.
SHEN TEH: Definitely not.
SUN, wearily leaning back against the tree: But as I haven’t eaten for two days or drunk for one, I couldn’t love you, sister, even if I wanted.
SHEN TEH: It is good in the rain.
Wang, the water-seller appears. He sings.
WANG:
THE WATER-SELLER’S SONG IN THE RAIN
I sell water. Who will taste it?
– Who would want to in this weather?
All my labour has been wasted
Fetching these few pints together.
I stand shouting Buy my Water!
And nobody thinks it
Worth stopping and buying
Or greedily drinks it.
(Buy water, you devils!)
O to stop the leaky heaven
Hoard what stock I’ve got remaining:
Recently I dreamt that seven
Years went by without it raining.
How they’d all shout Give me Water!