Twenty minutes more and we all stumbled down the gangways into the world’s soggiest and most unbreathable air. I halted on the aircraft steps, stunned by the oven heat, then went forward into catastrophe.
4
« ^ »
KAI TAK International Airport’s runway stretches out into Hong Kong Harbor. For all that, the aerodrome has the same sterility that adorns these terminals. So why was I bewildered? Tired. Deafened by the din, I blundered through presses of tour couriers with stick placards. It was pandemonium. I’d never heard so many people talk so loudly. Everybody seemed to be shouting in Chinese, laughing, hurrying. Signs were in English and Chinese, with me peering and reeling, out on my feet. Jet-lagged or dying didn’t matter anymore. In that first moment Hong Kong established itself irrevocably in my mind: brilliant colors and indescribable noise. Somebody asked was this my only baggage, slurring r’s in staccato English. Then I was through. I started staggering about the melee looking for Algernon, but the idiot was nowhere.
After an exhausting hour of this, my stunned brain asked, since when has Algernon ever been on time? So get your head down, lad, search later. I trudged round in the turmoil among a zillion passengers swirling as baffled as I was.
In my delirium I tried to work out possibilities. I could stay here in the clamor, or go to Macao and search for him and his lunatic motor-racing pals there. But where the hell was Macao? I decided to give the nerk one hour more, then make my own way as best I could. I slumped against a wall—even that was burning hot—and gaped blearily at the throngs of milling Chinese.
My eyelids flickered as fatigue took hold. No real need to nod off, I told myself, not really, because hadn’t I just survived a year-long flight dozing and noshing? Yet the draining heat and drugging air reduced me to a dazed, baffled robot. I thought, well, Lovejoy, no harm to shut your eyes for a couple of seconds, eh? Algernon’d find me when he arrived.
All doubts and cautions logicked to extinction, I rested. Delirium passed me to oblivion.
People may have pushed by me now and again but I wasn’t having any and slept determinedly on, safe, for wasn’t I practically at the ends of the earth? Once I dimly felt somebody give my shoulder a shake, but my stunned brain knew that importuners can’t be trusted. My neurons vanished me, and I was glad.
Isn’t it odd that promises of Heaven are impatient, even frenzied? Hell, on the other hand, is a patient villain. Unbeknownst to me, it stood doggedly by while I reposed against the wall of Kai Tak’s arrival lounge. Another curiosity is that it isn’t restfulness that wakes you. It’s expectation. I awoke hungry, my belly clamoring for food. My mind was still obstinately befogged when I opened my eyes to a horrendous zoom, clang, crash.
And closed them again to shut out the tumult while I remembered. Bailiffs, Janie, BJS, my escape flight, the non-Algernon. And open, to the cacophony, the noisy press, queues, the clashy announcements of this flight and that. Stiff as a poker, I clambered erect and stood blinking owlishly. No Algernons abounded. I realized with surprise that I was a bit taller than average, an unexpected novelty. Still, no good standing here gaping inanely. Off to Macao.
It seemed brighter than when I’d dozed off. I never carry a watch, so absolute time always escapes. Yawning and stretching, I realized I must have slept longer than I’d assumed. Maybe I’d even arrived in the early evening and slumbered all night? Certainly there was a morning air about, a relative freshness. I saw a multilingual legend and an arrow: “Taxis This Way.” Great. I’d go and throttle Algernon—always start as you mean to go on, I always say. I reached for my bag and… and a quick puzzlement while I turned round once, searching the floor.
No bag.
Well, no matter. There hadn’t been much in it except a dated map of Macao. Somebody must have taken it by mistake while I’d dozed. And I still had my money wadge, Janie’s travelers’ checks… I went cold.
Nothing.
Malaise swept me. Illness. Nausea. Panic. My hands poked, probed frantically.
Sweating, I spun, looked round at the marble floor, took a pace, retraced, delved and searched in a fever of fright. Nothing. My forehead went clammy, shoulders, hands.
Suddenly I was drenched and ill; Christ, how ill. No money. No checks, passport, driver’s license, checkbook. Everything gone. Everything. I still had a hankie in my left trouser pocket, my comb, and nothing else.
My mind spun. I don’t know if it has ever happened to you. It’s the most sickening feeling on earth. I felt so nauseated I almost fainted. I’d been cleaned out as I slept.
Blindly hating, I stood glowering at the throngs. Maybe they hadn’t got far… But who were the thieves among this massive congress? Worse than any football crowd. And in which direction? My mind interrupted with Surely it couldn’t have happened, Lovejoy?
You’re the scourge of the Western world, never the victim. Simply stay calm, reason it out. Search again. Hot and cold in waves, I hunted the linings. Make sure of every cranny, all the pockets. Above all, think. Had Algernon come, seen you exhausted, taken your belongings into safe custody? Was he in fact waiting in the bar restaurant…
? I was fooling myself. I’d been robbed, done over.
Of course I’ve been burgled before now, and a right rotten sickening experience it is.
It’s rape, destruction of the only self-image the world lets you have. The hands of malevolent strangers had delved through my clothes, filching, thieving… I almost vomited, had another frantic wash of panicky searching in case I’d overlooked some nook.
Cool, Lovejoy. Slowly as you can. It’s happened. Okay, it’s terrible, but all is not lost. I stood forlorn as the mobs coursed past, all laughing in that astonishingly vigorous Chinese. I tried lecturing myself. You can phone Janie to cable more money, throw yourself on the mercy of the airline, find the police. Or the Embassy? Explain to those superb civil servants… but did a Crown Colony have an ambassador? What was it, a governor? Get a lift to Macao. The landward route was probably out, but I mean boats must be going there all the time, right?
After a ten-minute struggle I got to the airline’s information desk and was greeted by a smiling lass. God, I was glad to see her. Efficiency. Above all, help for the wanderer. I loved the unwavy dark hair, the oval eyes, pretty features. My spirits rose.
“YescanIhelp you?” she said, staccato but all in one.
“Er, please. I’ve had my money stolen. I was—”
Her face ponded over. Her gaze unfocused. “MayIseeyourticketplease?”
“That’s the trouble, miss. They took my ticket too. But I did travel on your airline.”
Her gaze was ice. A policeman appeared at her shoulder. He was smart, crisp. Khaki drill, belt, red tabs. He didn’t go through the smiling phase at all. He had a miniature squawk-box on his Sam Browne.
“Passport, please,” he said.
I explained. “They took everything.”
“Where it happen?” asked the cop. His eyes never left me.
“Over there.” I indicated. “I was sitting on the floor, asleep, when they—”
“Sleep on floor? You on floor?”
Sweat seeped around my middle. It wasn’t heat. It was fear.
“Why you sleep on floor?”
“Well, I was tired, waiting for my friend.”
“When you come?”
“From London. This morning.”
The eyes were flint now. “No flight from London today.” He said a couple of barkish words to his intercom and two more policemen materialized, one each side of me.
Crisply clean, khaki shorts, belts. And holsters. Some Chinese travelers stopped, smiling with pleased interest, crowding around. They discussed me briefly in that up-and-down language. I wilted with dejection. This was a bigger mess than I’d escaped from. I was giddy with hunger, thirst, confused out of all reason.