“Not exactly, but you said you were interested in only one subject. Then what about this?” He actually read me from that document details of a small reception I had given five years before in my own apartment in New York for Agnes Smedley after her release on bail.
For a moment I was speechless with amazement. Then I ejaculated, “Why shouldn’t I be interested when she was arrested for a cause that is my own? Besides, you must remember the charge was later dismissed.”
“Then what about serving on the Committee for the Debs Defence and for the Political Prisoners Defence?” He mentioned other gatherings I had attended during that parlor meeting era, such as when Mary Knoblauch had had Jim Larkin talk on Irish Home Rule or Lajpat Rai, the Indian sociologist, express anti-British tendencies. Wherever my name had appeared on the stationery of any committee he had it on his record. My public life was there spread out, showing how careful was British espionage.
I brought forth from my arsenal some of my most trusty arguments, and the official ultimately agreed that if the vast millions of India wanted birth control he was all for my going there and would visa my passport. However, since I did not propose to include it in my trip the discussion was purely academic.
Although Singapore when we reached it seemed to combine so many nationalities that it was like Europe, America, and the Orient all mixed together, Malays, whose land it once had been, appeared to be in the minority and their dialect little used. I could not escape that fatal horoscope, because when their language was described to me as easy and simple, the example given was mata. By itself it meant eye. But, mata mata, in addition to being the plural, also meant policemen, who were the eyes of the government, and mata mata glap meant secret eyes, hence detectives.
How Europeans made themselves understood in Singapore was a wonder to me. The Chinese ricksha boys apparently comprehended no tongue, nor knew where any place was. You stepped into a ricksha and pointed to where you thought your hotel was, praying your finger was extended in the right direction. If you did not point he ran in any direction of the compass. Even so, at the first corner he was inclined to turn into a more shady street. After a while, since he seemed to be arriving nowhere, you spoke to him sharply and he pulled up to a traffic officer, who told him where to go. Still pointing and saying “hotel” loudly, you eventually were delivered in front of the door by a much pleased coolie, grinning from ear to ear at his own cleverness. The poor fellows were so cheerful and willing that you could not help smiling, too.
The weather continued balmy to Penang, to Ceylon, to Aden. I had been dreading the heat of the Red Sea, but the passage was surprisingly cool; the facing wind was really enjoyable.
At Cairo, where we made a longer pause, Grant came down with dysentery and his temperature shot to a hundred and four degrees. A Czechoslovakian doctor spent three nights with him but could not reduce the fever. Each morning when I rose early to act as nurse, I stumbled over about six natives, our own guide Ali among them, kneeling on prayer rugs in front of his door. All the fortune tellers had said a death was pending in Shepheard’s Hotel and were assuming he would be the victim. The fourth day, after the doctor had gone to his office, I ordered a dish pan full of ice and sponged Grant off with the frosty water. Two hours later his temperature was normal and he began to show signs of recovering. I never divulged that cold bath to the doctor.
Ali was a handsome, dark-faced Arab with large luminous eyes and fine-cut features which made American ones seem crude and weak in comparison. Wearing his long black robe to the ground and topped by a red fez, he used to come to his duties bearing great armfuls of flowers from his mother. We held lengthy conversations. “Have you been married?” I asked.
“Yes, five times.”