Treacherous Women: Sex, Temptation and Betrayal by Kerr Gordon

Author:Kerr, Gordon [Kerr, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canary Press
Published: 2014-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

Shi Pei-Pu

It would be almost impossible to make up a story such as the one involving Bertrand Boursicot and the Chinese opera singer, Shi Pei-Pu. It is a story of both tragedy and farce, spy story and love story. Above all, it is utterly unbelieveable!

Bertrand Boursicot travelled to China in 1964, to work in the French Embassy in Beijing as a clerk. But that was irrelevant to the good-looking and well-built young Frenchman. To him China was a land of secrecy and intrigue and he was looking for adventure. He was also looking for love and, perhaps, if he could find it, sex. He had never been with a woman, never even been in love. At boarding school, there had been the usual schoolboy sex, but he had resolved to stop sleeping with boys when he turned eighteen.

It was not easy, however, and he was unable to even find a girl who would go on a date with him. He did not have a great deal to offer – much as he liked to put on the airs and graces of a diplomat, there was no escaping the fact that he was merely a clerk with a not very good education, who had been hired on a thirty-month contract.

In December 1964, he joined the Beijing ex-pats’ party circuit and was excited when he met a blonde British secretary who agreed to give him her phone number. He invited her to a party just before Christmas at the home of a French Embassy official, but realised pretty quickly that there was someone at the party who interested him more than his date.

He was a short, slightly-built Chinese man, the only Chinese present at the party. He was aged around twenty-five and was dressed in the usual Mao suit that all Chinese wore in those days, and he was speaking fluent French. Boursicot went over and introduced himself and, before the end of the party, he had obtained the man’s address and phone number.

His name was Shi Pei-Pu and Boursicot contacted him and invited him to dinner shortly after they had met. Shi told him that he had been an actor and singer when younger and was currently writing plays about the workers. His late father had been a university professor and his mother, with whom he now lived, was a teacher. He had two older sisters and had learned French as a boy. He had a degree in literature from the University of Kunming.

The two men became good friends. Shi took Boursicot to places off the beaten track, where few foreigners would ever be able to go and he told him wonderful stories of old China. He was a terrific storyteller and Boursicot loved listening to him talk of the roles he had played during his performing career and of the loneliness of his childhood. They shared secrets with each other that they had never told anyone else.

The relationship was short-lived, however. For a number of years, Boursicot had been trying to obtain an invitation to join an expedition that was travelling to the Amazon jungle.

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