“What did you mean when you said that Tara is the female form of Kuan-yin?”
“Every man has a female reflection, and every woman has a male reflection. For Kuan-yin, his female aspect is called Tara. As you see, this figure is not particularly man or woman, or it is both at once. And here,” he went on quickly, although Herma would have liked a little more explanation on this point, “is the altar of the Great Luminary, or sun, and the Night Luminary, or moon. Farther to your right are the tablets to the Chua-tien or All Stars, to the Urh-shih pat Suh-sing or Twenty-Eight Constellations in the Ecliptic, to the Peh-tan Sing or Ursa Major, and to the Muh, Kin, Sui, Fo, and Tu, or Five Elements—wood, metal, water, fire, and earth. And across the room are the shrines to Siueh-sz’, Yü-sz’, Fung-sz’, and Lui-sz’, the superintendents of snow, rain, wind, and thunder.”
Here he stopped, and looked at her more carefully. “But you are perhaps not interested in all this. Would you care for a cup of tea?”
Only a short distance away, in a narrow lane off Dupont Street, he led her into a shop with gold lettering on the window: “H. T. Ming. Fine Porcelain and China.” In the front at least the shop was very small, only wide enough for a door and the window with gold lettering, with a single vase in the showcase behind. But inside, beyond the small room with its display of porcelain much like the others in Chinatown, it widened out into an elaborate chain of apartments that wound their way through the intricacies of the building and even descended to the level below, on the hillside overlooking the Embarcadero and the Bay. At the center, on the upper level, was a walled-in garden with a very old fig tree. “Perhaps it was here before the city.” There was an enormous stone lantern with carved dragons and lions’ feet, odd-looking plants in stoneware pots, and squares of stone for pavement, cool and mossy. The whole garden was perhaps only ten feet square but exquisite.
She followed him back into the house again. Facing onto the garden was a room where more porcelains were displayed, but it resembled a museum or a private gallery more than an ordinary shop. Only fifteen or twenty objects were displayed, on enameled pedestals or in crystalline glass cabinets. This room evidently served too as a kind of parlor. There were things to sit on—mats, and a kind of low silken couch with cushions against one wall of the room—but Mr. Ming didn’t invite her to be seated. Instead he left the room abruptly. A bell could be heard tinkling in some other part of the house.
After a moment he came back. “Tea-boy will come in a moment with the tea. He comes from the restaurant downstairs. The restaurant is downstairs,” he explained, “because it is in the next street over, and everything is on a hill here.”
He seemed to lose a certain amount of his aplomb now that he had succeeded in enticing Herma inside his house. Perhaps this very success was something he had hardly hoped for, so that he had no very clear idea what to do with her now that he had her here. Whenever he didn’t know what to say, he smiled. His complexion was as fine as a girl’s, Herma thought. Its color was difficult to describe. It was as pale as her own, and yet it was not exactly white. It was as though there was a subtle cast of some other color below the surface, perhaps mauve, or a pale lemon like that of polished gold. There was something—she hardly knew how to put it. There was something orchidaceous about him, some quality of the hothouse flower.
To break the slight awkwardness she turned and began looking around the room. “So your name is H. T. Ming?”
“Not exactly. It is Ming Hang-Tze, but I have anglicized it for the purposes of the sign on my window. My name is also the name of a dynasty. But that is only an accident; the word ming simply means bright.”
“And you are a dealer in porcelains?”
“I have been, although I do very little business now. The only goods I have for sale are those in the outer shop. As you can see, the shop is very small. And I open it now only for special customers. You see, dear child, I have been many things. I have been a teacher of English in Canton, I have been a dealer in porcelain and an importer, and now I am a landlord and I own this building and also the building in the street below, with the restaurant and a number of shops. I have become so wealthy that I no longer have any need to work, so now I have nothing to do but live here with my beautiful things and enjoy them with my friends.”
“Do you have many friends?”
“Not many,” he admitted, still with a smile. “Only a few are interested in the things I’m interested in, and know how to appreciate them. Each of the things you see in this room,” he told her, “is precious beyond value.”
He unlocked a glass cabinet and took out a vase of white Ch’ing-pai ware of the Southern Sung dynasty. Flowers and birds were molded with incredible lightness in the thin porcelain. The glaze lent a cast to the white underneath that was perhaps blue, or perhaps only a slight intensifying of the white itself. “The test of true porcelain is that it is slightly translucent. This one, as you can see, transmits not only light but shadows as well.” He demonstrated by inserting his finger into it. “Porcelain of the best quality is smooth and yet not glassy. It has a very faint texture, slightly unctuous. It has been said that it has the feeling of uncooked macaroni. But I prefer to think that it is like the skin of a young girl, hardened in the kiln so that it remains forever youthful.” He smiled, and slid two fingers lightly along the vase. “The Arabs believed that Ch’ing-pai ware would shatter if poison were put into it. That is not true, of course. Still this piece is very fragile. You could shatter it with a breath. Yet it is immortal if not broken. The color, the tone and translucence, will last for a million years.”
“Is it for flowers—or to hold wine—or what?”
“For nothing. Only to hold in your hand. If I collect porcelain and not bronze or stone it is because it is very fragile, and thus an analogue of life. And yet immortal, like life itself.”
He put the Ch’ing-pai piece back into the glass and locked it, and turned to the next cabinet. “These are a pair of vases in white with underglaze blue, dedicated to a temple in Kiangsi in 1351, in the Yuan dynasty. This, of course, is the celebrated Chinese blue and white, the inspiration of the pottery of Delft and other European factories. Such Ch’ing-hua ware is quite common. However this pair is unique. The two vases are not identical, but complementary.”
Herma could see that, although the decorations of both involved dragons and other mythological creatures, along with botanical specimens, the decorations were not precisely the same. Mr. Ming contended that even the shapes of the two vases were not identical, although hours of study were necessary to perceive the difference.
“Exquisite.”
The aesthete in him was always mingled with the merchant. “If I sold only one of these porcelains every ten years,” he told her, “I could live like a prince.”
“Would you sell me something?”
At this he was amused. “Would you like to buy this house, including the restaurant next door! However,” he added, “sometime I may make you a gift of something.” He went on to show her a few of the other pieces in the room. A tripod incense burner of southern Kuan ware, a rare three-color Ming vase with underglaze blue. A delicate celadon jug of the T’ang dynasty, beige with a cast of very pale green, and violet bands. There were only two others like it in the world, he told her, one in Dresden and the other in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Next, a Sang de Boeuf vase of the K’ang Hsi period. It was perfectly plain, of dark brownish-red with a bloodlike texture that seemed to glow, as though illuminated from the inside. Herma was a little afraid of this one.
“You are right, dear child. That vase is about Death.”
An odd spark of memory came to Herma, like a flash from a distant storm: the blood-red curtains in Mr. Paul’s Undertaking Parlor. After a pause, during which Mr. Ming reassured her with a little smile, he went on. “The color of the Sang de Boeuf vase is obvious. But there are also Secret Colors. Such ware is called Pi-se Yao. It is a porcelain or china which seems white but has a sheen or cast, an
almost invisible shadow which is not apparent to the ordinary person, or someone who has not been initiated into its secret. In the language of porcelain there are many metaphors for this— ‘like a bright moon, cunningly carved and dyed with spring water,’ or ‘like a curling disk of the thinnest ice, filled with green clouds.’ A Secret Color may be a grayish or olive green, that is what we call celadon, or occasionally a brownish yellow without any green. At times we may find just the palest suggestion of a rosy tinge, but this is very rare. Can you tell me, dear child, the Secret Color of this piece?”
He stopped before an exquisite Blanc de Chine figurine, translucent, with faint marbling so that it resembled white jade. It was the figure of a standing gentleman in a white robe, perhaps a priest or a mandarin, with a fawn at one side. The hands were held out in a gesture of admonition or blessing, each tiny white finger perfectly formed.
Herma looked, for a long time. But it seemed perfectly white. She shook her head.
“Some day you will see it,” Mr. Ming promised her, “if you pay attention, and go on looking. Ah! here is Tea-boy.”
He was not exactly a boy, to tell the truth; he was almost as old as Mr. Ming himself. He came in with the greatest respect, set down the tea and the tea things on a tray, and left without a word.
The tea was on a lacquered table in front of the couch. The teapot had a kind of ear on it instead of a handle. The tiny handleless cups were to match. Along with the tea there were almond cakes and small wafers with sesame seeds. Herma made an effort to eat these without dropping crumbs. Mr. Ming ate nothing; he only sipped his tea.
“And so, dear child, you are a singer?”
Herma, her mouth full of almond cake, nodded.
He asked her, “Is it true that a high note by a singer might shatter porcelain?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard it might shatter crystal, but I’ve never tried.”
“If it were not for this danger,” he said solemnly, “I might ask you to sing something.”
They smiled together at this small joke. The whole affair of meeting Mr. Ming and coming to his house seemed to Herma something out of a fairy tale. The odd encounter in the temple, his easy acceptance of her, his shyness and yet his adept skill and erudition with porcelain—even the curious way he had been foreshadowed by the tiny mandarin in the doll shop. It was the way things happened in stories, not in real life. Yet Mr. Ming was quite corporeal, sitting on the couch with his legs crossed oriental fashion and sipping his tea with care not to dampen his mustache.
“I like you better than a doll,” she told him over her tea.
“Dear child, I have no notion what you are talking about.”
“Do you live alone?” she asked him abruptly.
“Yes. I have a number of friends, as I told you.”
“But you are not married?”
“Married?” He smiled. “How could I be married, dear child? There are no women in Chinatown, except …”
“Yes.”
“Singsong girls. And that doesn’t interest me. I have never known the embrace of an affectionate woman, dear child,” he went on in a quite matter-of-fact tone. “When I was younger, in Canton, I was too poor. And now—I’m no longer young.”
He stopped and seemed to be gazing at something across the room. She followed his glance and saw that it was a wall hanging: a painting on silk, Chinese red and umber on a beige background.
“The concubine Yang Keui-fei being assisted to mount her horse, by Ch’ien Hsüan.” He smiled a little. “She was a concubine of the T’ang Emperor Hsüan Tsung, who became infatuated with her in his old age.”
The costumes were red and beige, the horse a rich umber. Three servants were assisting the lady onto the back of a plump horse; stirrups didn’t seem to have been invented in those days. By the horse’s head stood the Emperor, a corpulent old man with a grizzle of a beard. You saw him, clasping his hands, peeping lasciviously at the glimpse of a tiny bound foot that became visible as the concubine mounted the horse.
“A great monarch,” said Mr. Ming. “A connoisseur of the arts, and a just magistrate. Yet when he loved he was only a foolish old man.”
Here he stopped, as though hoping perhaps that she would make some comment. But she only looked around the room. It was getting late, the thought occurred to her. There were no clocks anywhere in the room.
As if guessing her thought, he said, “I was hoping, dear child, that you could stay for dinner. Tea-boy could bring up some simple dish from the restaurant. And you haven’t yet seen my library. A precious collection that I show only to my most select friends.”
It was time to go. But, having fallen into this fairy tale, she was determined not to lose her mandarin doll, since there was probably not another one like him in the world. Like Scheherazade, she deftly sought about for a way to extend the story into another night.
“I’d like to see your library. I sing every night at eight o’clock, and I have to be at the theater by seven, to dress and put on my makeup. But the theater is dark on Tuesday nights.”
Mr. Ming seemed uncertain how to rise to this suggestion. He was not very familiar with theaters and not sure what was implied by the fact of their being dark. Perhaps he feared that in some way he was supposed to come there, to the dark theater. “You mean that …”
“There is no performance. So that next Tuesday evening I would be free.”
He seemed reassured. His air of calm and wise aplomb returned. “Then on Tuesday,” he told her with great formality, “I should be honored to have you as my guest for dinner.”
“I’ll be delighted. And so, good-bye for now.”
She rose, with a certain awkwardness since the couch was very low, and he showed her out into the outer shop. He unlocked the door, and seemed almost ready to offer his hand or—make some other gesture. She was not quite sure what Chinese did when parting from friends. And anyhow, was she a friend? She wasn’t quite, and yet she was more, in a way. She sensed this, and so evidently did he. Standing no more than two feet from her, he half raised his hand, then dropped it. The color came into his cheeks, and he managed to smile a little to cover his confusion. Herma smiled too and left, shutting the door behind her.
7.
When she came back, on Tuesday evening, the sun had already sunk into the fog behind Twin Peaks and darkness was beginning to filter over the city. A transparent gray light with a touch of gold in it seemed to hang over everything. The street door of the shop was unlocked. Perhaps he had unlocked it a few minutes before, knowing she was coming, because he was too shy to come and open the door for her. She went in, making a little bell tinkle.
Mr. Ming was waiting to greet her in the gallery, wearing this time a gold satin tunic with trousers to match, and elaborately embroidered slippers.
“You’re very elegant. The door to the shop is unlocked. Aren’t you afraid …”
“Of thieves? No, everything is protected by the Tong. You see, everyone in Chinatown, or at least every person of substance, belongs to one Tong or another. These are like associations or lodges, and in this way Chinatown governs itself. Members of different Tongs will assassinate each other, sometimes, but they will never touch possessions belonging to someone of another Tong.”
“Or of their own Tong.”
“Exactly. So in short there is no theft, or if there is it is quickly punished.” However, he took the precaution of shutting the door of the gallery itself and locking it with a great bronze dead-bolt; but perhaps this was only so that he and Herma would be undisturbed.
“And now, since you have already been shown these trifles”—he was referring to his porcelains, any one of which if sold would enable him to live like a prince for ten years—“perhaps you would like to see my library.”
There were no corridors in the house—which was not really a house, but a series of connecting apartments which seemed simply to have accumulated in the labyrinth of the building, without ever having been planned—so that it was n
ecessary to pass through several rooms to arrive at the library. One of them seemed to be a dining room; Herma caught a glimpse of a low black lacquered table with two places already set on it. Mr. Ming passed on, into a room that was evidently around the house on the other side of the garden. It was entirely windowless. The walls were lined with bookshelves, some of them with locked glass doors. In the center of the room was a table piled with more books. On the table there was a pair of matching lamps in the grayish-green celadon ware of the Sung period. He lighted these with a long perfumed match and began showing her the books.
Since Herma was not a great reader and not a scholar at all—and some of the books were very scholarly—this was slightly boring. However, Mr. Ming was so nice a person, and so amusing when he fell into his shy and pedantic way of explaining things, that she repressed both her yawns and the slight smile that kept trying to form on her face. She listened while he explained the Five Confucian Classics, which he took with care from a locked glass case.
“These are the basis of all Chinese thought. First there is the Yih King or Book of Changes, then the Shu King or Book of Records, then the Shi King or Book of Odes, including poems, national airs, and sacrificial odes. There are many commentaries on this,” he put in. “Next, the Li Ki or Book of Rites, and the Chun Tsiu or Spring and Autumn Records, which is a chronicle of Confucius’ time attributed to the sage Kung-fu-tse himself. As you can see, my manuscript editions are very old and date from the tenth century.”
“Are there any poems about love in the Book of Odes?”
“No, but there are a good many in Chinese literature, and most of them are in this room. I don’t suppose you have heard of Li Po?”
“No.”
“He was born in 701, in the T’ang dynasty. Listen to this.”
He opened a small satin-bound book and began reading in a flat voice, almost without intonation.
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