Pao

by Kerry Young

  The day after that Ma tell me she going have Hampton move Zhang’s cot into her room and I say no, she can put him in my room. It bigger and it got better light what with the two wooden doors that open out on to the little concrete square that catch the sun. When Hampton move the cot, Ma also get him move Zhang’s rocking chair and she put it in the room with him and that is where she start sleep every night.

  I move into the room next door that was Ma’s room and every night I hear them talking and talking to one another till I fall asleep to the sound of it. And when I wake up next morning it still going on.

  I can’t get over how much they got to say to one another, because in all these years I can’t remember ever seeing them talk to each other, not even once. It get so I start think that Zhang nuh talk to no women, because the only women I see him with is Ma and Tilly and he nuh speak to neither of them. It make me wonder what go on between the two of them all the time I not there. Maybe that is when they talk. But then I can’t understand why they would do that. Why it would matter whether I see them talk to one another or not. Or maybe that not it. Maybe they just save it all up till now. Maybe they catching up on everything that happen since Zhang leave China in 1912.

  Some nights I even lay there awake on purpose, just listening to them hushed voices. Just so I can marvel at it. Because even though I can’t make out what they saying I can hear the tone of it, and I can hear them laugh. And that, the laughing, I never hear before, not from either one of them.

  Ma got Zhang’s cot in the middle of the room with his head lying eastward. She tend to everything he need, and three times a day she boil up the herbs and give it to him. On the days him well enough to sit up, Finley and Tartan Socks McKenzie come play dominoes. When him too weak, Ma read the Chinese newspaper to him, and on other days McKenzie read him the Gleaner and they talk ’bout politics just like they always do. McKenzie telling Zhang all ’bout what Manley doing and it seem to lighten his heart.

  Ma go to temple while me or McKenzie sit with Zhang because she don’t like leave him on his own. She tell me she praying to the Buddha for a peaceful passing for Zhang and enlightenment on him rebirth. She stop tell me that she praying for me to be a better man. She stop chastise me ’bout how I supporting the imperialists by doing business with them. She stop sniffing at me every time I go see Gloria or when anything get mentioned that connected to Gloria in any way whatsoever. All she concentrating on now is Zhang. Funny thing is it seem like she happy. There is a lightness in her spirit. Not that she happy Zhang sick, but that she happy she caring for him.

  Zhang pass away one night in him sleep with Ma sitting there in the rocking chair still talking to him. Next morning she tell me I have to take care of things because I the eldest son. I dunno what to do because when they bring my father back from Shaji I was too young to know what was happening. So Ma show me and she help me. We lay Zhang’s body on a mat on the floor and we cover it with a white muslin shroud. We place two Chinese coins in a large porcelain bowl and cover it with a cloth. And then we go outside and catch some water in another bowl and burn some candles and firecrackers and throw them into it. And this is the water that we pour into the other bowl on top of the coins to wash Zhang’s body. Afterwards the whole house join in wailing.

  We announce Zhang’s passing by pasting a notice on the outside of the gate. And the evening before the funeral, when Zhang’s body come back from the undertakers, the Chinatown merchants come ’round to pay their last respects.

  I write a letter to my brother in America.

  Dear Xiuquan,

  Zhang died peacefully in his sleep. He missed you these past years. He tried to imagine your life in America but could not. Ma is well, although she also misses you, as do I.

  Pao.

  The reply I get from him vex me, so I didn’t bother say nothing to Ma. I just pretend to her like I never hear nothing from him.

  On the day of the funeral Ma have me place a pearl in Zhang’s mouth and put a willow twig in his right hand to sweep away demons from his path, and a fan and handkerchief in his left. She put up the ancestral tablet bearing Zhang’s name.

  The funeral procession wind its way through the neighbourhood to the Chinese cemetery, with its white paper lanterns and banners and the musicians them playing some godawful twing-twang, because one thing the Chinese cannot do is make music. They can make food, so there was plentiful roast pig and fruit and cakes and such. But music, no. That was just a damn racket. The whole of Chinatown turn out including Merleen Chin, Clifton Brown, Finley and his wife, Hampton, Ethyl, Milton and Desmond.

  The coffin completely covered with a silk pall, kuan chao , embroidered in a hundred colours that Chin get from China and bring with him when he come down from Montego Bay. And walking ahead of the coffin was Tartan Socks who scatter the road money to buy the goodwill of malicious spirits so they don’t molest the wraith of Zhang on his way to the grave. Ma, she just walk behind Zhang coffin slow and quiet. Whatever she was thinking or feeling she was keeping to herself. Just the way she do her whole life when it come to her and Zhang. Madame Chin walk next to her thinking she was going to have to give some comfort. But it not so. Ma was straight and upright like it was a walking meditation she was doing, with peace in every step.

  When it all done I sit down in my room and I read again the letter I get from Xiuquan.

  My dear brother Pao,

  I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of Zhang. Like you, I thought of him as a father, so I know how his passing must ache your heart. We have lost two fathers now, you and I, and I wonder to what purpose. China continues to be in turmoil, with the Communists showing, with their Cultural Revolution, that they can be just as cruel and merciless as the warlords and the foreigners they fought so hard to overthrow. And as for the violence in Jamaica, it makes me glad to be so far away. I have taken citizenship so I am an American now and no longer have to feel ashamed of being Chinese.

  And then I take the letter out into the yard and I burn it.

  Six month after Zhang’s funeral Ma say she don’t want make the fritters no more, or stuff the duck-feather pillows. She say she getting too old for it and I agree. Truth is I been trying to get her to stop for years, but now it her decision she happier with that.

  Tilly still coming but she helping more ’round the place now, she doing more of the cooking and cleaning up and washing and such. All the time Ma just getting slower and slower. She stop play mah-jongg. She stop go to temple. She stop read the newspapers. Then one day she sit down in Zhang’s rocking chair and she no get up.

  I dunno what to do ’bout the washing and the funeral and everything so Madame Chin come back from Montego Bay to help me, and she make all the arrangements just like how Ma do it for Zhang. And when the day come she let me scatter the road money in front of the procession like McKenzie do for Zhang. We bury Ma right next to Zhang in the Chinese cemetery.

  When I go back to Matthews Lane the place empty. Just me and Hampton sit down there look at each other. It seem like me and Hampton not got nothing to say.

  Then him say to me, ‘Me and Ethyl plan to go see her family in Oracabessa. You know, with the wedding coming up and all.’

  ‘You already tell me.’

  ‘And I was wanting to ask you if you would like it if me and Ethyl come live here with you after we married or if you would prefer to have the place to yourself?’

  I look at Hampton and I say, ‘Come on, Hampton, you must have plenty money to go get a place of your own.’

  ‘That not what I saying. I saying maybe you prefer to have the company. Me and Ethyl already done talk ’bout it and she say she happy to come live here and help keep the place. She still going carry on work for Miss Cicely, but she going do it as a day help. She not going live up there no more. So she say if you want we come live with you here after the wedding.’

  I look across the table at him and I remember that first day I meet him when Mr Chin tell him to carry the bags on the hand
cart, and then afterwards when him follow me ’round town all day and make a friend outta me even though I didn’t want to pay him no mind.

  And I say, ‘Thank you, Hampton.’

  ‘So what you going do for the few days while we gone to Oracabessa?’

  ‘I go stay with Gloria.’

  31

  Wasteful Delay

  In all the years me and Gloria been together we never had more than one night at a time. I was always running to go do something whether it was to make the next delivery or go sort out some problem or just get back to Matthews Lane in case Zhang and Ma getting vex with me for spending too much time with Gloria.

  But these few days with her was like nothing I ever imagine. We just there in the house making tea and cooking up anything that grab our fancy, like we got all the time in the world, because although Esther still live there she out running the bank all day and busy ’bout her business at night. But Gloria want me and Esther come look with her for something nice to wear to Esther’s wedding. So one day that is what we do. Esther marrying a Indian call Rajinder that she meet playing volleyball on the beach.

  When we leaving the house Gloria put on the jade necklace and ring. Is the first time I ever see her out in them and she look good. Her dark skin just set off the gold. It really make it sparkle and I think to myself the jewellery look better on her than it would have look on Fay.

  Another day we go take a picnic to the beach, which me and Gloria never done before, never. We never actually go anywhere in public together before.

  It make me start think that maybe this is how it suppose to be with a man and a woman. Ordinary, just calm and regular. That maybe this is what it would have been like all these years if I just go marry Gloria in the first place. If I never let myself get distracted by what she was, and what everybody else think ’bout it. If I never set my sights on being married to Henry Wong’s daughter like that was going lift me outta being a second-class citizen from Matthews Lane.

  And then I start have a fancy ’bout what it would be like to be with Gloria like this all the time. What it would be like to live with her, permanent. The picture in my mind make me feel settled and content, but it not a picture of Matthews Lane. And it not a picture of this here house of Gloria’s neither, because although the house nice, it small and quiet, and it all closed in with walls and doors and windows. And even though Matthews Lane little bit more than a concrete yard it got life. It got space and room to breathe. It feel more like it connected to the world, not this silent, cut-off feeling of Gloria’s house.

  When I get back to Matthews Lane Finley is waiting for me. I take one look at him and I know it was trouble. I sit down at the table opposite him and I say, ‘OK, tell me what it is.’

  ‘The two constables.’ And right as soon as him say it I knew I was expecting it all along. I knew that this thing was never going go away. I knew it even that same night after them arrest Xiuquan and was sitting there and smiling at me and drinking my beer. All I was doing was hoping and holding my breath this long time.

  ‘Yu mean Mutt and Jeff?’

  ‘Them same two. They get kick outta the police force for drug dealing.’

  ‘Drug dealing! Yu joking? Isn’t every single one of them doing that same thing?’

  ‘Well maybe not all of them. The thing with these two constables is they start take the drug business so serious they edging into the territory of some big police captain and this is what cause them the trouble.’

  ‘So it a police turf war?’

  ‘Something like that, and the upshot is the two constables outta work and looking to further their career as fully fledge drug dealers because they not even got no police pension now.’

  I start to laugh. I can’t believe Finley even bothering to tell me all of this like it have anything to do with us.

  ‘Is only the two of them and without the uniform they need more muscle so they want to know if we want to go into business with them.’

  And that is when I really laugh. I bust my gut.

  ‘Into business with them! They mad? What on earth make them think I would go into business with them after what they do to me? I would sooner go marry Fay all over again and take all the grief she give me.’

  ‘We not their first port of call. They been to DeFreitas but it seem them ruffle some feathers over there when they policemen and was busy ripping into DeFreitas’s profit and him none too please with them. So now them think maybe yu will let bygones be bygones because yu recognise that them making yu a good business offer. After all them take the punishment way back when and never say nothing ’bout it. They put it behind them because they know them do yu wrong so maybe yu can just see yu way to say alright.’

  ‘No, man. They may be desperate but we not reach that stage yet.’

  ‘Yu want me fix up a meeting so yu can tell them?’

  I think on it and I think what do I want to go meet them for? The two of them just a pair of good-for-nothing scoundrel who cross me once before and will do it again. And besides, what do I want to go get mix up in drug dealing for? That is some serious business, especially now that it not just a case of ganja, because this cocaine is bad and I still not forget yet what the British do to China over the opium.

  I still sitting there thinking when Finley look at me and say, ‘Yu not going meet with them?’

  ‘Yu think I should go meet them?’

  ‘Yu know you should. If yu no do it they will think yu disrespect them.’

  So I go meet them and tell them my decision. But just like that night when they bring Xiuquan back to Matthews Lane and apologise for arresting him I can see that they angry inside. And even though I show the respect like Finley say, I don’t think it wash no way with them and I can see that this thing still not done with yet.

  Well I don’t want to be no drug dealer but the money situation bad, because the whole ganja thing really getting outta hand. I reckon pretty soon it going to be the only business on the island and the only export Jamaica got to give the world.

  Plus, the rise in oil prices is adding to everybody’s troubles, including us, we using so much gas driving ’round from hotel to hotel with all the deliveries. Not that it going last much longer, because every week now the orders getting less and less what with the slump in the tourist trade that the American newspapers cause by telling them readers ’bout how bad the violence is in Jamaica.

  Gloria think it good that Michael Manley got so much Cuban engineers here building schools and what not. But I say to her, ‘Yu nuh see how much people worried we going get communism in Jamaica? Every day I open the newspaper, or step outta the yard or look ’pon a fence, somebody been busy scribbling their message ’bout what they think ’bout it. The other day I even see wall where somebody go paint on it “Manley is a traitor”.’

  ‘What you want from him? He trying to make a better Jamaica while everybody just worrying ’bout themself. They going lose their freedom. They going lose their money. We going lose democracy. What good did democracy ever do for poor people?’

  I dunno what Gloria talking ’bout. Is like she so happy with how friendly Manley is with Castro she can’t see how bad the situation is getting. Even just last week Milton take out a van full of groceries and have to leave it by the roadside and run for cover when him get caught in the middle of some big shootout. It costing me money. As well as now it seem like we risking life and limb just to go deliver some rice and flour ’cross town. Gloria don’t seem to understand that the longer this go on the more people is talking ’bout how the USA going invade us like what happen in Cuba.

  But every time I talk to her ’bout what going on all Gloria can say is, ‘What you want from him?’ Even after he go back up Castro for taking troops to Angola.

  ‘The Angolan government ask Castro for Cuba’s help to defend their country from the South African army invasion. Yu think he should have said no?’

  ‘No. They ask for his help.’

  ‘So yu think Manley shou
ld have go along with it when Henry Kissinger ask him to condemn the Cuban action?’

  ‘No, Gloria. I think Manley do the right thing. A man got to stand up for what he believe in and stand by his friends.’

  ‘So what yu want from him?’

  ‘I don’t know, Gloria, but now they cut off our US aid we practically bankrupt overnight, and now we going have to go borrow a whole ton of money. And paying that back with the interest them want is going kill us.’

  Gloria don’t say nothing because I think deep down inside, even though she so smitten with Cuba, she know Jamaica is in trouble.

  When Manley go to the International Monetary Fund for help they agree to give us the money but in return they want a devaluation of the Jamaican dollar; a reduction in government spending; a increase in taxes; and tight wage controls.

  What we get from all of that was unemployment and poverty, and no social welfare. And a bunch of people that think they got nothing left to lose except the miserable few streets in the neighbourhood they think is their territory. So if we think we see violence before we had no idea just how bad it could get. It was outright warfare. Right out there in the street. Shootouts, fires, bombings, rape, murder, everything. And all the time there was rumours that all of this was part of a CIA operation to destabilise the country because America didn’t want another Cuba right there in their back yard.

  So finally on 19 June 1976 they declare a State of Emergency, the second one since Independence.

  Sun Tzu say, ‘ To win battles and take your objectives, but to fail to exploit these achievements is ominous and may be described as “wasteful delay” .’

  I write to Mui:

  I know you finish your law degree now but things very bad down here in Jamaica. It so bad the government even introduce a new law to make illegal possession of a firearm a crime punishable by mandatory life sentence. They have set up a Gun Court to provide quick trials for those charged with gun offences. They have amnesties and they even using shock treatment on the gunmen. But life sentences and amnesties don’t make jobs or put food on the table, so there is open gang warfare in the street. This is not the Jamaica you have in your mind. Not the Jamaica I want you to be coming home to. So you carry on studying for your barrister bar exam. Things will get better down here.