Mr Ma and Son (8 page)

Ma Wei was also ruminating on his impressions of the cemetery. As he sat leaning back in the corner of the taxi, his eyes staring fixedly at the broad back of the taxi driver, he thought to himself,
What a hero my uncle was, setting up business in a foreign land. A hero.
True, selling antiques wasn’t necessarily a particularly magnificent enterprise, but, all the same, he’d at least shown it was possible to earn foreign money.
My father’s useless.
He glanced at Mr Ma; if his father wasn’t banging on about becoming a mandarin, he was juggling a wine cup and playing the poverty-stricken gentleman-scholar. A would-be mandarin, a famous gentleman-scholar. Ha! Real ability was being able to apply genuine knowledge to earn an honest penny.

T
HE MAS’
antiques shop was in a little side street to the east of St Paul’s. If you stood outside the shop, you could see part of the church’s dome, looking like a slice of watermelon. The shopfront was as long as a single room, with a small door on the left and a full-length glass window on the right. In the window were displayed some porcelain, bronzes, old fans, little images of Buddha and various other odds and ends. Past the window stood another door, which was the entrance for the umbrella and suitcase repairer upstairs, and past that lay a clothing storage depot, which had two horse-drawn carts in front of its door, with people going in and out moving goods onto the carts. To the left of the shop there were three other small shops in a row, the one immediately next door to the Mas’ being another antiques shop. Opposite there was nothing except a continuous stretch of wall.

As father and son stood surveying the shop, Li Tzu-jung stepped out of the door.

‘Mr Ma?’ he said, smiling. ‘Please come in.’

Mr Ma took a look at Li Tzu-jung. There was nothing particularly objectionable about his face but he was smiling too extravagantly. What’s more, he was in his shirt sleeves, with dust on his hands, having just been cleaning and rearranging the display cabinets. Intuitively, Mr Ma summed him up in two syllables: vulgar.

‘Mr Li?’ Ma Wei hastened over to shake hands with Li Tzu-jung.

‘Don’t shake hands, I’ve got muck on them.’ Li Tzu-jung hastily searched in his trouser pockets for a handkerchief, but finding none, had to give Ma Wei his wrist to shake. It was a thick, powerful wrist, of handsomely defined muscle and bone. As Ma Wei shook that warm wrist, he became rather taken with Li Tzu-jung. From Li’s shirt, his rolled-up sleeves and his soiled hands, you could tell he was a man of action, and you needed to tackle things with real vigour and capability to compete with the English.

As foreigners would see it, Li Tzu-jung was more Chinese than Ma Wei. The Chinese man, to the foreign mind, is short of stature and wears a pigtail. He has a flat face with swollen cheekbones, no nose, eyes that are two slits each an inch or so long, a thin-lipped mouth, a stringy moustache dangling in the breeze from his upper lip and waddling Pekingese-dog legs. And that’s only his appearance; as for his hidden devilry and deceit, his habit of keeping poisonous snakes up his sleeves and concealing arsenic in his ears, how, when he exhales, he turns into a chlorine-gas gun, and how, just by winking his eye, he can send you to kingdom come . . . all such things serve yet further to make foreign men and women, young and old, shudder to the very depths of their hearts.

Li Tzu-jung’s face almost exactly fitted the image. If he’d been slightly taller, the foreigners might have accorded him more honour by calling him Japanese. (Yellow-faced people with the slightest points of merit are all Japanese.) Unfortunately, he was only about five feet tall, and his short legs did indeed bend outwards at the knees as he walked. His hair was thick and copious, and what with that untidy mass and the lowness of his forehead, there wasn’t much space between his eyebrows and his hair. His eyes, nose and mouth were not unattractive, but, alas, his cheekbones were rather too flat. He had a very fine physique, though, with a broad, straight back and a solid, erect neck, which, with his slightly bowed legs, made him look like a little howitzer gun.

Yes, Li Tzu-jung really got the foreigners in a muddle. They might think he was Japanese, but then his face was scarcely what you could call handsome. (The Japanese are all decent lookers.) But then, if they took him for Chinese, his yellow face was as clean and sparkling as a new pin, and no Chinese fellow can ever spare the cash for a bar of soap, can he now? Anyway, just look at those upright shoulders of his! The Chinese always keep their backs bent, ready for a beating, so he couldn’t be Chinese. And although his legs were somewhat bandy, he walked briskly, fairly pounding along. He not only failed to waddle, he even walked at tremendous speed . . . Foreign gentlemen were truly nonplussed as to precisely which inferior race he belonged.

‘Ah,’ Li Tzu-jung’s landlady had concluded, ‘the fellow’s half Chinese, half Japanese.’ And in private she’d confide to others, ‘Oh, he’s definitely not proper Chinese. What, a Japanese? Not likely! Not his sort!’

Before Ma Wei had even finished shaking hands, the elder Ma had already drawn back his shoulders and made his entrance into the shop. Li Tzu-jung hurried in after him, cleared up the things on the floor and ushered him to a seat in the back room.

The shop had two rooms in total, one where the business was conducted and another that served as the accounts office. Hard against the back wall of the latter stood the safe, in front of which there was just enough space for three or four chairs and a table. Next to the safe stood a small table bearing a telephone and a telephone directory. There was a rather dank smell about the room, which, combined with the acrid smell of metal polish, produced an atmosphere very much like that of one of those tiny foreign-goods shops in Peking.

‘Shop assistant Li.’ Mr Ma had reflected for some time before hitting upon ‘shop assistant’ as his chosen form of address. ‘Before we begin, make us a pot of tea.’

Li Tzu-jung raked at the unkempt hair on his head, glanced at Mr Ma, then turned to Ma Wei with a smile.

‘We haven’t got a teapot or any cups here,’ he said. ‘If the old gentleman’s set on having a cup of tea, I’ll have to go out and buy some. Got any money on you?’

Ma Wei was about to pull out some money when Mr Ma, his face darkening, again addressed Li Tzu-jung.

‘Shop assistant!’ (This time he even omitted the ‘Li’.) ‘Do you mean to tell me that if the manager of a shop wishes to drink a cup of tea, he is required to pull out his own money? And there are numerous teapots and cups on the shelves, yet without any thought you declare that we have none!’

Mr Ma drew up a chair, seated himself next to the small table, and, leaning back, almost knocked the telephone over.

Slowly and leisurely, Li Tzu-jung rolled the sleeves of his shirt down and turned round to survey Mr Ma.

‘Mr Ma,’ he said. ‘While your brother was alive, I helped him here for a year or more. When he died, he put the business in my hands. Every decision I make is for the good of the business. Drinking tea’s a private matter, which can’t be put down on the expense account. It’s not like in China. Business accounts have to be signed by a lawyer, to assist the government in collecting taxes. We can’t cut loose and put any old costs down on them. As for those teapots and cups, they’re for sale, not for our use.’

Then he turned to Ma Wei. ‘I expect you’ve got the gist of what I mean?’ he asked. ‘You may feel I’m a bit direct, but we’re in England now. The English way is that business is business, and nothing personal. We’ve got to do things the same way.’

‘Yes,’ said Ma Wei in a small voice, not daring to look at his father.

‘Very well,’ said Mr Ma, with lowered head, looking a bit afraid of Li Tzu-jung. ‘Very well, I won’t have any then. I won’t have any. Will that suit you?’

Li Tzu-jung said nothing, but went into the other room and fetched the keys to the safe. He came back and opened it, took out several account books and other documents, and placed them on a chair right under Mr Ma’s nose.

‘Here are the account books and so on, Mr Ma. Take a look at them, please, and when you’ve done so, I’ve got something else I want to say.’

‘Why should I look at them? That’s just a routine matter. Surely you haven’t been cheating me, have you?’ said Mr Ma.

Li Tzu-jung laughed. ‘Mr Ma, I take it you’ve never been in business before.’

‘Been in business? Huh!’ Mr Ma exclaimed.

‘Right. Well, whether you’ve been in business or not’s beside the point. It boils down to the same thing: business is strictly business, and the personal is neither here nor there. That’s a matter of procedure, and whether you suspect me of cheating or not just doesn’t come into it.’

Li Tzu-jung was in a quandary, not sure whether to smile or not. He was well aware that it was the Chinese way to maintain politeness and to bring personal feelings to play on things. But he also knew that to do business in England, one must do so like the English – everything above board and straightforward (except in their foreign diplomacy), and no beating about the bush or approaching things in a roundabout fashion. In the throes of this dilemma, he couldn’t think what to do. He was reduced to raking at his hair, then twirling the long forelock around and around into a small curl.

‘My father’s just got back from my uncle’s grave,’ said Ma Wei with a smile, not waiting for his father to speak, ‘and he’s still feeling rather upset. We’ll look at the accounts tomorrow, shall we?’

Mr Ma nodded his head.
That’s how things should be,
he thought to himself.
The son sticking up for his dad! This Li Tzu-jung fellow’s deliberately trying to make matters awkward for me.

Li Tzu-jung looked at Mr Ma, looked at Ma Wei, spluttered a laugh, and, gathering up all the books and documents, put them back. When he’d stowed them all away, he felt gently around in the depths of the safe, and, after a moment, brought out a small lilac brocade-covered box. Mr Ma felt like laughing as he watched him.

The young fellow thinks he’s a magician, he said to himself. What will his next trick be?

Li Tzu-jung handed the brocade box to Ma Wei. Ma Wei looked at his father, then slowly opened it. It was filled with cotton wool. Lifting that up, he discovered a diamond ring.

Placing the ring on his palm, he scrutinised it. It was a lady’s ring, a fine gold one, with a twisted hemp-flower design. The back of it broadened out a little, and the front had a diamond set in it, which sparkled and shone.

‘It’s a keepsake your uncle left you,’ said Li Tzu-jung, locking up the safe.

‘Let me have a look at it,’ said Mr Ma.

Ma Wei at once passed him the ring, and Mr Ma, anxious to show off his know-how in front of Li Tzu-jung, turned it over to inspect it. He looked at the design, then peered closer, and with half-shut eyes examined the characters engraved on the inside of the ring. Then with a finger he rubbed some spit on the diamond, and gave it a few wipes.

‘A diamond. Not bad. A woman’s ring,’ said Mr Ma, nodding his head and smacking his lips in a sign of appreciation. As he spoke, he thrust the ring into his pocket.

Li Tzu-jung opened his mouth, but a glance from Ma Wei made him bite back his words.

There was a short pause. Then Li Tzu-jung brought out the safe keys and a string of other little keys, and handed them to Mr Ma. ‘These are the keys of the shop. You look after them, Mr Ma.’

‘Tcha! You look after them. It’ll be simpler,’ said Mr Ma, still fingering the ring in his pocket.

‘Mr Ma, we ought to get matters straight. Are you going to keep me on?’ asked Li Tzu-jung, still holding the keys.

Ma Wei nodded to prompt his father.

‘I’ve told you to take the keys,’ said Mr Ma. ‘So I must be employing you, mustn’t I?’

‘Right. Thank you. When your brother was alive, I used to come in at ten in the morning and leave at four in the afternoon, and he gave me two pounds a week. My job was to attend to the customers and arrange the wares. When he fell ill, I came in at ten as usual, but worked until six o’clock, so he gave me three pounds a week. Now, I’d be glad if you’d tell me my wages, the nature of my job and my hours of work. It doesn’t matter if I work a bit less, as I have to keep some time for my studies.’

‘Oh, you’re a student, too?’ Mr Ma had never for a moment pictured Li Tzu-jung as a studying person.
Such a vulgar chap studying!
he said to himself.
You’d never guess it from the looks of him. That’s not how students look in China.

‘Yes, that’s what I really am, a student,’ said Li Tzu-jung. ‘Do you —’

‘Ma Wei!’ Mr Ma, devoid of ideas, looked at Ma Wei, his eyes seeming to say, ‘You suggest something.’

‘I think the best thing would be if I talked it over with Mr Li, and then we can get everything fixed later on. How about that?’ said Ma Wei.

‘Let us do that then.’ Mr Ma stood up. It was decidedly chilly in the room, and his knees felt a bit stiff. ‘Take me home, then come back and discuss things with shop assistant Li. And you can look through the accounts while you’re at it. Not that it matters whether you look through them or not.’

With these words, he slowly walked towards the front door. Reaching the display shelves in the outer room, he stopped and stood still again, looking at them for a long time. Then he turned to Li Tzu-jung and said, ‘Shop assistant Li, pass me down that small white teapot.’

Li Tzu-jung gently brought down the teapot, and handed it to Mr Ma. Mr Ma pulled out his handkerchief, wrapped the teapot in it and handed it to Ma Wei to carry.

‘Wait for me. We’ll have a meal together,’ said Ma Wei to Li Tzu-jung. ‘See you in a bit.’

F
ATHER AND
son walked out of the antiques shop. After a few paces Mr Ma halted, and peered hard at the exterior of the shop once more. This time he noticed the long sign behind a sheet of glass above the window, with its gold lettering on a black background.

‘What vulgar lack of taste,’ he said, shaking his head, while leaning back and surveying the repair-shop sign on the next floor. Then he turned around and looked at the walls across the road.

‘That chimney’s right opposite our window. The feng shui of our shop doesn’t seem very good.’

Paying no attention to what his father was saying, Ma Wei was looking up towards the dome of St Paul’s. The more he looked the more beautiful he found it. ‘There’s a nice place for you to go and worship some day, Dad,’ he said.

‘Yes, the church isn’t bad. But its spire’s robbed us of all the geomantic advantages. We won’t be able to get any.’

Mr Ma seemed quite oblivious to the fact that he was a Christian, and grumbled away about the poor feng shui. He was still shaking his head and grumbling as they left the little street. Ma Wei caught sight of a bus going to Oxford Street, and, as there was a stop right by St Paul’s, didn’t consult his father about boarding it, but pulled him along and jumped onto the bus with him. As Mr Ma registered his surroundings, the bus moved off again. Ma Wei bought their tickets.

‘Don’t call Li Tzu-jung “shop assistant”,’ he told his father. ‘Just look how the people on this bus say thank you to the conductor, even though all they’re doing is paying for their ticket. And Li’s a proper godsend in the shop, we can’t lose him. You’ll upset him if you call him shop assistant. What’s more —’

‘What do you imagine I ought to call him then? I’m the shop manager. Are you trying to tell me that the shop manager should address the shop assistant as “boss”?’

As he spoke, Mr Ma shot out a hand, took the little teapot that Ma Wei was holding, removed the handkerchief and closely scrutinised the seal-script calligraphy on the bottom. To tell the truth, our good gentleman was decidedly limited in his ability to read seal script, and what with the bus swaying wildly about, the characters were all the more difficult for him to read. He inwardly reproved Ma Wei for having boarded a bus without consulting him.

‘Call him “Mr Li”. You won’t be lowering yourself.’ Ma Wei frowned, but had no intention of starting a row with his father.

The bus passed under an iron bridge, and the train rumbling across the bridge was so noisy overhead that Mr Ma heard nothing of Ma Wei’s words at that point. The bus suddenly shot to the left and Mr Ma slipped violently forwards, almost letting go of the little teapot. He muttered several swearwords, but, in the confused hubbub of the traffic, Ma Wei didn’t hear him either.

‘Do you want to keep Li on or not then?’ Ma Wei asked his father, seizing his chance while the bus was idling at a stop.

‘What else? I have to employ him, don’t I? He knows how to run a shop. I don’t.’ Mr Ma’s cheeks reddened and he made to move, as if he would leap off the bus were Ma Wei to pursue his questioning. But he stuck his leg out too forcefully and almost trod on the dainty toes of the old lady sitting opposite. Hastily withdrawing his foot, he abandoned any notion of jumping off the bus.

Ma Wei knew there was nothing to be gained by questioning him. All it came back to, anyway, was, ‘Are you going to keep him on?’ – ‘How could I do otherwise?’, and ‘Why not address him as “Mr”?’ – ‘I’m the manager. If I call him “Mr”, what’s he going to call me!’ No point going round in circles. Ma Wei turned away, and concentrated on observing the street names, afraid they might go past their stop. Although the conductor was calling out the was one that would take Ma Wei more than a couple of days to get used to.

Reaching Oxford Street, they both got off, and Ma Wei led his father homewards. They’d not gone far when Mr Ma stopped, snorted, and lifted up the little teapot to inspect it again. He was in the habit of coming to a sudden halt, forcing people behind him to hastily dodge to the right or left if they hoped to avoid bumping into him and piling up in an ever-mounting heap. He would stop whenever the mood took him. Ma Wei was helpless to do anything except slowly trail after him, following in his footsteps, making father and son look like loach fish in a bowl, the first moving steadily before abruptly stopping, sending the other fish darting in sudden confusion.

At long last, they arrived home. Mr Ma stood outside the door and wiped the little teapot all over with the cuff of his sleeve. Then, teapot in hand, he unlocked the door.

Mrs Wedderburn had long since finished her lunch and was resting in the drawing room. She saw them return, but didn’t call out hello.

The moment Mr Ma stepped in through the front door, he exclaimed, ‘Mrs Wedderburn!’

‘Here, Mr Ma!’ she said from the drawing room, ‘Come in.’

Mr Ma went in, followed by Ma Wei. Napoleon, in the middle of his siesta, heard them arrive but didn’t open his eyes, just snuffled two nasal grunts.

‘Look, Mrs Wedderburn!’ Mr Ma raised the teapot aloft, his face wreathed in smiles, and his voice unusually soft and tender, as if he felt an imminent return to youth.

Having just finished her meal, Mrs Wedderburn was finding herself hard put to stay awake. The powder had worn off her nose, leaving her petite nose-tip exposed like a half-ripe hawthorn berry. In Mr Ma’s eyes, there was some inexpressible beauty about that nose.

She was on the point of getting up when Mr Ma forestalled her by placing the little teapot right before her eyes. He still remembered how, when he’d been playing with Napoleon, her hair had almost brushed against his jacket, and he was now beginning a concerted campaign to win her heart. Love was a step-by-step advance. Only by moving forwards could one hope to attain a kiss. And without a kiss, what chance for love?

In all other matters, Mr Ma retreated. Only with women did he advocate advancing. And his technique in this respect was not without its strong points. Indeed, we must admit that in this field Mr Ma was something of a genius.

Mrs Wedderburn leant forwards, took the little teapot from him, cocked her head to one side and examined the object closely. Mr Ma watched her, his face as bright as a little red balloon.

‘How pretty! Oh, lovely! It’s real china, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Wedderburn, pointing at the red cockscomb flowers and the two little chickens on the teapot.

Hearing her praise Chinese porcelain tickled Mr Ma pink. ‘I bought it for you, Mrs Wedderburn.’

‘For me? Really, Mr Ma?’

Her eyes shone big and round, her lips formed an O and what little of her décolletage was visible turned a gentle pink. ‘How many pounds would this little teapot be worth?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ said Mr Ma, and pointed at the vase on the table. ‘I knew you were fond of Chinese porcelain. That little vase is Chinese, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, what sharp eyes you’ve got. You do notice things! I bought that vase from a soldier. Napoleon, why don’t you get up and thank Mr Ma!’

She picked Napoleon up, and pressed down the dog’s head with one hand to make it perform two nods in Mr Ma’s direction. Very sleepy, Napoleon never opened his eyes. Even when she’d made Napoleon thank Mr Ma, Mrs Wedderburn still felt guilty about taking the little teapot.

‘Mr Ma, we’ll do a swap. I do love your teapot. If you’ll let me have it, you can take my vase and sell that. Though it probably isn’t worth that much. I paid . . . How much did I pay for it now? I’ve forgotten.’

‘A swap? Now then, don’t make any fuss,’ said Mr Ma with a smile.

Ma Wei was standing by the window, his eyes riveted on his father, his fingers crossed that his father’s next move wouldn’t be to give her that ring. Mr Ma was indeed fingering the ring in his pocket, but didn’t bring it out.

‘Tell me, Mr Ma: how much is this little teapot worth? Just so that I can tell people when they ask me.’Mrs Wedderburn clasped the teapot to her breast, like a little girl clutching a doll she’s just been bought. ‘How much is it worth?’

Mr Ma pushed his spectacles upwards and turned to Ma Wei. ‘How much would you say it’s worth?’ he asked him.

‘How should I know?’ said Ma Wei. ‘Take a look to see if there’s a price inside the lid.’

‘Ah yes. Here, give it to me and I’ll have a look,’ Mr Ma said melodiously.

‘No, let me look,’ said Mrs Wedderburn, anxious to show that she could do something, and gently removed the lid of the teapot. ‘Goodness! Five pounds ten shillings! Five pounds ten shillings!’

Twisting his neck, Mr Ma leant closer so that he could see. ‘Why, so it is. How much is that in Chinese money?’ He paused. ‘Sixty yuan. That’s a bit steep! Paying sixty yuan
for a teapot!
Why, if you paid one yuan twenty at the Tung-an Market you’d get a bigger one!’

Listening to all this, Ma Wei found it less and less to his liking. He grabbed his hat. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘I have to head off to meet Li Tzu-jung. He’s waiting for me to have lunch with him.’

‘Oh yes, Mr Ma. You haven’t eaten lunch yet, have you?’ asked Mrs Wedderburn. ‘I still have a slice of cold veal. It’s very tasty. Would you like it?’

Ma Wei was already out in the street, and through the curtain he could see his father’s lips in motion as he chatted away still.