The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

by Zen Cho

http://zencho.org

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Zen Cho

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The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

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I had tea with the intolerable aunt today.
Aunt Iris, the one who is so rich she has a new fur every year, and
so mean she has installed a tip box by the door of every WC in her
house, so you have to pay a charge every time you need to go. And
so sinfully vainglorious I remember she came to visit us at home
once and wore a wonderful glossy black mink fur. She sat on the
sofa with a fixed grin on her face, sweating gallons in the heat.
Ma had to send Koko out to get the doctor. It was just before New
Year and Ma was terrified Aunt Iris would go into an apoplexy in
our drawing room—which would have been such bad luck.

I had my angle of attack all planned out
today, though. On Wednesday I'd found out how much a piece of
chocolate cake cost at the restaurant, and I went in with the exact
change in my purse. When the waiter asked me what I wanted, I said:
"Chocolate cake, please", and I counted out my coins and paid him
right then and there.

"I haven't got any more money than that," I
explained.

Aunt Iris was furious: she looked like an
aunt and she was wearing her furs, of course. Even the English must
have thought it peculiar. But even so she didn't offer to pay. She
ordered two different kinds of cake and a pot of their most
expensive tea, just to show me. But I profited in the end because
she couldn't finish even half of one of her slices of cake. I
whipped out my notebook and tore out a page and wrapped the other
slice in that.

"I'll save you the hassle of eating it,
auntie," I said. "You must be so full now! I don't know how you
stay so slim at your age."

I hadn't meant the reference to her age as a
jibe. My mother is a very modern woman in most ways, but she would
still be offended to be accounted any younger than she is. Her
opinion is that she did not struggle her way to the august age of
forty-three only to have the dignity accorded to her years snatched
away from her.

But Aunt Iris has become quite Western from
living here so long. She has a passionate hunger for youth. It is
especially hard on her to be thwarted in it because the British can
never tell an Oriental's age, so she's been accustomed to being
told she looks ten years younger than she is.

"My dear Jade," she said in her plushest
voice—her voice gets the more velvety the crosser she is—"I know
you don't mean to be impolite. Not that I'm saying anything against
your dear mother at all—your grandmother wouldn't have known to
teach her these things, of course, considering her circumstances.
But as an aunt I do feel I have the right to give you—oh, not a
scolding, dearest, but advice, meant in the most affectionate way,
you know—given for your sake."

The swipe at my grandmother's "circumstances"
made me unwise. Aunt Iris is not really an aunt, but a cousin of
Ma's. Her mother was rich and Ma's mother was poor. But my
grandmother was as sharp as a tack even if she couldn't read and
Aunt Iris's mother never had two thoughts to rub together, even
though she had three servants just to look after her house.

"You should call me Geok Huay, Auntie,
please," I said. "With family, there's no need for all this
'Jade'."

I spoke in an especially Chinese accent just
to annoy her. Aunt Iris's face went prune-like.

"Oh, but Jade is such a pretty name," she
said. "And 'Geok Huay', you know!" She looked as if my name were a
toad that had dropped into her cup of tea. "'Geok Huay' in the most
glamorous city in the world, in the twentieth century! It has
rather an absurd sound to it, doesn't it?"

"No more absurd than Bee Hoon," I said. "I've
always wished I could name a daughter of mine Bee Hoon."

A vein in Aunt Iris's temple twitched.

"It means 'beautiful cloud'," I said
dreamily. "Why doesn't Uncle Gerald ever call you Bee Hoon,
Auntie?"

Aunt Iris said hastily:

"Well, never mind—you'd best take the cake,
my dear. Are you sure you don't want sandwiches as well?"

I was not at all sure I did not want
sandwiches. I said I would order some just in case, and ordered a
whole stack of them: ham and salmon and cheese and cucumber. Aunt
Iris watched me deplete the stack in smiling discontent.

"Greedy little creature!" she tittered. "I
would rap your knuckles for stuffing yourself, but you rather need
feeding. You are a starveling little slip of a thing, aren't you?
Rose and Clarissa, now, have lovely figures. They are just what
real women should look like, don't you think?"

"You mean they have bosoms and I don't," I
thought, but did not say. It didn't seem worth trying to enunciate
through a mouthful of sandwich.

She had lots more little compliments like
that.

"You would be so pretty if not for your eyes,
dear."

And:

"It's such a pity you inherited your mother's
nose. Don't take this the wrong way, dear, but your mother's face
has always had such a squashed look. A good nose does so much for a
woman's profile, doesn't it? Rose has an exquisite profile. I think
she is prettier from the side than from the front. That's from
Gerald. His mother was known for having a beautiful nose."

"What a strange country this is," I said,
"where a woman can have a famous nose. Did they write about it in
the newspaper?"

Well, I didn't say that last sentence. The
first was quite enough. I am sufficiently Confucian not to want to
alienate even the intolerable aunt. After all she is the only aunt
I have here.

It did sting, though. I know—at least, my
mind knows—that she thinks Rose and Clarissa are beautiful because
they look English, and anything that is English is good to Aunt
Iris. My heart is rather less sensible, and vulnerable to jabs
about eyes. When I got home I crept down to the landlady's drawing
room and stared at myself in her full-length mirror to remind
myself of how pretty I am.

You can't ever tell people you think you are
pretty. Even if you are pretty you have to flutter and be modest.
Fortunately here nobody thinks I am pretty, so my thinking I am
pretty is almost an act of defiance; it makes me feel quite noble.
I have that slim bending willowy figure that looks so good in a
robe, and smooth shining black hair like a lacquered helmet, and a
narrow face with a pointy chin and black slashes of eyebrows.

It took me a long time to realise I was
pretty, because Ma and Pa never thought so. Even the fair skin they
didn't like—I'm not the right kind of fair. The Shanghainese girls
on cigarette cards are like downy white peaches. I am like a dead
person. This was disturbing on a child. Now I am an adult, I am
like an interesting modern painting, but my parents are keen on
moon-faces and perms.

They are the nicest parents, though. They
always told me I was clever.

But the eyes are small, there's no getting
away from that. Poor phoenix eyes! Here you might as well be
sparrows.

What a disgusting entry! I must improve my
character. The reason why I started this diary was to become a
better writer, to develop a purer voice, and to practise cursive
handwriting. And here I am raving about looking like a willow when
I don't in the least, not being anywhere near as leafy—and all in
handwriting that would be enough to make the sisters at my old
school cry. (Or more likely, move those tough old biddies to make
me cry.)

Enough! I must work on my review. I am
reading a terrible sententious book called
The Wedding of
Herbert Mimnaugh
. Firstly, what sort of a name is Herbert and
why would a parent with any trace of natural affection wish to
afflict their child with such a name? Herbert's parents do not
feature prominently in the book when this choice alone makes it
obvious that they are the most interesting people in it.

Secondly and cetera, it is awful—hollow
intellectual grandstanding that always stays five steps away from
any true feeling even while it professes to plumb the depths of
human experience. And no sense of humour. I cannot forgive a book
that has no sense of humour.

I shall write a review tearing it apart and
ask Ravi to look at it. He might give me enough for it that I could
buy myself a new dress.

I did the stupidest thing today! My ears
still burst into flames every time I think of it. Why is it that
embarrassment afflicts me so much more than any other emotion? It
must be an indication of a very unenlightened nature. I have
forgotten all the passions of my youth, but I still remember the
time at school when I absent-mindedly called Sister Mary "Mother"
and the whole class laughed. Those were girls who had not absorbed
the Christian lessons of loving kindness.

It was setting up to be such a good day as
well. Ravi asked me to see him about my review of the terrible
Mimnaugh
book, so I went to Bloomsbury in trembling and
fear.

I like Ravi's office: it's so small and
box-like and like a room in a dollhouse. It's infernally hot in the
summer and antarctic-cold in the winter. And Ravi in it, with his
ink-stained hands and perpetually unfocused eyes, looks like the
high-minded scholar he is. It is the twentieth-century equivalent
of the poet's garret.

I was worried he would give me helpful
critique, which I would have to listen to because Ravi's judgment
is unerring. Instead, after shaking hands, he leant over the table
and said to me,

"I'd like to publish your essay. We could do
with another review in the next issue, and it's very sharp. But I
want to be sure that you're prepared for what might follow."

Perhaps my parents were wrong in thinking I
was clever. I hadn't the least idea what he was talking about.

"What might follow?" I said.

"Well," said Ravi, "there might be something
of an uproar. You do realise Hardie is rather well thought of by
the establishment? In fact, you might say he
was
the
establishment."

I nodded, trying to look intelligent.

"It might pay off," said Ravi. "People will
certainly read it, and that will attract interest in the journal.
And it could be wonderful for you—you'll certainly get a reputation
out of it. The question is whether that reputation would be one
you'd want. Even the most venerable public intellectual is human,
and the problem with offending a famous author is that his friends
write for the
TLS
."

Ravi looked charming: he was so serious and
concerned.

"Are you worried for my career?" I said.
"D'you think the Bloomsbury harpies would leap on me and carry me
off to have my insides for dinner?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think they'd do more than
peck you around the head a trifle," said Ravi. "But you are young,
you're only just starting out, and you aren't ...." He didn't need
to say 'English'. We looked at each other and knew what the other
was thinking.

"It's just a risk," said Ravi. "I wanted you
to understand that so you could make the decision yourself."

"I am very grateful," I said. I touched his
hand lying on the table. "It's good of you to think of me. But I
haven't really got a reputation to destroy. With the money you'll
give me for this and the money I'll get from my article on 'What
The Well-Dressed Woman Is Wearing', I should be able to pay this
month's rent and get a new dress. You don't know how I've been
wanting a new dress. It's a terrible hunger."

Ravi grinned. "What is the well-dressed woman
wearing?"

"Whatever she is wearing, she has got much
more money than me to get it with," I said. "No, I'm happy to run
the risk, if it is a risk. But I shouldn't think anyone of
importance will read it."

Ravi's mouth quivered.

"Thank you," he said. "It's good to know
you're excited about being published again in the journal."

"Oh, you know that's not what I meant!" I
said. "It's an honour to be published in the
Oriental Literary
Review
—you should have seen my face when I received the first
issue with an article by me in it—oh, you are laughing. You are a
beast! No, but seriously, Ravi, you must say when I offend you. I
never stop to think about what I say before I say it. It's a very
bad habit."

"I hope you never lose it," said Ravi. "It's
one of my favourite things about you."