Pao (9 page)

‘That is all about you. You ever think that maybe the tiger, as well as wanting to be free, also sometimes want some security and some rest so maybe it don’t have to fret every day ’bout where the next meal coming from or how it going defend itself against everything out there that want to hunt it down? That maybe the tiger want to be able to look forward to some support and company, especially when it getting older and it not so independent, or strong, or beautiful? That maybe the tiger just want some day to find some peace?’

‘You can have all of that, Gloria, and yu don’t need no cage to get it.’

She just look at me like maybe she believe me or maybe she don’t. And then she say, ‘You spend too much time listening to what everybody tell you.’

Well after we done say all of that I realise I can’t go ask her now how she hear ’bout me marrying Fay. So I miss my chance. And that was that.

After I leave Gloria, Hampton is waiting for me outside in the car and I say to him, ‘Come on, man, let us go walk back to town.’

‘Is ten o’clock at night, man, you mad? Don’t you know it dangerous?’

‘What, you ’fraid duppy going get you? And anyway, who you think foolish enough to go jump you and me? Come on, leave the car, you can come get it in the morning.’ And we start walking.

When we nearly reach into town we hear a commotion in a alley, like a barrel knock over or something like that. And we follow the noise because we think maybe somebody in trouble. When we get down there, there is the two of them. One of them stand up with his pants open and the other one kneel down in front of him. When the one on him knees turn ’round we see him young, and him get up and run. The other one is a grown man. Him do up him pants and disappear ’round the next corner. Me and Hampton just look at one another and carry on walk back to town.

10

Compassion

So I marry Fay, and we do the church and we do the party that Miss Cicely organise up Lady Musgrave Road with pink champagne and a little orchestra in the garden and a whole heap a people I never see before and never had nothing to say to, and who had nothing to say to me. And we drive up to Ocho Rios.

The whole week me and Fay having the honeymoon she say hardly two words to me. She busy with her hair, she fixing her face, she straightening her dress. She instructing the maid and telling the waiter what she want to eat, and she chatting with these complete strangers that she meet here and there every day. Me, she don’t say nothing to. She can barely even bring herself to look at me. We got the double bed right there inside the room and I am sleeping so far over my side I nearly falling out. Is just the sheet tuck in there under the mattress that saving me from hitting the cold tile floor every night.

And then the last night before we go home we do everything just the same way we been doing it all week. Fay take her shower and fix up herself and when she finish in the bathroom then it my turn to go take a shower and get ready for dinner. They serve dinner the same time every evening. Seven thirty for drinks and the little snack things on the terrace, and the band playing some gentle calypso. Eight pm you seated and working yu way through these five courses that they serve you every night. Not that I am complaining. The food is good, and every night is something else that I never see before. Like to me callaloo was callaloo but here they got it pile up in a little sandwich tower with some thin fried bread in between each layer and some strips of saltfish on top lay out like a star. And what they doing with the lobster I don’t know, but it cheesy and good, and the steak and the cream and the pork and the apple, and a whole heap a green and purple vegetable I can’t even recognise. But it good. It all good. It beautiful too under the clear Caribbean sky with the stars, and the music and the white linen tablecloth and the ice cubes clinking in the big water glass and the candles flickering on a little evening breeze. It nice. It civilised. They know how to look after you in this place.

To me it is a miracle. It is not a dream come true because I couldn’t have dreamed this. Fay, she take it like she take everything else, like she was expecting it. She in her element.

So this evening I shower and put on a nice pale blue Sea Island cotton shirt and some grey slacks and I stick a clean handkerchief in my pocket and I step out on to the veranda, and she is sitting there looking out to sea. She got the rocking chair pull up right to the veranda edge with her legs stretch out in front of her and her feet on the little white wall crossed at the ankles. She quiet. So I sit down on the sofa behind her where I can just catch sight of the sun setting. We nuh say nothing. We just stay there like that. Fay looking at the lawn and the sand and the hammock strung up between the coconut trees and me watching a blaze of orange sinking into the sea.

And then after a while I hear a little sniff and a snivel. A little snivel like she crying. I dunno what to do so I just sit there. But then the sound carry on so I get up and I walk over to where she sitting and I look at her. I look at her in the face and is true, she crying. So I take the kerchief outta my pocket and I hand it to her and she take it. She mop her eye gentle like she don’t want spoil her make-up, but she nuh say nothing. So I go back and sit down on the sofa.

By this time now it is getting dark and I see the lamps on the other verandas switching on one by one. But neither me nor Fay make no move to go switch on any lamp. We just sit there in the fading light and the silence.

Then she say to me, ‘My father told me it was better for me to marry you than to spend the rest of my life fighting with my mother.’

‘You didn’t have to marry me. You could have wait until somebody more suitable come along.’

‘What, after Cicely had set her sights on you?’

‘I’m sure Miss Cicely not so stubborn to stick to her own view if maybe you happier with somebody else.’

Fay just laugh. She just throw her head back and laugh with the tears still rolling down her face. And then she turn ’round and look at me. And looking at her like that it seem like for the first time ever since I set eyes on her that morning at the Chinese Athletic Club, her guard was down.

‘You think so?’

I just sit there because I dunno what to say to her. She look at me and she sorta smile and then she get up and start walk back inside. But just as she going pass me I stand up and reach out. And I grab her and hug her to me. I dunno what make me think it would be alright to go do a thing like that. I never take any liberty like that with her before. I suppose it was just instinct, even though the only other time I ever touch her was when I take her hand in the church to put the ring on it. And just now with us standing there I realise that we even miss the bit in the wedding when the priest tell you to kiss the bride, so I reckon either Fay or Miss Cicely must have tell him to leave that part out.

So the two of us entwined in the dark on the veranda and that is when she start to cry. Really sob like her whole body was heaving and it was taking all my strength to hold her up and stop the two of us from falling on the ground. It was like a little kindness turn the key to a floodgate that open up and let everything pour out. So I reckon it was some heavy burden that she was carrying there, but I didn’t say nothing. Truth is I didn’t know what to say to her. So I just carry on holding her tight and hoping that would be enough.

This is how we stay while I am looking over her shoulder and seeing the waiters in their white uniform with the big wooden tray on their shoulder carrying the food to the guests that want room service. And as they coming and going I know it time, so eventually after she calm herself down I say to her, ‘You want go get some dinner?’ When she ease back I see she was looking at me with a tenderness that almost make my heart bust. Then she mop her face and blow her nose on the kerchief I give her.

I look at Fay standing there on the veranda and I think well I dunno who Fay Wong is but maybe Fay dunno who Fay Wong is neither because that face that she put on for everybody just seem like a mask to me now.

That night when we go to sleep she crawl over to me and pull me off the edge into the middle of the bed, and then she rest her head on my shoulder and wrap my arm ’round her, just as I was listening to the tree frogs picking up their song.

When me and Fay finish the honeymoon and come home she take one look at Matthews Lane and she start to cry. The next day she go to her father’s and the day after that she come back. And then she start cry again.

I ask her what the matter, but Fay can’t even look at me. All I seeing is her back as she laying down or sitting on the edge of the bed.

‘I know this house not what you used to but it not so bad. We can do something fix it up.’ She no say nothing to me and I can’t make out if she angry or if she sad so I say, ‘It better than fighting with Miss Cicely.’ And that is when she turn ’round and look at me.

‘What on earth made you think I could come here to Matthews Lane and live in a place like this?’

‘It’s my home, Fay. This is my family with Ma and Zhang. What do you want me to do, leave them? Look at them, the two of them old. I can’t go leave them just like that. And I don’t want to. I am the son, they my responsibility. You forget you Chinese?’

‘You think I am Chinese?’

‘What you talking ’bout?’

And she just get up and walk out the room.

I think maybe I go buy something to cheer Fay up, like some nice silk blouse and silk stocking and some vase to brighten up the bedroom. And every night when we go to bed I talk to her. I tell ’bout everything happening ’round Chinatown and I ask her what kinda day she have. But all I see is her back and all I hear is the constant snivel and the blow of her nose. I never know a person could cry so much. I thought maybe eventually they would run outta water but not Fay. She keep it up day and night till it really start to vex everybody.

I can’t take it. It get so bad I start sleeping down the shop but Zhang say it not fair on everybody else in the house, I have to try do something with her. So eventually three weeks later I sit her down and I say to her, ‘Fay, nobody in the house can take your crying no more. You have to tell me what we going do to put an end to it.’ And I really look at her while she sitting on the edge of the bed and me kneeling on the hard wooden floor in front of her.

I take a finger and I wipe a few strands of hair away from her eyes because they wet and stuck to her face. And she let me do it which I know is a good sign. So I say, ‘What we going to do, eh?’

‘Why did you marry me, Pao?’ And that is when the wave of shame wash over me because I didn’t have no proper answer for her.

‘You married me because my father is Henry Wong. Isn’t that the truth? Honestly?’

I reckon the least I can do is face how ugly my own intention was so I say, ‘Yes. Yes it the truth. That is how it start, Fay, but that not how it is now, not since the honeymoon. When we was at the hotel I see a different side of you. You must admit yourself we cross a bridge that week you and me. Don’t tell me it didn’t mean nothing to you.’ And I take her hands in mine.

She let me stay there kneeling down holding her hand and then she say to me, ‘I can’t live like this, Pao. Can’t you see that you and this house are the punishment my mother picked out for me? This is the suffering she wants me to have for the rest of my life.’

‘What suffering?’

‘The same suffering that I had as a child when she used to beat and starve me and lock me in the music room and take the key with her when she went to church.’

I can’t believe what Fay is saying to me. Not that I think she lying but I can’t believe that Miss Cicely carry on like this.

‘What she beat you for?’

‘For always being too much of one thing and never enough of another.’

I can’t understand what she saying to me so I just kneel there and look at her, how serious she is ’bout this like she under some kinda obeah spell that she can’t do nothing ’bout.

‘It don’t have to be like that, you know. We don’t have to just sit back and let Miss Cicely decide what kinda life we going have together.’

Fay don’t say nothing to me, but the next day she stop crying and when I come home from work I see she been out the yard to go get some flowers from the market that she arrange in the vase in the bedroom where it look real pretty.

11

Weather

Then Finley tell me that the police get themselves a new sergeant from Montego Bay. They put him in the North Street police station to help fight corruption, which I think is rich because half my money going to the police to make sure them look the other way. So anyway I say to him, ‘Maybe we should go meet this sergeant,’ but Finley not sure if that is such a good idea.

‘What you going say to him anyway?’

‘Maybe we just say hello, and wish him well with him duties, which most likely him going have to start right there in the police station,’ and we laugh. ‘Well, after all them sending him after us so the least we can do is shake the man’s hand.’ So Finley say he will think on it. Sun Tzu say, ‘
By weather I mean the interaction of natural forces; the effects of winter’s cold and summer’s heat, and the conduct of military operations in accordance with the seasons
.’

A week later Finley’s big idea is to get Round One Chin to invite Sergeant Brown to address the Wholesale Provision Merchants’ Association. Chin not sure if he too happy ’bout it because even though he think maybe it a good idea to hear what Sergeant Brown got to say, he nervous ’bout getting involved with the police. He say everybody happy paying the protection and keeping Chinatown business in Chinatown. He say we don’t need to be inviting no outsiders to start interfering with us. We can handle everything ourselves just like we been doing since Zhang get here all them years back. So I have to say to him it alright, we not going do nothing but listen to the man for a few minutes.