Jade Woman

5

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SIX o’clock that evening I was sitting giddily on a wall beside the harbor. The sun was finally sinking, thank God. It had nearly done for me. I never wanted to see the bloody thing again.

Later I was to learn that I was in Kowloon, more precisely, looking out towards Stonecutters Island. A crowded street market adjoined the harbor where I sat. Farther along a mass of huge junks was crammed into the embrace of a mole. Between me and Hong Kong Island itself lay a massive white liner with slender twin funnels in primrose yellow—hope for survival? Desultorily I tried to feel cool as the hawkers slopped about running their barrows homeward, clack-clack-clack in plastic sandals. A few pai dogs were scavenging in the lessening light. They looked as furtive as I felt. I’d settle for a grubby cabbage leaf; the dogs could have the bits of raw gristle in the puddles. I’d never seen open drains before. I’d decided to wait when I saw the crowded vegetable stalls thinning, the fruit barrows pulling out. Nothing leaves rubbish—edible if grotty—

like a market. At least I’d be able to wash the grime from any wholesome bits. There was a water standpipe twenty yards off; hawkers had been using it. And I had my eye on a scatter of overripe oranges strewn about. I felt weird, practically off my head. My worst fear was that I was dulled, too stupefied to be worried.

Then an even worse thing happened.

As those small green-canvassed lorries loaded up and the iron-rimmed hand barrows wheeled off, other people appeared.

“No,” I groaned, aghast.

Before my horrified eyes they moved deliberately into the space, collected the rubbish and set up house. I stared, appalled. In less than a minute, practically before my stupid brain could take it in, the street was a mobile town and empty of calories. Packing cases were tilted end-on. Strips of canvas and a stick became a dwelling for crouching people. An old woman crawled into a tent made of two box lids and a cardboard door.

Some brought lanterns, transforming the hectic thoroughfare into a Caravaggio scene of golden light and shadows. It happened all in a few moments, and I was still starving.

Enviously but mystified I watched a skeletal man in shorts and singlet begin scraping the kiklings from discarded oranges into a can and carefully spreading the peel on the pavement. Little children ran to queue noisily at the standpipe. They carried yokes from which battered tins dangled, and nattered laughingly as they filled their containers.

Hong Kong’s water carriers, average age about six.

Even now I don’t know if I was hallucinating, but I saw one of the most sordid events of my life. Threadbare children grouped round a gutter. Dully I watched. They dipped a string in a filthy syrup tin and lowered the string through the grid. They lay in the gutter, peering down and calling excitedly. Then they pulled the string up slowly. It was coated with dangling cockroaches. They scraped them off into a jar. Four or five repeats and the jar was heaving, full. They took it away in triumph. I hate to think what… I turned away, nauseous. Poverty kills civilization even faster than it kills love.

Dejected and weary, I rose to scavenge elsewhere. Strangers, it seemed, got no change out of Hong Kong.

When I’d finally tottered into Kowloon, that vibrant nucleus of the densest aggregation of mankind on this earth, I’d been down but not quite out. The spectacle was exhilarating. Even in my worn condition I had felt the excitement that Hong Kong has.

It is hilly, color, brilliance, hectic.

It’s an irregular peninsula sticking out southwards from China’s Kwangtung Province, with Kowloon at the tip and a number of islands scattered offshore. The main island, but not the biggest, is Hong Kong proper, the nearerness of which creates the most magnificent deep-water harbor. Victoria —which everybody calls Central District—holds Hong Kong Island’s main population, but townships abound. The areas away from Kowloon and the island are the New Territories. At first I’d no idea of direction and roamed the pavements, desperate simply to stay alive among cavalry-charge traffic maddening itself by incessant hooters.

The tall close buildings cast a little shade, the sun closing perilously on the meridian. I noticed a Chinese habit, elderly thin gentlemen robed in long blackish priestly garments walking with small leather note-cases held to shield their bald heads. But such casual pedestrians were rare. It was a shambles of haste: thinlegged porters in shorts and singlets hurrying past in their indefatigable trotwalk carrying boxes five times too heavy, heat and more heat from that head-splitting sunshine, bright noise, shouts, lots of laughter, and all adazzle. Imagine a zillion cars, lorries, handcarts, markets seemingly rioting in a fast-forward scrum, fumes from screaming engines, a world at maximum revs in crowded streets lined by shops whose very adverts climbed in vertical slabs up to a transparent heaven. Above, balconies hung with signs, washing, straggly green fronds. Here below, hawkers were everywhere. In ten yards you could have bought watches, any leather item you’d ever heard of, crockery, a complete outfit, cameras, from pavement sellers crammed along the curb. Sun-scrawny individuals rivaled giant multiple stores by selling from bicycles. The shops were open, counters unglassed and no doors. I’d never seen so many different sorts of vegetables, fruits, spices, jewelry, clothes. I found I couldn’t even tell what some shops were selling, so tangled and scrunged their arrangements. And they went up onto the next floor, and the next after that, business hurtling skyward.

My natural wit returned sluggishly when I began to notice grand hotels. I decided to raise my game and remembered good old garrulous Goodman’s card, which I found in my top pocket. His office (“General & Art Import/ Export”) was in Princes Building, wherever that was. I tried it on at the Peninsula Hotel but got rebuffed at the three-glass double doors by an army of pale-blue liveried bellboys, and left between the two giant Dogs of Fo which gape forever at the fountains. The Shangrila was as bad, though if I’d been resident I’d have been delighted to know they gave the elbow to scruffs like me, if you follow. I got as far as glimpsing the Carrara-marble staircase of the Regent and scented the living orchids before I was out wandering in that oven sun. Hopeless.

By afternoon I was dead on my feet. I’d seen a small hotel in Nathan Road calling itself the Golden Shamrock. I badly needed a telephone, but I’d no money. If only I could con a call out of some desk clerk to Del Goodman, I might be able to… what? I didn’t know. All I knew was that Macao now seemed farther off than ever. By then I’d blundered into a shopping arcade where I drank in the cooled air for an hour among the glittering counters. It was there that a vast illuminated wall display mapped the entire colony for me. I used its computerized cursor to highlight Princes Building, then, heart sunk, the Macao Ferry Terminus. Both were across the harbor, on Hong Kong Island itself. They might as well be on the moon.

Giving my sweat-drenched thatch a quick comb, I marched smiling into the Golden Shamrock. A laid-back youth watched me come.

“Hello,” I said. No air-conditioning in this titchy place. The carpet and decor were definitely grubby. A fan flapped lazily overhead. “Has Mr. Goodman arrived yet, please?”

He wasn’t really interested. A few keys hung behind him on a board.

“He works in Princes Building. We’re meeting here.” A dusty restaurant sign pointed at the stairs. “For supper,” I added wistfully.

“No Goodman,” he said while I peered irritably at the visiting card.

“Look,” I said, tut-tutting. “Could I use your phone, please? Only, I’m short of change…”

To my amazement he nudged the desk phone to me and went back to watching a video screen running an ancient Western. My spirits soared at this evidence that I’d not lost my old touch, stupidly not yet realizing that in Hong Kong local phone calls are free. I dialed and got through first go. You can understand my astonishment at such efficiency, used as I was to the feeble intermittency of East Anglia’s phony phones.

“Goodman here.”

I nearly fainted with relief. “Mr. Goodman? Hello! Hello! Er, this is Lovejoy.”

“Lovejoy?” A pause. “Yes?” He’d forgotten me. I could tell. But he was my lifeline and I wasn’t going to let go.

“Er, we met on the plane.”

“Oh, yes. The antiques artist. What can I do for you, Lovejoy?”

“Well, I’m actually in a spot, Mr. Goodman.” From shame I turned my back to the counter, though the desk clerk seemed oblivious. “I had my pockets picked at Kai Tak.

I’m broke.”

His tone said he had heard all this before. “Look, old sport. I’m in business, not charity.

Sorry, but—”

“Money!” I yelled, terrified lest he hang up. “Money for you! That sale!” I hunted my feeble memory. What the hell had he droned on about? Some ceramics or other?

Furniture? “Hello?”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“I can finger the genuine for you! Honest to God! You’ll make a killing! Promise!” I’m pathetic. I ask you, begging to be employed by a perfect stranger.

Pause. “What do you know the rest of us don’t, Lovejoy? Only divvies can play that game.”

“I’m a divvy, Mr. Goodman. Honest. Try me out. Anything antique.” Another frightening pause. I babbled incoherently on. “I’ll give you addresses, numbers you can call.

Anybody’ll tell you.” I hated my quavering voice.

Still wary, but a decision. “No harm to meet, I suppose. Come over, Princes Building, Central District—”

“I can’t, Mr. Goodman. I’m over in Kowloon. The map says Princes Building’s on the island. I haven’t the fare.” Best not to say too much.

“I see.” Aye, I thought dryly. Trust an art merchant to spot percentage trouble. “Very well. Kowloon side, then. I’ll come over on the Star Ferry tonight. Nine o’clock okay for you?”

My appointment book was relatively clear. “Where?”

“By the big clock tower, Star Ferry pier.”

Eagerly I repeated the instructions. “Thanks. Honest, Mr. Goodman. It’s really great of you—”

Click, burr. I said a casual thanks to the desk clerk, who was now staring at me as I replaced the receiver, and sauntered out into the heat. Definitely not my usual jauntiness, but at least with better odds on survival. Spirits lifting, I had a drink at the Peninsula Hotel’s fountain pool to fend off dehydration, hoping the water was safe, and stared boldly back at the staff frowning out.

I’d survive to nine o’clock if it killed me. As it was, it killed somebody else.

Whether it was relief or having talked to somebody in the vernacular, I honestly don’t know. But all of a sudden I felt alert, awake. A psychologist’d say that I’d received a fix, a squirt of life along that mental umbilical cord connecting me with antiques—and as everybody knows they’re the font of the entire universe. Whatever, I stepped out of that door and my mind blew. I saw Hong Kong for the first time. I still don’t know if it was a terrible mistake, or the best thing’s ever happened.

First imagine all the colors of the spectrum. Then motion, everything on the kinetic boil, teeming and hurtling on the go. Then noise at such a level of din you simply can’t hear the bloody stuff. Then daylight so blindingly sunny that it pries your eyelids apart to flash searing pain into your poor inexperienced eyes. Add heat so sapping that you feel crushed. Then imagine pandemonium, bedlam, swirling you into bewilderment. Now quadruple all superlatives and the whole thunderous melee is still miles off the real thing. Every visible inch is turmoil, marvelous with life.

The street was, I learned later, a dull off-peak one near Nathan Road in the dozy midafternoon. It seemed like Piccadilly Circus on Derby Day because I was new. I found myself in the whirlwind, now pushing among pavement crowds, now being swept away in sudden surges of the human torrent. Buses, cars streaming, barrows clattering, and all competing against that most constant racket of all: speech. For Hong Kong talks. I was amazed, God knows why. But all the time Chinese people laugh, exclaim, are astonished, roar delighted denials and imprecations, hold forth, anything as long as the old vocal chords are on max. At first I thought they were all angry. Within minutes I guessed it must be their Cantonese that happens to need vehemence.

That’s not all. Hong Kong does. On every pavement market there’s action. Not mere activity. It’s sheer pace. Immediacy’s the name of the game. The tiny lad piggybacking his tinier sister is making mileage. Chinese shoppers noisily bargain and rush back to bargain again. All sights, sounds are concentrated around potential customers. I saw every conceivable style of attire, from common dark pants with a tightish white high-neck wraparound blouse thing, to a close-fitting dress in brilliant hues. Stylishness was everywhere. I felt a sweaty slob, struggling on to find that clock tower, my eyes screwed up against the glare.

Besides being in the most fantastic place on earth, something happened. I saw a miracle. And she was alive.

Of course I’d reflexly noticed the Chinese women’s hour-glass figures, the nipped waists, those lovely slender narrows from the breast to hips. You can’t help it. And that high mandarin collar to the cheongsam, the slit hem, the fold-over bodice, that clutch-sleeve effect, the whole thing a marvel of compact form. But I was telling you about this miracle. It happened in a market.

Applause somehow seeped through music blaring in the row. Mechanically I turned into the side street. It was narrow, with stalls and barrows cramming onto an open wharfside, water gleaming beyond. I eeled among the vegetable stalls—I’d never seen most of the produce before. Everybody was peering, grinning, talking. I stepped over fish buckets, avoided a sweating bloke humping two big tins of water on a homemade yoke, and stood on tiptoe to peer over the suddenly still crowd. Most were diminutive women shoppers carrying bags and bundles of greens dangling on finger strings.

And I saw her.

She was in a light-red cheongsam, long-sleeved, and seemed to be doing nothing more spectacular than strolling. Turned away, pausing at a stall, she reached a hand and touched a pear on a heap of pale giant pears, and the entire crowd went

“Waaaaaaah!”The woman strolled on, exquisite. She was a glorious butterfly, an exaltation, so beautiful that words are just all that jazz. I knew how that pear felt. It had got a peerage. The hawker was a dehydrated geezer in a curved straw hat, naked except for billowy gray shorts frayed about his skeletal old knees. He had a baby’s two-tooth grin, looked varnished by countless wizening Chinese summers. With a flourish he wrapped the pear in a colored paper and offered the bundle. Another beautiful woman, one of three following her queenly progress, took it. No money changed hands but the chorus of approval was evident as people crowded round him to congratulate him and buy his fruit. I pushed after, mesmerized by that sublime woman. No shoving among the crowds for her. The way cleared magically. One hawker pulled his stall aside with the help of countless hands so she could stroll through. Oscar Wilde once said ultimate beauty was a kind of genius, and he’s right because it is. Plenty of other Cantonese women standing clapping and admiring were pretty, attractive as they always are. And her three followers were gorgeous enough, God knows. But I swear that this creature actually did shine. I honestly mean it. Luminous. If the sun had gone out you could have read a paper by her radiance. Her luster was a dazzling, tangible thing.

Half a dozen suited men stood about staring at the ogling crowd. The three women followed into a liner-size chauffeured Rolls. To applause, it glided away. The goons leaped into a following limo. I was glad they’d gone. You can always tell mercenaries; they have the anonymity of a waiting computer—programmable but without separate purpose. Well, I thought dispiritedly as the Rolls was engulfed by the traffic, if I had a perfect bird like that, I too would hire an army. The elderly hawker was making a fortune. In all the babble he was demonstrating over and over exactly how he’d taken the pear and wrapped it. I heard a camera-laden American tourist exclaim, “Jee-zzz!

Who was that?” as the mob dispersed, and for the first—but not the last— time in my life heard the words of explanation. An older Chinese chap in long bluish nightgown courteously answered in precise English. “Jade woman,” he said.

My senses returned, reminding me that I had no idea what the hell I was doing. A headache began. The crowds thickened, rushed faster. Heat swamped back with the music, talking, shouts. Hong Kong’s thick aroma came again to clog the nostrils. The buses began honking and revving, and I found I was still among mere mortals. But I’d never be the same. I felt remade, a new model Lovejoy.

Jade woman. I’d look it up when I got a minute, except how do you look something up in Hong Kong? For a while as I pushed through the mobs in search of that clock tower I felt almost myself again, remembering. The heat drained me of course within a hundred yards and I had to halt, breathing hard, my hair dripping sweat.

Failure when it comes is a bully. It grinds you down so the sludge gets in your eyes, up your nostrils. The meaning is an unmistakable eternal law: Failure is intolerable to the successful. Hang on to nine.

I found a fragment of shade near a line of stalls in a side street, stood still and closed my eyes. All I could think of was rest, food, and coolth, but I’d none of those three. I opened my eyes, and saw a European bloke wandering purposefully among the barrows. He was searching among the bits and pieces on a jade stall. The thing that lifted my hopes was his grooming: handmade leather shoes, gold watch, blow-waved hair. And fed. There are two basic attitudes to life. Either you live it, or sit sulking and hope existence will come by the next post. I rose, steadied my giddiness away, and plodded across.

He was one of those affected individuals forever trying to seem young and witty. A veritable Hooray Henry, in fact. I didn’t mind. If I couldn’t con a bite or a groat out of this duck egg, I didn’t deserve to survive. I pretended interest in the vendors’ wares.

They were mostly jade pieces—different colors but mostly grays, an occasional pale green, and the white mutton fat, carved as belt buckles, pendants, and the like. He was after something for a lady, I guessed, as he picked up a jade carving, a flattened mushroom.

“?” He spoke Chinese to the hawker, a stringy little chap looking a century old.

“!” The vendor expostulated at length on his reply, gold teeth grinning behind fag smoke. My mark shook his head, gave back moans and groans. The vendor seemed to drop his price a bit, which called for more argument. I reached out.

“Not that,” I said. “This.”

The jade piece was about two inches long, merely a dark-green flat leaf with an insect on it. The creature was brick red. The carving seemed to hum in my hand like an electronic top. Lovely, lovely. Dilapidated as I was, the ancient loveliness of it was like rescue itself.

“It’s genuine,” I told him. “Ch’ing Dynasty stuff, 1750 maybe. The rest are crappy simulations. Parti-colored jades were a Ch’ing speciality, but watch out for stained fakes.”

He eyed me up and down, fingering me as a scruff on the make. “They’re all real jade.”

“Yes, but modern.” I strove for patience. “This isn’t crummy new jade. Don’t be taken in by crappy Burmese jadeite stuff. This is old, mate. It’s the only genuine antique on his stall. Have a shufti with a magnifying glass if you don’t believe me. You’ll see the pitting which the old jade workers’ treadle power always—”

“!” The hawker was nodding with enthusiasm. Anything for a sale.

The mark took me aside, lowered his voice and said, “Piss off. Hawk your con tricks elsewhere.”

And went back to the barrow leaving me staring. So much for the help you can expect from a compatriot. Almost weeping at parting from the jade, I cut my losses and blundered on.

As an incident it wasn’t much, probably the sort of encounter that happens a trillion times a day in cities everywhere. But it had an effect on me; got me into one mess called murder and another called prostitution. I have this knack, you see.

An eon later I was in the air-conditioned splendor of the Ocean Terminal, a vast shopping arcade of bogglesome affluence. From there I could keep an eye on that vital clock tower, making sure it didn’t escape before nine o’clock when Goodman would arrive and be my salvation.

But all I could think of was that blindingly beautiful jade. And the jade woman. They both stayed in my mind like a siren’s fatal song.