The Bridge of Jade

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 700, 27 June 1929, Page 15

The Bridge of Jade

By

Myra Morris.

O ld Ah Foo stood at the door of his shop. He always stood there, bending himself over, and rubbing his long-iingered yellow hands. When Ah Foo stood there with nodding head and wringing hands, he looked just what he was—a little wizened old chinaman with a dark sorrow. When he was inside his shop, his wrinkled eyelids flickering over his expressionless eyes, he looked just as he wanted to 100k — an astute Oriental business man. In his little shop where the green bananas ripened in the steamy heat at the back. Ah Foo sold many things. On his shelves he had sticky sweets and pyramids of blue basins the blue of the sky, greeny ginger-jars the colour of a peacock’s neck, tea in red and gold canisters shaped like pagodas, scarlet lacqner work, carved pieces of jade like the opaque waters of pools at sunset, little bronze gods -with unsmiling faces, screens carved out of tulip-wood, and made of taut silk as soft as peach-blossom, and rich kimonos with designs of fruit trees in bloom and high bridges. A multitude of things Ah Foo had there. They said he would sell or buy anything. Not very often Ah Foo had made mistakes in his long life of buying and selling. He had an eye that could size up the value of the goods brought to his little shop by the bridge in a second. Only once he had made a big mistake, and that was with the bridge of jade. A lump of pink jade, dull and chipped, and carved inexpertly into the shape of a bridge, with figures walking on it. It had stood among the scarletfigured handleless cups in a corner of the window. There had been nothing in particular to commend it. Ah Foo had quite forgotten how it had come there, and he had sold it for 15s to a yellow-haired girl who came sometimes, and played her violin in the school run by the Mission Sisters. Sweet, smiling women, those Mission Sisters, in their black and white habits, bringing girls in from the dark street, teaching poor children in a little damp building at the back of the cabinet-makers’ shops. But no sooner had Ah Foo sold his bridge of jade to tire girl who carried her violin case along with Sister Monica than he realised his mistake. The piece of jade was good stuff. It was worth twice that sum in pounds, not shillings. He could have sold it for £3O a week later. Incredible happening! Ah Foo could have wept over it had he been given to tears. It was something he would never forget. Twenty years later old Ah Foo could still think of the jade bridge with regret. Standing at the door cf his shop, he would see the children playing in the street, with their coarse black hair and their black, black eyes, and be would watch the lorries go by with their straining horses, and, behind, the thin masts of river ships. And he would think of the piece of jade that he had sold for 15s to the girl whose hair had been the colour of a new penny, and whose eyes had been bluer than the bluest biue bowl in his window. Besides the austere form of Sister Monica, tall and straight in her flowing black and white, she had seemed like the spirit of youth. Laughter had gurgled over her lips as she had darted into the dark little shop, thumping her violin-case down on the counter. “Oh, sister, let’s buy something here.’’ she had pleaded; “something trulv Chinese! I may not come again, and I want something to remember. Please Mr. Ah Foo ” And she had bought the bridge of jade for 15s, and left Ah Foo the stinging memory of a bad business mistake, along with the memory of

something of beauty that could still warm his old heart. For it was a sad old heart was the heart of old Ah Foo. He was the alien always. As the years passed his dreams of China grew more and more remote. It was not that he did not make money, but that the money was somehow demanded for lesser, nearer things. His dead brother’s wife was dying of cancer, and he had been keeping her in comfort for years. On two occasions he had had to pay heavy fines for his younger brother who ran a gaming house, and lately he had to cope with new competition in the street. As a secondhand dealer he was nowhere. So he would shuffle about in his little shop, rubbing his hands together, or pulling at the thin, grey whiskers that ran along the edge of his peaked chin, thinking and dreaming of the country he would never see again, or muttering lines of poetry—perhaps a little bit from Sung Tzuhou. “On the Eastern Way at the city of Lo-yang, At the edge of the road, peach-trees and plum-trees grow; On the two sides—flower matched by flower; Across the road—leaf touching leaf. A spring wind rises from the north-east; Flowers and leaves gently nod and sway. Up the road somebody’s daughter comes Carrying a basket, to gather silkworms’ food.’’ All so familiar and loved and all so far away! And all so beautiful! Nothing could touch it in beauty except the memory of the girl with the golden hair who had bought the bridge of jade so long ago. One day Ah Foo was standing at the door watching the traffic when a girl came along the street. She was a shy, slender thing with an air of bravado, and she carried a small bundle under her arm. She stopped hesitating at the door of the shop. Ah Foo peered down at her kindly. Her face was like a flower under her hat, and she had fine, pale hair that twisted over her round cheeks in little turned-up tufts. She wore a neat dress, and her gloves were worn, and she walked heavily, so that you could tell that her shoes had been recently resoled clumsily. Ah Foo shuffled back behind the counter, and the girl followed him in over the step with its foot-worn hollows. She said with a crimson face that she had something to sell—not much—a china jug which was said to be good; two evening frocks with a great deal of tarnished lace about them, and a pair of silver shoes. “They told me to come here to sell anything,” she said with an almost swaggering defiance. “They said you would buy anything. My mother and I, we will take anything just now.” “I will tell you,” said old Ah Foo with dignity. He looked the things over. There was nothing of value there, so he paid her as little as he could, and she went out as suddenly as she had come with a little look of relief in her face. He went to the door and watched, her vanishing figure. Ah Foo was always touched by beauty. And this girl was sweet and delicate. She was like the white anemone with yellow stamens. Her voice was soft and sighing, like the “kin,” the Chinese lute. Why, he did not know, but when he saw her he thought of the rice-fields flooded with water, and quiet monastery gardens, and the doves flying across the sky. A second time the girl came back to ask him if he would buy anything else, and when he replied with a noncommittal “perhaps,” she stayed for a while fingering the brass gods on the counter. Ah Foo gave her some Chinese sweetmeat, and she ate it. pulling a grimace. “Ugh,” she laughed, showing her

teeth. “It- tastes like the smell of your shop!” She might have been 19, Ah Foo thought, no more, perhaps less. She was teeming with vitality, though there was a touch of sadness almost like fear in her eyes when she was not smiling. He thought that she would go through life tasting every new thing in it just as she had tasted the sweatmeat which she had not liked much. A few days later while Ah Foo was arranging his slender incense sticks in long, green vases, the girl appeared again. She . was carrying a shabby little suitcase, and her face had a look that was both sullen and sad. “I didn’t want to bother you again." she said in her small voice. “I tried to sell these to a man up the street, but he wouldn’t look at them. Even a few shillings ” Old Ah Foo spread out his claw-like yellow hands. He was not a philanthropist, he muttered, stumbling over the word. He did not want to buy any more. He could not afford .... He picked the things over with a disparaging air. Two more gaudy evening frocks, a plated rose bowl, and a dyed silk shawl that was wrapped round something. “See, the silk is good,” said the girl, speaking as though she forced the words out of her pale little mouth. “We’ve had it for years. And this pinkish ornament! My mother said she bought it somewhere here 20 years ago. She thought it might bring a few shillings ” The Chinese took it from her with hands that trembled. It was thejnnk jade bridge! There was a film “over his eyes. Almost he could not see for a" moment. The pink jade bridge that he had cursed himself over —coming hack to him —like this. He remembered the two figures in the shop that day—2o years ago. The tall, austere form of Sister Monica, in her black and white —the laughing girl with her violin case. “Is your mother a lady with yellow hair?” he asked eagerly. “Once, perhaps,” said the girl with a quick intake of breath. “Now, it is no colour at all. Like a streaky stone. You know how that hair goes. Not that it matters,” she added hastily. “It can still be beautiful!” “Of course.” Ah Foo bent his head. He stood motionless. Women grew old like men. Life was hard. Gold to no colour at all. Gold to ash! His peaked chin, with its straggly fringe of grey whisker trembled. “Fifteen shillings for the. bridge,” he mumbled. “And five for the rest. I can buy no more afterwards. Do you hear?” She nodded. She had told herself that she would not come again. Even if there had been anything else left to sell, she would have refused to come. It was horrible this hawking round of the foolish treasures they had had for years. Of course, there had been no room for anything that was not actually necessary in that small sitting-room and bedroom above Mr. Harris’s fruit shop round the corner. But

“Good-bye,” she said gently. “Thank you. You are very generous!” She went up the noisy street, clutching the limp pound-note in her fingers. It would do them until next week, when she started work with the mission sisters as a teacher. She would not get much money for a start—not enough to keep two people. She went through Mr. Harris’s fruitshop and climbed the dark, narrow stairs, a feeling of desolation descending upon her at every step. Perhaps it was because you were young—barely 18 —that life seemed to be so unfair. Always she had known that grinding poverty that had kept herself and her mother from tasting what they had wanted in life. Before, in that narrow little street In Sydney, -where she had looked after her mother who had been too ill to leave, and now. in Melbourne, where they had only been for a few months. She went through the bare landing

and into the stuffy little sitting-room that smelled of dusty tablecloths and old papers. A thin slip of a woman, with scornful eyes and a wistful mouth, was mending a stocking, her back to the window. You could see that she had been beautiful once. The ghost of that beauty was still there, like a fitful gleam of sunlight on grey water. Her mouth widened into a smile. “Well, Rosetta! Did you sell them? Poor child! It’s too bad. I should never ask you again. A whole pound!” She got up and put a match to the gas-stove in the corner, and it lit with a loud pop. Her movements were vague and uncertain. Rosetta tossed her little hat on to a chair and laughed. “And now, mother, tell me what happened. Did you play for that man in the picture orchestra? And did you get the job? Did you play all your old favourites, and— —” “I played,” said the woman, with her eyes scornful. “I played on his violin. He affected to be impressed. He remembered that I had been with Le Plastrier’s orchestra in the old days when I used to perform in front of dear old Sister Monica’s girls. But I told him that I hadn’t a violin of my own, and lie immediately cooled off. He made me understand that he wasn’t a philanthropist—that there were several after the position. That ” “Mother!” Rosetta clasped her hands together as she watched her mother drop two eggs carefully into the little aluminium saucepan.

“Couldn’t we get one somehow? Even by paying a deposit. Some way ” “There’s no way.” The woman smiled through a little cloud of steam. “I’m better now. I’ll have to do hard work with my hands the, same as hundreds of women who are no stronger than I am.” She sat down and stared at her long, white fingers. “After all, it was a dream —this trying to get back into an orchestra. Old Perugni has a beautiful violin that 1 could get for £26! It is the sort of one that I could play on.” She got to her feet. “Well, darling, I can play It in my dreams! And you—you start with Sister Claire next week, you will be all right ” “Oh, it’s not fair, it’s not fair!” cried the girl, flinging herself down in a tottering chair. “All this just because you married a rotter who wouldn’t keep you. Stamping on your career ” “Hush!” said her mother. “Someone is coming up the stairs.” She opened the door guardedly, standing there stiff and straight with her slim figure taught. It was a little old Chinaman who stood at the door, bowing, his hands folded one over the other. “I am from the shop,” he said in his husky voice. “Ah Foo! I come about a bridge of jade you sell me today, or your daughter, she sell me. I found out down the street where she live, and come here. It is worth £3O that bridge of jade. You bought it from me 20 year ago for 15 shillin’!” “Yes, I remember!” The woman closed her eyes. She was remembering back. Those happy days! Her violin—and austere Sister Monica. Sister had got her to play for the poor children. Sister Monica had not liked the man she had fallen in love with so swiftly that she had been swept off her feet. “He will be weak and faithless,” wise Sister Monica had said. “You will know years of misery.” How right Sister Monica had been.

She put out her hand to Ah Foo. “I remember,” she said, gently. “I rob you of what belong to you if I do not give you the £30,” said old Ah Foo, huskily. “I can sell him for that myself.” He was thrusting out a roll of notes. “For your bridge of jade. Igo now.” There was silence in the little room. Rosetta was holding her breath, a scarlet spot of colour on each round cheek. Her mother was hiding her face in her hands. “And now,” she was whispering,” and now it is all right. I can’t believe it. It is too fantastic.” Old Ah Foo was shuffling down the street, his hands hidden in his sleeves, his yellow face impassive. Because of the memory of a glimpse of beauty that had kept his old heart warm, he had done this. Perhaps he would grieve over it later. But for now he was at peace.