Pao (4 page)

Zhang say, ‘
Xièxie
, thank you. I am full of gratitude.’ So it seem like Mr Chin give us this house.

Then Madame Chin come with all the Chinatown Committee and them wives. They bring food for everybody to share, like a celebration, and all of them saying welcome, welcome.

After they gone Zhang say for us boys to take a shower and go to bed and him go to his room. The shower cold and refreshing, and afterwards when I lay in the crisp cotton sheets I think to myself this is no Chinese farm. No green rice fields or gold rape carpet. But it is all we need. Best thing, no Japanese soldiers outside. And then I close my eyes. I so tired all I want to do is sleep the rest of my life, but all I do instead is listen to dogs bark and people making a ruckus somewhere off in the distance.

Next morning Zhang say me and Xiuquan must put on our best clothes and come with him. The best we have is our changshan. We both got them, in black. They old fashion we know, and even in China people hardly wear them now except for a special occasion when some people still like you to wear a gown. But it is what we have. When Zhang see us he shake his head and mutter something to himself ’bout men and changshan, and pigtails and the revolution, but he march us outta the gate anyway into the blistering heat and the stench of the drains.

We walk up Matthews Lane till we get to Barry Street and as we turn the corner all I see is the buggies. One after another, line up in one long, neat row, all the way up the street. With their little black canopies and the horses, and the drivers cleaning up the stinking piles that dropping from under their tails because, Zhang say, they going sell the manure to the Indians for growing the vegetables. When we get to the post office we turn into King Street and into a shop call Issa’s that sell everything, including what Zhang want us to have – underpants, vests, socks and shirts. Then he march us outta there and into a shop where they sell sturdy lace-up shoes, which we have to try on wearing the new socks; and then he put us in a buggy, where he sit up front with the driver, and go to another place where he choose some material, and buy the whole bolt; and then to a tailor who got a little cap on his head and who measure us for trousers, after we put on a pair of the new underpants. Two pairs of trousers each outta the same fabric, which Zhang want in a hurry so the man promise that the trousers soon come. And then the buggy take us back to Matthews Lane and Zhang seem satisfied with that.

He sit us down in the yard and cut our hair himself, which Xiuquan not too happy about, I don’t know why. Maybe because he used to Ma doing it. Maybe he think Zhang taking too much liberty taking charge of us like this. Because the hair not that long, it just too long for Zhang’s liking. But when I look at Ma she sitting there and she smiling, and she putting her palm flat against her cheek and leaning her head to one side like she enjoying watching what going on. So I reckon if it alright with her then it alright with me.

The thing that strike me all the time we going about is not just how the streets and the buildings look different from China, or how the place smell different, more sorta salty than earthy. What strike me is how different the people look. There was ones with dark, dark skin and the broad nose and thick lips and tight hair. And even the ones that got lighter skin still got the nose and the hair. They got every shade from blue-black to all sorts of brown. They even got some with ginger hair. Then they got some with skin sorta smooth and sallow, and they got straight nose and straight hair. And they got ones with white, white skin, and yellow-white hair and red eyes. I never know there was so many different ways a person could look. All I knew about was the straight black hair and the flat nose and the eyes.

The next day I find out why Zhang in such a hurry for the trousers. We have to go to a banquet. So when the tailor come in the yard with one pair for each of us, Zhang relieved. And he tell us to go get dressed. When Xiuquan ready Zhang tell him to run up to Barry Street and fetch two buggies and when he come back we leave with Ma wearing a traditional cheongsam in deep red with white plum blossom, and Zhang dressed in a dark blue Zhongshan suit, with its turndown collar and four symmetrically placed pockets, named after Dr Sun Yat-sen and now the army uniform for Mao Zedong.

The place they have the banquet got a big room with wooden tables and benches and a veranda all the way ’round outside. And then it got that same thing again upstairs. The stairs go up straight out of the middle of the room. Every inch of this place is packed so I reckon the whole of Chinatown must be here. Mr Chin at the door to welcome us and escort us to his family table where Madame Chin sitting with their three daughters and two sons and one daughter-in-law and one son-in-law and the children. Everybody bow and happy to see us.

All ’round the corners of the room there is big barrels full of rice, and a lid to keep it warm. So when you need to you can just go up there and fill up your bowl. The meat and vegetables come on a big wooden tray that it take two people to carry and they unload it all on to the table because that is the food for our family. There is everything. Just like home. Preserved salted fish and pork; char siu, roast pork, roast duck and white cut chicken; duck gizzard and beef stew; ginger lobster, steam fish, boiled shrimp, stir-fry vegetables, choi sum, pak choi, steam eggs, wanton noodles. And we just eat, in the noise and the heat, and with the little ceiling fans whirling round and round.

All the time we eating I see them moving a little wicker basket from one table to the next. All ’round downstairs, and out on to the veranda and then someone take it upstairs. And a long time after when they bring it back down they go in the yard with it. Then after that they come back inside and bring it to Mr Chin.

Mr Chin stand up and Zhang stand up, and Mr Chin give the basket to Zhang and they bow. And then Zhang turn ’round and he bow to Ma and I think to myself well this thing getting on like a wedding banquet. So I don’t understand what is happening, except I know for sure that the basket full of money.

After the dinner over, Madame Chin get out a basket with four shut pans and give it to Ma so that she can take home some of the leftover food.

Two days later when Zhang think we well enough rested him say, ‘You boys save from death. You come make new life. Time you turn your hand to something.’ And him walk towards the gate expecting us to follow. He open the gate and stop, and turn to us and say, ‘The Jamaicans angry. They causing a stink because of bad wages and unemployment, so you boys mind how you act. They don’t need no aggravation from you.’ And we step into the lane and the dry morning heat together.

We walk up Matthews Lane till we get to Barry Street, where Zhang know every man and woman in sight, every shopkeeper and market trader. People in grocery stores, laundries, hardware stores, bakeries, dry goods; people who happy to see him; people who just stand up on the street and talk to him and smile and bow their heads.

We visit every shop, and from every one Zhang collect a small brown paper bag, with smiles and bowing heads; and wishes for him to have good health and a long life. Shopkeepers offer ‘Perhaps a small gift for your young charges?’ but Zhang refuse and bow his head in respect. This is how we travel the length and breadth of Chinatown.

Afterwards, Zhang say we must go get something to eat. So we go down a little alley off Barry Street and open a gate into a yard with a lot of Chinamen just standing there, and we go up a couple of wooden steps on to a narrow veranda and open a door where this big room is full of men playing mah-jongg, and shuffling the tiles and making a racket. We walk ’cross the room and Zhang open another door, and that is when the smell hit me. This heavy, sweet, pungent smell.

The room big like the mah-jongg room, and it got a lot of platforms that them laying on with the wooden pillow under their head. There is Chinese men and white men as well. Well-dressed white men, some of them even in the Queen’s uniform. And the little lamps is burning, and they laying on their side with the long pipe puffing over it. Or they just laying there on their back with their eyes wide open. I hear plenty of stories about opium but I never actually see anybody smoking it before. And what I notice is how all of the smokers look half dead and sweaty, and how the men preparing the pipes and serving the tea wearing the changshan that Zhang don’t like, and how quiet the place is. Quiet.

Then we go through into the next room and that is where they got the food. Wooden tables and benches, and steaming rice and a red-hot wok, and steamed pork buns and pickled cabbage. And a open window looking out on to the back of the yard with a wooden shutter prop up with a long piece of old wood. And catching that bit of air is nice because the other two rooms don’t have no windows.

After we finish eating and walking back to Matthews Lane I notice how Zhang look sorta proud the way him coming through Chinatown, puffing out his chest and holding his head high. He say, ‘Back in old days the Negroes steal and burn and loot Chinese shops. But things get better. Chinatown get safe and happy.’

After that it was just one thing after another. Do this, do that. Go here, go there. Ma do this, Xiuquan do that. Me run and fetch, help this man, collect from that shop. It was like Zhang was settling everybody into their place. Fixing them into their routine.

Every day, except Sunday, Ma make saltfish fritters with the help of a girl named Tilly. Then Tilly take the fritters for sale in Chinatown. Later she come back, and she and Ma pick duck feathers to make pillows to sell.

Zhang teach us tai chi although Xiuquan already know some from our father. We do it every morning. From the beginning – Grasp Bird’s Tail, White Stork Cools Its Wings, Brush Knee and Twist Step, Carry Tiger to Mountain. To the end – Shoot Tiger with Bow, Strike, Parry, Punch, Apparent Close-up and Conclusion.

Zhang tell us ’bout Sun Tzu and how more than two thousand years ago he formulate a strategy to plan and conduct military operations. And how Mao Zedong still take lessons from Sun Tzu’s writing, and how important it is for us to learn the ‘Art of War’.

Every evening after dinner, Zhang teach us English.

And what we have to do is just help him. Just help Zhang look after Chinatown.

Then one day I doing my chores and meet pushcart boy. I recognise him from that first day when we land. Him follow me all up Barry Street, every stop I make. I go in the shop, him there. I come out, him there, leaning up against some post, or examining piece of old wood, or just kicking the dirt with his hands in him pocket. Not look at me. But I know is me him waiting for. I help Mr Chin and Mr Chung and Mr Lee. I shift barrels, sweep floors, collect Zhang’s pai-ke-p’iao gambling money, but no matter how long I in the shop when I come out pushcart boy still there. In the end I can’t take it no more so I go up to him and say, ‘You following me, bwoy?’

Him look surprise. ‘Me, sah? No, sah.’

‘Yes, you follow me. You come all up Barry Street. I think you go all ’round Orange Street and back again.’ I wave my arm in the air pointing in the direction we been walking all morning. ‘You think you going follow me all day?’

‘Uncle Zhang, ’im fi yu papa?’

‘None of yu business.’

I turn. Walk off. Him follow. Then I spin ’round real sudden and I scream right in his face, ‘Ahhhhhh!’ But him just stand there. Not even flinch. Not even bat an eye. So I turn ’round and carry on walk and him follow.

Later on, is me look out for him. Is me dawdling so him can catch up. Is me bring him glass of lemonade I get from Mr Fung. Is me give him rice and sausage I get from Madame Leung. When we get back to Matthews Lane I stop at the gate and say, ‘What your name?’

‘Hampton Stokes. Tilly me big sista.’

So that was Hampton, and after that him come ’round with me most days excepting when him sister need him to go do something for her. All the time him keep asking me ‘How old you is?’ and I tell him it don’t matter. But it seem to matter to him because him keep asking and asking. So one day I tell him, ‘I was born on the second moon of gui-you, jia-zi in the year of the rat,’ but it don’t mean nothing to him. So I say, ‘How old is you?’ and him tell me fourteen. So I say, ‘Same as me, fourteen.’

Then one day Hampton tell me him got a cousin little older than him name Neville Finley that want to meet me. ‘What for?’ I ask him.

‘Him just want to meet you, man. Any crime in that?’

So one Sunday Hampton take me over to East Kingston to the house where it turn out him live with him sister, Tilly. Miss Tilly seem like she sweet on me already and I don’t hardly know her. All I do every day is say, ‘Good morning, Miss Tilly, and how are you this morning?’ or ‘Good evening, Miss Tilly, have a good night.’ That is it, but all of a sudden she wrapping herself ’round the porch post and giving me some half-toothless smile I ain’t never seen the like of before. Hampton start grinning to himself, so I lean over to him and whisper, ‘She too old for me, man,’ and him laugh out loud so god knows what Miss Tilly think I say to him.

Then him take me by the hand and lead me ’round the back to some old shack of a outhouse he say is his palace. Well it is nothing but a rickety old shed, with a creaking door and open rafters in the ceiling. So I look up and I say to him, ‘Yu nuh, if we fix up the door and put some boarding up there we can use it to store things.’

‘Store what things?’

‘I dunno.’

Right then the door fling open and this tall wiry thing is standing there. Hampton go over to him and give him a hug. I look at the two of them standing there together and I think, well Hampton got a baby face but him not bad looking and him broad and strong. But the other one, him face look like a horse. I don’t say nothing but Hampton see the look on me and him start jumping and screaming like a jackass. Him laugh so much the tears running down his face. ‘Go on,’ him say to me. ‘What you think me cousin look like?’