Kerry Young - Pao

Ma got Zhang’s cot in the middle of the room with his head lying eastward. She tend to everything he need, and three times a day she boil up the herbs and give it to him. On the days him well enough to sit up, Finley and Tartan Socks McKenzie come play dominoes. When him too weak, Ma read the Chinese newspaper to him, and on other days McKenzie read him the Gleaner and they talk ’bout politics just like they always do. McKenzie telling Zhang all ’bout what Manley doing and it seem to lighten his heart.

Ma go to temple while me or McKenzie sit with Zhang because she don’t like leave him on his own. She tell me she praying to the Buddha for a peaceful passing for Zhang and enlightenment on him rebirth. She stop tell me that she praying for me to be a better man. She stop chastise me ’bout how I supporting the imperialists by doing business with them. She stop sniffing at me every time I go see Gloria or when anything get mentioned that connected to Gloria in any way whatsoever. All she concentrating on now is Zhang. Funny thing is it seem like she happy. There is a lightness in her spirit. Not that she happy Zhang sick, but that she happy she caring for him.

Zhang pass away one night in him sleep with Ma sitting there in the rocking chair still talking to him. Next morning she tell me I have to take care of things because I the eldest son. I dunno what to do because when they bring my father back from Shaji I was too young to know what was happening. So Ma show me and she help me. We lay Zhang’s body on a mat on the floor and we cover it with a white muslin shroud. We place two Chinese coins in a large porcelain bowl and cover it with a cloth. And then we go outside and catch some water in another bowl and burn some candles and firecrackers and throw them into it. And this is the water that we pour into the other bowl on top of the coins to wash Zhang’s body. Afterwards the whole house join in wailing.

We announce Zhang’s passing by pasting a notice on the outside of the gate. And the evening before the funeral, when Zhang’s body come back from the undertakers, the Chinatown merchants come ’round to pay their last respects.

I write a letter to my brother in America.

Dear Xiuquan,

Zhang died peacefully in his sleep. He missed you these past years. He tried to imagine your life in America but could not. Ma is well, although she also misses you, as do I.

Pao.

The reply I get from him vex me, so I didn’t bother say nothing to Ma. I just pretend to her like I never hear nothing from him.

On the day of the funeral Ma have me place a pearl in Zhang’s mouth and put a willow twig in his right hand to sweep away demons from his path, and a fan and handkerchief in his left. She put up the ancestral tablet bearing Zhang’s name.

The funeral procession wind its way through the neighbourhood to the Chinese cemetery, with its white paper lanterns and banners and the musicians them playing some godawful twing-twang, because one thing the Chinese cannot do is make music. They can make food, so there was plentiful roast pig and fruit and cakes and such. But music, no. That was just a damn racket. The whole of Chinatown turn out including Merleen Chin, Clifton Brown, Finley and his wife, Hampton, Ethyl, Milton and Desmond.

The coffin completely covered with a silk pall, kuan chao , embroidered in a hundred colours that Chin get from China and bring with him when he come down from Montego Bay. And walking ahead of the coffin was Tartan Socks who scatter the road money to buy the goodwill of malicious spirits so they don’t molest the wraith of Zhang on his way to the grave. Ma, she just walk behind Zhang coffin slow and quiet. Whatever she was thinking or feeling she was keeping to herself. Just the way she do her whole life when it come to her and Zhang. Madame Chin walk next to her thinking she was going to have to give some comfort. But it not so. Ma was straight and upright like it was a walking meditation she was doing, with peace in every step.

When it all done I sit down in my room and I read again the letter I get from Xiuquan.

My dear brother Pao,

I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of Zhang. Like you, I thought of him as a father, so I know how his passing must ache your heart. We have lost two fathers now, you and I, and I wonder to what purpose. China continues to be in turmoil, with the Communists showing, with their Cultural Revolution, that they can be just as cruel and merciless as the warlords and the foreigners they fought so hard to overthrow. And as for the violence in Jamaica, it makes me glad to be so far away. I have taken citizenship so I am an American now and no longer have to feel ashamed of being Chinese.

And then I take the letter out into the yard and I burn it.

Six month after Zhang’s funeral Ma say she don’t want make the fritters no more, or stuff the duck-feather pillows. She say she getting too old for it and I agree. Truth is I been trying to get her to stop for years, but now it her decision she happier with that.

Tilly still coming but she helping more ’round the place now, she doing more of the cooking and cleaning up and washing and such. All the time Ma just getting slower and slower. She stop play mah-jongg. She stop go to temple. She stop read the newspapers. Then one day she sit down in Zhang’s rocking chair and she no get up.

I dunno what to do ’bout the washing and the funeral and everything so Madame Chin come back from Montego Bay to help me, and she make all the arrangements just like how Ma do it for Zhang. And when the day come she let me scatter the road money in front of the procession like McKenzie do for Zhang. We bury Ma right next to Zhang in the Chinese cemetery.

When I go back to Matthews Lane the place empty. Just me and Hampton sit down there look at each other. It seem like me and Hampton not got nothing to say.

Then him say to me, ‘Me and Ethyl plan to go see her family in Oracabessa. You know, with the wedding coming up and all.’

‘You already tell me.’

‘And I was wanting to ask you if you would like it if me and Ethyl come live here with you after we married or if you would prefer to have the place to yourself?’

I look at Hampton and I say, ‘Come on, Hampton, you must have plenty money to go get a place of your own.’

‘That not what I saying. I saying maybe you prefer to have the company. Me and Ethyl already done talk ’bout it and she say she happy to come live here and help keep the place. She still going carry on work for Miss Cicely, but she going do it as a day help. She not going live up there no more. So she say if you want we come live with you here after the wedding.’

I look across the table at him and I remember that first day I meet him when Mr Chin tell him to carry the bags on the handcart, and then afterwards when him follow me ’round town all day and make a friend outta me even though I didn’t want to pay him no mind.

And I say, ‘Thank you, Hampton.’

‘So what you going do for the few days while we gone to Oracabessa?’

‘I go stay with Gloria.’

In all the years me and Gloria been together we never had more than one night at a time. I was always running to go do something whether it was to make the next delivery or go sort out some problem or just get back to Matthews Lane in case Zhang and Ma getting vex with me for spending too much time with Gloria.

But these few days with her was like nothing I ever imagine. We just there in the house making tea and cooking up anything that grab our fancy, like we got all the time in the world, because although Esther still live there she out running the bank all day and busy ’bout her business at night. But Gloria want me and Esther come look with her for something nice to wear to Esther’s wedding. So one day that is what we do. Esther marrying a Indian call Rajinder that she meet playing volleyball on the beach.