WHENEVER he thought of Si-Si, which was often, he beat his wife. And one day, at the Azure Dragon Club, stretched out on a mat, between them a table with opium-lamps, pipes and needles and ivory and horn boxes neatly arranged, he complained of his fate to Yung Tang, who inclined his head and spoke sententiously:
\n\u201cWomen are useless unless they be the mothers of our children.\u201d
\n\u201cThat is so.\u201d
\n\u201cMy own wife drinks\u2014too much. She talks\u2014 too much. She spends\u2014too much. But she has given birth to a daughter and three sons. Ah\u201d\u2014 while with agile fingers he kneaded the brown poppy cube which the flame gradually changed to amber and gold\u2014\u201cbetter a drunken, nagging, extravagant wife who is fertile, than a virtuous one who is as barren as a mule.\u201d
\n\u201cYes,\u201d agreed Foh Wong. \u201cBetter a fat, dirty pig than a cracked jade cup.\u201d
\n\u201cBetter,\u201d the editor wound up the pleasant round of Mongol metaphor, \u201ca fleet donkey than a hamstrung horse.\u201d
\nFor a while they smoked in silence. The fragrant, opalescent fumes rolled in sluggish clouds over the mats. Then Foh Wong asked:
\n\u201cYour daughter Si-Si is, I understand, of marriageable age?\u201d
\n\u201cIndeed.\u201d
\n\u201cShe is betrothed?\u201d
\n\u201cNot yet, O wise and older brother.\u201d Faint amusement lit up Yung Tang\u2019s purple-black eyes.
\n\u201cShe is waiting for a proper man, a wealthy man.\u201d
\n\u201cI am wealthy.\u201d
\n\u201cI know.\u201d Yung Tang pushed the warm bamboo pipe aside and substituted for it one of carved tortoise-shell with a turquoise tip and three yellow tassels. \u201cShe is devoted to her parents. She has given solemn oath to the Buddha the Adored, that she will not marry unless her husband invests\u2014 ah\u2014twenty thousand dollars in my enterprise.\u201d
\nFoh Wong stared at the other. He knew that\u2014 thanks to the weekly\u2019s freely expressed proManchu attitude, contrary to that of Pell Street which, being coolie, was mostly revolutionary\u2014its circulation and advertising had dropped; that therefore the editor was in awkward financial straits.
\n\u201cOr, perhaps, fifteen thousand dollars?\u201d he suggested.
\n\u201cOr rather\u2014nineteen?\u201d<\/p>\n
Foh Wong kowtowed deeply before the Buddha who looks after the souls of those about to die\u2014for he was sorry for the destiny in store for his faded old wife, Na Liu.
\n\u201cSixteen and a half thousand is a goodly sum, the more so as I\u2014should I give it\u2014would be going counter to my political principles. It would mean a loss of face to me.\u201d
\n\u201cWhile, to me, it would mean a loss of face to accept money from a man who does not see eye to eye with me when it comes to China\u2019s future. Thus\u2014eighteen thousand dollars. Personally I dislike bargaining.\u201d
\nTHE editor smoked two pipes one after the other. He continued:
\n\u201cIt is wretched manners to praise your own, I know. But it has been remarked by certain people\u2014truthful people, I believe\u2014that Si-Si is a precious casket filled with the arts of coquetry, that when she washes her hands she scents the water, that her seventeen summers have only increased her charms seventeen times, and that\u201d\u2014calmly\u2014 \u201cher hips are wide enough to bear many men children.\u201d
\nFoh Wong sighed.
\n\u201cMy own wife,\u201d he replied, \u201cis a fallow field. There is none of my seed in the world to pray for me after death. Not that I blame her. Still\u2014it is written in the Book of Meng Tzeu that she who cannot fulfill her charge must resign it.\u201d
\n\u201cYou mean divorce?\u201d
\n\u201cNo.\u201d
\n\u201cNo?\u201d echoed the editor, looking up sharply. \u201cBut a second wife is not permitted in this country.\u201d
\nFoh Wong turned on his mat. He glanced through the window, up at the sky where the sun was gaping in the west like a great red door.
\n\u201cDivorce,\u201d was his answer, \u201cis a custom of coarse-haired barbarians. Besides\u2014a law of these same barbarians\u2014alimony would have to be paid.
\nExpensive\u2014eh?\u201d
\n\u201cVery expensive.\u201d
\n\u201cNot that I am stingy.\u201d Foh Wong spoke with sincerity. \u201cFor my wife, should her soul jump the dragon gate, would have a splendid funeral. She would be buried in a large and comfortable redlacquer coffin, on the side of a hill facing running water, and with an elegant view over the rice paddies.\u201d
\n\u201cHer spirit,\u201d commented Yung Tang, \u201cwould doubtless enjoy itself.\u201d
\n\u201cDoubtless.\u201d
\nBOTH men were silent. The editor was caressing his cheek with his right hand. The dying crimson sunlight danced and glittered on his highly polished fingernails. He thought of a man whom he had talked to, and who had given his confidence, a few months back, during his visit to China; thought of the queer mission with which this man had entrusted him; thought how, fantastically, sardonically, fate can work its will\u2014fate that ambles out of the dark like a blind camel, with no warning, no jingling of bells.
\nHe smiled at the other, who, having emptied his pipe at one long-drawn inhalation, looked up and asked a casually worded question:
\n\u201cI believe you have a cousin who is a hatchetman?\u201d
\n\u201cYes. But\u2014\u201d The editor hesitated.
\n\u201cHis prices are exorbitant?\u201d
\n\u201cThey would not be\u2014to me. Only, I have discovered that it is one\u2019s relatives whom one must trust least.\u201d
\n\u201cJust so.\u201d
\n\u201cI have a friend in Seattle. I shall communicate with him. I shall act slowly, discreetly. I shall think right and think left. There is no especial hurry.\u201d
\n\u201cExcept\u201d\u2014courteously\u2014\u201cmy desire for Si-Si.\u201d
\n\u201cAnother summer will increase her charms eighteen times.\u201d Yung Tang pointed at the table. \u201cWill you smoke?\u201d
\n\u201cNo more. I have a duty to attend to. You will write to Seattle?\u201d
\n\u201cImmediately.\u201d
\nBut the editor did not write to Seattle. He wrote, instead, to Hongkong; and he began his letter with a quotation from Confucius which said:
\n\u201cThe man who is departing on a sad journey often leaves his heart under the door\u2014to find it on his return.\u201d
\nHe smiled as he dipped his brush into the inkpot; and it is worthwhile remembering that the Chinese ideographs sin (heart) and Menn (door), when placed one above the other and read together, make a third word, \u201cMelancholy\u201d\u2014which latter, by a peculiar Mongol twist, is considered an equivalent of \u201ceternal love.\u201d And he wrote on while Foh Wong, having left the Azure Dragon Club, entered the joss temple around the corner.
\nThere, without the slightest hypocrisy, he kowtowed deeply before the Buddha of the Paradise of the West\u2014the Buddha who looks after the souls of those about to die\u2014and burned three sweet-smelling hun-shuh incense sticks in honor of his wife. For once he had loved her. And he was sorry for the destiny in store for her. So, from this day on, he stopped beating her. On the contrary, he was kind to her\u2014brought her presents of flowers and fruit, treated her\u2014with no irony intended\u2014as if she were an invalid not long for this world. And almost every evening he visited the joss temple; always he made kowtow before the Buddha and burned incense sticks\u2014until Yu Ch\u2019ang, the priest, declared that few men on Pell Street could compare to him in piety and rectitude.
\nNEAR the end of the year, Yung Tang reported to him that the matter was progressing satisfactorily. His friend in Seattle had secured the services of a hatchetman.
\nHis name, said the editor, was Kang Kee. He had been a warlord fallen upon evil days. Therefore, thanks to his former profession, there was no doubt of his being a skilled and efficient killer; and given the fact that he was a stranger with no local tong affiliations, there was no doubt of his discretion.
\n\u201cWhen will he be here?\u201d asked Foh Wong eagerly.
\nYung Tang shrugged his shoulders.
\nKang Kee, he explained, was still in Hongkong; and surely, Foh Wong knew that times had changed since he himself had come to America. For there was now the law called the Asiatic Exclusion Act, to circumvent which the Chinese aspirant after Yankee coin had to travel many thorny roundabout roads and spend exorbitant \u201csqueezes\u201d right and left. Would Foh Wong, therefore, pay fifteen hundred dollars on account, to be deducted, later on, from Kang Kee\u2019s price of five thousand?
\nThe merchant grumbled, protested, finally went to the safe and counted out the money.
\n\u201cI would like a receipt,\u201d he said curtly. After all, he went on, he was a businessman. Here was a job for which he was paying. \u201cNot that\u201d\u2014with grim humor\u2014\u201cI want you to particularize the\u2014ah\u2014
\nnature of the job.\u201d
\nYUNG TANG smiled. His smile, had Foh
\nWong noticed it, was queerly triumphant.
\n\u201cI understand,\u201d he said. \u201cJust a few words acknowledging the money for\u2014well, services to be rendered. . . . How\u2019s that? I shall make it out in duplicate.\u201d
\n\u201cIn duplicate?\u201d\u2014rather astonished.
\n\u201cYes. One for you, and one for me, as agent for Kang Kee.\u201d With quick brushstrokes he wrote paper and copy, handed both to the other. \u201cWill you look it over?\u201d
\n\u201cNo, no!\u201d exclaimed Foh Wong. \u201cIt is not necessary.\u201d
\nThe editor\u2019s smile deepened. He knew that the merchant, in spite of his wealth, had never learned to read, that he carried the intricate details of his business transactions in his shrewd old brain, that he could just barely scrawl his name, but that for fear of losing face, he had never owned up to it. Besides\u2014and here too Yung Tang saw through him\u2014Foh Wong figured that the editor had no reason to cheat him. For though Si-Si was young and beautiful and desirable, there were few men in Chinatown willing and able to pay the eighteen thousand dollars which her father demanded and in fact\u2014Foh Wong knew, having made inquiries here and there\u2014needed desperately; and he had made assurance doubly sure by buying up, at a generous discount, a number of Yung Tang\u2019s overdue notes.
\nHe lit a cigarette, while the other signed the original and said:
\n\u201cWill you countersign the copy?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat for? You received the money, not I.\u201d
\n\u201cI know. But\u2014it would make the deal more binding.\u201d
\nFoh Wong was puzzled. Make the deal more binding? He did not understand. Still, doubtless Yung Tang knew what he was talking about. He was a literatus, a learned gentleman; and the merchant, for all his success, was at heart the coolie who had never lost his respect for educated people. And\u2014again the thought\u2014the man needed him, could have no reason to cheat him.
\n\u201cVery well.\u201d He dipped brush in inkpot, and clumsily painted his signature. \u201cHere you are.\u201d
\nEven so, he felt relieved when, in the course of the afternoon, he dropped in on Ng Fat, the banker, and found out, by discreet questioning, that Yung Tang had bought a draft for fifteen hundred dollars made out to one Kang Kee, a former warlord residing in Hongkong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WHENEVER he thought of Si-Si, which was often, he beat his wife. And one day, at the Azure Dragon Club, stretched out on a mat, between them a table with opium-lamps, pipes and needles and ivory and horn boxes neatly arranged, he complained of his fate to Yung Tang, who inclined his head and spoke…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pulp-classics","tag-achmed-abdullah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}