“The truth is, Mr. Ah Loi, I only looked at these books because I had not the courage to go closer to your fine bowl there.”
“That? That bowl? Come and handle it. Such things are made to be touched, as well as looked at. The touch should know as much as the eye.”
Colet nerved himself and turned the bowl about. He realised that its frailty was but simplicity and strength, which were unctuous and cool. Ah Loi took it, and replaced it.
“Sometimes,” said the Chinaman, “I have wondered whether Western culture turned into chimney smoke because of a neglected sense of touch. You see, you must pause and weigh it, when you handle an object. You have time to change your mind.”
The man in the blue tunic was there again, and Ah Loi spoke to him. The servant brought in bottles, ice, and a syphon.
“You will have a stengah, Mr. Colet?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Then you are certainly new to this country. It is a small whisky and soda, the half of a tonic, as you say. A Malay word. It means ‘half.’ But you English use it, besides for whisky, for a person of mixed blood.”
“Thank you. But no stengah for me, if you please. Not now.”
“You have been in Penang only five minutes.” Ah Loi was amused. “Wait till Norrie comes,” he added. “At one time we Chinamen, who find it not easy to understand, kept champagne for our English guests. We heard so much about champagne that we thought it must be the same as your happiness. But now it is whisky. Well, let us talk about Norrie. He is our friend. You know him very well?”
“No. Only a little.”
“A little of him is good.”
“I met him on the voyage out.”
“He is going to Pahang?”
“I don’t know quite what he intends to do.”
Ah Loi looked at his bowl.
“Nobody knows that. But he is going round to the other side of the peninsula, and he will know why. I like Norrie. He would have been the same as a Cantonese. Yet he is a Londoner.”
“He has no place, then?”
“Yes. It is all his place. It is all one. He knows.”
“Well, Mr. Ah Loi, I should like to know. What is it one has to know?”
“I think perhaps you know too. But the best things have no name.”
“Not even such as that bowl? What about that?”
“Of course not. That is but a sign.”
“Then we cannot talk about them.”
“Oh yes. We do little else, when we are together, but they are not named. What shall we say, shall we say they are the communion? Come and see my porcelain. You will stay to tiffin?”
Colet, for an hour, received glimpses into a past which heartened him with a confirmation of his nebulous and shifting faith. Even a glaze for porcelain could persist, like the thought of an anonymous benevolence. Once he expressed a poignant concern for the safety of these lovely shapes and colours. Ah Loi did not altogether sympathise with him.
“They may all go, some day. There are accidental fires, and men riot. The world is rough, and it is careless. The world is abundant. But you see, Mr. Colet, these things have been done, and so they cannot be lost. They have been added, and they cannot be taken out of the sum. Tell me why it was your Shakespeare did not think it worth the trouble to preserve his poetry? I think that is the strangest thing about Shakespeare. That is why he is the most significant poet. Perhaps that indifference is his greatest gift to us.”
The Englishman supposed that they were alone in the house, but Mrs. Ah Loi met them at tiffin, and Colet’s memory of precious rarities went in a new confusion. She was not a Malay, though slender in a green sarong and a white muslin tunic. The gold buttons of her tunic were her only adornment. She was hardly Chinese, and certainly not English, even with that abundance of brown hair. The simple cordiality and assurance of her greeting meant that she was well used to visitors. She accepted Colet as though he were a frequent guest, but that made her fastidious hand no easier to grasp. She spoke to her husband with a droll mimicry of indifference. Where had he been all the morning? There had been stengahs, of course, and before midday, too. Colet saw that her banter disclosed a glint of serious intent. Ah Loi assured her that not a cork had been disturbed. She then gave Colet an innocent glance, not of disbelief, but of surprise. Ah Loi convinced her.
“Mr. Colet has not been long in Penang. He got here only last night. Give him a little more time, my love.”
“Yes, but is he not a friend of Mr. Norrie?” She pronounced the vowels of the name with a comically slow precision. Ah Loi avoided a mention of Norrie.
“We have been talking of Kuan-yin and much else.”
“It is pleasant to talk of her; but Mr. Colet, he does not know her.”
“Oh, but he does.”
“He is a collector?” There was a shade of anticipated disappointment in her voice.
“Oh no. He admires.”
“Then I shall like you, Mr. Colet.”
The more attractive a woman is, the more the resolution needed to look at her; their laughter was freedom to Colet for a candid glance at beauty that was unusual and debateable. Others might not like it. Beauty may cause a little fear. Her dark eyes were large for so small a face, and their soft uncritical light gave Colet a suspicion that she could penetrate to the thoughts at the back of his head. Her eyes, which only seemed slow because their lids were a trifle sleepy, did not rest on one’s face, though they looked at it. She listened, but not so much to what you said as to your reservations; or else she pondered childishly, finding it difficult to understand.
