White Jade Tiger Page 6

  “Isn’t it nice to see the sun for a change,” she said brightly. Jasmine agreed, but secretly wished it was misty. Maybe the mist had something to do with her experience the day before.

  Traffic hummed over the steel deck of the bridge. “There’s a warning before the bridge goes up, isn’t there?” she asked, glancing nervously at the operator’s shed.

  “Not on Saturdays,” Val teased.

  They strode along Store Street, past restaurants, galleries and warehouses before turning up Fisgard. “Here it is, the never-ending store.”

  “Perfect name,” Val said. She led the way through the small rooms and connecting hallways, exclaiming over items she remembered from past visits and offering a running commentary on anything that took her fancy. Jasmine only half listened, eager to get to the dragons. Finally they reached the back room.

  “Now then. Somewhere in here?” Val asked.

  “Uh-huh, right above—” She stopped, stunned to see a bare brick wall. “The shelf was right there. With a whole row of dragons on it.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe they were in another part of the room.”

  “No!” Her voice sounded too loud, too frantic. “I know they were there.” She approached the clerk behind the counter. “Do you know what happened to the dragons? They were on a shelf, above the display case.”

  The clerk shook her head. “There’s never been a shelf there that I can remember. We’ve got lots of dragons at the front of the store, though.”

  “But they were in this room,” Jasmine insisted. “That man who was here yesterday, is he around?”

  “Who? A man that was shopping?”

  “No, he was working here. He sold me the dragon and gave me a lax see envelope with a coin in it.”

  The clerk sighed, exasperated. “I was here myself yesterday, all day, except for my lunch break. It was a busy day. Lots of school kids.” She flashed a look at Val, then turned to Jasmine. “Maybe you dreamed it.”

  Jasmine twisted her braid, trying to hide her confusion. “What time was your lunch break?”

  “I left about 1:30.”

  So, Jasmine thought. You weren’t even here when I bought the dragon. So that man could have been here without your knowing. He’d come from behind that— She stared blankly at the wall in the far corner of the room. The curtained doorway wasn’t there, either.

  But the glass doorway leading to Fan Tan Alley was there, and so was the No Exit sign. “Can we go out that way?”

  “Sure,” said the clerk “Don’t know why we keep leaving that sign up.”

  Jasmine took a deep breath and opened the door, hoping to find Keung waiting on the other side. But she didn’t. Whatever magic had been at work the day before, was gone.

  “Where to now?” Val said. “It’s a bit early for lunch, but why not?”

  “Sure.” Jasmine smiled, grateful her aunt wasn’t pestering her with questions or treating her like some crazy person. She knew the dragon was real. It had come from somewhere.

  She’d try again, and do it right. Like a detective, she’d set things up exactly the way they’d been the first time, right down to the red ribbon in her hair. Humming to herself, she plunged into the chicken chow mein while fine-tuning her plan. Even the chopsticks co-operated.

  Chapter 10

  The Year of the Snake gusted into the Year of the Horse, 1882. That New Year’s Day was a windy one in Victoria, so windy the Chinese were warned not to explode the traditional fireworks. Still, Keung and Dragon Maker burned incense and placed a sweet offering in front of the Kitchen God, hoping he would carry a good report to the Jade Emperor. Then they removed his soot-smeared image from behind the stove and replaced it with a bright new one. “Now the scrolls,” Dragon Maker said as he handed Keung the long strips of red paper.

  Keung was surprised. “Do you think I’m ready?”

  Dragon Maker set the ink stone and brushes before the boy, his eyes twinkling. “You are an excellent pupil,” he said proudly, “with a great capacity for learning. Soon we will begin English lessons. But for now, let me see the characters for prosperity, longevity and good fortune.”

  “Gung hey fat choy!” Keung beamed with pleasure and began to write, making sure each brush stroke was perfect. His mother would be so proud. If only she could see these New Year scrolls hanging on the door. And his father....

  Keung could feel his concentration slipping. As his brush glided over the paper, he tried to unravel the worries from his mind. But the more he unravelled, the more tangled up they became.

  First there was the girl, the spirit who was not a spirit. Throughout the long autumn he had visited the spot where he had last seen her, hoping she would re-appear. But she had not. “Why hasn’t she come back?” he asked.

  “She will come when the time is right,” said Dragon Maker, “not before. Bright Jade has been with us 2000 years, long enough to learn patience. But her spirit is restless, and I do not think it will be long.”

  Then there was his father. Railroad construction eased off during the winter months and the population of Chinatown swelled. In January men thronged into Victoria, waiting to return to China to spend Chinese New Year with their families. Each night they packed themselves into the cramped shacks. And each night, Keung asked the same questions. “Do you know my father, Chan Sam? He came in the Year of the Tiger and went to work on the railroad. Have you seen him?”

  Being sons and fathers themselves, cut off from their homes and families, they sympathized with Keung but could not help him. “There are many camps along the river,” they said. “Your father could be in any one of them. Or he could be working in Yale, or scrabbling for gold in a worked-out claim. Go to the Fraser Canyon and ask there.”

  They also spoke of the men who would never return. “Perhaps your father is one of those,” they said. “Perhaps he is one of the nameless corpses left in the canyon without proper burial.”

  Keung shook his head. “I would know if he were dead. His spirit would tell me.”

  “Very well then,” they said. “Let his spirit guide you to him. We have sorrows of our own.”

  Then there was the problem of Blue-Scar Wong. For Keung, it seemed, was not the only one searching for Chan Sam. “Why is Blue-Scar so interested in my father?” he wondered aloud. “Each day he asks about him. Where is he? When is he coming back? But when I say I must go and look for him, Blue-Scar won’t let me. You must first earn back the money I sent to your mother, he says. So all day I work in his restaurant. At night in the gambling den. Aiee!” He threw the brush down angrily. “I feel like a tiger in a cage.”

  Dragon Maker calmly shaped the head of his dragon. “I have not told you because I promised your father. But perhaps it was not a wise promise.” He gazed intently at the boy. “Blue-Scar wants what he must not have. The white jade tiger.”

  Keung’s heart beat fast and hard. The tiger! So absorbed had he been with his other problems, he had completely forgotten the amulet. “You know about—”

  Dragon Maker nodded. “Your father arrived in Victoria during the Year of the Tiger. At that time, the Chinese had to buy a licence to stay. Every three months the tax collector would storm into Chinatown with a bailiff and seize the belongings of anyone who did not have a licence. Ordinary people as well as merchants had their goods loaded up and taken to the police barracks. Chests of tea, bales of cloth, packages of opium and boxes of personal effects were piled up for public sale. Many dragons ended up in that pile,” he said. “And from your father they took one white jade tiger.”

  “But how did—”

  “Wait, wait,” Dragon Maker said, raising his hand. “We did not accept this tax. Instead of paying it, we organized a strike. Not a single Chinese went to work. Not a cannery worker, factory worker, laundry worker or shoemaker. Not one! Wealthy white ladies had to do their own housework, hotel owners did their own cooking and cursed the shortage of clean napkins. Men sawed their own wood and polished their own boots. It was a great inconv
enience for them,” he chuckled.

  “The strike lasted five days. Then the government learned it could not keep the tax anyway, and the goods had to be returned. But the bailiff had already sold many belongings. And who do you suppose bought the jade tiger?”

  “Blue-Scar Wong!” Keung exclaimed. “But how did my father get it back? And how did—”

  “Your father sometimes worked in Blue-Scar’s opium den. One night, while Blue-Scar was drifting away on an opium dream, Chan Sam saw his chance. He caught a glimpse of the tiger in the folds of Blue-Scar’s robe. And he took it. Right away he came to me, afraid that once Blue-Scar found out, his life would be in danger. I advised him to go to the Fraser Canyon and lose himself amongst the railroad workers. I offered to hide the tiger for him, but he refused. This is the first place Wong will look, he said.

  “He was right. The next morning Blue-Scar and his dogs tore my room apart, searching for the tiger. They smashed all my dragons, thinking I’d hidden it inside. But they never found it. Go, I told them. The dragon has devoured the tiger, but it is not one of these.”

  “Why does Blue-Scar want it so badly?”

  “Because it is priceless. But it must be returned to Bright Jade,” Dragon Maker said, emphatically. “Only the return of the tiger can end the curse.”

  “But how—I don’t understand. How did my father get it in the first place?”

  Dragon Maker looked away, reluctant to speak Finally he said, “The tiger was swept from Bright Jade’s grave during the floods. Many years later Chan Sam found it, buried in the mud. He kept it as a talisman. When he left for Gold Mountain he took it with him.”

  “My father kept it?” Keung was stunned. What would he tell his mother? That his own father had found the tiger and unleashed the curse on his family? No. He could never tell her that. He was too ashamed.

  After much thought, Keung wrote to his mother and told her that all was well. Dragon Maker was teaching him to read and write. He was earning a fortune in the restaurant, he would soon see his father, he would surely be home to welcome in the Year of the Sheep. Then he signed his name, hoping the gods would forgive him for not being entirely truthful.

  Chapter 11

  “Your dad’s on the phone.”

  Jasmine buried her face in the covers, pretending to be asleep. So, he’s made it to China. He’ll give Val his address and he won’t be lost in my mind anymore. But I won’t talk to him. Then she thought of Keung. Did he ever find his father? Or was he lost forever? And here she was, acting like a sulky—

  “Coming.” She leaped out of bed and rushed to the phone. “Hi, Dad,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to sound cool and indifferent. He was calling from across the world, after all.

  He told her a letter was on the way so he’d keep the conversation short. Was everything fine? Yes, yes. “I miss you, Dad.” Then, so she wouldn’t sound too soppy, “But only because you make great lasagne.”

  “Wait’ll you try my sautéed eel and steamed sea cucumbers.”

  “Dad!Yuck!”

  “How was your Chinatown trip? Did it make you want to join me?”

  “It was... yeah, I might want to come. It sort of depends. I’ll see, OK?”

  “OK, honey, whatever you decide is fine with me. I love you. Write soon. Bye.”

  “Bye, Dad.” Breaking the connection was so final. There was so much she wanted to say. But how could she tell him she was planning on going back—farther back—to Chinatown and didn’t know how long she’d be gone? How could she tell him about the doorway in the never-ending store, or the gambling den in Fan Tan Alley, or Keung and Dragon Maker? It wasn’t the sort of thing you casually mention on the phone, especially not long-distance.

  The figure floated elusively above the river. “Wait,” Jasmine cried, struggling to keep up. But the figure floated on upstream, heedless of the swirling eddies and whirlpools of muddy water.

  As Jasmine stumbled along the shoreline, ghostly images began to appear. They rose from the water and drifted down from the towering cliffs. Hundreds of them, strangely calm in the crash and whirl and tortuous flow of the river.

  Soon the figure reached a passage in the steep-walled canyon. It raised a hand, halting the surge of ghosts. Then slowly, slowly, it turned.

  “Bright Jade!” Jasmine exclaimed. “You’ve come back.”

  “No, Jasmine. It’s you that’s come back.” Bright Jade hovered above the river, her arms outstretched as if to embrace the ghosts who followed. She looked so frail, poised above the rapids. But at the same time, so powerful it seemed as though she could stop the river with a stroke of her hand.

  “Where are you going?” Jasmine asked.

  “We are going through Hell’s Gate.” She spoke in a whisper yet her words echoed and resounded off the canyon walls.

  “Wait for me!” Jasmine tried to follow, but the ghosts blocked her passage. A roar stormed down from the granite walls and thundered through the canyon. Before her eyes the ghosts swirled into one image, a leaping tiger that roared with such sorrow and fury Jasmine covered her ears and screamed.

  Suddenly the room was flooded with light. Her aunt leaned over her bed. “Jasmine! What’s wrong?”

  “A dream...the tiger...” Her voice trembled. “Have you ever heard of Hell’s Gate?”

  If Val was surprised by the question she didn’t show it. “Well, it could mean the gate outside of Hell, I suppose, if there is such a thing. Or it could be in the Fraser Canyon, where the river goes through a narrow passage. Is that what your dream was about?”

  “Sort of.” She took a deep breath. “Did a lot of Chinese people live in the Fraser Canyon?”

  “Heavens, yes. Thousands of Chinese lived there when they were building the Canadian Pacific Railroad.”

  “And a lot of them died?”

  “Hundreds.” Val patted Jasmine lightly on the brow. “Think you can go back to sleep now?”

  “Uh-huh,” Jasmine murmured, snuggling beneath the covers. “Now I know where I have to go.”

  Next morning Jasmine tucked the lax see envelope and dragon into her backpack. She put on her dark shirt, the coolie pants and jacket. Then she braided her hair and placed the hat on her head. Everything was exactly the same, right down to the cotton shoes and red ribbon.

  “You’re going to Chinatown,” Val said.

  “It’s OK, isn’t it? I know how to get there and I won’t stay long.”

  “Sure. Just promise you’ll stay out of trouble.”

  “Hey, Trouble’s my middle name. At least that’s what Dad says. I’ll send him a postcard of Chinatown, now that I’ve got his address. Do you want anything?”

  “Could you get some gunpowder tea? It comes in a little green box.” She handed Jasmine a five dollar bill. “The grocery store near the corner has it.”

  “OK. I might get some fortune cookies, too.”

  “You seem chipper this morning, in spite of the nightmare.”

  “Oh, that was no nightmare. That was a message.”

  She reached the never-ending store at 10:00. “Good morning,” the clerk said, smiling at her appearance.

  “Hi!” Jasmine smiled in return, and hummed her way to the back room. There was the mannequin, there was the display case, and there was the brick wall. No shelf, no dragons, no curtained doorway.

  Never mind, she told herself, trying not to feel discouraged. It’s not over yet. She headed for the doorway with the No Exit sign. “Can I get out this way?” she asked.

  The young man reading behind the counter didn’t even look up. “Go ahead,” he said.

  Heart pounding, she opened the door.

  And there he was, standing in the gray dawn of the alley. “Jasmine! At last you’ve come!”

  Her heart skittered with joy. He was waiting for her. He had known she would come.

  “I’ve waited so long,” he said.

  Jasmine laughed. “It’s only been two days. I tried yesterday, but couldn’t get through.”

/>   “Yesterday?” He frowned. “But... I’ve waited many months. Almost a year without a sign, not even in a dream.”

  Jasmine was puzzled. “What year is this?”

  “The Year of the Horse,” he said. “When you first came it was October,1881. Now it’s the end of August, 1882.”

  So. There was no connection between her time and his time, not in days or months or years. Come to think of it, he did look a bit older. Taller and leaner. And there were faint creases on his brow. From worry? From sadness? “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, hesitantly. “No.” The muscles in his face tightened. “I haven’t found my father. I haven’t enough money to return home. And there is no Gold Mountain. It’s all a lie.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jasmine said lamely. “I wish I—” With a flash of inspiration she removed the red ribbon and handed it to him. “Maybe this will bring good luck.”

  “Thank you,” he said. His dimples flashed in a smile.

  As he led her through the maze of Chinatown he said, “It’s strange that you appeared just now. I’m leaving today.”

  She nodded. “You’re going to the Fraser Canyon, aren’t you?” Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she said, “I’m coming with you.”

  Keung burst into Dragon Maker’s shack. “She’s come back,” he exclaimed. “But she wants to come with me!” He threw his hands in the air. “It’s impossible!”

  Dragon Maker beamed. “Jasmine! You have returned just in time to leave again. But first, both of you, sit down and eat before your journey.” He set before them bowls of rice and a platter of meat-filled dumplings, then poured steaming cups of tea. As they were eating he studied Jasmine closely, tilting his head from side to side.

  His scrutiny was unsettling. Finally Jasmine flung down her chopsticks, unable to ignore it any longer. “I have to go! I can blend in, I know I can. No one in the gambling den noticed me. I’m dressed like all the other coolies.” She pointed to Keung. “I look just like him!”