The China Man
It was
always there, from my earliest memory.
My mother’s taste at the time ran to “Oriental.” That is what they
called it, back in the 1950s. We had a round
coffee table and end tables finished in black lacquer. Like Michelangelo, I used lie on my back
underneath the coffee table and draw on the unfinished underside of it. There was a mural on one wall, a scene on sepia
colored wallpaper that appeared to be sketched in pen and ink. A delicate, arched bridge over a stream with
cherry blossom trees in the background.
On a low bench sat a porcelain doll in satin clothing. The walls of the living room were gray, the
carpet green and sculpted. Looking back,
it seems the colors were rather somber.
I didn’t think about it at the time.
One end table held a lamp and beside the lamp was the China Man, made of
ceramic.
I was
forbidden from touching him. Little
figurine, all of five inches tall, of an Asian man carrying a basket of
laundry. It was white, his clothes were white –loose appearing pants and a
jacket with a Mandarin collar. A little
hat on his head, and a long, dark pony tail.
I thought that was very strange.
The “laundry” was carried in a box that had a removable lid and was
topped by a golden elephant. I touched
him anyway, whenever I thought I could get away with it. I would take that laundry lid off to see if
anything was inside. Nothing ever
was. Poor, little man, always and
forever toiling with a load of laundry
.
When we
moved to Long Island, the black lacquer was stripped from the tables so the
natural wood grain came through. Walls
were white and carpet a soft, light lavender. The “Oriental” theme had been
abandoned, but the little China Man continued to stand on an end table,
nevertheless.
As I got
older, I lost my fascination with him.
He was just another thing that my mother had. Another thing among many things that I did
not find attractive or intriguing. My
tastes and occupations veered off in different directions.
We
aged. Life and people changed. We weathered marriages and divorces, births
and deaths, arguments and estrangements, long distance moves, illness,
adversity, all the shocks that time and life have to offer. Before my mother died we were exchanging
letters. I lived in another state. She never met my child. She never told me she was sick. Ours was always a difficult relationship, the
kind I had to steel myself from over thinking, lest I fall into despair. My mother, the enigma.
Years later,
decades, in fact, a package arrived at my door.
It was from my niece who had started communicating with me after my many
years in familial “exile.” The package
was shaped like a shoebox and wrapped in brown paper. It was rather badly beat up, so I feared for
whatever might be inside. There were
pictures from the distant past, they survived the obviously bumpy ride to my
stoop. With only newspaper to protect
it, I uncovered the other inhabitant of the package…the little China Man. There he was, after all these years and accompanying
heartaches. At first I thought the lid
to the laundry basket was gone or broken, but it, too, was wrapped in newspaper
and miraculously entirely intact, including the golden elephant. I was instantly back in my mother’s
“Oriental” living room, surreptitiously sneaking a peek inside his basket. My eyes blurred with uncontrollable
tears. Why was this trinket so important
to her? Had it been a gift? Was it entwined with a sentimental
memory? He is a mystery, much like my
mother herself.
He stands
safely in a china closet now. I can’t
stand him, but I love him. Imagine
that? If I feel that I can handle it, I
look at him. No need to dare a forbidden
touch anymore. It is he that touches me.
June Volz 2016
June Volz 2016
