White Mulberry

by Alan Sullivan

The story of a man who would rather have a flawless emerald than anything else in the world

White Mulberry

by Alan Sullivan

THE tree stood just opposite the bench on which I was sitting in Kew Gardens. An ordinary kind of tree, except that it had delicate, pointed leaves, and there seemed to be a good deal of space between its branches.

I was glancing at it with no particular interest, when I saw his big, broad figure strolling toward me. It looked lonely in the vista down which he moved. He too glanced at the tree, peered at the label that hung round its trunk and stopped, leaning a little forward, hands doubled over his supporting stick. Then I heard him send forth a short grunt.

“Morus alba,” he said frowning, “I never heard that name for it.” He sent me a quick nod. “Know anything about trees?”

“Very little,” I said.

He was silent for a while. “Queer how smells and things start one thinking. Ever realize that? Things more than people, and smells more than things.”

I agreed. There was nothing in his appearance to rouse one's imagination. A wide and rather pasty face; large, smooth hands, and a big, flaccid body on which his loose tweeds lay in careless folds. His eyes were small and gray-green.

He walked slowly round the tree, and came back.

“Queer how I should have come straight to it. I'll bet there isn't a man in Kew Gardens who feels about a white mulberry as I do. Wouldn't expect that from a chap who runs a grocery shop in Clapham, would you?”

He wanted so obviously to talk that my only thought was to be quiet, agreeable and receptive—at any rate till I knew what was in his mind. There was nothing mysterious about him, or suggestive in his manner—but one can never tell. And I had a whole hour to play with.

“White mulberry,” he murmured. "Well I'll be damned!”

I laughed a little.

He pushed a large finger into the bowl of his pipe, struck a match, and sucked with a soft, wet gurgle.

“Twenty-five—no—twenty-six years ago, I lived amongst white mulberries. It was living, mark you,” he ruminated, “and not just keeping alive—as I am now. You don't know who I am, and never will. Mind if I talk like this?”

“Not at all. Say what you like.”

“All right—that helps. Funny I should come to Kew to say it. Always like that with me; running up against what I didn't expect. What's the good of expecting things anyway? You're generally wrong.”

I agreed with his philosophy, and he seemed to unfold himself in jerks. His method of beginning, I took it. Examining him more closely, he did suggest something. But I couldn't tell what.

“Getting back to Morus alba,” he nodded reminiscently. “That starts a lot of pictures in my brain; pictures that at one time were very fresh, then got glazed over, and now are fresh again. It's the things one's always fingering and touching that get stale, not the ones you put carefully away on the shelf. That tree comes from Asia.”

“So the label says.”

“It's right enough. That's where I was—north of Burma. Ever been there?”

“No.”

“When you get up the Irawadi, if you travel northeast you strike the Shan States. The Mong Hills are there too. I was in those parts trading. Didn't care much what I traded in, either. You get that way, and nothing matters in particular. At least it didn't with me. All I wanted was to be alive; and, take my word, I was.”

I asked something about the people who lived there.

“Well, they're not like the Burmans, who don't kill—anything. It's against the Buddha book. Up in the Shan States they're different. I knocked about for a while, got a few emeralds, then worked along the southern fringes of China.”

“You were a long way from civilization,” I hazarded.

He shook his big head. “That's where you're wrong. I was in the middle of a civilization much older than ours. What's civilization anyway? Wireless and the cinema? No! I've got a two valve set at my place in Clapham. Had to get it; my wife—understand? And I hate it. Sooner hear a temple bell across a valley any day. The bell I hear now is the cursed thing that rings when you open the shop door. My wife likes that. I'm not complaining. She's all right—as far as she goes. Married?”

“No,” I said.

“Well; it doesn't matter. Don't, if you don't have to. Sugar went up a ha'penny a pound this morning, and I got so sick of explaining that I didn't get any more out of it, that I cleared off and came here. Now I've run bang into Morus alba and that's started me. Sugar! Hell!”

I waited.

“IT'S a queer country, that south edge of A China. You can't tell where China begins. and God knows it never ends. What struck me about the people was that they knew a lot more than they said. They don't like strangers, and they didn't like me. Expect the monks were at the bottom of it. I traded for a while, getting hints every now and then that it would be a good thing for my health if I moved on. I moved, right enough. Do you like emeralds?”

“My favorite stone.”

He was silent for a moment, and I noticed that his fingers hunched up in his trouser pocket.

“I love 'em,” he said slowly. “Something in that green I can't resist. I'd sooner own a really good stone, and keep it, for myself, than anything in the world. That country I speak of is a great place for 'em. The rich merchants love 'em too. They have their own private gravel washings in the hills, and draw a dead line round the spot. Get inside that, and—well—you don't get out. I could understand that, and respected them for it. But it made me keener than ever. There was one chap, Peng Yung, who was said to have more emeralds than any one else in the district. He never sold one. Used to play with 'em, they told me, and let 'em drip through his fingers. I met him after a while, and the minute he saw me he knew what I was there for. Could tell that by the way he smiled.”

“So you were warned by these Chinese to move on?”

“Yes; later. Peng Yung was in silk, and used to send out bales of cocoons. Had acres of white mulberries. I was talking with him one day, making the best I could of the lingo, and saying nothing about what interested me most—and he knew that, when I saw a pair of black eyes looking through a screen behind him. There was no mistaking what they said. No mistake at all.”

“His daughter?”

“Yes: Laknee—only child—the thing he loved most next to emeralds. I didn't find out her name till afterwards. It seems he kept her pretty well shut up, and was going to marry her to another silk merchant whose plantation adjoined his own. Man about the same age as himself. Sort of trade arrangement, I made it. But Laknee wasn't having any if she could help it. I lived in a sort of rest-house then on the edge of the town. Plantations on the hillside further up. One day when I was sitting under a tree—Morus alba—a woman passed, looked at me over her shoulder, and made a sign to follow.”

“A bit risky, wasn't it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose so; but who cared? Everything was risky in that country. Anyway, I did follow, and presently came to a little, hidden glen that ran near the plantation. There was a stream at the bottom, and Laknee was beside the stream. Then the thing started.”

He broke off, scraped out his pipe, refilled and slid it into his pocket. I reckoned that tobacco had no taste at the moment. The action was so simple that I found it oddly significant and impressive. I felt convinced that he did not talk this way in his own Clapham.

“Not much use in telling you about the next few days,” the large, quiet voice went on. “I was thirty, and single, and my blood was hot. Laknee was full of a sort of cool fire that—well—sent me crazy. We couldn't really talk very much; but that, you understand, wasn't necessary. She wasn't yellow like her father, but a pale cream color, with eyes like black sloes. She dressed like a nosegay. Small hands and feet; and a round, little neck that ran into her shoulders as water runs out of a jug. Black hair—black as night, and always perfectly done. Almond pink finger nails. Proud, too. Didn't throw herself at me, but often used to sit, staring and wondering, till I thought she was a heathen goddess of beauty and felt afraid to touch her. Gradually I learned that she was trying to think how it could be arranged.”

“What could be arranged?” I asked him.

“The get-a-way. You know she hadn't given herself to me completely, as many a girl would have done. Too proud! She couldn't, till we were out of the place, and on our own. I loved her all the more for that.” He wagged his head thoughtfully. “In a general sort of way she gave me the impression that there were a lot of things behind her; like tradition and wisdom and experience—and a sort of rode. You see she had good blood—old blood—and was an aristocrat. I was only a trader. Funny to feel like that about a heathen girl.” He swung his body on the hard seat, thus facing me. “What is a heathen anyway? Damned if I know—and I've seen a lot of 'em.”

I hesitated. “Putting it that way, I'm not quite sure.”

“My conclusion told. We think we know it all, don't we; but, by God, when I compare Laknee with a lot of people in Clapham, I I begin to see what makes a heathen. Wait till you get the rest of it and you'll understand. Not fed up, are you?”

Anything but that.”

“WELL,” he continued, “I knew the thing couldn't last long. I wondered a good deal how she dared to meet me there as she did, and discovered that her personal servants—who worshipped her—acted as outposts. I didn't see them. I went to the house on my own once or twice to meet her father and show I wasn't afraid of him. Queer thing to feel a Chinaman's eyes on you and know what he's thinking about—which is cutting your throat some convenient night—and drink tea with him, tea worth a pound an ounce, out of lacquer cups that hold as much as a fat woman's thimble—and know as well that the girl you ache for is somewhere close at hand, and invisible. All I could do was try and bluff it through. Then, one day, she told me that the get-a-way was arranged. It would be with a caravan taking out cocoons. Disguise and all. She had everything fixed.”

“In what direction was the caravan going? Do you know?”

“Through southern China, as I made it, toward Tientsin. Weeks on the road. She was more excited than I had ever seen her, then broke down and cried like a child in my arms, Presently she kissed me, and took out a little silk sack that hung by a thread round her neck. As soon as I touched it, I knew what was in it.”

“What?”

“Emeralds! I thought I had seen good stones before, but I hadn't. You know the green, sea green, water green, of a kind that makes the smallest gem look a mile deep. She spilled them into my hand, laughing and crying, telling me that I wasn't a poor man any longer. I don't know how many fortunes were in my palm that minute, but did know it would hurt like hell to sell even the smallest of them. I had picked that up—you may have noticed that the man who understands gems doesn't select the biggest to admire first—when I heard a sort of chuckle close behind us. It was Peng Yung!”

He broke off again, his eyes half closed; then went on, talking as though to the point of his stick which he had pushed gently into the earth.

“The thing that got me was his face. It was blank. It expressed nothing whatever—nothing angry or savage or vindictive. If you can imagine a sort of oriental automaton designed for the purpose of carrying out some regulation or other, that had no blood or pulse or anything except what I can only call 'purpose,' and which automatically does something or other when the regulation is broken—then you get somewhere near what Peng Yung looked like that minute. I couldn't speak and stared from him to the girl. All of a sudden she was a thousand years old. Her flesh, and the fiber of her, were dead white, and seemed to be queerly changed. Her eyes were older even than that, with nothing in them but emptiness. The only sound was the wind in the mulberry trees.” He glanced at Morus alba. “I'm glad there's no wind today.”

“What happened then?” I didn't want to get excited. It certainly wouldn't have suited the hour.

“Peng Yung held out his hand, fingers bent up in a curve. A lean, dry, yellow hand. His nails projected more than an inch. Narrow, pointed nails, color of dirty milk. I tipped in the emeralds, but managed to keep that smallest one jammed between my first and second fingers. Peng Yung waited a second, then took out a sort of Malay creese, put the point of it very delicately between my fingers, and turned it. The stone fell out. Even then he said nothing. Just made a gesture, at which we got up and followed him. What else could we do? Laknee kept the little sack. And Peng hadn't spoken yet.

“We passed a lot of town people on the way to his house. They didn't seem interested. I took it they felt it wiser. When we got there—you can see there was nothing to do but go—and I wouldn't have left Laknee anyway—the girl disappeared, and her father bowed me into a room I'd not seen before. Then he, too, went off. I tried the door. It was fastened on the outside. One window in the outer wall looked into a court where there were half a dozen ruffians lounging about, and I let it go at that. You'll never guess what happened next.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“For twenty-four hours—that is till evening of the following day—I was treated like an honored guest. The place seemed full of servants who had nothing to do except look after me—a down and out trader. At the end of it, a young Chinaman, who spoke good English, came and said I was to dine with Peng Yung. He brought a white linen suit with a Shanghai label, shaved me, and presently led the way out. I followed. You see I couldn't do any thing else. Could I?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Peng was sitting on the floor, another man about the same age beside him. Same type of face, but uglier. Same eyes that didn't say anything. We all bowed, and the infernal meal began. It lasted more than an hour. Chopsticks, you know. Don't remember what we ate, but it choked me. Thing I listened for was Laknee. I got the beastly idea that perhaps she was being punished close at hand while I was being fed for a starter, and I might hear her scream any minute. That was the sort of proceeding that might easily occur to a man like Peng. But not a sound; and, all the time, not a word. I took it the other man was Lee Sim, the other silk merchant to whom Laknee was promised. I was right. He had a round face, with scattered black hairs on chin and lips; hairs that stood on end like a pig bristle. He looked at me with sort of contemptuous curiosity; wondering, I suppose, why the girl preferred me to himself. The thing got me on edge, all right. You see I didn't expect to live very long.”

“Well,” I said with a smile, “you've twenty-five years to the good so far. That's something.”

He frowned a little. “Perhaps—and again perhaps it isn't. Depends what's in those years. If you handled prunes and lard you might feel differently. I can't reckon time by the pound. Where was I?”

“You were at dinner.”

“Yes. that's it. When the floor was clear, Peng clapped his hands, and there came in the man who had shaved me. Peng talked to him for a while in a lingo I didn't get, and Sim Lee listened with a satisfied kind of smile, nodding like a damned image with a hinge in its neck. You see 'em along the Strand, outside Charing Cross. He got more of a pig every minute. Then Peng shut up, waved a hand at me, and the man began to speak. Perfect English, he used; sight better than I'm using now. A young man not more than thirty, I should guess—though it's hard to tell about an Oriental. I reckoned he must have been at some university over here. He certainly was educated.

“I am to tell you,' he said, “that Peng Yung has decided on your punishment. You have tried to steal his daughter. He could have you lashed or tortured or killed, but it will not be any of these. He says that being young and very ignorant, he has no desire to hurt your body; also that the body heals itself, so that by and by the thing is forgotten. Therefore he will punish your mind, because it is only the thoughts of a man that can go on hurting him. So he will imprint on your mind a picture that will never leave it. This you will now see. If you speak, or attempt to interfere, it will mean death. He puts your life in your own hand. Also when you leave this place you will say nothing to anyone. Peng has a long arm. It is always well to remember that.”

“Peng clapped his hands, and a curtain that hung over one end of the room fell down, and there was Laknee, sitting like an image on a pile of cushions. Her shoulders and breast were bare, and festooned with strings of emeralds. There was a big cabouchon the size of a hazel nut at her throat. I could see it quiver with the beat of her pulse. Her hair was wonderful, brows blackened, and her eyes like great, sad stars were looking straight at me. It was enough to send a man mad, till I caught in them something that said I must try and understand, and for her sake see the thing through. I stared at Sim Lee, wondering how long it would take to choke him. The thought of beauty like hers being turned over to that burned like a slow fire. I began to see what Peng meant by punishing the mind. He was right enough.

“IT WOULDN'T have been so bad if it were just the ordinary thing between Laknee and me. But it wasn't. It was as though she had come down through the centuries to me, and I had gone back through centuries to meet her. We had respected as well as loved each other. It wasn't just our bodies by any means. A lot more than that. Does that seem possible—now—as you sit there?”

“Yes,” I said, “perfectly possible. Perfect possible.”

“That's all right—and Morus alba hasn't switched me onto the wrong track. Anyway, it's true. Then the ceremony began. Marriage—I mean. Lots of things I didn't understand, and incense. She went through, never once taking her eyes off me. And not a single word. By this time Sim Lee seemed to have forgotten all about me, and looked at her with the eyes of a hungry animal. Perhaps he did that for my benefit. God! How I felt! The last thing she did was to kneel at his feet. I read 'good-by' in her eyes, and she turned her head away.”

He broke off, chokily. His cheeks had become mottled, and new wrinkles came out, like little dry cuts in his skin. Presently he stared hard at Morus alba.

“It was while she kneeled that she did it. I only knew that there was a flash of something, and a little cry. She lurched forward and lay still. Then a sort of gasping whisper of 'Harree! Harree!'—which was as near as she ever got to my name. The emeralds beside her left breast were scarlet—like rubies they were.”

“Dead?" I said, startled.

“She never moved again. I went mad. Don't know what happened, but I did reach Sim Lee's throat, though I was dragged off in the next second. All I can remember is that I smelled something queer and sweet close to my face, and felt tired and sleepy. It was broad daylight when I woke up, and the interpreter was standing beside me. 'We start now.' he said. That's all. Never saw Peng or Sim Lee again. Interpreter kept me moving until the Irawadi was in sight, and I caught a river boat, deck passenger to Rangoon. As I stepped on board he took me by the arm. 'Peng Yung's message to you,' he said, 'is to keep the picture bright. And lest it fade I am to give you this.' He put something in my hand, then he started back for the Mong Hills.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“I'm coming to that. I didn't light out for home at once, but drifted about, trying to forget. Well—I couldn't. 'Harree! Harree!' I heard it night and day. Women—yes, there were women enough, but that didn't alter it. You can't sidestep when you've seen the one you wanted most of all as I saw Laknee. Peng was right. I don't know yet whether he expected what happened. It's possible he did. You can't tell. But I do know that he punished my brain. He's been at it ever since. That's why I married.”

I marveled at his lack of reserve. “You mean as a sort of refuge?”

“In one way, yes; but not altogether. I reckoned that marriage with a certain kind of woman might make me forget my brain. I wouldn't need it. That, and some sort of business where one day was just like another. There wasn't any difficulty in finding the woman, and I got the business cheap. My God, I've been selling butter for twenty years. After a while I did forget—a little. Brain got stiff and mossy. That comes from keeping alive without really living.”

“Does your wife know all about this?” I hazarded.

“Not she. Wouldn't understand if she did. She's all right, you know, and I'm not complaining. I knew what I was getting, and I'd have gone mad if I'd drifted about any longer. Now I'm as sane as you are. See that for yourself. But this morning, as I told you. I had to come here; and. as you know, tumbled straight onto Horus alba. That started me off. Queer to talk to a stranger as I have to you; but then most things are queer if you think about 'em long enough. Look at a printed word you know well for a minute or so, and I'll bet you'll decide it's out of spelling.”

“Perhaps you're right there. By the way, you didn't tell me what the interpreter gave you.”

“Oh—that!” He felt in his pocket, and drew out a small, green stone. “It's the emerald—the one Peng spotted between my fingers. He knew I couldn't sell it because of Laknee. It was to remind me of her—and it has. My wife thinks it's glass. That's the sort of woman she is. But, as I said, I'm not complaining.” He glanced over his shoulder at a man some two hundred yards away who was walking in our direction. Then a hard look at the tree. “White mulberry is Morus alba! Who'd have thought it? Hope I haven't bored you. Good day.”

I STOOD puzzled. I happened to know a good deal about emeralds, and the one he showed me was worth a thousand pounds at the least. That—in the pocket of a Clapham grocer! Incredible!

I thought otherwise a month later. Something took me to Clapham where I was hunting up a property record, and walking through one of the dingy streets of that human warren, I discovered my friend of Kew—doing business. The gas was on, and his wide, pasty face glimmered provocatively through the shop window. I hesitated, and went in. He was shoveling currants out of a sticky barrel. His customer, a cylindrical woman, swathed in a tartan shawl, watched him suspiciously.

Presently she departed, and he looked at me with dawning recognition.

“Well,” I said, by way of starting a conversation, “how goes it?”

He grunted. “It's lard now. Up a ha'penny yesterday.”

I expressed my sympathy, “Look here,” I went on, “would you mind showing me that—”

A door creaked at the rear of the shop. Entered another woman, whom, at a glance, I knew to be his wife: a large, cow-like, lethargic woman with an amplitude of bosom. Her face was bland, but beneath its massive contours was suggested something that might be terrible, if roused. Obviously one of those whom it is most wise to humor. She settled herself on a stool, and began to knit. Authority was in every click.

My friend wheeled, with his back to her, and, laying a thick finger against his heavy lip, shot me one swift, imperative signal. I looked again—and understood.

“A pound of your best lard,” I said, “if you please.”