Not to Be Taken Apart Like This

He stood outside the pawnshop's glass door and shifted that single-vein bead to another pocket.

Next Wednesday. The day the old man under the awning had spoken of. He had meant to get ahead of it, to keep the matter quiet before then. But this morning on waking, the day loomed so close he could not sit still.

The seal still on the shop door, he pretended not to see it. Today he had to go intercept something else first. He came from the far end of the flea market, passed the street corner of his own shop, and did not turn in. The bead in his pocket was cool, as unsettled as he was. This half-month, the money gone, the shop hanging — and just now, one thing after another was being pressed into his hands. He could catch beads; he could not catch his own days.

He had not meant to enter the pawnshop. He only wanted to find Bi Shunli and speak first, to talk him out of pawning the old master's attachment. But after asking around he learned Bi Shunli had already arranged for an appraiser to come this morning. He was a step too late and could only follow him here.

He stood outside the door and felt that bead in his hand once more. This half-month of running about, he seemed to be errand-ing for others, while his own shop sank day by day into the seal. Yet he could not stop. He stepped through this door not for the Liu family shop's name, but so that strand of beads would not scatter. Yet even now he had not figured out by what right he interfered in another's family affair.

He pushed the door and went in.

A smell of old wood mixed with camphor rose to meet him. The hall was dim; the lamp on the counter was bright, throwing a white glare off the glass. Against the wall sat an old woman waiting to redeem a pawn, a cloth bundle on her lap, eyes half-closed.

The man behind the counter looked up. Gray tunic, reading glasses perched on his nose, a tray of abacus beads never ceasing in his hand.

"From the Liu family shop?" The man pushed his glasses down and let his gaze fall on his apron. "Your father stood in this very spot years ago. Brought in a strand of beads, said it could pawn half a life. In the end he walked out carrying it himself."

Liu Jinu did not take the bait. He had turned that page in his father's ledger and knew his family's account with this place was not clean. He was not here to settle old scores.

"That account of your father's," the old pawnbroker flicked an abacus bead, "isn't settled at my end yet. You'd best not open your mouth for him."

Liu Jinu stood where he was and did not answer. The account was old; settled or not, the man at the counter knew better than he. What he had come to intercept today was the strand in the hands of the man by the window, not this remark. But the old pawnbroker's eyes told him that the four words "Liu family shop" were a prior entry in this room's ledger — before he had even spoken, the weight already pressed against him.

He swept the hall with a glance and spotted Bi Shunli.

Bi Shunli sat on a low stool by the window, a cloth bundle at his feet, the mala spread across his lap. An eighteen-bead one. He recognized it at a glance. The red cord was newly continued, the mother-bead in place, the buddha-head outward — the same wearing style as the strand he had restrung for the old man under the awning.

He walked over.

"You really mean to pawn it?"

Bi Shunli looked up, the whites of his eyes reddened a layer. "You understand? If you understood, why are you so poor?"

"This isn't about money."

"It is to me," Bi Shunli gathered the mala into his palm. "My father's in bed, my debt comes due next month. You stand here saying it isn't about money — will you pay it for me?"

Liu Jinu could not get that word "pay" out. He did not have three hundred in his pocket. The three hundred he had last taken to appraise a strand had long been spent the day he redeemed the ledger.

The man behind the counter came over and held out his hand.

"Let me see the beads."

Bi Shunli passed them over.

The old pawnbroker rested the mala in his palm, turned it twice, thumbed across the mother-bead and buddha-head, then ran bead by bead down to the wrist section. Liu Jinu stood a step away, his eyes following those hands. The mala turned under the lamp; he could see the skin-side patina glossier than the other, the drill-hole notches facing every direction — loose beads worn singly long, then later strung by later hands. The mother-bead's wear concentrated at its lower end, the spot long held and rubbed in the palm. The direction of the three sections of wear — he had seen the same on a broken strand yesterday. The missing bead should have been in the section below the mother-bead. His hand unconsciously clenched his trouser pocket, and the single-vein bead inside sat right at that spot.

The old pawnbroker looked a long while and said nothing.

Liu Jinu's hand clenched in his trouser pocket. He knew that strand's provenance. The Bi family of the eastern quarter; the old master had worn it fifty-eight years; the red cord replaced three times, each section's wear running a different direction. Only yesterday he had traced this kind of joining record on a broken strand. Whether the single-vein bead in his pocket had scattered from this very strand, he had not yet dared to match. But he could not say it now. Say it, and the beads would belong to the pawnshop, and the bead in his hand would never get its match.

"An old mala," the old pawnbroker spoke, voice flat, "appraised bead by loose bead, versus appraised as a strand — two different prices. Your strand's missing one bead, the red cord's been broken; I can only go by the loose-bead price."

Bi Shunli's face darkened. The hand gripping the mala tightened, then loosened.

"What's the loose-bead pawn worth?"

"Enough to pay off part of your debt. Want to pawn it as a complete strand — missing one bead, I daren't accept it as a whole piece."

Missing one bead — the strand's softest spot, and the pawnshop's knife-edge for beating down the price. If the bead in Liu Jinu's hand were filled in, the strand would be complete. But he could not afford to fill it, nor dared.

Bi Shunli looked down at the mala in his hand, his Adam's apple working. He seemed to hesitate half a second, about to take the beads back.

Liu Jinu heard. The string in his mind went taut. The missing bead might well be in his pocket. Whether the single-vein bead in his hand was of the same strand as this scattered one, he had not matched yet. But he could not say it now.

"It can be made complete," he spoke up. "The red cord broke three times, and each joining has its mark. Follow the marks and string it back, and it's a whole strand. A whole strand and loose beads — not the same thing."

The old pawnbroker looked at him, something extra in his eyes.

"You're in the trade?"

"I'm one who appraises things."

"One who appraises things," the old pawnbroker set the mala back on the counter, "then tell me — on what grounds can't this strand be appraised as loose beads?"

Liu Jinu opened his mouth. He wanted to say this strand was an attachment worn by one man for fifty-eight years, something the Bi family's old master had warmed against his flesh — it should not be taken apart and sold bead by bead. He wanted to say that under the awning he had restrung a broken strand for an unrelated old man, and knew that once a strand is taken apart, it is never the original strand again.

The words reached his lips, and he could not hold them.

"This strand must not be taken apart!"

His voice was louder than he had meant. The old woman in the hall opened her eyes and glanced this way.

The old pawnbroker's hand paused.

The old pawnbroker smiled. Not a happy smile — the smile of a tradesman who, hearing a word from an expert, suddenly sees the goods clearly.

"Must not be taken apart," the old pawnbroker pushed the mala back before Bi Shunli. "Young man, your words speak better than the beads themselves. An eighteen-bead strand worn decades — when an expert says it mustn't be taken apart, then it's something that can be pawned as a whole piece. I'll reappraise."

He picked up a brush and changed a figure on the form.

Bi Shunli stared at that figure, his throat working. The sum stood far above the loose-bead price from before. High enough that the hand which had still been hesitating steadied.

Liu Jinu stood there, suddenly understanding what he had done.

He had wanted to protect that strand, keep it from being broken up. Yet the moment he opened his mouth, he had let the pawnshop see its value as a whole and pushed the price to a place Bi Shunli could not refuse. The more he tried to protect it, the closer it came to being sold. He thought of his own straits these past two days — the more anxious, the more likely to say the wrong thing; once spoken, the words were out of his control.

The old pawnbroker pushed the form over, the brush-tip tapping the signature line.

"Liu family's boy," he said, "that line of yours just opened more than a notch of price for this strand. In this trade, words have a price. That mouth of yours closed the deal for me today."

Liu Jinu did not take the brush. He glanced at Bi Shunli, who had already signed his name. At the moment the name fell, he saw Bi Shunli's hand pause — as if a little regretful, yet also as if relieved. Both at once.

He stood still. The old woman in the hall closed her eyes again, as if this scene had nothing to do with her. The old pawnbroker had already tucked the mala into a drawer, and the abacus clicked once more. In this room he had suddenly become the superfluous one.

He turned and walked out. The glass door closed behind him, leaving that eighteen-bead strand inside the counter.

He stood on the street edge, watching the figures through the glass door. That strand of beads he had only glimpsed whole from afar, never even laying a hand on it. The strand he had restrung for the old man under the awning, he had handled the whole afternoon. Neither strand had he been able to keep.

He thought of when the old man under the awning said "I trust you" — he had felt his hands could mend a broken strand. That afternoon he had crouched by the blue cloth, bead by bead returning the broken-strand beads to their places, continuing the red cord by its original joining marks; the old man had slipped it back on his wrist and said "I trust you," and that line had warmed in his chest the whole way.

Now he knew: he could mend beads, but not the fate of this strand being taken away for money. The strand he had restrung for another was someone else's attachment. This strand was someone else's lifeline — yet with his own hands he had pushed it to the highest price, the hardest place to turn back from. He had meant to block it; he had blocked it into an assist. He had reckoned the account: his own hands' bead-mending skill was solid, but the moment they touched human affairs, the account went awry. He did not understand why the more he wanted to do the right thing, the more easily he did it wrong.

He walked toward the shop, past two intersections, when someone called him from behind.

It was Bi Shunli. Bi Shunli had not gone into the pawnshop; he had followed him out, standing three paces off, as if afraid he would hear yet afraid he would not.

"That man," Bi Shunli said, "the one offering a high price to buy this strand — my father always refused to see him."

Liu Jinu stopped.

"If you truly understand this strand," Bi Shunli said, "go negotiate with him. If you can bring him down, I won't sell to anyone else."

Liu Jinu looked at him. Bi Shunli's eyes were still red, but this time it was not only from staying up late.

"My father wouldn't see him," Bi Shunli said, "but he'd see your kind. You understand more than I do. That line you spoke today — even the pawnshop believed it."

Liu Jinu did not take the bait. Go negotiate. Negotiate what. He had not even matched this strand's full provenance, did not even know if the bead in his own pocket was of the same line. Yet when Bi Shunli handed him this line, it was not like a calculation — more like a man cornered by debt clutching at something that was not even a rope. That man would see him, would see a young man who could not even keep his own shop — that in itself was abnormal. But abnormal things, he had seen far too many of late.

Bi Shunli finished, turned, and left. He did not say who that man was, nor where to negotiate.

Liu Jinu stood where he was, the single-vein bead in his pocket cool. Next Wednesday had not yet come, and that eighteen-bead strand was already out of the Bi family's hands. Whether the bead in his hand was truly of its line, he still had not matched.

He suddenly felt that, from that line "I trust you" under the awning, every step he took seemed to be tightening the cord for someone else.