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The Tears of Ah Kim
by
Ah Kim dropped down on his knees so as to give his mother every advantage. And while she rained blows upon him with the bamboo stick, Li Faa smiled and giggled, and finally burst into laughter.
“Harder, O honourable Mrs. Tai Fu!” Li Faa urged between paroxysms of mirth.
Mrs. Tai Fu did her best, which was notably weak, until she observed what made her drop the stick by her side in amazement. Ah Kim was crying. Down both cheeks great round tears were coursing. Li Faa was amazed. So were the gaping clerks. Most amazed of all was Ah Kim, yet he could not help himself; and, although no further blows fell, he cried steadily on.
“But why did you cry?” Li Faa demanded often of Ah Kim. “It was so perfectly foolish a thing to do. She was not even hurting you.”
“Wait until we are married,” was Ah Kim’s invariable reply, “and then, O Moon Lily, will I tell you.”
Two years later, one afternoon, more like a water-melon seed in configuration than ever, Ah Kim returned home from a meeting of the Chinese Protective Association, to find his mother dead on her couch. Narrower and more unrelenting than ever were the forehead and the brushed-back hair. But on her face was a withered smile. The gods had been kind. She had passed without pain.
He telephoned first of all to Li Faa’s number but did not find her until he called up Mrs. Chang Lucy. The news given, the marriage was dated ahead with ten times the brevity of the old-line Chinese custom. And if there be anything analogous to a bridesmaid in a Chinese wedding, Mrs. Chang Lucy was just that.
“Why,” Li Faa asked Ah Kim when alone with him on their wedding night, “why did you cry when your mother beat you that day in the store? You were so foolish. She was not even hurting you.”
“That is why I cried,” answered Ah Kim.
Li Faa looked up at him without understanding.
“I cried,” he explained, “because I suddenly knew that my mother was nearing her end. There was no weight, no hurt, in her blows. I cried because I knew SHE NO LONGER HAD STRENGTH ENOUGH TO HURT ME. That is why I cried, my Flower of Serenity, my Perfect Rest. That is the only reason why I cried.”
WAIKIKI, HONOLULU.
June 16, 1916.