The Scratch on the Ming Vase

by Caroline Stellings

  “Excuse me a minute,” he said, while he went to get a magnifying glass.

  T’ai looked at Nicki and raised his eyebrows.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  When the expert returned, T’ai had questions.

  “How old is this vase? Do you think it was made at the imperial factory at Ching-te-Chen?”

  “It is true that the finest pieces came out of the factories of that great porcelain town,” agreed Dr. Wong, continuing his inspection with the magnifying glass. “Everything they needed was right there in the hills—the kaolin clay, the materials for glazes, the cobalt—everything.”

  Nicki spoke up. “I researched these markings on the bottom, and I think they are a signature. My book said this is the six-character mark of Wan Li.”

  Dr. Wong smiled and nodded.

  Then she made a remark about the design on the vase, and Dr. Wong continued.

  “Yes, the five-clawed dragon is wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “Is this a valuable vase?” asked T’ai. “I read on the Internet that one like it sold at auction for almost seven million dollars.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Dr. Wong. “You don’t often see an underglaze of this color.” He pointed to the deep red background. “Copper red was a very difficult shade to fire. The temperature had to be exactly right, or it would turn black. And in those days, they didn’t have electric kilns, of course.

  “A piece like this,” he continued, “would have been created for the royal family—for the emperor.”

  Nicki and T’ai exchanged quick glances.

  “And would this piece have been passed from the Ming emperor to the emperor of the Qing/Manchu dynasty?” she asked. “In other words, would it have been in the royal household during the time of Manchu rule?”

  “Possibly. And if it were, it would be worth far more than seven million dollars. In fact,” said Dr. Wong, “it would be priceless.”

  “What do you mean it would be priceless?” asked Nicki.

  “This vase would be one of a kind,” he said. Then he looked over the top of his glasses again. “If it were genuine.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, this one is not. I’m sorry.”

  Nicki’s heart sank.

  “Are you sure?” asked T’ai.

  “Positive,” said Dr. Wong. “Oh, it’s a very good replica—in fact, I’d say it’s one of the best I’ve seen. Probably fired in 1920 or thereabouts, to serve as a duplicate of the one that belonged to the emperor.”

  “Are there many of these duplicates around?” asked Nicki.

  “Just a minute,” said Dr. Wong. He left the room and returned with a folio containing information about historic vases.

  He leafed through quickly until he found what he was after.

  “Yes, of course.” he said. “This red underglaze with the five-clawed dragon design did belong to the Chinese imperial family. It was stolen from them before the overthrow of the Qing dynasty.”

  He pushed the folio across the table.

  “Historians believe it may have ended up in Hawaii.”

  “Hawaii?” said T’ai.

  Nicki nudged his leg.

  “Yes,” replied Dr. Wong. “Honolulu’s Chinatown played a crucial role in the birth of modern China. Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary who put an end to the ruling monarchy, was born in Zhongshan but was educated in Hawaii.”

  “I’ve, uh…I’ve heard that there’s a bronze statue of him in Honolulu,” said Nicki.

  “But not everyone wanted to see the end of the Manchu regime, and there is speculation that the vase was offered to anyone who could do away with Dr. Sun.” Dr. Wong looked at the folio again. “You asked me about the number of duplicates that are in circulation.” He thought for a minute. “This might be the only one. Whoever made it would have needed the original to copy from.”

  “How do you know this one is fake?” asked T’ai.

  “When examining Chinese pottery and porcelain from this period,” he continued, “you always begin with a question.”

  “What question?” asked Nicki.

  “Where is the scratch on the Ming vase?” Dr. Wong smiled at his younger companions. “You see, the Chinese craftsmen were wonderful, the best in the world, and they took their work very seriously. And they knew that for a work of art to be truly beautiful, in the deepest sense, it had to contain a flaw. So, after the artist had created the most magnificent piece he could, he would add a tiny scratch, or a “wrong” spot of paint. Anything small just to make sure it was not perfect.”

  “Because perfection is not beautiful,” said T’ai.

  “Right,” said Dr. Wong. “Perfection is lifeless,” he added, as he left the room to replace the folio.

  “Hawaii!” T’ai whispered to Nicki.

  “I know, I know,” she replied. “It looks like David Kahana brought the vase all right— the real one—to return to your uncle and his family. But where is it now?”

  “And where is he?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Nicki. I thought for sure it was a real Ming.” Fenwick carried the vase to the mantle and placed it next to an antique clock. “It may be only a replica, but it’s lovely nevertheless.” Because Nicki was standing on her head, he bent over sideways to talk to her. “What would you like for dinner tonight?”

  “Anything—anything at all. But I’ll have to eat early. I’m meeting Margo Bloom at the deli before we go to the dance.”

  “How long do you have to stay like that?” asked the butler.

  “Just a few more minutes,” she replied. “A correct Wing Chun stance is like a piece of bamboo, firm but flexible, rooted but yielding. It’s all about balance, Fenwick. A well-balanced body recovers faster from any type of attack.”

  “I see.”

  “You must be like a young tree that bends in the wind, then snaps back with force.”

  “Indeed.” He nodded his head.

  “Spaghetti.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Spaghetti,” said Nicki. “For dinner.”

  “Yin!” Margo called from the back of the deli. “Here I am!” She had a platter of smoked meat sandwiches in one hand and a plate of sour pickles in the other.

  Ira and Ruthie were in the kitchen shoving dishes under a heat lamp and arguing about who it was that mixed up an order.

  “Extra speck, Ira. Mrs. Eisenberg wanted extra speck.”

  “Mrs. Eisenberg doesn’t need extra speck!”

  “Be quiet, Ira,” said Ruthie. “She’ll hear you.” Margo’s mother pulled a tray of pickled fat out of the fridge.

  “Business is better tonight,” Nicki commented.

  “Busy for a Friday,” said Margo, rushing past with a coffee pot.

  “You think this is busy,” yelled Ira. “You should have seen this place twenty years ago. Now that was busy!”

  Nicki followed Margo out of the kitchen.

  “Sit down anyplace,” Margo said. “I’ll be ready in a minute or two.” She served a table of six, carried several loads of dishes to the back, wiped and reset a booth, and put on another pot of coffee.

  “Okay, Yin,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  The two girls headed up to Margo’s room. It was clean and bright and had a mural of a garden painted on the wall.

  “Pretty good, eh?”

  “Did you do that?”

  “Sure did. I love flowers.” She smiled. “I’m so glad you decided to come tonight.” She looked at Nicki. “But you can’t wear that.”

  “I’m just coming to watch. I won’t be dancing.”

  “Sure you will. And here’s what you’ll be wearing.”

  She pulled a red dress out of her closet. It still had the price tag dangling fro
m it.

  “That’s your new dress, Margo!”

  “It’ll look better on you.”

  “No, I don’t want—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer. Put it on.”

  “It won’t fit. I’m too short.” Nicki slipped into the dress. “See?”

  “Come on,” said Margo, grabbing Nicki by the arm.

  “Where?”

  “Just come,” she insisted, and she dragged Nicki back down into the deli.

  “Mom!” hollered Margo, “can you hem this up for us?” Margo turned to Nicki. “My mother is a whiz with a needle and thread.”

  “But this is your dress, Margo. I can’t take it.” I don’t want it! said Nicki to herself.

  “I’ve got lots of dresses,” chirped Margo.

  “Too many dresses,” echoed Ira.

  Mrs. Bloom shoved Nicki onto a stool in the middle of the kitchen, and the two of them had the dress shortened and taken in at the waist in less time than it took Ira to grate a chunk of cabbage.

  “Oh, that’s great.” Margo went up to her room, threw on a blue dress, and ran back down.

  Nicki felt like a fool.

  “What size shoe do you wear?” asked Margo.

  Nicki drew the line. “No, I don’t wear heels. Really, I can’t.”

  Before Nicki knew it, Ira had cleared out the entire middle section of the deli. He’d pushed four or five tables to one side, connected his CD player to the speakers, and had disco music playing so loud that people walking outside stopped to listen.

  And watch.

  “Okay, everybody, get ready for something special. For those of you who don’t know her already, this is my daughter Margo. Isn’t she beautiful? Did I tell you that my beautiful daughter is going to be a nurse?”

  “Yes, Ira,” said a woman by the window. “About a hundred times.”

  “Did I tell you that my beautiful daughter has been named volunteer of the month at the hospital?”

  “Yes, Ira.”

  Nicki looked at Margo.

  Margo nodded, and Nicki gave her a thumbs up.

  “Okay, sweetheart, are you ready?” called Ira.

  Nicki looked puzzled, and Margo explained.

  “My dad used to be a disco dance champion back in Brooklyn.”

  “She was the only girl at our synagogue to have a disco-themed bat mitzvah.” Ruthie laughed as Ira and Margo bounded to the middle of the dining room and waited for the next song to start—“Jive Talkin’” by the Bee Gees.

  It’s just your jive talkin’

  You’re tellin’ me lies, yeah,

  Jive talkin’

  You wear a disguise…

  Nicki watched in amazement as Margo and her dad did every move in the book, from underarm turns to shadow steps. Every few bars, they separated and did solo steps; Ira threw an arm up straight, pulled back his shoulders, and moved his feet like a dancer right out of a movie.

  All that jive,

  You’ll never know…

  “Come on, Ira,” yelled a customer, “let’s see the Night Fever Line hustle!”

  Nicki turned to Ruthie.

  “They’re really good,” she said.

  “Yeah, they are.”

  “Your husband is certainly proud of Margo.”

  Ruthie smiled. “Ira loves our daughter. He’s loved her from the minute he laid eyes on her. We both have.”

  She’s a lucky girl, thought Nicki. And then, out of nowhere, she felt tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

  She wiped them away quickly, but Mrs. Bloom noticed.

  “I’m sure your parents love you just as much, Yin,” she said.

  Which parents? Nicki asked herself. The people who have given me everything I could possibly want, or the parents who probably had nothing to give? The Haddons, who look after my every need, but who can’t find the time to watch me compete and who never ask about my dreams? Or the man and woman in China who might be dreaming dreams for me? Praying I’m alive. Hoping I’m happy.

  A surge of emotion flowed like lava from a volcano into Nicki’s chest, into her heart.

  The tears started to stream.

  Don’t be such a baby, she told herself. Get a grip!

  But there was no way for her to contain it. She ran to the washroom.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nicki bit into her knuckles to stop herself from crying. Then she sprayed cold water onto her face and dried it off with a wad of paper towels.

  The door opened.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine, Margo.” She pushed back her bangs. “Listen, I’ve been rethinking this whole dance thing. It’s really not me.”

  “Oh, come on—”

  “I don’t feel up to it.”

  “Please,” said Margo. “If you don’t like it, we can leave after ten minutes. I promise.”

  Nicki looked at herself in the mirror. What’s wrong with you tonight?

  She spoke to Margo’s reflection. “You’re a good dancer. Your dad is too,” she said. “That must have been some bat mitzvah.”

  “It was, Yin. I’ll never forget it.” Margo adjusted the thin straps of her metallic blue dress. It was cut above the knee and had a tulip hem. Nicki’s dress was made from a stretch satin and her black hair was positively striking against the bright red fabric. For a moment she wondered what T’ai would think of it.

  “Now come on, let’s go,” urged Margo. “You said you had some friends who wanted to meet up with you at the dance.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Then you’ll come?”

  It would give me a chance to get to know Duncan MacDonald better. See what he’s up to.

  “Only if you’ll let me pay for this dress,” insisted Nicki.

  Margo thought about it.

  “I’d be much happier if you’d accept it as a gift,” she said. “You’ve just started working, and I’m sure money is tight. But I’ve got an idea. Come here and I’ll show you something.”

  They went back into the deli and on a shelf behind the cash register was a big empty pickle jar with some change in the bottom of it. On the side was a picture of a palm tree cut out of a magazine, stuck down with a piece of masking tape on which the words Honeymoon Jar had been printed in black ink.

  “After you’ve been working for a while, and have whatever you need for yourself, I’ll let you put a couple of dollars into my parents’ honeymoon jar, okay?” She held up her index finger. “No more than that.”

  “They haven’t had a honeymoon yet?”

  “They couldn’t afford one when they got married, then they were busy trying to get the business going, then I came along. You know how it goes.” She picked up the pickle jar. “So whenever we get an extra tip or something, we put it in here.” She shook the money around. “They almost had enough once, but the refrigerator and oven broke within a week of each other.”

  Ira walked by with a huge container of coleslaw.

  “We’d hoped by our tenth anniversary we could go. Then it was our fifteenth. Our twenty-fifth is next month, but it looks like it’ll take until our thirtieth.”

  “Oh, come on Ira,” said Ruthie. “Get real. If we make it to Hawaii by our fiftieth, we’ll be doing something.”

  “Hawaii?” asked Nicki.

  “That’s their dream.” Margo took a customer’s credit card and rang through his bill. “Thanks a lot,” she said, handing the man a receipt. She turned to Nicki and lowered her voice. “I really hope they can go for their silver anniversary. I’ve been thinking about putting off nursing school for a year and giving them what I’ve saved up—”

  “You know what you can do with that idea?” Ira shouted from the kitchen. “Forget about it!”<
br />
  “I hope you don’t mind stopping off here for a minute first,” said Nicki.

  “This is a social visit,” Margo warned the nurses at the desk. “Don’t get any big ideas about putting me to work tonight.”

  “I didn’t even recognize you without the stripes,” joked an older nurse.

  “Nurse Cherry Ames, out on the town,” said another.

  “I love Cherry Ames.” Margo swung her purse over her shoulder playfully.

  “Who’s she?” asked Nicki.

  “Oh, you know—Cherry Ames, from the series of books for girls. She’s like Nancy Drew, only a nurse. My grandmother gave me her set.”

  “Right. They were in your bookcase.”

  “I cherish them. Those books changed my life.”

  Nicki started for Kahana’s room.

  Margo clicked behind, her heels hitting the floor like it was a steel drum.

  Nicki turned down the west corridor and immediately noticed the hall was completely empty. There was no guard at David Kahana’s door.

  Where’s the guard?

  Nicki picked up her pace. She grabbed the door handle and tugged until it opened.

  Kahana was gone!

  “Margo, he’s not here!” gasped Nicki.

  “He was fine when I left here today,” said Margo. “Maybe they’ve just taken him—”

  Nicki didn’t wait for her to finish the sentence. She wheeled around and ran back to the nurses’ station. Margo hurried behind.

  From around the corner came Newman.

  What’s he doing here? Nicki’s mind was racing. “Where’s Master Kahana?”

  “I was just about to ask that myself,” said Newman.

  “They’ve taken him upstairs for tests,” replied a nurse. “But it’s past visiting hours. You’ll all have to leave.”

  Nicki let out a huge sigh of relief. “Are his guards with him?”

  “Yes, of course,” declared the nurse.

  Nicki thanked her and then confronted the hotel manager.

  “Mr. Newman,” asked Nicki, “are you a friend of Mr. Kahana’s?”