A dozen or more gathering this afternoon in the windy forecourt of the library. There must have been some kind of tunnel effect from the towers on every side—Raffles, the Ritz Carlton, the office and housing blocks.
At the head of the table on the far side the man in the chair gave a fine salutation, directed at the panama quite likely. None of these men wore hats, yet none of them were dark either, like many Chinese could become transplanted on the Equator.
An active, engaged assembly again today, even without the presence of the usual leader of the group. Earlier in the afternoon the man had been sighted in his usual seat; now his absence created space for some of the others, if they could rise to the occasion. Without this chap's steering, without his lead, it was a question what the others might manage on their own resources.
For a time the conversation proceeded in brief exchanges from various points around the two joined tables. Small little ventures offered that drew brief answers and elaborations.
None in this gathering seemed likely to hold court in the manner of the absent leader. Under that man’s sway the group often seemed cowed or hesitant. Through his harangues, as they seemed, the men always sat quietly, without meeting his eye.
In rhythm and tone the replacement speaker now was far less impressive. There was no lack of gesturing and volume; the body posture, the way the man held upright in his seat—and at that age—clearly marked him as alpha male. Yet somehow even quite long speeches from him were not especially compelling. Liberal, indulgent smiles that hardly left his face. This was no chairman of the board.
This afternoon a middle-aged woman sat among the men, beside the chap who had saluted the panama. Usually the men were unaccompanied. They came after lunch and sat until late into the afternoon. As in the present case, there were often more than a dozen gathered in the inner section near the library entry. Once or twice a smaller group was found in the main seating by the street.
Neat, dapper men; shirts and slacks, more than half with pens clipped in the pockets. The linked metal watchbands that pinched hairy wrists and were popular a couple of generations ago prominent.
Most of the men were close to eighty; two or three clearly beyond. It was difficult to judge their situation in life, age having leveled distinctions. The generic clothing and lack of ornament produced uniformity.
They all lived close to the city centre, it seemed. Though men of substance, somehow they didn’t appear to be retired managers or businessmen; that was not the impression conveyed. Again perhaps age masking matters.
All fine, hale specimens.
The female newcomer sat listening for the most part; contributions from her when they came were minor. More than anything it was apparent there was appreciation from the woman for what she received in the gathering.
With the drift of conversation and its small measures, attention wandered. An initial impression suggested an uneventful meeting in the offing, a quiet little hiatus between lunch and dinner. Without the forceful, dominant leader there might have been a little more ease apparent. Good-natured exchanges; regular smiles. The afternoon slowly ebbing.
There was hardly an empty seat in the place, largely due to the size of this gathering of old men, who had collected added chairs to accommodate their number.
At some point in the lulled motions a voice at the far end, directly opposite the panama salute—the counterpart of that man almost ten metres distant—had launched into a little oration, it sounded like. The particular rhythm was what drew attention.
In fact all other sound and movement had been stilled. There was none of the shuffling and turning of heads this way and that. The eyes were not necessarily focused on the far end of the table, but the grip of attention was unmistakable.
The figure of this speaker was not promising. There was nothing like the firmness of the absent one. This man bent over in his seat as he spoke, his jaw hanging loosely. Of the entire group he was perhaps the least physically impressive.
False teeth may have been a bad fit. Keeping his mouth closed when he listened did not seem possible for this man.
As he recited now from his chair, the man beat out rhythm and line, not just with his hand, but with his whole person. The nodding head, rolling shoulders, the beaming eyes were carried by the motion within.
Fully in the sway of his piece, the man had seized the attention of the entire group.
Clearly some well-known, authoritative text was being cited. Something the others had either not heard before, or slipped in memory. The lilt and movement made it clear it was verse and nothing else.
There were perhaps a dozen long lines altogether, four or five stanzas possibly. All without fumbling or pause. Even with the less than impressive figure the man cut, the performance was commanding. When he was done it seemed an exceptional, unrepeatable feat that could only have come off in the most favourable of circumstances.
The girl at one of the tables who was asked later for translation guessed old Chinese opera. The dialect defeated her; Cantonese possibly, she agreed. On the other side a couple of lads a little older engaged with an iPhone took no interest in the old men.
Rather than completely stunning the gallery, immediately following this initial performance, it was the man at the other end, the one who had acknowledged the panama in fact, who rose to the challenge. Now he was returning in kind lines of his own. A shorter passage of verse here, but with the same unmistakable hallmarks of rhythm and movement.
One could only sit and gape. The elegance was bewitching.
After this reply came some rejoinders from the sidelines, commentary and interpretation it might have been, from more than one quarter.
The two men either end of the tables had taken up their positions as if pre-arranged, by prior consent from the others. As in ancient times, a staged oratorical contest.
To the second's rejoinder there now followed more from the first man, the slack-jawed bent man, who had a good deal stored in memory. Once more the chap gave a smooth recitation, shorter than the first. but highly apposite. Numbers of lines again and lacking nothing of force and conviction.
Something had been clinched now; his opposite number was left a little cowed. In the theatre the silence and attention was rarely stretched so tight.
Old men, four score and ten, one of whom leaned on his walking stick even seated at the table. A stroke was perhaps responsible for his dragging gait. To think that men of this age could hear anything so completely captivating.
The duel was over. The lead speaker appeared somewhat dissatisfied; what he had delivered seemed insufficiently acknowledged. The bright sunniness of the man at the other end beside the woman had avoided the issue perhaps.
Other voices entered the discourse; conversation fragmented. The man with the poets and sages at his fingertips brooded on. Jaw hung low, teeth visible to the gums. The picture he presented could not have been further from his performance moments before. A jaw could never be imagined to hang as low as that.
These chaps could not be retired academics. They were of the older generation; the ease of manner and the knowing came from primary sources here.
Two of the men handed over books to others, one of which particularly made a slow round of the tables. One of the men leafed through looking for a passage. It was he who must have produced the volume in the first place. Along the inner line of the corridor, back turned, the man sat in the middle of the throng. This man was at the upper limit of the age group. Unlike the others, he carried some bulk, jowls hanging, owlish eyes accentuated by high brows.
Passage found, the open page showed sparse columns of characters, with headings for individual poems or stanzas. Seeming to know that a reading was in store, the other men waited. When the owlish man had found his place, he gave voice.
Short lines again, much shorter than the earlier recitations from memory. This was a very particular kind of reference, a little abstruse possibly. An item out of the box.
Shortly before this reading there had been a bolstering of numbers; one or two other men joining the circle. Newcomers and the others alike all listened respectfully.
Another book too passed round. The paperback from which the quotation had been taken went back into the Owl’s pink supermarket shopping bag.
It was replaced by a foolscap exercise book. When the Owl leafed through the pages the paper was discoloured and where he stopped sparsely spaced, neat penciled characters showed in columns down the page. It was an old notebook, long in use, long carted around. Mandarin characters could not be scrawled carelessly
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