Jasmine Flower, Off-Key

Work the night shift long enough and you come down with a condition: watching people.

Now, you’d call that a bad habit, wouldn’t you? But for those of us in the cleaning trade—one person keeping watch over an empty platform—the mop is my only conversation partner. If I don’t watch people, what else is there? Watch long enough and you work out your own system: anyone boarding the last train after half past eleven at night has a story, every one of them. There’s the cook fresh off the stove, smelling of scallion from head to toe. There’s the office worker just off overtime, eyes glazed over. And there’s the kids lugging those enormous backpacks—international students, plain as day—with a film of grey on their faces, like frost settled on a windowpane.

On this platform, there are two faces I know well.

One is Old Joe. A big white fellow, hair whiter than my rags will ever get, an old guitar in a case worn down to bare wood. He usually turns up half an hour before the last train, sits on the bench, and plays ever so softly, as if afraid of waking somebody.

One evening I couldn’t help myself. “Old Joe, who’re you playing for out here?”

He smiled. “The people on the last train are the tiredest people of the day. I play for them.”

That one sentence, and I counted him as one of our own.

Three weeks ago he suddenly grabbed hold of me and gestured for the longest while. My foreign languages are half-baked, his hands were clumsy, and with the two of us guessing back and forth—I gathered he wanted to learn a Chinese song. He said the station had been seeing more and more Asian kids lately, kids whose homes were far, far away, and he wanted to play them a tune “brought from home.”

I don’t know many songs, and fewer still that I can sing all the way through. After racking my brain, I hummed him “Mo Li Hua”—“Jasmine Flower.”

He had a rough time of it. That voice of his was like a rusted door hinge: “what a beautiful jasmine flower,” and out it came, every note bent. He knew it too, scratching his head, sheepish. I told him, never mind, go home and practice. And practice he did. From then on, every night shift, I’d see him on that bench, fingers crawling over the strings, lips murmuring away like a schoolboy reciting his lessons.

The other face is one I call Little Bear—the girl had a cartoon bear printed on the back of her puffer jacket. A student from overseas, working part-time at a Chinese restaurant; a month now, and she’s caught the last train every single time. She always carries a whiff of hotpot broth about her, and before long after sitting down, her head starts to bob like a float on the water, jerking upright only when her stop is near.

Just looking at her made my heart ache. Somebody’s daughter, come all this far from home.

Then came last Friday, and that’s where it went wrong.

That night the platform was emptier than usual, the lights a glaring white. Little Bear arrived first, huddled at one end of the bench, eyelids fighting a losing battle. Before long, Old Joe came along with his guitar, sat down as always, and as always, gave her a first glance.

And guess what—that one glance was where it all went sideways.

The girl snapped awake, shrank to the far end of the bench, slid a hand into her pocket and clenched it around whatever was inside, eyes boring straight into Old Joe. Old Joe glanced at her again—only later did I work out why: he was wondering whether the kid, worn out like that, might like a tune. But to a frightened girl, that’s a strange big man watching you in the dark, inch by inch.

The lights too white, the platform too empty, the night too long. That’s exactly how fear grows.

I kept mopping, fretting inside, unable to speak for either side.

Little Bear bore it for a few minutes, then shot to her feet, covered the steps to Old Joe, fished out a one-dollar bill, and dropped it into the guitar case. From a dozen steps away I watched her: lips pressed tight, chin lifted, and the meaning as clear as day—take the money, and stop following me.

Old Joe froze.

He looked down at the money in the case, then up at the girl’s rigid shoulders. For two or three seconds I watched it cross his face—first puzzlement, then a flush creeping up the tips of his ears, and then the something in his eyes going soft, soft as butter melting.

He understood.

He gave the girl a nod, one small, gentle nod, then looked down, laid his fingers on the strings, and paused for half a beat.

The first two notes trembled; the third one went wrong. But wrong note by wrong note, the melody rose to its feet—“what a beautiful jasmine flower”—rusty, stumbling, half a beat behind, yet beyond mistake: that was “Jasmine Flower,” plain as day.

Little Bear had just turned to go when her feet nailed themselves to the ground.

She turned her head, slowly, and stood there listening. Wind came pouring in from the tunnel mouth, and that off-key jasmine went on blooming across the empty platform—one blossom, then another. I watched the girl’s shoulders come down, inch by inch, like snow sliding off a roof.

The train pulled in, and the wind rose with it. She boarded; the car was empty. Just as the doors were about to close, through the glass I caught her pressing her hands to her face, shoulders heaving.

Not from fear, this time. This was the crying that comes when you’ve held it in for the better part of a year and finally dare to let it out. I know that crying. Thirty years ago, the day I landed, with not a soul in the world to turn to, I cried in an airport restroom until my legs went numb.

Old Joe played on and on, until the train swallowed the music into the tunnel.

This Friday, Little Bear came again. This time she didn’t huddle at the far end of the bench; she sat right down beside Old Joe, cradling a tin of tea printed with green jasmine flowers. She handed it over and said, “Thank you”—just those two words, quick and soft.

Old Joe took it, solemn as a man receiving a trophy. He pointed at the guitar case—I leaned in for a look: there was the one-dollar bill, taped nice and square inside the lid, under a strip of clear tape.

He split into a grin, and in that rusted-hinge voice of his delivered the only Chinese he’d ever be able to hold up with pride:

“Mo li hua.”

The three of us laughed. You see, kindness is a funny thing—sometimes it plays off-key, sometimes it shows up late, and sometimes it even gets taken for the bad guy. But as long as it’s willing to open its mouth, it will always find its way home to the tune.

The night shift goes on, and so does my watching. Look—jasmine is blooming on the platform again, blooming half a world from home, blooming for two people who ache for home, and for this old woman who loves to watch people, too.

(This story is adapted from true events. All characters appear under pseudonyms.)