Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Immediately, making me jump with surprise, the bird in the cage found its voice and echoed its mistress’s words. ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’
I turned to Mirzah. ‘What does the lady say?’
‘She says ‘black spot’,’ he said. ‘She say the dimon’ he have a black spot.’
‘So it has,’ I admitted readily. ‘I was going to tell her so, but she was too quick for me.’
‘I tell her,’ said Mirzah.
‘Do so,’ I said. ‘and say also that the spot is so very, very small that even I, an expert trained to detect blemishes, can barely see it with my strong glass.’
Mirzah translated, and my compliment brought a smile to her lips, a sure indication that she was not too ancient to be impervious to flattery. When you have a young woman, flatter her about her beauty, when the lady’s age is doubtful flatter her about her charm, her intelligence, her wit, but when she is old compliment her on her eyesight. These are very useful rules.
None the less, I had not entirely succeeded in placating my shrewd client, for she raised her voice to a somewhat higher pitch and spoke volubly. Mirzah translated: ‘Why does the Englishman show a dimon’ good for beggarmen. Have you not told the merchant who I am, and that I can buy the best there is?’
‘So that’s it,’ I thought. ‘Then why was the fellow so emphatic about the price limit?’ But there was no time for speculation of that kind. The lady had to be answered.
‘Tell the lady,’ I commanded, ‘that I beg for her gracious pardon. My mistake arose from the facet that I am not familiar with the customs of this country. In my own land merchants show their meanest goods first and by degrees work up to their finest.’
He translated. She came back with: ‘Why is that?’
‘It is good showmanship,’ said I, ‘and frequently it saves the client’s face.’
‘How may that be?’
I replied that if we merchants were to begin by displaying our best, some customers on learning the price might not care to admit that it was good for their purse and then might not ask to see the inferior goods. But by using the other method the customer remained master of the situation, for he could say as long as he pleased: ‘Show me better—better—better.’
I saw that she was pleased with this explanation, and Mirzah said that she agreed there might be some little wisdom in my argument. But I also noticed that like the very old she was soon tired of talk and distraction, for she picked unceasingly at the folds of the tablecloth. It was clear to me that I must display at once the best that I had in stock, and make no more ado, and this I did. But she looked at each gem in perfunctory fashion, and at last burst forth: ‘It is true that I have been used to buying only the best. But this was for my own use and now I have given up bedecking myself in such finery. Let the merchant bear in mind that one may buy to give away. But black-spotted stones are omen of ill luck. One cannot give them, for the wearer might sicken or meet with misfortune. It is better to make no gifts at all than such stones.’
Finally I had brought out everything I had. But she remained petulant. If one stone was too thick another was too flat, a third had not sufficient fire to warm her into buying, and yet others must be rejected on the score of shape of tint. Nothing seemed to be right. Patience? Yes, I had plenty of that commodity and displayed stone after stone with the best of grace. But no! she knew what she wanted—that she would have or nothing at all.
Well, I dearly love clients who know what they want. It relieves me of great responsibility and much work. Obviously, I had nothing in my collection that was in the least desirable in her eyes. So I packed up in readiness to take my departure and would perhaps have been allowed to go forthwith but that I happened to look up and found her gaze riveted upon one particular wallet of the four—the very one into which I had thrust the paper containing the offending black-spotted stone which had earned her little lecture.
Was I right in suspecting that she might want that stone, after all, and that she was only restrained from asking to see it again by the remarks she had made? She could not lose face, and I, for my part, could not presume to exhibit the stone again. I would thus lose a sale and she would have to go without the very piece she wanted. What was to be done?
At that moment the unexpected happened. The old lady rose from her chair and turned her back upon us, in order to pick up from a table behind her the dish of sectioned fruit of which we were to partake by way of enjoying the traditional hospitality. I seized my chance, extracted from the wallet the slightly flawed stone, and slipped it into my trousers pocket. When she came back to the table, dish in hand, the four wallets had gone back into my attache-case.
Turning to Mirzah I said: ‘Tell the lady that I am sorry that so large a selection as I have shown should have contained nothing to please her; nevertheless I have yet one more diamond in my pocket which I should like to show with her kind permission before I go.’
‘It could do no harm,’ she said graciously.
So I brought the black-spotted stone out of my pocket, and she examined it most critically.
‘Why, this is just what I want!’ she exclaimed. ‘See how these European merchants will insist on showing their poor goods first, and will only bring out what is good when the customer refuses to be fooled.’ For I had this time put a fairly stiff price on the diamond.
She clapped her hands. A Chinese amah appeared. She handed her a bunch of keys and when the woman returned with the money she counted out to me the price I had asked. We had taken our refreshment and now paid our final respects. As I made my final bows to the old lady, she raised her forefinger admonishingly.
It was only then that I realized that the tell-tale mirror she had faced, when I took the opportunity of slipping the stone into my pocket, had betrayed me. As I turned and skated warily in my clumsy shoes over the crystal floor I heard behind me the beating of wings and accusing falsetto screech: ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’ The cockatoo had had the last word.
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