Adventures Of A Chinese Carpet
(NANCY BRENNER)
Stepped on, slept on and stained, it held the foot prints of our family's life
The Rug arrived uninvited one summer, and created quite s stir. How are u going to keep the kids off ? Don't let any one eat in the living room. Hmm this is so formal. It is'nt like you. Want to sell it ?
It was a beauty, 2.7- by - 3.6 metres of wool, so finely woven that it seemed to have no pile. I had the feeling that neither the rug nor I would have choosen tolive together, but i could tell it was serious piece of work. On its face, inside an eight centimetre band of the colour of chinese mustard, there were clusters of houses with tiled pagoda roofs, trees, scatterd flowers and cool pools od dapled blues.
The rug had had an easy time of it with my husband Tom's great aunt Kate for almost half of her 100 years. She had lived quietly in the company of sisters, then nieces, and finally a grand niece. After Kate died, Toms parents drove to our Home, with the rug lying across the back seat of their big yellow car, trussed like a kidnap victim. As soon as they unrolled it, Kate's chinese treasure faced some changes. The rug's prim and proper days were over.
We had three little children then. Cartwheels, puppies and split juice were part of the daily routine. Babies threw themselves on the rug's soft surface for teary rages that some times turned into doorly naps. Kittens toyed with the fringes, then leapt into the fire places cold ashes leaving a tiny tiger pathways through the chinese village as they wandered back.
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