Gold Mountain Blues (54 page)

“It's always the women who come and buy from us. Isn't there a woman in your house?” asked her father, sweeping the debris of old leaves from the floor of the cart. The girl had been brushing the mud off the front of her jacket but now she paused and he knew she wanted to hear what he would say.

“I'm in charge of the housekeeping,” he said boldly after a moment's hesitation.

The first sentence was the most difficult, and after this the words came fluently.

“The master of the house is the boss of Vancouver's biggest department store, the Hudson's Bay Company. When the English emperor came on a visit, the master was invited to tea. The mistress is always going out to dinner parties with him so I'm in charge of the house.”

This was the longest answer that Kam Ho had ever given in his life and when he finished he was surprised at himself. It was so much easier than he ever imagined.

The girl's father tut-tutted in astonishment. “No wonder they live in such a grand house,” he said.

“Have you ever seen the English emperor?” the girl asked him as she looked up.

He found it difficult to answer. He could not bring himself to lie boldly and say, yes, he had seen the emperor. But neither did he want to say no, because he was basking in the sparkling look of admiration she gave him. Then the words slipped off his tongue. He smiled slightly: “We ordinary folk can't meet the emperor. But I've seen a photograph that the master brought home. He's quite young and handsome.” Kam Ho felt satisfied with the way he had put it. It did not sound in the least boastful, but still impressive enough.

“Jimmy! Jimmy!” Mrs. Henderson was calling him.

Kam Ho was not about to answer immediately but his chain of thought had been interrupted and he found he had dried up. He picked up the vegetable basket and said: “Could you bring some beans next week?” Before the father could reply, the girl nodded her head. Kam Ho knew he would see her again next week.

“Jimmy! Jimmy!” the call came again.

Kam Ho had to go. Though he had said a lot, still he had not time to say what he really wanted to. Still, there would be next Wednesday.

As he went through the garden gate, Kam Ho suddenly stopped, put down the basket in his hand and looked for a sharp pebble. He cut the stem of a rose and ran up to the cart. Throwing the rose onto the basket where she sat, he said: “It smells nice. Have a smell.” He really wanted her to put it in her hair but he did not dare suggest that. He was afraid, not of her, but of her father. The man stood between him and her and he had not yet worked out a way of sneaking past him.

When Kam Ho climbed the steps to the house, he nearly collided with Mrs. Henderson; the doorway was dark as he went in out of the sun's glare, and he did not see her.

“Mr. Henderson's coming home early today, and he's taking Jenny to Stanley Park to see the sailing boats. Go and make us a picnic lunch, and of course you're coming with us too.”

Kam Ho said, “Yes, ma'am,” but he had no idea what he was saying yes to, because he was not listening. He had left his eyes and ears outside. Far away down the street, he saw more women coming out of their houses and
going up to her cart. He heard her timid voice like a leaf brushing his ears. “Fresh greens. Just harvested from the fields. Our own crops, no bugs in them,” she said in answer to each of the women's questions.

“Was it prickly, Jimmy?” asked Mrs. Henderson.

“What?”

“The rose,” said Mrs. Henderson with a slight smile.

He looked down, almost burying his head in the cleanly plucked chicken in his hand. He could not answer because he knew that as soon as he opened his mouth, he would blush. This summer, very strangely, his blood would sometimes, without any provocation, start to ripple like oil in his face.

Mrs. Henderson put the vegetables Kam Ho had bought into a basin and picked up the basket. She walked across the garden, out into the street and then along until she got to the cart. She exchanged greetings with the other housewives and then handed the basket to the Chinese girl.

As she did so, she whispered something into the girl's ear. The girl's eyes suddenly lost their shine. It was as if a film of rust covered them. The rust spread, stiffening her face, and then travelling down her neck until her whole body was rigid.

“My servant,” Mrs. Henderson said, “the Chinese boy, forgot to give you back the basket. Poor lad, he's not all there. He often forgets things.”

The next Wednesday, the cart did not come.

The Wednesday after, it came but the girl was not on it. Her father and brother came instead. After much stammering, Kam Ho finally asked about her.

“She's gone to Edmonton to live with her aunt, who's going to send her to school there,” said her father. “Her auntie says Gold Mountain girls should go to school too.”

Kam Ho paid for his vegetables but went away without them. He went in through the garden gate, up the steps and across the hall. Jenny called him, Mrs. Henderson called him, but he heard neither of them. He went straight to his room, shut the door and sat down on his bed.

Ah-Hei had gone.

Ah-Hei was a spark from a fire, momentarily lighting his way, before going out and leaving him in darkness once more. It was a different darkness than before—and he could not bear it.

He sat for a long time in his room. He heard a clattering downstairs: Mrs. Henderson was in the kitchen making coffee and toast, and preparing a salad for lunch. Getting lunch was the servant's job, he should be doing it himself. But he felt completely drained of energy, unable to move muscle. He would sit there until the world ended and the sky fell in.

Mrs. Henderson opened the door. He heard her footsteps but he did not turn around. Ah-Hei had let him down, her father had allowed her to go; all heaven and earth were against him. He had let himself down and now he had nothing more to live for.

A pair of arms went around him from behind and held him tight. His neck melted in their soft warmth. The warmth lapped over him and he wanted to pull free but did not have the strength.

Let me drown, then, he thought to himself, and be done with it.

“Poor child. Poor, poor child,” came Mrs. Henderson's whispered voice. Kam Ho's tears began to flow.

That night, he had a dream. He dreamed his mouth was full of rose thorns. He kept trying to spit them out, and then discovered that what he was spitting was not thorns but his own teeth, handfuls of them, red and white, like persimmon seeds.

He awoke covered in sweat. Then he remembered something his mother had told him as a child.

“If you dream your teeth are falling out, it means someone in the family is to die. If it was the top teeth, then it would be an old person. If the bottom teeth, it would be someone young.”

He racked his brains but could not remember which teeth he had lost.

Year eleven of the Republic (1922) Spur-On Village, Hoi Ping County, China

In the middle of the fourth month it began to rain and did not stop until the Dragon Boat Festival at the beginning of the fifth. When it stopped, the ground was covered with a pebbly carpet of mushrooms and the banana trees had burst into luxuriant growth. Inside, the walls of the houses were covered in snail trails.

Ah-Choi, the cook and a servant were busy at the stove preparing to boil leaf-wrapped rice dumplings for the festivities. When the water boiled, the cook threw some ash into it. After the harvest, they burned the rice stalks and stored the ash. Now, sprinkled into the water through a fine sieve, the ash gave the dumplings a flavour all of their own.

They had made up the dumplings the night before. There were four kinds—sausages, sweet bean paste, salted egg and dried shrimp. Kam Sau squatted on the floor tying them up with reed, into bunches of five. Each bunch would be tied with one other so that ten were boiled together. She was in grade two at the local school and would go up into the third grade when the summer was over. The school, funded by Gold Mountain men, was in the nearest town. The children boarded there during the week and came home on Sundays, but since this was the Dragon Boat Festival, they had an extra day's holiday and Mak Dau had fetched Kam Sau and Ah-Yuen home. Ah-Yuen was Mak Dau's son and just four months younger than Kam Sau. When Kam Sau was enrolled at the school, Six Fingers enrolled Ah-Yuen too. He would be a friend and company for Kam Sau.

Six Fingers was burning sagebrush to fumigate the house. When she reached the passageway, she came upon Mak Dau cleaning a revolver he had purchased from a local militiaman a few weeks ago. He was sitting on the floor, having placed it on the stool. When Kam Ho's last dollar letter arrived, Six Fingers gave half to Mak Dau to buy it. Mak Dau said it was lightweight and convenient, and could be tucked discreetly into his waistband on long journeys. Six Fingers was a thrifty woman but she did not mind spending money on guns, since her husband and sons were away. A
household without men looked weak and defenceless and a defenceless house was a target for robbers. The guns were her defence. This revolver was the third they had bought; the other two were shotguns.

“When you've bought it, wrap it in red silk and lay it on top of the box. We'll celebrate its arrival with firecrackers,” ordered Six Fingers. Although she was keen to avoid attracting unwelcome attention to the family's wealth, she was perfectly happy to show off the acquisition of a new weapon.

“You put it back together exactly the way you take it apart,” Mak Dau instructed his son. “Anyone can take a gun apart but you have to have good head on your shoulders to be able to put it back together.”

“Why ever are you teaching things like that to such a little kid?” Six Fingers scolded him.

Mak Dau chuckled. “It's a wicked world,” he said. “Anything a boy can learn about defending himself is going to come in useful.”

Six Fingers squatted down with them. “What new subjects are you going to study when you go up into the next grade?” she asked Ah-Yuen. The boy coughed and spluttered from the sagebrush smoke. He took handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose before answering: “Nature, geography and music, and we'll carry on doing Chinese, math, English and history like before.” Six Fingers looked at the boy approvingly. “He wipes his nose on his handkerchief,” she said to Mak Dau, “not on his sleeve the way you do.” “We'll be doing etiquette too,” Ah-Yuen piped up. “What to wear, and how to eat and behave, and we'll get marked on it too.”

Mak Dau tapped his son on the head. “An empty kettle makes the most noise,” he admonished him. “You don't want the Missus laughing at you.” Six Fingers threw down the brushwood. She began to comb Ah-Yuen's hair with her fingers, lost in thought.

Mak Dau knew she was missing her own sons. He checked there was no one around before lowering his voice and asking: “Have there been any letters?” She shook her head. “Not since last New Year. That's more than twelve months. Not a single one. Has something happened that they're keeping from me?”

“What about the two young masters? Why don't they write?” “You know what a temper he's got,” said Six Fingers. “Both the boys are afraid of
him. Neither of them would dare write and tell me if he doesn't want them to. Kam Ho has written, but just to say that Kam Shan is back in Vancouver and has moved in with his dad.”

“Don't worry, Missus,” said Mak Dau. “The dollar letters keep coming. I'm sure nothing's happened to the master. You must miss the boys, though … one gone twelve years, the other seven years. I miss them too.”

Six Fingers bent her head and tears fell on her shoes. With sole responsibility for a substantial household, she could never let herself go in front of the servants. She knew how easy it was to appear weak before them and so buttoned her feelings up tightly. If she cried, it was only in front of Mak Dau. Mak Dau felt unsuccessfully in his pocket for a handkerchief, then pulled out Ah-Yuen's, folded it with a clean bit uppermost and gave it to Six Fingers. She wiped her eyes and said with a faint smile: “Kam Shan wrote to say his woman is pregnant and no matter if it's a boy or a girl, he's bringing the baby home to meet Granny.”

“You'll be a granny in no time at all, Missus,” said Mak Dau. “But to me you still look as young as a new bride.” Six Fingers gave a little snort. “You'll have wasps sticking to that honeyed tongue of yours if you don't look out! And don't you dare make fun of me!” Mak Dau felt so aggrieved that the veins bulged on his forehead. “Oh no, Missus!” he exclaimed. “I'd never be so bold as to make fun of you. It's really true—you haven't changed. You look just the same as when I first entered the household.” Six Fingers' eyes had a faraway look in them: “I made the bridegroom's shoes for Ah-Yuet to give you. It seems like just yesterday. But look how big the kids are now. In all this time, of course I've changed.”

There was a loud knocking from the ceiling above—Mrs. Mak's walking stick, signalling to Six Fingers that she wanted to come downstairs. “I'll come and carry you down, Mum,” she shouted. But as the tempting smell of dumplings wafted up the stairs, the old woman became impatient. “All that wealth my son's earned,” she wailed fretfully, “and I haven't even had a bite. You'd rather feed the rats than me.”