Gold Mountain Blues (61 page)

Why, he thought, did you spend your whole life squeezing money out of your husband a few cents at a time, when you had a pile of money of
your own? You could have bought all the opium juice you wanted! Why put yourself through hell? But there was no answer.

At last, the tears began to flow.

When he got back to the Hendersons', the house was dark, but he knew Mr. Henderson was home by the faint smell of gin lingering in the kitchen and the passageway. He made his way upstairs in the dark. He did not want to turn on the lights and risk running into Mr. Henderson. He had packed his bag the night before; he retrieved it from the bed and went back downstairs.

Suddenly the light came on in the hallway, dazzling him for a few moments.

“Jimmy, why don't you stay?” The tremulous voice was coming from the shadows.

Kam Ho did not answer. He slung his bag over his shoulder. He would open the door, go down the cracked front steps and be gone. This light, this man, this house, none of it had anything to do with him any more.

But the voice followed him and grovelled at his feet, clutching his trouser bottoms.

“I know you're angry with me because I didn't treat her well, but you know why that was?”

The voice paused a moment, then gathered strength and went on: “You. It was you.”

Kam Ho dropped his bag in surprise.

“It's you I wanted, ever since the first day you arrived. But she got between us. I couldn't get to you. So I kept out of the way. Those business trips, you know.

“I never wanted her. It wasn't her fault. I just never liked women. Any women.”

A rotund pink face emerged from the shadows and pressed towards Kam Ho.

Kam Ho flung himself out the door and down the steps. On the last step, he twisted his ankle. He looked round but was relieved to see that Mr. Henderson was not following him. He sat down and rubbed the bump that was coming up. He reached for his bag, but realized that he had left it behind.

He had given up twenty-five years of his life in that house. Why was he bothering about a bag?

He walked and walked in the night air. His head felt viscous like the glue his mother used to paste the soles on his shoes when he was little. Throughout his life, he had walked only one road. It had been a long and hard one but the only effort required was from his feet. There was no need for thought. When he was young, it was his mother who had told him which road to take. When she said, Go to Gold Mountain, he got on the boat and went. After that, it was his father who chose his road. His father said, Go to the Hendersons', and he went. Later still, it was Mrs. Henderson who showed him the road. She said stay, and he stayed. For twenty-five years.

The cheque in his pocket opened up countless roads before him. And now
he
would decide which one to take. He secretly admired his brother for the way he had charted his own course. Kam Shan had chosen his own road from the very day he was born. Though his parents had harsh words with Kam Shan for his rebellious streak, Kam Ho knew they liked his spirit and his guts. Now, of course, his brother was old, and had to accept being kept by his wife.

After so many years working for the Hendersons, Kam Ho had a pretty good idea of the number of uses to which he could put the cheque in his pocket. He could give some to his father for his boat passage home. He could give some to his mother to buy fields that stretched to the horizon and beyond. He could give his brother a portion so he could buy a proper house with a garden. His brother and his woman were used to life in Gold Mountain and would not easily settle back in Hoi Ping. His brother had never formally married the woman and Kam Ho still did not know how to address her. So with his brother he called her “she.” When he bumped into her and could not avoid addressing her directly, he made do with “Hello!” or “You!” She never complained but he had felt awkward about it for years.

Of course, the most important reason for buying his brother a house was Yin Ling. She was a seed that had been planted in Gold Mountain soil. She would rather die than allow herself to be transplanted to the countryside of Hoi Ping. And if she would not go, then her father would not go either. And neither would his woman. Six Fingers had been talking about
a big family reunion in Spur-On Village for years, but it was nothing more than a dream.

When he got to the end of the street, it occurred to him that he had not included his wife in the plans he had made for his cheque. He had lived with her for only a few months in the
diulau
after their marriage, and that was a very long time ago. She hardly ever wrote to him though she was literate. Sometimes she added a sentence at the end of a letter from his mother: “The leather shoes you sent for Yiu Kei are really nice” or “What shall I get for my father's longevity celebration later this year?” Without looking at the photograph, he could not even bring her face to mind. He had a dim memory that she had a mole on the left side of her mouth. On anyone else, a mole like this would have enlivened their features but on Ah-Hsien it just made her appear more wooden.

When he had entered the bridal chamber after their wedding banquet and taken off her veil, he was astonished to find that she was asleep, sitting upright on the bed, and drooling from the corner of her mouth. When he woke her up, she looked at him in bleary-eyed confusion as if she did not know who he was. He blew out the candle. In a few thrusts he was finished with her. She had not made a murmur, even of pain. He assumed it was because she knew nothing of what men and women did together, but as the days passed, there was no change in her. He realized that that was just the way she was. He was experienced with women, after all. Going to Ah-Hsien after Mrs. Henderson was like drinking plain water after having tasted osmanthus flower nectar. He found Ah-Hsien completely flavourless.

Which road should he take? The road back to Hoi Ping with his father, where he would live out his days with a doorpost of a wife? Or stay with his brother and do without a woman for the rest of his life? He went back and forth over the options, but could not make up his mind. The only decision he came to was to stop thinking. He would go back to where his brother and father lived, climb up to the attic room where he had a bunk bed and sleep on it. Then he would see. He could at least enjoy peace of mind. No one would expect him to get up to work for them, talk to them or feed them opium juice.

When Kam Ho arrived at the house, he found the door unlocked and pushed it open but saw no one inside. Then he heard the faint sound of
opera—his father must be playing that old record of his. He bent down to take off his shoes and suddenly saw an unfamiliar pair of women's shoes. He could tell at a glance that they did not belong to Cat Eyes. Cat Eyes had been used to working in the fields as a child and had big feet. These shoes were dainty, with white soles and blue uppers with peonies embroidered on them in pink. Two small butterflies rested on the peony petals, as if about to take flight. It was rare to see dainty old-style cloth shoes like these in Chinatown nowadays.

Kam Ho went inside, and nearly fell over a pile of belongings—Yin Ling's coat and school bag. He hung the coat on the coat stand, made his way through the messy living room, down the dark passageway and into the kitchen. There he saw a man and woman standing in the kitchen by the window, singing opera. The woman seemed not to have warmed her voice up and sang hesitantly and huskily. However, she took both male and female roles while the man accompanied her.

The man was not singing but tum-te-tummed and tra-la-la'd as if he was the fiddle accompanying the woman as she sang.

The dancing butterflies have long gone

The oriole laments the shortening sun

Neither chevalier nor archer was I born

My only art is in poetry and song

To die for my fallen empire I really yearn

Rather than in shame and disgrace lingering on

But when I see the south in the grip of invaders

My people homeless and country war-torn

I'd be resigned to this life in shameful captivity

So that in peace my subjects can live on

Weeping blood and tears, your majesty

Yet with all your compromises, the new emperor shows no sign of mercy

The clouds of war hang over the southern sea

We caged birds have no hope of breaking free

Kam Ho thought he recognized the opera about Emperor Li Houzhu and the young empress Zhou. His father was humming the string
accompaniment. The woman had her back to Kam Ho and all he could see was her bun at the nape of her neck. Her hair was streaked with grey, and he guessed she must be an opera friend of his father's. He knew that after he closed his café, his father had spent days in the Cantonese Opera Club in the company of other opera fans. Every now and then, he would bring one home and they would sit and smoke and sing and talk opera, until Kam Shan kicked up a fuss.

Kam Ho gave a loud cough, and the singing was neatly cut off in mid-note. “Today's not Saturday,” his father exclaimed with raised eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”

Kam Ho's breath was taken away at his father's words. When he could speak again, he said: “You mean I can't come home any other day?”

The woman who had been singing turned around and the corners of her mouth twitched in a slight smile. “You must be Kam Ho,” she said. “Your father says you're the most dependable son in Chinatown.”

The woman was wearing a dark green silk
qipao
dress, he saw, with a jade pin at the collar. She had a pearl hairpin stuck into her bun. Her whole outfit seemed to come from another age, and even smelled a little musty. Kam Ho did not like the ingratiating tone in her voice. He smiled coldly. “I hope you're not taken in by what my father says.”

The woman was taken aback at the rebuff but maintained her composure and continued to smile quietly. “Come here, Kam Ho,” said his father, gesturing to her. “You're looking at Gold Mountain Cloud, a star of Cantonese opera. Twenty or so years ago, you could have asked anyone in the streets of San Francisco and they would all have known her name. She was queen of the opera in those days.”

Kam Ho suddenly recalled that the singer on the old opera record his father kept playing was called Gold Mountain Cloud. He grunted, then asked: “Where's Yin Ling?” “Her Chinese class is going on a march tomorrow, to collect money for the Chinese troops, for planes to fight the Japs. Yin Ling's gone to rehearse.” “And my brother?” “The Association's organizing a recruitment drive for the Chinese army, and they're having a meeting.” It was on the tip of Kam Ho's tongue to say that his brother, with his injured leg, could not even support himself, so could not possibly go and fight the Japanese. But he did not want to make comments like that in
front of a woman he did not know, so he simply turned round and went upstairs.

In the attic room, he lay down on the bed. It was wooden and squealed under his weight. Down below, the piercing sound of the strings and the singing started again, filtering up through the floorboards and assaulting his ears. He pulled the quilt over his head but the sound cut through as easily as if the quilt were just fish netting. He flung off the quilt and thumped on the floor but that only earned him a few moments' respite. Then there was a clattering of cooking utensils; it was his father making dinner.

It occurred to Kam Ho that he had arrived at dinnertime but his father had not asked him if he had eaten. Instead he was cooking now for this Gold Mountain Cloud woman. His father had never cooked a meal for his mother in his entire life. And his mother had brought up his three children and looked after Mrs. Mak until the day of her death.

Downstairs the clattering was interspersed with the woman's laughter. Kam Ho's heart felt as if it was leaping like frogs in a pond after rain. He felt around the pillow, the quilt and the bedside cabinet. Lucky for them, he did not find anything that could serve as a weapon. He might have rushed downstairs, knife at the ready, if he had had one.

Gold Mountain Cloud had really done nothing to offend him. And it was also true that both he and Kam Shan enjoyed Cantonese opera. Last year the Singapore Red Jade Opera troupe had come to Vancouver. He had been there three weekends in a row and bought tickets for best seats in the middle of the front row. Any other day, any other time, he would have been happy to brew a cup of tea and sit down with the woman for a good chat about Chinese opera in Canada. But today was not the right time. The unworthy way his father behaved towards this woman made him think of his mother pushing him onto the boat to Gold Mountain. Every year his father said he would go home to her; every year his mother continued to wait. It seemed as if his father's boat would never arrive, while his mother continued to grow older. And his mother was growing old alone and lonely—how could his father be enjoying himself with another woman? Especially a woman like Gold Mountain Cloud.

Kam Ho felt he could not stay at home a moment longer. He would put on his shoes and make a run for it. He fished around for his shoes under the bed with his feet, but they only brought out an old newspaper. He was flipping through it when he saw a news item under a huge headline on the middle page.

The situation of the war in the Pacific is becoming more serious every day. Overseas Chinese are buying Victory Bonds in order to raise money to provision the national army. Some hotheaded youths are even thinking of returning to China to join up, all the quicker to slaughter the Japanese bandits. Opinions differ among the Overseas Chinese on joining up. Some feel that when their country is in difficulty young men have a duty to do all they can to protect it; others that we have been in Canada for such a long time that it has become our second home. The Canadian army is now short of soldiers and our young people should join its army as a way of winning the trust of the Canadian government. However, if the provincial legislature of British Columbia persists in refusing Chinese the right to vote, our young people cannot join the army to serve the country. The Chinese have recently set up an association with the aim of persuading the federal government to allow our young people to join the army as Canadian residents, as a way to express loyalty to the country they consider to be theirs.