Gold Mountain Blues (68 page)

Ah-Lin bit off the end of the thread and pulled her stool over to where Six Fingers sat. She looked at her and said hesitantly: “Mrs. Kwan, this is probably just someone's idea of a joke, but my nephew from Wing On— he's in Vancouver too—he came home last month. I went over to see him and he said that Ah-Fat … Ah-Fat.…”

Ah-Lin's hesitancy infuriated Six Fingers. “Spit it out, woman!” she exclaimed. “Are you saying Ah-Fat's taken a concubine and got another family over there?”

Ah-Lin gave a laugh. “Oh no, not that,” she said. “But my nephew says he spends a lot of time with a woman, some has-been of an actress, and he's keeping her as well.”

The heavens came crashing down on Six Fingers' head, and her heart felt as if it was splintering. She tried unsuccessfully to stab the jade hairpin into her bun. Seeing her distress, Ah-Lin threw down her shoe, flung her arms around Six Fingers' knees and rocked to and fro.

“It's just gossip, I'm sure he's got the wrong end of the stick. Don't you believe a word of it, Mrs. Kwan,” she said consolingly. “You can write letters. Why don't you write and ask him what it's all about.”

Six Fingers freed herself from Ah-Lin's grip and said, with a faint smile: “Well, he's mad on opera. I expect it's nothing more than that.”

She got up. Her ears buzzed as if she had a wasps' nest in them. She pulled out her hairpin and poked it into her ear. A bit deeper. Deeper still. That was better. She pulled out the hairpin and wiped it on her sleeve, leaving a bright red smear.

The lame leg from which she had sliced a lump of flesh all those years ago suddenly seemed to have shortened and, try as she might, she could not put one foot in front of the other. Supporting herself on the wall, she finally managed to hobble out of the courtyard and into the house. It was deathly quiet; the only sound to be heard was the tick-tock of the chiming clock on the wall. Six Fingers stood still. When her eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, she saw Kam Ho's wife dozing on the stairs. Ah-Hsien's head was buried in her knees and rhythmic snores, like dull farts, issued from her nostrils. The white felt flower in her hair glimmered in the half-light. Ah-Hsien's mother had been killed when the Japanese bombed the market the previous year, and she was still wearing the white flower of mourning.

“Where's Yiu Kei, Ah-Hsien?” Six Fingers asked dully.

At that moment, Yiu Kei was on his way to No-Name River with little Wai Kwok.

Yui Kei was on three days' holiday from classes. His tutor had gone home to his village for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival; normally he would have had classes at this time of day. Early this morning, Six Fingers told
Ah-Hsien to go and fetch Ah-Tsung, the village barber, and get him to cut the hair of all the men in the household. His previous visit was at the Dragon Boat Festival three months ago and the men's hair had grown long and shaggy since then. When Ah-Hsien reached the barber's, she discovered that he had overindulged in rice wine the night before and was sleeping off a hangover. Ah-Hsien got tired waiting and left without him. When she got back home, she sat down on the stairs for a snooze.

Yiu Kei saw his opportunity and snuck out of the
diulau
with Wai Kwok.

Although spring had been dry that year, autumn brought torrential downpours. On the road, the sun dried the surface to a white crust, but the mud still oozed underneath. The children sploshed through it, leaving wet footprints behind. Six Fingers rarely allowed them out on their own to play, so they found everything a novelty. Not far from the house, they came to the clump of wild banana trees. A cluster of muddy children crouched over something on the ground. Yiu Kei pushed his way through and found they were watching ants moving house.

The ants swarmed around a dead fly with a red head and a green body. The ants looked like tiny black sesame seeds as they crawled over and around their prize, but try as they might, they could not move it. Finally, a cluster of ants squeezed under the belly of the fly. The fly appeared to drift along, accompanied by the shrill cries from the children. “What's so exciting about that?” said Yiu Kei. “My teacher says that ants can move a mountain if they work together.” To Yiu Kei's disappointment, the children just shouted “Sissy whitey!” at him and scattered.

Yiu Kei was left standing there feeling a bit foolish.

He had never in his life transplanted rice seedlings or harvested the rice crop, gone rowing or tickled fish in the river. His face had never been burned dark by the sun or beaten by rainstorms, so he was pale by comparison with the village children. He loathed it when anyone called him “sissy whitey.” Once he asked his granny: “How can I not be white-faced?” His grandmother laughed until she shook. “It's not so difficult,” she told him. “You'd just have to roll around in No-Name River and tickle fish for couple of days. Then you wouldn't be a ‘sissy whitey' any more. It takes
much longer for dark-skinned people to cosset their skin back to fairness, several generations sometimes.”

But Yiu Kei was not taken in by her words. He really wanted to be like the village children, barefoot and dark-skinned, turning somersaults along the dikes, diving into the water and staying under for minutes on end, then crawling out naked and calling other children names like “Sissy whitey!”

The sun was climbing higher and Wai Kwok began to feel scared. “Let's go back, Yiu Kei. We'll get into trouble with Granny.” “It's not time yet. I'll take you to tickle fish,” his cousin said. “Can you really tickle fish, Yiu Kei?” Yiu Kei scoffed: “Of course, any idiot can do it.” They took off their shoes and walked down to the water's edge.

This early in the day, there was not a soul at the river. The sun had not yet taken the chill off the water and no swimmers would come till midday. It was so quiet they could hear the fish gulping air. Swollen by the rains, the river reached halfway up the steps. Yiu Kei felt a tug at his hand.

“Let's go home Yiu Kei,” said Wai Kwok shakily.

“No,” said Yiu Kei, although his voice shook a little too.

Yiu Kei wanted to go back. His “no” was just bravado. But before they could leave, a breeze blew up and the waters nodded, and suddenly came alive. Gently tickling the soles of Yiu Kei's feet, they whispered to him: “Come in, little boy, why don't you?”

Yiu Kei could not resist such a supplication. He let go of Wai Kwok's hand and went down the steps.

An hour later, Yiu Kei's body was returned to the Fongs'
diulau
. The family and servants watched as men from the village carried in a bundle caked with sludge. They laid it down on the ground and dirty water pooled around it.

Six Fingers picked up Yiu Kei in her arms and held him on her knee. She pressed her face to his, but did not cry.

Ah-Hsien wailed and ran forward to take her son from Six Fingers. Six Fingers wrenched the hairpin from her bun, and jabbed it into Ah-Hsien's face. “Why don't you just go back to sleep and never wake up,” she said fiercely.

Ah-Hsien fell to the ground, holding her head in her hands and whimpering like a whipped dog. Mak Dau called some of the men and with some difficulty they carried her into the house.

Six Fingers fetched a basin of water and began to wipe Yiu Kei down. She made a little roll of a corner of the towel and cleaned his seven orifices and under his fingernails with the greatest care. Again and again, she changed the water in the basin until gradually it ran clear. But she could not clean Yiu Kei's face. It was as if the silt had seeped under the skin, giving it a dark, purplish colouring.

Six Fingers washed and washed him.

Mak Dau tried to console her. “Ah-Hsien's still young enough to give you a houseful of grandchildren. But you mustn't leave this child lying here naked. Dress him now, before he gets stiff.”

Mak Dau reached for the towel in her hand. Six Fingers resisted, then finally relinquished it. Mak Dau helped her over to a tree where she could sit in the shade.

“Don't stand there like a doorpost! Get him a change of clothes, will you?” Mak Dau shouted at his wife.

Ah-Yuet brought out Yiu Kei's school uniform, dark blue with a khaki collar. He had grown so much this year, he was bursting out of his clothes and Six Fingers had asked Mr. Au, the village tailor, to make him a new uniform. It was brand new; it had never been worn.

Mak Dau and Ah-Yuet dressed Yiu Kei. Six Fingers' ministrations had made his skin as fragile as a cicada's wing and, as Ah-Yuet did up his buttons, she scratched Yiu Kei on the face with her fingernail. A trickle of blood oozed down his right cheek. “Stupid cow!” Mak Dau shouted at her. Kicking her out of the way, he finished dressing Yiu Kei himself. The uniform had not been washed and was slightly too long. Mak Dau rolled the sleeve and trouser cuffs up and combed the boy's wet hair into a middle parting. His face still had a purplish hue. He looked just like a farm boy who had spent his life outside in all weather.

It was then that Six Fingers began to weep as if her heart would break.

Years thirty to year thirty-one of the Republic (1941–1942)

Vancouver, British Columbia, and Red Deer, Alberta

As soon as Yin Ling got home from school she sensed something was different.

Her grandfather's scratchy old gramophone was on as usual, but instead of the Cantonese opera that he liked so much, he was playing a record of Guangdong folk tunes he had bought at a Fundraising for Victory meeting. Dinner was ready and the table was set. The food was freshly made, not the usual leftovers from the restaurant. Yin Ling's eyes widened when she saw the dish of tiger prawns with ginger and scallions. That was a rare treat that Yin Ling tasted only once a year. A soup was bubbling away in the saucepan. Yin Ling lifted the lid. Inside was a rich duck and bean curd broth. Her mother had the day off today, but even so, she would not normally spend it making fancy food like this. Her mother worked six days a week and could not be bothered with housework on her free day.

“There's a letter from your uncle,” said her grandfather, handing over an envelope covered in stamps.

Her uncle Kam Ho had joined the army at the end of last year. At the time, the government of British Columbia would not allow foreign nationals to join up, so Kam Ho went to Manitoba. Although he had been gone for several months, this was the first letter they had received from him. Kam Shan had a foreboding about the whole business and had not dared to mention his brother to his father. But now, to their surprise, a letter had arrived.

Yin Ling opened the envelope, but before she had time to read the letter, her grandfather snatched it out of her hand. “You've hardly studied any Chinese. How d'you think you're going to understand your uncle's scribbles? Let me read it to you.”

He opened the letter, put on his reading glasses and recited the words slowly. He must have learned it off by heart, because as soon as he finished one sentence he carried on without looking at the paper.

Dear Father and all the family,

I have been with the troops in France for nearly six months, and we are constantly on the move. Our operations are secret so we have not been allowed to write home, but today I am in Paris on a mission so I am able to send you this letter. Please rest assured that I am well and in good spirits. Being in France has shown me the sufferings of ordinary people under the German occupation and makes me think of the sufferings of our family in China. I wish I could be back there, fighting the Japanese devils. They say that Hong Kong has been invaded and that no letters are getting through. I do not know how my mother and Kam Sau are managing. Since I joined up, the whole burden of supporting our family has fallen on my sister-in-law, which I feel very guilty about. I do hope my brother will make allowances for her and that you will only be good to each other.

Yin Ling glanced at her mother, who was standing with her back to them, stirring the soup. She saw her shoulders twitch, and guessed that she was crying—this was the first time ever that Kam Ho had called her his “sister-in-law.”

I hope my brother and sister-in-law are well. My good little niece graduates from high school this year, don't you? Are you planning on going to university? Your father and I were very young when we came to Gold Mountain, but circumstances did not allow us to go to school there. Yin Ling, you are the third generation of Fongs in Gold Mountain, and I do hope that you will go to university so the family can get ahead in life. After I send this letter, I have to go to a small town in the south of France. Again we will be on the move and I do not know when I will be able to write again. But do not worry about me, I will take good care of myself.

Most humbly, your son Kam Ho,

The tenth day of the fourth month of year thirty of the Republic, Paris, France

Kam Shan rapped Yin Ling's bowl with his chopsticks. “Did you hear what your uncle said? You study hard and get into university, then you'll understand everything and the
yeung fan
won't be able to do the dirty on us ever again!”