Gold Mountain Blues (80 page)

Big Head Au jabbed Six Fingers' forehead angrily with his finger. “So, Mrs. Kwan, you think you can hide your valuables from us, you evil woman!” “They … they saw them … I didn't tell them!” stammered Ah-Hsien, not daring to look her mother-in-law in the face.

Big Head's blow had broken the skin, and a drop of blood rose and spread, congealing between Six Fingers' eyebrows like a big black wart.

“So what else are you hiding?” demanded Big Head.

Six Fingers shook her head. “Those two rings were the only valuables I had left.”

There were jeers at this. “You expect us to believe that? Your family has papered your walls with American dollar bills!” “Your family sold fields to buy guns! You must have more than a couple of gold rings left!”

“You search her. I bet you'll find stuff hidden somewhere on her,” Big Head said to Ah-Hsien.

Ah-Hsien wavered. Then there was a taunt from the back of the crowd: “When push comes to shove, she can't face the class struggle, can she?”

“I'll give you a shove!” retorted Ah-Hsien. She went to Six Fingers and began to undo her top buttons, whispering as she did so: “If there's anything else, better give it up. They won't go away till they've got it.”

After a moment's thought, Six Fingers took off her shoes.

The cloth shoes were cut up with a pair of scissors. Finally, the villagers found four gold bands and two pairs of shiny gold earrings secreted between layers of the shoe uppers. There were roars of delight.

“What else have you got? If you don't tell us, we'll carry on searching you!” shouted Big Head.

“Just this
diulau
. If you want to chop it up and divide it between you, go ahead,” said Six Fingers through gritted teeth.

“Right, if that's all you can say, I'll have you all searched, starting with the youngest,” said Big Head, pointing Ah-Hsien towards Wai Heung.

“She's just a school kid!” protested Ah-Hsien. “Besides she doesn't live here. What's she going to know?”

Big Head pushed Ah-Hsien out of the way. “If you won't search her, I will. And I'll find it even if it's hidden up her cunt.”

“She's just a child, you bastard!” cried Ah-Hsien. Big Head paid no attention, and started to undo Wai Heung's blouse.

Wai Heung wanted to scream, but no sound came out. She was trembling like a leaf. Then she struck out as hard as she could. Two bloody scratches appeared on Big Head's face. Furious, he abandoned the buttons and tore at her clothes. With a ripping sound, the top half of her blouse came away in his hands, leaving her skinny shoulders bare.

“Let her go! I've got the gold,” Mak Dau shouted, incandescent with rage.

The villagers were cowed for an instant, and then began to swarm round Mak Dau. “I have to do this. But I'll make it up to you in the next life,” he muttered to Six Fingers, as he felt in his trouser waistband.

He pulled out his revolver. He aimed it at Big Head and gently pulled the trigger. A red flower blossomed on the man's head. The onlookers sprang back in horror, though not quickly enough to avoid being spattered.

Mak Dau pulled the trembling Wai Heung to him. “Close your eyes, child. It'll be better soon.” And he shot her through the heart. Wai Heung twitched in his arms, and then relaxed.

The third bullet was for Kam Sau.

The fourth was for Six Fingers.

The fifth and last was for himself but he had not calculated on the revolver jamming before he could use it.

He threw it down, and pushing the villagers aside, made a dash for the stairs.

After a moment's shock, they ran after him. Mak Dau was getting on in years, and there was no way he could outrun them. They were almost upon him when Mak Dau turned and aimed a kick at the closest one. Then he threw himself from the window.

For many years after that, no one, whether they were Fong or Au, would speak of the terrible events of that day in 1952. The Spur-On villagers, so peaceable that they would have prayed remorsefully to Buddha for days afterwards if they so much as hurt a fly, had witnessed five people killed in one day, and two others driven mad: Ah-Hsien and Ah-Yuet.

The corpses were hurriedly buried and from that day on no one dared set foot in the
diulau
. It was said that in stormy weather someone could be
heard weeping inside. And sometimes at dead of night, lights were seen inside the building.

“The Haunted House” was the name the villagers gave it.

Not only did no one dare go into the haunted house, they were also too frightened to till the land around it. As the years passed, it gradually reverted to a scrubby wasteland.

1961

Vancouver, British Columbia

Amy sat in the back seat of the blue Ford as it roared through the streets to Uncle Bill's house with her mother at the wheel.

The car was so old, it had lost its suspension and Amy's bottom had pins and needles from the juddering and shaking.

Someone had given her mother the car, perhaps Uncle Bill, or perhaps it was Uncle Shaun, the one before Uncle Bill, or Uncle Joseph who was around at the same time as Uncle Shaun. There had been a succession of uncles around her mother, too many for Amy to remember them all.

Amy was five years old. She had brown eyes in deep-set sockets, chestnut-coloured hair and a prominent nose. Her skin was so pale she might have been anemic. Unless you looked carefully, there was no trace of her Chinese parentage. And that was just how her mother, Yin Ling, wanted it. Sometimes Yin Ling would look her daughter in the eyes, and say deliberately: “Don't ever … ever … change.” When that happened, Amy would feel her mother's eyes jabbing her all over, and she would feel like crying. But then Yin Ling would smile and say: “Don't get upset. Mummy likes you just how you are.”

Yin Ling never told a soul where she had been in the dozen or so years she was away. She had come back three years ago and since then she had had a succession of jobs. For the last few months, she had been working as a waitress in a restaurant. When she was on the day shift, she left Amy with a neighbour. When she was on night shift, she would leave Amy with one uncle or another, and pick her up the next morning. Amy spent the night
in many uncles' houses. Sometimes when she woke in the morning, she would call: “Uncle Shaun!” and Uncle Bill would appear. Sometimes she knew quite well that it was Uncle Joseph who was making her breakfast, but would find herself saying “Thank you, Uncle Luke.” But of all the uncles, it was Uncle Bill who had lasted the longest.

The pins and needles felt like ants crawling over Amy's bottom as the car juddered and shook. While her mother applied her lipstick in the mirror, Amy quietly put her hand down her skirt to give the ants a good scratch. Once. Twice. Three times. At the third, her mother spotted what she was doing.

“Amy Smith!”

When her mother called her by her full name, Amy knew she was really angry. Sure enough, Yin Ling threw the lipstick cover at her, scoring an accurate hit on the back of Amy's hand.

“How many times have I told you that well-brought-up girls don't do things like that?”

Her mother's English went to pieces under stress. Of course, it would be some years before Amy understood that her mother had an accent. And several more years passed before she realized that that accent had something to do with a childhood that Yin Ling wanted to put behind her forever.

“Lots … Lots of times,” stammered Amy.

“Then you tell me what I've taught you!” shouted her mother.

“I must not pick my nose, scratch myself, or fart, in front of other people. I must cover my mouth with my hand when I sneeze.”

“If you know it, then why do you still do it?”

“But it wasn't … it wasn't in front of—”

“Shut up!” Yin Ling brusquely interrupted Amy. “Bad habits start behind people's backs!”

Amy shut up. She did not dare ask her mother what a well-brought-up girl was supposed to do when she had an itch, though she wanted to. She knew her mother was in a very bad mood today and anything Amy said might make the storm break over her head.

It had something to do with Uncle Bill.

Uncle Bill had told her mother he would take her to Ottawa on Victoria Day to see the tulips flown in from Holland. But the day before they were due to go, he had gone back on his word. And for the last three days, he had not called her mother either.

“Uncle Bill must be ill,” said Yin Ling. “Last time we saw him, didn't he keep sneezing?”

Yin Ling kept on and on asking the same question. The first time, Amy answered that, no, he hadn't been sneezing. Her mother got so angry, she would not speak to her for the rest of the day. So the next time her mother raised the subject of Uncle Bill, she knew what she had to say: “Yes, Uncle Bill must surely have a bad cold.” Her mother beamed with joy at that. Amy was puzzled. Why did Uncle Bill having a cold make her mother so happy?

Today was Uncle Bill's birthday, and her mother had a present for him—a lighter in the shape of an eagle. If you gave its legs a little snap, flame spurted from its beak. Uncle Bill smoked Cuban cigars which filled the room with a haze of smoke so dense that Amy felt as if she was choking. Yin Ling put the lighter in a silver-plated box and carefully wrapped it in gold paper.

“We won't tell Uncle Bill we're coming. It'll be a surprise,” she said to Amy.

But Amy could see that her mother did not look like someone who was going to spring a nice surprise on a friend. She wore a worried expression.

“All right, all right! Don't give me that long face just because I'm talking to you!” she said shortly from the front seat. “You'll be seeing Uncle Bill soon. Do you remember what you're going to say to him?”

“Happy birthday,” said Amy, swallowing the lump in her throat. “What else?”

“We … miss you very much.”

“What else?”

“You look very smart today.”

Her mother fell silent, and pulled in at the curb. She took a cigarette from her bag. Her hand was trembling so much, it took her some time to light it.

She finally finished the cigarette, and spent several more minutes clipping her fingernails. Snip. Snip. Snip. The clippings flew about the car like grasshoppers. As Yin Ling propped herself on the steering wheel, she looked very skinny, her bony shoulder blades sticking out like sharp knives under the thin material of her summer dress.

“Amy, would you like Uncle Bill to be your dad?” asked her mother.

The question caught Amy completely unprepared. She guessed her mother wanted her to say yes, but that “Yes” stuck in her throat and would not come out. Luckily, her mother started up the engine without waiting for an answer, and the old Ford rattled off down the street again.

When she stopped again and got out of the car, pulling Amy with her, her hands were still trembling. She pushed Amy toward Uncle Bill's front door, and stood leaning against the car door. She lit another cigarette and, with the first drag, began coughing—very loudly. She sounded like a woodpecker rapping on a tree trunk.

Mum forgot to cover her mouth, thought Amy.

Amy climbed the house steps and knocked on the door. She had to knock for quite a while before someone opened the door. But it was not Uncle Bill.

It was a young, blue-eyed blond woman in a silk dressing gown. Her hair was dripping wet, as if she had just got out of the shower.

“Honey! It's for you!” the woman called casually over her shoulder.

But her mother did not wait for Uncle Bill to appear. She dragged Amy back to the car and backed, revving furiously, out of Uncle Bill's driveway. Out of the back window, Amy saw Uncle Bill rushing out in a pair of undershorts. He waved and shouted something but the wind snatched the sound away before they could hear what it was.

“You look.…” Before Amy had finished reciting her lines, something flew past the car window and thudded against Uncle Bill's mailbox. It was the gold-wrapped box with the lighter inside.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” her mother swore, punching the steering wheel, her hair almost standing on end in fury.

The car zigzagged dangerously as it sped down the street, pursued by the tooting of angry horns.

“I knew it! I knew it! All he wanted was a white girl!”

Amy wanted to say something comforting, but she had no idea what to say. Finally she leaned against the back of her mother's seat and said in little voice:

“Mum, maybe we don't need a dad.…”

Her mother was quiet for a moment, then gave a high-pitched laugh. It gave Amy goose pimples. Then she realized her mother was crying. She kept wiping the snot from her nose with her hand and flicking it at the car window until the glass was covered with trails of slime.

Mum's forgotten how to be a well-brought-up woman, Amy thought. Finally the weeping stopped and calm descended. They drove on for about fifteen minutes, and arrived at a shabby old street. This was where Amy's grandfather lived. Every time she lost an uncle, or when her mother was between uncles, this was where Amy was left.