Gold Mountain Blues (18 page)

Most of the time, the village dogs barked in a desultory, sporadic sort of way for no particular reason. But today they seemed to have come to an agreement. One after another, they took up the cry, echoing each other's barks and seemingly prepared to go on all evening. It was the way dogs barked when they were presented with something wholly unfamiliar, something which had come in from the big, wide world; they were hysterical with excitement and fear.

The women threw down the dried grass and twigs with which they had been feeding the cooking fires and ran outside. They were met by the sight of dozens of porters, all dressed in black livery, laden with heavy cases suspended from carrying poles. They were filing along the narrow village street like an undulating black centipede so long that you could not see its head or its tail, enveloped in clouds of the dust which they were kicking up beneath their feet.

The villagers trailing behind the dust cloud saw them put down their burdens in the Fong family courtyard. Blind old Mrs. Mak sat on a low stool feeling the lion's-head lock in the centre of each case as it was put down. One. Two. Three. Three cases were piled on top of each other and there were seven piles, the last of which only contained two cases.

So there were twenty trunks, Mrs. Mak muttered to herself, and her wizened lips parted in a gap-toothed smile.

“Off you go and cook your dinners,” she ordered the crowd of onlookers. “Ah-Fat will fix a day when every one of you, young and old, will be invited over for a banquet to celebrate his homecoming.”
She kept waving her handkerchief, but her attempts to send them away were futile. An ever-increasing number of people anxious to see Ah-Fat pressed in, as impossible to brush off as stove ashes stuck to a bean cake.

She tried again: “Ah-Fat's been on the boat home for weeks and he hasn't had a single good night's sleep. He fell asleep as soon as he got here, without even waiting for dinner. He needs a good rest in the comfort of his own bed. Leave him be and come back tomorrow and you can greet him properly.”

The crowd finally began to disperse.

Mrs. Mak went into the house, elbowed the bedroom door open and felt her way over to the bed. Knocking the tip of her walking stick on the floor a few times, she said: “Ah-Fat, what are you frightened of? You still count as a Gold Mountain man, even if you're a scar-face. Those twenty cases prove what a man you are. How many people have been able to do what you've done? Tomorrow we'll go out of the house together. Everyone's got to see you sooner or later.”

There was no movement from the bed. After a few moments, Ah-Fat gave a chuckle. “Mum, how did you know I'm a scar-face?”

Mrs. Mak smiled too. “I pushed you out of my belly and you can't lift a leg without me knowing what kind of fart's coming out. From the moment you came into this house, you haven't looked at me when you spoke.”

Ah-Fat sat up with an exclamation of surprise. “Mum, you may be blind but your eyes are still sharper than everyone else's. I can see all the servants are neat and tidy and the way they speak and behave, it's obvious they've been well taught.” “Your aunt takes care of all that,” said his mother. “I can't see anything and I can't be bothered with overseeing the servants.” “That young woman you got to hang the scrolls up, she's prettier than all the others, and smarter too.” “Huh,” said his mother. “Leave her out of it. She's not a servant. That's Six Fingers, Red Hair's wife's little sister. All the calligraphy and the paintings in the house were done by her.”

Ah-Fat's eyes filled with astonishment at her words. Now he had so many questions on the tip of his tongue, he just had to find a way to ask them. Finally, he thought of a way to begin:

“She's quite grown-up now! Who taught her to write and paint?”

His mum sighed. “She's had a hard life. Writing and painting is the only thing that keeps her alive.”

Six Fingers had come to live in Red Hair's house along with his bride, Mrs. Kwan. She was much younger than her sister—only three when their son, Loon, was born. Before Red Hair went back to Gold Mountain for the second time, he impressed on his wife that she must get a private tutor to come and teach Loon to read and write when he was old enough. It was several years before the news of Red Hair's death reached his wife's ears. She was not unduly worried because, although there were no letters from him, every now and then bank drafts would arrive. It was only much later that she found out that it was Ah-Fat who had been sending them.

When Loon was six or seven years old, his mother duly found a tutor for the boy. Six Fingers was always around and she picked up a smattering of learning too. Her elder sister had learned to read and write from her father and did not object when she saw how much effort Six Fingers was putting into her studies. The tutor was keen on calligraphy and painting and liked nothing better than to divert himself with a little painting practice. It was a quirk of his that he would do it only when he had Six Fingers in attendance—the boy was too much of a fidget. So Six Fingers was constantly being called on to light the incense, grind the ink and lay out the paper. When the tutor had finished painting, she would wash his brushes and the ink stone and bring him tea and cakes.

One day, the tutor took his refreshments and went for a siesta. Six Fingers picked up the brush and, with the leftover ink and paper, did a quick sketch of some pine trees and bamboos, as she had seen her teacher do. When he awoke, came out of his room and saw the painting, he stood twiddling his beard thoughtfully in his fingers. Finally he sighed: “Such a pity you weren't born in the body of a boy.” After that, if he was in the right mood, he would teach Six Fingers a thing or two about composition, about making a painting appealing and even about mounting techniques. Neither of them realized that the day would come when Six Fingers would be in dire straits, and that what she learned from this idle chit-chat would be the saving of her.

In the spring of the year in which Six Fingers turned twelve years old dysentery plagued the village. It was only many years later that the survi-vors
learned that its proper name was cholera, and that the cause was contamination of the waters farther upstream. The first afflicted with it in Red Hair's family was his son, Loon. He succumbed after three days without so much as uttering a word. He gave it to Red Hair's mother who, after getting better and then relapsing, sank into unconsciousness and died after a couple of weeks.

Mrs. Kwan was already ill by the time her mother-in-law died. She had it mildly and could have recovered but she did not want to live any more. Six Fingers prepared rice gruel for her elder sister, but when she tried to feed it to her, Mrs. Kwan shut her mouth firmly and twisted away. “What do I have to live for? My husband and son are both dead.” (The news of Red Hair's death had reached her by then.) “If you care for me, let me die. It's a lot less bother than living.” Six Fingers burst into tears: “What about me? Don't I mean anything to you?” Mrs. Kwan's eyes were as dried up as well holes. She looked dully at her younger sister and did not shed a tear.

“Dad gave you to me to rear, and at least I let you learn to read and write a bit. You might be able to use that to get along in life—depends what fate has in store for you.”

These were her parting words to Six Fingers.

Within one month, three of Red Hair's family had died, and there was not a cent to bury them. Finally, the village elders took the business in hand. They mortgaged the family's three-room house and used the money to get the rites performed, to set aside the burial plot, buy coffins and bury the bodies.

After Mrs. Kwan died, the villagers sent word to her family that they should come and fetch Six Fingers. But there was no word from her parents and they never came to claim her. It was Mrs. Kwan's parting words to her sister which threw the girl a lifeline.

Old Mr. Ding, who used to write letters and do couplets on scrolls for the villagers, was too old by now to hold a brush. The villagers knew that Six Fingers could write and they felt sorry for her, so they asked her to do the work instead. They discovered that she was better at it than the old man— her calligraphy was steady and full of vigour. She also had a skill Mr. Ding did not have—she could paint. They would call her in for all sorts of jobs, from ordinary letters and New Year couplets, to calligraphy and paintings to
celebrate births, deaths, weddings and old folks' birthdays. The motifs she painted of course varied according to the occasion: for a wedding, it would be a dragon and phoenix in harmony, and a guava tree setting seed. For a funeral, it would be cranes flying west towards the setting sun. To celebrate the birthday of an elderly person, it would be celestial ladies or a lucky bird offering a longevity peach in its beak. For the one-month celebration of the birth of a son, she would illustrate a fairy story like Noh Tsa playing in the sea, or paint a unicorn bringing good luck. She adapted her calligraphy and painting to the circumstances and tastes of her customers.

Six Fingers enjoyed the work and would go wherever she was wanted. But she did not get paid for it in cash. Instead, they would give her a few eggs, a pound or two of rice, a piece of fabric, some fuel for her stove, or whatever the master of the house decided. She did not get rich from her work, but it was enough to feed one person three meals a day.

However, she only had a shed to live in, by the pigpen. It had been used by Red Hair's family for storage and then fell into disrepair. It was leaky and draughty and smelt mouldy. The second summer after her sister died and she was left alone, a typhoon destroyed it completely, leaving her without any shelter from the elements.

One of the village women took pity on her and took her in. Auntie Cheung Tai's husband had gone to Gold Mountain and she had not heard from him for many years. She had no sons or daughters so when she died the family line would run out. Six Fingers moved in with her and paid for her bed and board by splitting her earnings two ways. At least it gave her a roof over her head.

As Ah-Fat listened to Six Fingers' story, he felt pangs of grief, as if a cord was being drawn tight around his heart. He thought back to when he and Red Hair set off for Gold Mountain. Red Hair had left behind a flourishing family of young and old, but nothing remained now but a pile of rubble. Six Fingers, however, was as tenacious as a weed that had crept out from under the rubble in search of light and managed to put forth a leaf. She was a survivor, that girl.

He told his mother that he had made several trips over the years to the camp where Red Hair was buried, but the virgin forest was now a city and he had searched in vain for the pile of stones. “But you must have a few of
Red Hair's belongings, haven't you?” said his mother. “I brought back an old fiddle which he used to carry around with him in Gold Mountain.” “Then wrap it up and take it to Red Hair's family grave in a day or two, and bury it next to Mrs. Kwan. The grave is still open, you should get someone to come and seal it. Then the family won't need to wait for his bones any longer.” “I'll take Six Fingers with me,” said Ah-Fat. “After all, it was her sister and brother-in-law.”

“After dinner, I'll get the maid Ah-Choi to heat the water nice and hot, and you can wash and shave. Tomorrow, the brothers are coming. They heard you're back and they want to meet you.”

“Whose brothers?”

“Don't be such a dope! The brothers of your betrothed!”

After breakfast the next morning, Ah-Fat went out. He walked west through the village. He heard some knocking noises before he got near the old wooden shack and, through the open door, saw Auntie Cheung Tai at her loom.

She was a scrawny little woman, only just able to work the loom by perching atop pieces of wood to raise the level of her stool. Her two hands gripped the shuttle like a bow pulled taut but still could not push it to the end of the frame. She was weaving a rough country cloth, greyish-yellow in colour so when the end of the yarn fell on the floor and got mixed up with the dirt, it took her some time to find it. This kind of cloth was for clothes the men wore when they were ploughing or harvesting. It was unattractive but would withstand a couple of seasons out in the wind and rain. Unfortunately Auntie Cheung Tai had let the tension go slack because her arms were too puny and short to hold the yarn. Her workmanship fell far short of Mrs. Mak's.

Busy at her weaving, she suddenly saw a big black smudge on the cloth. She rubbed away at it unsuccessfully—until she realized it was someone's shadow. Looking up, she saw a man had come into the room. He was well-built and wore a skullcap and a lined grey satin gown, which must have been brand new since it still had sharp creases from being folded in the trunk. The man gave her a smile, and a worm seemed to crawl slowly up
one side of his face. Auntie Cheung Tai's small bound feet slipped off the stool and she pitched forward so her nose nearly banged against the loom.

The man helped her back up and greeted her politely with hands pressed together. “Your husband was my father's cousin, Auntie,” he said. “He was like an uncle to me.” From the front opening of his gown, he extracted two small paper packets and gave them to her. “Something foreign for you, Auntie, from Gold Mountain.”

Auntie Cheung Tai wiped the corners of her gummy eyes with her sleeve, making it wet. “Ah-Fat, are you really back? Oh, look at your face.… Well, at least you're alive. Do you have any news of your uncle Cheung Tai?” Ah-Fat shook his head. “No. I went to the Chinese Benevolent Association, but they didn't have anyone of that name on their lists. He went to Gold Mountain so long ago, maybe they didn't have lists back then.” “The year before last, two men from Sai Village came home,” she said. “They said they'd seen someone the spitting image of uncle Cheung Tai in Fan Tan Alley, with a Redskin woman.” “They must have been mistaken,” said Ah-Fat. “If he was still alive in Gold Mountain, surely he would have been in touch with you, Auntie.” She clamped her mouth shut and was silent. Finally, she said icily: “It makes no difference who he was with. The marriage documents were exchanged with me.”