Gold Mountain Blues (37 page)

The pair made slow progress, the porter because of his load but the other because he seemed distracted. He looked all around him as he walked along, and Kam Ho at first thought he was unsure of the way. Then he saw that his feet nimbly avoided every rut and stone without the need for eyes—they knew every inch of the road.

Kam-Ho wanted to approach them but could not—his granny told him never to wander beyond the stand of wild banana trees. Farther than this, he needed a servant with him. His granny had kept a close eye on all the members of the household since the time when he and his mother had been kidnapped by Chu Sei. So he sat on the tricycle seat, watching closely as they came nearer.

The men craned their necks to get a good look at the
diulau
. It was square building, with the roof resting on circular pillars all the way round. The pillars were thick at each end and slender in the middle. They appeared to be made of stone, or perhaps jade—they were a brighter white than stone but duller than jade. In fact, they were made of marble, in the style of a Roman colonnade. The building had numerous windows, though these were so narrow that they were not especially eye-catching. Alongside some of them there were round dark gun-holes, for use in case of attack. Deep eaves projected over each window at each end of which hung a large ball, so that from a distance, each window looked as if it had eyes.

As the pair came close, they saw that the
diulau
's great iron gate was surmounted with a stone tablet at least twenty feet long. This was elaborately carved in relief with layer upon layer of exuberant foliage. The flowers were unusual—they did not look Chinese. The entire carved area was painted: gold background, green leaves, ochre-coloured entwined stems and magenta flowers. But in the centre, where the name should have been, there was a blank space. The house as yet had no name.

When they were a few paces from Kam Ho, the men halted. The man in front told the porter to put down his burden and take a break. He took off his felt hat and fanned his face with it as he looked the boy over. His eyes roved over him so intently that Kam Ho began to shrink under his scrutiny. Then the man's gaze came to rest on the tricycle. He burst into laughter which made crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“That trike's too small for you, Kam Ho! Why are you still riding it?”

The man squatted down and gripped the handlebars.

Kam Ho was startled. How did the man know his name? he wondered. Suddenly he saw the livid centipede wavering slightly on the man's cheek as he laughed. Kam Ho flung the tricycle down and fled. He ran like the
wind, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him, and arrived back at the steps of his home with one shoe missing.

“Mum … Mum!” Kam Ho stumbled into the house and flung himself at his mother, his heart thudding as if it was going to leap out onto the front of her jacket.

The man could easily have caught up with Kam Ho but he did not. He put the abandoned tricycle over one shoulder and followed slowly behind him. After a few paces he came across the lost shoe. He picked it up, brushed the chicken droppings and dust off the sole, hung it from the handlebar and walked on.

Six Fingers was in the kitchen, stitching the sole of a shoe as she watched the cook make steamed osmanthus rice cakes. The shoe was for Mak Dau. She was making his wedding gift on behalf of the bride, Ah-Yuet. The day of the marriage had been fixed for the tenth day of the tenth month. Mak Dau's family had already presented wedding gifts to Ah-Yuet. Ah-Yuet's birth family had given her up when they sold her to the Fongs as a maidservant, so the Fongs gave presents to Mak Dau on her behalf. The only thing not yet completed was the traditional pair of cloth shoes for the bridegroom. And since Ah-Yuet was all thumbs, Six Fingers was making them for her.

Kam Ho huddled into his mother's chest like a piglet rooting for milk, his face hot and sweaty, his breath coming in gasps. Six Fingers wondered how it was possible that two such different boys could have been born from the same belly. She loved them both but in different ways. The elder came from her guts, the younger from her heart. Those guts had given birth to a masculine courage, and the heart, to a feminine gentleness. The one with the guts was far away, though she could depend on him. The son of her heart still had a hold on every fibre of her being.

Six Fingers wiped Kam Ho's face with the front of her jacket. “What's up? Someone set fire to your tail?”

“It's Dad. He's … he's back,” said Kam Ho, pointing to the door.

“Rubbish. He said in his letter he'd be here the middle of the eighth month at the earliest.”

“It's true. Dad's back.”

Six Fingers burst out laughing: “You don't know what your dad looks like! How do you know it's him?”

“The scar.” Kam Ho traced a line down his cheek with his finger.

Six Fingers pulled up the backs of her embroidered slippers and ran for the front door. She peered through the peephole, and the shoe sole she had been sewing dropped to the ground.

“Bolt the door. No one is to open it until I say so,” she ordered.

She flew up the stairs. As she turned the corner, she saw her mother-in-law on her knees, burning incense before the portrait of her late husband. “Mum!” she shouted. “Ah-Fat's back.” Without waiting for a response, she ran into her room and banged the door behind her.

She sat down at her dressing table, her heart racing. She had not used her mirror for a long time, and the glass was covered in a fine layer of dust. She wiped a small window on it with her sleeve and saw a sallow face, dotted with a few freckles. The glimpse of her own face after so long alarmed her. She pulled open the drawer and felt around for the rouge. Eventually she extracted the box from one corner and opened it, to find that the years had turned the rouge into a rock-hard lump. She scraped off a little with a fingernail, put it in her palm and moistened it with saliva. Then she smeared it on her cheeks and lips. At least she would not look so pale.

Her hair was bare of ornaments. It had been many months since she had even stuck a flower in her bun. She thought of the jade hairpin which she had been so fond of. Ah-Fat had bought it for her on his last visit home, paying as much as a
mu
of land for it. She kept it wrapped in a piece of red cloth in the secret drawer behind her mirror. One end of the pin had broken, but the agate pendant which hung from the other end was still as good as new. She put the mirror down and took out the jade hairpin. The broken end was sharp and snagged her hair painfully, but she finally managed to push it firmly into place, hiding the broken end beneath her hair. The agate pendant tinkled against her ear, and she suddenly felt her spirits lift.

Six Fingers would have liked to change her clothes but there was no time. She could hear knocking at the door downstairs. She stood up, with a sharp intake of breath, and nearly knocked over the stool. The wound on
her thigh had healed but the scar tissue was puckered and tight, and pulled painfully whenever she made an awkward movement.

There's no makeup that can cover up my lame leg, she thought.

She opened the door to her room. Someone stood in the gloom on the other side and almost fell into Six Fingers' arms. It was Mrs. Mak. At first Six Fingers could only make out a dark shadow but as her eyes got accustomed to the darkness, she saw Mrs. Mak was holding something bundled up in her hand. She thrust it at Six Fingers. It was a strip of cloth: Mrs. Mak's freshly washed and dried foot-binding cloth.

“Stuff this into your shoe, then it won't look as if one leg's longer than the other.”

Six Fingers felt a rush of warmth; tears filled her eyes and trembled there for a moment. She swallowed them back, and there was a salty taste at the back of her mouth. She knelt down on all fours in front of the old woman, as if she were a beast of burden.

“I'll carry you downstairs, Mum, so Ah-Fat can pay his respects to you.”

When Ah-Fat had seen the last guest off and went into the bedroom, Six Fingers was sitting at the mirror, removing her makeup. The jade hairpin with its broken end lay on the dressing table, catching the light with a cold gleam. In the lamplight, Six Fingers looked a little tired. Thirteen years of separation had left crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and on her forehead.

Ah-Fat picked up the hairpin and ran his hands over it. The edge of the broken end was rough and scratched his skin.

Ah-Fat let her mass of loose hair run over his hand. With one finger he traced a line around her neck until he reached the dip just below her right ear. There was a round scar there, the size of a pea.

Six Fingers stiffened. His finger ran over the scar, backwards, forwards, as if he were gradually smoothing its rough surface with fine sandpaper. The scar was a reminder of her kidnapping by Chu Sei. When the bandit tried to rape her, she had stabbed herself in the throat with her hairpin. Chu Sei had let her alone then, because he urgently needed the ransom money.

“Does it still hurt here?”

Six Fingers was startled. “Who told you?” she asked. Ah-Fat laughed. “How many people around here have you taught to write? Even the Fong family's dogs are literate these days. You can't hide any family business from me.”

It must have been Mak Dau who had written to Ah-Fat, she realized. No one else knew except him.

“Ah-Yin, stop using this hairpin,” said Ah-Fat. “In a couple of days, I'll go to Canton and get you a silver one. Fashionable women don't wear jade any more, they wear silver ornaments.” “Just get a jade carver to grind the broken edge smooth, then I can wear it,” said Six Fingers. “It was so dear, how can I just get rid of it?” “Nothing is dearer to me than the honour of my family,” said Ah-Fat. “I'd buy you a house of gold if I had the money.”

Six Fingers gave a little laugh. “You might have had. Is it true you gave it all to the Monarchist Reform Party?” “Who told you that?” asked Ah-Fat. “You may have your sources but so have I,” said Six Fingers. “Do you regret it? How much land and property could you have bought with all that money? And after all that you couldn't keep the Emperor on his throne.” Ah-Fat sighed. “Who can foresee what's going to happen in the world? If the emperor Guangxu was still alive, then the Great Qing Empire could have been saved. But once our country passed into the hands of the young emperor, there was no hope for it.”

Six Fingers looked at the ever-deepening lines on Ah-Fat's face, and took his hand between her own. “It doesn't matter whether it's the empire or a republic, there's nothing we common people can do to rescue it. You just look after your own family.”

Six Fingers' hands were soft. They had not dug soil or shovelled manure or been soaked in soap or brine for many a year. They were plump and white, with five dimples on the backs of each one. Ah-Fat's gaze stumbled from one dimple to the next and his hands, trapped between hers, began to get ideas. He freed them and reached inside her jacket. He felt an obstruction. “Are you wearing the corset?” he asked.

Six Fingers gave another laugh. “Of course I am. You bought it for me, didn't you?” Ah-Fat's fingers began clumsily to wrestle with the complicated fastenings, but it took him several attempts before they surrendered. Finally his hands roved unimpeded all over her body. Like frozen earth
warmed by the sun, her body slumped soft and shapeless against him. Then before Ah-Fat could stop her, she blew out the candle and the room was plunged into darkness.

Ah-Fat groped his way to the bed, Six Fingers in his arms. She had grown much plumper than before, something that Ah-Fat's hands told him before his eyes had explored her carefully. His hands told him of another change in Six Fingers too—her body was on fire and the flames licked around him, enveloping him and singeing his own body and fingers until they sizzled. Ah-Fat felt a frenzy in Six Fingers which he had never felt before.

Afterwards, Ah-Fat stroked her damp hair. “Ah-Yin, don't turn out the light next time, OK? Every scar on your body you got because of me. Let me look at them, then I can remember.” Six Fingers was silent. She did not want Ah-Fat to see the tears on her cheeks.

By the time her tears had dried, snores were coming from Ah-Fat. Six Fingers did not remember him snoring on his last visit home. His snores vibrated like rumbles of thunder in her ears. She could not sleep, and shook him awake.

At first Ah-Fat did not know where he was. “Leave me alone, Ah-Lam!” he mumbled. Six Fingers was seized with a sudden fear. “Ah-Chu's old man came home last year and gave her syphilis. Do you go off with women when you're out there too?” she asked quietly after a moment. Ah-Fat was wide awake now but did not answer. When Six Fingers asked again, he said: “Ah-Yin, I'm only staying four months this time. I want to get back to pay off the money I borrowed to build the
diulau
. Then when I've saved up the head tax, I'm taking you out with me.”

Her question remained unanswered, thought Six Fingers, but she felt she could not ask again.

“What will happen to Mum when I've gone?” she asked. “I'll borrow more money and bring you both over together.” Six Fingers sighed. “But Mum's getting old, she won't want to be uprooted and go to Gold Mountain. Just getting her to move from the old house to here.…” Ah-Fat ran his hand over the dent in Six Fingers' thigh where the scar tissue had formed, and could think of nothing to say. On one side there was his mother, on the other, his wife. He could not do without either of them. He knew the only
hope was to wait till his mother passed away. But how long would that be? It could be a year, or five, or ten, or even twenty. Maybe he would die before his mother. Or maybe by the time she died, Six Fingers would have become a silver-haired old woman. The two of them seemed destined to steal happiness from the brief time allotted them between the death of one and the death of another.

“Take Kam Ho. Take him with you. When he's bigger, he should be able to help out,” said Six Fingers.