Gold Mountain Blues (49 page)

But what weighs most heavily on me is Kam Shan. After he came back from the Redskin tribe at the beginning of the year, there was a big change in him. He learned all he could about farming and livestock, and threw himself into the work. It was wonderful—the prodigal son returned. But to my dismay I have just learned that he has been secretly sheltering a whorehouse girl with the connivance of a church pastor, and sneaking valuables and money out of our house to keep her. That boy has always been pigheaded and ungovernable. Finally, yesterday, I felt I had no option but to kick him out. My dearest wish is to get the farm income up again, and save enough to bring you over to Gold Mountain. Kam Shan has always been close to you and, who knows, you may be able to bring him into line. My uncle and aunt can look after my mother. I have given them a home for many years, and looking after Mum will be a small way for them to show their gratitude, and will set my mind to rest. Kam Ho is thirteen now, and when he is old enough, we can find him a suitable bride to settle down with in Hoi Ping. It won't be long before you give birth and, whether it is a boy or a girl, you can leave the baby with my uncle and aunt to look after for the time being. My most urgent task is to get you here as soon as possible. You and I have spent so little time together, and so much time apart. I miss you very much and feel guilty that I have not been able to fulfil the promise I made you all those years ago.

Your husband, Fong Tak Fat, New Westminster, the sixth day of the eighth month, 1915

Ah-Fat was up early, washed and dressed. In the southeast corner of the room, he lit a stick of incense and knelt down. The corner held a statue of Tam Kung which he had brought back on his last trip home. He had been kowtowing to the statue every day since he heard that Six Fingers was on her way. Tam Kung was the god of seafarers and Six Fingers was journeying across the ocean on her way to Gold Mountain. Ah-Fat was on tenterhooks. He had not forgotten how, five years before, Kam Shan had been put in the port detention centre on his arrival and Ah-Lam's wife had killed herself there. It was only by putting his worries in the hands of Tam Kung that he could settle to his daily work.

Six Fingers, his wife, would be finally reunited with him in Gold Mountain.

He made his decision on the very day of his departure from Hoi Ping. Twenty-one years. He and Six Fingers had been married for twenty-one years.

For twenty-one years, he and his mother, Mrs. Mak, had been in tug-of-war, and Six Fingers was the handkerchief tied at the midpoint. Both he and his mother wanted her. His mother's way of showing this was to nag him to get a concubine, either from Gold Mountain or Hoi Ping. She did not know the market conditions in Gold Mountain but she knew that in Hoi Ping girls would go with a Gold Mountain man for next to nothing. Ah-Fat refused and let the whole thing drag on as the days, and years, went by.

His mother knew that when Ah-Fat came back from a day's work in the fields, he cooked his own dinner, or ate cold leftovers. If ever his jacket got caught on the cart, there was no nimble-fingered woman to mend it for him. If Ah-Fat had a headache or a fever, there was no one to administer home treatments or mop his brow. When Ah-Fat was young, Mrs. Mak steeled herself to this, but he was getting on in years, and now she could not bear it.

Mrs. Mak was blind and no longer able to see his face but she could still hear her son perfectly well. He only had to call “Mum!” in a low voice as he stepped over the threshold for her to tell instantly that he had changed. His voice sounded as hollow as a worm-eaten hazelnut. He had supported family that had as many members as a tree had branches, yet he had been reduced to a desiccated nut. Ever since her son left for Gold Mountain at sixteen, every ounce of his energy had gone into transforming his labour into dollar letters to send home.

The morning Ah-Fat left Hoi Ping, the porter carrying his suitcases led the way. Behind came blind Mrs. Mak, supported on either side by Six Fingers and Kam Ho. All three were going with him as far as the entrance to the village. Kam Ho looked at his father: “You've put on weight, Dad,” he said. “Your jacket won't button up.” His father smiled. “It's all the soups your mother's been giving me. She's been trying to fatten me up like a soft-shelled turtle. Don't envy me. Once I get back to Gold Mountain, all this
fat'll soon be gone—there's no soup for me there.” Six Fingers turned her face away and said nothing. She knew that if she opened her mouth to speak, the tears would flow. Her belly was showing now and she walked more heavily than usual. She took a few more slow steps and managed to swallow the lump in her throat. “Don't listen to your father's teasing, Kam Ho,” she said. “There's plenty of fancy things to eat in Gold Mountain. How could they miss homemade soup?”

Mrs. Mak suddenly came to a halt, scowling. She thumped her walking stick so hard it dented the earth.

“Hurry up and save some money when you get back to Gold Mountain, Ah-Fat,” she said.

“Yes, Mum, to buy more fields,” said Ah-Fat, who had heard this injunction from his mother time and again. Fields, fields, more fields. When Six Fingers and Kam Ho were kidnapped by Chu Sei, their land had to be sold in haste to raise the ransom. Mrs. Mak had never forgotten the painful process of buying back their fields afterwards. She did not believe in money, even when she held the silver coins tight in her hand. She could only be reassured by standing atop the dykes which enclosed her family's own fields.

“No, not fields,” said Mrs. Mak, waving her stick in the direction of Six Fingers. “Hurry and save enough money to take her away with you.”

Ah-Fat and Six Fingers were mute with astonishment. They had waited and waited for Mrs. Mak to speak these words, and after twenty years, they seemed more improbable than a flowering sago tree.

When Six Fingers found her voice, she said: “Mum, I'll always be here to attend to you.” “Huh!” came the reply. “As if I don't know where your heart lies!” The old woman had a sharp tongue and her words could pepper her listener painfully in the face. But Six Fingers had long since grown a thick skin and was inured to such wounding comments.

She merely gave a slight smile and said: “Mum, what will you do if I go?” “Huh!” Mrs. Mak said again. “I'll live with his uncle and aunt. Ah-Fat's money has made them as fat as Bodhisattvas. Ah-Fat's uncle would be a nobody without that money, so he can hardly refuse.”

Ah-Fat hitched up his gown, knelt in the road and kowtowed three times before his mother. She could not see him but she could smell the dust
raised by the knocking of her son's head. “I won't forget your kindness, Mother,” he said. “When I get back to Gold Mountain, I'll earn masses of money so you can buy masses of land. And if I can't come home every year, then I'll get Kam Shan to come home and pay his respects to you like good grandson.”

At the mention of Kam Shan, Mrs. Mak's grim expression relaxed and a flicker of a smile appeared on her face.

“You go back and tell Kam Shan that the sugared almonds that he sent were very nice, but they were much too hard for me. Remind him Granny hasn't got too many teeth left and next time he should send something softer.”

Ah-Fat grunted assent and glanced sidelong at Six Fingers. They both smiled but said nothing. They had kept Kam Shan's disappearance from Mrs. Mak but she nagged Six Fingers for news of him. In the end, Six Fingers was cornered. She penned a couple of letters “from Kam Shan” herself and read bits of them out to the old woman. Ah-Fat had brought a few curios with him and passed them off as presents from Kam Shan, and Mrs. Mak had suspected nothing. It was only now that Kam Shan had returned that Ah-Fat and Six Fingers could relax their vigilance.

So Six Fingers' journey to Gold Mountain was a hurried decision made that morning—but one that took Mrs. Mak twenty years to resign herself to.

When Ah-Fat arrived back in Gold Mountain, he burned incense and prayed every day. He was determined to save up the head tax for Six Fingers as soon as possible even if it meant postponing repayment of the debts from the
diulau
. Harvests improved and his savings grew. Within two years, he had enough for the head tax.

When Ah-Fat had finished his prayers to Tam Kung, he went to make up the bed. The cotton wadding in the quilt was not brand new but he had fluffed it up and it was nice and soft. The old quilt cover was threadbare from much washing, so Ah-Fat had bought a new one of fine linen, English-made, from the department store in Vancouver. He planned to change the quilt cover. After that, he would set off with the horse and cart to buy a few household necessities in town, and then to the barber for
shave. By then it should be just about time to go and meet the boat. It was due to dock at three o'clock.

Ah-Fat was just sewing up the quilt when the hired hand, Loong Am, put his head through the door and said: “Now that Auntie is coming, we can have soup for dinner. We won't have to eat the mouldy rice you cook up every day that even a pig would turn up its nose at.” Ah-Fat spat out the end of the thread. “You've got a lot of nerve moaning that you're hard up, you young punk,” he retorted, “as if you haven't done well out of me for years. And even if I give you a few extra cents it won't get you sons and grandchildren. You're better off going home to get yourself a wife, then she can cook you tasty soup whenever you want.”

Loong Am gave a cackle of laughter. “You're so stingy, Uncle, you don't let a cent slip through your fingers. I'll never make any money from you. I'm lucky to get enough to eat, let alone a wife.”

Ah-Fat gave Loong Am the needle and thread. He was getting longsighted, and finding it more and more difficult to thread needles, write letters and cut his fingernails. “Uncle, my kid brother saw Kam Shan a few days ago in Kamloops,” Loong Am said as he poked the thread through the needle's eye.

Ah-Fat did not answer, but the hand holding the scissors paused in mid-air.

After Kam Shan left two years ago, he wandered from place to place. He did not dare show his face in Vancouver because he had snatched the girl from the brothel. He had been heard of in Port Hope, and then Yale. At New Year, he had mailed his father a cheque for fifty dollars. There was no address on the envelope, but the postmark was Lytton. Ah-Fat had been there when he was building the railroad, though nothing now remained of it. It was hard to imagine what Kam Shan had been up to, to save such a lot of money in this ghost town. Ah-Fat's eyes flickered in agitation for days afterwards, but there had been no further news.

He regretted throwing his son out. The boy was trouble whether he was at home or not. But at least if he was home, Ah-Fat could keep an eye on him. If he was away, Ah-Fat had no idea what he was doing and never stopped worrying about him. He used to believe that what the eye did not see, the heart did not grieve over. He did not believe that any more. His son's
misdeeds were a thorn in his side when he could see them. But now that Kam Shan was gone, he found himself entangled in a bramble bush from which he could not extricate himself. No sooner had he pulled one thorn out than he discovered another. It would have been better to have him close by.

The thorns hurt when they stabbed him and they hurt when he pulled them out. But Ah-Fat shared his pain with no one and, in consequence, no one mentioned Kam Shan in his presence. It was as if he had never had a son—though if he did hear Kam Shan's name on someone's lips, his eyes flickered for days afterwards.

“Kam Shan rents a corner of a shop and does a roaring trade taking people's photographs. Most of his customers are Redskins,” Loong Am was saying. “They pose with boots on, with guns at their waists, like cowboys.”

“Just him … alone?” Ah-Fat asked after a moment's silence. This was the first time since Kam Shan's departure that he had asked after him.

Loong Am knew what his boss was getting at. He gave an apologetic cough, then said reluctantly: “That woman, she's there too.” He looked up to see if Ah-Fat was angry, then went on: “My brother says her English is better than Kam Shan's. The White women and the Redskin women all want to talk to her.”

Ah-Fat's face darkened like a storm cloud.

Loong Am pulled a knotted handkerchief out of his pocket and put it in Ah-Fat's hand. “My brother told Kam Shan that his mum was coming out to Vancouver, and Kam Shan asked when. He wanted to go and meet the boat. My brother told him not to, in case it made you angry. Kam Shan just stood there like an idiot, then he went upstairs and brought down this handkerchief and asked my brother to give it to Auntie so she could buy herself some clothes in town. Kam Shan said not to let you see.”

Ah-Fat threw the bundle onto the bed without looking at it. Loong Am coughed again. “You've got a fierce temper, Uncle!” he said. “Kam Shan did nothing wrong, after all. What would you do if a girl hung onto your coattails like that? Wouldn't you take her in? Kam Shan must have got his good nature from you. Besides, why look a gift horse in the mouth? He's got a girl without you having to buy wedding gifts or pay the head tax. If you don't like her, get him another woman as his first wife and be done with it. Why get in such a temper about it?”

Ah-Fat still said nothing but his expression softened.

When Loong Am had gone, Ah-Fat shut the door and opened the handkerchief. It contained a pile of small change and a bundle of crumpled low-value notes, damp from grease or sweat. Ah-Fat counted the money: twelve dollars and eighty-six cents.

That boy! He was still his flesh-and-blood son. Ah-Fat's eyes welled up. At least now he knew that Kam Shan had settled down. Ah-Fat had sent him away and he could not call him back. But once Six Fingers arrived, perhaps she could bring them back together.

Ah-Fat drove his horse and cart to the docks, his head filled with longing for Six Fingers—and Kam Shan too. He could not bring himself to think of Kam Shan directly, only by way of Six Fingers. She was the bridge between father and son. Neither could reach the other except through her. Without her mediation, they would only ever look at each other from opposite banks.