Gold Mountain Blues (79 page)

Wai Heung had shot up and, at fifteen, was nearly as tall as her mother. She was still a beanpole, although there were signs that she was developing a young woman's curves. In her neat white blouse and blue trousers, she looked ready to burst into bloom.

Kam Sau was delighted to see her daughter again. “How's your homework?” she asked. “Is it more difficult than in primary?” “The homework's easy,” said Wai Heung, “but it's hard to learn our lines. Last
week the whole class went with the work team to the villages to promote land reform.”

Kam Sau was surprised. “What do you know about land reform?” she asked. “Chairman Mao tells us: Get rid of bandits and tyrants, cancel tenancies and mortgages,” her daughter began. Her face was screwed up with effort, and Kam Sau could not help smiling. “Do you really understand it? Or are you just reciting it?” “Of course I understand it. It means ‘Down with the exploiting class!'”

They plodded on getting hot and sweaty, then sat down by the roadside and drank from their army-issue water bottles. Wai Heung wiped the sweat from her forehead and asked her mother tentatively: “Mum, is our family in the exploiting class?” “Of course not.” “But we have fields, and tenant farmers and farmhands.” “That doesn't mean we're the exploiting class. Your grandfather was a labourer in Gold Mountain and so were your uncles, and every inch of our family's fields was bought with their sweat and blood.”

Wai Heung seemed reassured by her words, but Kam Sau was puzzled: “Who's been giving you those silly ideas?” she asked. “Auntie Ah-Hsien.” “Huh!” said her mother. “I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.”

Kam Ho's widow, Ah-Hsien, was no longer the dull, bovine woman she used to be. Nowadays she was much more talkative; she had an opinion on everything.

When Six Fingers told her to put more water in the rice, Ah-Hsien responded that that was only what poor people did in the old days, to eke out the little they had. Now that they were liberated, everyone had more than enough to eat, and there was no need to make the rice go further.

On Tam Kung's birthday, when Six Fingers told her to take the fruit offering to the altar and light incense sticks, Ah-Hsien did as she was told, but only after delivering herself of the opinion that rich people did not need to go to sea, so they did not need to worship Tam Kung. That was for poor people but, since Tam Kung did not take any notice of the prayers of the poor, it made no difference if they worshipped him or not.

Ah-Hsien had begun to dress differently too. She still wore the old-style tunic but added a leather belt which she had begged from Mrs. Wong of the work team as a fashion accessory. Every day when she got up, the first
thing she did was to fasten it over her tunic. “What on earth do you think you're wearing?” exclaimed her mother-in-law rudely. “If you want to dress up as a beggar woman, why don't you just tie a straw rope around your waist?” Ah-Hsien said nothing but carried on wearing the belt anyway.

Six Fingers dated the change in her daughter-in-law to a meeting a month or so ago, when the work team sent by the provincial government arrived in Spur-On Village. There were three men and one woman. Once they had settled in, they called a meeting of all the villagers. Six Fingers was not as energetic as she once was and felt it was too much trouble to go so she sent Ah-Hsien and Mak Dau's wife, Ah-Yuet, in her stead. The meeting lasted all evening and did not break up till midnight. When they arrived home, Six Fingers asked Ah-Hsien what the meeting was about. “We're setting up a PPA and a WA.” Six Fingers had no idea what they were talking about, and Ah-Hsien explained: “The PPA is the association for poor peasants, and the WA is standing up for oppressed women.”

After that, Ah-Hsien was always off to meetings. Every time she came home, she would get into a huddle with Ah-Yuet and they would whisper together for hours. Six Fingers had no idea what they talked about—everything nowadays had a new name. Not only that, but Ah-Hsien switched from Cantonese and adopted standard Chinese, like Mrs. Wong from the work team. The difference was that Mrs. Wong was one of the cadres sent to the South to do revolutionary work, and spoke it very well, while Ah-Hsien laboured over the strange sounds and made such a hash of them she was soon the laughingstock of the village. Ah-Hsien did not think it was funny. She began to baulk at doing work around the house too. She no longer behaved like the docile daughter-in-law she had been and there was nothing Six Fingers could do about it.

Kam Sau and Wai Heung arrived at the entrance to Spur-On Village at noon. From a distance, they could see people milling around the clump of wild banana trees. They went closer, squeezing their way through the crowd, until they reached a huge pile of furniture: carved rosewood side tables and high-backed armchairs, a dressing table complete with mirror, a rosewood double bed, reclining chairs for sitting outside on a summer evening, dining tables and chairs. Everything was jumbled up together, and
all of it had been brought out of the
diulau
. (The bed was the one Kam Sau and Ah-Yuen had spent their wedding night in.)

Villagers were still emerging from the
diulau
laden like ants with the Fongs' belongings. The tailor's nephew, Big Head Au, led the procession. Big Head was not his proper name, of course; his teacher had bestowed the name “Shun Fong,” meaning “plain sailing,” on him when the boy started school. But not even his own mother remembered that, and he was only ever known as Big Head in the village. Just now, Big Head was carrying out the old gramophone which Ah-Fat had brought back from Gold Mountain. The gramophone was top-heavy with the weight of the horn and Big Head swore. “What the fuck use is this, anyway? It's no use as a cooking pot or a bowl and whoever gets it'll have to find room for it!”

Kam Sau saw with astonishment that the person helping Big Head carry the gramophone was none other than her own sister-in-law, Ah-Hsien.

The majority clan in Spur-On Village was the Fongs. The Au clan were outsiders and in the minority. The Fongs had always owned and farmed the central land while the Aus had had to break their backs tilling outlying plots on the fringes. Even though there were tenant farmers in both clans, the Fongs always got the best land nearest the village, and the Aus had to make do with poor, out-of-the-way plots. If the Fong family had to marry one of its daughters to an Au, she was certain to find herself in a position of power and privilege in her new family whereas if an Au girl married Fong, she would find herself scorned even by the Fongs' cats, dogs and chickens. Just like Ah-Hsien, in fact.

Such had been the case for over a century, but nothing lasts forever. When the work team arrived in the village, the Fongs got their comeuppance. The Aus were classified favourably, as “poor peasants” or “hired labourers.” When the PPA was set up, most of its members were Aus, and Big Head Au was elected as its chairman. Nowadays it was Big Head Au who called the shots in the village. Big Head Au, once a tiny scrub struggling to sprout between the fingers of the Fong clan, had now grown into a tall tree that no hand could shake, not even the powerful Fongs.

Kam Sau planted herself in front of Big Head.

“Who gave you permission to seize my family's belongings? Was it the work team leader?”

Big Head Au was stopped in his tracks—not by Kam Sau's words but by what she was wearing. He might have been illiterate but he was nonetheless sharp eyed. As chairman of the PPA, he had gone with the work team to attend meetings in the county town on a few occasions. That doublebreasted “Lenin jacket” was what county-level cadres wore.

The villagers waiting behind him were getting impatient. “Why are you letting a woman stand in your way, Big Head?” they shouted. “She's only the daughter of a landlord.”

Needled, Big Head Au shoved Kam Sau so hard she almost fell and said: “Your family are big landlords. If we can't redistribute your chattels, whose can we take?”

Kam Sau turned to appeal to Ah-Hsien. “Sister-in-law, you know better than anyone where our family's money came from. You're in the Women's Association. Tell them what kind of a life my dad lived in Gold Mountain and how my brother was given a medal for patriotism!”

Of all the members of the Fong family, it was Kam Sau that Ah-Hsien was most in awe of. She was the one with the most education. Her manner was usually pleasant and amiable, and what she said always made sense. So much so that Ah-Hsien found it impossible to pick holes in her reasoning. Her fear of Six Fingers was skin deep, but she feared Kam Sau in her bones.

Today though, she was emboldened by the people standing behind her. And in her mind, Kam Sau's arguments did not seem so irrefutable after all. “You're not my sister-in-law,” she exclaimed. “Your family bought me as a servant. Have you ever talked to me about family matters? When your brother writes home, does he ever ask about me?”

There were shouts of “Don't pay any attention to that landlord's daughter! Tell her to get lost!”

Kam Sau and Wai Heung ran into the house and upstairs. Six Fingers was sitting on a stool in her room, her head tilted upwards. There was a streak of dried blood at the corner of her mouth. Mak Dau was holding a wet towel to her forehead. “Granny!” cried Wai Heung, running to her. Six Fingers had her eyes shut and cold tears ran down her face to her ears. The
diulau
was almost emptied of its possessions; all that was left in the room was the bed, a cracked dressing table and the wooden stool she was sitting on.

“Who hit you, Mum?” asked Kam Sau.

Six Fingers said nothing. Mak Dau answered for her, though he seemed to have great difficulty getting the words out.

“That pig-ignorant wife of mine, Ah-Yuet.”

Villagers were coming downstairs waving the rifles that had been kept under the roof. Mak Dau went pale. “Mind the bores! Don't let them go off!” he shouted.

“If they do, it'll be you that gets it in the neck!” they shouted over their shoulders.

Ah-Hsien was the last to leave, carrying a bundle of her own bits and pieces.

Six Fingers called her into the room. “Ah-Hsien, wait! I want to talk to you!” She made Mak Dau shut the door.

Ah-Hsien stood, wavering. She could not meet Six Fingers' gaze.

“Legally, you're still my daughter-in-law,” she began, “and no matter how much they seize, none of it will come to you. You'll have gone to all this trouble for nothing.”

Ah-Hsien pressed her lips together. The barb had hit home.

“I won't get anything, and you won't have anything either, so we're even.”

“Big Head Au's got a wife, and in the new society, he can't take you as a second wife. If you hang around him, you'll end up with nothing.”

Ah-Hsien flushed and then grew pale as she listened.

“I know you hate me. I've never treated you well ever since you married into this family, and you've had to put up with being a grass widow for years while Kam Ho was away.”

Six Fingers undid her bun and the black cloth which covered it, took from it a couple of heavy gold rings, and gave them to Ah-Hsien.

“Don't tell anyone. Find yourself a decent man to marry, put all this trouble behind you and live out your life in peace with him.”

Ah-Hsien took the rings and her eyes reddened. She looked as if she wanted to say something but could not find the words. Finally she nodded without speaking and left the room.

When she had gone, Six Fingers slumped on the stool as if the effort of talking had exhausted her.

“Everything your father amassed over a lifetime, I've lost the lot.…”

The sound of her voice echoed in the empty room.

“Your brothers will come home one day, and I won't have left them anything to inherit, apart from a few family letters, and some photos as mementoes.”

Kam Sau grew distraught. She could not bear to hear her mother talking about her death. She gripped her hands between her own. “Please don't worry,” she begged her. “Ah-Yuen and I have met Liu, the head of the county government, several times at meetings. He's a good man and very friendly. We'll go and see him tomorrow and tell him what's happened. He only has to give the word and I'm sure they'll return everything to us.”

Six Fingers shook her head. “The world has changed. No one can stop it. Don't wait till tomorrow. Take Wai Heung straight back there now, in case anything else happens.”

Six Fingers had a plan of her own. The gold rings she had given her daughter-in-law were not the last of her possessions. She had more valuables hidden in her shoes, but would not use them until her daughter and granddaughter had left. She had heard about two women in neighbouring villages who had killed themselves after being classified as landlords. One had thrown herself into a well, and by the time they pulled her body out, her belly had swollen like a woman about to give birth. When they poked her navel, brown water spurted out. The other cut her own throat with a vegetable knife. There was so much blood, the shoes of the people who took her away stuck to the floor. Six Fingers did not want to die such a vile and humiliating death. When she was little and living with her elder sister in Red Hair's house, she had heard her nephew's tutor tell the story of Second Sister Yu in the
Red Chamber Dream
who kills herself by swallowing gold. This was the kind of clean ending that she wanted for herself.

“Yes, go now,” urged Mak Dau. “Wai Heung's just a young girl. She'll be terrified if there's more trouble.” Thinking that she would see Mr. Liu in the county town first thing tomorrow morning, Kam Sau reassured her mother once more that there was no need to worry, took her daughter by the hand and turned to go.

It was too late. Suddenly there was a hammering on the bedroom door. A timid voice said: “Kam Sau, open the door!” It was Ah-Hsien.

As Kam Sau did so, she found herself swept back inside by furious villagers who crowded past her, pushing Ah-Hsien in front of them.