Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  “How is her pulse?” asked Six Fingers. “You should prepare for the funeral,” said the herbalist. “She has been ill for a very long time and there is little hope that she’ll recover now.” “Can’t you give her another decoction?” The herbalist shook his head. “All you can do is pray now.”

  Six Fingers showed him out. The eyes of everyone in the room were on her. She knew they expected her to cry, but her eyes were dry. Try as she might, she could not muster a single tear. They waited expectantly, then began to look at her askance.

  Six Fingers cleared her throat. “Don’t cry. Mum needs peace and quiet.” They sniffed back their tears. “She has had such a hard life, how can we not cry?” said Ah-Fat’s aunt. She was a woman who never had an opinion of her own, in fact hardly ever spoke or did anything. Now that she did speak up, her words, though few, seemed to fall like lead weights and gouge craters in the ground. Six Fingers walked unsteadily among the craters, scarcely able to keep her balance. She forced herself to stand still. “Wait outside,” she commanded Kam Ho. Then she addressed the others: “Go back to your rooms and rest. I have things I want to say to Mum.” Ah-Fat’s aunt led them out, sobbing inconsolably: “It’s too late for talking now!” Six Fingers ignored them and simply shut the door.

  She went to Mrs. Mak’s bedside, seeing how frail she looked; she seemed to have shrunk to the size of a child. Her sightless eyes, sunken into their dark cavities, were like deep wells of sadness. Her mother-in-law’s life hung by a thread. She knelt and grasped the gaunt, claw-like hands.

  “I know you’re waiting for Ah-Fat, Mum. I know you don’t like me because Ah-Fat loves me too much. But believe me, he hasn’t wasted his love for me—I can be here for both Ah-Fat and me. I can show you how much we love and honour you. Don’t go, Mum, stay with me.”

  She quivered as something sharp—Mrs. Mak’s talon-like fingernails— jabbed the palm of her hand.

  Six Fingers freed herself from the old woman’s grip, pulled up the front of her jacket and got out the knife that she carried in her waistband. It was a small knife, about six inches long, in an ornamented silver sheath. Mak Dau had bought it several years before from one of the yamen guards, for a considerable amount of money.

  Nowadays Six Fingers carried it with her all the time, supposedly for self-defence. She had no idea how to use it but it gave her a sort of Dutch courage. In reality, she had never so much as killed a chicken. As a child she used to stop her ears and hide in the farthest corner of the room when the neighbours’ pigs and cattle were slaughtered. She could not even bear to hear live fish thrashing in the hot oil of the frying pan, let alone the squeals and bellows of dying beasts. She had only once in her life used a knife on a living creature—herself. When she was seventeen, she had used Auntie Cheung Tai’s fodder knife to cut off her sixth finger.

  It had never, ever occurred to her that she might have to use a knife on herself a second time.

  Six Fingers took the knife out of its sheath. Its blade shone with a cold gleam. Even though she never used it, Mak Dau took it back every couple of weeks and sharpened it for her. She held it close to her eyes and blew some hairs across the blade—the blade sliced them noiselessly in two. It was a trick Mak Dau had taught her for testing how keen the blade was.

  She rolled up her trouser leg. She had put on wide trousers today for their trip out to the new house, and once she had folded them loosely couple of times, she could see her thigh. Her flesh gleamed too, soft and white. She grasped the handle of the knife and began to tremble. She suddenly felt her age. She was thirty-five now, not a fearless seventeen-year-old any more.

  Back then she had had no one else to worry about. She had determined on one course of action and nothing was going to get in her way. Things were different now; her heart belonged to many people … her husband had a piece, so did her sons, and her mother-in-law. Only the smallest piece of her heart could be claimed as her own and that single-minded courage was gone.

  She raised the knife, then let it fall, raised it again, lowered it again. She put her left hand over her right, to force her right hand to do it. Cut, commanded the left hand; I’m afraid, whimpered the right hand. Torn between obeying the left and the right hand, she hesitated, and hesitated again. Just then, Mrs. Mak gave a groan. It was this sound which spurred Six Fingers into action and, without any further thought, she sliced downwards. She felt a sharp pain which ran up to her heart and seemed to take a piece out of it. She gave an agonized gasp. But when she dared to look down, she saw that she had only cut a thin layer of skin from her thigh.

  She did not have the courage to try again.

  “Mother!” she cried, throwing away the knife. But then remembered she had no mother. She found herself overcome by a fit of weeping. The tears came now not in drops but in torrents, surging down her face. Six Fingers wept uncontrollably.

  Picking up the knife, she jabbed it fiercely into the quilt next to where Mrs. Mak lay. Again and again she stabbed, in a rising frenzy, until cotton wadding filled the air like snowflakes. Mrs. Mak’s frail body pitched and tossed as Six Fingers pounded the bed.

  The old woman groaned again, and this time it was a long-drawn-out sound. She was calling for Ah-Fat.

  Six Fingers raised the knife again and, with her eyes shut, sliced down into her thigh. At first she felt no pain, just a creeping numbness. She tried to move her leg but it seemed not to belong to her body any more and her muscles would not obey her. She opened her eyes and saw on the tip of her knife a red lump the size of a pigeon’s egg, one end of which was attached by a flap of skin to her thigh. Her flesh. It was her own flesh.

  The pain was like thousands of fine wires pulling so tight around her heart that they shredded it into tiny pieces. She tugged hard at the red lump and it came away in her hand. It was warm and sticky, and seemed to be pulsating. “Oh Buddha!” she tried to shout, but the sound died in her throat.

  Mak Dau was the first into the room. Six Fingers was sitting in a pool of blood. She thrust the thing in her hand at him. “Tell Ah-Choi, boil it up and give the soup to the Missus, quick.” Then she fell backwards onto the floor.4

  A short while later, Ah-Choi came in with the soup for Mrs. Mak. The bedding had been changed and the floor swept clean of cotton wadding, but a faint, rank smell of blood still lingered in the air. Ah-Choi felt a soft lump in her gut pulsing upward as if at any moment it might burst from her mouth. Mrs. Mak clenched her teeth and Ah-Choi had to force them open with the spoon. Finally, the bowl of soup went down.

  The old lady slept deeply for the entire afternoon. Towards evening, she awoke suddenly, opened her eyes wide and called for her servant. These were the first words she had spoken for two days. Ah-Choi hurried in. Mrs. Mak had thrown back the covers and was sitting upright, her withered hands scrabbling wildly in the air.

  “Soup … soup!” she was saying.

  Ah-Choi shouted to the cook to bring a bowl of lotus-seed soup. Mrs. Mak drank a spoonful—and spat it out. “Soup … that soup!” she repeated emphatically, the black holes of her sightless eyes directed intently at Ah-Choi.

  Ah-Choi suddenly understood that she meant the soup she had had at midday.

  “No, no, you can’t have any more of that,” Ah-Choi said into her ear. “The young Missus cut off her own flesh so we could make that soup for you. So you’d better hurry up and get better.”

  Mrs. Mak said nothing. She sat motionless, leaning against the bedhead. A long time passed. Ah-Choi was alarmed and tried to help the old woman lie down, but Mrs. Mak gripped her arm.

  “Tung-tree water. Comb.”

  “You’re not going out. What do you want to dress your hair for?”

  “Carry me … to see … the diulau,” commanded Mrs. Mak.

  Year two of the Republic (1913)

  Spur-On Village, Hoi Ping County, Guangdong Province, China

  Kam Ho saw them coming as he rode his tricycle towards the stand of wild banana trees.

  His dad had sent t
he tricycle from Gold Mountain when he was six years old. No one had ever seen such a thing back then, and hordes of village children pursued him madly as he rode it from one end of the village to the other and back again. When he had had enough of riding it, they wanted to borrow it. There were so many of them that he did not know who to lend it to. “Get them to bring you something in exchange,” advised Kam Shan. The children queued up in droves, some holding grasshoppers, others with sparrows or glass marbles or cakes made of green beans or sesame seeds. Kam Ho still could not make up his mind and was happy to take his elder brother’s advice. So, for a while, the brothers were cocks of the walk and a magnet for trouble in the village. But it did not last; children from other Gold Mountain families were sent tricycles too and Kam Ho’s was no longer a rarity.

  Kam Ho had outgrown it years ago: his thirteen-year-old legs were bent double over the tiny wheels and looked quite comical. He wanted his mother to write and ask his father to send a bicycle, a big one like the missionary teachers at the school in Yuen Kai rode, but she refused. He was saving his money for a boat passage home, she told him, and she would not ask him to spend it on anything else. Kam Ho’s father had left when he was barely a month old and he had no memories of him. He was eager to see his dad, but he also badly wanted a bicycle. He’d just have to wait until his dad saved up the money and came home. Then he could ask him.

  It was midday and all the men were taking their noon meal in the fields, eating the sweet potato and rice, and radish soup that their women had brought them in pottery containers. As the women waited for them to finish, they brought out their needlework and sat on the field embankments, their fingers flying deftly back and forth. There were no children to be seen in the village at this time of day—they were down at the No-Name River, splashing naked in the water. This year the spring rains had gone on and on. But then quite suddenly they had ceased and it was summertime. The children had waited a long time for this moment, and as soon as the first rays of sunshine broke through, they were impatient to get into the river. So the village was quite quiet. Even the dogs could not be bothered to bark.

  Two men walked on the road beside the river, one in front and one in back. The first wore a grey silk gown, clearly brand new from its sharp folds. He had a felt hat on his head and a yellow oiled-paper umbrella in his hand. Every aspect of his appearance seemed out of place: after all, it was too warm for felt hats, and there was no need for an umbrella. Behind him came the porter; he wore a bamboo hat, a short patched jacket and rolled-up trousers which revealed legs covered in mud. He was weighed down by his carrying pole and the loads at each end almost brushed the ground.

  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.