by Ling Zhang
“Who the hell’s Sundance?” she grumbled. Without waiting for an answer, she turned over and went back to sleep.
Did I really shout “Sundance”? Kam Shan wondered to himself.
He had been dreaming the same dream for months. The same grass, the same expanse of blue sky, the same sun, the same dog, the same woman. He even jerked awake at the same moment each time. Sometimes he woke up for a piss and afterwards would take up his dream at the point where it had been interrupted.
Were Sundance’s gods calling him?
Kam Shan and his father, Ah-Fat, had been growing bean sprouts at home for some years now. Sometimes they supplied supermarkets; sometimes they sold the bean sprouts to hawkers. Many of the hawkers were Indians. The women, especially the younger ones, often attracted Kam Shan’s attention. Could one of them be Sundance? He laughed at his own foolishness. She had only been a year or two younger than he, so she would be middle-aged by now. Still, he always imagined her as a young girl.
Yet in all these years, although he had had dealings with many Redskins, he had never run into Sundance, or even any member of her family. The year before the war started he had written to her, but the letter, after much forwarding, had been returned to him undelivered. He knew that many Redskins had left their reserve to work in the city, so perhaps she was in Vancouver. But even if she brushed against him in the street, she probably would not know him. How could she recognize in this puny little man hobbling along with his lame leg the fiery youth she had once known?
Kam Shan wiped the sweat from his forehead and lay down again. With Cat Eyes’ snores reverberating in his ears, all thoughts of sleep vanished.
As Cat Eyes put on weight over the years, her snores grew louder. Kam Shan, on the other hand, slept more lightly. Sometimes he could not sleep at all and lay watching her. Her slack mouth hung open, and he could see her tongue moving back and forth with each snore. It was all he could do not to throttle the woman. Years ago, he could at least take refuge in Yin Ling’s room and get some sleep there. After her second departure, they kept her room ready for her return. Then a couple of years slipped by without news and Cat Eyes said there was no point leaving it empty, they could get a bit of cash renting it out. An assistant cook from the restaurant moved in. After that, there was nowhere for Kam Shan to go and sleep peacefully so he just had to lie awake until daybreak.
But there was something else. And he found it much worse than her snoring.
Cat Eyes’ periods had become irregular and she had a continuous discharge. Her body smelled putrid, like maggoty meat. It was not so bad during the day when she had layers of clothes on, but at night, when she took them off, the smell turned his stomach. She had been to see the herbalist in Canton Street but he just said she was overworking and was rundown. Some nourishing chicken soup would cure her. They had bought several fine hens and made soup from them but nothing had helped. Kam Shan urged her to see a Canadian doctor but she said she was not going to take off her clothes in front of a yeung fan. They argued and argued but she would not go.
Who would have thought that Cat Eyes would die so young? She had the most stamina of all of them, trotting back and forth all day in the restaurant, six days a week, and throwing herself into games of mahjong on her day off. And then one day she just died.
It started with her periods, then she got terrible pains in her legs. These became so bad that she had to take time off work. Kam Shan angrily accused her of laziness but Cat Eyes did not answer back. She just responded with a foolish smile. In fact, her illness made her more sweet-tempered than she had ever been. Eventually Kam Shan noticed that she could not turn over in bed without breaking out in a sweat, and realized she was seriously ill, but it was too late.
She sank into a deep sleep that lasted for several days, and then suddenly woke and asked Kam Shan to go and get her three mahjong friends. “Are you really up to playing mahjong?” asked Kam Shan disbelievingly. But his father gave him a look: “You can see she won’t last much longer,” he said. “Go and get them.” Kam Shan set up the mahjong table at her bedside and the four women played till dawn. They knew she was dying, and let her win. That night, Cat Eyes filled a whole bag with her winnings, which pleased her immensely.
After they left that morning, she began to fail. Her face was drawn and her hands trembled. She asked Kam Shan for a cigarette. She had been smoking for some years, the cheapest brand, of course. Kam Shan took out one of his own, then put it back in the packet and went down the street to get a packet of fine-cut State Express 555. He lit one and put it in her mouth, but Cat Eyes did not have time to smoke it.
She pointed up to the attic room, and said two words: “Yin Ling.…” Then she was gone.
Later Kam Shan went up to the attic. After a good deal of searching, he found a letter and a moth-eaten old handkerchief bag in one corner. The envelope was from St. Joseph’s Hospital and contained some receipts and a letter with test results. The letter was in English and Kam Shan had to find someone with medical knowledge who could read it for him. It confirmed a diagnosis of late-stage cervical cancer. The letter said that the cancer had developed from chronic cervical erosion and had spread to her liver and bones. It was dated some months back.
Cat Eyes had seen a doctor and knew quite well what she was suffering from, Kam Shan realized. For all her adult life Cat Eyes had tried to put the degradation of her life as a Gold Mountain child prostitute behind her. Acknowledging this disease would have brought it all back. Rather than face that shame, she preferred to get along as best she could without treatment until death claimed her.
The bag contained a roll of mildewed banknotes, some of them nibbled by rats. She must have secretly stashed this money away for Yin Ling’s wedding, Kam Shan guessed. She had slaved away for the Fong family all these years, and not one of them had honoured her for it, he thought. Even her own daughter was not there to pay her last respects.
As he held the bag in his hands, Kam Shan was overwhelmed with sadness.
The next day, Kam Shan went to the funeral home to order a gravestone for Cat Eyes. When it came to the inscription, Kam Shan realized that in all their years together, he had never asked Cat Eyes’ formal given name, so he decided on “Mrs. Chow, wife of Fong Kam Shan.” Cat Eyes could never have imagined that in death, she would be given the title she longed for all her life.
Ah-Fat and Kam Shan went to market to sell their bean sprouts once week.
After their work was finished, they went to Shanghai Street or Canton Street for a bowl of jellied bean curd and pan-fried dumplings, and browse through the Chinese newspapers, which the owner laid out on the table. They were up early on market days and there was no time for breakfast, so this meal was breakfast and lunch combined. They ate in leisurely fashion, reading the papers as they did so.
Today they were in the Lei King Restaurant. They had a bowl of soy milk each to start and then Ah-Fat ordered a portion of lotus dumplings and one of char siu dumplings, four spring rolls, two portions of pan-fried dumplings, a bowl of shrimp soup and finally, a bowl of trotters in ginger. “However will you eat all that, Dad?” exclaimed Kam Shan. “What we don’t eat we can take away,” said Ah-Fat.
Although summer was nearly over, the weather was still warm and the hot soy milk made Ah-Fat break out in a sweat. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his face, and felt a letter in there. It was from Six Fingers. Since the fall of Hong Kong, the mail routes had been disrupted and hardly any letters got through—only two in the last couple of years.
It was a short letter, only a few lines, addressed to Kam Shan.
My dear son,
A year has passed since your last letter. We are under constant bombardment so the rare letters which arrive are worth their weight in gold. There is tumult throughout the countryside and terrible things, too numerous to mention, have happened. I will tell you more when we meet. Fortunately, your sister Kam Sau survived the calamity that befell her, and I hope that things
will be better for her in the future. Are you all right in Gold Mountain, Kam Shan? Is there any news of Kam Ho? Yin Ling must be so grown up by now that I would hardly recognize her. I burn incense and pray to the Bodhisattva every day that you are all safe and well and that we will meet again after this war is over.
Ah-Fat had had the letter in his pocket for a few days. Every day he took it out and scanned it again, and the paper was beginning to fray at the edges. There was something odd about the letter that puzzled him; it was short, but still asked for news of family members—except Cat Eyes and himself. Six Fingers never asked about Cat Eyes, as if there was no such person in the Fong family. For their part, they had not told her of Cat Eyes’ death and Yin Ling’s disappearance. But now, in this letter, Six Fingers had made no mention of Ah-Fat either. It struck him as odd. It occurred to him he ought to sit down one day and write her a letter to ask for an explanation, but he did not know if the letter would ever arrive.
Kam Shan was starving. He wolfed down a pan-fried dumpling, the meat juices leaving his chin shiny with oil. Ah-Fat noticed that his son’s shirt cuffs were frayed and worn and he thought to himself that it certainly made a difference when there was no woman at home. They may have been poor when Cat Eyes was alive, but at least the men of the house went out looking neat and tidy. Kam Shan started to look dishevelled almost immediately following her death. Ah-Fat sighed: “Kam Shan, when things settle down and the war is over, you and me are going back to Hoi Ping so we can fix you up with another wife.” Kam Shan turned one page after another until his fingers were covered in newsprint. Then he picked his nose, leaving his nostrils smudgy. Finally, he laughed. “Dad, even if I marry again, I can’t bring her to Gold Mountain. I’m better off single. It saves a lot of trouble.”
Ah-Fat frowned. “Aren’t you going home to retire?” he asked. “I’ve still got family in Vancouver,” Kam Shan said. “What about when Yin Ling comes back?” Ah-Fat’s frown deepened. “But there’s been no news of her for years,” he protested. “You don’t even know if she’s still alive!” Kam Shan swilled his mouth out with tea and spat it on the floor. “Oh, she’s alive all right,” he said confidently. “Like father, like daughter. Yin Ling’s as tough as old boots. When she gets fed up with messing around, she’ll come home.”
Ah-Fat drank his soy milk and put the bowl down. The leftover food was placed in a bag and Ah-Fat picked it up, saying he was heading home. He left Kam Shan to settle the bill.
But he did not go home. Instead, he turned the corner and headed for Canton Street in search of Gold Mountain Cloud.
She was still living in the tiny basement room of the theatre. It had single window no more than a foot square and was so gloomy she had to keep the light on in broad daylight. Ah-Fat knew his way. He went straight down the narrow dark alley and pushed open the door of her room. Gold Mountain Cloud was working on some wool from an old sweater she had unravelled. She had washed it and steamed out the kinks in a wok. Now the yarn was dry and she was winding it into hanks around the back of the chair. This was pure lambswool, bought years ago when she toured Australia, and since she had not worn the sweater much, the wool was still good as new.
The dank chill made Ah-Fat’s teeth chatter and the sweat on the back of his neck evaporated. “This is a rathole,” he said angrily. “It’s not fit for anybody to live in.” “That’s not a very polite way to greet someone,” said Gold Mountain Cloud. Ah-Fat hurriedly turned it into a joke: “Was there ever a rat as fine-looking as you? If there was, I’d have been quite happy to marry it.” “Really!” exclaimed Gold Mountain Cloud. “Just remember to repeat that in front of your son, so you have a witness.” Ah-Fat looked embarrassed and fell silent.
Gold Mountain Cloud took the bag from Ah-Fat’s hand, then measured his waist with a tape, doing sums in her head as she did so. “What are you doing?” asked Ah-Fat. “I’m going to knit you a new vest. The weather’s getting cold, and that vest you’ve got on is full of holes. Not that you’d notice, since they’re all on the back.”
Gold Mountain Cloud was wearing a silver-grey tunic, somewhat worn, with a small darn at the collar, but clean and neat. Her hair was quite grey but still thick. She wore it coiled into a bun, low at the nape of her neck, with a sprig of jasmine stuck in it. When she talked, the fine lines which covered her face rippled outwards in a ready smile.
Ah-Fat stared at her. “What a woman you are.…” he said. “What woman am I?” “You’ve gone from a life of luxury to dire poverty, but you’re still able to make the most of it.” Gold Mountain Cloud laughed. “I’m better off than many people,” she said. “I’ve got food to eat and a roof over my head.” “That’s true,” said Ah-Fat, “and tomorrow I’m going to buy you a coal stove. That little steam heater will never get you through the winter.” Ah-Fat took the snacks out of the bag. “Bring bowls and chopsticks, and we’ll eat them while they’re still warm.” They had just settled down when they heard a puttering sound in the street outside. “It’s gunfire,” said Gold Mountain Cloud. Ah-Fat got up to look and came back saying it was firecrackers. “Firecrackers?” exclaimed Gold Mountain Cloud. “It’s not a holiday!” Ah-Fat stood on tiptoe and craned his neck but all he could see through the tiny window was the corner of the street. A man passed carrying a slender bamboo cane at the top of which were tied a string of firecrackers. They exploded into the air with deafening crackles, and released a shower of red confetti which floated like moths into the sky. Crowds of people erupted into the quiet street from houses and shops.
Ah-Fat, still barefoot, leapt for the door. Gold Mountain Cloud followed and threw his shoes after him: “Such a child!” she said.
In a few moments he was back, puffing and panting, and stood leaning against the wall, unable to speak. Gold Mountain Cloud could see tears in his eyes. They spilled down over his high cheekbones and collected, glittering, in the groove of his faded old scar. Gold Mountain Cloud had never seen Ah-Fat cry. “What on earth’s the matter?” she kept asking. Finally Ah-Fat got the words out: “The Japs … they’ve surrendered.”
They sat down at the table and resumed their interrupted lunch. Ah-Fat took a bite out of a lotus dumpling, then dropped it into his bowl, took a spring roll, bit into it and threw that down too. He could not eat. Then he blurted out:
“Cloud, I can go home now. I’ve never seen my daughter, or my son-in-law or my grandchildren, not once. My wife probably won’t even recognize me. When she writes now, she never even asks after me. She must be really angry with me.”
He talked on, but Gold Mountain Cloud said nothing. With her chopsticks, she pinched a few remaining bean sprouts which had escaped from the spring roll, moving them around the bottom of her bowl but making no attempt to lift them to her mouth. It suddenly occurred to Ah-Fat that Gold Mountain Cloud had no family left in Guangdong, her elder brother having died in Montreal some years ago.
He looked at her and put the question carefully: “What if I take you back to Hoi Ping? Will you come?” Her chopsticks came to a halt, and the scraps of bean sprouts trembled and dropped off.
“As your … what?” she asked.
Ah-Fat felt his mouthful of spring roll turn to grit. He worked and worked at it with his tongue and finally managed to swallow it down.
“My wife’s a good woman; she’ll treat you with respect. So long as you don’t mind.”
Gold Mountain Cloud gave a short laugh. “I’d be treated as your second wife—at my age, with one foot in the grave. My reputation would be in shreds.”
Ah-Fat said nothing, just lit a cigarette and inhaled. Swirls of smoke came and went across his face, but there was no disguising his uneasiness.
Then he stubbed his cigarette butt out in the bowl and abruptly got to his feet. “Cloud, you’re only three years younger than my wife. She can treat you as a sister. If I decide to bring my sister home to live out her old age, who’s going to make a fuss? You get your things together, and I’ll get Kam Shan to find out the boat times.”
“Ask your wife what she thinks!”
Ah-Fat mumbled yes and hurried home to write his letter. He had not written for a long time. The materials he used for his letter-writing business had been stowed away in a corner of the attic when they cleaned up after Cat Eyes died. He brought them down and dusted off the rolls of paper. There was a crack in the ink stone, he noticed, and the paper had yellowed. But they would do.
He ground the ink, laid out the paper and wrote in shaky characters: “My dear wife.” Then he stopped. He racked his brains but for the life of him he could not think what to say. Then suddenly, lines of the classical poet Du Fu came to him, from the poem “On hearing that Imperial troops have recaptured Henan and Hebei,” and he wrote:
Word comes from the North of towns retaken
When I first hear the news, tears wet my gown
I turn to my wife and children, sorrowful no more
Rolling up our poem scrolls, we are wild with joy.
Once he had these lines from the poem down on the paper, it seemed to clear his head, and he wrote fluently. He reread up and down the page, time and again, well pleased. His brushwork was as bold as ever. He added a final line:
Like General Lian Po of ancient times, I may be old, but I can still chew my food. What do you think of my calligraphy, Ah-Yin?
He finished, sealed the envelope, went to the corner shop to buy a stamp and dropped the letter into the mailbox. When he got home, he shouted but there was no answer from Kam Shan. He went into his son’s room but he was not there either. Ah-Fat sat down on the bed, and felt suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He lay down on the bed, feeling drained. As he took a breath, the smell of grease and dirt rushed headlong up his nostrils, making him sneeze. He quickly turned the pillow over. Men without women … it just didn’t do, he thought to himself, and instantly fell into a deep sleep.
