by Alison Wong
This was the place Father-in-law had rented: two rooms on the south side of a courtyard that was shared with three other families. Still in the eastern suburbs, where the Gold Mountain men buy when they come home with their riches.
There I learned to steam rice covered with half a finger of water. I learned how to hold a live chicken and a cleaver – how to pull the skin tight and pluck out the feathers of the throat. Bare pocked skin stretching over the windpipe, the way the eyes close in like a blade. I could pour the blood into a rice bowl, plunge the body into scalding water and strip off the feathers. One cut to pull down the warm entrails.
I learned to wash clothes, my hands stinging with the cold water of winter, callused from the smooth wooden stick, from beating a man’s trousers on stone.
And I went shopping in the market – the first time I had walked the dusty streets, the first time I had been out alone. I did not know how to carry the bottles of pickles and fish, the vegetables and the flour. Many times I dropped them and had to go back to buy all that I had broken.
My husband stayed with me six months, enough time to fill me with a son. Then he sailed for the New Gold Mountain and I came to his village. To the house of his mother and father and his older brother’s wife.
I wept for three days. Mother-in-law scolded, ‘Do you want your son to bear the mark of your tears?’ And so I tried to forget my husband – a man who made me laugh and cry and consider wondrous possibilities. I washed my face and closed my heart. And when my time came, I gave birth to twin boys.
This was a comfort to me. My husband’s older brother’s wife had no children, only daughters. The first was saved, the second smothered by ashes when she turned her face to suckle, and only after much weeping the third was left by the roadside. No one knows whether she was taken as a slave girl or eaten by dogs.
But I gave birth to sons, the first who looked like my mother and the second who took after his father. This was a double happiness, a blessing of the goddess Kuan Yin.
It was Sister-in-law’s envy that cursed us – that, and the ghosts of her daughters.
The day before their fifth birthday, my sons came down with fever. I boiled ten different herbs, fed my sons the bitter black tea; I took a coin and scraped their foreheads, the backs of their arms and along their spines; I went to the temple, lit incense and prayed to Buddha and Kuan Yin.
It was on the fourth day, the number of death, that the one like my mother died. Only the one like my husband survived.
Now I look at my son whom I love – I see the straightness of his nose, the fullness of his lips, a certain way of lifting his head when lost in contemplation – this is the shape, the space left behind by my husband.
Chung-yung’s Wife
Tíle Kíln
Every woman has two faces. One a fine white porcelain – a slipping smoothness, carefully shaped, dressed for the eye. The other big and raw and strong, ingrained with the hardness of life.
I do not speak these things; I cannot think in daylight. Only at night when all is quiet, when the only sounds are those of frogs calling and Father-in-law’s sporadic snoring. When I lie awake in this room barely big enough for the beds and the wooden barrel toilet.
I listen to Mother-in-law swear and push Father-in-law onto his side, his snort and snuffle and ease into breathing. I hear Sister-in-law cry out in her sleep, and I hold and kiss my son; smell the small boy smell of him, the mud and grass and lychee trees and play by the river.
My sons. My memory of their births and the aftermath is fragmented. Here, and not here, like reading a book where one central chapter has been reworked at random – here a full paragraph, there a full whitespace, here the end of a sentence with no beginning, there a beginning with no end.
I remember my body, squeezed by the hand of God, my innards pressed together, so that all I could do was stop breathing. I heard deep groaning. Tearing pain. The sound of boiling water, and far away Mother-in-law crying out, ‘His backside, it’s his backside.’
When I woke, Mother-in-law was screaming. I could not open my right eye. The pain in my head, in my body.
Then my left eye closed over.
The midwife called out, ‘It’s a boy, it’s a boy,’ but I could not see. My face was thick with pain – my forehead, my eyes, my ear.
Mother-in-law screaming at Sister-in-law. The midwife quietly saying, ‘There’s another.’
*
Later, Sister-in-law said she had done it to waken me. I had fainted with the pain of labour. So she had picked up the lid from the pot of boiling water and put it down on my forehead.
The heat of the metal burned into me, and when she pulled it away she took my skin also.
I could not open my eyes for nearly two days. Mother-in-law told me that my face swelled the way dried fish stomach puffs up when put into a slow fire. My right ear stuck out from my swollen head. My lips were fatter than Father-in-law’s fingers. I remember throbbing, the wound oozing into my hair and down my face, lying in bed shivering with cold, my bedclothes soaked with sweat. And I remember my sons – their thin cries like the mewls of two kittens.
I did not go out of the house for six months, and even then Mother-in-law would not let me stay in the sun. I did not wash clothes or gather firewood or shop in the market while my face and my body healed.
I have no right eyebrow now, no hair where the pot lid touched my face – just a raised, widened forehead, a sweeping arc of skin like a gibbous moon, pale and puckered, knotty, as if afflicted by tiny, colourless varicose veins. My right eye is pulled upwards, the whole of my face drawn tight by the scar.
My husband does not know – I am the only one who knows how to write.
*
There is an old saying: Never marry a woman from Tile Kiln. We live in a small village and theirs is large. When the sweet potato harvest is good, they come in the night, and by morning nothing remains. Never pick a fight with a man or woman from Tile Kiln, they say. Their brothers and uncles and cousins are too numerous.
Chung-shun’s Wife
The Dead
The earth’s full of the dead. They hold up the land and wander the streets. Come to the door, pretend they are beggars.
Alone. I hear knock-knocking, strange voices.
I am very still. Silent.
The New Gold Mountain is full of devils. They have red hair and big noses. They all look alike.
Husband went to the New Gold Mountain twenty-two years ago. Devils made him pay to get off the ship. He paid for the ship and then he still had to pay. All the money. Because we are Tongyan, he said. White devils don’t have to pay and black devils don’t have to pay, only people from the Middle Kingdom. This is the poll tax, he said, this is why I could not go with him.
I waited twenty-one years and he came back. Bought concubine. Bitch concubine that men go nerve-sick over. Her father gambled fantan and pakapoo and smoked up the money. Ha! Then he sold her to buy opium.
Husband took her to Canton. Paid for her to learn to read devil language so she could pass the devil test. He took her with him. Fuck her grandmother. She was first woman to see the New Gold Mountain. Husband is Number One Son, I am Wife. Every day I get up first. Use rice stalks to light the stove, boil the water, steep tea. Feed the fire with sticks from lychee orchard. Feed Mother- and Father-in-law.
Every day I get water from the river. Carry two big pails, swing my hips, swing the pails on the shoulder pole. Every day do what Mother-in-law says.
*
Husband has brother: Number Two Son. He left wife here too; went to be with Husband in the New Gold Mountain. Sister-in-law has small feet like rich man’s wife, so does not work in the field.
She writes the red scrolls, so we do not pay a scroll-writer. Around the door she writes, In and out of the house, walk in peace. She writes above the fireplace to protect us while cooking. On both sides of window, she writes. She writes the red paper scrolls with long curling black ink, so devils and ghosts do not come.
She writes the letters to my husband. I say, Tell him I am good wife – do everything Mother-in-law says. Tell him, Send plenty of money. Tell him, Come back. She tells him I am useless, no-good wife – I know. She tells him, Get concubine. Don’t come back. She reads Husband’s letters. Says concubine has a son.
Ghosts everywhere. On graves: dirt-hills with turf for head. There are no names. Where are the ancestors? Who can remember? The dead get dug up, their bones put in urns. Lychee orchard is full of urns. No lids, so dead can get out.
I do not go to lychee orchard. I tell Sister-in-law, Go get sticks for fire.
River is full, too. Full of drowned ghosts. Girl babies and bad women and boy babies who got sick and died. I tell Sister-in-law, Go wash the clothes in river, but she has small feet – I still have to bring back the water.
Long time ago Husband looks at me and says, ‘Stupid woman, scared of ghosts. That’s no ghost, just dirty beggar.’ He drinks wine, tells me ghost story . . . Night-time, raining hard. He walking home on built-up earth of rice paddy. Drunk and cannot walk straight. Terrible ghost comes, coming to him. He’s running; ghost coming. He runs faster, faster, ghost light still coming, tumbling over rice paddy. He falls in rice paddy; ghost still coming, big shiny ball, rolling, tumbling to him. Cannot get up, ghost coming.
‘What happens, what happens?’ I hide my head in my hands.
Husband laughs. ‘Ghost afraid, just like stupid woman,’ he says. ‘Ghost come closer, closer, then gone. Just rain on rice paddy.’
Night-time. Raining. I cannot sleep. Ghosts come. They stand over my bed. I see heads but no body. They all have girl faces.
Husband says the New Gold Mountain is full of white devils. They smell like sheep-meat and butter; they don’t like Tongyan. But not many ghosts in the New Gold Mountain. Not so many kill themselves or get killed. Husband says you hear someone outside door in the New Gold Mountain, this is not ghost, this is Tongyan or gweilo. No ghosts on raining night. He says, in the New Gold Mountain all ghosts are ghosts, you know.
I say, ‘Know, don’t know, don’t like ghosts.’
When I die, Mother- and Father-in-law dead, Husband in New Gold Mountain. Who burns paper money and incense and puts out food? Who looks after me?
The Concubíne’s Story
Mei-lin sat in the back of the shop, cutting sheets of paper from a huge roll, folding and pasting brown paper bags – ½, 1, 2, up to 5lb sizes. Wai-wai lay beside her in his apple-box crib. Every so often she would smile at him, make soft noises with her tongue and lips, and when her hands were tired she would stoop down and touch his face, let him grasp her little finger.
Shun tied bananas into bundles – each banana fastened by its stem, half an inch apart, a yellow staircase of fruit, string and slip-knots. As he finished he hung each bundle above the layers of polished fruit in the front window.
Mei-lin heard the nasal voice of the postman. She picked up Wai-wai and walked through the doorway into the shop. She knew, as Shun tore the envelope open, as he unfolded the yellow paper, that the letter was from the Wife. She watched his face, the slight crinkle of skin on his forehead, his eyes reading the words again. He refolded the paper precisely on its crease lines, replaced it in the envelope and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.
‘She wants the boy,’ he said, without looking at her.
The baby gurgled. Curdled milk spilled on his gown, across her breast, a dark stain spreading over the blue fabric of her dress. She wiped his face with the hem of his gown, turned, walked back through the doorway, up the stairs to the bedroom. Closed the door.
She was pouring water from a porcelain jug into the basin on the dresser when Shun came in. He reached out to touch her arm, but her body stiffened and his hand fell to his side.
‘She’s the Wife,’ he said quietly. ‘She has no sons.’
Mei-lin unbuttoned Wai-wai’s gown, eased his arms out of the sleeves. She took a white muslin cloth, dipped it in the basin and squeezed it out. Gently she wiped his face and chest.
Shun put his hand on her shoulder.
Turtle egg, she thought. Bastard. She swung round on him, saw his eyes flicker wide, his hands lift as he stumbled backwards. She stopped, turned back to the baby.
She had always spoken carefully, her words liquid, a fragrant oil.
Pig. Raised by a dog.
He stood away from her, just a little further than a hand could reach. ‘We have each other,’ he said. ‘What does she have?’
Fart talk. She pulled a towel from the end of the bed, wrapped Wai-wai in it. Turned to face him, holding her son against her shoulder.
‘Where are we? China? You are the Husband!’
Wai-wai started to cry. She jiggled the boy in her arms, made soft clicking noises with her tongue.
‘He’s the oldest son, we have to send him home, how will he get an education—’
‘When he’s old enough, of course, send him home, but why now? He’s only a baby!’
Shun looked away, said nothing.
‘If you have any feeling for me, then find it in your liver . . .’ She tried to reach out to him, but he pulled away.
‘She knows Cousin Gok-nam is going home, maybe the year after next.’ Shun stopped, looked across at her. ‘His wife could look after the boy on the ship.’
That night Mei-lin cooked rice, and pork-bone and puha soup: nothing else. She set out two pairs of chopsticks, two china spoons, two pale green rice bowls. She served the father of her son and his brother, then sat down away from the table, holding Wai-wai on her knees. She sat watching them as they sucked the fat marrow, the gelatinous gristle, as they flicked the soft grey meat off with their tongues, leaving clean ribs and knuckles on the table. A tide line on the wooden surface.
Hours later, as she lay in bed, she heard Shun climbing the stairs – the creak of the fifth step from the top, the way he leaned more onto his right leg than his left. She turned away from the door, pulled the spun-cotton quilt over the back of her head. The door opened, clicked shut. She heard the metal of his braces hitting the floorboards, felt the shift in the mattress as he climbed into bed. The smell of cigarettes. Ng Ga Pei wine.
She had never refused him. Every night she had massaged his feet, kissed his cock, told him little lies. Their room was a tent of hibiscus: when they weren’t lying together like clouds and rain, she would rub his shoulders and neck, ease him into sleep. He had paid 500 man for her. But she had made him love her.
He lifted her pyjama top, slid his cracked hands down her pants, scratched over her buttocks, her hips, across her breasts. She tried to turn, to push him away, but he held her, pushed hard into her. At the window lace curtains lifted and fell. She could see clouds in a small rectangle of sky, ghost lit, moving, moving away, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t open her mouth or twist herself free. She heard a cry she did not recognise, a wrenching, her nails clawing across his cheeks.
‘Bitch!’ He punched her hard in the face. Got up, grabbed at his clothes.
She heard the door slam, stumbling down the stairs, cursing, leaving by the back door. Wai-wai screaming. She lay on the bed shaking, cradling her bloodied face, her body curled, closed like a fist.
Slíces of Crow
It was after midnight. The northerly had freshened and Shun shivered. He had left the house blindly, wearing only his crumpled shirt and trousers, his slippers. A fine mist of rain settled on his hair and skin, dampness in his head.
That evening he had closed the shop early, before ten o’clock, and had sat alone in the kitchen long after Yung had gone to bed. ‘Market in the morning,’ his brother had said, ‘I’ll go.’ He’d said it a little too loudly, with an edge of brightness, and Shun had watched him, and watched him walk up the stairs, and thought about Mei-lin and Wai-wai lying in bed asleep, about his wife back home in China.
He finished the bottle of rice wine in the cupboard, the one Mei-lin used for cooking, and then opened another. He was hot and knew his
face had the redness of a non-drinker. He poured the burnt-orange liquid into his glass; it smelled of rind mixed with strong alcohol. His lips stretched into a thin smile. ‘Gon booi,’ he said, dry the cup, raising his glass to the empty chairs, to the kettle growing cold on the range.
He wanted to shut down his mind, like Ah Wing who spent all his money on pakapoo and hundred men’s women, and never sent remittances home. But Ah Wing was cursed, cursed by his mother and cursed by his father: a man who would die and never find rest, destined to wander with no one to lay out food for him, no one to burn paper money and paper clothes and houses. A hungry beggar.
Shun felt inside his jacket but couldn’t find the pocket, then realised he was looking on the wrong side. There – in the lining, a crinkle of paper. He pulled out the envelope and read the words slowly – this was his name, this was his address. In this no man’s land, even his name had become something he did not understand.
Wong Chung-shun.
Husband.
Wife.
Mother of his Son.
He lifted his glass. In the light the liquor flashed orange, gold, polished tortoiseshell, like the comb Mei-lin wore in her black, oiled hair. He pushed back his chair, left the envelope, the full glass of wine on the table, and lurched to the stairs. His leg ached; his limp was always more pronounced when he was tired. He wanted – desperately.
*
He’d watched her at night pull combs from her hair, watched it slowly uncoil and fall down her back as if alive. When she came to him as he lay on the bed, her hair fell loose over him, entangled him, and he imagined she had come from water, her hair thick, shiny as black seaweed.
He liked the small gasps she made when he entered her, again and again. He liked the smallness of her, the way he could lift and move her like a doll. He’d known when he first saw her, when her father let him see her from behind the curtain. He’d wanted to take her. To come from behind and pull her into darkness, before she saw his face. Before she knew his name. He knew from that moment he would fuck her. Own her.
