Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  Kam Shan stood on the stool, hitched up his jacket and put his hand down his trousers. He pulled out his penis. It grew thick in his hand, and its colour changed from brown to pink. He directed it at the window and began to squirt a stream of hot, yellow urine up and down the window bars. The ants scrambled over each other to escape. The liquid turned a muddy black from the ants, and the window bars thinned down again. The boy was taken aback at first, then burst out laughing.

  They were still hooting with laughter when they heard a cry in the corridor.

  It was a terrible scream, so razor sharp that it seemed to slash the heavens, drain the sunlight away and plunge everything into gloom. There was a confused patter of footsteps from the courtyard and half a dozen white-coated yeung fan rushed past their door carrying a stretcher. A body lay on it, covered from head to foot in a white sheet stained crimson. It was wrapped tightly around the body but not tightly enough, and Kam Shan saw the pointed toe of a very small shoe poking out.

  It was a cloth shoe, with a pink lotus flower on the toe. Women in Spur-On Village often embroidered this sort of lotus flower on the shoes they wore for visiting.

  But Kam Shan knew this particular lotus flower: it had a yellow dragonfly resting on it.

  It belonged to Ah-Lam’s wife.

  “She must have cut her throat,” commented the kid from Toi Shan. But it was another two weeks, when his father finally came to get Kam Shan out of the detention centre, before he found out how she died.

  She had not cut her throat. She had rammed a pair of chopsticks into her ears and bled to death. Earlier that morning, they had taken her clothes off and groped her all over. They told her it was a medical examination, but Ah-Lam’s wife had never had a medical examination like this, and after it, she no longer wanted to live.

  That evening, Kam Shan shone the light at the wall by the bed and scratched four words on it. He did them with his thumbnail, big and clear enough that they could be read without the need for sunlight.

  “I fuck your mother,” he wrote.

  After the Whispering Bamboos Laundry was looted, forcing the business to close for the third time, Ah-Fat decided to try a new tack. He had bought a piece of wasteland on the outskirts of New Westminster, about twelve miles from Vancouver, and he and Ah-Lam cleared it and went into business as market gardeners. They hired two labourers, and kept several dozen chickens and ducks, a dozen sheep and a dozen pigs. The manure fertilized the fields; they could sell the eggs and meat at the farmers’ market in town and keep back a small quantity for their own needs. They even bought a cart to carry the goods.

  Ah-Lam’s family had been market gardeners in Hoi Ping and, although the varieties of vegetables in Gold Mountain were a bit different, he knew all about growing them. Ah-Fat had grown up watching his father slaughter pigs and sheep, so that part came easy too. And so Fong Yuen Cheong’s prediction that his son would “travel thousands of li to butcher pigs” came to pass, after all these years.

  The two men left Vancouver’s Chinatown and began a new life. Under Ah-Fat’s management, the piece of wasteland eventually turned into a big farm, famous for miles around. But that, of course, was later. Just now Ah-Fat was thinking of turning those eggs, vegetables, fruit and meat into money, and that money into more land. After thirty years in Gold Mountain, Ah-Fat had developed a yearning for Gold Mountain land.

  The day that Ah-Fat fetched Kam Shan from the detention cell at Customs and Immigration, Kam Shan had no time to become acquainted with the marvels of Vancouver. They headed straight home. It was well into autumn by then and the fruit trees had lost their leaves. All the vegetables had been harvested and the land lay bare and bleak. A small, flimsy shack stood at the edge of the field, with a rough fence erected around it. Along the fence were a number of large, upended baskets, the “pens” for a hundred or so chickens and ducks that squawked and quacked frantically. It had just rained and, at the edge of the track, piglets rootled through the muddy puddles, flicking their tails and leaving behind piles of smelly dung on the ground. The field, the hut, the track—the entire scene was bleak and desolate in a way that Spur-On Village never was.

  It was not that Kam Shan knew nothing of Gold Mountain. But his expectations had been gleaned from his father’s Gold Mountain suitcases, Gold Mountain clothing and Gold Mountain habits. That was the far-distant Gold Mountain. He had not the faintest idea that the real Gold Mountain would not live up to his dreams. The truth left him dumbstruck.

  Kam Shan followed Ah-Fat to the hut without speaking. They pushed open the door. An old man sat inside, lighting a pipe. There were stools in the hut but the old man was squatting on the floor, making slurping sounds—not from sucking his pipe but from the trails of snot which ran in and out of his nostrils with each breath. It was a warm day but he wore an old padded jacket, the front of which was encrusted with bits of dried rice and sauce.

  “Kneel and kowtow to your uncle Ah-Lam,” said Ah-Fat to his son. Kam Shan was taken aback; he scarcely recognized the old man. It was only two weeks since Ah-Fat and Ah-Lam had come to the detention centre to visit Ah-Lam’s wife and Kam Shan. But the death of his wife had reduced him to a feeble and senile state. A man really could not live without a wife.

  Ah-Fat got Kam Shan’s bundle down from the cart, then wrung out a wet towel and gave it to his son to wipe his face and neck. “Kam Shan,” he said, “I’ve been thinking I really want to send you to school before you start working. There’s a school here on the way to the farmers’ market. I can drop you off on my way.” Kam Shan shook his head. “But Mum sent me to help you. Mum said you were only a year older than me when you got here, and the moment you got off the boat you were working to support the family.”

  Ah-Fat was momentarily lost for words. He could not help remembering his arrival with Red Hair all those years ago—it was like another life. Red Hair’s bones must have turned to dust by now. He sighed: “I had no choice back then. It’s different now. The children of Gold Mountain men all go to school when they get here. And you’ve got to learn some English, haven’t you? I’m hoping you’ll soon be able to do business with the yeung fan.” “I’ve studied all I need to study,” said Kam Shan. “And I know a bit of English, the missionaries taught me. I’m not going to any school.”

  Ah-Lam sniffed noisily. “And if you don’t go to school, what’ll you do?” he asked. “Work the land? Look after the pigs? Slaughter the chickens? Hardly any Gold Mountain children do that kind of heavy work. Their parents mollycoddle them.” Kam Shan was silent for a minute. Then he said: “Dad, I can go to town with you and sell the vegetables. I mean, I do speak a bit of English.…”

  Ah-Fat had often heard Six Fingers say how pigheaded their son was, and decided to drop the subject for now. There would be time enough to work on changing his mind. He stifled his reservations and said: “If you don’t want to go to school, I won’t force you, son. But there’s a Protestant church about fifteen minutes from here. The old pastor comes around almost every day to collect the hired hands and take them to church. You can go there and learn a bit more English.”

  Kam Shan looked more cheerful at this. “I know about Protestant missionaries,” he said. “They’re nice. The ones in Yuen Kai town dressed just like Chinese, in gowns and jackets, and they wore false pigtails too. Twice a month, they prepared three big woks of rice porridge and gave it out for free in front of the church. People lined up down the street for it.”

  Ah-Fat frowned unhappily at Kam Shan’s enthusiasm. “You’re not having anything to do with that religion, you’re just going there to learn English.” “What’s wrong with following their religion?” objected Kam Shan. “Everyone does in England, France, Germany and America. They’ve abolished the emperor, and poor and rich are equal.”

  Ah-Fat was overcome with a rush of uncontrollable anger. He hurled Kam Shan’s bundle to the floor and shouted: “If you want to be like the foreign devils, with no emperor to rule the country, no patriarch to rule the family,
then you just go ahead!” He was rigid with fury and thick, livid veins bulged from his forehead. But Ah-Lam pushed him onto a stool. “Heaven’s high and the Emperor’s far away,” he said. “What’s the point in getting on your high horse because your son’s said something against the Emperor? The porridge and pickled eggs is ready in the pot. Eat it while it’s hot. Kam Shan’ll be hungry after that long journey even if you’re not.”

  Then winter was on them, and there were no vegetables to sell at the market. The eggs kept well enough, so there was no need to go to town every day. Kam Shan went to church to learn English in the evenings, but by day he had nothing to do except listen to the two men telling him everything they had picked up about farming, to which he paid little attention.

  For the first few months, Kam Shan hung around on his father’s patch of land, until it came time to sow the new crops. The climate on the West Coast was so mild and humid that almost anything would grow. Ah-Fat planted all sorts of things—cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines, broccoli, green peppers, mint and a variety of cabbages, and more besides. Some of the seeds were imported from Guangdong and these too flourished, in spite of the different soil and climate. He had fruit trees too, apples, peaches, pears and cherries he had grafted himself. Even though the fruit was not ripe for harvesting yet, they had cucumber pickles and jam left over from the previous year, and freshly killed poultry and pork and lamb and eggs to take to market. Every few days, Ah-Fat would load up the cart with their produce, go and sell it in Vancouver, or sometimes New Westminster, and bring back any household items they needed. And Ah-Fat discovered that the son who took no interest in farming had something in his favour after all—he had a very useful face.

  Ah-Fat drove the cart to the farmers’ market first, and then put anything that was left over in baskets and hawked them door to door in the neighbouring streets and lanes. So long as he had his son with him, he could get rid of all the remaining produce quickly, and at a good price too.

  Kam Shan would not allow anyone to knock him down on prices.

  The way he stood up to people who wanted a bargain was both original and simple. He wreathed his face in a big smile. He was nothing like the other Chinese children who had just arrived in Gold Mountain, his father thought to himself with surprise. They were shy and timid, and, when in company, would huddle in the shadow of their elders. They hung their heads mutely and would not look you in the eye. They were rather expressionless—no great emotion ever crossed their faces. Everything about them recoiled from extremes so that they looked almost wooden.

  Kam Shan bore no resemblance to these children.

  On his first visit to the farmers’ market with Ah-Fat, a yeung fan woman twice his size tried to knock him down on a price. He beamed a smile at her that stretched from ear to ear. He could have bargained but he did not. He simply looked quietly at his customer again. His gaze needled her, but those needles were wrapped safely in the softness of his smile. Before they began to hurt, she was suddenly overcome by shame. None of the shoppers had even seen a smile like this, especially not in a young Chinese. There was no more quibbling about prices.

  Every market day, when one of the hired hands began to load up the cart, Ah-Fat would see his son’s face transform. It started in his eyes, where a watery pearl would moisten each eyeball. This pearl of moisture would expand until it filled his eyes and flowed into the corners, up to the eyebrows and down to the mouth. By the time Ah-Fat twitched the horse’s reins and the first muffled clop-clop of its hooves sounded on the narrow lane outside their door, Kam Shan’s smile had fully bloomed.

  Kam Shan’s smile, however, could ebb just as quickly as it surged up his face. After their produce had sold, and the hired hand started piling the empty baskets onto the cart, that smile shrank to nothing, like a puddle under the noonday sun. The horse plodded home through the gathering dusk and at the door of their hut, Ah-Fat could see that his son’s face had become as parched as a dried-up creek. It remained that way until the next market day.

  His son belonged in crowds. His element was the hustle and bustle and the bright lights of the city. The farm was too dull, too small and too quiet. Ah-Fat wondered how he would ever anchor him there.

  “Is Vancouver a big, noisy city, Dad?” Kam Shan suddenly asked Ah-Fat one day as they were sweeping the cart out ready for the journey home.

  Kam Shan was not like the other Gold Mountain children who used the name “Salt Water City” as their elders did. He called the city by its proper Canadian name. Ah-Fat realized that he had never shown his son around the city which had been his home for so many years.

  So one day, when they had sold all their produce, instead of setting off for the farm, Ah-Fat took his son to the newly built theatre in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The full version of The Fairy Wife Returns Her Son to Earth was showing that evening. Ah-Fat scrutinized the playbill carefully but could not see Gold Mountain Cloud’s name anywhere. He mocked himself for imagining that Gold Mountain Cloud, no doubt at the height of her fame now, would remember him.

  A few weeks later, Ah-Fat took Kam Shan to have afternoon tea with some of his old friends. After, they went to look at the crowds thronging the yeung fan department store, and finally Ah-Fat showed him the house where he had lived and where he used to keep shop.

  “This is the place the yeung fan destroyed. It’s been rebuilt.

  “This is where me and your uncle Ah-Lam first lived. They’ve added another storey to it now.

  “Italians lived here originally. In those days, no one wanted to rent to Chinese, except this old Italian. Too bad he died last year. He wasn’t even sixty.”

  Kam Shan only half-listened to Ah-Fat. He was too young to feel nostalgic about the past. Instead his eyes were drawn to the newspaper stand pasted with Chinese broadsheets. Watching his son standing on tiptoe, craning to see past the mass of bodies in front of him and read the news of the overseas Chinese community, suddenly reminded Ah-Fat what it was like being sixteen. He felt close to tears.

  “Any news?” he asked. His eyesight was not as good as it had been and he had trouble reading the newsprint.

  “Cockfighting. That’s in the Daily News here. Over there it’s the The Chinese Times. The Monarchist Reform Party and the Revolutionary Party are at each other’s throats.”

  “Rabble,” said Ah-Fat, pressing his lips together disdainfully, and Kam Shan knew he meant the Revolutionary Party.

  “There’s someone called Freedom Fung who rants away and he’s quite right. Why should we Chinese be ruled over by the barbarian Manchu for centuries?”

  Ah-Fat could not be bothered to argue. He pulled Kam Shan away, thinking to himself, ten or twenty years ago, I wouldn’t let you get away with talking crap like that. But Ah-Fat was no longer the hotheaded youngster he had once been.

  Ah-Fat showed his son all over Chinatown though he was careful to give a wide berth to the gambling den and the dingy room above it. They were the heart of Chinatown, but only grown men went there. One day his son would find his own way, and his experiences there would make him a man. It was not time yet to introduce Kam Shan to what went on in these shadowy nooks and crannies.

  Kam Shan felt completely at home in the farmers’ market of Vancouver. When the farm work got busy, he said to his father: “Let me and Loong Am go and sell the produce. You and Uncle Ah-Lam can carry on with the farm work.” Loong Am was the hired hand. Ah-Fat was not keen at first, but it soon became clear that Ah-Lam was deteriorating by the day and could not be left in charge. Kam Shan got his way.

  For the first few trips, Kam Shan was up before dawn to load the cart and back by dusk to eat dinner with them. He always came back with an empty cart and a careful record of all their sales. Ah-Fat, reassured, left him to his own devices.

  Later, however, things started to change. Kam Shan arrived back later and later, first by half an hour, then by one hour, then by two. One night, he didn’t get home till midnight. He said it was because there were more people keeping
poultry and it was getting harder to sell the eggs. When he could not sell them in the market, he had to go house to house to get rid of the rest and it took longer. Ah-Fat was only half convinced and took Loong Am to one side. The hired hand was an honest soul. He admitted that when Kam Shan had sold the vegetables, he bought Loong Am a theatre ticket and arranged to meet him at the entrance after the performance. What Kam Shan did in the meantime, he had no idea.

  Ah-Fat said nothing to this, but resolved to make a careful check of the accounts each day. The losses mounted up gradually—one day ten cents, the next, fifty cents—until finally receipts were down one or two dollars per trip compared to the earliest accounts. Those one or two dollars per trip added up to quite a considerable sum over time.

  One day Kam Shan got back from Vancouver after the evening meal. He was surprised to see no lights in the shack. Usually his father waited outside for him, holding the lantern to light his arrival. Not tonight. He unloaded the empty baskets, then groped his way to the door, carrying the whip. As he opened the door, he bumped into something hard. He rubbed his sore knee, and saw a small, winking red dot before his eyes. His father stood smoking a cigarette.

  He turned to run but it was too late. He felt a kick from a hobnailed boot at the back of his knee and he slumped to the ground. It struck him then that he was in the light and his father was in the shadows. His father could see him perfectly clearly, in fact had been waiting in the shadows for him for some time.