Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  Mrs. Henderson let go of Jimmy’s hand but it was too late. Jenny whirled past, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind her. Mrs. Henderson stood up and found that her knees, devoured by so many years of pain, were suddenly filled with renewed vigour and elasticity. Heedless of her body, they hurtled her legs forward. Down the stairs she rushed in pursuit of her daughter, and out into the street.

  She caught up with Jenny at the end of the street. She glimpsed a flash of Jenny’s pink dress, seized hold and flung herself on top of it. Jenny struggled but could not free herself. She elbowed her mother savagely in the chest. Mrs. Henderson felt as if she had been clubbed. She lifted her head, then saw stars.

  When she came to, a group of people were standing around her. She heard a woman holding a parasol say to a man: “It’s been a day for strange happenings on this street. Just now Jenny was dashing down the street and, just in front of the school gate, she was hit by a car, poor thing.”

  Mrs. Henderson suddenly recalled Jenny’s eyes. When Jenny had looked at her, her eyes had blazed like brilliant beads.

  Mrs. Henderson began to claw frantically at her cheeks, over and over, until they were covered in bloody streaks. No one knew that she was trying to dig out the glass beads buried in her face.

  Dear Kam Ho,

  The fifty dollars which you entrusted to Tai Sek Lou for me have arrived safely. He told me that you and your brother have finally convinced your father to close the café and are pressing him to buy his passage home for good. He has always been so stubborn and it is hard for him to face coming home in poverty. I hope you and your brother will continue to support and comfort him.

  The Japanese invaders have got as far as Wai Yeong, and one market day, their planes strafed a crowd of market-goers. Three of your wife Ah-Hsien’s family died and two were injured. Only your father-in-law and brother-in-law escaped because they had taken their sows to a nearby village to be mated. Your younger brother-in-law’s death was especially terrible—half his body was blown into a tree and his guts spilled all over the ground. Apart from bombing, the Japanese army commit atrocities wherever they go, raping, killing, pillaging and burning.

  Given the current instability here, your father should stay where he is for now, and be in no hurry to come home. As he gets older, he hardly ever bothers to write. I have had almost no letters from him this year. I am lucky to have your frequent letters which are a great comfort to me. Your sister, Kam Sau, and your brother-in-law, Ah-Yuen, have graduated from college and returned to set up a school here. They teach boys and girls together, and the school is beginning to make a name for itself. Pupil numbers are going up. Your son, Yiu Kei, has started school. He is a bright boy and is making good progress. All the teachers are pleased with him. He and Kam Sau’s son, Wai Kwok, are inseparable friends. It is sad that Yiu Kei has not yet met his father and has only the vaguest idea who you are. I too am getting older and long to have my children and grandchildren around me. I will only be happy when your father, you, Kam Shan and Yin Ling all come home after the war is over and we can be a family once more.

  Your mother, eighth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-seventh year of the Republic, Spur-On Village

  Year twenty-nine of the Republic (1940)

  Vancouver, British Columbia

  Kam Ho got up in the morning and went to make coffee. In the kitchen, he glanced out the window at the cherry tree. Almost all its leaves had fallen but he saw some small red dots and went out into the garden to look. The tree had suddenly grown a slender new branch and a few buds had sprouted. He cut the branch off, put it in a vase and carried it in and up the stairs for Mrs. Henderson.

  At the foot of the stairs, he bumped into Mr. Henderson, who was on his way out to walk the dog. “Good morning!” Kam Ho greeted him. “Did ma’am sleep well?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt foolish. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson had had separate bedrooms for a number of years now.

  Mr. Henderson did not reply, just peered at the vase in Kam Ho’s hand. “You’re not going home next weekend. I’m taking you to White Rock to do some fishing.”

  Kam Ho had gone fishing a few times with Mr. Henderson and had discovered that the head of the family was a poor fisherman—impatient and clumsy. Mr. Henderson’s real reason for going off with a mountain of tackle was to get away from home and spend a bit of time outdoors. He reminded Kam Ho of a small boy ditching school. Kam Ho hesitated, then said: “Then there’ll be no one at home. Ma’am.…” Mr. Henderson shook his head resignedly: “Of course.…” Kam Ho watched him walk away with the dog, and was struck by how doddery he was getting as the years went by.

  By the time Kam Ho went into her room, Mrs. Henderson was awake and staring blankly at the ceiling. Kam Ho drew her hands out from under the covers and began to untie the cords which bound her wrists. All the muscle tone had gone and they were as slack as hot-water dough, which made things much more difficult for Kam Ho.

  Since Jenny died, Mrs. Henderson had been alternately confused and lucid. As time passed, her moments of lucidity grew shorter and shorter; her bouts of confusion, on the other hand, lasted longer and longer. She frequently scratched her own face though she seemed to feel no pain. She explained that she was trying to dig out Jenny’s eyes. Every evening before bedtime, Kam Ho tied her wrists together.

  Kam Ho saw a row of red pea-sized blotches on Mrs. Henderson’s wrists and guessed that she had had a restless night. He brought the vase close so that she could see the cherry blossom buds. “It looks like it’s going to snow any moment, yet they’re opening up. Isn’t that strange?” he said.

  Mrs. Henderson ignored the flowers and buried her face in Kam Ho’s hair. “Jimmy, I can hear a shushing sound.” “It’s probably the coffee boiling,” said Kam Ho. She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s your grey hairs growing.” Kam Ho smiled despite himself. “What you mean is I’m forty years old, and a Chinese man is old at forty. I should be a grandfather by now.”

  “But you’re not a father yet.” Mrs. Henderson touched his face gently. “Your son died.”

  The family back home had kept the news of Yiu Kei’s death from Kam Ho, but in the end he had heard about it anyway, from a fellow countryman who had gone home on a visit. He had never seen his son except in photographs which his mother sent. His son had been dependent on Kam Ho for all his needs, but had no hold on his affections. By the time the news reached his ears, Yiu Kei had been dead for nearly a year and Kam Ho had felt scarcely more than a few moments’ sadness. But Mrs. Henderson’s caress brought it all back to him and he felt a stab of grief for which he was not prepared.

  “My Jenny can be his companion,” said Mrs. Henderson.

  Kam Ho was startled. This was the first time for a long time that she had talked sense. He helped her to sit upright and changed her nightgown. Her whole body was slack as a filleted fish today and she kept flopping over to one side or the other until Kam Ho poured with sweat.

  Finally he got angry. “If you won’t help me, I’m leaving and never coming back!” he said. The threat usually made Mrs. Henderson behave, but today for some reason it had no effect at all.

  Kam Ho dropped her hand and turned to go. When he reached the door, there was a cry from Mrs. Henderson: “Jenny’s come!” Kam Ho felt a chill of dread. “You’re off your head!” he shouted at her. “But that’s message from Jenny,” said Mrs. Henderson, pointing at the cherry blossom in the vase. “Jenny’s telling me to go with her.”

  Kam Ho gave an involuntary shiver. He suddenly remembered his granny saying that flowers which blossomed out of season were a portent of disaster. He grabbed the vase and carried it out, cutting up the branch with scissors before throwing the bits into the garbage. When he got back upstairs, Mrs. Henderson was asleep, resting against the headboard. He could not shake her awake. He fetched a wet towel, wrung it out and put it on her face. Finally, she opened her eyes slightly. There was a look of muddied confusion in them, like a pond stirred up by a r
ainstorm.

  “Ma’am!” cried Kam Ho in a voice cracked with panic. Mrs. Henderson’s mouth was opening and closing like a dying fish. No sound came out, and her eyes began to cloud over. He forced himself to call out a few times, but it was no use and he stopped. He knew he should dress her, that this was probably his last chance. He rifled through her wardrobe and picked out a dress which she had bought the Christmas before Jenny died. Frantically, he began to undo the silk ribbon tie of her nightgown.

  Suddenly he felt her hand shift ever so slightly in his. He put his ear to her mouth and heard the faintest of whispers. It took him some time to make out her words: “Don’t want.…”

  “Don’t want what?” he asked, but she did not have the strength to reply. “You don’t want this dress?” he asked, but she just lay still and looked fixedly at him.

  “You don’t want the pastor to come?” Still she stared at him.

  He slapped the bed in frustration. “Oh God, tell me what it is she doesn’t want!” Then her hand gave a slight movement again. Suddenly, light dawned.

  “It’s him? You don’t want him to come in?” he asked.

  She blinked once and the hand he was holding relaxed.

  When Mr. Henderson came back from walking the dog, he heard a faint noise from upstairs. It was something like bees beating their wings in the sunshine or filaments vibrating against each other in a light bulb. “Jimmy!” he shouted, but there was no answer. “Phyllis!” He stood at the bottom of the stairs straining his ears. The noise was coming from his wife’s room. Going up, he knocked a couple of times, then pushed the door open and went in without waiting for an answer.

  His wife lay on the bed, dressed in a bright red dress. It was such a vibrant red that it seemed to reflect off the walls. It had been a very long time since he had seen her in anything that brilliant. Jimmy was kneeling by the bed. He was wiping her face with a wet towel, in a manner that was almost comical—his arm held over her, the hand trembling slightly, his movements so gentle and careful that she might have been a priceless Ming vase.

  Jimmy was crooning faint sounds through the smallest crack in his lips, the way the mature silkworm spits tangled silken strands to create its cocoon. It must be some sort of a song, Mr. Henderson guessed, but he understood nothing of it. How could he know that Kam Ho was singing a lullaby which had been sung to him by his mother in Hoi Ping when she nursed him at the breast?

  A magpie sings Happy New Year

  Dad’s gone to Gold Mountain my dear

  When he returns to bring his fortunate back here

  We’ll buy house and land far and near

  Mr. Henderson lost patience. “Jimmy, can’t you see she’s off her rocker! She’s in bed with high-heeled shoes on!”

  Jimmy turned slowly to look at him, then pointed to the door.

  “Get … out.”

  The day after Mrs. Henderson’s funeral, Kam Ho was summoned to her lawyer’s office.

  “According to her will, she’s settled her entire estate of four thousand dollars on you.”

  Kam Ho was dumbfounded. After a pause, he said doubtfully: “But that’s impossible. She was dependent on her husband. She had no money of her own.”

  The lawyer opened the filing cabinet and took out the will. He pointed to the already fading signature. “She made this will ten years ago,” he said. “At the time, the beneficiaries were her daughter, Jenny, and you. Now that Jenny is dead, you are the sole beneficiary. The money was a personal gift from Mrs. Henderson’s mother to her daughter, given to her before she married. She had the right to dispose of it as she wished.”

  By the time Kam Ho came out of the lawyer’s, it was dark. A bonechilling wind whistled down the street and a bird sitting on the bare branch of a tree give a loud sibilant call. He looked up—it was a balding old blue jay. Kam Ho threw a stone at it. It squawked, before flying low over his head. Kam Ho remembered Mrs. Henderson’s claim that Jenny had sent her a message in the cherry blossoms after she died. He wondered if Mrs. Henderson was sending him a message now, with the bird.

  Why, he thought, did you spend your whole life squeezing money out of your husband a few cents at a time, when you had a pile of money of your own? You could have bought all the opium juice you wanted! Why put yourself through hell? But there was no answer.

  At last, the tears began to flow.

  When he got back to the Hendersons’, the house was dark, but he knew Mr. Henderson was home by the faint smell of gin lingering in the kitchen and the passageway. He made his way upstairs in the dark. He did not want to turn on the lights and risk running into Mr. Henderson. He had packed his bag the night before; he retrieved it from the bed and went back downstairs.

  Suddenly the light came on in the hallway, dazzling him for a few moments.

  “Jimmy, why don’t you stay?” The tremulous voice was coming from the shadows.

  Kam Ho did not answer. He slung his bag over his shoulder. He would open the door, go down the cracked front steps and be gone. This light, this man, this house, none of it had anything to do with him any more.

  But the voice followed him and grovelled at his feet, clutching his trouser bottoms.

  “I know you’re angry with me because I didn’t treat her well, but you know why that was?”

  The voice paused a moment, then gathered strength and went on: “You. It was you.”

  Kam Ho dropped his bag in surprise.

  “It’s you I wanted, ever since the first day you arrived. But she got between us. I couldn’t get to you. So I kept out of the way. Those business trips, you know.

  “I never wanted her. It wasn’t her fault. I just never liked women. Any women.”

  A rotund pink face emerged from the shadows and pressed towards Kam Ho.

  Kam Ho flung himself out the door and down the steps. On the last step, he twisted his ankle. He looked round but was relieved to see that Mr. Henderson was not following him. He sat down and rubbed the bump that was coming up. He reached for his bag, but realized that he had left it behind.

  He had given up twenty-five years of his life in that house. Why was he bothering about a bag?

  He walked and walked in the night air. His head felt viscous like the glue his mother used to paste the soles on his shoes when he was little. Throughout his life, he had walked only one road. It had been a long and hard one but the only effort required was from his feet. There was no need for thought. When he was young, it was his mother who had told him which road to take. When she said, Go to Gold Mountain, he got on the boat and went. After that, it was his father who chose his road. His father said, Go to the Hendersons’, and he went. Later still, it was Mrs. Henderson who showed him the road. She said stay, and he stayed. For twenty-five years.

  The cheque in his pocket opened up countless roads before him. And now he would decide which one to take. He secretly admired his brother for the way he had charted his own course. Kam Shan had chosen his own road from the very day he was born. Though his parents had harsh words with Kam Shan for his rebellious streak, Kam Ho knew they liked his spirit and his guts. Now, of course, his brother was old, and had to accept being kept by his wife.

  After so many years working for the Hendersons, Kam Ho had a pretty good idea of the number of uses to which he could put the cheque in his pocket. He could give some to his father for his boat passage home. He could give some to his mother to buy fields that stretched to the horizon and beyond. He could give his brother a portion so he could buy a proper house with a garden. His brother and his woman were used to life in Gold Mountain and would not easily settle back in Hoi Ping. His brother had never formally married the woman and Kam Ho still did not know how to address her. So with his brother he called her “she.” When he bumped into her and could not avoid addressing her directly, he made do with “Hello!” or “You!” She never complained but he had felt awkward about it for years.

  Of course, the most important reason for buying his brother a house was Yin Ling. She was a
seed that had been planted in Gold Mountain soil. She would rather die than allow herself to be transplanted to the countryside of Hoi Ping. And if she would not go, then her father would not go either. And neither would his woman. Six Fingers had been talking about a big family reunion in Spur-On Village for years, but it was nothing more than a dream.

  When he got to the end of the street, it occurred to him that he had not included his wife in the plans he had made for his cheque. He had lived with her for only a few months in the diulau after their marriage, and that was a very long time ago. She hardly ever wrote to him though she was literate. Sometimes she added a sentence at the end of a letter from his mother: “The leather shoes you sent for Yiu Kei are really nice” or “What shall I get for my father’s longevity celebration later this year?” Without looking at the photograph, he could not even bring her face to mind. He had a dim memory that she had a mole on the left side of her mouth. On anyone else, a mole like this would have enlivened their features but on Ah-Hsien it just made her appear more wooden.

  When he had entered the bridal chamber after their wedding banquet and taken off her veil, he was astonished to find that she was asleep, sitting upright on the bed, and drooling from the corner of her mouth. When he woke her up, she looked at him in bleary-eyed confusion as if she did not know who he was. He blew out the candle. In a few thrusts he was finished with her. She had not made a murmur, even of pain. He assumed it was because she knew nothing of what men and women did together, but as the days passed, there was no change in her. He realized that that was just the way she was. He was experienced with women, after all. Going to Ah-Hsien after Mrs. Henderson was like drinking plain water after having tasted osmanthus flower nectar. He found Ah-Hsien completely flavourless.

  Which road should he take? The road back to Hoi Ping with his father, where he would live out his days with a doorpost of a wife? Or stay with his brother and do without a woman for the rest of his life? He went back and forth over the options, but could not make up his mind. The only decision he came to was to stop thinking. He would go back to where his brother and father lived, climb up to the attic room where he had a bunk bed and sleep on it. Then he would see. He could at least enjoy peace of mind. No one would expect him to get up to work for them, talk to them or feed them opium juice.