by Ling Zhang
It was some time before she found out why. Once, when he was drunk, he blurted out: “If other men can use you, why can’t I?” He had completely forgotten he had said it, but she did not. It gnawed away at her, like a nagging pain. Though this man had never liked her, he had saved her from starvation and abuse. And it had cost him dearly; he had not seen his mother and father for ten years as a result. But his cruel words were just that—words—and nothing more, and she blocked her ears against them.
What really made her anxious was her discovery that Kam Shan had booked boat passage home to China. Kam Ho had been squirrelling away money to bring his mother over, until the Gold Mountain government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, trapping Six Fingers on the other side of the ocean. So instead, Kam Ho used the money to buy Kam Shan’s passage home to China. Six Fingers wanted to see her first granddaughter, and the baby could not travel without her mother so Cat Eyes went too. Cat Eyes was worried because she and Kam Shan had not performed the traditional marriage ceremonies; she knew how keen the local girls were to get themselves a Gold Mountain husband. If Kam Shan was planning to get himself a proper bride on their trip back home, there would be absolutely nothing Cat Eyes could do about it.
The day they arrived in Spur-On Village, she and Kam Shan completed the final stretch of their journey—from the entrance of the village to the diulau—on their knees, as a way of showing respect for his mother. Six Fingers received them and told Cat Eyes to get up. “What’s your school name?” she asked. Cat Eyes was confused. “What’s a school name?” “The name your schoolteacher gave you the day you started school,” explained Six Fingers. “Mum, Cat Eyes has never even seen a school,” said Kam Shan, “never mind stepped inside one.”
The neighbours and family who crammed the diulau hall roared with laughter at Kam Shan’s words. Cat Eyes knew that everyone in the Fong household, right down to the plough oxen, could read and write—they had all been taught by Six Fingers. She also knew that the Fongs would scoff at her now they knew she was illiterate. Her own man had thrown the first insult and now everyone would follow suit. Her mother-in-law gave a little laugh, but Cat Eyes did not notice. She was too busy looking for a wall against which she could knock herself. The brothel should have killed her, she thought ruefully, but instead she would be consigned to misery and humiliation in Hoi Ping.
Kam Shan took Yin Ling from her arms and gave the baby to his mother. As he did so, he whispered audibly in her ear:
“She may be illiterate but she earns good money. Half the fields you bought these last few years came from her wages.”
Cat Eyes was grateful for the lifeline. Her man had exposed her shortcomings, though it could just as well have been someone else. But now he extolled her worth, and that could only come from him. The trip had been overshadowed with anxiety. Now finally the sun had come out and her heart was set at rest.
Yin Ling woke up and began to thrash about restlessly in her sling. The cross-straps tightened around Cat Eyes’ breasts and she felt a warm gush of milk wet her jacket front. She quickly unfastened the sling and took the baby in her arms. After several months in the village, she had finally learned how to breastfeed in broad daylight as the village women did. But unlike them, she held the baby high against her exposed breast so that Yin Ling’s head concealed it like a large, round winter melon.
It was early and the cocks were still crowing in the village. The women, who got up early, were letting their chickens out and driving them onto the threshing floor. The dogs followed, wagging their tails and licking up the dew-wet chicken droppings which littered the ground. Cat Eyes breathed in the damp air through every pore of her body. It was peaceful if you got up early enough, she thought.
As she yawned lazily, the daughter and daughter-in-law of Mr. Au, the village tailor, appeared on the riverbank. As soon as Kam Shan had arrived in the village, Six Fingers got the tailor to come to the house and make them suits of clothes for summer and winter. The young women came with him to help make the buttonholes, so Cat Eyes knew them by sight. The Au clan may have been looked down on by the Fongs, but the tailor was one of its more prominent members; he and his daughters were tolerated at the diulau insofar as their services were required.
The daughter was just a girl of twelve. As she walked past Cat Eyes carrying the laundry basket and the baton for beating the dirty clothes, she saw the bar of soap in her basket and stopped to pick it up. Soap was a foreign curiosity to the villagers, and the girl rubbed it generously all over the clothes and her hands until she formed a rich lather. Cat Eyes was secretly annoyed; every time she came to the river and met the other women, her soap passed from hand to hand until it was reduced to a sliver. She started to cut the soap bar into smaller pieces with a knife when she went to wash clothes but the result was that by the time they had finished with it, not even a sliver remained.
“Cat Eyes, have your eyes always been like that?” asked the daughter-in-law.
“My mum told me that I woke up with them like this one morning when I was four or five.”
The young woman leaned up close and peered into Cat Eyes’ eyes. “Were your ancestors hairy yeung fan?” Cat Eyes grunted. “Not as hairy as your mother!” The other woman laughed carelessly, and the girl snickered along with her. She was still at the naughty stage, playing at washing the clothes, sinking her fingers into the soapy lather and rubbing them together.
“Gold Mountain soap is really nice. The honey locust pods we use at home for washing wouldn’t make much lather even if you rubbed it till all the skin came off your hands,” she said with a heartfelt sigh.
“If you like Gold Mountain so much, ask Cat Eyes if she’ll let you be Kam Shan’s second wife and take you to Gold Mountain with them,” said the daughter-in-law.
The girl flushed bright red, and Cat Eyes went pink too. After a pause she said: “Even if you were the first wife, you wouldn’t make it to Gold Mountain. The government isn’t letting any new people in.”
“Even so, she’d still be OK,” said the daughter-in-law. “She could be the junior wife and just stay in the diulau eating sticky rice all day and being waited on by servants. It would be better than the way we live, sewing and sewing till we go blind from the work, scrimping and saving every cent.”
Cat Eyes felt like saying that life was hard in Gold Mountain too, but she knew that would sound too much like a lie to them, and bit back the words. Instead she bent her head silently over her suckling baby.
The tailor’s daughter-in-law was about to go down to the water’s edge when Cat Eyes’ basket caught her eye. Squatting down, she began to rifle through all the dirty clothes. When she reached the bottom of the basket, she found something long and thin and gauzy. Picking it out, she asked Cat Eyes: “What’s this?”
Cat Eyes had finished feeding Yin Ling and was fastening her jacket. Glancing sideways she said: “Silk stockings.” “How can they be stockings? They wouldn’t keep the cold out, they’re so thin. It would be like wearing nothing on your legs.”
Cat Eyes smiled. “What do you know about stockings? Gold Mountain men like their women to wear stockings. They like it when it looks as if you’re wearing nothing on your legs.”
The other woman spread her fingers out in the stockings and, holding them up, peered through them. The sun filtered through the sheer fabric creating radiating patterns of light. Then she balled them up in her hand. “Cat Eyes, lend me them to wear for a few days so my husband can enjoy seeing them on me, please?”
“No, I can’t,” said Cat Eyes. “Kam Shan bought them for me. He’ll be angry if you go off with them.” She was about to snatch them back but the other woman gripped them so tightly in her fist that the veins stood out livid on the back of her hand.
“It’s just a pair of stockings! Why are you making such a fuss about them, Cat Eyes?” And she continued spitefully: “After all, you must have seen all there is to see in the business you do in Gold Mountain.”
Cat Eyes felt a great cha
sm opening up before her. No matter how hard she scrabbled to keep her footing, she knew she was going to slide into the void. In her mind she saw Six Fingers’ face cloud over when she looked at her, and it finally dawned on her: it had little to do with the fact that she could not read or write and everything to do with her past. It would dog her wherever she went. There was no escaping the dark shadow it cast over her life.
It grew suddenly overcast, the rays of sunshine expiring in the clouds before they could even fully emerge. Cat Eyes hurriedly pushed Yin Ling back into the sling, picked up her basket, still with the unwashed garments in it, and scurried back to the diulau.
She could not stay here, not for a single day more.
Year nineteen of the Republic (1930)
Spur-On Village, Hoi Ping County, China
Six Fingers was awake before the cock crowed. Something on her mind had nudged her awake. It was just a trifling thing, no bigger than a mustard seed, but as the years went by, she slept more lightly and found she could indeed be woken up by something as small as a mustard seed.
It was the thought of the pigs’ trotters braised with ginger that roused Six Fingers. She had started them the night before and they were nearly done. They just needed reheating and a splash of rice wine. But the final stage had to be performed with care. The boil must be not too fast or too slow, so that the meat was silky soft and almost coming off the bone. The cook prepared the meals in the Fong household, but not even the cook could make pigs’ trotters braised with ginger as well as Six Fingers. Her elder sister had learned the recipe after she married into Red Hair’s family, and had passed it on to her. The way she prepared it, a layer of bright red oil floated on top of the trotters, and the meat was meltingly soft. Her daughter, Kam Sau, could happily eat a whole bowlful on her own.
Kam Sau graduated from the high school for the children of Overseas Chinese and started at teacher-training college in Canton last year. At high school she had been a weekly boarder. At college, however, she could only come home every couple of months, or at harvest time, when the students were given leave to help their families. Six Fingers missed her daughter. Today was one of the rare days Kam Sau came home to visit, and she was upstairs sleeping. Six Fingers’ two sons had both left for Gold Mountain as teenagers. They had been gone for many years, and each had only come home once. Kam Shan was back six years ago, bringing the woman he had never officially married and their daughter, Yin Ling. They stayed nearly two years, and Kam Shan had spent a great deal of money on treatment for his lame leg. When this proved fruitless, they returned to Gold Mountain. Six Fingers did not know when they would be back again.
Kam Ho came home last year to get married. He stayed long enough to get his wife pregnant and then hurried back, saying his Gold Mountain employers had given him a deadline.
Six Fingers felt that she had put all her energies into ensuring the men in her life grew big and strong, only to deliver them into the maw of the lion that was Gold Mountain. She fought bitterly with the Gold Mountain lion over her men, but she could never win. By the time her daughter had grown up, the Gold Mountain government had passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Gold Mountain men were furious about that, but Six Fingers did not share their anger. She was secretly pleased—at least she could keep one child at home.
Kam Sau attended college in Canton with Mak Dau’s son, Ah-Yuen. Kam Sau had wanted to train as a teacher since she was a little girl. Her ambition was to run a school with Ah-Yuen in the village when they graduated. The school in the local town was funded by Gold Mountain men, so only their children were admitted. But Kam Sau wanted her school to be for everyone—including the children of farmers, fisherfolk and household servants. There would be no fees and the school would provide a midday meal too. Kam Sau had always shared her mother’s passion for literacy. When she got home from school, she used to gather the servants’ children together and teach them reading and arithmetic. When she was a young bride, Six Fingers taught all the Fongs’ servants the rudiments of literacy. Now Kam Sau was teaching their children to read and count.
Although Six Fingers missed Kam Sau, she was comforted by the fact that her daughter would not be leaving home to marry as most girls did. She and Ah-Yuen would be home soon to stay. Ah-Yuen lived in the diulau with his father, Mak Dau, so Ah-Yuen would be the Fongs’ live-in son-in-law. If Six Fingers could not count on her own two sons being around, at least Ah-Yuen, a dutiful and good-hearted boy, was as good as a son.
Six Fingers tiptoed from the bedroom, hoping to avoid waking Kam Sau. She was on the point of going down to the kitchen when she saw a crack of light under Kam Sau’s bedroom door. Kam Sau had the room which had been Mrs. Mak’s, right next to Six Fingers’. She pushed the door open, and found her daughter sitting up in bed reading a book.
Kam Sau was a bookworm. She stuck her nose so deep in the pages, she might have been smelling them. “Crazy girl,” said Six Fingers, “have you been up all night reading?” Kam Sau grunted, then roused herself to answer: “I’m just going to sleep now.” “If you carry on reading like that, you’ll go cross-eyed, and then who’ll marry you?” Six Fingers scolded her. Kam Sau giggled: “Isn’t that what you want? Then I can stay and look after you.” Six Fingers laughed too: “And then your uncle Mak Dau will be after me with a gun. He’s keen to have a daughter-in-law.” Kam Sau blushed.
Six Fingers sat down on Kam Sau’s bed and rubbed her daughter’s feet. “You don’t get enough good food at the school,” she said. “You’re getting skinny.” The truth was that Kam Sau, at seventeen, was just like a younger version of Kam Shan. She was stocky and strong, and had never had a day’s sickness in her life. But Six Fingers could not help being protective.
Six Fingers flicked through the book Kam Sau was reading, The Guide. She looked at the page Kam Sau had marked and saw words like “imperialists … feudal comprador class … helping the warlords … suppressing the people’s revolution.” Six Fingers was none the wiser. The books her daughter read were nothing like the ones she had read as a child. She knew every word, but they made no sense to her. “Does ‘imperialists’ mean the foreigners?” she asked.
Kam Sau did not answer. Instead she said: “Mum, didn’t you hear about the British and the French machine-gunning Chinese in the Shamin Concession a few years ago?” “Of course I remember,” said Six Fingers. “So many were killed.” “But, Mum, do you know why they died?” Six Fingers shook her head. “It started with the Japanese killing textile workers in Shanghai,” said her daughter. “Then the people of Shanghai rose up in protest, and the British killed thirteen of them. The people of Hong Kong and Canton were supporting the workers from Shanghai when they got shot. The Japanese and the Westerners are all law-abiding in their own countries, but as soon as they get here, they think they can do whatever they like.”
Six Fingers sighed. “Poverty is to blame—a poor country like ours doesn’t stand a chance against the world powers. It’s always the poor and the weak at the bottom of the heap that get kicked.” “Poverty is not the problem,” said Kam Sau. “It’s ignorance. That’s why I want to set up the school. When everyone goes to school, they’ll wake up and won’t let these foreigners ride roughshod over us.” “But if it wasn’t for the foreigners, how would your father and brothers earn enough to buy all the land we’ve got and build a house like this?” Six Fingers objected. Her daughter’s eyebrows shot up and her voice rose in indignation: “If it wasn’t for dad and his friends risking their lives building that railroad, Gold Mountain would still be a wilderness!”
Six Fingers could not help laughing ruefully. “And how did you get so much knowledge into that little head of yours?” “Mr. Auyung told me. He knows everything.” Mr. Auyung Yuk Shan taught Chinese and was greatly admired and respected by Kam Sau, Ah-Yuen and the other students whom he taught. “When your father was young, he knew a Mr. Auyung Ming. He knew everything too. I wonder if it’s the same family,” said Six Fingers.
As they talked, it gra
dually grew light and the cocks started to crow. “Are you hungry?” Six Fingers asked. Kam Sau shook her head. “Just wait till I’ve heated the braised pigs’ trotters in ginger,” said her mother. “Then you’ll be hungry.” At the mention of pigs’ trotters in ginger, Kam Sau’s appetite was suddenly whetted, making her mouth water and her stomach rumble in anticipation. She got out of bed and looked out the window. In the courtyard outside, she saw an older man and a younger one seated on stools by the well cleaning the family’s guns. It was Mak Dau and his son, Ah-Yuen.
Mak Dau was a gun fanatic and was always urging Six Fingers to buy more. They were expensive but Six Fingers, a thrifty woman in everything else, did not bat an eyelid when it came to guns. They had started with an antiquated rifle, then added a carbine rifle and a revolver. Two months ago, Mak Dau purchased a Browning. Now they had two long-barrelled guns and two pistols.
Mak Dau spent every spare moment cleaning and polishing them. And as soon as Ah-Yuen could walk, he had taught the boy how to take a gun to pieces and how to reassemble it. Six Fingers had reprimanded him for teaching a little boy such things, but Mak Dau said: “When I’m too old to heft a gun myself, who else will you get to protect the diulau?” Six Fingers had no answer to that. After that, Mak Dau was permitted to teach Ah-Yuen about guns—but only in the courtyard. They were not allowed indoors in case of an accidental discharge.