by Ling Zhang
Mr. Auyung got out a sheet of paper and sketched a tree with many branches. On each branch he wrote characters. “This is a simplified diagram of your family,” he told her. “The ones at the top go back too far for you to have known them. We’ll ignore them and begin with your maternal great-grandfather.
“Your maternal great-grandfather was the one who build Tak Yin House. He had two sons and a daughter. His eldest son was your grandfather Fong Kam Shan. He and his brother and sister are all dead. The only one left from that generation is the sister’s husband, Tse Ah-Yuen. All three had children but the only one still living is your mother, and your mother had just one child, that’s you. So of all the direct descendants of Fong Tak Fat, the only ones left are you, your mother and Tse Ah-Yuen. He’s your mother’s uncle by marriage, so you should call him ‘great-uncle’.”
Amy took the paper and read it through several times. “I’ll take it home and print out a copy for my mother,” she said. “We actually call it ‘family tree’ in English.”
They arrived at the nursing home where the director waited at the entrance. She shook Amy’s hand then, with a slight tug on Mr. Auyung’s sleeve, pulled him to one side. Mr. Auyung left Amy waiting at the entrance, and followed the director into the office.
The director shut the door, looking embarrassed. “We’ve had several calls about this from the Office for Overseas Chinese Affairs and of course we’ll do all we can to help. But Mr. Tse is refusing to see her. He said: ‘When the half-breed turns up, kick her out!’”
Mr. Auyung smiled. “He’s very feisty for a ninety-year-old man! Don’t worry, I can handle him.” “If you say so,” said the director. “You’re in charge, since there’s an overseas Chinese involved. You should have seen him this morning. He was in such a state. But he had some tranquilizers at lunchtime and a nap, and he’s quieted down now.”
Mr. Auyung walked out of the office and Amy asked him immediately: “So my great-uncle doesn’t want to see me, is that it?” Mr. Auyung laughed. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’re on the ball, Professor!” “Huh!” said Amy. “The other day in the hotel, he really tried to lay into me.” “Yes, well, perhaps he had reason to,” said Mr. Auyung. “His whole family came to a violent end. Your great-grandfather always said he would take the family to Gold Mountain, but he never did. If he had, then things would never have happened as they did. And there’s only one person he can settle old scores with, and that’s you. If you’re scared, we can leave now.”
Goaded by his words, Amy took up a fighting posture, one foot forward and fists at the ready: “Who’s talking about being scared?” she demanded jokingly. “I’ve got a blue belt in tae kwon do. Try me and see!” “I wouldn’t dare!” said Mr. Auyung with a smile, and they set off for Ah-Yuen’s room.
Ah-Yuen had woken up from his nap and lay in bed staring at the ceiling. His eyes were rheumy and as milky as a puddle after rain. Mr. Auyung sat down on the edge of the bed, wiped a few crumbs from the old man’s mouth and said: “Did you have a good lunch today, Great-uncle Ah-Yuen?” Ah-Yuen’s eyes flickered and he answered forcefully: “I ate a bowl of rice and crapped a bowl of stones.” The old man had lost his own teeth long ago, and the false teeth he wore clattered as he spoke as if he had a mouthful of marbles.
Mr. Auyung laughed and pulled a bottle from his pocket. “Constipation’s the biggest nuisance when you get old. This is foreign medicine. Mix a spoonful in a glass of cold water every day and drink it. It tastes like orange juice and it’ll cure your constipation.” Ah-Yuen ignored the bottle and gripped Mr. Auyung’s hand: “When you talk, you sound just like your old granddad when he was young,” he said. “Great-uncle Ah-Yuen, I’m over fifty!” protested Mr. Auyung. “I’m not young any more!” The old man had his hand in a viselike grip, the veins standing out purplish. “I should have gone away with your granddad all those years ago.”
Mr. Auyung helped him sit upright and Ah-Yuen caught sight of Amy standing in the doorway. He pushed Mr. Auyung away. “You’ve brought that half-breed, haven’t you?” “She’s your wife’s great-niece,” said Mr. Auyung. “The only Fong left. She’s flown all the way from Canada to see you. Don’t make such a scene!”
“Huh! Don’t talk to me about the Fongs. There’s not a single one of them that can be trusted.” The old man was so enraged that a vein started to pulse on his forehead. Mr. Auyung patted his shoulder. “Don’t talk nonsense, Great-uncle Ah-Yuen. The Gold Mountain government wouldn’t let any more Chinese in. What were they supposed to do? When the ban was lifted, your brother-in-law Kam Shan wrote and asked Kam Sau if she wanted to join him in Gold Mountain, didn’t he? But you had your head stuffed full of revolution in those days and you refused the offer. You’ve only got yourself to blame.”
Ah-Yuen leaned back against the headboard, gasping for breath, but eventually he became calm.
After a pause, he said dully: “You tell her to give me my Kam Sau and Wai Heung back.”
Mr. Auyung gestured to Amy. “She really has brought them back.” Amy took a cloth bag out of her purse and knelt down by the bed. “Great-uncle,” she said respectfully, “before I left, my mother asked me to bring you this. It doesn’t belong to her. My grandfather gave it to her before he died. He told her that whoever came back to Hoi Ping should bring it with them.”
Amy opened the bag. It contained some photographs, yellowed with age, and a small metal box. The top of the box was decorated with the head of a beautiful woman and the words “Almond Chocolates.” The manufacturer’s name was written underneath. The paint had partly rubbed off and there were rust marks on the woman’s face.
Amy opened the box and took out a piece of folded cloth. She opened the folds to reveal a lock of hair tied with red ribbon. She supposed it must have been red once, though now it had faded to a dun colour. A scrap of paper was tucked under the lock. Written in faded ink were the words “A memento of Wai Kwok’s first birthday.”
There were three photographs. One was of Ah-Yuen and Kam Sau’s wedding and had a stamp on the left-hand corner which read: “Hoi Wo Photographic Studio (Canton), Year twenty-two of the Republic.” There was a close-up of Wai Heung wearing an embroidered tunic, with “Wai Heung’s first birthday party” written on the back. Then there was another of the whole family with Six Fingers in the centre, Kam Sau with Wai Heung in her arms on the left, and Ah-Yuen holding Wai Kwok by the hand on the right. There was no inscription either on the front or the back, but Wai Heung was still just a baby, no more than a few months old.
Ah-Yuen’s hand began to shake and the photographs fluttered onto the bedsheets. He did not pick them up. He had not seen his wife’s face for fifty years. Now, at the end of his life he suddenly found himself spirited back more than half a century and confronted with his younger self and his family. It was as if he had turned around while walking, to find a ghost right behind him. Overcome by memories of that terrible day, he pulled a corner of the quilt over his head and began to whimper as piteously as a whipped dog.
By the time Mr. Auyung and Amy emerged from the nursing home, it was dusk. Mr. Auyung pulled out his cell phone and was about to call their driver, when Amy asked: “Can we walk for a bit?” He put his phone away. The town streets were beginning to come to life and gaudy neon lights flared against the night sky. They walked back to the guest house in silence.
“You seem to know my great-uncle very well,” said Amy, halting for a moment.
Mr. Auyung nodded.
“Our family has been teachers for generations. My great-great-grandfather taught your great-grandfather. My grandfather taught your great-uncle and great-aunt. When your great-uncle was young, he nearly went to join the army with my grandfather.”
The email Amy sent that evening was very brief, just two sentences:
“I went with Mr. Auyung to see my ninety-year-old great-uncle today. I think I’ve killed the old man off.”
Mark’s email back was even shorter. A single sentence:
Year twenty-eight of the Republic (1939)
Spur-On Village, Hoi Ping County, Guangdong Province, China
Six Fingers was sitting in the courtyard combing out her hair.
It was just past the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and the intensity of the sun had blunted somewhat although there was still a languorous warmth in its rays. Six Fingers’ hair was very long. She released it from its bun, and filled a wash basin full of water. The grey hairs were showing through but the hair was as thick and strong as ever. By the time she had finished washing it, it was thoroughly tangled. It was troublesome to comb out but still she did it herself. In the past she had tried getting her daughter-in-law to comb it for her but Ah-Hsien was clumsy and pulled so hard that Six Fingers had a sore scalp for days afterwards.
Six Fingers moved the stool to catch the breeze and waited for her hair to dry. She had her hair ornament ready, a jade hairpin with an agate pendant in the shape of a flower dangling from one end. Ah-Fat had got someone to buy it for her somewhere in SouthEast Asia. She had had many years and the hair oil she used had gradually turned the agate dark red. It was a suitable colour for a woman of sixty-two, flattering but discreet.
Once she had done her hair, Six Fingers picked up a hand mirror and looked at herself. Ah-Choi had trimmed the hair around her face this morning and the skin gleamed white. Six Fingers had put on weight with the years, and the taut skin of her face plumped out her wrinkles. Today was neither New Year nor a holiday and Six Fingers had no plans to go out or receive visitors. Nevertheless, she always made sure she was nicely turned out even if she was just going to sit at home alone all day. How many times had she told her daughter-in-law that, even when her man was away, woman should take care of her appearance? But she might as well have been talking to herself.
In the corner of the courtyard, the widow Ah-Lin sat embroidering shoe. Ah-Lin’s husband had died many years before. When he was alive, Ah-Lin used to receive a dollar letter every two or three months, but after he died the family circumstances went from bad to worse. They had sold off all their own fields and now rented a few mu of poor land. Six Fingers got her in to do some needlework for the household. This was partly an act of charity, but Ah-Lin, although a few years older than Six Fingers, still had excellent eyesight and nimble fingers. She was a first-class needlewoman.
Ah-Lin was embroidering a pair of children’s shoes. The material of the uppers was black twilled satin. She had drawn the design and was just choosing the embroidery thread for the peonies. The shoes were for Kam Sau’s daughter, Wai Heung. Six Fingers’ three children had added considerably to the number of family members. Kam Shan’s daughter Yin Ling was the oldest, at sixteen. Next came Kam Ho’s son, Yiu Kei, aged nine. Kam Sau’s two children were the youngest; Wai Kwok, her son, was five and Wai Heung, her daughter, was just a toddler.
Six Fingers now had two grandsons and two granddaughters, and considered herself lucky to have three living in the diulau with her. Kam Sau and Ah-Yuen lived in the school they ran in the local town and left their children at the diulau. Yiu Kei lived with his mother, Ah-Hsien, in her room upstairs in the diulau. Yiu Kei was of school age, but Six Fingers refused to let him study at his aunt and uncle’s school, and got a tutor in to teach him in the diulau instead. She insisted the school was too far away and the journey back and forth was too dangerous. Abductions of Gold Mountain families had decreased in recent years but Six Fingers still worried.
Or so she said. Her real reason (which she did not tell anyone) was that she was used to the clatter and chatter of three children running around the diulau. If Yiu Kei went to board at the school, she would have nothing to listen to. The quietness would be unsettling.
Ah-Lin stuck her needle into her hair to lubricate it, and asked Six Fingers: “Mrs. Kwan, how long has it been since Kam Sau’s dad last came home?” Now that she was in her sixties, Six Fingers was known respectfully as “Mrs. Kwan.”
“Years … I can’t even remember how many,” said Six Fingers with a faint smile. In fact, she remembered perfectly well. The last time Ah-Fat left for Gold Mountain she had been pregnant with Kam Sau, who was twenty-six this year. It was more than forty years since Six Fingers had married into the Fong family as an eighteen-year-old. It was more than forty years since that first night in the bridal chamber when Ah-Fat promised to take her to Gold Mountain.
And for all those years, Ah-Fat talked about coming home, but never said when. Every time he mentioned it, she scanned the calendar, looking for an auspicious date for his arrival. But every year the Dragon Boat Festival came and went without Ah-Fat. Six Fingers looked then to the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. No sooner had they finished eating the moon cakes than she began to hope for his arrival in time for the new year. When the lanterns were taken down at the end of the New Year Festival, she finally admitted defeat. As each year passed her longings abated. She knew her husband was ashamed to come back bankrupt and broken and had convinced himself that his luck would change soon. This had been going on for more than ten years.
“He’s been away so long. Aren’t you worried he’s got another woman over there?” Ah-Lin asked.
It was nothing new for Gold Mountain men to go with prostitutes, or for them to take one as a concubine. As a young woman, Six Fingers had worried that Ah-Fat would take a “second wife” either in the village or in Gold Mountain. As the decades passed, her fears had faded and that sore place in her heart had grown a thick scab. But a rim of blood could still emerge from the old wound if Ah-Lin pressed hard enough. Ah-Fat’s letters home had become more and more infrequent.
Six Fingers forced a laugh. “He’s over seventy-five, and he never was a womanizer like your husband. He said he was coming home for good last year, but I told him not to. It’s too dangerous with the Japanese around. I told him to wait till the war’s over.”
Ah-Lin bit off the end of the thread and pulled her stool over to where Six Fingers sat. She looked at her and said hesitantly: “Mrs. Kwan, this is probably just someone’s idea of a joke, but my nephew from Wing On— he’s in Vancouver too—he came home last month. I went over to see him and he said that Ah-Fat … Ah-Fat.…”
Ah-Lin’s hesitancy infuriated Six Fingers. “Spit it out, woman!” she exclaimed. “Are you saying Ah-Fat’s taken a concubine and got another family over there?”
Ah-Lin gave a laugh. “Oh no, not that,” she said. “But my nephew says he spends a lot of time with a woman, some has-been of an actress, and he’s keeping her as well.”
The heavens came crashing down on Six Fingers’ head, and her heart felt as if it was splintering. She tried unsuccessfully to stab the jade hairpin into her bun. Seeing her distress, Ah-Lin threw down her shoe, flung her arms around Six Fingers’ knees and rocked to and fro.
“It’s just gossip, I’m sure he’s got the wrong end of the stick. Don’t you believe a word of it, Mrs. Kwan,” she said consolingly. “You can write letters. Why don’t you write and ask him what it’s all about.”
Six Fingers freed herself from Ah-Lin’s grip and said, with a faint smile: “Well, he’s mad on opera. I expect it’s nothing more than that.”
She got up. Her ears buzzed as if she had a wasps’ nest in them. She pulled out her hairpin and poked it into her ear. A bit deeper. Deeper still. That was better. She pulled out the hairpin and wiped it on her sleeve, leaving a bright red smear.
The lame leg from which she had sliced a lump of flesh all those years ago suddenly seemed to have shortened and, try as she might, she could not put one foot in front of the other. Supporting herself on the wall, she finally managed to hobble out of the courtyard and into the house. It was deathly quiet; the only sound to be heard was the tick-tock of the chiming clock on the wall. Six Fingers stood still. When her eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, she saw Kam Ho’s wife dozing on the stairs. Ah-Hsien’s head was buried in her knees and rhythmic snores, like dull farts, issued from he
r nostrils. The white felt flower in her hair glimmered in the half-light. Ah-Hsien’s mother had been killed when the Japanese bombed the market the previous year, and she was still wearing the white flower of mourning.
“Where’s Yiu Kei, Ah-Hsien?” Six Fingers asked dully.
At that moment, Yiu Kei was on his way to No-Name River with little Wai Kwok.
Yui Kei was on three days’ holiday from classes. His tutor had gone home to his village for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival; normally he would have had classes at this time of day. Early this morning, Six Fingers told Ah-Hsien to go and fetch Ah-Tsung, the village barber, and get him to cut the hair of all the men in the household. His previous visit was at the Dragon Boat Festival three months ago and the men’s hair had grown long and shaggy since then. When Ah-Hsien reached the barber’s, she discovered that he had overindulged in rice wine the night before and was sleeping off a hangover. Ah-Hsien got tired waiting and left without him. When she got back home, she sat down on the stairs for a snooze.
Yiu Kei saw his opportunity and snuck out of the diulau with Wai Kwok.
Although spring had been dry that year, autumn brought torrential downpours. On the road, the sun dried the surface to a white crust, but the mud still oozed underneath. The children sploshed through it, leaving wet footprints behind. Six Fingers rarely allowed them out on their own to play, so they found everything a novelty. Not far from the house, they came to the clump of wild banana trees. A cluster of muddy children crouched over something on the ground. Yiu Kei pushed his way through and found they were watching ants moving house.
The ants swarmed around a dead fly with a red head and a green body. The ants looked like tiny black sesame seeds as they crawled over and around their prize, but try as they might, they could not move it. Finally, a cluster of ants squeezed under the belly of the fly. The fly appeared to drift along, accompanied by the shrill cries from the children. “What’s so exciting about that?” said Yiu Kei. “My teacher says that ants can move a mountain if they work together.” To Yiu Kei’s disappointment, the children just shouted “Sissy whitey!” at him and scattered.