Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  “Why don’t we leave, and go and try another town?”

  Johnny said nothing. Yin Ling could see his eyes gleaming dully in the dawn half-light. After a long time, the light went out and she thought he had gone to sleep. But then she felt him shift against her.

  “It doesn’t matter where we go, we can’t get away from people,” he said.

  December was a grim month.

  The war intensified and radio broadcasts were anything but reassuring. The American fleet was almost annihilated at Pearl Harbor. Kiev was taken. Leningrad was under siege, Hong Kong had fallen. Bad news was followed by worse. Groups of men from Red Deer went off to the front, their work taken up by the women who stayed behind. If the front line was hardpressed, the rear was equally so. Food and water were in short supply, just like electricity and coal. Prices went through the roof. Only life was cheap.

  Six days before Christmas, the list of war dead arrived in Red Deer. Five families had lost their sons to the war in Europe. Christmas that year was a cheerless affair. All down the street, Christmas trees were hung with yellow silk flowers. Carols sounded like dirges for dead loved ones. Not even the Goldpanner could brazen it out and, bowing to pressure, declared that no alcohol would be served on Christmas Day in memory of the fallen.

  As she walked towards the tavern, Yin Ling could see the yellow flowers hanging from the door. For some reason it reminded her of her uncle Kam Ho, serving in France. She wondered if her family had had news of him. Her father and grandfather must have been waiting anxiously for the postman’s visit every day.

  For as long as she could remember, her uncle had worked for the Hendersons. He came home once a week, arriving late on Saturday evening and setting off first thing on Monday morning. Every Saturday her grandfather would urge her father to get the dinner ready early for him. Her uncle Kam Ho was a man of few words, even when he was drinking. As they ate dinner, her grandfather would ask after the Hendersons, but for every three questions he asked, he got a single perfunctory response. One Chinese New Year, Kam Ho had put Yin Ling on his shoulders and taken her to Chinatown to buy firecrackers. Her grandfather rushed after them, shouting: “Put her down, Kam Ho! If you carry a girl up near your head, it’ll make your luck run out.” Kam Ho just laughed: “But Yin Ling is my lucky star,” he said. “And if she pees, better still. It’ll wash my bad luck away.”

  Yin Ling followed Johnny into the Goldpanner where the rest of the staff were busy arranging the tables and sweeping the floor. Fewer and fewer customers came to drink at the tavern these days, so business was poor. Johnny took his guitar out of its bag and began to tune it. Yin Ling sat in the corridor to the kitchen putting on her work overalls. She turned her head and saw Johnny talking to the owner. The owner appeared to be smiling pleasantly, but Johnny was baring his teeth in a strange grimace. Yin Ling was trying to overhear their conversation when suddenly a small hand twisted her gut and a foul liquid flooded her mouth. Before she could bend forward, she had vomited her lunchtime shrimp noodles on her overalls. She had bought the noodles downstairs from their lodging in the Wen Ah Tsun Store. Maybe the shrimp had gone off.

  Yin Ling ran to the washroom and was just cleaning up her clothes and shoes, when the little hand began churning her guts again. By this time, her stomach was empty and she had nothing left to vomit except yellow bile. She retched and retched, and finally felt better. Maybe Johnny was right when he said that you never got decent, fresh food from “Chink” shops.

  She started making sandwiches in the kitchen. There were so few customers that she did not dare make many. By the time she had finished, her stomach was growling with hunger. She nibbled a corner of a sandwich but it was tasteless and she put it back. Then she heard familiar guitar chords from the front of the house and Johnny began to sing. He sang the songs he always did but today they lacked their usual gutsiness.

  Before the last Chinese New Year her grandfather had looked at predictions for the coming year and said they were not propitious. Families should batten down the hatches and not make any changes. He was right. This year really had been a bumpy road full of disasters, tears and grief. It had sapped Johnny’s normally ebullient spirits. Happily, there were only three more days to go till the new year. Yin Ling was excited about what the new year might bring.

  When they left work to go home, a thick, wet blanket of snow was falling. The flakes blew horizontally into their faces. It was a struggle to get along in the teeth of the wind, and Yin Ling forgot to ask about Johnny’s conversation with the owner. It was only when they were in bed that she gave him a shove and asked: “What was the boss saying to you this evening?” Johnny did not answer, just turned his back on her. Yin Ling climbed over him and pushed her face into his: “I asked you a question.” Johnny sat up in annoyance. Pushing her off, he said: “Stop being such a nuisance!”

  He had never been so rough with her before and Yin Ling was taken aback. While she was wondering what to say, Johnny, not looking at her, felt in his jacket pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. The cigarettes were damp from the snow and he wasted several matches before he could get one to light. He smoked one, then lit another from the butt, and smoked that, and then another. After the third, Yin Ling said: “Are you trying to set the room on fire?” Johnny got another two cigarettes out without speaking and lit them. He put one in his mouth and gave the other to Yin Ling.

  “You have a go.”

  She put it in her mouth like Johnny did and breathed in. The first mouthful of smoke cut a hole in her throat. The second did the same but the knife seemed less fierce. By the third breath, the blade was blunt and just tickled her throat.

  Johnny looked at her. “You know, Yin Ling,” he said, “you do everything with such style. Even if it’s your first time you act like you’ve been doing it all your life.” Yin Ling watched as a perfect little smoke ring issued from between her lips, grew fat and fluffy as it rose to hit the ceiling and collapsed like a soap bubble.

  “Like what?”

  “Like smoking. Or running away from home.”

  “Huh! You’re making fun of me, I can tell.” But Johnny turned to face her and said emphatically: “Listen to me, Yin Ling. I’ve never made fun of you. You are the most interesting woman I’ve ever met.” “Because my dad’s French?” she asked, and they both laughed.

  Johnny gripped Yin Ling’s shoulder: “I know you miss your family,” he said. Yin Ling shook her head vehemently but the tears came anyway. In two days’ time it would be New Year’s Eve. There would be five chairs round the table for the New Year’s Eve dinner, and two of them would be empty. No amount of complaining from her mother could fill them, though perhaps the new baby would make up for that.

  Johnny did not want sex from Yin Ling that night. Instead, he cradled her in his arms as if she was a baby. He held her tight for so long that he began to get a cramp. Yin Ling slept soundly, dreamlessly. When she woke up, the room was dazzlingly bright; she could not tell whether from the sun or the snow. Dust motes danced in the light like a myriad of silver specks. Yin Ling stretched out an arm but Johnny’s pillow was empty. Instead her hand fell on a letter.

  She opened the envelope. Inside were a ten-dollar bill and a scribbled note.

  I’ve been sacked by the boss because the customers say we’ve spoilt the “feel” of the town and they don’t want us around. I’ve got to get on the road but I don’t know where the next stop will be. Use this money to buy yourself a train ticket to Vancouver. If you’re quick, you might make it home for New Year. The skating life’s not for you. I’m sorry, I really am.

  After the fall of Hong Kong there were no more letters from China. There were still fearless folks in Chinatown risking their lives travelling to China to visit their families. They brought back the news that Wai Kwok had been killed in a Japanese bombardment. When he heard, Ah-Fat took to his bed and refused food and drink for two days.

  On the third day, Ah-Fat got up of his own accord, helped himself to a big
bowl of rice from the pot, added some pickled cucumber and scarfed it all. He put the bowl down and said to Cat Eyes: “Get out ten dollars and tell Kam Shan to take it to the Chinese Benevolent Association.”

  Cat Eyes pulled a face: “We donated ten dollars last time.”

  Ah-Fat’s eyes bulged from their sockets. “Are you waiting till the Japs raze Hoi Ping to the ground before you do anything?” he shouted.

  Age had made Ah-Fat apathetic, and it was a long time since they had seen him so fired up. Kam Shan tried to catch her eye, but she looked away. He tugged at her sleeve but she pulled it free.

  “Even if I sold myself, I couldn’t raise ten dollars. You know what we spent the last few cents on.”

  Cat Eyes’ restaurant had opened a new branch and Cat Eyes had been transferred there as waitress. It was a long way off and Cat Eyes was too pregnant to walk. She had spent twelve dollars on an old banger of a Ford.

  Ah-Fat pointed at the dishes on the table: “I’ll just eat one bowl of rice a day from now on. That way we can put a bit by, can’t we?”

  In the last couple of years, the local Chinese had sent two contingents of young men to China to join the war effort, with some receiving training in San Francisco from Nationalist airmen sent over from China. Arms and equipment cost money, and so did food supplies. The Chinese Association had passed the hat round several times, but less and less money was raised each time. Then, articles appeared in the overseas Chinese newspapers calling on every family to have one bowl less of rice every day and send the money saved to China to help the war effort.

  “You’re supposed to have one bowl less every day, Dad,” said Kam Shan, “not just one bowl a day. Who’ll fight the Japanese devils if we all starve to death?” “Huh! What do singing girls care?” said his father and, folding his hands into his sleeves, went upstairs to his room.

  Kam Shan had had enough schooling to recognize the lines from the old poem. He looked at Cat Eyes: “Country people can give birth even in pigsties. What makes you so precious all of a sudden?”

  Cat Eyes knew this was a dig at her because she had bought a car. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out it took two to make a baby, but Kam Shan had gone out, slamming the door.

  He did not come home till dinner, and Cat Eyes had gone to work by then. The house lights were blazing and his father was bent over a sheet of paper on the kitchen table, brush in hand.

  It was a long time since he last got out paper and ink, and his writing hand shook badly. The ink loaded onto the wolf-hair brush meandered across the paper; in large characters, Ah-Fat had written:

  Fong Yiu Mo (martial splendour)

  Fong Yiu Kwok (patriotic splendour)

  Fong Yiu Keung (unyielding splendour)

  Fong Yiu Bon (splendour of the nation)

  Fong Yiu Tung (eastern splendour)

  Kam Shan realized that his father was choosing a name for Cat Eyes’ son. After “Kam,” the next-generation name was “Yiu.” The only grandson of that generation born to the Fongs was Yiu Kei, who had drowned in the No-Name River two years ago. Ah-Fat’s only remaining hope was the bump in Cat Eyes’ belly.

  When Kam Shan came in, Ah-Fat threw down his brush and lit a cigarette. Ash dropped from the tip as he smoked it and burned a tiny scorch hole in the paper.

  “Which name do you like? I think it ought to be Yiu Mo. We need military brilliance to save the country.”

  “I need a piss,” said Kam Shan, and hurried to the toilet. He stood holding himself over the toilet but could only squeeze out a few drops of urine. His father called him but Kam Shan turned a deaf ear. Suddenly a dark thought crept unbidden into his mind. What if his father died before Cat Eyes’ baby was born? Back in their village, it was rare for a man to live past sixty. His father was seventy-eight. Surely he could not last much longer…

  Cat Eyes’ shift finished at midnight and she drove the juddering old Ford home. To her surprise, Kam Shan was not at his usual post by the door. He had gone to bed.

  But he was not asleep. When Cat Eyes came in, he shifted over and made room for her. Cat Eyes got in under the covers and felt her body go soft as cotton batting in the warmth. In all her years with Kam Shan, he had never before warmed the bed for her.

  She was just drifting into sleep when something roused her and she sat up with a jerk. Pulling Kam Shan’s hand to her, she said: “Feel that! The little rascal’s kicking me!”

  Kam Shan put his hand on Cat Eyes’ pale belly. It felt as if a puppet on invisible strings was hiding inside and kicking out its legs.

  “I went to Fat Kei Herbalists yesterday and the herbalist looked at my belly and said I was carrying it so high he was ninety percent sure it would be a boy,” Cat Eyes said.

  Kam Shan said nothing. His hand trembled like a leaf. Cat Eyes remembered the old saying about a son in old age being the greatest happiness, and stroked the back of Kam Shan’s hand: “When Yin Ling comes back home, then the family will be complete,” she said.

  Kam Shan tossed and turned all night but could not sleep. When he got up in the morning, he saw his reflection in the window, and was astonished to see that his thatch of hair had turned grey overnight.

  Cat Eyes’ shift started at midday. She was in the car and had just started the engine when Kam Shan ran out and rapped on the window. She wound down the window and could not help smiling at the sight of Kam Shan wearing a hat pulled down tightly over his ears. “You’re not going out wearing a funny-looking thing like that, are you?” she said. Kam Shan stared at her but said nothing. Cat Eyes was about to drive off when Kam Shan blurted out: “Your next Monday off, can you not go out?”

  Cat Eyes had heard this kind of comment for years and years, and went in one ear and out the other. Still, this time, although the words were the same, he seemed to be saying something different. Her heart softened. “Do you want me to stay with you, is that it?” Kam Shan nodded. “And I’d like to take you to the fish and chips restaurant next to the Vancouver Hotel.” Cat Eyes laughed. “Did you just trip over a bundle of dollar bills? Folks like us can’t afford that kind of a place!” “I’ve got money,” said Kam Shan. He wanted to go on. “And I’ve got something to say to you.…” but Cat Eyes had already roared off down the road.

  They never ate that meal together, because before Cat Eyes had her next day off, she miscarried.

  She began to hemorrhage in the Lychee Garden Restaurant and lost consciousness. They took her to the hospital. She was only five months pregnant and the baby did not survive.

  It was a boy.

  When Kam Shan heard the news, he squatted on the floor and burst into floods of tears. Ah-Fat had never seen his son cry in his life. If he kept it up, Ah-Fat thought, he would cry the heavens into bits and the earth into a bottomless pit. But Ah-Fat felt that it was not wholly grief that moved his son; it was also as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

  The next day, Kam Shan took himself off somewhere where he could be alone and burned a sheet of paper he had kept hidden in his pocket.

  It was a deed of contract.

  It read as follows:

  I, Fong Kam Shan, of Spur-On Village, Hoi Ping County, Guangdong Province, China, now resident in Vancouver, British Columbia, together with my wife, Mrs. Chow, agree to sell the baby which Mrs. Chow is carrying, whether it is a girl or a boy, to Mr. and Mrs. Tseng Yiu Nam of Toi Shan, for the sum of seventy dollars, this sum to be donated to the anti-Japanese war effort fund in its entirety. This document is a permanent record of this agreement.

  Third day of the eighth month of year thirty of the Republic

  Up till now, Ah-Fat had never thought of himself as old.

  His hair had gone grey long ago and his eyes had deteriorated, but if he wore his glasses, he could still read books and newspapers. He had lost a few teeth but was still capable of chewing his rice and peanuts. His knees were a bit crooked but could carry him along the road on his walks well enough. True, his hand shook when he held his writi
ng brush, but he could still form the characters if he wanted to write. They all said he was an old man—Kam Shan, Kam Ho, Cat Eyes, Gold Mountain Cloud—and he accepted their comments with a smile. But although he could not be bothered to argue, in his heart of hearts he was not convinced. What other people said did not count. The only thing that counted was what he felt in himself.

  When he came back from seeing Rick Henderson, he was not so sure.

  Since Kam Ho had left the Hendersons, Ah-Fat had not been back to see Rick. Time went by, and one day he found himself on the street where the Hendersons lived. As he drew closer, he saw a For Sale sign stuck into the lawn in front of their house. He was surprised, and went up the steps to knock on the door. There was no answer but a neighbour came out to tell him that Rick had died.

  It was about a month ago, but no one knew exactly which day it had happened. Rick had not been taking the dog out for its usual walk, the neighbour told Ah-Fat, and one day they heard the dog barking and barking. Finally the neighbour banged on the door and, when there was no answer, broke in and found Rick lying dead on the kitchen floor. He had been dead for some days and the rats had gnawed out his eyes. The dog lay dead next to him.

  The next day, Ah-Fat bought a bunch of flowers and took them up the mountain to pay his respects to Rick.

  It was not the first time he had been up the mountain.

  There was the occasion when Jenny, Rick’s daughter, had died, then another occasion when Rick’s wife, Phyllis, died. This visit was his third. He put down the bunch of white chrysanthemums, a little withered from the frost, and took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He put one cigarette on the gravestone, lit the other and squatted on the ground to smoke it.

  You had rotten luck, Rick. You bought this plot for your wife and daughter to bury you here. But you ended up burying them first and there was no one to bury you.

  “You’ve gone, you bastard, and I’m the only one left,” Ah-Fat muttered to himself.