Gold Mountain Blues

by Ling Zhang

  Out of all those who built the railroad, was what he meant.

  There were thirty-one of them in the team, including their foreman, Rick. Many of them died as they blasted their way through the Rockies, Red Hair among them. And many more were lost trying to get home when the work was finished and they were sacked. Some starved to death later, in Victoria, and of those who did not, some went back to Guangdong. Only four remained in Vancouver. Ah-Lam had died thirty years ago, and another died the year before last. Now Rick was dead and only Ah-Fat remained.

  There were so many stories from the railroad-building days. Why had he never thought of recording them? Now, even though he could still remember, he could not write them down any more, and he would take them to his grave. Those untold tales would be trapped in his casket, waiting for weeds and moss to obscure them permanently.

  As he went down the mountain, he suddenly felt as if a muscle was missing from his leg and he could not stand straight. Just like that, his whole body had suddenly shrunk.

  Maybe I really am old, he thought. I suppose I must be—I’m getting close to eighty.

  He hobbled down the road on his way home. From a distance, he could see the lights of Chinatown coming on, faint spots of good cheer dotted here and there in the gathering darkness. However grim life was, you had to celebrate New Year, he thought. When he got home, he would bring the festive lanterns down from the attic, dust them off and hang them up.

  He thought about the family in China, in the village in Hoi Ping. There had been no letters from home for a long time, since Hong Kong fell to the Japanese. How was Six Fingers getting on? He had not seen her in more than twenty years, and if it were not for the photographs, her face would have faded from his memory.

  He was trying to find his key when he stubbed his foot on a bundle lying by his front door. Why was his family so lazy they could not be bothered to take the rubbish out, he mumbled angrily. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the bundle moved and got to its feet. “Granddad!” Ah-Fat nearly buckled at the knees in fright. He took a closer look. This was clearly no ghost; he could see the breath coming from its nostrils in the cold air. Without bothering with his key, he rapped thunderously on the door. “Yin Ling’s back!” he shouted.

  A moment later, Cat Eyes opened the door, Kam Shan behind her. They turned on the lights to see a figure covered in dirt and enveloped in an overcoat so impregnated with dust it was impossible to tell the original colour. In the half-light, the grey lips cracked open to reveal flesh-pink gums. “Mum, Dad!” Cat Eyes’ legs gave way under her and she sat down on the ground.

  “So we’re still your mum and dad, are we? We spent months posting missing persons notices on the radio and in the newspapers for you. So now you’ve spent all the cash you took from the house, you’re back, eh?”

  Kam Shan pulled Cat Eyes back. “Keep your trap shut, woman. Go and heat some water so she can wash.”

  Yin Ling took a bath and put on some clean clothes borrowed from Cat Eyes. Glowing from the hot water, she finally looked human. Dinner was on the table. She wasn’t surprised to see what she assumed was yesterday’s leftovers from the Lychee Garden Restaurant. She sat down, then looked around and asked: “Where’s the baby?” Her mother’s belly was flat now so she was clearly not pregnant any more.

  There was silence at the table.

  After a moment, Ah-Fat asked: “Where did you go, Yin Ling? Your mum and dad have been tearing their hair out with worry.” “Lots of places,” said Yin Ling, and looked down at her bowl. She scooped the rice into her mouth but was careful not to take any of the meat and vegetables until her elders had served themselves. She’s finally learned some manners, thought her grandfather.

  Cat Eyes looked coldly at her daughter and noticed how thin her face was, her cheekbones sticking out knifelike above her freckly cheeks. Yin Ling got up to serve herself more rice. There was something odd in the way she walked. Cat Eyes could not ignore her growing suspicions. Without bothering to finish her food, she jumped up and dragged Yin Ling up to her room.

  She shut the door behind her and gripped Yin Ling by the scruff of the neck. “When did you last come on?” she demanded. Yin Ling looked down at her shoes and said nothing. Cat Eyes asked again, this time gripping her more tightly until Yin Ling could hardly breathe. Her mouth opened and shut like a fish gasping for air, and she finally stammered: “Oct … October.”

  Cat Eyes let go and stood looking at her without speaking. Her eyes sunk into their sockets as if they were two dried-up pits. “I knew it … knew it!” she repeated. Yin Ling was terrified. She grabbed her mother’s sleeve and cried piteously: “Mum! Mum!” Cat Eyes shook her off and flew down the stairs.

  The two men had just finished eating and were lighting their first afterdinner cigarette. The price of tobacco had gone sky-high but men needed to smoke so the quality of cigarettes got worse and worse. Cat Eyes cut through the cloud of smoke, grabbed the cigarette out of Kam Shan’s mouth and threw it in the sink. “Have you gone completely crazy, you stupid woman?” Kam Shan fished it out but it was sodden. He tore open the paper and spread the tobacco out to dry, cursing as he did so.

  Cat Eyes spat a gob of green phlegm. “That little slut you’ve been spoiling all her life has just gone and got herself pregnant! Three or four months now and who knows who the father is!”

  Kam Shan was so taken aback, his hands convulsed and the tobacco scattered over the floor.

  Cat Eyes pointed a finger in Kam Shan’s face. “Did she ever listen to me? Not with a father like you, and what did you ever manage to teach her? She can go to hell, I’m having nothing to do with her.”

  Kam Shan grasped the finger Cat Eyes was waving at him and bent it brutally. Cat Eyes squealed like a stuck pig.

  “Like daughter, like mother. It’s no wonder she’s a slut with a slut like you for a mother.”

  This was a knife in Cat Eyes’ chest. She pressed her hands against it as if she wanted to pull the knife out, but her heart sucked the blade in and would not let it go. “When I was in the brothel, the whole town knew I was a slut,” she said between clenched teeth. “But I didn’t go running around town looking for a man, you came to me. If I’m a slut, what does that make you?”

  Ah-Fat could not take any more. He thumped his fist on the table so hard the skin between thumb and finger split and bled.

  “If you two want to fight, then go outside and fight, and tell the whole town about it, why don’t you? Then every man in town will want Yin Ling as a wife, that’s for sure.”

  Kam Shan and Cat Eyes fell silent.

  “Go to the Fat Kei Herbalists with a bag of walnut and red bean cookies,” he ordered, “and talk to the herbalist’s mother. Get her to give you some medicine to get rid of it. Tell her you’ve fallen pregnant but you’re too old to bring up a baby. The herbalist’s a good son. He’ll do what his mother tells him.”

  When Cat Eyes understood what Ah-Fat was saying, a look of embarrassment crossed her face. “What are you waiting for, woman?” Ah-Fat shouted. “There’s no time to lose. If it’s too late to get rid of it, who’s going to marry her?”

  Cat Eyes turned the house upside down before she finally found some paper to wrap the cookies.

  The mixture the herbalist gave her was effective. Yin Ling began to bleed, and for weeks on end, the blood continued to trickle out.

  When the bleeding finally stopped, Kam Shan tried to persuade Yin Ling to go back to school and finish her studies. But Yin Ling was adamant. “I’d rather kill myself” was her response. Kam Shan was afraid she might be as good as her word if he pushed her too hard, so instead Yin Ling started work at the Lychee Garden Restaurant as a waitress like her mother.

  She did not stay long. In fact, she had scarcely had time to learn the names of the drinks on the wine list and the dishes on the menu when she was gone again. This time she went off with a yeung fan called John, regular customer who had taken a fancy to her the moment he set eyes on her. It h
appened right under Cat Eyes’ nose, but she never noticed. And so, four months after she came home, Yin Ling left again.

  This time, she was gone for more than ten years. When she came back again, her grandfather and mother had both died, and only her father remained.

  This time, she brought with her a daughter, whose name was Amy.

  One day in early summer, 2004, a Canadian woman named Amy Smith, accompanied by a government official, Mr. Auyung, went to pay her respects at the Fong ancestral hall. In the records of the Fong Tak Fat family, she found the following text:

  Fong Tak Fat’s younger son, Fong Kam Ho, married a woman of the Au family, of Wai Yeung Village, in year eighteen of the Republic; they had one son, Yiu Kei, who died aged nine years. In year twenty-nine of the Republic, Fong Kam Ho donated four thousand Canadian dollars to the Nationalist government in Guangdong to buy planes to fight the Japanese, in recognition of which he was awarded a commemorative medal for his patriotism. In the same year, Fong Kam Ho enlisted in the Canadian army and worked as a special agent in a small town in the southwest of France, gathering intelligence and training members of the Resistance. He was betrayed in year thirty-four of the Republic on the eve of the Allied victory and was killed. A bridge in the town was renamed Jimmy Fong Bridge in his honour. (Jimmy Fong was Fong Kam Ho’s English name.)

  8

  Gold Mountain Blues

  Year thirty of the Republic (1941)

  Hoi Ping County, Guangdong Province, China

  Six Fingers and Mak Dau noticed the plane overhead as they made their way home with Wai Kwok.

  Wai Kwok had just started attending his parents’ school, where he was a boarder. Yesterday, Kam Sau sent a message from the school that her son was ill. He had been treated by a Western-trained doctor but, although his temperature had gone down, he was still very tired. Could someone pick him up and take him back to the village for a few days’ rest at the diulau?

  Six Fingers carried a bag full of hot spring rolls stuffed with bean sprouts, which she had made fresh that morning. She left half with Kam Sau and Ah-Yuen to share; the other half was for them to eat on the way home.

  The whole world was at war these days, and the postal system was in chaos along with everything else. Since Six Fingers could not depend on dollar letters, she had to sell off some of their land. It was a good thing she had bought some land cheaply when things were more settled a few years back. It meant she could sell it off now at a profit, one mu at a time, to put food on their table.

  Six Fingers was keeping an ever tighter grip on the purse strings. She had dismissed all the diulau servants except for Mak Dau and his wife, Ah-Yuet. Even Ah-Choi, who had been with them for decades, was packed off to her home village. Ah-Fat’s uncle and aunt were long dead, and their son and daughter had married and left the diulau. That only left Kam Sau, Ah-Yuen and their children, Mak Dau and Ah-Yuet, and Kam Ho’s wife, Ah-Hsien. Six Fingers regarded Ah-Hsien as a complete fool, and left only the simplest jobs for her to do. Six Fingers did most of the cooking now.

  Mak Dau walked along empty-handed. Tucked into his trouser waistband was a revolver. He took a gun wherever he went these days, even to bed. Guns protected life in these turbulent times—the lives of everyone in the diulau, not just his own.

  The original plan was for Mak Dau to go alone to fetch Wai Kwok, but Six Fingers was so concerned about him that she insisted on going too. Mak Dau dug out an old tunic which Ah-Yuet wore for messy work, and asked Six Fingers to put it on. Then he made her take out her jade hairpin, muss her hair up and pull it back into an untidy bun. He brought a bowlful of ash from the kitchen stove and made her rub it on her face and neck. “I’m not some pretty young girl of eighteen,” Six Fingers protested. “Who’s going to be looking at me?” Mak Dau laughed out loud. “If you live to be a hundred, Missus, you’ll never lose your looks,” he said. “And if you live to be a hundred, you’ll never lose that glib tongue of yours,” she countered. But she was secretly pleased.

  Just as they were leaving the house, Six Fingers stopped in her tracks. “I want you to promise me something, Mak Dau,” she said. “What?” “Promise first, then I’ll tell you.” “How can I promise when I don’t know what it is?” “If you don’t promise, I’m not telling you.” Back and forth they argued, until Six Fingers finally said: “I want you to promise that if anything happens on the trip, save me if you can. But if you can’t save me, put a bullet through my head.”

  There was a long silence. Finally Mak Dau said: “Believe me, if I can’t save you, the first shot will be for you and the second for me. I promise that I’ll always stick by you.” Six Fingers was touched by Mak Dau’s loyalty, and then felt a sudden pang. There was someone else who should have been looking out for her all these years: her lawful wedded husband.

  When they arrived at the school to collect Wai Kwok, Six Fingers exclaimed anxiously at how thin and pale he had grown. And in fact they had only gone a short way on the road home before the boy needed a rest and they sat down to eat their spring rolls. They set off again, and Mak Dau gave Wai Kwok a piggyback. He nodded off and slumped heavily against Mak Dau, forcing him to walk along bent almost double under the weight.

  “You’re getting old, Mak Dau,” said Six Fingers. “Well, with a grandson this big, it would be surprising if I wasn’t.” Mak Dau had lost two front teeth and his breath whistled through the gaps as he spoke. Six Fingers thought back to the time, all those years ago, when he had first arrived at the Fongs’. He had such strong, white teeth back then. They lit up the whole courtyard when he smiled. But everyone had to get old sometime, she supposed, even Mak Dau.

  “Well, at least you’ve got a grandson.… I lost mine, all because of that fool,” Six Fingers said bitterly.

  She was referring to Yiu Kei. Every time Six Fingers thought of her grandson, she cursed her daughter-in-law, Ah-Hsien. “Haven’t you gone on about this enough?” he said. “It’s been nearly three years now. It’s a good thing she’s such a blockhead; your cursing and swearing is like water off a duck’s back. It just doesn’t get you anywhere. The way I look at it, Yiu Kei was never meant to be part of your family. He just visited with you for short while on his way to another life in another place. Let him go, and he’ll reward you when he returns in another life. Anyway, haven’t you still got Wai Kwok? My grandson is your grandson. When the time comes, he’ll be the one to look after us and bury us. If he dares to misbehave, he won’t get away with it!”

  Six Fingers’ mood lightened at Mak Dau’s blunt words.

  As they walked along, a brisk wind whipped up. It was a regular market day and the road was thronged with people laden with baskets of produce hung from shoulder poles. Mak Dau and Six Fingers watched in amusement as a peddler’s broad-brimmed hat blew off. He sprinted after it, but it bowled along faster just out of reach. Finally the peddler gave up the chase and sat down covered in sweat by the roadside, swearing rudely.

  They were still laughing at the sight when another sound caught their ears. It was a loud humming like a giant metal fan overhead. Mak Dau looked up and saw a group of black dots on the horizon. The dots got bigger and grew wings like birds. “Planes! It’s the Japs!” someone shouted. The market-goers dropped their baskets and ran frantically for cover.

  It was not the first time Japanese planes had flown overhead. Years ago, they had bombed Wai Yeung Village and several members of Ah-Hsien’s family were killed. That was on a market day, too. Six Fingers had never been caught in a bombing raid herself. She stood frozen in shock.

  It was still early in spring and in the fields on either side of the road the crops had only just begun to put up tender shoots. There was no cover anywhere. When they looked up again, the birds were so near they could make out the red blob of the Jap flag painted on their tails. Mak Dau hastily put Wai Kwok down under a tall tree by the roadside. “Don’t move!” he shouted. Then he ran to Six Fingers, flung her face down on the ground and lay beside her.

  Six Fingers
lay in a pile of fresh dog shit. The stink was so bad she could hardly draw breath but she was past caring. She shut her eyes very tightly and repeated over and over: “Buddha have mercy, Buddha have mercy.” She counted four dull booms which seemed to come from the bowels of the earth, and the ground beneath them trembled violently. Separate sounds merged into a terrifying, continuous roar. Objects fell from the sky and hit her on the back with metallic pings—clods of earth perhaps. Her body felt increasingly heavy, as if she was being crushed under layer after layer of cotton-stuffed quilts. Everything went black. I have been buried alive, she thought.

  Later, after all the noises died away, the earth stopped trembling and silence fell. Six Fingers was suffocating; her lungs felt as though they were about to burst and her eyes were popping from their sockets. She tried to call “Mak Dau!” but no sound came out. She heard a scratching. The thought came to her that a snake was trying to bore its way through the mud. But it was all too late. She knew she was going to die here.

  Suddenly, light appeared and she saw a mud-covered lump with two shiny white eyes, and a pair of hands soaked red.

  “Mak Dau, are you hurt…?” she croaked.

  The mud-covered mouth cracked open, showing pink gums: “It’s nothing. I scratched my hands digging you out.”

  The same thought occurred to both of them at that moment: Wai Kwok!

  But where was the tree?

  It still stood, but was only half as tall as before. Its top and all the branches had gone, leaving a stump a few feet high. The stump still looked like a tree on one side, but on the other, it was charred coal-black. Flames leapt from it.

  Six Fingers and Mak Dau began to search frantically for Wai Kwok. They circled the tree but he was nowhere to be found. They made another circuit, but still could not find him. At the third attempt, Six Fingers found a shoe poking out from under a pile of debris.

  It was of black twill, with a white sole made of layered cotton. The upper was embroidered with a tiger’s head. Six Fingers recognized her own handiwork. She had made the shoes when Wai Kwok started school.