Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [124]
She sat down at her dressing table, her heart racing. She had not used her mirror for a long time, and the glass was covered in a fine layer of dust. She wiped a small window on it with her sleeve and saw a sallow face, dotted with a few freckles. The glimpse of her own face after so long alarmed her. She pulled open the drawer and felt around for the rouge. Eventually she extracted the box from one corner and opened it, to find that the years had turned the rouge into a rock-hard lump. She scraped off a little with a fingernail, put it in her palm and moistened it with saliva. Then she smeared it on her cheeks and lips. At least she would not look so pale.
Her hair was bare of ornaments. It had been many months since she had even stuck a flower in her bun. She thought of the jade hairpin which she had been so fond of. Ah-Fat had bought it for her on his last visit home, paying as much as a mu of land for it. She kept it wrapped in a piece of red cloth in the secret drawer behind her mirror. One end of the pin had broken, but the agate pendant which hung from the other end was still as good as new. She put the mirror down and took out the jade hairpin. The broken end was sharp and snagged her hair painfully, but she finally managed to push it firmly into place, hiding the broken end beneath her hair. The agate pendant tinkled against her ear, and she suddenly felt her spirits lift.
Six Fingers would have liked to change her clothes but there was no time. She could hear knocking at the door downstairs. She stood up, with a sharp intake of breath, and nearly knocked over the stool. The wound on her thigh had healed but the scar tissue was puckered and tight, and pulled painfully whenever she made an awkward movement.
There’s no makeup that can cover up my lame leg, she thought.
She opened the door to her room. Someone stood in the gloom on the other side and almost fell into Six Fingers’ arms. It was Mrs. Mak. At first Six Fingers could only make out a dark shadow but as her eyes got accustomed to the darkness, she saw Mrs. Mak was holding something bundled up in her hand. She thrust it at Six Fingers. It was a strip of cloth: Mrs. Mak’s freshly washed and dried foot-binding cloth.
“Stuff this into your shoe, then it won’t look as if one leg’s longer than the other.”
Six Fingers felt a rush of warmth; tears filled her eyes and trembled there for a moment. She swallowed them back, and there was a salty taste at the back of her mouth. She knelt down on all fours in front of the old woman, as if she were a beast of burden.
“I’ll carry you downstairs, Mum, so Ah-Fat can pay his respects to you.”
When Ah-Fat had seen the last guest off and went into the bedroom, Six Fingers was sitting at the mirror, removing her makeup. The jade hairpin with its broken end lay on the dressing table, catching the light with a cold gleam. In the lamplight, Six Fingers looked a little tired. Thirteen years of separation had left crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and on her forehead.
Ah-Fat picked up the hairpin and ran his hands over it. The edge of the broken end was rough and scratched his skin.
Ah-Fat let her mass of loose hair run over his hand. With one finger he traced a line around her neck until he reached the dip just below her right ear. There was a round scar there, the size of a pea.
Six Fingers stiffened. His finger ran over the scar, backwards, forwards, as if he were gradually smoothing its rough surface with fine sandpaper. The scar was a reminder of her kidnapping by Chu Sei. When the bandit tried to rape her, she had stabbed herself in the throat with her hairpin. Chu Sei had let her alone then, because he urgently needed the ransom money.
“Does it still hurt here?”
Six Fingers was startled. “Who told you?” she asked. Ah-Fat laughed. “How many people around here have you taught to write? Even the Fong family’s dogs are literate these days. You can’t hide any family business from me.”
It must have been Mak Dau who had written to Ah-Fat, she realized. No one else knew except