Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [125]
“Ah-Yin, stop using this hairpin,” said Ah-Fat. “In a couple of days, I’ll go to Canton and get you a silver one. Fashionable women don’t wear jade any more, they wear silver ornaments.” “Just get a jade carver to grind the broken edge smooth, then I can wear it,” said Six Fingers. “It was so dear, how can I just get rid of it?” “Nothing is dearer to me than the honour of my family,” said Ah-Fat. “I’d buy you a house of gold if I had the money.”
Six Fingers gave a little laugh. “You might have had. Is it true you gave it all to the Monarchist Reform Party?” “Who told you that?” asked Ah-Fat. “You may have your sources but so have I,” said Six Fingers. “Do you regret it? How much land and property could you have bought with all that money? And after all that you couldn’t keep the Emperor on his throne.” Ah-Fat sighed. “Who can foresee what’s going to happen in the world? If the emperor Guangxu was still alive, then the Great Qing Empire could have been saved. But once our country passed into the hands of the young emperor, there was no hope for it.”
Six Fingers looked at the ever-deepening lines on Ah-Fat’s face, and took his hand between her own. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s the empire or a republic, there’s nothing we common people can do to rescue it. You just look after your own family.”
Six Fingers’ hands were soft. They had not dug soil or shovelled manure or been soaked in soap or brine for many a year. They were plump and white, with five dimples on the backs of each one. Ah-Fat’s gaze stumbled from one dimple to the next and his hands, trapped between hers, began to get ideas. He freed them and reached inside her jacket. He felt an obstruction. “Are you wearing the corset?” he asked.
Six Fingers gave another laugh. “Of course I am. You bought it for me, didn’t you?” Ah-Fat’s fingers began clumsily to wrestle with the complicated fastenings, but it took him several attempts before they surrendered. Finally his hands roved unimpeded all over her body. Like frozen earth warmed by the sun, her body slumped soft and shapeless against him. Then before Ah-Fat could stop her, she blew out the candle and the room was plunged into darkness.
Ah-Fat groped his way to the bed, Six Fingers in his arms. She had grown much plumper than before, something that Ah-Fat’s hands told him before his eyes had explored her carefully. His hands told him of another change in Six Fingers too—her body was on fire and the flames licked around him, enveloping him and singeing his own body and fingers until they sizzled. Ah-Fat felt a frenzy in Six Fingers which he had never felt before.
Afterwards, Ah-Fat stroked her damp hair. “Ah-Yin, don’t turn out the light next time, OK? Every scar on your body you got because of me. Let me look at them, then I can remember.” Six Fingers was silent. She did not want Ah-Fat to see the tears on her cheeks.
By the time her tears had dried, snores were coming from Ah-Fat. Six Fingers did not remember him snoring on his last visit home. His snores vibrated like rumbles of thunder in her ears. She could not sleep, and shook him awake.
At first Ah-Fat did not know where he was. “Leave me alone, Ah-Lam!” he mumbled. Six Fingers was seized with a sudden fear. “Ah-Chu’s old man came home last year and gave her syphilis. Do you go off with women when you’re out there too?” she asked quietly after a moment. Ah-Fat was wide awake now but did not answer. When Six Fingers asked again, he said: “Ah-Yin, I’m only staying four months this time. I want to get back to pay off the money I borrowed to build the diulau. Then when I’ve saved up the head tax, I’m taking you out with me.”
Her question remained unanswered, thought Six Fingers, but she felt she could not ask again.
“What will happen to Mum when I’ve gone?” she asked. “I’ll borrow more money and bring you both over together.” Six Fingers sighed. “But Mum’s getting old, she won’t want to be uprooted and go to Gold Mountain. Just getting her to move from the old house to here.…” Ah-Fat ran his hand over the dent in Six Fingers’ thigh where the scar tissue