Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [140]
“The people long for Chinese rule. It is heaven’s wish that the barbarians should fall and the revolution should succeed. It will happen very soon.… As we make preparations now, we urgently need to raise funds so that we can carry forward the great common enterprise of returning China to the Chinese. The survival of our country depends on this. The revolutionary army will throw itself into battle.…”
With every sentence, the crowd roared in response and, as the speaker grew more and more hoarse, the crowd’s responses grew more enthusiastic. Then at the climax of the speech, the man in the Chinese gown drew a pair of scissors from the front of his gown, took off his cap and pulled up his pigtail to its full extent; the scissors snipped through it. The long rope of hair fell like a headless snake, writhed a couple of times on the ground and then unravelled. Its owner brandished the scissors at the audience below and shouted: “The revolution starts here and now! Anyone who wants to follow the revolution, take these scissors from me!”
The frenzied crowd stilled all of a sudden, as if the heart had gone out of it. Until the scissors had made their appearance, revolution had sounded like a splendid adventure, one which made men’s pulses race with excitement but which was, like a roll of thunder on the horizon, still a distant prospect. The scissors had cut away that distance and revolution was right before them. They had to take it up or run away—there was no middle ground.
The scissors wavered at the front of the stage, still a long way from where Kam Shan stood, chilled to the marrow. Then, as he sniffed, he was suddenly shaken by an enormous sneeze that reverberated like a thunderclap around the auditorium. The eyes of the speaker fell on him.
“You’re wet through, young brother, have you come far?”
Kam Shan was startled. It was only when his neighbours gave him a shove that he realized that the man called Mr. Sun was speaking to him from the stage. All eyes in the room now fell on him, their gaze as intense as the beams of hundreds of lanterns. Kam Shan’s wet gown gave off puffs of steam and his forehead beaded with drops of sweat. His lips trembled a few times but no sound came out.
“Are you in the Hung Mun?” asked Mr. Sun.
As he stammered, Mr. Fung went over to Mr. Sun and whispered something in his ear. The latter burst out laughing.
“He’s not a Hung Mun man but the donations he’s made to the revolution are just as generous as any member’s. Brother, are you willing to join the Hung Mun now?”
Kam Shan hesitated, but then saw Mr. Fung gesturing to him from the stage. Mr. Fung was gently rapping his own chest with his fist, but Kam Shan felt the fist was falling on him, and something fiery hot surged in his heart.
“Yes, I am.”
He heard himself say the words and was astonished. They seemed not to have come from inside but to have been stuffed into his mouth by someone else.
Nonetheless, they could not be taken back.
The man brandishing the scissors leapt from the stage, seized Kam Shan’s pigtail and shouted: “This young brother has started the revolution. Those who enter the Hung Mun take an oath never to join the ranks of the Qing government!” Kam Shan felt his scalp tighten, then relax. His head felt suddenly so light it might have flown from his body.
There was a collective gasp, and a yell: “Revolution! Revolution!” The single shout, like a rock falling into a shallow pond, made rippling waves which spread outwards as if they would flood and crash through the auditorium walls. The scissors were passed from one head to another, and the hall filled with the sound of chopping. No one paid any more attention to Kam Shan, who was