Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [160]
A quilt lay coiled across the bed. From where he stood, it looked dull green, woven with a flower design. These were the only signs of colour in the room. At the end of the bed was a bundle of dull grey clothing. The bundle moved—and he realized it was the woman he had just paid to enjoy.
Kam Shan threw down the cigarette and ground it into the floor. He sat down on the edge of the rickety bed, which squealed loudly under his weight, and pulled aside the quilt. It still held a trace of warmth in it and, right in front of his eyes, there was a large stain like the juice from smashed watermelon. It looked so foul that he nearly retched. The quilt was too revolting so he shoved it onto the floor.
“What are you called?” he asked, tight-faced. But his voice betrayed him and even he could hear how green he sounded.
The greyish bundle pulled itself upright but remained silent.
He stood up and lit a match, holding it close. The light gave him courage and he spoke again, more roughly this time.
“Turn round. I asked you a question.”
The body turned towards the light and Kam Shan was surprised to see a pair of eyes so huge they almost ran off the edge of her face. The irises were like glass beads under water, their colour changing gradually in the flickering light from dark brown to dark blue. As Kam Shan raised the match, he saw in her eyes hints of greyish-green.
“Cat Eyes?” exclaimed Kam Shan in astonishment.
The girl’s irises flickered and fogged over, and the green went dark again.
“Just one, OK?”
She had stretched out her hand to beg a cigarette from him. Her fingers were wizened like sun-dried vines and there was a fuzz of fine hair on her wrists. She was so bony that her gown seemed to have nothing inside it, as if it simply hung on a bamboo frame.
She’s still a child, thought Kam Shan.
He got out his packet of cigarettes, pulled one out, lit it and gave it to her. Then he did the same for himself. He turned to look at the girl, who was dragging greedily on the cigarette as if she was half-starved. She took three pulls before puffing out any smoke, holding her breath so long her neck stretched like an egret, and ropes of livid veins stood out in her neck.
“Take it easy. No one’s going to grab it off you,” said Kam Shan.
“I’ve got bad teeth. If I smoke it makes the pain better.” The girl snickered and the sound, like the rustling of a snake in the grass, gave Kam Shan goose pimples.
“You know me, mister?” the girl asked.
She had finished her cigarette in a few puffs and obviously wanted another. Too timid to ask, she just smiled slyly at him.
“I heard them calling you Cat Eyes that day when—” The words stuck in Kam Shan’s throat and he could not finish the sentence.
The first time he had seen her was a couple of months ago. Kam Shan and Loong Am had finished selling all of their eggs in the farmers’ market, and went to Chinatown for tea. They sat down, but almost immediately Loong Am went back downstairs for a piss in the backyard toilet. When he did not come back, Kam Shan went down to look for him. There was a crowd of a dozen or more men hanging around, and a burly fellow in black guarded the entrance to the yard. Kam Shan knew the man—he was a brother of the boy whom his father had hired to do tailoring when he had the laundry—and was admitted when he said he had come to look for Loong Am.
The yard was crowded. In the middle, someone had erected a platform made of two stones and a plank of wood. A girl stood upon the plank. She was a scrawny kid and so undersized that even on her platform she was shorter than the men standing around her. She was dressed in a blue tunic and trousers, edged with a black border. The fabric was rough cotton but clean. The girl stood with her hands tucked into her sleeves, her head hanging so low that her eyes were invisible and