Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [161]
A scrawny man stood next to the girl. He was poking her with his finger and saying: “My elder brother’s child. She’s had a tough time—her dad died as soon as they got here. I can’t afford to keep her. Just give me a bit of cash and you can take her away with you.
“Take a good look then, look at that face. Of course, I’m not comparing her to Imperial ladies of old—I couldn’t do that, could I? But tell me, doesn’t she outshine any opera actress you’ve ever seen? Have you ever seen anything like those eyes? Make her your wife or your concubine and get her to wait on you. You can’t lose.”
He stretched out two claw-like fingers and tipped the girl’s chin up so that finally the face was visible. There was a hiss of astonishment from the onlookers.
She was just an ordinary Cantonese girl, of the sort so often seen in the paddy fields, by the fish ponds, or at her loom, dark-skinned with a broad forehead and high cheekbones. But her eyes were astonishing. They were like huge lakes so full they threatened to overflow their banks, and the irises were an unusual kind of black, overlaid with a faint greyish-green sheen.
“Cat eyes! She’s got cat eyes!” the cry went up.
Scrawny pursed his lips with satisfaction and said: “You can look all over Gold Mountain—Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster—but guarantee you won’t find another one like this. If you do, you can have this one for free.”
“Is she clean?” asked a man in a short jacket, a bit older than the others.
The man cackled as if someone had poked him in the armpit: “She’s only twelve! What do you think? She hasn’t even been touched by a cockerel, let alone a man!”
There was general laughter. “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Why should I believe you?” said Short-Jacket. Scrawny spat a gob of green phlegm: “Come and feel if you don’t believe me. See if she’s got any pubic hair.”
So Short-Jacket went up, undid the girl’s trouser tie and, holding the trousers with one hand, reached into her crotch and had a good feel. The girl tried vainly to twist out of his grip, then shrank away as stiff and small as a wire-frame mannequin.
“Just a few hairs,” reported Short-Jacket, nodding at the onlookers. He extracted his finger and held it up to his nose to sniff. There were gusts of laughter.
“I’ll come and try,” offered someone else. Scrawny’s expression darkened. “You don’t get a free meal every day,” he said. “If you want to come and try, you’ve got to pay … two dollars a go.”
The crowd fell silent.
Short-Jacket laughed. “I’ll give you thirty dollars,” he said. “Thirty dollars and I’ll take her off your hands. My wife’s back home in Hoi Ping— this girl can be my second wife.” Scrawny swore: “Motherfucker! My brother brought her out and paid five hundred dollars in head tax—all borrowed from my savings. I’m not trying to make a profit, but at least don’t leave me out of pocket.”
“Fifty dollars then? How’s that?”
Scrawny said nothing, just tugged on the tie fastened around the girl’s trousers and made as if to lead her away.
“Two hundred and fifty,” another offer came, this time from a man standing right on the edge of the crowd, who had not spoken up till now. He was an imposing-looking figure dressed in a long, silk gown, with a big, square face.
“What about the head tax?”
“Two hundred and fifty, not a cent more.”
As Silk Gown spoke, his face hardened and every crease on it went taut as a wire. Scrawny looked disgruntled and, throwing the trouser tie back at the girl, said: “All right, two-fifty then. It’ll take me a year to pay back what I spent on this worthless bit of baggage.”
Loong Am drove the cart home that day. Kam Shan did not say a word for the whole journey. Those huge catlike eyes pursued him. Every time he shut his eyes, they lay heavy on his lids. They flared like two sparks from a charcoal fire, until his eyes smarted and his head ached.
But by the time he reached home