Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [168]
“Mum said I had to come because Kam Shan’s left and you need help.”
“Was that your granny’s idea?” asked Ah-Fat, seizing his son by the front of his jacket.
“No, it wasn’t. Granny told Mum to come too but Mum said that if she came it would add to your expenses, and she wouldn’t be able to pull her weight. I didn’t want to come. It was Mum who insisted on buying the ticket for me.”
As Kam Ho stammered out his explanation, he saw Ah-Fat’s face fall. He knew then that his dad did not want him here. He had stumbled in his very first steps in Gold Mountain. How many steps did he have to take before he could stand tall and proud in his father’s eyes? Kam Ho walked slower and slower, bent ever lower under his burden, as if to hide in his own shadow.
“What are you crying for? I haven’t done anything to hurt you.”
Ah-Fat frowned in distaste at the sight of his son’s tangled, filthy hair and the dried-up puke on the front of his jacket from the long sea journey.
He wondered how on earth his two sons had turned out so different from one another.
“This is it.”
Ah-Fat jumped down from the cart, handed the blue bundle to Kam Ho and walked towards to the house. It was big, two storeys, with a garden in front. Kam Ho stood outside the iron gate looking into the garden. He could not see the front door, only three porches. The midday sun beat down, bleaching everything white. The three porches stood out like black holes against the white glare. When Kam Ho thought about who lived in these black holes, a cold shiver ran down his spine in spite of the heat of the sun.
“I don’t want to go, Dad! I want to stay at home and work on the farm with you” was what he wanted to say.
He had held the words back from the moment they left home. Now they had turned to stone in his mouth and he was not able to utter them.
When Ah-Fat first raised the idea, he did so gently.
“The Hendersons’ maid has gone back to England to get married, and they can’t find anyone to help out. Mrs. Henderson is not a well woman, and she needs a servant,” he had told Kam Shan.
“Mr. Henderson is a friend I met when I was building the railroad. He’s helped me and your uncle Ah-Lam a lot. If it wasn’t for him, I would never have had the money to buy all this land.”
It was only after Ah-Fat had talked his way around the subject of the Hendersons for some time that Kam Ho finally caught on. His father wanted him to go and be their houseboy, the way that Ah-Choi and Ah-Yuet were servants. Mr. Henderson had saved his father’s skin and he could not turn him down now.
The shock of this realization stuck like grains of uncooked rice in Kam Ho’s throat, making it difficult to breathe. When he could speak again, he protested: “But I’ve never cooked. I don’t even know how to light the stove.”
“Mrs. Henderson will teach you.”
“But I don’t understand the yeung fans’ language!”
“You’ll pick it up.”
“But.…”
Gradually his father’s patience wore thin. His eyebrows drew together in a frown and his scar thickened. “I can’t imagine why your mother sent you out here!”
Kam Ho shut his mouth then. Ah-Fat had touched a nerve, one that remained raw for years. The boat that brought him should have been carrying his mother, who could make life comfortable for his father as he got older. That comfort had been snatched away by his arrival, even though he had not wanted to come. He, Kam Ho, would never be able to redeem himself as long as he lived.
During that morning’s journey, Kam Ho slumped listlessly over his bag of belongings. He was silent. He could not speak—his eyes brimmed with tears and he knew that if he opened his mouth to speak, the tears would flow. He had been in Gold Mountain for four days and had seen nothing and no one except for his father and their farm. Gold Mountain was a bottomless pit and his father was the lifeline that hung down over the edge. Without him, Kam Ho would be lost in this pitch-black hole and never see the light of day again. But today, his father demanded that he leave that one familiar face and walk through a stranger’s door, to