Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [181]
She had come three times with her father to sell their produce, always on a Wednesday morning. He did not know her proper name, or how old she was, though he had heard her father call her Ah-Hei. He reckoned she was about seventeen or eighteen and had been in Gold Mountain a year or so. Girls who had been here a long time dressed in Western clothes and new arrivals could not speak English.
She spotted him standing on the street. She tucked her handkerchief away and grinned. After a moment Kam Ho realized she was smiling at him. He went weak at the knees. He wanted to smile back but found the muscles of his face frozen into immobility.
The few paces up to the side of the cart seemed like an endless journey. His face was red with exertion by the time he got to her.
He passed over the sweaty money and as he drew his hand back, felt something hard and angular scratch the skin on the back of his hand. It was the calluses on her palm. Like him, she had had a life of hard toil. She held the money in her hand and waited silently, looking at him. Finally she gave a little laugh and, pointing at the vegetable baskets, asked: “What do you want?” He suddenly woke up. He had not given her his order. The blood rushed so violently to his face that he thought his head was going to explode.
Keep your voice steady, his brain urged his lips, but his lips took no notice. They bounced and shook like spring rice being beaten in a mortar so his words ended up pounded to shreds.
“A handful of radishes … a head of broccoli … two hearted cabbages … just two.…”
She deftly bundled them up and gave them to him. “Anything else? You always get these.”
He was startled. She remembered him, and what he bought every time. He felt himself grow calmer, and the plan he had been turning over in his mind for a week began to come together.
He needed to find the right moment to speak to her father. He wanted to tell him that his father had been a fruit and vegetable hawker himself and that he knew the wholesaler who offered the best prices in Gold Mountain. Then he could casually ask where they lived … and say that he would get his father to introduce them to the wholesaler.
There was a grain of truth in what he was planning to say. He really did want his father to go to the girl’s house, but not to discuss vegetable prices. He wanted his father to be quite direct and discuss Kam Ho marrying the girl.
The head tax had gone sky-high in recent years and most migrants could only afford to bring their sons. Very few brought daughters. As result, almost no Chinese girls were to be seen on the streets of Gold Mountain. His father had said more than once that he wanted his mother to arrange a match for him back in Hoi Ping but Kam Ho was not enthusiastic, although he found it hard to explain why to his stubborn father.
“I don’t want to marry like Mum and you, with me here and her over there, neither of us knowing when we can be reunited.”
As soon as the words were out, he knew he had said the wrong thing. His mother and father should have had that reunion by now, only Kam Ho had taken her place on the boat and come instead. But on this occasion Ah-Fat did not lose his temper. He just sighed and said: “So you want to be a bachelor for the rest of your life?” Kam Ho felt like sighing too but he could not bear to see his father looking so glum. He put on a smile instead and said: “Wait till I’ve earned enough for three head taxes and I’ll go back and get married and bring out Mum and my sister and my wife.” His father laughed: “By the time you’ve earned that much, there’ll be no point in bringing them out here. You might as well go back to Hoi Ping for good, and enjoy life.” Kam Ho felt there was some truth in what his father was saying, but all the same, Kam Ho had been in Gold Mountain for years, and there were good things about living here. Only, he could not say that to his father.
But now, this young Cantonese woman—Ah-Hei—seemed to be God’s answer to Kam Ho. They were on the same