Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [183]
Mrs. Henderson put the vegetables Kam Ho had bought into a basin and picked up the basket. She walked across the garden, out into the street and then along until she got to the cart. She exchanged greetings with the other housewives and then handed the basket to the Chinese girl.
As she did so, she whispered something into the girl’s ear. The girl’s eyes suddenly lost their shine. It was as if a film of rust covered them. The rust spread, stiffening her face, and then travelling down her neck until her whole body was rigid.
“My servant,” Mrs. Henderson said, “the Chinese boy, forgot to give you back the basket. Poor lad, he’s not all there. He often forgets things.”
The next Wednesday, the cart did not come.
The Wednesday after, it came but the girl was not on it. Her father and brother came instead. After much stammering, Kam Ho finally asked about her.
“She’s gone to Edmonton to live with her aunt, who’s going to send her to school there,” said her father. “Her auntie says Gold Mountain girls should go to school too.”
Kam Ho paid for his vegetables but went away without them. He went in through the garden gate, up the steps and across the hall. Jenny called him, Mrs. Henderson called him, but he heard neither of them. He went straight to his room, shut the door and sat down on his bed.
Ah-Hei had gone.
Ah-Hei was a spark from a fire, momentarily lighting his way, before going out and leaving him in darkness once more. It was a different darkness than before—and he could not bear it.
He sat for a long time in his room. He heard a clattering downstairs: Mrs. Henderson was in the kitchen making coffee and toast, and preparing a salad for lunch. Getting lunch was the servant’s job, he should be doing it himself. But he felt completely drained of energy, unable to move muscle. He would sit there until the world ended and the sky fell in.
Mrs. Henderson opened the door. He heard her footsteps but he did not turn around. Ah-Hei had let him down, her father had allowed her to go; all heaven and earth were against him. He had let himself down and now he had nothing more to live for.
A pair of arms went around him from behind and held him tight. His neck melted in their soft warmth. The warmth lapped over him and he wanted to pull free but did not have the strength.
Let me drown, then, he thought to himself, and be done with it.
“Poor child. Poor, poor child,” came Mrs. Henderson’s whispered voice. Kam Ho’s tears began to flow.
That night, he had a dream. He dreamed his mouth was full of rose thorns. He kept trying to spit them out, and then discovered that what he was spitting was not thorns but his own teeth, handfuls of them, red and white, like persimmon seeds.
He awoke covered in sweat. Then he remembered something his mother had told him as a child.
“If you dream your teeth are falling out, it means someone in the family is to die. If it was the top teeth, then it would be an old person. If the bottom teeth, it would be someone young.”
He racked his brains but could not remember which teeth he had lost.
Year eleven of the Republic (1922) Spur-On Village, Hoi Ping County, China
In the middle of the fourth month it began to rain and did not stop until the Dragon Boat Festival at the beginning of the fifth. When it stopped, the ground was covered with a pebbly carpet of mushrooms and the banana trees had burst into luxuriant growth. Inside, the walls of the houses were covered in snail trails.
Ah-Choi, the cook and a servant were busy at the stove preparing to boil leaf-wrapped rice dumplings for the festivities. When the water boiled, the cook threw some ash into it. After the harvest, they burned the rice stalks and stored the ash. Now, sprinkled into the water through a fine sieve, the ash gave the dumplings a flavour all of their own.
They had made up the dumplings the night before. There were four kinds—sausages, sweet bean paste, salted egg and dried shrimp. Kam Sau squatted on the floor tying