Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [204]
Finally he got angry. “If you won’t help me, I’m leaving and never coming back!” he said. The threat usually made Mrs. Henderson behave, but today for some reason it had no effect at all.
Kam Ho dropped her hand and turned to go. When he reached the door, there was a cry from Mrs. Henderson: “Jenny’s come!” Kam Ho felt a chill of dread. “You’re off your head!” he shouted at her. “But that’s message from Jenny,” said Mrs. Henderson, pointing at the cherry blossom in the vase. “Jenny’s telling me to go with her.”
Kam Ho gave an involuntary shiver. He suddenly remembered his granny saying that flowers which blossomed out of season were a portent of disaster. He grabbed the vase and carried it out, cutting up the branch with scissors before throwing the bits into the garbage. When he got back upstairs, Mrs. Henderson was asleep, resting against the headboard. He could not shake her awake. He fetched a wet towel, wrung it out and put it on her face. Finally, she opened her eyes slightly. There was a look of muddied confusion in them, like a pond stirred up by a rainstorm.
“Ma’am!” cried Kam Ho in a voice cracked with panic. Mrs. Henderson’s mouth was opening and closing like a dying fish. No sound came out, and her eyes began to cloud over. He forced himself to call out a few times, but it was no use and he stopped. He knew he should dress her, that this was probably his last chance. He rifled through her wardrobe and picked out a dress which she had bought the Christmas before Jenny died. Frantically, he began to undo the silk ribbon tie of her nightgown.
Suddenly he felt her hand shift ever so slightly in his. He put his ear to her mouth and heard the faintest of whispers. It took him some time to make out her words: “Don’t want.…”
“Don’t want what?” he asked, but she did not have the strength to reply. “You don’t want this dress?” he asked, but she just lay still and looked fixedly at him.
“You don’t want the pastor to come?” Still she stared at him.
He slapped the bed in frustration. “Oh God, tell me what it is she doesn’t want!” Then her hand gave a slight movement again. Suddenly, light dawned.
“It’s him? You don’t want him to come in?” he asked.
She blinked once and the hand he was holding relaxed.
When Mr. Henderson came back from walking the dog, he heard a faint noise from upstairs. It was something like bees beating their wings in the sunshine or filaments vibrating against each other in a light bulb. “Jimmy!” he shouted, but there was no answer. “Phyllis!” He stood at the bottom of the stairs straining his ears. The noise was coming from his wife’s room. Going up, he knocked a couple of times, then pushed the door open and went in without waiting for an answer.
His wife lay on the bed, dressed in a bright red dress. It was such a vibrant red that it seemed to reflect off the walls. It had been a very long time since he had seen her in anything that brilliant. Jimmy was kneeling by the bed. He was wiping her face with a wet towel, in a manner that was almost comical—his arm held over her, the hand trembling slightly, his movements so gentle and careful that she might have been a priceless Ming vase.
Jimmy was crooning faint sounds through the smallest crack in his lips, the way the mature silkworm spits tangled silken strands to create its cocoon. It must be some sort of a song, Mr. Henderson guessed, but he understood nothing of it. How could he know that Kam Ho was singing a lullaby which had been sung to him by his mother in Hoi Ping when she nursed him at the breast?
A magpie sings Happy New Year
Dad’s gone to Gold Mountain my dear
When he returns to bring his fortunate back here
We’ll buy house and land far and near
Mr. Henderson lost patience. “Jimmy, can’t you see she’s off her rocker! She’s in bed with high-heeled shoes on!”
Jimmy turned slowly to look