Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [207]
Kam Ho went inside, and nearly fell over a pile of belongings—Yin Ling’s coat and school bag. He hung the coat on the coat stand, made his way through the messy living room, down the dark passageway and into the kitchen. There he saw a man and woman standing in the kitchen by the window, singing opera. The woman seemed not to have warmed her voice up and sang hesitantly and huskily. However, she took both male and female roles while the man accompanied her.
The man was not singing but tum-te-tummed and tra-la-la’d as if he was the fiddle accompanying the woman as she sang.
The dancing butterflies have long gone
The oriole laments the shortening sun
Neither chevalier nor archer was I born
My only art is in poetry and song
To die for my fallen empire I really yearn
Rather than in shame and disgrace lingering on
But when I see the south in the grip of invaders
My people homeless and country war-torn
I’d be resigned to this life in shameful captivity
So that in peace my subjects can live on
Weeping blood and tears, your majesty
Yet with all your compromises, the new emperor shows no sign of mercy
The clouds of war hang over the southern sea
We caged birds have no hope of breaking free
Kam Ho thought he recognized the opera about Emperor Li Houzhu and the young empress Zhou. His father was humming the string accompaniment. The woman had her back to Kam Ho and all he could see was her bun at the nape of her neck. Her hair was streaked with grey, and he guessed she must be an opera friend of his father’s. He knew that after he closed his café, his father had spent days in the Cantonese Opera Club in the company of other opera fans. Every now and then, he would bring one home and they would sit and smoke and sing and talk opera, until Kam Shan kicked up a fuss.
Kam Ho gave a loud cough, and the singing was neatly cut off in mid-note. “Today’s not Saturday,” his father exclaimed with raised eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”
Kam Ho’s breath was taken away at his father’s words. When he could speak again, he said: “You mean I can’t come home any other day?”
The woman who had been singing turned around and the corners of her mouth twitched in a slight smile. “You must be Kam Ho,” she said. “Your father says you’re the most dependable son in Chinatown.”
The woman was wearing a dark green silk qipao dress, he saw, with a jade pin at the collar. She had a pearl hairpin stuck into her bun. Her whole outfit seemed to come from another age, and even smelled a little musty. Kam Ho did not like the ingratiating tone in her voice. He smiled coldly. “I hope you’re not taken in by what my father says.”
The woman was taken aback at the rebuff but maintained her composure and continued to smile quietly. “Come here, Kam Ho,” said his father, gesturing to her. “You’re looking at Gold Mountain Cloud, a star of Cantonese opera. Twenty or so years ago, you could have asked anyone in the streets of San Francisco and they would all have known her name. She was queen of the opera in those days.”
Kam Ho suddenly recalled that the singer on the old opera record his father kept playing was called Gold Mountain Cloud. He grunted, then asked: “Where’s Yin Ling?” “Her Chinese class is going on a march tomorrow, to collect money for the Chinese troops, for planes to fight the Japs. Yin Ling’s gone to rehearse.” “And my brother?” “The Association’s organizing a recruitment drive for the Chinese army, and they’re having a meeting.” It was on the tip of Kam Ho’s tongue to say that his brother, with his injured leg, could not even support himself, so could not possibly go and fight the Japanese. But he did not want to make comments like that in front of a woman he did not know, so he simply turned round