Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [211]
Kam Shan’s lameness meant that he could not walk much or stand for long, so he was unable to go out on photography assignments. He took pictures only occasionally, when customers came to his house. His father, Ah-Fat, was no better off: after his farm went bankrupt, creditors hounded him so mercilessly he did not dare go home. Kam Ho’s monthly wages at the Hendersons’ were not enough to keep two families, so Cat Eyes was forced to go out to work. A new establishment called the Lychee Garden Restaurant had just opened in Chinatown and was in need of a waitress. Cat Eyes went to see the boss and was immediately taken on.
She knew why that was.
There was a dearth of young women in Chinatown in those days, and very few of them went out to work. Those who did work out of the home were regarded as used goods. In the restaurant, Cat Eyes had to put up with every man stripping her naked with his eyes. But she didn’t care. For a girl who had worked in the Spring Gardens brothel, those stares were nothing. In any case, she did not mind being a slut in their eyes so long as it meant her new family did not go hungry.
Prying eyes were not confined to the restaurant. At home Kam Shan stayed up until her shifts ended after midnight. He skulked behind the dusty old curtains, watching her fumble in her pocket for the door key, on the lookout in case some man was escorting her home. In the old days, it was she who had been worried about him messing around. Now it was the other way round—and she liked it that way. She almost hoped his leg would never heal.
Late one night, after finishing her shift at the restaurant, she returned home. Without turning the light on, she went in the door, down the dark passage and into the kitchen. Kam Shan did not speak to her, just followed her with his eyes. His eyes nibbled her all over. She gave her face a quick scrub, and was ready for bed and sleep. But Kam Shan had been at home all day with nothing to do, and now he wanted her. He pressed her down on the bed and pushed himself furiously into her. In the past, he only bothered to do it once in a blue moon, and then it was perfunctory. But now it was as if, every time he saw her, his body craved her. His eyes gleamed with a green light and she said jokingly that he should change his name to Cat Eyes.
It was some time before she found out why. Once, when he was drunk, he blurted out: “If other men can use you, why can’t I?” He had completely forgotten he had said it, but she did not. It gnawed away at her, like a nagging pain. Though this man had never liked her, he had saved her from starvation and abuse. And it had cost him dearly; he had not seen his mother and father for ten years as a result. But his cruel words were just that—words—and nothing more, and she blocked her ears against them.
What really made her anxious was her discovery that Kam Shan had booked boat passage home to China. Kam Ho had been squirrelling away money to bring his mother over, until the Gold Mountain government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, trapping Six Fingers on the other side of the ocean. So instead, Kam Ho used the money to buy Kam Shan’s passage home to China. Six Fingers wanted to see her first granddaughter, and the baby could not travel without her mother so Cat Eyes went too. Cat Eyes was worried because she and Kam Shan had not performed the traditional marriage ceremonies; she knew how keen the local girls were to get themselves a Gold Mountain husband. If Kam Shan was planning to get himself a proper bride on their trip back home, there would be absolutely nothing Cat Eyes could do about it.
The day they arrived in Spur-On Village, she and Kam Shan completed the final stretch of their journey—from the entrance of the village to the diulau