Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [225]
On the way to the nursing home Mr. Auyung reminded Amy how Tse Ah-Yuen was related to her.
“He was the husband of your great-aunt. After she died, he never married again,” he said.
Amy found it hard to understand these strange words for family relationships, but this was not because her Chinese was inadequate. Her Chinese was, in fact, very good. She made the occasional mistake, but not often. For her doctorate at Berkeley, she had had to choose a foreign language. She had wavered between Swahili and Chinese, the former because her thesis was on the evolution of social communities in Africa, the latter because she had a head start which would make it that much easier to fulfill her academic requirements. She finally plumped for Chinese.
That head start in Chinese did not come from her mother, who had only ever spoken to her in English. She picked up a bit at the Chinese restaurants she worked in during the summer holidays.
The real reason why Amy did not understand the term for “husband of a great-aunt” was that the relationship section of her personal vocabulary was almost non-existent. It consisted of two words, “mother” and “maternal grandfather.” She had no father, so she did not have any relatives from her father’s family. And her mother was an only child, so she had almost no experience of kinship either.
Mr. Auyung got out a sheet of paper and sketched a tree with many branches. On each branch he wrote characters. “This is a simplified diagram of your family,” he told her. “The ones at the top go back too far for you to have known them. We’ll ignore them and begin with your maternal great-grandfather.
“Your maternal great-grandfather was the one who build Tak Yin House. He had two sons and a daughter. His eldest son was your grandfather Fong Kam Shan. He and his brother and sister are all dead. The only one left from that generation is the sister’s husband, Tse Ah-Yuen. All three had children but the only one still living is your mother, and your mother had just one child, that’s you. So of all the direct descendants of Fong Tak Fat, the only ones left are you, your mother and Tse Ah-Yuen. He’s your mother’s uncle by marriage, so you should call him ‘great-uncle’.”
Amy took the paper and read it through several times. “I’ll take it home and print out a copy for my mother,” she said. “We actually call it ‘family tree’ in English.”
They arrived at the nursing home where the director waited at the entrance. She shook Amy’s hand then, with a slight tug on Mr. Auyung’s sleeve, pulled him to one side. Mr. Auyung left Amy waiting at the entrance, and followed the director into the office.
The director shut the door, looking embarrassed. “We’ve had several calls about this from the Office for Overseas Chinese Affairs and of course we’ll do all we can to help. But Mr. Tse is refusing to see her. He said: ‘When the half-breed turns up, kick her out!’”
Mr. Auyung smiled. “He’s very feisty for a ninety-year-old man! Don’t worry, I can handle him.” “If you say so,” said the director. “You’re in charge, since there’s an overseas Chinese involved. You should have seen him this morning. He was in such a state. But he had some tranquilizers at lunchtime and a nap, and he’s quieted down now.”
Mr. Auyung walked out of the office and Amy asked him immediately: “So my great-uncle doesn’t want to see me, is that it?” Mr. Auyung laughed. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’re on the ball, Professor!” “Huh!” said Amy. “The other day in the hotel, he really tried to lay into me.” “Yes, well, perhaps he had reason to,” said Mr. Auyung. “His whole family came to a violent end. Your great-grandfather always said he would take the family to Gold Mountain, but he never did. If he had, then things would never have happened as they did. And there’s only one person he can settle old scores with, and that’s you. If you’re scared, we can leave now.”
Goaded by his words, Amy took up a fighting posture, one foot forward and fists at the ready: “Who’s talking about being scared?” she demanded jokingly. “I’ve got a blue