Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [229]
The heavens came crashing down on Six Fingers’ head, and her heart felt as if it was splintering. She tried unsuccessfully to stab the jade hairpin into her bun. Seeing her distress, Ah-Lin threw down her shoe, flung her arms around Six Fingers’ knees and rocked to and fro.
“It’s just gossip, I’m sure he’s got the wrong end of the stick. Don’t you believe a word of it, Mrs. Kwan,” she said consolingly. “You can write letters. Why don’t you write and ask him what it’s all about.”
Six Fingers freed herself from Ah-Lin’s grip and said, with a faint smile: “Well, he’s mad on opera. I expect it’s nothing more than that.”
She got up. Her ears buzzed as if she had a wasps’ nest in them. She pulled out her hairpin and poked it into her ear. A bit deeper. Deeper still. That was better. She pulled out the hairpin and wiped it on her sleeve, leaving a bright red smear.
The lame leg from which she had sliced a lump of flesh all those years ago suddenly seemed to have shortened and, try as she might, she could not put one foot in front of the other. Supporting herself on the wall, she finally managed to hobble out of the courtyard and into the house. It was deathly quiet; the only sound to be heard was the tick-tock of the chiming clock on the wall. Six Fingers stood still. When her eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, she saw Kam Ho’s wife dozing on the stairs. Ah-Hsien’s head was buried in her knees and rhythmic snores, like dull farts, issued from her nostrils. The white felt flower in her hair glimmered in the half-light. Ah-Hsien’s mother had been killed when the Japanese bombed the market the previous year, and she was still wearing the white flower of mourning.
“Where’s Yiu Kei, Ah-Hsien?” Six Fingers asked dully.
At that moment, Yiu Kei was on his way to No-Name River with little Wai Kwok.
Yui Kei was on three days’ holiday from classes. His tutor had gone home to his village for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival; normally he would have had classes at this time of day. Early this morning, Six Fingers told Ah-Hsien to go and fetch Ah-Tsung, the village barber, and get him to cut the hair of all the men in the household. His previous visit was at the Dragon Boat Festival three months ago and the men’s hair had grown long and shaggy since then. When Ah-Hsien reached the barber’s, she discovered that he had overindulged in rice wine the night before and was sleeping off a hangover. Ah-Hsien got tired waiting and left without him. When she got back home, she sat down on the stairs for a snooze.
Yiu Kei saw his opportunity and snuck out of the diulau with Wai Kwok.
Although spring had been dry that year, autumn brought torrential downpours. On the road, the sun dried the surface to a white crust, but the mud still oozed underneath. The children sploshed through it, leaving wet footprints behind. Six Fingers rarely allowed them out on their own to play, so they found everything a novelty. Not far from the house, they came to the clump of wild banana trees. A cluster of muddy children crouched over something on the ground. Yiu Kei pushed his way through and found they were watching ants moving house.
The ants swarmed around a dead fly with a red head and a green body. The ants looked like tiny black sesame seeds as they crawled over and around their prize, but try as they might, they could not move it. Finally, a cluster of ants squeezed under the belly of the fly. The fly appeared to drift along, accompanied by the shrill cries from the children. “What’s so exciting about that?” said Yiu Kei. “My teacher says that ants can move a mountain if they work together.” To Yiu Kei’s disappointment, the children just shouted “Sissy whitey!” at him and scattered.
Yiu Kei was left standing there feeling a bit foolish.
He had never in his life transplanted rice seedlings or harvested the rice crop, gone rowing or tickled fish in the river. His face had never been burned dark by the sun or beaten by rainstorms,