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By Root 1382 0

into a wad, plunged it into the eyehole in the pipe bowl and, when she had finished smoking, rose and left. She came again the next day too. It went on day after day: she came at the same time, smoked a pipe and left. Apparently, a reporter went with her and wrote an article as big as a window and published it in a Gold Mountain English-language newspaper. The men tutted in astonishment: “Find out what time she goes and we’ll go and watch how this kwai mui does it.” Then someone else said Ah-Chow from the lodging house had told him that young Chung’s case had come to court. He had been sentenced to a month in jail and fined thirty dollars. Any Chinese who went to jail had their pigtails cut off but Chung had clung to the pillars outside the courtroom and refused to go at any price. One of his teeth had even been knocked out. Young Chung was from San Wui, and sold tobacco, candies and melon seeds in front of the tea house in Fan Tan Alley. One day, he let off a firecracker and a horse belonging to a yeung fan reared and went down in the street. Chung was taken to court.

They all sighed. “Does the Emperor of China know how badly we’re being treated?” said one. “What the hell use would it be if he did know?” someone else responded. “Chinese law has nothing to do with Gold Mountain law. Besides, even if he did know, and leapt on his horse and took a ship, it would take him months to get to Gold Mountain. And young Chung will have had his pigtails cut off long before that. He can’t wait till the Emperor arrives, can he?” “I heard from Ah-Chow,” said Red Hair, “that Imperial Minister Li Hongzhang asked some smartass to make something called a telegram, which only took a few hours to get from the Empire of China to Gold Mountain.” “Did it have long legs or long wings? How did it fly faster than a bird?” they asked. “You dickheads,” said Red Hair. “A telegram goes faster than dozens of birds added together.” There was a chuckle from Ah-Fat in the darkness. “Hey, Ah-Fat, weren’t you asleep?” the men shouted. “What are you laughing at?” Ah-Fat fell silent.

Red Hair sighed: “If only my old lady could ride over on a telegram.” Of all the men in the room, only Red Hair was newly married. The men began to tease him. “So you’re thinking about that, are you? Last time you went home, how many times a day did you do it with your old lady?” Red Hair just laughed loudly. When they pressed him, he said he never counted, he just did it when he felt like it. “I go all these years without it, why shouldn’t I make up for it?” The men grew more interested. “Is she bony or plump and fleshy?” they asked. “Fuck,” said Red Hair, “she doesn’t have much bone or flesh, but there’s plenty of juice!” There were shouts of laughter. Suddenly, Ah-Lam, who was lying next to Ah-Fat, shouted: “Hey, Ah-Fat, you little shit! You’re sticking me so hard up the back, it hurts!” There was more uproarious laughter.

Red Hair banged the bed plank and shouted, “Go to sleep! It looks like there’ll be snow tomorrow morning. If we get up early, we can sell a lot of charcoal.” The men gradually grew quiet. Some time later, Red Hair could be heard turning over. “We’ll all contribute to one bag of charcoal,” he said, “and exchange it with the Redskins for a pair of shoes for Ah-Fat. We always used to give eggs and sesame pancakes to the man who taught our kids and wrote the Chinese New Year couplets for us, didn’t we?”

There was silent agreement.

Ah-Fat opened his eyes wide and stared into the darkness. After a long time, he could make out breaks in the gloom. Actually, he already knew these breaks well. For instance, in one corner there was a yellow glow, where a rat had gnawed its way in to steal rice. The pale area at the window was where there was a hole in the sheet which they used to block out the light. From the cracks of light he guessed there must be a full moon and he had a good idea just how cold it was too. It was his first winter in Gold Mountain and he did not know how long it would last. He only knew that the river had frozen over and the road to the mountains