Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [269]
Six Fingers shook her head. “Those two rings were the only valuables I had left.”
There were jeers at this. “You expect us to believe that? Your family has papered your walls with American dollar bills!” “Your family sold fields to buy guns! You must have more than a couple of gold rings left!”
“You search her. I bet you’ll find stuff hidden somewhere on her,” Big Head said to Ah-Hsien.
Ah-Hsien wavered. Then there was a taunt from the back of the crowd: “When push comes to shove, she can’t face the class struggle, can she?”
“I’ll give you a shove!” retorted Ah-Hsien. She went to Six Fingers and began to undo her top buttons, whispering as she did so: “If there’s anything else, better give it up. They won’t go away till they’ve got it.”
After a moment’s thought, Six Fingers took off her shoes.
The cloth shoes were cut up with a pair of scissors. Finally, the villagers found four gold bands and two pairs of shiny gold earrings secreted between layers of the shoe uppers. There were roars of delight.
“What else have you got? If you don’t tell us, we’ll carry on searching you!” shouted Big Head.
“Just this diulau. If you want to chop it up and divide it between you, go ahead,” said Six Fingers through gritted teeth.
“Right, if that’s all you can say, I’ll have you all searched, starting with the youngest,” said Big Head, pointing Ah-Hsien towards Wai Heung.
“She’s just a school kid!” protested Ah-Hsien. “Besides she doesn’t live here. What’s she going to know?”
Big Head pushed Ah-Hsien out of the way. “If you won’t search her, I will. And I’ll find it even if it’s hidden up her cunt.”
“She’s just a child, you bastard!” cried Ah-Hsien. Big Head paid no attention, and started to undo Wai Heung’s blouse.
Wai Heung wanted to scream, but no sound came out. She was trembling like a leaf. Then she struck out as hard as she could. Two bloody scratches appeared on Big Head’s face. Furious, he abandoned the buttons and tore at her clothes. With a ripping sound, the top half of her blouse came away in his hands, leaving her skinny shoulders bare.
“Let her go! I’ve got the gold,” Mak Dau shouted, incandescent with rage.
The villagers were cowed for an instant, and then began to swarm round Mak Dau. “I have to do this. But I’ll make it up to you in the next life,” he muttered to Six Fingers, as he felt in his trouser waistband.
He pulled out his revolver. He aimed it at Big Head and gently pulled the trigger. A red flower blossomed on the man’s head. The onlookers sprang back in horror, though not quickly enough to avoid being spattered.
Mak Dau pulled the trembling Wai Heung to him. “Close your eyes, child. It’ll be better soon.” And he shot her through the heart. Wai Heung twitched in his arms, and then relaxed.
The third bullet was for Kam Sau.
The fourth was for Six Fingers.
The fifth and last was for himself but he had not calculated on the revolver jamming before he could use it.
He threw it down, and pushing the villagers aside, made a dash for the stairs.
After a moment’s shock, they ran after him. Mak Dau was getting on in years, and there was no way he could outrun them. They were almost upon him when Mak Dau turned and aimed a kick at the closest one. Then he threw himself from the window.
For many years after that, no one, whether they were Fong or Au, would speak of the terrible events of that day in 1952. The Spur-On villagers, so peaceable that they would have prayed remorsefully to Buddha for days afterwards if they so much as hurt a fly, had witnessed five people killed in one day, and two others driven mad: Ah-Hsien and Ah-Yuet.
The corpses were hurriedly buried and from that day on no one dared set foot in the diulau. It was said that in stormy weather someone could be heard weeping inside. And sometimes at dead of night, lights were seen inside the building.
“The Haunted House” was the name the villagers gave it.
Not only did no one dare go into the haunted house, they were also too frightened to till the land around it. As the years passed, it gradually reverted to a scrubby