Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [271]
Today was Uncle Bill’s birthday, and her mother had a present for him—a lighter in the shape of an eagle. If you gave its legs a little snap, flame spurted from its beak. Uncle Bill smoked Cuban cigars which filled the room with a haze of smoke so dense that Amy felt as if she was choking. Yin Ling put the lighter in a silver-plated box and carefully wrapped it in gold paper.
“We won’t tell Uncle Bill we’re coming. It’ll be a surprise,” she said to Amy.
But Amy could see that her mother did not look like someone who was going to spring a nice surprise on a friend. She wore a worried expression.
“All right, all right! Don’t give me that long face just because I’m talking to you!” she said shortly from the front seat. “You’ll be seeing Uncle Bill soon. Do you remember what you’re going to say to him?”
“Happy birthday,” said Amy, swallowing the lump in her throat. “What else?”
“We … miss you very much.”
“What else?”
“You look very smart today.”
Her mother fell silent, and pulled in at the curb. She took a cigarette from her bag. Her hand was trembling so much, it took her some time to light it.
She finally finished the cigarette, and spent several more minutes clipping her fingernails. Snip. Snip. Snip. The clippings flew about the car like grasshoppers. As Yin Ling propped herself on the steering wheel, she looked very skinny, her bony shoulder blades sticking out like sharp knives under the thin material of her summer dress.
“Amy, would you like Uncle Bill to be your dad?” asked her mother.
The question caught Amy completely unprepared. She guessed her mother wanted her to say yes, but that “Yes” stuck in her throat and would not come out. Luckily, her mother started up the engine without waiting for an answer, and the old Ford rattled off down the street again.
When she stopped again and got out of the car, pulling Amy with her, her hands were still trembling. She pushed Amy toward Uncle Bill’s front door, and stood leaning against the car door. She lit another cigarette and, with the first drag, began coughing—very loudly. She sounded like a woodpecker rapping on a tree trunk.
Mum forgot to cover her mouth, thought Amy.
Amy climbed the house steps and knocked on the door. She had to knock for quite a while before someone opened the door. But it was not Uncle Bill.
It was a young, blue-eyed blond woman in a silk dressing gown. Her hair was dripping wet, as if she had just got out of the shower.
“Honey! It’s for you!” the woman called casually over her shoulder.
But her mother did not wait for Uncle Bill to appear. She dragged Amy back to the car and backed, revving furiously, out of Uncle Bill’s driveway. Out of the back window, Amy saw Uncle Bill rushing out in a pair of undershorts. He waved and shouted something but the wind snatched the sound away before they could hear what it was.
“You look.…” Before Amy had finished reciting her lines, something flew past the car window and thudded against Uncle Bill’s mailbox. It was the gold-wrapped box with the lighter inside.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” her mother swore, punching the steering wheel, her hair almost standing on end in fury.
The car zigzagged dangerously as it sped down the street, pursued by the tooting of angry horns.
“I knew it! I knew it! All he wanted was a white girl!”
Amy wanted to say something comforting, but she had no idea what to say. Finally she leaned against the back of her mother’s seat and said in little voice:
“Mum, maybe we don’t need a dad.…”
Her mother was quiet for a moment, then gave a high-pitched laugh. It gave Amy goose pimples. Then she realized her mother was crying. She kept wiping the snot from her nose with her hand and flicking it at the car window until the glass was covered with trails of slime.
Mum’s forgotten how to be a well-brought-up woman, Amy thought. Finally the weeping stopped and calm descended. They