Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [273]
She climbed up.
There was a skylight in the attic and the sunlight shone through, making a square shape on the floor. It was all much brighter than she had imagined. Amy thought no one had been up here for a long time. It smelled musty and she sneezed loudly, forgetting to put her hands over her nose and mouth. Good thing her mother was not here. She pushed her way into the room through layer after layer of cobwebs.
There was not much in there. In one corner beneath the skylight there was a roll of paper and, next to it, a cloth bag. She opened the bag, releasing a cloud of dust, the motes sparkling golden in the sunlight. The bag held a stack of photographs. They were old and faded to a muddy sepia. Some were stuck together. Amy tried to pull them apart gently, and found she had left half of someone’s face behind.
The photograph on top of the pile had been taken indoors. It was of a middle-aged couple, the woman wearing an embroidered tunic, buttoned slantwise, and the man in a gown that looked a bit like a woman’s dress, holding a hat in his left hand and a cane in his right hand. The second picture was of two boys on old-fashioned bicycles. The third was of a young woman with a small baby in her arms, standing on the bank of a river against a thick clump of trees. The sun shone brightly, bleaching the woman’s face white. All that was visible was her brilliant smile.
Amy had never seen people, clothes or scenery like that before. She pored over all the photographs, and soon forgot about her teddy bear.
Halfway through the pile, she finally found some faces she recognized: her grandfather and her mother.
Her grandfather had to call her a few times before she came down. She was covered in dust. Her grandfather was startled. “Where you been, naughty girl?” he asked as he wiped her face and served her dinner. Amy bit off a piece of the chicken leg, then stopped chewing and looked abstracted. “Who are those people?” she asked. “What people?” He looked blank. “The pictures. The pictures in the attic.” The old man smiled. “So you been messing round up there? That’s your great-grandfather, great-grandmother, grandmother and great-aunt and great-uncles.”
“What’s a great-grandfather?” “That’s your grandfather’s father.” “And a great-uncle?” “Your grandfather’s little brother.”
Amy was still looking puzzled. Her grandfather fetched a piece of paper, and drew a tree on it. At the foot of the tree, he wrote Guangdong, China. Pointing to the tree trunk, he said: “That’s your grandfather’s mum and dad.” Then he drew three branches on the tree. “That’s me,” he said pointing to one branch, “and that’s my younger brother, your great-uncle, and my little sister, your great-aunt.” He drew a smaller branch coming off the first branch: “That’s my daughter, your mother.” Amy took the pen and drew an even smaller branch joined to her mother’s branch. “That’s me, Amy!” she said. Her grandfather’s face was suddenly wreathed in smiles. “What a clever girl, our little Amy!”
Encouraged, Amy started to ask more questions. “Where are they, these branches?”
“Some are dead,” said her grandfather, “and some live in China. We’ve lost touch.” “Where’s China?” “Very far away, on the other side of a big ocean.” “Could the Queen Victoria go there?” The Queen Victoria was a paddle steamer that went to Vancouver Island, and Amy and her mother had been on it once. Her grandfather roared with laughter. “No! You couldn’t get there even with ten Queen Victorias!”
Amy looked disappointed. Finally she started chewing the piece of chicken again. But before she had finished, she thought of a new question.
“Granddad, why are you Chinese and I’m not?”
“Who says you’re not? You’re at least half Chinese.” “Then