Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [278]
“Huh! Your story may be complete, but mine isn’t. Who are you anyway? Why do you know more about my family than I do?”
“I knew this question would come up sooner or later. It’s simple, really. My great-grandfather and my grandfather happened to teach your great-grandfather and great-uncle and great-aunt. But that’s not really the reason why I got interested. Thirty years ago, a young man called Auyung Wan On read the diary left by his grandfather, the revolutionary martyr Auyung Yuk Shan. As he did so, he came across stories of your great-grandfather, Fong Tak Fat’s family. In the mid-seventies there was a power vacuum in local politics and, on the pretext of researching a distant relative from Spur-On Village, he broke into the diulau when no one was looking, and began to pry into its secrets. He might have been doing what fashionable scholars would later call sociological research, but at the time, of course, he was just an ignorant youth and this was one of many crazy things he did to satisfy his curiosity.
“Of course, the tracks he left behind him just confirmed the villagers in their belief that the diulau was haunted.”
Mr. Auyung gave Amy a brown envelope and said: “Burn this in their honour.” Amy took out a stack of “spirit money” and, borrowing Mr. Auyung’s lighter, set it ablaze. She watched the paper burn down to a little heap and then turn into a few black charred scraps which scattered in the wind. There were more sheets of paper in the envelope which, instead of denominations, had scribbled titles such as: “Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting,” “A Copybook of Regular Calligraphy,” “300 Poems from the Tang Dynasty,” and “Conservatory of Music.”
“Your great-grandmother was a literate woman. She kept her brain working all her life,” said Mr. Auyung.
Bit by bit, Amy consigned everything in the envelope to the flames. The last thing she took out was a paper boat, folded completely flat. When she pulled it open, it was bigger than she expected. It had been made with great care, complete with decks, sails and rigging, and a lively dragon’s eye painted on the prow.
“That was the sort of boat the emigrants to Gold Mountain sailed in. The locals called them Big-Eyed Roosters.”
Amy held the boat in the palm of her hand and examined it closely before placing it on the fire at the foot of the tombstone. It was made of cardboard and burned slowly. The sails had been coated with layers of glue and made a crackling noise when the flames licked them. The boat burned to ash and only the sails were left, winking in the embers.
“Now you can board the boat for Gold Mountain at last, Greatgrandmother, and go and see Great-grandfather,” Amy murmured.
Something tickled her face. She brushed it away with the back of her hand and discovered it was a tear.
They went down the hill and Mr. Auyung told the driver to take Amy back to the hotel so she could get ready before the farewell dinner. Amy’s cell phone bleeped. It was a text message. She read it and suppressed smile. Then she looked serious. “I’m afraid I can’t attend the banquet,” she said. Mr. Auyung was startled. “But it’s all been arranged!” he protested. “Number one,” she continued, “I’m not leaving tomorrow, so you don’t need to say goodbye. Number two, if I go to the banquet, I’ll have to sign over the diulau, as you told me yourself. I’ve changed my mind. I’m not signing it over for the moment.”
Mr. Auyung stared blankly at Amy. “What on earth.…” he stammered.
“It puts you in a predicament, doesn’t it?” said Amy. “You’ll have some explaining to do to your bosses. All that time and energy wasted on me.… So I’ll tell you straight up why: I’m not signing right now because I want to use the diulau for a wedding, while it still belongs to the Fong family.”
“Whose?” asked Mr. Auyung in surprise.
“Mine,” said Amy. “There’s only one thing I want to ask of you. Will you be my witness?” Amy continued.
“Er … when?” Mr. Auyung was finding it hard to absorb all this new information.
“Mark’s plane has taken off. He’ll be here tomorrow