Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [50]
“And what about you? Did the same apply to you and your mum?”
Amy looked startled. “How did you know?” Auyung gave a loud, toothy laugh: “Well, otherwise, how would you know so little about your family history?”
Amy laughed too. “Mr. Auyung,” she said, “under your excellent guidance, my interest in my family history is growing.”
Auyung showed Amy into the second-floor bedroom.
“This building has five floors. The locals had never seen buildings with several floors and apparently one of the builders, when he got four floors up, refused to build any farther. He said if he went any higher, he’d be able to touch the Thunder God’s family jewels!”
Amy looked puzzled. “What family jewels?” “I’m sorry,” said Auyung. “I should mind my language when I’m with a lady.” Amy suddenly understood, and could not help laughing.
“Apart from the balcony under the eaves, where the weapons were kept, all five floors were lived in. There was a courtyard in the centre with rooms arranged on all four sides. Every floor was the same: two passageways, a reception room, two bedrooms and a storeroom.
“On the ground floor were the kitchen and the servants’ rooms. Your great-grandfather’s mother and your great-aunt had their rooms on this floor. The shrine to Guan Yam, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, and the spirit tablets to the ancestors, were here too. That was to save the old lady from having to climb the stairs. When your great-grandfather came back from Canada for a while, he lived here too.
“Your great-grandfather’s uncle lived with his family on the third floor. Your great-grandfather’s daughter lived on the fourth floor—that was your grandfather’s younger sister. She was nearly twenty years younger than him, and was the only one of Fong Tak Fat’s three children who was born in this house. The fifth floor was originally empty but then when your grandfather’s younger brother came back and married, his wife and son lived there.”
Amy covered her mouth and gave a long yawn.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been talking too much,” Auyung said. “Let’s take you to the hotel. We can come back tomorrow.” “No, no, let’s get it over with as quick as we can. I’ve got a ton of things to do when I get back home.”
Amy walked into the bedroom. It held a bed and a wardrobe. The bed was of old-fashioned red rosewood, its four posts carved with designs. The original colour had long since faded—only in the deepest parts of the carving were there traces of yellowish-brown. Amy perched cautiously on the edge of the bed, running her fingers up the dragon and phoenix designs on the bedposts until she got to the wooden pearl in the dragon’s mouth. Even this light touch left her fingertips covered in a layer of dust. She examined them carefully. Could you talk about dust being old?
“Did my great-grandfather get married here?” asked Amy.
“Of course not. By the time Tak Yin House was finished, your great-grandfather’s eldest son—your grandfather—had already left for Gold Mountain. Even your great-uncle was thirteen years old.”
The bed was covered with a fine-woven mat which was riddled with moth holes. The cord which bound it together had come unravelled, so that it flopped over the bed base like a boned fish. Amy carefully lifted one corner, and found underneath a slender length of bamboo. She took out—it was a silk fan. The silk was yellowed with age. On top of this background colour, there were areas of yellow which shaded darker at the edges, perhaps from water stains. On the fan was painted a landscape and a pavilion, but it was hard to make out the details. Some characters were still just about visible but Amy found them almost impossible to read. Auyung took off his reading glasses and held them over the fan. With the characters enlarged, they could just about make out two lines:
… this brush to write … words of love
And send them to … in Gold Mountain
“Your great-grandmother’s handwriting!” Auyung exclaimed with a cry of delight.
“Was she a painter?” asked Amy.
“She wasn’t just a painter. There was no one like her around here. You’d call her