Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [82]
After Rick left, Ah-Fat told the boy to mind the shop and went off for a big meal in Chinatown. By the time he got there, the sun was up as high as the forks in the trees. The air was mellow and the wind had filled the street with a mass of soft pink blossoms. Ah-Fat hummed a little tune as he went along. It was, he remembered, the bridal tune which Red Hair used to saw away at on his battered old fiddle. He kicked at pebbles and the flower petals and thought to himself that that bastard Rick was not such a bad sort after all. At least he had not forgotten that he owed his life to someone else. He could not help imagining the new business Rick’s guesthouse would bring him. He could almost feel the bank drafts clasped in his hand, and the softness of his wife’s body as she lay curled up in his arms.
“It won’t be long, Ah-Yin. Good times will be here soon,” he muttered.
He went into the Wong Kee Congee Cafe on Dupont Street, and sat down at his usual table by the window. He used his sleeve to wipe a small patch of greasy tabletop and leaned his elbow on it. “A bowl of rice porridge with lean meat and preserved egg,” he told the boy. “And two silver thread rolls, a plate of prawn rice rolls, and a dish of chicken feet and one of snails.” The boy taking the order was surprised. “Tripped over a pile of dollars on your way here, did you?” he asked. Ah-Fat laughed but said nothing.
He looked around him as he waited for his food. Most people had already had their breakfast and gone and the place was almost deserted. Apart from him, there was only one other customer. The man had his head down, slurping a bowl of plain rice porridge. A bluebottle was climbing up the edge of his bowl and had almost reached the tip of his nose. When Ah-Fat noticed, he reached across and rapped on the man’s table. “Hey, mate, do you eat flies too?” The man looked up at Ah-Fat. His bowl dropped from his hand and crashed to the ground.
“Ah-Fat, you motherfucker! You’re not dead! How many years have I spent looking for you?”
Ah-Fat stared at him in shock. “Ah-Lam? Or is it your ghost?”
Ah-Lam sighed. “I wish it was. My ghost wouldn’t be having such a hard time.” He stretched out his left leg for Ah-Fat to see. “When we got separated in Port Moody, I took a tumble down the mountainside and broke a leg. I couldn’t walk so I had to stop where I was. I lived in a Redskin village, stayed there some eight years and only got back to Victoria last year. I came over here to Vancouver at the beginning of this year with everyone else.”
“What are you doing in Vancouver?” Ah-Fat asked.
“There’s not a lot I can do, dragging this leg around. I heard there was work at the canning factory cleaning fish so I thought I’d go and try it out. But that’s only summer work. As soon as it gets cold, that’ll stop too.”
It was still warm, but Ah-Lam had on a lined jacket. It was shiny with grease and fraying at the collar and cuffs, and his hair was grimy and tangled. Ah-Fat could see that he was struggling. He called the boy over: “Bring a portion of prawn dumplings and some mixed seafood ho-fen noodles for my friend here.” He turned to Ah-Lam: “Do you want to come and work for me at my laundry? It’s ironing and mending. It’s not difficult to pick up, you just have to take care with it.” And he told him what Rick had said that morning.
It was uncanny the way the three of them—brought together ten years before by a railroad, and then scattered because of the same railroad—had all bumped into each other today. They both felt it had to be more than just coincidence.
They talked of old times. “Have you heard anything of Ah-Sing?” asked Ah-Fat. “When I got back to