Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [87]
Her mother-in-law, Mrs. Mak, had been up for hours, and sat neatly dressed in the courtyard, fanning herself with a cattail fan. “Have you bought the moon cakes for tonight?” she asked Ah-Choi. The servant had just finished the washing and was giving the drying poles a wipe before hanging out the clothes. “The young mistress got them in yesterday,” she said. “There are four kinds: double-yolk lotus cakes, milk cakes with coconut flakes, walnut and apricot cakes, and jujube paste and osmanthus cakes.”
Kam Shan had been squatting by the tree, pouring a big bowl of water into an ants’ nest. When he heard the word “cake” he dropped his bowl with a clang and flung himself at Ah-Choi. Grabbing the front of her jacket, he begged loudly for cakes. “These are cakes for the Moon Festival,” she told him. “I don’t give them out. You’d better ask your granny.” He pushed her away and threw his arms around Mrs. Mak’s knees. “I want a cake, Granny!” he shouted. She wiped the sweat from her five-year-old grandson’s forehead with her jacket and shook her head. “These are Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes. You can’t have them till this evening when Old Lady Moon comes up.” “How long will that take?” Kam Shan asked. “The time it takes to have two more meals,” said Mrs. Mak. Kam Shan opened his mouth and wailed, the tears running down his face like two rows of peas. The sound of his crying grated painfully on a tender spot in Mrs. Mak’s heart. She grasped her walking stick and stood up. Holding the little boy’s hand, she felt her way to the kitchen.
“You can have a piece of double-yolk cake, and that’ll fill you to bursting. You won’t need any lunch or dinner.”
Kam Shan immediately stopped crying and his face lit up in a radiant smile.
Six Fingers tried to keep a straight face. Mrs. Mak normally had a flinty exterior, she thought to herself. It was only that naughty Kam Shan who knew how to worm his way into her heart.
Six Fingers sat down on the bed and leaned over to look at Kam Ho who was sleeping sweetly. The evening before, he had puked up his milk, and she had not got him to sleep till after midnight. When Kam Ho was asleep, he frowned so that a small pink knot formed between his eyebrows. A knot like a skein so tangled you could not find the end of the thread. Six Fingers went to smooth it out gently with her finger, but withdrew her hand hurriedly when the baby jerked awake. Kam Ho gave a few quavering cries of protest and gradually quietened again until his little snores filled the room like the buzzing of a fly.
Kam Ho was so different from his elder brother, Kam Shan, they were night and day. He was just over a month old, but he seemed to be brooding about something all the time.
Six Fingers sat at her dressing table and began to brush her hair.
It was long and thick and spilled in an untidy dark mass over her shoulders and down her back. Not that anyone else ever saw her hair like this— only Ah-Fat. Six Fingers always wore it combed into a bun. She took bone comb, dipped it in hair oil and began slowly to pull it through her hair. Then she plaited it tightly and wound it into a thick bun at the nape of her neck. The village women usually used water in which tung-tree wood shavings had been steeped to dress their hair, but Six Fingers had Luk Mui brand hair oil which Ah-Fat bought her in Hong Kong. It was made by a Dutch company and had a faint flowery fragrance. She fastened a red felt flower onto one side of the bun and looked in the mirror. Her face shone back at her in the silvered glass. She put the mirror away, opened a small drawer in the dressing table and took out a finely carved sandalwood box. It had a brass ring fastening the two halves together and looked like the sort of box a wealthy lady might keep her jewellery in.
Six Fingers gave the ring a little twist and opened it to reveal a stack of closely written sheets of paper. In the box she carefully hoarded all the letters Ah-Fat had ever written to her. The one on top dated from more than a year ago. Ah-Fat had written it just before boarding the steamship to