Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [89]
When the moon is full, that is when I miss you most. Who knows when our Gold Mountain promise can be carried out? The mountains and rivers stay the same, but I’m afraid I won’t stay beautiful forever. All I can do is use this brush to write you words of love and send them to the man of my dreams in Gold Mountain.
Your wife, Ah-Yin, Spur-On Village, the Mid-Autumn Festival, 1900
She put down her pen to the sound of whispering behind her. When she looked round she saw the faces of her female neighbours at the window. Six Fingers opened the door and the women clattered in. “Six Fingers, your Ah-Fat’s only just gone. Are you missing him already?” Their husbands had also gone to Gold Mountain. Some had come back but others had not, and from time to time the women would beg Six Fingers to write letters for them.
“Huh!” retorted Six Fingers. “Missing him? It’s my mother-in-law who asked me to write.” But the women knew how much Ah-Fat and Six Fingers missed each other. “Right then, we’ll ask Auntie Mak what’s so urgent she needs to tell her son, shall we?” they teased her. Six Fingers was flustered. “Do you want me to write letters for you or not?” she asked, going scarlet in the face. There was raucous laughter.
As they chattered, their hands were busy at their stitching, embroidering the brim of a hat or sewing cloth shoes. The room was filled with the clack and hiss of needles and thread.
“Will you write to that man of mine and ask why no dollar letters have arrived for the last two months?” asked a woman called Ah-Lin.
Ah-Lin’s husband was the oldest of the Gold Mountain men, at fifty-six years of age. He had chronic asthma and could not do heavy work. A few years previously he had saved up a bit of money and bought himself concubine at one of the tea-shacks. He had two children with her and, since then, had not been back home. He just sent the necessary dollar letter every couple of months, to maintain his first family. In fact, for both families, it was the woman’s earnings in the tea-shack which kept body and soul together.
“What’s the point of asking him?” said someone. “Isn’t that woman in charge?”
This was a sore point, and Ah-Lin said fiercely: “I’ve had all the rotten luck, while she’s out in Gold Mountain enjoying life with him.”
Several women piped up at once. “She’s a tea-shack girl. What do you expect? She’s the rotten apple at the bottom of the barrel. Anyway, it was your man who made her his fancy woman.”
Ah-Lin bit her lips until deep teeth marks showed. “Huh!” she said. “I’m the one Ah-Kyun married officially. That worthless bit of baggage!”
Six Fingers could not help herself. She jabbed her finger in Ah-Lin’s face: “And what about your nice tiled house and your silk clothes? That girl has slaved away to pay for them, hasn’t she? You only eat if she has food. If she doesn’t have food, you’ll all just starve to death. Why don’t you just write a nice letter and ask what’s going on? What’s the use of whining?”
That silenced Ah-Lin.
One young woman, just married, was a bit of a tease. She grabbed the letter Six Fingers had not had time to put away and began to read through. There was general laughter and cries of “Since when did you learn to read, Ah-Chu? Haven’t you got it upside down?” Ah-Chu paid no attention. She frowned and peered at the letter, tracing each character with her finger. Finally, she shouted in triumph: “‘Field,’ there’s the character for ‘field’ here, Sister Six Fingers! I know that one! And ‘ox,’ I know ‘ox’ too! And there’s a ‘four’ here. I’ve got it! You’re going to buy