As the Earth Turns Silver (11 page)

Mei-lin sat in the back of the shop, cutting sheets of paper from a huge roll, folding and pasting brown paper bags – ½, 1, 2, up to 5lb sizes. Wai-wai lay beside her in his apple-box crib. Every so often she would smile at him, make soft noises with her tongue and lips, and when her hands were tired she would stoop down and touch his face, let him grasp her little finger.

Shun tied bananas into bundles – each banana fastened by its stem, half an inch apart, a yellow staircase of fruit, string and slip-knots. As he finished he hung each bundle above the layers of polished fruit in the front window.

Mei-lin heard the nasal voice of the postman. She picked up Wai-wai and walked through the doorway into the shop. She knew, as Shun tore the envelope open, as he unfolded the yellow paper, that the letter was from the Wife. She watched his face, the slight crinkle of skin on his forehead, his eyes reading the words again. He refolded the paper precisely on its crease lines, replaced it in the envelope and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.

‘She wants the boy,' he said, without looking at her.

The baby gurgled. Curdled milk spilled on his gown, across her breast, a dark stain spreading over the blue fabric of her dress. She wiped his face with the hem of his gown, turned, walked back through the doorway, up the stairs to the bedroom. Closed the door.

She was pouring water from a porcelain jug into the basin on the dresser when Shun came in. He reached out to touch her arm, but her body stiffened and his hand fell to his side.

‘She's the Wife,' he said quietly. ‘She has no sons.'

Mei-lin unbuttoned Wai-wai's gown, eased his arms out of the sleeves. She took a white muslin cloth, dipped it in the basin and squeezed it out. Gently she wiped his face and chest.

Shun put his hand on her shoulder.

Turtle egg
, she thought.
Bastard.
She swung round on him, saw his eyes flicker wide, his hands lift as he stumbled backwards. She stopped, turned back to the baby.

She had always spoken carefully, her words liquid, a fragrant oil.

Pig. Raised by a dog.

He stood away from her, just a little further than a hand could reach. ‘We have each other,' he said. ‘What does she have?'

Fart talk.
She pulled a towel from the end of the bed, wrapped Wai-wai in it. Turned to face him, holding her son against her shoulder.

‘Where are we? China? You are the Husband!'

Wai-wai started to cry. She jiggled the boy in her arms, made soft clicking noises with her tongue.

‘He's the oldest son, we have to send him home, how will he get an education—'

‘When he's old enough, of course, send him home, but why now? He's only a baby!'

Shun looked away, said nothing.

‘If you have any feeling for me, then find it in your liver . . .' She tried to reach out to him, but he pulled away.

‘She knows Cousin Gok-nam is going home, maybe the year after next.' Shun stopped, looked across at her. ‘His wife could look after the boy on the ship.'

That night Mei-lin cooked rice, and pork-bone and puha soup: nothing else. She set out two pairs of chopsticks, two china spoons, two pale green rice bowls. She served the father of her son and his brother, then sat down away from the table, holding Wai-wai on her knees. She sat watching them as they sucked the fat marrow, the gelatinous gristle, as they flicked the soft grey meat off with their tongues, leaving clean ribs and knuckles on the table. A tide line on the wooden surface.

Hours later, as she lay in bed, she heard Shun climbing the stairs – the creak of the fifth step from the top, the way he leaned more onto his right leg than his left. She turned away from the door, pulled the spun-cotton quilt over the back of her head. The door opened, clicked shut. She heard the metal of his braces hitting the floorboards, felt the shift in the mattress as he climbed into bed. The smell of cigarettes. Ng Ga Pei wine.

She had never refused him. Every night she had massaged his feet, kissed his cock, told him little lies. Their room was a
tent of hibiscus
: when they weren't lying together like clouds and rain, she would rub his shoulders and neck, ease him into sleep. He had paid 500
man
for her. But she had made him love her.

He lifted her pyjama top, slid his cracked hands down her pants, scratched over her buttocks, her hips, across her breasts. She tried to turn, to push him away, but he held her, pushed hard into her. At the window lace curtains lifted and fell. She could see clouds in a small rectangle of sky, ghost lit, moving, moving away, and she couldn't breathe, couldn't open her mouth or twist herself free. She heard a cry she did not recognise, a wrenching, her nails clawing across his cheeks.

‘Bitch!' He punched her hard in the face. Got up, grabbed at his clothes.

She heard the door slam, stumbling down the stairs, cursing, leaving by the back door. Wai-wai screaming. She lay on the bed shaking, cradling her bloodied face, her body curled, closed like a fist.

It was after midnight. The northerly had freshened and Shun shivered. He had left the house blindly, wearing only his crumpled shirt and trousers, his slippers. A fine mist of rain settled on his hair and skin, dampness in his head.

That evening he had closed the shop early, before ten o'clock, and had sat alone in the kitchen long after Yung had gone to bed. ‘Market in the morning,' his brother had said, ‘I'll go.' He'd said it a little too loudly, with an edge of brightness, and Shun had watched him, and watched him walk up the stairs, and thought about Mei-lin and Wai-wai lying in bed asleep, about his wife back home in China.

He finished the bottle of rice wine in the cupboard, the one Mei-lin used for cooking, and then opened another. He was hot and knew his face had the redness of a non-drinker. He poured the burnt-orange liquid into his glass; it smelled of rind mixed with strong alcohol. His lips stretched into a thin smile. ‘
Gon booi
,' he said,
dry the cup
, raising his glass to the empty chairs, to the kettle growing cold on the range.

He wanted to shut down his mind, like Ah Wing who spent all his money on
pakapoo
and
hundred men's women
, and never sent remittances home. But Ah Wing was cursed, cursed by his mother and cursed by his father: a man who would die and never find rest, destined to wander with no one to lay out food for him, no one to burn paper money and paper clothes and houses. A hungry beggar.

Shun felt inside his jacket but couldn't find the pocket, then realised he was looking on the wrong side. There – in the lining, a crinkle of paper. He pulled out the envelope and read the words slowly – this was his name, this was his address. In this no man's land, even his name had become something he did not understand.

Wong Chung-shun.

Husband.

Wife.

Mother of his Son.

He lifted his glass. In the light the liquor flashed orange, gold, polished tortoiseshell, like the comb Mei-lin wore in her black, oiled hair. He pushed back his chair, left the envelope, the full glass of wine on the table, and lurched to the stairs. His leg ached; his limp was always more pronounced when he was tired. He wanted – desperately.

*

He'd watched her at night pull combs from her hair, watched it slowly uncoil and fall down her back as if alive. When she came to him as he lay on the bed, her hair fell loose over him, entangled him, and he imagined she had come from water, her hair thick, shiny as black seaweed.

He liked the small gasps she made when he entered her, again and again. He liked the smallness of her, the way he could lift and move her like a doll. He'd known when he first saw her, when her father let him see her from behind the curtain. He'd wanted to take her. To come from behind and pull her into darkness, before she saw his face. Before she knew his name. He knew from that moment he would fuck her. Own her.

As he pulled off her underwear he knew he could break her if he wasn't careful. If he wanted.

*

Fish in water, that's what they were – what they had been. But now he was cast out onto the wet streets with nothing left to draw him back in. He walked not knowing his destination, the act of walking having its own purpose, an act of meditation. Around the Basin, past cabbage trees shaking their black, spiky heads across the empty fields; up Buckle Street towards the barracks; right into Tory, past the bell-tower of Mount Cook School; left into Haining.

It was dark, quiet; some of the houses seemed unoccupied, their windows shuttered like black faces without eyes, the eyelids grown over. Shun stopped outside Number 34. He walked past the front door where Ah Wing lived in one small room, then into the narrow alley.

‘
Hoi moon,
he shouted at an upstairs window,
open up
, then waited by the side door. It was steel clad, with no latch, no doorknob.

A faint, familiar smell, sweet and earthy, drifted in the cool air.

Upstairs someone pulled a rope. Shun entered, and the piece of timber at the bottom of the door pivoted to relock it. Now he stood in a cubicle facing another steel-sheathed door.

‘
Hoi moon.
'

It unlocked and he walked along the hallway, up the stairs, through ever stronger fumes, his slippers flip-flapping on the wooden boards.

At the top the trapdoor was open, a metal cover lying beside it. Thick smoke and hot, fuggy air made Shun draw back and hold his breath. One side of Ah Keung's mouth lifted in recognition but his eyes did not smile.

In the centre of the room a small lamp gave out the only light, its flame burning through the top of the bell-shaped glass. Two men gathered on grass mats around it, their bird-faces caught in sharp relief. One prepared his pipe, dipping a long needle into the flame; the other lay on his side, propped by a wooden pillow, shoulders and back hunched, sucking a bamboo pipe, drinking the smoke in one long pull. Against the far wall the shadows of three, maybe four other men lay on wooden benches.

Shun had smoked
slices of crow
two or three times, reluctantly, just after the accident when the pain in his leg had been too much to bear. Now all he wanted was release – for his tired muscles and his mind to be smoothed from within.

He watched Ah Keung dip a long hatpin into a sachet of dark toffee, turning it to coat the end. He warmed it over the flame and dipped it again, twirling and lifting the pin, twirling and lifting till the substance formed a cone-shaped bead. He roasted the bead till it started to bubble, then pressed it into the bowl of a bamboo pipe, pushing the pin through the hole, pulling it out.

Shun took the pipe.
Ah foo yung
,
hibiscus
, he thought;
ah foo wing
,
take prisoner for ever
. He lay down on a grass mat, his head and neck resting against a wooden pillow, put the bowl to the flame, the pipe to his mouth, his body curled like a drawn bow.

*

Close your eyes now and listen, for this is a story passed down through the ages, a once-upon-a-time story about a girl who longed for a husband, yet none could be found for her. Despairing, she sought lovers, but all drew back in horror, for her skin was deeply pockmarked.

At last unable to bear her loneliness any longer, she drank poison, and as she lay dying she called down a curse upon every man who had spurned her. ‘In my lifetime you scorned me,' she said, ‘but in my death you shall give all that you have, and more, so shall you desire me.'

After her death each of the men succumbed to a curious sickness. Doctors searched far and wide for a cure but none could be found. Then one day a herbalist came upon an unusual plant growing by the girl's graveside. It was tall, with flamboyant red flowers, each with four large petals. When the petals fell, they left a large green boll. The herbalist cut one of the bolls and collected the thick, milky liquid. He mixed it with rice wine and gave it to one of the men.

Instantly he recovered.

Each of the men drank the liquid. Pain and anxiety left their bodies and they were filled with a calm they had never known. Their senses sharpened, their minds opened, a beautiful woman with fine white skin beckoned to them.

Then disappeared.

The men became sick again. They longed for release but could not find it. And so they took the liquid again.

Their bodies settled, as if into sleep, their minds budded, branched and flowed. The woman called to them, and disappeared.

And so the men grew sick, their bodies, their minds wracked with desire and despair. Each time they drank the liquid, they became well, but each time the woman disappeared, they fell sicker than ever.

Shun came home two days later reeking of that sweet, suffocating smell, his pupils tiny dots in the dark of his eyes. Mei-lin held her breath.
He was the same age as her father.
She watched him climb the stairs and sleep for another day.

Until he had woken and washed the stink from his skin, his hair, his mouth, until she had erased the stench from his clothes and bedclothes in boiling soapy water, she took a quilt and slept on the floor, holding Wai-wai in her arms.

Afterwards, she returned to his bed, but always retired early, turning her back to the door when she heard him climb the stairs, never turning, even onto her back, until she heard his deepening breath, his slide into oblivion.

Sunday, as soon as they'd finished breakfast and cleaned the shop, Shun went with Yung to Haining Street as usual. He did not stop with his brother to drink tea. Instead he walked to Ah Chong's.

He smelled the roast pork even as he walked down the alley to the backyard. He asked for a lean cut of rump and inspected it carefully. Was the skin crispy? Was there just the right lacing of tender fat and meat? He walked to other kitchens and bought dim sum, home -made noodles and little custard tarts. He went straight home.

Mei-lin held Wai-wai across her body, looked at her favourite foods – and refused to eat them.

That night Shun engaged his brother in a game of cards, half-heartedly arguing about imperialist powers, the imminent fall of the Dynasty, the hope of the new Republic. Yung quoted Liang Ch'i-chao: ‘If you want to keep the old complete, you have to make something new every day.' But Shun didn't understand. He didn't care. The world had become a moving picture, voiceless, devoid of colour, a series of unnatural movements punctuated by the sound of a frenzied piano.

He watched as days and nights passed before him. He watched the mother of his son, watched the silence settle over them.

They argued again. Only once. ‘No one sends a baby home without his mother,' Mei-lin said, ‘even with another woman. What about dysentery? And even when the ship arrives, how long does it take to get back to the village? What about bandits? What about floods? What about famine?'

He avoided her eyes.

‘What's wrong with you? Are you mad? Or are you a coward?'

He almost hit her, but the look on her face stopped him. The hard, steady gaze, the set of her mouth against him.

‘All day she
eats vinegar
,' Mei-lin said. ‘She's a tiger. Why are you doing this? What hold has she got over you?'

*

It was a long time ago, before Shun and his wife were born or even conceived. It had been raining for weeks. Shun's father heard cries from the swollen river. He dropped his shoulder pole and did not notice the vegetables scatter. He leapt into the water and pulled the drowning man onto the riverbank.

Afterwards, the man pledged his first daughter.

Shun was fourteen, his wife three years older, when they met on their wedding day. After the whole roast pig and the wine and firecrackers, he lifted her red head-dress. And looked away.

Her face was wide. It was pocked and dimpled, her mouth like a twist on a steamed
cha siu
bun. He went to bed with her and pretended to sleep.

She worked hard. She collected water from the river. She scrubbed the barrel toilet clean. On special occasions she cooked his, his parents' favourite foods – crispy-skinned chicken, steamed whole fish, sweet soup of snow-ear fungus.

She was like a bossy older sister.
As noisy and annoying as a devil
.

He grew up. He made up ghost stories that she always believed. He learned to laugh at her.

He drank, closed his ears and eyes – and went to bed with her.

She bore daughters and wailed when the second and third were taken from her. Her mouth set fast in her crooked face; her eyes hardened to small pieces of obsidian.

She complained. She raged. She
spilled pepper
.

Shun left for the New Gold Mountain.

When he came back, he barely recognised her. Her skin was dark and wrinkled like poor man's leather. Her back had the beginnings of a stoop. Only the twist of her mouth was familiar, her obsidian eyes.

How could she object to a concubine? She had not produced a son. She offered her maid. A child she could control, completely.

And then she saw Mei-lin, saw his utter bewitchment. ‘Give me a son,' she pleaded. ‘Give me a son.'

He looked at her and shook his head in disbelief. How could she even hope to conceive?

How he pitied her.

In darkness he lay, desperately thinking of Mei-lin. But when he touched her coarse skin, smelt the foul breath of her rotted teeth – the years of spitting sugar cane – his penis softened.

*

Shun woke. He gazed in half-light at Mei-lin's hair against the pillow, the paleness of her skin, her rosebud lips.

He lay on his side of the bed and felt old, shrivelled. His
ch'i
was drying up, his flesh turning to bone.