As the Earth Turns Silver (19 page)

Yung was making
kau yuk
. This was an act of love. Just as sneezes in springtime come in threes, so he prepared the ingredients. First the belly pork, rich with skin and streaks of fat and meat, thick slices marinated in ginger, garlic, star anise, sugar and soy, then fried and marinated again. Beetroot, washed and peeled and sliced, purple-red juice entering his skin, its love stain on his fingers. And the egg, beaten with a little salt, fried into thin pancakes and cut into pieces.

This is how he assembled it. First a slice of pork, then a piece of beetroot and a slice of egg, now another slice of pork. Round the inside of the bowl he arranged the layers, packing them in a tight spiral. Then he tied string over it all like a package. In the afternoon he would steam it over the range till the fat meat glistened and melted in the mouth, till the gravy flowed. When everyone arrived, he'd lift the bowl out by the string, pour the soupy gravy into a pot and thicken it with starch. He'd serve fried noodles; and whole terakihi steamed with ginger and soy; crispy-skinned chicken; Chinese mushrooms with oyster sauce laid over a bed of boiled lettuce; stuffed bean curd; oyster sauce and hot oil poured over blanched and fried Chinese broccoli; and a rich pork soup, laced with gelatinous threads of shark's fin and strings of beaten egg. He would invert the
kau yuk
onto a plate of boiled spinach and pour the gravy over. He would sit down to eat with family and friends.

Not all of his family, his friends.

He did not know what to call her. He did not even know how to explain.

He put water in the steamer, placed the bowl of
kau yuk
inside and covered it with a lid. Tonight he would eat and drink and celebrate because Yuan Shih-k'ai, the dictator, the murderer, was dead.

Only six months before, Yuan had tried to proclaim himself Emperor. You didn't have to be a revolutionary to be outraged. A man who, with the cunning of a snake, had stolen the presidency from Sun, who'd sold off the country and left the treasury empty. The man who'd assassinated Sung Chiao-jen, the Republic's greatest hope, who step by calculated step had destroyed the Republic and massacred the people.

Then one Sunday night Consul Kwei called a meeting at the Association in Tory Street. Poor Consul Kwei. Never become an official if your conscience is heavier than duty. Everyone went, of course, all the men. They stood around or sat in their rows, smoking and talking about the price of Californian lemons, which had shot up from a few pence to a shilling; about Ah Lee who made a killing from accumulating large stores of rice before the price doubled. They sat about eating toasted watermelon seeds, cracking the shells with their teeth, flicking the husks onto the floor. They talked about Wong-Too who'd gone home for a visit and couldn't get back; about the shortage of labour because of the war. Then Consul Kwei stood up and thanked everyone for coming. He thanked them for supporting President Yuan. He urged them to support Emperor Yuan.

Someone turned out the light even as Kwei was speaking. Suddenly half the crowd were on their feet, shouting, ‘Murderer! Turncoat! Beat him to death!' People started throwing chairs or anything else they could get their hands on. Yung caught a chair in mid-air, just before it hit Fong-man. Another hit him in the side. He looked for the Consul and found him under the table.

When it finally died down, Yung addressed the crowd. ‘There are few of us here who support Yuan Shih-k'ai,' he said. ‘In fact most of us curse the womb that bore him. But that's no excuse for this kind of behaviour.' Then together with Fong-man and Shun Goh, he escorted the Consul out of the building.

Things were not the same with the Chinese Association. Since that meeting, people had lost their unity. They talked about setting up their own county associations. It was all very ironic. Consul Kwei's son had told Yung he wanted to make a bomb. He wanted to blow up Yuan. Such is the foolishness of youth. Yung had advised him to be more circumspect, but now there was no need. Yuan was dead, a man broken by his own deeds. A rhyme came to Yung; it echoed down the alleys of his childhood:

Goodness begets goodness
Evil begets evil
Nothing is without its consequences
If the time has not come
Then the time will certainly come
For consequences.

Katherine could still hear the speeches on the steps of Parliament, still see Robbie's shining, upturned face.

Be thankful for small mercies.
That's what her mother had taught her. And she was thankful. For this year Mrs Newman's visit to Sydney coincided with Robbie's embarkation. She'd only need to work an hour or two a day; she could take days off; she could cook pikelets and madeira cake and Robbie's favourite dinners. On the day he sailed she could follow the parade, wave him goodbye.

Small mercies.

Yung would come by four or five or six nights a week, but on the other nights when she went to bed early she still couldn't sleep. She lay awake for hours thinking about Robbie, his embarkation, the campaigns in Europe, whether or how he'd come home.

She carried a heaviness in her bones, a cough that lingered.

During Robbie's last, full leave, she asked Yung not to come. She'd call in at the shop on her way back from work – it was only a week after all, when her son slept at home. Then his leave would be reduced to a few half days and he'd have to be in camp by midnight. Yung could come by then, after Robbie had returned to Trentham. She kissed him, held his hand. ‘He's my son,' she said.

Robbie spent hours riding the trams or going to the gym, came home for dinner, then went out again with his mates, coming back only to fall into bed smelling of beer. Katherine didn't mind. He was home. She hurried through her work at Mrs Newman's, called in at the shop, then spent her time shopping, cooking, washing and ironing Robbie's clothes, knitting socks, making Christmas cake and shortbread for him to take away.

She tried not to cough.

By the time Robbie's leave was down to half days, and Yung returned, Katherine's limbs ached, her skull felt stuffed with wet rags; she was using ten handkerchiefs a day, her nose red and chafed and sore.

On the last night of leave but one, after Robbie had gone, Yung placed a bag of lemons on the kitchen table. For her cold, he said. They sat, she drinking hot lemon and honey, he, weak black tea.

‘He's only eighteen,' she said.

He was silent, then said, ‘When I leave China, I am eighteen.'

Katherine looked into his dark, calm eyes. But he wasn't the one left behind.
He
was the one who left his wife and family. For
filthy lucre
. Suddenly she felt angry. How dare he compare
this
with Robbie going to war?

He reached across the table, but she pulled away her hand.

She could feel tears but closed her eyes. The room was warm from the coal range yet she was shaking. ‘What if he doesn't come home? What if he comes back with no arms or . . .'

He said nothing for a long time. ‘You lucky,' he said quietly. ‘You have eighteen years with your son. I never . . .'

She didn't want to hear about his children, about his wife. What did he know about Robbie? What did he care?

She stood up and asked him to go. She was tired. No, she wasn't crying, she had a cold, her nose always ran when she had a cold, and could he please leave now.

She tried not to think of him.

She roasted mutton, potatoes and kumara. She cooked cauliflower in a white sauce instead of the usual boiled cabbage, and made bread and butter pudding studded with currants and sultanas.

It was Robbie's last evening at home. All through dinner Katherine did not know what to say. What do you say when you may never see someone again? What do you say after years of silence?

She held him in the doorway as he said goodbye. He enveloped her, shielded her from the southerly. When had he grown from a boy to a man? She did not want to let him go. She hugged herself as he walked into darkness.

She shut the door, blew her nose and climbed into bed, all about her the emptiness of the house, wind rattling the windows, buffeting the weatherboards.

She did not know whether she wanted Yung to come. Everything ached. Grieved.

She closed her eyes, felt bright flashes of lightning. She fell asleep listening to thunder, rain on the iron roof, a silver dark world etched on the back of her eyelids.

Robbie knew his mother had cooked all his favourites. They ate their last dinner together quietly, interrupted only by her blowing her nose into an embroidered handkerchief. ‘This cold's a blimmin' nuisance,' she said.

Sometimes he looked up and saw her dabbing her eyes or, worse, found her staring at him. He quickly looked away. She didn't need to say anything. It was in her silence. In the way she plied him with food.

He had two helpings of everything. And then he didn't know what to do. What to say. He needed to walk it off, to blow away the cloying air of his mother, to have one last look around the city at night.

She fussed. What about the southerly, what about the rain coming in?

He wanted to say, Who's going to worry about rain at the Front? but thought better of it. ‘Mum,' he said, ‘you know how I like a good southerly.' And he meant it. The wind made him feel alive, the way he had to fight with each muscular step.

He put on the gloves Edie had sent him, dark green wool knitted purl and plain, purl and plain. They fitted exactly, and he marvelled at how she could get them so right and yet get his socks so wrong. They were at least three sizes too big. You have to allow for shrinkage, his mother said, but the ones she had knitted were only one size too big. He could see Edie sitting at the front of her classes with her friend Alice, from Timaru, both of them knitting for the war effort while they waited for lectures to begin; his mother of an evening knitting in front of the fire.

He kissed her on the cheek and let her hold him as long as she wanted, then pulled his hat down, turned up the collar of his greatcoat and stepped out into the wind.

He turned once and waved at the figure silhouetted in the pale yellow glow of the doorway. She seemed smaller than he remembered. Or was it he who had grown taller? He shrugged off a shiver, put his hands in his pockets and walked down Adelaide Road towards the Basin.

The moon hadn't come up yet, just street lamps and rectangles of light falling from still-open shops and dully lit windows. As he passed by he heard a man and woman yelling, saw their shadows behind closed blinds. He shut them from his mind and hummed, walking in and out, then into the light again. Here was the tram rattling and wheeling down the track, the whine of the motor, the hiss of brakes.

He'd gone riding all over the city today, on every route to Miramar, Island Bay and Karori. His mates had tipped their caps and had a yarn between clipping tickets. He'd gone on every tram – the double-decker, the Hong Kong Toast Rack, the Wellington Palace – and no one asked for a fare. Dave had given him his cap, the leather money bag and clippers, and he'd clipped a few tickets for old times' sake.

Before he'd left for camp, all the trammies and Dorothy the office girl and Kevin the manager of the depot had got together and given him a silver cigarette holder. It was in his top pocket along with a photograph: Dot, Kev and some of the others, him smack in the middle, outside the terminus.

He felt his father's watch through the wool of his gloves, the smoothness of the glass, the gold links of the chain, the greenstone amulets hanging off. He could hear his boots ringing on the footpath; could feel his body, bolt upright, arms swinging, the sound of hundreds, thousands of boots, marching.

He'd dreamed of this when he marched up and down on parade, even as he drilled at cadets. Now the waiting was almost over. By midnight he'd be back at camp. Monday they'd take the train to the city again, then march to the troopships to the sound of the army brass band. Already he could feel the charge in the air, an expectation of rain, of history in the making.

This is how he walked that night, by the tram tracks, past wooden cottages and shops, towards the Basin and the city. Something drew him and he didn't understand why. So absorbed in dreams of battle was he, of heroism in the face of the enemy, of victory over evil, that he didn't know where he was going, didn't realise until he marched right into the light, the long rectangles of light thrown into the street, into his face and eyes. Was it the colours, the shapes, the textures shining out of the bright window? The pineapples like strange unlimbed reptiles; the yellow bundles of bananas suspended like the AVRO 504K he'd made from balsa wood and paper and hung with string from his ceiling; the apples, innocent as Snow White's cheeks. Was it the wind dropping, the silence of his stilled boots?

Sounds, vibrations he would never have noticed during the day echoed in darkness.

He used to lie awake in bed listening, his ears, his body suffering the slightest of sensations – the sound of his mother's steps retreating down the stairs, the click of the back door opening and shutting, the heaviness of his heart beating.

Then his feet cold and bare on the gritty footpath. The click of the gate into the backyard behind the shop – his mother disappearing. And he left behind. Nothing but the mocking display of fruit – apples, oranges, pears – in the darkened window.

When the soldier came into the shop that night, Yung was cashing up, rolling bundles of notes and fixing them with rubber bands, counting and stacking sovereigns, half-crowns, florins, right down to pennies, halfpennies and farthings, rolling them in paper, folding over the top and bottom, then writing the amount on the outside.

It was quiet for a Friday night, perhaps because of the weather. Not many came out on a cold winter's night with the expectation of rain. Shun Goh had gone down Haining Street to check his
pakapoo
ticket and play a game of dominoes; Mei-lin had gone upstairs with Wai-wai. And so Yung started cashing up, leaving just enough float to last until closing.

As he counted and folded he thought about Katherine.

When he'd prepared his banquet to celebrate the death of President Yuan, almost everyone he'd invited had come. They drank tea and rice wine, joked and told tales, raised their glasses to the new order. But now the leftovers were eaten, and already China had disintegrated into factions, each area dominated, manipulated by its own warlord and bandits. Depression could settle now, an old cotton quilt that had to be re-spun, a mantle so heavy that he'd wake in the mornings exhausted.

Katherine had not come to the celebrations. She did not know his dashed hopes. She had other things on her mind.

‘He's only eighteen,' she'd said. ‘Why is he doing this to me?'

Eighteen, Yung thought. He was married then. His wife was expecting twins, though at the time he didn't know it. It seemed so long ago – another lifetime. ‘I leave China, eighteen years old,' he said.

‘You chose it! Robbie isn't just going off to make money. He's going to war! What if he doesn't come home? What if he comes back with no . . .'

Yung reached out across the table and took her hand.

She pulled away. ‘How would you know what it's like anyway?' She was sobbing now.

He thought about Joe Kum-yung, the others who never made it home. He thought about those left behind; felt a sudden, inexplicable loss. He'd never even met his sons.

She told him to go. She was tired. No, she wasn't crying, she had a cold, her nose always ran when she had a cold, and could he please leave now.

Sometimes he challenged her. Provoked her. He knew that. Sometimes she got angry and pushed him away. But there were many ways to see the same circumstance. Even his wife and son, even the chaos back in China.

He would go to her tonight. Take her flowers. She would be upset – her last night with her son. He would say nothing, just listen. Isn't this what women wanted?

He would take her in his arms . . .

It took a moment for Yung to register, to translate the sound of footsteps into his consciousness, aware as he was only of the paper-wrapped coins in his hands, of his penis, the way it throbbed as he thought of her, a rudder for his body. Without looking up, he expected the Marshall boy – he always came in about this time. His father smoked two packs of Capstan Navy Cut cigarettes every day, one of his better customers, and Yung and his brother never sold tobacco after 8 p.m. But already he knew the footsteps were too heavy. This was a man, not a boy.

The soldier stood looking at the stacks of fruit, the collar of his great-coat pulled up against the cold, his lemon-squeezer pulled down over his face.

‘Cold enough for you?' Yung asked, smiling. He liked the irony. After Katherine first said it to him he'd practised saying it each night as she came to his door, until at last she'd laughed and pinched his arse hard and told him to shut up.
Shut up.
Part of his new vocabulary, her lips touching, silencing his.

The soldier didn't answer.

All right, Yung thought, so he doesn't have a sense of humour. Or maybe he's not much of a talker. ‘Pineapple very good,' he said, watching the soldier examine the fruit. ‘Smell it. Nice and ripe. Very sweet.'

The man did not seem to know what he wanted. He picked up an apple. Put it down.

‘Apples very good too,' Yung said. ‘Crisp and juicy.' He picked up the paring knife from the shelf behind the counter, walked over and selected a red-cheeked Jonathan. As he cut, a little juice splashed on his hand. He gave a slice to the man, cut another and placed it in his own mouth. ‘Help yourself,' he said, leaving the apple with its white missing wedge, the knife, on the stack.

He walked back to the till and continued cashing up.

Looked up. The man had not eaten; the apple slice was still in his hand. ‘Eat
la
, very good,' he said.

The man lifted his face from the collar of his great-coat, and Yung was struck by the air of something familiar. He pushed back his hat and looked Yung in the eye, and in that moment Yung recognised not the eyes themselves, because they seemed very cold and blue, but something around the eyes, the red hair of his eyebrows, the pale freckled skin, and the lips, those same full, wide lips. This was barely a man and he had the lips of his mother.

Yung could see the angle of his jaw, the hate, or was it anger mixed with fear? And yet all he could see was
her
face. He could not look at him and not see the desperate love of his mother. He saw the mouth open and close and open, the twist of the facial muscles, the gesticulations of the hands and arms, the advance towards him.

‘You are too quick,' his brother always said to him. ‘You do not think. What is the use of your learning if you do not think?'

Now as Yung watched he did not need to think. He watched this man who was barely a man. How he wanted to be a man. Yung breathed. It was as simple as breathing. The in-breath and the slow out-breath. This was the dream, the first breath and the last.

*

He is a figure lying in the bottom left corner of a landscape. Mountains rise craggy and bare through mist and water. He is very small, at the edge of the painting. He rests under a twisted pine, surveying the world. A world of air and water. A world of white rice paper in which he is one fluid mark, forgettable under the wash of mountains.