FORTUNE COOKIE Read online

  The sluice boxes, or cradles, as they were sometimes called, contained thin timber bars known as riffles, placed at right angles to the flow of the creek. A shovel-load of gold-bearing alluvial gravel was dumped into the top of the sluice. The current then carried the muck down the length of the sluice box. The lighter ‘tailings’ would be held in suspension and flow over the top of the riffles, to be discharged back into the river or creek. At the same time, the tiny specks of gold, along with the heavy black sands, would drop to the bottom of the box and become trapped behind the riffles.

  Ah Koo’s riffles were carved in the shape of wriggling freshwater eels. But for me, anyway, as a fourth-generation member of his Australian family and also an art director in a Sydney advertising agency, it is an insight into how he viewed life. He worked like a dog from dawn to dusk in one of the world’s toughest environments, surrounded by hard-eyed racists who often beat him up, yet he remained true to his artist’s soul.

  Working in advertising flogging things people probably don’t need or even want, I wonder if I possess the same integrity and patience in this new and permissive world that Ah Koo possessed in his rigid, limited, racist and classist world.

  He probably never expected the world to change. What he saw and experienced was all there ever was or could be for him. After all, continuity, not change, was what he craved. In the 1960s, more than a hundred years later, rapid change was something my generation took for granted. During my childhood and youth in the forties and fifties, the world seemed to settle into peace and order with a sigh of relief after the tumult of war, but in the next decade the winds of change that brought Vietnam and resulted in Kent State became a hurricane that roared through the sixties and ushered in a very different world. Rock ’n’ roll, Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan musically represented the strident new voices of my generation.

  I’ve always liked to think I’ve been involved in some of that change, which may even, perhaps, have been why I chose advertising as my career. But Ah Koo would have spent his life trying to occupy as small a space and make as little noise as possible: unseen, unheard, unobtrusive, unimportant, voicing no opinions, never rocking the boat – the heathen Chink bowing, smiling and nodding at everyone. What’s goin’ on behind them slanty eyes? What’s the yellow bastard really thinking?

  They had eight kids to feed, and Little Sparrow was worn and prematurely aged by hard work and repeated childbearing. They had no protest drums to beat, nor did they rattle the chains that society had placed around their ankles.

  I sometimes imagine Ah Koo in his market garden, hearing the crack of a bullocky’s whip and the creak of a wagon as he wipes his sweating brow on his sleeve, then leaning on a spade or mattock as he watches the bullock team pass, hauling the finest cedar in the world to be used for scaffolding and framing timber. A beautifully grained cabinet timber so wantonly squandered would be something he couldn’t have understood. I’d like to think it would have deeply offended his craftsman’s sensibilities.

  Over the years he had expanded the original hut to accommodate his large family, and he’d also constructed a plain all-weather timber structure closer to the road as a kitchen and dining area for Little Sparrow’s eatery. Known to the locals simply as ‘The Chinks’, it was virtually a compulsory stop for the bullock-drivers as well as for the timber-getters. Occasionally it was even used for weddings or Masonic celebrations. He’d made the tables and chairs and other fittings from practically indestructible ironbark rather than the splendid cedar. The chisels he used for joinery were made in Sheffield and Birmingham, and purchased from the new general merchant at The Entrance. The cheap homemade chisels he’d carried with him from China had been worn down by the hardness of the native timber on the goldfields and were beyond use before he reached The Valley.

  Ah Koo was, above all things, a patient man. He waited until his two oldest sons could be put to work on the land. Then, with a hundred almost-mature persimmon and pomegranate trees bursting with early spring blossom to define the borders of his market garden, he opened the set of chisels Little Sparrow had brought with her from China all those years ago. My great-great-grandfather, it seems, used a chisel as if it were a natural extension of his hands. He removed each in turn from its grease-filled leather pouch, then appropriated a rare and precious hour cleaning them. Finally, he laid them, with their shiny blades and handles made from the heartwood of the persimmon tree, out along the length of the ironbark table. He sat and made a momentous decision: it was time to consult the gods. In order to propitiate them, he decided to offer them a roasted piglet, pomegranates and persimmons.

  As always he was practical. If he was going to return to carpentry and, in particular, the self-indulgence of decorating using a chisel, there had to be a sound reason beyond the simple tugging at his heart, or the gods, seemingly pacified by his connubial abstinence, might revoke his prosperity. It never occurred to him that working with the chisels might be a hobby. The concept of time spent in pleasure was one he simply didn’t comprehend, although he had been unable to keep his hands off Little Sparrow’s shrine. Over the years, using a bowie knife, he had transformed it with elaborate carving. He’d chosen the American knife, purchased on the goldfields, because he had been too superstitious to open the set of chisels Little Sparrow had brought from China. ‘It is not yet time,’ he always told himself.

  Now he duly attended the shrine, burning incense and making an offering before asking for guidance. Three days later, Little Sparrow, a vexed expression on her usually impassive face, approached him after he had taken his evening meal and asked permission to speak. Ah Koo nodded. ‘Honourable husband, I have had a dream.’ She paused. ‘It has come three times.’

  Ah Koo nodded again. He knew Little Sparrow would not have the temerity to mention her dreams if she didn’t think they directly concerned him. ‘You may tell me of these dreams,’ he replied.

  ‘One dream, always the same one. It concerns the chisels, a rocking cradle, a large box and a coffin. All have been carved by you. On the side of the cradle are carved birds of every kind, though none are birds of prey, no goshawk, no eagle and no kite. Also, on the board above where the infant would rest his head is a nest of four fledglings with a serpent hovering above it as if to strike. A fat dragon is carved on the lid of the large box. It is the only decoration and the wood is highly polished. The coffin stands on a tall marble plinth with three steps leading up to it. The lid leans against the side of the open coffin. It is too high for me to see inside, but on the centre of the lid are carved three lotus blossom buds. There are no open blooms.’

  ‘And the chisels?’

  ‘They are the ones I brought with me from China, the handles made from the heart of a persimmon tree. They lie in a neat row at the base of the white marble plinth in the same order as you laid them out on the table when you took them from their greased leather bags and cleaned them.’ Little Sparrow hesitated, then said, ‘Only they are different.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘The blades are made of gold.’

  Ah Koo smiled. ‘This is a good omen!’ But then, pausing to think, he added, ‘But then again, not so good. Gold is too soft for a chisel blade.’

  As if she hadn’t heard him, Little Sparrow frowned and said, ‘One of them is missing.’

  ‘So?’ Ah Koo suggested calmly, rather pleased with himself for puncturing this female dream with the male observation about the impractical nature of a gold chisel blade, but his remark was lost on Little Sparrow.

  ‘It is the second largest,’ she continued, ‘the number-eight. It does not lie with the others. There is a gap where it ought to be.’

  Ah Koo shrugged. ‘It is missing. It is a dream. There is no need for an explanation.’

  Little Sparrow drew back, a look of terror on her flat face. ‘No! It is not missing!’

  Ah Koo, somewhat surprised, felt a twinge of anxiety for the first time. Her obvious fear disconcerted him. Dreams, even women
’s dreams, must sometimes be taken seriously. He had asked for guidance from the gods, and while he doubted that they would reply through such a humble medium as Little Sparrow, her life had been blameless. Though roughly glazed and fired, she was a pure vessel. In an attempt to hide his concern, he demanded, ‘Well, where is it?’

  ‘In my dream I climb the three marble steps so that I am now able to see directly into the coffin,’ she explained. ‘Lying within it is an ancient and emaciated crone. She is naked and almost bald. Blood runs in a thin trickle from her left breast across her stomach.’ Little Sparrow, her voice now barely above a whisper, began to sob. ‘The handle of number-eight chisel protrudes from her heart.’

  Ah Koo observed his tearful wife, making no attempt to console her. In fact, he had no idea how to do so. While there had been a hint of anxious tears when she had clambered down from the bullock wagon all those years ago to meet his eyes for the first time, he had never seen Little Sparrow cry.

  In fact, the gwai-lo timber-getter’s wife who acted as the local midwife remarked on her stoicism. Called to attend the birth of their first child, she had come from the bedchamber – a section of the hut curtained off with bleached rice sacks sewn together – shaking her head in apparent disbelief. Ah Koo, waiting anxiously at the front of the parted curtains, held both hands behind his back to conceal them. In his right was a pound note he had over-generously decided to pay the midwife if she had delivered him a son; in his left, a ten-shilling note, should it turn out to be a girl.

  The midwife had drawled, ‘A boy, no problems,’ neglecting to add her congratulations. Delighted, Ah Koo had proffered the pound note. She snatched it without saying thank you and pushed it quickly into her pinny pocket, glaring defiantly at him in case he expected change. Seeing the note was safe, with no protest coming from Ah Koo, she had proceeded to examine him. Starting from his bare mud-caked feet, her eyes had travelled slowly up his smooth brown legs, dirty shorts and shirt, coming to rest on his grinning, obsequious face. Her expression throughout had been one of silent contempt. Finally, she’d addressed him a second time. ‘What are you people, anyway? Animals? Yellow monkeys?’ She tossed her head in the direction of the bedroom door. ‘T’ain’t natural. She – Mrs Monkey – just give birth to a ten-pound bub and she never bawled, even the once.’

  Now, seated at the table with her face buried in her arms, Little Sparrow wept. ‘It is the gods!’ she wailed. Then, looking pleadingly up at Ah Koo and choking back her sobs, she cried, ‘They are speaking to you, honourable husband.’

  Ah Koo’s first instinct was to shout at her. Who was she, a woman, to suggest such a preposterous idea? But he was forced to admit to himself that her dream on three consecutive nights was filled with signs and perhaps even dangerous portents. Like all Chinese peasants he was deeply superstitious. To turn a deaf ear to the gods and, worse, his ancestors, and so provoke their anger was an extremely dangerous course of action. Not wishing her to sense his anxiety, he asked gruffly, ‘Is that all?’

  Little Sparrow looked up and fisted the tears from her dark swollen eyes. ‘No, there is more,’ she gulped. Ah Koo remained silent, waiting, his hands held below the surface of the table where he could feel them trembling on his knees. ‘There is also a newborn child in the cradle. It has not yet been cleaned and there is nothing between its legs, male or female. The umbilical cord has not been cut and leads like a long twisted rope into the bloodstained birth gate of the old crone. In the dream I know I must cut it but have no means of doing so.’ A loud sob escaped from Little Sparrow. ‘Then I recall the chisel and withdraw it from the old crone’s heart and cut the cord, then tie it off, but, like some live thing, it immediately attaches itself just beyond the knot. I cut and tie it again but the same thing happens until the fourth knot is tied.

  ‘Then the newborn infant suddenly begins to kick and cry. The birds carved into the side of the cradle come alive, and the four fledglings in the nest open their mouths, which are larger than their heads and shaped like open fire bellows. The lining of each mouth is a different colour: from the deepest yellow for the largest among them through to russet and then to white. The fourth fledging, the large yellow-mouthed one, suddenly drops out of the nest above the infant’s head and into the baby’s open bawling mouth and disappears. The birds from the cradle hover above the crying child’s head and then start to sing. The newborn infant stops crying and kicking, and they alight one by one onto his tiny body, almost covering it. Finally, they begin to clean it with their beaks.

  ‘The snake above the nestlings also comes to life and drops onto the belly of the child, where the birds – they are of every imaginable colour – hop aside unconcerned, allowing it a clear pathway across the chest and belly to the nothingness between its legs. The snake – a viper and iridescent blue – is not large.’ Little Sparrow holds up her forefinger. ‘Only three times the size of my finger, no more. It curls itself neatly between the infant’s legs where its missing part should be, its head raised and swaying, its tongue flicking.’

  ‘But you had the chisel. Did you not attempt to kill the snake?’ Ah Koo asked, knowing almost immediately that so reasonable an action was unlikely in a dream.

  ‘No, somehow I’ve lost the golden chisel or, rather, I discover I no longer hold it in my hand. Perhaps when I tied the umbilical cord I put it down. But now my attention is suddenly drawn to the coffin lid, and I watch as the carved lotus buds open fully and become real, and I can see that they exactly match the colour of the serpent. I turn just in time to see the baby’s mouth stretch to the size of a large apple, and a yellow and brown fully feathered bird emerge from it, flap its wings and fly away out of the dream picture.’

  ‘And the dragon? The fat dragon on the box? Is it … does it come alive?’ Ah Koo asked anxiously.

  Little Sparrow shook her head. ‘No. It remains as it was, a beautiful wooden carving.’ She looked up at him sorrowfully. ‘Forgive me, honourable husband. In the dreams, when I turn back from the lotus blossoms to the dragon box I see the number-eight chisel again, but now it possesses its original steel blade. It has been firmly, perhaps even violently, driven into the place where the heart of the fat dragon would have been had it been alive and not merely a carving.’

  Ah Koo’s mind was besieged with symbols, omens and portents that he didn’t begin to understand, except for one – the fat dragon. It was the sign of prosperity and it had remained inert, the chisel driven into the wooden heart. There was much too much in the dream to ignore. The embedded steel chisel in the fat dragon patently denoted disaster. ‘We will go to Sydney to visit the xun meng xing shang, the fortune teller, for an interpretation,’ he replied gruffly, hoping that, through her tears, Little Sparrow wouldn’t see that his hands were shaking.

  Taking the donkey cart, Ah Koo and Little Sparrow set off for Tuggerah Lakes to take the coastal schooner to Sydney. The driver’s seat on the cart was only large enough for Ah Koo, so Little Sparrow had to sit cross-legged on the tray facing backwards, her squat frame absorbing every bump on the rutted wagon track. The children – even the youngest – capable and trustworthy, remained at home.

  It was the first time since her arrival that Little Sparrow had been further than The Entrance, but her presence in Sydney was essential. Dreams must be told down to the smallest detail if the seer is to interpret them accurately. There was also the matter of mood, atmosphere, essence, a possible miasma around the old crone’s coffin, the arrangements of the objects, all of which only Little Sparrow could describe. The process was expensive and they would have only one chance; they must give the dream to the soothsayer with every detail intact. It was even possible that he would send her back into the dream to find the answer to some question.

  Little Sparrow was silently terrified. If the dream interpretation turned out badly, she might be accused of being a ‘dream stealer’: an impure and worthless vessel containing ‘bitter rice’ that had polluted her husband’s dream and, in the process, destroyed h
is future. If this proved to be the case, he would have every reason to be rid of her.

  However, it didn’t occur to her that by remaining silent she could avoid any possible danger. Little Sparrow was convinced that the gods had answered her husband’s need for guidance, and while a recalcitrant spirit might have misdirected their answer and sent it through her as a celestial joke, she could not possibly, even at the risk of her life, disobey their instructions.

  The trip from The Entrance to Sydney by schooner wasn’t pleasant. It was a brutally hot late November day and the deck was crowded. Ah Koo and Little Sparrow – ‘the Chinks’ – were, despite paying the full fare, ordered by the first mate below decks to a small space between a stack of empty wooden beer casks. They were forced to share with a fat, profusely sweating Aboriginal woman nursing a sick baby. The smell of stale hops mixed with the foetid air made it difficult to breathe, and Ah Koo’s clean white starched shirt was soon soaked with sweat and clung to his skinny frame. The sea was choppy even before they sailed into a bad squall off Lion Island. All were seasick, the Aboriginal woman so violently that at one stage she helplessly dropped the baby onto the dirty planking, where it landed in a mess of vomit at Little Sparrow’s feet. Despite her discomfort she impulsively picked up the child, then immediately perceived that the act of comforting this blackfella devil child might be yet another bad omen.

  Arriving in Chinatown that evening, they paid to share a room with another couple, only to discover that there were also six children and an infant who was teething and cried most of the night. The following morning they visited the home of the scribe who, years earlier, had written Ah Koo’s letter requesting a bride and arranged Little Sparrow’s trip to The Valley. They discovered that he had recently died and they now had no one they could trust to help them.