Free Dead Man's Gold and Other Stories by Paul Yee

do not fit me properly.”
    When he gave her jewelry, she complained, “I’m not as pretty as the women here.”
    She lost her appetite and couldn’t sleep. Her hair began to fall out and her teeth loosened and blackened. Ko took her to a doctor, but she grew weaker until she couldn’t walk or sit up. When Ko fed her soup, she cursed him for leaving their homeland. Still, every night he slipped into their bed and let his body keep her warm.
    Late one night, her eyes
filled with tears and she whis­pered, “You have been a good husband. I should never have come here. I loved you, but you changed more than I could. Please forgive me.” Her head rolled to one side and she stopped breathing.
    Ko shook her but found no pulse. All night, he sat beside the stiffening body, weeping silently.
    â€œA curse upon this New World!” he thought. “If I could start over, I would have stayed home, close to my woman. Why work so hard if a man can’t have a family?” Finally, his weariness overtook him and he fell asleep.
    When he awoke, another day’s new light was breaking through the window. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the air, as did the murmur and chuckle of conversations. He jumped when he noticed the bed lay empty.
    He ran into the café and saw customers seated at the counter with steaming mugs in their hands. His wife glided by with a pot of hot coffee.
    â€œGood morning, husband,” she smiled. “You were weary so I let you sleep. Look how sunny it is today.”
    Ko grabbed her hands and found them warm and soft. He saw a pink face and bright eyes.
    â€œHow did this happen?” he stuttered.
    His legs felt weak, and he didn’t know what to think. She frowned and gave him a puzzled look. He lunged forward and put his head on her chest, and heard a heart beating steadily.
    Then he caught a familiar smell — the scent of a perfume that used to drift through the cafe on lonely nights.

NINE First Wife
    IN MIDDLE CREEK village in South China, whenever Lew So-ying’s little boy Jee-wah asked about his father, she would set aside her sewing and repeat her husband s words.
    â€œYour father lives in the biggest city in Gold Mountain, where towers loom higher than fifteen pagodas stacked one atop another. People inside do not climb stairs, but ascend to the top in a flying cage. Your father’s office has a telephone and electricity, glass windows and a huge table. He owns a business and a building, and he is always meeting people and signing documents.”
    Jee-wah listened thoughtfully, trying to imagine the look of flying cages and electricity. And his chest would puff out proudly.
    As So-ying told these tales, even her own eyes
misted with longing. She pictured stone columns guarding a grand entrance to a mansion, and saw maids serving meat to her husband Lok-hay at every meal: fresh fish in the breakfast rice porridge, strips of lean beef with lunchtime noodles, and juicy chicken at dinner. In the village, So-ying’s family cooked meat once a week and considered itself lucky. Her husband sent money but she spent it carefully, paying workers who tended the family’s fields, minding her parents-in-law and maintaining the ancestral tombs.

    Sometimes Jee-wah asked, “Why does Baba have to work in Gold Mountain?”
    â€œSon, your father is earning money to build a new house here. When he has enough cash for land and carpenters and bricklayers, he will return to the village and relax for the rest of his life.”
    The boy persisted, “Why doesn’t Baba sell his building and business now and come home to be with us?”
    â€œBecause he has debts to repay. Because he needs enough money to send you to good schools.”
    â€œCan we go and live with Baba in Gold Mountain?”
    â€œNo,” she replied. “It is not allowed. For many years, Chinese have not been welcome there.”
    News came that the