As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong Page A

emptiness, this hungry space about him. If only he could express it in a foreign tongue, perhaps it would no longer belong to him.

Líttle Hearts
    As Katherine walked into the shop she heard a young woman singing. Perhaps because of the woman’s gusto and perhaps because of the tram that rattled past at the same moment, no one heard her steps on the linoleum. No one came through to serve her. Katherine stood in the middle of the shop, surrounded by stacks of copper-skinned onions, newly washed potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, carrots with feathery green foliage. She did not ring the bell on the counter; instead she listened. The voice was very high and thin, and the melody completely familiar, if a little off-key, but to Katherine’s unpractised ear the words sounded like bubbles of music, popping one after the other. She listened, fascinated by the sound of a language she did not recognise and yet whose meaning she could understand. She felt like a child who has been sent to bed and yet who comes out again to hide behind the door listening. What songs had she heard in another tongue? She smiled. This was a weird and foreign language; it was Jesus loves me this I know , and then she couldn’t stop singing for the Bible tells me so , and it was all in Chinese.
    *
    Mei-lin did not have any particular interest in Jesus-Son-of-God but she did like to sing. Mrs Mary Anne Wong, Annie for short, wife of the Chinese Missioner, came visiting every fortnight, and in a city where there were so few Chinese women, and nowhere to go and nothing to do except work and cook and clean and look after the children, a visit by any one of them was always welcome. That is, apart from Cousin Gok-nam’s wife, who talked as relentlessly as a tram. Mei-lin never got a word in, even to say she needed to go, and so she learned to walk away and let her cousin follow, even outside and into the yard before closing the toilet door behind her.
    Annie Wong, on the other hand, Mei-lin adored. She liked Annie’s soft eyes and face, the way she listened and laughed and helped her with anything. Down Frederick Street, at the Anglican Mission, Annie was upheld as a shining example of Christian womanhood, but all Chinese knew she was a very good Confucian. Annie knew how to live in barbarian lands – she was born in Australia. She spoke fluent Australian and she could read and write. And because she was coming to marry the Missioner, she was counted as clergy and didn’t have to pay the poll tax. Annie showed Mei-lin where to buy the essentials that men never dreamed nor thought of; she translated documents and signs; she even taught Mei-lin some English; and on the rare occasion when Mei-lin got sick and Chinese herbs or the Haining Street doctor could do nothing, Annie took her to see Dr Bennett, a gweilo doctor, but nevertheless a kind one – and a woman.
    Mei-lin would always make some delicacy in anticipation of Annie’s visit: siat kei ma , fried noodles coated in syrup, and pressed and cut into squares; bak dan gou , steamed white sponge decorated with a cochineal design; or fried egg doughnuts rolled in sugar. They would sit down at the back of the shop while Mei-lin felt the child grow within her, while she watched through the doorway and listened for footsteps in the shop, for the bell on the counter to ring. They’d drink cups of Oolong tea and eat little hearts of sweet or savoury snacks. They’d talk and laugh and talk again, rubbing crumbs and oil or sticky sweetness from between their fingers. And while Annie helped Mei-lin with the ironing or the mending or scrubbing the floor, she’d teach her to sing.
    And that’s how Mei-lin learned so many new and fantastical songs, songs like Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus and Onward Christian Soldiers that sounded majestic and bold and strong, the way Mei-lin felt inside (and not like a woman), or songs with catchy tunes that talked about Jesus and