Mulberry and Peach by Hualing Nieh Page A

‘I can’t hear the tyres hitting the
pavement. That means black ice has formed on the road. This road will be the death of someone yet.’ We struggled over that road all the way to Little America. From the distance we could see the huge billboard-
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    FOOD AND GAS
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    Before the car came to a complete stop, I jumped out and waved good-bye to the little porcupine. There was a nice diner at the gas station. The owner used to be a truck driver and had been stranded there in a blizzard many years ago. So he opened a rest stop on the very place. People passing through stop to eat and get gas. Inside the diner was all red; red walls, red lights, red carpet. But the tables were black. Blonde waitresses wove back and forth among the black tables. I sat down at an empty table near the door. A young couple at the table next to mine smiled at me; perhaps they smiled because I was a foreigner. We began to chat. They told me they were going to Donner Lake for their honeymoon. As soon as he started talking about Donner Lake, Mr Smith got excited, as if it were the most beautiful place in the world. Before he was sent to Vietnam, he went ice-skating every winter at Donner Lake.
    He told me that Donner Lake is an important point between California and Nevada. Transcontinental highways pass through there. You can also get there by train. The trains have special equipment which protect them from being buried by avalanches. Or, if you want, you can abandon modern machines and get there on horseback, taking trails through the mountains to the lake.
    Donner Lake lies in the basin of a valley. It’s surrounded by mountains several thousand metres high. In the summer the lake is a green mirror reflecting forests of willow and pine. Quail, grouse, and antelope live there. The pure lake water reflects mountains capped with glittering snow, brooks, wild-flowers, and granite slabs. In the winter, Donner Lake is the West’s largest skating rink. The mountains echo with bells from the ski lift and with the skaters’ laughter on the lake. Everyone there is relaxed and carefree, looking for a good time.
    It was getting dark. The snow fell harder; gust after gust of whistling wind and swirling snow. Someone in the diner put a quarter in the juke box and several young people started singing along with the Beatles’ ‘Blackbird’.
    Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

All your life you were only waiting
For this moment to be free.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night ...
    Mr Smith said that the wind and snow reminded him of the story about the Donner Party. I asked him what the Donner Party was. He explained that it was a group of California-bound pioneers who were stranded, snowbound by the lake for six months. After that, the lake was called Donner Lake.
    This is the story: In 1846, ‘California Ho!’ was a catchy phrase. The Gold Rush hadn’t started yet and there was no overland route west. About one hundred people from the Midwest formed a group to go to California and Mr Donner was elected leader of the party. They started out in the spring, crossing valleys and deserts where there were no roads, pushing on through settlements of hostile Indians. When they reached Donner Lake it was the end of October. They found themselves facing towering cliffs. Winter set in earlier than usual that year. The oxen slowed down as they pulled the wagons, looking for grass under the snow. They could see that the pine forests on the mountains in the distance had already turned white. A blizzard was coming. They abandoned the wagons. They left the cattle to fend for themselves. They went on foot with the children and horses, trying to get through the mountain pass. It was hard for them to throw away the things they had brought with them. A tin of tobacco, a bolt of cloth: it took a long time to decide what to get rid of. They needed to rest. Then they started to climb the