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“Why not live in a house?”
    Father shut his eyes; another lifetime of indentured payments rained down upon his shoulders. But Third Uncle did not hesitate.
    “No worry,” he said to Father, shaking his shoulder. “You be my family now.”
    That was true. The birth certificate and immigration documents that Father had used to come to Canada once belonged to Third Uncle’s dead brother. Dates had been doctored, of course, to fit Father’s age and circumstance, and the brother’s embossed picture had been expertly lifted off and carefully replaced with one of Father’s. Poh-Poh and I had separate sets of false papers made forus, and all these
gai-gee
, these ghost papers, bonded us as Third Uncle’s Gold Mountain family.
    Father and Poh-Poh honoured this paper relationship, but Father thought Third Uncle had done quite enough on our behalf. Only Poh-Poh did not think so, and she had the nerve to say this aloud.
    “We should have house,” she said directly to Third Uncle. “You want more nephews, Chen Bak?”
    Father started to say something to stop the Old One from speaking, but it was hopeless. The summer air was sulphurous, tainted by smog. Some freight cars thundered by. Father looked out the window as if lightning might strike him dead.
    Third Uncle enjoyed the fact that his paper brother did not take anything for granted. Third Uncle told others that he felt that Father would never exploit the situation. There were those agreements Father had signed, promising to pay back certain expenses; in fact, he had put away some salary to do just that. Third Uncle was impressed by Father’s resolve. Poh-Poh was not. She had been thinking of his recent savings, too.
    “Use money for house rent,” she told Father. To Third Uncle she said, “I work for you, Chen Bak. When Kiam-Kim go to school, I come work for you. Clean your rooms. Cook and wash for you.”
    “Me, too,” I said, catching the spirit.
    Third Uncle smiled at our earnestness. He had not made a mistake bringing us to Gold Mountain. His paper family knew their place.

    Before the end of our first year living in that second-floor walk-up, Father and Third Uncle came into the kitchen to announce that we would be moving into a two-storey house on Keefer Street, five blocks east of Main Street, and seven blocks away from the noise and smells of False Creek. And I would soon have my fifth birthday in a house with rooms to run in.
    The house belonged to the Chen Society. In exchange for a low rent, half the amount to be subsidized by Third Uncle, Father had also to agree to take on the job of the Chen Society’s monthly rent collector, as well as to record their list of membership loans and accounts.
    “Everyone work hard in Gold Mountain,” Third Uncle said. “No worry.”
    Poh-Poh and Third Uncle encouraged Father to think of the future. In October, when Stepmother would finally arrive from China, she would walk into a pine-board house with three bedrooms on the second floor and with front and back windows that looked onto a bit of property. Third Uncle said he would see that the house was furnished.
    “Never mind all that,” Poh-Poh interrupted him. “Make sure Gai-mou’s ghost papers not cursed.”
    If ghost papers came from a suicide, or were inherited from a family member who had suffered tragedies, wise people hired monks to exorcise the bad spirits, or risked taking on the ill fortune of others. If the big-nosed immigration demons had been aware, they could have sniffed out the truth, for such papers were deeply perfumed with the lemony smell of ghost-chasing incense.
    “You sure papers not haunted,” Poh-Poh said again.
    “Yes.”
    “Make sure she bear sons.”
    “Tell that to him,” Third Uncle said, pointing to Father.
    “Never mind, Kiam-Kim,” Father said, grinning for no reason that I could see. “Just a joke.”
    “Buy strong bed,” Poh-Poh said, poking Third Uncle in the ribs. His pipe went flying. The two broke into laughter.