by Yangsze Choo
“Those scratches—I’ve seen girls fight. What happened?”
I explained yesterday’s events as we started to eat.
“So it was the widow who did it,” she said, opening her packet of nasi lemak appreciatively.
I sighed. “Well, I can’t blame her—she was so upset.”
“I told you not to go! I hope you weren’t alone.”
“My brother went with me.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother. Does he look like you? Because if he does, I want to meet him.” Hui had been delighted by my fashionably short hair, helping me apply the unfamiliar pomade that kept its sleek shape.
“We don’t look alike at all. He’s my stepbrother so we’ve no blood relationship.”
“Oh,” she said, wrinkling her nose. Hui knew a little about my stepfather, although I tried not to discuss my circumstances at home. “Is he horrible?”
“No, he’s apparently quite a catch. At least, according to the women in Falim.” I rolled my eyes and she burst into a fit of giggles.
“But listen,” she said, “I meant to tell you that it’s better that you don’t come to work for a while anyway. On Sunday there was a man asking for you by name. Not Louise, but your real name.”
My spirits sank. The only customer that I’d inadvertently revealed my name to had been the salesman. “What did he look like?”
“Chinese. Ordinary. I told him that there wasn’t anyone here by that name.”
I wanted to hug her. “And then?”
“He left. Maybe he was looking for the finger. Did you leave it with the widow?”
“She wouldn’t take it.” Remembering that scene in the little wooden house, with Ah Yoke writhing and sobbing on the floor like a snake with a woman’s face, I felt deeply uneasy.
“So who has it?”
“My brother.” What was Shin planning to do with it anyway?
Hui sighed. Warm evening air wafted through the open window and you could hear bicycle bells ringing and the click of passing feet. “Where do you find such reliable men? I’m sick to death of the ones I meet.”
I hadn’t thought about it in that light before, but I supposed she was right. “We were close when we were younger, but not so much now. He’s turned into a womanizer.”
Hui gave a shriek of laughter. “I’m sure he can’t be that bad.”
I had to smile. “He’s working in Batu Gajah for the next few months.”
“Batu Gajah?” Hui waved the newspaper at me. “Did you hear about this? They found a body on Saturday. There’s a man-eater on the loose.”
It was a small article: a paragraph or two that must have been rushed to press. Body found in Batu Gajah rubber plantation. Headless female torso discovered by estate worker.
A tiger. From time to time, the newspapers carried gruesome reports of people strangled by pythons, taken by crocodiles, or trampled by elephants. But tigers were different. Referred to as datuk, an honorary title, there were charms spoken to appease a tiger when venturing into the jungle. A tiger that devoured too many humans was said to be able to take the form of a man and walk among us.
It had nothing to do with Shin or me, but I felt the cold touch of that shadow again, the one that undulated in the watery depths of my fears, as though it was searching for something.
* * *
By Friday, only my black eye lingered, having turned greenish-yellow. Fortunately it wasn’t swollen anymore, and I decided that with the judicious application of makeup, I’d be able to make my afternoon shift at the dance hall. Besides, I really needed the money. The numbers kept scrolling up and down in my head in red ink—a horrible shortfall. Missing a payment might result in the loan shark sending a nasty reminder to my stepfather’s house. I convinced myself that the risk of some man looking for me about the finger was minimal, and anyway, perhaps he’d already crossed the May Flower off his list.
It was a slow afternoon. The sun was baking down outside, and in the dim coolness of the dance hall, iced drinks were doing a brisk trade. I sat out a couple of dances, chatting with some of the other girls. Hui didn’t work on Fridays, but I’d made friends with Rose and Pearl. Rose was a widow, and Pearl never said, but I suspected she’d run away from her husband. Of course, those weren’t their real names, either. If I’d had a choice I’d rather be called May or Lily, something pretty and light unlike my serious Chinese name, but I was stuck with Louise. In fact, patrons referred to me by my hairstyle. “I want the one who looks like Louise Brooks,” they’d say, pointing at me, and I’d stand up and smile as though it were my birthday.
It was my fifty-third day of being Louise. In Cantonese, fifty-three was a homophone for “cannot live.” Another day with an unlucky number, and nine days since I’d danced with the ill-fated salesman Chan Yew Cheung. Rose had just finished telling us how she’d stayed up all night because her little girl had a bad cough, when she suddenly said, “Oh, he’s back!”
A customer was scrutinizing us. He had a narrow face with a crooked chin, as if his head had been caught in a vise. Guessing he was the man Hui had warned me about, I got up in alarm, but he was too quick for me.
“May I have this dance?”
I hesitated, but the Mama’s eagle eye was on me. I’d no reason to refuse, though my stomach twisted with dismay. Surprisingly, he was a good dancer. We went around the floor a couple of times; I was beginning to think my suspicions were unfounded when he said, “You must be Ji Lin.”
“I could be, if you wanted,” I forced a smile. “But I’m afraid my name is Louise.”
“I’m looking for a girl who picked up something last week. A family heirloom of mine.”
For an instant, I was tempted to come clean. I’d already fulfilled my obligation to the salesman’s family. But I no longer had the finger; if Shin had destroyed it, this man might be furious. Hedging, I said, “What does it look like?”
“It’s my ancestor’s finger from China that’s been in our family for generations. My friend borrowed it last week. He said he’d lost it here.”
“A finger?” I tried to look surprised, even horrified. He watched me carefully. I wondered if he was lying. According to the salesman’s wife, her husband had possessed the finger for the last three months. “I’ll ask around for you.”
“Let me know,” he said, staring intently. “You can leave a message for me here.” He scribbled down the address of a coffee shop on Leech Street together with a name: Mr. Y. K. Wong.
“If you find it, I’ll give you a reward. For sentimental reasons.” He smiled his sharp-toothed smile.
After that, he danced with several other girls, who later confirmed that he’d asked them the same questions: if they were called Ji Lin, and if they’d picked anything up, though nothing about missing fingers. I recalled the way he’d made a beeline over to me as soon as he’d entered and a shiver traced the back of my neck.
“I’m surprised you came in today,” said Rose, fanning herself vigorously during an intermission, while the band drank soda water and mopped their brows. Despite the face powder, her forehead was almost as shiny as the parquet dance floor, and I was sure that I was no better.
“I need the money.”
“If that’s the case,” said Rose, “want to make extra?”
I shook my head. “No call-outs.”
Call-outs were when a man would book a girl outside the dance hall, ostensibly to take her shopping or to eat a meal. They were lucrative, but everything came, of course, with a price. I’d explained to the Mama from the very first that I wouldn’t do them. The incident today with Mr. Y. K. Wong, if that was really his name, reminded me just how vulnerable I felt with a stranger. And we hadn’t even been alone—we’d been dancing in full view of dozens of people.
“It’s not a call-out. I have this client who asked me if I could find a few girls to dance at a private party. And he promised, no hanky-panky.”
“There’s no such thing as a private party with no hanky-panky.”
>
Rose smiled. “What a grandma you are! I wasn’t too keen, either, so I told him we’d have to get the dance-hall Mama’s permission—to put him off, you know. But he went and asked her and she said yes!”
“She did?” I had a hard time believing this.
“Well, she’ll get a nice commission, and she said she’d send one of the bouncers with us and hire a car. They want four or five girls because there are lots of bachelors and they want to dance. It’ll be in Batu Gajah.”
I paused. “At the hospital?” If it was, I couldn’t go. I’d no intention of revealing my seedy part-time job to Shin.
“No, a private residence in Changkat.”
I’d heard of Changkat, a prime residential area situated uphill of Batu Gajah. “Does that mean they’ll be foreigners?”
“Do you mind?”
Most of the customers at the May Flower were locals though there were always some Europeans in the mix. Not as many as at the glamorous Celestial Hotel, but a fair smattering on any given afternoon. They were mostly planters or civil servants, servicemen, and policemen. I’d danced with a few myself, though to be honest, they made me nervous.
But that explained the Mama’s swift acquiescence, as well as the extras like a bouncer and a hired car.
“Hui will come, too, and it pays double.”
That would be enough to cover what I’d missed. And if Hui, who was always so canny about taking care of herself, was willing to go, then I would as well.
* * *
By the time I’d finished work, the orange sun was low on the horizon. Pearl and Rose did the evening shift, so I was alone when I left by the May Flower’s back door. I didn’t know how they managed to stay on their feet for so many hours, but they would dance on till past midnight.
Pearl had a son, and Rose two little girls. Did the children wait for them to come home, watching the oil lamp burn down in the darkness? If my mother hadn’t remarried, that might have been my fate as well, though I couldn’t imagine her working in a dance hall. She was too timid, too gullible. Even now she’d managed to run up debts from simply playing mahjong. I wondered, for the hundredth time, whether she’d really lost all those games or had been cheated.
When it was all paid off, I’d save up and train to be a teacher. It didn’t matter what my stepfather thought. I was sure that eventually he’d rather have me out of the way than deal with a spinster at home. Besides, I’d said I wouldn’t get married, even though my mother had started nudging me towards matchmakers. The promise I’d made with Shin, so long ago when we were children whispering in his room, still held true. I didn’t see what marriage could do for me, especially if the one I’d wanted was going to marry someone else.
But there was no point hoping for Ming anymore, though in my most evil moments I imagined his fiancée deserting him. Or perhaps he’d suddenly realize he’d made a terrible mistake and propose to me instead. I pictured him coming up the dusty street on his heavy black bicycle, his unruly hair standing up. “Ji Lin,” he’d say, looking embarrassed yet serious in his bookish way, “I have to talk to you.” And I’d come running—no, walking demurely down the stairs—and listen with a beating heart. But at this point, I always ran out of steam even though I managed to think of lots of quite good things for Ming to say. It simply wouldn’t happen. He’d never looked at me the way I’d seen him gaze at his fiancée.
The May Flower was on the outskirts of Ipoh, quite far from Mrs. Tham’s. Having just missed the bus I decided, despite the falling dusk, to walk partway. It was dinnertime, and I could smell fish frying, hear the scratchy sound of a radio playing Chinese opera. Crossing the street, I narrowly avoided a bicycle that swished past. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man follow across, though the light was too weak to make out his face.
Hui and the other girls had warned me to expect the occasional customer who’d wait outside. Pearl said once a man pursued her all the way home, and her mother had threatened him with a kitchen knife.
“And did he leave?” I’d asked.
“She chased him off, shouting that my husband was a pork butcher!”
We’d laughed about it then, but right now I wished heartily for pork-butcher relatives of my own. Whoever was following me did so at a cautious distance. When I walked faster, he did, too. When I stopped, he slipped behind a pillar. I ducked under a hanging bamboo chik, or blind, into a dry-goods store, crowded shelves packed with glass jars of sweets, cast-iron woks, and wooden clogs. It was almost closing time as the shopkeeper, an elderly man in a white singlet, informed me.
“Please,” I said, “do you have a back door? There’s a man following me.”
I must have looked frightened for he nodded. “Go through, past the kitchen.”
I hurried through the long shophouse, apologizing to his startled family who were sitting down to fish soup and fried tofu. The back door led to a narrow alleyway between the shophouses. The wise thing, of course, would be to leave as quickly as possible, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Silently, I peeked round the corner.
My pursuer stood staring at the dry-goods store. The shutters were now being closed, and he was clearly puzzled as to why I hadn’t emerged yet. I recognized him right away. As I feared, it was the young man with the narrow face who’d asked me about the finger: Y. K. Wong. My shoulders tensed. One way or another, I’d better not return to the May Flower for some time.
Cutting back to the dusty street behind, I hailed a trishaw, leaving my pursuer still waiting fruitlessly in front of the store. I hoped he’d stay there a good long time. Listening to the crank of pedals, the wheels humming in the falling velvet dusk, I closed my eyes and wished fiercely that I could leave this place. Leave everything and start over somewhere else.
* * *
To my surprise when I got home, Mrs. Tham was waiting for me in the front room. She looked both excited and a little put out, an expression that I recognized with a sinking feeling.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Just finishing up.” It was no later than my usual time on a Friday.
“One of the rules of this house,” she said, her little bird face alight with indignation, “is no male visitors. I can’t imagine what you could have been thinking, Ji Lin, to tell a man to come and wait for you here!”
I flinched. I’d left the mysterious Mr. Y. K. Wong standing in the street at the other end of town. How was it possible that he’d found the dressmaker’s shop? It was like witchcraft; the man was a demon. Or perhaps he had a twin, a doppelgänger that heralded death.
“He stood outside for the longest time. I thought he was waiting for a customer, peering into the shop the way he did, but finally he came in and asked for you. When I said you were out, he left right away. Though I must say he was very good-looking.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding dawning. “Was it my brother?”
“Your brother? You don’t look anything alike.”
Not wanting to explain any further, since Mrs. Tham had obviously heard bits and pieces of my family history and was eager to ferret out more, I simply said, “People often say that.”
“If he was your brother, why didn’t he say so?” she said indignantly. “Making me worry like that!”
I’d no idea, to be honest. Had my mother given Shin this address? And why was he here so late in the evening? There were too many mysteries today.
11
Batu Gajah
Saturday, June 6th
Ren is waiting anxiously at the door when William returns. “Selamat datang,” he says. Welcome home. That is the correct way to greet his master; servants should be lined up at the door for arrivals and departures. Ren had always done it for Dr. MacFarlane. The old doctor used to joke he didn’t feel right leaving home without Ren’s quiet goodbye. Today, Ah Long has joined him, his usually taciturn face animated as he takes William’s medical bag.
“Tuan, is it a tiger?”
“Probably,” says William. “I want
the doors locked at night. And don’t go out in the evening or early morning alone. That goes for you, too, Ren.”
Ren nods. He thinks the new doctor looks ill. His face has a fish-belly pallor and his eyes, behind the thin-rimmed glasses, are bloodshot. There are so many questions that Ren wants to ask, but he hesitates, wondering how to broach the subject.
Ah Long asks, “Who died?”
“A plantation worker.” William passes a hand over his eyes. “I need a bath and a drink. A whisky stengah, please.”
William goes off to the tiled bathroom, where he’ll rinse himself off with a bucket dipped in a pottery jar of water. Ah Long turns to Ren.
“Know how to make one?”
Ren looks dubious. Dr. MacFarlane drank things from bottles, but he never asked Ren to mix them for him.
“Now’s a good time to learn. Watch me.”
Stengah comes from the Malay word setengah, meaning “half.” Ah Long fetches a block of ice from the cold box in the kitchen, where it’s kept buried in sawdust. Chipping away with an icepick, he fills a tall highball glass.
“Don’t make the ice too small,” he warns. “Otherwise it melts too fast.”
Next, he fills the glass one-third full of a medicinal, tea-colored liquid that he pours out of a square bottle. It has a picture of a man in a tall black hat with white trousers. Johnnie Walker Blended Scotch Whisky reads a label that seems to have been slapped half-heartedly on the bottle.
“Why is the label crooked?” asks Ren.
“It’s not crooked. It’s just like that. Now watch carefully!”
Using the soda siphon, a glass bottle encased in metal wires that Ren has never dared to touch, Ah Long dispenses a stream of sparkling soda water into the frosty glass. The sharp whiff of carbonation makes Ren wrinkle his nose.
“The water and the whisky should be about the same amount.” Ah Long cocks his head, listening. “He’s probably done now. Take it out on the veranda.”