by Yangsze Choo
* * *
The first death occurred during the rainy season, when the monsoon hung like a grey curtain over the wet red earth. Ren can’t forget that time; it plays back like a reel of film that he doesn’t understand, no matter how often he watches it. If he closes his eyes, he can still see the figure of the old doctor, writing in one of his notebooks. He’s been ill, vomiting in the bathroom downstairs though when Ren goes to check on him, there’s nothing to clean.
“I cleaned up myself,” Dr. MacFarlane says. His eyes are bloodshot and when Ren serves him a simple supper of leftover curry, he grimaces. “Take it away. I can’t eat meat.”
Later, Ren finds him staring at the endless rain streaming off the veranda roof. “Ren,” he says without turning around, “what do you think of me?”
No one has ever asked Ren that question before. At least, no grown-up. Auntie Kwan was always busy telling him what to do, not asking for his opinion, and for an instant, he misses her desperately. Tongue-tied, he gazes at Dr. MacFarlane’s nose, a trick that the old man taught him for when he feels too shy to meet someone in the eyes.
“You are a good person,” Ren says at last. He wonders whether Dr. MacFarlane is concerned about the rumors that he’s losing his mind, or if he’s even aware of them.
His master studies him for so long that Ren wants to look away, at his own small bare feet, or out of the window, but that’s impolite. Instead, he forces his gaze higher until he looks Dr. MacFarlane in the eye. And to his surprise, the old man looks sad.
“Let me show you something,” he says, walking with his stiff, familiar gait to the rolltop desk where he keeps all his papers. The keys are kept on a ring in Dr. MacFarlane’s pocket. After his death, the lawyer will go through every drawer but not before asking Ren, suspiciously, if he has touched anything.
Dr. MacFarlane takes out a photograph. There are two Malay men in the picture, bare-chested and squatting against a wall. The expressions on their faces are friendly, yet wary. The one on the right has what looks like a cord or a string tied around his upper arm.
“Which one of them is like me?” says the old man.
Ren wrinkles his brow in concentration. Is his master having another fit? But no, he’s calm and lucid. Then Ren sees it.
“The groove on his upper lip.” He points at the man on the right. “He doesn’t have one and neither do you.”
Dr. MacFarlane looks pleased, as proud as when Ren put the wireless radio back together after taking it apart.
“Yes,” he says. “That’s called a philtrum.” The troubled expression returns to his face.
“Who is this man?” asks Ren.
“I took this photograph five years ago, when I was traveling with a friend. We were in a little hamlet called Ulu Aring, and this chap,” he taps the man on the right, “was the local pawang.” Dr. MacFarlane speaks quickly, fluently in a way that he hasn’t in many days.
“Was that when you lost your finger?” As long as Ren has known Dr. MacFarlane, he’s been missing the last finger on his left hand.
“Yes, the same trip. When he saw me he was very excited.” The old doctor places one finger above his upper lip. “He put his hand right here, and called me abang.”
Older brother.
“Why?”
“He said this missing upper lip groove is the sign of a weretiger.”
Ren is silent, wondering if the old man is joking but there’s no hint of it in his pale eyes. There are stories about tiger-men, who come from the jungle to snatch children and gobble up chickens. He studies the black-and-white picture.
“Did you see him change into a tiger?”
“No, though other people said they had. When the mood struck, he’d say, ‘I’m going to walk,’ and enter the jungle, burning incense and blowing it through his fist until his skin changed and his fur and tail appeared. Then he’d hunt for days until he’d eaten his fill.
“When he was done, he’d squat down and say, ‘I’m going home,’ and turn back into a man. In his man-shape, he’d vomit up the undigested bones, feathers, and hair of everything he had eaten.”
Ren suddenly recalls Dr. MacFarlane’s vomiting fit and the retching, gagging sounds that came from behind the closed door.
“The other sign of a weretiger,” Dr. MacFarlane continues, “is a deformed paw. Whether it’s a front or hind leg, there’s always one that’s defective. When I lost my finger on that trip, the pawang told me to bury it with me so I could be made whole again—a man. I didn’t believe him at the time.” He falls silent.
Ren shifts uneasily, studying the old man’s profile. There’s an expression on his face he hasn’t seen before; a sly flicker, or is it a shadow that passes, like an eel, behind his eyes? “Do I look like a murderer to you?” Dr. MacFarlane asks.
Suddenly, Ren is frightened. He takes a step back, then another. Dr. MacFarlane, still staring out of the window, doesn’t notice when he leaves.
Ren can’t help but hear the words Do I look like a murderer to you? echo in his head over the next few days whenever he looks at Dr. MacFarlane. It’s a bewildering, frightening question. And so, when the foreign ladies in their light, fluttering dresses come trooping up the long gravel driveway a few days later to check on the doctor, Ren is glad of their interruption, though he rushes to tidy up.
When the ladies enter, they’re relieved to find the bungalow neat and clean, and Dr. MacFarlane seated in a rattan armchair, a book on his lap. They’re accomplices, the old man and the boy, though as Ren scurries back and forth, keeping other doors closed so they won’t see the rest of the house, he feels like a traitor. He suspects that it might be better if these women took charge, but how is he to explain that?
One of the ladies, stiff-bosomed like the prow of a ship, announces, “You can’t possibly stay here alone, especially with a man-eater loose.” Her high, sharp voice cuts through the room as Ren enters, balancing a tray with teacups. There are no biscuits; they ran out weeks ago.
Dr MacFarlane’s voice is heartier than he’s heard it in a long time, though the hand that grips the armchair trembles slightly. “Rubbish! I’m not alone anyway.”
“A young woman was taken from a coffee plantation.” The lady glimpses Ren and nods for him to set the tray on the table. She’s waiting for him to leave the room. Exiting, he lingers near the door. He can’t make out much because she’s dropped her voice.
“—stalked from behind. Neck broken—”
Listening, Ren finds the description frighteningly familiar. When they take their leave, Dr. MacFarlane’s face is grey and tight. All his earlier spirit has deserted him.
Later, when Ren sweeps the downstairs bathroom he finds a strand of dark hair in the corner. Longer than his arm, it’s hair from a woman’s head. Staring at it, Ren doesn’t know whether he missed it last time, or whether one of the ladies used the facility during the visit.
That night, he dreams that Dr. MacFarlane is bent over and vomiting in the downstairs bathroom again. It’s very dark in his dream; what little light there is blue and wavering as though a lightning storm is raging outside. Transfixed, Ren watches from the open door as Dr. MacFarlane lifts his head, slavering, his eyes like a wild animal. Thrusting his left hand into his mouth, the one with the missing finger, he pulls out a long, coiling black strand of woman’s hair.
* * *
The memory ends, like a strip of film that flickers to a halt. Ren has an uneasy feeling that at some point he’s made a misstep, although he has no idea what it was. If only he’d had his cat sense to help him at the time.
Now, he turns his attention back to the glass bottle. There’s no hiding place in his bare little room, but he’s saved an empty tin and slips the vial into it. Tucking it under his shirt, he walks out to the very end of the garden, right where the green lawn gives way to jungle near the rubbish dump. There, he digs a hole in the soft earth and buries the tin, placing a large stone to mark the spot.
When he takes leave to return to Ka
munting, he’ll dig it up and rebury the finger in Dr. MacFarlane’s grave and be done with his responsibility.
* * *
William listens to the church service with only half an ear, his eye busy scanning the pews. Holy Trinity is built of dark wood, shady and cool, but though it’s still morning, it’s so humid that sweat trickles down his collar. The church is quite full as there are now more locals than Europeans who attend. The Tamil woman standing next to him shifts over, and William wonders suddenly whether he smells like blood.
The scent of the operating room often clings to him with its sharp top note of disinfectant and murky undertones of bone dust and blood. It never quite leaves his nostrils, even though he’s scrupulous about washing his hands and bathing frequently. But he hasn’t been in the operating room since Friday, so it must be the ghost of a scent.
On Friday, there was an explosion on a mining dredge. One man lost both hands above the wrists, and William had resorted to Krukenberg’s procedure, popular since the Great War. He seldom performs it, preferring to save every inch of wrist that he can, but in cases like this it’s the best he can offer. By dividing the two bones of the forearm, the stump can be used like chopsticks. It’s an ugly solution that amplifies the mutilation. There will be no discreet hook, no wooden hand to deceive at first glance; only two raw-looking prongs like lobster claws instead of forearms. But they work far better than prostheses. The man will be able to grip items with full sensation, open doors, even handle implements. Thinking it over, William is sure he did the right thing, though he can’t imagine that any woman would like to be touched by those sad claws. What is a hand without fingers? The loss of even one throws everything off balance.
Now the congregation is kneeling, reciting together:
“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us…”
William doesn’t kneel as he’s standing in the back, though he has the urge to do so. Those things which we ought not to have done—the words perch on him like soft heavy birds.
He considers the question of Ren. William didn’t instruct him to shine his shoes, but they were done this morning, placed neatly at the entrance. For the first time, he truly understands his mother’s sighs about the worth of a good servant. But Ren is only a child. He’s so obviously bright that it’s selfish, almost monstrous, to keep him for himself. I should send him to school.
Down in one of the front pews, he spots Lydia’s profile and is struck again by how her coloring resembles Iris’s, his fiancée, with her fine freckled skin and bright hair. Iris smiling at him: that familiar feeling of infatuation, when he thought he’d do anything to please her. Iris, cold and distant, accusing him of canoodling with other women when it was ridiculous, he never did, not once when he was with her. The irony of it. And then Iris, furious the last time he saw her, her small pink mouth open in a silent scream. Murderer. He shudders at the memory.
* * *
When the service is over, last night’s unsuccessful tiger hunt is the talk of the congregation.
“What did I say?” It’s Leslie, his young colleague from the hospital. He grins. “They were bound to make a hash of it with Price on board.”
Leslie dislikes Price for some reason. In a small community like theirs, every minor offence counts, which is why William has to be careful that nobody ever connects him with poor Ambika’s dismembered torso. So he must stay friendly with Leslie, who talks too much, with too many people.
“About our get-together,” says Leslie, referring to the monthly dinner party that William hosts next. “Is it all right if I fix up some entertainment?”
William isn’t particularly keen, but he says genially, “Whatever you like.”
“It’s a surprise!” says Leslie, looking pleased as he heads off. Too late, William realizes he forgot to mention that he’s promised Lydia she could come to their next gathering, but it doesn’t matter. Lydia fits in well with that crowd. Far better than Ambika ever could have.
The rumors that Ambika was singled out by witchcraft or angry spirits in the form of a tiger are troubling, mostly because they accuse her of being a loose woman. Which she was, he supposes. Suddenly and acutely, he misses her. A fog of misery and loneliness descends on him, but Ambika’s little hut remains empty. She will never return to it.
William tells himself that from now on, he’ll be a better person. Put in a good word for that Chinese girl in the pathology storeroom yesterday, the one who’d asked about nursing. The girl was charming with her cropped hair; it went well with her straight brows and dark eyes, tilted like a doe’s, as she stared him down. She was like a pretty boy, all slim limbs and narrow waist, so that he felt like seizing her, hard, to hear her gasp. He wonders what it would be like to trace a finger along that slender nape, down the hollow between her small pointed breasts. She’s not his type, but when he thinks about her, he wants to touch her.
His type is more like Nandani, the girl whose leg Ren saved. Even as he considers this, he sees her face in the crowd. It startles him—is it really her, or do all local girls with long braided curls look similar? But she’s smiling shyly, her heart-shaped face dimpling. William has a sudden rush of confidence.
Sometimes—unexpectedly—what he wishes for comes true. Doors open, obstacles are removed. Like Rawlings’s suspicions of foul play, brushed aside by an impatient magistrate. Or the fortuitous timing of that salesman’s obituary in the newspaper. Call it coincidence or just plain luck, it’s happened a little too often in his life.
Smiling back, he makes his way over to Nandani. She leans on wooden crutches.
“How’s the leg?” Her English, as he recalls, isn’t so good, not like the other girl, the Chinese one. They speak a patois of Malay and English, but that’s all right.
“Better,” she says shyly.
“I’ll give you a ride,” he says. She lives on a nearby rubber estate, after all.
But Lydia has found him. “Are you going back, William?”
His first reaction is annoyance, but then he realizes that it is in fact a good thing. What was he thinking, to give a local girl a lift home in front of everyone at church? He’s slipping up. It’s better to have Lydia around. Perfect, in fact, as he can drop her off first, and then Nandani. “Would you like a lift?”
Lydia is delighted. “Well, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all—I’m dropping off a patient.” He deliberately charms her.
Lydia stops to tell her parents she won’t be going back with them. From their glances, they’re pleased he’s making a move on their daughter. It’s a misunderstanding he’ll have to eventually clear up, though it’s understandable. He’s the right age and from a good family. There’s talk around Lydia that nags at him, though he can’t recall what it’s about. William has a feeling that he ought to investigate. But in the meantime, the sun is shining, everyone is smiling, and the tiger hunt promises more excitement in the future.
Lydia sits in front, of course. William helps Nandani into the back with her crutches. She looks intimidated, so he gives her hand an extra squeeze. She drops her eyes, and William is sure that she likes him. Today may be lucky after all.
20
Batu Gajah District Hospital
Sunday, June 14th
My eyes opened to an unfamiliar ceiling. The floor creaked, a voice echoed in the corridor, and I remembered that I’d stayed over at the nurses’ hostel. Grey light seeped in through the single window. It was Sunday morning.
Last night’s headache had vanished, though I wondered whether there was something wrong with me, some brain disease that gave me vivid delusions. Every dream I’d had of that deserted railway station had been preceded by a bad headache. The little boy’s words about how there ought to be five of us lingered. I sat on the edge of the narrow bed, counting us off. There was Shin, and me, and the little
boy. He’d also mentioned his brother and a fifth person, someone he seemed quite nervous about. The memory was beginning to fade, the way that dreams do.
I had the odd fancy that the five of us were yoked by some mysterious fate. Drawn together, yet unable to break free, the tension made a twisted pattern. We must either separate ourselves, or come together. I could certainly see that about Shin and myself. He was my paper twin, my friend, my confidante. And yet I envied and resented him.
I washed up quickly in the white-tiled, institutional common bathroom. It was deserted, the voices in the corridor having long gone elsewhere. Yesterday’s frock was too grimy to be worn again, but Mrs. Tham had insisted on packing a modern cream and green geometric print cheongsam, fitted like a sheath. I’d thought I was done with cheongsam after making the grey one that I’d worn to the salesman’s funeral, but Mrs. Tham had other ideas, declaring that such a tricky dress should be the backbone of every dressmaker’s arsenal. Unfortunately, I’d underestimated the seam allowances. Once I put it on, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to eat a thing. Why, why had I let her pack for me yesterday? It struck me that both Mrs. Tham and Shin possessed the uncanny ability to drag me into situations that I didn’t plan for. If yesterday was any indication of what might happen, I’d be lucky if Shin didn’t make me clean the hospital toilets today.
* * *
The reception area was empty. Everyone who’d been out on Saturday night was probably still sleeping it off. I wondered where Shin was and what he’d done last night, as I headed over to the cafeteria for breakfast. A faint, foggy mist clung to the wet grass as I crossed, looking for a shortcut. Approaching a corner, I heard the low hiss of angry voices.
“Don’t deny it! You’ve been crying your eyes out over him—a married man!”