by Jeremy Tiang
“My boy was bathing in the river. I thought maybe he could swim away and hide, but they saw him, the men, so they shouted again and he came out, him and his friends, pulled on their clothes and ran over to us. They were only small, maybe this tall—” She held her hand an improbably low distance from the floor. “He didn’t know what was happening. Many years later, when I talked to my son, I don’t think he remembered much about that night. But I didn’t want to ask, I didn’t want to talk about it. So I don’t know, maybe it’s all still in his head.”
“Did you find out afterwards what they found so suspicious?”
“It was the food lorry, just the regular one, but they said how come this small village needs so much food, as if they couldn’t see how many children were running around, children take up so little space but eat so much. Are you stockpiling food for the Communists? It all came from the plantation, they gave us the correct amount, just enough. Then more ang mohs came, a couple kept their guns pointed at us while the rest searched our houses, we could hear them breaking things, smashing furniture. My boy started to cry and I tried to keep him quiet, all while the Chinese uniformed man was shouting at us to keep still, follow instructions, it’s all for our own good.
“Then an officer came out of one of the houses waving some rambutans. We weren’t supposed to grow our own food, so how could these be here? The poor woman whose house it was said they were wild, as if anyone in the village had time to plant a rambutan tree, but if you came across one in the jungle wouldn’t you gather some fruit? Otherwise they’d just go to waste, get eaten by monkeys or something, we might as well have it. If not, we just ate the same things all the time, the same few vegetables.”
“So they had the proof they needed?”
“What are you talking about? They didn’t need proof, no one was asking them to show anything, they just did what they wanted. Pushing us around all the time. A few years later, they put me in this village, barbed wire fence and everything, like prison. I never did anything wrong. They kept saying all of us were helping the people inside, none of us were good. How could we argue against that? If they thought we were bad, how could we convince them?”
“How long did they keep you outside?”
“I don’t know, you think I had a watch? We were there until it got dark. The children were crying from hunger, or maybe fear. I could see my husband on the other side, with the other men, too far away to say anything. Now and then he looked up at me and the boy, nodding a bit like he wanted to say it would be all right, but this was worse than anything that had ever happened, and we all knew bad things happened constantly. We knew the stories: people were always getting arrested and tried, put in prison or deported, even killed, for no reason, just for having food on them, never mind that we got so hungry during the day, it’s very hard work, out in the jungle or fields all day. This didn’t happen in the cities; people there could just live like normal, they didn’t know what was happening to us, or maybe they didn’t care, as long as it made them feel safe.”
“Why didn’t you go live in the city?”
“My boy did, later on. I made sure he went to school, so they’d take him. But people like us, we could barely read or write, what would we do in a city?”
“So you were outside till nightfall.”
“Eventually they pushed us into one of the houses, all the women and children, the men stayed outside. Maybe forty of us, in one small room. We heard more shouting outside. Gunshots. After a while, the soldiers came in with some milk and a bit of rice. They said one of the men was dead. We fed the children and told each other they were just trying to frighten us. It was so hot in that room. There was nothing to say, so we stopped talking. One of the kids had to pee. We put a bucket in the corner. Hung a sarong in front of it so the adults could go too. The noise from outside didn’t stop. I hugged my boy and fell asleep, eventually.
“When I woke up, it was early morning, and there was a bit of light coming between the cracks in the walls. We were still groggy when the soldiers came again and said get all our things, we had five minutes, just take our most important possessions and get ready to move. No one understood why but there was no time for questions. We ran back to our houses and scooped things into bags. I took clothes and cooking utensils; we didn’t have very much but I didn’t know where we were going or what I would need. My boy was so good, he didn’t cry or cause any trouble, he even tried to help, so I gave him some things to hold. They were screaming all the while for us to hurry, and when we came out they pushed us towards a truck on the other side of the clearing. We could see the men nearby, squatting with their hands over their heads, the soldiers still with guns saying don’t you dare look up. I called my husband’s name but there was so much noise, I don’t know if he heard.
“We got into the truck—”
The pause couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but perhaps the absolute stillness was what made the time stretch. Revathi felt the air curdling around her. Ought she say something? None of them seemed to be breathing.
“The sun had risen a bit more but I still couldn’t see clearly. My boy stumbled. Luckily I was holding his hand tight; if he’d fallen they might have shot him, they all had their hands on their rifles and we knew to go slow, no sudden movements. There was a man lying face down some distance away, not moving; I couldn’t see who it was, but one of the women was sobbing, trying not to make too much noise. We got into the back of the lorry, lifting the children up then climbing in ourselves. Then the vehicle started to move. Up to that moment, I’d actually believed the men would be joining us. Stupid. Some of the women screamed, tried to jump out, but others held them back. One of the soldiers in the lorry pointed a gun at us, kept it there until we got to the end of the road. I wish I’d done something, but I was holding my boy, and I felt like—if I just kept still enough, then—”
She hadn’t looked at Revathi this whole time, she wasn’t looking at anything. Her voice was so quiet it seemed to fade away, Lina’s too, almost no sound.
“I heard a gunshot, I swear I did. Maybe they started shooting right away. Then we turned the corner and I couldn’t see them any more. A minute later, I saw smoke rising. They’d set fire to our houses. There were thick black clouds of it. I kept looking back, and the smoke kept growing. In my memory, it filled the whole sky. Maybe it did. We kept moving, and I knew then we had nowhere to go back to.”
She stared at the back of her hands, spread on the table.
“Where did they take you?” said Revathi, after a moment.
“The next village. It was about twenty minutes away. They pushed us off the lorry and drove away. When we said what had happened people came out to give us food and a place to lie down, they knew it could just as easily have happened to them, so they took us in. We were there for a few days. Eventually I took my boy and went to live with my husband’s aunt, her husband was dead and there were no children so she had room for us. Then they took away her house too, that was what they were planning all along. They put us in this place, with the fence around it.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” said Revathi, despising herself for slipping into familiar rhythms. She could hear what she was doing, the respectful pause, the dip in the voice to signal empathy. Tics honed in a thousand interviews, the same words for everyone.
Mrs Wong nodded. Her face was expressionless, and Revathi found it impossible to remember the timbre of her voice. It had been snatched away by Lina’s ventriloquism. Without asking permission, she took out her camera and snapped a picture. The flash went off, but she already knew this wouldn’t come out well, the hut was too dingy. She should have asked Mrs Wong to step outside into the sun, but her voice failed her. No point. Let her face fade. If the paper didn’t like it, they could use a file photo. Palm trees or something.
“And your husband—” she began, but Mrs Wong shook her head, just slightly, and cut the thread. She angled her body away just a little, enough to make it clear the
interview was over. She remained in exactly the same position as Revathi and Lina made their way out the door.
•
Back in the sun, they blinked, eyes adjusting. It was actually dizzying, like a physical blow to the head.
“I’m a Communist too, by the way,” said Lina conversationally. “You probably guessed.”
“Does Mr Leng know?”
“I don’t try to hide it.”
“But you’re not a bandit.”
“I’m not one of the people inside, obviously.”
Revathi stumbled walking towards the car, glinting nastily in the sun. She looked around, but there was nothing she could have tripped over.
“Are you all right?” said Lina, taking her elbow.
Not all right, she wanted to cry, there’s nothing all right about this. I’m six thousand miles from home in a climate that makes no sense to me any more, right in the middle of a war that’s not a war, that’s stretching on even though it ended ten years ago. This is one day, twenty-two years ago, and lives are still being destroyed over it. What can I say? I’m not the right person for the story, except somehow I’m the one who’s here.
“It’s a lot to take in,” she said feebly.
Lina led her to a sort of shack nearby, a makeshift food stand, muttering something about how it was a lot more to actually live through this. “I can’t go back to Singapore, even now,” she said. “They might still be looking for me. I have no way to find out, but I know comrades still being detained. I can’t take the risk.”
“Did you do something?”
“Of course you’re taking their side. We did nothing, just fought for a better world.”
“Fought how? Like, by force?”
Lina ignored her, ordering a cup of coffee that came underlined by a thick layer of white that swirled greyish trails through the dense liquid when she stirred. It was strong and sugary, exactly what Revathi needed. She took a large gulp, gratefully, clinging to the sensation of comfort.
“How do you know what’s right?” she said, more to herself than Lina. “The soldiers believed they were shooting bandits. They were at war, they just wanted to do their duty.”
“Duty is an excuse for many bad things.”
“What do you think they should have done? What would you, if you were in that position?”
Lina turned to the man dozing behind the counter. “Cik masih ingat Sungei Remok tak?”
He grunted a response, and Lina said something back, slipping in bits of Cantonese, English and mime when her Malay failed. Revathi recognised the odd word, but not enough to make sense of it.
“He wants to know what you’re doing here. I told him you’re from the government.”
“Lina!”
“No lah, I didn’t really, don’t worry. I said you’ve come all the way from England to find out what’s happening, and he said it’s about time.”
“About Batang Kali?”
“Everything. The whole Emergency. All the people still inside. His house was in Kachau. He wants to know if you’re going to write stories about him too?”
“What’s Kachau?”
“A village. The British burnt it down, the same month as Batang Kali.”
“Why?”
“Similar reasons. The Communists were there, or they were helping the Communists, something like that. They didn’t kill anyone, so you didn’t hear about it.”
Revathi hadn’t heard of Batang Kali, or Sungei Remok, whatever it was called until a week ago. She scribbled down a note to herself. “Terima kasih,” she said to the man, and to Lina, “Was that right?”
“Close enough.”
“Lina, where were you while all this was going on?”
“I was going to school in Singapore. We had study groups, supported the workers. It’s different in the cities. A lot of the people who went inside come from the small towns and villages.”
“So you don’t actually know anyone—”
“My friend Siew Li is inside,” said Lina. “I can tell you her name, it doesn’t matter, she’ll have changed it. We were at school together. She had to leave her family. Small children. What kind of government would separate a mother from her children?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I hear about her, now and then. She was a real fighter. I wish I could be like her.”
“Why do you say ‘was’? Is she—”
“She’s not well,” said Lina. “I don’t know more than that, I—” She broke off and stared angrily at the ground, then glanced at Revathi’s cup. “Finished?” She stomped towards the car, Revathi scuttling after her.
This is ordinary, Revathi told herself. Everyone in this part of the world was touched by history, just like anywhere else. Her parents had their own Emergency stories, insulated as they were, why wouldn’t people here? It was a war like any other, she’d heard things from her English friends in the same vein, relatives caught selling butter on the black market during rationing, neighbours who may or may not have been a bit too friendly with the Enemy.
Lina started the car. The windows were down, and soon a strong breeze was blowing past them. If not for the occasional branch slapping the doors, she would have stuck her head out, but the jungle encroached too close. She let her hair loose from its bun and allowed it to billow.
On an impulse, she turned to Lina. “Why are you so angry? The British have left, isn’t that what you wanted?”
“The people they left in charge are still running things. How is that better? Just because the people stepping on our heads have the same skin colour as me?”
“So what are the Ma Gong doing about this? You blamed me for not knowing the struggle was still on, but what’s actually happening?”
A long moment of silence. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
“Do you think the Ma Gong are doing the right thing?”
“I don’t know what they’re doing either. We’ve been abandoned,” said Lina, hands gripping the wheel. “Last year, May thirteenth, we marched through the city. We wanted a Malaysian Malaysia. Everyone equal, no special privileges for the Malays. The government doesn’t listen to us, there was nothing we could do. We were attacked with parangs. Fighting everywhere. We knew the Ma Gong were up near the Thai border, but with all the chaos, we thought they would come back. It was the perfect time to take charge again.
“I saw bodies curled up under the roadside trees, floating in the canals. Some of them had been shot dead. None of us had guns, so it must have been the police. Even when we were dying in the streets, the Ma Gong did nothing.”
“What are they waiting for?” said Revathi carefully.
Lina wiped her eyes. “No one will tell me.”
“Have you thought of joining?”
“No, I’m too scared. I’m not like my friend. They need people on the outside to help them, I pass messages and get supplies to them. But I couldn’t go inside. Once you’re inside, you’re there forever. You can’t come out. They’d kill you.”
“The police?”
“The Ma Gong. If you try to leave, they kill you.”
“That’s terrible.”
“They have to. Otherwise people will join just to learn all their secrets, then turn around and betray them. You don’t know what people will do, when the government is offering such big rewards.”
“How long did it go on for?”
“May thirteenth? Weeks. Till the end of July at least. Hundreds of people died.”
“I wonder if my parents knew this was happening. They never said—”
“There was a curfew. No one was allowed outside. From my window I saw a dog running down the lane. I knew that dog, it belonged to the family a few doors down. The man ran out chasing it but he got shot after a few steps. There must have been a police marksman nearby. The family tried to hold the wife back, but she shook them off and ran to the body. Of course they shot her too.”
Revathi tried to say something, but no words would come.
&nb
sp; “I thought there would be crying, shouting, but their door just shut. It felt like the whole street was holding its breath. The dog stood by the bodies, quietly, all night long. When I looked out again in the morning, the lane was empty again.”
“I didn’t know things like that were still happening.”
“Why would you? It took Batang Kali more than ten years to get into your newspapers, and that was with white men doing the killing. Guilt, I suppose. We kill each other all the time. No one cares about that. They declared another Emergency, did you know that? People have heard about the long one, but there’ve been more.”
“There are bandits to the north. I can see why this isn’t over yet.”
“If it wasn’t them, there’d be some other excuse. There’s always an emergency somewhere.”
•
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Lina drove her out to the actual site of Batang Kali, where there was not a lot to be seen, but she took pictures of the crumbling wrecks of buildings, and the spot where the mass graves might have been. There were a few other people to interview. Now and then, she asked after a name that had been mentioned, but mostly it was easiest to let Mr Leng line them up.
The article was written in scraps of time, between snatched moments of sleep. This can’t be normal, she thought, exhilarated, typing away in her slip at three in the morning. She’d been brought up to believe in regular work that took place in nice, clean offices, between fixed hours. Yet here she was, in a hotel room that could be anywhere, weaving a story into being and feeling like if she stopped for a second to breathe, the whole thing would fall apart. As long as she got the next sentence out, and the one after that, she’d be all right.