Spirits Abroad (ebook)

by Zen Cho

He shoved his head under his arm and sniffed.

  Ah Lee did not know what face to make.

  "Oh," she said foolishly. "Oh — but—"

  Ridzual threw up his hand.

  "It's OK!" he said. "Don't say! I know the answer. I've embarrassed myself enough. Just out of the kindness of your heart, can you please don't say anything?"

  "But I—"

  "For five minutes!" said Ridzual. "In five minutes my dignity will return. Just leave me in peace to enjoy my misery for five minutes, OK?"

  Ah Lee began to frown.

  "Don't need to be so drama," she said. "You think this is Cantonese serial or what? I had something to tell you too, remember?"

  There was a pause in which Ridzual did not move or even show that he had heard. Then he rubbed his eyes. He rearranged his limbs, sat down on the ledge, and looked at her.

  "Sorry," he said. "That wasn't so gallant of me."

  "No," Ah Lee agreed. "Not gallant langsung."

  "I'm not so good at this love declaration stuff," said Ridzual.

  "Yah, true."

  "You don't have to agree when I kutuk myself!" said Ridzual. He gave her the sweetest half-smile. His eyes were red and his lashes were still wet.

  "What did you want to tell me?" he said.

  "I—" said Ah Lee.

  She found she could not do it. It was absurd. She had promised herself that she would tell him that she liked him, and not just as a friend. She liked him liked him.

  It had seemed so easy five minutes ago. It ought to be even easier now. She had only to say, "I like you back." But what if Ridzual didn't believe her? What if he thought she was just saying it to comfort him? What if, once she said it, he revealed that he had just been joking about liking her? Could she stand to give so much of herself away?

  The words stuck in her throat. She said:

  "I—"

  Through a process of thought even she did not understand, she swerved and went for what felt like the less difficult truth. She said:

  "I'm a vampire."

  It was not the most intelligent thing she had ever done.

  "What?" said Ridzual.

  "That's why you can't share my nuggets," Ah Lee said wildly. "They're not not-halal because they're made of pork. They're not halal because they're made of human."

  At first Ridzual looked as if he might believe her. He looked at her for a long time, his mouth grim. His eyebrows knitted, his mouth twisted — then his face cleared and he laughed.

  "You're such a freak," said Ridzual. "You're the weirdest person I know. Is that how you always try to change the subject in an awkward situation? "Scuse me, sir, your fly is undone. But don't worry about it, I'm a werewolf!'"

  He rubbed his eyes.

  "Sorry ya," he said. "I'll be normal again soon."

  Ah Lee should have been relieved, or maybe touched, or any one of a number of benign emotions. Instead she felt vexed. You told someone the biggest secret you had and they didn't even take you seriously!

  "You know, everything is not about you," she snapped. "I don't say things just because of you. Men!"

  She changed to show him. It was always too easy to change when she was angry.

  What was she thinking? she asked herself later. She knew that love was supposed to make you act funny, but she did not know that it could actually deprive you of all common sense. Or kindness. It was not kind to show that to a human.

  What Ridzual saw was a cold gray face, a face incontrovertibly dead. The features were Ah Lee's own everyday features, but the skin did not have the comforting human glow — the flush in the cheek, the sweat on the upper lip. The texture of it was such that it did not even look like skin. Her face looked like it was made of plastic.

  The long black hair hung around the face lankly. The eyes were white. When her mouth opened, a musty inorganic smell gusted out. The tongue was bright red, the color of fresh arterial blood, and it was too long.

  The teeth were perfectly ordinary.

  Maybe a part of her was hoping that he wouldn't be horrified, that he would still like her. Most of her was the sensible Ah Lee she had always been, however, so it was with resignation that she watched Ridzual step back, drop his schoolbag, whimper and turn and run.

  She watched him run down the road, his limbs flailing and growing smaller. When he reached the junction at the end of the road, he stopped and doubled over. He would be bathed in sweat — the sun was unforgiving today, and Ridzual always skipped PE classes. He paused and Ah Lee could almost see him wonder whether he should scrape up his dignity and come back to the forgiving shade, or keep jogging and probably have sunstroke.

  She felt her tragedy crust over with awkwardness.

  "Why this kind of thing always happen to me?" said Ah Lee miserably.

  But then, thank all the gods that ever were, Ji Ee's small brown Proton turned into the road. In five minutes Ah Lee would be able to get into the car and pretend she didn't see Ridzual walking back to their spot next to the monsoon drain, his hand shielding his eyes, his eyes not looking in her direction.

  Ah Lee could not bear to ask Tua Kim to stop making her fried human nuggets. The first day after her confession she took them to the canteen as usual.

  But then it was an agony to be sitting alone. It took so long to chew each nugget when she wasn't using her mouth for talking. She caught glimpses of Ridzual through the crowd, queueing up for his tomyam and awkwardly not looking at anyone because he didn't have any friends except her. The nuggets tasted like paper. It was as if she was eating human food.

  After that she avoided the canteen. Behind one of the school blocks there was a narrow channel that ran between the building and the wall that surrounded the school grounds. It had become a repository for unwanted things: buckets of dried paint were lined up along the wall, and broken old furniture came here to die. Ah Lee fit right in. Here she could sit and read in peace, just as she had done before she'd ever become friends with Ridzual.

  A week after her life was ruined — five long, dreary days during which she and Ridzual carefully ignored each other at school — she had only got seven pages into her book. She was reading the eighth page at break, the words flying out of her mind the minute they entered through her eyes, when Ridzual said,

  "Good book?"

  Ah Lee jumped and punched Ridzual in the chin.

  "Ow!" said Ridzual.

  "What lah you, coming out of nowhere like that," Ah Lee snapped, to cover her relief.

  "Sorry lah," said Ridzual in a mild complaining tone. He rubbed his jaw. "What is this, WWF? Man, you have a strong right hook."

  Awkwardness rose like a wall between them.

  "It's because I did taekwando since I was small," said Ah Lee flatly. "Not because I died."

  Ridzual looked around for a chair, but failed to locate one. In a government school chairs only got rejected from classroom duty for a real fault, such as having a hole in the middle of the seat, or being in several pieces. He sat down on the ground instead.

  "I didn't even know such things were real," he whispered. He did not look up at her. "How did you become a — a—"

  "Vampire?" said Ah Lee.

  "Is that what you call it?" said Ridzual. "Isn't that a bit different?"

  Ah Lee said, "You want to say it? You want to tell me what am I?"

  Ah Lee never said her real name herself.

  'Vampire' was safe. 'Vampire' was like Dracula, like goofy old black and white films, like pale ang moh boys who swooned over long-haired girls. Vampire was funny, or sexy, depending on which movie you watched.

  The right word was not funny. It was not sexy. Most of all, it was not safe.

  Ridzual had a boyish disregard for subtextual cues. He did not seem to notice how wound up Ah Lee was. He said, softly, as if he were speaking to himself,

  "You know, I like you. I really like you."

  "Har," said Ah Lee noncommittally.

  "I've really never liked anyone as much as I like you," said R
idzual. "In my life. Not even as a, a girl. I've never even had a friend I liked as much as you.

  "When I'm with you I feel like life is exciting. Like everything has an interesting secret behind it, like nothing is normal or boring. That's how you make me feel. Not even by doing anything. Just when I'm hanging out with you."

  Ah Lee said in a stifled voice, "That's how I feel when I'm with you too."

  Ridzual reached down into his pocket.

  "That's why you deserve this," he said.

  Ah Lee had just enough time to register that he had a long, rusty nail in his hand when Ridzual flung himself at her, aiming the nail at her throat.

  When you are dead, certain things stop mattering as much as they do to the living. Time, weight, pain all lose some of their meaning.

  The protein-rich diet and frequent exercise while chasing down prey are also excellent for the muscles.

  Ah Lee caught Ridzual's lunging body and threw him with no trouble.

  While he lay on the ground, stunned, she slipped the nail out from between his fingers.

  "What's this?" she shouted. "What's this? You trying to play the fool, is it?"

  She felt as if the top of her head had come off.

  Ridzual looked terrified.

  "I was — I was—"

  "What?" roared Ah Lee.

  "I just —" Then Ridzual said, in one breath, "I Googled and it said if I put a nail in your neck you would stop being a hantu and become a beautiful woman, and I thought maybe then we could be together, but turn out I wasn't fast enough, I'm sorry—"

  "How dare you?" gasped Ah Lee.

  "I just wanted to save you, OK!" Ridzual rubbed his eyes. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it in time."

  "Who you think you're talking to?" said Ah Lee. "There is no Ah Lee the vampire and Ah Lee your friend — the girl who use to be your friend. I am just one person. If you make me not a vampire anymore, doesn't mean we can be — be dating. If you make me not a vampire anymore, means there is no me anymore. You understand?"

  She threw the nail on the ground. She wasn't quite angry enough to aim it at Ridzual, but it pleased her in a horrible way when he flinched.

  "And one more thing," said Ah Lee. "I am already a beautiful woman, dungu!"

  She stomped off without looking back.

  Ah Lee felt strong and brave all day, big with her righteous anger like a balloon full of air. It took her through the rest of the school day and the ride home.

  When she took off her shoes at the front door the air hit her nose, crowded with homey smells: coriander and hong yu and the stale scent of clean blankets. The balloon popped. Ah Lee drew in a huge breath and expelled it as a sob.

  She sat down on the sofa in the living room and wept for half an hour.

  "Girl, what's the matter?" said Ji Ee.

  "What's happening?" said Ah Chor.

  "Hao ah," said Ah Ma. "Crying!"

  "Crying?" said Ah Chor. "Ah Lee is crying?"

  "You're crying, is it?" said Sa Ee Poh.

  The diagnosis bounced from aunt to aunt, each aunt repeating it to another for certainty.

  "So old already still crying!" said Ah Chor.

  "Nobody has died. Your stomach is not empty. What is there to cry about?" said Sa Ee Poh.

  "Ah girl, don't cry lah, ah girl," said Ji Ee.

  "Teacher scolded you, is it?" said Ah Ma. "Or is it because Ji Ee and Aunty Girl were late when they picked you up from school?"

  "Ah, that's it, late!" said Ah Chor sternly. "Always late! What's the use of all this line dancing? Now you are late to pick Ah Lee up and you have made her cry."

  "She is so big already. I thought she can look after herself for an hour," said Aunty Girl, but she spoke with contrition, conscious that she was in the wrong.

  "Ah girl, don't cry," said Ji Ee. "Ji Ee won't be late anymore. We don't need to go dancing. Ah, so old already, we won't miss it!"

  Ah Lee loved that Ji Ee and Aunty Girl danced. Her voice pushed through the terrible loneliness that locked her throat and said,

  "It's not that!"

  "What is it?" said Aunty Girl.

  "I never believed in all this dancing thing," said Ah Chor. "In my time girls didn't put themselves up there on the stage for people to look at it. It's not so nice."

  "Ma, their dancing is not like cabaret," said Sa Ee Poh. "It is exercise, like taichi or aerobic. Anyway the girls are so big already. Why not let them do it?"

  "Ah Lee says it's not that anyway," said Ah Ma. "What is it, girl?"

  But Ah Lee couldn't say.

  Tua Kim was the only one who had stayed in the kitchen when Ah Lee started crying. Now the sound of the tap running stopped and she came into the room, wiping her hands on a rag. A momentary lull had fallen as the aunts waited for Ah Lee to reply, so everyone heard Tua Kim when she spoke, even though her voice was as quiet as it always was.

  "What did the boy do?" said Tua Kim.

  The silence flattened out and grew solid.

  In the hush, Tua Kim sat down on the sofa next to Ah Lee and put her arm around her. The aunts were not from a generation that hugged. Tua Kim did it in a detached, almost a clinical way. In the same way the aunts had picked Ah Lee up and carried her when she was too exhausted to walk, those first few hours after she died.

  "Tell Tua Kim," said Tua Kim.

  So she did.

  Ah Lee went to bed feeling pleasantly hollow and tired from crying so much. Her eyes were red and the skin around her nostrils was rough, but she felt clean and quiet inside. Aunt after aunt came into her room on some pretext, to lay their soft wrinkled hands on her head and make sure her blanket was tucked around her properly. She slept like the virtuous dead, dreamless and innocent.

  The next morning she felt newly-minted, born again. She walked past Ridzual's desk without a tremor, and went home feeling almost happy, feeling like maybe she could get over him and it would be OK someday.

  It would start hurting again soon. The sense of invulnerability wouldn't last forever. The aunts would stop spoiling her and start chiding her for still being upset about it. But some day she'd stop being upset, stop missing Ridzual at all, and when she was done with school she would go to university far away from Lubuk Udang, and maybe there she'd meet someone nicer than Ridzual.

  She needed quiet to study Add Maths, so instead of working in the kitchen as usual, she sat down in her room and buried herself in exercises until the light turned. She switched on her desk lamp, and the action made her aware of a quietness in the house.

  She got up and walked through the silent dark house, wondering. There was no one in the kitchen. The living room was empty. It was six thirty, past the hour when Sa Ee Poh's favorite Cantonese serial would have begun — and yet the house was auntless.

  They must have gone out hunting, though it was late for that. Ah Lee herself preferred to hunt at night, under the cover of darkness, but the aunts did not even think you should laugh loudly before going to bed, or it would give you nightmares. Hunting was considered far too stimulating an activity to engage in so close to bedtime. They preferred to hunt in the afternoon, when the household chores were done and the humans were dozy.

  It was strange that they had all gone out at the same time. Even on the rare occasion that the aunts went out hunting in a body, one of them usually stayed at home — often Tua Kim, because Tua Kim disliked the mess and exertion of hunting. Somebody had to make sure Ah Lee fed herself and did her homework. Somebody had to look after her.

  With that thought, Ah Lee knew where the aunts had gone.

  She didn't bother going back to her room to turn off the lights, or changing out of her pasar malam T-shirt and faded gray shorts, or putting on shoes. She burst through the back door and leapt straight out in the evening sky.

  Most of the time Ah Lee was a girl. Her body and her mind were more used to it. Being in vampire mode made her uncomfortable. She avoided it as much as she could.

  But whenever she slipped into it, it was like putt
ing on a pair of slippers after a long day of standing in high heels, like stepping out of a ferociously air-conditioned room into the welcoming warmth of the outside world.

  Her whole self relaxed. Her body became a weapon: smells grew sharp, her vision cleared. Ordinary thoughts were big vague clouds, too complicated and light to bother about, and through the clouds thrust the one vital thing, red and pulsing like a fresh bruise — hunger.

  Hovering above Lubuk Udang, she became invisible. The dying sunlight shone through her bones. The scents of the town floated up to her: a woman's jasmine-scented hair, the stink of the underarms of a tired hawker stallholder, the smell of someone's earwax. Anything else, anything not human, smelled pale in comparison, like water, but she could distinguish those scents if she concentrated hard enough, pulling them up from beneath the textured smells of humans.

  The aunts would smell of nothing. But she knew Ridzual's scent. She sorted through the scents coming to her on the wind; his wasn't there. It might be too late already. How long had it been since they'd left? And once Ridzual was meat she wouldn't be able to find him — he wouldn't smell of himself anymore. He would just smell of food.

  She dove through the sky, following her nose.

  The sky was going gray and the sunlight was fading when Ridzual left school. His dad would be busy getting dinner ready and his mom was outstation, so he'd told his dad he would cycle home. It would take half an hour, but the air was soft and humid in the evening, cool enough to cycle.

  He hated koku, but he'd stayed for the extra few hours of marching in his Scouts uniform, sweating under the blistering sun in a desperate attempt to fit in. It was probably worth it. If he didn't go, he would probably fit in even less, whereas at least now people knew who he was. Last week one guy had even thwacked him on the back in a friendly way, yelling, "Oi! What's up, Mohsein?"

  Of course, he had then had to explain that he wasn't Mohsein, which had dampened the atmosphere of warmth and camaraderie slightly. But they had recognized the name when he said, "I'm Ridzual," or at least they had said, "Oh, Ridzwan, is it?"

  Maybe he wasn't friends the way the other guys were with each other. Maybe they didn't shout, "Oi, macha!" when they saw him, or request that he "relaklah, brother!" or imply heartily that he was gay in some sort of macho bonding ritual.