Shadow Theatre

by Fiona Cheong

  She didn't want to answer, but I knew what she was thinking. That was just my luck-lah. To be honest, Bernadette wouldn't have been my first choice to tell about my experience. But what to do, she was the only one who happened to be around that afternoon. I was desperate, okay? I didn't wake up from my nap until half-past two. See what a deep sleep I had fallen into, just as if I had been put under a spell. Rose had already come home and gone out again, all without my knowing. The last thing I wanted was to be left by myself the rest of the day. So, that was why I started calling people, and just my luck, Dorothy and Siew Chin both were out clothes shopping. I was a bit upset with them, you know, Dorothy and Siew Chin. Why hadn't they called to ask if I wanted to go? But the two of them could be like that sometimes. Sometimes they would go out just so Siew Chin could complain to Dorothy ad infinitum about Jeremy. Since Hock Siew and I had had the perfect marriage, they didn't want me along-lah. Of course I knew this. Ah, so anyway, no one answered the phone except Bernadette. (I don't think Dorothy's girl was home, that Lulu Mendez. Unless maybe she was off in her room with her nose in a book.) So this was how come I was stuck with Bernadette-lah.

  "Can't be-lah," she said suddenly.

  "Can't be what?" I asked. "What can't be?"

  That poor girl kena kidnapped-lah. Poor thing. What I don't understand is, how come Auntie Coco just left her alone outside the house?"

  From the look on Bernadette's face I knew what she was referring to, and also because one way or another, she was always bringing up the topic. So I said, "You and your slave ships."

  And see, was I right on target or not? Immediately Bernadette said, 'That's not just a rumor, okay? You don't remember the newspapers, is it?"

  See-lah how she was. That rumor was over long ago, okay? Back in 1976, or was it 1977? Somewhere around that time, when young girls kept disappearing and nobody could find them, people were saying they had been kidnapped and taken to Thailand, to be sold as sex slaves-lah. How that story ever made it into the newspapers, I don't know. As far as I knew then and as far as I know now, it was just gossip, what. Ya, ya, there are different levels of gossip, it's true, depending on how much proof you have. And say, okay-lah, giving Bernadette her due, say, I admit it was possible. Indonesia's comprised of so many islands, anything could happen there, in the outer islands especially. Ya, I'm sure there are girls who have disappeared whom we don't know about, but as for the exact nature of their misfortune? Let's put it this way, there was more than one possibility, okay? All those aboriginal tribes still living in the jungle? Even today, you can find headhunters there. And with young people, every generation's the same. Most of them are so careless. Carefree and careless. Now they even go hiking in the jungle, in all that heat and with the mosquitoes and all those fires burning. Maybe those who disappeared in the past were also trying to go hiking, or were lured out there by their boyfriends. Who's to know? So imagine one young girl if she bodoh-bodoh wasn't watching where she stepped and crossed into their territory, ah, habis. Finished-lah. Even if she wasn't alone, it can happen so fast, you know. One second she's there, next second she's gone. In the blink of an eye, as they say. (That's why I used to tell Rose, if she wanted to travel, go ahead. Save up her money and see the world, but stay out of Indonesia. Nothing to see there, anyway. But she didn't have the travelling bug, always wanting to stay home only.)

  "You don't listen to legends, you listen to rumors?" I said to Bernadette.

  "Please-lah, Helena, I'm fifty-eight years old. How I'm going to believe in Pontianak?"

  Alamak, when she said that, I wanted to roll my eyes just like Rose sometimes used to roll her eyes at me. Honestly, I almost did it, you know. "So, you're fifty-eight years old," I said. As if I was just a spring chicken-lah. "So what?"

  "So this is what." And that Bernadette, she leaned forward towards me as if she was about to drop all kinds of pearls of wisdom on my dining table. That was the look that was on her face now. "I myself have never seen Pontianak," she said. "And I myself don't know anyone who has seen her. You?"

  I just sighed, at that point.

  "Well, Helena?" So profound she thought she was being, you see? But now that my patience was being tested to its limits, desperate or not, I had to give her some of her own medicine.

  "Have you ever seen the Holy Spirit?" I said. Ah, I thought that would shut her up, but no, she was going strong, that Bernadette.

  'That's not the same thing," she said. "You are a Catholic, not a Muslim."

  "So what do you mean?" I said.

  "When you're a Catholic, that means you know in your heart the Holy Spirit exists. Did Jesus ever say anything about Pontianak?"

  "He talked about demons, okay?"

  "Ya, so? Those were Satan's cohorts, of course."

  "Oh, and I suppose Pontianak couldn't have been one of them. You've asked Jesus this yourself, right?"

  See that Bernadette. Always she would rattle my nerves eventually. Enough was enough, I was thinking. But then, luckily, I remembered she had been home the previous night, which Bernadette had told me as soon as I called, so I stopped my tongue from going on. As much as I didn't want to admit it, she had a bit of knowledge that I needed, okay? I couldn't rely on Winifred Teo's story only. So now I was forced to act like a hypocrite. Quickly better offer her some pineapple tarts, I thought to myself. Luckily, I had been baking just the previous afternoon, so my tarts were still quite fresh. Plus, anyone would tell you, Helena Sim's pineapple tarts are A-number one. That's the truth. I'm not boasting, okay? (Ask Rose, who never praises me if she can help it, I don't know why she has to be so modest, but you know you can believe her.)

  Don't get the wrong idea. Bernadette and I never went overboard, okay, with our disagreements. People our age can't afford to lose the friends they have. Any of our hearts could stop at any time.

  So, she was still there when it happened. This must have been around four o'clock or a hit after. I was getting up from the table to go into the kitchen because I was going to boil more water for tea, and Bernadette was reaching for her third pineapple tart. You know that bottomless stomach of hers, especially when it comes to my delicious tarts. She was eating like a teenager that afternoon. So, the whole time we were in the dining room, which meant, of course, we could see the road. See how in most of our houses, the dining room is off to the side of the living room? Ask Bernadette to confirm this-lah, if you want. Ask her to tell you how without rhyme or reason, the weather outside changed. This time I wasn't the only eyewitness, okay?

  I T D O ONLY N for a minute-lah. That's why it's so hard to confirm. It's easy to say those of us who saw were hallucinating, easy to blame the heat also. But here's the truth. All that brightness outside, suddenly the sun was gone. In a flash, as they say. One minute it was the middle of the afternoon, hot as usual, next minute, the air became so dark, it could have been midnight, okay? Like an eclipse-lah. Suddenly I thought, now I know what an eclipse means. The whole world around us vanishing. Ah, like that. The road, the graveyard, Gopal Dharma's fruit trees next door, all gone. Bernadette, I remember, she called out right away, "Eh, Alamak, apa 'tu?" Every time that Bernadette panics, she forgets her English, ya? Ah, so anyway, if not for her voice, I also would have panicked. Instead, I said, "Didn't I tell you? This is what you get for not believing me." And of course, that Bernadette, now what could she say? Serves her right for being so stubborn in her thinking. Coconut-head. Those were my thoughts. See how calm I was. The Holy Spirit must have been with me, because of the rosary I was praying earlier. See how important it is to have even a bit of faith.

  So, the darkness lasted for a minute, and then everything went back to normal.

  Bernadette, she was completely in shock. Like a statue she was, sitting in her chair. She couldn't move, just stared at me, and her face so puchat. As if she had seen the Devil, that's how pale she was, white as flour. I almost pitied her, you know. Myself, maybe the morning's experience had prepared me a bit. That must have been it. I could f
eel my heart beating quite fast, but I wasn't tongue-tied, as Rose would say. I wasn't paralyzed. I just put one foot in front of the other and when I was in the kitchen, I picked up the kettle, filled it with water, and put it on the stove, just as if everything was normal. I remember looking at the clock as I was turning on the burner. It was exactly ten minutes past four. Then while the water was heating up, I went back out to the dining area.

  Bernadette was breathing again, slowly but surely, but she still couldn't talk, and I knew from the way she looked at me, she was wondering how come I was being so calm. Of course, that's how she was interpreting my behavior. Anyone else who had known me that long would have known that was my way of gathering my thoughts. But you know her. She was never that observant of other people-lah.

  "Didn't I tell you?" I said to her. I couldn't resist it. "You still want to say it's all coincidence?"

  Imagine how shocked she was, that Bernadette, she couldn't respond to my teasing even. Of course I was trying to provoke her, to bring her hack to normal. But all she could do was stare at me, sit and stare, sit and stare. That's all. Completely useless.

  So I left her alone, for a while. When the water boiled, I went to make tea, and then I came hack to the table with two cups and we just sat there, Bernadette and I, drinking our tea silently until she was ready to talk. Now and then I would look outside, just in case something else was going to happen, although my instincts told me that was it for the day. And of course I was right. Nothing else happened, except once I saw Adelaide's grandson, Nathan, walking past. That must have been around half-past four, and he was carrying a cake. Looked like a butter cake or a pound cake, and ah, just like that, the whole cake on a plate in the open air. You see how those Eurasians are. Dust everywhere, they don't care. I'm sure Adelaide could have found a Tupperware container or something, or borrowed one. But her intentions were good-lah. The cake must have been for Auntie Coco. (Must sound a bit funny, all of us calling Auntie Coco that way-she must have been my age, maybe younger even, but a habit's a habit-lah.) So anyway, nothing else happened. The weather stayed warm and sunny, back to humid, and then there was a small breeze. I could hear it in Gopal Dharma's fruit trees. It made the air a bit soothing, his leaves nestling in the breeze.

  Otherwise, I was looking at Bernadette. To be honest, I was a hit worried for her. She was never as tough as the rest of us, you know. She must have inherited her mother's health-lah. You know her mother died quite young, I think at forty-plus years old. Weak heart, we all heard. Bernadette, she was always the same way. Even in our younger days, she never ran about or played rough games. Even though obviously she had outlived her mother's age, these things, who can say. So I watched her carefully. She better not keel over in my house, I thought. After everything, I didn't need that kind of luck, to have someone die in my house, even a friend. This isn't superstition, okay? Ya, ya, it must sound like a contradiction. If I knew Bernadette's health history, why I always argued with her? But that's how old friends are, ya? Also, given Bernadette's personality, how to treat her like gold? She didn't inspire that kind of treatment, you know. (Nowadays, I've learned patience, but see how long it takes to learn patience.)

  "Okay-lah," she said, finally, her voice tired.

  "Okay?" I said. "Okay what?" See how mean I could be, I don't know why.

  'Tell me one more time-lah," she said.

  Still, I didn't say anything, even though of course I knew what she meant. I'm not slow, okay?

  "What happened this morning, Helena," she said. 'Tell me again-lah. I don't think I was listening very well before."

  Ah, now she had given in completely, now I was satisfied. So childish of me, ya? But that's how I was-lah, in those days. That's how I used to be.

  ANYWAY. MY FEELING about the slave ships was that if, really, Indonesians were selling our girls to the Thais, the government would have found out already. You know how money-minded our government is. There's no way any kind of trading could have gone on without their knowing about it eventually, okay? (The same goes-lah for the pirate ships, if you ever hear that rumor being revived, about how in the outer islands, there may still be tribes of pirates. That for sure I don't know, but somehow I doubt it. Headhunters and Pontianak herself, those are different matters entirely.)

  So I went through my story another time for Bernadette, and she just listened, and at the end of it, I asked her did she want to go with me to warn Valerie Nair. She said okay. Ah, just like that. Okay. To he honest, I didn't expect her to agree so fast. But never look a gift horse in the mouth, ya? So off we went-lah, and on the way, I asked her to tell me her version of what had happened the previous night. And here's the strange part. Everything was the same as in Winifred Teo's story, except Bernadette couldn't remember whether or not Adelaide's grandson was with her when she came outside. And yet Winifred had said specifically that Nathan had been one of the witnesses, because she was surprised at how tall he had grown. Standing next to Adelaide, he was almost one whole head taller already, Winifred had said to me, as if I hadn't noticed for myself how tall the boy was. You see how children grow.

  But anyway, Bernadette couldn't remember seeing him. "I don't think he was there, Helena," she said to me, as we were walking on the road. "Funny, why I don't remember?"

  Between Bernadette and Winifred, how was I going to choose whom to believe? So I decided to wait for Rose. It didn't seem important-lah, at the time, and I was already starting to lean more towards Winifred, because as I've pointed out, Bernadette couldn't always be trusted to notice things, okay?

  ILA! HAVE YOI I lost your mind? How can you let her go by herself? What kind of mother are you? Those had been the accu sations, Ben's relatives descending like vultures. Ever since Shakilah was born, they had had their eyes on her, the first niece, the first granddaughter. Ben had accused me of overreacting. He never saw them for what they were, vultures. But then, that was his family. He had been an only son, everyone's favorite nephew, the eldest grandchild, handsome and deeply beloved. No wife could have lived up to the expectations everyone must have had, what's more a Eurasian Chinese. I used to think about asking them if they realized that's what Shakilah was, a Eurasian Chinese, but for Ben's sake, and then for Shakilah's, I had held my tongue. Do you know what can happen to her over there? A single girl like that? They never understood. So locked within their own preconceptions, they never saw how Shakilah's protection had always been foremost on my mind. Such chagrin and outrage at her name, when I had chosen it. That's a Muslim name! Why are you giving her a Muslim name? How relieved I had been that Ben had believed me when I said I was naming Shakilah after my closest childhood friend, whose family had moved away when we were ten. He was too pragmatic in his nature to have understood why some babies must be disguised. But some of his aunts could have guessed at this, if their minds had been open to the possibility that they might not know everything.

  Sooner or later, they were going to find out she was back. The word was going to spread, even though none of them lived nearby. Everyone talks on an island this small. Here, you can get family news from strangers.

  How was I going to protect a granddaughter if I couldn't even say she was mine? And what had Shakilah told Eve about me? Was I going to be forhidden to be near the baby?

  Fate's hand, as I was saying. You have to know when to preserve your energy. I leaned over the sink and washed my face. Before going back downstairs, I went into my room to put on some powder.

  A sparrow was perched on the windowsill near my bureau when I entered the room, and my mind drifted towards Halimah. But it was only habit that made me think the sparrow might be something other than a sparrow. Yes, I'm sure. She would have been too busy at the time to bother with us, especially since she had warned me from the start not to marry Ben.

  I combed my hair, and I changed my blouse. Never look as though you've surrendered, understand.

  "DON'T WORRY. I'M not going to tell the world," Shakilah said, while she was washing the rice.
She didn't look up.

  I listened to the grains falling between her fingers, their sound like a rain shower in the rice pot. She swirled them around a few more times in the water, then drained the water out, holding her palm against the rim of the pot. Strange as this may sound, it gave me comfort to see her washing rice. You've heard what they say about Americans, how they don't wash their rice because they think they'll wash away the vitamins. Imagine that. Cooking rice without washing it first. Not that I had wanted Shakilah to stay exactly the same. I had known when she left that she would change. And no, I don't regret it, and I didn't even then. I would have paid any price for her safety.

  "I'm not worried about that," I said, even though I was.

  'That's because you know I would never tell," she said, her voice carrying no feeling at all. It drifted about the room like a splinter, or an old scab, a flake of skin that had fallen off her body, with nothing attached. And only the air was holding it up, as if the air were water, as if again, we were separated by water.

  So you see, life hands you what it will. Better to accept it and make your peace, than to try to alter your fate. I had known this when I married Ben, and yet, I had married him. He and I weren't meant to be. His being too handsome for me had been a sign. Halimah had tried her best to persuade me. Keep the baby. You want the baby, keep her. Leave the father alone. But to become an unwed mother? Especially in those days? I wasn't brave enough. I was only sixteen.

  "Are you going to keep avoiding the police?" she asked, as I opened the refrigerator and reached for some watercress. That had always been her favorite vegetable, the only vegetable I could get her to eat without her trying to spit it out, when she was a child.

  She must have thought my fear was that somehow or other, the police would find out what I had done, what she believed I had done. Would it be easier on her if she knew the actual crime? What about your sister? What if she were to hear the truth about her mother, and about her grandmother, and about her grandfather? It was going to be bad enough when she found out about her father. Your mother didn't have to tell me the father's sperm had come from a sperm bank. I knew, now.