by Fiona Cheong
Malika opened her eyes. As she made her way towards the bedroom, Madam was asking Miss Shakilah what Miss Shakilah had decided to do about her book, if Miss Shakilah had received enlightenment yet.
She heard Miss Shakilah laugh as another gust swept across Madam's garden, and the window in the bedroom banged again on the sill.
HELENA S I M
o W E WERE at the parish house on Sunday afternoon, two weeks after the Friday that Auntie Coco's sister went missing. Ya-lah, this time, Dorothy, Siew Chin, Bernadette and I were all present, but they're useless-lah, the others. No use asking them to tell about that Sunday. Probably, they'll say they can't remember. So frightened they were when they saw the old lady, and Dorothy and Siew Chin didn't even know about the other incidents. Imagine if they did. (I'm sure Dorothy would have found out from her Lulu if the girl had been home that Saturday, although now as I'm thinking about it, Lulu could have heard about it from other people's servants also. No-lah, I don't know who's friends with whom in those circles, but I think Lulu used to be friends with Teresa Albuquerque's girl. Anyway, it was quite a shock to Dorothy, you know, when her Lulu won that writing contest. Yalah, I also was surprised, but it's just as well, bukan? Why pay money for a servant who only wants to read books? Right or not? But anyway, we ourselves had ended up not telling Dorothy or Siew Chin about that Saturday, Bernadette because she was already scared stiff, in spite of her usual skepticism, and I was trying to sort things out without anyone's interference, for a change.)
Ya-lah, there's someone else you could ask, but she's living overseas now, and I don't think she's ever coming back.
In my opinion, the day had already started out strangely, because first of all, what was Ying Ying Coleman doing by herself in the market that morning? And why, of all people, did she choose Siew Chin to talk to? Especially about such personal matters. Right or not? Ya, ya, I know what Siew Chin thought, that it was because Willy Coleman was sick and someone had to do the shopping. But they could have sent the son, Matthew. He was old enough by now. My point is this. That Willy Coleman would never have let his precious wife out of his sight just like that. Three hundred dollars, that's how much I hear he paid for her, plus airfare of course. She had advertised her face in a Hong Kong brochure-lah, and somehow or other, the brochure had fallen into Willy's lap. Men with money can get whatever they want, bukan? See how hard it is to find true love.
"Not just like that," Siew Chin insisted when I pointed out how Willy had never before, not even once, allowed Ying Ying out of the house without him by her side, or rather, in front of her. "He's sick-lah, I told you."
As if the fellow had never been sick before. Come hell or high water, Ying Ying had never disobeyed her husband, okay? And no wonder-lah, if what Ying Ying had told Siew Chin was the truth. Wah, the names he shouts at her when they're making love. Bastard-lab. Bloody bitch-lab. And then, according to Siew Chin, Ying Ying had asked whether Jeremy called her the same names or different names when they were making love. Imagine. How unlucky some women can be, ya? That Ying Ying had no idea what marriage was all about. To have and to hold, to love and to cherish. That's what marriage is supposed to be. Thank heavens my Hock Siew and I always had true love between us, even if we weren't rich. You see how money isn't everything.
Of course, Dorothy was backing Siew Chin up, and Bernadette wasn't saying anything, sitting there buat-bodoh- lah, pretending only, as if she wasn't interested. She tried to look as if she wasn't even listening, as if she was just enjoying the breeze from the window, and hearing only the rustling of the angsana leaves. (By now, the tree's been chopped down, but in those days, it was there outside the window, one lovely old angsana. Such a stupid thing, to chop it down.)
"He's probably never been this sick," Dorothy said. "Must be pneumonia or something like that. He probably can't even get out of bed."
"Ah, ya, that's what Ying Ying said." Siew Chin nodded her head, as if she had just remembered this part. "He's been bedridden for a few days already."
"Has he seen a doctor?" I asked, because if it was that serious, a doctor would have been called to the house, right? And someone would have noticed, even if not one of us.
Siew Chin shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know-lah, I didn't want to pry. But he must have, ya?" She looked at Dorothy. "I think you're right. Must be pneumonia. One of Jeremy's friends at the office also has it."
Listen to her, as if an epidemic was just around the corner. She and Dorothy were never that good at weeding out the truth. Always jumping too easily to conclusions, the two of them.
Everything's connected-lah. It must be, bukan?
OKAY.. o I was the one who had volunteered the four of us to make the wayang puppets. (That was why we were at Holy Family that afternoon, in the parish house dining room where the huge teak table was.) And no, I wasn't trying to gain favor with Father Pereira, as some of the other ladies wanted to think. don't mean Dorothy or Siew Chin or Bernadette. I mean the other church ladies-that Juniper Ang, for instance, who had been jealous of my pineapple tarts for years. I suppose she fancied herself quite the pastry chef-lah, must be. And Teresa Albuquerque. She also was jealous, but not over the pineapple tarts. She had been wanting to join our clique, just so she could boast to us at close range about her children, and how well they were doing. Compared to my Rose-lah, that was what she meant each time she managed to catch me off guard. Who was she kidding? As if I was a dummy and didn't know how to read between the lines. So now she was getting her revenge, helping to spread rumors about how I wanted to be another Megan Thornbird. None of it was true. She and the other ladies were the ones with crushes on Father Pereira, but you see how they were. Too lazy to volunteer for the puppets, and then complaining about it.
Father Pereira himself had approached us, not the other way around. You should have seen Dorothy's and Siew Chin's faces when I said okay. Bernadette, she was going along with anything I decided now, which should have made Dorothy and Siew Chin sit up and take notice, but it didn't, for some funny reason.
Of course the teenagers had gone to Father Pereira instead of Father O'Hara, not only because he was the chief parish priest. They knew Father O'Hara, ya? Definitely, the old chap would have put his foot down, but once they got Father Pereira to say yes, what could Father O'Hara do? Especially given his announcement a few years ago that he was going to step back and let Father Pereira take charge, as if Father Pereira wasn't already in charge. It was just that Father O'Hara had been around longer-Iah, so Father Pereira would often let him have his way. Actually, they didn't get along, you know. Father O'Hara had been quite disappointed when Father Pereira had first joined us, because Father Pereira turned out to be so different from his predecessor, Father D'Souza, who, if you can believe this, got sent to Africa after being with us for thirteen years. Imagine. That's what the Vatican does-lah, to make sure priests don't get attached to places, since they're to be in the world but not of it. Only Father O'Hara, for some reason, ended up staying with us for practically his whole life. Why he was never made chief parish priest, I don't know. Could be due to a lack of education, since Father D'Souza and Father Pereira had both attended universities (in Rome, no less), and had all kinds of degrees, although in my opinion, it isn't necessary for a priest to have an advanced degree. But you know the Vatican. No use trying to argue with the Pope or the bishops.
Ah, so anyway, we got Father Pereira and right from the start, the teenagers loved him. No wonder, bukan? Let me tell you what Belinda Wong found in his car when she borrowed it one day to visit the hospitals. One whole bunch of rock-androll cassettes, they were strewn all over the passenger seat. Elvis Presley-lah, B. B. King-lah, Chuck Berry, the Temptations, the Supremes, et cetera. You name it, Father Pereira has it, Belinda said.
It's obvious-lah, what he must have thought when the teenagers asked him if they could put up a wayang kulit. Wab, he must have thought, it's good that they want to do something with cultural value. Of course Father O'Hara would have objec
ted on the grounds of paganism, but if you ask me, he could be a bit too conservative-lah. Must live and let live, bukan?
But luckily, both of them were out that afternoon. You know how priests tend to disapprove of rumors. If I remember correctly, Father Pereira was doing some house blessings in the neighborhood, and Father O'Hara as usual was giving Communion at the old folks' home. Sister Sylvia was not around, either. She always went over to the convent on Sundays, to do what, I don't know, but actually, it wouldn't have mattered even if she had been around. That nun's so pekak. As deaf as a doornail. (That was another reason our poker games always lasted so long. Everything you said to her, you had to say at least three, four times.)
So anyway, there we were. We were at the embroidering stage-only after all the puppets' clothes were embroidered, then we were going to sew the parts of the bodies together. You should always sew the parts together last, ya? To make sure everything fits. Of course our puppets were not as elaborate as the traditional kind-lah, since ours were made out of cardboard. This was for charity, what, so never mind-lah. That was what Father Pereira had assured us, and I was quite relieved, to tell you the truth. Who knows how many mistakes we would have made if we had tried to use wood or leather. Sometimes perfectionism can be a downfall. So ya-lah, luckily, Father Pereira must have considered the fact that none of us were experts.
You know the dining room at Holy Family, full of crucifixes on the walls. Bernadette also was glad to have an excuse to spend her afternoons there, okay? That was why-lah she had kept her mouth shut when I had volunteered us. (You see how when she didn't want to be a coconut-head, she didn't have to be.)
You understand what I'm saying? Remember, Shakilah hadn't given birth, yet. Don't forget what I've said about Pontianak and the Langsuir.
So anyway, Siew Chin and [Dorothy were still going on about that Ying Ying.
"How did she talk about it?" Dorothy wanted to know. "Did her voice show any emotion or not?"
"Ya-lah, but a hit only," Siew Chin said.
"Some women, it turns them on, you know." That was Bernadette, deciding to join in after she had been buat- bodohing long enough.
"Turns them on?" Siew Chin shook her head, with great indignation, I might add. "You mean, you think women can get aroused by that sort of treatment? You gila?"
"Different strokes for different folks," Bernadette told her. "What, don't tell me you've never heard the saying."
"Please-lah, don't test my patience."
You see how I wasn't the only one who ever got irritated by Bernadette and her way of talking. Didn't I tell you? But Dorothy as always, trust her to save the day.
"Poor thing," she said. "Coming all this way to marry a man like that."
Ya-lah, she was right. Who would want to be in that boat, after all? Imagine your own husband calling you Bitch, Bastard, Bitch, Bastard, just as you're on the verge of bliss. How to enjoy making love like that? Plus, what about the son, ya? Imagine having to listen to your father behave that way. No wonder the boy doesn't come home nowadays, even with the father gone. Too many bad memories in the house, must be. If I were that Ying Ying, I would move to another house. There's no reason for her to stay.
But can't tell-lah what goes through people's heads sometimes, especially one China-born-and-bred like her. Sometimes, it's all a mystery. And sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.
1'A. Y.A. ON the one hand, it may have been a coincidence. On the other hand, maybe not. As I've said, it was Father Pereira who had asked us if we would make the puppets. I didn't volunteer out of the blue, okay? Could be, the four of us were meant to be there that afternoon. Right or not? Otherwise, there wouldn't have been anyone to corroborate Alice Wang's daughter's story about the old lady calling to her to go behind the parish house. Even I wouldn't have known whether or not to believe a teenager. Ya, that girl Susanna (the one already fated to die in a boating accident when she was only seventeen, poor thing). You remember her mother Alice Wang, that pretty young widow who used to live up the road, next door to Regina Lim. Their two girls were best friends, okay, when they were growing up. Susanna was the quiet one-lah. She and Regina's daughter would remind me of Rose and Shakilah. Must be, when two friends end up being that close, one must always turn out quieter. Otherwise, how to tell them apart?
Of course, I've never had the experience-lah. You see who I had for a childhood friend. Bernadette. (Why is there the saying, birds of a feather flock together? See-lah, how conventional wisdom isn't always true.)
Ah, so anyway, as I was saying, Bernadette was already scared stiff from what had happened to the two of us. Ya-lah, she was covering it up quite well, but mark my words. She wasn't ready for yet one more thing, okay? Dorothy and Siew Chin also, they would rather wipe that afternoon out of their minds completely.
Here's what happened.
It was just after Dorothy noticed there was a finger missing from the puppet's hand. No-lah, I can't remember which puppet it was, but it didn't matter-lah.
"Alamak, you," I heard her say, so I looked up.
Here's how we were sitting-Dorothy was across from me, Siew Chin was to her right, and Bernadette was at the head of the table and closest to the window. I was on Bernadette's right, facing the hallway, with the window over my left shoulder and Father O'Hara's antique clock ticking on the wall behind my head. (You know which one I mean, with the rosewood body, still there hanging between the ivory crucifix and the Sacred Heart portrait of Our Lord. One of the parishioners had brought it back from abroad and given it to Father O'Hara, no one really knows why-lah. But must be, the parishioner had confessed something quite terrible and Father O'Hara had given him a lighter penance to do than he had deserved. That's my guess.)
So anyway, Siew Chin was the one who had cut out the puppets' limbs. We had put Bernadette in charge of the torsos, and Dorothy and I were doing the heads. So Dorothy was holding the arm in one hand and the puppet's sleeve in the other, as she looked at Siew Chin. (She must have been fitting the sleeve on top of the arm-lah, when she had noticed the missing finger.)
Siew Chin didn't notice anything at first, because she was looking at Dorothy's face, not at her hands. "What?" she asked.
"You see-lah your handiwork," Dorothy told her, but of course, her tone was affectionate. The two of them had been childhood friends, ya? Whether best friends or not, that, I never asked-lah. (No-lah, I didn't know them before we became neighbors. Before, they used to live in the Serangoon area. Quite lucky for them that they kept ending up living so close to each other. Of course, you see how everyone's luck evens out in the end. Now that Siew Chin's moved to Germany, I don't think they've continued to talk on the phone more than a few times a year.)
Siew Chin sighed when she saw the hand. "Aiya, you think they'll mind?" she asked.
Right at that moment, we heard the scream. It was soft and brief, not ear-piercing at all, but definitely it contained fear.
You remember I've said, I was facing the hallway. First of all, anyone entering the parish house, we would have heard, and the only way to reach the back was to walk down the hallway past us, okay? Nowadays, it's different because the garden fence is gone. (It was removed when the angsana tree got chopped down, to create an illusion of having more space, or something like that-lah.) But that Sunday, it was still there, enclosing Father O'Hara's rose bushes to protect them from vandalism, since this area was more rural back then, and various Toms, Dicks and Harrys were always passing by the church compound.
Ya, ya, believe it or not, there used to be rose bushes in the garden. Gorgeous blossoms, huge and red. Everyone wondered how they could survive the heat, but Father O'Hara had quite a green thumb-lah, must be. Some of the ladies tried to get the secret from him, but you've heard how he was. Always promising he would tell when he was on his deathbed, as if he could foresee the hour that would happen, which of course, he couldn't. So that's why now, those rose bushes have long been dug up. Ya-lah, they started dying the very next day after Father
O'Hara passed away from a sudden heart attack.
So anyway, the old lady was squatting near one of the bushes, near the papaya tree (the one still there). And Susanna, poor girl, she was standing at the fence, not in the garden but on the other side, and you could see how she was shivering. Her face so puchat, we knew at once something was wrong. Of course, all of us had rushed out to the hack to see who had screamed, and as soon as I saw the lady, I wondered how she had managed to walk past the dining room without my noticing, but at the time, I thought it was possible I had been looking away-lah. Maybe when she had walked past, I was concentrating on my embroidery. That was what I thought at first. As I've said, I don't jump to conclusions by force of habit, ya?
What else was strange was that Susanna was over at the fence by herself. Regina's daughter, that Jo, she was nowhere around, and as I've already pointed out, those two were always together, hukan? But I didn't think about this until later-lah, and neither did the others. Dorothy and Siew Chin, they were staring at the old lady as if trying to see if they could recognize her, as if one of the parishioners would he squatting in the garden like that. Betul-betul they also acted like coconut-heads sometimes. Bernadette, you can imagine-lah the panic building up in her, and to be honest, I wasn't feeling so calm myself.
At first, we couldn't see her face, the old lady. Her body was turned a bit to the right, in Susanna's direction, and she had a twig in her left hand which she was using to write or draw something on the ground. You know those patches of sand around the papaya tree where there's no grass. That's what the old lady was doing when we got to the back door. (That's where we had stopped short, after catching sight of Susanna and seeing the way she looked at us. Fear was written clearly in the poor girl's eyes, like a warning to us-lah, not to approach the lady.)