by Ming Cher
Big Mole smiled back, then said. “I’m going out for a walk. Do you need a hand with your shop later?”
“No, there is not much to do for today,” Li Lian replied. “When are you coming back?”
“Around lunchtime,” Big Mole said.
“Okay, see you then!”
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Big Mole went to the Botanic Gardens to ponder her strange feelings regarding the Makassar prahu. She wanted to talk more to Li Lian’s mother about it, but found it hard to do so while hiding her past and association with the criminal activities of the General and the backdoor rats.
Having so many secrets is no good, she told herself, and wondered what Li Lian or Margaret would say if she told them everything. She felt like she had to reveal the truth about her life to somebody she trusted. That’s why I miss Kwang so much. She sighed. He is the only person in this world I can trust with my life, now that Sachee is in jail. Her eyes watered as she thought of the good time they’d had so briefly, which would now only live in her memory.
Then she thought of flying to Hong Kong with Jade, of the money she had saved, of sailing to Makassar herself to find other people who might have known her parents. Is it even possible? she asked herself.
When she returned to the flat above the fancy dress shop, Margaret was cooking steamed prawn spring rolls with tofu and was about to have a cup of coffee. Li Lian was working downstairs in her shop.
“Ah, I was wondering where you were, Djalima,” Margaret said. “Here, I want you to try my steamed spring roll. Tell me what you think.”
Big Mole chewed on the spring roll slowly, like a connoisseur, and said, “Mmm… Wow, I would start a spring roll shop if I could make them this delicious!” Margaret laughed at her witty compliment. “Aunty Margaret?” Big Mole said. “Is it possible to sail from Singapore to Makassar on a real Makassar prahu these days?”
“We can find out,” Margaret replied. “There are still some prahus that arrive from Indonesia to trade at the small wharf in Tanjong Pagar.”
“Oh, I know where that wharf is. But I didn’t know there were any prahus there.”
“Well, they used to come in hundreds before the war. Nowadays there are only a few that brave the prevailing winds in small groups, their main cargo arranged by agents. But they also carry their own things on board for sale. I bought this necklace from them last year.” She rubbed the long necklace with oblong amber beads. “Say, why don’t you come with me to Tanjong Pagar and see for yourself?”
“Oh yes, that would be good! When?”
“Now, if you’d like,” Margaret said and stood up. “I can drive Li Lian’s van. We’ll get there in no time!”
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That afternoon, there were five ninety-foot-long Makassar prahus docked alongside one another at the old wharf that was scheduled to be demolished for redevelopment. While Big Mole stood next to Margaret in front of one of the prahus, she noted the distinctive smell of the skin of ikan minyak, a very oily fish used for varnishing the prahus in the traditional manner in order to protect the teak. The smell took her back to her lost childhood, and the very faint memory of her parents’ own prahu; the feeling overwhelmed her, and tears tracked down her cheeks.
“What is this prahu’s name?” she said, looking sideways at Margaret. “I can’t read it.”
“Its name is Jiam. That means ‘Time’ in Indonesian.”
Big Mole realised that she couldn’t hide her secrets any longer. “Can we go somewhere to talk and come back later?” she asked, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand.
“Sure,” Margaret said, aware of Big Mole’s distress. “There is a quiet café ten minutes from here, at Change Alley. We can leave the van here and walk.”
“When do you think they will be sailing away?” Big Mole asked, noticing that there was no cargo activity on board the Jiam.
Two Makassar sailors were splicing the eyes of their mooring ropes on the Jiam’s deck. “I will ask them,” Margaret replied, and walked up the gangway. She talked back and forth with the older sailor in Makassarese—who sported a thick moustache and wore a black headband, and looked surprised at Margaret’s ability to speak fluently in his native tongue—then she bowed slightly as a matter of respect and stepped back down to the wharf.
“Tomorrow afternoon, he says,” Margaret said. “No worries, they will still be here when we come back. Come, let’s go get that coffee.”
At the café, Big Mole told Margaret about how the distinctive smell of the Makassar prahu had triggered flashbacks of her childhood. Then she told her all about how she had grown up rough on the streets of Chinatown after the Japanese Occupation, then opened the pet fish shop with her own ingenuity and the money won after Kwang had won the Spider Olympics. She laid her entire life bare, only stopping before the events of the past several months.
“But this is a miracle, Djalima!” Margaret gasped, her hand at her amber beads. “We must tell the skipper of the Jiam about you and your parents. He might have known them, or someone who can point us in the right direction.”
They finished up their coffees and walked back to the wharf. When they arrived, a shirtless, sinewy old man with long, wavy white hair and a thick white moustache was squatting down to talk with the two seamen they had seen earlier.
“That must be the skipper,” Margaret whispered, and led Big Mole up the gangway.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” the skipper said in smooth English. “I am Embi Wijaya, the captain of this vessel. What can I do for you today?” He had the same high cheekbones and striking eyes as Big Mole; might he even be a relative? Big Mole’s heart leapt at the thought.
“Good afternoon, bapak,” Margaret said, respectfully addressing him as “father” in Makassarese, and bowed slightly. “Can we talk privately?” she asked in Malay.
“Come this way,” the old man said and gestured towards the bridge. They stepped through a seashell curtain into the captain’s cabin; on the starboard wall hung a framed certificate, establishing that the Jiam had been first launched in 1884. That meant the vessel was seventy-five years old.
“Is this your prahu, bapak?” Margaret asked the old skipper.
“As a matter of fact, no,” he said. “It belongs to my older brother’s daughter.”
“Was your niece married, and did she have any children?”
“Yes, she had a husband, but he died from bomb shrapnel at the Singapore waterfront during the Japanese Occupation. They had a daughter, but got separated from her in all the confusion; after almost a year of searching, my niece returned to Makassar, fearing the worst. But I am still hoping to find her here in Singapore. She should be around twenty years old now, and has a large mole below her left eye.”
Big Mole burst into tears, and Margaret caught her before she collapsed to the floor. When she was able to recover a bit, she told the skipper—her granduncle!—about how her mole had been removed years earlier. They stared at each other for several long moments, both lost for words, and then the skipper reached forward and Big Mole embraced him in a hug and a fresh batch of tears.
“Your mother is called Fatimah,” the old skipper whispered in her ear. “She named you Sukawati.”
“This is unbelievable!” Margaret said and dabbed at her own eyes. “I am so happy for you! Although I suppose I can no longer call you Djalima.” She turned to the skipper. “Bapak, you must come for a reunion dinner at my place tonight. I’m sure my husband and daughter would love to meet you.”
“How can I say no to that?” the old skipper said and laughed. Big Mole found she could still not speak, so she continued to hang onto her relative, afraid he might disappear if she let go.
“I have been fascinated by Makassar prahus ever since I was a schoolgirl in Sulawesi,” Margaret was saying. “My husband and I intend to build our own prahu and sail around all the islands in the archipelago.”
“It will take some time to do so,” he said. “Come and sail with me on the Jiam before you do that. I can show you unknown
parts of Indonesia that few people have seen.”
“That would be a dream come true! When could we do it?”
“That’s up to you,” he replied and winked down at Big Mole. “We are sailing back to Makassar tomorrow, Sukawati. Do you think you might want to come with us?”
“Oh! Yes, please! But, wait, can I go without a passport?”
“Ah, no, you can’t,” he said with a tight smile. “I forgot all about that. How long would it take for you to get one?”
“I have no idea.”
“It usually takes three months,” Margaret said, “unless you have somebody working inside the passport office to speed up the process. But tomorrow—sadly, that’s impossible.”
“Three months is nothing,” the old skipper said, a twinkle in his eyes. “I will come back with your mother in three months, Sukawati. Now that I have found you, I’m going to stop carrying cargo for the agents in Jakarta. I can show you how to read the waves and the wind.”
Just then, the voices of the two other Makassar sailors on deck could be heard. They were singing and their hands were slapping a beat on their thighs:
My boat is my home
My home is everywhere
All my women are there
Embi Wijaya said to Big Mole: “They are your cousins, Sukawati.”
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For three months, Big Mole—Sukawati, she had to start thinking of herself as Sukawati—continued modelling for Jade, and increased the savings in her bank account. As she stood on the wharf on the appointed day for the return of the Jiam, her new passport resting in the long pocket of her batik frock, she could barely contain her excitement at seeing her mother for the first time in seventeen years. She couldn’t wait to tell Fatimah about her dream of captaining her own prahu, and teaming up with Margaret and her husband to search for artefacts in the archipelago, maybe even finding sunken ships filled with Chinese pottery. She had already decided to give her prahu the name Kembali, which was Indonesian for “Come Back”.
She caught her breath as those familiar triangular sails hove into view. She was ready.
About the Author
Born in Singapore in 1947 in Bukit Ho Swee, then a slum village in Singapore, Ming Cher was one of seven children. He left school at thirteen and became a street drifter in the manner of the characters in his debut novel, Spider Boys. First published by Penguin New Zealand and William Morrow in 1995, the critically acclaimed book was one of the first Singapore novels released by major publishing houses overseas, and is notable for its inventive use of colloquial Singapore English. It was republished in grammatical Standard English by Epigram Books as part of the Singapore Classics series in 2012.
The 1995 recipient of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship, Ming Cher has also worked as a construction supervisor on a hospital project in South Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War, a merchant seaman, and an importer and retailer of Indonesian goods. He has lived in New Zealand since 1977.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks must go to publisher Edmund Wee for agreeing to publish Big Mole, a sequel twenty years in the making, and to editor Jason Erik Lundberg for honing and shaping my vision into the book in your hands. Also to Sheri Goh, Lee Li Ying and Gwee Li Sui for copyediting and proofreading assistance. Any historical or factual mistakes are my own.
Additional thanks to my agent Michael Gifkins, who was instrumental in getting my first book Spider Boys published; Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency (California), who took it to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1993; and William Schwalbe, who published it for William Morrow in 1995.
ALSO BY MING CHER
Fiction
Spider Boys
SPIDER BOYS
BY MING CHER
In the 1950s, the street boys of Singapore caught and bet on their wrestling spiders, gaining not only money but also power and prestige as they won. Backgrounded against age-old vices, superstitions, urban legends, as well as a dangerous world of youth gangs and a tumultuous period in Singapore’s history, Spider Boys is a moving and sensual story that draws the reader into turning its pages as if by a beguiling, hypnotic force, alternating arousing and repelling him. This edition has been re-edited to not only retain the flavour of colloquial Singapore English in the dialogue, but also improve the accessibility of the novel for all readers by rendering the narrative into grammatical Standard English.
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Format: Paperback, 130 x 200mm, 272 pages
ISBN: 978-981-07-2687-4
Price: SGD $17.90
Available online at: shop.epigrambooks.sg