by Zen Cho
Ah Ma pointed at a small table at the bottom of the bed, where Jess’s phone lay, along with a couple of containers of food and a note in Mom’s handwriting. Jess scooted down the bed awkwardly and picked up her phone.
She avoided looking at the note. She couldn’t afford to lose focus right now.
“You want to call Ah Yen for what?” said Ah Ma.
Jess was busy searching for the contact in her phone. Ah Ma had to repeat herself before she answered.
“To check she’s at home,” said Jess. “We’ve got to go to Ah Ku’s house first. I’m going to need the idol.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Yew Yen was the only one there to greet Jess when she arrived at Ah Ku’s house.
“Ma and Pa are napping,” she said.
It was the first time they were meeting in real life, not counting any encounters they might have had when Ah Yen hadn’t been able to hold up her head yet. But she was familiar. Less from Facebook, more from an indefinable family resemblance—a something in the shape of her face and her mannerisms that made Jess feel like she had known her for much longer.
It wasn’t clear if Ah Yen was having the same experience of recognizing Jess as family. The two casts and the crutch Jess had appropriated from the hospital proved too much of a distraction. It took a while to get her to stop exclaiming about Jess’s injuries and back onto the topic of how Ah Ku was doing.
He was fine, said Ah Yen. The police hadn’t hurt him. He was tired, but glad to be home.
“Good,” said Jess.
Ah Yen looked worried. “You’re going to do what with the idol?”
Jess had tucked the statuette unceremoniously under one arm—it was the only way she could hold it and her crutch at the same time. Her cousin was starting to look a little dubious about the wisdom of handing it over to her.
“I’m going to bring it back to its proper place,” said Jess.
She didn’t actually know what she was going to do. But she had given the Black Water Sister her sacrifice and more. Not only the blood of the men who had attacked her in the night, but her innocence, her clean hands. Before all of this, she had been a normal person, someone who had never been violent, who hadn’t known what it felt like to wipe another’s blood off her own face.
She was owed something for that loss. She meant to demand it from the god. And if she was going to find the god anywhere, it would be at the garden temple.
Her Grab car was waiting, so she declined Ah Yen’s polite suggestion that she come in and have a drink. But Ah Yen stopped her when she turned to go.
“Nah. Take with you.” Ah Yen held out a yellow cloth with Chinese characters on it, printed in red.
“What is it?”
“It’s a charm,” said Ah Yen. “Put in your pocket, or your bra also can. Important thing is to keep it close. It’ll protect you, if there’s a fight or what. It was blessed by Kuan Kong. Pa gave us all one.”
She told a story about a time Ah Ku had almost been in an accident. “He was waiting by the roadside and suddenly a car swerved and came onto the pavement where he was standing. Lucky thing it missed him! Pa had the charm in his pocket. When he looked at it afterwards, it was torn in half.”
Jess was a little amused, but mostly touched. “Thanks.”
She fingered the charm in her pocket as the car drew up by the hawker center outside the garden temple. The dinner rush hadn’t started yet, so the place was quiet, foreign workers snoozing with their heads down on the tables.
The intolerable heat of late afternoon had subsided, the sun low in the sky. The air was soft, though not yet cool. This was the time when people started getting off work and went to the park or the beach.
The Grab driver opened the door for her and helped with the crutch, but Jess noticed he avoided touching the idol. He looked Malay. But she had learned by now that in this part of the world, being the follower of any given religion didn’t exclude a healthy respect for other gods.
She made sure to tip him in the app before moving on. Best to settle her worldly business now, while she was in control.
Mostly in control. Ah Ma was driving her body, forcing the unwilling muscles to work, the heavy feet to move despite themselves. Jess’s body twanged as she hobbled up the steps to the temple, but the pain was muffled, like the noise of a quarrel drifting over from a neighbor’s house—easy to ignore.
Getting to the top of the steps, emerging into that green space dominated by the bodhi tree, was like entering a dream. Towering over the little shrines, the tree looked monstrous and unlikely, an alien growth from another planet. The vines looked as though they might seize on you if you went among them, coiling and strangling.
Since the boundaries had softened between her and the god, Jess’s vision had sharpened for the things other people couldn’t see. There had been no need for Ah Ma to open her eyes this time. She saw the temple’s habitual occupants with a clarity that was a little unnerving as the sky turned blue with twilight. The spirits drifted around the garden, loitered on the paths, hovered over the plants—but not the bodhi tree. They left that alone.
As before, they paid Jess and Ah Ma little attention, for which Jess was grateful. She only had it in her to deal with one god that day.
“So how?” said Ah Ma. She had been subdued since they left Ah Ku’s house, speaking only in a mutter, as though she was afraid of being overheard by the idol.
“Do you remember where her altar was?” said Jess.
She couldn’t see any trace of the destroyed shrine, but Ah Ma led her without hesitation to the precise crevice among the roots. The vines fell back in place behind them, screening them off from the garden and its gods and spirits.
Ah Ku must have arranged for the tiled base of the altar to be removed. The only sign that it had ever been there was the rectangle of earth it had stood on, bare of the tangled grass and weeds that covered the ground everywhere else.
Wobbling on her good leg, Jess bent and placed the cracked idol on the ground between the roots. It looked small and weirdly vulnerable without the shelter of its shrine.
“Now what?” said Ah Ma. “You want to pray, is it? Like that should have gone to buy joss sticks, fruit all that. You think the god will listen if you don’t give an offering? Gods are like humans. Nothing is for free.”
“She’ll listen,” said Jess.
But as she put her hands together to pray, doubt rippled through her. What was she going to say to the Black Water Sister, if the god even condescended to appear? I gave you what you wanted. You owe me. It sounded less convincing in her head now, with the god’s tree looming over her, than it had in the hospital.
She closed her eyes, trying to put fear away. A deep breath.
“You have to make yourself empty,” said Ah Ma. “So the god can come.”
Jess said, without opening her eyes, “OK.”
Another breath. The sound of air rushing through her nostrils filled her ears, drowning out the murmuring voices of the spirits, the screech of the cicadas and the occasional bird’s cry.
“Must try not to think about anything,” said Ah Ma. “Clear your mind. If you worry about this and that, you won’t be able to focus.”
“Yes, OK, thanks, Ah Ma!”
It took her a little while to rediscover the quiet inside her. She called up the image of the Black Water Sister in her mind—the broad, ordinary face, with its narrow eyes and cautious lack of expression.
Jess hadn’t realized before that the blankness of the god’s face wasn’t a divine characteristic. It was a defense mechanism. In life the god had never been able to afford to be natural, to allow her emotions free rein. She hadn’t lost the habit of guarding herself in death. She was . . .
Like me, thought Jess, surprised. She trembled on the brink of an epiphany, a revelation that might change everything. Power welled up inside her,
like a golden bubble, expanding.
Come to me, she thought, her entire being engaged in the summons. Come now . . .
“Eh, you came back?” said a male voice in Malay.
The cresting wave collapsed on itself, the power dissipating. Jess’s eyes flew open.
She was prepared to curse out the speaker—man, god or ghost as he might be—but when she saw his face, the “fuck off” evaporated off the tip of her tongue. It was the Datuk Kong, the one they’d met at the construction site, who had saved the migrant worker Rijaul.
Concern clouded his face. “Why you came here? You know or not, she is around?” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “Eh, you’re not the same already. What happened to you?”
“So sibuk for what?” snapped Ah Ma. “It’s none of your business. Why don’t you go back to your altar instead of disturbing people? You don’t need to jaga those workers meh?”
“The hantu didn’t bother them since you all came that time,” said the Datuk. “Somebody came and destroyed her altar. Since then she’s been going here and there, looking for the fellow.”
“But she’s here now?” said Jess.
“Don’t talk to him!” said Ah Ma in Hokkien. She lowered her voice. “You didn’t see ah, got all those spirits over there? After they hear you, then how? If they realize what you’re doing, you think you’ll be able to come back to your body? People will sure come and take it!”
“What are you talking about?” Jess started saying, when Ah Ma took her arm.
It wasn’t like the previous times Ah Ma had touched her, or tried. This time she felt real. Her palm was cool and dry against Jess’s flesh.
Looking at Ah Ma’s hand on her arm, Jess saw that the cast on her right hand had vanished. So had the cast on her foot. The ambient background pain that had dogged her since she woke up in the hospital was gone, miraculously sloughed off.
Ah Ma put her hand on Jess’s shoulder, turning her so she could see her own body, crumpled over her crutch. Its face was pale and bruised, its eyes shut in prayer.
“Holy shit!” gasped Jess. Her body stayed still; the lips didn’t move. She glanced at Ah Ma and the Datuk, panicked. “How do I get back in? I—what is that?”
Wisps of dark mist rose from the idol of the Black Water Sister, nestled in the crook of the roots. As Jess watched, the wisps came faster and thicker, till the statuette was shrouded in billowing smoke. The smoke solidified, coalescing into the form of a woman.
The Black Water Sister stood by her statue, looking down at Jess’s praying body. The five marks of the god’s fingerprints could be seen on the pale nape of Jess’s neck, red and inflamed.
It was weird. Even though Jess was in spirit form, her terror felt as physical as ever, an acid roiling in her stomach.
But she couldn’t run now. This was what she had come for.
“Sister,” she said shakily.
The Black Water Sister turned.
“I gave you your sacrifice,” said Jess. “Will you listen to me now?”
The god held Jess’s eyes for a long moment. She smiled, deliberately.
Then she turned and ran.
“Shit!” Jess started off after the god. But there was her body, kneeling undefended among all these spirits . . .
She paused. “Could somebody really steal my body?” she said to Ah Ma.
“You go,” said Ah Ma. “I’ll stay here and jaga.”
“No, you go with the girl,” said the Datuk Kong. “I will watch her body, make sure nobody enters.”
They stared at him. The Datuk Kong said, “I live in Penang so long, you think I cannot understand Hokkien? That time I was fighting this hantu, protecting my devotees, you tried to help.
“You were useless,” he added. “But Datuk can see your intentions are pure. Don’t worry about your body. I won’t let anybody kacau. Afterwards, if you are free, maybe you can make some offering to me.”
“What offering you want?” said Ah Ma.
“Nasi dalca with mutton kurma and kerabu kacang botol,” said the Datuk Kong promptly. “Can find at Pak Din’s stall at Jalan Jelutong. Just put in Waze. And one air bandung.” A look of yearning crossed his face. “Long time since I’ve had air bandung!”
Ah Ma frowned. “Mutton also want? You think this girl has a lot of money ah? Nasi should be enough already—”
“It’s a deal,” said Jess. “Come on, Ah Ma.”
They saw the god as they crossed the bridge over the terrapin pool, the muddy water reflecting the darkening sky overhead. The god stood under the zinc roofing where Ah Ku had regaled Jess with chrysanthemum tea the first time she’d come to the temple. She had her back to them, but as Jess approached, she turned and opened her arms.
She was smiling, still. It was the first real expression Jess had ever seen on that face, and it was mean as hell. Did Jess want to challenge her? the smile said. Then she was going to get what was coming to her.
Jess pulled back, trying to slow her pace. But the god drew her like an iron filing to a magnet. An irresistible momentum bore her on, while behind her Ah Ma shouted fruitlessly, “Stop, stop!” She rushed into the Black Water Sister’s arms and darkness overtook her.
* * *
• • •
MOM AND DAD were sitting together in Kor Kor’s living room, hunched over a phone.
“What’s up? You guys broke Facebook again?” said Jess. She found it amazing how bad her parents were at phones, given they weren’t that old.
But when they turned and she saw their faces, she knew something terrible had happened. Her heart went cold inside her.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “What did the doctor say?” The cancer had come back, she knew it. She’d known they weren’t really safe.
But that couldn’t be it, because the cancer had never gone away. For a moment she’d thought Dad was in remission. Where had that idea come from?
Her head felt weirdly foggy, her thoughts confused. The back of her neck twinged. She reached back to touch it, but her fingers flinched away. The skin there felt raw and tender.
Dad was sick, she told herself. How could she have forgotten? That was why he looked so shitty, wearing the hat he’d worn all the time when he was going through chemo because he was self-conscious about his hair loss despite his dad jokes about looking like the Rock. It was too hot in Malaysia for that hat. She should get him a cap or something. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
Then she saw what her parents were looking at and forgot all about hats.
It was a photo of her, one she’d never seen before. She was with Sharanya, and it was unmistakable what they were doing.
Shame crashed over her like a wave, stealing her breath. For a moment she couldn’t speak, but she had to, she had to take that look off their faces—
“It’s not—” Me, she wanted to say, but it would have sounded ridiculous, because it was so obviously her. “Where did you get that from?”
Mom got up. There were tears in her eyes, and her nose was already red. She came toward Jess, looking soft and sad.
When Mom looked like this, she hugged Jess and sobbed on her shoulder. It had happened plenty of times since Dad lost his job and got sick. Jess braced herself for it, but she needed to have braced herself a lot more, because what happened was Mom hauled off and slapped her.
Jess put a hand to her stinging cheek, shocked.
“How can you do this kind of thing when Dad is so sick?” said Mom.
“I’m not,” Jess protested. That was true, she thought, or at least kind of true—close enough to the truth to count. She hadn’t seen Sharanya in months, and they’d barely even sexted in all that time. It turned out having a sick father and going through a familial financial crisis was a major libido killer, who knew?
Sharanya had dumped her now anyway. That memory was another nasty s
hock, like having freezing water dumped over her.
“We’re not even together anymore,” said Jess. “Mom—Mom, listen to me!”
Mom had turned away, gone back to Dad’s side and burst into tears.
“Enough, enough already,” said Dad, but it wasn’t clear which of them he meant.
Mom kept talking, an unstoppable stream of words coursing from her. “So lose face! You all young people think of yourself only. Even if you have no shame, you don’t know how to think of your mother and father ah?”
“But nobody knows,” said Jess, by which she meant nobody important. She’d been careful to keep the relationship a secret from anybody who might have passed messages back to her parents’ circles. Not even all her friends knew.
“Kor Kor sent us the photo,” said Mom. “Now she wants us to move out. Said she doesn’t want her family to be exposed to this kind of lifestyle. Cannot blame her also.”
Jess felt like she was going crazy. Nothing anyone was saying made sense. “My lifestyle? You mean being an unemployed shut-in with no friends?”
The levity was to distract her from the wound of Kor Kor’s rejection. She’d never asked herself what Kor Kor would think of her being gay. All of that lay in an unknown country, beyond anywhere she had ever planned to travel.
“Look, that’s all over now,” said Jess. “I’m done with that part of my life. I’m looking after you guys now. That’s why I came back to Malaysia with you.”
“Better if you didn’t come back. Better if you stayed in US,” said Mom. “Must be I did something bad in my past life. I didn’t bring you up properly. It’s my fault.”
“No lah,” said Dad wearily.
“It’s our fault,” Mom insisted. “See lah! Go to US some more! Min was exposed to Western lifestyle too young. If we stayed in Malaysia, let her grow up here, this won’t happen.”
Dad said, “We went to try to improve Min’s life. Give her a better future. Who knew it’ll turn out like that?”