by Lees, Julian
‘‘See?’’ said Sum Sum, stifling a laugh. ‘‘Just like biting into a sour guava, no? Now, when you’re ready, rub some of this lemongrass oil on your skin, lah, before the mosquitoes find you.’’
When Lu See’s vision cleared, she stared into the hushed gloom within the rainforest. Bats pinged in and out of the darkness. Downriver she could make out a cloistered village perched on the banks of the Juru – row after row of cane longhouses held up by stilts on the water’s edge, rising eight to ten feet above the jungle floor. Their broad-leaved thatch roofs looked frayed from the recent great storms. Each home had a raised verandah in front where children sat on mats eating rice from banana leafs. Feet dangling, they all waved at the approaching vessel. Lu See and Sum Sum waved back.
A little while later, with nearly all of the sun seeping out from the sky and the fireflies beginning to show, there came a squawking high-pitched cry from one of the crew. The thick rope was straining at the capstan. And that’s when she saw it, both hook and mutton in its maw. The long snout slicing through the water, the pale cresting underbelly, the sinuous tail; interlocking teeth snatched and twisted, churning the spinach-green water into a milky froth. The crocodile’s thick globular eyes seemed to stare at her for an instant, following her, and then, with the boat listing precariously, it was lifted off the surface of the water and hauled aboard.
She watched the men, all dark faces and hard seafaring hands, gather quickly around in a huddle, each carrying a club or a sharpened parang. The seven-foot crocodile hissed. Someone lit a lantern and held it up on the end of a pole as the men swung their weapons. The huge muscular tail thrashed and thumped the deck and soon the blood sludge was being smeared across the deck by bare human feet. With a fierce thrust one of the machetes pierced the crinkled flesh between the animal’s eyes. Black blood spewed. Then, like a piece of heavy driftwood, the crocodile went still.
The crewmen hacked away, whooping and shouting, separating reptilian head from body. Their sarongs became streaked with red. Lu See, white-faced, felt compelled to watch. The commotion shook the bulbuls from the trees and set off a cacophony of squabbling, until all of a sudden there was another shout, more panicked than the ones before. And the men stopped. One or two of them dropped their tools.
‘‘What’s happening?’’ said Lu See. ‘‘What have they seen?’’
Sum Sum crept along the starboard railing and listened to the salvo of chatter and stop-start quarrelling. She saw the front feet of the reptile, black and murky and pointed with no webbing between the toes. She snatched a look at its hind leg – webbed and amphibious like the horror hands in the wax museums. ‘‘They’re saying that the thing was missing a limb. They are saying that to catch a river dragon with only three legs is a curse. The fourth leg will appear in your dreams and snatch away your firstborn child.’’
‘‘Do you think it’s true?’’
‘‘How in Dharmakaya heaven would I know? I grew up in the buckwheat fields of Lhasa.’’
‘‘And the way you’re dressed it looks like you still work in one.’’ Lu See flicked the catches of one of the eel skin bags. ‘‘Here,’’ she said pressing a folded clutch of blue cotton into Sum Sum’s hands.
‘‘What’s this?’’
‘‘What do you think it is, pumpkin-head? It’s a sundress.’’
‘‘What do you want me to do with it?’’
‘‘I want you to wear it, of course.’’
Sum Sum positioned her hands firmly on her hips and looked down at her white amah’s tunic. ‘‘Why?’’
‘‘Because we’ve run away from home and my mother’s going to try and track us down. We sail first thing tomorrow.’’
‘‘I bet this is what it feels like when you’ve robbed a bank.’’
‘‘I’ve booked our tickets on the Jutlandia under an assumed name but Father and Third-uncle Big Jowl will be asking round for a young Chinese woman and her pumpkin-headed maid.’’
‘‘An assumed name? Ayo, damn-powerful exciting, lah! What did you call yourself?’’
‘‘Lucy Apricot.’’
‘‘Crazy crackpot idea. Going to England is like fairy tale story. I love it!’’
‘‘I know. And if you wear this we’ll be less conspicuous. Big Jowl Uncle will never find us.’’
‘‘In which case, maybe you give me some of your jewellery too? How about the jade earrings with the tigers, lah. I should wear those as well, no?’’
‘‘Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t just leave you behind.’’ Lu See looked out into the stillness and shook her head slowly.
The tongkang drifted. Everything around them grew still. A forest bird shrieked.
Sum Sum gave a little shudder. ‘‘I’m scared of the jungle at night. Scared of the Pontianak.’’ She meant the vampire of Malay folklore.
‘‘Nonsense, there’s no such thing.’’
‘‘Its eyeballs roll up into its head.’’
‘‘Quiet, will you?’’
Lu See stood beside the metal railings, gripping them. She listened to the night fall in around her and heard in her head the juvenile refrain her brothers would sing when she lay in her mother’s bed sick with the flu: Naughty girl, naughty girl pretending to be sick, Big Jowl uncle is coming with his stick.
And she knew, instinctively, that he was already hot on her trail.
2
Following the early morning rains, the sun threw its heat slantwise over Penang port; an unyielding tropical blanket that tore the moisture from your skin like a furnace. All along the dock the Lascars sat on their haunches, chewing bhang and sucking on hand-rolled bidis to get them going, blowing the smoke downwind. And whilst the dogs barked and the roosters crowed, hawkers set up their stalls by the quay from one end of Chulia Street to the other, busily grilling stingrays and skewering satays over charcoal and cracking eggs to make oyster omelettes on cast-iron woks. Tamil, Hokkien, Bahasa, pidgin English and Cantonese pinged back and forth like flies in the tall grass.
Standing on the deck of the MS Jutlandia where the life rafts were stowed, Lu See had long ago resolved to sketch every detail of her crossing. She knew Sum Sum would be elsewhere on ship snapping photographs with the Kodak Retina, but it didn’t stop her. This, she decided, was a journey of a lifetime, especially for a girl who’d never ventured beyond the Straits of Malacca. She unclipped a pencil from her sketchbook and began folding back pages, scribbling notes and making quick outline observations – every tint of cloud and sea shimmer, each scent whether it was perfumed or putrid, every sound from the piston blast of the ship’s horn to the calls of the Mullah citing his morning prayers. Hastily she outlined a sketch of a linen-suited European, sporting a sola topi, having his shoes blackened by a bald-headed Malay.
Jim-dandy, she said to herself, adopting an American expression she’d heard at the movies, everything’s all jim-dandy now. Thrilled at the prospect of flight, a sense of liberation coursed through her. She often marvelled at what she was like before she knew Adrian, how her life had lacked adventure and meaning, how she’d lived so long without passion.
She was seventeen when she met him at the New Year’s Dance at the Selangor Club. Dressed in white tie and tails, he approached her about twenty minutes after the Royal toasts with a ceramic bowl of dried fruit in his hand. The band started playing a Count Basie number. ‘‘Did you hear the story about the man who drowned in a bowl of dried fruit? A strong currant dragged him in. Fancy a raisin?’’ he asked, proffering the bowl. She shook her head. ‘‘What about a date then?’’
‘‘That’s one of the worst chat-up lines I’ve ever heard.’’
‘‘Lime sorry, but I couldn’t give a fig.’’
He was five years her senior and attached to the Royal Anthropological Institute, one of the few Chinese in their employ. ‘‘I’ve been studying the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, spent the last seven weeks in the forests of Kuching. Most of the women I meet walk around in nothing but a grass skirt.’’ He looked
her up and down and grinned. ‘‘My name’s Adrian. Adrian Woo.’’
‘‘I know who you are, Number One Son Woo. We’re not meant to talk to each other.’’
Lu See noticed that he had big, strong hands and there was this lustrous timbre to his voice. ‘‘So as an anthropologist I suppose you use your hands to dig up old bones and bits of broken crockery.’’
‘‘That’s more an archaeologist’s job. I’m more of a voyeur.’’
‘‘Sounds …’’
‘‘Naughty?’’
‘‘A little. So, Adrian Woo, as an anthropologist, can you tell me one fascinating fact about the rain forest?’’
‘‘Hmm, well let me see.’’ He thought for a second. ‘‘How about this: the male proboscis monkey can maintain an erection for over twenty-four hours.’’
Smiling, ‘‘Okay, I’ll grant you that that is quite interesting.’’
‘‘Only quite?’’
‘‘Only quite.’’
‘‘You’re hard to satisfy.’’
She bit her lip. ‘‘Not always.’’
‘‘Well, I like a challenge.’’
The way he spoke to her, so directly and openly, was irresistible. But it was when he buffed her dancing shoes that she fell for him.
‘‘Look,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re all muddy from the rain.’’
He sat her down, propped her feet on his lap and polished them with his handkerchief, using champagne froth to get the proper sheen. Watching his fingers make little circles, she felt something ignite in her chest like a bush fire. She wanted to lose herself in him, surrender to his wild, reckless, free spirit.
Later, on the drive home, her mother said. ‘‘Cheee-cheee-cheee. Why were you speaking so long to that Woo boy, hnn? What were you thinking, you thinking he wants to steal you away, is it? Have nice Teoh girl like you in his love hut shack in Borneo jungle, hnn?’’
‘‘Isn’t it time that this stupid Woo-Teoh feud ended?’’
‘‘Please,’’ her father, C. M. Teoh, said. ‘‘Let’s not talk about this now.’’ He slewed his eyes toward the chauffeur. ‘‘Lu See was only making polite conversation with him. Whole world knows she’s promised to somebody else.’’
Indeed, her parents had entered into a marriage agreement with the Chow family as long ago as 1930, promised to a boy at the age of thirteen; a young man with money and connections called Cheam Chow. They’d set an auspicious date for the end of May. And every weekend or so her mother said she should start preparing the wedding plans. There was so much to do. Even the dress was fitted months in advance: after dinner Lu See would stand on top of the tea table with her arms held out to her sides as the tailor took her measurements and pulled the silk material tightly to the small of her back. ‘‘You no become pig-blubber-fatty bom bom now, ok?’’ the tailor warned. ‘‘Otherwhy you make me look bad on wedding day when people say you spilling out everywhere and everyone say tailor Pang made a dress for Terengganu elephant.’’
‘‘I won’t go through with this, Mother!’’ Lu See hissed as tailor Pang went to gather some more pins from his storeroom. ‘‘Forcing me to marry this way. It’s barbaric and outdated.’’
‘‘I don’t care what you’re thinking.’’
‘‘You know damn well I don’t want to marry him.’’
‘‘You do as your father says.’’
‘‘Ah-Ba never talks things through with me. I can never reason with him.’’
‘‘What, you don’t want to bring wealth to our family, hnn? The day you join with the Chow family will be a proud day for us all.’’
‘‘I’m stagnating here. I have to take control of my life.’’
‘‘Cha!’’
‘‘I need intellectual freedom. I’m going to be a modern woman and enrol as a student at Cambridge.’’
‘‘Cambeech University? Don’t be silly.’’
‘‘I’m being serious.’’
‘‘This is because of Second-aunty Doris, is it? Filling your head with nonsense.’’
‘‘It’s not nonsense.’’
‘‘How many Chinese you think they take?’’
‘‘Adrian Woo for one – ’’
‘‘And how many female Chinese, hnn? Cambeech University indeed … what next, you want to raise the Titanic, is it?’’
‘‘Abdul Rahman, the son of the Sultan of Kedah, was at Cambridge.’’
‘‘What, you think you’re daughter of a sultan now, is it?’’
‘‘And the poetess Sarojini Naidu went to Girton.’’
‘‘I never heard of her.’’
‘‘She was the first woman ever to be elected President of the Indian National Congress. And then there’s this fellow Nehru, the Indian statesman, he went to Trinity.’’
‘‘Look, you can do what you want after you are married.’’
‘‘You should be helping me to foster my talent not squander it. The only person in this family who appreciates my academic record is Second-aunty Doris.’’
‘‘Cha! Don’t mention that woman’s name! Always she encourage your foolish academic pretensions.’’
‘‘It’s true.’’
‘‘The thing is to find a good husband first. Afterwards you can go join the French Foreign Legion for all I care. You marry Chow Cheam, no more talk.’’
‘‘I won’t do it!’’
Her father entered the room. ‘‘What is all this commotion?’’
‘‘I refuse to marry him, Ah-Ba!’’
‘‘You do as you are told.’’
‘‘If you won’t listen to me I’ll be forced to do something drastic.’’
Irked, his face darkened. ‘‘Your heart is young and impetuous. Go to sleep. In the morning you will realise how rash your words are. By the morning your soul will know the truth.’’
But in her soul Lu See knew that day would never come. She knew she would never marry the One-eyed Giant.
Turning to the front of her sketchbook her gaze fell on a square of newsprint that had been glued to the endpapers. Five months ago, days before his return to Cambridge, she’d been photographed with Adrian at the Swettenham Ball. The picture of them together appeared in the society pages of the Malay Mail. Their respective parents had been livid. As if in prayer she would piously bend over the hazy image and study his face, thinking how lucky she was. He was everything she wanted: intelligent, funny, fluent in three languages and so handsome that his smile lit up the darkest room.
Instinctively, she knew he was somebody to admire; a person with strong political beliefs; someone who was as adept at talking to the old dowagers at ambassadorial parties as he was to Communist Party leaders. He had the authority and dignity that other men seemed to look for. And now, as he studied for a doctorate at Jesus College, Cambridge, he commanded respect wherever he went. Five weeks, she assured herself, five weeks before I see him again. Giddy with expectation she kissed the picture lightly and pressed the book to her chest.
‘‘You know he spends far too much time on his hair, don’t you?’’ said Sum Sum, her cloth shoes making shlip-shlap noises on the deck.
Lu See sighed and shook her head.
‘‘I’m sure he keeps a hairbrush in his back pocket, lah.’’
‘‘Shouldn’t you be unpacking or something?’’
‘‘Cannot, lah. The cabin boy says he will show us to our room after the boat has launched.’’
Minutes later a thin glaze of sea spray salted Lu See’s lips. Some people tossed fragrant rice into the water, others threw flowers, or paper streamers, or bits of coconut. Amongst the cries of excitement, she watched the ship loose its moorings, watched the backwash leave the port of Penang in its wake as the tug pulled the ship out of the harbour.
And that was when she saw Uncle Big Jowl, pushing through the crowd of coolies on the dock. He was shouting and waving a stick in the air. The coolies turned from their work to gawp at him; some put down their sweat-towels and gunnysacks full of spice and pepper
s. Uncle Big Jowl shouted at the Jutlandia as it crept away, shouted at it to stop, his face pulled tight like a drawstring bag, flesh bulging under his shirt like mattress stuffing. He had spotted her. A fist inside Lu See clenched. She watched him smash his cane against the wooden jetty in anger, splintering it into matchwood. His face grew smaller and smaller as the ship pulled away. The fist inside her relaxed, yet she kept thinking that a hole had now formed in her middle.
Everything – the shophouses, the colonial two-storey buildings, the Indian women in yellow saris, the Muslim men in their songkok skullcaps, the Chinese children playing with paper lanterns, Uncle Big Jowl – became tiny grey specks, washed into the sea. That’s me right now, she thought, – unmoored and free. No turning back. No regrets. Hungry for adventure. She had never rebelled against anything before: this was the turning point in her life. She had crossed the Rubicon.
Having carried the guilt around in her chest for days like an undigested egg, she now felt an indisputable freedom taking hold, a self-reliance that hadn’t been there before. Her heart felt lighter, her eyes brighter; satisfaction at having defied her family stole over her.
She returned to her sketchbook and tore out a page from its middle. It was a pencil drawing she’d done weeks before of her home, Tamarind Hill. Turning away from the wind, she pulled a matchbox from her pocket and set the sketch alight.
She felt like a bird in the open sky.
Sum Sum removed her black cloth shoes at the threshold, as was the Malay custom. She stood barefoot, breasts squashed into Lu See’s tight blue sundress, feeling the cool sea air slide around her legs. With her tribal toe rings contrasting against the dark carpeting, she assessed the first-class suite. She marvelled at the luxurious sheer sea-green curtains, the marble-topped tables and the vases of pale pink coral.
‘‘Welcome aboard the MS Jutlandia. We will be calling at the Nicobar Islands, Colombo, Bombay, Aden, Tobruk, Lisbon and Felixstowe before heading for our final destination Copenhagen. And if you come this way, Miss Apricot,’’ said the Chinese cabin boy, ‘‘your bedroom adjoins your cousin’s room. Queen beds as requested.’’