House of Trembling Leaves, The

by Lees, Julian

  ‘‘It’s coming, dear, never yew worry.’’ Mrs Slackford, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles balanced on the end of her nose, adjusted her pinny and positioned her elbows between Sum Sum’s legs, mouthing encouragement. Spoon clamped between teeth, Sum Sum bit down and arched her back as another overwhelming contraction wrung her insides.

  ‘‘Big shove, dear,’’ ordered Mrs Slackford.

  Push! Aiyo Sami! Push! And don’t cry out otherwise you’ll attract evil spirits. She shrieked with pain.

  ‘‘That’s it, dear, let it all out. Think of yer husband and how proud he’ll be. Mr Aziz, isn’t it?’’

  She thought of the man responsible for her condition and let out another shriek. I’m going to kill you, for doing this to me. Kill you.

  With the mad staring eyes of an out-of-control downhill skier Sum Sum pushed. After a while some instinct led her to attempt labour in a squat, gripping the bedpost for support and allow gravity to do its job.

  The muscles in her face knotted.

  If I ever get my hands on you! Sum Sum clenched her teeth and strained.

  Sum Sum felt the baby shift inside of her, tunnelling its way through the birth canal. The room began to swirl with colours. She bit hard on the spoon and squeezed again. A tearing agony ripped through her.

  ‘‘Oh, look!’’ exclaimed Mrs Slackford. ‘‘Oi think it’s on its way.’’

  Sum Sum, feeling as though her insides were being shredded to make confetti, gripped the bedpost and pushed even harder.

  The head crowned.

  ‘‘Am I too late? How is she?’’ It was Lu See, entering the room and removing her overcoat. ‘‘I sensed something. I had to come over.’’

  ‘‘Oi see it,’’ cried Mrs Slackford as she eased her hands over Sum Sum’s stomach and pressed. ‘‘Oi see the shoulders now! Here it comes.’’ A wrinkled creature with gummed bluey-pink skin slipped out. Seconds later the placenta and fetal membranes followed in a warm gush. Mrs Slackford held the newborn by the legs and slapped its little bottom. Shocked by the light, it gave off a spluttering, bilious cry as its tiny hands tried to snatch away the glare.

  Lu See gave a yelp of delight and helped with the towels.

  ‘‘A darling little girl,’’ Mrs Slackford said, tying the umbilical cord before severing it. ‘‘Have yew a name for her?’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ Sum Sum replied. ‘‘Her name will be Mabel.’’

  Part Three

  August 1957

  1

  The jungle at night was menacing. It was dense and hulking and smelled of rotting vegetation. Mabel kept her gaze transfixed on the swaying blackness of the thicketed interior; purposeful; alert; right eye peering down the barrel, the other clamped shut; finger feathering the trigger. There had been activity up ahead, she’d been sure of it. Straining, she stared beyond the tangle of vines dangling from the tall mass of trees.

  There was sound all around her. Somebody had once told her that the jungle was quiet at night. They were dead wrong. The tree frogs were like a brass band; the cicadas the percussions.

  She made a low whistle by fizzing air through her front teeth and Bong, five yards to her left, whistled back. His spectacles caught a glint of moonlight. Once more her finger feathered the rifle trigger. Scribbles of movement seemed to bend against the forest floor. Mabel waited, feeling the perspiration trail down her forehead. The salt stung her eyes. The topsoil felt damp on her elbows. All about her snarls of tubers and rootstock chafed the flesh of her body.

  Somewhere out there leaves skittered along the scrub and trees creaked. The sounds of tree frogs piped louder. Little explosions of noise amplified a hundredfold in the dark. Then, in the near distance, a branch snapped. Craning her neck, immediately Mabel’s gaze snagged on a small hunched figure – a ball of grey against the black backdrop, like the contours of a man moving on all fours across the ground. She wanted to shout Bong’s name aloud; instead she forced another stream of air through her teeth. Breath control, she said to herself. She was peering through the rifle sight aligning her target. Her finger curled itself tighter around the trigger. She mouthed a whispered prayer. Muscles began to twitch along her cheek. She inhaled lightly and held her breath.

  The night drew in closer. Time folded in on itself.

  Suddenly, out of the mouth of the dark clearing, a bearded pig came shuffling and snorting into the open. Snout to the ground, it was scavenging for discarded fruit; bits of rambutan and mangosteen tossed out by the monkeys.

  Thankful, Mabel exhaled and lowered the gun. Her neck muscles felt like sprung coils. Although she carried a weapon, Mabel was in fact the company medic; she had never fired her gun in anger. The thought of maiming or killing somebody appalled her. Rolling on to her back, her eyes drifted towards Bong. She made out the metal rims of his round glasses. The glint of ivory betrayed his beleaguered smile.

  She’d been asleep in the wet, dark place, in a basha, a temporary shelter made of attap, where toadstools grew and gibbon excrement peppered the overhanging leaves, when Bong had roused her, shaking her shoulder. She’d slept for no longer than an hour but already her clothes were damp with mist. He’d heard a rustling in the trees, he said. Earlier they’d been tipped off by local tribesmen that the Security Forces were near. The entire camp had been put on high alert. Along the perimeter they’d set up man-traps and spring snares out of vine, wire and supple willow trees.

  It was another three hours until dawn.

  All around her was raw nature – leaping, crawling, slithering, flapping. None of which Mabel could see. Spiders scuttled across her hands. Mosquitoes buzzed her ears. Each time she nodded off a fly or stinging bug would land on her and creep across her mouth, waking her with a jolt. The jungle, where everything was food for something else, had nibbled at her for months; now it threatened to eat her alive. She began to dream of mutton rendang washed down with iced lemonade, soft pillows made of Indochine cotton, the easy feel of toilet paper on her skin, the simple delights of clean, cool water in her hair. It was at moments like these that she wanted to return home.

  With daybreak came the mass choir of voices. A troop of gibbons sang high up in the trees, repelling their infringing rivals. This was quickly followed by an orangutan’s rich baritone.

  Mabel washed in the yellow river, her bathing sarong wound under her armpits. She was a bag of bones and had lost her natural stockiness yet she still went about her business with a muscular air. Sharp collarbones protruding, there were insect bites all over her arms and legs. She cupped her hands and scooped water on to her throat. The water clawed at the inflamed parts of her unsoaped skin. Looking up, she saw a sprawling chalky sky, dawn light shimmering at the jungle’s edge, the world still thick with shadow. Two kingfishers were flying overhead. A hundred yards upriver, crab-eating macaques were splashing in the shallows, noisily celebrating the capture of her hand mirror from her bag some time in the night.

  Pinching her nose, Mabel submerged her head under the cool, muddy water. Her dark hair flowed about her like a cloud of ink; she ran her fingers through to work out the tangles and pick out bits of leaves and earth.

  The day had started with roll call at 6.45 a.m. Earlier, Bong, their unit commander, had gone around poking the sleeping with a stick to wake them; prodding them as he would an injured, weary horse to see if it might flinch. Next, together with her band of communist insurgents, Mabel breakfasted on fresh water prawns and arak. Dressed in rubber boots, khaki uniform and peaked cap with a red star, the guerrillas then conducted an hour of weapons training and drill. Afterwards, some of the men kicked a small rattan ball about in an impromptu game of sepak raga. Others lounged on string beds, hidden behind palls of woodsmoke. A few sat under trees, dozing, hands propped on cheeks.

  Being a mobile unit, they had erected a temporary shelter. Shacks were crafted from bamboo, planks and beams held together with coir and coconut-husk fibre, palm fronds were spread across everything to hide them from enemy planes. When they deca
mped, drinking water was strapped to shoulder blades in stoneware jars. Ceramic bowls and metal cooking pots were held in rice-straw bales to prevent them knocking against each other during transport through the jungle.

  As soon as everyone was ready to move out, Bong called them to form a large circle. They were a ragged crew of underfed, filthy irregulars, pocked with scabs and scars and gunshot lacerations. As the medical officer, Mabel could almost hear the scuttling of lice in the seams of their clothing. She stood at the front, amongst the elongated shadows, doing up her hair with wooden pins. A hunter’s green medic’s bag was hitched across her back, a Chinese-made rifle hung from her shoulder. She wiped the perspiration from her brow with her sleeve. Her hair was damp with sweat. The heat was already cutting into her skin.

  Bespectacled and well-spoken, Bong started off by handing out the monthly allowance per man of M$26, raised by extorting villagers, then proceeded with a pep talk.

  ‘‘Great social change,’’ he began, putting his Sten gun down and adjusting his round glasses, ‘‘such as the abolishment of slavery, the end of colonial rule, the overthrowing of capitalism, the striving towards a higher social order, all start with public awareness. It was us, the MNLA, who first advocated the end of British rule. It was us who formed the trade unions in Selangor. The people out there in the kampongs’’ – he pointed beyond the jungle, puffing out his chest – ‘‘are all behind us. Soon they will all rise up against the white running dogs. Remember we are freedom fighters, not rebels! Bolshevik Warriors, fulfill your duties to the last. Long live Mao Zedong! Long live the Malay Communist Party!’’

  He touched his spectacles once again, leaving rifle grease on the lenses. He removed them and wiped them with the end of his sleeve.

  Behind him, birds cawed and something in the distance screeched. Suddenly, a huge palm tree frond dropped from the sky and came crashing down on to the ground. ‘‘Also remember,’’ he added, raising a hand and drawing a finger across his throat. ‘‘More people die of falling trees than snake bites, crocodile attacks and drowning in mud. So keep vigilant! And if the water in your bowl wriggles don’t drink it.’’

  2

  Throughout Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley people gathered in tea shops to listen to the 3 p.m. radio broadcast. The transferral of power from Britain would take place at midnight the following day, thirty-six hours from now, declared the newsreader. Members of the Malay, Indian and Chinese parties would stand in darkness for two minutes to mark the official handover. Shouts of ‘Merdeka’ would ring across the land.

  On Macao Street an enormous, brass pig’s head towered over passersby as they paused to listen to snippets of news coming from the crackling radio. Some of the Chinese reached up and touched its snout for luck; others, mainly the Muslims, shuffled away without making eye contact. The brass pig belonged to Il Porco. And Il Porco belonged to Lu See, who was preparing a fresh batch of her popular rosemary shortbreads. Using Sum Sum’s recipe, she’d been making rosemary shortcakes every day now for the last twelve years; ever since they sold the big house in Juru and moved to the capital.

  Lu See lived in the rooms above the restaurant. Next door there was a compound where a group of five Muslim families lived. In the summer, during the school holidays, it was like a small village, a miniature kampong, with mothers in headscarves calling out ‘‘Ismail!’ and ‘‘Yasmine!’’ and ‘‘Younis!’ at all times of the day, and where hens and roosters scratched about in the dirt and children sang and laughed as they played badminton. Separating Lu See’s shophouse with the compound was a ten-foot wall and a wide monsoon drain scrawled with scribbles of barbed wire to keep the sewer rats from climbing over.

  Once in a while, the family headman, Abdul bin Kassim, would leave a basket of fresh mangoes on her doorstep. When she thanked him profusely, he’d stroke his tightly rolled beard, as curly-ended as a Persian slipper, and then touch his songkok shyly.

  Lu See opened a tin of Eagle Brand condensed milk and almost straight away flies started to buzz all around her. A new song by P. Ramlee was playing on the gramophone. She had just whisked an egg into her mixture of flour, sugar and butter when Dungeonboy slid a crooked finger into the blending bowl.

  Lu See immediately slapped his hand away with her long wooden spoon. ‘‘Don’t eat anything that contains raw eggs. How many times must I tell you!’’

  ‘‘Yes, yes, I know, lah. Udderwhy I catch Sam and Ella.’’

  ‘‘Nincompoop!’’

  ‘‘Cannot help, lah. It sweet like ice cream.’’ He sucked the sugar from the frighteningly long nail on his fifth finger – usually reserved for ear scraping and nose drilling.

  ‘‘Do that again and I’ll chop your pinkie off, understand?’’

  ‘‘Okay, lah.’’ Dungeonboy chuckled. He was a short, quick-witted Malayan Chinese of about twenty with a chubby, shiny face eternally folded in smiles.

  Lu See poured the mixture into a baking pan and shoved it into the Florence oven. Afterwards, spanking flour from her batik apron, she emerged from the tiny kitchen into the restaurant proper. Set in a two-storey building, with bright orange shutter windows and narrow verandahs called five-foot ways that shielded pedestrians from the sun, Il Porco was a small eatery set on the corner of Macao Street and Hokkien Street, close to the Old Market Square. From Market Street to Il Porco you passed mainly Muslim-owned establishments and certainly no other restaurant that served pig meat.

  The first time Lu See told anyone she was opening an eatery that specialized in roast and stewed pork they thought she was mad. ‘‘Pig restaurant?’’ Uncle Big Jowl cried, cocking his head. ‘‘What about the Muslims next door, aahh?’’

  ‘‘I admit, it’s a bit provocative,’’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘‘But I spoke to the neighbourhood Imam and he gave me his blessing. I’m not doing anything illegal. The building was going cheap.’’

  Once he’d sampled her rosemary roast pork, Uncle Big Jowl almost collapsed. ‘‘Crackling so crunchy it fills your head with noise!’’ He patted his tummy with delight and agreed to be her silent partner, taking a 10 percent stake.

  Six months later, despite the occasional sour looks thrown her way by her Islamic neighbours, business was thriving. KL’s culinary hotchpotch of diners had never experienced cuisine quite like it. The Chinese and Indians came in droves and on Saturday lunch, the busiest time of the week, Lu See often had to squeeze twelve people together at a table designed for eight.

  Where its exterior was colonial, the compact interior of Il Porco was classical Nyonya: blackwood chairs, round marble-topped tables, wooden screens, washed-out portraits of Lu See’s Grand-aunty Ying scattered along the walls and a huge lacquer panel in Chinese that read Tung Jao Gung Jai meaning ‘We are all in the same boat’.

  After shelving away a few plates, Lu See paused and slowly twisted her lower back first this way, then that. Her movements were stiff. She was going to be forty-one years old, her legs remained willowy and her body was still angular, but today her stomach was killing her. She stood motionless for a long moment with her arms crossed over her tummy and her head turned heavenward.

  ‘‘Is that a new yoga position? You look like an Egyptian mummy,’’ said Stan Farrell. Since their initial meeting on the MS Jutlandia, his hair, like Lu See’s, had grown a little salt-and-pepper grey over the years. It hadn’t taken him long to find her on his return from the war. He took a quick sip of teh tarik and then replaced the cup on the table between his truncheon and peaked cap. Dressed in khaki shorts and shirt, knee-high socks, Webley revolver and Federation of Malaya Police badge, Stan looked every inch the policeman. Apart from the hockey boots, that is.

  Lu See bent forwards a fraction, keeping her arms folded. ‘‘It’s the only position which doesn’t hurt. Why the ridiculous shoes?’’

  ‘‘For protection.’’ He grinned, parting his lips to reveal his infamous gravestone teeth, which could signal ships off the coast. ‘‘They extend past the ankle, you see?�
�’ He lifted a leg. ‘‘You ever see a leech?’’

  ‘‘Only in The African Queen.’’

  ‘‘Keeps the leeches off when I’m out in the swamps chasing guerrillas.’’

  Guerrillas like Mabel, she wanted to say. Instead, frowning and with a sudden craving to break wind, she said, ‘‘All set for the handover?’’

  ‘‘Duke of Gloucester’s flying in tomorrow for Abdul Rahman’s swearing in ceremony.’’ He popped a gumdrop into his mouth, opened the Straits Times and turned to the funnies page.

  Several Chinese patrons were slurping thick rosemary-infused baan meen pork noodles; several bottles of Tiger beer sweated by their elbows; transistor radios screeched. A tangy smell of pork belly stewed with shallots flavoured the air. Fans whirred overhead.

  ‘‘And you’re definitely staying on?’’ she asked, reaching for a swig of milk of magnesia and returning to her mummy pose.

  ‘‘Hell yes, I’m staying on. In fact, I think I’m the only gweilo copper who’s not leaving. Everyone else is being sent home. Besides, I’ve got Mum to look after. She likes living in this country,’’ he said, watching her sip from the cobalt-blue bottle. ‘‘Anyway, why would I leave? I was born here. I’m entitled to stay, unlike the rest of ’em.’’ He took another suck of tea as he read the comics. ‘‘What happened? To your tummy, I mean. Something you ate?’’

  ‘‘I’m not sure. It might be muscular. It started when I threw a heavy bucket of water over Dungeonboy.’’

  ‘‘Sounds interesting. Was he drunk?’’

  Lu See straightened up and rubbed her abdomen rhythmically. ‘‘No. During last night’s blackout, he set his hair on fire lighting the candles.’’

  On hearing this, Stan swallowed the wrong way and choked, forcing a jet of warm tea to shoot up his nose. Both she and Stan burst out laughing as he wiped his face with a handkerchief. ‘‘Poor chap. He’s only been here a week. Why on earth d’you call him Dungeonboy?’’