House of Trembling Leaves, The

by Lees, Julian

  She heard the cry for help again.

  A blond British soldier was slumped on the road behind the blazing vehicle, his ruined clothes splashed with black blood.

  ‘‘Where are you hurt?’’ She spoke quietly and assuredly, crouching down beside him.

  ‘‘Leg and stomach I think.’’ He began to shiver violently.

  A puncture had opened up in his belly like a mouth, as round and dark as an antique coin. There was also a fist-sized hole in his hip – red on the outside and white sinew and exposed bone within, making Mabel think of a ruptured apple.

  She immediately searched for an exit wound. ‘‘Stay with me,’’ she said. ‘‘What’s your name?’’

  ‘‘Evans, Corporal Johnny Evans.’’ His face contorted.

  ‘‘Keep your eyes focused on me, all right, Johnny Evans? Stay with me! Keep focused!’’ She grasped at the two torn ends of material by his hip and ripped them further. Saturated with blood, the wound felt like wet, warm bread. ‘‘Are you still with me, Johnny?’’

  ‘‘I’m afraid.’’ The muscles on his neck stood out like blades.

  ‘‘You needn’t be afraid, Johnny,’’ she replied, removing scissors from her bag. She cut through his clothes. His guts were opened up like a tin of tomato soup. She pressed her hands flat against his stomach, which kept his insides from spilling out.

  ‘‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’’

  She looked up and saw Bong looming over her.

  ‘‘Saving his life.’’ She jabbed a shot of morphine into him.

  ‘‘You can fucking stop that right now. We don’t have enough bandages and morphine as it is.’’

  She dragged her eyes across his face as a farmer drags his hoe across the soil. ‘‘And you can fucking start acting like a human being for once in your life!’’

  He tried to wrench her hand from the soldier’s abdomen, but Mabel was fired up now. ‘‘Don’t you dare!’’ she cried and kept her fingers splayed, pressed over the crater with the flat of her hand.

  ‘‘He’s the enemy.’’

  ‘‘For God’s sake, shut up and help me! The bullet’s lodged deep inside him. His spleen is punctured. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.’’

  Bong looked at Evans. His body was shaking but his face looked calm now. ‘‘Do you have a smoke?’’

  ‘‘A what?’’ said Bong.

  Evans inhaled and exhaled loudly. ‘‘Cigarette.’’

  ‘‘In my pocket,’’ Bong said, reaching for his packet. He lit one and placed it between the Welshman’s lips.

  The ground about them looked as though it had been saturated with wine; Mabel’s uniform grew spattered with burgundy. She worked on Evans for several minutes, digging her fingers into him. ‘‘There it is.’’ She’d found the slug and tried to gain purchase on it. The wound made a sucking sound as she pulled the bullet from his flesh. ‘‘Keep your eyes focused on me, Johnny Evans!’’

  When his eyes glazed over, half-closed and unblinking at the twilight, Mabel stiffened, curled her fingers into balls and thumped him hard across the chest.

  She worked on him for several minutes, straining to get his heart to work.

  Eventually, Bong draped an arm around her shoulders and eased her to her feet.

  The steel carcass of the armoured car continued to smoke in the background. All the British soldiers were dead. Flocks of crows charcoaled the sky, heading for the coast, fleeing the sounds of guns.

  She rubbed the filthy mess of tarry blood off her arms with a clutch of leaves. Already Corporal Evans’ blown-apart stomach was crawling with ants.

  That night Mabel built a platform from bamboo and settled down on her makeshift cot. Having tied several tourniquets and set a broken wrist, she scrubbed the dried blood from her fingernails and tried to forget what she’d seen earlier on. In the near distance men from her platoon were busy either cleaning captured machine guns or sorting ammunition belts.

  She fell into an abbreviated sleep. Mosquitoes stirred her awake every few minutes. She tossed and turned, still hearing the ricochet of screams, eventually having to cover her face with a jacket before falling into a deep slumber. She was lying on her front when her right arm slipped from the platform bed and dangled towards the rainforest floor.

  A few hours before dawn she woke up having dreamed she was in a hospital with a fractured elbow. Half-asleep and woolly-headed, Mabel tried to take off the cast on her broken humerus but quickly worked out she wasn’t wearing a cast and was busy tugging on the huge fold of leathery skin which had enveloped her arm like a sleeve. It was then that she woke with a start. The night was still and coal black. There was a high, musty smell all about her and her shoulders ached. When she moved a fraction, she found that her right forearm had gone numb and heavy. Groggily, she jerked her hand from the elbow but found it had become a dead weight. ‘‘Damn it,’’ she hissed. ‘‘Bloody pins and needles.’’ Still on her front, she pulled her jacket from her eyes with her left hand and tried to roll onto her back. It was then that she came face to face with it: the Pontianak – the vampire of Malay folklore with its elongated tongue and terrifying fingernails that ripped out a person’s sex organs. She stared at it, lips agape. The lean, flat head was the size of a king coconut. Its eyes were bright yellow like shiny stones with narrow, slit pupils. The rotten fangs gaped at her.

  As she reared back, she suddenly realized with equal horror that it wasn’t the dreaded Pontianak at all but a serpent. A massive reticulated python was inches from Mabel’s nose. Its snout was butting her chin. She could smell its breath as it inched its hinged jaws over its prey. It took Mabel several seconds to realize that the prey was her own right arm, that the snake had deadened it with its coils. The python had taken it in, up to her shoulder. She was being eaten alive.

  Opening her mouth wide, Mabel began to scream.

  4

  ‘‘Paupers!’’ Mother bleated to no one in particular, folding her legs under an Il Porco table. ‘‘The bloody old fool turned us into paupers.’’ She was looking at her bank book.

  ‘‘What happened?’’ Dungeonboy asked Uncle Big Jowl who was tucking into a plate of char siu faan.

  ‘‘Nothing, aahh! Missie-Mummy’s still damn-powerful bitter that before he died her husband signed over the banking and rubber concessions to the Japanese in return for his safety. Once a year or so, she has volcano-tantrums.’’

  Mother clacked her tongue. ‘‘Worse still, it drove my sons deeper into the clutches of those Jehovah’s. You think that having one Jehovah’s Witness in the family was bad enough, but both brothers claiming to be ‘enlightened ones’? The nincompoops truly believe that blood transfusions are against God’s will. What will happen if either of them has accident? Chee-chee-chee! I tell you, I’m at wit’s end!’’

  ‘‘Accuse me, you likey coffee dis morning, is it, Missie-Mummy?’’ asked Dungeonboy.

  ‘‘Coffee? Your coffee tastes like durian dust. Bring me toast-bread with condensed milk.’’

  Lu See appeared from the kitchen. ‘‘Morning, Mother. You look a bit frayed at the edges.’’

  ‘‘Frayed? I’m not frayed,’’ she said, sounding frayed.

  ‘‘Are you feeling all right?

  ‘‘All right? I’m better than all right. How about you? Stomach better?’’

  ‘‘Not really. Might be an ulcer.’’

  ‘‘I wonder if it is from filthy germs. How many one-eyed dogs have you taken in today?’’ she said derisively, looking hard at Pebbles who was busy nibbling a front paw. ‘‘Why must you bring in from the street? Cha! Such dirty animals! Licking their … their … things all the time!’’

  ‘‘I’m giving them a better life. They get a nice roof over their heads and a proper bath once a month. Who knows how long they’d live with all those crazy drivers out there. Isn’t that right, Pebbles?’’

  Pebbles flattened her ears and wagged her tail.

  ‘‘Soon, nah, everywhere will have ticks
and fleas. Look how it scratches itself all day long! You should throw them all back, liao!’’

  Lu See’s mouth soured.

  ‘‘Later you go back inside kitchen and think about what I say for ten minutes then decide I’m right. Your mother is always right.’’

  ‘‘Why is it that every time I speak to you I feel as if I’m being forced to drink vinegar?’’

  ‘‘Cha!’’ She spoke across Lu See. ‘‘You see how she make me feel welcome here?’’

  ‘‘Please don’t take offence, Mother, but sometimes you’re as welcome here as a doctor with a rubber enema hose.’’

  ‘‘I come all this way to see you.’’

  ‘‘Mother, you live two streets away.’’

  Mother raised her eyebrows, and slipping on her batwing reading glasses, started on last week’s crossword puzzle. Smiling faintly, she said, ‘‘Bring me hot milk tea, nah. One of your special cups of teh tarik.’’

  Lu See adjusted her apron and clucked her tongue. Reluctantly, she made her way to the kitchen to boil some water. Inside, the tubes of the radio began to glow – Dungeonboy stared at the black dial of the Zenith console radio.

  ‘‘She’s such a bloody interfering … So kaypoh!’’ Lu See blurted to Dungeonboy as she spooned tea leaves into a pot. ‘‘I bet she comes here just to check up on me.’’

  The radio played a Peggy Lee song. Dungeonboy clicked his fingers out of rhythm to the music.

  ‘‘If she ever asks you about me, don’t tell her anything!’’

  Dungeonboy sucked his teeth and nodded like a metronome. His eyes remained glued to the powdery black grille. Before working at Il Porco he’d never come across a radio.

  ‘‘Do you understand? Are you following me?’’

  ‘‘Of coss, I follow you like my own shadow.’’

  Seconds later Peggy Lee’s voice faded.

  ‘… and now it’s time for Malay Woman’s Hour,’ said the radio presenter, ‘where our own Dr Chow and Mrs Gangooly will be discussing the health benefits of star anise …’

  ‘‘Were you listening to what I just said?’’

  ‘‘Yes, lah! No tell Missie-Mummy anyfing.’’

  ‘‘And why not?’’

  ‘‘Because Missie-Mummy just like fart bubbo in bath tub. Gets up everyone noses.’’

  Lu See rubbed the skin between her eyes. Something bubbled painfully within her bowels. ‘‘Well, that’s not quite what I meant, but I think you got the gist of it.’’

  She emerged from the kitchen with a cup of teh tarik. Mother raised her eyebrows at her and brushed imaginary dust off the table top. Under her batik apron, Lu See’s summer dress had a small hole near the right shoulder. As she placed the cup down, Mother glowered as if she’d just witnessed Lu See pawn off another family heirloom, just as her husband had done during the war. She raised her index finger and prodded Lu See on the arm. ‘‘Chee! What happen to you? Your dress is torn?’’

  ‘‘I’ll mend it later.’’

  ‘‘I’m glad,’’ she said, sounding not the least bit glad.

  ‘‘This is a restaurant not a clothing boutique. That’ll be sixty cents for the tea and toast.’’

  ‘‘What happen if you hit by a bus? What will the ambulance men say if they saw you in such rags?’’

  ‘‘I think if I was hit by a bus my first concern would be staying alive, not how my clothes look.’’

  ‘‘You really are giving us Teohs a bad name.’’

  Uncle Big Jowl winked at her. ‘‘This coming, aahh, from someone with enough make-up on to make an Ipoh prostitute blush.’’

  ‘‘See what I have to put up with?’’ she addressed an imaginary audience. ‘‘No respect for Ah-Ma!’’

  ‘‘Joking-joking, lah.’’ The big man said placatingly.

  ‘‘I mean,’’ Mother said, gesturing at Lu See with a square of toast slathered with condensed milk. ‘‘Your mother’s not a snob-snob or anything, but I believe that appearing well groomed and dressing elegantly helps social standing, no?’’

  Of course, Lu See knew that Mother was right. As the owner of Il Porco it was imperative that she looked her best. She just didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

  ‘‘No wonder you cannot find a man, lah,’’ her mother continued, scratching her palms. ‘‘You should really take notes.’’

  ‘‘I’m perfectly happy being by myself, thanks very much,’’ Lu See said.

  ‘‘Yes, I’m sure you are.’’

  Lu See gave a resigned shake of the head. She pulled up a chair and sat down beside her mother, more to relieve the pain in her tummy than anything else. They looked at each other. ‘‘I’m almost 41.’’

  ‘‘And I’m 64. No springtime chicken. Past my prime.’’

  ‘‘You were past your prime when Churchill was born.’’

  Mother looked out into the middle distance, back at her imaginary audience. ‘‘Cha! See how she talks to me?’’

  ‘‘The truth is I’m too old to find a man. Lord knows I’d love to have someone take care of me, someone to help with the restaurant, with the dogs.’’ Someone to have wild sex with. ‘‘But what are my chances. At my age, what’s left for me?’’

  ‘‘Great-uncle Loo got a woman pregnant when he was 84, aahh!’’ Uncle Big Jowl snorted.

  Lu See smiled, as did Mother. They broke into giggles. ‘‘Maybe there’s hope for me yet. More toast?’’

  ‘‘No, I rest.’’ Mother extracted a Malayan dollar from her pocketbook and handed it to Lu See.

  ‘‘True, at your age you have to watch your weight.’’ Kaching! went the cash register.

  At thirty seconds to midnight the music stopped. Elvis Presley was half way through Teddy Bear on Radio Malaya when the sound snapped off.

  There followed twenty seconds of dead air before a clipped Empire accent solemnly described the lowering of the Union Jack at the Selangor Club and in its place the new Federation of Malaya flag was hoisted at exactly 12.01 a.m. ‘‘After 83 years of British control, Malaya is now a sovereign independent nation.’’ He went on to say that it would remain in the Commonwealth, adding that the Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve would add support to Malaya’s external and internal defences and that the country’s Emergency Regulations were still in force. He also noted that an unspecified number of senior British police officers and judiciary staff would stay on to oversee the successful transition.

  It was a humid and sticky night. Stan’s shirt was stuck to his back. He plucked at the parts where his shirt stuck to his skin. All about him families were out in force and revellers were setting off fire crackers, drinking Coca Cola and Green Spot through paper straws, and shouting ‘Merdeka! Merdeka! Freedom! Freedom!’ Most of the people, he was sure, didn’t even know what the term meant.

  He made his way through the chaos of hawkers where earlier, at a stall, he ate a portion of otak-otak, the delicious fish paste custard wrapped in banana leaf. Multi-coloured banners fluttered from streetlamps. Windows were strung with fairy lights. Tall palm trees dripped with lustrous bunting. A Malay man in a songkok was dancing down the street, blowing a trumpet. Next to him, a fat Chinese fellow was hitting the back of his wok with a pair of chopsticks. Everywhere people were singing and shouting. ‘Malaya is for all Malayans!’ they cried, watery-eyed. Despite it being Ramadan month the Malays were out in full, waving their country’s new flag aloft; having fasted between Fajr (dusk) and Maghrib (sunset) they were finally letting off some steam. Car horns blared; radios sang. From dilapidated rooftops residents clapped and whooped as young children, clutching on to their parents’ necks, waved at the crowds. It was way past their bedtimes but they’d been caught up in the adults’ excitement and were wide-awake, not knowing why everybody seemed quite so happy.

  Along Petaling Street roadblocks, sand bags and barbed wire clogged up traffic. Nearby, Stan stood with his truncheon ready, overseeing a cordon of over a hundred other policemen as they linked arms outside Independence Sta
dium. They formed a line separating the UMNO delegates from the masses. UMNO was the country’s largest political party. ‘‘For the love of Rita! Keep the bloody line tight, sergeant!’’ he cried.

  ‘‘Yes, saar!’’

  Stan didn’t like this district; Old Pudu Road, a few streets down, was a hotbed of spies, informers and double agents. Spies. The word made him think of Mabel. He remembered the day she ran off.

  He was lunching at Il Porco the afternoon Mabel telephoned to say she wasn’t coming home.

  ‘‘What do you mean you’re not coming home?’’ Lu See asked, talking quickly into the receiver.

  ‘‘It’s Bong. He wants me to be with him.’’ Her voice was calm.

  ‘‘You can be with him here. You don’t have to leave. Why must you leave?’’

  ‘‘Because I want to.’’

  ‘‘I don’t understand.’’

  Stan recalled looking at Lu See and seeing the panic mist her eyes. What’s happened? he wanted to ask.

  When she replaced the handset on the cradle slowly, defensively, she told him Mabel had gone to join the Communists. She spent the rest of the day with her head in her hands.

  Stan wiped his brow with his sleeve and scanned the area. A small group of St John Ambulance girls waited by the post office, smoking by the colonnades amidst the scribbles of barbed wire. With a surge of invigoration, Stan climbed up on to the bonnet of an armed personnel carrier to get a better look at the crowds streaming in from Sultan Street. In the far distance he saw the giant billboards for the Rex Cinema. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a sweet. Popping a Caramel Bullet into his mouth, standing with arms akimbo, he could make out Robert Mitchum’s droopy face promoting The Night of the Hunter.

  He looked back into the throng that had gathered on the boundaries of the padang. A group of women with paper fans were sipping bottles of Green Spot out of straws, faces alight with pleasure. Moments later he heard a rallying shout. Two Sikh officers had fallen onto their backsides as they chased after a Chinese man on a bicycle. He had a long mane of hair gathered into a ponytail. Bursting though the junction, he rode the bicycle at speed, all the way up to the police line. Stan watched as he skidded to a stop, balanced a sandalled foot on the road, withdrew a pistol from his belt and aimed it at Stan’s face. Before Stan could move, the man squeezed the trigger.