The Gift of Rain: A Novel

by Tan Twan Eng

  “What was the warning?” I asked.

  My grandfather lowered his eyes and placed his hands on his lap. “The fortune-teller said that both families would be brought to ruin through a child of Yu Lian—”

  “That could mean anyone. If my mother had married someone else—”

  “—through a child of mingled blood of Yu Lian, who would eventually betray them,” he went on.

  “Betray them? To whom?”

  “You know who. The Japanese. They are already making plans to invade Malaya. You are extremely close to one of their highest officials.”

  “He is merely my teacher,” I protested. “The Japanese would be foolish to start a war with the British in Malaya. Endo-san’s a diplomatic official, not an army officer.”

  “Next to a parent, a teacher is the most powerful person in one’s life.”

  “Is this why, after all these years, you finally decided to speak to me: to warn me of some fortune-teller’s words—words which already caused my mother so much pain?”

  He shook his head. “I am not asking you to do anything against your own wishes or reason. I have learned over the years that life has to take its own path. Look at Wen Zu and me. Even with all the warnings we had, still our lives followed the pathway that had been written down. Nothing could have changed it.” He sighed, and walked to the edge of the courtyard, raising his head to look at the sky, now covered with clouds.

  He turned to me and said, “It’s late. Go to bed. I’ll show you my garden tomorrow. People in Ipoh say it is one of the worst in town, but I disagree!”

  Aunt Mei was quivering with barely controlled curiosity the following morning, eager to discover what he had told me. “We talked about his family and my mother,” I said. “We’re getting along well.”

  “I know you two are getting along well,” she replied, almost tartly. “He doesn’t usually spend so much time with anyone without getting irritable.”

  I thought about her life. My father once told me her husband Henry had been killed in a riot between the Malays and the Chinese. Tensions between these two races erupted occasionally in violence and blood; Henry had been on his way to fetch her from the school where she taught when his Austin was surrounded by an angry mob. They turned it over and set it aflame. She had lived her life alone since then.

  She led me to the Hall of Ancestors, where the tablets of the dead were placed, small wooden boards carved with the details of those gone by. They sat on a descending altar, shaped like the steps of an amphitheater, watching us play out our lives. The burned-out ends of joss sticks poked like twigs from a large brass urn on a low rosewood table. Three evenly spaced oil lamps shed their light on plates of offerings—mandarin oranges, apples, and buns.

  “Why are these tablets here?” I asked. “They don’t contain the ashes of the dead, do they?”

  She lit some joss sticks and gave three to me. “These are memorial tablets of the dead of our family. Here we keep their memory alive. We pray that they will watch over us, and keep us safe.” She pointed to a red tablet, carved with golden strokes. “That one there is your mother’s. And the one just above it is your Uncle Henry’s.”

  “Thank you for arranging this meeting,” I said softly, speaking into the rising smoke. I meant the words for Aunt Mei and she smiled. But she said, “They can hear you, and I am sure they too accept your thanks.”

  I ended up staying with my grandfather for a week and he took great delight in showing me around the town.

  One evening we walked past an open-air stage that had been erected in the town square. Some sort of performance was about to commence and we joined the crowd in front of a row of the largest joss sticks I had ever seen—each one approximately seven feet high and with the thickness of a telephone pole—their tips glowing with the redness of fresh magma and giving off clouds of incense smoke. Although rows of seats were provided, the crowd seemed to prefer to stand, and not a single chair was used.

  “What’s going on?” I asked my grandfather. “Are we not allowed to sit on these chairs?”

  He shook his head, his eyebrows almost meeting in reproach at my ignorance. “The Festival of the Hungry Ghosts begins today. Once a year, for a month, the gates of the underworld are opened to allow the spirits to roam the earth. They are eager to revel in human pleasures again, even if vicariously. Most are benign, but some are angry and malevolent. We take special care not to offend these spirits, so we offer prayers and food, and traders and shopkeepers sponsor these public performances to appease them so that their business affairs are not disturbed.” He pointed to the rows of vacant chairs. “Those are for the unseen guests. No one is allowed to sit there.”

  The curtain opened to the audience’s applause. It was a Chinese opera and the actors were heavily made-up, their faces painted white and then rouged artfully. Their costumes were flamboyant, in bright shades of red, their headgear heavy and elaborate. The music from the orchestra was raucous, and the actors enacted stylized fights through a variety of acrobatic movements. I tried to enjoy the elaborate backward somersaults and exaggerated sword-fighting but the idea of being surrounded by spirits, voracious for all the sensations of human experience that they could never tangibly savor again, filled me with unease. I studied the faces in the crowd, wondering who was revenant, and who was real.

  The day before I was to return home, my grandfather dismissed his chauffeur and drove us out of town to the limestone hills. Close up, the hills did not seem as bare as I had thought. Shrubs and trees clung to them like mold and, in certain parts, the vegetation was thick and smooth as a bear’s pelt. Half an hour’s drive out of the town, the sky darkened as it prepared to rain.

  “I was hiking though the grounds around this hill,” my grandfather said, “when I saw that clump on top—there, do you see it? The one that looks like a cat’s head. I managed to get past the trees and the undergrowth and there I found a cave. The entrance was so well hidden that I would not have found it if the bats had not started to fly out to hunt their evening meal. I suppose it brought back the memories of my youth spent at the monastery and the caves that surrounded it. Inside the cave I found inscriptions of what I thought were Buddhist sutras on the wall, and I thought immediately of Bodhidharmo. Who knows, perhaps he came all the way here? These hills were so popular with the hermits in those ancient ages. I made up my mind to buy the hill and to build a temple here. You can see it now,” he pointed.

  We came over a rise and stopped to rest. The temple had been built into the rock. It was small and simple compared to the larger ones strewn around these hills. It looked deserted and unused.

  “Is there anyone still living in it?” I asked.

  “The monks have since left to join the bigger monasteries. But I still come here occasionally. You will see why.”

  As we climbed higher up the slope the temple became otherworldly. I could scarcely believe that it had been built by human hands. It was quiet around us, so quiet that even the cloud thickening above seemed like an intrusion.

  The walls of the doorway had faded to the color of the rocks around them. There was no door, just an open entrance edged with grass and creepers. A seed had fallen into a crack in the wall and had sprouted into a sturdy little guava tree, its branches reaching across the entrance. We moved it aside and went into the bare, tiny hall. Beetles scuttled away, their legs rasping on the floor like the sound of prayer beads rapidly manipulated by a monk. I heard the echo of faded chanting. In spite of its peaceful emptiness the temple seemed inhabited by a presence.

  “Come,” my grandfather said.

  We entered a passageway, its walls smooth from the gentle trickle of rainwater seeping through. The tunnel curved upward, and once I tripped over the uneven floor. A circular glow of light drew us on until we emerged into sunlight. I blinked my eyes and turned around in wonder. The tunnel opened into a clearing set within the circle of hills. My grandfather saw my face and grinned. There was no way out except by the tunnel through
which we had come. The walls surrounding the clearing rose up straight, jagged, and slippery. Only the tenacious roots of trees and little bushes made it all the way to the top. The sky above was just a hole, the clouds drizzling us with the lightest of rain, as the earth and grass released their imprisoned scents.

  He took my arm and I followed him to an overhang, and under it I saw the writings that had so transfixed him. They surged across the uneven rock face, from top to bottom, unimpeded by the bumps and striations and hollows of the surface, graced with a fluidity and energy that made it seem as if they had been written with a brush dipped in fire.

  I traced the writing with my fingertip and, to this day, I know those words were part of an ancient magic, created by an ancient wisdom, for I felt them as my finger touched them. I felt them within me.

  He watched as my finger traveled the writing all the way to the last flourish, and when I looked at its tip I saw it glowed a light red. I felt a slight heat, and smelt a faint burning scent.

  “What do they say?” I asked.

  My grandfather shrugged. “I do not know. But do you think that matters? They have spoken to you, have they not?”

  I could only agree with him.

  He looked to the sky. “It is good that the rain has come. I used to come here whenever it rained and sit under those words and watch the water run down the side of the rocks. You have brought the rain, and for this I thank you.”

  I understood he meant more than that. He was grateful I had come to visit him and that I seemed to understand him better now.

  He took off his shirt, and I saw his muscles were hard, unrelenting to encroaching age. “I was told you have had some lessons. I would be very much obliged if you show me some of them.”

  I brushed droplets of rain from my brows, bowed to him and readied myself.

  He was fast—faster than Endo-san. His fists pushed me back and I could do nothing except block them, feeling the pain shoot up my arms as I did so. His arms were rock hard. I slid a low kick to his shins and he grimaced, and for a few seconds his hands stopped moving. I moved my hands into his circle and let him grasp them, opening me for a quick, spiraling kote-gaeshi wrist-lock on him.

  As I tipped his balance I aimed a sharp punch into his side. It was like hitting a slab of granite and did not affect him in any way at all. He broke my lock, regained his balance and swung a kick at my head. I blocked it with my arms and the force of contact sent me stumbling. I went into a forward fall to escape his attacks, knowing he would break my arms soon if I kept meeting his strikes directly.

  The ground was growing slippery yet his feet were rooted firmly to it as he used only his hands. Twice I kicked him in his kidneys, which only brought a hardening of his face and a grim smile. I intercepted one of his fists and pulled him forward and executed my favorite move, iriminage, the entering throw. I brought my arm up under his chin, lifting his head high up, but he felt my intention and countered it by turning around and coming up behind me. And then he had his arms around my neck in a chokehold, his knee in my back, and the unreplenished air in my lungs dissipated quickly into my blood as he tightened his hold.

  He let me go, and I sucked in the cool wet air, my head drumming madly. He pulled me up from my knees and beat the wet grass off my legs. He picked up his shirt and put it on again. The rain and the perspiration on his chest stained the cloth dark immediately.

  He glanced at his watch. “You lasted six minutes. Quite acceptable. A lot of people could not get past four minutes with me. I can see that you have an excellent teacher.”

  He went through my mistakes, correcting them. “You were too loose here, and that is why I could escape from your locks. That last one would have been deadly if you had held me close to you. However, you left a gap, and it was easy for me to walk around you.

  “As for your punches and kicks, I am sorry to tell you that against a man who had been trained as I was as a boy, they were useless. But then you would not meet many of us now. We are relics from another time.”

  He was silent, then he said, “You have been taught to kill. I sensed it in the way you fought.” He shook his head, and I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that Endo-san had often repeated the warning he had given me outside St. George’s Church, that I was never to resort to using what he had taught me to kill. Yet at that moment I realized my grandfather was correct.

  My grandfather and Aunt Mei saw me off at the railway station in the morning. “I am glad you came,” he said. “We have been estranged for too long. I hope you will think kindly of me, when you think of me at all.” He took my hands, examining the bruises he had inflicted on me in the past days. “I hope your Mr. Endo will be more gentle with you than I have been. Since the lost emperor, I have never taught anyone in my life.”

  I stood near the train, feeling the sadness of a farewell to a newfound friend. “You’ve given me much food for thought, Grandfather; what are a few bruises compared to that? Will you visit me in Penang?”

  He was moved by my invitation. “We shall see what the world has in store for me, but yes, I would like to see you in Penang. Perhaps you will also indulge me and take me to your mother’s resting place, where we will face her, and tell her what a foolish man I have been.”

  “I think it would make her very happy to see both of us together,” I said. “There is one thing that’s been bothering me. Where did you plant your frangipani trees?”

  Grandfather and Aunt Mei looked at each other. “We took out the tree near the fountain years ago, when it withered,” he said. “We never planted another one. Your mother loved the scent of its flowers.”

  I thought of the scent I had caught on my first day here, the scent that had seemed always discreetly present during the days I had stayed in my grandfather’s home. The old man looked at me keenly; a knowing and almost mischievous smile lifted the corners of his lips and reached into his eyes. And I knew something magical had happened to me.

  I climbed into the carriage, standing at the doorway as the train pulled out of the station. They stood waving to me until the train went around a bend. I went to my seat and closed my eyes, and thought about the emperor who had been written out of history.

  Chapter Eleven

  When I saw the low hills of Penang as the ferry approached the harbor, I realized that I had missed my home deeply. I felt that I was returning as a different person. I had set out on a disturbing journey down the coast to Kuala Lumpur and had met my grandfather, who had shown me a facet of my heritage of which I had never been aware.

  The moment I saw Uncle Lim I knew who my grandfather’s source of information had been. He did not look at all surprised when the rickshaw man left me at Istana.

  “You can tell my grandfather I came home safely,” I said.

  He gave an embarrassed smile and carried my bag to my room. In the kitchen a girl was stirring a pot of soup. She looked up shyly. “This is my daughter, Ming,” Uncle Lim said, when he came in. “She doesn’t speak much English, so you’ll have to speak Hokkien to her.”

  She was a slim, boyish-looking girl, hair cut badly, her eyes slanted upward, black and rich as the dates she was now adding into the pot. “Can I offer you some soup?” she asked.

  “That would be nice.” I sat down at the kitchen table, telling Uncle Lim to join me. “How long have you been spying for my grandfather?” I said, hiding my amusement.

  “Did it go well between the Old One and you?” he asked as Ming ladled the soup into our bowls.

  “I should have met him a long time ago.” I tried to think when Uncle Lim had joined our household, but failed. It had definitely been before I was born. I waited for him to answer my question and when at last he saw that I was not to be distracted, he told me.

  “I came just after your mother married your father. I was already working in Penang. Your grandfather told me to come and work for Mr. Hutton. I couldn’t refuse; I owed your grandfather a debt. You won’t tell your father?”

  “You keep quie
t about what I have been up to and I’ll do the same for you,” I replied.

  Ming brought the bowls of soup to the table. “How are things in China?” I was curious to know. Somehow that country did not seem as remote to me as it once did, and I realized that this was because of my grandfather’s sharing of his own past with me.

  Uncle Lim sighed. “Very bad,” he said.

  “We heard terrible reports from the towns taken over by the Japanese. Nanjing was the worst,” Ming said, and closed her eyes.

  “What happened there?” I asked. After taking over Manchuria and setting up a puppet government in 1931, the Japanese were vigilant in finding reasons to invade the rest of China. And this they had done, on 7 July 1937, when Chinese and Japanese troops clashed on the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking. The Japanese now controlled most of the northeastern territories of China.

  Ming told me of the most recent events, and at first I did not believe her. Although foreign journalists had been prevented by the Imperial Japanese Army from sending dispatches out to the world, news of their savagery had been carried by fleeing refugees and foreign missionaries. Even so, I steadfastly refused to believe that any human race could be so barbaric, so bestial. She saw the look on my face, and said, “I don’t care whether you believe me or not. You’ll find out for yourself, when the Japanese come here.”

  Looking back, it was strange that everyone, every Chinese, every Malay and Indian, knew with complete certainty that the Japanese would eventually invade Malaya. The Chinese feared that the Japanese would extend their massacre of the people of Nanjing into Malaya, while the Malay and Indian communities hoped that the Japanese would free them from colonial rule. The majority of the English scoffed at the notion that Malaya would be attacked, feeling secure behind the naval batteries of Singapore. I was torn between two beliefs, like everything in my life. I knew the Japanese were not as incompetent as they had been painted by government officials. But neither were they strong or foolish enough to engage in war with the British Empire.