by Yangsze Choo
It was Robert who kissed me, on a bench outside the watch repair shop. Shin was off somewhere with yet another new girlfriend and Ming had been called away. I didn’t understand why Robert was always around. If I had a grand house with a long driveway and a shiny black car parked in it, I wouldn’t spend my afternoons down in a backwater like Falim, but he turned to me. Abruptly, as though he’d made up his mind, he seized my shoulders. His mouth was wet and hot and insistent; I couldn’t breathe. There was nothing heart-pounding about it other than the sheer panic I felt in getting him off me.
“I’ve liked you for a long time,” he said. “I thought you knew.”
I shook my head. My face was scarlet, my hands trembling. The last thing I wanted was a heart-to-heart talk with Robert but he’d clasped my hand in both of his and I couldn’t see any means of escape without shoving him off the bench. It was flattering yet horrific, like a slow-moving accident.
Fortunately, Ming emerged at that point. I felt vaguely ashamed, yet hopeful. Now was the time for him to burn with jealousy, since Robert was still holding my hand, but he only looked at us in his mild, reasonable way, and said to Robert, “Oh, did you talk to her already?”
I jumped up, snatching my hand away. “I’m sorry,” I said to Robert. “Thank you very much, but no thank you.”
He looked astonished. “You mean it’s no good?”
“No. Not at all.” And then I fled.
Irrationally, all I could think of was if I married Robert, then I’d be mistress of a large house in Ipoh with a Victrola, on which I could play as many popular songs as I liked. Tempting as that might be, it also meant fending off his sticky embraces. I recalled the girlish bloom on my mother’s face soon after she remarried, when I’d caught her sitting on my stepfather’s lap. There’d been something about that man that she liked, even now. But whatever it was, I wouldn’t find it with Robert. I was quite sure about that, though when Ming came to talk to me in his quiet, concerned way, I unexpectedly burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asked worriedly. “Did he frighten you?”
I shook my head, pierced with sorrow. Ming didn’t care for me in that tight, aching, can’t-live-without-you sort of way. He was just being kind, like an older brother.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s not a bad person though.” And he’s a good catch. Though Ming had too much delicacy to voice that. Unlike Shin, I thought bitterly, who’d probably urge me to hurry up and marry into money. I said as much to Ming, but he seemed surprised.
“No, Shin doesn’t know about this. And don’t mention it to him, will you?”
So we hadn’t. But whenever I thought about my first kiss, all the painful squeezing feelings of heartbreak and disappointment churned up. Not for poor Robert but for myself, because that was the day I truly understood that Ming would never love me.
* * *
Later on at the May Flower, there were so many times that men tried to get fresh that I’d learned to twist away at that telltale lunge. So when Shin got too close in the broom closet, after teasing about taking his shirt off, I panicked and shoved him back so hard that he hit the door with a thud.
“Ouch! What did you do that for?”
How could I possibly say that I’d thought my stepbrother was going to kiss me? It was ridiculous; besides, Koh Beng had just confirmed my suspicions that Shin had a girl in Singapore. And yet, there’d been an odd flutter in the pit of my stomach when he’d leaned in. As though a thousand moths were gathering around a candle that had silently and mysteriously been set aflame.
It was only because Shin was so good-looking, I decided. I was tired of dancing with paunchy old men and underage schoolboys, and now I was finally appreciating what I’d taken for granted across the dinner table all those years. This was such an outrageous thought that I started giggling hysterically. Working as a dance hostess had clearly ruined my morals.
The door opened abruptly. We both froze, blinking in the sudden light.
“What’s going on in here?” A sharp, spiky voice with the flattened intonations of a foreigner.
Shin turned swiftly, all laughter gone. “I’m sorry, Matron.”
So this was Matron. I felt sick. All my hopes of applying to the nursing program, with its requirements of good moral character, would be shattered if she happened to remember later that she’d caught me with a man in a broom closet.
“I hope that isn’t one of my nurses behind you,” she said, clearly not amused as we stumbled sheepishly into the corridor.
Shin said, “No, ma’am.” There was an awkward pause. Then he blurted out, “She’s my fiancée.”
“Your fiancée?” Her disbelief was palpable.
“I just proposed to her.”
“In the closet?”
I could almost see the little cogs turning in Shin’s head. It was hopeless, I thought. A made-up tale with nothing to validate it. But to my amazement, he put his hand into his trouser pocket and produced a small velvet-covered box. The ring inside was a simple twist of gold with five tiny garnets set like a flower. Slipping it onto my finger, he grinned triumphantly at Matron.
She was so taken aback that she could only smile weakly. “Well, Mr.… Lee, is it? Please refrain from such behavior on hospital grounds. But congratulations!”
Shin ducked his head, looking as pleased as though he’d performed a magic trick. For it was indeed magic. All suspicion and censure evaporated as Matron softened up. She shook hands with both of us, wishing us the best. Shin was deliberately charming, which was good because I was dumbstruck.
I walked a little behind the two of them, trying to compose myself. The ring on my left hand was too loose—I had to curl my fingers so that it wouldn’t slip off—but that was to be expected since it had been sized for another girl. How would she feel about Shin using her ring to get out of trouble in this manner?
This pretty, slender gold ring had been chosen with great care. I couldn’t imagine that any girl would refuse it, and for a moment, I was overcome by an unexpected tide of desolation. A choking loneliness that made my teeth ache.
21
Batu Gajah
Week of June 15th
Ren is excited about the upcoming dinner party at William’s house. It’s a monthly affair that rotates among a set of younger doctors. Some have wives, but even the married ones often live as bachelors because their families are back in England. So it will be mostly men, says Ah Long. The few wives that stay face the boredom of languid days, stretching into emptiness. With plenty of servants and no housework to do, they volunteer at charities, play tennis, and, if gossip is to be believed, swap husbands.
“Why?” asks Ren. Switching people and houses seems troublesome to him, but Ah Long shakes his head and says that he’s too young to understand.
But Ren does understand. Sort of. It’s to do with not being happy although he thinks that William is a good master and some woman is bound to want him. The lady at the hospital comes to mind, the one with the soft hair like a steamed sponge cake. Lydia, that’s her name. She followed William home on Sunday after church.
From his master’s overly polite face, Ren could tell that he wasn’t pleased. Apparently he’d planned to drop Lydia off first before sending a patient home, but Lydia managed to insist on a visit. Ren only paid attention because the patient was Nandani. His patient, he thinks, with a small welling of pride.
When William and Lydia stand together in the front room of the bungalow, Ren is struck again by how similar they look. Tall and pale, with large high noses and long hands. He can’t tell whether Lydia is attractive or not, but she seems used to attention from the toss of her hair, and the confidence with which she crosses her long legs in their white leather sandals.
“How is the patient? Nandani, I mean?” Ren asks shyly, but William’s face brightens.
“Doing well. Do you want to see her?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll be educational for you to check her progress,”
says William. “I’ll bring her over to the house one day.”
Ren glances at Lydia, but she’s studiously examining the bookshelf and gives no indication of hearing their plans. She walks through the house with William, giving suggestions about arranging the furniture for the upcoming party. Some of it, Ren thinks, is actually quite good advice.
“There won’t be many women on Saturday,” says William solicitously. “Are you sure you want to come? It might be awfully boring for you.”
She slips her arm through his. “Oh no, I’d love to. Would you like me to arrange the flowers?”
From the alarmed look in William’s eye, Ren knows that flowers are the last thing on his mind. It’s almost comical, except his master is suffering.
“No need. Ah Long here will manage everything.” And with that, William takes her out to the car to send her home.
* * *
Remembering this, Ren asks Ah Long later whether they should get flowers for the house. Ah Long frowns. “Yes. We’ll need a centerpiece for the table and something near the front.” Despite his air of long suffering, he’s enjoying the party preparations.
On Tuesday, Ah Long decides to bleach and starch the table linen again, though it was put away clean last time, because it has yellowed. On Wednesday, Ren dusts and wipes, turning the spines of the books out and aligning them neatly. Ren recognizes some of the titles, the same as in Dr. MacFarlane’s house. Gray’s Anatomy, issues of The Lancet and Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. The long words had first been pronounced by Dr. MacFarlane and later Ren learned to copy them out, sitting at the kitchen table. He nods at them, old friends, as he mops the floor.
Three plump chickens are in the wooden coop at the back. They’ll be made into chicken cutlets and Inchi Kabin, crispy twice-fried chicken served with sweet-and-spicy sauce. Local beef is tough and lean, and comes from water buffalo, so Ah Long will make beef rendang, slow-cooked dry curry with coconut, to round out the main dishes. In the meantime, on Thursday they move all the furniture in the living room and wax the floor.
“In case they want to dance,” explains Ah Long. “Though there are only two ladies coming.” Still, he hauls out the gramophone while Ren sharpens the needles. There’ll be another Chinese waiter hired for that evening to serve drinks. William takes little interest in this flurry of preparations. When Ren asks about him, Ah Long shrugs. “He’s got a new hobby.”
Now that he’s mentioned it, Ren realizes that his master has taken to disappearing after dinner. “Didn’t he use to go for walks in the mornings?”
“Morning, evening, what does it matter? As long as she’s willing,” Ah Long mutters under his breath.
On Friday morning, the gardener delivers cut flowers to the kitchen door, and Ren carries a heaping armful to the dining room to sort out. If there were a lady in the house, she’d arrange the flowers on the day of the party, but tomorrow will be devoted to cooking. Food spoils quickly in this heat, so everything must be freshly prepared. As Ren trots back to the kitchen for a second load of greenery, he finds the gardener deep in discussion with Ah Long.
“You, boy!” says the gardener. He’s Tamil, his wiry squat body burned dark by the merciless sun. He’s the friendly one who speaks Malay; the other gardener speaks only Tamil. “Mau lihat? Want to see something interesting?”
Excited, Ren follows the gardener into the garden. Ah Long stumps moodily after them as they go around the back, right up to where the manicured lawn peters out into undergrowth. This is the frontline of the gardeners’ endless struggle against the surrounding jungle. Walking around the perimeter of the garden, they approach the patch of uneven ground where Ren buries the household garbage—and where the finger that he stole from the hospital is interred, the glass vial safe within its empty biscuit tin.
Ren’s pulse quickens. His eyes fix on the stone that he placed as a marker. It looks suspicious on a patch of newly turned ground. He didn’t expect anyone to come to the garbage dump. Nobody does, only Ren.
“Sini,” says the gardener. “Here and here. Can you see?”
He points out traces: bent and broken branches and a print pressed into the soft wet earth. It is a tiger’s pugmark.
At least, that’s what the gardener says although Ren can’t really tell from the blurred half impression. But something has definitely passed that way. Something large and heavy. Deeper in, under the trees, the dry leaves form a thick carpet. It’s only where the bare earth is exposed that there’s a print. The men squat near the pugmark, wider than the palm of a man’s hand.
“Left front paw,” the gardener says.
“How do you know?” asks Ren.
The gardener explains that the front paws tend to be larger than the back. There are four toes and a dewclaw, corresponding to a thumb, on the front paws of a tiger. It looks as though the animal was standing under the trees at the edge of the garden. That one foot, the front paw, is the only mark on the edge of the lawn.
“Tigers are cunning,” says the gardener. “It was checking the house.”
Ren’s heart races. What does it mean that the print is right next to the stone that marks the buried finger? He wishes there was some grown-up he could ask for advice, but if he tells William, he’ll have to admit to the theft of the finger. Unconsciously, he squeezes his own small hands, wringing them anxiously. There are nine days left of Dr. MacFarlane’s forty-nine days of the soul. Surely that’s enough time to return the finger?
Ah Long peers at the blurred print. “This tiger is missing a toe,” he says. “The small toe on the left front paw.”
Ren closes his eyes, inhaling. His ears are sharpened; the hairs on his head prickle. He listens hard, but there’s nothing. Not a flicker from his cat sense. Only a silence so profound that it fills the green hollow of clipped lawn that the white bungalow sits in, like a fishbowl in the middle of the jungle.
“Should we put out an offering?” the gardener says diffidently. He’s Hindu and Ah Long is nominally Buddhist; between the two of them lies a tradition of little offerings and sacrifices, but Ah Long scowls.
“What are we going to offer—a chicken? I only have three and they’re needed tomorrow. Besides, we don’t want it to come back.”
If it were wild boar or deer then they might scatter blood or human hair to keep them away, but such things don’t deter a tiger. The gardener makes a little bow to the silent jungle and says something in Tamil.
“I asked him, Sir Tiger, please do not come back,” he says with a slight smile. Ren gazes at his dark, wrinkled face. He has no idea whether the gardener is really worried or if this is just one of those things that happens from time to time, like monsoons or floods. In his time with Dr. MacFarlane, they never had a tiger roam so close to the house despite all the old man’s ravings. Or perhaps, there were no marks outside because the tiger lived within. The image of Dr. MacFarlane’s white face, his left hand with its missing finger curled on the thin cotton blanket, swims before Ren’s eyes, and he blanches.
Ah Long catches his arm. “No need to be so frightened! Tigers range for miles, and it’s long gone by now.”
* * *
That evening, Ah Long informs William about their discovery in the halting English that he uses with his employer. It’s the second tiger pugmark discovered near the bungalow; the first one occurred around the time that poor woman died.
“So Tuan, you no go out alone at night,” Ah Long concludes.
A flicker passes over William’s face. “You too. And Ren, don’t wander around by yourself.”
Ren fetches a dish of fried ikan bilis, tiny little fish in spicy chili sambal. Serve from the left, remove plates from the right—that’s what Auntie Kwan taught him. The room is stuffy despite the open windows. The flowers that the gardener brought in—bird of paradises, canna lilies, thin woody branches of hibiscus—are stiff and look like funeral offerings. Ren’s skin is tight and shivery; his throat hurts. The pawprint in the garden is a gnawing worry.
&
nbsp; “Not well?” William beckons Ren over and places the back of his hand against his forehead. It’s a large hand, professionally impersonal. “Hmm. Fever. Go and ask Ah Long for an aspirin and lie down.”
Ren hasn’t finished the dinner service or the washing up, but William has given him an order. He walks to the kitchen, and the old man, examining his pale face with concern, hands him an aspirin and tells him to go to bed.
Ren walks unsteadily out of the kitchen door, down the covered walkway to the servants’ quarters in the back. His face is burning, his legs rubbery. Growing up, Yi was always the sickly one; if there was flu or food poisoning, he was bound to get it before Ren. “I’m the warning system,” Yi had said, scrunching his face up in a smile. “I’ll go before you.” And in the end, he had.
Ren, shivering now in his narrow cot, pulls the thin cotton blanket over himself. Despite the warmth of the room, he’s freezing. His bones ache. Yet there’s a sense of peace, that lightheadedness that comes with being sick. He can’t think coherently about the tiger anymore.
And then he begins to dream.
* * *
It is the old dream, the one where Ren stands on a railway platform, only this time the train is stopped at the station. And Ren isn’t there. He’s on a little island—more like a sandbar—in the middle of a river, gazing at the train from across the water. Sunlight shines through the train’s empty windows. Where is Yi?
Ren walks from one end of the sandbar to the other, shading his eyes as he squints across the water. Then he sees him, scrambling and waving wildly on the opposite bank. He jigs from one foot to the other in a familiar manner. How could Ren have forgotten that jig?