by Ming Cher
When the movie ended, Chai and a bar girl exited from the south side of the theatre. Sachee was waiting behind the door. He followed them quietly and, when the right time came, stabbed Chai in the waist with the fruit knife he had carefully sharpened. The knife went in so quickly that Chai walked a few more steps before he felt anything. Then he lurched and his hand discovered the handle of the knife in his side. He collapsed to the ground in the middle of a suddenly screaming crowd. News travelled so fast in Chinatown that it had reached Santeng by the time Chai arrived at the emergency ward.
Sachee was delighted at his success and returned immediately to Geylang to boast about it to Kwang and Hong, who were having a late-night snack with Big Mole. Big Mole had a fresh scar where her mole had been, and it was now covered with herbal oil. She was speechless when she heard what Sachee had done. Hong pulled Kwang aside and said, “We have to change our plans, must go and get Yeow tonight.”
• • •
Cheong Pak was unable to contact Yeow at Katong Beach because Yeow was still with Ng Koo at Pasir Panjang. He immediately went to see Wong, so that he could contact Chai’s father. Wong was not at home, but in the opium den behind Kuan Yin Temple. He was at the peak of the opium’s soporific effect, a place where one no longer dreamt but became the dream itself. He simply said to Cheong Pak, “That is fate. Be calm against the waves. You should check Chai’s condition first.”
But Cheong Pak was thinking about something else. “All I want to know is that Yeow will not act recklessly. He will suspect that Kwang is behind all of it. I can’t afford to see a war between a tiger and a dragon.”
At this time, Kwang, Hong and five other top spider boys had already climbed inside Ng Koo’s mansion, wearing masks. Two of the boys tied the gatekeeper up and went upstairs to join the others who had cut the telephone line. They switched on the light in the bedroom and threw a blanket over Yeow’s and Ng Koo’s naked bodies. No one said a word.
Hong opened all the drawers using his skeleton key and took out Ng Koo’s diary with the names of clients inside. “What is this?” he said, breaking the silence. He could read only a bit of English.
Ng Koo was too shocked for words, but Yeow’s nerves were still intact. “Why don’t you all just say exactly what you want?”
Hong snapped his fingers. “Money,” he said. “As much as possible. Where are the keys to the safe?”
Ng Koo pointed to a drawer at the head of her large bed. Hong took out the key soundlessly and handed it to a spider boy. They stuffed all the money and jewellery from the safe into a sack.
When they returned to Ng Koo’s room, Hong again snapped his fingers and said, “Now it’s time for you to have a dip in the swimming pool and watch the sunrise!”
“Do you have to tie our hands for that?” Yeow asked.
“One hand and one leg, so you walk nicely together,” Hong replied.
At the pool, Kwang tied Ng Koo to the steps of the swimming pool, leaving only her head showing above the water. Then he took off his mask and grinned at a shocked Yeow. “Why you are not sleeping with Kim instead of her?”
Yeow was lost for words, but then answered, “Why you don’t just pull a knife through my throat if you are that jealous!”
“Because I promised to see you jump off a cliff.”
Hong threw Yeow’s shirt and pants to him. “You’d better put something on before you get cold feet,” Kwang said.
• • •
It was high tide. Yeow realised that they were really going to push him over, so he took his time to put on his trousers. When they thought he was going to slip on his shirt, he ran instead to the edge and dived out as far as he could from the side of the cliff, using the moonlight reflected from the water as his guide. He wanted to avoid the rocks below. At such a deadly moment, the mind sped faster than imagination and time stood still. The only person he saw at this time was Kim, who was one month pregnant with his baby. He crashed down through the waves and began to swim for shore. When he finally reached the beach, he set out at once to look for her at Bukit Ho Swee.
• • •
Coincidence sometimes happens as in a fairy tale. Wong was in an emotional state of mind. Still smoking opium, he thought about Kwang’s long-dead father, who had arrived in Singapore from Amoy on the junk Nam Hong. The opium den now felt bare and lonely without all the old vibrations. It was also dark and damp and the small kerosene lamp was running low on fuel. Wong added more kerosene and mumbled to himself, “Tonight I am going to smoke my way to heaven!”
Turning on his side, Wong sucked hard on his pipe, finishing a standard spot of opium at one go. He felt ecstatic. His head went zong zong zong, everything was in images. “I am proud to face heaven!” he shouted inside his head. “I’ve done nothing wrong! Pau Shen! Pau Shen! Where are you?”
Kwang’s father appeared in a few acrobatic flips. “It is me!” He folded his arms before Wong with a steely grin. “Four Eyes! Big Head is worse than you!” They were nicknames for Wong and for Chai’s father, respectively, who had come on the same boat with Pau Shen.
Excitedly, Wong stretched out his legs and accidentally kicked over the kerosene lamp. The next moment, he saw fire, and the fire on the floor was spreading up the dry wooden walls and, with a whoof, bursting through the attap roof. Immediately, the opium den turned into an inferno. Still very groggy, Wong stumbled down the creaky ladder and out of the blazing cottage, and saw the attap leaves flying in the wind like paper. The whole village woke to his screams of “Fire! Fire!”
Like a zombie, Wong walked out of the burning village amidst the cries of the people, all of whom were fleeing towards No Nose Bridge, under a sky that was becoming redder and redder. On the bridge he saw the Ho Swee river turn red and people running faster than during the Japanese Occupation. He recognised countless of them and tried to talk to them, but no one replied. He felt loss, he felt rage. He stared at his red reflection in the river, like a meaningless ghost in a vacuum, and he felt so light he thought he could jump down and fly away to meet his old mates in a more real world.
“I am only one step away from heaven!” he cried. He placed one foot on the railing of the bridge, which was trembling under the stampeding feet of the people.
“Mr. Wong! Mr. Wong! What are you doing?” The familiar voice of Kwang’s mother was calling him. He turned around and saw her and Kwang’s brothers. They had stuffed whatever possession they could into bags fashioned from sarongs. “Where are you going, Mr. Wong?” Yee asked again.
Wong suddenly woke up. He grinned widely, “I’ll come with you and give you a hand.” He took the bags from Yee’s shoulder and they joined the refugees leaving Bukit Ho Swee.
Yeow, too, saw the fire as he approached the village. He could not find Kim in the crowds of running people, but he did meet Kwang, who was looking for his brothers. They both stood still and stared at each other for a long time.
It was Yeow who initiated a handshake. “I know how you feel. I feel the same. Are we even now?”
Kwang answered, “Already even.”
“We are free, then,” Yeow offered. “I am not going back to Chinatown.”
Kwang forced a grin. “Katong Beach with Kim then?”
“Yah,” Yeow said and slowly walked away.
Acknowledgements
A number of people have helped me with this novel. I would like to thank Bronwyn Sprague and Craig Miller, and especially my agents, Michael Gifkins and Sandra Dijkstra, who made it all possible.
My gratitude also goes to Jocelyn Lau for her close work on this new Singaporean/Malaysian edition.
MING CHER was born in 1947 in Bukit Ho Swee, Singapore. One of seven children, he left school at thirteen and became a street drifter. At the height of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, he was a construction supervisor on a hospital project in South Vietnam. He later became a merchant seaman.
Ming Cher has lived in New Zealand since 1977. He speaks and writes English, and is also fluent in Hokkien, Cant
onese, Mandarin, Malay, Indonesian and Vietnamese. He currently works and writes on a farm north of Auckland. Spider Boys is his first novel.
OTHER BOOKS IN THE SINGAPORE CLASSICS SERIES
Green is the Colour by Lloyd Fernando
Scorpion Orchid by Lloyd Fernando
The Immolation by Goh Poh Seng
Glass Cathedral by Andrew Koh
The Scholar and the Dragon by Stella Kon
Ricky Star by Lim Thean Soo
Three Sisters of Sze by Tan Kok Seng
The Adventures of Holden Heng by Robert Yeo