The Heart Radical

by Boyd Anderson

  Again I heard those two words repeated: Toh Kei, along with some others I recognised. Elusive English words that I had often heard lawyers use. This was more interesting than looking at maps of wordless lands and, even though my father said it was not polite to listen to other people’s conversations, I could not help myself. I knew it was not a firm rule, not like a law from one of his books, because I had even seen him do it himself. Often when we went to Penang he would take us for curry tiffin at the E&O Hotel, and he always made sure we arrived at midday so that we could sit in the lounge under the big domed ceiling and drink ginger beer until the 12.30 lunch gong. Pa made sure that we got seats not too far from the fountain and not too close to the orchestra, because he liked to spend that half-hour with his own ear cocked. The dome had the peculiar effect of carrying voices from the far side of the room. The secret ceiling, I called it, although Pa always referred to it as ‘the Straits Echo’, because he always said it was a better way of finding out what was going on in Penang than reading the newspaper of that name.

  The ceiling in the Indian lady’s place was almost as high as the E&O, but there was no dome to it, which meant I could not hear much. What I did hear reminded me of afternoons sitting with my mother at the Capitol cinema while she watched one of her Chinese films, such as Empress Wu, or Dream of the Red Chamber, or a weepy Hong Kong soap opera, the kind where there was much crying and pleading and sorrow and misery. My father and the lady were speaking in English again, not Cantonese, but it was much like the scenes that always came near the end of those pictures. She was getting upset, covering her face with her hands and saying, ‘Toh Kei would die if he went back into the jungle.’ Pa patted her hand in a comforting way, but when he spoke it was softly, not like the loud weeping the Indian lady could not control, and too soft for me to hear. ‘He did everything he could,’ she then sobbed, ‘he was too sick to do any more.’ She took some deep breaths and dried her eyes with a hankie. Pa glanced over to me and I quickly fixed my eyes on the atlas.

  The boy appeared not to notice any of this. His mother was in such a state that it was impossible not to realise how upset she was, but he just went about his business, quietly turning the pages and studying the maps.

  ‘We could leave the country, if that’s what they want,’ she said defiantly. ‘If that’s the only way out of this, we could go to India, or Holland.’

  Pa shook his head slowly and the only word I caught was ‘China’, and she started to sob again.

  ‘They can have their medal back. I don’t want their blasted medal. I’ll send it personally to the King himself if that’s …’

  And then the tears flowed so freely she could not say any more, just like a Chinese film. I wondered how this one would end – would her love suddenly appear at the door and rush to her side as she collapses in happiness into his arms? Or would it be the tragic ending my mother seemed to prefer, the kind where the sobbing woman is left slumped on the floor, the door closed forever?

  There was to be no slumping on the floor for the Indian lady, however, because suddenly she jumped to her feet. ‘They can’t hang him!’ she cried. ‘They simply can’t!’

  ‘No, I don’t think they can,’ I heard my father say.

  That seemed to help her composure, because they both soon rose from the table and came over to our corner. ‘How did you two get on?’ she said. ‘Paris, did you show Su Lin your special place?’ The boy immediately flicked back through the pages, stopped at a map and stuck his finger in the middle of it. ‘That’s right,’ said his mother.

  The boy smiled at me, raising the knolls of his chubby cheeks, and spoke for the first time. ‘That’s Paris.’

  We said our goodbyes, and as we were driving out of town I wanted to ask my father what had made the Indian lady so upset, but of course that would be admitting that I was eavesdropping, so I just asked him about the boy. He had said only two words to me, but they didn’t seem to make much sense.

  ‘His name is Paris,’ Pa explained to me, ‘and that’s the name of a town in France.’

  ‘He is named after a town in France?’ I had never heard of such a thing.

  ‘Well, he’s not actually named after the town. It’s an Indian word as well as a French one. It’s what you call a coincidence, when two things happen like that.’

  ‘A coincidence.’ This was another new word for me to learn, and I found its sibilance most agreeable. I said it three more times so I would remember it. ‘He was very shy.’

  ‘So were you,’ Pa said. ‘Paris doesn’t have a father. Perhaps that’s why he’s shy.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘His father was killed before he was even born.’

  I understood this. I knew many children who did not have fathers. ‘The Japanese,’ I said knowingly. My father did not like to talk about the Japanese. Whenever the subject came up he wrapped his fingers around the thumb that was scarred and had no nail and that he could not bend at the top joint, and then he would change the subject. But I could see no way around it to explain a missing father.

  ‘Not this time,’ he said. ‘Not all bad things are the fault of the Japanese. Dr Thumboo’s husband was killed by his own people.’

  ‘Who is Dr Thumboo?’

  ‘That was Dr Thumboo. The lady you just met.’

  I thought it was another of his jokes. ‘No, she’s a lady, not a doctor.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Pa said. ‘She’s a lady and a doctor. You learn something every day, don’t you?’

  He was right. I was learning something every day. And then I could not help myself. I simply had to make some sense of all the other words I had heard.

  ‘Dr Mrs Thumboo is scared about Toh Kei, isn’t she?’

  Pa looked at me. ‘You’ve been listening. That’s not polite, you know.’

  ‘She was speaking so loudly. And that boy wouldn’t talk to me.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, Dr Thumboo is concerned about Toh Kei. So we’ll just have to see what we can do, won’t we?’

  I took careful note of that: Pa said we. ‘Yes we will,’ I said proudly.

  He looked at me, twitching his mouth back and forth, which meant he was giving careful consideration to this situation. ‘But you can’t talk to anyone about this.’

  It started to rain heavily and the car slowed to a crawl. I thought if I was going to help my father then there were some things I needed to know.

  ‘Pa, who is Toh Kei?’

  ‘I was wondering when you were going to ask that,’ he said, peering through the windscreen as the wipers desperately tried to keep up with the downpour. ‘He’s a friend of Dr Thumboo’s. A special friend. And just now he’s in prison.’

  I thought about ‘special friend’. I had heard grown-ups use those words many times and when they did I noticed that it was in a particular way, usually accompanied by a raised eyebrow or a slight nod of the head. I asked my father what it meant. He glanced at me quickly, frowned and sucked on his teeth for a moment before answering.

  ‘It’s a person that another person cares for very much,’ he said. ‘A woman that a man cares for very much, or a man that a woman cares for very much.’

  ‘Do you mean like Pa and Ma?’

  He glanced at me again, and this time one of his grins spread across his lips. ‘In a kind of a way.’

  ‘Is Toh Kei a bandit, Pa?’ From all the agitation I had just witnessed, it seemed likely to me. Whenever there was agitation, ‘bandits’ were likely to be at the bottom of it.

  ‘If you’re going to help there are some things you have to learn,’ Pa said. ‘These people are not bandits. They are fighting for a cause, not just to rob people. A bandit is just another word for a robber. Toh Kei and others like him, we call them CTs. Can you remember that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, but I didn’t understand. See and tee were two more characters I did not yet know. ‘What does see tee mean?’

  ‘It stands for communist terrorist. Don’t worry, just remember CT.’
/>   Soon we were in Hale Street and the rain had eased. Pa didn’t stop at his office. He drove around the corner and pulled up outside the FMS. ‘Wait here just a minute,’ he said, and dashed off through the rain. Less than a minute later he was back and we were heading to the office after all. ‘Uncle Hung Jeuk will be coming to visit me soon, so you’ll have to be quiet.’

  A visit from Uncle Hung Jeuk was something to look forward to because he brought treats from the FMS, like a caramel custard or perhaps even a bottle of F&N Sarsi. There wasn’t much for children at the FMS, but he always managed to find something. I was well aware that Hung Jeuk was not his real name. He wasn’t Chinese, and even if he were, I was quite sure that no man would be named after a peacock. He was actually Humphrey Wilmot, my father’s friend who came from Australia, the one my mother did not like. ‘You’re not bringing Humphrey Wilmot back to my house,’ I heard her say once to Pa. There was an argument then, but Uncle Hung Jeuk did not come to the house. Mei said Pa called him Hung Jeuk because he was like a peacock, although I never could see why myself. He was taller than anyone else in Ipoh, with a long nose and a moustache that made it twitch, sleepy eyes that blinked virtually incessantly, and fingers he fluttered in front of his face when he spoke, like he was casting a spell. There was always a smell about him, the same one I got a whiff of whenever I had to wait at the little swinging doors of the FMS, and I could not see what any of that had to do with a peacock. I considered that perhaps it was his walk, as he did have an inclination to strut along purposefully when he was outside on the five-foot way.

  We had only just got back to the office when he came hurrying in, his hair dripping and shoulders soaked. He was in such a hurry that he forgot to bring an umbrella, and he also forgot to bring me a treat. The first thing he said, not hello or how are you, was, ‘What do you think? Will you do it?’

  If I was to help I thought I had better listen, so I sat in the chair next to Uncle Hung Jeuk. He looked at me, his eyes blinking furiously.

  ‘Hullo, pretty Su. Are you joining us?’

  ‘She wants to help, don’t you,’ Pa said.

  ‘That’s good,’ Uncle Hung Jeuk said. ‘We need all the help we can get.’ He turned to Pa. ‘Will you do it?’

  ‘They won’t get charges like this to trial.’

  ‘We both know that,’ Uncle Hung Jeuk said, wiping his hair with a folded handkerchief. ‘I’m not even sure if old Davies understands the law when it comes to sedition. But I know it. Wasn’t he posted to somewhere in Africa before this?’

  ‘The Gold Coast, I think,’ Pa said.

  ‘Yes, well … touched by too much sun. Maybe they have a different concept of sedition on the Gold Coast. I may be a tired and spent old lawyer, but at least I know my law.’

  ‘But they will get their trial,’ Pa said. ‘One way or another.’

  Uncle Hung Jeuk’s hand reached over the desk, his fingers fluttering. ‘Which is why we need you, old chap. I couldn’t defend him, even if I was up to it. It has to be a Chinese to stand up to these people.’

  ‘This is your crusade, Humphrey. And might I say you have less to lose. You have a country to go back to. My country is this one, and a case like this, for a Chinese … it could cost heavily.’

  ‘It’s not just my crusade, Casey. It’s yours, too. Come on, you were a commo once yourself. Sometimes you talk like you still are.’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ Pa said. ‘Everyone was a communist at university in those days.’

  ‘Yes,’ Uncle Hung Jeuk said with a grin, ‘you had to have a social life, didn’t you. Listen, you’ve got the runs on the board. You did it for that Kow bloke last year, and he was only small beer. This is your chance to really make a mark.’

  Pa leaned back in his chair and turned to look out his window. ‘This case is certainly not small beer. This fellow could hang.’

  Uncle Hung Jeuk thumped the desk and made me jump in my seat. ‘Of course he could hang! But you have to look at what’s at stake here. Colonialism is dead. The tuans and the Whitehall warriors, they just can’t smell the corpse. They’re fighting for their pompous, protected little lives here, and it’s a war they have to win to make Asia safe for all their grubby commercial enterprises.’

  ‘It’s not a war though, is it,’ Pa said, still gazing at his white wall. ‘It’s an emergency.’

  ‘Yes it is. And who came up with that for a moniker, I’d like to know. Some bottom-feeder from the yellow press doing a spot of freelance? We’ve got so many emergencies in this country, why pick on a word like that? Next time the rubber market crashes, is that to be an … emergency, too? Bureaucratic twaddle is what it is.’

  Pa sighed wearily. ‘We’ve been through this, Humphrey. We’re always going through this.’

  ‘Well, it’s worth going through it again, because I think that’s what is going to stop them getting their charges up. If it’s fees you’re worried about, didn’t Anna Thumboo tell you she was taking care of it? We received probate on her father’s estate recently. It’s not much, but enough for this.’

  ‘That’s not an issue. But a case like this … I’ll have to speak to Raja about it.’

  ‘Oh tosh, Raja will be fine. A gambler like him? He backed you for a win with the Kow business, didn’t he? That was a long shot if ever there was one. And if I know Raja he’ll jump at the chance to have a genuine Indian war hero like Anna Thumboo for a client. For that matter, Toh Kei is a war hero as well. He’s got the medals to prove it, pinned on his chest by the el supremo, Mountbatten himself. That’s if he’s kept them, of course. Probably melted them down for bullets by now. Look … it’s the Saturday club at the FMS. Raja will be down there sooner or later. Never misses the Saturday club after the races. I’ll speak to him then. When you talk to him, remember to drop old Mountbatten into the conversation. You know how he feels about all that pomp and circumstance stuff. When are you seeing Toh Kei?’

  ‘On Tuesday. And I have a conference with David Davies on Thursday. I’ll know where we stand after that.’

  ‘So … you sound like you’re taking it on.’

  Pa was still looking out the window but I could see the look on his face and I knew then what he was going to say.

  ‘It’s a good case,’ Uncle Hung Jeuk said. ‘Have a look see. That’s what Chinese lawyers do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Lut si,’ Pa said. ‘Cantonese for lawyer is lut si, as you well know.’

  ‘Close enough. Come on …’

  Pa turned back from the window. ‘And I’m Hokkien, as you also know.’

  ‘Like I say, close enough. Will you take it on?’

  ‘Well, Humphrey,’ Pa said, ‘in spite of your bad jokes, I will.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Uncle Hung Jeuk said, thumping the desk again and scratching his twitchy moustache.

  He settled back in the chair and took a packet of cigarettes and a book from his pocket. Whenever I saw him he always had cigarettes and a book in his pocket, and the cigarettes were always Gallaher’s and the book was always in Chinese, and usually about Confucius. There was a lot about Uncle Hung Jeuk that could not easily be grasped by a child of eight.

  ‘Come down to the pub and we’ll drink to it,’ he said. ‘It’s the Saturday club, you know.’

  ‘Some other Saturday,’ Pa said. ‘I have to get Su home.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Uncle Hung Jeuk lit his cigarette and blew the smoke up to the ceiling before tugging gently on my ear. ‘I’ve got something for you.’ He fished into his pocket again and found a Murray Mint. ‘Just a sweetie today. There’s no girl as pretty as an Ipoh girl, pretty Su. Every pretty girl in Malaya says she’s from Ipoh, but there’s no girl as pretty as an Ipoh girl.’

  When we got home I looked up ‘emergency’ again in the dictionary and found that my father was right – it didn’t say anything about war at all. Chinese dictionaries were not so easy to use, and I didn’t know how to look up ‘see’ and ‘tee’. I asked Mei what it meant. She just frowned at
me, shook her head and said that it didn’t mean anything to her. But I knew it should, so I told her about Toh Kei, that Pa said he was one of those and not a bandit, and she burst out laughing. CT, she said, communist terrorist. And then she told Li, who joined in the laughter.

  I had to get back at them, and I knew how. I saw a lady today who’s a lady and a doctor, I said. Is that so, they said. And I said yes, it’s called a coincidence. Now they laughed even more, which is why I decided to keep all to myself what I knew about our father once being a communist.

  7

  My short ghostly visitor addressed me in muted Cantonese. He was curt, but in spite of the fact that his rifle was still pressed against my stomach, certainly not belligerent. He addressed me as ‘Missy’, the way my patients did, which was unique to Papan among all the Chinese I knew, and so it was obvious he had been speaking to them. My reputation for assisting the needy had apparently reached as far as the hills, but I gathered that he was still to determine whether I could be trusted.

  I told him that I would not answer any of his questions while he had a rifle trained on me. He considered me for a moment, and then lowered it. He must have been satisfied by then. He said he had a patient for me. I told him I would be in the clinic at my usual time in the morning and would be happy to see him then. It was bold of me to say such a thing, I know, but I was in no mood to be pushed around any more by bullies carrying guns. He did not react other than to say the patient would be arriving within the hour and that I should be prepared to receive him. Bullet wound to leg, he said. Bullet still in.

  I quickly prepared a table in the clinic. ‘Shorty’, as I labelled him, returned well within the hour accompanied by two men of similarly dishevelled appearance carrying a makeshift stretcher. Shorty said that all doctors in towns were routinely watched following a gun battle in the area. The particular gun battle they had survived occurred near Bidor, he said, far to the south, and so he was confident that Papan was not being watched. They had carried this man, unconscious and burning up with fever, more than twenty miles through the jungle to my clinic. I was amazed, not to mention flattered.