by Dawn Farnham
Coleman was not conventionally handsome, but he was a manly figure, tallish and broad in the shoulders. His nose was somewhat long and his lips thin, but that did not matter much. Everything was in his eyes, which were a hazel–green, surrounded by deep wrinkles. They seemed in perpetual good humour, even when he was not. He delighted in the ridiculous and had a love of wit and repartee. He was a great favourite with almost all the Europeans, young and old, and the English-speaking Chinese. His thorough knowledge of Bengali, Tamil, Hindustani and Malay gave him an easy relationship with those communities as well. He had built virtually every road, quay and canal in the town. He had surveyed the island and drawn up its first accurate map. He had filled in the swamps and opened up the jungle. He had almost finished construction of the only two solid bridges in the town: one over the Singapore River and the other on the Rochor. He had built the houses of almost every important European, Peranakan, Malay and Chinese family, the rows of shophouses, the princely mansions and the godowns of the rich merchants. Over fifteen years, his tireless industry had made Singapore the most elegant town in the British East.
Only once had Coleman talked to Robert of his relationship with Takouhi. She had been ill with fever, and while Dr Montgomerie and Mrs White had attended her, he had sat with George in the drawing room of Tir Uaidhne.
‘She is a woman full of grace and passion, Robert. I have no idea what I should do without her.’ He had sat slumped on a chair, his head in his hands.
‘I’ve offered marriage, you know, but she will not. Just says, today we are together. It is wonderful. Gets these dark moods, you know. It’s the marriage to that old Dutch pig when she was just a girl. By the saints, a bad man can ruin a good woman, crush the trust and love out of her. He was a brute. She wasn’t to blame.’
Coleman stopped abruptly and looked quickly at Robert. By the time Dr Montgomerie descended the marble staircase with good news, he had pulled himself together. Robert had not known what to make of this or what to say, and the subject had never come up again.
Now Robert thanked his friend and left. He was grateful. On his walk back to the bungalow he went over Coleman’s words about marriage in his head.
‘Really, George is not thinking straight on that score,’ he said to himself.
‘Why, there’s no comparison between George’s situation and mine. Shilah’s a simple servant girl, and Takouhi Manouk is the educated and cultivated sister of the wealthiest man in the East Indies. George is rich and powerful, a man who does as he pleases. I’m a policeman, serving the government. My conduct is constantly under scrutiny. And what about Charlotte? What would her prospects be with a native sister-in-law. No, it’s impossible.’
At heart, Robert was a simple soul and with this issue settled in his mind, he felt better than he had for days. He was looking forward to taking Charlotte on a visit to the town. There was no reason to trouble her with this matter, which, after all, was his personal business.
As he arrived back at the bungalow, fat drops of rain began to fall.
5
The men in the coolie house had passed an uncomfortable night. The perpetual comings and goings, the sounds of sickness, coughing and moaning were all interminable. The fetid smell of the toilet buckets hung chokingly in the air. Qian couldn’t wait for the night to end. In his exhaustion he had slept but he woke constantly, dripping with sweat in the humid atmosphere. He would rather have slept outside, but the doors were barred. Thank all the gods, Zhen had spoken to the pock-faced guard, and they had some kind of agreement that they could go to the temple tomorrow.
Hanging his head over the edge of the cot, he whispered, ‘Thunder boy, are you awake?’ He had given Zhen this nickname when he had seen the thunder character for his name. This was not his real name, but an assumed name. Zhen had told Qian that he had been given it by a lady friend because of his extraordinary sexual prowess, but Qian did not believe him. Qian had learned something of Zhen’s Taoist philosophy, knew he had spent time in a Taoist monastery and that thunder was one of the eight kua, the elemental forces that made up the hexagram of the I Ching oracle. But it didn’t matter to Qian. His own nickname, given to him by his elder sister when he had been a sick young boy, meant ‘modesty’, and Zhen had made fun of him for its girlish overtones. Qian did not mind this, either.
Zhen grunted, turned face upwards and yawned. ‘Morning, miss, is it daylight?’ he mumbled between stretches. Qian put on his straw sandals and climbed down from the cot. He ran quickly along the narrow corridor to the air well and looked up. Nothing but a gloomy light was visible but, to his delight, it was raining. He ran quickly back and waved to Zhen to come.
In the air well, the rain fell with raging force, bouncing off the stone walls and gurgling down a drain that was rapidly becoming overwhelmed. They looked up, and the water streamed off their faces and over their bodies, soaking them within seconds. Zhen motioned to Qian to wait and ran back to the kitchen area. When he returned, he called to Qian to take off his clothes. The rain was so strong he had to yell over its din. Pulling him to the side, he rubbed his back with the wood ashes and oil he had mixed in a bowl and put a big dollop in Qian’s hand. Then he tore off his own filthy clothes and rubbed himself from head to toe in the mixture. Qian rubbed his back, and then they both stood, faces upturned to the force of the rain as the dirt ran away down a hole in the floor. They stamped on their dirty clothes.
For the first time, Qian saw Zhen’s body. In comparison his own looked puny, although he was not weak. Zhen’s arms and shoulders were strong and muscular, his chest broad and smooth narrowing to a flat abdomen and slim waist; his limbs were long and well shaped. To Qian’s eyes, he was as perfectly formed as a man could be, and Qian felt momentarily envious. He noticed the pale red, blue and black tattoo of Guan Di on Zhen’s chest. On the road to Amoy, where they had met, eating, not bathing had been their first priority. On the junk no one undressed, no one washed—unless getting doused by volumes of seawater or standing in the rain could be considered washing. For the moment they were both lost in the happiness of this unexpected and refreshing downpour.
Other men were coming now, and before they could be swamped by human bodies, they scooped up their clothes and ran naked, whooping and laughing, up the corridor and jumped on their wooden cots.
As they dried off with small cloths, Qian watched the play of muscles under Zhen’s back and buttocks and, to his horror, found himself becoming aroused. He rushed to throw on his only other cotton trousers and loose top and sat back against the wall, quietly drying his queue. Zhen had noticed nothing and, dressed now himself, was hanging up their wet clothes around the cots, where they steamed quietly. His face was strong jawed, his forehead unblemished and perfectly formed, but there was something indefinably pretty in his face too, his lips perhaps. They all combined to make him a good-looking man, and Qian knew Zhen turned women’s heads. Qian’s own forehead was bumpy, and he knew his ears were too pointed, making him look a bit like a weasel. Zhen’s eyes were not so narrow as his, more almond-shaped, but in moments of anger they became dark slits, making him appear hard and cruel.
Zhen set off to the kitchen for soup, rice and tea, which the coolie bosses supplied until the men could be moved on to work either on the island or, in most cases, in the tin mines of Malaya or further afield. Qian contemplated his slowly dwindling erection and what it could mean. He wasn’t a virgin; he’d been with several women. He hadn’t enjoyed it very much but doubted any young man did in the beginning, especially with the wrinkled old crones who sold their services in the nearby village. He shook the mental image of that encounter out of his head, and by the time Zhen returned, had recovered his poise.
Having finished their meal, they attended to each other’s hair. Since they had met they had both discovered a common concern with their personal hygiene. Zhen was almost obsessive. His father had been a practitioner of Chinese medicine, a scholar who had taught his son to read and write and given him knowledge of p
lants. Health and cleanliness had been drummed into his brain since he was a boy. Until his father had fallen under the spell of opium, Zhen had been his apprentice, choosing the roots and leaves, blending the herbs, mixing the potions. The night before, he had picked up a broom and booted two coolies into action to clean up the hallway to his satisfaction. Now from his sack he took a porcelain bottle of a green, oily mixture and, having unpicked their long queues, they both combed a small amount through their hair. This concoction had served to keep them both free of the awful hair bugs which infested other men. Relieved that touching Zhen’s hair in this mindless routine had no physical effect on him, Qian relaxed. Finally, when they had finished replaiting, Zhen rose.
At the door, Zhen shook Pock Face, who was sitting on the floor dozing.
‘Oi, it’s late. Get up. We are going to the temple to give thanks, remember?’ he said, holding his yellow handkerchief balled in his hand.
Pock Face grunted and stretched. Then, taking a large key, he unlocked the front door. They stepped gratefully out into the fresh air of the street. Zhen knew that Pock Face couldn’t have made the decision to let them out and calculated that someone higher up might be waiting for them at the temple.
After a few minutes they found themselves before its doors. Pock Face motioned them to enter, and they stepped up over the great log which formed the entrance, went between the Fu lions and into the inner courtyard. Rain fell steadily, but the large, ornate double-roofed incense holder gave off a heady perfumed smoke. This temple was tiny compared to the great Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, but it smelled like home.
A large statue of the Sea Goddess, Ma Chu, golden and red, stared down on them impassively through her beaded headdress. Her faithful companions, red-faced wind-favouring ears and green-faced thousand li eyes, stood on either side of the altar. They lit incense and gave thanks for a safe arrival.
When they had finished, a small figure appeared from the back of the temple and approached. Dressed in loose black trousers and a white jacket, he held his hands in front of his waist, fingers intertwined but for the index fingers, which were bent and connected at the first knuckle, and the thumbs which were touching each other. It was a kongsi brotherhood sign for peace. Zhen drew his right arm across his chest, making the sign for heaven by holding the thumb, index and middle finger pointed upwards, the two others remaining curled against his chest. He bowed and motioned Qian to do so also. Then all three went into a side room of the temple. Pock Face slumped down by the door and immediately fell asleep.
‘Welcome, brother,’ the man said to Zhen and looked quizzically at Qian.
‘I am Zhuang Zhen of the Green Lotus Kongsi in Zhangzhou,’ Zhen said. ‘This is Lim Qian, from Yangshan village in Quanzhou prefecture. He is not a brother yet. We seek the protection of the kongsi here and your help to find work in Si Lat Po, where we know no one.’ Zhen took from his cloth sack a paper, unfolded it and handed it to his interlocutor.
‘I see,’ said the man examining the paper, then eyeing them both shrewdly. Their first names were made up, of course. He knew this. Almost no one used their given names. Singkeh newcomers often sat around on the junk inventing names for themselves. He had known singkehs who called themselves dog-ugly, donkey, banana-head, stone-balls or monkey’s arse. It had something to do with their feeling of impermanence here. Make money, go home, throw off the name, the temporary identity and, at the same time, jettison the fears and loneliness of this enforced exile.
‘I think we can help you. You can both read and write?’ They nodded. ‘Good, good. First must come the initiation ceremony for your friend, and you must swear again also. Until then nothing can be done for you. Do you agree?’
He looked at Zhen. Taking back his paper, Zhen looked directly at the man.
‘We are in the coolie house, it is not a clean place, is there no other until this matter is sorted out?’
The man looked back at him steadily. They were all alike, these bloody singkehs; give them half a chance and they wanted more. Even if this one had interesting credentials, he would have to discuss this with his superiors. But he had to be a little wary. From the paper he had seen that Zhen had been a feared honggun, red rod, chief disciplinarian of his guild, albeit probably a small one if it was in Zhangzhou. The Heaven and Earth Society here was a widespread confederacy of many thousands. It was the only resort for the penniless Chinese workers who turned up each month. The kongsi was like a piece of China far from home. It offered them a temple, comfort and work, medicine when they were sick and assurance of a decent burial. Without it they would perish. It connected them to people who spoke their language, knew their villages. Here in Si Lat Po, the Ghee Hin Kongsi, the main branch of the society, was much more powerful than any local guild. For twenty years it had operated with efficiency and impunity under the headman, Inchek Sang.
Still, it paid to be careful, and he was a careful man.
‘I am a hujiang, tiger general. You know very well I must speak to my superior. For now the coolie house; maybe in a few days you will go to the plantations, work there until the ceremony, then we see. This is not my decision.’
He called Pock Face, who came running at a trot, rubbing his eyes, and instructed him, ‘Take good care of our friends.’
He gave Pock Face some coins. ‘For some food and refreshment. They will stay at the coolie house, but find them cots near the street. Tonight they may go out with you, but do not leave them alone. We do not wish them to get lost.’ He looked fiercely at Pock Face, who shuffled uncomfortably.
Zhen and Qian bowed and followed Pock Face back to the street. The rain had stopped, and the heat had begun to rise. Pock Face looked at his two companions with renewed respect. Coins for some good grub, out on the town. Whatever this fellow had said had had some amazing effect. Qian, too, couldn’t believe their luck. He wanted to quiz Zhen, but that would wait.
They wandered along the bayside towards the market area, with its distinctive red double octagonal roof. On its outskirts they stopped an itinerant hawker carrying his stove, bowls and ingredients slung from two poles. Pock Face ordered noodles, and they squatted, eating and looking out over the sea and its continuously moving ships and boats, along the crowded street and into the market building bustling with tradesmen and wares. Qian felt as if a great weight had lifted from his shoulders and, as they slurped their noodles, which tasted of home, he realised the extent of his emotion and gratitude towards Zhen. A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman wrapped in a cloth of purple and yellow came sauntering by, carrying a tray of fruit and nuts on her head. They gawped at her. For the first time in many months, they ate their fill. Even Pock Face was enjoying this unexpected feast, and they chatted amiably about home, basking in the clean salt air from the sea.
Then Zhen saw her: the black-haired Ch’ang O from the barbarian ship. She was with a white man. They were wandering about the marketplace, and the man was pointing out things now and then and talking animatedly. From time to time he put out his hand for hers and led her somewhere else. Zhen watched them with narrowed eyes, an odd heavy feeling in his chest. For a moment he thought she looked in their direction. He thought they might come towards him, willed them to do so. More than anything else at that instant, he wanted to see her close up. But they turned and left the market.
‘ Snatch the joys of life as they come and use them to the full
Do not leave the silver cup idly glinting at the moon’
He watched the place where she had been for a long time.
6
Incheck Sang sat alone, cross-legged, on a large tiger skin in the middle of the room. Strewn around this skin on which he slept were coffers and chests of varying sizes. Other than these objects, the room was bare. This was his sanctuary and his treasury. The only other person who ever set foot inside this room—and then only under his fierce gaze—was his eldest daughter. She came in to clean the room, change his clothes and bring him food. He entrusted these duties to no one else, not even h
is wives. The windows were barred, behind shutters which were rarely opened. The only air that penetrated came from a band of open decorative porcelain bricks that ran around the room on three sides under the ceiling. It was humid and hot, but Sang did not mind. Sometimes he would open one of his chests and draw a long, curved fingernail over its silvery contents. The little finger on one hand was missing from the knuckle, the stumpiness of this finger emphasising the length and boniness of the others. He had cut it off himself after a spectacular loss in the gambling den, as a painful reminder to stop this obsessive habit. It had made no difference. Gambling was in his blood.
Sang was cutting his toenails. He was a superstitious man. After each snip he would dexterously pick up the clipping with his long fingernails and place it carefully in a dull metal box which sat atop the tiger’s head. When the job was finished to his satisfaction, he closed the box, took a small key on the long cord around his neck and locked it. Opening a silver embossed chest, he placed the box inside and locked it. He was a small man, bird-like and wrinkled. His face drooped slightly to one side, the results of a stroke he had suffered five years before. He was over seventy years old, but his eyes were clear and his mind was sound. He wore a long black coat with a silk skullcap. His beard and droopy moustache were grey, and real. The thick black queue attached to his head was not.
The captain from the Amoy junk, an old colleague, was waiting for him in his entrance hall, together with Ah Liang, his chief clerk, and Guan Soon, the coolie agent. Locking the door carefully behind him, Sang crossed the open courtyard with large pots of bamboo, went through the ornate central hall and out into the open yard. The two men were seated in the entrance hall, chatting amiably. When they saw him they sprang to their feet and bowed low.