The Red Thread

by Dawn Farnham

  Putting down his pen, the munshi rose and greeted them, hands together in a salaam. In English he bade them sit and called a young boy to bring tea. Introductions were made, and he agreed to take on Charlotte as a Malay pupil.

  ‘Munshi, everybody so sorry about family in Malacca.’

  This was in English, but Takouhi added some sentences in Malay, and bowed her head.

  She had already told Charlotte that the munshi had lost his wife and a daughter in childbirth not long ago. He could no longer bear to live in the house where they had died, so he had sold everything at a great loss and moved permanently to Singapore.

  ‘There is pain in this but, praise be to Allah, they await me in paradise. This is the balm for my heart. Now I have my new house in Kampong Malacca, my children are with me, my son is a good scholar and helps me teach. There are many blessings,’ the munshi responded.

  To Charlotte’s consternation a large tear slid down his cheek. She herself began to feel tears well, and Takouhi dabbed her eyes. For a few minutes they all sobbed very quietly and without any embarrassment.

  ‘My word, Abdullah, you certainly have a way with the ladies.’ It was George, and beside him was Mr Moor, the headmaster of the institution.

  The munshi wiped his face with a large handkerchief and rose from his chair.

  ‘How do you do?’ Mr Moor greeted the ladies. ‘Pleathe allow me to show you the thchool.’

  ‘Moor studied for holy orders,’ said George. ‘He’d have made a fine preacher, don’t you think?’

  The munshi shook his head at these antics. Coleman and Moor both grinned at Abdullah and then, gathering in the ladies, began a tour of the institution.

  Mr and Mrs Moor and their three children occupied several rooms in the western wing. He took care of fourteen boys who boarded at the school. Below these apartments were the Chinese schoolroom and a printing room. The central body of the building was divided into rooms for teaching Malay and English (on the ground floor) and a library and meeting room (on the second). The headmaster explained that there was an upper school, with some fifty boys who came from Calcutta. There were also over a hundred Chinese, more than half of whom were Christians, thirty Kling and fifty Malay boys. A Bugis class had been abandoned for lack of students. Invitations to the Malay chiefs to send their sons had come to nothing.

  He was delighted at the suggestion that Charlotte should help his wife and the Reverend Stanford in teaching the English classes.

  Removed a small distance from the main building and sheltered by trees was a large attap shed for play, with a gymnasium, a small fives court and a quoit ground. Some of the boarders were running about the grounds, but the shed was deserted, for the school was open from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon.

  They stood for a while watching the comings and goings of bullock carts gathering stones from a hillock behind the school. Mr Moor explained that the trustees had advertised that anyone leasing land near the school and wishing to erect substantial buildings could freely take stones from this hillock.

  ‘There is a great dethire by everyone here that Coleman’s buildinth should be emulated so that Thingapore can prethent a civilithed fathe, as Mr Raffelth wished.’

  Takouhi looked at him and then George. Coleman grinned. Charlotte hid a smile behind her hand and thanked Mr Moor graciously. She was looking forward to helping such a man.

  12

  Zhen and Qian were sick of work on the plantation: chopping and gathering vast quantities of wood to heat the water for boiling the gambier, tending the damn stuff, then distributing the lees as fertiliser for the pepper plants. The fire was so intense you couldn’t get within twelve feet of it. It was hot and exhausting work, and they had both had more than enough.

  At the end of the first week they had been guided to the kangkar, the three-hutted settlement where they could get the local palm toddy and opium. The women were kept in a shaky hut in the forest. After a couple of drinks of arrack, which they both found unexpectedly tasty, Zhen and Qian had gone to investigate this place, where men were crouched in a line. Three would go in at once. Inside the dark hut, the reek of dirt and sex was overpowering. Three women were lounging against the wall waiting. They were naked and filthy, their eyes as vacant as those of dead fish. One looked to be pregnant. Qian had never seen women like these, very black, with squat noses and large breasts and hips. He had no desire to touch any of them and, looking at Zhen, was relieved to see that he, too, was appalled at the condition of these creatures.

  The smell of opium and alcohol hung heavy in the hut. The third man who had entered was put off by his companions’ disgust, and they all left. Nobody could tell them where these wretched women came from, except that they had been sold as slaves at the Bugis slave market.

  When they heard that the accounts-keeper at one of the opium farms had died, Qian volunteered to take his place. He feared all the backbreaking labour on the gambier farm would kill him. Zhen simply stepped up to the headman, looked him in the eye and said he was going too. The headman—a small, thin addict with a constant cough—merely shrugged. They plodded through the jungle for an hour until they came to the opium farm.

  Zhen had seen opium aplenty. He had tried it but he knew that it was a hard mistress. His father, clever pharmacist though he was, eventually became addicted, and this, in the long run, had brought misery and bankruptcy to their family. Opium was the reason he and his brothers had sought out the kongsi, the reason his mother’s health had been ruined from hunger and worry, the reason he was here. Now, if he could, he would grow rich on it. The irony was not lost on him.

  While Qian settled down to the quiet business of learning the organisation of the accounts, which seemed to be in poor order, Zhen learned the process of making the cooked opium, chandu. He was told to place the raw, gummy opium in a pot with water to cover it. This was boiled until it liquefied, and then he was set the task of straining it through gauzy cotton to remove the twigs, dirt and little stones. This strained mixture was set aside, and the impurities were reboiled and strained until all opium had been thoroughly removed. He learned that a hundred grams of raw opium could give seventy-five grams of chandu. Then the men sat around the pot of purified opium as it bubbled slowly over a low flame until all the water had evaporated and only a thick black paste was left. Now the chandu was ready to be rolled into cannonballs for shipment to the town or distributed to the kangkars throughout the interior.

  This work was so easy that they fell into a sort of rhythm with the other six men on the farm. Supervision was minimal. Since the previous account-keeper had died, no one had visited the farm, and the men, taking advantage of this, had been stashing small bundles of chandu in the jungle. Qian saw this in the accounts but could not stop it, and Zhen did not care.

  At the end of a few days, the temptation to share several pipes with the other men was overwhelming.

  In a jungle clearing a little way from the huts, the men lay on their sides in a circle while they ‘kicked the gong around’. One was designated the chandu chef, and he skillfully rolled and cooked each of the yen pok pills. He warmed the pipe to exactly the right temperature, inhaled deeply and passed the pipe along.

  Each yen pok pill lasted about one to three minutes; they consumed about ten. Qian initially felt a shock at the bitter taste, but the smoke was sweet and pungent. He felt a loosening in his muscles and, as the pipe passed around, it loosened tongues as well. Men who barely said a word all day began to talk of their villages and the heroic deeds they had performed there, tales real or imaginary of the foes they had vanquished, the number of women they’d had. Even Zhen suddenly began to babble incoherently about some women he’d known and the poems he had written. Then the men drifted off into dreams.

  Qian, who had smoked very little, awoke suddenly, befuddled by his surroundings. Men on either side of him were snoring. It was evening. A low growl came from the jungle, and he froze with fear. Frantically looking for Zhen, he knocked the m
an next to him, who awoke. In an instant a huge tiger had padded into the clearing. Qian could smell its musty odour, hear its rattling breath. To his horror, the tiger seized the leg of one of the sleeping Chinamen in its jaws and crunched down, dragging the man into the jungle. The victim awoke with a curdling scream, and all the other men leapt up. Qian was frozen with fear as men rushed around grabbing sticks and cudgels from the camp. The tiger did not reappear, and no one was going after it to try to save the hapless victim, whose screams could be heard receding into the darkness. Zhen grabbed Qian, and they ran back to the huts and began to light fires around the encampment.

  The next morning, one of the guards came to check the camp. When he called, Zhen came to the door of the hut and explained what had happened. The boss simply shrugged.

  ‘Ready yourselves; get the accounts together. Master Liang’s man will come today.’

  He called for tea and food, and the men emerged slowly from the hut and began the business of the day.

  Within an hour, a small group of men walked out of the jungle. One of them went into a hut with Qian, and when they came out some time later, he said to the men,

  ‘This man, Qian, is the new headman here for now. You obey him.’

  The man handed Qian some pieces of red paper with black writing.

  After they had left, Zhen went up to Qian, who handed him a paper and distributed two others. The final one, destined for the man who had been the tiger’s dinner, had been discarded. The notices told them the initiation ceremony would take place in eight days.

  ‘Well, well, headman, eh, you girlie. How did you wangle that?’

  ‘No need for such amazement, my thunder friend. I’m learning fast. We both know people from my village. I told him that the dead guy kept lousy accounts which I have been putting in order and that I have now stopped the pilfering which was endemic until I arrived. Then I mentioned that you, with enormous bravery, had saved the other coolies from the tiger. I also asked him to give our compliments to Master Liang, whom we both met in the temple at Guan Soon Street and that we are looking forward to seeing him again at the initiation ceremony.’

  Zhen looked at his companion appreciatively, held up the red paper and made the kongsi sign for heaven with his hand. Qian made a circle with this thumb and first finger and kept the other three straight as Zhen had shown him. Heaven and earth. They both laughed.

  13

  Mr Coleman was holding a ball. An invitation had been handed in by George’s Indian syce. The date was fifteen days hence, and everyone was invited, including Robert’s two European policemen, William and Thomas, and three of the Indian jemadars. Robert told Charlotte that Coleman’s soirées regularly outshone the governor’s and that almost everyone of any consequence was likely to attend. To repeated questions he said he thought that the temenggong might put in an appearance, the governor certainly, and also Colonel Murchison, head of the regiment, most of the Europeans, some important Indian merchants and the leading Chinese and Arab merchants. Several ships were in port, and he thought that most of the officers would also be invited. This information simply put her into a state of high nervousness.

  ‘Women will be in dreadfully short supply. The ideal opportunity for you to pick up a husband, chère petite soeur. George likes to throw the local lads and lasses together now and again. Not being married himself, he’s very keen on the wedded state.’

  He grinned at her and left.

  She wanted to kick him and could not comprehend his blasé attitude, especially since the invitation had been accompanied by an announcement that the only dance of the evening would be the three-step waltz and that the services of the famous Count Papanti had been engaged for dance instruction. Charlotte had no idea how to perform this dance, considered scandalous by her Scottish relatives and, to the best of her knowledge, neither did Robert. Perhaps he already knew about this Papanti fellow. She shook her head and made her way across the plain to Tir Uaidhne. Here she received the information she needed.

  It would be a very big ball, maybe a hundred people. Takouhi’s brother, Tigran, was coming over from Batavia in his ship. Count Papanti was passing through Singapore, visiting Marie Balestier, wife of the American consul, and Charlotte Keaseberry, both old friends of his patron, Mrs Otis of Boston, who had recently introduced the waltz to America. Dance instruction would be held at George’s house for several evenings before the ball. Charlotte was quite thrilled at this news, for she had heard of the ‘wicked’ dance sweeping Paris and London where, for the first time, men and women danced in each other’s arms.

  They would need new clothes, Takouhi announced. Up they went to Takouhi’s elegant bedroom, where a huge four-poster bed draped with gauzy netting was covered in an array of silks, satins and chiffons the colours of the rainbow. Charlotte thought this a beautiful room, with its curved bay windows overlooking a grove of palms. To one side stood an English desk of inlaid walnut. On the other, a low cabinet of drawers above which hung a painting. At least she thought it was a painting, but when she went up to it she found it was made of cloth, stained with pigments. Swirling shades blended witchingly together to depict a woman of great beauty standing amidst clouds and foam, fabulous fish and sea creatures at her feet.

  ‘This is Loro Kidul, Queen of the South Seas. New sultans must make her first wife. Very powerful goddess.’

  Takouhi spoke in hushed tones and, putting her hands together, bowed before the image. A long wooden dish lay on the cabinet under the painting, filled with jasmine flowers and small candles.

  ‘This made by batik, don’ know English word. Put wax then colour. Mmm, difficult. I show you another day. Like my sarong, yes?’

  Charlotte nodded, yes; she had seen these cloths in the market, marvelled at their intricacy.

  Takouhi turned to the bed and took Charlotte’s hand. ‘Please choose. My brother send these for me last ship. My tailor make for you. Today we spend all day for this. By Hanuman’s tail, it be fun. On this day I also wear European dress. I like sometimes very much. George always help me. He has paper with pictures. He know we like to make new dress.’

  She went into a large closet and emerged with several magazines. One was in French and had colour plates of the fashions in Paris. Takouhi, she knew, had a passion for French things and had begged Charlotte to teach her and Meda the language.

  They pored over the magazines, Charlotte translating with Takouhi repeating the words and laughing a silvery laugh. When Meda came home from school, she squealed with pleasure to see Charlotte, and her mother had to reprimand her for such noise, but soon they were all again laughing at French words, wrapping themselves in the stuff which lay scattered around.

  Even Evangeline Barbie had agreed to dress up for the occasion, albeit somewhat more modestly than the present fashion decreed. And she had strictly refused to waltz. Evangeline was cook and housekeeper to the Reverend Jean-Marie Baudrel, head of the Catholic mission in Singapore, and Reverend John Lee, the padre of the Chinese mission, as well as those members of the church who passed through and required shelter.

  Charlotte accompanied her to the Catholic chapel after her final fittings, and they chatted excitedly.

  The chapel was a plain wooden building in the middle of a large piece of ground in Brass Bassa Road. The parochial house occupied a corner compound at nearby Church Street. This, too, was built in wood and raised on brick pillars. Around the chapel and its little schoolhouse, the jungle had been cleared, but there were many little groves of coral trees, yellow kassod, saga and tamarind.

  Today, Evangeline was acquainting Charlotte with the workings of the schoolhouse. Charlotte had grown to like her, for they could converse easily in French and, despite her own lack of interest in any religious curriculum, she was happy to help teach the young boys their letters.

  The last weeks had been quite hectic. Charlotte’s Malay studies with the munshi had been most successful. He was a wonderful and patient teacher and a man of infinite good grace and tem
per.

  She practised with Azam and Asan and improved quickly. Even Robert was surprised at her swift progress.

  Munshi Abdullah was pleased to have found a student, so rare, who was interested in the poetics as well as the practicalities of Malay. Once the traders and agency clerks had mastered enough to carry on business, they came to him no more. Together, Charlotte and Abdullah talked of poetry, and she showed him a small book of Shakespeare’s sonnets, which he took home to read. He confessed them very difficult to understand and showed her some Malay pantun—quatrains which were similar but, he felt, easier to grasp.

  He set her a task to translate one. She spent several nights saying it quietly to herself:

  ‘Laju laju perahu laju

  Lajunya sempai Suraya

  Lupa kain, lupa baju

  Tetapi jangan lupakan saya’

  Eventually, after much work, she had decided not on a literal but on a poetic version to show to the munshi:

  ‘Speed, speed, swift boat upon your way

  The pace for Surabaya’s set

  Forget your coat or wrap you may

  But me I pray do not forget.’

  He had been delighted. Charlotte was more than happy to have found someone to share her love of language and was sorry when their time came so rapidly to an end each day.

  In addition, the munshi was a wonderful teller of tales. He had been Raffles’ scribe, present at all Singapore’s most important moments.

  He had laughed when he told her how Raffles had advised him to take up some land in Commercial Square which could but increase in value.