by Dawn Farnham
Alex, on the corner of China Street, peered along the street at the fight but quickly walked away. He did not want to be seen in this street by any of the policeman or any other eyes that might be watching.
When the Indian jemader from Telok Ayer station arrived with two more peons, the men, buoyed by numbers, ran towards the thugs. In an instant the attackers melted away down the back lanes of Chinatown and the police were left with wounded shopkeepers, a dead man and little else.
The jemader looked at his men. No-one would be caught for this. It was Chinese gang violence between the two dialect groups.
‘The Teochew man, sir,’ the jemader said to the new European officer, Inspector Graves, ‘was murdered by two Hokkien thugs. That’s what the shopkeepers say.’
Graves listened. The Tamil was translated into Malay for the Malay scribe to write down the jemader’s report. The Malay scribe translated as he went along so that by the time the story came to Grave’s ears in English it had, like fine oil but without its benefits, passed through several strainings. He had been in this job for four months and disliked it intensely. Robert Macleod was a good man doubtless, but the job had no real pay and the town was a constant soup of incomprehensible violence.
‘The day after tomorrow, I am guessing, a Hokkien man will be murdered by a couple of Teochew.’
This went back up the line and the jemader smiled slowly. The white officer was new but he was quick.
Graves dismissed the jemader with his thanks. He would make a report but there was nothing to be done. If these Chinese insisted on murdering each other willy-nilly, there was nothing he could do.
He turned his attention to the more important matter of the burglary at the town house of Hong Boon Teck, the opium farmer. This man had claimed the burglars were Teochew gangs working for Tay, the opium farmer in Johor, but no proof was forthcoming. Graves sighed.
* * *
Lian wound her way slowly up the wooded slopes of Mount Erskine. Alex had just left her. She felt a warmth invigorate her limbs and the wetness of him between her thighs. He was exciting, sex was exciting. In all the misery of her life, she had never felt so alive and he was the cause. Her want of him was constant.
But that was impossible. Her grandmother had examined the bloody white cloth and the very stained bedclothes, raised an eyebrow, but had pronounced herself satisfied as to the consummation and then it had been a slow wind down to the twelfth day and the end to the wedding period.
The most difficult day was the open reception for all the town. She had seen Alex watching her out of the corner of her eye and grown truly scared. He was too reckless. But he had not come again. Ah Soon said it was too dangerous and that since the reception, the house had been watched.
So today they had met, not in China Street, but in an old storehouse attached to the back of a shut-up sago shop at the end of Amoy Street. It was half broken down and unused and it could be approached from the heavy woods of the hill behind. They had crept into the shop and fashioned a bed out of sacking and to the muted thump of the rice pounder in the shop next door and the clank of the tinsmith opposite, surrounded by the hawking, calling, spitting populace outside, the sun had slanted in through the broken roof onto them and they had wound themselves around each other, their hearts pounding and their bodies slick with sweat until they were exhausted.
As she rose to the top of the hill, the wind caught her hair and cooled the heat of her body. She put down the basket of beading and embroidery she had bought and gazed down at the town and out to the sea. She would go there, she thought, out on the ocean, on a ship, which was new and exciting to her, and begin a new life in this strange place, this Dutch place she knew only from the maps in the school.
‘Lian.’
She jumped back and stumbled towards the edge. The fall was straight here, where the trees had been removed to construct the new harbour, straight down onto the heavy boulders below. The edge crumbled away and she lost her footing and screamed. An arm caught her, strong, and pulled her to safety.
‘Father,’ she said with a look of immense surprise.
Zhen looked steadily at his daughter. She was flushed with surprise and fright from the near fall, he supposed. The samseng had reported that the boy Alex had been seen in Chinatown, in China Street, but had returned to the European town. His daughter was not in the house. She had gone out at least two hours before. He had not followed her. He had not been ordered to. Zhen had sent the cowering samseng away with orders to scour the town and finally, the man, exhausted and grateful, had found someone who had told him she was on the hill.
Zhen looked out, like her, across the sea to the smudgy islands lying on the horizon. He recalled coming here after Xia Lou had left him. He knew about youth and passion and love and sex and the heady obsessions they filled you with. And Alex was his son, every inch of him.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Here,’ she said.
‘For two hours?’
Lian followed his gaze.
‘I walk on the hill, then I practice the beading and embroidery which my grandmother insists I must learn, up here where things feel fresh and clean.’
She picked up the basket and showed him its contents. She had taken the precaution of pricking her fingers several times and putting the blood on the cloth. She was glad she had. She knew he had eyes everywhere. They could never come back here again. Each time would be more dangerous, each time it had to be somewhere new.
‘I’m not very good.’
Zhen was unsure what to think.
‘It won’t surprise you to learn that I dislike being married and being in that house.’
He closed his eyes. Xia Lou’s words resounded in his head.
‘Would you deny me every pleasure, Father? Even this?’
The marriage had been consummated. The old woman had told him only that. The husband had done his duty. Zhen did not dare contemplate what that had been like for her. It was not seemly to consider such things about a daughter. He was rather astounded Ah Soon had managed it.
He took her basket. ‘Come, I will walk with you. Shall I tell your grandmother to stop asking you to bead?’
She laughed, a swift, powerful feeling of relief swamping her at this change of subject and his suspicions allayed. He felt how much he always enjoyed her company.
‘Yes, please.’
They walked slowly down the hill and arrived at Telok Ayer Street.
‘Lian, do not neglect your English. Read books and some of the journals in the library.’
‘Why on earth, Father? What use is it to a nonya housewife?’
Zhen had an idea which would save Lian from the fate of Lilin, the fate of living a useless life. It was probably controversial, but what was that to him. He and his apothecary would teach her about Chinese herbs and medicines. Dr. Cowper had asked him about them. He was an enlightened sort of Englishman, who wished to study the native plants and remedies. Once in a while such an Englishman came along. He wished to give them for free to the patients at the native hospital and in the Malay villages. If Lian could learn these things, she could write about them in English, a book, the first of its kind, perhaps, in English, which might be of immense benefit to science.
He stopped in front of the Tien Hock Keng temple with its heady odour of incense.
‘Come inside. We will light some incense to ask all the gods to smile on us and I will explain.’
31
My eyes gaze at the returning swans
My fingers strum the five strings
I lift and lower my head in contentment
My mind, detached, saunters in the void
Jia Wen put the paper to the floor and put her hands to the zither. The tune she had learned was famous. It was the Guangling Melody of Ji Kang, the Taoist immortal, musician and poet, whose lines she had just read.
Zhen was fascinated and intrigued. To find such a woman in Singapore who could recite ancient poetry and play with such fluent
beauty. Really he could not help himself. He came to Cheng’s house solely to hear her.
The story was that of Zheng, son of a swordsmith in the Warring States period, who committed suicide after stabbing the King of Han in revenge for his father’s death. The music, deliberate and slow, changes as Zheng’s emotions turn from grief to hate, to vengeance then death.
Jia Wen played with all her art. She dared not look at Zhen, for she knew he was called that. Her maids were all Malay and could not speak Chinese but that was not needed to pick up all the gossip of the town. Her maid had told her he was a rich merchant, a widower. His wife had died many years ago and he had not remarried because he had a concubine. They called her the English concubine. The maid’s eyes had opened wide and so had Jia Wen’s. An Englishwoman was a concubine.
‘Perhaps they are not like Dutch women,’ she said and the maid nodded. ‘Perhaps the Englishmen have harems too.’
They agreed that this was most likely. Jia Wen had not set foot into the town as yet. It half-terrified her and she watched it from her window. She had grown to womanhood in a quiet village and the immense crowds of Chinese all rushing about terrified her. She was not allowed, as yet, to leave the house, nor appear at the doors when the hawkers came. She understood them better than her maids and servants but she was not permitted to speak. She spent her days cooking for her father, practising the zither or reading Chinese poetry in the courtyard.
Zhen’s mind wandered, the rice wine had made him tipsy. These evenings with Cheng and his daughter were currently the most peaceful of his existence. Cheng had got the liquor farm of course. He had bid more than three thousand dollars above what Hong had paid the previous year. And the violence had intensified. Smuggling was running amok. Cheng had visited Tay in Johor and they agreed to supply more chintengs to police it, but Hong’s organisation was good. His house had been raided but no opium was discovered. Chintengs had scoured the rivers of the Straits for illegal farming and smuggling but so far there had been little progress.
Zhen had called Hong to him and asked him straight out what he knew about the smuggling. Nothing, he had respectfully replied, other than that Tay was a smuggler and so was Cheng. He was waiting, Zhen knew, biding his time until he could become the leader for he knew Zhen’s role was temporary.
So Zhen continued as head of the kongsi. All the officers had appealed to him to stay for clan violence erupted almost every day. He had issued an edict for calm and it had been heeded for a while but, inevitably, it sprang up again.
Jia Wen plucked the final note and he smiled at her. She rose and bowed to her father and his guest and left the room.
Cheng poured more wine. ‘I fear you must stay as leader until the leases come up next year.’
Zhen grimaced. ‘Lao Cheng, please.’
‘No, no. I must insist. Listen, I have formed a good relationship with Tay. I am paying for some of his chintengs and have offered to finance a patrol of the Straits. Four or five boats on regular patrol to watch for smugglers. The Temenggong and the Governor are pleased.’
‘Good,’Zhen said.
‘It serves as much my purposes as Tay’s. I can also watch for liquor smuggling from Johor into Singapore. Hong wasn’t happy about my getting the liquor farm.’
‘The Governor was. Doubled his revenue.’
The two men smiled.
‘The Malacca farm is owned by Tay’s son-in-law so together they control that side of the Straits. I own Riau and it is only Hong who throws the log in the river. If I can outbid him next time, we will have the great syndicate. The Tay-Cheng syndicate. We will have a pact not to smuggle and the profits will be huge. Think of it, no need for the cost of chintengs and patrols, just pure business.’
Zhen nodded. It was a good plan. One year, then certainly Cheng would be in a powerful position to take over the kongsi. And what did it matter? He had no idea how to mend the bridges with Xia Lou.
‘I would like to propose my daughter in marriage to you.’
Zhen was not entirely surprised but the abruptness of the proposal was startling.
‘I like you very much,’ Cheng went on. ‘I would be honoured to have such a son-in-law, overjoyed to have such grandsons as you would make.’
Zhen felt a great warmth for Cheng, who had taken Tan’s place in his heart. He had had no relations at all with his own father and these two men meant a lot to him. He knew that from almost every facet, Jia Wen was the perfect woman for him. She was young, beautiful and clever. She spoke his language, shared his culture. Their marriage would be passionate and harmonious in a way that his with Noan had not. Cheng was right to wish her married to him. And he would be foolish to refuse.
But marriage would mean an admission. The heart-wrenching agreement that his relationship with Xia Lou was over. She would never come back if he was married.
Cheng waited. He knew all about the business with the concubine. What he saw in this white woman, Cheng had no idea. She was old and, though still lovely, he supposed, she was surely no match for his daughter. Still he was wise enough to know the affairs of the heart were mysterious. This long silence meant he was reflecting on such a possibility. He had not refused and this was enough for the moment.
‘Do not answer me now,’ he said. ‘There is no rush.’
Zhen was immensely grateful. He bowed to Cheng. ‘Thank you.’
Zhen walked home slowly through the quiet streets of Chinatown. He knew Wang or one of his men was in the shadows. Thunder rolled far away and the wind suddenly freshened.
One month had passed since he had seen her beside the beach at Katong. He remembered another time, when they had met in secret there and made Lily together. He looked up at the stars. She had sent Alex and Adam to Scotland and returned to Batavia to have his child. And she had been brave. She had come back to Singapore and been with him, acknowledged Lily as his child. He loved her for all that.
Three years, not all easy, but they hadn’t cared. He shook his head, regret washing over him. How had it all become so bad, so fast? He walked to Boat Quay and stared over the water. Some ball was taking place in the Court House; the English music wafted over to him. He remembered the English Commander. Was she going to him? It made his head burst.
If he remarried he would never see her again. Her ship would be here in a few weeks. He felt a wave of frustration wash over him and wanted to roar and roar until he was exhausted. Instead he turned and went back to Market Street.
32
Lian turned in Alex’s arms, resting her lips on his chest. It was midnight. Alex had waited patiently for two hours hidden in the stifling closet, dozing. Ah Soon and Lian had gone to visit her grandmother at River Valley Road for a family occasion and all the eyes that followed them had gone too. She had returned and Ah Soon had gone to the opium den.
He ran his fingers down her back, through the silky tangle of her hair and over the soft skin of her buttocks. There was no limit to what he wanted to do with Lian, time and again. She snuggled against him. They were a perfect fit.
‘Alex, I have something to say.’
‘Mmm,’ he kissed her forehead sleepily. When they had rested a while they would start again.
‘I have missed my period. I think I’m pregnant.’ She looked up at him. Sleepiness vanished and he took her face in his hands, then put his palm to her belly.
‘Oh Lian, I love you.’ He enclosed her gently into his arms.
‘I’m scared.’
‘No, no. It is natural. You should be pregnant. Your family will be thrilled and treat you like gold and by the time the baby is born you will be with me.’
‘You will be married to Amber. In all this we have forgotten that one fact.’ She sat up. Her skin lay white against the red embroidered pillows. He touched her belly again and placed his lips there, where his child lay, this piece of himself growing inside the woman he loved with all of his heart.
‘I care nothing for Amber.’
‘Yet you must make love to h
er.’
He looked up and smiled. ‘Is that what you are worried about? Jealousy.’
‘Of course I’m jealous, you fool. I have no wish to think of you making love to Amber for heaven’s sake.’ She got up and put on her gown, poured a glass of water from the table and drank it down, thirsty. He watched her from the bed.
‘There is no other way. You know it. But so what? I don’t care about her.’
‘Can men just do it? No need for any affection? Just a lovely body and away you go?’
‘Doesn’t even have to be lovely,’ Alex said and she laughed despite herself, then frowned.
In all these last heady weeks she had not once really thought about Amber. ‘How is she?’
He rose, surprised, and drank too. He pulled the pisspot from under the bed and let slip a stream.
‘How is she? I don’t know. She had a little turn and I sorted it out. We’re engaged. I hardly see her except for family occasions. She behaves herself.’
‘She loves you. She has loved you since I’ve known her.’
Alex shrugged and went back to the bed. He lay gazing at the ornate wooden carvings, frowning at the upside-down bats, the fruit and the writhing dragons. ‘That’s not my fault. We can’t help who we love.’
Lian looked over at him, handsome and perfectly formed, bathed in the low glow of the lamp. They were beautiful together. He felt like a part of her. She knew suddenly that this was a moment stolen from life. It was contained and held separate from reality. It was pure love and it was golden. No matter what came to them, he would never love anyone else this way. And neither would she.
‘No,’ she said. ‘For good or evil. We can’t help who we love.’
He smiled and extended his hand to her and she went to him.
* * *
‘Well, well, daughter. You are with child.’