The Orientalist and the Ghost

by Susan Barker

  ‘C’mon, Julia. You’re starving yourself for nothing.’

  Adam lit the stove to boil water. When the kettle whistled he made cocoa sweetened with condensed milk and raided the cupboard for biscuits. Julia leant on the balustrade, staring forlornly across the armada of rooftops. The night droned with air-conditioning units as they drank the chocolate and ate until all the Jacob’s cream crackers were gone. Julia put down her mug, wiping her chocolate moustache and the fine-beaded sweat off her face with her bandaged hand. She pushed some straggly hair out of her eyes and turned imploringly to Adam.

  ‘I’ve had a false start,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I’ll begin again tomorrow.’

  Julia brushed the crumbs off her vest, scattering them into the alley below. They went back to the bedroom, and later, when Adam heard Julia snivelling in the dark, he really couldn’t understand why she was so powerfully convinced that their fate was determined by whether or not she starved.

  24

  THE FALLOUT CAME without alarm bells or warning. They had been coming apart slowly for weeks, like icebergs in a semi-frozen sea, when Frances suddenly reversed, crashing full-speed into Sally, smashing their friendship to smithereens.

  Sally was standing at a basin in the toilets, rinsing her sudsy hands under the tap. Along the row of mirrors Amethyst girls dawdled before morning registration, gossiping and fiddling with plaits and hair slides, cubicle doors opening and closing, lizards darting across the peeling paint of the walls. The toilets were dark and a strong chemical odour of bleach-mopped floors pulsed through the humidity (usurped, as the day progressed, by cigarette smoke breathed from inexperienced mouths, and other, more scatological fumes). As Sally stooped over the gushing tap, she felt a prod on her shoulder. She turned round.

  ‘Hello, Fra—’ The last syllable was knocked out of her as Frances shoved her in the chest, so her thighs bashed the basin rim. Sally’s hands flew up in self-defence, fingers webbed with soap suds. ‘What?’ she said.

  Frances was puffy and tear-soaked, tiny blood vessels raging in the whites of her eyes. Her eyelids were swollen and discoloured, as if they’d been punched.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ shouted Frances.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You know what you did!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  The gossiping, mirror-gazing and hair-fiddling halted as the roomful of schoolgirl eyes pivoted towards the brawl. A flush chain was yanked and a cistern surged. Even as she stared, panic-fraught, into her best friend’s furious face, Sally was conscious of the visual comedy of the confrontation. Little Frances Milnar attacking her shy giantess friend like a scrappy Yorkshire terrier. As though provoked by Sally’s inner mortification, Frances shoved her again with both hands.

  ‘Liar!’

  The word tore from her mouth; a bullet ripping into Sally’s vulnerable flesh. Her heart beat accelerated and her breathing wheezed. To push Frances away would require hardly any effort, but her arms hung like dead things by her side. She was conscience-stricken, guilty of her unknown crime.

  ‘I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘Well, congratulations. He’s leaving the school.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know who!’

  ‘It had nothing to do with me!’

  Frances slapped her. Sally was too stunned even to lift a hand to the scalded cheek. The toilet audience quivered in delight. The young ladies of the Amethyst school were unaccustomed to violence. Conflict among the girls was usually subtle, with harm inflicted via psychological means. The bell clanged for registration but no one moved.

  ‘You’re jealous,’ said Frances, calmer now, as if her hysteria had been dissipated in the slap, ‘so you had to ruin everything. You make me sick! Don’t ever come near me. Don’t you ever come near me again!’

  Sally, shaking, her chin wobbling, was on the verge of tears. Frances barged through the gaggle of schoolgirls and out of the door. The girls swooped on Sally at once, cooing in sympathy and patting her arm, relishing the gossip to be spread. Sally had never been so popular.

  ‘Are you OK? Oh dear … don’t cry.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sal. We all saw what happened. She was crazy! Like someone had spiked her cornflakes with acid! Don’t worry about her … That was assault. You could get her suspended for that … Do you really not know what you’ve done?’

  One slap and a hot blast of fury, and Sally was back in the shoes of the timid nobody she’d been on her first day at Amethyst. Lessons passed in a trance, pen scribbling unthinkingly in her exercise book, the teachers’ mouths making unintelligible shapes and sounds. She mentally scripted powerful emotive speeches protesting her innocence and fantasized about Frances apologizing meekly for leaping to false conclusions, though these dreams of reconciliation were shattered by a mere sideways glance at Frances, seething like a swarm of wasps. During breaks Sally hid in a toilet stall, listening to the clatter of lavatory seats, jet-streams of pee, and the whispers of teenage girls rustling like taffeta skirts. She peeled the flaking skin from her lips as she hid, so by the afternoon her mouth was raw and bludgeoned-looking. When school was finally over, she was desperate to go home after the worst day of her life. But after a surreal interception at the school gates, Sally found herself at quarter past four in the bedroom of Delilah Jones, with Delilah and the Perak palm-oil dynasty twins Lillian and Meredith.

  The Jones residence was on a hill overlooking the Lake Gardens. The girls sat on rococo-style chairs by the sunny ceiling-high window as a Bob Dylan LP spun on the record player (to which Lillian gyred her head, eyes slitted in pleasure, as though there was something tantric and mystical in the tambourine shakes, guitar strumming and the singer mumbling off-key). A Chinese servant in a traditional maid’s outfit entered and set down a silver tray of iced tea and sandwiches. Thank you, Mimi, said Delilah, and the servant departed without a word. (How professional, Sally thought admiringly, at the same time feeling an unprecedented pang of affection for the giggly Safiah and her never-combed hair.) As Delilah poured out glasses of iced tea and the heiress twins compared notes on the afternoon geography test, Sally gazed about the bedroom. Everywhere was startling evidence of the Amethyst Queen’s corporeality: rose-bud-studded bra strewn across the parquet floor; the sensuous disorder of bedsheets where she’d slept in the night; dressing table cluttered by perfume bottles, worn-down lipsticks and mascara-streaked cotton pads; hairbrush tangled with demerara-brown hair. Kandinsky posters were taped to the walls, as well as black-and-white prints of nude women (the lascivious array of buttocks and breasts confusing Sally – was Delilah a lesbian?). On the bedside table was a well-thumbed stack of Time magazine and The Economist. Unorthodox reading matter for a teenage girl.

  ‘Feel free to borrow anything you like,’ said Delilah, waving towards the bookshelves. Sally read the cracked spines: Miller, Lawrence, Kerouac, Burroughs … ‘I’ve dog-eared the pages with the dirty bits.’

  When they’d descended on her at the school gates Sally had been afraid. Delilah’s smile was too bright for someone drenched and humiliated by a bucket of water only three nights before, and Sally declined the invitation to tea. But they’d pleaded and cajoled (Oh, you simply must! insisted the smiling identical twins) and Sally, who’d never acquired the skill of putting her foot down, gave in. Revenge seemed the most likely motive, and as they strolled through the old Colonial District Sally wondered what punishment they had in store. Were they going to shave her eyebrows? Force-feed her with slugs? Whatever it was, Sally knew she was defenceless. Resigned to her fate, she sat in the rococo-style chair, eating a dainty cucumber and salmon paté sandwich (despite her nervousness she was peckish) and waiting for Delilah and the twins to turn nasty. But Sally’s accosters remained perfectly congenial, grumbling about exams and parents and planning an outing to see The Graduate at the Federal Cinema. The twins ignored the sandwiches, cupid’s-bow lips puckering around the cigarettes they c
hain-smoked. They wore their hair in pigtails with cute little fringes cut an inch above their eyebrows, dextrous, finely plucked arches that leapt about the stage of their forehead in mesmerizing performance. Whereas Delilah discoursed lengthily in her deep intelligent voice, Lillian and Meredith were pithy and quick, squeaky as speeded-up tape recordings.

  ‘We’re going to toss a coin to see who gets Sebastian this summer.’

  ‘We took it in turns over Easter and wore the poor boy out!’

  ‘So tired he could barely lift his ski poles!’

  ‘Sebastian had no idea what we were up to.’

  ‘He thought we were both Lillian!’

  ‘We both fancied him.’

  ‘And we were brought up to share.’

  ‘Any other way would be selfish.’

  ‘You should see him, Sal! He’s scrumptious!’

  ‘We swapped every other night.’

  ‘Sometimes twice a night.’

  ‘Sebastian had dark circles under his eyes for two weeks.’

  ‘He used to be a real skirt-chaser, but now he wants to settle down with us.’

  ‘Sebastian wants to marry us.’

  ‘We can’t make up our mind.’

  The twins chimed with laughter and Delilah smiled and rolled her eyes. Sally didn’t know what to think. Were they pulling her leg? Or were they really both sleeping with the Czechoslovakian ski instructor? Either way, they confirmed Sally’s deep-seated belief that identical twins are spooky and strange.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend, Sal?’ Delilah asked gently.

  A redundant question if ever she’d heard one. Everything about her screamed: Never been kissed! Sally shook her head.

  ‘So what type do you go for, then?’ enquired Lillian.

  Sally was flattered by the assumption she had a choice in the matter. All men seemed beyond the realms of possibility (especially Mr Milnar – her fantasy husband and the most handsome man she’d ever set eyes on). Sally told them she liked Mick Jagger, hoping he’d meet with their approval. The other three laughed.

  ‘Well, it seems unlikely we’ll run into Mick at the Selangor Club,’ said Delilah, ‘but don’t worry, we’ll find someone for you.’

  Sally smiled politely, keen to move on from the perilous subject of the opposite sex before her painful inexperience was drawn out.

  A wreath of cigarette smoke around her pigtailed head, Meredith reached out and tugged a strand of Sally’s hair.

  ‘I know of a genius of a hairdresser on Bukit Bintang Road,’ she said. ‘He’ll really tame this frizz for you …’

  The advice stopped mid-sentence as Delilah flashed her a warning look.

  ‘Of course,’ gushed Lillian, ‘your hair is lovely as it is. I’d kill for your natural curl!’

  Though Sally’s bust-up with Frances was the talk of the fifth form, none of them mentioned it. It wasn’t long, however, before the departure of Henry Leung was discussed. Lillian and Meredith were heated in their disapproval.

  ‘Bloody thoughtless of him to leave us in the lurch a month before exams!’

  ‘I heard he left to concentrate on his politics.’

  ‘If politics is so important to him, then he shouldn’t have become a teacher in the first place!’

  ‘Absolutely. He was lucky to get his job at Amethyst. International schools pay three times what the local schools pay.’

  ‘Who’s going to replace him? Not Miss McPhee, I hope.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much,’ said Delilah. ‘We’ve covered the syllabus from A to Z already.’

  ‘Not logarithms,’ grumbled Lillian. ‘I lost three percent in the mock paper because I got stuck multiplying logs.’

  ‘What’s the name of the party he belongs to, again?’

  ‘The Democratic Action Party,’ said Sally: ‘the DAP.’

  ‘The DAP,’ repeated Delilah. ‘I can’t keep track of all these acronyms. These elections are like alphabet soup.’

  ‘I can’t wait for the city to get back to normal. There’s been such an unpleasant atmosphere lately,’ said Lillian.

  ‘Yes, don’t these people know how to hold a civilized rally,’ sniffed Meredith, ‘without throwing bricks or setting fire to things?’

  ‘It’s quite exciting, though, if you think about it,’ said Delilah. ‘If the Opposition win enough seats in these elections there will be radical changes in Malaysian government. The non-Malay races will have power for the first time ever in Malaysian history. It’s fantastic the minorities are standing up to be counted. So what if there’s some upheaval along the way? Being civilized never got anyone anywhere.’

  The twins nodded, though Delilah’s excitement was lost on them. Minor irritations, such as traffic jams caused by marches, and their Chinese maths teacher running off to fight the good fight (without having covered logarithms in the O-level syllabus first), annoyed the twins more than the racial injustices of their host country. Sally wondered what Frances would think if she knew Delilah sympathized with her political views. She’d probably like her a bit better, she reckoned.

  Before the twins left they told Sally that it had been a pleasure getting to know her and kissed her on both cheeks (kisses suffused with loveliness, briefly transforming frog girl to princess). As Delilah saw the twins to the front gate Sally sat in the stillness, her mind racing with the surrealness of the past hour. What on earth was she doing in Delilah Jones’s bedroom? The Amethyst clique had strict rules about who they socialized with; they were frugal with friendly gestures, even at the level of a nod hello. Why had they lowered their standards so drastically for a social pariah like herself? Sally knew it had something to do with Delilah getting that bucket of water chucked over her on Saturday night.

  ‘Almond and plum cakes,’ Delilah announced brightly as she returned to the bedroom with a tray, ‘imported from England. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to eat the rest of these!’ Crossing her legs in her chair with a yogic flair suggestive of double-joints and a resistance to pins and needles, Delilah lit a cigarette. Outside, the sky glowed with a burnt-orange sunset, lighting Delilah so her hair shone russet and a few levitating strands scintillated like gold. Between delicate puffs on her cigarette Delilah played at being the attentive hostess. Would Sally like some apple juice? A fork to eat her cake? What record would she like to listen to? Did she like Jimi Hendrix? Sally didn’t touch the cakes. Why was Delilah trying so hard?

  Spurred by the sense that something was amiss Sally said: ‘Why did you invite me here? It’s because of the other night, isn’t it? Because of what Frances did to you.’ The torrent of words rushed out before Sally lost her nerve. Delilah’s smile drained like colour from her face. ‘You must be absolutely raging about what happened. Did you invite me here so you could get your own back?’

  Delilah’s lips parted slightly in bewilderment. ‘Why ever did you come back with us if you thought I was luring you here to “get my own back”?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose I thought if you wanted to get your own back, you’d find some way to do it eventually …’ (God, she sounded like a complete drip.) ‘May as well be sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Well, you can relax,’ said Delilah. ‘I didn’t invite you here so I could have my wicked revenge. I did it so I could apologize and explain.’

  ‘Explain?’ echoed Sally.

  ‘I was in a very bad way the other night,’ Delilah began. ‘I drank too much and I was thinking non-stop about Christopher. I wanted to see him and I knew that if I knocked on the door that old Chinese housekeeper he lives with would send me away. So I threw stones at Frances’s window. My memory goes blank after that. I can’t remember what I was shouting … No, don’t tell me … I’m sure I was perfectly charming. I was furious when I got drenched. But I deserved it. You both did me a favour by helping me to realize how pathetic I’d become.’

  As she spoke, Sally had some difficulty reconciling the two versions of Delilah: the sophisticated warrior-queen she knew from school
and the vulnerable teenager sitting in front of her, coiling her hair round her forefinger, legs hugged to her chest as if for security.

  ‘I walked home,’ said Delilah, ‘and in the fifteen minutes it took me I decided that enough was enough. I’ve become my own worst enemy. What you and Frances did made me realize how low I have sunk. How mad I have become.’

  ‘There’s no need to be so hard on yourself,’ said Sally.

  ‘But it’s true,’ Delilah said. ‘I miss Christopher so much, I lose control of myself. I act like a crazy person. I don’t think I will ever, ever get over him.’

  Delilah’s eyes brightened, moistened, then were obscured by tumbling curtains of hair as she bowed her head. She pressed her fingers to her eyes, as if to damn the tear ducts. Tears leaked into the back of her throat, making her voice sound like gravel.

  ‘Christopher and I had an affair many months ago –’ (Sally bit her tongue to curb an excited cry to be privy to such scandal) ‘if what happened between us can be classified as an affair. I’m not sure, it was so brief …’ Delilah gave a bitter laugh. ‘I don’t blame him for any of it. I was sixteen when we first met, and for me it was love at first sight. But Christopher is different from other men. He didn’t seem to notice me, no matter how aggressively I flirted, what clothes I wore or how witty and seductive I was. When I did eventually get his attention, he was irritated more than anything. But I pursued him and pursued him, and last year he finally gave in. After that I thought he’d want to see me again. But he was beside himself with guilt. He said he had made a terrible mistake and that it must never happen again. He was terrified of Frances finding out. He said she would never forgive him. I wouldn’t listen. I argued with him. I was filthy with jealousy. I felt as though he’d chosen his daughter over me. I thought of Frances as a rival. Ridiculous, I know, but I was consumed by madness – something I’m only beginning to recover from. I’m starting to see things clearly again, to see things as they are – thank God! It’s such a relief. I’ve behaved so disgustingly …’