The Orientalist and the Ghost

by Susan Barker

  ‘Why don’t you come back to mine, Sal? My parents are visiting friends in Singapore and the others are being goody-goodies and want to go home. I shall be bored out of my mind if you don’t.’

  ‘I’d better not. I’d be lousy company – I’ve got this splitting headache, you see …’

  ‘All the more reason to come back to my house! My mother’s bathroom cabinet has more drugs than a chemist. We’ll magic that headache away in seconds. C’mon, Sal!’

  How could she resist such a plea? Sally abandoned the queue and, headache aside, felt very special as Delilah linked arms with her and walked her outside, jauntily saluting Mrs Pritchett as she herded them through the gates.

  The atmosphere of the Colonial District was as though the city had received a severe weather warning and was bracing itself for the storm. As they strolled along Sally stared into the faces of Malay passers-by, searching for traces of violence and hostility. A few groceries were closing early, metal shutters clattering down. A Chinese butcher wobbled past on a bicycle loaded with unsold stock and Delilah joked: Quick, the Muslims might come and steal your pig’s feet!

  Back at Delilah’s house the maid had left a note on the kitchen table saying that she’d been called to the countryside for a family emergency.

  ‘Mimi hasn’t got any family in the countryside,’ said Delilah, tossing the note aside, ‘and she won’t have a job to come back to either when my parents hear of this.’

  Delilah dissolved some aspirin in a glass of water for Sally to drink. Then, as Sally lay on the bed, she placed a compress of ice cubes on her forehead and practically straddled Sally to channel her weight on to the compress through the heels of her hands. Sally shut her eyes, the sensation of ice freezing her cranium and deadening the misfiring nerve-endings oddly pleasurable. Ten minutes passed and the headache was gone. Delilah asked Sally if she’d like to stay over. Uh-huh, said Sally. Delilah telephoned Mr Hargreaves, and Sally heard her impersonating Mrs Jones in the hall (Hello, Clarence, Petula Jones here! … Don’t worry … Sally will be perfectly safe …).

  When Delilah returned to the bedroom she stripped off her clothes, sliding her skirt down over her hips and pulling her shirt over her head without undoing the buttons. Sally cast her eyes away from Delilah’s pink knickers and small bra-less breasts as she rummaged through the laundry basket. When she looked again Delilah was wearing denim cut-offs and a sleeveless white T-shirt.

  ‘Monopoly?’ she suggested brightly. She dug a battered box out of a cupboard of rainy-day games and set the board up on the floor. ‘What colour do you want to be?’

  They sat on cushions as they played. Headache vanquished, Sally was keen to recapture the mood of the other night; the conversations of life and love and past and future. But Delilah was too absorbed in the roll of the dice and acquiring a property empire (which she did with great efficiency and obvious pleasure). Conscious of the weakness of her opponent she gave Sally hefty hints, but the desire to win prevailed. Delilah’s enthusiasm for the game, the handclaps and cheers, seemed affected. They were merely killing time. But why? Surely Delilah wasn’t so lonely she wanted Sally there purely for company’s sake? Around six-ish, after winning three games in a row, Delilah scavenged in the kitchen larder for potato chips, over-ripe bananas, chocolate biscuits, and crackers and tinned sardines.

  ‘Isn’t this delicious!’ said Delilah, crumbs falling from her lips. ‘I never get to eat like this when my parents are here!’

  Sally smiled, underwhelmed by the makeshift picnic. On Radio Malaysia, Aretha Franklin sang ‘Respect’, reminding Sally of Frances (who loved to dance to the song, wiggling her bum and swinging her thumbs forwards and backwards in a move she called ‘the hitchhiker’). Sally felt a sudden pang of longing for Frances and hoped wherever she was she was dancing and singing along.

  The starting point of the UMNO counterdemonstration was the residence of the State Chief Minister on Princes Road. Since early that morning Malays had been arriving from outlying areas of Selangor, urged by community and religious leaders to go to Kuala Lumpur and make a stand. By six thirty p.m. five thousand men were gathered outside the Chief Minister’s house, many armed with machetes and axes and home-made firebombs. There were students, clerks, servants, businessmen, farmers and the unemployed. Most were scared, excited youths, violence the furthest thing from their minds. But as false rumours of Malay women and children murdered that afternoon by Chinese perpetrators swept through the crowd, the fanatic elements rose to the surface. Two Chinese men passing by on motor scooters were knocked down and hacked to death. Further down the street a gang overturned several cars and set them ablaze. The Chief Minister rushed out of his house and climbed up on top of a bus loaded with schoolchildren. He held up both hands as the bus was shaken by the mob, begging for restraint and responsibility. The demonstrators surged out of the compound, moving off towards Batu Road. Hawker stalls were pushed over, great woks cascading oil; shouts of Malay and Cantonese echoed as people scattered in every direction. Chinese who crossed the path of the rioters were attacked. Moving vehicles were met by a volley of bottles and stones. Tear gas hazed Campbell Road as police riot squads tried to disperse the fray.

  A maze of fortresses sprang up in Chinese neighbourhoods; road blocks of barbed wire and burnt-out cars. Shopkeepers and Chinese Secret Society members chased rioters away from Chow Kit Road with meat cleavers and sharpened bamboo poles. Cinemas were raided, Malays dragged out of the audience and stabbed. Malays consorting with Chinese prostitutes in massage parlours were clubbed to death before they’d even had a chance to zip up their flies. Entire streets of houses went dark as residents hid indoors, not even daring to strike a match for fear of attracting the attention of the rioters. Ambulances shrieked, rushing the maimed and dying to Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. The police radio network was choked with demands for reinforcements, background screams and shouts that the situation was out of control. Burning rags were stuffed into bottles of kerosene and hurled through windows. Across the city fires bloomed, smoke and flames spiralling upwards into the sky.

  ‘You know what would be funny?’ said Delilah.

  They were downstairs in the kitchen. Sally was sitting at the table, watching Delilah rinsing dishes, the mundane chore made beautiful by her grace and economy of movement.

  ‘No,’ said Sally. ‘What?’

  ‘If we called Frances up.’

  ‘Why would we want to do that?’ asked Sally.

  Delilah slotted a plate into the drying rack and wiped her hands on her cut-offs.

  ‘For the fun of it! I love prank calls. We could sing “Happy Birthday” to her. Or put on squeaky voices and ask her if her fridge is running …’

  ‘She’ll know at once.’

  ‘She’ll see the funny side of it.’

  ‘No, she won’t.’

  ‘I bet she’ll be happy to hear from you, Sal.’

  ‘I don’t think so. She hates me.’

  ‘Why does she hate you? You’ve done nothing wrong. She went berserk at you without even giving you the benefit of the doubt. Friends owe each other that much, don’t they?’

  Sally nodded in sour agreement.

  ‘She humiliated you,’ said Delilah. ‘She flew at you like a wild animal in front of everyone. And now you feel guilty, don’t you? You feel guilty though you’ve done nothing wrong. Frances has behaved disgracefully towards you.’

  Sally nodded once more. How satisfying it was to nod and agree. To be cast in the role of innocent victim.

  ‘She blames me for Mr Leung leaving. But I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘ ’Course not! Let’s call her up and ask her why she thinks that. She might be calm enough by now to explain.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Sally thought of how Frances hated Mr Milnar. ‘When she thinks someone’s in the wrong, then that’s that. She won’t ever change her mind about them.’

  ‘OK then,’ said Delilah, ‘if she’s that stubborn, forget explanations. Forg
et reconciliations. Let’s have some fun …’ Delilah paced the kitchen. Then she stopped and clapped her hands. ‘I know! We’ll call her up and say Mr Leung wants to meet her somewhere, then we’ll go and hide and watch her wait for him.’

  Sally looked at Delilah in disbelief. The plan was cruel and juvenile and not unlike something Frances would contrive herself. Complications and pitfalls were many and Sally felt obliged to point them out.

  ‘But how do we know that she’s not already with Mr Leung?’ she said. ‘Or that she doesn’t already know where he is? Or that she won’t phone him afterwards to check if what we’re saying is true?’

  ‘I think we should risk it.’

  ‘Anyway, we can’t go out. There’s that procession. We don’t want to run into it.’

  ‘There’s no need to worry about the UMNO demonstration. That’s all going on up in the north, around Kampong Bahru and the Malay areas. It won’t come down this way. I tell you what, why don’t you call her, ask her to meet you at the end of Sultan Road, then we’ll think of what to do.’

  ‘She won’t fall for it.’

  ‘If you say you have a message from Mr Leung she will.’

  ‘She won’t believe me.’

  ‘Yes, she will.’

  ‘She’ll go mad!’

  ‘Then let her go mad! Honestly, Sal! Why are you so concerned about her feelings? She never gave a second thought about yours.’

  Smiling, Delilah clasped her hands and pulled her out of her chair. Swinging Sally’s hands in hers Delilah pulled silly faces as she jitterbugged her reluctant dance partner out to the hall. She lifted the phone off the hook and dialled the Milnar residence (a number she evidently knew by heart).

  ‘It’s ringing!’ Delilah squealed, thrusting the handset to Sally.

  ‘Hello?’ said Frances.

  The voice of her estranged friend stalled Sally’s breath. Sally imagined Frances plucking at the telephone cord, absentmindedly sweeping her toe back and forth in an arc on the floor (a habit of hers when she was on the phone). For whom does the bell toll? was how Frances usually answered the telephone. The lacklustre hello? was a sign of low spirits. Sally realized then that she’d been in low spirits too. She’d missed her.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Sally.

  There was a silence.

  ‘Oh,’ said Frances. ‘What do you want?’

  She didn’t sound angry – only drained. Delilah nodded at Sally, eyes shining: Go on!

  ‘I’ve a message for you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s from Mr Leung.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Frances.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he is in prison. He was arrested last week.’

  Sally was gobsmacked. Prison?

  Delilah snatched the handset. Sally thought Delilah was going to speak to Frances herself, but she clamped her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered: ‘Say he’s out! Say he was waiting for her at the gates after school today.’

  The receiver was flung back to Sally.

  ‘He’s out now,’ Sally parroted. ‘He was waiting for you outside the school gates today, but you weren’t there. He wants me to pass a message on to you.’

  A tiny vibration passed through the network of telegraph wires. Sally detected the tremor and knew at once it was her friend’s leaping heart.

  ‘What is it?’ Frances breathed.

  ‘Meet me at the end of Sultan Road, outside the Fong and Goh Dentists. I’ll tell you then.’

  ‘No way!’ shouted Frances. ‘You’re making this up! There’s no way I’m going out on a night like this! Tell me now, Sally! Tell me now or I’ll never speak to you again.’

  ‘Hang up,’ hissed Delilah. ‘Quick, hang up!’

  Sally slammed down the receiver, her pulse racing. ‘Frances said she won’t come,’ she told Delilah, relieved. ‘She thinks I’m making it up.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Delilah, ‘she’ll be there.’

  It was not quite eight o’clock when they left Delilah’s house. The air was the temperature of blood and the evening sang with distant sirens and the trill and chirr of neighbourhood insects. The smoky fragrance reminded Sally of Guy Fawkes’ Night and the bonfires she and her father used to make (for the annual cremation of dead leaves, an effigy of Guy Fawkes and the odd unlucky hedgehog). But turning the corner at the end of the street, they saw that the origins of the smoke were more sinister than a humble garden bonfire. Across the horizon fires glowed as if fragments of the burning sun had fallen, setting the city ablaze. The girls were open-mouthed.

  ‘Wow!’ gasped Delilah. ‘It’s Armageddon!’

  ‘Do you think those fires have something to do with that procession?’ said Sally. ‘It looks like rioting. I think we should go back …’

  ‘But the fires are in north Kuala Lumpur,’ said Delilah. ‘They’re absolutely bloody miles away!’

  ‘But it looks dangerous. I don’t think it’s safe to be out. I think we should go home.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Sally. The trouble’s between the Malays and the Chinese. We’re British. No one’ll dare touch us. Besides, it would be rude to stand Frances up. C’mon now. We don’t have far to go. Just a few blocks.’

  The night streets were empty and forlorn, but Delilah was perfectly calm, whistling as though they were out for a pleasant evening stroll. Sally glanced sideways at her companion; the sweep of jaw line and strong nose gliding through the dark. It was impossible to believe they were the same age. Whereas Sally had come into the world in Cricklewood Hospital, 1952, Delilah seemed to have been born several millennia ago and witnessed so many dark episodes in the history of human civilization that this little hiccup involving rampaging UMNO activists didn’t faze her in the slightest. She held herself as if she owned this foreign city and, if she and the rioting masses were to meet, the masses would part for her, violence abating until she was safely out of the way.

  ‘Did you know Mr Leung was in prison?’ Sally asked.

  ‘No! Goodness. I wonder what he’s done. Plotting some Communist insurrection, I expect. I can’t believe our maths teacher’s a jailbird!’

  They stopped on the outskirts of Chinatown, on a street where stone sheltered walkways ran along the shop fronts, coloured paper lanterns strung between the pillars. Every shop was shuttered, the doors bolted. Delilah put her hand on the back of Sally’s neck and directed her gaze to the other side of the road, to a rundown building at the end of the row.

  ‘OK,’ said Delilah. ‘See that teahouse over there?’

  ‘That’s a teahouse?’ said Sally.

  The façade was a crumbling mess; corrugated iron blocked the windows and the walls were pockmarked and fatally cracked, as if a bulldozer had charged into it, then changed its mind halfway through the wrecking process.

  ‘Yes,’ said Delilah. ‘It’s an old gambling house, now a teahouse for the poor. Listen. I want you to bring Frances over here and tell her that Mr Leung is waiting in there for her. I’m going to hide inside and give her a surprise.’

  ‘And then what?’ asked Sally.

  ‘And then she’ll be surprised!’

  ‘I don’t want to do this,’ said Sally. ‘I think it’s a terrible idea.’

  Delilah smiled. She rubbed the back of Sally’s neck. ‘C’mon, we’re all the way here now. She’ll see the funny side of it. Afterwards we’ll all go back to mine. Go on now. Don’t be afraid.’ She winked at Sally, then darted across the road and through the teahouse door.

  Sally ran in the direction of the blazing sky. The sirens wailed more urgently now, burglar alarms jangling in distress. It was the time of the evening Chinatown was usually at its liveliest, with shoppers and traders haggling and hawker-stall diners hunched over claypot chicken and Hokkien mee. But now there was not a soul on the streets. Even the beggars had had the good sense to seek refuge. In the upstairs windows of shuttered shophouses a few tokays chewed toothpicks and watched Sally’s lonely progress along Petaling Ro
ad. Why’s everything shut? Sally wanted to shout. Why’re you indoors? Three deafening bangs came from somewhere near by, and Sally screamed and crashed to her knees, head in hands, convinced the gunshots had been aimed at her back. She crouched on the ground for a minute, then got up and ran for her life.

  Frances stood outside the Fong and Goh Dentists, hands deep in the pockets of her dungarees and her chin cocked like a twelve-year-old boy acting tough. Sally flashed with anger when she saw her. She looked so vulnerable standing alone. How daft of her not to have seen through the lie. Frances, who’d been squinting the other way, turned at the sound of Sally running over. Her expression hardened. Sally stopped about a yard away, not wanting to take any chances.

  ‘Where is he?’ Frances said.

  ‘He’s hiding.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Sally jerked her thumb back the way she’d come and, scowling, Frances hopped over the storm drain into the empty road, suspicious, but reeled-in. They began the journey back abreast of each other but a few feet apart. Though there was no one to be seen, male voices shouted and explosions of shattering glass echoed in the next street. Frances glanced nervously behind them.

  ‘What’s with this city tonight? Why’s everything on fire? Why’s everyone indoors?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Don’t you know? There’s a twenty-four-hour curfew!’ said Frances.

  ‘A curfew?’

  ‘Yes. Because of the rioting. They said so on the radio and TV. The police’ve got permission to shoot anyone they see on sight.’

  ‘They won’t shoot us, will they? We’re British after all.’

  ‘Not me. I’m Chinese.’

  Sally was stunned, but she walked on as if her legs were mechanized, carrying her deeper and deeper into her waking nightmare. She knew she’d been stupid to let Delilah twist her arm, but Frances must be absolutely brainless to have known about the curfew and come out anyway. Brainless, or madly in love. Sally had to admit the truth. The sooner the better. But part of her didn’t want to. Part of her was still angry at Frances. Glad to be walking her into Delilah’s trap.