by YZ Chin
“Get up. Follow me.”
“Why?” she asked. She meant the pointlessness of making her squat.
“You’re leaving” was the reply.
She was led to a bathroom. It had a small mirror clouded unevenly at the edges with dirt and hung too high off the ground for her. While washing her hands, the tears came again. After some indecision, she pushed herself up on tiptoes. The glass was too dirty for a good look, but she knew—the eye bags were there, and the fucked-up hair, and the scratches on the cheek that had made contact with cell floor. Her nose itched. She sneezed, then realized she had not bothered to close her mouth, a behavior she had condemned in others—like peasants and rural folk. Fear came again like a gust to blow off the leaves of her sanity one by one. My name is Isabella Sin!
After the bathroom, she was led back to the room from yesterday. She drew a few ragged breaths and tried to brace herself for more humiliation. But the man did not follow her into the room. When she turned to look, she saw he had closed the door on her. She was alone again.
There was that same lone wooden chair. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor. She bent over, picked her clothes up, and shook them out. They were the ones she had taken off in this room. The change of clothes she had been told to pack was nowhere to be seen. Who knew what they were holding it for?
After dressing, she stood next to the chair, waiting, until the door opened and the woman with soft lips came in, looking haggard. She sighed when she saw Isa.
“Follow me,” the woman said.
There was a brief brilliance of sunshine, bright shadows patterning the ground, before Isa was put in the back of another Black Maria. She saw that there was the same number of guards with her. Someone shut the door, and it was darkness once more. The engine started and rumbled, then quieted as they coasted away. The people with her were silent bodies moving only when swayed by the truck’s journey.
Some period of time later, she looked at nothing in particular and said, “I didn’t write those poems.” She did not expect a response. But one came, from the shadowy figure sitting closest to the driver’s seat: “You’re just like the boy before you. Brave to act but chicken to admit. Why call yourself activist if you don’t dare accept the consequences?”
She thought about the face of the movement. So he had recanted, or somehow given in. Pantomine. No. Palindrome? Wrong. She worried at her memory until it came to her, the word she had learned so many years ago: Palinode. She closed her eyes, doubling the darkness, tripling the night. That was what she felt to be outside, beyond the truck: night.
My name is Isabella. This is my country. Its name is Malaysia.
She should have thought of it earlier. She didn’t know why she hadn’t. Yet another leaf lost, blown into space and then abandoned to the ground.
Not too long before the Black Maria came to an idle, she had smelled familiar rain. Foolishly, she had been comforted by this proof that she retained her “skills” yet.
“It’s going to rain,” she said out loud. This time no one responded.
Soon, pattering could be heard against the vehicle’s roof. An occasional ping sounded against the sides as well, drops angled by wind.
Now, stumbling out onto gray earth, she knew that she had been brought to the infamous Kamunting Detention Centre, where most of the Internal Security Act detainees were held. She had recognized the rain even in darkness because it was her rain. Kamunting was a short ten-minute drive from Taiping—in fact, they must have driven through her town to get here—perhaps they had even rumbled right past her own house!
Cruel, cruel! She shook her head vigorously. When a hand touched her she sprang her head upward and saw, written overhead at the entrance of the prison camp, the words NEGARA KITA TANGGUNGJAWAB KITA.
“Our country, our responsibility.” The pronoun, kita, was inclusive of addressees, referencing a burden shared. She wondered why they had not used the exclusive pronoun instead: NEGARA KAMI TANGGUNGJAWAB KAMI.
“Our country (not yours), our responsibility (not yours).” We’ve got this. Stay out of our way.
She lost consciousness for a microsecond, then regained reality and remained standing, handcuffed, her jeans sticking to her from pooled sweat.
The nation was in an uproar over the midnight raid and arrest of Isabella Sin, coming so soon on the heels of a massive demonstration that had felt like a victory for the people. But already the news had engendered plans for further protests, this time calling for her release.
Reporters were told that Ms. Sin had been detained without trial for good reasons: for sedition and for disrupting racial harmony—that delicate, neurotic thing only the government had expertise to feed and grow. After being disappeared, Isabella Sin was not heard from again for what felt like a very long time.
THE OLYMPIAN
Half moon, around four months pregnant
He came to me again tonight. I brimmed with victory. It is because I have the best butt, I know. Not to be crass. Let the other women sneer about the “unknown origins” of my proudest feature, so unusual among people of our kind. I was chosen because I was blessed by God, who protects our great country, Him, and all the rest of us.
I dressed and strolled slowly to breakfast. My eyes had been a little puffy in the hand mirror, but the color was high and fresh in my cheeks. My left arm felt sore. I believe it has something to do with little tears that are created in my muscles during physical activity, but I cannot remember the relevant facts.
I wish again that I could borrow a book. It’s getting harder and harder to remember what I’d learned in classrooms, sitting on rows of rickety wooden benches. It seems such a long time ago now. The benches were old and rickety on purpose, I remember thinking, so that when our attentions drifted and we shook our legs in boredom, the benches would creak and give us away to the teachers. I was such a child then, afraid only of an adult’s admonishment, not realizing that there are so many other things in life.
The corridor that leads to the dining room is long and straight. When the wind huffs, as it did this morning, it comes whistling down an unerring line straight at you, as if personally seeking you out. I put my hand out to graze a thick, round pillar as I walked past, shivering at the marble’s chill.
It’s getting harder to remember my family’s faces too. As I walked to breakfast, I cycled through them all again, one by one, practicing memory: Father, Mother, Brother. Father, Mother, Brother.
Knife moon, around two months pregnant
I’m leaning back on the bed writing this entry, waiting for Him. The bedding is soft, and I feel sunken and snug. I think about Father wrapping towels around his hot jugs of liquor before picking them up. I’d asked him once, why not just wait until it cools down? He’d shaken his head and laughed, replying that old men have no patience.
You’re not old, I remember correcting. In response, he’d given his head a few more wags.
I caught my thighs jiggling. How did this happen? I gave the right one a slap, willed it to be still. I am failing to possess mental fortitude. Divine Leader, He said our enemies halfway across the globe are like this, scatterbrained and always led by the nose by meaningless trivialities. He says this is because they are all addicted to cell phones that they carry around wherever they go. The mini computers entertain them and think for them, and slowly our enemies’ brains deteriorate due to misuse. That is our opening, He said. If we can retain the nimbleness of our thoughts and the independence of our brains, without aid of machines, then we will remain human and in possession of our awesome mental faculties, while the enemies devolve into babies who cannot function without being told what to do by lifeless computers.
Now I’m yawning, too. Another sign of weakness: boredom. Although the hour is getting late. To keep my mind sharp, I will try to invent new stories about my world. I’ll find an interesting object here in my room. Curtain, robe, couch: so many things in here are soft.
I get up to stand in front of the window. I see,
high in the sky, something cold and hard: the knife moon sharp as a scabbard. She is my favorite, the one upon which many stories have been built. My current best has her getting pregnant all the time, giving birth to stars, her consecutive children, one after another without pause. This is because she is lonely, untouchably without peer in the night. But the stars she makes surround her, winking in joy, and this soothes her.
I think this is a pretty story.
A memory just burrowed to the surface, like one of the worms in the sandy part of the royal pleasure garden, appearing out of nowhere on an afternoon so sunny you squint and think the wriggling might just be a spot in your vision.
In the memory, Mother has her back to me, chopping green onions. I am boasting, describing to her how my teacher had called me up to stand in front of the whole class earlier that morning. “This girl has written an excellent essay that is in great harmony with the virtues we all should strive to live by. Let her be your example. Purify your thoughts, strain out unclean ideas, and work hard to record the triumph of your mind down on paper, so others may benefit.”
I told Mother how much I had wanted to grin, but how I’d managed to suppress it, because I knew I should be humble and dignified. I paused, expecting Mother to turn around with a big smile and put her warm palms against my cheeks. But the “tok tok” of the knife against bamboo board went on.
“I fear you will be just smart enough to know the truth of your situation, but not smart enough to escape it,” Mother said.
I must have fallen asleep earlier. I am frightened by this. What if Divine Leader had come for me, seen me fail at my station, and left for another? Or worse, perhaps he had not come at all.
In the hand mirror my hair is squashed against my cheeks, the top of one ear peeking out unattractively. And oh, the beginnings of wrinkles are bunched up below my eyes. Ah, I am old, I have served Divine Leader for five years; soon there will be tear-filled pouches dragging the corners of my eyes down. He did not come for me because I am losing my looks.
I stand as straight as I can. Maneuvering the hand mirror as I have done countless mornings, I examine my bottom. The arc formed by the small of my back seems as dramatic as ever—like a cove carved by patient ocean waves over many moons, Divine Leader had once said, swooping with his palm. I crane my neck and look harder. The fleshy halves themselves seem to have distorted overnight, like sacks of plucked cotton left out in a thunderstorm. I press my fingers gingerly into a buttock. As I feared, the give is different, like loose flour, whereas before it was like the best baked bread.
My body is changing, as Mother had warned it would. I am afraid to think of what comes next.
Spring Flower smirked as soon as my shadow crossed the threshold of the dining hall. She clattered her tea cup onto the table so that the other women looked up and also noticed the spectacle: me. I stood tall, summoning all the good thoughts that would help me see this situation in the right light. One, we are all here to serve Divine Leader. Therefore, none of us are better than the others; we are all equal before God and Him. Two, any small way in which I am able to serve this great nation is a wonderful honor. Even if my usefulness is fleeting, I must cherish my duty while it lasts.
My duty. This is the part that is hazy. Before Divine Leader, my duty was to stay chaste, such that I could fulfill my more important, ultimate duty of being a faithful wife. But now I am neither girl nor wife. Will I ever be a wife?
I thought about Divine Leader’s wife. I saw her walk by once, regal in soft but vibrant silks, satiny hair piled higher than her own hands could have arranged. Guards surrounding her, she’d nodded when we bowed in her general direction, none of us wishing to draw her attention. I remember feeling oddly shameful for some reason I didn’t understand.
Full moon, water breaking
I’ve sat up long past the time He would have come. From time to time I stood at the window to look at the moon. Tonight I am too downcast to invent tales, so I revisit one my brother told me what seems like a long time ago. I am writing it down before it, too, is forgotten.
Once upon a time, in a place far away, there ruled a cruel tyrant. He waged wars at whim and demanded the best of everything for himself. In that way, he snatched a beautiful young girl away from her poor family and made her his wife. Thanks to her sweet nature, the tyrant was almost happy for a while. The land knew peace and was thankful for it. But one day, a traveling shaman prostrated himself before the tyrant and spoke of an immortality pill hidden somewhere in the realm. This immediately became the tyrant’s obsession. He dispatched his men and forced commoners to abandon their livelihoods in search of this pill. Hell bent on attaining everlasting life, he punished those who inevitably came back empty-handed and trembling, his savage streak worsening.
Until one day, soldiers interrupted the tyrant’s daily banquet with news that the pill had been found buried deep underground, nestled among the crisscrossing branches of a very old fig tree. The tyrant roared with delight. At last, he would forever continue enjoying this life that yielded such pleasures to him: food from land, sky, and sea; treasures from the four corners of the map. He laughed and ordered more food and drink to be consumed as celebration.
When the first troupe of dancers was worn out, the tyrant ordered a fresh wave. The tyrant’s wife retired to her chambers. As quietly as she could, she barred the door from inside and hoped the guards posted outside had not heard. From inside her robe’s long sleeve she extracted the pill of immortality, pilfered from the tyrant while he was cursing the flagging dancers. She pondered the tiny pill between her slender fingers, thinking of all the injustice and suffering that would continue unfolding through the ages should her husband indeed never die. She thought about the poor of the land, scraping by at the mercy of one man, without even the hope of one day seeing a more benevolent ruler guide their lives. She had to do something. The tyrant had to be stopped.
The tyrant’s wife made up her mind. Her fist tightened around the tiny globe. She took a deep breath and swallowed the pill. At first she felt no different. Then, to her surprise, her body grew lighter and lighter. Gasping, she clung to the foot of the bed, but it was no good. A force, gentle yet supremely strong, buoyed her away from the floor and out the window. As she floated away from earth she cried her goodbyes to her family, hoping they would hear her. Up and up she went, becoming lighter than air, until she reached the moon. There she landed, and there she stayed, the beautiful woman in the moon.
The sun has risen, but the moon can still be seen, hovering around vision’s edges, clinging on for as long as she can. I haven’t slept. I stand up from the bed to stretch. My shoulders feel pain, and my bones seem to have rusted.
I know I must be strong. I must do better. I want to think of courageous examples to follow, but my mind is tired, I know it. I do not have an excuse for what I thought earlier. It’s a story, just a rumor really, of a girl my age who had run away from this divine country, nobody knew why. It seemed she had been poisoned by the enemy’s propaganda. Defected, they called it. I thought it an apt word; she must have contained a defect within her to abandon leader, country, and family like that. It could not have been a spontaneous mistake. She had trekked across a long desert and bribed help along the way with her family’s valuables, in entirety, strapped to her back. At the end of her journey . . .
That is where I cut the bad thought off. I am writing this down to help me remember my mistake. I must not be selfish; I must not let my little fate interfere with the larger mission of our divine country. I resolve to do my best in my own way. To start, I will not sit anymore. I suspect sitting around for most hours of the day has squashed my bottom into a less desirable shape. Therefore, starting now, I will stand. With luck, my body will find its way back to its true, intended form.
I pick up the hand mirror and smile into it, nodding. Another memory came then, as if sensing my weakness. It was my last dinner at home, the night before I was to be escorted to the royal residence, right here, w
here I sit and breathe. Back then this place had seemed unreal, impossibly far away. I felt as if I were about to die, then reincarnated into a palace. Mother had made my favorite dish: root vegetables marinated in soy. It was a joyous occasion, but everyone was silent until Father cleared his throat and said, “It is the greatest honor conferred upon us to have you chosen to serve our Divine Leader.” As he finished this declaration he glanced at our door and window. I followed his gaze but saw nothing unusual. When I looked back at him, his eyes were red. He resumed describing how proud he was.
Bun moon, around seven months pregnant
Well, I have finally done it. Today, for the first time, I went all day without sitting, from the moment I woke up until now, late at night.
I can’t say this achievement has helped me regain Divine Leader’s affection. It has certainly invited scorn from the other women, who think I am slowly losing my mind. I have taken to wandering the royal pleasure garden more frequently, because keeping my legs in motion is easier than standing still like a pillar when the afternoon wears on and my legs become tired. My garden strolls confuse the other women. They all avoid the sun like the plague because they do not want their skin to darken. Me, I like to focus on one thing at a time. It gives me purpose to stand as straight as I can for as long as I am able. So that is what I do. Even at the expense of having porcelain skin, which, if I am honest, I will never attain anyway.
I am sitting on the bed now, massaging my calves. It feels good. Feels like a better kind of failure, compared to my earlier ones. I can’t explain it well.
Spider thread moon, newborn star
I cannot possibly write down the emotions I am experiencing. Today has been a spinning-top kind of day, and now the string has been entirely unraveled, and I am ready to topple onto one side.