Love and Vertigo

by Hsu-Ming Teo

  Of these matters Beng Chee and Jonah were blissfully unaware. Their minds obsessed by the thought of early durians and their voices lifted in patriotic British song, they sped towards Petaling Jaya ignorant of the fact that in Kuala Lumpur, UMNO youth members and other Malays from the rural kampongs had smashed, looted and burnt down Chinese shophouses and temples. Armed with their parangs and knives, invoking the will of Allah, they slaughtered and disembowelled hundreds of Chinese men, women and children. Later estimates would place the number of Chinese killed at around two thousand. After susu, then kopi.

  For years to come, the slightest whisper among the Chinese community of a possible Malay jihad would send shopkeepers scuttling into their houses, drawing close the accordion steel grilles and securing them with huge padlocks, pulling shut the wooden doors behind the steel grilles and barring them from the inside. The general air of terror would spread throughout the Chinese-dominated areas of Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, the panicked actions of one shopkeeper alerting the rest so that, within half an hour, whole streets would be deserted as Chinese families cowered behind closed doors and waited for May 13 to repeat itself.

  For those who were caught away from home, the experience of driving, cycling or running down those empty, fear-filled streets was one which could never be forgotten, easily evoked by the evening news footage of Indonesian rioters burning and looting Chinese businesses after the Asian ‘Tiger’ economies toppled like dominoes in 1997. In 1998, a rumour spread among the Chinese communities in Malaysia and overseas that another jihad along the same lines as the Indonesian riots had been planned. Desperate phone calls were placed to family members from Chinese communities in Australia, the UK, the USA and Canada. Within hours of those phone calls, all flights out of Malaysia were fully booked and Chinese people left in droves to cross the causeway from Johor Bahru to Singapore. May 13 still has the power to conjure up blind panic and irrational fear among Malaysian Chinese three decades later.

  But on that day in 1969, Jonah and Beng Chee thought only of durians. When they reached Beng Tek’s house, they were surprised to find the steel gate closed and padlocked. Jonah tooted cheerily on his horn and Beng Chee got out of the car to rattle the gate.

  ‘Ah Tek, ah! It’s me, Ah Chee. Ai-yah, why you so like that, one lah? Come and open this gate, man.’ He shook it violently.

  Gaudy orange and purple flowered curtains twitched at the upstairs window and, a few moments later, a servant came scurrying out to unlock the gate. The car rolled into the driveway, stopping under the porch, and the gate was quickly locked again. The servant urged them into the house and the metal grille and heavy wooden door were firmly locked.

  ‘Ah Chee, you damn fool! What are you doing here, lah? Don’t you know that the prime minister has declared a curfew?’ Beng Tek was furious as he cuffed his younger brother around the ears. ‘You could have been killed, man.’

  And it was only then that they learned what those strangely deserted highways and streets meant. According to the official news on the radio, Malay demonstrators marching to protest the Chinese post-election victory had been set upon by violent Chinese and had been forced to defend themselves with knives and parangs. But the Chinese grapevine was already at work and telephone lines buzzed with the news of atrocities committed and allegations of soldiers, called in to stop the riots, who shot the Chinese instead. Later, telephone lines were cut off.

  ‘Ai-yah! Pandora.’ Too late Jonah realised that in his craving for durians, he had left his pregnant wife to fend for herself and he had no way of knowing whether the riots had spread to their village. He sweated anxiety and was beaten down with guilt. When at last he managed to ring Pandora, he learned that she had gone into labour and had given birth to their son, attended only by Dr Gupta, the sultan’s personal physician. She was perfectly safe, she assured him, for the sultan had immediately issued strict orders that no racial riots were to take place in his state. But the Malay maid had abandoned their household and returned to the kampong. Her mother had come around later to tell her that no Malay would work for a Chinese from now onwards—they would rather starve to death first. Pandora was alone in the house with her baby boy.

  When curfew was lifted briefly the next day, Jonah and Beng Chee hopped into the orange Fiat and sped back towards Pahang. At each roadblock they sat in trembling fear as their identity cards were checked. They waited for summary execution and almost wet their pants with relief when they were waved on with surly motions of the automatic rifles. Finally they entered their state and it was then that Beng Chee noticed the roadside stall just outside the valley kampong.

  ‘Jonah, stop! Look at that, man.’

  And there it was, a pushcart with tray after tray of green-armoured durians, the air pungent with the ripe, cloying smell. A Malay man in a ragged white T-shirt and checked cotton sarong sat on a stool beside the cart, sipping Fanta from a bottle and fiddling around with his black transistor radio. Malay love songs with lots of clapping burst forth with a hideous screech of static. The orange Fiat slowed down and rolled to a halt. A windowpane descended cautiously.

  ‘Selamat pagi, pak. Apa kaba?’

  The Malay man looked up and his brown face split into a melon-slice grin.

  ‘Fresh durians, finest quality, rock-bottom prices. You want to buy or not?’

  Jonah and Beng Chee stepped out of the car, lured by the sight and smell of the mace-like fruit. To have travelled all that way in such danger, only to find their hearts’ desire in a roadside stall so close to home. It was almost too much to bear. But Beng Chee got down to the business of bargaining.

  ‘How come you got so many left if the quality so good, ah?’ Beng Chee demanded. He picked up a spiky ball and sniffed, inhaling the enticing scent deeply. ‘Can’t be so good if nobody wants to buy.’

  ‘Allahmak!’ the Malay man wailed in exasperation. ‘These riots, you know. They scared all my Chinese customers away. Now my customers think that all Malays are out to get the Chinese so they tell each other not to buy durians from Malays. What has it all got to do with me? I’m just a poor durian seller trying to feed his family. I’m going to go broke if the Chinese continue to boycott my durians. You want durians or not? I give you good price.’

  ‘How do we know whether they’re good?’

  Both men gasped and jumped back in fear as the Malay whipped out his parang and slashed downwards with all his might. Sunlight glinted off the broad silver blade as it cleaved the rigid shell of a durian in two, exposing the crescent-shaped pods in which the custard-yellow arils snuggled, three or four to a pod. The durian seller dug out two pieces of durian and offered them to the men.

  ‘Try,’ he urged. ‘Very sweet.’

  Beng Chee bit into one and closed his eyes in sheer ecstasy.

  ‘How much?’ he asked.

  They haggled over the price and ended up buying the entire cartload—some fourteen cases in all. Before money could change hands, the durian seller suddenly stiffened.

  ‘Listen,’ he said urgently. In the silence they could hear the distant sounds of marching and singing. The Malay looked significantly at the two men. ‘You better run into the jungle and hide,’ he advised them. ‘You two are sitting ducks here on the main highway. Leave the car and run. Quick!’

  They ran, hearts pounding and chests bursting. They crouched in the dark of the dank green foliage, waiting with dread in their hearts and sweat on their skin. The minutes crawled by and there was nothing but silence from the distant road. Jonah scratched his back and shifted to avoid an army of vicious red ants. Beng Chee glared at him and, with exaggerated gestures, placed a knobbly finger to his lips. They waited with numbed limbs.

  And then they heard it—a loud explosion. Through breaks in the undergrowth they saw the bright light of an orange ball of flame and thick black smoke. The rage of a burning fire and then, much later, silence again.

  ‘Hey! You can come out now. They’ve gone.’ The foliage parted noisily as the durian sel
ler peered into the green gloom.

  ‘What the hell . . .’ Jonah stumbled to a halt. In the place of his orange Fiat was a black, burning wreck. The durian cart was upset and the fruit had rolled all over the road.

  ‘Sorry, lah,’ the durian seller said. ‘They were Muslims led by some UMNO youth members. They were on their way to KL. I told them that you had stopped to buy some durians but that you ran off down the road when you heard them coming. They knew that the car must belong to a Chinese because no Malay could afford one unless he’s the sultan, so they burnt it.’

  ‘Then what happened to your cart?’

  ‘They overturned it and threw some cases of durians into the burning car to teach me a lesson for trying to sell durians to the Chinese. What to do?’ He shrugged fatalistically. ‘You still want some durians or what?’

  ‘No, no. Not now.’ Jonah was horrified by the blazing black shell of his car. He stared at it, mesmerised by the thick smoke spiralling into the air.

  ‘We don’t have a car now. How to get them home?’ Beng Chee demanded.

  ‘Well,’ the durian seller pondered the question and scratched his armpit. ‘I can sell you the cart, then I’ll help you to wheel it as far as my kampong.’

  ‘Done. How many cases can we salvage?’ Beng Chee peered at the fruit on the roadside and began counting. He and the durian seller righted the cart and heaved durians onto it. Money changed hands. They grabbed the wooden handles and began pushing it down the road.

  ‘Jonah! You coming or what?’

  They made it back to their neighbourhood in the early hours of the morning. They stopped at Beng Chee’s house first to unload his five cases of durians, then they wheeled the cart to Jonah’s bungalow and unloaded another five cases outside the kitchen door.

  ‘So, see you at work, ah?’ Beng Chee called in farewell as he staggered back to his house.

  Jonah opened the first case and heaved out a durian. He unlocked the door and slipped inside. His wife was sitting at the kitchen table, suckling a wrinkled prune of a baby. Immediately he felt the overwhelming weight of guilt. He walked over to the table and carefully placed the durian on it.

  ‘Sorry, lah,’ he said, and the words were inadequate to his ears. She just looked at him and he quailed before the condemnation in her eyes.

  ‘Say something,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Ai-yah.’ Jonah heard the familiar groan echoing from the front of the bungalow. Then the sound of a throat clearing itself violently, and the gentle ping! of spit hitting a metal basin. He looked at his wife questioningly and moments later his eyes bulged with shock as Madam Tay shuffled in weakly.

  ‘Ah Jo! I thought you were sure dead.’ She flung her arms around him and started crying, lamenting and thanking God noisily.

  Pandora set aside her son in his small crib. She got up and poured a cup of hot tea for her mother-in-law. ‘Come, Ah Bu. Sit down and drink this.’

  ‘Ai-yah, my heart. I’m too old for all this. Come, Jo, help me to my room.’

  He had no choice. He looked helplessly at his wife, who turned away from him. Then he put his arm around his mother and they shuffled back to her room together. He patted her arm, comforted, explained, comforted again, and dreaded the thought of repeating the performance for his wife when all he wanted was to take a hot bath and go to bed. Finally, Madam Tay dropped off to sleep, her pudgy white fingers still tightly clasping his long bony hand. He unlinked their fingers and rubbed his eyes. He went out into the corridor hoping Pandora might be asleep, but he saw the garish glare of fluorescent light from the kitchen, so he sighed and went in.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

  She said nothing at first, just looked at him with those eloquently accusing eyes. Then she bent down over the crib and picked up the baby.

  ‘Even Malaysia’s not big enough or far enough away,’ he thought he heard her mutter.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’ He was irritated that she hadn’t asked.

  ‘What, your wife gets an explanation as well?’ She surprised him with her sarcasm. Then she sighed. ‘All right, what happened, Jo?’

  He narrated the last few days’ adventures for the second time that night. ‘But we managed to get the durians after all,’ he said. ‘Look. Shall I get you a piece?’

  ‘You look,’ Pandora said, pulling the baby away from her nipple and shoving him towards his father. ‘This is your son Augustus. You haven’t even asked about him or looked at him properly. Look!’

  Jonah dutifully took the baby from Pandora and inspected his son, and felt—nothing. Tired. So tired. The baby began to squall. He wrinkled his nose at the smell and handed Augustus back to Pandora.

  ‘Jonah, do you love me?’

  He was surprised because she never asked. He was always the one seeking that reassurance.

  ‘Of course I do. You know I do,’ he said, but he felt annoyed that she had to ask him now, when he was grubby and sweaty from walking all the way back from Gombak. She didn’t even care that he had been out of his mind with worry for her over the last few days, or that he could have been killed while buying durians. She didn’t care, or she wouldn’t make a fuss now.

  ‘If you love me, you make damn sure my son grows up in a country where he never has to worry about something like this happening. I don’t care where we go—England, America or Australia. But you make damn sure that he never has another birthday like this again. If you won’t emigrate, then you won’t have a family either.’

  If he hadn’t been so tired, he would have been furious that she was using his love as leverage for another impossible demand. But then he looked at his son and he remembered her last birthing experience, remembered the grief that had bound them together over their dead child. He was crushed by contrition. He should have been there for her, but he wasn’t. He’d promised to take care of her, but once again he hadn’t. What kind of a husband was he anyway?

  ‘All right,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ll look into it. Straight away. Promise.’

  But Jonah had spent too many days in his youth slicing delicately into the trunks of rubber trees and watching in hypnotised fascination as white pearls of latex oozed, beaded and dribbled sluggishly down the trunk. He was a man who deliberated, pondered, explored options and came to decisions slowly. It took him six years to get his nerve up to let his mother know that he wanted to emigrate to Australia. For six years Pandora watched and waited, waited and watched. She gave birth to me during her time of waiting, when she reminded and nagged and felt her desperation grow. Then he finally announced one day that he had gone to the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur and picked up application forms for immigration. The Tays were moving to Sydney—Jonah, Pandora, Sonny and me.

  INTERLUDE TO A NEW LIFE

  There is a photograph, framed in tarnished Selangor pewter, of my mother, Sonny and me in 1978. The White Australia Policy had been phased out and Australia was in need of medical and dental professionals. The Patriarch had come ahead to find a house for us and to set up his own dental surgery before bringing us over. In this photo we are standing in the arrival hall of Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport, holding beige jackets in our arms because the pilot announced on arrival that it was sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit outside, which was cold for us at that time. (Now sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit makes no sense to me; I’m so used to gauging the temperature in degrees Celsius.) We look confused and uncertain, out of place.

  Sonny has his thick, spiky hair Brylcreemed down, but the long flight from Singapore to Sydney has dislodged the neatly combed furrows so that greasy strands now droop over his wide forehead. He is dressed in a sky-blue long-sleeved shirt—buttoned at the cuffs and right up to the throat—and dark blue jeans that, being too long for him, have been rolled up a few times at the leg cuffs. Grey lace-up shoes peep out from under those cuffs. He is gripping a red Qantas cabin bag with the white flying kangaroo on the side, hanging on to it for dear life. His eyes bore so intensely into the camera, hi
s gaze must have shot laser beams right through the photographer’s head. His lips are red and sulking. He is nine years old.

  My mother is holding his right hand. She wears a loose purple, brown and yellow batik top and flowing brown polyester trousers. At her brown sandalled feet are scattered the collective detritus of our eight-hour stay in the cabin: a large black cabin bag; plastic bags with grubby soft toys and favourite tiny pillows and bolsters with blue ribbons and yellowing lace borders; one duty-free bag holding a box of Johnny Walker Black Label scotch; another two which are bulging but sealed, their contents invisible and unremembered.

  My mother loved shopping, especially duty-free shopping. The idea of ‘duty-free’ was simply a licence for her to shop without feeling the guilt and accusation of extravagance pummelled into her by the Tays. She was alive and excited when she shopped, often indecisive but thrilled at the cornucopia of cosmetics, fresh fragrances, leather wallets, silk scarves, belts, handbags, watches, pens, hairdryers, Walkmans, batteries, rolls of 100, 200 and 400 speed film in 24 or 36 exposure packs, neck cushions, back cushions, padlocks, Samsonite luggage, winking bottles of whisky, scotch and wine, and even cigarettes, tobacco and glinting silver cigarette lighters, although she had never smoked. All duty-free, all potentially there for her to purchase, though her actual acquisitions were usually meagre: a box of Lancôme facial moisturiser, two tubes of Elizabeth Arden lipstick and a 100 ml bottle of Nina Ricci ‘L’Air du Temps’ that she would use once or twice a month, then carefully store away at the back of her closet (in darkness so that light would not denature it) because it was too precious and expensive to waste on herself every day. She laughed and looked interested in everything. She exclaimed over the prices, rummaged through stands, sought out bargains and chatted to the sales assistants. She became a person once again when she shopped.