by Tash Aw
“Call for that Chinaman Johnny,” No. 1 Sir barks as the Sirs stand assembled before the broken behemoth. Johnny is brought to them. His hands and forearms are covered with grease. His face is grey with dust and lack of sleep.
“What’s the matter with this bloody machine?” No. 1 Sir says.
“I’m not sure. Sir.”
“You’re not sure? What do you think we pay your wages for?” No. I Sir screams.
“Calm down. Wretched thing probably doesn’t understand you,” Sirs No. 2 and No. 3 say. “Look at him.”
Johnny stands there with black hands hanging loosely at his sides.
“All right. Do you know where the problem is?” No. 1 Sir says, slowly this time.
Johnny nods.
“Well then, take me to it, don’t just stand there like an imbecile.”
They go deep into the machine. On a clean blue canvas sheet laid on the floor, Johnny’s tools are neatly spread out, ready for use. Dozens and dozens of tools, all shiny and clean.
“Here,” Johnny says, pointing.
The Sirs walk around the part of the machine which Johnny has pointed at. No. 1 Sir has his hands in his pockets. No. 2 Sir checks his fingernails as he paces back and forth. No. 3 Sir rubs his brow. Sirs No. 4 and No. 5 say and do nothing—they are young and do not yet know anything.
“It’s the belt,” says No. 1 Sir.
“It’s the rotator,” says No. 2.
“It’s the oil supply. The wiring, I mean,” says No. 3.
Johnny says, “The parts in the gearbox are broken, I think. They are not moving.”
“Well, fix it,” No. 3 says.
“The machine—it requires new parts,” Johnny says. “Maybe.”
“You bloody well fix it now,” No. 3 Sir says. His face is red and shining with sweat.
They watch as Johnny goes back to the machine. He does not know what he is going to do, how he is going to fix this unfixable problem, but he knows that he will find a way. Somehow, he will.
Piece by piece, Johnny takes the gearbox apart. He brushes each piece with a wire brush, washes it in water, then wipes it with grease. He gives it new life. He feels no fear: his hands are calm and strong and his eyes are cool and level. Turning to pick up another tool, he catches the eye of No. 1 Sir, who is blinking to keep out the heat and dust of the afternoon. At last, Johnny turns to the Sirs and says, “It is ready.”
The Sirs look at each other. “About bloody time,” No. 1 says.
Johnny walks to the control box and rests his hands on it. He trusts the machine, he trusts himself. The whir of the Dredger is uncertain at first, but soon it becomes a steady growl, and then the familiar roar fills the entire space, drifting out into the Valley, singing in Johnny’s ears.
One by one the Sirs walk back to their cream-coloured hut. “Imagine—millions of tons of ore under our feet,” No. 1 says, putting his wide-brimmed hat on. “That damned Chinaman will be the ruin of us all.”
“Nearly twenty past four,” says No. 2.
“Just in time for tea,” says No. 3.
Johnny packs up his tools, one by one, making sure he cleans the grime and grease from each one. He wraps them up in his blue canvas cloth and listens to the song of the machine.
Four days later, the machine breaks down again. Once more, Johnny is summoned to repair it, and again he succeeds. The next day it breaks down again. And the next day too. By now Johnny has taken to sleeping next to the faulty part of the machine. He can hear its heartbeat, feel its pulse. It is weak and failing.
By the fourth or fifth morning the workers have become used to the great silence that has fallen over the mine. They know there will be no work for them. Without the machine, the tin remains buried deep under their feet. There is nothing to wash, nothing to grade, nothing to store or melt. So the workers sit around, placidly chewing tobacco or betel leaves, their lips and tongues becoming stained with the juice of this stupor-inducing nut. As the days go by, the dry earth around the longhouse becomes pockmarked with patches of red spittle.
At the start of the second week without the machine, the Sirs come to where Johnny is working. His tools are laid out on the mattress beside him. Some of his tools have had more rest than he has.
“What on earth is this monkey doing?” says No. 1.
“I told you not to let a Chinaman loose on the Dredger,” says No. 2.
Johnny looks at them with young eyes made old by work.
“So,” says No. 1, “what do you have to say for yourself?”
Johnny blinks. Their suits are white and blinding in the sunlight. “I need new parts,” he says, turning back to the machine.
“How dare you answer back!” No. 3 shouts.
“Parts indeed.”
“It’s his fault anyway.”
“When,” No. 1 says slowly, “Will. It. Be. Fixed?”
Johnny’s chest rises and falls heavily. He doesn’t know how to answer. “Soon,” he says. But he knows it is useless. The machine is dying in his hands, like a sick child on its mother’s breast.
“Soon?!” No. 1 explodes.
“Soon?!” echoes No. 2.
“What does that mean?” say Nos. 3, 4, and 5.
Later that morning the Sirs make an announcement at a specially arranged workers’ meeting outside the cream-painted huts. The workers are told that they will not be paid to sit around doing nothing. The mine cannot afford to pay their wages if no tin is being processed.
“It is simply uneconomical for the Darby Mine to continue like this,” says No. 1, his voice rising above the angry murmur. “As long as the Dredging Machine is not working—”
“But that is not our fault!” someone shouts.
“—as long as the Dredging Machine remains—”
“That is none of our business! Get the damn machine working!”
“Until the machine is fixed,” says No. 1 with all the authority he can muster, “there will be no pay. So go home, all of you.”
“That’s the problem with coolies,” says No. 2 as the Sirs back into their hut and lock the door.
“Where’s that lazy dog-boy?” the men outside shout. “Where’s Johnny? It’s all that bastard’s fault!”
“Let’s teach him a lesson!”
“My children will go to sleep hungry!”
“Damned son of a whore!”
“He’s doing this to kill us all!”
When they find him, they are swift and brutal. They hit him with their bare fists and kick him with shoeless feet, again and again. Johnny closes his eyes as the first blow strikes him on the side of his face. He crashes onto the machine and feels it press against his body, cold and lifeless. Soon he can no longer feel pain. He does not see or hear the men set fire to his mattress. “That will teach him to sleep all the time, lazy animal. Now maybe he will work to fix this machine.”
By the time they leave him they are no longer angry. They walk slowly off the mine and go home, heads bowed, arms hanging limply by their sides.
When Johnny opens his eyes again it is night. He sees, through swollen eyelids, the grey bulk of the machine. Slowly, he moves his head so that his ear touches the Dredger. He can hear nothing, and suddenly his arms and legs and head and chest start to hurt, and he collapses again.
“You had it coming, I must say,” No. 2’s voice says. “You’re not as clever as I thought.”
In the dark, Johnny can barely make out No. 2’s figure standing over him.
“I told him,” No. 2 says, pacing slowly before Johnny. “I told him not to do it, not to take on a dirty Chinaman like you. I told him a Chinaman’s place is in the mines, loading and carrying. But no, he had to put you in charge of the machine. A Chinaman operating the biggest Dredger in the Valley? Well, that’s plainly ridiculous. And he fed you and clothed you and housed you. What foolishness.”
“I need new parts,” Johnny whispers.
“Over my dead body,” No. 2 says. “You are responsible for what’s happened, you cret
in.” He kicks Johnny’s tools into a pile. Many of them have been burnt with the mattress, their shiny faces now blackened with soot.
“Pack up,” No. 2 says. “I never want to see you here again.”
Feebly, Johnny begins to gather his tools. They are still hot from the fire.
“Don’t forget,” No. 2 says, “that you are responsible for this machine. It’s your fault.”
Johnny raises his gaze to meet No. 2’s.
“Don’t you dare look at me like that,” No. 2 says. He kicks Johnny away with the tip of his shoe.
Johnny’s hand lands on his pile of tools. He finds that his hand has come to rest on a screwdriver. Its handle is smooth and fire-warm. Johnny grasps it and thrusts it deep into No. 2’s thigh.
The court case was short but complicated; there were many difficulties. First of all, no one was certain of Johnny’s age, not even Johnny himself. It was not unusual for a child of lowly rural background not to have a birth certificate—why was there need for one?—and as a result, the precise date and location of Johnny’s birth remained a mystery. Advocates acting for the Darby Mine insisted that Johnny should stand trial for the most serious charge: attempted murder. His physical appearance alone, they argued, suggested that he was at least eighteen. But Charlie Gopalan, a local barrister who specialised in such criminal cases, convinced the magistrate that Johnny was merely fourteen, and should not, under the circumstances, go to prison, where he would surely fall under the influence of Communist guerillas. Mr. Gopalan was a man who had earned the trust of the British. He had studied at the Inner Temple and his clothes were nicely tailored in Singapore. His round-rimmed glasses added to his serious, scholarly manner. In pictures from the newspaper archive in the Public Library, he appears a small, neat-looking man, often holding a briefcase and a hat. He is even said to have begun translating Homer’s Odyssey into Malay. His word, in any event, carried much influence.
There was also the matter of No. 2’s condition. Johnny had managed to stab him in the fleshy part of the thigh, in exactly the place where the artery is at its thickest. The blood loss was immense. It was reported in court that the two men were found nearly lifeless, writhing feebly as if swimming in a shallow pool of blood. For a month after the stabbing, No. 2 remained in the General Hospital in Ipoh. Though he was for some days on the brink of death, he improved steadily. Doctors praised his bravery and admired his “buffalo-like” constitution, and his progress was such that, by the time of the hearing, he was able to walk, albeit gingerly. The familiar rosy-pinkness of his complexion was by this time fully restored to his cheeks.
Thus the case against Johnny was halfhearted, the lawyers becoming increasingly bored as the days wore on. In the face of Mr. Gopalan’s persuasiveness, the magistrate decided that it was sufficient that Johnny received ten lashes of the rotan, “to teach boys like you to know and respect your position in society.” He was cleared of all charges.
What no one knew at the time was that gangrene or septicemia or some other mysterious infection had worked its way into No. 2’s blood, unnoticed by the doctors who had tended to him. He collapsed, was rushed to hospital, but again made a near-miraculous recovery. Once more, doctors marvelled at his God-given strength, and when he collapsed a second time they knew he would pull through—and he did. Month after month, this continued, until finally No. 2 died, exactly a year and a week after first being stabbed by Johnny.
The coroner had no choice but to record a “death by natural causes” verdict.
I do not believe that Johnny would have been saddened by the news of No. 2’s death. I believe, in fact, that it was this first killing which hardened in him a certain resolve. Now he was a killer but he did not feel bad. He knew, for the first time in his life, the sensation which was to become familiar to him later in his life, that powerful feeling of committing a crime and then escaping its consequences. It was this first incident which set him on the path to becoming the monster he ultimately turned into.
IT WAS MANY YEARS before he could find work easily. Ordinary people were fearful of a person such as Johnny. He might not have been a criminal in the eyes of the law, but the law didn’t understand human nature. The law couldn’t always tell good from evil, people said. For a long time Johnny moved from town to town, village to village, plantation to plantation, never knowing how long he would stay or what he would do next. Without the kindness of strangers he would surely have perished. It was inevitable that he would experience his first real contact with Communists during this period of his life. The Valley was, during this time, teeming with them—guerillas, sympathisers, political activists. An ill-humoured youth full of hatred (for the British, for the police, for life), Johnny was perfect Communist material. Of the many journeyman jobs he was given during these years, I’m certain that all but a handful were Communist-inspired in some form or another. This wasn’t surprising, given that every other shopkeeper, farmer, or rubber-tapper was a Communist. These people offered Johnny more than an ideology; they offered a safe place to sleep, simple food, and a little money. That was all he cared for at that point in time.
5. Johnny and the Tiger
I LIKE TO THINK of those years which Johnny spent wandering from job to lousy job as his “lost” years, the years which became erased from his life, the years during which he vanished into the countryside. I see him disappearing into the forest as a boy and emerging as a man. That is certainly what seems, extraordinarily, to have happened. Who knows? Perhaps something terrible happened to him during those years in the wilderness, something which turned him into a monster. Or maybe it was the irresistible force of fate which led him down this path; maybe he was simply destined, from the day he was born, to jump off the back of a lorry onto the dusty, treeless main street in Kampar, in front of the biggest textile trading company in the Valley. No one knows about the small odyssey which led Johnny to Kampar. All anyone can be sure of is that one day he turned up and got a job, his first regular employment since the Darby Mine incident, at the famous shop run by “Tiger” Tan.
The reasons behind Tiger’s name were a mystery. By all accounts, he was a gentle, soft-mannered, home-loving man who, on account of his devout Buddhism, never ate meat, even though he was one of the few people in the Valley who could afford to eat it every day. He had plump arms which hung loosely by his sides when he walked. His movements were slow and unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world. He looked every bit the prosperous merchant that he was.
You would never have guessed that in his spare time he was also the commander of the Communist Army for the whole of the Valley.
By the time Johnny came under his employ at the Tiger Brand Trading Company, Tiger Tan’s life seemed, in every respect, a settled state of affairs. He appeared, after many years, to have laid to rest the unfortunate events relating to his short, sad marriage. His wife had left him very soon after they had married. She took their baby daughter with her and converted to Islam in order to become the third wife of the fourth son of the prince regent of Perak. She went to live in the teak palace on the gentle slopes of Maxwell Hill, and it was there that the child was raised, amidst the splendour only royalty can provide. The child was given an Arabic name, Zahara, meaning “shining flower,” though neither her name nor her hardy peasant-Chinese blood could save her from dying of typhoid when she was seven years old. After her death, her mother was sometimes glimpsed at the great shuttered windows of the palace singing old Chinese love songs at the top of her voice. She sang with perfect pitch, her tongue capturing the words and releasing them across the Valley like grass seeds in the wind. If you strolled along the path which ran along the grounds of the palace you could sometimes hear these songs:
A traveller came from far away,
He brought me a letter.
At the top it says “I’ll always love you,”
At the bottom it says “Long must we part.”
I put the letter in my bosom sleeve.
Three years no word h
as faded.
My single heart that keeps true to itself
I fear you’ll never know.
It took Tiger a full twenty years, perhaps more, to forget the pain of his wife’s desertion. At first, he spent every waking hour trying to convince himself that both his wife and child had died; he told himself over and over again that they had travelled to distant lands and perished on their journey. As the months went by he began to believe it. All his friends, all the people who came to his shop—none of them mentioned the fate of his young family. They could see his suffering and did not wish to add to it. They understood that the human mind is a strange creature. Unless it is reminded of something regularly, it gradually forgets about that thing. In that way we may forget about the most terrible things that happen in our world. Little by little, Tiger’s memory began to lose its imprint of his wife and baby daughter until, truly, they ceased to exist in his world.
All that had happened a long time before Johnny showed up at his shop. Tiger’s life had long since become settled. His business had been flourishing for many years, and now he began to sink more and more into the comfort of his home, a modestly sized but comparatively luxurious stone-and-teak house on the outskirts of the little town. He filled it with exotic furniture—Portuguese chairs from Melaka, English pine tables treated with wax to protect against the humidity, painted chests of drawers from “Northern Europe.” He had a formidable collection of books too. Marxist texts in Chinese, mainly, but also a number of English-language books, including a small collection of Dornford Yates novels.
In his spacious garden there was a small orchard. He tended to his fruit trees with great care. He especially loved the mango trees for their dark tongue-shaped leaves, which kept a thick shade all year round, even when the fruit was in season. Of all the fruits, however, he loved the rambutan best, and the ones he grew were considered particularly fine: deep red in colour and not too hairy. He took these down to the market, where he sold them wholesale. The few cents he made from this gave him as much pleasure as the hundreds of dollars he made each month from trading textiles and clothing, and so he began to devote more time to his garden. He pruned the trees so that their shapes would become more attractive and their new branches more sturdy; he agonised over which trees to use for grafting new stock; he tied paper bags over the best fruit to protect it from flying foxes and insects.