Bitter Sweet Harvest

by Chan Ling Yap

  Ming Kong looked at Mei Yin’s face, examining the lines and planes of her cheekbones and long neck as though he was seeing her anew. His eyes softened and he felt a tremendous rush of love for his wife. She was still beautiful he thought, even after all these years. He reached out and held her hand in his. For the first time since he landed in England almost a month ago, he felt that he was getting somewhere and that something positive was about to happen.

  The taxi finally reached the crowded streets of Soho and dropped them off at the entrance to Chinatown. Brightly coloured signs with Chinese calligraphy greeted them. Mei Yin sniffed the air and smiled, her mood brightening up. “Even the air smells different here,” she remarked, “so much like Chinatown back in KL, perhaps even brighter and more densely packed. Look at the number of restaurants.” She pointed with delight at the roast ducks and meats hanging from hooks in the windows, their red-brown, gleaming skin offering a promise of succulence and crispiness. They made their way along the street until they reached a building on a corner where Siew Lin was stood waiting for them.

  “This is it.” Siew Lin gestured towards the building. “We could have a good Chinese restaurant here. It has great possibilities because this spot is virtually a junction for three streets so you can get customers from three different directions, all business flowing into this catchment. Good feng shui, water and wind, the balance of the elements bringing harmony and prosperity.” She clapped her hand in excitement. “It is difficult to get such a spot. I had a feng shui expert check it out.”

  Mei Yin looked uncertainly at Ming Kong. “Siew Lin, can I have a word with Ming Kong?”

  “Of course! Take your time,” replied Siew Lin before disappearing into the premises.

  “I’m not sure about this feng shui business. It is, however, in a good location,” said Ming Kong. “But do we want to start a restaurant here?” exclaimed both Ming Kong and Mei Yin together as though reading each other’s thoughts simultaneously. They broke into laughter.

  “When you first broached the subject of restaurants, I had thought of an eatery serving Malaysian food, like a noodle bar, much like the hawker stalls back home where food is cooked in front of the clients, but instead of different stalls under different ownership, it would be under one management. I don’t think that Soho needs yet another Chinese restaurant serving the same dishes. Look how many there are, just on this one street. There is too much competition here.”

  “Yes, I agree. By contrast, as far as I can tell, there does not appear to be many, if any, Malaysian restaurants here. Mind you, if we succeed, there will be many in the future. I think we have to go back to the drawing board. We ought to look elsewhere, perhaps consider university towns that have large Malaysian populations. We might still come back to this place because there are lots of Malaysians living in London.

  “If we do take this place, I think we can make use of our experience of food stores by using part of the premises to display and sell Malaysian ingredients and pre-packed foods. The remainder could be the eatery. Eat, taste and buy ingredients to cook good Malaysian food at home, might be the sales pitch we could adopt. Few shops in London stock food ingredients from Malaysia. We can get Tek San involved. He can supply them to us,” said Ming Kong recalling Tek San’s food chains in Malaysia. His face grew animated; he was pleased with Mei Yin and her acuteness in sussing out the situation. “You have learnt a lot from running the cake business at home,” he complimented her. “Nelly was right.”

  Mei Yin blushed with pleasure.

  *****

  In the house at Oxford, Nelly sat opposite Jenny in the sitting room. Jenny had arrived without warning and Nelly felt awkward and shabby in her presence. Eyeing the beautifully cut suit Jenny was wearing, she tugged at her own samfoo top, recalling Mei Yin’s plea for her to give up wearing Chinese clothes and to put on the pair of trousers and shirt blouse she had bought for her instead. “You won’t stand out a mile and besides you will be warmer,” she had advised.

  “I’m sorry you have missed Mei Yin. She is out with Ming Kong. You have only me.” She was not at ease with Jenny whom she viewed as more Mei Yin’s friend than hers. “She won’t be back until late, perhaps very late.”

  “It’s okay. I can speak to you,” said Jenny. She made herself comfortable, plumping a cushion and placing it behind her back. Relaxing into the sofa, she draped one arm over the back and crossed her legs. Her black leather pumps glimmered and shone.

  Nelly had little to say to Jenny. They had few things in common. She fiddled with the cups of tea she had brought out from the kitchen, making a big show of placing them correctly, adjusting the cup handles this way and that as though it was of utmost importance to do so.

  “Are you okay?” asked Jenny sensing her discomfort.

  “Yes! Of course.”

  “Have you heard from An Mei?”

  “I am going to see her. I am leaving for KL in a couple of days’ time.” Nelly did not wish to say any more about An Mei.

  “What? You are leaving?”

  “Yes, just to take care of bits and pieces at home and to look after An Mei.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t really know. It depends.”

  “Oh dear!” said Jenny. “I had hoped that I would see more of you in Oxford, now that I am to spend at least three months here. I so wished to get to know you better.”

  Nelly’s scepticism must have shown because it prompted Jenny to explain herself. “I realise,” she said, uncrossing her legs and leaning closer towards Nelly, “that in the past, we have had very little to do with each other because I am closer to Mei Yin, but I would like to change that.”

  Jenny wanted to make amends. She recalled how she had treated Nelly in the past. She blushed to think of how mean she had been.

  “Such a shame,” she continued. “In fact, I want to say how sorry I am that I do not know you better, because you have been such a pillar of support for Mei Yin. If there is anything I can do to help out in Kuala Lumpur, please let me know. Even if I am not there physically, I am sure I can help with a few phone calls.”

  Nelly looked out of the window and her eyes glazed over. She had an idea. “Perhaps,” she said slowly, “perhaps you can help me. There is something I have to do for myself.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I am trying to trace a family in Singapore. The mother is someone called Mary Woo. She has two children, a boy and a girl. They will be quite old now, in their late 20s.”

  Chapter 13

  Nelly threw open the window. The hinges groaned and creaked. Just over a month of absence and they had already turned rusty. Hot humid air rushed in filling the room with an all-pervading damp mustiness. She could feel the sunshine on her face, a blistering heat that turned her face instantly red, erasing the pallor of her skin, the result of a month of weak English sunshine. She breathed in deeply, enjoying the warmth that filled her lungs. “Home,” she murmured contentedly, “at last, we are home. We are so lucky that Maan sook was unable to sell our house.”

  She rushed from window to window, throwing shutters open. “Help me An Mei. We have to get some help to give the house a good clean. Look at the dust! And cobwebs! Tomorrow, we will go to our shops and see how things are.”

  “Aunty you have only just arrived. Why don’t you take a few days of rest to get used to things?”

  “Rest? I have had enough of rest. I feel renewed vitality; the warmth has woken up my old bones.” Nelly smiled, rubbing her eyes. “I admit I am a little sleepy and jet-lagged, but a nap will cure all that. Come, come and talk to me.”

  Together, they went up the stairs to the bedroom, trailing their fingers on the banisters, penning the thin veneer of dust into shimmering snakes. They threw open the bed covers and, pushing them aside, crept into the bed. Nelly put her arm around An Mei, patting her shoulder softly in the way she had done ever since she was placed under her care as a tiny girl.

  An Mei buried her face deep into the pi
llow, her back was towards Nelly. “Aunty Nelly,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled, “thank you for doing this for me. I know you have made a big sacrifice for me. I can’t bring myself to return to Oxford. I love Hussein. I want to be here for him.”

  “Tell me, An Mei. Have his parents agreed to his marrying you?”

  “No, his parents are still opposed to it. Hussein said that for the moment, we cannot be married, but we can carry on as we were before. Only this time, we will have to be more discreet...” Her voice trailed off. Nelly could hear the disappointment in her voice and feel her shoulders going limp under her enfolding arm. She held An Mei tighter, as though she hoped to absorb some of her pain. “By that,” An Mei continued, her voice filled with hurt, “it means we do not go anywhere important together. See,” she continued assuming a false brightness, “just like Aunty Jenny. I’m to be like her, someone who I have ridiculed in the past.”

  “Are you sure this is just temporary, for the moment, as he puts it? Would there be a chance in the future that he could, would marry you? I cannot put off explaining or telling your father forever. If Hussein cannot marry you, then you should think of your other options. Perhaps, go back to Oxford, find a job and start life again. You are young. At the moment, your father thinks that you are staying on only to help me out and that you have ended your relationship with Hussein. I have given my word that I’ll look after you and I am sure he has interpreted that to mean that I will see to it that you no longer see Hussein.”

  An Mei turned to face Nelly. “I’ll stay for a while,” she said. “Perhaps, I can find work here. I’ll help out in the shops,” she added hastily, “but I would like to find my own work. Hussein too wishes to find his own feet. And if he can, I am sure we will be married. He would be able make his own decisions then and be less constrained by his family. At the moment, his wings are clipped. He has no money of his own. He is totally dependent on his parents. They wield such power over him. We need time to work things out.”

  “Can’t he find a job on his own?”

  An Mei recalled what Hussein had said to her. “In theory, yes. With his qualifications he should be able to get a good position. In practice, it would be difficult.”

  Nelly leaned over and planted a kiss on An Mei’s wet cheeks before withdrawing her arm. She turned on her side. “Let me sleep and think about it.”

  *****

  A week later, Nelly travelled to Singapore. She boarded the train at the Kuala Lumpur railway station. The station’s mixture of neo-Moorish/Mughal architecture brought back sharp memories of her hasty departure from Singapore many years ago. It was here in this very station that she was directed to Penang and it was in Penang that she had met Ming Kong. She sat alone as the train rolled forward, each jolt, each sound it made took her nearer to Singapore. Little had changed on the train, but so much of her life has been transformed. Her thoughts flew from one episode to another, but one scene kept coming back to haunt her. It was the day she abandoned her children to escape the incessant beatings of her former husband, Woo Pik Soo. The longing to hold them in her arms was like a fresh wound. She felt the sudden flood of warmth around her eyes as she recalled the scent of her children when she held them for the last time. She looked out of the window to avoid the curious stares of other passengers. Palm oil and rubber plantations rushed by, their orderly alignment seemed to mock the chaos in her life. She looked at her own reflection on the windowpane, seeing the change in herself. When she boarded the train all those years ago, she was slim, youthful with long black hair. Her reflection now showed an old, plump, grey-haired lady.

  “I have to find them,” she said aloud, waking the dozing passenger sitting next to her. His lolling head shot up abruptly as he looked with a confused expression at Nelly.

  “Were you speaking to me?

  “No!” replied Nelly.

  “What-lah! Woke me up,” he barked, clearly annoyed. “Don’t do that again!” With that he dug deeper into his seat and turned his back to her and closed his eyes.

  *****

  Clutching a piece of paper and her handbag, Nelly got out of the taxi at Bukit Timah, a leafy hilly suburb in Singapore. Huge houses with equally large gardens stood on either side of the road. The chatty taxi driver had told her that the hill, Bukit, had been originally named after the Temak trees that grew in abundance in the area but it had been wrongly pronounced during the colonial days as Timah or tin and the name had stuck. “See,” he had waved his hand expansively, “no tin but it is still called Tin Hill! No tin but still rich. Only rich people live here.” He eyed Nelly as she fished out her purse to pay him, hoping that his acknowledgement of the rich would bring him a big tip.

  The taxi had stopped in front of a mansion, the size of which dwarfed even the other substantial surrounding buildings. Nervously, she checked the house number and then made her way to the mansion’s gate, a massive wrought iron structure, painted green with sharp spear-like tops gilded gold. She buzzed the bell and within minutes the gate opened like a well-oiled machine opening its jaws to claim her. “Please enter,” a voice echoed through the intercom. “Our mistress is expecting you.”

  Nelly mopped impatiently at the perspiration on her forehead and walked briskly forward. Shimmers of heat steamed up from the black tarmac. It enveloped her feet making them swell. Her legs grew heavy and she felt faint. She had become unaccustomed to the heat, even in the short time she had been in England. But she persisted, increasing her pace in her haste to reach the mansion. “I cannot run away this time,” she told herself. The thought of seeing her children again made her forget her age, her weight and her lack of fitness. She hurried forward, puffing. She saw a servant in uniform coming down the steps of the mansion carrying a parasol.

  “Siew Nai, mistress, wait! I have this shade for you. It is too hot to walk so fast.” She saw the sweat that was pouring down from Nelly’s face and thrust forward a waxed paper parasol painted with yellow chrysanthemums. Bamboo spokes, splayed out from the stem handle, supported the fragile fabric of the shade.

  “Let me, let me,” the maid said, holding it high above Nelly. “I will hold it. I am Ah Kuk’s replacement. She died last year.”

  Nelly stopped in her track. For a moment, she was speechless. Already the unexpected had happened. She thought she would see Ah Kuk, and was looking forward to the reunion. Ah Kuk had been Mary’s maid and had been so good to her. She had helped her look after her children.

  “We should not stand under the sun. Mistress Mary is within. She is waiting,” coaxed the maid, anxious to go into the house and escape the relentless heat.

  They walked up the flight of steps that stretched the entire length of the terrace in front of the mansion to reach the entrance. By this time, Nelly was puffing hard. She paused at the top of the steps; her hand went to her heart to still its wild beating. She took a few deep breaths and then slowly, with great trepidation, she entered the house. Standing in the middle of the expansive hallway was an old lady, her hair almost pure white, her face a cobweb of wrinkles radiating from her eyes and her cheeks. Flanking her on either side were a man and a woman. He was very tall and she diminutive and slight. Nelly checked herself. She looked in bewilderment from one to the other; she pushed her spectacles up the bridge of the nose and looked again.

  “Mary, Chai-chai and Mei-mei?” she asked hesitantly.

  Nelly clasped her hand to her mouth, the motion, involuntary and clumsy. In all her dreams, she had pictured her children as they were when she left. She knew that after well-over twenty-five years, they would be adults. Yet in her mind, she held only an image of them as children, taller, bigger, yes, but nothing resembling the two adults standing before her. She could not recognise them. She turned to Mary.

  “Mary? Is it you?” she asked again.

  “Come, let’s go and sit down. You are in shock.” Mary smiled and, at that moment, Nelly saw, behind the wrinkles and shrunken outer-shell, the person who had helped her escape from her plight
and who had looked after her children, her confidante, the woman who had been her previous husband’s first wife. She took the hand extended to her and they went into the sitting room.

  “This is your mother,” said Mary to the man and woman beside her.

  “Please, I have not come to claim them. I have lost all rights to call myself their mother,” protested Nelly. “I just wanted to see them.” She was shocked that Mary had spoken in that way. It was totally unexpected. When she had left all those years ago, she promised Mary that she would never come between her and the children and Mary had welcomed that promise.

  Mary waved her hand dismissing Nelly’s protest. “I have told them and I have explained everything. I made up my mind to do so after your friend, Jenny, called. I am getting old. I might not have much longer to live and I believe they have a right to know.”

  Nelly kept her gaze on the floor, apprehensive of the scorn and even hate that her children might show her. Her eyes were tightly shut, but this could not prevent the tears from oozing in a continuous trickle from their corners. She felt an arm around her shoulders, then, someone clasped her hand. She looked up at her two grown-up children, so different from what she had imagined but all that she had hoped and prayed for. “Forgive me,” she asked.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” they replied in unison. “Mother, uh Mary, has explained everything.”

  “Please, you have to continue to call Mary, mother. Just call me sum, aunty.” She lowered herself to the seat. She looked at Mary, seeking with her eyes, her permission. Mary nodded in encouragement and Nelly said, “Tell me about yourselves. Start from the very beginning. I want to know and share everything.