Wicked Women

by Gaie Sebold

  That night Vivian dreamt of her grandmother.

  Nai Nai had climbed out of her coffin where she had been lying in the living room. She was wearing a kebaya, with a white baju and a batik sarong wrapped around her hips. No modern creation this — the blouse was fastened not with buttons but with kerongsang, ornate gold brooches studded with pearls and rhinestones.

  Nai Nai was struggling with the kerongsang. In her dream Vivian reached out to help her.

  ‘I can do!’ said Nai Nai crossly. ‘Don’t so sibuk.’ She batted at the kerongsang with the slim brown hands that had been so deft in life.

  ‘What’s the matter? You want to take it off for what?’ said Vivian in Hokkien.

  ‘It’s too nice to wear outside,’ Nai Nai complained. ‘When I was alive I used safety pins and it was enough. All this hassle just because I am like this. I didn’t save Yeh Yeh’s pension so you can spend on a carcass!’

  ‘Why do you want to go outside?’ Vivian took the bony arm. ‘Nai Nai, come, let’s go back to sleep. It’s so late already. Everybody is sleeping.’

  Nai Nai was a tiny old lady with a dandelion fluff of white hair standing out from her head. She looked nothing like the spotty, tubby, furiously awkward Wei Yi, but her expression suddenly showed Vivian what her sister would look like when she was old. The contemptuous exasperation was exactly the same.

  ‘If it’s not late, how can I go outside?’ she said. ‘I have a long way to go. Hai!’ She flung up her hands. ‘After they bury me, ask the priest to give you back the kerongsang.’

  She started hopping towards the door, her arms held rod-straight out in front of her. The sight was comic and horrible.

  This was the secret the family had been hiding from Vivian. Nai Nai had become a kuang shi.

  ‘Nai Nai,’ choked Vivian. ‘Please rest. You’re so old already, shouldn’t run around so much.’

  ‘Don’t answer back!’ shouted Nai Nai from the foyer. ‘Come and open the door for Nai Nai! Yeh Yeh will be angry. He cannot stand when people are late.’

  Vivian envisioned Nai Nai hopping out of the house — past the neighbourhood park with its rustling bushes and creaking swings, past the neighbours’ Myvis and Peroduas, through the toll while the attendant slumbered. She saw Nai Nai hopping along the curves of the Titiwangsa mountains, her halo of hair white against the bleeding red of the hills where the forests had peeled away to show the limestone. She saw Nai Nai passing oil palm plantations, their leaves dark glossy green under the brassy glare of sunshine — sleepy water buffalo flicking their tails in wide hot fields — empty new terrace houses standing in white rows on bare hillsides. Up the long North-South Expressway to her final home.

  ‘Nai Nai,’ said Vivian. Don’t leave us, she wanted to say.

  ‘Complain, complain!’ Nai Nai was slapping at the doorknob with her useless stiff hands.

  ‘You can’t go all that way,’ said Vivian. She had an inspiration. ‘Your sarong will come undone.’

  Whoever had laid Nai Nai out had dressed her like a true nyonya. The sarong was wound around her hips and tucked in at the waist, with no fastenings to hold it up.

  ‘At my age, who cares,’ said Nai Nai, but this had clearly given her pause.

  ‘Come back to sleep,’ coaxed Vivian. ‘I’ll tell Mummy. Bukit Tambun, right? I’ll sort it out for you.’

  Nai Nai gave her a sharp look. ‘Can talk so sweetly but what does she do? Grandmother is being buried and she goes to buy a wedding dress!’

  Vivian winced.

  ‘The dress is not nice also,’ said Nai Nai. ‘What happened to the first dress? That was nice. Red is a happy colour.’

  ‘I know Nai Nai feels it’s pantang, but—’

  ‘Pantang what pantang,’ snapped Nai Nai. Like all witches, she hated to be accused of superstition. ‘White is a boring colour! Ah, when I got married everybody wanted to celebrate. We had two hundred guests and they all had chicken to eat. I looked so beautiful in my photo. And Yeh Yeh... ‘

  Nai Nai sank into reminiscence.

  ‘What about Yeh Yeh?’ prompted Vivian.

  ‘Yeh Yeh looked the same as always. Like a useless playboy,’ said Nai Nai. ‘He could only look nice and court girls.’

  ‘Then you want to be buried with him for what?’

  ‘That’s different,’ said Nai Nai. ‘Whether I’m a good wife doesn’t have anything to do with what he was like.’

  As if galvanized by Vivian’s resistance, she turned and made to hit the door again.

  ‘If you listen to me, I’ll take the dress back to the shop,’ said Vivian, driven by desperation.

  Nai Nai paused. ‘You’ll buy the pretty cheongsam?’

  ‘If you want also I’ll wear the kua,’ said Vivian recklessly.

  She tried not to imagine what her fiancé would say when he saw the loose red jacket and long skirt, embroidered in gold and silver with bug-eyed dragons and insectoid phoenixes. And the three-quarter bell sleeves, all the better to show the wealth of the family in the gold bracelets stacked on the bride’s wrists! How that would impress her future in-laws.

  To her relief, Nai Nai said, ‘No lah! So old-fashioned. Cheongsam is nicer.’

  She started hopping back towards the living room.

  Vivian trailed behind, feeling somehow as though she had been outmanoeuvred.

  ‘Nai Nai, do you really want to be buried in Penang?’

  Nai Nai peered up with suspicion in her reddened eyes as Vivian helped her back into the coffin.

  ‘You want to change your mind, is it?’

  ‘No, no, I’ll get the cheongsam. It’ll be in my room by tomorrow, I promise.’

  Nai Nai smiled.

  ‘You know why I wanted you all to call me Nai Nai?’ she said before Vivian closed the coffin. ‘Even though Hokkien people call their grandmother Ah Ma?’

  Vivian paused with her hand on the lid.

  ‘In the movies, Nai Nai is always bad!’

  Vivian woke up with her grandmother’s growly cackle in her ears.

  Wei Yi was in the middle of a meltdown when Vivian came downstairs for breakfast. Ma bristled with relief:

  ‘Ah, your sister is here. She’ll talk to you.’

  Wei Yi was sitting enthroned in incandescence, clutching a bread knife. A charred hunk of what used to be kaya toast sat on her plate. The Star newspaper next to it was crisping at the edges.

  Vivian began to sweat. She thought about turning on the ceiling fan, but that might stoke the flames.

  She pulled out a chair and picked up the jar of kaya as if nothing was happening. ‘What’s up?’

  Wei Yi turned hot coal eyes on Vivian.

  ‘She doesn’t want to kill the dogs wor,’ said Ma. ‘Angry already.’

  ‘So? Who ask you to kill the dogs in the first place?’ said Vivian.

  ‘Stupid,’ said Wei Yi. Her face was very pale, but her lips had the dull orange glow of heated metal. Fire breathed in her hair. A layer of ash lay on the crown of her head.

  ‘Because of Nai Nai,’ Ma explained. ‘Wei Yi heard the blood of a black dog is good for Nai Nai’s … condition.’

  ‘It’s not right,’ said Wei Yi. ‘It’s better for Nai Nai if she goes peacefully. But you won’t understand one!’

  Vivian spread a layer of kaya on her piece of bread before she answered. Her hands were shaking, but her voice was steady when she spoke.

  ‘I think Ma is right. There’s no need to kill any dogs. Nai Nai is not serious about being a kuang shi. She’s just using it as an emotional blackmail.’ She paused for reflection. ‘And I think she’s enjoying it also lah. You know Nai Nai was always very active. She likes to be up and about.’

  Wei Yi dropped her butter knife.

  ‘Eh, how you know?’ said Ma.

  ‘She talked to me in my dream last night because she didn’t like the wedding dress I bought,’ said Vivian.

  Ma’s eyes widened. ‘You went to buy your wedding dress when Nai Nai just pass away?’
>
  ‘You saw Nai Nai?’ cried Wei Yi. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She likes cheongsam better, and she wants to be buried in Penang,’ said Vivian. ‘So I’m going to buy cheongsam. Ma, should think about sending her back to Penang. When she got nothing to complain about she will settle down.’

  ‘Why she didn’t talk to me?’ said Wei Yi. Beads of molten metal ran down her face, leaving silver trails. ‘I do so many jampi and she never talk to me! It’s not fair!’

  Ma was torn between an urge to scold Vivian and the necessity of comforting Wei Yi. ‘Girl, don’t cry — Vivian, so disrespectful, I’m surprise Nai Nai never scold you—’

  ‘Yi Yi,’ said Vivian. ‘She didn’t talk to you because in Nai Nai’s eyes you are perfect already.’ As she said this, she realized it was true.

  Wei Yi — awkward, furious and objectionable in every way — was Nai Nai’s ideal grandchild. There was no need to monitor or reprimand such a perfect heir. The surprise was that Nai Nai even thought it necessary to rise from the grave to order Vivian around, rather than just leaving the job to the next witch.

  Of course, Nai Nai probably hadn’t had the chance to train Wei Yi in the standards expected of a wedding in Nai Nai’s family. The finer points of bridal fashion would certainly escape Wei Yi.

  ‘Nai Nai only came back to scold people,’ said Vivian. ‘She doesn’t need to scold you for anything.’

  The unnatural metallic sheen of Wei Yi’s face went away. Her hair and eyes dimmed. Her mouth trembled.

  Vivian expected a roar. Instead Wei Yi shoved her kaya toast away and laid her head on the table.

  ‘I miss Nai Nai,’ she sobbed.

  Ma got up and touched Vivian on the shoulder.

  ‘I have to go buy thing,’ she whispered. ‘You cheer up your sister.’

  Wei Yi’s skin was still hot when Vivian put her arm around her, but as Vivian held her Wei Yi’s temperature declined, until she felt merely feverish. Her tears went from scalding to lukewarm.

  ‘Nai Nai, Nai Nai,’ she wailed in that screechy show-off way Vivian had always hated. When they were growing up Vivian had not believed in Wei Yi’s tears. They seemed no more than a show, put on to impress the grown-ups.

  Vivian now realized that the grief was as real as the volume deliberate. Wei Yi did not cry like that simply because she was sad, but because she wanted someone to listen to her.

  In the old days it had been a parent or a teacher’s attention that she had sought. These howls were aimed directly at the all-too-responsive ears of their late grandmother.

  ‘Wei Yi,’ said Vivian. ‘I’ve thought of what you can do for Nai Nai.’

  For once Wei Yi did not put Vivian’s ideas to scorn. She seemed to have gone up in her sister’s estimation for having seen Nai Nai’s importunate spectre.

  Vivian had a feeling Nai Nai’s witchery had gone into Wei Yi’s paper cutting skills. YouTube couldn’t explain the unreal speed with which she did it.

  Vivian tried picking up Wei Yi’s scissors and dropped them, yelping.

  ‘What the—!’ It had felt like an electric shock.

  Wei Yi grabbed the scissors. ‘These are no good. I give you other ones to use.’

  Vivian got the task of cutting out the sarong — a large rectangular piece of paper to which Wei Yi would add the batik motifs later. When she was done Wei Yi took a look and pursed her lips. The last time Vivian had felt this small was when she failed her first driving test two minutes after getting into the car.

  ‘OK ah?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Wei Yi unconvincingly. ‘Eh, you go help Ma do her whatever thing lah. I’ll work on this first.’

  A couple of hours later she barged into Vivian’s room. ‘Why you’re here? Why you take so long? Come and see!’

  Vivian got up sheepishly. ‘I thought you need some time to finish mah.’

  ‘Nonsense. Nai Nai going to be buried tomorrow, where got time to dilly-dally?’ Wei Yi grasped her hand.

  The paper outfit was laid in crisp folds on the dining table. Wei Yi’s scissors had rendered the delicate lace of the kebaya blouse with marvellous skill. Peacocks with uplifted wings and princely crowns draped their tails along the hems, strutted up the lapels, and curled coyly around the ends of the sleeves. The paper was chiffon-thin. A breath set it fluttering.

  The skirt was made from a thicker, heavier cream paper. Wei Yi had cut blowsy peonies into the front and a contrasting grid pattern on the reverse. Vivian touched it in wonder, feeling the nubby texture of the paper under her fingertips.

  ‘Do you think Nai Nai will like it?’ said Wei Yi.

  Vivian had to be honest. ‘The top is a bit see-through, no?’

  ‘She’ll have a singlet to wear underneath,’ said Wei Yi. ‘I left that for you to do. Very simple one. Just cut along the line only.’

  This was kindness, Wei Yi style.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Yi Yi,’ said Vivian. She felt awkward — they were not a family given to compliments — but once she’d started it was easy to go on. ‘It’s so nice. Nai Nai will love it.’

  ‘Ah, don’t need to say so much lah,’ Wei Yi scoffed. ‘”OK” enough already. I still haven’t done shoe yet.’

  They burnt the beautiful cream kebaya as an offering to Nai Nai. It didn’t go alone. Wei Yi had created four other outfits, working through the night. Samfu for everyday wear; an old-fashioned loose, long-sleeved cheongsam (‘Nicer for older lady. Nai Nai is not a Shanghai cabaret singer’); a sarong for sleeping in; and a Punjabi suit of all things.

  ‘Nai Nai used to like wearing it,’ said Wei Yi when Vivian expressed surprise. ‘Comfortable mah. Nai Nai likes this simple kind of thing to wear for every day.’

  ‘Four is not a good number,’ said Vivian. ‘Maybe should make extra sarong?’

  ‘You forgot the kebaya. That’s five,’ Wei Yi retorted. ‘Anyway she die already. What is there to be pantang about?’

  They threw in the more usual hell gold and paper mansion into the bonfire as well. The doll servants didn’t burn well, but melted dramatically and stuck afterwards.

  Since they were doing the bonfire outside the house, on the public road, this concerned Vivian. She chipped doubtfully away at the mess of plastic.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Ma. ‘The servants have gone to Nai Nai already.’

  ‘I’m not worried about that,’ said Vivian. ‘I’m worried about MPPJ.’ She couldn’t imagine the local authorities would be particularly pleased about the extra work they’d made for them.

  ‘They’re used to it lah,’ said Ma, dismissing the civil service with a wave of the hand.

  They even burnt the fake Gucci bag and the polo shirt in the end.

  ‘Nai Nai will find some use for it,’ said Wei Yi. ‘Maybe turn out she like that kind of style also.’

  She could afford to be magnanimous. Making the kebaya had relieved something in Wei Yi’s heart. As she’d stood watch over the flames to make sure the demons didn’t get their offerings to Nai Nai, there had been a new serenity in her face.

  As they moved back to the house, Vivian put her arm around her sister, wincing at the snap and hiss when her skin touched Wei Yi’s. It felt like a static shock, only intensified by several orders of magnitude.

  ‘OK?’

  Wei Yi was fizzling with magic, but her eyes were calm and dark and altogether human.

  ‘OK,’ replied the Witch of Damansara.

  In Vivian’s dream a moth came fluttering into the room. It alighted at the end of her bed and turned into Nai Nai.

  Nai Nai was wearing a green-and-white striped cotton sarong, tucked and knotted under her arms as if she were going to bed soon. Her hair smelled of Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo. Her face was white with bedak sejuk — powder moistened and spread over the face as a cooling paste.

  ‘Tell your mother the house is very beautiful,’ said Nai Nai. ‘The servants have already run away and got married, but it’s not so bad. In hell it’s not so dusty. Nothing to
clean also.’

  ‘Nai Nai—’

  ‘Ah Yi is very clever now, har?’ said Nai Nai. ‘The demons looked at my nice things but when they saw her they immediately run away.’

  Vivian experienced a pang. She didn’t say anything, but perhaps the dead understood these things. Or perhaps it was just that Nai Nai, with 65 years of mothering behind her, did not need to be told. She reached out and patted Vivian’s hand.

  ‘You are always so guai,’ said Nai Nai. ‘I’m not so worried about you.’

  This was a new idea to Vivian. She was unused to thinking of herself —magicless, intransigent — as the good kid in the family.

  ‘But I went overseas,’ she said stupidly.

  ‘You’re always so clever to work hard. You don’t make your mother and father worried,’ said Nai Nai. ‘Ah Yi ah ….’ Nai Nai shook her head. ‘So stubborn! So naughty! If I don’t take care sekali she burn down the house. That girl doesn’t use her head. But she become a bit guai already. When she’s older she won’t be so free, won’t have time to cause so much problems.’

  Vivian did not point out that age did not seem to have stopped Nai Nai. This would have been disrespectful. Instead she said,

  ‘Nai Nai, were you really a vampire? Or were you just pretending to turn into a kuang shi?’

  ‘Hai, you think so fun to pretend to be a kuang shi?’ said Nai Nai indignantly. ‘When you are old, you will find out how suffering it is. You think I have time to watch all the Hong Kong movies and learn how to be a vampire?’

  So that was how she did it. The pale vampire-like skin had probably been bedak sejuk as well. How Nai Nai had obtained bedak sejuk in the afterlife was a question better left unasked. Vivian had questions of more immediate interest anyway.

  ‘If you stayed because you’re worried about Wei Yi, can I return the cheongsam to the shop?’

  Nai Nai bridled. ‘Oh, like that ah? Not proud of your culture, is it? If you want to wear the white dress, like a ghost, so ugly—’

  ‘Ma wore a white dress on her wedding day. Everyone does it.’

  ‘Nai Nai give you my bedak sejuk and red lipstick lah. Then you can pretend to be kuang shi also!’