The Black Isle

by Sandi Tan

  Circling Blood Hill for the third time, I saw a truant Milkmaid sitting at the top of the mound, deep in thought and singing to herself. Brazenly so, it seemed to me. Already the disobedience had begun. Choking back my tears, I threw the bicycle aside and marched up the hill.

  As I neared, she vanished. A ghost! The first I’d seen on Blood Hill.

  I reached the heart of my lobe at least a half hour late, still trembling. My Milkmaids were in order—everything was the same. Nobody stared, nobody laughed. I peered over my shoulder to make sure no one was whispering behind my back. Nobody was. The girls barely even registered my presence. Not only did they not joke around, they were doing their work with far greater diligence than usual. In fact, the Milkmaids were working so well that the only explanation I could come up with was that some punctual, efficient doppelganger of mine had already been there, walking my rounds ahead of me. Making me, in other words, a shadow of myself.

  The whole morning had an uncanny feel, as if I’d entered a world in which I didn’t exist or was already dead. My flesh prickled at the slightest breeze. A black moth landed on my cheek and refused to leave. My eyes kept picking out the peculiar: A leaf became an insect; a cloud formed two perfect lobes. The grasses hissed. Mysteries lurked.

  And then an image leapt to my mind: the wooden hut, standing where it shouldn’t be. That was the most peculiar detail of all. Even in my unhappy state, my intuition told me that whatever was in it might explain everything, that perhaps it was calling out to me. I cycled back to where I had seen it, along the easternmost edge of my lobe.

  Sure enough, it was there—thank heavens for that—and every bit as out of place as it had been. Yet it felt so elemental, so familiar. Slanted roof, black walls, one door, enormous rusting padlock.

  And an elbow. A human elbow jutting out from behind the hut.

  I moved in and heard the telltale sounds of disobedience. Murmurs, soft laughter. The rustling of feet on damp grass. I dismounted my bicycle and crept closer, the better to surprise my wayward Milkmaids. I set my sternest glare as I reached the corner and peered over the edge:

  I saw Li—and I saw me.

  Or some incarnation of me in my St. Anne’s uniform, shoulder-length black hair just like mine, pressed against the hut, her face nuzzling Li’s neck. They were enveloped in each other, Li and my other self. The uniform’s skirt was hiked up in Li’s hand—my double wore no undergarments!—and one of her bare, tanned legs was locked across his pale buttocks. Li’s pants were at his ankles. He plunged into her and she moaned. Instinctively, I covered my mouth. He thrust again. She grunted, lewd and uninhibited. And as she turned her head in ecstasy, I recognized my doppelganger.

  It was Zana, one of the Malay Milkmaids from my lobe. Her hair was usually pinned in a knot over her head. She must have been at least twenty. I’d never liked her, and now I knew I’d been right.

  I watched them longer than I should have. Then I quietly pushed my bicycle away from the hut and, embracing the pain, pedaled to a patch of long grass in the shade. There I dived off the bike and crouched amid the leaves, waiting for the pounding in my head to subside. Black moths landed on my skin, and I did nothing to dissuade them. More and more came, and then an enormous brown and white moth landed, its triangular wings marbled like batik kites. They were small comforts. To exorcise Zana, I thought of every word I knew beginning with z that wasn’t her name: zeal, zenith, zoology, zero…

  I knelt there, my arms covered with insects. Not just moths now, but flies, spiders, beetles, each little stinger staking their claim on my flesh.

  Let me say this clearly now: It wasn’t so much the sight of Li and that girl that had disturbed me; it was the smell they produced together. Their vile perfume was like an oceanic burp that had crept inland and clung to the air. Prawn carcasses and musk.

  I crushed a horned beetle in my fist and watched its gritty black nectar pool across my palm. A single leg twitched once, twice, and then no more. I pressed this bitter paste against my nose and sniffed deep for anything, anything that could help me erase the lingering scent of my twin with my twin.

  6

  The Jungle

  I WANDERED THE DARKENING PLANTATION, flinging myself against the ground.

  My arms, knees, and shins were bruised and sore. But I wanted them bruised and sore. I clutched at the tall lalang, pulling my hands along each blade until my palms were crossed with cuts. I wanted these cuts; I cherished these cuts.

  I came to a mossy pond and strode waist-deep through the sludge, emerging with black leeches clinging to my legs. I watched them grow fat with my blood before I tore them off. They left holes on my calves like weeping stigmata.

  I was bleeding for my shame, I told myself. How could I not have known that proximity was a great deceiver, that it was loneliness that had driven me into my brother’s arms? This was convenience, not love. All I’d gained was a phantom comfort, as cold and bloodless as any ghost.

  I stripped off my sodden clothes and buried them under a rock. I walked steadily and did not slow until I was well past the boundary of our lobes and into the untamed jungle. The grasses tickled my chin; the wet air quivered with living chatter. Mosquitoes the size of wasps came to me and suckled, painting my flesh in dots and welts. But I did not scratch; I did not flee. Instead I pushed deeper into the rainforest. The mosquitoes quit; the itching ceased. I went deeper still. The pythons and cobras slithered away as I neared. I glimpsed the hooves of animals, both slow and fleet. Tapirs, mouse deer, tigers. They all ran from me.

  I no longer felt any fear. I no longer felt any pain. I no longer felt anything. I was now a thing of the jungle, indistinguishable from its roar, its bite, its venom, its ancient, untouched darkness.

  I bled into it, leaving a trail of red in the grass.

  Around me, the scent of fern, soil, and orchids made the most sublime perfume. There was shade where I sought shade and quiet where I sought quiet. In this primeval cave, nobody could find me; nobody could hurt me. And I no longer had Li to care about.

  Two days and two nights I spent in this wilderness, sleeping and fasting, crawling on all fours. Through it all, I was at peace.

  On the third morning, a cool breeze woke me and I received an epiphany. What had attacked me that night in my room was neither man nor ghost, but something in between. Who’d have such power? And be apt to abuse it? Mina’s father. The way he’d leered at me at the hives—it could only be him.

  I was now ready to reenter the world and mete out my revenge.

  I crawled back toward my lobe on all fours, the jungle still very much alive within me. I found the rock where I had buried my clothes but didn’t touch them. They belonged to the old me.

  As I neared the eastern edge of my lobe, who should I see sashaying along in my St. Anne’s uniform but Zana. Instead of collecting sap, the trollop had strayed off the common path and was idling by herself, humming a Sumatran love song. In her arms, she cradled an empty milk tin, as if nursing a child. Tramp!

  I stood up in the bushes and hissed. She glanced around but didn’t see me. I hissed again, more viciously. When her eyes finally found me, naked, my flesh covered in mud and sores, she froze. Her milk tin fell to the ground with a hollow thunk. Glee coursed through me. I leapt out of the grass and pranced in her direction. She stood there shaking, but frozen. With each step I took, her fear trebled.

  Mere inches from her face, I bared my teeth and snarled. My breath must have been terrifying. She shuddered but was too overcome to flee. Staring into her eyes, I whipped out both hands and smeared mud across her quivering face.

  I let her stumble away, sobbing like a child, then shrieked with pleasure at the top of my greedy lungs.

  There was a strange black car in the driveway. Could Father have sent someone looking for me? As far as I knew, nobody had come. From the outside, the house appeared placid, no better or worse than I remembered it. I slid in through the back door and slipped into the bathroom.

  I ex
amined my naked self in the mirror—the angry cuts, welts, and bruises. It looked as if I’d been pelted by a mob. Though mosquito bites dotted my arms and legs, the spider bites were worse. They left itchy scarlet buboes across my back and under my breasts. My pubic hair was caked with mud. When I tried to unpeel a clump of dirt from it, a bright orange beetle scuttled out and buzzed into flight. Lower down, some of the leech marks on my legs had closed into scabs, while others were leaking yellow pus streaked with blood.

  I hardly recognized myself. My hair was long, tangled, greasy. My tongue was a sickly green. Yet I looked invigorated; there was a new determination to my jawline, a new brightness and depth to my eyes.

  First, I had to let my body heal. After that, revenge.

  I took a satisfying soak in the bath, after which I dressed myself in long sleeves and pants to cover up my sores. I combed my hair, finding a new, left-side parting that most flattered my looks. I wished I had rouge for my lips but I didn’t, so I bit them to bring out some color.

  There were voices in the sitting room. From the hallway, I saw that Father was entertaining somebody—a pudgy European, sweating through his linen suit. I knew Father was trying to impress him because he had brought out the good china and put Wagner on the gramophone. The stranger, however, did not impress me. He remained seated like a pasha when I made my entrance.

  “Ah, Ling, there you are,” Father addressed me in English, artificially gregarious. Although he smiled, I could feel his eyes chastising me for my disappearance. “You were out, so I could not tell you. Master Robby is our visitor. He arrive last night.”

  Master Robby? This was no master. The man looked well over thirty. No youngster had crow’s-feet like his or that bulbous cauliflower nose.

  “My name is Robin Melmoth, but really, do call me Robby.” Melmoth was the name of our plantation. Did he own it? If so, why was he pretending to be much younger, like some affable schoolboy?

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  I was startled by the question. He pointed to the cuffs of my trousers, where a few bleeding sores were visible.

  “I see you like to play rough.” His eyes swept over my body, studying my contours, passing a multitude of lascivious judgments behind his fake-innocent grin.

  I stared back at him, passing judgments of my own.

  Father cleared his throat. “She usually not so quiet.” He muttered to me in Shanghainese: “Speak up, girl. His father owns our estate. Do you want him to think they’ve hired a dumb mute?”

  “Where’s Li?” I asked Father in English.

  He replied in English: “Your brother is outside, of course. Working in the plantation. He work very hard.”

  It was sad how hard Father was trying to dazzle this blob. Sadder still, he had no choice. His family paid ours.

  “Your father’s told me quite a bit about you and your brother.”

  I stopped breathing.

  “Master Robby last time stay in this house, when he small.”

  “That’s right. I spent my earliest days in this very house. Your room was mine. We’ve slept in the same bed, I daresay.” The man threw me a wink. “Those were the good old days. Carefree living. There was another family up the road, you know, the MacDougals. But they got homesick for Tongue or whatever ghastly Scottish hamlet it was, and Father bought their land from them for a pittance. That’s why the estate looks like it’s made of two halves. The irony, of course, was that having bought the MacDougals’s land, we became the only people here—I mean, apart from the natives—and my parents couldn’t bear the isolation. We returned to the city when I was nine. Mummy missed the shops; Father missed the bars. But I never minded it here, honestly, not a bit. Now’s a different story, of course—one minute outside and the mozzies are all upon me. Swarms of them. They really can smell an outsider’s blood.”

  “Master Robby is going to Oxford University to study next week,” Father interjected again proudly, as if such prestige would somehow rub off on us. This only made “Master Robby” blush and look at his ruddy hands. Was he embarrassed at being the oldest undergraduate ever admitted?

  “Indeed, going ‘home’ at last,” he said.

  I felt his quotation marks; one didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to know he wasn’t painting us the full picture.

  “Father suggested I come here for a final visit, one of the few good ideas he’s had in a decade. And I thought, why not? Things change so quickly on the Isle. The next time I’m here, all this could well be shops, hotels.” He smiled. “The three of you run a tight ship, I must say.”

  The three of us? I almost gagged. Father had done nothing in years.

  “I told Master Robby he can take his old room back. You share with Li.”

  Father had a genius for demanding exactly what I didn’t want to give. I knew he was punishing me—both for my disappearance and for having witnessed him abase himself with Mina’s father.

  “I’ll sleep on the settee,” I offered.

  “No, you share with your brother. No discussion.”

  Robin Melmoth looked ready to say something. But the deceitful creature in him pursed his lips and sipped his tea, pinky aloft.

  Just then, Li bounded through the door, red from the sun and drinking thirstily from his canteen. He grimaced at the sight of Master Robby. Evidently they’d already met. Yet what surprised me was the look on his face when he saw me. He seemed shocked. Shocked and—after the split second of relief vanished—dismayed.

  He disappeared out the door without a word.

  Our strange visitor had not arrived empty-handed. When everyone gathered for dinner, he brought in a crate of groceries from his car, as if a critique of my modest chicken stew. I had, however, a strong suspicion that these items were meant solely for his consumption and not intended as gifts: Beefeater gin, tawny port, brandied fruitcake, ten tins of treacle, and a pot of Marmite. I was unfamiliar with all of these things—except for the gin—but carried them dutifully to the kitchen.

  It is astonishing how one new person can alter the mood of a household. Father relaxed and played the gentleman host: He saw Melmoth’s arrival as a release valve for all the tension that had been collecting between us three. Li remained morose: He saw Melmoth as a spy sent by the rubber bosses. I saw Melmoth as a harbinger of something dreadful, even though he himself seemed fat and harmless. I sensed deceit, and the danger that deception wrought. What was his game?

  We would just have to wait and see.

  After dinner, I found the St. Anne’s uniform returned to my wardrobe, freshly washed and still warm from the iron. Perhaps the fright I’d given Zana had chastened her. More likely, Li had ordered her to do the washing once their fun was over—a servant was still a servant, after all. Li mentioned nothing of it, and I didn’t question him.

  We exchanged only a few words.

  “That Robby guy,” I said. “He gives me the willies.”

  “Same here. He keeps eyeing you, you know, like you’re something to eat.”

  “Well, he is a pig.”

  Bedtime was fraught, as I feared. Sleeping on the floor of Li’s room was out of the question. There were too many insects and vermin. I erected a wall of pillows between us on his bed and I afforded him no intimacy—not that he asked for any, now that he had his pliant Milkmaid.

  His old toffee disk was on the bedside table next to me, its gold wrapper slightly tarnished. I was amazed he still had it. Such faith—but in what?

  Li waited until it was completely dark before he said anything. His words had the pious, formal tone of a much-rehearsed speech.

  “When you disappeared, at first I felt terrible. Like I’d chased you away.”

  “Then why didn’t you come looking for me?”

  “I did.” I heard him swallow. “Now, don’t hate me for saying this, but after a while…after a while, I felt freed. I almost wished you wouldn’t come back.”

  I did hate him for it. Yet I understood. During my time in the jungle, I, too, ha
d felt liberated—of him, of Father, of all responsibilities, and, above all, of guilt.

  “Say something, please,” Li said. “Are you cross with me?”

  “To be honest, I wish I hadn’t come back either.”

  My statement hung in the air like a disease. I couldn’t tell if he was wounded by it or was preparing to return with a more cutting barb.

  “You look…different,” he finally said.

  I pulled the blanket over my welts.

  “You’re prettier. But I don’t feel…” He searched for the right words. “I mean, I feel…I don’t know…it’s like fear.”

  The next morning, I wanted to be left alone, to lie in bed nursing my sores. But of course that was impossible. There were tappers to be overseen, quotas to be filled.

  Since Li had confessed his wish for my absence, I decided I would make him feel my presence doubly, triply, spitefully, by surpassing the day’s quota and making up for the losses that occurred while I was gone. I would work my girls close to death.

  I cycled to my lobe and was greeted by an unfamiliar hush. A good third of my Milkmaids were not there. Those who did show up stood clustered together, exchanging anxious whispers until I shouted at them to resume work. One of them, a gray-haired Tamil who should have known better, ran away wailing as soon as she saw me.

  “Come back here, you old bag!” I shouted in a tone that struck me as unnecessarily fierce. My voice sounded much more forceful than it had just days ago.

  None of my threats could detain her. The girls stared at me as if I were a barbaric enforcer. Soon after, two Milkmaids tripped and lost entire tins of milk to the grass.