The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds

by Siak Chin Yoke, Selina

  ‘I not know how to tell you,’ she began.

  ‘What-ah?’

  Without preamble, Siew Lan blurted out, ‘I pregnant.’

  We sat looking at each other. ‘Is his-kah?’

  ‘Just happened,’ Siew Lan replied rather defensively.

  I longed to take my friend’s hands in mine and say reassuring words but found I could not. Yet if I did not voice my concerns, who would? For it was clear she had such a blind spot for the white devil that she could no longer see the way the world worked.

  ‘He want with you marry-ah?’

  Siew Lan stayed mute.

  ‘Good heart, open your eyes-lah,’ I said. ‘With white marry, how can-ah? I ask you.’

  ‘In town have Eurasians,’ Siew Lan declared, eyes momentarily flashing.

  ‘Yes,’ I said sadly, ‘because before got so few of them they with us mix. Now they got so many, no need with us champor. Also you are his servant.’

  ‘So?’ Siew Lan’s look was reproachful.

  His friends, I imagined, would be horrified. ‘You think they let you into their club-ah? Hah? Your Nyonya-Baba relatives, they how? You think they also happy-ah?’

  At this my friend burst into tears. I stopped then; I had never intended to make her cry. I reached across to touch Siew Lan’s arm, which only made her stiffen. My own muscles tensed, as if I had been the one to break her heart.

  Siew Lan gave birth to a girl early in 1905. When I visited my friend days later, I was surprised by the thick black strands and crinkly skin, which reminded me of other Chinese babies. That was also when I met the white devil, who proved memorable for different reasons. He had thinning white hair like uncombed spiders’ webs on his head, a face full of the red blotches seen on men who drank too much, and though it was only eight in the morning when I arrived, his eyes, crawling with red veins, were already bloodshot. Siew Lan claimed it was because he had been up all night, but I wasn’t convinced. From that first impression I could not understand what she saw in him.

  Siew Lan and I remained ensconced inside her quarters at the back of the house. Despite its tiny window, her room was surprisingly airy. It was sparsely furnished, with a pale yellow canvas bed, a bamboo mat on the floor and a small wooden box, in which Siew Lan kept her worldly possessions. Her boss came in regularly, hovering over her to make sure she didn’t lack for anything. Each time he appeared he asked in bazaar Malay whether everything was good.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘He not so bad.’

  I decided not to mention the clumps of hairs exposed by his short-sleeved shirt, thick curly tangles sprouting on both arms and pushing against his shirt buttons. It had taken all my will power not to stare. I asked, ‘His name is what?’

  ‘I no can say it-lah,’ Siew Lan giggled. ‘Have to learn. Sound like Se-Too-Wat-ah.’

  I logged this at the back of my mind in case it came in handy. The man would not expect me to address him by name of course. They were all called Tuan, the Malay word for ‘sir’, and on entering the house I duly addressed him as that, a form of greeting he appeared satisfied with. I was only a friend of his servant’s after all; Se-Too-Wat would remain Tuan, unless our circumstances changed. That was unlikely, since Siew Lan told me the Tuan wasn’t intending to marry her.

  An involuntary murmur escaped my lips. ‘But then . . . you be his mistress-ah?’

  Siew Lan refused to meet my gaze. Instead she dragged my name along her tongue. ‘Ch-ye Ho-on,’ she said, ‘I happy. Yes, people going to talk-lah. So what? He to me better than my cursed husband!’

  At that moment I recalled what Peng Choon had said about my friend having set out to ensnare the white devil. For a moment I wondered if it could be true. Siew Lan had put on weight with her pregnancy; her face was rounder, softer, her cheeks less gaunt and even the frown lines on her forehead had eased with the arrival of a child, as if someone had taken a steam iron to them.

  In an attempt to ease the tension in the room, we started speaking at the same time.

  ‘Siew Lan,’ I began, only to hear her call my name too. We laughed. For the first time my friend looked up.

  ‘You first,’ she told me.

  ‘Good. Tell me,’ I said. ‘He force you or not?’

  ‘Of course not, Chye Hoon!’ Siew Lan coloured. ‘Why you think so bad about them . . . ? Why you so much hate red-haired devils?’

  ‘I no hate them.’

  ‘But you no like them.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why? They have done what to you?’

  At that moment Siew Lan’s baby girl burped. My friend thumped her daughter’s back, causing white bubbles to dribble out of the little mouth. I watched the gurgles, comforted by Siew Lan’s humming. I remembered Songkhla, how I had not wanted to leave – the walk I took around Ipoh with my husband – and how the white devils kept to themselves, away from everyone else. Yet, stronger than all the images was a feeling that something was wrong with the way things were, but what exactly was wrong I couldn’t have said.

  When Siew Lan reached across, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. ‘They look down on us.’ My friend breathed out deeply. ‘He no look down on me,’ she insisted.

  I gave her a quizzical stare. ‘Of course he look down on you. You his servant.’

  ‘But Chye Hoon, not so easy. He also with me sleep.’

  I sighed. I knew I was right but I could not stand up to Siew Lan’s arguments. Things weren’t always clear; there was mingling, especially with the richer locals.

  I mumbled, ‘He with you sleep not mean he no look down on you.’

  There was a triumphant look in Siew Lan’s eyes. Amidst an exchange of diffident smiles, we reached a tacit agreement: we would avoid the subject of the Tuan and his people, at least until further notice. I departed, thoroughly annoyed with myself.

  Siew Lan’s daughter was given a Christian name, Flora, which sounded easy, yet neither of us could say it properly. In the weeks which followed a second servant was hired, and Siew Lan became one of a team of two. From what she told me, I knew she remained his mistress. Somehow they managed to work out an arrangement; over time I was to understand how. But until I knew the details I remained loyal to our unspoken agreement and never asked.

  With each addition to our family my appreciation for Mother grew.

  As I woke in the semidarkness of our bedroom, bleary eyed, I remembered how Mother had done the same things a long time ago. She hurried to our sides whenever we were ill. If we cut or bruised ourselves, Mother would tend to our wounds with a face full of anxiety. It was Mother who washed and dressed us, who combed our hair, fretted about our manners and whether we had shoes. Finally, I understood her heroic efforts and the toll we, her children, must have taken on her life. I felt close to her then, knowing that I was doing exactly what she had once done.

  One night while feeding our second son, Weng Koon, Mother’s lilting voice traversed the years, bringing with it the story of Nu Kua, the divine mother of all humans. Mother had said that Nu Kua came down a long time ago to repair the sky. She arrived after a terrible battle, in which the monster Kung Kung had wreaked havoc, when the earth had fallen into itself, mountains were flattened and the oceans overran land. Everywhere fires burnt night and day, raging out of control. The chaos caused the earth’s points to be misaligned, and a large hole was ripped across the sky. The destruction saddened Nu Kua. She knew she would have to repair the damage for the sake of the earth’s children. Holding five coloured stones in her hand, she calmed the waters, put out the fires and repaired the sky. Then she said, ‘The sky will now be blue as an eternal symbol of hope for the children.’

  I immediately shouted out, ‘But the hole is where, Mother?’

  ‘Hole no more. Nu Kua repair the sky.’

  ‘But before she-repair-the-sky time, the hole is where? You show me, can-ah? Maybe we can see where the sky torn before,’ I said in a voice full of hope. For weeks I remained fascinated by the idea of a hole in the h
eavens. With one hand shielding my eyes from the glare, I surveyed the Malayan skies, disappointed that all I could see were the fluffy white clouds floating freely above.

  The news came on a clear day in 1905, shortly after our third son, Weng Fatt, was born. I was still in confinement, only able to walk slowly inside our house. Soraiya, the loyal bidan to all my children, had just stopped visiting for her massages. It was also the day on which I had finally given permission to our boisterous second daughter, Hui Ying, to play with the neighbourhood boys. She had perfected her puppy-dog look to such an extent that I could not say no. How to refuse eyes so forlorn?

  I was nursing Weng Fatt in the privacy of our bedroom when our eldest daughter, Hui Fang, appeared and said that a strange man was at the front door asking for me. I told her he had to wait; my newborn son had only just begun to feed, and I did not wish to see precious milk wasted.

  When I finally went to the door, I saw that the man brought bad news. His demeanour was grave, and he avoided my eyes. Introducing himself as a sinkeh from Chiao-Ling County, he told me in a soft tone how sorry he was that the mother of Wong Tsin-sang had passed away.

  I immediately worried for my husband, then outstation on business. What would he do? After replacing the heavy wooden bolt across the back of our front door, I hurried into the kitchen. Grabbing a handful of oranges, I put them into a plain white bowl and, with heart beating fast, laid the bowl on the altar table in our inner hall. Kuan Yin, give me your energy, I repeated silently while lighting three joss-sticks.

  In those days we did not have a statue of the Goddess in our house, only a colourful painting. The woman before me, with thin black lines for eyebrows and eyes which slanted powerfully upwards, soothed me. Through tendrils of smoke I stared at her demure mouth.

  With Hui Ying playing outside, the house was quiet. I lost all sense of time. I whispered prayers for the soul of my mother-in-law, but my thoughts were on us, on our children. Whenever I opened my eyes, I glimpsed our eldest daughter, Hui Fang, watching me. She peeked from behind a wall, her tiny brows knitted into a frown. My heart went out to her, already the most obedient of our children. I had known she would be good early on when during our battle of wills I had easily won. Hui Fang was then five and pretty, having inherited her father’s fair complexion and high cheekbones and my lustrous hair. She looked like the Kuan Yin at our altar table: calm, dependable, always smiling.

  Hui Fang stood observing me. After an interval of silent contemplation, she came up and touched my hip tentatively. In a small voice she asked, ‘You good, Mama?’

  Just then there was loud banging on the front door, followed by screaming. Our second daughter, Hui Ying, had come into the outer hall with her brother Weng Yu. I turned around to see her grabbing a chunk of skin on the boy’s arm. Rushing at her, I shouted, ‘Hui Ying, stop that! You don’t pinch your younger brother!’ I slapped Hui Ying’s hand, and tears oozed from her eyes.

  I often marvelled at my two eldest daughters in the same way that others had once pointed their fingers at Elder Sister and me. I could not have given birth to more different children: our eldest, Hui Fang, was timid, our second, Hui Ying, bold. Hui Ying was the child who would not sit still, squirming and wriggling constantly, always with a hand or leg where it shouldn’t have been. She had my temper and my eyes, hot unyielding tongs that burnt holes through a person. But the rest of her face was her father’s – smooth, fair and dimpled – which meant she could be charming even at her most trying.

  As if that weren’t enough, I worried about our eldest boy, Weng Yu, who had only begun to speak shortly after his third birthday. Even then my little prince didn’t say much. He was famous along our road for a pair of dimples the women loved to pinch and a broody silence. ‘Wah, your eldest son so handsome. Skin like baby’s . . . and so quiet,’ they marvelled. Weng Yu was a dreamer, his head never quite where his body was. When asked what he was thinking about, he would remain speechless, as if he had been struck dumb.

  The skin on Weng Yu’s arm became redder after his sister’s attack, but otherwise he appeared remarkably unconcerned. Nevertheless I did not like what I had seen. My attempts at instilling in my children the values dear to me – filial piety, respect for the gods and good manners – ran into trouble early on.

  I had agreed to let Hui Ying play with the neighbourhood boys on condition that she took Weng Yu along. She was tasked with looking after her younger brother, an example I hoped would teach the older ones about responsibility. All had gone well until one of the neighbourhood boys pulled Hui Ying’s pigtails. Weng Yu, who loved his sisters, was unable to watch Hui Ying being bullied. He had bravely shouted at the boy, despite being the youngest among the children, but when a scuffle broke out, Weng Yu withdrew. His sister, though, was not easily put off. She caught hold of the boy, dragged him to the ground and pinned him with the full might of her wiggly body. Round and round they rolled, until the boy yelped in pain. The violence was too much for Weng Yu, who asked to be taken home. ‘Second Sister, I no like when you fight. I tell Mama,’ he announced. An argument ensued. Hui Ying, who had felt my wrath many times previously, knew what would come and had pinched Weng Yu in a desperate bid to keep him quiet.

  ‘If you fight, I no let you play with the boys again,’ I said, breathing out fire through both nostrils.

  ‘I no start the fight.’

  ‘You hear me or not?’

  ‘But you also say, Mama, we should not let someone bully us,’ my intrepid daughter pointed out.

  ‘Hui Ying, I no want you fight with boys – they more strong than you.’

  ‘They not.’

  ‘Don’t argue, otherwise no more playing outside again. You hear?’

  ‘But Mama—’

  I sighed. Feeling a headache coming on, I walked away, leaving a bewildered Hui Ying mid-sentence. I feel guilty whenever I recall the scene – that and many others. Unfortunately that’s how it was in those years: with so many things needing attention I had to find whatever means I could to conserve my energy.

  12

  After his mother passed away, my husband became sad and distant, a shadow of himself. He seemed to leave us – physically present but with mind and heart elsewhere. On his return in the evenings he would give monosyllabic answers. ‘Good’ when asked how he was, or ‘Not much’ to the question of what he’d been doing. Admittedly, these replies were accompanied by smiles, but it still meant that we barely spoke. Our family meals became grim affairs at which even the children were more subdued.

  It wasn’t just Peng Choon’s fault; I was responsible too. I knew that my husband’s mind lay north – towards China, to the family he had left behind – and I did not wish to think about them. What he and I dared not confront drove a wedge between us. I spent hours praying to Kuan Yin, pleading for courage. The Goddess of Mercy guided me once again, but her response, when it came, took a strange form: tin.

  The price of tin rose to new records in 1906. The metal, having provided the foundation of Ipoh’s wealth, had long been a source of conversation around town, though not in our household. Therefore it was with amazement that I listened to my husband talking about tin one night over dinner. He said the metal, which had cost only sixty dollars a picul, or shoulder-load, the previous year, was then selling at ninety dollars a picul and could easily reach a hundred dollars.

  I knew nothing about tin at the time, but I was pleased by the sparkle in Peng Choon’s eyes. I did my best to encourage this new liveliness, because it had been so long since I had seen him animated. The sound of such a lucrative enterprise intrigued me. Our children paid attention too, especially Hui Ying, whose ears pricked up. I watched her while she ate, struggling with her fingers.

  Only the eldest three ate with us then; the younger ones were fed by Ah Hong in the kitchen. I was determined to have my children well brought up and forbade them from speaking during meals. Conversation affected their chewing and digestion. It also interfered with their ability to concentrat
e, already in short supply when all three were learning to eat with their hands Nyonya style. As usual it was Hui Ying who seemed unable to obey my simple rule. I saw her opening her mouth, but before I could say anything she had already blurted out, ‘ “Tin” mean what, Papa?’

  I was about to remind her not to speak at the dinner table when Peng Choon answered, ‘It’s a metal.’

  I glared at him, furious that he had undermined my authority in front of the children. Peng Choon looked away, hastily avoiding my glance.

  He, like Father, enjoyed indulging his daughters. While he was proud of his sons, it was the girls whom he spoilt, especially Hui Ying. Peng Choon had been disappointed when she was born, but by the time she was four that had long been forgotten. Of all our children, I thought he secretly admired Hui Ying the most. Peng Choon’s business was then growing, which meant he often had to bring work home. While he wrote at the table in the evenings, he would allow not only our eldest son, Weng Yu, to sit beside him but also Hui Ying. She watched while he dipped his Chinese quill pen into an inkpot. Sometimes she climbed all over his books, as I had once done, begging her papa to teach her how to count and write. Peng Choon said nothing but smiled fondly. I, afraid she would upset the inkpot, found myself echoing Mother . . . which only made the writing seem more mysterious to my daughter. Many a time an accident was only just avoided.

  When my husband and daughter began their conversation about tin, our son Weng Yu joined in.

  ‘ “Metal” is what, Papa?’ he asked.

  ‘A hard, shiny material. Ask Mama to show you her jewel box – she has gold inside, which is a metal. Remember the bridge we saw the other day – Hugh Low Bridge? That’s also metal.’

  I sighed. ‘Enough talking, you two,’ I said. ‘You can ask Papa later, but you know Mama say no talk at dinner table.’

  Peng Choon and I resumed our conversation. I was excited by the light in his eyes, which did not come a moment too soon. He had been in a state of detachment since his mother passed away, and I knew that sooner or later we would have to give voice to the fears and the darker feelings that kept us apart. My biggest worry was that Peng Choon would suddenly walk out and set sail for Chiao-Ling County. Though he had chosen me himself, I was only his second wife, and second in priority by Chinese custom. Knowing my husband, I thought it unlikely he would simply abandon us, but as Mother had once told me, with men you can never be sure.