Turning back to Ah Boey, I told him, ‘We lived on Ah Kwee Street, you remember-moh? My mother is a fierce Nyonya woman, Cheng Tee Soh.’
‘Yes, yes, I remember now,’ Ah Boey insisted. ‘You got one brother and many sisters. I how can forget you and your mother? She always scold me.’ He laughed loudly, as if he found the recollection amusing.
This chance encounter was a surprise. I had forgotten all about Ah Boey, the last person I would ever have expected to see again. Remembering Peng Choon’s story about the tin mine he visited, I wondered whether Ah Boey had been one of the coolies running up and down those unsteady ladders. I was curious to know why he was pulling a rickshaw now. Had he left the mines?
‘Ah . . . Peng Choon Sau, long story-lah,’ he replied. He looked away, asking Siew Lan for his fare instead. Surveying him, I surmised that things must have gone badly and didn’t press Ah Boey for an answer. With Siew Lan waiting to go into our house, it wasn’t the right time.
Over the next months I kept a lookout for the former ting-ting man. My eyes searched for a skeleton in rags, face heavily pockmarked, who dragged a rickshaw around town.
With each passing day my sense of foreboding increased. We expected Peng Choon back after four months, five at most. When six months had passed, I gave birth to our tenth child. Siew Lan was in the room when our youngest slid into this world; she smiled as she took the baby from Soraiya, washing it gently before placing the infant in my arms.
‘A boy, Chye Hoon,’ Siew Lan whispered.
I called our seventh son Weng Foo, a name we had chosen before Peng Choon’s departure.
The arrival of the little one distracted me from my preoccupations. For a whole week Soraiya called to give me a daily massage with her steaming-hot iron, always coming late in the morning when the sun was already high in the sky. It was the part of day I most looked forward to, the slow rubbing of hot metal in circular motion on my skin, bringing relief from everything I had been through.
When at the end of her last visit Soraiya announced she was retiring as a midwife, I was choked by a lump in my throat. She told me she had already stopped working but had made a special allowance in my case, because she had known our family for so many years.
We bade each other farewell, our eyes moist with tears. As we held one another’s hands for the last time, I promised to have angkoos sent to her kampong when our son turned one month old.
The weeks passed with no sign of Peng Choon.
Siew Lan fed me news from China whenever she could, things her husband had read in the papers. Her titbits did little to calm me, since what she related was generally disturbing. With trade controlled by the foreigners who lived in concessions that the weak and barely functioning Manchu dynasty had been forced to sign away, there was much unrest. We heard stories of revolts, of riots, even the burning of schools. Amid clashes between uniformed factions and foreign patrols fighting the local warlords, the environment was volatile, and I had to trust that Peng Choon, who had his wits about him, would know how to keep safe.
Every day that brought no sign of him caused new wrinkles on my face. Yet there was little for me to do except wait.
One day a stray dog appeared. It was black except for the tips of its paws, which were white, and a small spot above the muzzle, also white. Black dogs brought bad luck, which explained my instant dislike of this vagrant.
The dog parked itself directly outside our house in the corner of a wall along the five-foot way. It was Hui Ying who first noticed the creature. She came running up to say that a dirty-looking dog had arrived out of nowhere. When I went to investigate, we stared at one another, the dog and I, our eyes locked in mortal combat.
The creature’s eyes were yellowish brown and intelligent. Before long it lowered its head and lifted a hind leg while sticking out a long pink tongue, which it used to lick itself. I could see then that the dog was male, its balls lying flaccidly on the floor like loose pouches. Although it had short hairs on its body, the animal must have been beset with fleas, for it scratched itself vigorously.
Taking a broom, I shooed the dog away. ‘Get lost, you ugly beast!’ It scampered off with a start but stopped within a few paces of the house, apparently intent on returning to its chosen spot. Sure enough, when I came out that afternoon the dog was back where I had found it earlier, sleeping peacefully in the shade of the five-foot way.
I chased it away again, this time forcing the creature to run further than it had done previously. Li-Fei, our junior servant, was tasked with coming out every hour to ensure a dog-free corridor outside our house.
The animal had a persistence that matched my own, however, because when night fell it was still there. No matter what we did, the black vagrant came back, always parking itself in the exact same spot. By the time the sun set in the sky, I had resigned myself to having the dog outside our house for the night.
When morning came, my head was pounding. The dog had disappeared from our five-foot way but I had not slept a wink, because the creature had howled continuously through the hours of night. My hands shook while I prepared my joss-sticks for praying. I knew I would spend much time in front of our altar table that day. As I laid out oranges on plates and lit fresh candles, I whispered silently to Kuan Yin, asking for her mercy.
What followed remains clear in my mind even today. It was a Friday afternoon and the rain had already stopped. Looking out on to the Lahat Road, I spied the sinkeh who had been Peng Choon’s travelling companion walking towards our front door.
I saw him alone, and I knew.
The man’s pace was painfully slow, but my eyes were transfixed. This view of a man, head resolutely down, taking one small step at a time up a long incline is forever etched into my memory.
When the man finally reached our door, he said softly, ‘Peng Choon Sau,’ his head still bowed. ‘Ngai tui imcher. I so sorry have to tell you.’ He paused. ‘Your husband, Wong Peng Choon, passed away in his village in China.’
I put my hand to my mouth as a gasp escaped. Although I had been expecting bad news, hearing the words still came as a shock. I stumbled, faint from distress.
The man held my arm to steady me. ‘Peng Choon Sau, we may go inside-moh? Then you can sit down?’ he asked quietly.
I nodded. We walked slowly, stepping gingerly over the raised entrance of our front door, which kept away the evil spirits. I led the sinkeh into the second hall.
Ah Hong stood nearby awaiting instructions, as if she had known what would come. I told her to bring a pot of tea and to make sure the children were out of earshot. Then I let the man speak. We sat together for an hour as I listened to what had happened.
He told me how everything had gone well at first. He and Peng Choon arrived in Chiao-Ling County without a hitch. Although there were problems in China and he thought the Manchu government likely to fall, things were not as bad as the newspapers portrayed. He and Peng Choon even took a trip to Soochow, which they had thoroughly enjoyed: they saw silk being produced and breathed fresh air in Soochow’s many gardens.
‘Peng Choon Sau, your husband often talked about you and your children,’ the man interjected, at which point I felt the colour rise in my cheeks. He stumbled at my embarrassment. ‘Only . . . I think . . . I think . . . you want to know.’ I forced a smile to save him from further squirming.
And then, the man said, trouble had begun. It was after their return from Soochow that Peng Choon fell ill. He complained first of drowsiness and ate less than usual. A few days later my husband was laid down with fever. He stayed in bed for days but continued to be unwell. Unable to hold food down, he lost weight, but there was no doctor in his village. By the time the villagers panicked and sent to the nearest town for a doctor, Peng Choon was beyond help.
When he heard how ill Peng Choon was, the sinkeh told me he had walked across the hill to see my husband. During those last days Peng Choon was shivering with fever and would often hallucinate, mouthing my name or the names of our children. Those
who heard him knew he was trying to communicate, but Peng Choon had become incoherent and his words, mumbled amidst trickles of sweat, could barely be deciphered. During moments of lucidity, when he regained his previous clarity, he told his father he needed to write a letter. His family eventually succeeded in getting hold of pen and paper, and the man handed me several crumpled sheets from inside his cloth bag. I would ask Father to read them later, in the desolate weeks following my husband’s death. They would tell a sad story, one I would not connect to my own future until it was too late.
Immediately after handing me the letter, the sinkeh took out a small brown urn. It was then that I froze.
For the first time in my life I felt nothing except emptiness. It would be many months before I shed a single tear. From then on the days swirled around me. Time stood still, with the minutes stretching into hours, the hours into the next day, then the day after that, and still I remained numb. I was aware of furious activity, of people coming and going: Siew Lan visiting, telling me my parents would soon arrive; neighbours popping in and people asking questions, so many questions I thought my head would explode; questions to which I could give no answers, and so they were left dangling in the air, like the wind chimes we hung up to keep bad luck away.
Despite the noise I slept whenever I could. I dozed constantly. I woke only to feed the children, to bathe and dress them. While I slept, I dreamt. I saw the sinkeh walking towards our house, dressed completely in black: a dark cloth cap on his head, the black Chinese suit with Mandarin collar on his body, his feet in dark cloth shoes. Even his face was a black mass, its features indistinguishable; it was a face I could not see, yet I knew it was him. In my dreams I had a deep longing to wake up in a different world, one in which the sinkeh’s appearance had been nothing but a bad dream.
Yet whenever I rose and went downstairs I would see the urn in the middle of our altar table, its shape unmistakable – this clay vessel in plain brown. For two whole days I could not bring myself to touch it.
Then Monday morning came. When I went downstairs, the first thing I noticed was the urn sitting squat in its usual place. As I gazed at it, I recalled the sinkeh’s question. He had asked what he could do to help. ‘Maybe you like me to contact the temple. Arrange a place for your husband.’
A place for my husband . . .
For the first time I reflected on the arrangements that needed to be made. With a jolt I realised how many there were, all awaiting my attention – mine and no one else’s – now that Peng Choon was gone. It was a sobering thought; in the stillness of the morning air, it seemed more than a little daunting. Before I could even light the joss-sticks in my hands, the quiet was broken by a shriek. ‘Mama, Mama, Papa is where?’ I turned to see Weng Yoon, our fourth son, barely four years old but already a little tiger, running towards me with tears on his cheeks. As I folded the boy into my arms, I was gripped by traces of my husband on his face: lips that could twist into a hundred shapes, his double-creased eyes and fair skin.
Looking into my son’s face, I knew that it was then or never. I took a deep breath, stood up and walked to the altar table. Picking up the urn for the first time, I ran my fingers around it, feeling the grainy hardness. Cupped within both my hands, the vessel left no doubt as to its solidity. I caressed it gently for several minutes before putting it down where I had found it.
Then, taking my son’s hand, I led him towards the kitchen, leaving my husband behind on the altar table.
PART III:
STRUGGLE 1910–AUGUST 1921
17
It was nearly noon when Ah Boey turned up. The coolie lifted the cover from the highest rung of bamboo baskets to reveal row upon row of the delicate kueh we had spent hours preparing. They lay untouched, sweating in the heat. The pandanus-infused topping of the seri muka remained a lovely olive green and the glutinous rice beneath a creamy white, but their previously perfect diamond shapes were no longer pristine; they had begun to flop inside Ah Boey’s containers. Yet their promise of sweetness oozed into the air, making my mouth water. I stared at Ah Boey’s pointed fingers. How could it be that no one wanted our kueh?
‘Peng Choon Sau, sorry-lah, I try,’ Ah Boey said weakly. With his face shaded by the broad conical hat he wore on his head, it was easy for Ah Boey to avoid my eyes. I merely nodded before brusquely handing him his wage for the day.
As I walked towards the altar table, a feeling of desolation swept over me. The thought of feeding my children Nyonya kueh for the fourth time in a week filled me with dread. If our fortunes didn’t turn soon, I would have to sell one of the shophouses my husband had left us, and that would further reduce our safety net.
I lit three joss-sticks. In front of the altar table I chanted while gazing absent-mindedly at the tendrils of smoke rising vertically through the still air. Whenever I closed my eyes, I imagined Peng Choon’s last moments as he lay with fever on a sickbed. Pity for my dead husband usually engulfed me when I did this, but not on that day. On that day other thoughts took over. ‘Yes, you had a terrible time,’ I mumbled under my breath, ‘but now you’ve moved on into the next world, while we are the ones left to suffer.’
That terrible scene – the one in which a sinkeh, dressed all in black, slowly approached our house up the hill – kept playing in my head. ‘Your husband,’ he had said, ‘has passed away in his village in China.’ I tasted bitterness in my throat and for the first time felt anger. If my husband had not visited China, he would have been alive and our children would have a father. The thoughts swarmed in my head, alongside imagined visions of China and his first wife, even his village in the hills. The more I thought about them, the more enraged I became. Why did he have to go then, with our children still so young? Could he not have waited?
With every passing moment my anguish became greater. At some point I began to shiver. ‘Why, why, why?’ I lashed out – at him, at the world and everyone in it. Standing there, all I could do was shake. I hoped he could hear and see my agony from beyond.
The pictures came into my head from nowhere: our children begging; my daughters in tattered clothes on a street corner, their little hands held out to the pity of strangers. I closed my eyes more tightly, but the images convulsed me no matter what I did, whether I placed my hands against both temples or shook my head from side to side. Nothing worked, not even removing the five-pronged pins which held my chignon up. Eventually my little prince, Weng Yu, came into view, rain-soaked and hungry, and my dammed heart could bear it no longer. The tears, which for weeks had refused to flow, came streaming down.
I sobbed before Kuan Yin as pain sliced my soul in two. I knew I would do anything for my children, absolutely anything. Lying on the floor, curled up like a baby with my head buried in both hands, I lay shuddering, until a gentle touch roused me.
I looked up to see my eldest daughter, Hui Fang, gazing at me, eyes wide with fright. ‘You good-moh, Mama?’
‘Yes,’ I said in between sniffles. ‘Mama just sad.’ My daughter nodded like a sage who could see the ache in my soul.
‘I know,’ she said timidly. ‘Don’t worry, Mama, everything good in the end.’
On hearing that, I folded Hui Fang into my arms and wept.
Selling Nyonya kueh to earn money had been my idea.
Siew Lan helped me to come up with it after my parents’ arrival, when I was no longer in a stupor. We spent hours in the inner hall of my house discussing what to do. Peng Choon had left us with what had once been a substantial amount of cash, and with my frugal nature a portion remained unused, but it would run out in due course. What then? Should I sell a shophouse or perhaps a piece of land to raise cash? Cash from any sale would eventually be depleted, and with only three shophouses and six plots of land in New Town, it would never be enough for our future. What we had to decide was how I would earn money while still looking after our children. It had to be an activity I could continue until the girls were married and the boys able to fend for themselves.
‘Fo
od!’ Siew Lan had exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘You know how to cook, and people always need to eat.’
Mother nodded in her corner of the second hall. ‘Good idea, Siew Lan,’ she chimed. ‘And Chye Hoon from here can do it. But so much work-lah!’
Undeterred, Siew Lan suggested that we take a night tour of Leech Street. Over the years the street had remained the heart of the Chinese quarter. With the old theatre still there and plenty of opium dens and brothels to boot, human traffic was guaranteed. Where the Chinese congregated, there were eating places – dozens of them. At night I heard that hawkers set up makeshift food stalls on the road itself, and the whole street became very lively, with crowds and seductive smells.
The night we set off to learn about Leech Street for ourselves, Siew Lan’s husband did not join us – few white devils ever ventured into the Chinese quarter. It was seven o’clock when we turned into Leech Street from Cross Street. The sun had already disappeared; as we approached, the entire street seemed aflame, with a necklace of lights stretching all the way down. When we got closer, we saw the line of portable stalls set up on wooden wheels. The stalls nestled against one another, barely an inch between them. Their trestles were attached with vertical poles, ingenious contraptions crossed by additional planks overhead from which awnings and kerosene oil lamps were suspended. The lamps cast their warm, yellowish glow everywhere.
Wending our way through the crowd was a challenge; there were so many people that a snail would have been faster. I had expected only coolies and mine workers and was surprised to see so many women at the fruit stalls, which were piled high with local favourites: lovely bananas, plump purple mangosteens and the durians, with their unmistakable fragrance. It was a fruit Peng Choon had been unable to abide, likening its smell to unwashed feet. I had missed durians during our marriage. We ate them in Songkhla and Penang, but Peng Choon loathed them so much that I had refrained, unable to find a way of disguising their powerful smell.
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds Page 14