When the girls’ lesson was over, the young man’s deep bass voice reverberated around our house. It had a resonant quality, like Father’s. Soon Liew Siow-chia’s brother became a regular visitor on Fridays; he would come punctually to pick his sister up, and in the process he struck up an acquaintance with my younger daughters.
Over the months I found out that Liew Tsin-sang had a facility with languages. Having studied at both a Chinese and an English school, he could speak not only English but also Malay and four Chinese dialects. On top of that he was learning Tamil to facilitate his work as an interpreter in the Ipoh courthouse. Thoroughly impressed, I began studying the young man more closely. He seemed rather dark-skinned for one who spent all his days indoors; he could almost have passed for Malay if it weren’t for his creaseless eyes, thin as slits.
One night he and his sister agreed to stay for dinner. That was how we discovered the young man’s sense of humour: he entertained us with the cases to which he had listened inside the airy colonial building where the courthouse was situated. He had a witty way of bringing stories to life. I laughed as I watched the expressions on his face and listened to the changes in his voice. Liew Tsin-sang’s impersonations of the characters walking around Ipoh town rang true, yet when I tried relaying the same stories to Siew Lan, they fell flat; I simply did not have the young man’s gifts. When he told us about the man who denied stealing a pair of chickens from his neighbour’s garden, the story became action-packed, complete with the voice of the stern policeman and the sounds of terrified hens. The thief was apparently small but the chickens large, and the man had had difficulty holding on to the birds. At that point Liew Tsin-sang rose from his seat to demonstrate in full flow what the passing policeman had described: a tiny man, barely five feet tall, trying desperately to put one leg over a wooden fence while holding in each hand an enormous hen by its neck. As Liew Tsin-sang’s glasses fell down his nose, we could see before our very eyes the hens squirming and shitting all over the thief’s trousers, pecking incessantly while squawking for their lives. We laughed so much that tears came to our eyes, and it was a while before we could eat again.
The attraction between Hui Ying and Liew Tsin-sang must have started during this period, though I was not aware of it till much later, after our lives had already changed irrevocably.
To mark his coming of age, Weng Yu announced a desire to study engineering in London. ‘With the ending of war in Europe, there will be much reconstruction,’ my eldest son declared. ‘I can learn from the best in London, and when I come back I can build roads and bridges, because Ipoh will need them too.’
At the time we had just learnt the good news of my eldest daughter, Hui Fang’s, pregnancy. We were seated in celebration around the dinner table, our attention naturally focused on the lucky couple, who were visiting from Taiping. The patriarch, Meng Seng, was notably absent, having gone away for a few days, and I recall scarcely believing my ears when I heard my eldest son.
His pronouncement had come out of the blue. My heart sank. How would we afford such an enterprise? But the idea caught Hui Ying’s imagination. ‘What a marvellous thought, Weng Yu,’ my second daughter said with a distant look in her eyes. Then, peering directly at me, she continued: ‘If we can afford it, Mama, this will be a good project. It’s prestigious to have a British-trained person in the family. And engineers are well-regarded.’
I cautioned the children not to discuss the matter with anyone outside the family, meanwhile racking my brains to think of who I could talk to, knowing I would have to talk to someone. Since it involved money, discussing the subject even with Siew Lan was out of the question, which left only one alternative: Yap Meng Seng.
As it turned out, the patriarch was pleased to play the role of surrogate father once again. ‘I can pay for the costs,’ I told him. ‘But-leh . . . we how know which course good for him to study?’ Meng Seng suggested that I ask Mr Ho-Lee, the headmaster of the Anglo-Chinese School, for help in what he called the Weng Yu Project, a name that stuck.
The following day I set off to find Mr Ho-Lee. From the headmaster’s broad smile, I could tell he was delighted by the prospect. ‘Ho! Very good!’ he kept repeating. ‘I will look at his report cards now and give you a few ideas.’ I sat in a chair while the man with the gangly arms went through his files. He dug up a thick wad, which he ruffled through at speed. For a few minutes the headmaster remained deep in thought, stroking the thick moustache which curved upwards at the edges. ‘I recommend civil engineering, Peng Choon Soh,’ he finally concluded. ‘Do you know what that is?’ I shook my head. ‘It’s the branch of engineering where the boy will learn how to build large things, like bridges and roads, houses and other buildings. He will learn how to carry out the calculations properly so things don’t fall down. That’s what you tell me he’s interested in – and his grades are fine for that.’
‘But London so big,’ I said. ‘He can study this where?’ Mr Ho-Lee replied that there were many colleges which offered civil engineering. He would have to think about the best place for Weng Yu, perhaps somewhere not far from friends of his in London, with whom Weng Yu might be able to lodge. ‘How much such a course cost, Mr Ho-Lee?’ I asked. ‘Also how much to stay? Become very expensive-lah!’
The headmaster gave me a rough estimate – maybe twelve pounds per month to cover all necessary expenses. ‘But that’s only an estimate. We will need to check what the exact cost is once I’ve found a college which will take him.’ I did a quick calculation in my head: at the pound-to-dollar exchange rate Meng Seng had given me, Weng Yu’s expenses would come to nearly fifty times what I was spending in Ipoh – and that was before we considered travel expenses or the cost of warm clothing or unforeseen events. It seemed too risky.
‘The important thing,’ the principal added, not reading my mind, ‘is the set of examinations Weng Yu will have to take next year. He needs to more than pass – he has to do very well.’
Though I nodded, I was unconvinced. I left Mr Ho-Lee’s office far from being in favour of the Weng Yu Project and wondered how I would break the news to my son.
31
I first learnt of it after Li-Fei’s kueh rounds one morning when, with unusual animation, the girl related that she had heard wailing in houses across town. ‘Like very many deaths, Peng Choon Sau,’ she said in a sombre voice. ‘Cry . . . everywhere just cry.’ What was I to make of that? I assumed our servant was exaggerating and thought nothing more of it.
By the time I went out, news had already spread. The rickshaw puller who stopped to pick me up looked grave when I told him my intended route: first to Market Street, where he was to wait while I shopped, then across the Hugh Low Bridge and down through town, finally cutting through the Chamberlain Road, where I was intending to surprise my daughters at their school. ‘Coffin Street bad,’ the man said, shaking his head. He was referring to Hume Street, which locals called Coffin Street because of the funeral homes dotted along it. ‘Many dead,’ the man added in a grim voice. ‘How many?’ I asked, remembering Li-Fei’s observation of the wailing in houses. ‘So many, count even cannot, Ah Soh. Coffin Street no good.’
‘Tsin-sang-ah, I want go see,’ I said. ‘We go so I can see like what-lah.’
With a shrug of his shoulders, we headed off. The streets near our house were quiet; fewer people milled around than was usual for a weekday. As soon as we pulled into the Chinese quarter, we saw coffin makers scurrying around, dragging boxes behind them. I had never seen so many men and coffins at once, and it was with trepidation that I stopped a man. ‘Tsin-sang!’ I yelled. ‘What happen?’
The coffin maker, an older man who wore a cloth cap on his head and a day’s worth of stubble on his chin, gave me a glazed look. ‘Ah Soh, we finished,’ he said sadly. ‘This morning in my shop already got ten. Not only me – every shop also got. People just like that go.’
Something had hit Ipoh, and my thoughts turned immediately to the children. I wanted them home, safe. I told th
e puller to take a different route; it would mean a longer ride, but we would avoid the crux of activity near Hume Street.
Over the next several days we were at a loss as to what precautions to take. Schools remained open, but with many of my customers having to contend with death in their families, business slowed. Rumours began to fly. Within a day or two we heard how quickly the illness struck, even among the healthy; one minute a person would be well, the next a fever would appear and death inevitably followed, often within hours. Some stories were so outlandish that they could not be believed: eyes, we were told, popped out of sockets, something I could not imagine, but there was no denying the rapid spread of the invasion. House after house fell. People in town dropped like dominoes, and all activity ceased.
‘Se-Too-Wat say is influenza,’ Siew Lan told me. Never having heard the term at the time, I gave my friend a puzzled look. It took Siew Lan a while to describe the unstoppable epidemic which had started in Europe and now appeared to have hit our shores. ‘Se-Too-Wat say need to use Western medicine to fight.’ I mumbled a reply, not wanting to point out that English medical facilities had not saved the hundreds dying every day in Ipoh. By then the schools and banks were closed and we had ceased making kueh – there was simply no demand. Most shops were open only during the day, many not at all. Even those stallholders who could usually be relied on closed their stalls, unwilling to risk contagion by coming into town.
At the height of the plague a familiar figure in gold-rimmed glasses walked down the Lahat Road early one morning. It was Tai Fatt Shi Tan, whom I had consulted at the Nan Tien Temple a few years back. Clad in ceremonial yellow robes, the fatt shi wore a black hat on his head, covered with lotus petals. He did not see me. His face was focused in concentration, his lips murmuring a chant as he repeatedly struck a wood block. Beside him a bald attendant chanted in unison, carefully cupping an incense pot into which lit joss-sticks had been placed. The priests came every day for two weeks. They walked all over town, asking the gods to stop the affliction. But their prayers turned out to be insufficient.
On the very morning the priests first appeared, my youngest son, Weng Foo, fell ill. Having insisted that my children remain at home, I thought they would be safe. I couldn’t quite believe it when Weng Foo began vomiting. Within the hour his head became hot, so I rushed him to Dr Wong’s clinic on Treacher Street. The clinic was full of boys Weng Foo’s age. No sooner had we sat down to wait than my son spewed forth the contents of his breakfast on the bench. Out plopped a dirty yellow liquid – the remains of the dumplings I had fed him – alongside tiny chunks of meat, still whole. His fellow patients scattered in different directions and began swearing at him. The commotion brought Dr Wong out of his office. Weng Foo was as pale as a spectre, and one look at my son was enough for Dr Wong to pull us inside. I could tell he was worried. ‘How long has he been like this, Peng Choon Soh?’ he asked as he felt my poor boy’s head with his palm. ‘Just since an hour ago,’ I replied. Scribbling something on to a sheet of paper, the doctor hurried us towards the dispensary. ‘Take the herbs and give them to your son. Also plenty of water – we have to try to keep liquids down. If he can’t hold liquids, let him take the herbs in tablet form.’
By the time we returned home, my daughters had prepared a place on the barlay downstairs. While they wrapped their youngest brother in a blanket, I boiled a batch of Dr Wong’s herbs. I fed my boy one spoonful at a time. After no more than five spoons, my son stopped swallowing. Within minutes the barlay was splattered. My daughters came to the rescue, sponging their brother’s head, cleaning the platform and bringing Weng Foo fresh pyjamas. His head felt hot, but because we lacked a thermometer, none of us could tell how strongly the fever raged inside my son.
Weng Foo dozed fitfully all afternoon. I stayed close by; it made me feel better, though my son was too ill to notice me. Remembering Dr Wong’s instructions, I gave Weng Foo a sip of water whenever his eyes were ajar. The sight of my son so sick made me weep. With his lips nothing more than thin strips, pale and cracked, the boy was drying up in front of us. Once he whispered how tired he felt, how his whole body ached. After several hours it became clear that Weng Foo would be unable to drink his herbal medicine, and I resorted to the tablets Dr Wong had dispensed. That was when I glimpsed the strange mucus all over my son’s tongue. I gently scooped a layer off with a spoon. It felt slimy in my hand, this thick white film which coated Weng Foo’s once-pink tongue. No matter how often my daughters and I scooped the coat off, more came.
Meanwhile Weng Foo’s head and neck boiled like a stove. Sometime during the afternoon Weng Yu went to the Chinese pharmacy on his own initiative to buy a thermometer so that we could ascertain his brother’s exact body temperature. With the thin glass stick in his hand, Weng Yu was about to approach his brother when I yelled, ‘Don’t go near him!’ From what I had seen in Dr Wong’s clinic, I had a hunch that the illness was more dangerous to boys than to girls, and I didn’t want anyone else in my family becoming infected.
For once my little prince obeyed without argument. He looked terrified. When he spoke – to tell me where I should place the thermometer on his brother’s body – the tremor in his smooth bass voice was unmistakable. After ten minutes I removed the glass stick from beneath Weng Foo’s armpit and handed it silently to my eldest son, whose face turned grave. With sorrowful eyes he said, ‘Mama, it’s not good. His temperature is one hundred and two. Normal should be ninety-eight.’ Although Weng Yu spoke gently, he was so affected that he had to turn his face. He walked with head bowed, his footsteps echoing along the wooden floors.
Every few hours Weng Yu returned to the outer hall and asked me to take a temperature reading. I followed his instructions mechanically. I had been unable to eat all day and was exhausted, but that did not stop my heart from racing. We noted the steady rise in Weng Foo’s body temperature. Just two hours later, when his breath became laboured, the thermometer showed 103. Still the fever raged. By nine o’clock that night, when the reading had turned to 104, my son was struggling for breath.
We took turns watching over Weng Foo in the outer hall. We wrapped him in a blanket so that he didn’t catch a chill, gave him sips of water whenever we were able, sponged his head and rubbed his chest with a spicy oil to dispel wind. In short, we did all we could to let my son know that we were with him. The only other place I frequented during those interminable hours was the family altar, where the tablets of my ancestors and husband and the statue of Kuan Yin stood. I stared at the white porcelain image of the Goddess, unable to reconcile the smiling woman before me who sat placidly in a cross-legged lotus position with the vision of my suffering son nearby. ‘Goddess, you are his godmother,’ I pleaded. ‘I beg you, listen to my cry!’
At midnight Hui Fang arrived from Taiping with her husband, Wai Man. Knowing the patriarch had a telephone in his house, I had sent our servant Li-Fei to the Yap household earlier in the evening while it was still light, to ask that Meng Seng apprise my daughter and son-in-law of their little brother’s sudden illness. Li-Fei had travelled so speedily on her bicycle that I half expected the patriarch to follow her back, but he did not come, not realising the gravity of what had befallen us. On their arrival, Wai Man told me that his father would call on us first thing in the morning.
My daughter and son-in-law insisted on climbing on to the barlay to see little Weng Foo. When they came out, Wai Man’s face was pale. Quivering, he said, ‘Mama, I think I should fetch Dr Khong. He is a family friend. No harm seeing two doctors, is there?’
I swallowed. Little Weng Foo’s shoulders were heaving, his mouth agape as he struggled for breath. I nodded my assent.
In no time at all Wai Man returned with a tall Chinese man, who walked in briskly carrying a black bag. After introducing himself, Dr Khong asked a barrage of questions, all the while stroking a noodle strip of a moustache with the thumb and index finger of his left hand from the centre outwards. He wanted to know when the illness had started, what W
eng Foo had been given by way of medication, and anything unusual we had noticed. He asked whether we had seen mucus on the boy’s tongue. As he listened to our answers, Dr Khong stood impassive, but the flicker in his eyes gave away his fear.
By the time Dr Khong examined Weng Foo, my son’s fever was nearly 105. After laying a palm on his forehead, the doctor placed a glass tube – similar to the one my eldest son, Weng Yu, had bought – into the crook of Weng Foo’s armpit. The doctor then took out a long rubber tube with a two-pronged fork on one end and a round metal plate on the other. ‘To listen to the heart,’ Wai Man whispered. My poor son was barely conscious by then. When he opened his mouth as instructed, we could see a heavily coated tongue. New symptoms appeared: uncontrollable sneezing accompanied by fits of shivering, as if my son was epileptic.
Before leaving, Dr Khong handed me two bottles: one containing a liquid, the other full of tablets. He asked us to feed the boy every hour with both. The liquid was described as a syrup to soothe my son’s throat, while the tablets were for fever. We did as we were told and looked continuously for signs of improvement, but none came.
When Weng Foo began to complain of severe pain in his head and joints, the thermometer showed that his body temperature had risen past 105. My son opened his eyes and attempted a weak smile. Holding back tears, I stroked his forehead, which felt like a furnace, all the while whispering to him to sleep.
I was standing before the image of Kuan Yin when the end came.
I heard a cough and splutter so violent that I ran into the outer hall. Droplets of sweat had formed on Weng Foo’s forehead. When I put my hand on his skin, it felt clammy. His face turned blue even as I was rubbing oil on his chest. I hoped the pungency would relieve him, but all my son did was tremble with a convulsive jerk. When he fell limp in my arms, I knew he had left us.
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds Page 25