Weng Yu’s enquiry, uttered in that wonderfully deep bass that reminded me of Father’s, was accompanied by a bewitching smile.
‘Big Son, your Chinese sound very good-ah,’ I told him happily. Weng Yu’s cheeks reddened. It was clear the anger in the boy’s heart had dissolved, because he invited me for an evening stroll. My prodigal son had finally returned.
As the stars in the Malayan sky peeped down on us, Weng Yu spoke of his plans and where he would locate his business. ‘Mama, I will be using that shophouse we have, the one at the top of Hale Street,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if relaying information, without so much as an attempt at asking permission.
Because we had been estranged for so long, I was reluctant to say anything that might put our relationship at risk. I looked up at the black rug of sky above, at the swathe of dots forming the River of Heaven. I held my tongue even though the ideas that poured forth from my son’s contoured lips filled me with dread. He dreamt of becoming Ipoh’s foremost civil engineer, but in his mind wealth came easily. Such naivety made me nervous, yet our first walk in years was hardly the best time to point this out. On that perfect Malayan evening it was enough that Weng Yu spoke in Hakka. Any unwelcome words would have to wait.
As it turned out, Weng Yu was very much in a hurry. Just days later we visited the shophouse Weng Yu had picked out for himself. I could see why my son had chosen it. Being at the far end of town near the border with the English quarter, it was well located; in fact, it was in such an ideal corner that I had always wondered how Peng Choon had managed to acquire the shop – it must have cost a fortune even in those distant years.
Once I knew that Weng Yu was going to give notice to the tenant who rented our shophouse, I realised I would have to accompany my son on his visit. Our tenant on Hale Street was a tailor by the name of Yap Min Kang, a quiet man who had been renting the premises for ten years and who happened to be our best tenant. Unlike others, Yap Min Kang paid his rent on time and always with a cup of tea. As we approached his premises, I thought back to the occasions when I had watched the tailor snip bales of cloth. I would stand transfixed, my eyes on the spinning wheel of the black sewing machine, which he turned by hand. Rolls of beautiful fabric adorned the front. Everywhere was the comforting smell of fabric and toil. I regretted what we were about to do, because I was sorry to see Yap Min Kang go.
Weng Yu, on the other hand, was wholly businesslike. ‘We need the shop back. You must leave within three months,’ he told the man curtly. Even though my son had never been one for small talk, his brusqueness alarmed me. What would it be like being one of his clients? When Yap Min Kang pleaded for another two months’ grace, in addition to the three months’ notice we served him, the request seemed reasonable for a tenant of such long standing, and I blushed at Weng Yu’s refusal.
Naturally Yap Min Kang turned towards me. I had to look away; I could not meet the man’s gaze. Noticing our exchange of glances, Weng Yu rounded on the tailor. In a raised voice he told Yap Min Kang that in accordance with Chinese custom, he, the eldest son, was head of our family, and his decision was final.
I stood at a loss for words. How was it that my little prince, a boy I had raised with my own hands, understood so little about Nyonya culture? Weng Yu had seen how I had been the head of our family while his father was alive, as was typical for us. Even Peng Choon, a man born in China, had understood and respected this and given me free rein to run our household, going so far as to hand me his income at the end of each month.
Weng Yu reminded the tailor one final time of the date by which he was to vacate our shophouse before striding out in his imported white shirt, khaki trousers and beige topee. As he walked, his arms swung back and forth in some imaginary British march. I shuffled behind in my sarong with head lowered, eyes fixed in shame on my pink-beaded slippers.
Yap Min Kang came to see me before his notice period was up, begging for an extension of two months. ‘Please, Peng Choon Sau,’ he said, ‘I need more time.’ When I looked at the man, my heart was touched.
‘Yap Tsin-sang-ah, we see-lah,’ I told him. Then I did something I rarely do: I told a lie. ‘My son very anxious, work urgent-lah. Otherwise of course can stay longer. We see-lah. I ask for you. Hah?’ Yap Min Kang nodded sadly and went away.
That weekend, after a delicious lunch of Siamese laksa, I broached my subject. ‘Weng Yu-ah, you give Yap Tsin-sang another two months, you make me very happy. He long time now our best tenant.’
My son looked at me with disdain. He told me gruffly that he needed the space immediately, so his having to wait three months was quite long enough. He added, almost growling, ‘Now that I’m home, it’s not for you to decide such things, Mama.’ His tone told me an argument would ensue if I were to take a harder line.
As bad as I felt for Yap Tsin-sang, I had to choose my son. If we quarrelled openly, gossip would spread around Ipoh. For the sake of family I let Weng Yu have his way.
Conditions had become extremely difficult by the time the tailor vacated our shophouse. The trickle of mining coolies who found themselves unemployed soon turned into a torrent, and the human tide flooded Ipoh. I had seen this many times before, only it was much worse now, for the coolies were joined by a host of others – tradesmen, clerks, even funeral parlour workers. It wasn’t that fewer were dying, but with so many unable to pay, the undertakers were forced to charge less and therefore resorted to firing workers.
In those days I avoided walking into town. I could not bear the sight of so many lying about with nowhere else to go. The scale of human misery became impossible to ignore. Even on the short journey from our house on the Lahat Road to the People’s Park, where I went on daily walks, I would trip on homeless stragglers. Until then I had always thought the unemployed lazy. I assumed they spent their days squatting on their haunches, smoking the voluminous water pipes that were passed endlessly from person to person. But with half the Chinese population out of work, it occurred to me for the first time that they couldn’t all have been useless layabouts.
The ones unable to move – the old and the infirm – were the worst off. The younger men could at least find some way of scraping enough for two meals a day, but their older, sicker compatriots could only scavenge around dustbins early in the morning and late at night, when the coffee shops had closed. The rest of the time they lay heaped on top of one another along the covered walkways, dreaming of better days to come.
I had to wander into town occasionally, and it was inevitable that I should catch whiffs of the desperation in the air. On one walk I was shocked by what greeted me below the august Hugh Low Bridge. This bridge had always served as shelter for the homeless, but I could scarcely have imagined how permanent a home it had become to a growing crowd. In addition to the cardboard boxes and the thin sheets the men slept on, I saw rags serving as partitions between little rooms, and even photographs placed daintily along the banks of the Kinta River. On one corner where the river curved, a makeshift altar stood: an image of one of our gods, tattered and peeling, with candles in front. When I described the scene to my son-in-law Kwee Seng, he confirmed that the men who had previously been herded into prison by the white authorities now remained perpetually beneath Ipoh’s main bridges.
Soon the newly unemployed made their presence felt in other ways.
Li-Fei began bringing home ever more unsold kueh. This did not worry me at first. In some ways I was even pleased, because we gave what was left to the unfortunates below the Hugh Low Bridge. Sales of our kueh had always ebbed and flowed, and I was confident they would pick up again – people had to eat after all. In 1931, however, the trend of poor receipts continued for weeks, which then dragged into months. When Li-Fei no longer had to replenish her tiffin carriers for a second morning round, I began to fret. The stacks of coins I had to count kept dwindling, until the day came when we barely made ten cents. That was when our astute servant made a remark which forced me to sit up. ‘Peng Choon Sau,’ she said, ‘you
should go to town. Very many hawkers now-ah! Big problem-lah!’
At the earliest opportunity I asked Yap Meng Seng to take me around town in his car. Sure enough the streets crawled with new food stalls, many clearly opened by the recently unemployed. I could hardly blame them, but I knew I would have to respond to this threat. Along the Anderson Road there were a handful of fruit vendors, three or four satay stalls and several Chinese noodle stalls, all on a stretch no longer than a quarter of a mile. Then, back on Theatre Street, we found a new phenomenon: stalls offering lok-lok – wooden skewers of fish, cockles, liver and other types of offal, all of which could be purchased by the stick and dipped into a tub of boiling water. A large number of people stood around the lok-lok vendor, happily dipping their sticks into a steaming vat before dousing the skewers greedily into a large communal bowl containing what looked like a hot sauce. I didn’t taste anything. I merely walked up and down, taking in the faces of those against whom our kueh business would have to compete.
For several days I sat deep in thought. Not wishing to act hastily, I consulted Meng Seng before discussing my ideas with Siew Lan over tea and betel leaves. With times being what they were, people in town were looking to do no more than fill their stomachs. It was not a climate in which Nyonya kueh, regarded as mere delicacies, would thrive. On the other hand, having nurtured a loyal following over twenty years we couldn’t simply abandon our dedicated customers; we would have to tread carefully. I decided to offer kueh on three days of the week; the rest of the time we would make another dish, something that would give our customers a complete meal. The only question was what.
Recounting the scenes that had greeted us along the Anderson Road and parts of New Town, I remembered the brisk trade done by the hawkers – Chinese and Tamil coolies who had learnt how to handle a wok. They would never be able to compete with me for Nyonya food, so whatever we offered had to be true to our traditions. When I mentioned the hordes sitting around the noodle stalls, it was Siew Lan to whom a flash of inspiration came. ‘Of course!’ she said, smiling as she spat out a mouthful of charged betel nut juice. ‘Noodles, cheap and filling! Why not make your Siamese laksa, Chye Hoon? Can sell I’m sure.’
I could see her point: with noodles changing hands for only two to three cents per bowl, there were plenty of takers slurping with gusto. Over the next week I began experimenting with the laksa recipe Mother had passed down. I varied the proportion of noodles one day, prawns the next and did repeated calculations to see whether a decent profit could result at three cents per bowl.
It took a week for us to conclude that Siamese laksa required too much work for day-to-day catering. If noodles were what customers wanted, there was a simpler dish we could make which would be equally delicious: Penang Nyonya laksa. This even had Nyonya in its name, and everyone knew I came from Penang. After additional days of testing, we were ready. I couldn’t use as much fish in the gravy as I wanted, but the aroma rising from our pots was so wonderful that I judged we would surely attract customers.
In my desire to save on costs, I had envisaged Li-Fei transporting our laksa – noodles, gravy and all – on the back of her bicycle set on two poles as if it were a shoulder, with a pot dangling from each side. The contraption we built proved precarious, and it became clear that I would have to invest not only in a new tricycle, but also in fitting it out with a wooden cart, the type the other vendors used, so that Li-Fei could transport our warm offering door to door.
I took another week to reflect, nervous at the thought of so much expense while the town was engulfed in a depth of poverty we had never before seen. Where previously I would have rushed in head first, then I deliberated long and hard. In the midst of this deep reflection, I asked to tour the town a second time with Meng Seng. ‘Go on-lah, Chye Hoon.’ The old man was in the process of growing a beard, and I watched as he patted the tuft of hair below his chin. ‘I have a feeling you’ll do well.’
Thus it was that the Wong family started offering Penang Nyonya laksa alongside our already well-known Nyonya kueh. The laksa was an instant success. For months in a row we sold all the noodles we made. Unfortunately the appearance of our laksa had the effect of driving some of our kueh customers straight into the hands of our competitor, Heng Lai Soh. Because there were days on which we made only laksa, customers unable to buy their favourite kueh on the day of their choice gravitated to the other established Nyonya kueh maker. I was horrified. Overnight years of goodwill evaporated just like that, and no amount of cajoling or sweet talking could bring our customers back. The servants at the mansion down the road stopped taking our kueh. Even Hong Seng Soh, the Nyonya in one of the thirteen houses, who had been our customer from the outset, no longer came out at the sound of Li-Fei’s bell.
In those difficult days we were forced to redouble our efforts. I decided we had to wake up earlier so that we could make both laksa and kueh every morning. I hired extra hands. All the women in our house – the servants, my third daughter, Hui Lin, and I – were exhausted by the time evening fell, but we had to act before we lost even more kueh customers. We tailored our kueh offering too, making sure we had a substantial taro or radish cake every day so that the impoverished could eat their fill without feeling they were frittering their money away.
Amidst these challenging conditions, Weng Yu launched his business. He started in haste, opening his premises as soon as the tailor had departed, with a minimum of renovation to our old shophouse on Hale Street.
Despite having decided to leave my son alone, I was unable to stifle my curiosity. Late one morning after counting the coins Li-Fei had brought back, I headed out by rickshaw to the top of Old Town for a little peek.
Our shophouse stood much as it had for twenty years. Its solid grey concrete had suited the tailor perfectly, but I could not imagine visiting a newly qualified engineer in such premises. For one thing its walls needed painting, and the floor was unchanged from the time the place had been built. Looking down at the barren concrete, spotty with craters and trapped bubbles, I felt distinctly uncomfortable for my son.
I tried to convey these doubts in a way that would not provoke my little prince. How could I tell him that as our premises stood, they would fail to inspire confidence? In the shadows of its murky walls, mosquitoes buzzed lazily, drowsy from the blood on which they had feasted. One of these irritants hovered before my nose. I swiped it whilst telling my son he needed to turn the shop into a proper office, perhaps even to spend some money. This elicited a sharp intake of breath. Weng Yu became flushed, not least because we were within earshot of the assistant and draughtsman he had hired.
‘I don’t need to do anything here, Mama,’ he replied forcefully. ‘People will come because of my British diploma.’
My son’s thick lips curved downwards in the look Mother used to have whenever she sulked. Unable to find the words, I left, but my frustrations came tumbling out later to Meng Seng, who summed things up memorably. While sipping tea in the inner hall, the patriarch muttered under his breath, ‘To attract prosperity, one must already appear prosperous.’
No one else could have phrased it so well. What the old man said was surely true, as I myself knew from dealings with professionals, limited though these were. When I went to see doctors, I was influenced by what their clinics looked like. I noticed if they were clean and bright or messy and gloomy. I saw what sort of furniture they held and of course whether they were empty or full of patients. It couldn’t be so different for an engineer, even if he did have a British diploma. I feared that my son was in for an unpleasant surprise.
45
Just before dawn one morning, as I neared the bottom of the stairs the world started to spin. By then I was used to visiting the latrine many times each night, accustomed also to the ants that crawled along to sniff at my secretions. I knew they shouldn’t have been there, but this was a fact I didn’t wish to think about. Like others my age, I was adept at putting unpalatable worries about health to the back of my mind, pref
erring instead to focus on the kueh I consumed every morning. With the passing of the years, I seemed able to eat to my heart’s content. Gone were the juicy folds around my belly; instead I had bones sticking out everywhere – from the hollows of both cheeks, from around my ribs, along arms and legs and even on my wrists. I ate as much as before, but instead of gaining weight I had the wonderful fortune of losing it. It occurred to me that my change of luck must have had some connection with the appearance of the tiny red ants in our latrine, but with so much going on I chose to tell no one. Why bother them when the weakness in my bones must surely be due to old age?
That morning my knees buckled. One minute I was upright, the next I slid. My collapsing frame made such a noise that everyone came running. I couldn’t have fainted completely, because I remember what happened quite clearly. On its way down my head brushed against the wooden banister – not so much a knock as a scrape, accompanied by a thud, though that could have been just the sound of my palpitating heart. Then I was on the floor, staring into the darkness.
Our old servant Ah Hong was the first to arrive. When I looked up, I was greeted by a blurred vision; it was her voice I recognised first. ‘Peng Choon Sau! You good-mah?’ Too drained to speak, I nodded.
I tried to lift myself, but my daughter Hui Lin stopped me. ‘Slowly, Mama,’ she said softly. She and my son-in-law Kwee Seng helped me sit up. I heard someone light a fire in the kitchen. It must have been Li-Fei, because Hui Lin had asked for tea to revive me.
While I sat quietly with a cup of green tea, my son-in-law declared that a trip to the hospital was advisable. I had fallen, he said. It would be best to be examined by a doctor. I was about to tell him that I felt fine, if a little shaken, but something in the young faces stopped me. An indecipherable exchange passed between my daughter and her husband, a flicker of fear I had not seen before. With everyone looking so glum, it seemed churlish to refuse. After all, what harm could there be in consulting a Western doctor?
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds Page 35