Once We Were There

by Bernice Chauly

  Marina smiled to thank him, then took his hand as they walked up the stairs. A large painting of a bald girl against a blue background loomed above them. They had to slow down as they reached the top of the stairs, the guys in front of them pushing their way in.

  It was all men. Men of all races, size and shape. In T-shirts, some topless, in suits, in yellow and pink neon. She squeezed her way through men caressing and hugging each other, smoking, laughing, drinking. She wondered if this is what Disneyland felt like. To have all your dreams come true in one place. She got many smiles and she smiled back. She felt like one of them.

  The thumping got inside her head, the music was frenetic. The bar was a long, oblong island featuring a wall of bottles in the centre. The dance floor was on the other side of the room, and she saw a blur of moving bodies.

  “What would you like to drink?” her new friend shouted.

  “Anything,” Marina shouted back.

  The others from his group had disappeared into the crowd, and she stood alone, her back against a wall. She opened her purse, fished out a cigarette and her lighter. A man in a white T-shirt turned to her.

  “Can I have one, please?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she replied and offered him the pack.

  With clean, manicured fingers, he eased one out of the pack and smiled widely at her.

  He had cropped hair, dyed blonde, his eyes accentuated with black liner with a shade of glittery eye shadow. His eyebrows were beautifully plucked and arched. A quick laugh betrayed bleached, even teeth.

  “Thanks, you’re a gorgeous gal.” He took the lighter from her hand and lit the cigarette. “You a working girl?” he asked cheekily.

  Marina raised an eyebrow and winked at him.

  “Cool!” he said and winked back. He wriggled his shoulders and his bum to the music and turned to join his friends.

  Marina continued puffing on her cigarette, watching the bartenders pour wine into glasses and shake pink cocktails into martini glasses. This was the kind of club she had only imagined existed in places like Bangkok or Las Vegas. This was a classy club; there were people with money and talent in this place. She imagined film directors, bankers, artists, architects, engineers, hairdressers. There was conversation, there was culture, a vibrancy she had not felt anywhere else before. There were people from all over the world. There was power in the room. Gay power. Trans power. Pondan power. Mak Nyah power. Yes, even Bapok power.

  Her new friend had braved the crowd, two drinks held high above his head. Long flutes of something bubbly. They clinked glasses and as Marina took her first sip, she realised that it was her first taste of champagne.

  I got really, really high.

  I was unsure of how much I’d taken but it must have been more than anything I’d ever done before. The fact that we were in Karin’s apartment must have made us feel safer. But that was also foolish, as we could easily have gone over our limits. Karin’s dealer had delivered the stuff personally as he was in the neighbourhood. We bought Ecstasy, coke and Valium.

  Hey, this is good stuff, the best. He gave us a swift salute before he left. Enjoy!

  After a bottle of white wine, we took the E. When it kicked in, we started dancing. Karin turned the volume on her stereo right up and we just let it rip. Let it loose. Let it fly. She was friends with the top DJs in town, so she had party mixes to last hours. A little bit of drum and bass, some happy house and a lot of techno with all the right flourishes.

  Then we did coke.

  It’s snowing, babes! Look! Karin laughed and she pounded the little white mound with two credit cards, like a Chinese chef with two meat cleavers.

  We did lines and lines of it off Karin’s glass table. And later when it was gone, we licked fingers to pick up the remnants and rub it into our gums. It was delicious. My body tingled with delight. We were so high.

  It was a night of psycho-babble. Our tongues were loose. We wept, we laughed, we professed love, we begged for forgiveness, we danced and jumped like the schoolgirls we once were. We drank some more, smoked some more, talked until there was no sense of time or space, only a great big drug-addled void of timelessness. We were light beings, flitting in and out of breaths, of universes. We were fragments of our selves. We were fairies. We were specks of nothing.

  There was no more pain, no more worry, no more anger.

  Just bliss. Joy. Wild abandon. Recklessness.

  Hours went by and when we were done, when all the drugs were done, Karin and I fell asleep like contented kittens, curled around each other on the fluffy white carpet.

  When we were awakened by the front door crashing open and a barrage of harsh voices, I opened my eyes to see Omar staring down at me, his eyes a combination of fury and concern, and then, disappointment.

  “It’s a raid!”

  The music ground to a halt, people stopped dancing, stopped moving. Everything stopped. A gritty silence.

  Marina stood there, in shock. Someone whispered: “Fucking cops are here.”

  There was a sudden flurry of movement.

  “Tepi, tepi,” a loud voice shouted.

  A line of five policemen strode in and the crowd parted like schoolboys shamed by prefects at assembly. Four policemen stood facing the crowd, while the fifth barked loudly: “Foreigners can go! Those with Malaysian IC please stay back.”

  There were loud groans and sighs of relief. Loud twitters of protest.

  “But you must show us your ID before you go. You must have ID or passport. If you don’t have, you cannot go. Understand!”

  His eyes were bulging from having to shout. Suddenly the walkie-talkie in his hand blared out and he jumped. He turned the volume button down and glared at the crowd.

  “Okay, please form two lines. Foreigners here and Malaysians here.” Using his right hand to indicate two lines, he continued. “We will also do a urine test, so please be ready. Okay? Gerak! Move!”

  The crowd started to whisper, there were nervous giggles, sobs. The man with the arched eyebrows looked at Marina and drew his hand across his throat. “I’m fucked,” he whispered.

  Marina was afraid. The man who had bought her champagne was nowhere to be seen, she had lost sight of him. Slowly, two lines emerged. The foreigners were herded down the stairs, and the Malaysians were made to form a line heading towards the bathrooms.

  More cops came up and from the street. The sound of sirens grew louder and a sudden wave of fury flooded her.

  Marina hissed under her breath. “Arrest me, you fuckers, arrest me now and see what I will do to you.”

  Omar was silent. His mouth a grim line, his eyes cold.

  My mouth was dry. I rested my head against the car window and stared blankly out. It was early morning, and rush hour traffic was peaking. I had already come down, and I felt deflated, my palms clammy and cold. All I wanted was a bottle of ice water, a shower and my bed. Our bed.

  I didn’t feel tired. I knew that if Omar wanted to talk, I would. I would tell him exactly how I felt. I would be honest with him. I would tell him that I no longer wanted to marry him. I would tell him that I felt that he could do better. I would tell him that I felt like a failure. I would…

  His handphone rang.

  It was in his trouser pocket and he gestured for me to get it.

  I slid my hand into it and I felt his thigh stiffen. He was angry, more angry than I had ever seen him before.

  I licked my dry lips and clicked the green button.

  Hello. My voice croaked.

  Del, is that you? It was Sumi. She was curt. Jesus, Del, I have been trying to call you for hours! Where are you? Where’s Omar?

  He’s driving.

  Omar looked over at me, mouthing silently. Who is it?

  Am at the police station in Jalan Hang Tuah. Come now! Marina’s been arrested.

  Shit! Okay. I’ll tell him. We’ll be there soon.

  What now? Omar muttered.

  It’s Marina, she’s been arrested. I sighed and looked out
the window. I straightened my seat and sat up. My heart started beating faster and that familiar thrill of adrenaline-charged anger willed me to sit up straight and grit my teeth.

  I turned to Omar and said: I will talk to you about what happened, but right now, now I need coffee. My friend has been arrested and I need to help her.

  By the time they got to the police station, Fairman was already there, standing beside Sumi, who glared openly at Del.

  Omar took stock of the situation and asked, “What happened?”

  “There was a raid at a gay bar along Changkat Bukit Bintang last night and Marina was picked up,” Sumi said.

  “What for?” Omar asked.

  “Section 28?” Del replied.

  “That’s right.”

  “And how do you know this?” Omar snapped at Del.

  “It’s okay,” Sumi interjected quickly, soothingly. “There’s nothing we can do now anyway. She’s in the lock-up till Monday.”

  “Seriously?” Del moaned.

  “It’s a Saturday, nothing gets processed till Monday,” Omar cut in curtly.

  “We should know this, right? From the good ol’ days…” Fairman quipped with a laugh, trying to break the tension.

  Omar turned sharply on his heels and started walking. “Right, let’s go!” he said over his shoulder.

  The morning heat had turned sultry. Sweat had accumulated at the base of his throat, the back of his shirt already drenched. There were days when he longed for the cool London air, the ability to walk out of a building and not immediately feel like getting under an ice-cold shower. He was not in the mood for pleasantries and all he wanted was to get back into the air-conditioning of his car, go home and try not to wring Del’s neck.

  He was reminded of the time his mother accused his father of having an affair and of the shouting that went on in their house for days. He was averse to shouting now. His mother’s fury had left him scornful of confrontations, and he was tired of tears, emotional blackmail, drama. He liked to end things quickly, with little or no provocation.

  He braced himself for what Del was going to say to him. And of what he would say to her.

  The wall tiles were green. The brown slime on them seemed recent, it wasn’t caked. Her mouth felt awful and her make-up was probably smudged. The azan told her it was dawn.

  Marina remembered running down the beach with her dad. They had just come back from a fishing trip and they had caught huge prawns, which her mother would later cook with onions, garlic, curry leaves and fresh chillies from the garden. The dawn had just broken and the first sliver of the sun broke through the purple sky and the sea turned azure. Then, piercing though the winds in the coconut trees, the crackling sound of the mike came on. The imam was at the mosque ready to sing the call to prayer.

  Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar.

  That dawn prayer in the morning. That morning so perfect, she realised that a god that could create such beauty was a god of compassion, of mercy and love. She realised that god loved her for who she was—a girl trapped in the body of a boy. But now, she was trapped in the filthy belly of a police station. It stank of rotten food in clogged drains, and she remembered the owner of Al-Tandoor back home. Of having to suck him off in return for food. Of the filthy toilet she had to kneel in. Of the scent of curry on his fingers. She sighed and looked up. The call to prayer was over and the weekend loomed.

  The loud cop had singled her out at the club.

  Male or female? The one question she had never been able to answer.

  “Tengok IC.”

  Marina handed over her identification card.

  The loud cop took one look. “Rashid bin Husin. Dari Lahad Datu, Sabah. You are a man and yet you are dressed like a woman. You know this is a crime, yes?”

  Marina kept quiet. So many eyes were on her. She took a deep breath and walked calmly towards the stairs. “Sure, arrest me.”

  A loud cheer broke out. People started clapping.

  “You go girl!”

  “Whoo hoo!”

  “Be yourself!”

  The loud cop turned and shouted. “Quiet! Diam!”

  Marina walked down the stairs and out onto the street where the open doors of the Black Maria greeted her.

  We drove home in silence.

  After Omar parked the car, I got out first and walked up the flight of stairs to our apartment. I unlocked the front door and immediately started peeling my clothes off. I felt dirty, sweaty, like there was a week’s worth of grime on my face, my armpits, in between my toes.

  I ran naked into the shower and when the ice-cold water from the shower spattered on the top of my head, I sighed loudly and let the water wash all over me. I wanted to weep but I couldn’t. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. I felt spent.

  Then, the door to the shower stall opened and Omar came in.

  I felt his arms around me, his warm body hugging me with strength, then tenderness.

  A guilty sob escaped my lips, and then the tears came mingling with the cold water. He just held me like that, kissed the back of my head, my neck, until I felt his desire on the small of my back.

  I turned and kissed him. I held his face and looked into his eyes.

  I want to wring your bloody neck, he said.

  I know.

  Know what? That you did E? Got wasted? With Karin?

  There was water in my eyes, and they smarted. He brushed my eyelids with gentle fingers and kissed them.

  Why? Del. I want to know why.

  I just wanted to. Get wasted. Just forget about—shit.

  And you didn’t think to tell me? He took a deep breath.

  I didn’t know where you were, I was worried.

  Yeah…I’m…sorry.

  He kissed my eyelids again.

  I don’t know if I can do this, Omar. I kissed his mouth, wanting to shut him up.

  He kissed me back. His gentle tongue probing me. I stopped and said.

  This, getting married. Kids, maybe. I don’t know.

  He sighed.

  I kissed him. More urgency, this time. I just wanted to make him happy, I didn’t want to talk about it all, not all in one go. I feel lost. So fucked up.

  He pushed me against the corner of the shower and entered me from behind. I gasped, my hands pressed against the wet tiles. He grabbed my fingers and went even deeper into me. His body against mine, again and again.

  I love you Del. Just be who you are.

  He pushed into me, our bodies so familiar in the taking and giving of pleasure.

  Just be. Be my wife. Start there.

  His voice broke. He was inside me, all of him. My face slid against the wet tiles. He sought my mouth, our tongues licking, sucking. The water like a balm, washing us clean, washing me of my worries, washing away all his anger.

  Oh my god, Del. I love you.

  And as he moaned his release, I felt better, knowing that I had a man who loved me, a man who loved me more than I loved myself.

  On Monday morning, Marina was let out of her cell. For two nights she had slept on cardboard and she had a terrible crick in her neck. There were two cellmates, two guys from the raid who were thrown in a few hours later. They had tested positive for drugs and were also going to be charged that day.

  She was starving, thirsty. She needed to empty her bowels, she needed a bath. Her cellmates were young gay guys, Amin and Fred, both from Johor Bahru. They were terrified and they slept huddled against each other, crying softly before the snores came.

  Food was meagre. They were given stale buns, white rice with the smallest portions of fish imaginable and packets of sweet iced drinks that had to be shared.

  The cell stank worse at night and they heard cries from other cells that held the women. The hours bled into each other, there was little conversation, there was no desire to talk, share their lives, bond. There was humiliation. Marina was made to feel shame.

  In the Black Maria, she had been handcuffed. She sat in the bac
k on her own, dazed as the vehicle drove through the streets of KL. And when she arrived at the police station, the cop at the counter wrote out the charge. He leered at her and said.

  “You ni…prostitute?”

  “I want to call my lawyer.”

  He laughed at her. “You? Lawyer?” He turned to his colleagues and shouted, “Eh, this pondan wants to call her lawyer. Betul ke ni?” He then stood up and said, “You are being charged under Section 28, where you can be fined one thousand ringgit or be jailed for one year or both. Do you understand the charge? Faham tak?”

  Marina nodded. Then they took her into a room and a female cop asked her to take off her clothes. Marina looked up at the fan, which was covered in black dust. The window had bars, and she heard crickets outside. Goose bumps covered her flesh and her nipples hardened. She was cold.

  “Panties okay,” the cop said picking up Marina’s clothes. Marina was clad in a red g-string, she tried to cover her breasts.

  “Bend over,” the cop ordered. “Cough.”

  Marina asked for the toilet. It was a squat toilet with no door. The female cop stood nearby facing her. Then she was handed a gown, which looked like a hospital garment. It was dirty and smelled of sweat. The female cop’s eyes showed concern, but she was silent. Marina was taken to her cell at the opposite end of the hallway from the toilet. Her bare feet felt sand, slime, things she dared not imagine. The cell was a room with a bare floor. There was a stack of cardboard in one corner. Marina found a corner, unfolded a piece of cardboard and sat on it. The female cop locked the heavy metal doors and walked away. Marina was alone in the cell, in the dark.

  Sumi picked me up that morning to go to court.

  Omar had to work, there was an important meeting with a client for a large contract and he had to go in. We had spent the weekend talking and making love. We were seized with a renewed passion, spending hours in bed, making love once, twice, then again and again. Omar was insatiable. He said, I just want to be inside you, all day.

  It was carnal, but it was love. We drank wine, ate soft cheese and crackers, fed each other with our fingers, read, slept and made love. It was glorious, the sharing of our bodies. We whispered, moaned, shrieked under the sheets, in between breaths, our bodies sticky with pleasure and sweat. We lusted after each other. I felt safe from the world outside, and Omar was my protector, the one person I could turn to, the one man I trusted with my life.