by Tash Aw
“No, I don’t. The only thing I really understand is that the color of your skin is the only thing that matters.” In the moonlight, her arm almost touching his, she saw that they were almost exactly the same shade of sandy gray.
“I wish I were like you,” Karl said, “but I can’t be. I’ll never have that ability. In the past few months I’ve thought about fleeing to some remote outer island where there are no other Europeans. I’d be like some character from one of those novels—you know, about seafaring Dutchmen who wash up on some shore and father children with a local woman. But I know I wouldn’t belong there either. And this is why I must return to Holland, even though I hate it. I must go and fight.”
“Then I’ll come with you,” said Margaret. “I’ll follow you to Europe.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said in his calm, quiet manner. “You’re too young—what would you do? Where would you live?”
“With you.” Margaret tried to imagine the house he had described, a tall, narrow, dark house. “Or somewhere else. I’d just be close to you.”
He sighed. “You have the rest of your childhood to live, Margaret, the rest of your life. You know you can’t come. It’s impossible.”
The bird had changed its tune again, singing sweetly but very loudly, drowning out all other sounds in the night.
“Maybe someday we’ll wash up on the same shore,” said Margaret.
He laughed. “Maybe.”
She waited for him to say something else, but there was nothing but birdsong. They remained sitting on the steps for some time, looking at the dancing lights across the valley and listening to the solitary bird. Margaret could feel the warmth of his arm—almost, but not quite, touching hers, the fine hairs on his forearm tickling her skin; but she could feel him slipping away from her, easing himself out of her life. She felt the constrictions in her chest once more and tried to suppress the urge to cough. I am not in love with this man, she said to herself, I am not in love with him. She hoped that she would feel herself fall out of love with him, just as he was falling out of her world, but that sensation would not come to her.
After what seemed a very long time, Karl put his hand on hers. He said, “I shall never forget you, you know.” The bird was still singing. Margaret wished it would shut up and leave her alone in this moment with Karl, so that she could commit every detail to memory, where it would remain pure and untroubled for the rest of her life. The outline of his jaw in the moonlight. The damp coolness of his skin. The hesitation, maybe even a slight tremble in his voice.
But the bird did not stop. So nowadays, whenever Margaret recalls this moment of being thrust from the safety of childhood into the murkiness of adulthood, all she can hear is the bird’s insistent call, repeating endlessly.
· 28 ·
The orphanage was not far from the sea, and though you could sometimes hear the waves and smell the dry salty air, you could never see the water. Even if you climbed up on the small hill behind the orphanage—which you were not supposed to do—the ocean remained out of view. Therefore, for the first five years of his life, Adam never knew what color the sea was. Sometimes he thought it was turquoise, other times green, even a dull red. There was a sea called the Red Sea somewhere in the world, near where the Prophet once lived, so why couldn’t Adam’s sea be red too? The other boys laughed at him when he said this, so he kept quiet and did not speak about it. But now he remembers the first time he saw its true color, something between gray and brown: a mouse-colored sea. He remembers now that he saw it once. Only once.
· 29 ·
When Adam woke up, Z was no longer there. Even as he reached out in half slumber to where she had been, he knew that he would not find her. He lay on the immense bed, blinking himself into awakeness, and found that he was stretched out diagonally, his toes touching the place where he had been sitting the night before. The patient ticking of the gold clock was the only noise he could hear; he could not quite make out the time, but he knew it was late, even though the room was dark, for the thinnest sliver of light was forcing its way over the top of the curtain rod.
He remembered that there was a room in the orphanage that had shutters on the windows, and when the shutters were closed the light would frame the window in thin strips, just as it was doing now. Adam had been taken to this room when he was ill—when he fainted or suffered those shivering fits. “That boy has gone funny again,” he remembered people saying, and he would feel sickly and ashamed, a freak.
Adam did not know why he could remember this detail of the orphanage, or how other images had returned to him, gently folding themselves into the spaces of his memory as if reclaiming some rightful, long-forgotten spot. And although there were many other things that remained beyond his reach—for now, at least—he felt calmer. When memories come back to you there is always the expectation that they will make you happy. Adam had always thought that regaining his past would be unequivocally joyous. Now, blinking in the daylight darkness of this room in a city hundreds of miles from his home, he could see that this was not the case. Sad memories remain longer than others. But sometimes the sadness makes things clearer, and with clarity comes a certain calm. This is what Adam felt.
The previous night, when images of his past life had begun to return to him, he had fallen into a heavy slumber as the pain in his torso dulled to an almost comforting numbness. He remembered Z kissing his forehead, remembered the cool touch of her lips on his brow when he had woken in the middle of the night. Shh, don’t worry, nothing’s going to hurt you, she had whispered. You’re all right, it’s just a bad dream. You’re okay, you’re okay. It had taken him a few moments to realize where he was, for when he opened his eyes there had been only darkness, and it was Zubaidah’s voice that helped him to locate himself in this absence of light.
My brother, he said. I remember.
Shh. Calm down. What do you remember?
Things. Not much. But I remember him now. How he walked, the sound of his voice. Johan. He was named Johan.
Wait; she got up and pulled the curtains apart, throwing the windows open as wide as she could. There was a thin breath of air in the room now, and Adam could hear the distant barking of dogs. That’s better, she said, it was so airless before.
She eased her head onto the pillow next to his so that her mouth brushed against his chin. And when she kissed him he surprised himself by knowing how to respond, moving his torso slightly to press against hers. Her body had surprised him because it felt so foreign, unlike anything he had ever imagined, but also familiar, like his. Her belly was flat but fleshy, not at all like his own; her thighs were very lean and when he squeezed them with his fingers, he could feel the long sinews running down to her knee. He had been fully awake for those few minutes during which they had clung to each other tightly, urgently, like sea swimmers to a raft. When she moved on top of him he could feel every part of his body with a clarity he had never experienced before, as if each muscle was an articulated word or thought.
Afterward, when they lay side by side in the darkness, she asked him about his brother, and he told her the few things he knew.
His brother was older and stronger than he; his brother had left the orphanage first, leaving Adam alone. And those moments of aloneness were filled with a blankness that seemed to expand all the time, until he found he was not terrified by it but reassured by its constant presence.
He told her about the long, low shack where everyone slept, about the leaky roof and the rats that ran along the foot of the walls and the sound of boys crying in their sleep. He was very calm. He wanted to talk, he wanted to tell Zubaidah what he knew. He could remember, now, how it felt to be alone, just as he could recall the warmth of Johan’s body against his when he woke up in the middle of the night. He had been afraid all the time, afraid of everything, and the only thing that made him less afraid was being near Johan, who was not afraid of anything. But once Johan told him, If we ever get separated I will not be able to live. And that had
surprised Adam because Johan could deal with everything. It was he who would not survive without Johan, he thought.
What did he look like? she asked in the darkness. Did he look like you? Adam did not answer. The precise features of Johan’s face still eluded him, but he remembered someone who did not look at all like him, someone who was taller and fairer and stronger. An almond-shaped face cast in permanent half shadow. For the moment, this was the best he could remember.
Sorry, said Zubaidah, it must be painful to remember these things.
No, he said. If someone stays with you often it is painful when they go away. But that is all it is. Pain. When someone is there next to you every second of the day and night their sudden absence does not cause pain, it creates a vacuum, an emptiness with which you have to live every day thereafter. So it is not painful; it is worse than pain.
She put her hand between his legs and left it there, even though he was not hard. She asked if he missed his brother and he said no, he didn’t. It was the truth. You can’t miss something you can barely remember. He tried to feel a longing for Johan, but all that came to him was a calm that was slowly replacing the yawning emptiness that had been there before.
We can find him, Zubaidah said, we can find him if you want to. Nothing is impossible. But Adam said no, he did not want to. Why? she asked, but he was unable to answer. There is a time for everything, he thought, and the time for finding Johan had passed, or maybe it had never been the right time. Maybe that time would come in the future, or maybe it never would. He was no longer sure if he wanted to find Johan. My father used to say that you can’t control your future, you just have to let fate run its course. I’m not going to find my brother. It wasn’t meant to happen. Why should it? He doesn’t even know I exist.
Rubbish, Zubaidah said. If you want to do something, if you want to find someone, you can. He could feel her fingers in his pubic hair. He did not argue with her; it was no use.
So what do you want to do? You can’t stay in Jakarta. He said, I want to find my father. Okay, she said in the dark. We will find him. Not long afterward, as they were talking, he felt himself harden in her hand, and he propped himself up with one arm so that he could kiss her. It was, he thought, the first time he had ever done anything with such clarity of purpose.
He rose from the bed and pulled the curtains open; Z must have drawn them before she left to protect him from the harsh light of the morning. He squinted into the sudden sunlight, looking around the room. There were things he hadn’t noticed in his exhausted state last night: a picture of Che Guevara pinned to a corkboard, next to a photo of a Western film star Adam did not recognize. He could not tell if this was Z’s bedroom.
He dressed and made his way slowly downstairs, pausing momentarily at the top of the staircase that curved elegantly in a horseshoe of gold and marble. The floor was cool and smooth underfoot, and in the kitchen he found a box of European pastries—pretty squares and triangles with colorful cream toppings. He was not sure if they were meant for him, but his hunger was greater than his caution, and he ate one, then two, until he had eaten half the box. They were very sweet and tasted of cinnamon. There was a large mustard-colored refrigerator of the kind he’d only seen in magazines, but when Adam opened it he found it to be empty except for a few bottles of beer and the remains of a celebratory cake, the icing hardened into a crust by the cold.
“Good morning, sir.” A man dressed in a bush jacket and pressed trousers came into the kitchen. Adam recognized him as the driver who had brought them home yesterday. “Miss Zubaidah has asked me to take you wherever you want to go today. If you’d like to stay here, you’re most welcome, she said, and we should go and buy you some clothes and food or whatever you need. However, she said she had the feeling you might want to go home immediately.”
Adam paused and looked at the birthday cake. He could make out scrolling pink letters that read … ppy birth … love from … “I haven’t made up my mind,” he said. “I need to think about it for a while.”
They were a long way from the city now, in a place where there were no lights and the dirt roads were hard to see, for they snaked through the jungle where the foliage was thick and did not let the moonlight through to the ground. Sometimes the trees would give way to a palm oil estate or a rubber plantation and there would be a little more light, maybe even a single kerosene lamp hanging from the low branches of a tree, and in the pool of light Johan and Farah would be able to discern the outlines of branches, or the fragile roof of a rubber tapper’s hut. Warm wind came through the open windows, eddying and swirling and blowing wisps of hair across their faces.
Farah said, I’m glad you can’t drive like a maniac out here.
The moment the clouds part I’m going to put my foot down, you wait and see, said Johan. Country road or no country road, I’m going to drive fast.
No you won’t. She laughed. You can’t.
The Merc jolted over the potholes and sharp gullies where the rain had swept away the surface of the road, and sometimes it seemed to Johan that they were on a little boat on a choppy sea where you never got the sense of moving forward and you could no longer discern where you had come from or where you were going. It had been like that on the ferry to this country, to his new home. The boat had rocked on the waves and did not advance, and all the while Johan’s new mummy kept saying, Don’t worry, not long to go, we aren’t far away. But when he looked over the side of the boat he could not see the land they had left or the land they were traveling to, and beyond the misty haze of rain there was only sea and sky and a boat that was going nowhere. And he had thought, maybe they would spend all that time traveling and end up where they had begun, back in Indonesia, back near Adam.
You still haven’t told me where you are taking me, Johan.
If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?
But I can’t stand not knowing. Don’t torture me. Jahat sekali. She smacked him on his shoulder.
Wait, just wait. It’s not far now.
The road was getting rougher and the axle of the Merc was squeaking as the car stumbled along.
It’s like being at the playground. Farah laughed. God, I hope you don’t wreck the car, Daddy will be furious. You’ll be grounded for life.
Johan laughed too. I’m going to be long gone, so what do I care? I won’t be grounded because I won’t be around. He’ll just have to take it out on you and Bob.
What time are you leaving tomorrow?
Lunchtime. Daddy’s driving me himself.
They could hear the squelching of mud as the car went through a shallow puddle, and ahead of them the headlights lit up swarms of insects that floated dreamily in a river of light that seemed almost opaque.
If you wreck the car, maybe you won’t be able to go.
Maybe.
They stopped in a clearing and Johan got out. He walked around to Farah’s side of the car and opened the door.
It’s all right, it’s not muddy here.
Ahead of them they could see a stretch of water, a wide bend in a river that did not flow very fast. It was black and still and quiet. On the riverbank the trees grew out over the water, low and squat, as if they were floating on the surface. Farah looked up at the sky and said, I can’t see the moon.
I know. It’s cloudy. That’s why I chose tonight.
Why? What does that mean?
You’ll see. Come on.
They walked along a path that followed the curve of the riverbank and disappeared now and then into long grass. Sometimes the sharp edge of the grass caught their hands and Johan yelped with pretend pain. He wanted to make Farah laugh, but she didn’t. He stopped and turned around to take her hand, leading her down the path that had disappeared once more. They walked through a thicket of trees and for a few moments there was no light at all, and when they emerged the path curved sharply and brought them around to an old pontoon.
Johan. Farah spoke in a whisper. Johan.
That’s what I wanted t
o show you.
Johan. She stepped onto the pontoon with him. My god.
Before them there hung a huge mass of fluorescent green light, like the beginnings of a raincloud on a hot, windy day, billowing slowly, expanding here, contracting there. It stretched out languidly as if pawing at an invisible fly, and then pulled back again, illuminating a stretch of black water and then casting it into darkness once more.
Fireflies, said Johan. I really wanted you to see them.
There were clusters of the same glowing light on the trees, shimmering. Johan took Farah’s hand and walked along the path, and all along the riverbank there were clusters of this gold green light in the trees, even on the very highest branches where they colored the night sky.
It’s like Christmas, Farah said. Christmas in some Scandinavian country.
How would you know? It’s not as if you’ve ever been to Lapland.