by Hanna Alkaf
Suraya relayed this to Jing, who sighed as she tapped away on the phone screen. “O-kay, thank you for that. I mean, I was hoping for something more along the lines of, like, the name of a town, or a state, or even a landmark besides, like, fruit trees and a mosque with a blue dome, since I’m 99 percent sure that every other kampung in Malaysia has one of those. . . .”
“Maybe my mom has some old letters lying around,” Suraya suggested. “I could go poke around her desk.”
“It’s a start,” Jing said. “Let’s see.”
The door to Mama’s room was closed. It was always closed, whether Mama was actually in the room or not, whether Mama was even home or not. It had been this way for as long as Suraya could remember. The closed door, as far as she was concerned, sent a very clear message: DO NOT ENTER. THIS PLACE IS NOT FOR YOU.
She’d never considered ignoring that message until now.
“Well?” Jing, who bounded in and out of her own mother’s room as and when she pleased—sometimes without even knocking—didn’t understand Suraya’s hesitation. “Open lah.”
“Hold on.”
“What’s wrong?”
Suraya couldn’t explain how much of a struggle it was to even touch the doorknob, much less turn it. THIS PLACE IS NOT FOR YOU.
“Is it stuck? Come I try.” And before she could say a word, Jing reached past her and wrenched the door wide open.
For a moment, Suraya felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She’d only ever caught glimpses of her mother’s room before; to have this much access all at once was like suddenly being given ten Cokes to drink when she’d only ever been allowed sips of it her entire life (“Too much sugar,” her mother would scoff when they passed those enticing red cans in their local supermarket). She didn’t know whether to give in to the urge to drink in every little detail in huge, painful gulps, or to turn her back on it altogether and just walk away.
Fortune favors the bold, a little voice whispered in her ear. Behind her, Jing waited, as if she understood that the one to take that first step into the room had to be Suraya.
She took a deep breath.
“Well,” she said over her shoulder. “Are you guys coming or what?”
And then she stepped over the threshold.
The windows were closed in Mama’s room, and the curtains drawn shut, so that the sunlight struggling valiantly through its brown cotton filter cast the room in dim, sepia light. Between this and the stale, still air, it was as if time had stopped here years ago.
Suraya hadn’t been sure what to expect, but if anything, she thought Mama’s room might be spare and painfully neat, much like Mama herself. But this room was nothing like that at all. Instead, every inch of available space was covered in piles of . . . stuff. Books stacked precariously in piles that came up to Suraya’s waist; papers peeking timidly out of the drawers they’d been shoved in; clothing in a crumpled heap on one side of the bed, where the only unoccupied space was marked by a dent in the mattress and a rumple in the sheets. The clothes Mama had worn and discarded the day before marked a trail across the room, like an adult Hansel or Gretel, leaving garments instead of bread crumbs to find their way home.
THIS PLACE IS NOT FOR YOU.
“Woooooooooow,” she heard Jing breathe out beside her. “I mean, um. Where do we start?”
Suraya wasn’t sure.
As if he understood, Pink spoke up. Jing looks in there, he said, nodding toward the closet. I’ll start on this shelf. And you will take those piles over there. Yes? He looked up at Suraya questioningly, and she nodded, grateful for the chance to catch her breath, to have the weight of making decisions taken off her shoulders for once.
Having received her orders, Jing began rummaging around with enthusiasm, muttering under her breath as she went. “Wah,” Suraya heard her say, and then “Like that also can?”
I’d tell her not to make a mess, Pink said, but I’m not sure it makes any difference. He turned to the high shelf that stood against one wall, filled with books and papers jammed in every which way, and Suraya sank to the floor between piles of yet more books and papers and began to sift through them.
It seemed to take forever. They found all sorts of things—romance novels with lurid covers that Suraya would never have expected her mother to read, clothes with outsized shoulder pads like relics of a bygone era, several pairs of high heels in bright colors—reds and blues and yellows and purples—covered in dust, their faux leather peeling off in strips and scraps.
By the time Suraya was done with her piles, Jing was still making new discoveries in the closet, and Pink had moved on to a stack of cardboard boxes that stood beside the shelf.
The chest of drawers, Pink told her, looking up from a pile of mismatched playing cards—Old Maid, Snap, Uno, all shoved into the same deck. Over there.
Suraya turned to look at the chest that stood right up against the wall, a nondescript thing of dark wood, with four rows of narrow drawers and a rattan basket on top that held an assembly of jars and bottles: Vicks VapoRub and Tiger Balm and minyak cap kapak and curling old blister packs of ibuprofen with only one or two pills still encased in their plastic prisons.
The first three drawers held nothing but reams and reams of paper—bills; cuttings from old newspapers, soft and yellowing; catalogues that had come in the mail still in their plastic wrappers, their covers promising unbelievable deals on Tupperware, dresses you could wear five different ways, and amazingly absorbent cleaning cloths; empty junk food wrappers stuffed in the spaces in between as if Mama was ashamed of consuming their contents. Suraya shuffled through all of these silently, as Jing rustled and banged in the background.
The last drawer would not open.
Suraya pulled and tugged, but all it did was reveal a couple of dark, tantalizing centimeters of itself before refusing to move any further, stubborn and unyielding. “What’s in this thing?” she murmured, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“Come, let me try,” Jing said, materializing by her right elbow.
I’m not sure . . . , Pink began. But it was too late. With an almighty tug and a deafening crack, the drawer broke free from whatever had been holding it back, sending Jing tumbling to the floor.
“Are you okay?” Suraya asked, hurrying to her side. Jing sat up and winced, rubbing her cast.
“I’m fine lah,” she said. “Now what’s inside?”
The clutter that dominated all the other parts of Mama’s room had been kept far away from this tiny drawer, and it was curiously empty in comparison. There was a plain, pale blue envelope nestled at the bottom. Wicked-looking shards and splinters of wood shedding from the lock they’d apparently broken. And one other thing—a marble, large and perfectly round and shot through with swirls of blue and green and hints of gold.
Suraya picked it up. It was strangely warm in her hands, as if it had nestled in someone else’s palm recently and absorbed the heat of their skin.
“Aiya, did I spoil it?” Jing’s voice, high with panic, broke the spell. “You think your mom will notice? Dam—”
“Don’t swear,” Suraya admonished her automatically, still staring at the marble in her hands. There seemed to be something almost familiar about it.
What is in the envelope? Pink asked. His eyes too were on the orb in Suraya’s hands, but if he knew what it was, he revealed nothing.
“What’s in the envelope, Jing?” Suraya asked and Jing reached in.
“There’s just a bunch of papers here . . . birth certificates for you and your mom, Sooz, and . . . some dude. Your dad?” She flashed Suraya an apologetic smile before she went on. “There’s something else too. His . . . his death certificate.”
“Oh.” Suraya turned the marble over and over in her hands, concentrating hard on its smoothness and trying not to think about the piece of paper that made her father’s death Official with a capital O.
“Sooz,” Jing said quietly.
“What?”
“There’s this bundle of letters
in here.”
Suraya looked up, suddenly alert. “From my grandmother?”
Jing frowned as she scanned some of the papers, each covered in the same slanting blue handwriting.
Not from your grandmother, Pink said suddenly. To your grandmother. They were from your mother. I remember seeing them at the witch’s home . . . our home . . . tucked away in a drawer.
At the same time, Jing spoke. “These look like they’re from your mom.”
“They must have sent them back to her when . . . when my grandmother died.”
Jing nodded. “There’s an address here, we can . . .”
It was then that they all heard it: the unmistakable click of the front door handle.
Mama was home.
Quickly, Pink hissed, bounding from Suraya’s shoulder to the door to keep watch. Move. We must not be seen in here.
Suraya’s heart pounded so hard in her chest that it actually hurt, and with every beat she heard the same refrain: THIS. PLACE. IS. NOT. FOR. YOU.
Jing fished her phone out of her pocket and quickly snapped a photo of the paper in her hands—it seemed to Suraya that a camera had never sounded so loud before, and she was sure her mother would hear them—and shoved the whole bundle back in the bulging envelope. “Let’s go, Sooz, before she catches us,” she said breathlessly.
“Right, I’m coming,” Suraya said. But as they crept quietly out of the door, she turned back and in one smooth motion slid the drawer open, grabbed the marble, and quickly tucked it into the deep pocket of her top. Then she closed the drawer as quietly as she could and left the room, pulling Mama’s door shut behind her.
She didn’t know why she couldn’t leave that marble behind. But she knew that she couldn’t.
“Suraya?” She whirled around to see Mama staring at her, her brow creased in irritated furrows. “What are you doing?”
How long had Mama been standing there? How much had she seen? Was this question a trap? Suraya’s palms were damp with sweat, and she could feel her heart begin to race.
“READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!” Jing’s voice boomed through the walls as she came barreling down the hallway, stopping short when she saw Suraya and Mama. “Hey, you’re not hiding!” Then she stuck her good hand out and smiled her most winning, gap-toothed smile. “Hello aunty, I’m Jing Wei, Suraya’s friend from school, just came to visit because I heard she wasn’t well, don’t worry, I have my mom’s permission, how are you? We were just playing hide-and-seek, you want to play too? Suraya isn’t very good and she keeps losing, but I keep telling her she just has to try a bit harder, she isn’t really using her imagination lah when it comes to hiding, you know?”
Mama no longer looked irritated, just slightly shell-shocked at this barrage of words. “I’m . . . fine,” she said finally. “And it is nice to meet you, of course. But shouldn’t you be heading home? It will get dark soon, and your mother may worry. There is a bus back to town in about fifteen minutes; if you hurry, you can make it.”
“Oh sure, sure,” Jing said. “I’ll just get my stuff.”
Mama nodded stiffly. “Good. And in the meantime, I will start making our dinner.” She turned and swept back down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Phew!” Jing said, making an exaggerated show of wiping sweat off her brow. “That was a close one!”
The marble seemed to grow heavier in Suraya’s pocket, and she shifted uncomfortably as they walked back to her room. “That was a close one,” she echoed.
“Okay, so we have the address on the letters, which should be the last place your grandmother lived—” Jing squinted at her phone. “Some village near Gua Musang. Sound familiar to you?” She poked her finger at Pink, who jumped out of the way.
Not at all. And get your fingers away from me. Do you never clean beneath your nails?
“He says no.” Suraya decided to leave out that last bit.
“Well, it’s where we’re going.” Jing shrugged and turned back to her screen, jabbing away at it intently. “I can get us bus tickets there. Not too expensive. I still have my mom’s credit card number from that time she couldn’t figure out how to buy shoes online and I had to do it for her before she broke her phone. . . .”
“Won’t your mom find out?”
Jing shrugged. “I mean, she’ll find everything out eventually. Might as well make sure she has plenty to get angry about.”
Suraya took a deep breath and nodded. “Do it. We’ll leave tomorrow morning. Dress for school as usual and make a run for it as soon as we’re dropped off at the gate.”
Jing nodded and turned her attention back to her phone.
Suraya turned to Pink, still staring out of the window. “Do you think this is going to work?” It was only now dawning on her, how she was about to lose Pink forever, how harsh a word forever really was. “I need you to say it,” she whispered. “I need you to tell me we’re doing the right thing. That we have to try.”
What choice do we have? His voice was resigned, and a little sad.
Jing came to stand beside her, reaching down to clasp Suraya’s hand in hers. “Do or do not,” she murmured. “There is no try.”
Twenty-Six
Girl
IN THE END, the hardest part was convincing Mama to let her go to school.
It was dinnertime when she decided to broach the subject, and even then, she ran over five possible conversation starters before she decided on the best one.
“Mama,” she began as her mother spooned fried rice into her mouth and grimaced.
“Too salty,” Mama said shortly, taking a sip of water.
“Sorry,” she said. “So, Mama, I was thinking . . . I’d like to go back to school tomorrow.”
Mama turned sharp eyes on her, peering closely as if trying to see what was going on inside Suraya’s brain. “Is that really wise? Are you . . . well?” Mama never referred to Pink if she could help it; she only talked in roundabout ways about Suraya’s “episodes,” as if she were a TV series with neatly portioned out doses of drama, easy enough to endure as long as her issues only lasted sixty minutes or less.
“I’m feeling much better,” Suraya said, trying to infuse her voice with as much enthusiasm as she could. “I mean, I’ve been home for a few days now, and you know, I haven’t been hearing or seeing anything . . . different. . . . I think the rest really helped. And I miss my friends.”
“Hmm.” Mama took another mouthful of rice, her face unreadable. Suraya could smell the familiar scent of Tiger Balm wafting gently from where Mama had massaged it into her neck and shoulders to take away the accumulated aches of the day; the potency of it made her sneeze.
“Please, Mama.” She shuffled the rice around her plate, making patterns out of carrot cubes and chicken slivers. “I think it would be good for me. Honestly.”
It seemed to take years, but finally her mother let out a heavy sigh. “All right. But the minute anything strange starts to happen, anything at all, you’re coming straight home and I’m calling the pawang there and then, full moon or no full moon. Got it?”
Suraya felt her heart constrict at the mention of the pawang. “Got it,” she said, and they ate the rest of their meal in familiar, uncomfortable silence.
Jing’s face when they met in front of the school the next morning was alive with exactly the kind of barely suppressed excitement you might expect from someone about to do something she isn’t supposed to do. “Oh my gooooood, I can’t believe we’re doing this!” Her squeal was so loud several girls turned to look at them.
“Shut up, Jing,” Suraya hissed, trying her best to look nonchalant. “Everyone’s going to know we’re ditching.”
In her shirt pocket, Pink sighed and rolled his eyes. You will be caught before you even make it five steps away from the school gate at this rate.
“You shut up,” Jing whispered to Suraya, her face indignant. “I can be stealthy, okay? Like a spy, or like . . . like . . . Leia disguised as a bounty hunter to save Han.”
She
is speaking in tongues again.
“If we’re going to make it through today, you guys really have to try and get along,” Suraya told him sternly.
“Get along?” Jing shot Pink a suspicious look. “Did he say something about me? What was it? Was it rude? I bet it was rude.”
Suraya ignored her and glanced at the gate, where dozens of girls in varying states of sleepiness were milling through to the hall, waiting for the school bell to ring. “Come on, let’s go.”
They began walking briskly in the other direction, heading for the shops across the street. “Walk with purpose,” Suraya said to Jing under her breath. “If anyone asks, we’re just going to go buy some buns because you forgot your lunch.”
“Okay, okay, ya, I know,” Jing whispered back. Together they walked, step by step by step, and the farther away they got from the school, the more Suraya felt her stomach tighten, expecting to be caught at any moment.
Instead of heading for the sundry shop, where brightly colored bouncy bells in net bags hung suspended from hooks over the entryway and all sorts of sweets clothed in lurid packaging were displayed in a way calculated to tempt even the most levelheaded child into parting with her pocket money, they slipped into the little-used alleyway behind the shophouses and pressed their bodies close against the wall, just as the school bell rang in the distance.
It was the custom for prefects to be stationed at the gate during assembly, keeping a sharp lookout for fugitives and stragglers. Pink hopped onto the worn handlebars of a nearby motorcycle and kept up a steady stream of updates. There is a tall one with metal on her teeth; long, straight hair; and a way of looking at everyone else as if they were worms, he supplied.
“Farah,” Jing whispered. “She’s a form 4 prefect, remember? She modeled one time for an Insta shop that sells fake handbags imported from China or wherever, and ever since she’s called herself a model. Carries around a Chanel wallet that she says is real.” Jing snorted. “Someone should tell her Chanel isn’t spelled with two l’s.”
“Shhh,” Suraya hissed, looking around nervously. Jing had a tendency to raise her voice when she got excited. “Who’s the other one, Pink?”