When a Flower Dies

by Josephine Chia

  It was Pansy’s task to prepare the bunga rampay, a fresh floral potpourri which Malays and Peranakans use to scent their houses. The other village women laid their tables with their craft wares—woven straw mats, boxes, fans, and fabric pyramids of Five Stones, filled with the blood-red saga seeds. Some displayed fresh papayas, mangoes, mangosteens, pineapples, buah duku, mata kuching, nangka and jambu ayer, using their daching to weigh out a tahil’s worth and sort out the fruits in manageable piles. The rustic marketplace was ready for the townies.

  It was a fine day, not too hot and yet not raining, the kind of day that was sure to bring many customers from town to their seaside market. Well-dressed men and women descended from smart motorcars to brave the village path towards the kampong. Townie children scuttled about with excitement though some with trepidation, looking at things strange to them—live poultry clucking and scattering when given chase, frogs burping and flicking their tongues out to catch flies, fruit trees like they had never seen in town. They played hide-and-seek amongst the tall corn fields.

  “Oh, Pochok! Oh, Mak China masuk longkang,” the grand Peranakan lady melata.

  The Peranakan word meant that she sent forth a string of meaningless utterances as she navigated the potholes and pats of cow dung. Some of these ladies, who had a propensity to melata at the slightest provocation, became sources of entertainment and amusement. Their children or grandchildren would steal a prod or tickle to start them off, instigating them to spew forth a rush of graphic words, sometimes funny, at other times expletives which could make the air turn blue.

  “Habis lah, gua punya kasut! My shoes are done for! I hope Baba will appreciate the lengths I go to, to produce delicious meals for him!”

  “Bibik, Baba always said your meals are the best in Singapore because of your fresh ingredients what,” the amah said. “Think about Nyonya Kim Guek’s nasi ulam and bunga rampay…”

  “Oh, yes. Baba truly loves the nasi ulam. I think it’s because the daun kesum and bunga kantan she puts in it are so fresh; they flavour the rice beautifully. There’s always a magic when the herbs and vegetables are from one’s own garden, direct from plant to wok. And I’m sure she has some secret ingredients that I don’t know about, which makes the ulam so appetising and fragrant. I myself have a yen for the kajang botol. Hmm! It would be so crunchy and delicious dipped in sambal belachan. I’m already salivating. Hurry! We must get there before others do. Nyonya Kim Guek always runs out so quickly. Especially on this occasion. All the best Peranakan families are holding parties for the coronation. You know, we are such anglophiles. We Peranakans are not called the ‘King’s Chinese’ for nothing, you know…”

  Plodding behind this Peranakan lady was another matriarch, also known for her sumptuous parties. They were from the kind of families who were featured in society magazines, their children educated in English boarding schools. Even on a trip to the market, they would wear their gold pendant earrings, bracelets and gold kerosang, never ever letting their guard down. Two amahs were scuttling along beside her with large baskets.

  “Chepat! Chepat! Faster! Faster!” she ordered. “Look at Nyonya Betty there! Always trying to outdo me. We must get to Nyonya Kim Guek before Nyonya Betty buys up all the bunga rampay and nasi ulam.”

  Kim Guek’s garden and the vegetable patch in front of their house exuded a gentle fragrance that emanated from flowers, and from herbs like serai or lemon grass, torch ginger, pandan, daun kesum and many others. Pansy went round, picking ingredients for the bunga rampay. She was greeted by several colourful butterflies—Lime Butterfly, Commas and Common Yellow, flitting hither and thither, attracted by the limau perut plants and other flowers. She was awed by the tendril of connection among all life forms, how the butterflies and bees pollinated the flowers, how every living being was in some way connected to the others. Perhaps it was this that Wordsworth had recognised and communicated through his poetry, allowing descriptions of simple things to acquire such depth. She tried not to disturb the butterflies, but she was in a hurry, and mumbled Wordsworth’s words to beseech them:

  Stay near me—do not take thy flight!

  A little longer stay in sight!

  She selected the various flowers for her potpourri, endeavouring to balance the colour and variety: white bunga melor, pink roses, creamy chempaka, red ixoras, golden marigolds. With the larger flowers, she carefully plucked out the petals rather than put them in whole. Any petal that was bruised or damaged was discarded. The whole ensemble had to look fresh and vibrant.

  She washed the long sheaves of pandan leaves, which formed the main bulk of the potpourri. When wiped dry, she placed them on a wooden cutting board and deftly sliced them as thinly as she could with a sharp knife, so that they became delicate curlicues of green. The fragrance of the pandan wafted into the air as she worked, filling their hut with a delicious aroma, which was exactly why people liked to buy the bunga rampay for their homes.

  Kim Guek always had a bowl of it on the ancestral altar where Hock Chye’s sinchi or spirit-tablet sat, together with the dishes of cooked food. Buddhists like them believed that the spirits of the dead imbibed the flavour of foods, and the scent of flowers and incense helped them proceed to the next level of their spiritual journey. The Peranakans called this practice simpan abu or saving the ashes, literally, the ashes from the burnt incense or joss-sticks, but metaphorically, the ashes of the deceased. Even though Pansy was educated at the convent and had to become a Christian in name to attend school, at home she reverted to her traditional religion. She was one of those that people nicknamed ‘Rice Bowl Christians’, converting to Christianity not from any religious epiphany but because they needed food, clothing or an education.

  She tossed the flowers into the verdant green of the pandan, mixing them lightly so as not to damage the flowers, and sprinkled a dash of rose water to combine them into a heady fragrance.

  “Chantek! Chantek! Beautiful! Beautiful!” her mother said approvingly as Pansy selected a pretty Peranakan pottery dish, with a design of phoenix and peonies, and filled it with the bunga rampay.

  “Chuba, chuba. Try, try. Taste the nasi ulam,” Kim Guek invited, spooning a mouthful to Pansy. “Boleh tak? Can or not?”

  “Hmm, banyak sedap, Mak! Very de-li-cious, Mother!” Pansy said, which made Kim Guek smile broadly, her cheeks crinkling.

  Kim Guek placed a clean banana leaf in a woven Peranakan basket with a matching lid, and ladled the rice-mix into it. She had often instructed Pansy about proper presentation to make a dish look inviting. The appropriate plate or bowl would add to its appeal.

  Pansy, in turn, cut squares of banana leaf for use as vessels to hold the potpourri for when a buyer made a purchase. The pliant banana leaf would be filled with the bunga rampay, then folded over and stitched with a short length of lidi, which came from the spine of the coconut leaf, to seal in the aroma and the potpourri till it was taken home and ready for use.

  Pansy also threaded the small bunga melor and chempaka for the ladies who liked to wear flowers in their hair on special occasions. Strung up, the highly scented flowers could be weaved around the sanggul or chignon so that when the lady passed you, its gentle perfume would make you smile, and glance again at the wearer. Pansy’s Tamil neighbour too threaded flowers, particularly the bright orange marigolds into garlands which were normally used to drape the necks of Indian deities.

  Suddenly their quiet village was assailed with the sounds of rapid chattering and bargaining, people talking in several languages all at once—Malay, Tamil, Hokkien and Teochew—sometimes even a combination in one sentence. Several of the town people spoke English to each other. It was very rare for the orang puteh, the whites, to visit their village. They did go to Tekka wet market in town for fresh foods, but for them to venture out of their comfort zone to visit rural markets and villages would require a special breed, like Francis Thomas, the school principal of St Andrew, who was famed for his social work and who visited Kampong Potong Pasir regula
rly, especially helping the people during the floods.

  “Chapteh lessons, three cents! Chapteh lessons, three cents!” Hassim hailed in Malay, flourishing his homemade chapteh, chicken and duck feathers glued on a round base of rubber tyre cut-offs. At other times, he would offer goli lessons, hantam bola or kite-making. He was one of the children who had English tuition from Pansy, so he also did his sales pitch in fractured English.

  “Here got teach chapteh lessons,” he said. “Only three cents. I teach you how to kick chapteh in air and stay there by more kicking kicking with instep of foot. Come try. Come try. Also buy homemade chapteh. Feathers fresh from duck and chicken!”

  The town parents happily released their children to play games, as they went about with their shopping. Hassim, brown eyes gleaming, collected the money before giving instructions and a demonstration. The townie children looked a picture as they tried to turn the instep of their right naked foot skywards to kick the chapteh, their awkwardness earning giggles from the village children. Feet that were continually encased in shoes did not have the flexibility of feet accustomed to being bare. Plus the fact that townie children tended to sit on chairs so their hips were less flexible, making it hard for them to bend their knees or flex their feet. But the parents were pleased that their children had something to occupy them, as they searched out the various stalls, looking, ferreting and buying, limited only by the thought that they had to carry the purchases all the way down the country lanes to their smart cars. There was so much to choose from. No matter how rich people became, they still loved a good bargain, trying to beat down the hawker’s price.

  “Apa? Satu ringgit? What? One dollar?” the voice would rise. “How can?”

  “Wah! Mahal sekali! Very expensive. Murah sedikit, lah! Cheaper, cheaper.”

  One Peranakan lady sauntered over to Kim Guek’s neighbour’s palette of fish, her amah following behind with the basket. Like many connoisseur nyonyas she did not just pick any fish; she picked it up to smell, prod and pinch, to test the fish’s firmness, lift its gills to see how red it was to ascertain its freshness, scrutinised the eyes to see how dull they were, to check how long since the fish had given up its spirit. She, like the other nyonyas, was known for her delectable dishes, so she applied the same stringent examination to everything she bought. But she was prepared to pay well.

  “Oh, I got this salted fish from Kampong Tepi Laut,” a nyonya might say to impress her dinner guests in their posh mansions, not just because of the reputation of the product but also because of the difficulty of getting to the hidden village. It definitely reaped more admiration than saying she got the fish from Tekka, the wet market at Serangoon Road. “And as a special treat, I have for you today, Nyonya Kim Guek’s nasi ulam…”

  “Wah!” her guests were known to respond admiringly.

  People came in droves that day, despite the challenging village road. They were aware that by November, when the monsoon winds swept in, there would be reduced opportunity to get their choice of fish. One slightly overweight nyonya whispered to Kim Guek, who had a table next to Pansy, “Nyonya Kim Guek, what can you make for me to give to my husband? He’s been out too often and too late. I need to draw him back into my bedchamber…”

  Pansy smiled, averted her eyes and concentrated on selling her bunga rampay. Its fragrance, despite the strong smell of fresh fish, drew the customers.

  “Bunga rampay, tiga puloh sen! Bunga rampay, thirty cents!” Pansy called out.

  She smiled with such positive vibes that people flocked to her stall to purchase it. Like her mother, she always had a nice word or two to say to her customers. People left her stall putting their noses to their bunga rampay and breathing in its fragrance. They were all smiling as if Pansy’s smile had rubbed off on them.

  “Here’s ten dollars,” said a young, rotund boy who came up towards her table, chucking the notes onto the table towards Pansy, in the cocky manner of the privileged.

  He wore a store-bought shirt and shorts, and real leather shoes with socks, probably purchased from the English department store, Robinsons, at Raffles Place in the city. Next to him, the village children looked like street urchins with their bare bodies and bare feet, clad in homemade drawstring shorts. Their parents, like Pansy’s, could shop only at Robinson Petang.

  “My mama said thirty packets of your best. We have a very big house on Emerald Hill. Mama is going to give one of her big parties and she wants the house to smell really nice.”

  Pansy could not afford to react to the boy’s ill manners. Ten dollars was an incredible sum. Their house rent per month was five dollars. Haji Kahar, who was from Palembang and had bought thirty acres of a nutmeg plantation in Haji Salam Road across the river, was a benevolent landlord, and had charged his tenants only fifty cents a month, until his death in 1940! So ten dollars was not to be sniffed at.

  “You’ll have to wait a bit, as I don’t have enough and will have to make some more,” she said, with a strained note of politeness.

  “Don’t take too long,” he said. “I haven’t got all day.”

  Pansy had a mind to chuck his money back into his face but restrained herself. She grumbled under her breath as she went to pick more flowers to make up the order and diligently proceeded to cut more sheaves of pandan. The sun was rising higher into the sky as she toiled and she could feel beads of perspiration sliding down her back. The boy watched her with his beady eyes as she worked furiously, her hair falling across her face now and then, which she pushed away to tuck behind her ears. He folded his arms across his chest and heaved several audible sighs as if to show he was fed up with waiting. His mouth shaped into a pout and when he pressed his chin down, his neck crumpled into various folds.

  “Are you a Peranakan? Like us?” he asked as he picked his nose.

  Obviously wealth did not necessarily breed good manners or sophistication.

  Pansy didn’t trust herself to speak so she merely nodded.

  “So how come you have to sell things? Like a low-class hawker?” he sneered. “I thought all Peranakans were rich?”

  Chapter 4

  Pansy could have throttled the rich kid. It was not an incident she could have shared with Kim Guek without hurting her. Kim Guek might think that Pansy was complaining about being poor and living in the kampong. Of course Pansy had heard of the rich Peranakans, living in their luxurious mansions on Emerald Hill or Katong. Who hadn’t? Many of them consist of landowners, businessmen, literati and even members of the cabinet. Several of them became wealthy through sheer hard work, emigrating from China, hungry and penniless to build thriving businesses or became landowners to own gambier, rubber or fruit plantations. The ones who married Malay or Javanese women were the progenitors of the Peranakan race unlike the sinkek who remained staunch Chinese by not assimilating any local culture. Some became rich through association with the colonial masters, and others, rumours were whispered darkly, through working for the Japanese during the war. But even rich Peranakans have poor relations. And Pansy was one of those, though she had no relations to speak of, her parents not disclosing their history from Malacca where they had hailed from.

  In her fury, Pansy cycled fast, perspiration pouring from her brow. She had plaited her long hair, so that the wind could not take it. Short hair was not yet the fashion. The Malays and Indians, like many Peranakans, still insisted on their women on having long hair. It was considered a mark of femininity. Her sarong impeded her movement, though she was fortunate that her father had bought her a lady’s push-bike, without the cross bar. She must broach the subject of wearing modern slacks to Kim Guek. Certainly her father would not have approved, as he felt trousers directed attention to the female body’s intimate shape between the legs, especially for those who had pronounced mounds.

  “Tak seronoh sekali,” Hock Chye had said when he saw a woman wearing a pair.

  “Tak seronoh” was her parents’ frequent remark about something they were averse to. It could relate to any trait that
was graceless, unfeminine or coarse, applied whenever her parents were displeased with any sort of behaviour.

  “Aiyoh!” Kim Guek occasionally lamented in Malay and Teochew simultaneously to Pansy—a common trait of the Peranakans, to mix languages in one sentence. “Jangan dudok terkangkang! Mai chor kah kwee-kwee! Don’t sit with your legs open-open!”

  Her parents’ admonition would be accompanied by the rapid clicking of their tongues, sounding like an over-active chichak on the wall. To them, it would not do to have a bra strap showing, or petticoat peeping out, or to walk past an adult without bowing in humility, or to talk to a man while looking him in the face. Intimate items of clothing were not meant to be seen in public, private body parts were not meant to be displayed. That was one of the reasons the sarong kebaya was the preferred mode of attire for Malay and Peranakan women. The length of the kebaya blouse reached the hips, the sarong was underneath, so there was no danger of hinting at or exposing the female’s ‘secret garden’. To wear something low-cut would probably make her parents apoplectic.

  The nearest Pansy came to wearing any trouser-type outfits were her school’s PE dark blue bloomers, voluminous shorts reminiscent of their Victorian origins, which were elasticated and gathered at the knees, so that there would be no hint of a girl’s private parts—or accidental glimpse of inner thighs. But some of her convent classmates had boasted of wearing trousers out of school, proud of being avant garde. Most of her schoolmates came from well-to-do families who wanted their children to benefit from English educators. So they were prepared to pay the higher school fees compared to government schools. Pansy would not have had a convent education if it was not funded by the missionaries—thus, she was very grateful. So she never let on about her classmates calling her ulu, a Malay word which meant ‘wilderness’ or ‘out-in-the-sticks’, and referring to a gross and uncivilised country bumpkin when used for a person. Sister Catherine must have suspected, though. Perhaps that was why she went out of her way to be kind to Pansy. How she missed Sister Catherine! What would she think of women wearing trousers? Pansy could certainly see their practical use compared to sarongs and skirts for riding a bike.