When a Flower Dies

by Josephine Chia

  “Pansy, my darling, no part of you can be ugly.”

  “Shh, don’t call me that…” Pansy said, but was delighted nonetheless.

  It suddenly occurred to Pansy that Hock Chye would have frowned on her manner of talking to George, looking him directly in the eyes, and not averting hers. The thought amused her and she laughed.

  “I like the way you laugh,” George said. “But what’s the joke?”

  “My father was stricter than my mother,” she said. “If he had been alive and saw me chatting with you like this so boldly, he would have skinned me alive!”

  “He wouldn’t! He just wanted to keep you feminine and chaste. Which you are. I would have followed his rules of propriety to a certain extent. I would be strict if I had a daughter.”

  “Come on,” Pansy said. “At the rate you are going, you wouldn’t pick enough shellfish for a meal!”

  This was a totally new experience for George, gathering food fresh from the wild. It must be like this in the kampongs which were surrounded by forests and fields, where people could go to pick ubi kayu or its shoots, puchok ubi kayu, kangkong, wild garlic and edible berries like the golden buah susu whose juice was white like milk, hence its Malay name, which means milk fruit. There was such magic to be able to do this, as if nature was bountiful and selfless in its giving, and people need not starve if they knew how to cultivate the land and be in harmony with it. George was really excited, being out in the open and doing simple tasks. He was deliriously joyful.

  They were so engrossed in each other and in their harvesting that they did not realise that they strayed right down the beach where the pillboxes were opposite Kampong Bedok. George was tempted to pull Pansy into the enclosed privacy of the pillbox, away from prying eyes to kiss her luscious lips. He imagined what it would be like to taste her lips.

  “We better get back,” Pansy said, breaking into his thoughts.

  George could see the kelong clearly now.

  “I wonder what it must be like to live on that kelong and work as a fisherman all day. It looks like such a tranquil life,” George said.

  “Don’t be fooled by looks,” Pansy said. “Fishing as an occupation is hard work.”

  “What was your father like, Pansy? Tell me about his work.”

  A tinge of sadness painted her face as she talked about Hock Chye, who died when he was only thirty-three. Kim Guek and Pansy had sat at home that terrible evening, huddled together, like the many other families in the seaside villages, worried for Hock Chye and the other fishermen out at sea as the monsoon raged, the heavy rains beating down their attap houses, the fierce winds banging their loose window shutters, lifting some sheaves of roof and whooshing under the house, bringing down some trees and old fences, picking up buckets, kerosene tins and brooms, tossing them into the air like playthings. Crowns of trees were swept aside like hair caught by a strong wind. The villagers worried that the storm might break the spindly legs of their attap houses on stilts.

  “Don’t let him die! Don’t let him die!” Kim Guek had moaned. “I didn’t say goodbye properly. Oh please don’t let him die…”

  The thing that plagued Kim Guek the most was that she usually made it a point to see Hock Chye off as he set out each evening, but on that day she hadn’t. It was a cruel twist of fate that would haunt her for the rest of her remaining days. In her mind she would play and replay that moment, rewrite the scene so that she was there to send him off properly on his last journey. She would normally stand by his sampan, helping him to get his gear together. Then she would kiss her fingers and give him a flying kiss to wave him goodbye. She would stand there on the shore till he waved back and was enveloped by the increasing darkness.

  On that day, just as Hock Chye was about to leave, someone had shouted urgently, “Nyonya, Nyonya Kim! Nyonya, Nyonya Kim! Tolong! Tolong! Help! Help!”

  “Don’t worry! You go and attend to it,” Hock Chye said.

  “Be safe!” Kim Guek said in a rush. “Come home to me.”

  Kim Guek and Pansy scrambled to the front of the house. Che Tokoh was carrying a small boy, whose foot was bleeding profusely. The boy had climbed the banyan tree with his friends, playing at being Tarzan. He had held onto a thick vine and swung himself back and forth. But the vine was old and dry and it had snapped, throwing the boy down, and his foot landed on a rusty, broken piece of enamel plate.

  “Pansy, quick. Get the aloe vera. Warm it over the coals till the sap is loosened, so that I can apply it to the wound. Meanwhile I will clean up the wound…”

  Kampong folk had no recourse to a doctor due to the distance into town and lack of funds. A mobile clinic did make the rounds of villages, but day-to-day medical emergencies were tended to by herbalists like Kim Guek, or bomohs, traditional medicine men. By the time the boy’s wound was bandaged and a potion made for him to drink to combat his shock, Hock Chye was gone from sight. He had to get to his fishing grounds before nightfall. Kim Guek had stood at the water’s edge trying to catch sight of Hock Chye in the inky blackness, but she could not even make out his silhouette. In the dark distance were small lights bobbing up and down, the kerosene lamps that the fishermen carried in their boats to light their way. That was all. Kim Guek never saw Hock Chye again.

  The Sumatran squall had come up unexpectedly and taken the fishermen by surprise. Several of the fishermen had limped home in exhaustion, back to safety, but Hock Chye and Ismail never came back. Their wrecked sampans washed up on the shore days later as floating debris, half of Kim Guek’s name, painted in red on one plank. Kim. Golden. But her life lost all lustre after that. Not having Hock Chye’s body back or to be able to bury him made it impossible for Kim Guek to have closure. She keened wordlessly, hugging herself. If not for the fact that she had a thirteen-year-old child to bring up, Kim Guek would have given up too. Khatijah had five to bring up on her own.

  That was four years ago.

  Pansy had seen her mother sitting on the back verandah, day after day, night after night, her eyes scanning the horizon, hoping hopelessly, watching and waiting for Hock Chye’s imminent return. As the days stretched into months, the likelihood became less and less possible, and hope floundered like a fish flapping out of water.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” George said. “That was really awful.”

  “He was so special,” Pansy said softly.

  “I can imagine,” George replied. “Now I’m here to look after you and your mother. I hope you will let me?”

  Pansy gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

  It seemed like a small miracle to eat what one had harvested only minutes before. That day was the first of many days when George began to value every meal that was fresh from the sea, the fields or the vegetable patch. Every hour the natural produce is distant from its source, its vitality is already seeping from it. After too many hours or days, what remains is the physical carcass of what had once been energised and alive.

  “You know,” George said to Pansy. “Eating something natural and fresh awakens new sensations. You can taste its freshness and crunchiness and become absorbed by the experience. It’s like what we experience when we read a good poem that stirs our senses. Eating in awareness is the poetry of eating.”

  “The poetry of eating,” Pansy repeated, smiling. “That’s what I like about you. You use language in a creative way.”

  “Everything done without awareness becomes a mechanical act,” Kim Guek said. “People who do so are mere machines and go through life like the living-dead. The Buddha equates awareness with being alive. To be aware is to be present. People can do things with their bodies but when their mind is not engaged with what they are doing, they are not present.”

  “Wow!” George said. “Bibik! You are a philosopher!”

  “Well, as a philosopher, I say it’s time to prepare our lunch!”

  Kim Guek prepared a meal of asam pedas, a hot and sour tamarind based soup, and when it boiled, the aroma filled the small hut. Then she put
in three slices of freshly caught tenggiri, swordfish that she bought from Pak Wan’s boat. Then she blanched the shellfish that George and Pansy had picked. Meanwhile, Pansy roasted a sliver of belachan cake over the hot coals, making the shrimp paste release an aroma that titillated the palate, and made the tongue salivate. After it became crusty on the outside, she pounded it in the granite batu lesong with fresh red chillies and limau perut, to make sambal belachan, a spicy chilli-prawn paste which Malays and Peranakans alike loved to have as an accompaniment with their rice meals. For added oomph and zest, Pansy added a few chilli padi to the regular chillies. She finished it off with a drizzle of lime juice, pressed from the limau kasturi.

  “Take out the gong-gong flesh with this hook, then dip it into the sambal belachan,” Pansy said, demonstrating the technique, after the conch-shaped gong-gong was ready.

  Pansy and her mother ate with the fingers of their right hands.

  “Your left hand is used for ablutions,” Kim Guek explained. “Never touch food with the hand that is used for other ministrations. If you’re left-handed, then you use the opposite hand. You have to treat food with respect because it sustains your life.”

  “We believe that food tastes much better when it’s in direct contact with our hands,” said Pansy. “Our chi flows from our fingers into the food and vice-versa to make it a meaningful experience.”

  George, who was brought up to use forks, spoons and chopsticks bravely decided to eat kampong style. But he was all thumbs, not having done this before. Rice grains rained into his lap as they sat on the floor, the assam pedas gravy formed rivulets down his arm. The two women tried not to laugh.

  “It’s not as easy as it looks,” he said as if surprised. “There must be some kind of technique to do it as gracefully as you are doing it.”

  “Indians like to roll the rice into their palms,” Kim Guek informed him. “But Malays and Peranakans only use the finger-tips to eat. The palms should remain unsoiled.”

  A finger-bowl of water with an orchid floating on its surface had been provided for George. He washed his hand again to retry without getting his palm soiled. He improved a little.

  George followed Pansy’s instructions to retrieve the gong-gong flesh which slipped out from its corkscrew shell easily. He swathed it in sambal belachan and put it in his mouth to chew. It caused him to gasp in shock. The sting was intense! He coughed in huge spurts. Pansy had to rush for more water in case he keeled over. She could no longer contain herself, and she laughed with such abundance that George found it impossible to take offence, though he was sure he was going to choke to death. Kim Guek smiled.

  “It’s the chilli padi. They are tiny but powerful…”

  “Wow, that’s serious! I definitely get the experience. It is more than poetic!” George said in a rasping voice. “I’ll get better. I promise. I just need more training.”

  “So that’s why when we say that someone is macham chilli padi, we mean they might be small but they are powerful!” Pansy said between bouts of laughter.

  “Have a handful of rice with the Teochew salted fish,” Kim Guek said. “It is not spicy. The boiled rice will ease the burn and soothe your palate. For some reason, water usually makes it worse.”

  “Now you tell me…” he said, making his tone jocular, though his eyes were watering. It was his baptism of spices to Peranakan cuisine.

  Chapter 6

  Kim Guek invited George back for the kampong’s annual boat race. This was a fun event for all the inhabitants of the coastal kampongs on the mainland as well as those from the outlying islands. Although it was not a well-known fact, Singapore had more than seventy small islands, dotted around in its waters. Some were merely coral reefs; others were rocky atolls and some were dense with jungle. Many of the orang selat and orang laut clans lived on the various islands which had graphic names like Pulau Hantu, Pulau Belakang Mati, Pulau Ubin, Pulau Tekong, Pulau Chawan, Pulau Seking, Pulau Tembaku, Pulau Kodok, and many more, their Malay names having been derived or arisen from a feature, shape, content or history of the said island. Ghosts, dead bodies, tobacco, skippers and frog-shaped granite were the origins of some. People on the islands lived a simple, rustic life in peaceful contentment, not hankering for the bright lights and consumerism of the city.

  The race was in a perahu kolek, a small, wooden, native sailing craft used on rivers and the shallower seas, as it had no keel, it could not navigate in more violent seas. The perahu or boat was narrow, normally about six to ten feet long, sometimes navigated with oars and sometimes with a rectangular sail, for transporting passengers or light goods to and from the mainland. For the race, oars were traditionally used.

  Pak Abdul, descended from the orang laut, was in his element, delighted to see so many sailing boats taking part. He was getting too old to race anymore, and was made judge of the competition. He was well into his eighties, but the chiselled features of his seafaring ancestors were still evident in his jaw and face. Though there was no real use for a headman or penghulu these days, he still commanded respect.

  “Macham tempo nenek moyang. Like in the times of my ancestors,” he beamed.

  It was a day bright with sunshine, the sky as blue as could be in these parts but obscured by white fluffy clouds. The boats were lined up on the shore. Able-bodied young men in their sarongs, their smooth chests bare, burnt deep brown by the sun, stood by their boats, waiting for the start signal with eager anticipation. All the villagers, including Kim Guek, George and Pansy stood watching.

  “This is absolutely marvellous,” George said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. What fantastic community spirit! And to think I live only on the other side of the river!”

  On the shore, the villagers had set up their market stalls and were selling homemade snacks and meals, like curry puffs, nasi goreng, mee goreng etc. It was a festive day, villagers from elsewhere visiting, bringing their own homemade crafts and delicacies to sell.

  Pak Abdul blew into a large conch shell to start the race.

  The sailors pushed the perahu out onto the water. Because the boats were keel-less and bobbed on the surface of the water, it required great skill to get into them, especially since the waves did not allow them to stay still for very long. The trick was to put one hand on the starboard side and another hand on the port side to steady the boat, before leaping into it. But just as each man was attempting to do so, the wind picked up and a big wave washed inland. Several men were separated from their boats, which meant they had to scramble and swim towards their craft whilst others made a head start. The onlookers laughed, shouting encouragement.

  Supporters cheered and children ran along the shore in joyous abandon. The muscles of the sailors bulged as they worked the oars furiously. Young maidens on the shore cast their eyes on those they fancied. The boats raced towards the buoys out at sea, towards Pulau Tekong, tacked, turned around and headed back. Pak Abdul’s men were engaged to check who made the return journey first. Everyone cheered and some whistled as Salleh from Pulau Seking was declared the winner. Pak Abdul gave away the prizes: the first prize was a goat, the second prize, a hen, and the third prize was fish cooked by Cik Bongkok from Kampong Tepi Laut, renowned for her charcoal-blackened smoked fish. The presentation was followed by feasting, a kenduri, a communal way of eating where four people shared one giant platter in order that they may communicate and talk rather than eat in solitary isolation. The aroma of satay roasting on the beach made everyone salivate. Pak Abdul discreetly averted his eyes as a group of men uncorked their home-distilled bottles of toddy, palm wine. They worked hard so they deserved to make merry though their religion forbade alcohol.

  When the day had quietened down, the evening soiree on the beach began.

  Just like the sunrise, the tropical sunset was swift, no twilight to prolong the day. Shadows fell rapidly, like a blanket thrown over the eye-of-the-day, matahari, the Malay word for the sun. In the soft evening, the village was transformed into a fairyland of candle
s, carbide and kerosene lamps. Pak Abdul ordered a small charcoal and log campfire to be built, so that it would bring in more light, and provide warmth for those who found the evening sea breeze chilly. Villagers from the islands mingled with villagers from the mainland, many locals providing the visitors with floor space for beds or cloth-tents for the night so that they did not have to traverse the dark sea in their sampans to go home.

  People sat on straw mats or empty fruit crates placed on the sand, encircling the fire. Some of the children were given the task of gathering driftwood to feed the fire. Inevitably, the children competed to see who could gather the most.

  “Hey, look who’s here!” some villagers said as a man berthed his small sampan, then stepped out of it lithely. “Welcome! Good to see you here!”

  “It’s Abang Hamsur,” Pansy whispered to George. “He lives on the kelong.”

  The kelong was an offshore fishing trap on stilts out at sea, which had a small hut that served as living quarters. The long line of upright poles on either side of the hut, interspersed with a kerosene lamp, was designed to draw the fish into the nets. Hamsur was a muscular and deeply tanned man.

  “He’s not old enough to be a hermit. Maybe in his thirties?” George said.

  “The rumour is that he was jilted in love, so he spends most of his time alone on that kelong. He takes his load of catch up the Singapore River to sell to wholesalers, buys his provisions, then returns. He hasn’t much of a social life, except on a day and evening like today,” Pansy explained.

  When Hamsur smiled, it was dazzling. He helped the children to turn buckets, pails and empty kerosene tins upside down to use for percussion, and showed them how to slap bare hands in rhythm on their bases. When Pak Abdul began his story about how his ancestors had come to this part of the island, the drummers switched to using their fingers, to tap lightly on the makeshift drums. The rhythmic music, the sound of the waves, and Pak Abdul’s lone but strong voice created an atmosphere of enchantment.