by Tash Aw
With the injury I suffered in prison I can’t work. As you can see, I still have a slight limp, though it’s not so noticeable when I’m walking slowly. You only notice it when I have to move quickly, like when I’m running for the bus and just can’t shift my leg the way I want to. My brain says, Faster, faster, and for a few seconds I think I can do it, I really think I can get up and sprint for the bus – but my leg just drags. That’s when I notice that I’m limping badly, my body sloping from side to side. I also can’t pick up heavy loads as I could before. I used to be famous for that. The guys at the factory I worked at when I was a teenager would set me a challenge, see how many crates of fish I could lift at a time, and I’d always surprise them, even though I’m pretty short. It’s my stumpy legs that give me balance. People say it’s a Hokkien trait, that our ancestors needed short thighs and calves to plant rice or harvest tea and whatever else people did in southern China two hundred years ago, but who cares? All I know is that my legs always served me well, until I got to prison. [Pauses.] It’s because of a nerve in my back, something to do with my spine that I don’t really understand. The doctors showed me x-rays, but all I could see was the grey-white shapes of my bones. They couldn’t correct it without surgery in a private hospital in KL, but who can afford that these days? At the hospital I laughed and said, ‘I’m not a cripple, so let’s just live with it, OK?’ Someone from church suggested I could get a different kind of job, something that didn’t involve manual labour, but any kind of job that allows you to sit down in a comfortable office also requires you to have diplomas and certificates and God knows what else these days – and I don’t have any. I was never very successful at school.
One time, just a year after I got out of prison, some fellow churchgoers found me a job in their family business, a trading company that imported goods from China and distributed them throughout the country. I had a nice desk, there was air-con in the office, and I didn’t have to answer the phone or talk to anyone I didn’t know. All I had to do was add up numbers – such an easy job; nothing can be more certain and solid than numbers. I made sure invoices tallied, checked receipts, that sort of thing. Even though I’d never done that kind of work before, I knew about how to manage money. But at that time, I got a bit anxious whenever I encountered anyone new, in a situation that wasn’t familiar to me – I guess it must have been my time in prison that did that to me. Nothing serious, you understand, just some hesitations in replying whenever someone spoke to me, lapses between their questions and my answers that made them think I had mental problems. Five, ten seconds – who knows? I watched people’s expressions change from confusion, to concern, then irritation. Sometimes frustration, sometimes anger. Some people thought I was doing it on purpose. Once a guy in the office said, Lunseehai, such an arrogant bastard! He shouted it out loud right in front of me without expecting a reply, as if everyone thought the same of me, and that I was deaf and mute and couldn’t hear what he was saying. ‘Whatever the case,’ my boss said after a few months – she was very nice, she understood – ‘we think it’s better you stop work. Just go home and rest.’ Up to that point, I hadn’t understood how much I had changed in the previous three years, but losing that job made me appreciate that I had become a different person. Exactly how, I couldn’t tell you, but I was no longer the same. I had a couple of interviews for office jobs after that, but nothing worked out.
That’s why I say I’m lucky. I don’t work, yet I’m alive. My days are calm. I’d even say I was blessed.
[Long silence.]
Sometimes … [Hesitates; reaches for and picks up cup of tea but does not drink.] Sometimes, yes, of course I think of that night. How can I not? I think of the two men who were present, Keong and the Bangladeshi guy. I know what you’re expecting me to say: that I see their faces, and that I’m tortured by the sight of them – but that’s not the way it is. I don’t feel anything about either of them – not hate, not pity. Maybe I should have felt anger towards Keong; maybe things would have turned out differently if he hadn’t come back to see me. He had choices. He didn’t have to ask me to do all those things.
Now when I think about him, I don’t see the Keong of that night. I see the version of him that appeared in court three years later, when my case was being appealed. His white long-sleeved shirt, his neat hair, even the way he spoke to the judge, softly and respectfully – anyone would have thought he was a salesman for an IT company in Petaling Jaya. I didn’t recognise him at first, I thought it was someone else, that the prosecutors had brought the wrong guy to the courtroom. The lawyers asked him questions about himself, and he supplied the bare facts – he owned a business importing frozen dumplings from China, his income stream was steady, he owned a Toyota Camry and had a home loan from Hong Leong bank. He’d recently been on holiday to Australia and was saving up to send his daughter to boarding school there in seven or eight years’ time, when she was old enough to travel on her own. Right now she had just started at a private school in Cheras, close to where he lived, so he could spend a lot of time with her at home. The moment he finished work, he’d rush home to his wife and daughter and they’d spend the evening having dinner, doing the daughter’s homework together and watching a bit of TV. She was a studious girl – she really loved science!
He answered quietly, as if he didn’t want me to hear what he was saying. On the other side of the courtroom I had difficulty making out some of his words. Mortgage. Laptop. Playground. The man speaking seemed to be embarrassed by the way he lived. Why would someone feel shy about having a life like that? That was when I realised it was Keong – the same one I had known since my teenage years, and I knew why he appeared so awkward. He was ashamed because of my shame – or to be more precise, he was ashamed of being happy while my shame was on display to the world. We’d shared so much as children. People used to say, ‘No use giving Ah Hock any ice cream, he’ll just give half to that little bastard Keong.’ But time – that was something we couldn’t share. It could only favour one of us.
And I thought, Of course he’s changed. All those years in prison, when I went through phases of either sleeping all day and all night, or lying awake all day and all night – phases that lasted weeks and broke down my sense of time, my resistance to the idea that every day should be different – during that time, Keong was changing himself. Anyone could have become a new person in that period, anyone could have acquired a brand-new life. He’d been so proud of his hair, the long fringe that he’d dyed a shade of coppery orange when he was fifteen, and that he’d kept right up until that evening when we last saw each other. I used to joke with him. ‘Hey, big brother, going to become father, still keep that gangster hairstyle meh?’ He called it ‘blond’, thought it made him look like a Hong Kong pop star. He always used to do this [sweeps hand theatrically over forehead, throws back his head in slightly camp fashion]. Made me laugh. You’re a nobody, just like the rest of us – that’s what I used to say to him every time he tried to show off.
That hair was gone now, trimmed short and allowed to go back to its natural colour. I hadn’t seen him with black hair since we were teenagers. He’d put on weight, which made him look younger, not older, like an adolescent who’d once been chubby but was starting to shed all his puppy fat and turn into a handsome man. I could tell that he’d given up smoking, that he was eating better – his complexion was smoother, the deep crease between his eyebrows which he’d had since he was a child had disappeared. Ironed out by those three years.
At one point the lawyers started asking him questions about my character. Did he ever know me to be impulsive? Had he ever seen violent tendencies in me? Was I someone who felt sorry and regretted bad deeds? At first he answered clearly and simply, without hesitation, just like the serious businessman he’d become. It wasn’t a role he was performing, it was who he really was now. Both his English and his Malay had improved, and he used them carefully, considering every word before saying it. But as the questions continued, he began to fee
l at ease and started speaking more freely, sometimes using expressions you might consider rude. He even told a little story from our teenage years. One time hor, I steal biscuit from the store, I share with him but I steal so much we cannot finish, he say must return, must return, I say no way, poke your lung, but he lagi force me so next day we go give back biscuit. Your mother. Make me lose face! But he say how can steal, she also no money.
‘OK, OK, Mr Tan. I think that will do.’ When the lawyer said that I laughed. Even in his new life, Keong couldn’t resist talking too much. For a few seconds, when he was recounting that incident – which I couldn’t recall – I saw the years and the extra weight he’d acquired fall away. I saw the skinny kid with a sharp face and earrings again, the one I’d grown up with and had always thought would end up in jail. We even joked about it when he left KL to find work elsewhere. ‘Don’t worry about an address,’ I’d told him, ‘I’ll just come looking for you in prison.’
After the lawyer’s admonishment he fell silent once more – a husband, a proper father, someone you could trust to hold a family together. That’s the image of him that comes to me from time to time these days. A respectable man, beyond hatred.
It was only much later that I realised I’d only spent three years in jail. Three years – that’s nothing! Why did it feel so long when I was in my cell? And how did Keong change so quickly? That’s when I felt bitter. I’d never held a grudge against him, not even for coming back to Klang and bringing Evil into my life. When I talked about it to members of the church some years later they said, You must forgive him the way God forgives you. And I thought, There’s nothing for me to forgive; I don’t feel anything towards him. But when I saw him in the courtroom and thought of how quickly he’d changed, I felt angry. He had taken hold of time and mastered it, I had let myself be crushed by it. It was only three years, I told myself, only three years – you can make up that time and turn things round for yourself. But I knew I was no longer capable of changing my life. Evolution is a funny thing. For the longest time, you believe in the power of change – in your ability to mould your life through even the smallest acts. Even buying a four-digit lottery ticket feels loaded with optimism, as if those five bucks might turn into a twenty-thousand bonanza and transform your life. Then one day it disappears, that blind devotion to hope, and you know that even if you pray all day, nothing will happen to you. My anger was directed at myself, I didn’t blame Keong. Seeing him reminded me of the person I could no longer be.
As for the other man, his face remains a blank, even though it should be the one thing I remember from that night. In my defence, it was very dark when I first saw him. What’s more, he turned away from me before I picked up the piece of wood. I couldn’t see his face when I struck him.
October 6th
Towards the end of the trial my lawyer tried to explain to the jury the kind of childhood I had experienced. She was young and clever, she worked for free, she wanted to help me. I understood that my life was being used as an excuse for many things. I listened to her speak about me, and though the facts were true, I felt as if she was describing someone else, someone who had grown up close to me, maybe in a village a couple of miles up the coast. Another guy who shared my name, which she kept repeating. Lee Hock Lye. Lee Hock Lye. Always my full name. Sometimes she said, Lee Hock Lye, also known as Jayden Lee, which made the name sound fake, as if I’d made it up – which I had. But still, it was my name – had become my name. I had chosen it when I’d found proper work and things were going well, just before I got married. It sounded good, people liked it – they hadn’t heard anything like it before. It was a cool name that looked professional on the calling cards that I had printed when business started going well. Jayden – that was me, but each time she pronounced the name in front of the entire courtroom it felt as though she was referring to someone else, because she said it as two separate words. Jay, Den. As if she found it unnatural. Every time I heard it, I felt as though the name was being prised away from me, and that I never truly owned it. Also known as. I should never have taken that name, I was foolish to have chosen it.
The person she talked about was miserable, badly educated, hopeless. Someone who had no choices in life. Anyone listening would have pitied him. A woman in the jury was nodding her head slowly, her face twisted in a frown. Even I nearly felt sorry for the person being described. But then I thought: Wait, this is wrong. I also thought: I was happy. I was normal. I knew my lawyer was trying to help me, but I wanted her to stop talking. I started humming a tune to block out the noise of her words. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine being back in the village as a child. I tried to remember what it was like to be myself again, but it was ridiculous. That life was gone. What a stupid thing to do, trying to recapture your childhood while you’re being tried for killing someone. Recalling my life wouldn’t make it any more real – the truth of it existed in the version being described by my lawyer. I laughed at my own stupidity. I laughed quite loudly, and couldn’t stop, so I had to put my face in my hands. The lawyer turned around to look at me. She stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence and stared at me – the kind of look you give someone when you think he might be having a heart attack but you’re not yet sure what’s happening. The judge said, ‘I don’t think the defendant’s life story is relevant. Please continue with your legal arguments.’ My lawyer tried to dispute this, but my laughing and the judge’s scolding made her lose her concentration; all the intelligence and conviction and vigour I had admired up to that point dissolved in that stuffy courtroom. It was very hot that day, the air-con wasn’t working, I had trouble breathing. She stumbled over her words a couple of times, and couldn’t hold her thoughts together. I was glad it was all going to end soon.
She got the details wrong. Everyone got the details wrong. Maybe you can set things straight once and for all. Is your phone recording all this? I was born in Bagan Sungai Yu, not in Kuala Selangor town as all the court documents said. The two places are separated by a sharp curve in the Selangor river, and that small distance – forty, fifty feet in places – sometimes felt like an ocean between two continents. These days, with the bridges and good tarmac roads, people think of them as just one place: Kuala Selangor. I get the papers and read articles about new seafood restaurants built on jetties over the water, I see pictures of day-trippers from KL enjoying Sunday lunch, and I think: That’s not Kuala Selangor, that’s my village. But that’s the way things go: the big swallow up the small, everything becomes part of something else. It’s just funny to think that when I was a child, even at primary school, we had to take the ferry over to town, or cycle miles to get around the bend in the river, and when we got to the other side, it felt so busy and important that I thought I was in Tokyo or New York. That map that you’re looking at on your phone, it can’t show you the real distance between our side of the river and town on the other.
My father was a fisherman, just like my grandfather before him. In fact, every man in the village was a fisherman. The country left us no choice – the river coiled around the village, blocking our route south towards the towns, forever nudging us towards the sea. On the other side were the jungle and the plantations, which offered prospects even worse than the sea. Back then it was Indians who harvested the palm oil, now it’s Bangladeshis and Indonesians – whoever was doing it, we only had to look at their lives to know that their fate was worse than the storms and tides and tangle of nets that we lived with every day.
All of us worked at the mercy of the elements – the storms, floods, snakes, worms that burrow into your feet. Nature is beautiful when you look at it from afar, or from a car that passes through it with the windows rolled up. When you have to work outdoors it doesn’t seem so beautiful. Yesterday I read an article on Facebook that said: We should all spend more time outside! I looked at the photos of people walking in parks, hugging, drinking water from small bottles, eating slices of watermelon. Lying down on the grass without a mat, without shielding their face
s from the sun. Everyone was having fun, no one was sweating or getting heat exhaustion. There were all kinds of people in the photos. Asian, African, every colour under the sun – but they were all behaving like white people. I mean, who else actually enjoys going out into the wilderness apart from these crazy angmoh? You get a day off work, you want to go out into the jungle? Those happy Westerners, they don’t know what ‘outdoors’ is like around here.
I remember once, when I was thirteen, fourteen – old enough to have started feeling that if I didn’t escape the village I would go mad – I spent a whole day cycling as far as I could, in every direction I could think of. I went inland into the plantations in the shade of the palm-oil trees until the mud tracks got too soft for me to cycle. I looked ahead of me, thinking, How long would I have to cycle before I came out on the other side of the estate? I could only see the perfect rows of trees disappearing into the darkness, so I headed back to the coast, cycling along the dirt path that ran along the rocky shoreline, the red earth staining my toes. All the way to Sekinchan and beyond, that was all I could see: red earth, rocks and mud, the sea stretching back towards Indonesia, so flat and shallow, like a sheet of silver without end. No wind. No shade. The sun so hot on my head and arms that my skin felt stripped away with sandpaper. The light too sharp for my eyes – the same light that I’d known ever since I was a baby. I knew that all my days as an adult – every single one, to the end of my time on this earth – would be spent under that burning sun. In that moment, I suddenly got the feeling that all the things I’d ever known – my family, my home, the trees, grass, water, food, the bare earth, the huge, huge sea: everything – were strange and foreign, as if I’d never known them at all. They were mine, handed down to me at birth, the only heritage I’d ever know, and yet at that moment they didn’t seem to belong to me. This land that was supposed to be part of me, and I part of it – in that instant we felt like strangers. I didn’t want it. One day, it would kill me.