Spirit Play

by Barbara Ismail

  ‘Pak Chik, did you wake at all during the night?’

  Aziz launched into an impassioned speech. ‘I didn’t wake up. We hardly had time to sleep by the time everything was over. She was tired, I could see that, but excited, too. I was happy for her. I wanted her to be healthy, so I was relieved. I never expected…well, who would ever expect? You never think, do you? My children are all here, it was crowded. Why would I think…?’ He stopped suddenly, as though a battery had gone dead, and looked at Osman, waiting for a reply.

  Osman, however, had not yet mastered the Kelantan dialect, though he had lived in Kota Bharu nearly two years now. He was from Perak, on the west coast, and Kelantan’s colorful dialect completely eluded him. It remained a real stumbling block in his investigative process, since it precluded him from conducting many interviews without the help of an interpreter. Aziz’s tumble of words went right by him.

  Maryam calmly gave him a synopsis of what had been said; the look on Aziz’s face as he heard the translation spoke volumes on his opinion of Malay police officers who couldn’t understand what other Malays were saying to them.

  ‘Maybe ask a doctor to look at…her,’ Maryam urged. ‘Otherwise you’ll never know whether there are marks or not. I certainly couldn’t tell you.’

  Osman nodded, touching Jamillah’s wrist as though searching for a pulse. ‘We’ll need to know,’ he agreed.

  ‘Not we,’ Maryam quickly corrected him. ‘I’m not here. I can’t do this again.’

  Osman looked morose but thought better of arguing. Now was not the time.

  Chapter 3

  THE DOCTOR AT KOTA BHARU General Hospital duly opined that Jamillah probably died from asphyxiation. ‘I don’t think strangled,’ he explained, ‘because the prints are so faint. Strangling would have to exert far more strength. But she was kept from breathing.’

  ‘A pillow, maybe?’ Osman ventured. ‘She was sleeping, so a pillow would be handy.’

  The doctor agreed. ‘It certainly could be. We could do tests to see, but the family would have to postpone the funeral.’

  Osman winced. They were most anxious to have the ceremony take place the day after she died, according to Muslim custom, and Osman did not want to disappoint them.

  Even if tests proved conclusively it was a pillow which killed her, would it change anything? She was dead: it looked as though someone had killed her while she slept in a house full of people. He gave a desultory wave at the doctor, signifying the tests were unnecessary, and walked into the hospital hallway where Jamillah’s family waited. ‘You can have the funeral tomorrow,’ he informed Aziz.

  ‘And my mother?’ asked Zainab. ‘How did she die?’

  Osman considered how to say it gracefully. ‘It looks as though she might have been smothered,’ he stumbled. ‘Asphyxiated.’

  Zainab’s eyes opened wide. ‘No! How could that happen? We were all there! How could anyone get in?’

  Her husband put his arm around her shoulder and drew her away from Osman. ‘Wait!’ she protested, over the growing noise of her relatives assimilating the information. ‘I don’t understand. How can it be?’

  Osman tried to look calm and professional, but he had no real answer for her. It was her husband who killed her kept pounding through his mind. Who else could have gotten so close and not woken anyone else? But he had no proof, and no intention to hint at such a conclusion right now, though he shot a long look at Aziz, who looked straight back at him, expressionless.

  He knows I know, thought Osman. It would be like a chess game, he thought, like the duel of wits he read about in the mysteries he devoured as a boy (and continued to do so even now), where the ace investigator and the criminal genius jousted, each anticipating the moves of the other. Justice always won in these contests, and Osman would not let down the side. He hoped Aziz knew what he would be up against.

  Zainab still wanted to ask him how and why, but her husband and sister were trying hard to take her over to a side of the hall and calm her down. Osman went over to her as he prepared to leave, saying, ‘I will find who did this, and we will solve this. I can’t answer your questions now, but I will, and shortly.’

  She said nothing, but looked at him imploringly, her eyes glistening, as Osman made his way down the hall.

  Maryam and Mamat went to the funeral, as did all of Penambang. Maryam felt the loss keenly: not only a fellow villager, but a colleague, another market woman. She felt a kinship with all her fellow mak chik supporting their families and felt this as a blow to the whole sorority of small businesswomen. Rubiah, standing nearby, clearly shared her feelings, squeezing her arm as they helped in Jamillah’s kitchen, serving the funeral lunch to all the men gathered in the front room. The daughters were understandably unable to organize, and their female neighbors took over the kitchen and the catering.

  There was a low hum of conversation deploring Jamillah’s death, and speculating on who caused it. The family said little, but news somehow leaked out about how she died, and everyone seemed to have an opinion on who was behind it. Naturally, since they were in Aziz’s house, no one mentioned any theories placing him at the scene of the crime, but it was easy to read into the comments that he was a leading suspect.

  Others plumped for a wandering stranger who had somehow climbed in the window, but most saw that for the polite evasion that it was. How convenient it would be to find that murder in Penambang was, thank God, the work of someone from far away!

  Maryam and Rubiah ostentatiously concentrated entirely on preparing nasi dagang, the ultimate Kelantan celebratory food: rice with coconut milk served with grilled chicken with a coconut-ginger paste. As famed sleuths, they could not afford to give an opinion, which could be interpreted as based upon privileged police knowledge. Instead, they politely discouraged questions, stating simply they were not working in any way with the police on this case.

  ‘We’re through!’ Rubiah insisted. ‘Maryam was almost killed on the last case. No more!’

  Earlier in the day, Maryam had said to Rubiah, ‘You know what Aziz looked like at the main puteri? As sour-faced as an unwilling bride. He wasn’t happy about it.’

  But that was then, and here at the house, Maryam said nothing which could be interpreted as an opinion and offered no expression which could be read to decipher what she was thinking.

  Aziz sat surrounded by his family, expressionless, silent and alone among all the crowd. Maryam thought he looked separate from everyone, unconnected, while his children and their husbands and wives sat close together, the sisters holding hands. His isolation was self-inflicted: no one looked to ignore him, but neither was he at all approachable. Although Maryam believed him to have killed his wife, for reasons unknown, his isolation moved her to pity.

  Two days later Osman appeared at Maryam’s stall in the market. She sat on her stool of folded fabric, a well-deserved cigarette between her lips and a glass of iced coffee and several cakes in front of her. Rubiah lounged in front of the stall, and Maryam looked pleased and cheerful.

  ‘Osman!’ she called to him, smiling widely. ‘Come, have some coffee!’

  Rubiah rose immediately to bring more coffee and cakes down from her stall upstairs. She was always gratified to feed Osman, who ate satisfying amounts of her cakes at almost every opportunity. He was so skinny! It was her own private challenge to bulk him up; though she thought that when he turned 40, he might start doing it on his own. Nevertheless, now it was her game, and she was going for a personal best.

  ‘No, it isn’t necessary, I’ve just eaten,’ he began politely.

  Rubiah snorted, having none of it. ‘You just sit there,’ she ordered him. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  As she walked up the stairs, Maryam turned to him, ‘Are you here for songket? I’ve just sold a whole wedding’s worth!’ No wonder she looked so delighted. ‘Beautiful fabric, too,’ she enthused. ‘Cream. You should think about it, your wedding’s coming up soon, isn’t it? You can bring it back to Perak.’


  ‘Well, my wife may want to choose it there.’

  ‘Choose it there? When it comes from here? And you’ll pay double for it? Really, Osman, what are you thinking? I’d be insulted if you weren’t wearing my songket. I’ll choose the very best for you.’

  It was an order more than an offer, and Osman squirmed a bit, trying to find a compromise between Maryam’s offer (very generous, it was true) to give him the fabric, and his wife’s desire to choose her own for her wedding. Moreover, he hadn’t come here for a conference on his wedding theme.

  ‘Mak Chik,’ he began, as Maryam examined the contents of the small box in which she kept her money, clearly admiring the amount now in there, ‘I need your help.’

  Her head snapped up to attention, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed, and she held her cigarette between her thumb and forefinger. ‘What?’

  ‘I need your help,’ he repeated, shuffling a little. ‘I spoke to Aziz yesterday…and the family.’

  ‘Go on,’ she said shortly, seeing where this was going, but unwilling to join him there.

  ‘He doesn’t want to talk to me. He’s very closed.’

  ‘Do you understand him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Osman was wounded. ‘I can understand him.’ She looked at him unblinking. ‘Sort of. The gist of it anyway,’ he admitted. ‘I had Rahman there.’

  ‘Kind of awkward,’ she commented.

  ‘I think he’d feel more at ease with someone who wasn’t official, someone he knows and trusts.’

  ‘Really?’ she said drily.

  Rubiah arrived back carrying an oversized tray piled with Kelantanese rice cakes and a cup of coffee. ‘What?’ she asked, looking from one to the other, from Maryam’s narrowed eyes to Osman’s blushing. ‘Oh no, not again,’ she said to him. ‘You’re not asking…’

  ‘He is,’ Maryam assured her.

  ‘Eat this first,’ Rubiah instructed him, putting a handful of his favorite cakes on a plate and slapping it into his hand. She silently passed a plate of assorted cakes to Maryam, heavily populated by her own favorite, smaller and simpler than Osman’s, but Rubiah found men tended to like the more elaborate styles. She was still working on why this was so.

  ‘Mak Chik,’ pleaded Osman, ‘you know people open up to you. They talk to you, it’s easy for them. You can find out things I never can. And you are so good at talking to people; a natural, you might say. I need your help.’ He looked morosely at his feet while eating a cake. It gave him time to think.

  Maryam sighed. ‘Osman, it isn’t that we don’t want to help. I’m just afraid. Yes! You don’t believe it, but I was almost killed during that last case, and I don’t think I could take it again. Besides,’ she looked at him sternly, ‘Rahman can handle it. He’s very good.’

  ‘Very!’ Rubiah echoed.

  Rahman was Osman’s de facto deputy: a smart and energetic officer who had run down a suspect in downtown Kota Bharu the year before and had been badly injured in the process. He’d spent months recovering from a head wound and had to relearn many of his basic skills. Still, it had not affected either his intelligence or his willingness to work. Or translate.

  ‘But Rahman is still not one hundred percent…’

  ‘Neither am I after all that!’

  ‘She’s right,’ Rubiah was indignant. ‘Pushed in front of a car! How can you ask again?’

  ‘Just talk to Aziz,’ he pleaded. ‘Just one conversation. I’ll have someone there…’

  ‘There? It’s our own village! I don’t need someone in my home! It’s afterward, when they want to kill me.’

  He sensed she might be weakening. ‘Please!!’ He gulped down two cakes in quick succession—from sheer nervousness, he told himself.

  Maryam and Rubiah shared a look, and Rubiah rolled her eyes.

  ‘Maybe.’ Maryam said grudgingly. ‘I’ll think about it. I’ll have to talk it over.’ She gave him a dirty look and patted her money box. ‘I was so happy this morning before I saw you.’

  Chapter 4

  MARYAM AND RUBIAH STAYED at the foot of the stairs leading to Jamillah’s house. Unlike their previous forays into detecting, they wore no extra jewelry, nor had they broken out their fanciest clothing. They were just neighbors making a call after the funeral, to see if everything was alright. Rubiah carried a covered bowl with a homemade noodle dish with thick, creamy coconut fish sauce. Laksa was a staple all over Malaysia, but every state had its own type; Kelantan’s was the sweetest and thickest.

  The elder daughter, Zainab, called them into the house. ‘Mak Chik, how nice to see you,’ she said politely. ‘You needn’t have brought anything, so much trouble…’

  Maryam made noises to the effect that it was nothing, she was happy to bring it, and hoped they would like it. ‘How have you all been?’ she asked solicitously.

  Zainab sighed, and signaled her school-aged daughter to bring some coffee. She leaned forward on the sofa. ‘I miss my mother. It’s such a shock. And to say she was murdered! I still can’t understand that. How can it be?’ she asked plaintively. ‘We were all here, it was crowded. All of us couldn’t have slept through someone walking in. It isn’t possible.’ She wrung her hands and looked as though she might cry.

  ‘Now,’ soothed Rubiah, ‘We must be brave. And look for justice.’ Zainab stared at her. Rubiah then tried to explain.

  ‘We’re helping the police. You know, it’s so much easier for neighbors to talk to neighbors instead of the police; they make us all uncomfortable, don’t you think?’ She smiled and nodded at Zainab, who hadn’t so much as blinked. ‘I think it makes such a difference talking just between ourselves.’ She arranged her face in a pleasant expression and waited for Zainab to recover.

  ‘Well, since you put it that way…’

  ‘Yes, much pleasanter. You know, I had hoped to speak to your father.’ As if on cue, Aziz walked heavily into the living room where they sat, having just woken up.

  ‘Dad,’ Zainab greeted him, ‘Mak Chik here has come to talk to us.’ He grunted and collapsed into an armchair, raising his hand to have coffee delivered quickly. ‘The police were here,’ he said to Maryam.

  ‘I always think it’s easier to speak to your own people than the police,’ Maryam offered. ‘Kakak Rubiah and I are working with the police, to help them, so to speak.’

  He grunted again. ‘Like you did before?’

  Maryam shrugged and ducked her head. ‘Like that.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ The arrival of coffee and cakes seemed to cheer him and wake him up further. He looked at them alertly.

  ‘Well, don’t be shy! You’re here to talk to me, go ahead.’ He turned to Zainab. ‘You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,’ he said gently. ‘Not if you’re going to be upset.’

  Zainab sniffed and tried to smile. ‘I’m alright.’

  ‘Good!’ Maryam began briskly. ‘The night Jamillah died, when did you go to sleep?’

  Aziz took a long sip of coffee, readying himself for his recital. ‘You were there. You saw the ceremony. I don’t think it ended until around two or so. Jamillah was exhausted, dancing all night. So much energy. Amazing.’ He shook his head wonderingly. ‘She went right to sleep, and I spoke to the bomoh for a while. And the family, of course. Everyone was staying here.’

  ‘Where is he from?’

  ‘The bomoh? Bacok, Pak Nik Lah. You know, Pak Awang here in Penambang said he was getting too old for main puteri. He told me about this other one. He was good, I thought. He came here a few times to talk to Jamillah, and to me, too, to find out what was wrong. Did a good job.’

  ‘Performing, you mean?’

  ‘No, not just that. He did a lot of listening. You should talk to him: he probably knows more local gossip than I do.’ Aziz leaned back and silently offered the women cigarettes from his pack. They all accepted and lit up.

  ‘I think he tried.’ Aziz was clearly working on articulating what he thought, ‘Tried to get the background of what was bothering Jamillah. Not just
waiting for spirits, you know, to speak up and tell him what’s wrong. He looked at what happened to her, too.’

  Maryam looked speculatively at Aziz. She would not have thought him a man to consider these things. He seemed so reasonable now, not the bottled-up man she saw at the ceremony. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Jamillah, she hadn’t been…happy. She was feeling sick, but she was also jittery. She thought I wasn’t paying attention to her. She told everyone anyway, so, of course, I heard it. She thought I had another woman.’

  He snorted and took a deep drag. ‘I don’t. I never did. I was worried, it’s true, but there wasn’t any woman involved.’ He looked hard at Rubiah and Maryam. ‘You probably think so, too. It happens all the time, men my age looking for young women. I know that. But,’ he stretched and rubbed his knees, ‘not me.’

  He smiled thinly. ‘I have business problems. I didn’t want to tell Jamillah.’ His voice lowered, as though she might still overhear it. ‘I didn’t want to worry her. Maybe I should have.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s too late now.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  Aziz was uneasy. ‘I don’t think it has anything to do with this.’

  ‘You don’t know. It could have.’

  He looked nervously at Zainab. ‘Of course,’ Maryam assured him, ‘If you’d prefer to talk elsewhere…’

  ‘Dad, please. I’m a grown woman now, with kids of my own. You don’t need to worry about me. We can help you!’

  He cleared his throat again. ‘I don’t want this talked about. Nab, don’t tell your brothers and sisters, it’s really no big deal. A chicken lays just one egg yet tells the whole country,’ he mumbled.

  He put out his cigarette and lit another one. He took a sip of coffee and called to his granddaughter to top up their cups. He then appeared ready to begin.

  Fixing his eyes on the window opposite, he said, ‘I’m in business—or I was—with a ship’s captain. Fishing boat from Pantai Cinta Berahi. I had a half share in the boat, it always made decent money. This captain, Murad, I knew him from long ago. I’m from Semut Api, you know, right there at Pantai Cinta Berahi. But Jamillah was from here, so I moved here. She was the youngest of her family, so she wanted to be close to her parents.