Spirit Play

by Barbara Ismail

  ‘When this scar fades,’ Maryam announced, as Malek winced—he couldn’t bear hearing about the enam sembilan mark on her forehead—‘I’ll be as good as new. No one will ever know this happened. Even me!’

  Rubiah threw her arms around Maryam, laughing and crying at the same time. ‘I’m so happy,’ she whispered to her. ‘I was so afraid.’

  ‘So was I,’ Maryam admitted. ‘But I feel like it’s behind me now or will be soon. I’m going to be fine.’

  They both turned to Aliza to admire her. ‘Do you remember any of it?’

  ‘Not really,’ Aliza confessed. ‘Did I dance?’

  ‘Did you dance?’ her father asked, giddy with relief. ‘I’ve never seen anyone dance so beautifully. Like an angel! It was amazing.’

  Malek nodded enthusiastically. ‘Your feet hardly touched the ground!’ he assured her. ‘It was something to see!’

  ‘You were lovely!’ Rubiah added, caressing her head for a moment. She then handed her a plate piled with her favorite cakes, and blue rice wrapped in a banana leaf. This latter was a hearty Kelantan breakfast of blue rice cooked in coconut milk, topped with fish and vegetables and egg.

  ‘Now, you’d better eat and get all your strength back!’ Rubiah was a great believer in the restorative powers of cakes, which she considered a miracle food.

  ‘Do you remember anything?’ Mamat asked Maryam.

  She shook her head. ‘Not really. Not after I saw Pak Nik Lah dancing in front of me.’

  ‘Well, you danced silat, you know,’ Mamat told her. ‘Like a real warrior. I don’t know where you learned it.’

  ‘Silat?’ Maryam considered this. ‘I don’t know anything about silat.’

  ‘You don’t think you do, but believe me, you can do it! I was never so surprised.’

  Surprise filled her face, as she applied herself to curry puffs and coffee. ‘It gives you quite an appetite,’ she explained. ‘I’m starved.’

  Rubiah looked beneficently on, wholeheartedly approving of this show of hunger. It was, in her eyes, the best possible outcome.

  Chapter 23

  KAMAL AND HIS MOTHER were at the police station, waiting to be questioned. There was no celebratory breakfast for them—no cakes, no coffee. No one offered them anything, even though Kamal had asked.

  ‘Later,’ Rahman told him briefly, leaving them both sitting in the large office, cuffed to chairs. ‘Wait for Police Chief Osman,’ he said formally, and then the whole station set about ignoring them completely, save for ordering them to be quiet if either of them said anything.

  Without a hint of flagging, Hamidah kept her smile, though for everyone else, it was difficult to look at without shuddering.

  Osman came back, flushed with victory and two full helpings of blue rice, in addition to countless cakes. He felt heavier than usual, a feeling he often found after being subjected to Rubiah’s ministrations. This time, however, going to sleep in his chair was not an option. He definitely wanted to hear the suspects’ story. It promised to be interesting, at least.

  They were brought into the office he thought of as his interrogation room, furnished only with a long wooden table and some serviceable chairs. There were no pictures and no decoration—in other words, nothing to distract a suspect from dispensing the truth.

  Osman longed to order Hamidah to stop smiling: it unnerved him, but he thought telling her anything would probably have no effect. He asked Kamal instead. ‘Please ask your mother to stop grinning at me. I can’t look at it any longer.’

  Kamal looked over at his mother, who appeared not to have heard. ‘Mom,’ he said loudly, ‘He wants you to stop smiling.’

  Hamidah looked surprised. ‘Why?’

  ‘He doesn’t like it.’

  She nodded and tried to tone it down. Though as soon as she became straight-faced, the full-force smile broke through again, as though she was privy to a private joke she could not get over. Osman watched this happen twice, then sighed and turned away. He looked at Rahman, sitting quietly in the corner, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

  Indeed. Questioning a madwoman did not seem the best use of time, but what if she was only faking madness in order to get away with some awful crimes? The fury he felt when he had first seen Kamal dragged in through the window had abated but not disappeared, and he felt his patience with this pair running short. He fully understood the urge of some of his colleagues to beat the truth out of recalcitrant perpetrators—but would not succumb to it himself.

  ‘Tell me, Kamal,’ he began conversationally, ‘what were you doing in Penambang last night?’

  The young suspect fidgeted, but said nothing.

  ‘You’re wasting my time,’ Osman told him bluntly. ‘If you’d prefer to sit in jail for a few days before you decide to tell me, that’s fine with me. I don’t mind going home, I’ve been up all night.’

  He waited. Kamal stared at the floor.

  ‘Good. Your choice.’ He got up and walked into the main room. ‘Go ahead, put both of them in the cells. I’m going home.’ Kamal looked at him with something approaching horror, but Osman steeled himself not to look back, and did, in fact, head home. Where Azrina was very happy to see him.

  ‘What happened? Alamak! You look so tired!’

  ‘I am.’ But it was a real pleasure to have someone at home to talk to about it. He smiled at her. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Do you want to—I mean, can you, anyway—tell me anything?’

  He nodded. ‘Some. Do you really want to hear?’

  She nodded eagerly. She also was a devotee of crime novels, which had made the prospect of Osman as a husband so interesting. The whole caper, as she thought of it, became all the more real when Osman told her he was staying at Maryam’s, and a group of them would await developments. He called another officer to see her home safely, and she was thrilled at the thought her husband was lying in ambush.

  Was this a typical Kelantan evening, she wondered: spirit possession followed by criminal activity? Indeed, Kota Bharu was more exotic than she had hoped. Nothing like this ever happened to her in Perak.

  Osman told her what had happened, including how Kamal had been handcuffed to the bed. She was wide-eyed with admiration, a reaction Osman had not seen very often, especially in Kelantan. He told her about finding Hamidah, looking as though she had just crawled through the dirt, with that weird smile on her face, very much like an evil spirit herself. ‘They’re both in jail right now, where they’ll stay until they decide to talk. I think she’s not well,’ he said expansively. ‘She looks crazy. She acts crazy. But I still don’t know if she really is; it could be a game with her, a way of doing things and not being held responsible for it.’

  To his own ears, he sounded immensely more mature and professional than he had before. And if it was so easy to do here—why did he have so much trouble doing it when any of the Kelantan women were around? With them, he could barely open his mouth. Perhaps, he decided, he should practice on them and see if they noticed.

  He remembered with a sinking heart the looks they gave him when he tried to hold forth, and he quailed. Looking over at Azrina, however, with her hands over her mouth in awe, he gained confidence again, and told her about it all over again.

  Aziz heard the news of Kamal’s attempted entry and subsequent arrest with unspoken relief. Since Rahim and Zaiton’s return home from their Sungei Golok escapade, he had not brought up the search for Jamillah’s murderer, preferring to let it lie. He wanted no more drama in his life, and feared if he asked too many questions, he could stumble upon answers he didn’t want to hear; the safest course, then, was to steer clear of the whole subject, a project in which the young couple seemed only too eager to assist.

  He had never been able to fathom the attack on Maryam, and why Zaiton was so frightened that it was Rahim who did it. She could cry and claim confusion and wring her hands all she wanted, but her father considered her first comments that evening the most truthful, and in those it was cle
ar to him she believed Rahim had done it and, indeed, been caught.

  Probably then, there had been a plan between the two, and she realized too late she’d implicated Rahim. Aziz was too tired to pursue it, and far too tired to actually hear the truth. He already knew it; he hoped the police didn’t. It was a shame Maryam was hurt, and Aliza, too, but implicating Rahim wouldn’t help them though it would hurt Zaiton and the baby.

  Maybe these things were now best left alone, and that included Jamillah’s death. Though if he were to confide this to anyone, they might easily misunderstand.

  Kamal trying to leap into Maryam’s house through the bedroom window did not surprise him. He had never really liked the boy, whom he considered as cold and conceited as his father, and his inheritance of the boat along with all the capital which rightly belonged to Aziz, merely sealed it. He could not for a moment entertain the thought that Kamal knew nothing about the transfer or hadn’t rubbed his hands in delight (literally or metaphorically, it made no difference) upon learning of that deal which would benefit him as it would diminish others. Father and son would both be willing to climb into windows and smother innocent women in their sleep. And if they were aided by a familiar, it was all the more likely.

  He’d never seen a known spirit called by name, a spirit he’d actually heard about, as he had at Maryam’s main puteri ; though admittedly, he was no expert. But most spectators took it as absolute validation of the spirit’s existence—they’d heard it actually speak and reveal itself as Murad’s very own familiar.

  Though unmentioned and unnoticed at the time, rumors now began circulating of a large, malignant grasshopper, the embodiment of the spirit itself, seen in the area of Maryam’s house after the ceremony.

  Some more creative minds described a grasshopper as big as a child, on which Kamal stood when trying to get into Maryam’s house. Others claimed that Kamal himself turned into such a creature when he was apprehended. That would have been something to see, Aziz thought, and certainly would have warranted Mamat and the others running screaming from the house.

  Still, he expected the stories to get wilder as they travelled. Soon it would be said the whole village turned into grasshoppers and flew off into the jungle.

  He wished someone would ask him about it; almost nothing would give him more pleasure than to be able to seal the fate of Murad’s family. He didn’t know whether Hamidah had been so corrupted by that family she’d married into that she now cared for their evil spirits and assisted in their attacks; he’d like to think she hadn’t.

  He remembered Hamidah fondly and had a childish crush on her before either of them had seriously considered marriage. Although right now he was content, it was possible that one day he’d want to marry again for the companionship, and Hamidah might have made his short list. Except, of course, that she was already married and people said she was mad.

  He considered the possibility that divorcing Murad might cure the madness—who wouldn’t be crazy if they had to live with that bitter old man and his trolls? People said she looked like a vampire, like a corpse risen from the grave. The gossip was that she was now filthy and unkempt, with a mad, unnerving smile and matted hair. No one actually said she was wearing a shroud like a langsuir, a vampire-like female spirit which preyed on pregnant women, but the implication was clear.

  He sighed with regret that such a pretty and light-hearted girl should become an old woman like this. The fate of the husk is to float, the fate of the stone is to sink. To elude your fate was impossible. That was true for everyone, but in Hamidah’s case it was particularly harsh.

  Murad arrived at the police station spoiling for a fight, and Osman was not in a conciliatory frame of mind. The dogs are ready and the wild boar is brave. No one would back down. Osman looked up from his desk to see Murad come in, dressed all in white: white sarong, white shirt, white cap. The choice of color alone annoyed him.

  ‘Can I help you, Pak Chik Murad?’ he asked politely.

  ‘I hear you have my wife and son in jail!’ he shouted at Osman accusingly. ‘I want them out!’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible,’ Osman told him, looking grave but feeling gleeful in delivering bad news. This family brought out the worst in everyone. ‘They were caught in the act of breaking into someone’s house.’

  ‘Maryam’s,’ Murad sneered, as though that would explain it all.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, don’t you think when you interfere in people’s affairs like she does, it’s more likely things like this will happen? She’ll have to take some responsibility for what happens to her.’

  ‘She was helping the police,’ Osman replied icily. ‘I don’t take that as an invitation to break in and attack her. I’m sorry, your wife and son are being charged and are not free to go.’

  Murad looked down his nose at Osman, his rising anger showing in his eyes. ‘How dare you hold them. I want them at home.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Osman answered. ‘Now, if you will excuse me…’

  Murad tried another tack. ‘My wife is not well.’

  ‘Pak Chik Murad,’ he said with exaggerated patience, ‘she is under arrest. She will not be let go because she isn’t well, she was well enough to help your son break into a house. Now, good evening.’

  In high dudgeon, Murad stalked out of the office, straight to Osman’s residence on the grounds of the station, calmly picked up a rock and heaved it through a window. Osman thought he heard the tinkle of glass, but ignored it, still seething from his discussion with the bumptious Murad. He had a good mind to arrest him for killing Jamillah right now, just to show him he could.

  Minutes later, Azrina flew into the station, ‘Someone broke one of our windows!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, in the kitchen. I saw him: a tall, older man wearing all white and the meanest expression I ever saw.’

  Osman was already headed for the door. ‘Did he see you, too?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t throw it at me, if that’s what you mean. But it was definitely deliberate. Who is he?’

  ‘Murad.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ she said with interest. Imagine! A suspect right here!

  ‘Rahman, take two other men with you and bring him in. He can’t just throw rocks at us and think he’ll go home and relax! Go!’

  Rahman moved right away to get him; he reckoned he could head him off on the street. He couldn’t have gone far.

  Osman went into his house with Azrina, examining the broken glass on the floor and the not particularly big rock lying in the midst of it. Sitting now on the rock, seeming to look at him, was a grasshopper.

  Chapter 24

  MARYAM WAS NOW NOT only feeling better, she felt more than recovered. She felt bouncy. She didn’t know whether to credit the main puteri alone, or the enforced rest she’d had before it. Rubiah believed it was both; without the main puteri hanging over her, Maryam would never have allowed either herself to rest or anyone else to suggest it.

  The mark still remained, but it was fading, albeit slowly; besides, Maryam was becoming used to the headscarf. She estimated another month before Aliza’s hair would just look very short, and she too could leave the scarf at home.

  She was ready to take the reins again on the investigation, which she regarded as becalmed without her leadership. Osman was summoned to her house for a general discussion, during which he offered a précis of what had gone on, and what had not. There appeared little progress in actually finding who killed Jamillah and far too much talk about grasshoppers, which had no bearing on the case.

  ‘We aren’t here to catch a familiar,’ she reminded him curtly, and could not resist adding, ‘even if your wife would really enjoy it.’

  Osman looked hurt but didn’t argue. Maryam elaborated. ‘I know she’s really interested in the case, I could see it when she visited, and that’s wonderful. She’s your wife, she should be. But let’s not concentrate on all the…’ she thought for a minute, then waved a
dismissive hand, ‘exotic Kelantan…spirits and such. There seem to be plenty of flesh and blood suspects who could have done it without inviting the supernatural.’

  She looked at him meaningfully, expecting agreement, which she received. She scratched her scarf around her mark. ‘It’s itchy,’ she told him. ‘I can’t wait till it’s healed.’

  She then returned to the matter of apprehending the killer. ‘Rubiah thinks it’s Murad, but that’s because she doesn’t like him.’

  ‘I don’t like him either,’ Osman said. ‘I don’t like the whole family, and I’d be very happy to throw all of them in jail. But we’ve got to prove something first.’

  ‘I hate to think Rahim…’

  ‘We’ve left him alone…’

  ‘No more,’ Maryam told him decisively. ‘It’s time to wrap this up.’

  Which led directly to Rahim sitting in Osman’s office, at the large, scraped table on a chair with one leg slightly shorter than the rest, facing Maryam directly. Osman, as was often his habit, sat off to the side, taking notes and occasionally interjecting when he felt strongly about a comment.

  ‘Rahim,’ Maryam began mournfully, ‘When I first met you, I thought you were such a nice boy. A man, I mean. Hardworking, polite, honest. Both Mak Chik Rubiah and I talked about how pleased Mak Chik Jamillah must have been to see her daughter with such a man.’

  Without any money, she forbore to add, but she believed Jamillah would have gotten past that, had she lived. All market women knew that hard work formed the basis of good business. Rahim hung his head and looked embarrassed and uncomfortable. Well, that was a sign of decent character, anyway.

  ‘And then you ran off to get married. Marriage is a good thing, and given what you did, it was the only thing. I wished you two hadn’t done it, it’s wrong, and I don’t defend it, but having done it, you did what you had to. Mak Chik Jamillah would have agreed, I’m sure.

  ‘But when Zaiton grabbed Aliza, and hurt her like she did,’ both Rahim and Osman winced just thinking about it, ‘that changes everything. Now Zaiton cried and looked confused and the men in the village and the police, they didn’t want to press it. There was enough going on, with two serious head wounds.’