Spirits Abroad (ebook)

by Zen Cho

  "No, no," said the consumer association rep. "In the '50s, it was more beautiful."

  "Looks like you all made a mess of it, then," said Ming Jun distinctly.

  This was the American influence in him coming to the surface. Esther winced. Shocked silence reigned over the table.

  "How are you humans bringing up your children?" said the orang bunian's voice. "My child would never talk to his elders like that."

  Datin Zainab sat back and put her hand over her eyes.

  "You have children?" said Khairul.

  "How do you think orang bunian reproduce?" said the voice, with asperity. "I must say, Zainab, humans have become stupider since our time."

  "It's the education system," said the Datin. Her eyes were still hidden. "The standards are falling."

  This would be like a red flag to a bull. Esther knew she had to speak quickly before anyone got started on the inadequacies of the education system if she wanted an answer to the question that had been bothering her.

  "Datin," she said. "How do you and the orang bunian know each other?"

  "Eh, I have a name, please," said the irritable spirit. "Tan Chor Seng. But you young ciku must call me uncle lah."

  Datin Zainab took her hand away from her face. Esther saw with horror that her eyes were wet.

  "We met," she said, "a long, long time ago."

  "It was not so long for me, Zainab," said the orang bunian.

  "I have changed, I know," said the Datin.

  "Not so much," said the voice. For once it was not so grumpy. "Voice is still the same."

  "Ah, but when it comes to appearance!" said Datin Zainab. "I am a grandmother now. Hair no longer black. Wrinkles, hunched back ...."

  "My eyesight was never very good," said the orang bunian. "My hearing only. First time I met you I thought, this woman has the most melodious voice I have ever heard. It is like the stars singing. Now I hear you again, that's still true."

  Ming Jun was frowning down at his BlackBerry, his fingers flying. Esther was not surprised when her phone buzzed with a text message:

  "R they flirting?!"

  As the youngest people at the table, Ming Jun and Esther had to keep their speculation electronic. The delegates were older and did not feel the need to be quite so discreet.

  "When you say you met," said the consumer association rep to the Datin, "met means dating or what?"

  "None of your business," snapped the orang bunian's voice.

  "Don't cry, mak cik," said Annabella Lim. She took a pack of tissues out of her handbag and passed them to the Datin. "What is wrong?"

  Datin Zainab wiped her eyes.

  "I have never told anybody," she said. "I was a young girl then. Thirty-five, thirty-six years old only. I liked to go hiking. My husband didn't like these strenuous activities. He liked staying home and watching TV. But he was always very supportive of my hobbies. We lived near the jungle and I used to go on walks by myself."

  "Singing," said Chor Seng's voice. "She used to sing as she walked."

  "I wanted to scare off any animals in case they wanted to bother me," the Datin explained.

  "All of us orang bunian used to stop to listen when she sang," said Chor Seng. "I was also young in those days. I was impulsive. I heard her singing, but I wanted to know what her speaking voice sounded like. So one day when she was walking past my house I said hello to her."

  "That is how it started," said the Datin. She looked down at her hands with their exquisitely manicured nails. "We were very young and foolish. When the child came ... how could I explain that to my family? Chor Seng's family took me in. A whole year I was gone. I told my family I got lost in the forest but I didn't remember anything else. They took me to a bomoh and he told them a spirit enchanted me when I was out walking. He said the year had felt like only a few hours to me.

  "Never waste your money on bomoh," Datin Zainab told Esther. "After this, I realized most of them are cheats. He didn't know anything about what happened to me. Guessing only."

  "But you were married," said Khairul.

  Datin Zainab glared at him.

  "And you have never done anything wrong in your life?" she said. "It is for God to judge, not you. I regretted. You think I didn't regret? But I suffered enough for my mistake. After that incident my husband did not let me go walking alone in the forest anymore. We moved when he got a new job, and I never heard my child again."

  "You abandoned the baby?" said Farid.

  "Encik," said the Datin with exaggerated patience. "If you know how I could have brought up an invisible child, please can you tell me. I am only a weak woman and I thought it might be difficult when it came to sending him to school. When he raised his hand, the teachers would not be able to see."

  "Boon Yi takes after me more," Chor Seng's voice agreed. "His mother not so much."

  Datin Zainab folded her hands.

  "How is Boon Yi?" she said quietly.

  "Doing well," said the orang bunian. "Studies hard. Good at writing but very lazy to do mathematics. I am raising him to be Muslim, like you asked. He goes to my neighbor's house twice a week to mengaji Quran."

  "That is good," said Khairul, mollified.

  "Nobody asked you, busybody," said the orang bunian's voice. "Boon Yi is very big now, very clever. Can understand a lot of things. He asks about you every day, Zainab. He wants to hear all the stories about you. He wishes he could know his mother."

  "I left him my photo," said Datin Zainab. Annabella Lim pressed another tissue into her limp hand.

  "Boon Yi is like me. His eyesight is not so good," said the orang bunian. "You know to us sound is more important. He has never heard your voice. That is why I came. His birthday is coming up soon—"

  "February 22," said Datin Zainab. "I always buy a birthday cake on that day. When my family asks, I tell them it is to celebrate the fact that even mistakes can have good consequences."

  "I want to give him something meaningful for his birthday," said Chor Seng. "I want to give him the sound of your voice. That is why I came. Will you come with me to talk to him?"

  "From here?" said Datin Zainab. She laughed a little. "Chor Seng, where you live is so deep in the jungle. How would I get there?"

  "Walk," said Chor Seng, as if this was obvious. The table scoffed as one person.

  "At her age!" said Annabella. "In this hot sun! Old lady like that, how to walk so far?"

  "You are not being practical," said Farid. "You should have planned ahead."

  "Orang bunian age more slowly than us," said Datin Zainab. "It is not his fault. But they are right, Chor Seng. My body cannot take it anymore."

  There was a silence.

  "I forgot that humans work differently," said Chor Seng. "I'm sorry. It is good that I did not tell Boon Yi. He won't be disappointed."

  "Ne more of this n Im going 2 cry," texted Ming Jun to Esther.

  Esther put her phone down on the table, feeling as depressed as everybody else looked.

  Her eyes fell on the dictaphone.

  "There is no need to disappoint Boon Yi, uncle," said Esther. "We have a dictaphone here. If Datin records a message inside, Uncle can take it back to play for your son to hear. Come with me and we will do it outside in the corridor. In here it is too noisy. And while we are outside maybe Ming Jun can get on with the discussion. There's only fifteen minutes left, and we only covered five of the questions."

  "Shit!"

  "We'll record over that part," said Esther.

  Outside in the corridor Esther tried to make herself scarce while Datin Zainab recorded her message, but she had to go over to help them find the "stop" button.

  While she fiddled with the dictaphone, a thought occurred to her. Esther said:

  "Uncle, if you came to get Datin's voice, why did you say all that about minority rights?"

  "Our rights are also at stake what," said the orang bunian. "Cannot do two things at the same time meh? Let me tell you, girl. Life and politics is equally important. Cannot se
parate the two. Both also you must take seriously. What I said, you must remember to tell the government, OK?"

  "OK," said Esther dubiously. She was going to warn him that going by previous record it didn't seem likely that the government would be interested in invisible minorities' rights, but Datin Zainab started speaking.

  "Tell Boon Yi to study hard," said the Datin. "And tell him he must make sure to respect women and treat them with consideration. That is the best way to show respect to his mother. Tell him I always save one piece of the cake for him. Just in case. Tell him—"

  "Why don't you come with me and tell him yourself?" said Chor Seng gently. "We are old already, Zainab. We don't have so many obligations anymore. Can't we please ourselves? You used to love the forest, remember? You could come back."

  Datin Zainab paused.

  "I have grandchildren," she said. "And I have my work with my women. I cannot simply go where I want. And I am old, Chor Seng. My bones like to have soft cushions to lie on. They like to be driven around in a Mercedes. If I'd stayed with you, back then ... but I am too used to my lifestyle now. The jungle, romance — these things are for young people."

  "Wrong," said Chor Seng. "Nobody can be too old for romance."

  "It is rude to contradict a woman," said Datin Zainab.

  "I'm just going to go to the toilet," said Esther "The exit is over there — Uncle knows, right?"

  But they were still there when Esther came back. Datin Zainab was standing by the doors at the end of the passage, talking softly. The blinding sunlight outside made a black silhouette of her body. Her arm was stretched out, the hand wrapped around air.

  After a while her hand dropped to her side. The murmurs died down. She stood in the doorway for a long time, listening for the goodbye.

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  The House of Aunts

  Dedicated to the women of my family.

  Content notes: references to entrails, violence and miscarriage (generally non-explicit, except for the entrails). Click here to skip to next story.

  The house stood back from the road in an orchard. In the orchard, monitor lizards the length of a man's arm stalked the branches of rambutan trees like tigers on the hunt. Behind the house was an abandoned rubber tree plantation, so proliferant with monkeys and leeches and spirits that it might as well have been a forest.

  Inside the house lived the dead.

  The first time she saw the boy across the classroom, Ah Lee knew she was in love because she tasted durian on her tongue. That was what happened — no poetry about it. She looked at a human boy one day and the creamy rank richness of durian filled her mouth. For a moment the ghost of its stench staggered on the edge of her teeth, and then it vanished.

  She had not tasted fruit since before the baby came. Since before she was dead.

  After school she went home and asked the aunts about it.

  "Ah Ma," she said, "can you taste anything besides people?"

  It was evening — Ah Lee had had to stay late at school for marching drills —and the aunts were already cooking dinner. The scent of fried liver came from the wok wielded by Aunty Girl. It smelled exquisite, but where before the smell of fried garlic would have filled her mouth with saliva, now it was the liver that made Ah Lee's post-death nose sit up and take interest. It would have smelled even better raw.

  "Har?" said Ah Ma, who was busy chopping ginger.

  "I mean," said Ah Lee. "When you eat the ginger, can you taste it? Because I can't. I can only taste people. Everything else got no taste. Like drinking water only."

  Disapproval rose from the aunts and floated just above their heads like a mist. The aunts avoided discussing their undeceased state. It was felt to be an indelicate subject. It was like talking about your bowel movements, or other people's adultery.

  "Why do you ask this kind of question?" said Ah Ma.

  "Better focus on your homework," said Tua Kim.

  "I finished it already," said Ah Lee. "But why do you put in all the spices when you cook, then? If it doesn't make any difference?"

  "It makes a difference," said Aunty Girl.

  "Why do you even cook the people?" said Ah Lee. "They're nicest when they're raw."

  "Ah girl," said Ah Ma, "you don't talk like that, please. We are not animals. Even if we are not alive, we are still human. As long as we are human we will eat like civilized people, not dogs in the forest. If you want to know why, that is why."

  There was a silence. The liver sizzled on the pan. Ah Ma diced more ginger than anyone would need, even if they could taste it.

  "Is that why Sa Ee Poh chops intestines and fries them in batter to make them look like yu char kuay?" asked Ah Lee.

  "I ate fried bread sticks for breakfast every morning in my life," said Sa Ee Poh. "Just because I am like this, doesn't mean I have to stop."

  "Enough, enough," said Ah Chor. As the oldest of the aunts, she had the most authority. "No need to talk about this kind of thing. Ah Lee, come pick the roots off these tauge and don't talk so much."

  The aunts had a horror of talking about death. In life this had been an understandable superstition, but it seemed peculiar to dislike the mention of death when you were dead.

  Ah Lee kept running into the wall of the aunts' disapproval headfirst. They were a family who believed that there was a right way to do things, and consequently a right way to think. Ah Lee always seemed to be thinking wrong.

  She could see that as her caretakers the aunts had a right to determine where she went and what she did. But she objected to their attempts to change what she thought. After all, none of them had died before the age of fifty-five, while she was stuck forever at sixteen.

  "It's OK if I don't follow you a hundred percent," she told them one day in exasperation. "It's called a generation gap."

  This came after Sa Ee Poh had spent half an hour marveling over her capacity for disagreement. In Sa Ee Poh's day, girls did not answer back. They listened to their elders, did their homework, came top in class, bought the groceries, washed the floor, and had enough time left over to learn to play the guzheng and volunteer for charity. When Sa Ee Poh had been a girl, she had positively delighted in submission. But children these days ….

  Once an aunt got hold of an observation she did not let go of it until she had crunched its bones and sucked the marrow out, and saved the bones to make soup with later.

  "Gap? What gap?" Sa Ee Poh said.

  "It's a branded clothing," said Aunty Girl. She was the cool aunt. "American shop. They sell jeans, very expensive."

  The aunts surveyed Ah Lee with gentle disappointment.

  "Why do you care so much about brands?" said Ah Ma. "If you want clothes, Ah Ma can make clothes for you. Better than the clothes in the shop also."

  So Ah Lee did not tell them about the boy. If the aunts could not handle her having thoughts, imagine how much worse they would be about her having feelings. Especially love — love, stealing into her life like a thief in the night, filling her dried out heart and plumping it out.

  Being a vampire was not so bad. It was like eating steak every day, but when steak was your favorite food in the world. It wasn't anything like the books and movies, though. In books and movies it seemed quite romantic to be a vampire, but Ah Lee and her aunts were clearly the wrong sort of people for the ruffled shirt and velvet jacket style of vampirism.

  Undeath had not lent Ah Lee any mystical glamour. It had not imbued her with magical powers, gained her exotic new friends, or even done anything for her acne.

  In fact Ah Lee's life had become more boring post-death than it had been pre-, because at least when she was alive she had had friends. Now she just had aunts. She still went to school, but she was advised against fraternising with her schoolfellows for obvious reasons.

  "Anyway, what is friends?" said the aunts. "Won't last one. Only family will be there for you at the end of the day."

  The sayings of aunts filled her he
ad till they poked out of her ears and nostrils.

  Yet here came this boy one fine day, and suddenly her ears and nostrils were cleared. Her head was blown open. The sayings of the aunts fluttered away in the wind and dissolved with nothing to hold on to. Love was like swallowing a cili padi whole.

  A classmate caught her staring at the boy the next day.

  "Eh, see something very nice, is it?" said the classmate, her voice heavy with innuendo. She might as well have added, "Hur hur hur."

  Fortunately Ah Lee did not have quick social reflexes. Her face remained expressionless. She said contemplatively,

  "I can't remember whether today is my turn to clean the window or not. Sorry, you say what ah? You think that guy looks very nice, is it?"

  The classmate retreated, embarrassed.

  "No lah, just joking only," she said.

  "Who is that guy?" said Ah Lee, maintaining the facade of detachment. "Is he in our class? I never see him before."

  "Blur lah you," said the classmate. "That one is Ridzual. He's new. He just move here from KL."

  "He came to Lubuk Udang from KL?" said Ah Lee.

  "I know, right?" said the classmate. This seemed an eccentric move to them both. Everyone had uncles and aunts, cousins, older brothers and sisters who lived in KL. Only grandparents stayed in Lubuk Udang. In three years, Ah Lee knew, none of the people sitting around her in the classroom would still be living there. Lubuk Udang was a place you moved away from when you were still young enough to have something to move for.

  Fresh surprises awaited. The first time the boy opened his mouth in class, a strong Western accent came out. It said, "I don't know" in answer to the obvious question the Add Maths teacher had posed him, but it made even that confession of ignorance sound glamorous.

  People said Ridzual had been at an international school in KL. The nearest international school to Lubuk Udang was in Penang, a whole state and Strait away.