Spirits Abroad (ebook)

by Zen Cho

  "He sounds like TV hor," said the classmate. "Apparently he was born in US."

  Ridzual called natrium "sodium" and kalium "potassium". For the duration of his first week at school he wore dazzlingly white hi-top leather sneakers instead of the whitewashed canvas shoes everyone else wore. The shoes didn't last long — they were really too cool to be regulation. But it didn't matter that Ridzual had to give them up to the discipline teacher a week after he had started. The aroma of leather hung around him forever after, even when he was only wearing Bata like the rest of the class.

  Ah Lee had never been in love but she took to it like a natural despite her lack of practice. She spun secret fantasies about him: the things they would say to each other, the adventures they would have. She would reel off dazzling one-liners; he would gaze at her with intrigued longan seed eyes. She saw them sitting in a café unlike any kopitiam to be found in Lubuk Udang, with flowered wallpaper, tiny glossy mahogany tables, and brisk friendly waitresses who took your orders down in a little notebook and did not shout in the direction of the kitchen, "Milo O satu!"

  They would sit together at a table, Ridzual's curly head bent close to her smooth one. They would speak of serious things, but she would also make him laugh. Through this love she would be renewed, brilliant, special.

  However lurid her fantasies got, her imagination never stretched beyond conversation. You could not imagine kissing a boy when you were never more than a room's width away from an aunt. Ah Lee's favorite time to dream was in that precious space of quiet between getting in bed and falling asleep. She could construct a pretty good Parisian café as she lay underneath her Donald Duck blanket. But cafés were one thing: kisses were another. No kiss could survive Ji Ee's snores from the mattress across the room.

  It was no big deal. There was time enough to imagine the later stages of her romance — after all, she had not even got to the overtures. Ah Lee came from a family that believed in being prepared. While staring at the back of Ridzual's lovely head in class, she wove conversation openers, from the casual to the calculatedly cool.

  She then made the fatal mistake of writing them down.

  The aunts would have pulled it off if they had left everything to Ji Ee. In life Ji Ee had played the violin. She could have been a professional if her husband had not become envious and depressed, so that she had had to stop playing to keep him happy. She had not touched a violin since, but she still had the soul of an artist. It gave her sensibility.

  She sat down next to Ah Lee one day and asked her what she was doing.

  Ah Lee was trying to think of nonchalant ways to ask Ridzual what life meant to him.

  "Bio homework," she said. She snapped her exercise book shut.

  "Good, good," said Ji Ee. She looked dreamily into the distance.

  They were sitting on the step outside the kitchen door. Behind them came the hiss and clang of Ah Chor making human stomach soup with bucketloads of pepper and coriander. In front of them stood the orchard.

  It was one of those blindingly sunny days: the leaves of the trees shone with reflected sunlight, so bright that if you looked at them purple-green shapes remained imprinted on your eyes after you looked away. The heat was relieved by an occasional breeze that lifted the leaves and touched their faces like a caress.

  A monitor lizard paused on the branch of a tree to look at them. It blinked and ran up the branch, out of sight.

  "When you are young, you must focus," said Ji Ee. "You must pay attention at school, study hard and become clever. When you are young, that is when you have the best chance. And you are young now, in this modern day, when women can do everything. Can be doctor, can be lawyer. You know none of us went to university. Your Ah Chor wasn't allowed and when Ah Ma and Sa Ee Poh were young, during the war, everything was too kelam-kabut. I wasn't clever enough. Aunty Girl's family couldn't afford it, so she could only get a diploma.

  "But you, Ah Lee, you have all the opportunities. We have lived so long, we have saved enough money. Maybe if you study hard, if you get a scholarship, you could even go to England like my uncle the doctor, your Tua Tiao Kong. Your English is so good. You have a good chance."

  Ah Lee was used to such pep talks. The aunts never scolded; they did not believe in raising their voices. They only "told". The benefits of only ever being told and not scolded were obvious, but the disadvantage of it was that while people only scolded when you had done something wrong, aunts got to tell all the time.

  "I know, Ji Ee," Ah Lee said. "You all have told me before." In her daydream Ridzual had been on the point of tucking her hair behind her ear. She was impatient to return to it.

  "You must not get distracted by anything," said Ji Ee. "There will be time for other things when you are older. There is so much time ahead of you. Right now you must focus on your studies. Then we can tell all the neighbors about our clever girl."

  She put her soft hand on Ah Lee's arm and stroked it. Love came up the arm and melted Ah Lee's thorny teenaged heart. When Ji Ee said,

  "You'll listen to Ji Ee, ya?"

  Ah Lee said pliantly, "Yes, Ji Ee."

  So she never heard the rest of the talk, planned if Ah Lee had proved intransigent, which went into alarming detail about the inadvisability of youthful romance.

  The way Ji Ee had two-stepped around the subject matter, Ah Lee would never have known what she was talking about if not for everyone else. All the other aunts believed in the forthright approach, and not one of them could keep a secret.

  When Ah Lee came home from school the day after Ji Ee had given her little talk, Ah Chor looked up from the dining table and said,

  "Ah girl! Who is this Malay boy? What is he called already?" She turned to Ah Ma. "Ri—Li—Liwat or what?"

  Ah Ma did not know any dirty words, and could not have told you what sodomy was if you'd asked her. She said unconcernedly, "Ridzwan, Ma. He is called Ridzwan. Isn't that right, Ah Lee?"

  "Cannot marry a Malay," Ah Chor told Ah Lee. "They don't know how to treat their women."

  Ah Lee was surfing the waves of outrage. She started to say, "You all read my diary?" Then she clamped her mouth shut in fury. Of course they had. She could just picture Ji Ee and Aunty Girl reading it out loud, translating the English and Malay to Hokkien as they went along for the benefit of Ah Chor and Ah Ma and Sa Ee Poh, who could not read. The aunts' conception of the right to privacy went far enough to allow you to close the toilet door when you were peeing, but no further.

  "Ah Ma saw you when you were being born," Ah Ma said. No further explanation was required.

  "Even if you think you will be so happy and the man is so good, you don't know what can happen," said Ah Chor. "Do you know or not, they can marry four wives? Malay men …. "

  "Si Gu had four wives. He wasn't even Muslim," said Aunty Girl.

  Ah Chor said repressively, "Your uncle was a very naughty boy."

  "It wasn't four wives, not four wives," said Ah Ma. "Only one wife. The others were girlfriends only."

  "The laksa lady cannot even count as girlfriend," sniffed Sa Ee Poh. "Remember how she threw a bowl of laksa in his face when he told her he wasn't going to marry her? Even a laksa lady can put on airs like that."

  "She asked him to pay for it some more!" said Ah Ma. She realized they were enjoying reminiscing about her naughty brother's adventures rather too much, and changed her face to look serious. "Ah Lee, this is what men are like."

  "Not all men," said Ji Ee.

  "Yes, all men," said Sa Ee Poh.

  "Only bad men," said Ah Ma. "But when you are young you cannot tell whether a man is a good man or a bad man yet. You are too small. Now you must focus on your studies. Don't think about this Ridzwan."

  "His name," said Ah Lee, "is Ridzual."

  She stormed out of the kitchen.

  From that day there was no respite for her. The aunts abounded in stories of bad men and the bad things they had done to good women.

  "Look at your great-grandfather," said Aunty Gi
rl.

  "Shouldn't speak ill of the dead," said Ah Ma piously. "He was your grandfather, Ah Girl. You should show respect."

  "No need to respect That Man," said Ah Chor, who had been That Man's wife.

  "This is what happens when you marry too young," she told Ah Lee. "That Man didn't even deserve to be called husband. I was only nineteen when I had my third child, your Sa Ee Poh, and already he had a second wife."

  "She lived in Ipoh," Sa Ee Poh confirmed.

  "When I found out, I told him, if you don't stop seeing her, I will take my children and go," said Ah Chor. "He promised he wouldn't see her again. But all along after that, little did I know he was going back and forth between me and that other woman! My fourth child is the same age as her second child. He didn't know how to feel shame! Never mind my heart. At least if she didn't have children nobody would know. But he didn't even care enough to save my face."

  Ah Ma was uncomfortable. "Ma, so long ago … it's not good to speak bad of other people."

  "Ah Lee must know so she won't make the same mistake," said Ah Chor. "He didn't even support the second wife properly, so she came to me asking for money. When I saw her with the baby, I packed up and brought all my children here. Don't think this was your grandfather's house! He was rich before he lost it all in gambling, but this was my parents' home. His creditors couldn't touch this. All this was my land. If That Man came on it without my permission, I could call the police on him."

  Ah Lee was interested despite herself. "Did you ever see him again?"

  "Of course," said Ah Chor. "Where do you think your four other great-uncles and great-aunts came from?"

  "Ma says too much. Shouldn't talk about such things," said Ah Ma to Sa Ee Poh, but Sa Ee Poh only laughed.

  "We all know this story already," she said. "Let Ah Lee listen. Maybe she will learn something also."

  "But you said if he came on your land you would call the police," Ah Lee said to Ah Chor.

  "Oh, he was my husband, after all," said Ah Chor. "I didn't let him live here. Only visit. I told him, you can come and stay for good only after you get rid of that woman. But he didn't, so even after he asked and asked, I never went back to him.

  "It wasn't easy, you know or not? Raising eight children with no husband. Lucky my mother was there to help me. That's why you cannot think about this kind of thing at your age — men, romance. It's too early."

  "But Ah Ma married Ah Kong when she was sixteen," Ah Lee objected. "I'm going to be seventeen already."

  "That's not the same," said Sa Ee Poh.

  Ah Ma stared at her hands on the table.

  "You forget, girl," said Ji Ee gently. "There was a war then."

  Ji Ee's husband wouldn't let her play the violin, an iniquity long known to Ah Lee. Curiously, if anything was going to stop Ah Lee's wayward heart from loving Ridzual, it was Ji Ee's patience when she talked about Ji Tiao.

  "He was a good husband. Men have their little ways. They have their likes and dislikes. As long as they are responsible, as long as they look after you and the children, there's no harm in letting them have their way."

  Ah Lee was less impressed by the wickedness of Sa Ee Poh's husband. Sa Ee Poh was the only one who spoke about her husband with the complacency of someone who had asked more of love and always received it. But she still complained about her husband's vegetarianism.

  "Sa Tiao Kong being a vegetarian doesn't sound so bad," Ah Lee objected. "How was that suffering for you?"

  "You think what? I had to be vegetarian also!" Sa Ee Poh retorted. "You think he cooked for himself? I cooked for the two of us. Vegetarian a few times a year or for a few months, I don't mind. Vegetarian all the time … for the rest of my life I never tasted garlic or onion!"

  Ah Ma kept the story about her marriage for the right time. One night Ah Lee's evening hunt had taken longer than usual, so she got home late and only managed to finish her Add Maths homework after 11. She was feeling creaky-jointed and lonely as she got ready for bed in a house full of night sounds. The beam of light under Ah Ma's door came as a pleasant surprise.

  She poked her head into Ah Ma's room. "Not sleeping yet, Ah Ma?"

  Ah Ma was lying propped up on the pillows, her eyes half-closed, but when Ah Lee spoke she sat bolt upright.

  "No! Cannot sleep," she said in a blatant lie. "Brushed your teeth already? Come sit down next to Ah Ma."

  Ah Lee climbed into bed to the soft melody of Ah Ma's fussing: "Come under the blanket, you'll get cold. Let Ah Ma feel your hands. Ah, see lah, so cold! Next time you mustn't go out until so late. Not good to work so late at night. Why don't you want to eat dinner with us?"

  "I like to have fresh meat sometimes," said Ah Lee.

  "Then don't be so picky. Ah Ma always tells you, eat the first man you see."

  "I did, Ah Ma," Ah Lee protested. Now that she was under the blanket with Ah Ma's bony arm around her and Ah Ma's warm chest against her cheek, she felt drowsy, protected. "The guy had a motorbike. Didn't know how to get rid of it."

  "So how? Did you manage to get rid of it in the end?"

  "Yes. Flew out of town and dumped it in the middle of an oil palm plantation. No blood stains, and I took off the licence plate."

  Ah Ma tsked.

  "So difficult," she said. "Next time just eat with us. We all have hunted for you already. And we are older than you so we know which people are the nicest to eat."

  "OK, OK," mumbled Ah Lee.

  They sat in silence for a while. Ah Lee half-shut her eyes to keep out the light from the lamp on the bedside table. Through the slits of her eyes she could see Ah Ma's reading glasses and the container in which she kept her false teeth. The teeth floated in cloudy water, yellowed by coffee and blood.

  The cicadas screeched. The ceiling fan hummed to itself. The air was cool enough that the breeze it created was a pleasure rather than the necessity it usually was. Ah Lee forgot the persistent sense of irritation she had had since the aunts had found her diary, which had felt as if she had sand in her underwear. She was almost asleep when Ah Ma spoke.

  "Do you know why I married your Ah Kong?" she said.

  Embarrassment woke Ah Lee up.

  "Don't know," said Ah Lee. An expectant pause ensued. Ah Ma was waiting for a better attempt at an answer. "Er … you loved him?"

  "Where got?" said Ah Ma. "I was sixteen, a little girl only. How to know what is love yet? Ah Ma washed your backside when you were a baby. Now that is love."

  "That's different," said Ah Lee. "You wouldn't marry someone just because they didn't mind washing your backside."

  "Don't answer back to your elders," said Ah Ma. "No, I married him because of the war. The Japanese soldiers used to come to everyone's houses looking for young girls. So Ah Chor cut our hair and put us in our brothers' clothes. It worked with Sa Ee Poh because she was younger and skinny, but you know when Ah Ma was young Ah Ma was so chubby-chubby. Even wearing boys' clothes, I still looked like a girl.

  "When the soldiers came Ah Chor would tell us to run to the forest behind the house and hide there until the soldiers went away. So horrible! Must lie in the mud. Cannot move even with mosquitoes biting your body. When I came back to the house my face looked like it had pimples all over it because of the mosquito bites, and my legs were covered with leeches. I had to sit down in the kitchen and Ah Chor would put salt on them, but you cannot take them off with your hand, you know? Must wait until they drop off. Then when they came off, my legs would bleed everywhere. So horrible."

  "That's why you never let me play in the forest," said Ah Lee. "Because you don't like leeches."

  Ah Ma nodded.

  "One day some soldiers came without warning to our house. I was in the kitchen cutting ubi kayu. Those days we had nothing much to eat, only tapioca that we grew ourselves. There was no time to run out to the forest, so I just tried to make myself look small, bent my head over the chopping board. Your Ah Chor was so scared, she offered them all the food: do you want Nescafé, do you wan
t biscuit, this lah, that lah. And she talked. Usually when the soldiers came we didn't talk so much. Scared they think we asked questions because we were spies or what. But Ah Chor didn't want them to look at me, so she kept talking. Did they like Malaya? How was Japan like, not so hot? Her Japanese was not so good but she used every word she knew. When she ran out of words she knew, she repeated everything she'd already said.

  "But the soldiers kept looking over at me. I was so scared I cut my finger instead of the ubi and the blood went all over the tapioca. And I didn't even make a sound. The soldiers drank coffee. They talked to Ah Chor, very friendly. Then they finally got up to go. Suddenly their captain turned around and pointed at me. He said,

  "'Can we have that tapioca?'

  "All along they were looking at the ubi kayu on the shelf above my head! We gave them all the ubi we harvested from our own plants, even though we went hungry for the next few days. Your great-grandfather said Ah Chor should have given me away instead."

  "That wasn't very nice of him," said Ah Lee.

  "Men cannot stand having empty stomachs," said Ah Ma. "After that your great-grandparents were very anxious to see me married. When your Ah Kong came to lodge with us he was already quite old — thirty-eight years old — and we only knew him a few weeks before he asked to marry me. But he was a teacher and an educated man and the Japanese respected him, so my mother and father said yes."

  A hush. Ah Lee said into it, "He wasn't so bad, was he?" She remembered her grandfather as a benign figure, distant, but kindly enough when he was reminded of your existence.

  "Your Ah Kong was a good father," said Ah Ma. "All his students at his school looked up to him. Even the Japanese could see that he had a good character. And he knew how to be polite. He never said a bad word to me.

  "But when a girl marries so young, to someone so much older … and he was educated, and I couldn't even read. I could hold a pen but I could only draw pictures with it. Ah girl, you must never tell anybody this. But your Ah Kong did not respect me. Without love you can live a happy life. Love is something that will come after you live together with your husband, after you have children together. But a woman should not marry where there is no respect. Respect is the most important thing.