Once upon a time in Chinatown

by Robert Ronsson

  He smiled. ‘You’re a very efficient guide. Thank you.’

  She led the way, pleased that he acknowledged her competence, and listened for his footsteps to make sure he was following. They were in a narrow passage with the building’s rear exterior wall on their left. The passage ran perhaps fifty metres from one end of the building to the other. Each room on their right was enclosed by brick walls. Some still bore patches of plaster lining. ‘They never intended to put glass in the windows here,’ she pointed to gaps on their left. ‘It was always meant be open. They have constructions like this in England – in big churches – I think they’re called cloisters.’

  ‘Yes. I am familiar. In Portugal, we say claustro.’

  ‘There—’ she pointed out one of the openings to a bare patch of land with the ruined building beyond ‘—they planned for it to be a courtyard with the cloisters on all sides.’

  Further along she turned right into a room twice the length of those they had seen before. The windows at the far end indicated that they were now at the furthest point from the entrance hall. ‘I am sad when I come here. To think it was never used. Never lived in.’

  ‘What was this room?’ he said from behind the camera, tight against his face.

  ‘I do not know. I haven’t seen any plans. But I think that it must be a room for entertaining, so perhaps a dining hall or a grand reception room.’ She removed her hat and uncoiled a dark pony tail. ‘The servants would have come through here.’ She passed behind a wall and they were in an anteroom beyond which was the hidden entrance to the round tower. ‘See how the floors and walls are rough here. Less care was taken to make sure the steps are even, that the walls are smooth; this area was for servants.’

  Nancy climbed ahead of him knowing that his eyes would be at the same height as her hips. They emerged onto a boarded floor and passed through a keyhole-shaped arch into the passage leading to the upper rooms. This time, as they ambled along, the abandoned rooms were on their left and the window openings to the right. Luis stopped. He took out a handkerchief and ran it across his forehead and down into his collar. He blew his out-breaths through pursed lips. ‘I need a cigarette.’ He took out a fresh pack, stripped off the cellophane and proffered it to her.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’ He flicked his lighter into life and satisfied that her lack of response meant she didn’t object, put it to the end of his cigarette. He was about to toss the cellophane wrapper aside, hesitated, and stuffed it into his pocket instead. ‘It’s very tidy. It looks like this floor has been added; it is not neglected.’ He looked into the room. ‘There’s no rubble, no litter. Who is looking after this place?’

  Nancy felt the colour rise from her neck. ‘I think the owners are the same people who run the plantation. They make sure everything is safe to visit. They don’t stop people coming but officially the house is not open to the public.’ She followed him to the window. Beyond the stream, the parked car and the road, a plantation stretched in regimented rows to the horizon.

  ‘You can see more from the roof.’ Nancy said, as she turned into the square tower where polished stone stairs took them upwards. Luis followed, wheezing. The stairs were narrow but not steep. She turned back. ‘Are you all right? Want to stop?’

  ‘No problem,’ Luis said. But he was dabbing the handkerchief to his forehead again and his face was red.

  The stairs stopped and the tower above them was an empty shell with holes in the walls for the beams that would have supported two more floors. The only opening took them out onto the flat roof. It had been cemented over, presumably to make it watertight. On the courtyard side, there was a low wall but on the edge they went to, instinctively chasing the unfettered view, they could have stood with their toes hanging over the drop. Nancy put her hat back on after detaching her sunglasses from the brim.

  ‘What an incredible sight,’ Luis said, holding up the camera again. This time the film-winding mechanism whirred for all of twenty seconds. ‘Damn! he said, looking at the back of the camera. ‘That’s the film finished. I’ve left the spares back in the hotel.’

  ‘You have seen nearly everything,’ Nancy said.

  They turned back to the view. On the far horizon, beyond the ranks of palm trees, a ridge crossed from left to right.

  ‘Those trees,’ Luis said. ‘Are they rubber?’

  She shook her head, gazing out over the countless rows stitched into the slopes, marching away in all directions. ‘No. It’s palm oil. See the bunches of fruits in the tops of the trees. That’s where the oil is.’

  ‘What is it used for?’

  ‘So many things. One I know of is soap. Do you have the brand called Palmolive in Portugal? It’s palm oil.’

  ‘Mmm. I should have thought of it,’ he said. ‘Who owns the plantations now?’

  She stepped sharply back from the edge. What did her father want her to say? It would be easier to dissemble. She waved a hand airily as if this would distract him from her answer and studied the horizon. ‘All this? A big company from London or America. All the oil they produce here is for export. Maybe it’s the company that makes Palmolive soap. Who knows?’

  They turned to face the other way and Luis pulled his hat forward to shield his eyes. The ruin of the original house, built of a colder, whiter stone, stood joined to its younger, showier brother by foundations for later buildings that never materialised. The older house was roofless, its jagged walls sticking up like the enamel sides of a drilled tooth. Again, plantations ran away from them, broken only by the silver thread of a river, until the patterns broke down on the lower slopes of the blue hills of the Highlands.

  He had moved to the top of the stairs. ‘I have to get out of this heat.’ He held out his hand. ‘Do you need help with the steps?’

  Nancy shook her head.

  As she followed the tall man down, she wondered where he would want to go next. Normally, she would suggest visiting the Hindu temple only a short walk away but she deduced from his concern about the heat and his laboured breathing that Luis would prefer the air-conditioned shelter of the car. The basement would be cool but, while there was no hint of feeling unsafe in his company, she knew that standing close to Luis in the dark would make her feel uncomfortable.

  Her mother had brought up Nancy as a Buddhist and she retained some connection with her childhood religion. So, by the time she had got into the car and turned on the engine and air-conditioning, and while Luis smoked a cigarette in the shade of the notice board, she had decided to take him to see Ipoh’s largest Buddhist temple.

  There was an uneasy silence as she drove and Nancy assumed that Luis was mulling over what he had seen. Perhaps, though, he was merely casting around in his head for something to talk about because finally he said, ‘So you work for your father?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘This is not what you do? I thought they said something about public relations for the hotel?’

  She drove deliberately as if she was adhering to a speed limit. ‘Oh, that. No, this work is part-time. My proper job is in a bank.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I am doing this as a favour for my father. There aren’t many fluent English speakers in Ipoh.’

  ‘There are a lot of people who speak good English, though. The people of local origin—’

  ‘Here we call them Bumiputera – Bumis for short. But it is bad for you to say this. You call them Malays, I think.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to offend anyone.’

  ‘It’s fine. You call them Malays.’

  ‘All right. The Malays and the Chinese they speak English as a common language, right?’

  ‘Sort of. Lots of Chinese like me also speak little of Malay. I need it for my job. The bank I work for is the biggest Bumi bank in Malaysia.’

  ‘And it’s all right between you, Chinese and Malays? The troubles of the 1950s are behind you?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes. That’s behind us.’

  They s
topped for lunch at a street cafe in Menglembu on the southwest outskirts of Ipoh, where Nancy introduced Luis to her favourite curry – juicy segments of fresh pineapple stewed in an ancient pot over a gas stove. The fiery sauce had of such depth of flavour as could only be achieved by never quite emptying the pot and endlessly replenishing the ingredients so that some element of the sauce was as old as the pot itself. Luis expressed his enjoyment of the food but, tellingly, (and to Nancy’s secret amusement) he didn’t manage to finish the sauce.

  He lit a cigarette and sucked the smoke deep down. ‘I’ve been thinking. I hope it won’t offend you but I’m not interested in seeing a temple.’

  One of the reasons that Nancy had reached a management level in the bank was that she was naturally diligent. Her immediate desire was to show off what her city had to offer. She was disappointed but was determined not to show it. ‘It is a very impressive cave temple with many big statues of Buddha. Are you sure?’

  Luis nodded, exhaling blue smoke through an apologetic smile.

  ‘It is your choice. Is there something else that you would like to see instead?’

  ‘I think I’d prefer to go back to Ipoh,’ he said.

  ‘Of course, Mr Luis.’

  ‘Does it have a library?’

  ‘Ipoh? Yes, of course.’

  ‘I’d like you to drop me there, please.’

  ‘No problem.’

  She glanced sideways as she drove. He took a blank sheet of the hotel’s notepaper out of his pocket and wrote on it in a shaky hand as she negotiated the light mid-afternoon traffic on the outskirts of the city.

  13

  When Nancy went down to reception at ten the following morning, carrying a list of Ipoh’s tourist attractions, I imagine she was surprised to discover that Luis wasn’t there. Albert, the concierge, handed her a note: Sorry, Miss Lee. I left early to check up on something. Shall we meet back here for lunch? 12.30? Luis Escobar.

  It meant she had to kick her heels for two hours and was still not in the best of moods when she went down to the lobby at quarter to one. Luis hurried to his feet spreading his arms. ‘Miss Nancy, I’m so sorry. I wanted to do some boring research in the library. You wouldn’t have found it interesting at all. I can make it up to you. Let me buy you lunch.’

  He was wearing the same creased linen suit but had changed his shirt since yesterday. He still exuded his stale-ashtray reek. Nancy’s outfit was as the day before except the ski-pants were charcoal grey and her blouse had a softer collar.

  He ushered her through the doors and she waved away the waiting white Mercedes. Lang-ren, who had been loitering in the shadows behind the doorman’s station, stepped forward, without acknowledging her, to take the limousine back to its parking place.

  Nancy judged that she’d given Luis a cold enough hello and suggested that he follow her to the mall around the corner. He only had time for a few drags on his cigarette before they arrived. He looked at her quizzically and she pointed to the No Smoking sign. He threw the half-finished cigarette on the ground and stamped on it. He wouldn’t last long in Singapore, she thought.

  The mall’s food hall sold upmarket street food in air-conditioned surroundings. Nancy put on her cardigan while she ordered Penang speciality noodle for them both and Luis fetched two Tsingtao beers from the drinks stall. When they had settled at the table, she showed him her typewritten list of local attractions. ‘Which of these would you like to see?’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  She ran her finger down the paper. ‘The railway station is worth a visit. It dates from Queen Victoria’s time. Tourists go to see the roof because it was built to the same plans as if in London. It could carry the weight of a six-foot-deep snowfall, they say.’ She giggled behind her hand. ‘It never snows in Ipoh!’

  ‘Mmm. It sounds irresistible.’

  She ignored his ironic tone. ‘You could also see Gua Tempurung, a big cave not far from here in Gopeng. The central cavern has a lightshow. All very interesting. But we will need clothes for the cold because it is a long way down. No sun; no heat.’

  He looked down at his thin jacket. ‘I’m not really dressed for cold. Perhaps not for me – today.’

  ‘There’s an ancient tin mine with a museum.’

  ‘It sounds underground again.’

  ‘The museum is separate, in a house. It’s not in the mine.’

  ‘Even so…’

  She sighed and folded the sheet of paper. When she slipped it into her handbag she closed its clasp with the finality of a slammed door. ‘Ipoh is not really a tourist city. Maybe you should go back to KL or go to an island with many beaches like Langkawi.’

  ‘I was thinking that perhaps you have a museum dedicated to the World War Two period or the insurgency war with the British?’

  ‘My family, all Chinese in Malaya, have hard time when Japanese came. The war with the British was for liberation. Both times the Lee family fought for liberation – against Japanese first and British second. But both times many Malays joined the other side. We have learned since to get along. It is difficult to make memorials to suit everybody.’

  ‘Is there nothing to see from that time?’

  ‘Not touristic or a museum.’

  For a few moments, they ate in silence surrounded by the clamour of office workers on their break. The restaurant was crowded but nobody sat alongside them, even though their table had space for six.

  ‘It’s interesting. It’s as if the country turned from Malaya to modern Malaysia without anything in between,’ Luis said. ‘Through all this time the house my grandfather built was standing there empty. A war and an insurgency going on around it and no records, no memorials. As if the time from the invasion by Japan to the end of the colonial war has been forgotten.’

  ‘There is a National Memorial in KL. Bear in mind it was a difficult time with people on the same side against the Japanese and then enemies only a few years later.’

  ‘Or the things that happened are best left unrecorded?’ He looked at her intently as if searching for an imperfection in her eyes. ‘Do you know what I do in Lisbon – my job?’ he asked.

  She looked away as if distracted by another table. ‘No, should I?’

  ‘I’m a private investigator.’

  She still didn’t look at him. ‘That’s interesting.’

  He shrugged. ‘Not really. It’s mostly divorce work. I follow the cheating husband or wife, take pictures—’

  She put a hand over her mouth and giggled – a reflex.

  ‘—no… not those sorts of pictures. Assignations: dinners together, car park meetings… Anyway, very occasionally I work on an interesting assignment.’

  She took a sip of her beer. ‘What sort thing?’

  ‘Take one case. A man came to me and he was trying to trace his family. This man was from England and it turned out that he was my cousin. We share the same grandfather—’

  ‘The one who built Kellie’s Castle?’

  ‘Correct. You are quick to understand.’

  Nancy placed her beer down carefully and focused on the stall’s menu hanging on a wall beyond Luis’s right shoulder. She needed to stay calm and pay attention. This could be what her father had wanted to find out.

  ‘Only this man, my cousin, didn’t know about my side of the family so I was able to explain all about how his grandfather – our grandfather – was born in Scotland, made his fortune in Malaysia and then died in Lisbon. It was his interest in this story that made me think I ought to know more, that I should trace the family background.’

  ‘Did you go to Scotland? I have never been to Scotland,’ she said. She wished she hadn’t had the beer. It always made her cheeks glow red.

  ‘No. It would have made sense chronologically – in time order – to go—’

  ‘I know what ‘chronologically’ means!’

  ‘—sorry, of course.’

  ‘I think my English is better than yours, Mr Luis,’ she said sharply.

 
‘Of course. Yes. I’m sorry. As I say, it would have made more sense chronologically to go to Scotland first but I ended up coming here. And now I’m here I’m beginning to feel that my cousin, his name is Cross, somehow wanted me to come.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying he is the interesting assignment?’

  ‘Oh no.’ He chuckled. ‘No, no, no. The interesting case is the one he’s laid at my door. What’s happening now I’m here in Malaysia. This is the interesting case.’

  She pushed their unused cutlery together in a single pile. The high-pitched nasal chatter around them filled her ears.

  ‘Now,’ Luis said. ‘I need to go outside for a cigarette.’

  While he smoked, Nancy thought about what he had said. It was clear he wanted her to know that he was embarked on some sort of investigation. He seemed to hint that it centred on what happened between World War Two and the Insurgency. While he had been on his own, had Luis discovered that it was the Lee family that owned the castle and all the land around it? If so, perhaps he understood why she had been recruited as his guide. Unless he confronted her, though, she had no choice but to continue to play out her appointed role.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon walking in the city. It was a route that her father took when he entertained family from out of town. They passed through the railway station, comparable, according to the locals, to the Taj Mahal and stopped to admire the nearby War Memorial. He noted tartly that, ‘They do recognise there was a world war.’

  She led him through Panglima Lane, a stubby backstreet that had in the distant past been the red-light district. Along its short length, eating places now outnumbered the dubious looking massage parlours. Outside a house displaying exhibits from the city’s tin-mining past, she suggested he may care to look in but he declined.

  Every so often, as they walked, Luis would seek the shade of a tree and light a cigarette and Nancy would wait nearby drawing circles in the pavement dust with the toe of her shoe.