by Zen Cho
Ah Ma was so angry she had gone all crackly, like the image on a video call when the connection crapped out. She kept going in and out of focus, cycling between the old woman and the young.
“You liar! You want to cheat people only,” she told Ng Chee Hin, as though he could hear her. “You call the police to catch my son. You put drugs in his house. You throw him in jail. And now you want to pretend you’re so good? Waiting until I die to bully my son, that’s called good, is it?”
Ah Ma! thought Jess. Think of Ah Ku.
“I am thinking of Ah Ku. I’m scolding this bastard is because of Ah Ku. If it’s not for Ah Ku, you think I’ll even come into his building?” Ah Ma spat at Ng Chee Hin.
Fortunately for him, ghosts didn’t appear to generate actual saliva. He didn’t seem to notice.
If you want to help Ah Ku, let me talk to the guy, said Jess.
She said to Ng Chee Hin, “I want to get my uncle out of jail. You want the development to go ahead and make money. It’s not going to get completed and it’s not going to be successful unless you do something about the god. My uncle’s not your problem. She is.”
Ng Chee Hin looked at her. “You really believe.”
Jess took a deep breath. Whatever she said now, the god would hear.
There was no point in holding back. She was already committed—had been long before she’d even realized it.
“It’s hard not to believe,” she said, “when the god has made you her medium.”
Ng Chee Hin was very still. Jess couldn’t read his expression.
“He doesn’t know what to think,” said Ah Ma.
“How much do you know about the Black Water Sister?” said Jess aloud.
Ng Chee Hin’s hand quivered in an abortive movement, as though he had wanted to raise it to silence her. “I know enough.”
“Then you should know she’s not going to just go away,” said Jess. “The workers are unhappy. They’ve got allies—and they’ve got evidence. The accident, the safety breaches and the cover-up—it’s all going to come out sooner or later. There are already rumors. Even if the authorities decide to stay out of it, even if you’re not worried about your reputation, you know what Malaysians are like. You think people are going to want to buy haunted condos? Penang’s not that short of land.”
“You said you have a solution?” said Ng Chee Hin.
“Leave my uncle alone, and I’ll get the god to stop making trouble for you. Otherwise . . .” Jess shrugged. “I’ve heard there’s a lot of money riding on the development. You’d better be ready to lose it.”
Ng Chee Hin held her gaze for a long moment. Then he looked away, and Jess knew she’d lost him.
“Miss Teoh, I told you, I’m a businessman. I only want to hear about facts. This kind of grandfather stories, I’m not interested. If that’s all you have to offer, my answer is no.” Ng Chee Hin got to his feet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of business to finish today.”
“I told you,” said Ah Ma. “You think he cares about those Bangladeshis? You should have told him about Ah Ku in the first place.”
“Yes, thanks, Ah Ma!”
“I beg your pardon?” said Ng Chee Hin.
“If it’s facts you want, there is one more thing you don’t know, Dato’ Ng,” said Jess.
She paused. She’d only have one shot at this.
“I believe what you did to my uncle was nothing personal,” she said, picking her words carefully. “I can see you thought it was the right decision. But to make the right decisions, you need the right information. And you’re missing a vital fact.”
Ng Chee Hin was starting to get impatient. “What are you talking about?”
“When my grandmother came to live with you, after my grandfather died, she was pregnant,” said Jess. “Wasn’t she?”
It must have sounded like a non sequitur. Ng Chee Hin looked startled. “Even this kind of thing your mother’s not ashamed to tell you?”
Jess waited.
“Your grandmother wasn’t honest,” said Ng Chee Hin. “She wanted to get married, but she didn’t even tell me she’s pregnant with the other man’s son. Later only I found out.”
“So you left her,” said Jess. “Didn’t you think it might be hard for her, having to bring up two kids by herself?”
Ng Chee Hin shrugged. “Your grandmother was a tough lady. I knew she’ll be OK one.” There was a grudging note of admiration, even fondness, in his voice.
Jess saw that in a way Ah Ma was as real and present to him as Jess was, even if he couldn’t see her and didn’t believe she was there.
It was a disturbing thought to have about your own grandmother and a man who, in more than one sense, could have been your grandfather—but maybe they really had been the love of each other’s life. Maybe that was what true love meant: a bitterness that stayed on the tongue when everything else faded.
Ng Chee Hin’s tribute did nothing for Ah Ma but piss her off even more.
“Ah Min, you let me talk to him,” she said. “I’ll tell him. We’ll see whether he believes or not!”
Jess could feel a swelling pressure from the ghost. It filled the room, an oppressive spiritual energy which stole the warmth from the gold lighting and made the shadows fall askew.
It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but whatever Ah Ma was doing was nothing compared to having the god around.
Jess said, “Wait.”
Ng Chee Hin’s eyes were on her, filled with a new wariness. He wasn’t afraid yet. That was good. He was a man in whom fear would turn quickly to anger. “Who are you talking to?”
“I already told you,” said Jess. But Ah Ma would have her turn. Jess didn’t want her on the loose—yet.
She leaned forward.
“If it was me,” said Jess, “if it was my girlfriend, I would have wondered. I would have wanted to be really sure about the baby. Whether he actually was another man’s son.”
It took Ng Chee Hin a moment to get it. When it clicked, his face changed, the eyes turning hard and bright as longan seeds.
Jess had thought she was scared before. Now she realized she had merely been nervous.
Ng Chee Hin laughed, with that blank furious look in his eyes. “Your mother told you this nonsense, is it? You know how many women try to say I’m the father of their children? Women I never met before also.”
“But you knew my grandmother,” Jess pointed out. “Did you never wonder if the boy was yours?”
“What is there to wonder? She said it’s the husband’s son,” said Ng Chee Hin. “If afterwards she wants to say something else . . .” He shrugged. “I told you, she’s not the only one who wants to profit from me.”
“Ah Min,” said Ah Ma. “Let me in!”
“Fine,” said Jess aloud. “Your turn.”
She closed her eyes and released her grip on herself, letting the boundaries slip between her mind and Ah Ma’s.
It was easy to do now that she knew what it felt like to have the god take over. It was almost soothing, giving up responsibility for what would happen next.
When she opened her eyes, it was on a world that bore two faces. To Jess, Ng Chee Hin looked like a stranger—a terrifying old uncle she was forced to sass when all she wanted to do was get out of his office.
But Ah Ma saw in him the ambitious young man she had loved. Till now, Jess would have said neither Sherng nor Ah Ku looked anything like their father. Through Ah Ma’s eyes, she saw the resemblance for the first time—the hidden sweetness lurking around the hard line of the lips.
Ah Ma’s smoker’s voice said from Jess’s mouth:
“Where got I profit from you, Ah Hin? If I wanted your money, I won’t go and let my granddaughter ask for it. I’ll ask you myself when I’m alive, no?”
Jess half expected Ng Chee Hin to react with skepticism—mock
Jess, challenge Ah Ma.
Instead he seemed to turn to stone. Only his eyes were alive in that statuelike face, alive with horror.
Jess had forgotten he belonged to a different generation. In many respects, he lived in a different world, one where it would be as foolish to be skeptical about the supernatural as to doubt the existence of cancer. And unlike Jess, he had known Ah Ma when she was living. He recognized her voice.
“Bian Nio?” His voice was gravelly with dread.
“Look so surprised for what?” said Ah Ma. “My granddaughter told you I’m here. You didn’t believe? You should know if you do me wrong, you won’t get rid of me easily.”
“Where got I do you wrong?” Ng Chee Hin jerked to his feet. He was speaking Hokkien now. It was like Jess wasn’t even in the room. “I let you stay in my house until you found your own place. You think how many men will do what I did? You have no reason to be angry at me.”
“You bully my son, you think I won’t be angry?” said Ah Ma. “Your own child also you can catch and put in jail. What kind of man has the heart to do that?”
“He’s not my son,” snarled Ng Chee Hin.
“You don’t believe? You go do DNA test and see!”
“You were pregnant already by the time you came to my house,” said Ng Chee Hin. “How do you know your husband is not the father?”
“I know,” said Ah Ma. “I gave birth to the boy myself. I will know one.”
“You told your son I’m the father?”
Ah Ma sniffed. “You think I’m so proud ah, want to tell people my son’s father is a samseng?”
“You told your granddaughter.”
“That one she guessed herself,” said Ah Ma. “I never told anybody.”
There was no relenting in Ng Chee Hin’s face. Jess waited for Ah Ma to speak up, argue, persuade him of the truth, but moments passed in silence.
It became apparent that Ah Ma wasn’t going to say anything else. She was stewing over the fact that Ng Chee Hin hadn’t given in already. No wonder they hadn’t lasted as a couple.
Jess was still present enough in her own body that it wasn’t hard to speak.
“Just look at him,” she said in English. “Look at him properly. He looks like Sherng. It’s obvious once you know.”
Ng Chee Hin flinched at the sound of Sherng’s name.
“Don’t talk about my son.” Fury contorted his face. “Get out. You’ve said enough already. I don’t want to hear anymore. You go now and don’t come and disturb me or my son again.
“For your grandmother’s sake, I’ll give you face. You stay away, you don’t bother me, and I won’t bother you. You want to disturb me some more, you’ll regret it. I’ve been patient, but this is too much already.”
If it had been up to Jess alone, she would have turned and run. But Ah Ma kept her in place. Ah Ma was dead; she had nothing to lose.
“You think it’s so easy to chase me away, Ah Hin?” said Ah Ma. “You ask my granddaughter. She prayed to so many gods to get rid of me also, it didn’t work. Why we came is to help Ah Soon. So long as he’s suffering, I won’t go. I’ll sit here and bring your office bad luck. If you treat our son like that, what else can I do? I am the mother.”
Ng Chee Hin was breathing heavily, his face brick red. He looked like he might punch her, or blow her head off, if he did have a gun within reach. It was Ah Ma who kept Jess’s neck straight, her eyes fixed on his.
“If he’s really my son,” he said, “why you never told me until now?” His voice sounded like he’d been swallowing broken glass.
Ah Ma put her hands on the desk, which would not have been Jess’s choice. She would have preferred to avoid any sudden moves.
But Ah Ma was pleased, Jess realized. In fact, “pleased” was understating it. In a way, this was what she had been waiting for her entire life.
“I didn’t tell you,” said Ah Ma, with vicious satisfaction, “because I hate you.”
There was a suspended moment when Jess really, genuinely thought she was going to die. Then:
“I see,” said Ng Chee Hin.
The words were like the pricking of a blister. The tension oozed out of the room.
Jess felt her body relax. Ah Ma had been worried too.
“Then there’s nothing to fight about anymore,” said Ng Chee Hin. “I do you, you do me back. I don’t owe you anything already.”
“What about my son?” said Ah Ma, but Ng Chee Hin said:
“I’ll settle Barry Lim. By tomorrow he’ll be back home. All charges dropped. Enough or not?”
“I got ask you for money meh, even when he’s small?” said Ah Ma. “I never asked you for anything. I never said anything against you. I left you alone. All I’m asking is you leave our son alone also.”
Ng Chee Hin moved in a way that suggested he was about to hold the door open for Jess. She was loath to jump in given how badly it had gone last time, but . . .
“How do we know we can trust you to do it?” said Jess.
Ng Chee Hin reached under his desk without answering. Jess shrank back, but he only took out a phone. He squinted at it, holding it away from his face the way old people did, and dialed a number.
The call was in Cantonese, which Ah Ma didn’t understand any better than Jess. She could only distinguish Ah Ku’s name. The person on the other end of the line started arguing, but Ng Chee Hin cut them off, speaking brusquely, and hung up.
“Tonight itself they’ll let him out,” he said in English. “Tell his wife to go to the police station to pick him up.”
He pulled open the door with an air of finality.
Jess wondered if Ah Ma was going to say anything to him—fling out some defiant last word—but she was quiet as Jess passed through the door. It was only once they were down the corridor that Ah Ma said, Bastard. She sounded almost wistful.
* * *
• • •
BY THE TIME they stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, it was past eight, according to the clock hanging over the reception desk. The desk itself was empty, the receptionists gone.
Jess was at the security gates, waving her pass ineffectually over the sensor, when a voice said behind her, “You’re having problem, ma’am?”
Jess started, stifling a yelp. The man who’d addressed her was thin and dark-skinned. He held a mop in one hand, but in the other he was already raising his pass. The security gate beeped, swinging open.
“Thanks,” said Jess, feeling stupid. She stepped through.
“Working late, is it?” said the cleaner affably.
“Uh, yeah,” said Jess.
She glanced at her phone. No panicky messages from Mom asking where she was. That was good. Jess had told her parents she was going for a job interview. She’d have to tell them it had been promising, they’d kept her for an hour and a half, but in the end they had decided to go for someone with more experience. That sounded legit, if depressing.
The cleaner was leaning on his mop, in a mood to chat. “You must be tired, hah?”
“Yeah,” said Jess, inching away. “You’re going to be here late? Have a good night.”
The cleaner nodded. “My shift is until two a.m. I’ll go back and sleep, then wake up eight o’clock to talk to my children before they go to school.”
It probably only took around five minutes for Jess to extricate herself, but it felt longer. When she was finally out of the building, she rolled her shoulders, the tension inside her chest easing. The relief was so intense it felt like joy.
It had been light out when she’d gone in, but dark had fallen while she was talking to Ng Chee Hin. It was warm but not hot, a light breeze ruffling her hair. A thick underwater smell, half seaweed, half sewer, wafted from the sea. Gurney Drive was busy, the road almost as bright as day under the street lamps, cars zooming past. But there were no othe
r people around.
“Ng Chee Hin wasn’t that bad,” she said, like a kid insisting they hadn’t screamed after a roller coaster ride.
“Call Ah Ku,” said Ah Ma. She didn’t seem to share Jess’s exhilaration. “Check if the police let him go or not. I don’t trust that bastard.”
“Ah Ku might not have his phone on him,” said Jess.
But she did need to call Ah Kim so she’d know to pick up Ah Ku from the station. Jess had been planning to order a Grab home, but she didn’t like the idea of being overheard by the driver. She’d call now.
Through the glass door she could see the cleaner in the lobby, mopping the shining expanse of cream tiling. She stepped aside so he wouldn’t see her if he looked up and called the number for Ah Ku’s house.
“Wei?”
Jess had braced herself to speak to Ah Kim, but the voice on the line was younger, a girl’s voice. Jess said, “Yew Yen?”
“Who’s this?” said the voice in Mandarin, cautious.
“It’s Jessamyn,” said Jess in Hokkien. What would Yew Yen call Mom? Mom was her father’s sister. Kor Kor was Dad’s sister, so . . . “Kor Kor’s daughter.”
“I know,” said Yew Yen, switching to Hokkien. Jess remembered that not only were they Facebook friends, she was the cause of Ah Ku being busted by the cops and thrown in jail. If Yew Yen might not have immediately recollected who she was a couple of weeks ago, she definitely knew now. “You’re calling for what?” Her tone wasn’t friendly.
“They’re letting your dad out of jail,” said Jess. “Can your mom pick him up from the police station?”
“What?”
“Let me talk to Ah Yen,” said Ah Ma. She hadn’t disentangled herself from Jess yet, so she didn’t have to wait for her to agree. Jess found herself saying in Ah Ma’s voice:
“Don’t need to ask so many questions. Faster call your mother to go get your father. You think the lockup is so comfortable ah, like hotel like that?”
