The Betel Nut Tree Mystery

by Ovidia Yu

  Parshanti, giggling through a whispered conversation with Kenneth, had clearly decided not to remember it.

  I felt angry with Kenneth and with Parshanti for being so silly about him. If I knew my friend (and I did) she was already dreaming of how they would live happily ever after and what she would name the cute babies fathered by that wicked, possibly murderous man.

  With all this to watch, I had forgotten about Dr Covington. Now he turned to me and took it upon himself to show me how to eat soup. ‘The ponces will tell you to spoon your soup away from you in the bowl. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Forget it! You China dolls have the right idea. Just lift the bowl and slurp it all up!’

  Thanks to etiquette lessons from Miss Teh at the Mission Centre – ‘As our ships go out to sea, I scoop my soup away from me’ – Parshanti and I knew very well how to eat soup Western-style.

  ‘Spooning away from you, the drips end up in the bowl instead of on you,’ I told him, as though he was Junior.

  Dr Covington wasn’t listening.

  ‘Let me show you. You hold the bowl with one hand . . .’

  Suddenly he had one arm around my shoulders and one hand cupping each of mine around my soup bowl, tossing my spoon aside. ‘Lift the bowl like this. Let me show you . . .’ He was crushing me, his hot chest pressing into my shoulder and back. He smelt of sweat and spice oil and old beef. The sourness of whisky was on his breath, which stank of dirty gums and rotting teeth.

  I pushed against him but he squeezed his sweaty palms harder against my fingers and laughed. ‘What’s wrong? When in Rome, do as the Romans, eh?’

  ‘Did you teach Radley his table manners too?’

  ‘Radley?’

  ‘Your son. When he was growing up.’

  It was a low trick, mentioning his dead son, but it worked. His hands froze and I jerked the soup bowl hard so that warm soup washed over his fingers and mine. He let me go with a muttered oath and settled back in his chair, wiping his hands on his napkin.

  ‘Missed most of my Radley’s childhood. Too busy making a living. Everlasting regret. Making up for it now with Junior,’

  I turned back to Kaeseven’s delicately curried shrimp and crabmeat soup with my spoon. I’ve probably eaten the best local foods and the worst of colonial pseudo-British food, and the fact-checking side of my brain told me the soup was delicious.

  And wasted on me. Because I wasn’t there to indulge myself. I was an undercover agent there to observe suspects and witnesses. I had to stop shaking with the shock of what had just happened.

  But what had just happened? I couldn’t believe a respectable white man had just put his hands on me. No one else at the table had noticed anything. Kenneth seemed completely absorbed in Parshanti. But the efficient way in which he was spooning soup into himself, too smoothly for someone besotted, told me he was acting.

  Parshanti wasn’t. With a pang, I saw she was toying with her spoon, occasionally pursing her lips to take a tiny sip. When people in love eat together for the first time, food is not what they are hungry for. Plus, I suspected she was wearing lipstick and afraid to smudge it.

  Lipstick was contraband, forbidden by the mission-school teachers and Parshanti’s mother. Westerners seem to think wearing lipstick and rouge will lead women towards loose morals and adultery. To locals, red means marriages and births and good-luck celebrations. A single girl wearing lipstick when out with a strange man might find it leads to all those things, but not necessarily in that order.

  Some men might even see wearing lipstick as an invitation – but I was the only female at the table not wearing lipstick. I was sure I hadn’t done anything Dr Covington could have seen as inviting.

  Kenneth and Parshanti had their heads together and Kenneth said something the rest of us couldn’t hear. Parshanti giggled, glancing at Nicole in a way that suggested Kenneth had said something about her. Nicole put down her spoon, lowered her eyelids, then struck.

  ‘I thought I could never bear to live in America again, but Junior’s got to get the right kind of education. Where else is he going to get it? It’s not just about math and science. It’s about learning to get along with the right kind of people. Kenneth agrees with that, don’t you, Kenny?’

  When Kenneth looked up, startled, Nicole continued casually, in her slightly husky little girl voice, ‘Kenneth went to Oxford hoping to meet the right kind of people. People who would set him up for life. Not all white people are rich, you know. Kenneth isn’t. That was why he was always hanging around Victor. Because Victor’s father always paid for everything as long as Kenneth wrote his boy’s papers and got him out of trouble. Maybe he hoped that after Oxford, if he kept hanging on to Victor, Victor would keep paying for everything. Who’s going to pay for you now, Kenneth?’

  Resentment flared in Kenneth’s eyes but Nicole smiled sweetly at him and twisted a little coil of hair around her fingers.

  ‘I can make my own way,’ Kenneth said. ‘I can play the markets like Eric Schumer did. But I’m not going to end up like him.’

  Nicole looked startled. I saw her dart a guilty look at Dr Covington.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Dr Covington said dismissively. ‘You’re being sensationalist.’

  ‘You don’t know the whole story? Nicole set her sights on Eric Schumer. He almost escaped when she met up with your Radley, but she got him back on the hook once Radley died. Next thing you know, Eric’s dead too.’

  This was the kind of table talk I had been waiting for! I desperately wanted to ask for details, but Parshanti, bless her soul, got in first.

  ‘What happened to Eric?’ she asked Kenneth. ‘Who is he? Is he in England or America?’

  Kenneth answered with his eyes still on Nicole. ‘He was a good friend of Nicole’s. A very, very good friend. He was killed in a car accident. Just like Radley. And now Victor’s gone too. Bit messy to leave so many bodies in your wake, Nicole.’

  Junior’s black-widow-spider comment must have come from Kenneth, I thought. Nicole looked furious but also frightened. I saw she had chewed the lipstick off her lower lip.

  A waiter removed Junior’s bowl and replaced it with a cup of hot chocolate, a biscuit on the saucer.

  ‘Tuck in, Junior,’ Dr Covington said. ‘Your pa had a good appetite too. You’re just like him, boy.’

  ‘Nobody thinks so except you,’ Nicole said spitefully. ‘If you really believed it you wouldn’t have to keep saying so, would you?’

  The rest of us were served beef steaks, roasted green beans, and an egg, sliced potato and cheese salad but no one at the table touched their cutlery.

  I didn’t particularly like beef. It still feels unnatural to eat the strong, gentle creatures that spend their lives ploughing fields, pulling bullock carts and giving us milk. But Westerners didn’t think twice about it, though they are shocked by the idea of eating dog meat. But I was quite willing to try.

  Only no one else was eating. My eyes met Parshanti’s over the table and she looked confused. Was she wondering, as I was, whether these people gave thanks for their food after the soup course rather than before the meal? Or had Nicole’s nastiness put everyone off their dinner so they would stalk away to their rooms and ring down for sandwiches later?

  But what a waste of good food!

  At most Asian meals, any food left on the central serving dish will be eaten by servants or put out for scavengers. But the Western custom of placing fixed portions on the plates means any uneaten food is unclean once the plate is touched and therefore wasted. I hate to see good food wasted.

  ‘We should eat,’ I said, ‘or send the food back to the kitchen while it is still clean.’

  Dr Covington laughed. ‘You’re a good girl,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get all the food you want.’

  He put a large beefy hand over mine again. And squeezed.

  What the Fork?

  Dr Covington’s large, fleshy palm pressed on my hand. I tried to pull away but couldn’t. H
is fingers curved under my palm, locking my hand to the table under his large damp one. He grinned, seeming to think it was a huge joke.

  Looking wildly around the table, I saw Parshanti was oblivious (Kenneth was grinding pepper over her plate) and Nicole rolling her eyes. Did she think I was enjoying the attention? Could Dr Covington believe that? He reminded me of the gangs of off-duty servicemen who think they are doing local girls a huge favour by whistling and calling lewd compliments at them.

  Well, they aren’t.

  I dropped the fork I was holding in my other hand, ‘Excuse me,’ I said, and tried to tug my hand away. ‘I have to get my fork.’

  Dr Covington held on. ‘They’ll bring you another one.’

  I saw a challenge in his eyes. He knew I had dropped my fork on purpose.

  I’ve never been good at resisting challenges. My grandmother says I don’t know how to keep my head down. But why should I? Everyone else tries to keep it down for me.

  I whipped the napkin off my lap and onto the floor with my free hand, then knocked over my water glass as I reached for it. ‘Oh, no!’

  The water splashed Kenneth as well as myself and brought the attention of everyone at the table as well as others in the room. I stood up and dabbed at my dress as two waiters hurried over and Parshanti glared at me. ‘Manners!’ she mouthed. Well, I had something to tell her about Dr Covington’s manners.

  But, no. It was funny, but I wouldn’t tell Parshanti or anyone else in case Uncle Chen heard and sent someone to beat up the smelly old ang moh with no manners.

  But I had underestimated Dr Covington. It appeared that he didn’t back down on challenges either.

  After the waiters had done what they could and left, Dr Covington leaned across me to say something to Parshanti and Kenneth. He was looking at them and talking to them but at the same time he put one arm on the back of my chair, his hand clasping my shoulder. His other hand moved onto my lap under the tablecloth. As he talked animatedly about tides affecting travelling time, his fingers stroked my thigh through the thin, silky fabric of my borrowed dress and moved upwards, squeezing painfully. I sat, feeling terrified and stupid, and frozen in a nightmare because no one else had noticed.

  Then he winked at me. That woke me up.

  The waiter had brought me a new fork and I grabbed it and jabbed it with all my strength into the hand on my crotch. Dr Covington howled and jerked away. I felt the tines of the fork scraping through his flesh and forced it deep into his hand.

  Thinking back to it now makes me feel angry all over again. Given half a chance, I would have plunged my steak knife into his heart, consequences be damned.

  ‘You little—’ Dr Covington roared. He used words that I cannot write down here.

  There was a little blood on my dress. I jerked, startled, when someone took hold of my wrist and gently prised my fingers off the fork my trembling hand was still clutching. It was Kenneth, standing behind my chair. He placed the fork on the table. It was well within my reach. It showed he trusted me not to pick it up again and stab him.

  ‘I’m bleeding! There’s tetanus in this filthy country! I could be dying of lockjaw!’ Dr Covington waved his blood-stained napkin as evidence. ‘I’ll have you locked up and whipped raw, you nasty little slut—’

  ‘Did you drop your fork, Su Lin?’ Nicole asked. Her clear, musical voice rose above Dr Covington’s blasphemous imprecations.

  ‘I think she dropped her fork into her lap,’ Kenneth said, speaking loudly, slowly and clearly. ‘How clumsy. Did you really drop your fork into your own lap, Su Lin?’

  Something had changed. The two were working as a team now. And they were trying to help me.

  ‘Yes, I dropped my fork,’ I said.

  Parshanti looked frightened and confused. I knew I was in trouble but hoped we could smooth it over and that they would leave her out of it.

  ‘On my own lap,’ I emphasized. ‘I was clumsy.’

  I knew that if there was an investigation, it would come out in Dr Covington’s favour, given he was a white man. Parshanti and I would probably get into all kinds of trouble just for being at the table with white people in a public restaurant. But I was still frightened and angry enough not to care.

  ‘I see,’ Nicole said sweetly. ‘Oh, Taylor. If you can’t keep your hands out of other people’s laps, you can’t blame anyone for being clumsy! Next time I might just stub out a cigarette on you!’

  She laughed. Watching Dr Covington, Kenneth joined in. So did Junior. Without understanding what had happened, the child was clearly glad people were laughing again.

  ‘Better sit down, sir. It will slow the bleeding.’ Kenneth picked up Dr Covington’s chair and set it back on its legs.

  ‘Don’t fuss over me!’ Like a sulky toddler, Dr Covington batted him away. He must have thought Kenneth was mocking him. The scratches were superficial. ‘I’m not sitting down. It’s dangerous being next to savages who don’t know how to behave in a civilized manner at the table!’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve finished,’ Nicole said lightly. ‘We ladies will retire while you men sit over your cigars. Come Parshanti, Su Lin. Taylor, do something useful for once and put Radley to bed, won’t you?’

  Parshanti and I followed her out of the dining room. So she did know my name, I thought, as Nicole smiled and brushed off the anxious head waiter, who wanted to know what was wrong. Why wasn’t she staying for the cheeses and the dessert that the chef had prepared specially for her?

  ‘Can we get our things from your room first?’ I thought she was throwing us out of the hotel.

  ‘Sure thing. But you’re not leaving yet, sweetheart. You’ll both come up to my room for a drink. I have much better wine than old Stingy Pants will pay for downstairs.’

  After Dinner

  That was the point where things changed between Nicole and me.

  Almost before the door of the suite closed behind us, Nicole threw herself onto her bed and rolled around, screaming with laughter. Parshanti stared at her, startled. I just stared. She had let her guard down and let us in. It appeared we had passed a test or a turning point.

  ‘Su Lin. Come here and sit down with me.’ Nicole swiped tear-streaked mascara from her cheeks. She pulled me across to the settee and tugged me down beside her. Someone had arranged a table next to it with coffee, little cakes and a decanter of some amber liquid.

  ‘You really scored on old Taylor down there, Su Lin – scored in every sense of the word!’ Nicole could pronounce my name just fine when she wanted to.

  ‘What happened?’ Parshanti demanded. ‘Did you go mad?’ She was a little sore at being dragged away from Kenneth in the dining room, but was glancing around Nicole’s suite with hungry interest.

  ‘Oh, the dirty old man was up to his usual tricks.’ Nicole put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed lightly. She smelt of powder and flowers, with a pleasant earthy undernote. It was so natural I could not tell whether it was her or her perfume. ‘Oh, you poor thing. You’re still trembling! You mustn’t mind the stupid old clown. He can’t help himself. He’s just one of those men who grab every woman they see. But you’d better stay away from him later, especially if he’s had too much to drink. Taylor thinks he’s God’s gift to all of womankind, and that any woman who turns him down is playing coy.’

  I had dismissed Nicole Covington as silly, superior and condescending. Now I saw I had stereotyped her as blindly as she had me. It’s the way social and racial generalizations work. After all, if not for a murder, we would never have met. Till now, I had seen her only as a suspect. Thanks to Taylor Covington, we were connecting as females and almost as friends.

  ‘What?’ Parshanti looked shocked now. ‘Taylor? Dr Covington? What happened, Su? What did he do?’

  ‘Also, he hates not getting what he wants. Especially in public.’ Nicole looked more serious. ‘Taylor hates losing face. He’s worse than any Oriental. It would really be much safer for you to leave and never come back. Then he can say he was just f
lirting a little and you misunderstood. But I wanted to talk to you first. Given what you did . . .’ The memory made her laugh again. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re shaking. Don’t be upset, it’s just how men are. You over there,’ she said to Parshanti, without looking at her, ‘your friend’s upset. Get her some brandy. There – on the table.’

  I was not upset. I was shaking more from shock at what I had done to an ang moh. I expected to be taken off to jail at any moment.

  Parshanti crouched in front of me without brandy. I wouldn’t have known how to drink it anyway. ‘Do you want me to tell your uncle? Do you want my father to come and drive you back to East Coast Road?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But if you’re upset . . .’

  ‘I’m not upset. Shan, listen to me. You must not tell anyone about this. Not anybody. Not even your mother. Especially not your mother.’

  Mrs Shankar was a sweet woman but she was also one of the biggest gossips I knew. ‘If Uncle Chen hears about this he will kill Dr Covington. You know that.’

  It would be a matter of honour. Even if Uncle Chen believed I had invited the assault by associating with ang mohs, he would kill the man. And then Uncle Chen and his men would be put on trial and hanged, and all the Chen family property would be seized, and Ah Ma would be out on the roadside begging for rice grains.

  ‘Promise me you won’t say anything.’

  Parshanti nodded. She understood. There was no Chinese blood in her, but you can’t live in Singapore for any length of time without understanding the Chinese need to save family honour.

  ‘Who is your uncle Chen?’ Nicole asked. ‘Does he live in town? How old is he? Is he married?’ When I did not answer, she looked to Parshanti with a theatrical shiver of fear. ‘Is her uncle really that dangerous?’

  ‘No, he is nice. He just likes to growl a lot and pretend he doesn’t speak English. He’s very traditional and protective. He lives over his shop in town. But the family house is in Katong, on the east coast, by the sea,’ Parshanti said. ‘I’ve been there for Chinese New Year. It’s a huge place. I think it’s almost as big as this hotel.’