by Tan Twan Eng
Wariness receded from her face, but its stain remained there for a moment longer.
The light of the stars chilled the air. A bronze sculpture of a young girl knelt on a block of granite among the reeds at the edge of the pool. Her eyes had a cold, innocent wonder as she peered eternally into the water. Emily noticed me looking at it. ‘We had her cast after we buried our daughter here.’
‘I didn’t know you and Magnus had had a daughter.’
‘Petronella lived for only a few days after she was born.’ An old sorrow shaded Emily’s eyes as she contemplated the sculpture. ‘I never met your mother. Am I a lot like her?’
At that moment I understood why my father had never liked Magnus, and why Emily had been so wary of me. I felt sure she was not enquiring about the physical similarities between her and my mother. ‘You’re both very determined people,’ I said, picking my words with the same care I took when choosing the stones for Aritomo’s garden.
Emily looked satisfied – even happy – with my reply. ‘Magnus wanted to marry her, you know, but as the only daughter of the great Khaw family, she couldn’t see herself with a lowly ang moh planter.’
‘But you could.’ Emily, I recalled, came from a well-off family too, although not as prominent as my mother’s.
‘Living here made things a lot easier, I suppose,’ Emily said. ‘Camerons is a world by itself. I’m sure you’ve already realised that by now. There were quite a lot of mixed-raced couples here before the war. I used to think that we had all come here to get away from the disapproval of the world.’
‘How did you meet Magnus?’
‘Beng Geok, my cousin. She invited me for a tiger-hunt up at Penang Hill. Magnus was one of the guests,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t stop looking at him when Beng Geok introduced us. That eye-patch! I felt it hid something deep inside him. I wanted to find out what it was. I just had to.’
She smiled. ‘You know how he lost his eye?’
‘In the Boer War.’
She looked at me. ‘I’m sorry about your mother.’
I moved a few steps away, pretending to be interested in a bird alighting on the arch. ‘I’m sure you haven’t cooked dinner,’ Emily said. ‘Come and eat with me.’
‘Where’s Magnus?’
‘KL. He left early this morning. He goes once a month to get cash to pay our workers.’
‘He should have let me know. I wanted to get some books.’
‘Oh, we don’t tell anyone when he’s going or coming back. Safer- lah. Less chances of an ambush, you see. So,’ she said, ‘dinner?’
I nodded and followed her to the steps. At the top she paused and turned to me. ‘That night, when I first met Magnus... we stood on the balcony, watching the lights of Georgetown below us,’ she said. ‘It started drizzling, but he wouldn’t let me go in. And then he said the lines of that poem to me: Now lies the earth night-long, washed in the dark silent grace of the rain. ’
Memory softened her face. ‘I asked him to write it down for me, but he refused. And you know what he said? “I don’t need to write it down for you, because you will always remember it.”’
For a while we stood there, twilight and the words of a poet whose name I did not know sinking into me.
Just before we went inside I said, ‘Was the tiger shot?’
‘You think I cared, once I saw Magnus?’ Her laughter sparkled in the dusk, and for just the briefest moment she appeared like a young girl again. ‘The trackers found some marks, but we never saw the tiger. It was probably the last one living there in the hills.’ Bending towards me, she whispered, ‘And I’ll tell you a secret: I’m glad that it was never found, and that we didn’t kill it.’
After a moment, I said, ‘I’m glad too.’
‘I like to think that it’s still alive today,’ she said, looking out to the mountains, where night had already fallen, ‘still roaming the hills.’
* * *
At the end of each day in Yugiri, I returned to my bungalow and put the kettle on to boil, switching on the radio while I waited. The news, if I happened to catch it, usually included a report of another planter and his family murdered by CTs. Dropping into my chair at the dining table, I drowned my hands in a basin of hot, steaming water, releasing the pain locked up in them. Some days it was so bad that I was surprised not to see blood in the water. The agony was always worse in my left hand, the scars redder than the skin around them. Looking at the stumps, I remembered the trick of the disappearing thumb my father had so loved to show me when I was a girl, how it had made me squeal with delighted terror.
Soaking my hands one evening, I heard a car coming up the steep driveway. It stopped in front of my bungalow. The engine switched off, doors slammed shut and then Magnus called out to me. Wrapping a hand towel around my left hand, I went outside. He had a Chinese man with him, dressed in a khaki bush-jacket, his crisp cotton shorts almost touching the white socks below the knees.
‘Ah, you’re home. Good,’ Magnus said. ‘Inspector Woo wants to talk to you.’
Gesturing them to the rattan chairs on the verandah, I went inside, dried my hands and put on my gloves. The radio was still on, and I turned down its volume. Inspector Woo had crossed one leg over the other and was shaking out a cigarette from a silver case when I joined them. He offered one to Magnus, who declined it. I was about to reach out for one, but stopped: I was not in the camp anymore; I did not have to hoard any cigarettes to barter them later for something I needed.
‘You’re quite isolated here,’ Woo said, striking a match to light his cigarette.
‘What does Special Branch want from me?’
He showed no surprise that I had guessed who he was. ‘We want you to leave Cameron Highlands. Go back to KL.’
I glanced at Magnus, then looked to the Inspector again.
‘Nine days ago, a bandit surrendered herself to the police in Tapah,’ Woo said. ‘She was part of the Perak Third Regiment. They’re based in this area. Her commander knows you’re living here.’
Beyond the driveway, the tea-fields were lapsing into dusk. A moth, its wings as wide as my palm, staggered around the verandah’s lightbulb, searching for a way into the heart of the sun. ‘You think they’re planning to do something to me?’
‘You’ve prosecuted quite a few CTs. Successfully too. Chan Liu Foong’s case made you very unpopular.’ Smoke whistled out from between Woo’s pursed lips. ‘You’re an easy target.
And your father’s involved in the independence negotiations.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.
‘He’s been made an advisor in the committee for the Merdeka talks.’
‘Advising the government?’
‘No. The Chinese party.’
‘Teoh Boon Hau wants to free Malaya from colonial rule?’ Magnus shook his head, grinning. ‘Hard to believe.’
‘They need people who can speak English to represent the interests of the Chinese – our interests – in the discussions,’ said Woo. ‘It’s only a matter of time before the British leave Malaya. We Chinese must stand together, whatever our differences: the Hokkien and the Teochew, the Hakka and the Cantonese, and even you Straits Chinese. We can’t let the Malays have all the say. We have as much at stake here as them.’
In the last two years the calls for self-rule had grown more strident among the Malay nationalists. Concerned for their future, the Malayan Chinese had formed their own political party to have their voice heard in the negotiations for Merdeka.
‘My father can’t even speak Mandarin,’ I said. ‘How can he speak for the Chinese?’
‘He’s hired a tutor to teach him,’ said Woo. ‘Even gave a short speech the other day at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. It was quite remarkable, really. He began by saying, in perfect Mandarin, “I am no longer a banana”. I was told it brought the house down.’
‘Banana?’ Magnus said.
‘Yellow outside, white inside,’ Woo said. ‘Look, Miss Teoh – you’re a marked woman.
‘Even if you throw every single one of the Emergency Regulations at me, Inspector,’ I said, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Be sensible, Yun Ling,’ Magnus said. ‘It’s not safe for you here.’
‘We can’t spare anyone to protect you.’ The Inspector raised a finger in warning. ‘As it is, we’re short-handed already.’
‘I didn’t ask for any protection, and I’m not going to.’ The legs of my chair scraped the floorboards as I stood up. ‘But thank you for your concern.’
Inspector Woo flicked his cigarette over the railing. He scribbled on a piece of paper and gave it to me. ‘My telephone number. Just in case.’
‘At least move back into Majuba House,’ said Magnus.
‘I like being on my own.’
Magnus shook his head and gave up. Once inside the car he stuck his head through the window and said, ‘It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival tomorrow. We’re having a little party. You’ll come? Good. Bring Aritomo. It starts at six.’
Before going to bed, I went around the house to make sure the doors and windows were properly shut and bolted. I left the verandah lights on. The cicadas in the trees sounded louder than usual that night, and the jungle felt denser and much closer.
* * *
Aritomo stopped by my bungalow the following evening. He was dressed in a grey dinner jacket and matching trousers. His faint cologne smelled of moss after rain. A large cardboard box was looped in one arm, but he refused to tell me what was inside it. Worried that he would end my apprenticeship with him, I did not mention Inspector Woo’s visit.
As I gave him his whisky and soda, his eyes fixed on the thin jade bracelet I was wearing.
He took my wrist. ‘Imperial Chinese jade,’ he murmured. ‘You should not be wearing it in a place like this.’
‘It was my mother’s,’ I said. ‘One of the few pieces of her jewellery she managed to hide before the Japanese came.’ She had buried it in a box under the papaya trees behind our house; after the war I had gone back there and dug it out. She had not recognised it when I showed it to her.
‘It goes well with your dress,’ said Aritomo. ‘Like two leaves from the same tree.’
I looked at my qipao, the pale green silk giving off a muted shimmer with every slight movement I made. ‘We’d better be on our way,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be late.’
Arriving at Majuba House, he pointed to the barbed wire strung around the fence. ‘A weed that is strangling the country. It seems to have sprouted everywhere.’
‘It’s necessary,’ I said. ‘You should consider some security measures for Yugiri.’ In the last light of sunset, the drops of dew clinging to the barbs glinted like venom on the tips of a serpent’s fangs.
‘And ruin the garden?’ He looked so appalled that I laughed. He turned to stare at me.
‘That is the first time I have heard you laughing.’
‘There hasn’t been much I found funny in the last few years.’
The moon was ripening in the sky. On the terrace garden behind the house, the guests and the estate workers huddled by the buffet table: the Indians and Chinese at one side, the Europeans at the other. News of my apprenticeship with Aritomo had spread, and a number of the guests looked at me with open curiosity. Two or three guests ribbed Aritomo, asking him if he was opening a gardening school, but he only shook his head, smiling. This was the first time I was seeing him outside his garden; I was struck by how comfortable he was with the guests. He had become part of the landscape here.
Toombs, the Protector of Aborigines, had brought a wild boar he had shot, the animal skinned for him by one of the Orang Asli. The smell of the meat on the spit sweetened the air, making me queasy and hungry at the same time. Magnus stepped out from behind his braai to introduce us to a middle-aged American. He was good-looking despite his stockiness and the thinning hair combed flat against his head. ‘Jim’s here on holiday. He’s works in Bangkok.’
‘What are you doing there?’ Aritomo asked.
‘Losing all my money – not to mention my hair – trying to revive the local silk-weaving industry,’ the American replied. ‘Magnus tells me you’ve built yourself a Japanese house. I’m putting together a traditional Siamese home myself, on the banks of the khlongs.’
‘The canals,’ Aritomo explained when I shot him a blank look.
‘You’ve been to Bangkok?’ the American said.
‘Oh, years ago,’ Aritomo replied, ‘when I started travelling around these parts.’
Emily, handing out paper lanterns to the children, called out to me.
‘Give this to her,’ Aritomo said, passing me the box he was holding. The three men drifted over to the rattan chairs on the lawn. I walked over to Emily and handed her the box. She shook it lightly and put it down on the table.
‘I’m so glad you brought him with you,’ she said. ‘We haven’t seen much of him lately.’
‘They’ve known each other for a long time?’ I asked, glancing at Aritomo. He finished his glass of wine and took another one from a maid.
‘Magnus and Aritomo?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Ten, fifteen years I suppose. They used to be such good friends, you know.’
Magnus whispered something to Aritomo, who threw back his head and laughed. ‘They seem fine now,’ I said.
‘He used to come over every weekend, and he’d always bring something with him. Used to drink a lot and get quite mabuk with Magnus and their friends. But he’s visited us less often since the Occupation. Always got some reason – busy- lah, tired- lah.’
‘Did something happen between them?’
‘What, you mean a quarrel? Nothing so dramatic- lah. It was the war, I think. It changed their friendship in some way.’ She opened another carton and took out a batch of paper lanterns, each one pressed flat. She gave one to me. It extended like an accordion when I pulled at both ends. ‘It always makes me feel like a little girl again, when I see these,’ she said. ‘Did you play with lanterns, when you were growing up?’
‘My parents celebrated Chinese New Year, but not the other festivals.’
‘I’d be surprised if they did. Magnus told me they were very ang-moh.’
Aritomo, still deep in conversation with the American from Bangkok, caught me watching him, but I did not look away. ‘Old Mr Ong – he was our neighbour – used to hold moon-watching parties. We’d see his children playing with lanterns. His first wife always gave us moon-cakes. I’ve always wondered if it’s true – that secret messages were hidden inside moon-cakes by some rebels plotting to overthrow the Chinese emperor.’
‘ Aiyo, get your facts right... the rebels were Chinese,’ Emily said. ‘They wanted to end the Mongols’ rule. The uprising was planned to take place on Chong Qiu. And the messages were not always hidden inside the cakes.’
‘Where were they hidden?’
‘Sometimes they were on the cakes. The cake mould would have the message carved into it. The finished cake would be cut into quarters.’
‘The message could only be read when all the pieces were put together,’ I said.
‘Clever hor? Just imagine – hidden in plain sight!’
‘So Chong Qiu is to celebrate this uprising.’
‘You modern-modern girls. All that university education and you don’t even know something like this, your own traditions some more,’ Emily said. ‘Ask any of the children here and they know the story – even the Indians and Malays.’
‘That’s because you tell it to them every year,’ Magnus said, bringing our drinks.
‘They like to hear it,’ Emily said, giving the last lantern to a girl.
Magnus winked at me and turned to the children. ‘Come, mari mari, boys and girls, Auntie Emily is going to tell you a story. Come, come.’ Most of the children understood and spoke some simple English, but he repeated his words in Malay, ending with another exhortatory mari mari and curling his fingers at them.
The children gathered arou
nd us. Emily flung an annoyed look at Magnus, but it was obvious she was enjoying herself. Once the children had settled down on the grass, Emily asked,
‘Do you all know why today is also called the Moon Festival?’
‘Because the moon is so big tonight?’ a boy piped up.
‘That’s a good one!’ Toombs said with a chuckle.
‘Keep quiet- lah you,’ Emily shot back.
Pulling her skirt over her knees, she knelt on the grass. ‘Once upon a time, the world had ten suns,’ she began. ‘Every day, each one of them would take turns to shine in the sky. But then one morning something strange happened, something that had never happened before: all ten suns decided to show up at the same time. The world became too hot. Wah! The trees caught fire, and whoosh! – entire jungles went up in flames. Soon all the rivers and seas were boiled away, the water turned into steam. Animals died and millions of people were suffering.’
Some of the children’s mouths were hanging open, their eyes wide and staring at Emily.
One boy got to his knees, turning around to look for reassurance from his parents.
‘The Emperor of China was worried,’ Emily continued, ‘but all his cleverest advisors told him there was nothing they could do. ‘It is the Will of Heaven,’ they said.
‘But a young court clerk asked for permission to speak. He said he had heard of an archer called Hou Yi, who could shoot down anything from the sky, anything at all, however high they flew – swallows, storks, eagles. His arrows, it was said, could even pierce the clouds. “Your Majesty,” this young official said, “perhaps Hou Yi could be asked to shoot down the suns?”’
Emily’s voice carried to the other guests, and one by one they broke off from their conversations to listen. Aritomo, I noticed, had sat up in his rattan chair, no longer talking to the American silk merchant beside him.
