The Howling Silence

by Catherine Lim

  He turned to my mother and looked hard at her, and again it was his eyes that did the talking: Your unborn child is safe, Granddaughter-in-law. If anything happens, remember I’m not to blame. The young must not always blame the old. I’ve done my best.

  My mother said it was the most horrible moment in her life. Once again, she had instinctively placed both hands on her growing stomach to protect me from the malevolent stare.

  Great-grandfather died soon after. It would appear that with his prized teeth gone, he had nothing more to live for. He lost interest in life, refused all food and medicine and went into rapid decline, dying only two months after his eightieth birthday. He was a shadow of his former self.

  I went back to the house at No.37, Pek Joo Street. I wanted to see Great-grandfather’s ghost again, this time to thank him. He had laid down his teeth for me. For this I would first beg forgiveness from the ghost and then thank him with the fullness of a humble, chastened heart. I waited all night and when dawn broke, the time for the spirits to return to their abodes, I knew Great-grandfather would never come again. He had left No.37, Pek Joo Street, forever.

  Before I returned to the States, I paid a visit to the Shining Light Temple in which his ashes are kept. The Kong Seng Cemetery where he had been buried had been cleared for industrial development in 1984. Great-grandfather’s grave, together with hundreds of others, had been duly exhumed, and the remains collected by one of my uncles for cremation and final resting in an urn in the Shining Light Temple.

  Lighting two joss-sticks to stick in front of Great-grandfather’s urn, I felt an urge to talk to him. I would have much preferred a ghost, palpable and real, in the urgency of its brief visiting time, to a cold, silent urn with its cold ashes. I stood awkwardly before the urn, one among hundreds in neat rows, and was not sure what to say, the great-grandson from a world separated from his by a howling, immeasurable gulf. But for one brief moment on a dark night in the old house at 37, Pek Joo Street, we had managed to reach across that gulf.

  In Lieu of a Dream

  On 27 August 1990, I got engaged to Paul Ratnam, after we finally overcame a whole phalanx of obstacles, too tedious to describe, related to our different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. (All I will say is that we offended our respective families so much that they refused to have anything to do with us.) it was an engagement party “with a difference”, as Paul would say, meaning it was held on impulse, only two friends were present, and there was no engagement ring, only a promise of it. Paul, who travelled a lot in his work for an international investment company, said he would buy me a ring from Paris. There would be a second engagement party, he said, and several wedding parties, to match the number of obstacles cleared. That was Paul: unconventional, unpredictable, fun-loving, lovable.

  On 3 September, on his way home from Paris, the plane he was in, together with a hundred and fifty other passengers, crashed into a river in a remote part of Malaysia. There were no survivors; that is always the next most fearful announcement. There could not have been any survivors in that treacherous plunge straight from the sky into the Sungei Mati, appropriately named the River of Death.

  It was amazing how hope defied reality. All of us, family, relatives, loved ones who rushed over to the site of the disaster as soon as the authorities made the necessary arrangements, were united by the ferocity of hope that demolished or suspended all reason and logic to challenge the stark truth of the newspaper and other media reports. As we flew in a government-provided plane and then rode in buses and vans through rough jungle country, pale and stricken, we clung to the vision of our beloved ones among those survivors now swimming helplessly about in the river or wandering about in a dazed state in the jungle or being taken care of by kind villagers in a remote kampung, and prayed fervently. “Hold on a little while longer, we’re coming.” Hope held till the moment we reached the spot of the crash for then we saw, to our horror, the cruelly vast expanse of the river and its pitiless murky depths, against which no man or machine would stand a chance.

  Then grief took over. Absorbed by my own numbing pain, I was vaguely aware of the spread of bereavement’s need for a shared outpouring on the site of the communal sorrow; one by one, the bereaved ones began to cry, sob, cling to each other, call out the name of the beloved. I shed no tears, but stood staring dully at the lazily churning water of the River Mati. My sister, Siok Woon, had accompanied me on this trip; she stood by my side all the time, holding my arm.

  After it was all over and we returned home, to face an anguished time of private grief and unwanted public attention, personal confusion over the mysterious circumstances surrounding the crash and the endless, noisy media coverage of it, I recollected vividly some scenes that at the time were only vague impressions – a woman throwing flower petals into the water and calling out name “Yuen! Yuen!”, a family, all in white T-shirts and black pants, chanting prayers and lighting joss-sticks beside a plate of oranges and a bowl of candy, an elderly man sobbing his heart out and threatening to throw himself into the river, held back by a young man and woman weeping silently, a young girl, pale and distraught, clutching a photo of her family, her parents and four younger siblings, all wiped out.

  For days I wandered about the house in a numbed state, attended to by my anxious sister. She wanted me to talk, say anything, scream, cry, and watched nervously as I maintained my stoic silence. I read all the reports about the crash in the local newspapers, as well as those in the foreign press. There was one particular report which attracted my attention. It was only a small paragraph about how, without exception, all those who had visited the site, had begun to have dreams of their loved ones buried in the unyielding depths of the River Mati. The report said that the dreams were mainly peaceful ones and brought much comfort. One woman said she saw her son in a kind of boat drifting gently down the river and waving to her. He was saying something, which she could not hear, but it must have been something happy, for he was smiling. Another woman said that in her dream, which was extremely vivid, her husband stood beside her on the river bank as she was gazing at the water, put his arm around her, and told her not to worry but to take good care of the children and his aged father, before fading away. Yet another woman, a young executive whose boyfriend was on his way to Singapore to spend a holiday with her, saw him walking towards her then embracing her.

  It was grossly inaccurate report; I wanted to call the reporter to say angrily, “‘Without exception’, did you say? Well let me tell you I didn’t have any dream. If you had taken the trouble to contact all of us –”

  Then I realised that the anger was not against the reporter but Paul. Why hadn’t he done like the others who had appeared to their grieving ones to comfort and console? Would it have been so difficult to appear just once, to talk to me, touch me, tell me everything was all right?

  My sister said, “Now, that’s not fair, Ching. You know Paul never subscribed to those things. And neither do you.” Those ‘things’ were the beliefs in the supernatural phenomena of dreams, visitations, the return of the dead, which Paul and I, priding ourselves in our rationality, had little patience with.

  “Just one dream,” I persisted. “Couldn’t he have just come once? That would have meant so much.” It was no longer reason talking; it was the desperation born of need and hope. I began to envy all those who had dreams of their beloved dead.

  I do not know how I survived those months; I returned to work and received the visits of family and friends and even attended a social function or two. But deep inside was the numbed centre, no longer responsive, but aching with a hope that refused to be dulled with time. I went to sleep each night with the hope and got up dispirited by its continuing non-fulfilment.

  The anniversary of the crash came around, and I decided to make a second visit to the site, to stand on the banks of the River Mati for a few minutes of quiet reflection. I thought if Paul didn’t wish to some to me, I would go to him instead. And this time, I politely and firmly turn
ed down Siok Woon’s offer to accompany me.

  As soon as I arrived at the site, an unspeakable sadness descended upon me. I stood forlornly on a quiet spot on the bank and looked at the ugly, slowly stirring waters. There was an old man in a boat who was fishing with some poles and a net. A year ago, all fishing activity had been suspended while expert teams sent by the authorities trawled almost the entire river bed for debris of the crash. I had not wanted to look at the twisted pieces of wreckage brought out and laid on the river bank; now I looked on desultorily as the old fisherman puled in his net and searched for fish among a small mound of mud and rotting leaves.

  I must have stood on the river bank for half an hour. As I got ready to go, I heard a voice and turned to see the old man tying his boat to a tree stump on the river bank and signalling to me to wait. He came up and handed me something. It was a small box, its red velvet still visible under the river mud. I took it and opened it. A ring. A diamond engagement ring. On the box was the name of the Paris jeweller.

  A coincidence. The ring had been lost in the water and found by a fisherman. I happened to be there and the fisherman happened to know I was the fiancée and had duly returned it to me. The fisherman, eking out a miserable living, happened to not understand the value of the diamond, or understanding, refused to let need stand in the way of nobility.

  A coincidence? To call that happening that late morning on the banks of the River Mati on 3 September 1991 a coincidence would be the grossest insult to tenderness’ gift from beyond the grave.

  Song of Mina

  There is a part of District 32, one of the oldest districts in Singapore, in which all the streets are named after flowers – Bougainvillea Street, Frangipani Street, Orchid Street, Balsam Lane, Canna Close, Hibiscus Avenue – as if a colonial administrator in those bygone days, charmed by the exotic tropical blooms of his new home, had decided to officially commemorate their beauty.

  But for modern-day Singapore, the streets are better known for sheer squalor. They contain the most notorious brothels in Singapore, a virtual moral cesspit, in the midst of a clean, thriving, hardworking, prosperous society. There is talk that soon the area – dubbed the Red Red District, in testimony to the virulence of its activities rather than to the floral brilliance of its street names – will be cleared and cleaned up for a vast complex of business and residential properties. Right now, life goes on as usual among jaded prostitutes ready to settle for a few dollars from their clients, generally impoverished, desperate men, both old and young, crawling out of the dank woodwork of their failed lives, smashed dreams, twisted desires.

  There is an old, crumbling two-storey hotel-brothel on Orchid Street going by the resonantly beautiful name of Song of the Forest, that used to be managed by a woman who, not to be outdone by the dazzling nomenclature all around her, called herself Bunga Mas. Bunga Mas is sixty-five years old and continues to wear the make-up and hairstyle that must have been her trademark when she was working in the brothel in her youth. She would have continued to wear the same clothes, except that she has grown fat; indeed, it is an obesity so gross it makes people look away uncomfortably. Bunga Mas, with her extraordinarily vivid make-up, ridiculously girlish curls that cluster tightly on her forehead and around her ears, and the screaming bright colours of her long tent dresses, spends her time sitting in a coffeeshop near the hotel, drinking coffee interminably, looking at passers-by and challenging them to look at her, telling stories to whoever cares to listen. Her favourite story is of a young prostitute called Mina who was found murdered on her bed one night in 1976, and whose ghost continues to haunt the hotel. The murder can be verified, because it was reported in the newspapers, but not the haunting, for nobody in the brothel has ever seen a ghost, and those who have seen it don’t know it’s a ghost and cannot be told, because it will be bad for business. (Mina’s murderer was found, tried and executed in 1977.)

  As a reporter, I am always on the prowl for interesting stories. Having heard of Bunga Mas’ story, I hurried to meet her. Ghost or no ghost, Bunga Mas, with her very colourful life, would prove excellent material for a captivating article. The trouble is that my editor throws out most of my stories as “unsuitable”, meaning that they are too frivolous or sensational or plain nonsense. Recently she threw out my Mina story as the greatest nonsense she has ever read, but she says she may consider a piece on Bunga Mas if, at some future time, she decided to run a frank series of articles on “the other side” of Singapore. I’ll keep my Mina story for myself.

  “How do you know her ghost haunts the hotel?” I ask Bunga Mas. I have treated her to a beer and she is in a very expansive and talkative mood. She smiles, looks at me and suddenly brightens up with an idea. “Come to the Song of the Forest at nine,” she says with a wink. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Me, a cub reporter, fresh-faced, roving around in T-shirt, jeans or denim skirt, sandals or sneakers, going to a brothel? My mother would die of fright if I told her.

  At the appointed time, I am at the Song of the Forest. Bunga Mas is waiting for me, clad in a bright purple cotton tent. She appears at ease, in familiar surroundings. She introduces me to a middle-aged man with bad teeth, called Lek, who is the hotel-keeper and her friend, amiable enough to go along with any scheme for the benefit of a young, curious reporter.

  “We’re waiting,” says Bunga Mas. “It’s usually about this time.” I look both of them quizzically but decide not to ask questions. I wait with them.

  Then, as if on cue, a man comes in. He is about forty. He is wearing a red T-shirt and black trousers. He is carrying a helmet under his arm, so he must have come on a motorcycle. Looking at him, I cannot tell what his educational background is, nor his occupation. He speaks some English.

  “You listen carefully,” Bunga Mas whispers to me. The man says, a little shyly, “I’d like to see the lady at the upstairs window.”

  Bunga Mas says casually, “Which one of them? Describe her,” giving the impression that at the Song of the Forest, the client begins with a selection from a row of women exhibited at the upstairs open windows. The man, growing red with embarrassment, describes her. Long hair. Fair. Blue dress. A red flower in her hair. He is clearly taken up by her beauty, although he is too shy to mention it.

  “You mean Mina,” Bunga Mas says matter-of-factly. “She’s not available. Would you like someone else?”

  The man frowns. He looks puzzled and a little annoyed. “What do you mean not available? I just saw her, standing at the window.”

  “I tell you she’s not available,” says Bunga Mas. “You can go upstairs if you like and see for yourself. But would you like to meet Rosie –”

  The man leaves in a hurry. Bunga Mas says that this has been the pattern for the last twenty years – a man coming in with the eager request, then being told that the beautiful woman he has just seen is not available, has just left, has just fallen ill, etc, etc.

  For every year, on the anniversary of her murder. Mina’s ghost appears, always standing at the window, in full view of the men passing below. Enchanted, they come looking for her, but she vanishes as soon as they step in. there is no trace of her. Only once has there been a faint whiff of the distinctive perfume she use to wear.

  Some of the men do not go away but insist on a search. They go away more puzzled than ever and sometimes shout angrily at the hotel staff for playing a stupid trick on them.

  Of course the hotel staff cannot tell them the truth. That will ruin business. They will be terrified to come to a brothel in which a prostitute had been found murdered on her bed, her naked body so brutally mutilated that the police, according to the newspaper report, said that they had never encountered a more grisly murder. The men will be even more terrified if they were told that the prostitute’s ghost returns to the hotel every year, on the anniversary of the murder, and stands at an open window smiling.

  Bunga Mas has a theory. She thinks that the ghost has been coming back with a specific purpose – revenge. It is not eno
ugh for the ghost that her murderer had been executed for his crime. The heinous deed calls for continuing punishment. Those related to him must pay too. One day, his son will pass by the Song of the Forest, look up and see the beautiful Mina at the window. He will come in looking for her. This time, she will not vanish but wait for him. When they are by themselves, she will take her final revenge. She will make sure he dies a more horrible death than hers, for his father’s death by the executioner’s noose, was brief and painless, and therefore inadequate. After this final revenge, Mina’s ghost will be at peace at last and will no longer come to the Song of the Forest.

  I am fired by this strange story and boldly ask Bunga Mas if I may go upstairs and stand by the window where Mina’s ghost has just stood. I have never seen a ghost; standing at the spot of its recent visitation may be just as exciting.

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” says Bunga Mas with a shudder.

  Temple of the Little Ghosts

  Do babies have souls? Do aborted foetuses, never given the chance to reach their term, become ghosts that come back to haunt their murderous mothers?

  My best friend – let us call her Rosalind – thinks so. She says that they not only come back but make their presence felt and heard during every waking and sleeping hour so that their mothers become mad with guilt.

  There is a definite streak of theatricality in Rosalind.

  “How does that square with your beliefs as a Roman Catholic?” I challenge. “Souls, yes, but revengeful ghosts? Your church surely doesn’t share the primitive beliefs of your ancestors?”

  Rosalind and I are such close friends that we can speak our minds freely and bluntly to each other. We were in school and university together, sharing an intense love for literature, especially Shakespeare. She converted to the Catholic religion when she was an undergraduate, forsaking what she called the dark murky world of ancestral spirits and sinister temple deities such as the Monkey God and the Lightning God for the calm, reassuring, radiant world of Christianity.