The Howling Silence

by Catherine Lim

  Now the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts was coming round again, when Tua Bah’s grateful love brimmed over and he personally supervised the cleaning of his mother’s tomb at the Kek Lok Cemetery and the offering of the best food and tea to her ghost, which, like the others during this auspicious season, would be returning to this world to receive the tributes of sons and daughters and grandchildren. At the peak of his prosperity and in the tenderest of filial dispositions, Tua Bah racked his brains to think of a tribute truly worthy of his mother’s selfless devotion. She had had all the suckling pig, steamed chicken, braised duck, fried noodles and fragrant oranges and pomelos that she could eat. He had never stinted on his offerings, always insisting on the best, down to the last joss-stick (from Taiwan) to stick in the urn on her altar, the last candle (from U.K., since he believed that Western candles were superior to Asian ones) to burn in front of her photograph.

  What would be te ultimate tribute?

  Tua Bah had an idea, and the more he thought about it, the more excited he got. A house – that was what he would give her as the climax to the offerings over the years. Not one of those usual ghost houses that could be so easily obtained from the makers in Pagoda Street or Chin Choo Street, probably made from cheap paper. A special one, made from the finest materials. A really magnificent one, unstoppable in size, beauty, cost. Tua Bah consulted with the makers of the ghost houses and discovered, to his dismay, that none of them felt equal to the task of constructing the house he had in mind. He showed them a picture of the enormous, awesome ghost-house, almost as big as a regular house, which he had cut out of a magazine from Taiwan. It must have used up an incalculable amount of paper, wire, bamboo slats, silk cloth, beads, gold and silver paint.

  “We can’t do it; only the Taiwanese experts can do anything like that,” they said, shaking their heads.

  “Then I’ll fly in the Taiwanese experts,” said Tua Bah.

  And he did just that. He let his plans be known to the reporter Amanda Goh, who once again came over eagerly, sensing a truly captivating story.

  “Twenty five thousand dollars!” she gasped. Tua Bah wanted to say that was just a conservative estimate, but modestly refrained.

  As the expert craftsmen worked on the house which, because of its size, would take longer than the usual ten minutes or so to burn down to ashes, Tua Bah went on a rampage of information-seeking concerning his mother. He wanted family and elderly relatives to tell him what they could remember of his mother’s favourite food, drink, clothes, furniture, cooking utensils, crockery, etc., of any wish she might have inadvertently let drop, for this or that luxury, for instance, a special food too expensive to buy, a blouse or an item of jewellery she had seen on someone else and yearned for. He listened intently to every recollection, stored up every detail, and then went to the craftsmen, to convert his mother’s dream into reality. His oldest brother remembered that their mother once spoke longingly of sleeping on a soft cotton mattress instead of an old mat. Tua Bah instantly instructed the craftsmen to make ten paper mattresses. An old relative told him that his mother once went to pawn the only remaining possession of worth she had – her two gold teeth. Tua Bah immediately instructed the craftsmen to make two sets of gold teeth, which they did, after much persuasion, in the finest, most exquisite gold paper.

  There was one more thing that Tua Bah wanted to give his mother. He had been told that she could have been saved from her early cruel death if she had had the money to buy the necessary medicine. What was her illness? What medicine did she need? Could the dead be comforted by medicine that they had been too poor to buy when alive? Tua Bah was determined to include a huge supply of it in the ghost house. He did not know if pills or tablets and liquid mixtures could be simulated in paper, but he would pay the craftsmen to do it.

  Then an old relative suddenly recollected something which made Tua Bah weep afresh. His mother had a secret. For years, as she struggled to bring up her children, she allowed herself a small luxury which she was too embarrassed to let her sons know about. Or perhaps she felt too guilty about it, because it involved spending money on herself. Every evening, when the children were asleep, she would help herself to a drink, a cheap samsu made and sold illicitly in the village shops. It gave her wracked body a few moments of ease and her troubled mind, always worrying about the next meal or the next school fees, a few moments of solace. Best of all, the potent brew allowed her to have a few hours of precious sleep before the next day’s round of toil and sorrow. It was this cheap toxic brew, said the old relative, that had rapidly destroyed her liver.

  Tua Bah went in great haste to the craftsmen to make a final request for cases of paper Hennessey brandy. The craftsmen were getting a little impatient with the constant requests for this or that addition to an already well-stocked ghost-house. Tua Beh kept telling them that money was no problem; his mother simply had to have the best.

  “Let this be the last request,” they said testily.

  The ghost-house was soon ready. It was breathtaking in its size and accoutrements, being almost as big as a real house, with a handsome pagoda roof of red and gold tiles, enormous pillars around which twined magnificent dragons with silver scales, an entrance guarded by two lions in gold and purple, rooms with tasselled curtains and exquisite furniture more beautiful than the intricately carved chairs, tables and beds they represented, sets of fine eating and drinking utensils, wardrobes of rich silk blouses, trousers and robes, boxes of jade, silver, gold and diamond ornaments. Outside the mansion stood three cars – a Rolls Royce, a Chevrolet and a Mercedes – and two rickshaws. An impressive retinue of paper servants stood ready to do the bidding of the mistress of this imposing mansion.

  The young reporter Amanda Goh was excitedly taking notes, and the photographer she had brought along was busy taking pictures. Just when they thought the house was ready to be ceremonially consigned to the flames by two temple priests at the ready, they heard a shout and a screech of brakes and saw Tua Bah jumping out of a van and giving instructions to the van driver and an assistant to carry out something from the vehicle. It was case after case of XO, two dozen cases in all, the reporter counted in astonishment, which Tua Bah, now flushed with pride and excitement, instructed the men to put inside the ghost-house. Paper brandy as well as real brandy, the best, the most expensive, such as even the most affluent denizen of that other world would never have the luxury of tasting.

  Extremely impressed by such a brilliant show of filial piety, Amanda Goh faithfully reported its cost. “Thirty thousand dollars,” she gushed. “Mr Tan Tua Bah, of the famous chain of Chwee Neo Roast Duck Eating Houses, specially brought in craftsmen from Taiwan to make this indescribably beautiful paper ghost-house for his mother Madam Lau Chwee Neo, who died half a century ago. He said it was his way of honouring a most beloved parent.”

  Tua Bah was pleased with the report but was once more rather upset by Miss Goh’s failure to get her facts totally correct. He had stipulated the actual amount spent as forty thousand, not thirty thousand, the additional amount being the cost of the very expensive XO. But once again, he was too modest and courteous to call her to request the correction.

  Alien

  I am an engineer from Madras, India, with the status of Permanent Resident in Singapore. I came to work in Singapore some years ago, enticed by what I had heard of the city-state’s cleanliness, orderliness and ambitious commitment to the goal of front position among the world’s most technologically advanced, successful, prosperous and gracious societies in the twenty-first century.

  It is also one of the most superstitious societies in the world. I have never met people who so enthusiastically (though discreetly) consult fortune-tellers and believe in ghosts and evil spirits, as Singaporeans. It is thanks to this belief that I, an alien, can afford to own an apartment in this unique country, part of whose uniqueness must be the astronomical price of property. One can spend one’s entire life paying off the loan for a tiny, three-room apartment. When I tell my friend
s back home in India how much I have paid for my little flat on the fourteenth floor of a block that is one of six closely packed together in one of numerous such housing estates in Singapore, their jaws drop and they gasp “But you can get a mansion here with that kind of money!” As I said, it is thanks to Singaporean ghosts that my wife Kamala and I, with our little boy Ravi, are comfortably, happily settled in a place of our own in Singapore.

  It all began with a small advertisement, one of hundreds, in the ‘Houses/Flats for Sale/Rent’ page in the Straits Times. I yelped with joy, circling it with a bright red pencil. At last. A flat that suited both my requirements concerning location and size, and my very modest budget. I called the advertiser and owner, Mr. Yap. He made arrangements for me to view the place. He was a thin, middle-aged, nervous-looking man. He said if I were a genuine buyer, I should make an offer quickly, as there were many interested buyers.

  One of the first things Kamala and I had learnt when we first came to Singapore was that Singaporeans love the act of bargaining. Nothing gives Singaporeans greater satisfaction than the feeling that they have succeeded in knocking a substantial amount off the original asking price – whether of fish, shoes, car or property – no matter that the price had been impossibly jacked up in the first place in readiness for the knocking off. Indeed, Singaporeans have raised the act of bargaining to the status of a complex social ritual, giving pleasure to both sides.

  So I coolly made Mr. Yap an offer that was so grossly below the asking price that I blushed inwardly. Waiting for the exhilarating process of bargaining to begin, I was astonished when Mr. Yap accepted my offer. “Okay,” he said.

  The flat was mine!

  I phoned my good friend Boh Yuen in great excitement.

  Boh Yuen and I work for the same engineering company. His immediate reaction was: “There’s a catch somewhere. No property in Singapore goes that cheap. You’d better find out, Prem.”

  It was too late, but I decided to find out. The truth was so unnerving that I decided to keep it from Kamala.

  The flat had once belonged to a relative of Mr. Yap. One night, many years ago, the man killed his entire family – his wife and three young sons – and then himself. It was the most systematically carried-out murder-cum-suicide, planned to the last detail and meticulously recorded, in advance, in a letter which the man wrote just before his death, addressed to no one in particular, and left on the table with a glass paperweight on it.

  The man was clearly a stickler for factual accuracy, providing, in his letter, precise details of time, sequence of actions, motive. He had written, in his neat handwriting, very simply and matter-of-factly: “I, Jek Chai Mun, killed my three sons, Jek Wen Yong, Jek Wen Kee and Jek Wen Shin, between 11:30p.m. and 11:55 on 12 June 1980, with the help of my wife, Lily Lim Eng Siew. (The three boys aged eight, six and four were found strangled on a double bed.) At 12:05 I helped my wife to hang herself. (She was found suspended from the ceiling, her legs tied together. That must have been where the help was given.) At 12:35, I killed myself. (He was found hanging beside her.) I would like the proceeds of the sale of my flat to settle my debts (he had been a compulsive gambler, incurring enormous debts, and had also been suffering from ill health) and the balance to be donated to charity.”

  A close-up photograph of the letter had been included in a report in the Straits Times. The report emphasised the painstaking preparations that the couple had made for the family’s gruesome tryst with death: all were dressed in their best clothes, the man in shirt and tie, the woman in neat samfu and a pearl necklace, the boys in neat shirts and pants (I wondered if the parents had cooked up an elaborate lie to the children, about going to a party or some big celebration?). There was an altar on which stood a framed formal picture of the family, with offerings of candles, tea and oranges set neatly before it. According to the report, the candles were still burning when the bodies were discovered. The Jek family massacre was probably the only instance in the annals of suicide in Singapore where scrupulous preparations had included paying advance respect to one’s own dead self.

  For days I was haunted, not so much by the horrifying image of three dead bodies on a bed and two hanging from the ceiling, as by the chilling gravity of the suicide note. What manner of a man could write a note like that, and then proceed to act on it?

  “Now you know why the man was in such a hurry to sell the flat,” said Boh Yuen unfeelingly. “It must have been vacant for years. Nobody would want to stay in such an unclean place. You’re going to be visited by five ghosts, Prem.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’d like to meet the man’s ghost and give him a good ticking-off for dragging along his poor wife and three sons. Come to think of it, he deserves more than a ticking-off. A real good punch or two.”

  Once the initial horror was over, I thought no more of the tragedy, relegating Boh Yuen’s five ghosts to that category of idle, worthless beliefs that ought not to be a part of the life of this modern, pragmatic, highly successful society. I immersed myself in the thrill of new ownership, renovating the flat, getting new furniture, watching Kamala energetically put up curtains, pictures, ornaments, setting up a special playroom for Ravi, with plenty of space for his numerous toys.

  Then the sounds began.

  Kamala said, “Prem, I think you should so something about the rats in the kitchen. Also, the neighbours. All those rapping and tapping sounds at night. A real nuisance.”

  I had heard the sounds. I didn’t think they came from rats or neighbours. Once when I was sitting alone in the sitting room reading, I looked up and saw a picture on the wall opposite me begin to move. Then it crashed to the floor. On another occasion, on a perfectly still night, I saw the curtains of one of the windows flapping wildly, and felt a sudden draught of cold air sweep through the room luckily. Kamala was asleep.

  I could live with the noises, but when the ghosts started showing themselves, I knew I had to do something. I am as rationalist as they come; part of the rationalism is a pragmatism that is ready to suspend all sceptical thinking to solve a problem. The ghosts of the Jek family were becoming a problem. An Indian would know nothing about appeasing Chinese ghosts. So I consulted Boh Yuen. He turned pale, put his hands to his ears and said, “Stop, I don’t want to hear.”

  Boh Yuen, Chief Engineer, who would never authorise any digging or piling work or the chopping down of old trees without first discreetly getting a priest from a temple to conduct ceremonies of propitiation, refused to listen to my tales of the hauntings in my flat. He said, “They will give me bad dreams.”

  One day Kamala said to me, “Prem, there’s something strange going on in this flat. Last night I was in Ravi’s room, putting him to sleep, when I looked up. Guess what I saw? Three whitish shapes near the door. The shapes of three children, of different heights. When I looked again, they were gone. I swear I hadn’t imagined it!”

  Could Ravi’s room have been the one where the three boys had been murdered? A few days later, Kamala said she was walking out of the bedroom the night before to get a drink of water from the kitchen when she again saw the three shapes. This time she saw them clearly.

  “Little boys,” she said, in an awe-stricken tone. “Three little boys, huddled together, looking scared. Somehow, I wasn’t frightened.”

  To this day, Kamala does not know the truth about the tragedy.

  One evening shortly after, as I was watching Ravi play with his toys in his room, I saw him suddenly look up and fix his eyes on a spot a short distance away. I followed the direction of his fascinated gaze, but saw nothing. Still looking on with wide, delighted eyes, Ravi smiled, gurgled and put out his hand. He is a gregarious toddler who invariably approaches other children with friendly gestures as soon as he sees them. I watched in growing unease as he got up from the floor and toddled towards the invisible presence. He stopped, still smiling and gurgling and waving his arms about in overtures of friendliness. Then, to my horror, I saw him stumble and fall backwards, as if some child had
given him a sudden shove. Ravi sat on the floor and began to cry. I picked him up and fled from the room. Later, I made arrangements for my wife and son to stay with a relative, while I thought about how to deal with this new, disturbing development. To Kamala’s protest, I simply said, “There’s a problem, please do what I say.”

  Ghosts are tolerable, provided they do not harm. But when they get malignant, something must be done. The child ghosts in my flat were getting to be hostile. I had to protect my small son from them.

  Boh Yuen got out of his timidity enough to provide the help I sought. I wanted to do whatever Chinese people do to get rid of the ghosts from their houses. Boh Yuen consulted a temple medium on my behalf. The medium said that the spirits of the dead man and his wife had “passed on”, but those of the three sons were somehow still trapped in the flat and were presently suffering a great deal.

  “That’s most unfair,” I complained on their behalf. “That dastardly father should be the one to suffer, not his innocent children.” My concern was how to help these poor three spirits “pass on”, whatever that was, as long as it ended their torment. I was prepared to take part in rituals of appeasement, like the offerings of huge feasts of delicious food, or the burning of huge stacks of ghost money, that I had seen and been fascinated by when I first came to Singapore. Would the offerings of an alien be accepted?

  The temple medium said these would be of no use. The truth was that there was something in the flat that belonged to the boys that had to be returned to them, to free their spirits from their imprisonment on earth. As long as this something remained unreturned, their ghosts would wander about in confusion and misery.

  One night, I actually heard the sounds of the children’s sobbing. They were the anguished cries of impossibly burdened hearts. Almost mad with frustration, I said to Boh Yuen, “For heaven’s sake, why can’t your medium tell us what this something is, so that we can look for it and return it immediately?” My imagination, very fertile at times, simply could not figure out what this mysterious possession was. Clothes? Toys? School books? The bed on which they died? We had made sure to clear out everything when we moved in. Or perhaps it was something non-material, non-tangible?