by Lees, Julian
Still laughing, she said, ‘‘Because he lives in the basement under the stairs. There are no windows down there. He calls it his dungeon. His real name’s Ah Fung.’’
‘‘Any references? Know much about him?’’
‘‘Not much except that he thinks he’s Doris Day. He worked as a dishwasher at the Coliseum Club for three years.’’
Stan stood up. ‘‘I’ll have to check him out. D’you mind if I look at his IC?’’
Lu See shrugged and called him over.
Stan studied Dungeonboy’s identity card as he stood beaming and chuckling in his starched white house coat. There was a small patch of burned hair to the left of his fringe. ‘‘Wah! You thing me Communist, boss? Of course not, lah! Hey, you likey Doris Day?’’
‘‘That’s a mighty dangerous looking fingernail you’ve got there.’’
‘‘Good for picking locks. Me number one expert lock-picker, boss!’’ He laughed, winking theatrically at Lu See. ‘‘Only joking-joking!’’
Stan returned the identity card and looked at Lu See. ‘‘Bit of a fruit cake if you ask me.’’ They smiled at each other and allowed their eyes to linger. Not for the first time, she subconsciously wanted to go to bed with him. She wondered if that was a semi-erection in his trousers.
‘‘Well, best be off.’’ He left his tea money on the table and held his baton in his hand as if it was a flower. ‘‘Oh, I almost forgot,’’ he said, reaching into his back pocket to pull out a folded piece of thick, white cold-pressed paper. ‘‘What d’you think? It’s the front of the restaurant. I did it over the weekend.’’
Lu See’s eyes gleamed as she smoothed out the creases of the watercolour. It was a work unique to Stan – a creamy violet shopfront, light pink skies and dark ochre-green shadows. There were two hawkers in the foreground, their faces were salmon red, and bang in the centre of the composition, made with rapid strokes, was ‘Il Porco’ in cool ultramarine.
Lu See gave a contented sigh. ‘‘It’s lovely.’’
‘‘How’re your own pictures coming along?’’ he asked.
‘‘Haven’t done much. I used to do a portrait of Mabel once a year, or at least I did until, well, you know.’’
‘‘Still no news?’’
‘‘No.’’ She stretched again, wincing at the pain in her stomach.
‘‘Well, you know what I always say – no news is good news, unless you’re a journalist.’’
‘‘All I know is that she’s somewhere deep in the jungles of Johor.’’ As she stretched, her back made popping noises that sounded like an old man cracking his knees.
‘‘How can it be,’’ said Stan, ‘‘that Mabel spends two years training to be a nurse then leaves three months before her final exams to live like a monkey in the jungle?’’
Mother, eavesdropping from the other side of the restaurant, tapped her cup with a spoon in protest. ‘‘Cha! As soon as she started her monthly and hair sprouted between her legs she was with that Bong fellow.’’
Stan raised an eyebrow. ‘‘The Malayan Communist Party member?’’
Lu See nodded. She was about to tell him that she’d known Bong since he was a child but something stopped her. There was a part of her that admired Bong; something about him – his recklessness and passion – reminded her of Adrian.
Adrian and Bong. The scholar and the soldier. Apart from their shared devotion to radical socialism there was little to link the two men. One dreamed about a communist state, the other fought for it. Whereas Adrian’s intellectual approach was all youthful enthusiasm and theory, Bong relied on discipline, stealth and sabotage.
‘‘You were such a good mother. It’s not fair,’’ said Stan.
‘‘Fair?’’ Lu See sighed deeply and shook her head at Stan because it sounded like such a ridiculous thing to say – this implication that life had to be fair.
Turning her gaze towards the cash register she scooped up the coins on the table. Eventually she said, ‘‘Mabel was always iron willed.’’
‘‘Stubborn girl …’’ said Stan. ‘‘Did you … did you ever meet any of her friends? Ever come across someone nicknamed ‘the mule’?
‘‘Mabel rarely introduced me to her friends,’’ she sighed. ‘‘She kept them all close to her chest.’’ Thinking she had to look strong in front of Stan, she lifted her head with purpose and added, ‘‘Can’t go on moping about it. And I don’t need any finger-wagging I-told-you-sos either, Mother.’’
Mother gave a harrumph from the other side of the room and turned her face away as if to imply she was bored with it all.
‘‘You must miss her,’’ said Stan.
‘‘Every minute. And every minute of not knowing where she is makes it worse.’’ The ache in her stomach intensified.
Stan nodded. There wasn’t much more he could say. ‘‘Well, as I said, best be off. See you next Friday.’’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘‘Started, farted, stumbled fell …?’’
‘‘Yes, see you Friday, Stan Farrell. Good luck tomorrow night.’’ They shook hands a little awkwardly and moments later he vanished through the battered swing doors into the bright tangerine sunshine.
Kaching! Lu See dropped the coins into the tray of the cash register. She checked that nobody was looking before pulling a red $10 bill from the note stash. Hurriedly she snuck it into an envelope labeled ‘Juru’.
Then she turned to watch Stan go. Often, when she saw Stan walk away like this, she thought of the final scene in Casablanca, where Rick stands in the fog watching the plane carrying Ingrid Bergman fly off to neutral Lisbon. Stan often reminded Lu See of Humphrey Bogart – more Rick Blaine than Sam Spade. There was something so calm and appealing about Stan; a quietness, like the reassuring comfort of a mid-afternoon nap.
‘‘He give you picture-drawing,’’ said Dungeonboy, taking up his broom. ‘‘Maybe you make good rabak rabak boyfenn-girlfenn?’’
Lu See did not react to this. It was true, she mused, they would make ‘good boyfenn-girlfenn’ and it was not the first time the idea had been suggested.
Once in a while she caught herself standing motionless over a pork knuckle stew, staring straight ahead, thinking of the way Stan laughed by tossing his head back, and how his infectious laughter made her feel. She had realised that over the last few months she’d been wondering about him more and more, but having an affair with Stan was not an option. Of course the idea had crossed her mind many times, but she knew she would never be able to go through with it. He was a friend first and foremost. Yes, he’s single, yes, he’s kind, but why would he want to get involved with a forty-year-old widow?
It didn’t stop her from fantasizing, however. And whenever she thought of him she felt happy rather than forlorn, so where was the harm in that? What was wrong with a little romantic escapism? Nothing, she decided. Was he off home to feed his cat this minute, she asked herself? Did he hover by the stove with a frying pan in hand on Sunday mornings to cook himself and his mum eggs on toast? Did he go out dancing at the Roxy after dark, or did he spend all his social hours drinking with his police pals at the Spotted Dog? She didn’t know for sure, but she did know that she was growing increasingly curious about Stan’s private life and in her secret daydreams she wished she could be a part of it.
Sometimes she would join Stan for dinner and a game of rummy at the Colony Club. And now and then he would share a coffee alone with her at a kopitiam and look deep into her eyes. But each time she reached into her emotional self she was frightened of finding a black void; scared that her passion had long been extinguished; snuffed out within the pale green walls of a Cambridge hospital.
3
Before the planned ambush the entire company waded into the Tengi River up to their chins to rid themselves of the reek of sweat and cigarettes. Stripped to the waist the men scrubbed themselves hastily, quietly, conscious of the hovering ever-hungry mosquitoes.
Unlike them, the British patrols were noisy, stumbling through the wilderness like
buffaloes. The sound of a branch snapping could be heard over a hundred yards away and Bong claimed he could smell a Welsh Borderer’s hair oil and mint-flavoured chewing gum a mile off.
Mabel washed the jungle grit from her eyes and ears.
‘‘Quick-quick-quick,’’ Bong encouraged. ‘‘Pythons may be in the water. One minute you’re swimming, next minute they grab you and pull you away.’’ Of course, everyone knew he was exaggerating, but they also knew that pythons could stay submerged for almost half an hour.
Coincidentally, as he was saying this, a snake emerged from the opposite bank and skimmed along the top of the river towards Mabel. She watched it moving; a thick, black snake that seemed as comfortable on water as it did on dry land. It was a large cobra and it was not the least bit afraid of people. When it got within ten feet of her it stopped and locked eyes with Mabel. She caught her breath. Anyone who knew her could read the fear on her face by the way her nostrils flared.
Bong told her to move back slowly, away from the water, to not turn around. The cobra swished away, unfurling like a whip.
Shortly afterwards, as everyone dried off and two or three soldiers were sent in search of slugs to eat in the prickly grass, Bong went through the strategy one more time. Under his direction they were going to surprise a convoy of British soldiers with what he liked to call ‘the Venus flytrap’.
Malay independence might have been only days away, but the Malayan Emergency was far from being lifted. The continual conflict between Commonwealth troops and the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) had lasted since 1948, nine long years. There had been thousands of casualties, including the high-profile murder of the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney. The MNLA not only wanted the British out, they wanted Communist rule.
From the way Bong’s shoulders were held, stiffly squared, and the charged atmosphere around him, Mabel could tell that he meant business. Standing at the back of the group, she listened to his instructions as they rehearsed their plan.
She was exhausted from the endless months spent in the jungle. Emaciated, her arms and legs punctured with ulcers and insect bites, her uniform torn to shreds. The pallor on her face had turned grey.
She loathed these barbaric surprise sorties – she didn’t mind derailing mail trains or slashing rubber crops and it was all very well defending a communist camp from British patrols but watching men being gunned down left a dry sickness in her stomach. Nevertheless Bong was adamant that they had to make a preemptive attack. Dyaks, headhunting trackers from Borneo, were assisting the Security Forces. Each day a unit of South Wales Borderers, led by tattooed tribesmen with four-foot blowpipes, was gaining ground on them. Earlier a local villager informed Bong that he’d seen these Dyaks, clad in only loincloths and with tigers’ teeth in their ears, about six miles to the east. He said they resembled savages and carried dried human heads on the ends of poles, the eye sockets stuffed with seashells.
Bong said they needed to make a show of strength. Mabel was going to stick her hand up and ask if this was going to be like what the Americans called a turkey shoot, but controlled herself at the last second. She had once grilled him on whether he ever felt for the men that he killed. He considered the question. ‘‘Of course I do. But any empathy I might feel is neutralized by my love for the Party.’’
They burrowed into the heart of the jungle. Hundreds of photographs of smiling, well-fed, surrendered Communists lay strewn across the forest floor and in the treetops. Mabel picked up one of the thousands of propaganda leaflets air dropped from the sky into the jungle each day. She read the words: We understand what you have done is for the Revolution. But you are a human being and we all make mistakes. Surrender and all will be forgiven. Surrender and you will be treated well.
The undergrowth swam with oily mud.
The soles of Mabel’s shoes often got sucked by the clay. The effort of lifting each leg burned the muscles in her legs. Eventually her feet became saturated and she felt the wet earth ooze between her toes. ‘‘Out of the lion’s den, into the lion,’’ she whispered to herself, letting her gaze wander over the rainbow of tropical greens. ‘‘It’s like an endless road through hell.’’ All the while the team kept their heads down, focused, mud in nostrils, aware of the snakes and other hazards all around. Mabel repeatedly snagged her shoulder bag on thorny vines. Sweat stung her eyes. Trailing thorns pulled on her clothes, tearing them further, and the deeper they crept through the belly of the ulu the more her hair got snagged on ropes of dangling vines.
Finally, dropping her head, exhausted, she had to stop.
She made a noise to attract Bong. ‘‘Psst!’’
He turned.
‘‘What is it?’’
She gestured for him to approach her. ‘‘I need to pee.’’
He shook his head no.
‘‘Serious! I need to pee!’’
Behind his round glasses, Bong blinked his eyes. Mabel hopped from foot to foot like a gecko on hot cement.
‘‘If I piss my pants, the whole jungle will smell it and come running!’’
He made a sign to the others with his hands and they all dropped into a crouch. ‘‘Follow me,’’ he growled.
He led her away from the men into a space where elephants, feasting on palm trees, had torn open a clearing. As they walked she took his hand. Brown dirt and gun grease under his fingernails. She realized that, at the prospect of being alone with Bong, she was getting aroused. Finding a nook where she could relieve herself she asked, ‘‘Are you going to watch me?’’
‘‘Of course.’’ He was grinning like a schoolboy.
‘‘So you’re a maximum crazy pervert too.’’
Bong stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes.
‘‘Stop it!’’ she shushed, trying to suppress her giggles. To her delight Bong kept pulling silly faces. In one fluid movement Mabel yanked down her overalls and squatted, laughing and peeing in little squirts.
Sat on her haunches she could see nothing of the sky when she looked up. The roof of the world was a thatch of vegetation. The foliage was so green and thick that it left a malachite scorch mark on the back of her eyelids whenever she blinked. There were no signs that anyone had ever been here before. Only rarely did light stream in through a hole; a thin ray of sunburst through dagger-shaped leaves. She picked a leaf off a tree and curled it to make a whistle. Then, remembering the need for silence, she unfurled it and dabbed the spot between her legs.
An hour later, the whole party emerged out of the swollen mass of vegetation. Pushing through, they crept out of the belly of the forest, out of the skyless canopy. In the clearing they could see the main road about a half-mile away; but first they had to navigate a gorge. The drop was steep, at least thirty feet. Mabel, using the aerial roots of a strangler fig tree to gain purchase and grip, slid down on her bottom, spilling into the muddy chasm below.
Bunched into groups of four, spread twenty metres apart, watching the road through binoculars, the predatory wait began. In the clearing wet leaves glistened in the sunlight. Bong, hunched behind an uprooted tree, glared into the low horizon with one eye closed, like a sharpshooter on a shooting range. Mabel wondered if she would die today, if Bong might. Her face muscles and her limbs hardened; even the air seemed to blur and stiffen, making things sway around her. The waiting made her breathless, flared her nostrils.
An hour went by. Mabel was daydreaming, staring at a rhinoceros hornbill feasting high up in a tropical rambutan tree, admiring its beauty, when the first crackle rang out.
‘‘Let fly! Right flank! Right flank!’’
The scatter of gunfire threw foliage to the forest floor, showering the air with splintered leaves.
Mabel ducked her head and covered her ears with her hands. The ground pinged and zipped with ricocheting bullets. Boots thumped the earth all about her. ‘‘Grenades!’’ Bong cried, firing his rifle from the hip, recoiling with each shot. ‘‘Get the grenades off! Come on! Pour it on them!’’
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br /> Amid the shrieking monkeys, a Sten gun opened up, ripping through the vegetation. One of the men to Mabel’s left spun round like a top. A wound on his neck appeared as brilliant and red as a bird’s-eye chilli. Without hesitating Mabel fetched a long strip of bandage from her bag and applied direct pressure to the hole, feeling the fountain welling through her fingers. ‘‘Leave it to me!’’ she shouted. ‘‘Let go!’’ Mouth gurgling, tongue sticking out, his hands clawed at his throat; she had to fight him off and pin one of his arms down with her knee. A deep growl came from the depths of his stomach as a dark stain of urine soaked through from in the man’s groin.
One after another grenades discharged, clapping the breath out of her. In the corner of her eyes, the armoured car erupted with a cha-whump. A tree burst overhead and a branch came swishing down. Grapeshot debris fell from the sky.
‘‘How is he?’’ Bong asked, shielding her with his body, firing his gun intermittently.
‘‘Bleeding severely. I cannot tell yet if the airway is obstructed.’’ She bent down and listened to his chest, felt his ribs rise and fall with shallow breathing ‘‘Quick, help me get him upright. Take off his cartridge belt.’’
‘‘Medic! Mediiiiiiiiic!’’ A frantic voice screamed in the distance.
‘‘His airway is clear. Bong, keep your hand over this bandage. Press hard. When it’s soaked through don’t remove it. Just apply these new bandages over the old ones, understand? Just squeeze tight, then bind it. Use this bootstring if you have to. He’s going to be all right.’’
‘‘Where are you going?’’
‘‘Over there.’’
‘‘Over there?’’ he repeated. A large vein on his head grew pronounced. ‘‘No, stay back!’’
‘‘Look, let me do my job!’’
She ran as quickly as she could in a crouch. A bullet zinged past her ear like a needle of dark light, thudding into the tree behind. She’d never felt so exposed and unprotected, so full of purpose. A fire was burning in front, plumes of sooty smoke billowing from an armoured car. Five, six, seven men had been belched forth from the twisted husk of metal, their faces blackened, elbows twisted and snapped. Burned as black as soy sauce.
