by Yangsze Choo
I rushed over, anxiously scanning her for telltale signs of injury. But she seemed unhurt and in fact, when I slipped into the shophouse, it was my stepfather who was holding a bloody towel to his face. I’d never seen him with any kind of wound and, for a treacherous instant, was pleased to see a mark on him, even if it was just a bloody nose.
The interior of the shophouse was completely silent. That frightened me more than anything. “Where’s Shin?” I said, though it took all my nerve to speak to my stepfather. He said nothing, only glared in silence.
Dropping my schoolbag, I ran through the house. Past the hanging pendulum scales, past the silent piles of raked tin ore. My breath came in short gasps; my side hurt. I wanted to call out to Shin but my mouth was sealed with terror. If he didn’t answer, then he must be severely injured. Or dead. My stepfather’s beatings had tapered off over the years: Shin had learned to watch the mood, to be careful what he said and did. Why, only a few weeks previously my mother had said she was glad that Shin had grown up so well, which was her way of saying he wasn’t getting into trouble with his father, but I’d had my doubts. I never trusted that man.
I ran through the long, long house. It was dark, and no one had lit any lamps. I could barely see into some of the corners; the shadows were so thick that they gathered like soot, soft and blurry. Or perhaps it was the tears in my eyes. There was no sign of Shin. Gasping, I took the stairs two at a time, flinging the bedroom doors open though I didn’t really believe he was upstairs. Not if he was hurt. Or maybe he really was dead. And still in the front room, my stepfather sat like a gargoyle, alone.
I ran to the back again. All the way to the kitchen, searching. We’d had favorite hiding spaces to play in—the cupboard under the stairs, the narrow space between the water jars—but Shin was too big now to fit in most of them. At last I went through the kitchen again into the last courtyard, the one with the high wall that led to the back alley. And there I found him, huddled behind the chicken coop.
I could barely make out his shape in the dim blue twilight, propped up against the back wall. His legs, so much longer than when we were children, stuck out in front as though he were exhausted.
“Shin!” I hadn’t noticed the tears running down my face until they dripped off my chin.
“Go away.” His voice was hoarse.
“Are you hurt?” I tried to help him up, but he shook me off.
“Don’t touch my arm. I think it’s broken.”
“I’ll get a doctor.”
I jumped up but he grabbed my ankle with his good hand. “Don’t!”
There was a crack in his voice, something so sad and despairing that it made me stop. I put my arms around him then, as though he was a child again. His shoulders heaved with harsh gasps as I cradled him. He buried his face in my neck. A shudder ran through him. His hair was matted and sticky, with sweat I hoped and not blood. Please, no blood.
I hadn’t seen Shin cry for years. We clung to each other behind the chicken coop for a long time. It smelled pungent, and there were bits of straw and other nameless soft unpleasant things on the ground, but I couldn’t see them and maybe it didn’t matter in the dark. Twice I heard my mother come looking for us. The second time I called to her softly and said that Shin was all right, just to leave him alone for a bit. When she’d gone, he pulled himself away.
“I’ll kill him,” he said quietly.
“Don’t! You’ll go to prison.”
“Who cares?”
“Well, I do!” Part of me believed Shin was quite capable of killing his father in a fight. He was already taller than him; it was surprising that he seemed to have had the worst of it today. Whatever had made Shin hold back, I was grateful. Because one day, just like today, I’d come home and one of them would be dead. But please, let it not be Shin. Though the alternative was just as bad. Shin would be locked up forever. Or hanged.
“Stop crying,” he said at last. “I won’t, all right?”
“Promise me.”
He sighed. “I promise. Don’t lean on my arm. It hurts.”
I got up. Shin slowly untangled himself from behind the coop and crawled out as well. My eyes had adjusted to the dimness but it was still hard to see. Everything looked strange and wrong, as though the kitchen courtyard was an entirely new country. Shin’s left arm hung at an odd angle.
“Told you. It’s broken.” He sounded so matter-of-fact that I felt like crying again.
“What happened?”
“He took a stick to me. The carrying pole.”
The carrying pole was used for heavy loads. Strong and heavy, and flattened to balance on one shoulder, it was a deadly weapon when rival Chinese clans fought gang wars. If my stepfather had really hit Shin with it, he must have lost his mind. He could have maimed him. I was so furious that I wanted to scream, report him to the police. I wished that all the doors and windows would burst open and the roof fly off, so that the neighbors would see exactly what happened in our house.
“You said not to kill anyone,” said Shin, reading my expression,
“They don’t hang girls,” I said, though I wasn’t really sure. Perhaps they did. Or maybe they drowned them, like witches. I didn’t care. I was so angry that my hands trembled. And yet, I was terrified. I hadn’t dared to raise my voice to my stepfather, even when I was searching the house so desperately.
“What happened? Why did he do it?”
But Shin only shook his head.
* * *
I never did find out what happened that night. The more I asked, the more Shin retreated into silence. My mother was no help, either. She said they’d already been fighting when she came home and it was best forgotten.
Shin stayed home from school for a week to hide the bruises, telling the doctor who splinted his broken arm that he’d fallen down the stairs. My stepfather also had injuries. Besides the bloody nose, he had a twisted elbow and, my mother suspected, a cracked rib though he too said nothing. I think in his own way he was sorry. He probably realized he’d gone too far, but I wouldn’t forgive him. I would never forgive him.
In fact, the thought crossed my mind about actually poisoning him. I even went so far as to check out all the detective novels I could find in our school library. It was no good though. They only let you take two books out at a time, and besides, where on earth was I going to find a trained snake, as in The Adventure of the Speckled Band? Anyway, if my stepfather were poisoned, the most likely suspect would be my mother.
Strangely, after that incident Shin and my stepfather came to some understanding that I wasn’t privy to. They left each other alone. I thought at first my stepfather was feeling guilty about the whole affair and perhaps he was, but I noticed that he gave Shin more leeway. Shin, too, started making a noticeable effort at school. His grades had always been good but now he studied as though he was possessed, surpassing me. He rarely had time for me anymore; it was around then that the two of us began to drift apart.
13
Batu Gajah
Monday, June 8th
They’ve found the head. It’s the biggest news at the Batu Gajah District Hospital on Monday morning, as Leslie, the fresh-faced doctor who’s the closest thing to a peer that William has here, informs him.
William’s initial horror at Ambika’s death has been subsumed by guilt and fear. The woman he embraced so many times is now no more than a piece of meat, discarded by a carnivore under a bush. Over and over, he’s questioned whether not identifying her was the right thing. His conscience whispers he’s a coward, an assessment that he’s forced to agree with.
He wonders if anyone is waiting anxiously for her to come home. Her husband, a habitual drunkard, may not miss her, but perhaps there are children, though she’s never mentioned any. And then there’s the nagging matter of the Chinese salesman who stumbled upon him and Ambika in the rubber estate. What bad luck, to have one of his own patients discover them. He inhales sharply. As long as William isn’t the one to identify the body, no
body will make the connection between them.
“I think her name was Amber-something,” says Leslie. He has red hair, bleached to straw by the fierce tropical sun, and so many freckles that his face is a mess of dots. But William stares at him with intense relief, as though Leslie is the most beautiful person he’s seen all day. Thank God. Thank you, thank you. William’s own verification is no longer needed. How fortunate that they found her head, otherwise who knows how long the torso would have remained unclaimed in the mortuary?
“Apparently there’s something odd about the body.”
Alarmed, William says, “Did Rawlings do the postmortem?”
“He did. And then when they found the head on Sunday he had to do it all over again.”
“So what does he think?”
Leslie glances up, “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
Turning, William spots the stooped, familiar figure of Rawlings, the pathologist. Rawlings is enormously tall and storklike, and to make up for this, he lowers his head on its skinny neck when speaking.
William hurries after him, despite Leslie’s plaintive cry of “We need to talk about the party at your place!”
“Later,” says William. He’s completely forgotten about the monthly party, a much anticipated social event where people dine on canned food sent from Europe—peas, lobster, tongue—drink too much, and congratulate each other on having a wonderful time out in the Colonies. It’s his turn to host, and he must remind Ah Long to lay in extra wine and spirits and discuss the menu. William would rather eat fresh local food than something that has died and been sealed in a can, like a metal coffin. He shudders at the thought and quickens his pace to catch up with Rawlings.
The hospital cafeteria is an open, airy space with a thatched roof and a poured concrete floor. The daily menu includes both Western and local food. Rawlings stands in line at the counter and demands a kopi-o, strong black coffee with sugar, and a slice of papaya in his deep bass. Queuing behind him, William asks for the same.
“I heard you’ve identified the body,” William says as they sit down. There’s no need to say which one; there aren’t many unknown corpses in Batu Gajah.
“You were first on the scene, weren’t you?” says Rawlings. Taking out a penknife, he slides the slice of papaya neatly off its skin. Rawlings is a vegetarian, and William can’t blame him. He’d become one too if he had to spend his days examining corpses.
“Well, the police were there first,” says William. “Looked like a tiger or a leopard got her. What did you think?”
Rawlings squeezes half a lime over his papaya, and William does, too. He’s read somewhere that if you mimic people, they’re more likely to open up to you.
“I saw your notes,” Rawlings wipes his mouth. “And initially, I was inclined to agree with you. From the marks on the body, I’d say it was a tiger. The puncture wounds are too far apart for a leopard’s jaws.”
“Why do you say ‘initially’?”
“Tell me, was there a lot of blood at the scene?”
William casts his mind back to that clearing between the rubber trees. The thick, rustling layer of dried leaves on the ground, the clove scent of the Malay constable’s cigarette. The piece of flesh that was once an attractive woman.
“No. I assumed she was killed somewhere else.”
“The skin at the edges of the puncture wounds had no indication of hemorrhage or marginal erythema. No arterial bleeding, either, not even where the spine was snapped and the body separated.”
“No bleeding,” says William slowly. “So she was already dead before the animal got her.”
“Yes. Tigers are scavengers, too. When we found the head, it raised further questions.”
“What do you mean?”
“They did a search for the other body parts in a half-mile radius. The inspector used dogs and they found the head and one leg. That’s not unusual in large animal kills, by the way.”
William fights to keep his composure, fixing his eyes on a spot behind Rawlings’s left ear.
Rawlings says, “The head was very interesting though. Do you want to see it?” He half rises, but William raises a hand.
“Not before lunch, thanks.”
“It was almost untouched. In fact, the whole body gave me the same impression: that the animal was starting its routine—that is, removing limbs, disemboweling the torso—and just stopped.”
William covers his mouth. The ripe orange papaya flesh that yields under his spoon is so fleshy and sensual that vomit rises. He thinks about Ambika’s generous smile, her smooth shoulders sliding under his hands and then it all dissolves into a mask of blood and yellow fluids. He wants to cry.
“Are you all right?” Rawlings stares at him, hooded eyes narrowed in concern.
“Stomach problems,” William lies.
Rawlings continues, “Without the dogs, we’d never have found the head. What’s interesting is that it looked like there were traces of vomit in the mouth.”
“So what does that mean?”
Rawlings steeples his fingers. “The first possibility is that the poor woman was killed by a tiger, perhaps by mauling the throat or suffocation. It’s hard to say because we don’t have a neck anymore. But then the tiger left its kill and returned much later—maybe a day or so—for the rest of the postmortem injuries. What kind of animal does that?”
“Perhaps it was disturbed,” says William. There’s a sick tightening in his gut; a bad feeling that he’s going to hear something that he’ll regret.
“Very few things will disturb a tiger feeding except for humans or another tiger, which would have then eaten the kill. And there haven’t been any reports of people driving away a tiger. We could have waited to see if the animal came back.”
“She was human. A person. We couldn’t leave her out as bait!” Without realizing it, William has raised his voice and a few heads turn.
Rawlings looks at him with surprise. “It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. There were several cases in India when man-eaters were ambushed when they returned to the corpse.”
William has often been accused of being cold and unfeeling, but he thinks that compared to Rawlings, he’s a mess of emotions. If he isn’t careful, people will be suspicious. Swallowing hard, he looks down into his coffee cup.
“In any case, I’m not keen on that theory. It’s much more likely that she died out in the rubber estate and was scavenged by a tiger. Death could be due to natural causes. Another possibility is someone killed her.”
“It’s a long shot to murder,” says William in dismay. “She could have been bitten by a snake. Or any other number of things.”
Rawlings waves his hand dismissively, then leans forward. “You know what I think?”
“What?”
But Rawlings changes his mind, sitting back. “I can’t confirm it yet. But I’m writing it down as a suspicious death. This will go to the coroner’s court.”
This isn’t news that William wants to hear—far better if Ambika were simply the unfortunate victim of a tiger. He recalls how she’d recently asked for more money and wonders if Ambika had other lovers. His chest constricts. If that’s the case, they’ll start looking for everyone associated with her.
“One way or another,” says Rawlings, “the tiger in this case behaved very strangely. The locals will be full of gossip that it’s a ghost tiger or something foolish like that.”
“Keramat,” William says automatically. “A sacred beast.”
Rawlings snorts. “Sacred beast! Exactly.”
William stares across the room, thoughts unspooling like loose threads. Besides the salesman, who else has seen him with Ambika?
He needs to be careful.
* * *
Ren is making an omelet. It’s a tricky, delicate task, requiring patience over a charcoal fire. Since finding the body over the weekend, William has been nauseated and out of sorts. He can’t stomach rich food like chicken in coconut gravy or fried pork chops. Return
ing early today, he requested an omelet and Ren volunteered to cook it.
Omelets were a favorite of Dr. MacFarlane’s and Auntie Kwan taught him how to make them fluffy and meltingly soft. Ren tips the omelet carefully onto a plate; the secret is to take the eggs off the heat before they’re completely set. Looking up, Ren breaks into a smile and amazingly, so does Ah Long.
“You can serve it yourself,” he says.
Ah Long sprinkles finely chopped green onions on top and fans out a few tomato slices on the side. Setting it on a tray with a starched white napkin, Ren trots off with it. All the way down the long, polished wooden hallway and upstairs, where he knocks at the master’s bedchamber.
Like all the other rooms in the house, the airy, high-ceilinged room is painted white and is quite bare except for the four-poster bed in the center, hung with mosquito nets. The slanting afternoon sun, green and gold through the treetops, gives Ren a sudden feeling of déjà vu. It’s just like the old doctor’s room, back in Kamunting. Except it’s not Dr. MacFarlane sitting at a table by the window, but William, who is writing a letter.
“Thank you,” he says, with a guilty start as Ren sets the tray down.
“Did they find the tiger yet?” Ren asks.
“Not yet. It may be miles away by now.” William takes a bite. “Who made this?”
The worried look returns to Ren’s face. “I did, Tuan.”
“It’s very good. I’d like you to make all my omelets from now on.”
“Yes, Tuan.” Emboldened by this, Ren asks, “May I have permission to take leave soon?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Back to Kamunting. Just for a few days.”
William considers this. Ren has been working here for only a short while. By rights, he hasn’t accumulated enough leave to go anywhere, but he looks so hopeful. “To see your old friends?”
“Yes.” Ren hesitates. “And to pay my respects to Dr. MacFarlane’s grave. I’d like to go before the mourning period is over in twenty days.”
