by Yangsze Choo
As I folded the thin cotton blanket, my mother came into my room. Glancing timidly at me, she sat on the bed. “Is Robert picking you up?”
“No.”
“You know, I’d be very happy if it worked out with him.”
“He hasn’t proposed to me,” I said tersely.
“But if he does, will you think about it?”
“All right.”
I raised my eyes to see Shin’s head poke in. As usual, he didn’t take a single step into my room. It was an old habit, though what did it matter now since neither of us lived here anymore?
“Father wants to know where the receipts are,” he said to my mother.
“Oh, I’ll get them.” She got up and so did I. I didn’t want to be left alone with Shin. Remembering how I’d lifted my face expectantly in the moonlight, and how he’d paused and released me instead, filled me with hot humiliation.
“Ji Lin,” he said in a low voice as I brushed past in the narrow hallway. Even though it was noon, only a little light filtered into the corridor that ran alongside our two small rooms. It was so gloomy in this shophouse, so long and narrow, like living in the belly of a snake.
“What?”
“I need to talk to you.” Shin bent his dark head towards me.
“Not when you were so rude to me downstairs.”
For an instant, he frowned. Then the corner of his mouth twitched.
“You really are blunt,” he said. “Don’t you know how to act like a girl?”
Indignant, I opened my mouth to inform him that I was in fact the number two girl at the May Flower on Wednesdays and Fridays, but closed it without saying anything.
“But that’s what I like about you.”
A knife twist. Yes, he was fond of me. So fond that he didn’t even see me as female.
Shin said more seriously, “Did my father really promise that he wouldn’t interfere with you if you got married?”
“He said he didn’t care who it was as long as he had a decent job.”
“I see. That’s good, isn’t it?”
Why was Shin so pleased about that?
“Are you all right?” He peered closely at me, and I forced myself to look cheerful.
“I opened the package you got from Pei Ling,” I said, changing the subject.
He raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“I think you should tell Dr. Rawlings about the missing fingers. They’re hospital property after all.”
“I was going to,” said Shin, “Except when I went back to the storeroom to look for the original finger—the one you put away—it had disappeared.”
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
Shin put a hand over my mouth. “Not so loud.”
“I put it on the shelf, behind the two-headed rat,” I said softly, not wanting my mother to overhear us.
“Well, it’s not there anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
He gave me an exasperated look. “If I inform Dr. Rawlings that I managed to locate one of the missing fingers but now it’s disappeared again, he’ll think I’m mad. Or that I stole them myself. Best not to say anything.”
“But if someone checks the catalog, they’ll find that specimens are missing. And the last person who tidied the room was you.”
I never heard his answer because at that moment, a heavy tread on the stairs warned us of my stepfather’s approach. Hastily, we sprang apart. Shin disappeared into his room, and I made my way downstairs, coolly passing my stepfather as though I hadn’t just been standing in the hallway discussing stolen body parts with his son.
* * *
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even as I sat in the hired car that Saturday night, listening to Hui and Rose chatter with only half an ear. And then the car was pulling up a long curving driveway. It was very quiet and dark, just as most of the journey had been, down empty roads fringed with jungle trees and the rustling leaves of rubber and coffee estates.
When the car stopped behind a row of vehicles, there was a moment of silence. Then Rose and Pearl spilled out, adjusting their dresses and smoothing their hair. I’d never been to such a large private bungalow before. Lights blazed from the front windows so that the surrounding trees and long expanse of black lawn pressed in on the house. Faint sounds of laughter and the tinny music of a gramophone wafted out through the open windows. I glanced at Hui, but she was looking at the door. There was a hard expression on her face, and I realized that she was nerving herself up to go in. We were used to locals, but foreigners were a different matter. Frankly, I was terrified.
“Front door or back?” she asked Kiong.
He consulted a piece of paper. It was so dark that he had to hold it up and squint. “Front,” he grunted.
Kiong knocked on the door and handled the introductions. I stood behind Anna, the only girl who was taller than me, and blindly followed the others in. There was a rush of noise. I hardly knew where to look, but it was all right since we were being ushered through to the side.
“Ren, show the ladies into the study.”
The hair on the back of my neck turned to needles. I had a good memory for voices, their pitch and timbre, and there was no use telling myself that all Englishmen sounded the same. I should have considered the possibility that William Acton, surgeon at the Batu Gajah District Hospital, might be at this private party. And now I was stuck.
We waited in another room until they were ready to have us, which was quite normal, said Pearl. Besides, we were a little early. Kiong was always a stickler for punctuality. The room was somebody’s study: a very neat person, judging from the desk with its exact angles of ink jar and blotting paper. There was a tiger skin—a real one—on the floor. Rose said it gave her the shivers, but I thought it looked rather sad with its green glass eyes fixed in a petrified stare. That would be me, I thought, after William Acton recognized me. Goodbye to any chance of a nursing career, at least at this particular hospital.
“Did you see that little houseboy?” said Rose. “The one who opened the door for us? I thought his eyes would fall out of his head, he was staring so.”
I hadn’t noticed, but Hui had. “He’s a bit young to be chasing women,” she said wickedly. She was simmering with nervous energy: the same high spirits that had drawn me to her from the start.
Kiong knocked on the door. “Time to go.”
After that, it was business as usual. Kiong brought us out, rather like a string of show ponies, while a young red-haired doctor introduced us. That was Rose’s regular, she whispered.
“Very nice dance instructors from a respectable establishment,” he said loudly. There was some ribbing going on, but not too much. William Acton was talking to a guest in the back and didn’t seem to be paying attention, thank goodness. I’d noticed a couple of ladies—it was always better to have mixed company, though I wasn’t sure whether, for their parts, the ladies were that pleased to see us. One of them looked like a mouse, but the other was very tall and fair.
She laid a proprietary hand on Acton’s arm and started the dancing. There were five of us girls, and at least a dozen guests, all men except for the two ladies who were already gamely dancing. I’d have thought they would hang back at first, but most of the guests were young and apparently up for a good time. They were, by and large, polite though. No shouting out or calling dibs on girls as though we were cattle, which I’d been secretly afraid of without the strict dance-hall ticketing system. It was easy to see how an affair like this could go horribly wrong.
I danced with a short man with sandy hair, then another with sweaty hands. The music was very fast, faster than the live band at the May Flower played, and it was popular dances from five or six years ago like the Charleston and the Black Bottom. I realized that was to see whether we were any good at all. Which was ridiculous, because of course we could dance.
When the music stopped, we were panting from all that high-spirited leaping about and waving our arms. If they kept up this pace, I’d
collapse before the evening was over, but thankfully the next piece was a waltz.
This time, I danced with a quiet young man who held my waist a little too tightly. You had to watch out for the silent ones; they could be troublesome in a sneaky way. As we spun sedately around the room, I kept an eye out for William Acton. If I were lucky, he might never dance with me at all, and perhaps with all the extra kohl and face powder, he wouldn’t recognize me anyway. We made a tight turn near the dining room, and I glimpsed a small figure in white.
It’s astonishing how much detail you can see in an instant. The flash of a face before it’s gone, like a lightning strike. For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I wanted to turn back, but my dance partner was steering us in the opposite direction.
“What is it?” he said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
That was exactly how I felt. The small square face, serious eyes and closely clipped hair. It was the little boy from my dreams. I stumbled and almost fell.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
He swung us around, but the doorway was empty now. I must have been hallucinating.
“You Chinese girls are so slim,” my partner said, smiling. He slid his hand farther down my back. “Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Louise Brooks?”
His breath smelled of beef rendang. Twisting sharply, I realigned the gap between us. Another glance at the dining-room doorway. Still empty. My little ghost was gone.
“She does, doesn’t she?” It was William Acton. “May I cut in? Host’s prerogative, you know.”
My partner looked irritated but relinquished me. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about this or not. Overall, I thought it was a change for the worse, even though I was thankful Acton had saved me from an awkward embrace.
We danced in silence, my shoulders tight and my neck stiff with alarm. He was a good dancer, as most foreigners tended to be. They must have all had training.
Just when I was beginning to think that William Acton hadn’t recognized me, he said, “So how have you been, Louise?”
28
Batu Gajah
Saturday, June 20th
Ren is running in and out of the kitchen, clearing the plates from the dining table. It’s agony because the signal that he first sensed at the hospital is now here. Calling him, ever since he opened the front door. His ears ring, his skin tingles. It’s been so long since Yi died. Three years of being alone, the only beacon in a wilderness, and now the signal is coming again.
Someone like me, he thinks. He wants to drop everything and search, but Ah Long gives him one task after another.
When Ren opened the door earlier, the girls entered in a rustle of skirts, soft voices, and suppressed laughter. They passed in a blur, and Ren, dazed and staring, was unable to pinpoint exactly where the signal came from.
And now they’re dancing in the front room where the gramophone is playing. The air is electric with nerves and the animal curiosity of the guests. Ren can feel a fog of excitement that colors everything tonight with unease.
He peers into the front room every moment he can steal away, much to Ah Long’s annoyance. The other Chinese waiter looks over Ren’s shoulder.
“Which one are you looking at?” he asks, his eyes fixed on the girls.
Ren frowns, trying to feel his way with his cat sense, the invisible filaments floating like jellyfish tendrils. “I’m not sure. I can’t tell.”
There are five girls, all Chinese, wearing fashionable Western frocks. The music twitches infectiously, and the dance is very fast. They scissor their legs and touch their knees, reaching up with their arms. The men, panting in the heat, remove their jackets one by one.
“I like that one,” says the waiter with a grin. He points out a girl in a pink dress, with arched, knowing eyebrows. “Though she’s good, too.” The tallest girl, with a chest that jiggles as she dances. It makes the back of Ren’s neck hot, yet he’s also obscurely embarrassed for her. But neither of them is right.
The room is crowded with people taller than Ren. Those who aren’t dancing stand around laughing and clapping as the gramophone record is changed.
“Ohhh … the one with the short hair. Nice legs.” The waiter, enjoying himself, cranes his head at a slim girl in a pale blue dress, her hair bobbed to reveal the nape of her long neck.
Ren’s heart thumps wildly. Straight brows, large eyes, black hair cut in bangs that fly as she swings past on someone’s arm. The buzz in his head is so loud that he staggers, steadying himself against the wall. She looks right at him, and her eyes go wide in recognition.
Ren tenses, ready to run out and grab her wrist, but Ah Long’s scowling face appears. Hissing like an old goose, he herds Ren and the waiter back to their duties, though Ren hardly hears his instructions.
“What’s wrong with both of you?” says Ah Long sourly.
“It’s just a bit of fun,” says the waiter, but Ren is silent.
How does she know him? Is it the same electric signal that he feels? No, it was something else, a visual recognition. It bothers him, the shocked expression on her face.
“No falling in love,” Ah Long says. “We’ve had enough of it tonight.” He jerks his head at the empty seat at the kitchen table where Nandani sat half an hour ago.
“Did she go home?” asks Ren. It’s dark outside, the new moon barely a sliver in the sky. He goes to the screened kitchen door and opens it into the face of the Sinhalese youth who delivered the letter.
“Where’s Nandani?” he says without ceremony. “She asked me to come back to get her, so here I am.” He pushes his way into the kitchen. “Nandani!”
“She’s not here,” says Ah Long. “She went home.”
“She can’t walk far. How could she go home?”
He’s right. Nandani was limping, leaning on Ren’s shoulder even as he took her round the house to meet William earlier.
“Well, she went out about twenty minutes ago.” Ah Long frowns.
Without a word, the cousin goes out again. Ren stares at the swinging door, wondering if he should help him look.
“She’s probably waiting outside,” says Ah Long. “Now hurry up and collect the empty glasses.”
The other waiter goes to tend bar. Ren follows him, unease in the pit of his stomach. The night is so dark. Is Nandani outside, peering longingly in from the open windows? But he forgets about her as he goes into the front room again, because the girl in the pale blue dress is dancing with William right in front of him.
The couples twirl like flowers floating down a stream, and Ren sees his master laugh. But she’s not smiling. Her expression is serious, and she says very little although she dances well. All the professional girls do. Even Ren can tell that.
William catches his eye and to his amazement, points at Ren with his chin. The girl glances up and stares at Ren. There it is again, that unbearable electric charge that makes him want to grab her hand. Every time they whirl past, her head turns, as though she’s checking that Ren is still there.
William says something to her. Her mouth moves but what is she saying? And why is his master’s head bent, as though he’s considering something? Ren thinks about Nandani, waiting somewhere in the night and a feeling of protest rises in his chest. It isn’t right for William to do this, not with the girl in blue, her straight dark brows frowning.
He tries to read her, to read William in the same way that he could sense the trails of energy at the hospital, but no matter how much he stares at them there’s nothing, only a curious blank spot. Ren is dimly aware of noises, a disruption coming from the kitchen. He wavers, not wanting to leave his spot by the door, then scampers off.
In the kitchen, Nandani’s cousin is angrily telling Ah Long that he can’t find her though he has searched the grounds.
“What’s that got to do with us?” Ah Long balls his fists into his dirty white apron.
“She was here. If she’s gone missing, then it’s your master’s fault.”
Ren says, “I’ll find her. She might be round the other veranda.”
“Not you.” Ah Long gives Ren an irritated look. “You’re too small. Ah Seng!” He calls the part-time waiter over. “Go and help him look again. Take this lamp.”
Ah Long’s bushy eyebrows draw sharply down, and Ren suddenly understands his concern. Somewhere, out in the ferny rustling darkness, a predator has left deep paw prints in the soft earth.
“What about Nandani?” he cries out anxiously.
“I don’t want you out there,” says Ah Long. “She’s probably halfway home already.”
It’s a reasonable assumption, and besides, there are now two people searching for her. Ren goes back to the front room to collect his tray of dirty glasses. The air is thick with cigarettes and sweat. William is dancing with someone else now, the girl with the arched eyebrows in pink. Ren hesitates, wondering whether to tell him that Nandani has disappeared, but thinks better of it. He’ll only be bothered by the interruption. As he turns away, he hears the girl in pink loudly repeating her name for William. “Hui. It’s Hui,” she says coquettishly.
William seems to be paying just as much attention to her as he did to Ren’s girl, the one in blue, and for some reason that’s a relief.
A guest asks for a fresh drink, but the waiter who should be tending bar is still outside looking for Nandani. Ren only knows how to make one drink, a whisky stengah, and he does it the way that William likes, with so much Johnnie Walker that the frosted glass is the color of Chinese tea. Amused, his patron calls a friend over, and Ren finds himself surrounded by laughing faces as he mixes drink after drink.
“Sorry, no more ice,” says Ren, gathering up the ice bucket and tongs in relief. Dodging between people, he makes a beeline to the kitchen. Perhaps the waiter and Nandani are back by now. But there’s only Ah Long’s stooped, skinny figure peering anxiously out of the back door.
“Did they find Nandani?” Ren’s stomach gives an uneasy flip.
“Not yet.”
“Let me look.” Ren is sure he can find her. His cat sense twitches once, twice.
