by Yangsze Choo
“A nurse,” said Mrs. Tham thoughtfully. “I don’t think you’ll be good at that.”
“Why not?” I was stung by this casual assessment; she’d been pleased enough with my dressmaking skills.
“You’re bound to contradict the doctors. I think you’d better get married.”
I bent over to hide my smile.
“What makes you think I won’t contradict my husband?”
“Oh, you mustn’t do that!” She looked horrified, though we both knew perfectly well who ruled the Tham household. “Listen,” Mrs. Tham said, drawing close, “the secret to a happy marriage is to make him think it’s all his own idea. And of course, you should dress well and look as pretty as you can.”
She gave a dissatisfied sigh as she contemplated me. All her stylish work was undone, as I was wearing an old pair of cotton trousers and a worn shirt to pack. “Make sure you hang on to him—women will be over him like flies.”
Mrs. Tham gave me a knowing look as she went out, and I wondered whether she was talking about Robert, or someone else. She might have found out that Shin and I weren’t related; I wouldn’t put it past her.
* * *
I saw Hui, too. I couldn’t explain everything that had happened because of my promise to the police and the hospital director, but I tried my best.
“You could have told me you were quitting. I had to find out for myself.”
She was indignant and a bit hurt. I could only nod and say I was sorry. I really liked Hui—I’d never had a friend like her before, though I was afraid I’d sadly disappointed her by not sharing all my secrets
“Thank you for helping me with Robert,” I said, remembering how she’d flung herself into the fray, when Y. K. Wong had led him to the dance hall. “Be nice to him if you see him again.”
Hui rolled her eyes. “Rich young men are wasted on you.” But she smiled at last.
* * *
The conversation I most dreaded, however, was with my mother. There was no getting away from it; I could see it in her anguished glances, her trembling hands. Of all people, I’d hoped that once the shock was over, perhaps my mother would come around to it. After all, she loved both Shin and me—just not together. Well, there was a price to be paid for everything.
So I could only sit guiltily on my bed late one evening, after my stepfather was asleep, and let her scold me. Shin had, diplomatically, gone to Ming’s. The sight of him nowadays seemed to infuriate her. He’d gone from favored son to her daughter’s seducer, and nothing I said would change her mind.
“It’s not right,” she kept saying. “People will talk; it doesn’t seem proper. And Shin’s never kept a girlfriend long. What if he changes his mind?”
“Then I’ll just make my own way,” I said.
She threw her hands up. “A girl only has one chance to marry well. This whole relationship is a mistake! You’re confused because you’re fond of him, like a brother. Besides, at your age it all seems romantic.” All of sudden, she fixed me with a horrified look. “You didn’t … you haven’t slept with him?”
Why did everyone ask about that—what business was it of theirs? But of course I knew why. Humiliating as it was, it was blood currency: a girl could still find a husband if she could prove her virginity, even if he were old and fat and ugly. “What do you think?” I said bitterly.
Her eyes clouded with doubt, and I felt betrayed. Finally, she nodded timidly. “Of course I trust you. But don’t do it. Promise me! It gives you the option to change your mind. I don’t want you to ruin yourself, throw all your chances away.”
“Mother,” I said. “Do you really hate Shin that much?”
“I don’t. He’s a good boy. Just … I wish he wasn’t for you. I was afraid of something like this, but you were always hung up on Ming. And I thought it would pass when Shin went away. I didn’t think he’d be so stubborn. Marriage isn’t easy. It doesn’t always turn out the way you expect.” Her gaze slid sideways. “You know your stepfather has a temper.”
“Shin’s never raised a hand against me!”
“But he’s still young.” She twisted her hands. “You don’t know what he’ll be like when he’s older.”
Fair enough, I thought, struggling to be stoic, though I wanted to shout and protest she was wrong and Shin was nothing like his father. Most of all, though, I wanted my mother to forgive me, and bless me, and tell me everything would be all right, just as she had when I was little, and there were only the two of us in the whole wide world. But perhaps that was part of not being a child anymore.
* * *
On Saturday, we stood on a platform at the Ipoh Railway Station. It was a beautiful morning, all white and gold. I had only a suitcase and a box, tied neatly with string. Gazing at the painstaking knots that my mother had tied, I felt a lump in my throat. My pretty dresses were packed away, and I was wearing one of Mrs. Tham’s best confections since, despite my protests, she’d insisted on seeing us off.
It turned out to be a blessing that she and Mr. Tham came, because her chirping commentary made the goodbyes bearable despite the tears that threatened to fall from my mother’s eyes. They’d brought an enormous bag of mangosteens and a tiffin carrier of steamed pork buns, as though we might starve before reaching Singapore. It would be a long journey south: four hours to Kuala Lumpur, then an overnight sleeper of eight hours to Singapore. A total of about 345 miles—farther than I’d ever been in my life.
As the train slowly pulled out, everyone began to wave frantically in some unspoken semaphore. Even my stepfather, usually so undemonstrative, raised a hand, though I couldn’t tell whether it was directed at Shin or me. At the last moment, my mother ran up alongside the train. I was filled with sudden panic. Was she going to denounce us? But she simply pressed the palm of her hand against the window. I fit my hand against it, all five fingers. Then she was gone, blown past by the gathering rush of the train.
Goodbye, I thought, as their figures shrank, left behind by the steady clack of the wheels, the humming of the track. Goodbye to my old life, and hello to the rest of it, whatever it might bring. Excitement and melancholy knotted my stomach, and I thought once again of Yi, that small boy left behind on a railway platform. Had he really gone away? I had the odd certainty that the ties binding all of us had been remade in a new and different pattern. I’ll never forget you, I promised. My fingers curled around the letter in my pocket. I’d missed my chance to drop it in the post box, but I’d do it when we stopped in Kuala Lumpur.
* * *
The outskirts of Ipoh flew past—coconut palms, wooden kampung houses on stilts, a skinny yellow Brahmin cow—until green jungle pressed in on both sides.
“I’ll have to find a place to stay in Singapore,” I said, recalling how we’d lied about a hospital dorm.
“That’s easy,” said Shin. “I’ve got some money saved up.”
“But that’s your savings. I don’t want to use it.”
“Why’d you think I’ve been working? I wanted to bring you to Singapore.”
“Really?” My heart skipped a beat. All those long, lonely months when I’d waited for Shin’s nonexistent replies to my letters.
“Though I didn’t know if you’d come. You were stuck on Ming for years. I was afraid if he changed his mind, you’d go running to him. You’ve given me more trouble than all the other girls combined.” His mouth twitched. “We need to keep you busy. Perhaps you can sit in on lectures.”
“I’d like that.”
Shin shook his head ruefully. “Why do you look so much happier about this than a ring? Please don’t ditch me for a surgeon.”
I shuddered. “No more surgeons.”
“I’ll borrow your class notes every night,” he said with mock seduction. My stomach gave a little flip. If Shin kept looking at me like that, I was going to make a fool of myself, and he knew it.
“Shin.” I took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult to say.
In answer, he traced the palm of my h
and delicately with his finger.
“We can’t get married.” I stared straight out of the window. His finger stopped. “At least, not now.”
He was silent for a long time. “Because of your mother?”
“No, we ought to think things through properly—it will be hard for you at school and work. People will talk. And I want to live on my own for a bit. Find a job, take care of myself. I don’t want you to be responsible for me, when you’re still studying. And I’m not ready to get married right away.”
“How long?”
“I’m not sure.”
“A year,” he said without looking at me. “In a year and a day, if you haven’t made up your mind, then you’ll be mine.”
“I told you there’s no such thing as belonging to anyone!”
But he only said maddeningly, “There has to be a time limit. Otherwise we’ll just go on and on like this. I refuse to play at being twins anymore.”
A year and a day. It sounded like a dark path strewn with thorny vines and unknown beasts. Were we out of the jungle yet, Shin and I? I’d no idea of the terrain ahead, but perhaps that was all right. I had a sudden vision of high-ceilinged rooms, long sunlit hallways, and quiet libraries. The King Edward Medical College, of which I’d heard so much. Shin laughing across a table with a group of fellow students. Myself, getting on a crowded bus while balancing a box full of books. Frying rice in a cramped apartment kitchen, listening for familiar quick footsteps on the stairs. Shin and me, walking by a river in the cool evening air, eating fried bananas and arguing companionably. Strangely enough, in all these scenes I was dressed fashionably enough to please Mrs. Tham. The breeze from the open train window whipped my short hair and bangs. My heart soared.
“All right,” I said, laughing. “Friends?”
Shin rolled his eyes, but stuck his hand out in the familiar gesture. “Your mother said some terrible things about me the other night. But she was right. I’m definitely going to seduce you.”
53
Batu Gajah
Two weeks later
When it’s all over—the police and the funeral and the well-meaning rush of visitors—Ren sits on the back kitchen steps. The house is empty; there’s only him and Ah Long left packing up the master’s things. Not that there’s much. William had very few personal effects though he had, in his characteristically efficient way, drawn up a will. Very recently, the lawyer said. Ren knows about lawyers; he remembers the one in Taiping who took care of Dr. MacFarlane’s affairs, and how he’d grimaced at the mess of papers stuffed into the crannies of the old doctor’s desk. But William’s affairs are neatly arranged.
Heart failure was the official verdict. Miss Lydia made a scene at the funeral, crying and carrying on that she was his fiancée, which was a surprise to lots of people, including her own parents. Her grief and fury were astonishing. Embarrassing, even. She wanted everything that had belonged to him, but the lawyer said she wasn’t in the will and a fiancée wasn’t the same as a wife. The servants have spread the gossip through their swift channels, and everyone knows about this by now.
Ah Long sighs and shrugs. “Lucky he didn’t marry her.” The lines on his face are deeper and his wiry frame has shrunk. As he moves around the empty house, packing away the good silver and crystal to be sent back to the Acton family, his steps are slow and less sure. He doesn’t seem to care about the bequest that William has made: To my Chinese cook, Ah Long, a sum of forty Malayan dollars for his loyal service, though it is a princely gift.
Ren doesn’t have the heart to rejoice, either, despite the fact he, too, is mentioned. There’s a scholarship fund for Ren to go to school, though the monies can only be used for education.
“I don’t want it,” he says to the lawyer’s surprise.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to study. Not right now.”
The lawyer frowns. “Why not wait? Give yourself time to think about it.”
* * *
After his departure, Ah Long calls Ren over to the formal dining room, the table’s polished surface marked by neat piles of unopened mail. They’re all addressed to William and will be forwarded to his family.
“What is it?” Ren asks.
Ah Long holds up a white envelope. For a dizzying second, Ren wonders whether his master has finally received an answer from that lady Iris, the one that he wrote letter after letter to. But no, this letter is for Ren. His name is written on it as a single Chinese character. That’s the part that Ah Long can, thankfully, read.
“For me?” Ren has never in his short life received anything like a letter, though he knows how to write one. Dr. MacFarlane taught him the format, when they were practicing dictation. Ren slits the envelope open carefully. Inside is a single piece of paper.
“Who’s it from?” asks Ah Long suspiciously.
But Ren is reading slowly. It’s short, no more than a few sentences, and when he’s read it through twice, he tucks it away.
“From that girl,” he says.
“The one with short hair, from the party?”
Ren nods, impressed by Ah Long’s memory.
“What did she say?”
Ren hesitates. How to explain it, this reluctance to share her words? Simple ones, but private. “She said she’d always remember me.” And Yi. “And that we’d meet again. There’s an address here if I want to write to her, care of Lee Shin at the medical college.”
Ah Long grunts. Somehow, he seems satisfied.
* * *
The next day, in the still, hot afternoon, an unexpected visitor appears. It’s Dr. Rawlings. Waving aside Ah Long’s attempts to serve him tea, he sits at the kitchen table and studies Ren’s forlorn little figure. “Do you have a place to go?” he asks.
A headshake. “I might go to Kuala Lumpur. To see Auntie Kwan—my old master’s housekeeper.” Ren still has her address tucked away in Dr. MacFarlane’s carpetbag. With a pang of doubt, he wonders if he’ll be a burden to her.
“Boy, stay with me,” says Ah Long, in his gruff broken English. “I find another job.”
Ren stares at him, astonished. Ah Long has never said anything to him about this, but there’s a warm feeling in his stomach. As though a cat is sitting on it, with its furry, comforting bulk.
Dr. Rawlings inclines his head thoughtfully. “I have a proposal for both of you. I’ve a job transfer coming up, and my current staff doesn’t want to relocate. I’ll need a cook and a houseboy. It will be much the same sort of bachelor duties, since my wife and family are in England.”
Ah Long glances at Ren and gives an almost imperceptible nod. “Thank you, Tuan. I think about it.”
Rawlings nods, too, a storklike jerk. He also looks at Ren. “I’m not a surgeon like Mr. Acton was. I’m a pathologist and a coroner, which is an interesting field of study, though I understand if you find that frightening, after all you’ve been through.”
Ren says seriously, “Will it be all right?”
“Yes. I promise that you’ll have time to go to school. I heard you said no to the lawyer, but I think in a little while, you’ll change your mind. Mr. Acton would have wanted it. He thought very highly of you.”
Ren’s face brightens. “Did he?”
“Indeed he did. He told me about your treating that girl Nandani’s leg, and said you were a natural physician. You ought not to waste such a gift—you may save many lives in future.”
Saving lives. Ren feels a bubble of hope. Yes, he would like that. “Where are you transferring to, Tuan?”
“Singapore,” says Rawlings. “The Singapore General Hospital. I think you’ll like it there.”
Notes
WERETIGERS
The tiger has traditionally been revered across Asia. Ancestor worship in the form of tigers—the belief that the soul of an ancestor could reincarnate as a tiger—was common in Java, Bali, Sumatra, and Malaya, and though the ancestor form was considered “friendly,” it was also feared as a disciplinarian.
Spi
rit tigers appear in many guises, including guardian spirits of shrines and holy places, corpses who transform, and entire villages of beast-men. Tigers, like humans, were thought to possess a soul, and were often addressed with honorary titles, such as “uncle” or “grandfather.” In many tales, the true nature of the weretiger is that of a beast who wears a human skin—the exact opposite of the European werewolf. There is probably some connection to Buddhist and Daoist beliefs that certain animals could, by practicing meditation and magic, attain human form. Yet no matter how powerful they become, they are never quite human.
Shape-shifters, in particular, embody the tension between man and his beast nature. In most tales, the tiger acts in ways that people normally do not, expressing hidden or forbidden desires: the most basic of which is to murder people in their own houses. The weretigers of Kerinci were said to covet gold and silver, while southern China has a number of stories of attractive women who are tigers in disguise, and are only revealed when they start digging up graves to devour corpses, much to the horror of their husbands. More amusingly, in Pu Songling’s story “Mr. Miao” (苗生), a stranger who joins a scholar as his drinking companion is so irritated by the poor quality of poetry recited at a gathering that he turns into a tiger and kills everyone (perhaps the ultimate literary criticism!).
MALAYA
Malaya is the historic name for present-day Malaysia. Colonized by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British before independence in 1957, Malaya was a highly profitable source of tin, coffee, rubber, and spices, as well as home to the important trading ports of Penang, Melaka, and Singapore.
PERAK (KINTA VALLEY)
This book takes place in the state of Perak, most notably the Kinta Valley towns of Batu Gajah and Ipoh. One of the world’s richest tin deposits, the Kinta Valley has been commercially mined since the 1880s. For more than a century, up till the 1980s, Malaysia continued to supply more than half the world’s tin ore.
