Ben stopped breathing and simply stared. He had never felt such desire for anyone. Small, pert breasts, flat stomach, slim waist... “I’m, I’m married,” he said, weakly.
“I know, but Wifey isn’t here right now, is she? I am.”
She bent forward and kissed him, her lips cool and breath warm. He didn’t consciously decide to respond, but before he knew it he was kissing her back, and reaching up to place a hand on her damp skin.
He felt the bedclothes being pulled downward as her lips left his, and couldn’t suppress a shiver as a series of butterfly kisses descended his neck and chest. His hand mussed her wet hair as teeth and tongue teased his left nipple. He stiffened as fingertips traced a line downwards to slip inside his pants.
The sensation was electric. Had that groan come from him?
“Wait.” He stopped her, regaining sufficient control to take off his watch and wedding ring, placing them hastily on the bedside table beside his phone before pulling her to him again.
BEN LAY IN the darkness, basking in post-coital euphoria. Karen’s small form lay curled beside him in sleep, her head resting on his right arm, both of them squeezed precariously into the one bed. She was incredible. They’d made love twice. Twice! When was the last time he’d managed that?
One thing was certain, he couldn’t let her go. Oh, he would stand by his family, it was his duty, but now that Karen had entered his life he wasn’t prepared to see her walk out of it again. Their meeting had been an act of fate, and their lovemaking a revelation. He’d forgotten how wonderful sex could be. It was as if she had roused him from a state of semi-slumber and opened his eyes to a whole new world.
They could arrange to meet in secret. Perhaps he would help her find a place to live, and then give her regular money towards the bills, an allowance. If he worked hard and earned the sort of commission he used to, it ought to be manageable. Nor would he be overbearing or demanding. If she had other sexual partners, well, that was okay. He was hardly in a position to demand fidelity, after all; just so long as she was there when he needed her...
Ben drifted off to sleep with plans swirling around his head.
SHE WAITED UNTIL the regular rhythm of his breathing confirmed that he was out, and then made herself wait some more. An hour or so later, confident that he was in a deep sleep, she gently lifted his arm and slipped from the bed. A small gap in the curtains allowed a sliver of light from the streetlamp in the car park to slip into the room. The illumination was welcome, but it wouldn’t have been necessary. She was an old hand at this game and knew exactly where her clothes had been left. After dressing in silence she worked quickly and methodically, taking what she wanted before leaving.
A PHONE RANG, dragging Ben away from a pleasant dream: his phone. Memories of the previous evening’s activity still drenched his thoughts as he came awake. The bed was empty, and the one beside him hadn’t been slept in, but he saw no cause for alarm. Karen was most likely in the bathroom, or perhaps she was the type of person who liked to stretch her legs first thing in the morning; perhaps she had tiptoed out so as not to wake him. There was still so much to learn about her, so much to look forward to.
He fumblingly picked up the phone, bringing it to his ear and saying a sleepy, “Hello,” without registering the identity of the caller.
“I thought you said you were going to ring me!”
Sarah! He came wide awake in an instant. “Sorry, I must have overslept. It was a difficult day yesterday, and the drive through all that fog just about did me in.”
What was the time, in any case? He glanced at the bedside table, where he remembered putting his watch, and froze.
“That’s all well and good, but when will you be home...? And what should I tell the office if they ring? Ben? Are you still there?”
He didn’t reply, hearing the sound of her voice but not the words. The watch was gone. As was his wedding ring. In that instant all the plans he’d so joyously built crumbled to dust, and something inside him died.
“Ben...?”
His wedding ring; how the hell was he going to explain that?
“Ben! Don’t you dare ignore me!”
“Oh, shut up, Sarah.” He broke the connection.
READILY DISPOSABLE ITEMS, they were the key. She had emptied Ben’s wallet of cash but left the credit cards – too easy to trace; likewise his phone, though she’d nabbed the watch, which looked to be expensive, and the wedding ring, which was obviously gold. A bit of a meagre haul, but it all added up.
Ben was her third mark of this particular outing and the first that she’d actually had to fuck. Not that she minded the sex, and he’d been okay: a bit quick, but reasonably attentive. She’d had far worse.
There might just be time for one more sting before she was due to rendezvous with the others for the divvy up. Comparing stories and claiming bragging rights were all part of the fun, but she wanted to have a little more in the coffers before that happened.
The morning was a dull one – the sun evidently reluctant to make an appearance. Remnants of yesterday’s fog still lingered, though it wasn’t as heavy as it had been the previous night. The air was chilly all the same, and damp. The fog would be among the first things to go, she decided. Concentrating on one small detail to start with – that hedge over there – she walked forward, instigating a process that now came as naturally to her as breathing. She pictured the hedge being smaller, squatter. It changed immediately, complying with her vision and withering by rapid stages, as if viewed via time lapse photography. The effect rippled outwards to touch everything around her. With each step she ratcheted up the rate of change and the world altered, moulding itself to her whim. She loved this, the stepping between one reality and the next, choosing from an infinite number of parallel worlds that were often just a detail or two away. Recognising the many similarities from place to place delighted her almost as much as the differences.
It was a pickup, on this occasion: a big red thing with fat wheels and tall radiator grill. There was a shallow dent in the fender and a worn look to the paintwork. She managed to thump the front wing with her open palm as she leapt out of the way, enhancing the impression that the vehicle had hit her – something she’d failed to do with Ben because of the wide swerve he threw his car into.
Lying on the ground, face down, she listened to the squeal of tyres and the opening of the door, careful not to move a muscle.
“God, are you all right?” It was a woman’s voice; neither young nor old.
Footsteps approached rapidly. She twitched and groaned at the appropriate moment.
“Are you hurt, did I hit you?” A hand touched her shoulder as she slowly sat up, wincing.
Young, thirties; nice eyes; a hint of grey showing in sandy brown hair worn long and loose; full lips that bore no sign of lipstick; dowdy clothes that failed to make the most of a decent figure, and a hint of floral perfume. A wedding ring, so married, respectable, most likely a kid or two. Pretty, though. She assessed the victim in an instant and decided that sweet and vulnerable was the way to play things this time around.
“I... I think so.” She lifted a hand to touch her brow, all for dramatic effect.
“I’m so sorry. You came from nowhere. I didn’t see you... I couldn’t stop.”
She noted the woman’s pupils, the way her nostrils flared, the rapidity of her breathing. That wasn’t just the result of concern or fear; this woman was attracted to her, though she probably didn’t recognise the fact and would only have been confused by it if she had.
This one promised to be fun.
“What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Emma,” she said smoothly, having always liked the name Emma. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking... Don’t really know what I’m doing at the moment, to be honest. My head’s all over the place. My boyfriend’s just left me... and I lost the baby...” She started to cry; great tearful convulsions that wracked her body and shook her shoulders.
“Oh, you poor th
ing. There, there, sweetheart, don’t cry.”
The woman’s arms reached out to comfort her and suddenly they were hugging, her head resting against the older woman’s neck, nuzzling.
The tears flowed freely, but deep inside she was smiling.
BALIK KAMPUNG
(GOING BACK)
ZEN CHO
The image of Lydia, driving out of hell on a motorcycle, clinging to her demon’s back, provides a striking start to Cho’s story about a spirit seeking out the cause of her death. This rich tale is full of Malaysian myth and religious custom, a heady brew that brings alive the sights, smells and sounds of this journey towards a hoped-for understanding. I think you’ll see from what follows why Zen is already building a reputation for being one of those most exciting and incisive new genre writers around.
THERE WERE A lot of unexpected things about being dead. The traffic was one of them.
Time passed differently here in the netherworld, so Lydia might have been perched on the back of her cheap motorcycle, clinging to her demon, for hours or years or centuries. Every once in an aeon they moved about three centimetres along. The light of the living world shone maddeningly at the end of the tunnel, not so very far away from them – but the intervening space was crammed full of hungry ghosts, using every form of transport they could beg, borrow or steal for their trip up north for the Festival.
“Can’t believe the traffic is so bad,” she said to her demon. “It’s halfway through the month already!”
“You should see this road on the first day,” said her demon. “The queue goes all the way back. Like this is not so bad.”
Since the dead were only allowed into the living world for one month in each year, the time was precious. Lydia was only so late because nobody had been burning hell money for her, and it had been a struggle to get together the funds to buy some form of transport.
She’d only managed to get the bike by promising to be bonded to a hell official for the next year. It was what they used to call a kapcai motorcycle – a small, aged Honda of the kind hawkers took their kids to school on and Mat Rempits raced with. Fortunately her demon was as bony as most demons were, and didn’t take up much space.
The demon had been another surprise. It had appeared the day she arrived in the netherworld. At first she had been too stunned by grief, too numbed by strangeness, to question the strange tangle-haired creature who followed her around hell. By the time she got around to questioning it, she’d grown used to its unvarying calm, its voice that was like the echo of the voice inside her own head. Its answer felt like something she had already known.
“I am your personal agony,” it said.
“What agony?” said Lydia.
“You’ll figure it out when you understand why are you a hungry ghost,” said the demon.
Hungry ghosts were the spirits of the unfortunate, unlamented dead: those who were killed violently; who died burdened by unfulfilled longings; who had been greedy or ungenerous in life; who were forgotten by their living. It was obvious to Lydia which category she fell into.
“I don’t care about my parents anymore,” she said to her demon.
It wasn’t bravado. Lydia had long made her peace with the fact that she was not the daughter her parents had wanted, and they were not flexible enough people to love her in spite of it. Stuck in the traffic jam, she thought not of them but of Wei Kiat.
Thinking about him and their home in Penang made the wait easier. The tunnel leading up to the human world wasn’t the most pleasant place to while away a few hours. The rock walls were painted with the inventive torments to which the wicked dead were subjected – disrespectful sons and daughters having their tongues torn out; incompetent physicians being chopped to pieces; litterers being made to kneel on spikes; cursers of the wind being bitten by grasshoppers and kicked by donkeys.
Around Lydia the other hungry ghosts were discussing what they would do once they had got out.
“Bastard, if the fella knew how to do his job I won’t be dead now. I’m gonna find his clinic and then that guy better watch out. He better get used to killing his patients.”
“It’s not like RM5 is such a big deal. It’s just annoying, you know? I was dying, also she couldn’t bring herself to pay me back. Maybe it’s too much to possess somebody for that, but if not it’s gonna keep bothering me lor.”
“Yah, go for the Christians. The less superstitious the better. They’re not prepared because they don’t believe in hantu all that. Muslim also, I guess, but I prefer to possess Chinese, feels more comfortable... anyway, have you ever met a skeptic Melayu?”
“No lah, I’m not gonna do all this possessing stuff. Die already, no point holding grudges. I’m gonna go home, see how my relatives are doing, smell my ah ma’s rendang.”
“You’re going home to see your family, is it?” said one of the older ghosts to Lydia. She was travelling by bullock cart, and spoke a Hokkien so strangely accented that Lydia struggled to follow it.
“Yes,” said Lydia. “What about you, auntie?”
“Hai, I’m too old to have relatives to visit,” said the ghost. “I have some great-great-grandchildren in Muar, but they all speak Mandarin and play their iPhones only. Nowadays I only go to the living world to see the shows.”
“Auntie must find the shows very different,” said Lydia. “Even when I was small I remember there were more operas, puppet shows, that kind of thing. These days you only see girls in miniskirts singing Cantopop.”
The antique ghost lowered her voice to a confidential whisper.
“I don’t mind the Cantopop girls,” she said. “After all, the weather is so hot. Why shouldn’t they wear something cooling?”
“That’s very open-minded of you, auntie.”
“Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t be flexible,” said the old woman. “So you’re visiting your family har? Where do your parents live?”
“My husband, auntie,” said Lydia. “He’s in Penang.”
IN PENANG. AS she sat there in the stinking dark, her arms wrapped around her personal agony, a vision of the small terrace house they had lived in together rose up before Lydia. The low gate, with the patches of rust where the grey paint was peeling away; the narrow front yard Lydia had populated with potted bougainvilleas. She’d had them in every conceivable colour: magenta, rose pink, peach, lilac, deep purple, white. Every day she’d come home from work and exult over the wash of colour spread out before her front door.
She saw her house so clearly she could almost feel the grainy texture of the grille swinging open under her hand. Their living room was floored in fake marble, dim and cool even on the hottest of days. Lydia had furnished it with old-fashioned cane chairs and rag rugs. Wei Kiat had admired her taste.
“You should be an artist,” he’d told her. “You look at things so differently.”
She was always finding out delightful new things about herself with Wei Kiat. He saw in her depths her parents would never have seen, talents and virtues unsuspected even by herself.
She knew she could not expect her home to have stayed the same while she was dead, but there would be a profound comfort simply in seeing it again, in feeling the tiles cool against her bare feet, and smelling the air in her house: a smell that was a mix of old newspapers, clean laundry, and the curry perpetually being cooked next door.
“We’ll have to come out at KL,” the demon said. “That’s the only exit for Malaysia.”
Which was why she’d needed the motorcycle. The dead were disappointingly limited: it was no more possible for her to fly herself to Penang than it would have been when she was alive.
At least, Lydia reflected, the demon knew how to ride a motorbike. She’d never ridden a motorcycle in her life – her parents had thought it unsafe, and Wei Kiat had driven her everywhere in his Chevrolet – but the demon piloted their vehicle with consummate ease.
When they finally emerged into the living world, somewhere behind KL Sentral, it was s
everal hours past sunset. The lights of KL were blinding after the dim red caverns of hell. The starless vault of the night sky seemed too big. Lydia hunched down behind the demon as if it could protect her.
“Hopefully we missed rush hour,” said the demon. “Jam out of hell, jam out of KL, everywhere also jam jam jam. If the government stop playing the fool and improve our public transport we won’t have this problem.”
“Do we have to stay here?” said Lydia. She’d grown up in KL, but she felt no nostalgia for the city. The constant honking of car horns made her flinch. The living, bustling around her, smelt too strongly and felt too sad.
“You don’t want to visit your parents?” said the demon. “We can drop by TTDI first.”
Lydia shook her head, her hair brushing against the back of the demon’s polo shirt.
“Home,” she said.
THE FURTHER THEY got from KL, the less populated the roads were. The glow of the orange street lights on the unfolding measures of asphalt, so infinitely familiar, calmed Lydia down.
“When are we reaching ah?” she said.
“You know how long it takes,” said the demon. “You sure or not you want to go?”
“What else do people do when they have holiday, aside from balik kampung?”
“You don’t want to find out how you died meh?”
Lydia didn’t remember how she had died. She hadn’t tried to recover the memory. She didn’t want to be like other hungry ghosts, clinging to historic grievances, hagridden by old sorrows. As in life, she had managed to get by in hell by sheer discipline: focusing on survival, hope, the image stored inside her of the red-tiled roof of her home, glowing in the sunshine.
“It’s not important,” she said.
End of the Road Page 5
