The Heart Radical

by Boyd Anderson

  I could see no actual evidence of such a presence. There were no mysterious strangers on the street, no gunfire echoing down into the valley, and certainly no British troops arriving at dawn and blockading the town, as was the Japanese approach. We never even saw a British soldier in Papan for that first year. However, it seemed like every patient attending the clinic had some story or other to tell me, as though I was some kind of mother confessor, or perhaps a sage or an insider, one who might be capable of confirming or denying the increasingly worrisome revelations that were doing the rounds. I found it interesting that not one had personal experience with the bandits in any way, shape or form. It was always what they had ‘heard’, what a friend had ‘seen’, how someone however distantly connected might have been in some way entangled in an incident.

  The stories, whether fact or fiction, multiplied over the first few months of the Emergency. The more reliable front page of the Straits Times often carried news of an engagement between police and bandits, an attack on an isolated police station, or a bandit raid on an isolated rubber estate or tin mine for its stores and the recruitment of its Chinese workers. We felt secure in our own isolation. There was no police station to attract attention, no rubber estate nearby, and the tin mine had long since been exhausted and abandoned. There was no stockpile of foodstuffs, no cluster of young men ripe for drafting to the cause. In Papan the Emergency was more like the ‘phoney war’ we had read about so many years earlier in England.

  I only began to appreciate how serious the situation might actually be when a story appeared in the Straits Times about an incident that was hailed as the ‘biggest success yet’ in the war against the communists. A battle had taken place at a village in Selangor in which police managed to kill twenty-four bandits while suffering no casualties in their own ranks. However, over the ensuing weeks the story kept changing, even the official number of dead, and the triumphal tone became restrained as questions were asked. Why were there no wounded among the casualties? Why no casualties among the police? Why were no enemy weapons found? The authorities explained that the casualties were all shot while trying to escape. It then emerged that it was not the police at all, but a platoon of British soldiers, and that the bandits might in fact be unarmed villagers, merely the workers on a nearby rubber estate at Batang Kali. Within two weeks there was a call for a public inquiry into the whole affair.

  It was soon after that I received confirmation of the guerrilla presence in the most indisputable manner imaginable. It came via a knock on the back door when I was checking the drug cabinet in the downstairs clinic one night. It was loud enough to attract my attention, but not to carry beyond my walls. I thought it might be a late night emergency, although why anyone would take the trouble to make their way around to the back was reason enough for added alertness. I found five men waiting for me and, after the initial shock, knew right away who they were. Not precisely, as it was a moonless night and I could not make out their faces, but it was the shape of their silhouetted caps with three points that I recognised.

  The first to step forward was the unmistakable squat figure of Shorty, dishevelled as he had always been. He greeted me curtly in Cantonese, quickly inquiring who else was inside the house. Only my young son, I said. At that, he snapped off an order and two of the men behind slipped away to stand guard at the front of the house. The other two stepped forward, and now I could recognise Bintang and Minum.

  It was years since I had laid eyes on any of them. So often had I pondered on the fate of this man who had delivered me from the evil of the Kempeitai, with not even a picture of him to go with all the reports in the newspapers of his activities, and here he was again in my backyard, as though those years were a blink of an eye. He had not changed. The uniform was a little smarter, but he had not put on any weight, and the twinkle was still there in his eye as he removed his cap and shook my hand warmly. I noticed that he now walked with a limp to the leg where I had removed the bullet. When I saw that, it struck me that it was not only he who had saved my life, but I who had saved his. Even then I imagined that destiny had determined there would always be something between us, if only for that.

  Whatever that bond was, there was nothing like it with Shorty. Outwardly also the same, there was a surliness about him now that I could not recall before. Once inside the clinic courtesies were quickly dispensed with and I was informed that my services were again required. Bintang said that I was free to refuse the request, although he hoped that I would not. The request they made of me was a return to our previous arrangement for medical assistance. The ever-earnest Minum was again the ‘barefoot doctor’ who would cope as well as he could in their camp, but in more extreme cases they asked if I could be called on.

  Again Bintang assured me I could refuse. He said that he appreciated the British may not be my enemy as the Japanese were, and he was quickly interrupted. Shorty growled about them being no better than the Japanese and they should be my enemy. After Batang Kali, he said, it was obvious. Bintang allowed him to say his piece and then said once more that it was up to me, I could refuse and he would understand. But for better or for worse, and both have resulted, I was never able to refuse Bintang.

  32

  SU-LIN

  The evening at my flat ended awkwardly. It was quite obvious that he was not comfortable being there. I may have got a little personal when I asked him about his wardrobe. I mean, how many days can you wear the same suit, the same tie? He assured me that was not the case, and perhaps I had been a little heavy on the wine pour, but we were adults, weren’t we? What was a little banter between people our age? At least, that was how I saw it. I think he was of another opinion.

  The next day I decided to make him a gift of a new tie. Something stylish, with a bit of colour. I asked my clerk where I should pick up such a thing. Dougal is a six-foot-four Scot with a dark disposition and the ability to lay his heavy hand on anything of importance in London. He advised a Drake’s hand-made eight-centimetre, and said to leave it to him.

  That afternoon he showed me a beautiful blue silk tie printed with small flowers – ninety-five pounds worth of small flowers! – and even offered counsel on how to wear it. I wrote a note to Paris under the heading ‘Peace Offering’. A half-Windsor knot, I advised, allowing a small dimple at the base. And then I added, ‘Opera one night this week? Return treat. If you are not tied up.’

  I wasn’t sure now where to send it. All I knew was that he was staying in someone or other’s rooms in Kew, handy to the archives.

  Leave it to me, miss, said Dougal again. And I knew that I could.

  As the trial approached and my father was required to spend more time out of the office preparing his case, I stayed at home on Saturdays and helped Ah Mun Cheir. I went with her to the market and helped by carrying two live kai hong. Before that day I didn’t know what a kai hong was, but I was told certain things by Ah Mun Cheir that Saturday that made me understand so well I would never be able to forget it.

  It was the first weekend of Ramadan, the fasting month for the Malays when nothing is to pass their lips between sunrise and sunset. Before tin was discovered Ipoh was a quiet little Malay kampong, but those days were long gone, as Miss Mak had told us. According to her view of the situation, such days were long gone because the English brought progress and opened up the country for the Chinese, although it seemed to me even then that I had heard many other opinions on that matter that were very different to Miss Mak’s. There were few Malays at the market that Saturday because even a drink of water was proscribed during the daylight hours of Ramadan, and walking around a market in the heat of the day was a thirsty business. The few I did see appeared to have adopted the Chinese habit of blithely spitting on the ground, as even the swallowing of saliva was breaking the fast. When I went with my mother to the market she was most particular about making sure I avoided anyone hoicking on the ground. There were enough diseases to be caught in a country like Malaya, she said, tropical diseases like malaria
and dengue fever, without getting tuberculosis. I was quite certain that Ah Mun Cheir was not as up to date on such medical problems because she didn’t even seem to notice the people who hoicked, and certainly would not change her direction to walk around one.

  Malays were never to be seen in the pork pavilion, fasting month or feasting month, as the very building to them was unclean. I imagined that a Chinese pork market must have been one of the courts of Malay Hell, if they happened to have such a thing. On that Saturday, however, hundreds of Chinese certainly seemed to disagree as they crowded into the pavilion. I held tight to Ah Mun Cheir’s hand and asked her why so many people wanted to buy pork today.

  ‘Not pork, lah,’ she said. ‘They want to buy tiger. Tiger killed in Batu Gajah yesterday. Today everyone want tiger meat. After eat tiger, can do anything.’

  If that was the case, I thought, we should buy some and give it to my father to take to Toh Kei in Taiping prison. But Ah Mun Cheir ignored me and bought only pork.

  ‘Tiger meat cost too much,’ she said. ‘Better just stick finger in tiger blood. Suck the blood. Enough.’

  As she pushed her way through the crowd again toward the next pavilion she pulled me along by the hand, but my mind was not so easily controlled. I imagined I was in Taiping leading a tiger up to the gates of the prison and the guards were running away in terror. I led the tiger right up to Toh Kei’s cell and told them to open it. My tiger growled ferociously and they opened it before fleeing for their lives. Here it is, Uncle Toh Kei, I said. Shoot it and suck its blood and you can do anything. Suck its blood and you will be free. And then even my imagination seemed to have developed a mind of its own, because Toh Kei smiled at me, took the lead from my hand and told the tiger to run away. Now you are free, he said to the tiger, and he smiled at me again, and closed the cell door.

  ‘Why did they kill the tiger?’ I said to Ah Mun Cheir as we entered the next pavilion.

  ‘Ate girl,’ she said. ‘Tiger meat tough, lah. Smell bad. Tiger eat only meat. This one ate little girl. In China, when no meat for guest, they kill kai hong. This one must be Chinese tiger, lah.’ And then she laughed.

  Ah Mun Cheir never laughed as a rule, and this unusual event was surprising enough to break the spell that the terrible fate of the little girl had begun to cast on me. I wondered if there was really such a thing as a Chinese tiger. One thing I knew for certain, it could not have been a Malay tiger. After all, this was fasting month.

  The canary woman was in her usual place, the old fortune-teller who Ah Mun Cheir and Ah Ping Cheir did not trust. As we passed her I was still rather absorbed in my dream. Was Toh Kei never going to leave that prison cell? Were he and Dr Thumboo never to be given an opportunity to live in peace, as my father and Uncle Raja thought they should? I thought I should ask the canary woman about all this, but Ah Mun Cheir dragged me away. I managed to shake my hand free and ran back. Ah Mun Cheir huffed and shook her head, but gave me ten cents. The woman took the coin and looked into my eyes. Her own eyes had faded rings around the edges of the irises and she seemed to be looking straight through me.

  ‘Must think of wish first,’ she said.

  I closed my eyes and imagined Toh Kei walking from his cell. I wish that Toh Kei was free, I said to myself, and opened my eyes. The canary picked a faded card from the pack and the woman held it in her hand. She rubbed her fingers over its surface without for a second lowering her eyes.

  ‘Today your lucky number five,’ she said before rubbing again. ‘Your life soon change. For short time not good. Then for long time good.’ She turned the card and passed her hand over the other side. ‘You get your wish.’

  Ah Mun Cheir grabbed my hand and pulled me away again. ‘Forget wish, lah. Waste ten cents. Forget number.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. If I was going to get my wish, then I was certainly not about to forget it.

  ‘She lie.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Number no good, lah. Ah Ping lose so much money with her number.’

  Her number no good? Whether the woman’s number was of any use or not was of little consequence to me. All I cared about was if her wishes could be trusted. All I wanted for my ten cents was my wish, and I was not going to forget it.

  Further on, an old man was selling bits and pieces, tools, cooking utensils. Barang-barang, we used to call it – ‘things’. One of his things was a large wooden wok, bigger even than the one Ah Mun Cheir had used to make coconut oil in the garden. I was puzzled and asked Ah Mun Cheir how a wooden wok could be put on a fire.

  ‘Aiyah! Not wok. Dulang. Wooden tray. Wash for tin in river in old days.’

  ‘Old days? Why is he selling it now?’

  ‘Some still use old way.’

  I wondered if Mr Yew, with all his new ways, knew about this. Maybe he should try the old way. The dulang had $5 chalked on it, my lucky number for the day, and I thought that was a good reason to tell Mr Yew. He could have the luck from my number, just as long as I got my wish.

  At a live chicken stall, Ah Mun Cheir pointed at a bamboo cage and held up two fingers. The man pulled out two young chickens. ‘Two kai hong,’ he said. ‘Very tender.’ He wrapped their feet with twine and Ah Mun Cheir gave them to me to carry.

  As we waited for the bus I remembered what she said about feeding guests in China. ‘This is kai hong,’ I said, holding up the young chickens. ‘They eat this in China when there is no meat for guests. Is this what the tiger really ate in Batu Gajah?’

  Ah Mun Cheir was busy looking out for the bus. ‘No, lah. I tell you tiger ate girl in Batu Gajah. Kai hong also mean young girl. If family starving, eat daughter, lah.’

  I didn’t want to drop the chickens, but I could not help it. Dropped them right on their heads. They clucked and squawked and flapped their wings, and Ah Mun Cheir had to quickly gather them up, fussing and calling me names. I did not hear what she called me. I had wandered again, unable to curb my imagination. I had wandered into another court of the Chinese Hell.

  The next Sunday was our father’s birthday and it must have been hard not having Ma to share it because he told us that Pak Neong would be visiting from Kuala Lumpur. Ordinarily Pa was not so keen to see her, but this time he appeared to be looking forward to it.

  Pak Neong, as we called her, is the specific term for father’s older brother’s wife in Cantonese, which was the dialect she spoke because she lived in KL. Ah Choo, the adults in the family called her, and she was a widow, as our uncle had died long before. He had owned a large rubber estate and now Pak Neong owned it as her sons were too young as yet to take it over. These were the boys, the lion and the tiger, that Por-Por said had eaten their father, and because they were older than us we called them Sai Kor-Kor and Haw Kor-Kor, in the manner of elder brothers. They were only stopping by for the afternoon, Pa said, which I was pleased to hear, as ever since Por-Por told us that story about our cousins I was more than a little concerned about spending much time with them.

  Pa said he thought it would be a good idea, as the boys were teenagers, if we did something to keep them amused, and his idea of that was feeding the turtles at Sam Po Tong. It was clear that our father had no experience with sons because Sai Kor-Kor and Haw Kor-Kor wore sour looks on their faces the whole way there.

  Sam Po Tong is the name of one of Ipoh’s cave temples. The town is surrounded by dramatic limestone pinnacles honeycombed with caves, and these are all holy places to both the Chinese and the Indians. On the way we stopped at the market for Pak Neong to buy a small turtle from a man who sold them for soup, although this one was lucky and was going to avoid the soup pot altogether. Pak Neong wrote the name of her husband on the shell in white paint and gave it to her sons, apparently untroubled by the fact that neither was interested in carrying it.

  All the way to Sam Po Tong, while the two boys quietly fought over the turtle, Pak Neong told Pa what did trouble her, and that was how terrible things had become lately in Kuala Lumpur. She said the bandits were
terrorising her rubber tappers, squeezing money from them, as well as food. She said that she had to give her tappers more money so they had enough to feed their families as well as pay the bandits. How long did she have to go on doing that, she said. Pa didn’t seem to know, because all he did was shake his head like it was such a pity. But then it appeared that he didn’t think it was such a pity after all, because he said that with rubber over a thousand pounds a ton in London, she could probably afford it.

  ‘Well, how long is that going to last?’ Pak Neong sneered. ‘How long before the whole rubber business collapses? Why can’t the bandits take their fight somewhere else?’

  Pa said that it was because what they were fighting for was here and not somewhere else. Pak Neong folded her arms and said nothing after that.

  Sam Po Tong always appeared to me as an oversized white doll’s house once placed by a pair of giant hands under the shelter of its soaring cliff. Outside the entrance Pa bought each of us a bunch of kankong, water spinach, for the turtles. We filed through the dark tunnels, the air heavy with incense, and past walls covered with Chinese texts and paintings of deities. Slowly, as our eyes adjusted to the light, we could see great stalagmites mounding up from the floor and stalactites hanging from the roof. The tunnel opened into a cavern with a dark pool. We threw our kankong, stalk by stalk, into the middle of the pool, and watched it become a squirming cauldron as dozens of turtles swarmed around the green leaves. Sai Kor-Kor and Haw Kor-Kor seemed to think this was fun, and now argued over who was going to release their own turtle into the water. In the end Pak Neong told them to do it together, one hand each, and even then they fought to the last finger on the turtle’s back.

  When the kankong and the delight at the swarming turtles were both spent, we made our way back to the doll’s house entrance. Mites crawl up as tights fall down, I heard Haw Kor-Kor say to Mei. He was a good deal older than Johnnie Ray but endowed with similar gormlessness, and Mei treated him the way she treated Johnnie, by ignoring him. We burned joss sticks at the shrine, and then Pa said he would treat us all to a sugarcane juice.