I warned him that the opera version of this particular tragedy was in French, not German. He shrugged and said he understood neither particularly well, had read the play in English, and would rely on the surtitles. We all do, I assured him.
Our seats were in the amphitheatre, my usual preference. He made a glib comment about ‘the gods’, and I said if he was going to be relying on the surtitles then the amphi was the place to be. I felt like telling him that his seat had just cost me seventy-five pounds, but of course resisted that temptation.
It was only the second performance of this production, and I was most pleased to see that Bryn Terfel was playing Mephistopheles, as advertised. His bass-baritone can quite overwhelm me, whatever the material. Others can have their colourless tenors and conceited sopranos – give me the resonance and the drama of a barrel-chested basso and it is a good thing I am sitting down.
I could see that Paris was moved at least somewhat by the performance. At interval he even joined me in a glass of wine in the bar overlooking the delightful iron and glass atrium of the Floral Hall, although I’m not sure he actually finished the wine, and I am certain he paid no attention to the striking view on offer. I had the distinct impression that he was studying me, and never more so than during the final acts. It was as though he could not feel the emotion himself, that he was looking for clues. He continued to observe me afterwards, when we were filing out, and by this time I was beginning to find it unsettling. A performance such as that, one that I really get into, always leaves me agitated for some time after the curtain falls.
I had booked for supper at Ecco, as I usually do. I had expected it to be quiet, being a Tuesday, but I had not counted on the musical crowd and ‘cheap chooseday’ at the nearby Aldwych and Drury Lane. They are always so raucous after one of their Broadway bursts of glee, particularly so if any of the musical numbers were genuine toe-tappers. The hard wooden floors of the Ecco tend to echo tapping feet most annoyingly. To top it off, there were new waitstaff who, to a man, failed to recognise me.
I ordered my favourite slow roast crispy pork with apple sauce, such a sumptuous creation, and a bottle of earthy Umbrian red. His was the lemon sole, with special instructions to go light on the seasoning. It was impossible to ignore the symbolism of such a contrast, but perhaps that is just me. I pointed out the rustic Sicilian vibrancy of the Caleca crockery, yet another weakness of mine. I even admitted to a further weakness, my ill-advised affair with the former maitre d’, who pursued me for a time with gifts of the crockery that I later discovered were lifted from the stock room.
Why all this should have raised his eyebrows and had him fidgeting with the chain again was beyond me, but raise the eyebrows and fidget he certainly did. I tried to mitigate my offence by offering to cook him a meal, but suddenly he seemed to be too busy. Was I up for another expensive tie, I wondered. Why did our meetings always seem to begin with such promise that ended up unfulfilled by night’s end?
35
I must admit to approaching these latest circumstances with a great deal of trepidation. I was quite aware that the British could never be as ruthless as the Japanese in the suppression of assistance to the guerrillas, but the latter was simply resistance to an occupier, whereas acting against the British felt to me like treason, and most assuredly was to the authorities. Bintang and the others certainly did not see it that way. The British were another occupier to them, no better than the Japanese. I suppose if I had experienced the treatment they had been subjected to in the years after the war I may have felt more than mere sympathy for their cause.
As it was, I convinced myself that politics should be put aside as this was simply a case of acting for the benefit of the sick, as I had sworn to do in the Hippocratic oath, and surely that took precedence over any loyalty to country. I even went to my books and perused the wording itself, the pledge I had made to Apollo, Asclepius, Hygieia and Panacea, and decided it was simply my sworn duty to care for these men if they were ill. I included in that observance the oath’s passage about keeping secret what comes to my knowledge and never revealing or spreading abroad information about those in my care.
However, if I am honest, which I am obliged to be now in the circumstances I find myself today, I must admit that all this was merely justification for the decision I had already made – when Bintang asked me, I was never going to refuse.
It now seemed that I was to return to the routine of the ‘midnight clinic’. It was agreed that daytime visits could not be risked after the experience with the Japanese. The British were certainly not as unpopular as the Japanese and it stood to reason that if I could be betrayed in those times, I could certainly suffer the same outcome now. It was also agreed that only those cases that Minum found beyond his resources to treat would be brought to me, although in all that time – two years in the end – I was not required to treat one gunshot or other wound as a result of an altercation with government forces. In this way I could accept my role merely as physician and not collaborator. I certainly had sympathy for these people and their struggle, and certainly more than that already for Bintang; however, when it came to support for their cause I maintained my ambivalence, not that the authorities, the newspapers, or the general public eventually showed any sympathy of their own for that position.
I had also learned the hard way to take full responsibility for my own actions. I drew no one else into the plot. Mrs Tay and Ah Ming had both suffered due to my negligent procedure, and I was to have none of that this time. No one was to know about the arrangement, or even be given cause to speculate. After treating the men in secret in the middle of the night, I decided that the clinic should be found in the morning the way it had been left the evening before. I did my own cleaning up.
The conditions I found myself treating varied little from those presented during the Japanese time – malaria and infections of the skin, in the main. Malnutrition and its many complications were not an issue in the hills in this latest war, at least not in the area around Ipoh. I could supply Minum with sulphur ointment, antibacterial pills and powder, creams and lotions, etc. Fortunately for me they had their own sources of supply for quinine and penicillin, both of which were vigilantly controlled by the authorities. I did not ask, but I suspected that their sources were the result of the raids on isolated estates that regularly appeared in the pages of the Straits Times.
The men presented to me generally suffered from jungle sores that had reached the clinical stage of infection, and malaria that had been treated over a prolonged period, with some, but never quite enough, quinine. Cases like this needed to be carefully managed in order to prevent descent into blackwater fever, the effects of which could quickly result in kidney failure.
Bintang became one of my more regular visitors, and I looked forward to his appearances, although he was invariably very ill when he did. Malaria affected him more severely than most as he had been suffering from it for so many years, with treatment so often postponed or unsatisfactorily dispensed. Unwilling to leave his post for a moment, he would delay until the symptoms made it impossible for him to discharge his duties. Those symptoms were consistently more advanced in him than others when he presented at the clinic, beyond the fever–rigour stage and often progressing to jaundice and uncontrollable nausea. How he performed his duties when such attacks inflicted themselves on him I could only imagine. He was never once able to make his way to the clinic under his own steam. His faithful attendant in all cases was Shorty, who usually required the strong arms and backs of a couple of others as well.
The general poor state of Bintang’s health was a contributing factor, as was (I am sorry to say, as he was in all other ways an admirable carer) Minum, whose preference for Chinese herbs often clouded his judgment when it came to effective treatment of some conditions. That shortcoming aside, the situation for efficacious treatment in the camps was only compounded when Minum was forced to give up his role with the guerrillas and life in the jungle overall due, I heard, to
his own poor state of health. I never did meet the barefoot doctor who replaced him, but from the evidence I saw towards the end he was not blessed with Minum’s competence.
Whatever the reasons for Bintang’s decline, I was concerned throughout those years that he must eventually be affected by quinism, the result of irregular and poorly controlled administering of quinine, which could further result in extremely serious complications. I spoke to him of this concern on many occasions, but he always had a reason to discount it. The practical solutions were few. He certainly could not present himself to a hospital, which would be the most effective course of action. Other than that, another prolonged stay in my clinic. It upset me to watch his deterioration, and the longer it was left, the more acute it became.
After two years of this my fears were finally realised when Bintang was delivered to me one night shivering and shaking, dry retching, his skin and eyes a worrying shade of yellow. It was February 1951 and the Emergency had been in progress for two and a half years. Two and a half years of escalating violence and bloodshed, fear and dread that had seized the country from beyond the Thai border in the north down to Singapore. He was having difficulty hearing, seeing, even controlling his flickering eyes. He could not tell me where he was or what he was doing there. I found all this so distressing that I insisted he must stay where I could provide him with the proper care.
The previous time I had to so provide refuge for him I was sharing my quarters with Ah Ming, God rest her soul. By this time I was only sharing with Paris, six years old and thankfully independent, happy to have begun attending the school in Batu Gajah and to immerse himself in the books of his father’s old library when at home. Even at that early age Paris was a child intrigued by the world, but not inquisitive. Rarely was the time he would ask me for an explanation of anything he saw around him, favouring answers to be found through his own efforts. As I write this he is twelve and continuing to display such a characteristic, the reason no doubt he rose to the top of his class by the completion of his primary schooling. I said to Paris that Bintang (Uncle Tang as he called him) was a very sick patient who needed special care and that he was never to talk of him outside the walls of our house. I made it clear to him how important this was. Paris considered this for a moment and then fetched one of the books by his bed. I was astonished to recognise the Holy Bible, but not as astonished as I was to see what he did next. He held the book in his hand and said, ‘I swear on the baby Jesus.’
The school he had been attending for a year was attached to the St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Batu Gajah, and it seemed they had found a fertile field in the mind of my young son. At any rate, it was a pact that Paris honoured for the entire two months of Uncle Tang’s sojourn under our roof, and indeed to this day, as he has never mentioned it, not even during all the ado of the months that followed.
I have never been able to discuss my relationship with Bintang with my son, and not only because it has been too painful a subject for me. Even now I find myself doing it herein at a long arm’s length. I had intended to discuss it with him when he was mature enough to perhaps understand, which is not now possible. Although in a way this is probably the appropriate way to go about it – he will discover it through his own efforts once again.
I suppose it is easy to recognise with the benefit of hindsight how living in such close quarters can give rise to a deeper relationship. We were two people coupled by mutual acts of liberation, of deliverance; a bond nurtured by some years of patient–carer attachment, one that has so often caused lasting affection to blossom in all manner of situations. It is a relation ship that begins with such intimacy that a change in the form of that intimacy becomes simply a natural progression. After everything was over – the court proceedings and the headlines, if not the gossip – I even heard there was a name for such a relationship. The ‘Florence Nightingale effect’, they say. Be that as it may, I suspect that the necessary secrecy under which that bond flowered in our case could not but intensify the situation. For my part, I can only offer that Tang, once he had recovered from the worst of those early symptoms, was a delight to have around.
I know some kind souls have taken pity on me, a widow at an early age, living in virtual isolation, immersed in my work. No wonder, they say helpfully. I appreciate the consideration of these few in the community who took a stand against the general opinion, but I might say that they are misguided. They did not know my Tang. I was not a victim of my deprived circumstances. I was a conscious and willing ‘victim’ of the charm of Liew Ek Ching. Only a charismatic man could have risen to lead so many followers devoted to a cause that surely all can see now is futile. I had seen the esteem in which his people held him, and mine simply took a different form.
The authorities painted these people as terrorists, and certainly many carried out some truly terrible acts. People do things in war that are not normally in their character, and that includes his most bitter accusers. This was definitely war, no matter what those in authority said. Yesterday’s terrorist is today’s prime minister. What was not so well known in the general community were the acts of terrorism carried out by the authorities themselves, and Batang Kali was one of many. Tang was not a terrorist, a view I continue to hold and one that has got me into more than my share of trouble. He was a captivating leader, a man of charm and lively conversation, of vast knowledge, all of which I had witnessed at close hand during the years of our association. He was honest, courageous and resourceful, and I never had the slightest difficulty understanding why he was so admired by one side of the argument that is the Emergency, and so feared by the other. As for me, the admiration quickly flourished into mutual love such as I would have never otherwise experienced.
That is the fact of the matter, the scandalous truth that is the foundation of the trouble I have been told I brought on to myself. Yes, I did bring it on to myself. I make no excuses, merely explanations. It is the one explanation I pray that my self-determined son will accept from me. As for others, they can please themselves, and I will not be of this world for long to concern myself with them.
Over the past five years I have thought deeply about all this, and examined my motives as much as I have my feelings about the entire affair. I know when I first began to realise that my ‘attachment’ to Tang was truly more than that. It came after he had been in my care upstairs in the house in Papan for two weeks. I had managed to relieve him of the worst of his symptoms. The colour had returned to his skin; the sweats, chills, nausea and so on had been dispelled. He had even regained sufficient strength to play with Paris, which was a delight to witness, although nothing requiring too much energy. During one of our increasingly long conversations, held quietly in the dark of night as a rule, he told me why he was known as Toh Kei in the newspapers. He said that was his ‘warrior’ name. He said that the practice of a leader taking such a name was as old as Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was said to have been born with a blood clot in his fist, the sign of a born leader. Tang showed me a red birthmark on the back of his right hand. His father had proclaimed him a future leader of the Chinese, a claim he found embarrassing. ‘I’m afraid I was too rebellious,’ he said. ‘I wasted a lot of energy disobeying my father. That is why I decided on Toh Kei. Trotsky was guilty of the same lack of filial piety.’
I went to sleep that night pondering that far-fetched scenario: a Chinese boy defying Confucius and respecting Trotsky. In fact, I dreamt of him in all manner of inexplicable dream-like ways. I am not ashamed to say, even now after all the ballyhoo of the past five years, that I awoke wondering if this was indeed not merely a man who was in my dreams, but perhaps actually of them.
36
SU-LIN
Paris was as good as his word. There was no contact for some time after the night at the opera. Actually, I was so involved with the resumption of the Tariq matter that I lost track, the Chinese walls of my life fixing all its matters discretely, as always. The trial was coming to a conclusion and I was to deliver the sum
ming-up speech to the jury for my client. Judge Henry was making it clear that he had not changed his opinion about our three young men, that being they were on the wrong side of the government’s new anti-terrorism laws, but it was not his opinion that mattered now. It was the twelve good men and true, although in this case there were seven good men and five true women.
I had all morning to present my case, and I was the last lawyer to say my piece in the trial before it was left to the jury to decide. I was in no doubt as to the onerous responsibility I had been given.
I began with what I like to call the ‘rhetorical stuff’, the tub-thumping, stump-standing appeal to the emotions that lays the mind bare and ready to accept a more rational argument. I invoked a few of my regular standbys, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the story of which seldom fails to elicit an interested response from juries, before progressing into a history lecture on the subcontinent, ensuring it had sufficient in the way of triumph and tragedy, heroes and villains, to satisfy the regular viewer of a TV soap opera. I have found that the vast majority of members of the public who are prepared to offer themselves up for jury duty, and not to find some way to weasel out of such civic responsibility, are regular viewers of TV soap operas.
I offered up a little in the way of true confessions of my own family history that paralleled in some way the history of my client. Again, allowing the jury to see that you are a human being and not some prig in a wig can have a surprisingly beneficial effect. And then I segued into my client’s sad history, which allowed me to address myself to the specifics of the actual charges in the case. This gave me leave to weave a broad tapestry that included the tyrants he has had to deal with, both in his home nation and here in the United Kingdom, the oppression of his people, the crimes against his family, and the diabolical complicity between such a tyrannical regime and our own agencies, including the Foreign Office, the Home Office, police, security services, and even (with an exaggerated nod to my learned friend on the other side) the Crown Prosecution Service. Placing my learned friend in bed with a notorious foreign tyrant can be a check-mate move with some juries. Against these villains I reminded them of the support my client had received from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Asian Human Rights Commission.
The Heart Radical Page 25
