‘I’m going to cut through over there,’ he said, pointing around the corner of the church. ‘We won’t leave together, if it’s all the same to you. I don’t suppose anyone’s going to see in all this, but one can’t be too careful.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be going that way,’ Pa said, nodding in the other direction.
‘You’ll get wet, old man. The road’s just over there. You can …’ He stopped as he pointed to the white gables of St Michael’s Institution across the road. ‘Oh, I see.’ He opened his umbrella. ‘I often wonder if they had managed to get me inside that place how I would have coped myself. If one’s never actually been through that particular hell, I suppose it’s only natural to wonder about one’s limits. Rough lot, the Kempeitai.’
‘I try not to think about it at all these days,’ Pa said. I saw him wrap his fingers around his bad thumb as he slipped his hand into his pocket.
‘Ironic, isn’t it,’ Mr Larkin said. ‘There we were busily blowing up all and sundry and they arrest you poor old Freemasons. Spies, indeed,’ he said contemptuously, shaking his head slowly. ‘You know you’ll never get him off, don’t you? He’s too important. And even if you do, how long before Shorty Mak catches up with him?’
They looked at one another, and then Mr Larkin strode off in the rain toward St Michael’s and the main road.
‘I think we might wait until this stops,’ Pa said, and we went back to our seats.
It was half an hour before the weather cleared. Pa read the sheet of paper, scribbled notes all over it, and then sat there, staring at the vaulted ceiling and thinking, his fingers wrapped around his thumb the whole time. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t need to say a word now to know why my father had a bad thumb, why it had no nail and could not be bent. And anyway, the nuns always said that you are never to speak in church unless it is to pray. But I never did learn how to do that so that it made any difference.
Christian devotions never really seemed genuine to me because there were no joss sticks burned and the submission involved was rather perfunctory when compared to a true kowtow. You were not even required to be in church to pray, but when you were you did it from your seat, and only your knees had to touch the ground, not your forehead. When you wanted a favour you did not pray to your ancestors whose job it actually was to look after you, you prayed to Jesus or Mary Mother of God, who had the whole world to look after, and I could not remember one time that Jesus or his Mother actually saw fit to give me what I wanted. It was clear to me they simply did not have the time to look after everyone. As we drove home that afternoon there was a favour I wanted to ask, and I thought I knew the best place to ask for it. When I told Pa he agreed with me. He said we could ask for it straight away, and he stopped in town to buy a turtle.
We took it out to Sam Po Tong and I carried it through the dark tunnels to the pool. Which name should we put on it, I asked. Should it be his real name? No, he said. We should put on it the name that he wants to be known by. And then he wrote Toh Kei on the turtle’s shell in white paint, in Chinese, and together we released him into the pool. I watched him swim to freedom, the two characters bobbing up and down in the water, and just to be sure I prayed to everyone – to Jesus, to his Mother, to ancestors, to the Goddess of Mercy, to the Jade Emperor, to the Holy Ghost – that Toh Kei might somehow be granted the same good fortune.
37
PARIS
There was substantial security around the court building when I arrived and I was told there was only a limited capacity in the public gallery. I offered my University of Malaya credentials and said that I was there as an international observer. It is surprising what an official crest and an unwavering look can achieve sometimes. I took my seat just as Su-Lin rose to her feet. What followed was more than two hours of enthralling advocacy.
She began by setting the scene of Lord Mountbatten presiding over the lowering of the Union Jack in New Delhi in 1947, which had been the signal for the catastrophic division of the subcontinent to begin, and she filled it with colour and drama. The great nations of India and Pakistan were founded at that moment, she said, but many smaller nations were denied the right to self-determination, including that of her client.
At the same time as that momentous event, on the other side of the world in New York, Eleanor Roosevelt was convening a gathering of some of the most distinguished jurists in the world, men and women of great renown. The challenge the former First Lady presented them was how to prevent a repetition of the horrors of the Second World War. Their task: to draw up a charter, a standard by which all legal systems, all nations, would in future be judged. A vision of freedom and justice for all.
The first item, Su-Lin said, was the right to life, to defend one’s life, the right not to be tortured. Torture is a strange word to hear in modern Britain, she said, an alien concept, surely. But how far are we really removed from such a practice? Sometimes not far at all. Take the case of a woman, a doctor, of similar age to many in the jury, held in wretched confinement for six months in conditions that would cause a zoo to be shut down, its keepers prosecuted by the RSPCA. A woman starved, humiliated, infested, beaten, systematically tortured, burned with cigarettes, nearly drowned, thrashed with sodden ropes and bamboo staves, electrocuted, threatened with the life of her infant child in front of her eyes. Can you imagine that? I can, said Su-Lin, as I knew that woman, I know her story. You see, we are not so far removed after all.
What those distinguished jurists started in New York in 1947 ended in this, she said, and proceeded to unroll a poster bearing the seal of the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she read from the headline. Thirty articles with one fundamental aim – a rule of law to protect mankind from the need to resort to rebellion against tyranny and oppression.
Tyranny and oppression, she repeated grimly while rolling up the poster again. Like torture, one would take for granted in modern Britain that these are again foreign concepts. But how far back do any of us have to go, she said as she encompassed the twelve men and women with a wave of the hand, before we find such circumstances in our own families? How far in your family, she appealed to one woman. Or yours, to the man next to her. I know in mine, she said. Three generations is all she had to go back to find tyranny and oppression. Three generations since all four of her great-grandfathers fled from China to escape oppression. Not so far removed after all.
How lucky are we now, she said, at this time, in this country?
And then she suddenly altered the mood entirely with a change of pitch and volume to her voice, and the dramatic thrust into the air of the rolled poster, as if it were some kind of battle standard.
But even now, she said, at this time and in this country, do we really enjoy the benefit those distinguished jurists bequeathed to us more than fifty years ago? Are we really guaranteed the freedoms espoused as our inalienable right in these thirty noble articles?
Not my client, she said, now pointing the rolled poster at him sitting in the dock.
And then she told the story of Tariq’s countrymen during those fifty years since the lowering of the Union Jack in New Delhi; of the hijacking of their abundant natural resources, the pitiless massacres of their people, the landgrabs, arrest of their leaders, torture, disappearance, genocide. How young men fled into the remote mountains to escape slaughter, armed themselves, defended themselves and their families.
Who is to call such a young man a terrorist?
How many times in the world have we seen this, she asked – yesterday’s terrorist, today’s prime minister?
Tariq did not flee into remote mountains with a Kalashnikov in his hands, she said. He chose to seek his refuge in Britain. Why? Because of British justice. British justice, our nation’s most important gift to the civilised world.
He did not give up. He chose to fight with words rather than a Kalashnikov. Under the protection of British justice, and with leaflets, pamphlets, interviews, articles, websites, YouTube. He chose to fight
by simply telling the truth, by shedding light onto a dark corner of the world, by informing that world about what was happening to his people. So why is he here?
He is here because of 9/11, she said. Because our government, in their pursuit of their so-called war on terror, needs the government of Pakistan to conduct its campaign in Afghanistan. Pakistan may be ruled by a tyrant, but he is our tyrant. Why is Tariq accused of being a terrorist? Because this tyrant’s idea of a terrorist is anyone who opposes him. And so, it would appear, can our government’s idea of a terrorist be so easily manipulated, so readily turned to nefarious ends. The terrorists are not in this courtroom, she said. The terrorists in this case are in Islamabad, and their facilitators, their aiders and abettors, are right here in London.
Su-Lin then proceeded to deal with each charge, citing evidence submitted during the trial, quoting witness testimony, presenting her arguments systematically and in terms that were easy to grasp, providing light and shade that maintained interest throughout a long address.
She concluded by setting another scene. Imagine if you will a man on a street, she said, outside a large building. It is a building in the classical style, with Corinthian columns, carved details of beasts, statues of nation-builders. It is a foreign legation, the mission in London of a Commonwealth country. The man is handing out leaflets to anyone who will take one. He is not pressing them, not offensive in any way.
Now you may think this man is my client, for that is how we have heard Mr Tariq and his friends were transporting themselves when arrested last year. But this is not 2003, it is 1986.
The man has just been arrested under new anti-terrorism laws that make his actions, the distribution of leaflets that bring the attention of the world to unjust and oppressive conditions in a foreign land, unlawful.
But the building is not the Pakistan High Commission. It is an altogether different building, some two miles to the east on Trafalgar Square. It is South Africa House. As the man is thrust unceremoniously into the back of a police wagon, his leaflets roughly seized as evidence, you ask his name. He says it is Nelson Mandela.
I was now sorry to be leaving, sorry to have spent the last week or so of my time in London immersed in my work, buried in the archives, out of the sun, out of the early summer light, far removed from the brilliance I could now see this woman was capable of shedding.
I had been so energised by her speech, and yet was obliged to sit in my aircraft seat all that long night, cramped up in the middle of a row, for sixteen frustrating hours of inactivity, struggling with the desire to leap out of my skin.
When I arrived in Kuala Lumpur I read reports that Tariq and his two friends had been acquitted. The jury’s deliberation had been brief. Their opponents’ retribution was also swift in coming. Tariq’s elder brother, one of their community leaders back in Pakistan, was assassinated at his front door the next day.
Earlier that day I hurried down to my bank to find the piece of paper with the torn edge held there in safe deposit, the piece of paper that had been on my mind for the entire journey home. Unlike the rest of my mother’s document, I had not read it for years. With the passage of those years its message had begun to dishearten me, for what she had once written in hope had aged with despair. But now I could see it afresh, under a brilliant new light.
38
Two of the eight or nine weeks Tang was in my care were the happiest and most fulfilled of my life. The rest were thick with anxiety. When the symptoms slowly abated I convinced him that this time he needed to remain where his recovery could be managed appropriately, otherwise he would simply again descend into another attack in the not distant future, an attack that might then even prove to be untreatable under any circumstances. The only proper course was to control the recuperation with careful administration of the necessary medicines and close observation by trained eyes, meaning mine.
He accepted the situation, rationalising that his effectiveness as leader was being compromised by the issue of his health, and that this would be an opportunity to set that right for the future of ‘the struggle’. That was the term he always used for the Emergency – ‘the struggle’. Whichever way he chose to justify his decision to stay beyond those first two weeks, I was grateful he did. Firstly, I am sure it saved his life; and secondly, I return to what I said above – this proved to be the happiest time of my life, with him, Paris and me all under the same roof and, in spite of the jeopardy we were in should his presence become known to authorities, blissful in our seclusion.
It was a completely different situation to that which existed the last time Tang had stayed in my care, that being when the Japanese were in charge. At that time the constant threat of being searched, of the town being overrun by brutal men, of summary execution, left no room for complacency, let alone happiness. In spite of what Shorty may say about the British, and even with the evidence of Batang Kali, I did not believe them to be in the habit of employing such tactics. I spent my days attending to patients downstairs in the clinic, and all my spare time upstairs with Tang. When Paris was home it was the three of us. Uncle Tang, who never spoke to us of his own domestic life before or between the struggles he engaged in, slipped easily into the role of surrogate father to the six-year-old. In fact, Paris seemed to have no reluctance to ask questions of this man who brought a different world of experiences into our home. I was aware that Paris, growing up without a man around the house to relate to, was a withdrawn child, but he really came out of his shell during these weeks, which could only but warm my heart. Meal times, for instance, meant a steady stream of questions for Uncle Tang, questions he often managed to answer by relating a parable drawn from Chinese folklore, eventually imparting an object lesson that invariably left Paris staring at the ceiling, mouth open with wonderment.
The only ‘fly in the ointment’ at that time was Shorty. He was in the habit of calling on us at any hour of the night to inquire as to Tang’s progress. There was no attempt at courtesy to these visits on his part. As I have already said, his stealth was most remarkable. I am certain he also staggered the timing of his appearances in order to observe more intimately our activities. In this he succeeded, and his objections were made clear. He refused to address himself to me, but I observed that he was barely able to control his anger with Tang. On a couple of occasions I was certain their voices were carrying well beyond my walls, which laid us all open to danger. On the first of these occasions I attempted to intervene, only to have Shorty draw a knife on me and hold it against my throat.
Sanity – and Tang’s cool head, not to say his powers of persuasion – prevailed, but I certainly did not attempt to come between them again after that.
It was some time in March that I noticed the symptoms beginning to recur. A headache that refused to go away, tiredness, a general lethargy – all these alerted me, if not Tang himself. For one thing he could not see that the twinkle had faded from his eye. Within days his temperature soared, the chills and sweating began to return. All this was in spite of my ongoing careful procedures and strict administration of quinine. It was obvious to me that he had an accumulation of the parasites in his kidneys that were now beyond the efficacy of quinine. He needed intensive care in a hospital environment with access to the new antimalarials and antibiotics that I could not supply. If not, renal failure was the unavoidable prognosis.
I tried to persuade Tang to let me take him to the hospital in Batu Gajah, but he would have none of it. I put the same suggestion to Shorty on his next visit, but I may as well have been talking to a brick wall. He did not even acknowledge that he heard what I said.
As my desperation intensified, I advanced an idea to myself that Tang could take advantage of the government’s heavily publicised surrender drive. They were distributing colourful safe conduct passes the length and breadth of the land, even showering the jungle with them from aircraft, offering food, cigarettes and immediate medical attention to any combatant who offered to give up the struggle. They even had a term for
the process, in the way bureaucracies do – self-renewal. Tang may not have needed renewal, but he certainly needed medical attention. Yes, I was naïve to believe that people who could come up with such a term might ever simply mean what they say, but the situation was becoming most grave. His urine was now dark red; not yet black, but it was only a matter of time. Black urine meant blackwater fever.
Still, Shorty could not be persuaded. The last time I saw him he came with two other guerrillas, one a female. I did not recognise her as such to start with as the shapeless uniform was no different. I had treated no females in all my time dealing with the guerrillas, and in fact had no idea that they existed up there in the hills. She was an ill-tempered woman, whose most notable other feature was excessive scarring from old and badly treated jungle sores covering her forearms. The ill temper was quite obviously directed at Tang, as her face took on an even grimmer expression when she so much as looked at my struggling patient. For me she showed little but contempt. I was unaware of their relationship at the time, assuming she was merely another of his followers. It was not until the time of the trial that I learned the facts of the matter, which explained the animosity she clearly held for me.
Eventually Shorty and the woman left not much more than an hour before daylight. However, the other guerrilla remained behind. I was told he would guard me. I had required no such attention for nearly two months, and told them so. I was under the distinct impression he was actually there to guard against any action I might decide to take on Tang’s behalf.
That day Tang deteriorated rapidly.
So many unsettling noises found their way downstairs during the hours of the clinic that I had to explain that Paris was not at school, that he was not well. I knew I was weaving a tangled web of deceit as some could have quite possibly seen him leave that morning. I had to change my story, and so said there was a woman cleaning up, which was hardly satisfactory given the nature of the noises. How long would it be before I was asked who the woman was, if not someone from the town? With my reputation during the war I was afraid someone – even innocently – may start putting two and two together and come up with an answer that could put us all in danger. To be found with a CT under your roof, let alone one of the most prominent CTs in the land – no one was going to listen to reason.
The Heart Radical Page 27
