The Heart Radical

by Boyd Anderson

‘They all comrade,’ she said.

  ‘Comrades in the mission to kill all Europeans in Malaya,’ Mr Davies said. ‘Is that correct?’

  She turned from Toh Kei and stared straight into the eyes of Mr Davies. In her own eyes the coldness had returned.

  ‘You win, we die,’ she said. ‘We win, you die.’

  A shiver suddenly overwhelmed me, and I could tell I was not the only one to feel it, because the court was so silent after Na Na said that I could hear the scratch of a nib on paper behind me. I turned around to see the small Chinese man from the day before scribbling away in his notepad. He was drawing a cartoon of Na Na.

  My father stood up for his turn with her. He had rescued her from the balcony that day, but now he addressed her just as formally as any of the other witnesses, people he had never before met.

  ‘Miss Chee,’ he began, ‘when did you first go into the jungle to join the soldiers there?’

  ‘Three year ago,’ she said.

  ‘That would be 1948. And before that you say you were a dulang washer?’

  ‘Yes. Look for tin.’

  ‘And an honourable vocation it is. But isn’t it true that your days as a dulang washer were many years before that? Isn’t it true that you were a soldier before 1948, fighting against the Japanese? Were you not a member of the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And isn’t it also true that when you were a dulang washer, before the Japanese Time that is, that you also had a night job as a ten-cent taxi dancer at the Celestial Cabaret?’

  ‘My lord,’ Mr Davies said, ‘surely this is not relevant.’

  ‘Well, Mr Davies,’ said the judge, ‘I rather think counsel is merely clarifying the testimony of your witness.’

  Mr Davies sat down and Pa continued. ‘So, Miss Chee, is it true that you were a taxi dancer at the Celestial Cabaret before you saw the light and joined the fight against the Japanese?’

  ‘Is true,’ Na Na said. ‘No problem.’

  ‘And during that time fighting the Japanese, who was your regiment commander?’

  ‘Comrade Mak.’

  ‘That would be Mr Mak Chin Wah, also known as Shorty Mak?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that you had a personal relationship with Mr Mak Chin Wah at that time?’

  ‘Yes. No problem.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that Mr Mak Chin Wah was replaced as regiment commander before the end of the Japanese Time by Liew Ek Ching?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that from that time, and during the time you lived in Ipoh before returning to the jungle to join the Malayan Races Liberation Army, you had a personal relationship with Liew Ek Ching?’

  Na Na looked down at her arm. She adjusted the sling and said nothing.

  ‘What is your answer, Miss Chee?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said without looking up.

  ‘Did you live with him in Theatre Street in Ipoh after the Japanese Time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that you returned to the jungle in 1948 to be with Liew Ek Ching?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you were with him and you continued your relationship?’ Still she didn’t look up. ‘What is your answer, Miss Chee?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that your relationship with Liew Ek Ching did not end until April this year when he surrendered to police at Batu Gajah?’

  Now she lifted her head, and glared at my father. ‘No!’

  ‘Then when did it end?’

  ‘Before that. He sick! He useless!’

  ‘That would be when he went to the clinic of Dr Anna Thumboo in Papan, would it?’ She stared at my father and said nothing. ‘Do you now have a problem, Miss Chee?’

  ‘I not know where he go! Don’t care! He sick, he go! He give up! Surrender devil! Running dog!’

  ‘Isn’t it true, Miss Chee, that what you said earlier today about Liew Ek Ching, the man known as Toh Kei, is a lie?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Isn’t it true that you made up this story about Toh Kei and Sungai Siput just for revenge?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Isn’t it true that you have offered yourself up to these proceedings because you feel betrayed by my client?’

  ‘I … I not understand.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that you are merely a jilted lover of my client? That you have chosen to denounce him here today for your own personal vengeance?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘For vengeance because my client began another relationship, a new relationship with …’

  ‘My lord,’ said Mr Davies, ‘Miss Chee has answered these questions. How many more times must she deny such accusations?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Tan,’ said the judge. ‘I have to agree with that.’

  ‘As your lordship pleases,’ Pa said. ‘Miss Chee, isn’t it true that Toh Kei was not in the camp around the time of the sixteenth of June 1948, or at Essex Estate?’

  ‘No. He is there.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that Toh Kei was not even in Perak at that time?’

  ‘My lord,’ Mr Davies said, ‘Miss Chee has said what she knows to be true. My learned friend is now merely arguing ad hominem. He is attacking the person and not the fact.’

  ‘On the contrary, my lord,’ Pa said. ‘I am arguing the untruth of the fact.’

  ‘I will allow this,’ the judge said. ‘Continue, Mr Tan.’

  ‘Miss Chee, how many men went on the mission to Essex Estate on the sixteenth of June 1948?’

  ‘I not remember.’

  ‘Well, was it two or three, was it six, was it a whole platoon?’

  ‘I not remember. Not whole platoon.’

  ‘Very well, not a whole platoon. Allow me to assist you to remember. The Crown’s witness before you, the jaga at the estate, remembers that there were six. Would you agree with that?’

  ‘Yes. Six.’

  ‘You say my client was one of them, so who were the other five?’

  ‘Other five?’

  ‘Yes. You remember that Toh Kei led this group. So who were the other men? I assume they were all men, or were there women among them?’

  ‘No women. All men.’

  ‘So you remember the other five were all men. Do you remember now who they were?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Only Toh Kei. He is the only one you remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Miss Chee, what promises have been made to you for your appearance in this court today?’

  ‘My lord,’ said Mr Davies, ‘what possible relevance …?’

  ‘I think I will allow this,’ the judge said. Mr Davies shrugged, which, it was quite obvious to see, did not please Judge Pretheroe.

  ‘Miss Chee,’ Pa said again, ‘what promises have been made to you?’

  ‘I not understand.’

  ‘Well, for instance, have you been promised a few months in a rehabilitation camp instead of years in prison? Have you been promised repatriation to China instead of a trial such as this? Have you been promised a reward for the head of my client?’

  ‘My lord,’ Mr Davies said, ‘surely now we have reached the point of irrelevancy. Furthermore, my learned friend is leading the witness.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Davies,’ the judge said. ‘I will allow the question regarding promises, Mr Tan. The rest I will not.’

  ‘As your lordship pleases,’ Pa said. ‘Miss Chee, what promises have been made to you for your appearance in this court?’

  ‘I not understand.’

  Pa looked at Uncle Hung Jeuk, who gave a small shake of his head. ‘Very well,’ Pa said, ‘I will leave that. Miss Chee, are you Christian?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you believe in a Christian God?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you Buddhist, Taoist? Do you have a religion that you believe in?’

  ‘Communist.’

  There was laughter around me in the gallery and the judge l
ooked up with a scowl. He looked straight at me, but fortunately I had no idea what was so amusing.

  ‘As a communist you do not believe in the Holy Bible?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yet you swore an oath on the Holy Bible here today when you swore to tell the truth. Does that mean you do not believe you have to tell the truth here today?’

  ‘I tell truth.’

  ‘Did you have traitors among your comrades during your years in the jungle?’

  ‘Yes. Some time.’

  ‘When you caught these traitors, were they given a trial of some kind? Did they face a committee or a tribunal which would decide if they were guilty or not?’

  ‘Some time.’

  ‘Did you have witnesses? For instance, was it necessary for someone to denounce the traitor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Before denouncing, what did those comrades do to swear that they were telling the truth? Did they make an oath on a holy book? Did they perhaps cut the head off a cockerel?’

  ‘My lord,’ said Mr Davies, ‘how long must we be prepared to follow this path?’

  ‘Long enough for the witness to answer that question, Mr Davies,’ the judge said. ‘However, I would request learned counsel to refrain from unnecessary colour.’

  ‘As your lordship pleases,’ Pa said. ‘Miss Chee …?’

  ‘No book, nothing. We say, we trust. No problem.’

  ‘Admirable faith,’ Pa said, and he ended with a little bow to the witness, the kind he had earlier made to the judge, the kind that shows respect.

  From the time Na Na left the seat, while she walked to a waiting policeman and he went with her out of the court, while everyone in the court sat there and looked at Judge Pretheroe, and the man behind me scratched away at his drawing, all that time the judge was writing on his paper.

  Judge Pretheroe then said that before the defence began with its witnesses it was a convenient time for lunch. My father collected his papers into neat piles and put the cap back on his Parker Vacumatic. I thought about that blue diamond and what Pa had said about it being a harmless trick. It seemed to me that it was only harmless if everyone knew for certain that it was not really a diamond. Were all Mr Davies’ tricks as harmless as that? Did everyone know they were just tricks?

  As we were going down the stairs I said to Uncle Raja that I could see what was going on. He looked at me but appeared to be anxious to hurry to meet Pa as he said nothing. I explained that I could see what Mr Davies and all his witnesses were saying about Toh Kei was propaganda, and I asked him if he thought that the judge and the assessors would be able to see that as well.

  He stopped then, and looked at me again. ‘How old are you?’ he said. I said I was eight. ‘There’s a lot of your father in you,’ he said.

  I was still glowing from what Uncle Raja said when Ah Mun Cheir took me off to the coffee shop in Hale Street for a bowl of noodles. As we were heading away from the court I saw him with my father and Uncle Hung Jeuk standing in a group, and then I saw that Dr Thumboo was at the court after all, because she was talking to them. When the court resumed I found out why she was there, as she was my father’s first witness.

  She appeared to be uneasy on the witness stand, continually squeezing one hand with the other, wetting her lips and attempting unsuccessfully to clear her throat. The Police Commissioner had been quite at home, even Na Na bristled with defiance, but for Dr Thumboo it was clearly discomfiting to be the centre of attention, with all those stern faces glaring at her under those strange wigs.

  She succeeded in finally clearing her throat to say that her name was Anna De Brujn Thumboo and that she was the doctor at the Papan clinic, where she had been for nearly seven years. She said she went there after her husband went missing, abducted from their clinic in Batu Gajah by members of the Indian National Army and presumably killed. Pa asked her where she had completed her medical training. King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore, she said, followed by two years at Leiden Academic Hospital in the Netherlands. ‘That was before the Nazis came,’ she added. I could see from the solemn expression on Judge Pretheroe’s face that he was impressed by all this.

  When Pa asked her why she had gone to such an out-of-the-way place as Papan with a brand new medical degree from the Leiden Academic Hospital, she said it was because the Japanese had begun to take a special interest in her, being Eurasian, and that she had just given birth to her son. ‘Papan was off the beaten track,’ she said. ‘At least, it was when I first went there.’

  ‘You expected to be safer there, did you?’ Pa asked. ‘You expected Papan to be something of a haven for you and your baby.’

  ‘Yes, that was my hope.’

  ‘And were your hopes fulfilled?’

  ‘Briefly,’ Dr Thumboo said. ‘It wasn’t long before the Japanese took an interest there as well.’

  ‘Yes,’ crooned the judge. ‘And down to your own splendid efforts, dear lady.’

  Dr Thumboo smiled at him, and I was sure I saw her cheeks flush, and my father paused to take full advantage of the moment.

  Eventually he said, ‘When was it, during the splendid efforts of which his lordship speaks, that such efforts caused you to come into contact with my client, Mr Liew Ek Ching?’

  ‘In 1944,’ Dr Thumboo said.

  ‘And what were the circumstances of that contact?’

  ‘He was brought to my clinic for treatment of a gunshot wound. He was also suffering from an advanced case of malaria.’

  ‘That would be a gunshot wound inflicted by the Japanese, I presume.’

  ‘Yes. So I was told.’

  ‘You say he was brought to your clinic. By whom?’

  ‘He was in the MPAJA. In fact, I believe he was the local commander. Other MPAJA soldiers brought him.’

  ‘Why bring him to you, Doctor?’

  Mr Davies slowly got to his feet. ‘My lord, I’m sure everyone knows the story of Dr Thumboo and her heroic service during the war.’

  ‘Heroic indeed,’ said the judge as he inclined his head towards the witness. ‘And a story worth hearing today, thank you, Mr Davies.’ Mr Davies sat down even more slowly than he stood up, obviously now uncertain if he should have in the first place.

  ‘Doctor?’ said Pa.

  ‘He was brought to me because, when I could, I treated MPAJA men in my clinic at night.’

  ‘Come now, Doctor. Aren’t you being modest? Isn’t it true that you treated hundreds of cases of MPAJA wounds and illnesses secretly in your clinic during the war?’

  ‘Yes. Although not as many wounds as people believe. Generally my work was confined to illnesses.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that this work was the bulk of your work during those years in Papan?’

  ‘I suppose that’s true. Papan is a small town.’

  ‘Indeed it is. And isn’t it true that the Japanese eventually found out what you were doing, arrested you and held you for interrogation for a period of six months, a period brought to an end due only to the cessation of hostilities in the war itself, meaning the Japanese surrender?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And isn’t it true that during those six months you were tortured on a regular basis by the Kempeitai in the …’ My father’s hand slipped into his pocket, unnoticed, I’m sure, by anyone but me. ‘… at their headquarters?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And isn’t it true that in 1946 you were awarded the British Empire Medal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pa looked at Mr Davies, as much as to say ‘Any objections?’ But of course he had no answer to all that.

  ‘In 1944,’ Pa said, ‘how long was my client in your care?’

  ‘About two weeks.’

  ‘At the end of that time he returned to his colleagues in the jungle?’

  ‘I assume so, yes.’

  ‘And when did you next see him?’

  ‘At the end of the war. He led the regiment of guerrillas that released me from captivity.’

 
‘And after that, did you remain in contact?’

  ‘No. I next saw him in February this year.’

  ‘So between 1945, when my client set you free from the Japanese, and February this year, you did not see him at all?’

  ‘No. I had no reason to.’

  ‘Then what was the reason in February this year?’

  ‘The same as before. He was brought to my clinic for treatment of a very bad attack of malaria.’

  ‘You say the same as before. Was he suffering a gunshot wound as well?’

  ‘No. Just the malaria. And, of course, jungle sores.’

  ‘And who brought him this time?’

  ‘The same man who brought him the first time. Mr Mak.’

  ‘That would be Shorty Mak, would it not?’

  ‘That is what they call him.’

  ‘So he was brought to you in February and he surrendered to the police at Batu Gajah in April. Was he with you at your clinic for those two months?’

  ‘My lord,’ said Mr Davies, ‘we have heard evidence that the prisoner was captured by the police. There is no evidence to support a claim that he surrendered.’

  ‘Mr Tan?’ said the judge.

  ‘I will rephrase, my lord,’ Pa said obligingly. ‘Doctor, was my client in your care for the entire two months before being taken into custody by the police?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dr Thumboo said. ‘His malaria had developed complications after prolonged treatment with quinine. He had bouts of violent shivering and soaring temperatures. He soon presented with most of the symptoms of blackwater fever.’

  ‘How did you treat him for that?’

  ‘I couldn’t treat him in my clinic for blackwater fever. He needed intensive care in a hospital with the latest anti-malarial drugs and antibiotics. He would have suffered certain renal failure without such treatment.’

  The judge coughed just loud enough to be heard. ‘Renal failure?’ he inquired.

  ‘Failure of the kidneys to function, sir,’ Dr Thumboo said.

  ‘And if his kidneys failed?’ Pa asked her.

  ‘He would have died.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I could not simply sit by and let him die. I convinced him to surrender. It was the only way he could receive the treatment he needed.’

  ‘He agreed to that?’

  ‘He was virtually unconscious. I drove him to the police station at Batu Gajah.’