Shadow Play

by Barbara Ismail

  “Kampong Kedai Lalat, wasn’t that it?” Yati asked. “She said it as though we should know something about it. I guess it’s a big deal in Kuala Krai.” She rolled her eyes. “Are you going down there to look for her?”

  “I guess we’ll have to,” Rubiah answered morosely. She did not care for travel, and Kuala Krai was a lot farther than she cared to go. The jungle, she thought: bound to be hot, steamy and oppressive. No doubt wild animals and venomous snakes lurked in the underbrush, waiting to take a bite out of unsuspecting women from Kota Bharu. Not a pleasant prospect, but she knew Maryam would never let them skip that part of the investigation.

  Maryam rose, feeling it in her knees as she stood up. “Thank you so much for talking to us,” she said with feeling. “You’ve been very kind.” Rubiah gave her thanks as well, and the two women smiled and nodded at them, and turned back to their cooking.

  “Do you think they’ll find out who killed Ghani?’ Nurhayati asked her mother. Her mother shrugged, looking hard at the petai, afraid to lift her eyes up lest she start crying and find herself unable to stop.

  Chapter V

  Do we have to see Aisha’s parents today?” Rubiah asked. “Can’t we come back tomorrow? I don’t think I can stand listening to this story again right now. It’s so sad.”

  Maryam weighed their options. It was getting later, and she was reminded that she needed to get dinner started. She was hot, and emotionally exhausted from these conversations: she needed to think them through. Yet, they were already here and if they left now, they’d just have to return tomorrow morning. “Let’s finish up here. One night without home cooking won’t kill anyone. We can pick up dinner from the stalls on the way home.”

  Rubiah needed convincing. “I can’t stand listening to these stories anymore. I need to hear something cheerful.”

  She completely understood how Rubiah felt. “We’ve got to be more determined, more professional.” She fixed Rubiah with a stern eye. “After all…” She paused. “I won’t let that Police Chief think I lost interest as soon as it got a little difficult. I said I would do it, and I will,” she said stubbornly.

  “OK, OK,” grumbled Rubiah. “Let’s go,” she added with a regretful sigh. “We’ll see how Aisha’s family is taking it.”

  Aisha’s family was not far away: both Ghani and Aisha’s families were spread throughout Kampong Tawang. Her parents lived at the end of the village, bordering on the still dry rice paddies; the view from their porch over the flat fields was pleasant, especially as the sun set. Two men, recently bathed after a hot day’s work, lounged in the shade, each with a cup of coffee in front of him. Maryam called before she reached the stairs, announcing her arrival.

  The older man, Aisha’s father, rose and invited them up. He turned and called into the house for his wife, who met them at the door, smiling politely. “Selamat Datang,” she welcomed them. “You must be the Mak Cik from Kampong Penambang, helping the police.” She laughed at their expressions. “Don’t be surprised. You know how it is in a kampong: the news travels fast. Please sit down, make yourselves comfortable. I’m Kak Azizah; this is my husband, Abang Ramli, and my son, Ali.”

  Everyone smiled and sat down, and almost immediately, a teenaged girl appeared with a tray of cold drinks and cookies. “It’s so hot in the afternoons now,” Azizah said, urging them to eat. “I can’t wait for the rainy season to start. It’s dusty, too, isn’t it?”

  They agreed it was. Rubiah now felt completely reinvigorated: some sugar, something cold, and she was now ready for action once more.

  Azizah continued. “Aisha will be moving back here tonight. They’re going to get her soon.” She waved towards her husband and son. “And then she and my grandchildren will live here with us. It’s so difficult for her,” she said sadly. Ramli, Aisha’s father, grunted, signalling that this was women’s talk and he would stay out of it.

  “Is Aisha your only daughter?” Rubiah asked.

  Her mother laughed. “Oh no, I have three younger daughters and three sons. Seven, altogether. One son is married, everyone else lives here. Ali’s the oldest – after Aisha, of course. So now we’ll have three more. Well, it might be a bit crowded, but we don’t mind. I mean, it’s our grandchildren, and it will be nice to have Aisha back.” She looked sad, having said this, but tried to be as pleasant as possible.

  “How difficult,” Maryam commented.

  “Yes, but who would have thought something like this would happen? Poor Ghani.” Her husband looked disgusted, and Ali grimaced. Azizah ignored them. “And Aisha a widow so young. Ah well, at least she is so young, her whole life ahead of her.” The women all smiled at the platitude.

  “Did you hear anything? I mean, about Ghani?” asked Rubiah, unwilling to mention a second wife.

  “You mean the new wife?” Ramli growled, looking over at his wife. “Of course, we heard. Everyone heard.”

  “When did you know?” asked Maryam.

  “When?” Ramli repeated. “When? I guess the day after he brought her back. That next morning, Aisha came over here with the kids and told us what happened. I wanted to go out and find him right away, but Aisha said he was sending her back to wherever she came from.”

  “Kuala Krai,” his son interjected helpfully.

  “Yeah, Kuala Krai. I didn’t actually see her. Didn’t want to.”

  “Well, what for?” Azizah explained. “By the time we heard about it, Aisha said she’d already gone back. And then Ghani came to get her.”

  “I took him aside.” Ramli leaned forward toward Maryam. “I told him, ‘I’m watching you now.’ I said, ‘You’d better straighten up if you know what’s good for you. How can you treat my daughter that way?’ He didn’t have much to say for himself. Apologizing all over the place. Said he didn’t know what came over him. Didn’t know why he’d done such a thing.”

  Ali gave a short, mirthless bark of laughter. “I know why.”

  A forbidding look from both his parents quieted him. “He did apologise,” Azizah added. “Though I was so disappointed in him. What good is an apology when he just married someone without thinking like that? I mean, what does that say about him?” She shook her head regretfully.

  “It says he’s a fool,” Ramli interjected. “It says he doesn’t think at all. It says he hangs out with all kinds of women and doesn’t realize what’s going to come of it.”

  “Yes, yes,” his wife hurried to stop him. This was clearly a well-trodden road for them in the past few days. He would not be hushed.

  “ “You know. Kak,” Ramli took a deep drag on his cigarette and fixed her with an intense stare, “I’ve known Ghani since he was born. We both have; our families are from this kampong and we grew up with his parents.” His wife nodded.

  “He was a good-looking kid, a nice boy always playing the drums and wanting to play with Dollah Baju Hijau, the famous dalang. He started travelling with him when he was still little. So cute, right?” He looked at his wife, who nodded once more. “Always a sweet kid, but a little girl-crazy. I thought that would stop once he got married, had children. You know, it often does.” They all nodded.

  “And it did, really, for years. He and Aisha were happy together, she always liked Wayang Siam, and she’d go and watch him. She was really proud of him, I could tell.” He smiled briefly. “But this! I tell you, Kak, I was knocked over. I couldn’t believe it! I felt as though I didn’t know anything about him. I’m not naïve about the world, you know. I know what happens. But I didn’t see it coming with Ghani.”

  He pulled thoughtfully on his cigarette, tapping the ashes through a small gap in the porch flooring. “I have four daughters,” he told Maryam and Rubiah. “How do you think I felt to hear this from my oldest? Well …” He nodded, looking over at Ali slumped in his chair, “I wouldn’t want to hear one of my sons did it either, you know. I think it’s wrong, it’s selfish.” He frowned. “But …” He paused for a moment, “I don’t think I’d want to kill him. A son-in-law …” He shrug
ged ruefully. “Rambut sama hitam, hati lain-lain: all our hair is black, but our hearts are all different.”

  Maryam nervously approached her next question. “Did Aisha go to see him a lot?”

  “Not so much since the kids were born. It’s difficult. Sometimes, though, she’d have one of her sisters go and stay with the kids and she’d go over with her brother to see him. She liked watching it.” Her father took a sip of coffee and waved his hand at them, inviting them to drink.

  “Did she go this week?”

  He looked hard at her. Aisha’s mother twisted her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “Ya, she went the next night, I think; I don’t remember when exactly.” Maryam did not believe that. “Her brother took her. She went to see him since they made up.”

  He’d told her only because he thought someone else would, and then it would seem even worse. Surely, if Aisha were there, the musicians – and Dollah himself – would have seen her. This was a much smarter way to deal with it: Maryam had to give Ramli credit for it.

  She nodded politely. “Did you go with her?” she asked Ali.

  He was silent for a moment, clearly willing his father to answer for him. Finally, grudgingly, he nodded. “I have a motorbike,” he mumbled.

  “Did you go during the performance?”

  He was very still for a moment. “Of course,” he said shortly. “She liked watching it.”

  “Did she see Ghani? I mean, did both of you see him?”

  Ali glared at her, not knowing what to answer. “Well, she must have,” his father came to his aid. “She went to see him.”

  “Could she see him while they were performing?” Rubiah asked innocently.

  Ali gave her a look of pure hatred. “Sure. She looked in the back of the panggung.”

  “Did you go with her?”

  “No, I went to drink some coffee. I didn’t need to see him.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to see him after the performance was over?” Rubiah asked.

  All three stared daggers at her, but no one said a word. “I mean, if she wanted to talk to him, surely it would be easier …” She seemed to run out of steam.

  Ramli stood up. “Thank you so much for coming here to see us,” he said. “You probably want to go home to make dinner and see your families, and we wouldn’t want to keep you. You are very kind to look into this and bring the killer to justice, and we thank you for all that you are doing.”

  This formal speech announced their departure: in the nicest possible way, they were being thrown out. Maryam and Rubiah smiled as best they could and thanked Azizah for her hospitality. They backed off the porch and walked quickly over the pot-holed path to the only slightly less pitted main road to find a taxi to take them home.

  Chapter VI

  Have you ever thought about taking a second wife?” Maryam asked Mamat as they readied for bed.

  He laughed. “Don’t I have enough to deal with now? How could I possibly deal with another wife?”

  “No, really,” she said seriously. Although Maryam had no mean opinion about her own looks, especially when she was younger, Mamat had always been remarkably good-looking. Girls would turn to look at him as he walked down the kampong lanes coming home from school, and more than one of her friends had confessed a serious crush before her engagement was announced.

  Mamat, unlike Ghani, didn’t take much advantage of it as a boy; he was a sober youth with a great deal of responsibility. His father, a law clerk, had fallen into drink and gambled away the family’s rice lands. His mother was a songket weaver, but found it difficult to support all nine of her children when her husband not only brought in very little money, but lost all they had at the mah jong table. As the eldest, Mamat went to work early to support the family and helped raise all his younger siblings. He’d won awards in grammar school, but couldn’t afford to go on to high school and settled quickly into an early adulthood.

  Maryam occasionally worried he would want to relive his youth now that he had some time to relax. He was still, she believed, a very handsome man, even with his hair turning gray. Sometimes she’d see him walking into the pasar besar and she’d lose her breath and blush like a girl to see her husband of over thirty years. What if some younger woman took a shine to him, and chased him? Would he be able to resist, or would he take whatever he found on offer? She’d certainly thought about it before, but her full day hearing about the tragedy Ghani had brought upon himself made the possibility seem all the more real.

  “Sayang, what’s bothering you?” he asked her, putting his arm around her shoulder. She shook off her thoughts.

  “I’m just worried. I’ve seen what happened here with him taking a second wife, and I sometimes wonder whether you’ll want to do that: I mean, you know, you had to work so hard as a kid, will you want to … fool around now the way you couldn’t before?” She buried her head in his shoulder, embarrassed to have said as much as she did, but wanting reassurance just the same.

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Are you serious? You are!” He drew her hair back from her face. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, I’m just concerned. Are you getting … bored?”

  He smiled again, as though he would burst into laughter at any moment. “Bored? You drive me crazy! What other woman would be out investigating a murder, and intimidated the whole police force into letting her do it? That’s why I love you.” He leaned back on the bed, still holding her hair. “Come here,” he said softly. “I’ll prove to you I’m not bored.”

  The next morning she was shy in front of Mamat, though she scolded herself for unbecoming maidenly modesty. She was the mother of four children, and had been married to Mamat nearly thirty years! Yet when she looked at him and remembered their lovemaking of last night, she felt like a girl again, as she did when they were first married, and her own passion surprised her. Now she tried to hide it by keeping her head down as she made nasi kerabu: wrapping blue-tinted rice, vegetables and bit of fish in a banana leaf as lunch for her two youngest children to take to school. Mamat seemed to know what she was thinking, and grinned at her; she lightly slapped his arm. “You can see I’m busy,” she reprimanded him. “What are you looking for?”

  He smiled again and wandered off to find coffee and take some rice for his own breakfast. Ordinarily she would be leaving for the market around this time, but today she and Rubiah planned to visit Kuala Krai to see Faouda. Mamat announced he would go with them. “It’s OK with me if you ignore me,” he said through a mouthful of rice, “but I’d feel better if I were there, just in case something happens”

  Maryam agreed. “I’m leaving plenty of nasi kerabu; no one will starve if we don’t get home for dinner.”

  Osman had been prevailed upon, or rather, ordered, to have them driven to Kuala Krai: it was such a long trip, and difficult for them otherwise. The young police chief obeyed Maryam when she commanded him, but after she left, and he felt her spell lifting, he couldn’t understand why he acted so spinelessly around her.

  He railed at himself for allowing her to take over the investigation, and yet, he admitted to himself, he was relieved by it, too. He’d been ready for all kinds of robbery and domestic mayhem, but he hadn’t counted on murder so soon! And Maryam at least seemed unfazed by it, while he was hourly becoming less sure of himself.

  He longed to speak to his own mother. She’d tell him how to resist the pull of a domineering older woman—as long as he continued to listen to her. Or she might read something into it, and take it as an indirect criticism. He winced at the thought, and decided not to risk it.

  His lack of volition led directly to Rahman, his junior officer, sitting quietly behind the wheel of their one unmarked car (Maryam had been very specific about that) waiting to drive her wherever she wanted to go.

  She and Rubiah bundled into the back seat, to enjoy the rare treat of a private car. Mamat sat up front with the driver in a fraternity of silence.

  None of them had ever been
so far as Ulu Kelantan. Maryam and Rubiah looked out the window with undisguised fascination, as the coastal plain began to disappear and the darker jungle began to close in on them. The road from Kota Bharu headed south, following the Kelantan River to its source in the central mountains of the peninsula. Kampong were now farther apart, and rice fields became oil palm plantations, which alternated with untamed forest. The blacktop shimmered in the heat, even though the tangled greenery formed deep shadows on either side of the road. The air seemed even more humid, heavier, and the land somehow sinister. There were fewer cars down here: Kuala Krai was the last real town in Kelantan before you entered the nature preserve in central Malaysia, and it was unfamiliar terrain to anyone brought up on the flat and crowded coast. It looked deserted to their eyes … and vaguely malevolent.

  It was several hours before they arrived at the last railroad stop in Kelantan: the end of the line. The town of Kuala Krai itself was heavily Chinese, an anomaly in Kelantan. Most Malays lived in kampong surrounding the small, dilapidated town centre. The town pushed up against a high limestone cliff which was visible everywhere; a menacing presence, it loomed over the horizon, closing in the view, trapping the light, rendering it all the more claustrophobic.

  Maryam and Rubiah got out to make inquiries about Kampong Kedai Lalat and to freshen up before stalking their prey. They entered a small coffee shop half filled with Chinese merchants drinking coffee and eating savoury pastries. The two visitors drank cold soda out of the bottle, afraid to eat any of the food, lest it be made of pork. They felt uncomfortable. In Kota Bharu, they never went into Chinese “restaurants. (Actually, women rarely went into coffee shops at all; this was Mamat’s turf.) But Kota Bharu was overwhelmingly Malay, and there were plenty of food shops to suit them. Maryam became aware that although she was still in Kelantan, it was not the Kelantan she knew. She was glad for the company of Mamat and Rahman, which somehow (she couldn’t explain the particulars, even to herself) made her feel safer.