A Flash of Water

by Chan Ling Yap

  Unaware of Lai Ma’s thoughts, Li Ling, her arms still around Lai Ma, whispered. “I have to see him, otherwise he would suspect something is wrong. He has to keep his mother company today. That is why he will not be in the shop.” Li Ling recalled his haste to leave after their last assignation She touched her breasts, recalling the brutal way they had been handled. “He has no idea at all that I want marriage. If he has any inkling at all, he would put a stop to it.” She drew a finger across her neck.

  And, that, thought Li Ling, would be the end of their trysts and her hold on him. She knew Da Wei would not marry her of his own volition. She believed, however, he would not dare refuse his father if it was his father’s wish. She had learnt enough about Da Wei to know that. She had to work on the father. She was sure that she would be able to persuade him.

  Lai Ma could not find anything to say in reply. She saw the way Li Ling touched her breasts and the knowing expression in her face. It was not the face of innocence. It troubled Lai Ma. Where, she asked herself for the umpteenth time, was the naive girl who boarded the ship to Malaya?

  An elderly man came out of the store followed by some young coolies. He pointed to some crates and went into the store again.

  “That is Da Wei’s father, Lee Ah Hong. Come, let’s go.” She got up and walked across the street giving Lai Ma little chance to change her mind. Lai Ma followed.

  Chapter 26

  “Low POH! OLD WOMAN! The wedding will have to be cancelled. This girl is expecting our son’s baby. Although I am a hard man, I couldn’t but pity her. The things our son did to her. If she reports him, he would get years of imprisonment and hard labour. She was black and blue all over, everywhere except her beautiful face.” Hong was quite taken by Li Ling. He remembered her from her first visit to the shop and had admired her pluck.

  “How could you believe her? Did you ask Da Wei? It could be someone else’s child.”

  “She brought another woman who swore that she saw them together. Both gave a detailed account of the assignations by the river. The girl was able to describe every birthmark and mole our son has. Some of these are in places that even you as a mother would not know. They made such a commotion. The poor girl was weeping. Customers crowded into the shop to see what was going on. The shop attendants stopped work to listen. I was so embarrassed. The thing is, old woman, I couldn’t look them in the eye and swear that our son would never do such a thing. You and I know that this has happened before though thank God, a child was never involved.”

  “No! No! Lies!” she protested.

  “Don’t interrupt!” shouted Lee Hong. “I know that you paid off the other victims. Don’t take me for a fool! Unlike the other girls who did not want their names made public, this girl is not so averse. She is not willing to take a payment. She wants nothing short of a marriage.”

  “Huh! For all we know, she was a willing partner in this.” “Then you should see her bruises. Don’t deny it, he can be violent. What about the last time ”

  “You don’t have to talk to me about the last time. He promised that he would never do it again.”

  “And how many times has he promised in the past? Well I am not going to argue with you. It is useless when it comes to Da Wei. You spoiled him. It is your fault.”

  “My fault? If you knew what he was doing, why didn’t you come right out and confront him? Instead you went out of your way to make him unhappy. You drove him to take it out on girls.”

  “Aiyah! Now it is my fault! Just keep to the crux of the problem. What can we do? The whole town knows of this by now. We cannot live it down.”

  “There is just a week to the wedding. We cannot cancel it without forfeiting all the bridal gifts.”

  “That is the least of our worries. Think, woman think! If she reports him, Da Wei will go to prison.”

  “I am thinking. Give me time!”

  Mrs Lee would not be hurried. She paced up and down the room leaving Hong to chew his fingers in frustration.

  “Bai Choo is seven years older than our Da Wei,” she said finally. “She is not pretty. She is an old maid. No one has proposed to her before. She gets to marry our son only because you wish to punish him with an older woman knowing that he prefers them young and nubile. We won’t be able to retract the offer of marriage easily. I suspect her parents will not agree to such a last minute withdrawal. However, if they are so keen to get their daughter married then perhaps we could get them to agree that Da Wei take this young girl as second wife. We could increase our gifts to make the proposal more palatable.”

  “Good! Good! That might work. We will call the wedding ceremony double happiness.” Ah Hong was about to get up when he sat down heavily again. “The girl Li Ling might not agree.” A sly look crossed Mrs. Lee’s face. “The girl’s parents are in China. She has no one here. Do we have to tell her everything? Can we not just send for her in a wedding sedan and let her go through the wedding rites without explaining? We will have the wedding ceremony for Bai Choo and then the sedan would arrive with this girl. The girl would have to serve tea to us and other elders in the family. Let Bai Choo be served tea alongside the other elders. The girl wouldn’t know she is serving tea to the first wife and in doing so accepts her position as second wife.” Ah Hong looked doubtful. He stroked his chin and played with the single black hair that sprouted from a mole in his chin.

  “The girl only wants Da Wei to marry her. Fan to sook! The rice is cooked! You can’t undo something that is already done. I am sure she would accept anything in order to be married to Da Wei,” she said to her husband. “There! It is settled,” she concluded without waiting for a reply. She could see from her husband’s hesitance that he was bending to her will and she needed just to give a push to propel the idea along.

  “Not quite. Call Da Wei in. I want to give him a piece of my mind.”

  “Low yeh! Old man! There are more important things to get on with. What would scolding Da Wei achieve at this point?”

  “Fine! Fine! You win as usual. Remember the girl is called Li Ling. Don’t call her girl. She might well be carrying our first grandson.”

  ***

  Shao Peng had a vague recollection of a sharp pain and of falling. She remembered nothing of what followed. When she woke up she was in bed and Jack was sitting by her side. He looked worried yet pleased.

  “What happened?” she asked him.

  “You fainted, clutching your belly in pain. We sent for Doctor Rodwell.” Jack smiled and his eyes twinkled with delight bringing warmth to the pallor that had coloured his face for weeks. “He said you are with child, our child. Everything is fine.”

  Shao Peng squealed with joy. She was not expecting this. Her period had always been irregular. She had been late several times before and they were all false alarms. She was beginning to fear that something was wrong and that she could not conceive.

  “That is wonderful! Are you happy?” she asked.

  Jack took her hands in his. “Absolutely delighted. You have to take it easy though. We cannot have you falling over again. Rodwell thinks that the pain might be a stomach cramp. Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you? You might be tired and rundown. Looking after me this past week couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Why don’t you get into bed and rest with me?” She patted the mattress next to her. Her eyes were full of mischief. All thoughts of their earlier quarrel were temporarily forgotten.

  Jack got up from the chair and went to the other side of the bed. He lifted the sheet and slipped in. He drew her near to him and she rested her head on his chest. Her neck lay snug in the crook of his arm and she sighed happily.

  After a while, Jack whispered in her ear. “I think I have to sleep. I am tired. I kept awake the entire time you were out and when Dr Rodwell was here. I confess I am dead beat.”

  “Close your eyes. We will both rest,” Shao Peng snuggled a little closer. After a few minutes, she whispered. “ I think I might be six weeks pregnant if I count from my l
ast period.” He didn’t answer. She raised her head slightly to look at him. Jack was already asleep. She slid further down and rested her head once more on his chest. A sharp pain shot through her making her gasp aloud. She couldn’t move. Her eyes rolled and she passed out.

  When she woke up, it was as though nothing had happened. Gingerly she placed her hand on the spot where the pain had been. It felt perfectly fine. She raised her head to look at Jack. He was still fast asleep, his chest rising and settling with his breath. She disentangled herself and, lifting his arm gently, placed it on a pillow. She slid out of bed and went to the door. She tiptoed out of the bedroom, went passed the sitting room and down a flight of steps into the kitchen. Ah Kew was not there. A young girl was by the wash basin.

  “Who are you?” Shao Peng asked.

  “Ah Kew has asked me to help out for the moment. She is in Master Siew Loong’s house.”

  ***

  Ah Kew placed a creased and soiled brown paper bag in front of Rohani. “This is what we found underneath the hibiscus hedge.”

  Rohani took the bag, her fingers curling around the top, her nails pressed white against the rim. She pried it open and peered in. A smell, foul and rancid, rose from its depth. She drew back. Beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead. She went deathly pale.

  “I brought it here because I do not want to upset Miss Shao Peng or my master. The gardener said that this was black magic. I think so too. Miss Shao Peng had a bad attack of pain just when we fished the doll out of the soil. Someone planted it there to make mischief and to frighten her. That is why I kept the doll from her and brought it to you instead. I do not want her scared. I suspect Aishah did this. We threw her out. She hates our young mistress and she is taking her revenge.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know.” Ah Kew was certain her Big Mistress could do something. Weren’t such things common practice amongst her people? The gardener admitted as much.

  Rohani got up and paced the room. She had a blinding headache and began rubbing her temples vigorously. “I really do not know what you think I can do. Do you think I practise such wicked arts or know people who do? I can’t undo such things. In the first place, I don’t believe in them.”

  “Master Siew Loong would be pleased if you could help out. He is very fond of his sister.”

  Rohani glared at Ah Kew. She was shocked by the servant’s cheek. She lost her temper. “I don’t need you to tell me my son’s feelings nor wishes. Now get out!” She felt that Ah Kew had overstepped herself. All the servants did that with her. She suspected that it was because she was Malay. It was at times like this that she felt even more strongly the need for an ally. Suet Ping, when Siew Loong marries her, would provide her the support she so sorely needed.

  “I am sorry. I am worried for young mistress.” Ah Kew realised her mistake but she did not want to leave without a firm promise of help.

  “Get out!”

  “Miss Shao Peng is expecting. She needs your help quickly.”

  “Get out before I change my mind and do not help at all!”

  Once Ah Kew left Rohani resumed her pacing of the room. She too was worried about Shao Peng. She didn’t believe in black magic. Yet she had a niggling fear of it. The belief and practice of the occult was entrenched amongst some and there was no escaping it, whether one believed in it or not. The soft down on her arms rose. She shuddered. Did she unwittingly put her step-daughter in harm’s way by introducing her to Aishah?

  Chapter 27

  DA WEI WAS BORED. He was angry. He hid both emotions under a mask when he was with his parents. He fawned, smiled and bowed to them like a dutiful son. Underneath it all he was fuming. He took out his anger on his two wives.

  He disliked Bai Choo intensely. He did not bother to conceal it. Why should he when she had been forced on him? He did not spend the wedding night with her. On the first night, he went, instead, to Li Ling. This was a tremendous loss of face for Bai Choo, who had already been sorely humiliated from having to accept a second wife on her own wedding day.

  Da Wei went to Li Ling not because he favoured her. He went to punish her for her treachery. If she had suffered from bruises before, her hurt was magnified on that wedding night. Now that she was his wife, the excitement and lust he felt for her vanished.

  He looked at her growing belly with loathing. He laughed at her. He pushed and slapped her and then rejected her. Her enlarged breasts which had thrilled him before lost their hold. While she could accept the physical abuse and had even grown to enjoy it in their earlier union, she suffered the psychological rejection and torture, immensely. She had imagined that she had become indispensable to Da Wei for hadn’t she done everything to comply with his sadistic demands. She had done it for marriage. She wanted respectability. She wanted to be mistress of a house. It was never going to be realised. She was second wife. When she found out that she had been tricked, she saw her hopes to be someone of importance dashed to the ground. She blamed Shao Peng once more for her ill fate.

  Tired of Bai Choo’s moaning, Da Wei’s father had insisted that he divided his time equally between the two women. “Make sure Bai Choo conceives, just in case Li Ling’s child is a girl.” Those words rang in Da Wei’s ears and he became even more resentful. He began to look outside again to satisfy his needs. Bai Choo took comfort in Li Ling’s neglect.

  ***

  Shao Peng was seated in Reverend Mother Andrea’s office. Shelves lined all the walls except for the one that had a window. On the windowsill, a jam jar of wild flowers stood in lonely but colourful isolation, the only concession to what otherwise was a purely utilitarian room. Books, papers and files were everywhere. Despite shelves already packed full with books, books piled high on her desk while others were stacked on the floor. In the heat, the smell of paper and dust filled the room.

  Please excuse the mess. I just can’t find time to tidy it all up.”

  “And I am sorry to say I will add to your troubles,” said Shao Peng. “I won’t be able to come in to help with the teaching. I have been feeling rather ill.”

  “Don’t you worry. We will take each day as it comes. You take care of yourself. I am so happy for you and Jack. God bless you both and the baby.” Reverend Mother Andrea took both Shao Peng’s hands in her own big capable ones. She did not like Shao Peng’s pallor. “Is Dr. Rodwell able to diagnose what caused these sudden attacks of pain?”

  Shao Peng shook her head. “He is puzzled as I am. One good thing, however, is that the baby is fine. He insists I rest, though.”

  “Well then, you rest.” Reverend Mother had heard of the doll and the rumour of black magic. She shrugged it off as the unfortunate belief of some misguided souls. Shao Peng’s pain was more likely to be a coincidence. She believed, however, that the culprit should be caught. Shao Peng’s face was clearly showing signs of strain and stress. She had never seen her so thin and pale.

  “What happened to Li Ling?” asked Shao Peng.

  “I was not going to bring it up if you didn’t. Well she left us. She is married into the Lee family, who own the big general store in Brickfields. She is expecting a child.”

  “You had no inkling of what was happening when she was here?”

  “No one knew except Lai Ma. She is a good worker and a kind woman. I just didn’t understand why she abetted Li Ling in this. She is keeping quiet and is not letting out much. What we know is that one day, Li Ling just disappeared. Apparently a sedan was sent to pick her up somewhere along the river. It did not come here to the convent. She didn’t take any clothing or belongings with her. It was all hush-hush. When we found out we were very upset. She didn’t even say goodbye.” Reverend Mother’s grey eyes clouded over. “She was very unhappy here,” she added gravely.

  “Yes, I know,” replied Shao Peng. “I am to blame.”

  “Nonsense. You did all you could. Now you go home and rest.” She stood up and guided Shao Peng to the door. “Remember! Rest!”

 
***

  Bai Choo bowed low before her mother-in-law. She had been hovering around her, trying to pick up courage to make her complaint.

  “Nai-nai!” she said in a voice that could barely be heard. “What shall I do with Li Ling? She doesn’t respect anyone in this house. She lies in bed till late in the morning and will not do any work. You gave us pillow cases to embroider. I tried to get her to do it with me. She flatly refused and flounced out of the room.”

  “Aiyah! You as elder wife should learn how to manage your husband’s tipsee. If you can’t even handle your husband’s second wife, how do you expect me to hand over the running of this household to you?” Da Wei’s mother was not sympathetic. “Be firm! Show her who is the boss. By custom, she has to ask your permission for everything, as you have to ask me for permission. Look at you! Kuai kuai sui sui! Like a mouse! What do you expect?”

  Hurt by the cutting remark, Bai Choo hurried out of the room. Drumming up courage, she went immediately to seek out Li Ling. She found her sitting in the courtyard cracking water melon seeds, with her feet up on a stool.

  “Eating again! You will be fat! No wonder Da Wei has lost interest in you.”

  “I am eating for two. Pity you can’t eat for two. At this rate, you will never eat for two. Has Da Wei visited you yet?” Li Ling asked innocently.

  Bai Choo blushed. She pretended she did not hear. “Come! We have work to do. Nai-nai has given us a pile of pillow cases to embroider. She wants it done by the end of the month. We have only two and a half weeks to finish them.”

  “I am not interested.” Li Ling said showing off her fingers. “These are not made to do embroidery.”