A Flash of Water

by Chan Ling Yap

  He moved towards a tree and reached out to touch its trunk. He brushed it gently and smiled. The latex collected in the cup was full to the brim. The trees had been cut with military precision in the early hours of the morning and their bark peeled back to allow the latex to flow. By tomorrow, the process had to be repeated all over again. He would have to commend the workers when he saw them later in the day.

  His eyes swept across the plantation, marvelling at the tappers moving between trees under the dappled shade. Getting the right labour for the plantation had been difficult. The locals were not interested in the work. Mahmud proved unreliable. Despite his boasts about contacts in India, he failed to get sufficient numbers to come over to Malaya. Siew Loong severed his contract and tried to recruit coolies from China. A recruiting office was established in Southern China. It failed; the Chinese workers were more expensive and many were addicted to opium. With his new foreman, Naresh, a Tamil from Tamil Nadhu, he turned once more to India and Ceylon. This time he succeeded. Accommodation, however, had to be built on the estate to house the recruits and their families. This led to further delays. Unlike Chinese immigrants, Indian workers did not generally come alone with the objective of returning to their country. He had to invest heavily in penetrating and clearing large tracts of virgin jungle and secondary forests. Many areas were swampland infested with anopheles mosquitoes. Inevitably, the mortality rate was high.

  He realised that more would have to be done to reduce the danger posed by malaria. He had lost a dozen men to the disease last year, not as bad as the neighbouring estate, but sufficient to cause alarm. He had to do something to mitigate these dangers for his workers. The basic infrastructure was just not there. There were no drainage or sewage systems and torrential tropical rains created the ideal conditions for tropical diseases. He expelled a huge sigh of frustration. Once again, plantations were left to pick up the pieces for the government had done little to improve sanitary conditions.

  Siew Loong headed back to his office in the base camp. From a distance, he saw a thin figure waving at him. As he drew nearer, he saw that it was Ah Sook. Something must be wrong, he thought. He hastened forward, his feet pummelling the hard ground and spitting a cloud of red dust in his tracks. Within seconds, he was drenched in sweat. His shirt clung to him and perspiration poured from his forehead.

  “Why are you here?” he shouted across the stretch of land that separated him from Ah Sook. “Is it mother? The children...” “You have an urgent message from Naresh. He said that the coolies he recruited from Kerala have arrived. The Government has quarantined them at Port Swettenham. He failed to get their release and he is not sure how long they will be detained. He is worried. He said he visited the quarantine centre and saw thousands of men literally squashed together in indescribably filthy conditions. The Port authorities say that they cannot handle the huge number of people and they are going to send them to an island called Pulau Jejerak, to be held until such time they see fit. That island too has no proper sanitary facilities; it has just a handful of latrines to cater for the thousands. Cholera and smallpox are rife. A large percentage of the detainees held last year died. We cannot afford to lose our men.”

  “I’ll come back with you to Kuala Lumpur. I’ll see what I can do.” Siew Loong strode past Ah Sook and headed for the car, a black ten horsepower De Dion with a canopied roof, his pride and joy. The older man followed.

  “Your mother is asking for you,” said Ah Sook.

  Siew Loong stopped in his track. He whirled around to face Ah Sook. “I am not going home. Don’t tell her I am in Kuala Lumpur. I need space. I have done what she wished me to do. I won’t do more.”

  Chapter 39

  SU HEI FLICKED HER long braid to the back and tipped her straw hat further forward to shade her face from the hot sun. She crouched down and began to weed the vegetable patch. She would have to do it quickly before her mother woke up from her nap. Her mother did not like her doing manual work. She had other plans for Su Hei, all of which, it would seem to Su Hei, revolved around not having the life her mother had. She did not know much about her mother’s mysterious past life. All she knew was that her aunt Ah Chu complained that she had extra mouths to feed, mouths that did little work in return. Su Hei hated the charity so she would work whenever she was given a chance. Yet Ah Chu had been kind to her mother and her. Without Ah Chu, they would probably be back in China. “You wouldn’t want to be there,” they would tell her. “China is in turmoil, overrun by foreigners, each carving a slice of the country. The people are driven to opium addiction. If you think life is hard here, wait till you see China,” they would say.

  Su Hei sat back on her haunch and swept the weeds into a bucket. Looking up she saw trails of long green beans hanging overhead, their pods some two feet long swaying tantalisingly in the hot sun. She would pick some for supper, she decided. Ah Chu would like that.

  “How many times have I told you not to be in the sun!” Li Ling shouted. “Come in, come in. I’ll do that,” she said wrenching the basket from Su Hei. “Sit over there in the shade.”

  “Mother, why don’t you let me finish what I am doing?” Su Hei tried to snatch the basket back.

  “Goodness! Look at your fingernails. Look at the dirt in them. I told you to keep your hands lily-white and smooth. Why do you not listen to me? Go! Wash them and put a bit of lard on. You don’t want your hands to be rough.”

  “I don’t mind,” Su Hei protested. Her mother pushed her away.

  The commotion brought Ah Chu out into the dirt backyard. “Aiyah! You can’t protect her all the time. She wouldn’t want for suitors if you would only allow her to have them. She is pretty enough with her big eyes and fine features. If Hui, Huan and Swee Yoke can find husbands with their background, you won’t have a problem with Su Hei. Mind you, we had to be a bit inventive about their background.”

  Li Ling glared at Ah Chu. Over the years, the two had grown close. With her daughters gone, Ah Chu had increasingly turned to Li Ling for comfort. They shared a secret between them, their past involvement with the Ong family. Both felt that they should be part of that family. Both nurtured a resentment over their rejection. “I have plans, big plans for Su Hei,” boasted Li Ling, her lips curled in disdain. “They do not include marrying my daughter to anyone just because they have a dime or two. Don’t compare my daughter to yours. Keep out of my business!”

  “Well, if you do not wish for advice, then you should really strike out on your own. No one is keeping you here,” retorted Ah Chu. Stung by Li Ling’s reply, she glowered with one hand on her hip and the other pointing to the door.

  Li Ling threw the basket onto the ground and strode off. Su Hei looked with bewilderment from one woman to the other. She ran after her mother, turning back to mime and point to the basket and the beans scattered on the ground. “I’ll take care of that later,” she said. She mouthed a silent sorry and hurried after Li Ling.

  ***

  Su Hei moved listlessly around the room. Finally she settled on a chair by the bed. Li Ling’s eyes did not leave her daughter. She is like me, she thought with pride. She has my eyes, my nose and my mouth; she is my spitting image.

  “Aunty Chu is very hurt. Why do you say such awful things to her? Are we leaving here? Where would we go? Where could we go?” Su Hei thought of what she had seen on the rare occasions her mother had taken her to town. The dirt and the squalor shocked her except, of course, if you were to live in those big houses owned by the very rich and by the English people who ruled over them.

  Su Hei was frightened. She didn’t want to leave. This was the only home she knew and aside from the odd moment, Aunt Chu was kind. She couldn’t blame Ah Chu for those occasional moments because her mother could be trying and very fierce. She didn’t understand what her mother said. She spoke often in riddles. Her heart did a flip when her mother mentioned the big plans she had for her. What were they? She had often asked without ever receiving a reply. “You just wait and see,” h
er mother would say.

  “Don’t worry about Aunt Chu. Look, why don’t you go and say sorry to her from me. Say that I am indisposed, that I have one of my headaches. I’ll come out to apologise later when things are a bit calmer. Go! Do that and I’ll come out and help with the dinner. I want to be alone for a while.”

  Li Ling grabbed Su Hei’s hand and pressed it to her lips. “I love you. I only want that which is best for you. Remember that.”

  When Su Hei’s footsteps faded, Li Ling got up and went to the bed. She knelt down and reached under its wooden frame. She pulled out a pile of newspapers. They were damp and had yellowed with time. Their ink stained her fingers black. Carefully, she lifted the one on the top. Setting it on the floor, she flipped through the pages until she found what she wanted. In the centre of the page was a photograph of a man. She ran her fingers over his face, lingering on his lips, and smiled. “I’ll never forget you,” she whispered. “We were meant for each other.”

  Carefully, she tore the page and folded it, placing it alongside the others she had similarly torn from various newspapers. Later, when she had made amends with Ah Chu, she would ask her to read the news to her. Shao Peng was right in one thing. She should have learnt how to read. She wondered if she should make contact. It would surprise Shao Peng because everyone had believed that she, Li Ling, had returned to China. Yet would she want to surprise Shao Peng?

  She got up and went to close the door. With infinite care, she turned the key; it squeaked in protest. She waited, half expecting someone to rush in to ask why she had locked the door. A minute or two passed. She mounted a stool and retrieved a little wooden box from the top of the wardrobe. From within it, she took out a little round jade pendant. The stone felt cool in her palm; its gold trimmings in the centre gleamed brightly against the deep green of the jade. Shao Peng had given her this. This was the only item that she had kept and hidden from Ah Chu. Her mind went back to the day when Ah Sook’s men first deposited her in this house.

  ***

  Thirteen years ago

  It was a day when the heavens opened up and drenched my world, washing clean my soul so that I could be reborn. I stood shivering under the inadequate shelter of the banana tree. Its ragged palms swayed and slapped against me while the rain spat sharp and vicious against my body. A streak of lightning flashed across the sky and thunder bellowed, hammering my head with the force of its sound. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around my middle to protect the baby within. It would be any time now. I prayed that it would not be then, for I was waiting for Ah Sook’s men. Through Ah Su the maid, he told me to leave the house of my parent-in-law’s. I was to take nothing with me and to inform no one. Ah Su would not tell. With the help of Ah Sook, she had vanished immediately after giving me the message.

  I shivered and my teeth chattered. It could be the cold; it could be fear. I was frightened and elated all at the same time. At last I would be free. A spasm of pain hit me and I doubled up, clutching my tummy even more strongly. Please, please not now, I remembered praying when yet another spasm of pain hit me. Through the pelting rains, I saw two men in black hooded cloaks. It must be Ah Sook’s men. I worried that they couldn’t see me. I could hardly open my eyes, so strong was the rain. I opened my mouth to shout to them, to tell them I was here. My legs gave way, just as they approached and grasped me by my arms. I felt a flush of warm sticky liquid run down my legs to mingle with the pool of water collected in the puddle that I stood in. “The baby is coming,’ I whispered hoarsely. They dropped my arms in haste; they jumped away as if the puddle was a cesspit of snakes. I could see the disgust on their face. “Bad luck!” They made a sign to ward off evil. Women were unclean at childbirth and remained so for at least a month. They turned as though to leave me in the puddle. I screamed after them to help; I promised them extra reward; I threatened that Ah Sook would punish them if they did not carry out their instructions. They returned and grabbed me roughly under the arm. They dragged me; my feet trailed on the ground like wheel marks puncturing wet soil. They didn’t stop. The rain would wash the marks away. It would be as though I had never been. They had arranged for me to disappear. They had arranged for me return to China as soon as the baby was born.

  Su Hei was born in the wayside, just a hundred yards from Ah Chu. The men left me there. There were no passersby. The rain pelted and hissed. The men brought Ah Chu to me. By the time she arrived, Su Hei had made her appearance in the world. My screams, and her cries, muffled by the loud splatter of the rains.

  ***

  Li Ling cleared up the dishes. Su Hei had gone to bed and Ah Chu was seated at the table, nursing a bowl of tea. She clasped the cup with both hands, her knuckles tightly pressed against it. She gave a loud sniff; her mouth tightened rendering her lips into a thin line that drooped at each corner. She had barely looked at Li Ling throughout the meal and was not going to do so now.

  The light from the oil lamp flickered and the shadows on the wall lengthened and waned. Li Ling refreshed the pot of tea and brought it to the table. She reached over and gently extracted the tea bowl from Ah Chu. She poured more tea into the bowl and, placing it in front of Ah Chu, sat down. “I am sorry for earlier on.” Her voice was honeyed and low. She looked from under her brows to check on Ah Chu’s reaction.

  “I am used to it,” Ah Chu replied in a huff. She refused to look at Li Ling.

  “I am truly sorry you know,” said Li Ling, her voice syrupy like a velvet glove upon soft skin. “I am very grateful for all that you have done for me, for keeping me here, for covering for me, for not forcing me to return to China.”

  “You have a funny way of showing your gratitude.” Ah Chu’s sniff was even more pronounced this time. She glowered at the young woman. “You might think that the passage money you gave me covered all the expenditures heaped on you, but let me assure you it had long been spent. I’ve kept you here at my own expense.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Look!” continued Ah Chu, ignoring the slight hardening of Li Ling’s voice, “I am still having to rely on oil lamps when other houses on the street are beginning to have electric lights. I could have afforded it if my household expenses had not included feeding you and Su Hei.”

  “I said I am sorry.”

  “Then stop throwing such tantrums! You are only a young woman, barely twenty-eight years old. You still have your looks. You can marry again. Instead, you keep yourself to yourself and have such violent outbursts of anger, most of which are directed at me or poor Su Hei.”

  Li Ling’s face was bitter when she stood up and unbuttoned her top. “Who would want me?” She shrugged, letting the back of her dress drop, and turned around. Brown weals criss-crossed her back like meat that had been pummelled and aged. She turned back to face Ah Chu once more, and released the front flap of her tunic. Ah Chu gasped. A part of a nipple was missing and burn marks scarred the other.

  Ah Chu cleared her throat. She had never seen the scars until today. No wonder Li Ling refused her help to wash or dress, even when she was ill. “Don’t give up hope. Maybe...”

  “Don’t try to console me. Who would want someone like me with such a history and such a body? I might have had a chance when there were no Chinese women around. That is no longer the case. You know it. There is an abundance of women now.” Li Ling buttoned up her dress and went out of the room to return almost instantaneously. She sat down and placed a newspaper in front of Ah Chu. “Please read this for me,” she said.

  Ah Chu started when she saw the photograph. She looked up questioningly at Li Ling. “Why? she asked.

  “Read it for me, please,” Li Ling pleaded.

  Ah Chu read silently. “It is about his business and how well he is doing. The gossip is that all is not well in his home life. In his recent venture to establish a labour recruiting office in China, he met a songstress in Hong Kong. He brought her back to Kuala Lumpur and has been seen with her. The rest is about his family, his wife Suet Ping and their two daughters
, Fern and Rose.”

  Li Ling smiled and her eyes glittered with excitement. “He has no male offspring?”

  Ah Chu looked at the date of the newspaper. “No, unless his wife is expecting one since the article.”

  “Then, would you help me?” Li Ling drew her chair closer to Ah Chu’s and whispered in her ear. “You will help me won’t you?”

  Ah Chu thought for a while. Her silence magnified the buzz in Li Ling’s ears, for each breath she took was exaggerated by a thousand syllables. Finally Ah Chu nodded.

  Chapter 40

  JACK SLIPPED OUT of his bedroom slippers and edged further up the bed until his back rested on the cool dark wooden headboard. Then he swung his legs up. Shao Peng, already in bed and waiting, snuggled up to him. Tucking an arm under the crook of his she buried her face in his chest and inhaled his familiar smell, comforted by his closeness.

  “Rohani is worried about Siew Loong,” she said brushing away a strand of grey hair from Jack’s forehead. She marvelled that he should be greying and looking more distinguished with it, while her own grey hairs were coarse and unflattering. “He has not been home for a long time. He doesn’t go home even when he is in town, she says. Do you know who he is with? Is he with that songstress from Hong Kong, Annie?”

  “You shouldn’t ask me to tell tales on your brother.”

  “Hmmm!” She gave him a sidelong disapproving look. “Ah Sook will never say a word about Siew Loong. I have only you whom I can ask. After all, you are now working closely with him. You cannot say, as in the past, that you are a civil servant and know nothing about the going-ons in the private world of business.”

  “Yes I can! We work in different areas. He deals with rubber and I take care of the tin mines.”

  “I am not asking you about the business. I am asking if you know who he is with at the moment.”