by Unknown
There Imogen knelt, the cold of the night finally finding her, her breath misting before her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I tried, and I’m sorry.’
There was a snort – almost like a laugh, but not human – behind her, and a blast of warm, faintly foetid air on the nape of her neck. On her right shoulder, a rough hand briefly rested, and she knew that touch so well that she couldn’t hold back the tears.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s alright.’
And he, and the horse, and the horses who had danced in the light of the setting moon, were gone.
4
Steve opened the door at 3.20 am to find Imogen standing on the doorstep, shivering and wrapped in a mud-stained tarpaulin.
‘Good God! Where have you been?’
‘I’m okay. It’s a long story, but I’m okay.’
‘Should I call the police?’
‘No, just give me a moment to get into something warmer and then we’ll talk.’
And once Imogen was showered and dressed they did.
This time Imogen didn’t try and elaborate on Steve’s depression with arcane terms, or well-meant spells; she just listened. When he had finished, she took him in her arms.
‘I’m here for you.’
‘Are you sure? No more ... weird stuff, magic horses?’
She laughed. ‘No, just me. I promise.’
They talked until the sky turned pale, and when they had finished, they went out into the garden, and there began to turn over the earth with their spades, ready to start again.
The Fish-Bowl
Zen Cho
Su Yin was hiding the first time the fish spoke to her. It was three o'clock on a Thursday and she was at Puan Lai's house for Maths Teras tuition.
She did not have strong feelings about Puan Lai, but she liked the house. Between the entrance and living room there was an expanse of cool white marble floor that would have been a hallway in a normal house. Puan Lai had dug out a hole in the floor and filled it with water. The pond was rectangular, like a swimming pool, but the water was green, swarming with koi and goldfish.
It had never been explained why they were there.
‘Probably she rear them to sell,’ said Su Yin's mother. ‘Koi are very valuable, you know.’
Puan Lai hadn't provided an explanation herself. As a teacher her style was direct and unfrivolous. She bombarded her students with exercises, leaving scarcely any time for questions, much less idle conversation.
For the past three Thursdays Su Yin had sat in an alcove by the pool while waiting for class to start, hidden from the front door by an extravagant potted palm. She passed the time in watching the koi, golden and white and black, like splashes of paint curling in the water.
If she stared long enough she could feel her thoughts take on the measured glide of the fishes' bodies through the water. She felt as weightless as they must feel.
This mysterious peace was disturbed when the fish spoke.
‘Eh, listen,’ said the fish. ‘I got secret to tell you.’
Su Yin jumped. The voice had sounded clear and small in her right ear. She looked down into the water and saw a white koi, missing one eye.
‘You want to hear or not?’ said the koi.
Su Yin was going mad. Finally her mind was giving way. It was not as frightening as she'd thought it would be.
‘Whether you want to listen or not, it's not my problem,’ said the koi. ‘I'm not the one missing out.’
The koi's mouth opened and closed, an intermittent surprised O. Its white skin was so smooth it seemed scaleless. It would feel like silken tofu if you touched it. Seen from above, the fish's one eye looked heavy-lidded and wise.
‘Are you a magical fish or a door-to-door salesman?’ Su Yin whispered.
‘Wah, still know how to joke people ah,’ said the koi. ‘You're correct. I'm magical. I can grant your any wish. That's my secret. Good or not?’
Su Yin no longer read much, but she used to like books. This was not unexpected.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘So what?’
‘You don't have to whisper,’ said the koi's voice in her mind. ‘You don't have to open your mouth. I can hear you screaming.’
Su Yin got up, knocking her elbow against the potted palm. She walked to the living room, her face stiff.
That wasn't funny, she thought.
At this point she still thought it was her mind doing it, showing her magical talking fish. She thought it was the tiredness speaking.
***
Su Yin's parents went to bed at 11.30 every night. At 12.00 Su Yin put on a thin cardigan and walked soft-footed downstairs to the computer.
She used to play RPGs, but even with the volume turned down she worried that her avatars' thin battle cries and the muffled roaring of the dragons would reach through the ceiling and pierce her parents' sleep. And you had to save your game, and her younger brother played it as well, so that the evidence of what she did was there, ripe for the picking if he ever felt like betrayal.
These days she made dolls. There were hundreds of doll makers online, on different themes. Doll makers for every movie you could think of, for bands, for books and TV shows. It was a simple pursuit, but you never ran out of variations.
There was something reassuring about it. You started out with a naked, bald body, featureless and innocent. Then you built it up into the approximation of a person, adding hair, eyes, clothes, shoes, a smile or frown.
When Su Yin was done she saved the graphic onto the computer, in a folder she'd squirreled away inside five nested folders named things like ‘Nota-Bio-Encik's Cheah's class’. She gave each doll a name: Esmeralda for a green-eyed girl with wild red hair; Jane for a quiet-looking one in a gingham dress, her eyes cast down.
When Su Yin finally went to bed her back was stiff and her feet were cold. From her bed she could see the glowing green face of the clock. It was 2.20 a.m. She would not sleep for at least another hour.
***
Wednesday was usually a good day. She had two tuition classes in the afternoon, but in the half-hour gap between them, her dad drove her to a nearby coffeehouse. They sat at a sticky enamel table and she ate her way through three plates of siu mai while Dad watched a Hong Kong variety show on the TV.
She never felt sleepy in the kopitiam, despite the dozy mid-afternoon feeling of the air and the somnolent hum of the ceiling fan. It was only when Dad had dropped her off at Puan Rosnah's and the lesson had started that she began to droop.
Su Yin no longer tried to fight it. She crossed her arms on the table and dropped her head.
Puan Rosnah was a nice older lady with a soft creaky voice and a smile that crinkled the skin around her eyes. She never complained about the naps. She was not an especially good teacher, and tended to drone. It didn't matter because Su Yin also attended another, more effective BM tuition class. She didn't question why she had to have two classes for the same subject: she'd got a B for BM in UPSR four years ago.
After class the students milled in the garden outside Puan Rosnah's house, waiting for their parents to pick them up.
‘Wah, relaxed ah you,’ said Cheryl Lau to Su Yin.
There was no decent way to fob Cheryl off. She insisted on talking to Su Yin. They'd used to be friends, back when they were rivals for top of the form. Now that Su Yin was out of the running she avoided Cheryl when she could, but Cheryl still sought her out.
‘Can nap in class also,’ she said. ‘You study finish for the test already, is it?’
Su Yin's heart clenched. She said, ‘Hah? Sorry, didn't hear.’
‘You know, Puan Sharifah's test,’ said Cheryl. They were in different classes, but they shared teachers for a couple of subjects. Puan Sharifah was one of them. She taught History and was known for her total lack of mercy.
‘Our class had the test already,’ said Cheryl. ‘Damn hard, man. Study like siao also still didn't know how to answer.’
Su Yin couldn't ask when her class w
as going to have the test. That would show she hadn't been paying attention for weeks, maybe months.
‘Is it? When was it?’ she said.
‘Tuesday,’ said Cheryl. ‘Sucks, man. Have to study the whole weekend. Your class test is on Friday, right?’
Su Yin dug her fingernails into her palm.
‘Yah,’ she said. ‘I think so.’
***
One day was not enough to study for a test, especially not one set by Puan Sharifah. The next day at school, Su Yin confirmed that it was going to be on Friday. Puan Sharifah had announced it three weeks ago. It would cover the five chapters they'd already been tested on in the last round of exams, and an additional three they'd studied since then.
Su Yin hadn't looked at her History textbook in months.
During the drive to Puan Lai's house, her dad said,
‘Why so quiet, girl? Thinking what?’
Su Yin came out of her bad dream.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Thinking about school only.’
‘My girl is so hardworking,’ crooned Ma.
‘Don't need to overthink one lah,’ said Dad. ‘Do the work and listen to the teacher enough already. With your brain, like that can pass already.’
Su Yin was half an hour early and none of the other students were there when the maid let her in. She crawled into her hiding place.
Remembering the conversation in the car made her want to hurt herself. She was ready when the fish said, ‘Change your mind ah?’ It was the white koi, come up out of the dark water like a ghost.
She said, ‘How you know?’
The koi clearly thought it beneath itself to answer such a stupid question. It floated silent in the water, waiting.
‘Can you make me pass?’ Su Yin whispered.
‘Cheh, that only? Very easy,’ said the koi.
‘Not just pass,’ said Su Yin. ‘Do well. Get good marks.’
‘You want to get hundred?’ said the koi.
That was pushing it.
‘Seventy lah,’ said Su Yin. Even that would be a disappointment to her parents. It would be an improvement compared to what she'd got in the last round of exams, but her parents didn't know about those.
‘Can,’ said the koi. ‘I get you seventy exactly. No need to worry. Puan Sharifah won't think you cheated. She'll be very happy. She'll think you buck up after the last exam.’
Su Yin didn't ask how the koi knew she'd been worrying about that.
‘One thing only,’ said the koi. ‘My payment.’
‘What is it?’ said Su Yin.
The fish's mouth opened and closed. It was toothless like the mouth of a hungry baby, or the mouth of an old man chanting a mantra under his breath.
‘I'm so hungry,’ it said.
Su Yin nodded.
‘Put your hand here,’ said the fish.
Su Yin dipped her right arm into the water, flinching at the cold. The fish blinked its one wise eye and swam up to her. She closed her eyes. The sharp, sharp teeth closed over her flesh.
It had to be true that the fish was magic, because it stole her voice. She felt the scream tear her throat, but there was no sound. It didn't so much as ripple the water.
She snatched her arm out of the water, clutching it to her chest. The fish had bitten out a chunk of her forearm about the size of a fifty sen coin. Blood ran down her arm and dripped onto her shorts. She held her arm, shuddering.
The world went fuzzy. The separate leaves of the palm merged into a green blob, as if she was seeing them through tears.
‘Wait first,’ said the fish. ‘I'll take the blood away.’ Its voice in her head sounded drowsy, contented.
Answering her unasked question, it said, ‘No. It doesn't work without the pain.’
By the time class started, the wound was already scabbing over, and her shorts were dry. The flesh of her arm felt raw and wet. She had to keep looking down to convince herself of the scab.
It was dark red and ugly on the inner side of her arm. The guy next to her flicked his eyes at it and looked away hastily. Unease pulled the air around him taut.
But Su Yin felt calm. The tension that had been lurking at the back of her head for months, ever since she'd seen the report card, had dissolved. She felt safe. Even sleepy. As if it was her who was cradled in the dark cool water, enjoying the peace of a full belly, dreaming of blood.
***
At first Su Yin thought it hadn't worked. She opened the test paper and her mind went blank. The words on the page did not mean anything. Panic rose up from her belly.
She had to write something. She put the pen to paper.
It was as if someone had stabbed her in the arm. Su Yin's left hand flew to her mouth, pressing down the shout. She pulled up her sleeve.
The scab on her right forearm was gone. The wound was open and bleeding, pus seeping from the edges. The skin around it was inflamed.
How had this happened? It had looked fine earlier. The scab had hardened overnight, was solid that morning.
Su Yin had faked a sneeze in the car going home from Puan Lai's. Her mother had said accusingly, ‘Hah, sneezing already!’ and insisted on her changing into something warm. This had given her the excuse to put on a long-sleeved T-shirt. Today she was wearing baju kurung, so the scab had escaped notice.
Nobody could miss it now. She looked around, but everyone's heads were bent over their desks. The teacher wasn't looking in her direction.
The blood was streaming down her arm. Would it drip on her hair if she raised her hand for attention? thought Su Yin madly.
The blood dripping onto her desk began to form into balls like spilt mercury. The red liquid balls rolled onto the test paper, where they grew legs, spider-like – turned into letters – arranged themselves into words, and then into sentences. When they sank into the paper they turned blue. The writing was Su Yin's own, the tails of the g's and y's flying off into space.
Su Yin's blood did the test for her. In a trance, she turned each page over as it filled up with words.
When the last drop of blood had jumped onto the page, the wound healed up again. It happened in a matter of seconds. The scab was dry by the time she passed up her paper.
The pain was a throbbing thing in her arm.
***
Puan Sharifah had an agonising habit of announcing test results in descending order, starting from the highest mark. You had to walk all the way up to the front of the classroom to take your paper from her.
The practice would have caused Su Yin hideous anguish in earlier days. The only thing worse than not coming first was knowing that she hadn't come first. Nowadays it didn't bother her. Her name came so late that most people had lost interest by then.
This time her name was fourteenth in the list. When Puan Sharifah handed her the paper, she said, ‘Good. This is an improvement.’
Puan Sharifah was sparing with her praise. Su Yin was so startled she didn't react, but when she was back at her seat she allowed herself the burst of pleasure. She had earned it.
Her mother was not so pleased.
‘Seventy?’ she said. ‘That's not 1A, right?’
‘2A only,’ said Su Yin, knowing her mother knew this. ‘You need seventy-five for 1A.’
Her mother pursed her lips.
‘Girl, History is very important,’ she said. ‘After this, when you're doing STPM, you can drop the subject. But if the university sees you're not so good at History, they will think you're not so good at writing.’
‘Do you need Sejarah tuition?’ said Su Yin's dad.
Nobody took tuition classes for History. The received wisdom was that you only had to memorise the textbooks to do well. Understanding was not required.
‘Sejarah tuition don't really have tuition one,’ Su Yin said. ‘Just have to study harder, I guess.’
‘Don't study hard. Study smart,’ said her dad. But the answer pleased him: she was showing the right spirit.
‘You got any problem concentrating at school?�
�� said her mother. ‘Is your teacher not so good? You know you can tell us if anything.’
It was her chance. Su Yin almost told them.
The thought of the report card stopped her. She hadn't thrown it away because they might have seen it in the trash can. She couldn't put it in the underwear drawer, because her mom did her laundry and put her clothes away. She'd thought of hiding it under her mattress, but her mom might notice it when she was changing the bedclothes.
In the end Su Yin had stuck it between the pages of a Form 3 Geography reference book. She hadn't looked at it again.
If Su Yin told her parents, she would have to tell them about the report card. The lie would come out. They would cry.
‘You didn't do well is one thing,’ they'd say. ‘Mummy and Daddy can help you if you have problem at school. But the fact you lie to us, Su Yin – that means we didn't bring you up properly.’
She didn't say anything.
‘If you need tuition, Mummy and Daddy will find for you,’ said her mother. ‘Never mind whether Sejarah tuition got or not. Teachers' salary is not very good also. Sure can find one who is willing to give tuition. Just need to pay only.’
‘Don't need,’ said Su Yin. ‘I can handle it.’
After all, she wasn't on her own anymore.
***
Form 3 was the best year of Su Yin's life. People said Form 1 and Form 2 were the best years, because the workload was light and you didn't have to worry about exams. Form 3 meant the first big exams, PMR, and then it all went downhill from there.
But Su Yin had always enjoyed exams. She liked the run-up to them best: the last two weeks before the exams, when your vision narrowed and your world contracted to this one essential thing. You were let off doing chores; TV and Internet were banned; co-curricular activities came to a stop. You entered a monkish world, a sanctuary from ordinary life, where all that was required of you was that you study and make the grade.
And you did the exams and you passed and you felt a sense of accomplishment. Your parents were proud of you. This was your job. It was what you were there for.
