The rallying cry had to continue. I set the camera to autofocus and let it capture continuous frames of people stealthily disappearing into the folds of the city.
It was dusk. Then, sudden music. A relief, a comfort. The azan, blaring out of the minaret above us. The mosque still had its voice.
Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar…
We grabbed each other and walked slowly, shoes still squelching, as silently as we could into the damp twilight.
Two hours later, at exactly 9pm, masked policemen armed with sub-machine guns stormed into Anwar’s house in Damansara Heights, frightening his wealthy neighbours, startling well-dressed diners sipping Chianti in nearby restaurants, as they arrested him under the Internal Security Act in plain sight of his four terrified children and his wife.
Nine days later, he appeared in public again. He stood there, in front of the High Court, waving his hand while cameras of the press from all over the world captured him. That image.
Our Deputy Prime Minister, right there, brutalised, beaten. His black eye was printed on every major newspaper in the world. Kuala Lumpur, city of mud, city of sin, of tear gas and riot police, would erupt again and again.
And again.
* * *
Take a city, imagine it encased in a snow globe and shake it upside down.
Like KL. There would be no snow, of course.
But there would be monitor lizards, tigers, giraffes, refugees, domestic workers, Bangladeshis, girls in pigtails and navy blue school uniforms, nasi kandar with all the condiments, chopped green chillies, beef in dark soya sauce, crab curry, cabbage with turmeric, mustard seed and dried red chillies, guns, machetes and parangs, BMWs, Protons, Kancils, Ferraris, Porches, BMW bikes, strawberry-flavoured condoms, pink Ecstasy tabs, politicians, policemen, taxi drivers, footballers, red plastic furniture, dogs, cats, parakeets, rabbits, snakes, ducks, the occasional slow loris, and some of most morally reprehensible people on the planet.
We had come face to face with a reckoning, as if we had to pay for all our sins in one go and yet find redemption at the same time. KL had unearthed a side that no one had ever seen before; it was new, exhilarating, but entirely unpredictable. Thousands had woken up, but no, this wasn’t like Indonesia where Suharto had resigned. Resigned. He was shamed, by his own people, students who took to the streets, by the tens upon tens of thousands. Indonesia had witnessed genocides, millions had died in seas of blood, but we didn’t share the same script. We had a bloodless transition from colonial rule to independence, we had only one major incident of racial riots in 1969. But what we did have was an endless simmering. Of something, and everything.
But, this. This. With Anwar, we had something to fight for, something to write about. We needed to document it, we had to write it, record it.
Fight it.
We had to fight it, we had to fight back.
And we did.
The Review was a monthly magazine, funded and edited by Lan, short for Roslan. His mother was Malay, his father English and Iban, the largest indigenous group in the state of Sarawak.
Call me Fairman, he’d say if you just met him, shaking your hand vigorously.
Roslan Fairman was born in Kuching, Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo, raised in KL, sent off to Harrow at ten and then went on to read law at Oxford. He had inherited his father’s law firm but had decided that a career in journalism suited his dress sense and temperament better.
No, he’d insist, I always wrote; did law just because the parents wanted it.
He was tall, wore a battered bespoke waistcoat and kept imported copies of The Guardian on his desk in a neat pile. He had a shock of hair that kept falling over his face, which he’d swing to the right, much like a singer in a 90s boy-band, except for the expensive tortoise-shell glasses and the worn, handmade Church’s shoes. We all decided to call him Fairman; it seemed the most apt as he was the editor of a magazine, after all.
The Review consisted of four full-time writers, one advertising exec, one secretary and one tea lady. There was Jin, short for Eu Jin, who was sullen and smelt of whisky in the morning. He wrote all the features on finance—business, investment, property. The boring stuff, except he was a whiz at it. Harvard Business School. Dropped out in his final year. Reasons unknown. He pissed off his mum and dad who practically disowned him; he was forced to live in a room in his uncle’s mansion in Damansara Heights. Drove a beat-up white Proton Saga. Had terrible dress sense, but I’d heard that he was a great fuck from the girl who sometimes helped with the audits. He could go all night and was apparently hung like a horse.
Then there was Imran, who’d left a job with Barclays in London to come back to KL because of his father’s dementia. He wore a battered Savile Row blazer—wool and silk combo—to work, every day without fail. How he survived the tropical heat in that thing was nothing short of miraculous. He persisted, as it was part of his desired image of being Malay-born but British-educated.
Fuck off, wankers! A shout followed by a loud thump on the desk. That happened at least once a day. We’d look at each other and roll our eyes. Imran was a stickler for details, and if or when anything, or anyone, contradicted his research, he would fly off the handle. Or he’d just swear, for no reason at all.
Imran and Fairman were drinking buddies, and would often disappear at 5pm on the dot to go to the Bulldog round the corner from the office. They’d start with a dry ale and end the night raucously with Guinness.
Imran was stocky and a little wide in the hips, with pert buttocks which sometimes looked odd at certain angles, but he had a smile that could slay you. Every time he talked to you, he’d lean in and you’d get a whiff of his cologne and you’d melt. Penhaligon’s. Found only at Harrods and other exclusive shops. Sandalwood and orange. He rolled it off his tongue once when he was drunk. Pen-ha-li-gons. Four syllables. Very posh.
One night, as I was coming out of the ladies in the pub, he threw his arm around me and crushed me against his chest. I’m drunk, Del, take me home. I’m yours.
He kissed me. Hard. Then it was urgent, probing. Too much tongue, too wet. He slathered my mouth with beer. I pushed him away. He stumbled back, laughing, wiping his full lips with his right hand. Prissy, that’s what you are, he slurred and stumbled into the men’s toilet.
I had a soft spot for Imran. He intrigued me. I was flattered that he had kissed me, but I didn’t know if it was because he was drunk or if he liked me. The next day, I went into the office, half nervous, expecting an apologetic Imran, reticent maybe, would he ask me on a date? But nothing happened. He was at his desk, thumping the keyboard for all it was worth. I shrugged. Nothing lost, nothing gained.
Rose, our tea lady, looked like she was 90. She had been Fairman’s housekeeper for almost ten years and he couldn’t bear to have her leave for the Philippines once her contract ended, so he paid for her to stay on. She couldn’t make decent coffee or tea, and could barely dust, sweep or vacuum, so Sumi and I took turns to clean the office from time to time. The toilets were everyone’s responsibility, so in fact, Rose was there as a reminder of Fairman’s childhood—or lack of it—and that all was well in his world. There was a story going around that she had drowned Fairman’s pet kitten in the toilet bowl when he was a kid, and when she stood there unmoving, every day, staring out the office window, I often wondered about the horrors she had seen. I remember Fairman saying once—her father was in the army, Marcos got to him—as he drew his hand across his throat in a flourish.
Sumi read law in Leicester, England and specialised in human rights. By the time we met, she had already worked in Hong Kong, Iran and Indonesia. She was also back in KL to look after her ailing mother. Nothing terminal, thank goodness, but god, can she be a nag! Filial piety. Didn’t matter how long you’d been away. If your parents needed you, and if you were born and raised Asian, you just had to be there.
The office’s secretary Jackie doubled as Fairman’s personal assistant, bill payer, salary dispenser, agony aunt, nurse, occasi
onal moneylender and chauffeur. She got us home when we were too drunk to hail a cab or stumble to our cars. She was the office saviour, our veritable Good Samaritan. We all loved Jackie; she was the heart and soul of the office and she mothered us all in her no-nonsense manner, with her ample derriere, painted eye-brows, frosted lipstick and her ancient blue Mercedes which smelled of Salem menthol cigarettes.
Our advertising executive Ridzwan Muhammad Nordin, or Riz, barely spoke to any of us. Nobody knew why. Maybe he hated the fact that he was working for a bunch of drunken Anglophiles. His sat, back straight, headphones perpetually stuck in both ears, twirling a pen in his hands with expert dexterity, brows twisted in a constant frown. He did his job well enough despite his poor social skills: ironic, as he had to sell ad space to keep the magazine going. He never once joined us at the pub, or partook in any office excursions. He was just there to sell ads. He came to work, stepped out for lunch, had three cups of coffee a day, went to the mosque to pray on Fridays—which neither Fairman nor Imran ever did—and went home at exactly 5.30pm every day.
The Review’s office was located on the ground floor of a shop lot at Phileo Damansara, just off Jalan Damansara. Sumi and I took turns to carpool to get to work, so we could save on petrol. Our salaries weren’t much: we made minimum wage and slightly more, but we knew that the writing was what mattered. And Fairman gave us that freedom.
The magazine kept pushing the boundaries of journalism; it was risky in many areas by Malaysian standards, but we didn’t care. As long as our Fairman stood by us, we would keep writing until someone saw it fit to shut us down. Our covers were sometimes controversial—we had lawyers, architects, a once-exiled student activist, a comedian, a popular musician, someone who was gay and HIV positive and, the month before, Anwar Ibrahim. Imran had written the cover story and he was mad, infuriated that Anwar was now behind bars.
He knew it was coming, you know. He fucking knew. Bastard wanted him out!
There was a brittle tension in the office. We were operating on adrenaline, gumption and a compulsion to flirt with risk. After Anwar’s arrest, we were on the streets again and again. We took to wearing sneakers to work every day, just in case there was another protest, and there always was. Every day. As the trial progressed the stories became more and more lurid: semen-stained mattresses, a how-to on sodomy, a self-inflicted black eye. It was vile. Whatever dignity we had as a country was gone; the spectacle was the fodder of international headlines. Such was the malaise of Malaysians. Our judiciary had become a mockery of justice and we were sickened to the core.
We had written stories on the new sex drug Viagra, the Clinton affair, Matthew Shepard’s death and the demise of Suharto, but none matched the ferocity of the Anwar story. As expected, other players were dragged onto the murky stage: Sukma Dermawan, Anwar’s supposed step-brother, who was alleged to have been sodomised 15 times; Azizan, one of Anwar’s aides, who had denied being sodomised, but later retracted his story; Dr Munawar Anees, scholar and speech-writer, and around them a motley crew of rogues and villains, all in powerful circles, with the Prime Minister on top.
It became our main story. We dug and we wrote, getting angrier by the day, getting drunk and having heated conversations at the Bulldog, waking up with blistering hangovers, but pushing, constantly and consistently, the boundaries of whatever little press freedom we had.
On 13 November, the last day of the trial, foreign press packed the High Court. The UN Special Rapporteur for Malaysia, Param Cumarasamy, was not allowed in. Furious, he vented at the press. This is an obvious and blatant miscarriage of justice! He had sat in courts for trials on Cambodia, El Salvador, Haiti and Rwanda, and here he was, denied entry to the delivery of the verdict of the most watched trial in the world.
By 8am we were all there at the courthouse, waiting for the verdict, along with the foreign press. It was humid from the rain earlier, the sky a stark, cloudless blue. And then it came, first like a hushed whisper between illicit lovers, then a barbaric yawp. A tearful press secretary came out and softly mouthed the verdict. Anwar was sentenced to six years in prison. Screams of dismay.
What? No! No! NO!
Fairman, Imran, Sumi and I were all there. Wan Azizah, Anwar’s wife, came out of the courthouse in tears, surrounded by her two elder daughters, weeping openly. Then an angry horde.
Reformasi!
Reformasi!
Anwar emerged, face drawn, herded into a Black Maria like a common criminal. The crowd surged forward. It was a farce, a mockery of justice.
Six fucking years! For what? Six fucking years! Six fucking years!
Imran repeated it again and again like a bad mantra in the Range Rover until Fairman told him to shut up. We sat in silence as we drove past the police cars, past the frenzy of the screaming, weeping supporters, past miles and miles of traffic, cars honking, drivers white with shock. We got to the Bulldog and started drinking. We drank shots. After one bottle, Fairman ordered another. More vodka! Drink up guys, tomorrow we start again. Imran wept openly, Fairman took his glasses off and buried his face in his hands. Sumi and I smoked cigarette after cigarette, staring at two guys playing pool, until it was time to leave. We had drunk two bottles of vodka. I got home and threw up, passing out on the toilet floor.
The next day, with heads pounding, we sat numb at our computers, staring into black screens, not knowing what to write. We were devastated, gutted.
Two days later, The Review was shut down, for reasons that were undisclosed. I remember Fairman coming out of his office, his eyes wild. Guys, we’ve been shut down.
Fucking wankers! Imran threw his coffee mug at the wall. Always wanted to do that! He smiled, then started throwing papers into a box.
We got to work. We grabbed files from the cabinets and shoved them into black garbage bags. I ran into the photo archives and pulled out negatives and prints, trying to arrange them with some semblance of order into boxes. I grabbed leftover stocks of film in the fridge and shoved them into plastic bags. Fairman shouted, Save all your floppy disks, make sure they’re marked and give them to me before you go. Imran took charge and stood by the door, marking handmade lists. The Review had been around for only five years, precious noteworthy years, and our archives were worth saving. Riz and Jin packed up their desks silently and efficiently; in spite of what was going on, they still remained emotionless. Rose kept sighing and shaking her head. She packed up the kitchen things, muttering in Tagalog, stacking up mugs and old plates. What you want me to do, Sir? Keep or throw away? We threw out a mountain of paperwork. Jackie drove her car to the front and we stuffed bags of rubbish in the front, back and boot. She made ten trips to the dump that day. Fairman was on the phone making calls. He got no answers that day. His beloved stack of backdated Guardian newspapers had to be thrown out. Only take what’s necessary! We have to get out by today or we’re fucked!
The Review’s license had been revoked and for the first time in my life, I felt angry enough to draw blood. It was the end of a short era, our spirits were crushed, and when Riz walked out the office door for the last time, I swore I saw him wipe away a tear.
You can’t do that!
What? An assassination? I’d be doing us all a favour.
How? How would you do it?
There are ways.
But he’s guarded by a small army, armed to the teeth!
Yeah. You know that they call him now?
Mahafiraun.
The great pharaoh?
Bastard. Kiss my ass. Mahafiraun.
Hmmph!
I wish he would just drop dead.
Black magic.
Sure, let’s find a bomoh in Kampung Baru who can whip up a really devious spell. Something that will make his penis fall off or something like that.
Yeah, if you can get a bomoh to stop rain and thunder, damn, why not an evil politician?
Except his bomoh is probably more powerful than any other in KL.
So how?
Shit, man.
Fuck!
We had been drinking and were probably on our fourth gin and tonics. An empty can doubled as an ashtray on the arm of my chair. Sumi’s apartment was sparse, but there were two comfy armchairs with Afghan throws and large, fluffy cushions on the floor. A pair of wooden candlesticks from Istanbul. An Iranian saddlebag with colourful wool tassels—gorgeous but too prickly to lie on. Boho-chic. Cool.
The almost empty bottle of gin sat between us and there was already a line of empty bottles in her kitchen from our drinking sessions over the past few weeks. We’d lost our jobs so we had been reduced to drinking at home.
One more gin pahit coming up! Gin, served up with a sliver of lime, colonial style.
Goddammit, Sumi, you need a planter’s chair. I am a sweaty Englishman, waiting for his houseboy to bring his noontime gin.
A planter’s chair? Where the hell am I supposed to find one? Do they even still make them?
Antique shops. My dad found one in Malacca. Kutty’s.
Drive down there one of these days?
Sure. Why not?
We clinked glasses and sighed simultaneously.
I feel so helpless.
Tell me about it.
I was chain-smoking Sempoernas: skinny, sweet Indonesian clove cigarettes. Sumi didn’t smoke as much as I did, but that day she did. She took one from me, lit it up and inhaled deeply.
This is going straight to my head.
We’d been talking about options. There was a protest that day and we were exhausted from running the streets. The number of protests was growing and KL had seen nothing like it. Malaysians were angry, and people were coming out in droves to show their support. Fear had left us. Years of indoctrination were rendered futile. People had woken up to an anger that had to be released. And for many, the only option was to just show up on the street, to be seen and to be heard.
I felt a measure of pride, and to be running next to strangers felt more meaningful than anything I had known until then. It was full-throttle adrenaline; it was heady and rich, it made us bolder and more reckless, as if history had conspired and collided into one moment, where all could be free.
Once We Were There Page 2
