The tingling would start in the stomach, then move upwards like a golden trail, until it spread all over your arms, chest, neck and, like a crown, settled on your head. Your body was all light, sensitive to every touch, every motion, every stimulus. Your skin felt alive, longing for love, light, glory. Glory to all. Hail the Almighty. It just felt holy, it felt like you should give thanks.
Then, you’d start to jump a little, sway, move in unison with the tide of music, feet on the ground, touching the earth’s core. You’d feel it inching up your heels, thighs; the earth was alive, and you with it. You’d feel like rejoicing in the power of life. Your stomach would lurch, empty of all remorse, vengeance, anger.
Only joy. Oh. Joy.
Karin grabbed my hand. Hers felt cold. Our hands clutched each others’ hungrily. Her eyes turned steel grey, like twin bullets. We swayed into each other, hips moving in unison.
E made you speak the truth. Apparently that’s why shrinks used it as couples’ therapy at exclusive ashrams in India and New York. Couples who had not been intimate or connected took it to fall in love again. Or to speak the unadulterated truth. It saved marriages, lives. It put people in touch with themselves again. It allowed people to feel again.
At a certain point during the night, as if by clockwork, everything would climax. It was a moment when there was synchronicity. The music was perfect. The mass of people on the dance floor would heave like some kind of amorphous creature, a cloud of bees or birds. A flocking. A gathering. Of souls. We were all high, riding the wave, all peaking together. It was fabulous.
Karin turned to me. Oh my god, this is so good. I feel so good.
I closed my eyes. She sounded like she was slurring and everything was slow motion, but it wasn’t. I felt like I was floating off the ground. I felt light, airless. No more pain. No more anything. Just bliss.
My mother was killed in a car crash. She slammed her BMW into a pole and was killed in an instant. She was drunk, and probably didn’t feel a thing. I was 14.
Mother was an only child, as was Papa. Both sets of grandparents could only manufacture one child each, and my parents had gravitated to each other, like lost puppies. I too was an only child, my parents capable of copulating only so much. Or perhaps Mother never wanted any more children, or even me to begin with.
They met when Mother was acting in a theatre production of a local play where she played a prostitute, and she looked luminous, like Natalie Wood. Papa fell for her at first sight. Every time he told this story, he would grasp her hand and Mother would throw her head back, and they would kiss quickly on the lips, as if to seal their love again.
Mother came from Ipoh, Perak, the tin-rich town of limestone caves, kway teow noodles with chicken slivers, chubby bean sprouts and beautiful women, where Chinese millionaires made and lost their fortunes and whose children went to English boarding schools and came back with thick accents and pasty spouses. Born to working-class parents, she went to the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus on Brewster Road and became a rebel. At 14 she became part of an all-girls gang called The Heartbreakers, and was once almost suspended from school after being caught smoking with a group of boys from Sam Tet—in the graveyard beside St Michael’s Church during school hours. It was scandalous. The nuns were horrified and she became the undisputed “rebel chick” of the school.
Mother was a restless soul from the very beginning; she couldn’t wait to get out of Ipoh; and when she did, she couldn’t wait to get out of KL. Papa was her ticket to a better life and she stayed with him, only because he loved her. Perhaps that was a little harsh. I am sure she loved him too, but I know he loved her more.
She was never happy, even when she said she was. Even when he gave a new necklace, or a new watch.
Oh darling, how beautiful. You’ve made me the happiest woman in the world.
Darling, darling. My darling husband. How I love you.
She said it all the time, perhaps to convince herself that she was lucky, that she was happy.
Papa gave her everything. A beautiful house, a car, all the designer clothes, shoes and handbags she desired. And his heart. He was the consummate husband, with eyes for no one else. Yet my mother was never part of the living; she flitted in and out of rooms, corridors, conversations. She barely raised me, she fussed over a cup of tea more than my feverish skin, and let the maid bathe, feed and nurture me. I don’t think I ever felt the hard crush of a mother’s love: the endless kisses, the coddling, the sniffing in between the cracks of the neck and shoulder, the shrill wail of dismay when a dummy dropped from a mouth, the touching gazes with unconditional love. I don’t think my mother ever loved me. I don’t think she was ever capable of loving anything, or anyone.
She took to drinking, and I don’t ever remember her without a crystal tumbler of whisky. Or vodka, or gin. Mother with a cigarette in her mouth. Mother only waking up after I got home from school. Looking dishevelled at three in the afternoon. Mother sitting by herself in the garden, by the pool covered with leaves. Her wavy hair piled high on her head, her black eyeliner smudged, in her sarong, the one that she had worn in the hospital the day she gave birth to me.
Mother. My mother.
My beautiful, terrifying, threatening mother.
Papa never recovered from the shock of her death. For years, he sat at his desk in his study, surrounded by his leather-bound law books in ornate, antique Dutch bookcases. His work suffered, his reputation for being one of the top human rights lawyers in the country diminished, and the phone just stopped ringing. No more invitations to parties, dinners, open houses. He aged overnight, his thick hair turning grey, and he retreated into a cave. We stopped having conversations, we stopped going to Raju’s for thosai and tea, we stopped our weekend walks in Gasing Hill. My father was also dead in a way, becoming a mask of a man, retreating into the shadows like me.
Two shadows, flitting in and out of darkness and light, in between the crevasses of each other and the walls of our home.
Saksi took off.
Sumi knew how to work the website; she had a knack for new technologies, and we ran it off the few computers that weren’t confiscated from the office. They took everything else. The Ministry of Home Affairs now had our back issues, invoices, receipts, POs, files and files of faxes, all manner of paperwork and of course, Fairman’s beloved copies of The Guardian.
The Review wasn’t the only magazine that had been shut down. We heard of others; another men’s mag that had written a piece about the corruption that went on during the Commonwealth Games and an art magazine that had pictures of the Jakarta student street protests. It seemed that anything that had anti-government sentiment had been silenced.
We ran Saksi out of Fairman’s apartment in Damansara Heights and the four of us stayed on as stringers. Look, I don’t know how long I can afford to do this, but let’s hope we get some hits, and then maybe we can get some ad money to keep us going.
But Imran suggested that we get our pieces syndicated. Can you imagine if we were picked up?
Fairman laughed. What? By the mighty Guardian?
And why the hell not? We have to try! And who the hell is going to give us ad money? To write this? What, you think we can still rely on the banks? The property market? Fucking Ralph Lauren ads? Get real, Fairman!
Imran was right. No one was going to risk investing in an independent news journal. It was too dangerous, and everyone was being watched. A sniff by the Home Ministry could put you out of business. We were on our own.
Riz, Jin and Jackie had to go, but Rose was there to make us endless cups of tea and coffee. I taught her how to properly brew coffee and tea—the water has to be boiling hot, Rose. We lived on sardine and egg sandwiches.
The New Straits Times and The Star were spouting overt government propaganda so the public was being fed lies. Fairman paid us thirty cents a word, it was the best he could do. We knew he was dipping into his trust fund, and we were grateful.
We wrote features, opinion pieces an
d posted black-and-white photos. Reportage style. Good ol’ Fairman. He was such a decent bloke with us all—we ate and slept in the living room, surrounded by his mum’s quirky bric-a-brac. She was a real royalist, so the walls featured gold-rimmed Charles and Diana plates, ornamental spoons, brass horseshoes, watercolours of the English countryside and Laura Ashley-style calico curtains.
KL was crawling with journos from all corners of the world. After Jakarta, KL was the next big story, so many just stayed on in the region. AFP, AWSJ, FEER, Reuters, AP, the Post from Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Washington and the Beeb.
We’d meet them on the streets, you could spot a foreign journo in two seconds—there was that air of fatigue around them, of blood and bombs—exchange cards, and then invite them over for drinks.
The apartment became quite the hub for late night after-protest, after-court sessions. There was a lot of talk and some pretty serious drinking. I discovered then that most journalists were alcoholics—It just comes with the territory—some of the conversations were harrowing and comical. Old “war” stories would come out—these were after all real journos—and Sumi and I would sit awestruck and listen to their stories, whilst we all got drunker and drunker.
There was Josh who prided himself in banging pussy all the way from Rwanda, the West Bank to Bosnia; Will who had dodged live bullets in Dili and was imprisoned for a day in the most filthy cell ever described; Ken the lanky Canadian rookie who had spent a week in Bangkok before KL; and Langton from Chicago, the veteran, who chain-smoked Marlboro Reds and drank himself into a stupor and growled from time to time, You gotta know when to get in, and when to get out.
There were few female “war” reporters, so to speak, Langton would say that the chicks in the field were only good before they had kids, once they did, they got soft. Lost their edge. Nobody wanted a chick hanging around, they were an easy target. We were the only chicks in the room, so sometimes we got the feeling that we were just meant to be seen and not heard. These guys had been through the mill, had been in the frontlines, had dodged real bullets, seen dead bodies. They were heroes to us. Will had met Xanana Gusmao, the ultimate poster boy for human rights, as I dreamed of a day that I would meet him in person.
Langton had been in South Africa in ‘94 and had been friends with Ken Oosterbroek, Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva and Ken Carter; the four photographers known as the Bang-Bang Club. I was there in Thokoza that day. Oosterbroek was hit. Fuck. Never forget that. All those bodies. Hell. Still get nightmares.
After a while, it was just a party every night, we never knew who was going to show up. KL was crawling with Special Branch officers so we had to make sure that we knew who was coming through the door. My latest feature had generated a lot of interest and Fairman had started getting phone calls late at night. There would be calls, and then you’d hear clicking on the other side. They were spying on us, tapping our phones.
It was basic reportage, I didn’t think that I was capable of presenting dialectic arguments—what was happening was complicated on so many levels of Malaysian society—all I felt I could do was write what I saw and heard.
In my heart, I knew that the seeds of change had started to take root, the country had woken up, and the fear that had gripped us since Mahathir came to power was slowly being questioned and eroded. There were, of course, many who rallied against Anwar, staunch Mahathirists who felt that it was better to have a devil they knew than one they didn’t.
Could Anwar be trusted? Could anyone be trusted? All we knew was that the country was on the verge of a new beginning, and this is what we had hoped for.
It had arrived, finally on our doorsteps, like a bouquet of fresh flowers from an unknown admirer. And we were ready.
Sign of the times
Times, they are a-changing. Delonix Regia ponders the signs.
20 September 1998 is an important date in our post ‘69 political history. Malaysians walked, some of us covering a total of six miles, beginning a search for self-determination lost to a regime that has both coddled and cowed us into submission. The steps I retrace here are part of a landscape of political and cultural signs that we are discovering anew, and in which I am both eyewitness and participant.
The events around the incidents at Sri Perdana and Masjid Negara can no longer be told in a naïve fashion. Too much is at stake for those who oppose the Reformasi movement, as well as those who support it. As this nation is polarised by the current crisis the ability to speak with reasonable objectivity diminishes, as do forums in which to negotiate our differences, whether they be political or cultural.
Old Sites, New Signs
It’s important to remember that the day began with the relocation of the Reformasi rally from Dataran Merdeka to the Masjid Negara. Yet, with his undeniable charisma and oratory skills, Anwar, through both the tone and substance of his speech, went beyond the symbolic confines of the site to establish that the Reformasi movement intended to speak to all Malaysians regardless of political and religious convictions, and beyond ethnic group affiliations. For sceptics as well as supporters, the atmosphere was electrifying. More so when Anwar declared that we—the rakyat —should reclaim Dataran; but he did so by first demanding the crowd agree to be peaceful.
We poured into Dataran—estimates run from a low of fifteen thousand to a high of a hundred thousand. No head count, though, can detract from the significance of the moment. Here was a broad spectrum of Malaysians demonstrating their feelings; maybe against the increasingly debased political style of the Mahathir administration, maybe against the management of the economic crisis; certainly, for many, in support of their displaced leader.
Under the shadow of Bukit Aman, the Ministry of the Interior, which looms over Dataran Merdeka, Anwar addressed the crowd through a less than adequate sound system. Shouts of “Reformasi” were occasionally overtaken by demands for people to sit so that we all could enjoy the spectacle equally. After a speech that was hardly audible to me, Anwar was carried on the shoulders of his supporters, and no indication was given as to what would come next. But it felt like the crowd made its desires known as we found ourselves moving down Jalan Raja Laut chanting—some “Reformasi”, some “Allahu Akbar”, others “Hidup Anwar”—waving at onlookers and making a loud but friendly racket. Nothing in my experience was as exhilarating as this, spontaneously reclaiming the streets.
Twenty days later, on 10 October, thousands staged a noisy drive-past on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. The police did not intervene as people cheered and chanted; and then walked to Masjid Negara; finally returning to Dataran. The standoff lasted half an hour. This time when the crowds dispersed we walked towards the FRU line and shook hands with them. One or two officers refused my hand, but most obliged. More signs.
So. The signs were these.
I was coming down from E. Karin was nowhere to be seen. I felt hollowed out. Needed to get horizontal. Get home.
E makes you head to the bathroom and you empty your bowels. Sign number one. My stomach felt like it had been pumped out, like there was a long icy slug moving up and down my throat and whirling around my insides. I was hot and cold, hot and cold. My hands were clammy and I would have been grinding my teeth for hours. My jaw would ache for days. My eyelids were sluggish and I was completely talked out. I felt like shit, my brain felt like slime and all I wanted in the world was my bed.
You start talking nonstop and you allude to certain attributes to persons known and unknown and you say things like, God…I love…you…man. This is so…fucking…beautiful. Time for change. This country…has…to…change. You’re…important. Your work…is so…important. This…is…the…time. It is NOW.
You transform into a gushy, lovey-dovey mess and become one Big Love Machine.
Sign number two.
At around 5am, the club was slowing down. People were huddled in corners, some still dancing and chattering, inhaling cigarettes like their lives depended on it and swigging back gulps of water. You could always tell the
ones who just kept popping pills all night, they looked like overcharged Energizer bunnies. Hundreds of empty plastic bottles everywhere. Clubs like this sold water for ten ringgit a pop on weekends. It was criminal, but there’s where the money was.
Where the fuck is Karin?
I saw Malique, whom we were dirty dancing with earlier, Karin sandwiched in between. He was her favourite make-up artist, and a real party animal. He was stretched out on a couch in the corner and in the dark I could see his eyes and trademark smoky-eye make-up.
Hey, have you seen Karin?
Del…fuck man…still tripping…can’t stand any more…penat sial. He grinned sloppily.
Have you seen Karin?
I think…I saw her leave…
What? Who with?
Dunno, he shrugged, started giggling and lit a cigarette, Hey…chill out lah…Karin can look after herself.
I suddenly felt anxious. This was the horror about coming down. The anxiety. The imagined panic. The fear. I ground my teeth and immediately popped some gum.
Hey man, got any valium?
Malique was talking to someone else, a girl with thick eyebrows and a skirt hiked up her thighs. Her eyes were glazed and she was slumped in a corner. She mumbled and struggled to get up then staggered back onto the couch. Malique started giggling even more.
I sat on a chair for a while, thinking, trying to think of what to do. Everything was a blur. I didn’t recognise faces, they all became shadow-blobs, moving, dancing shadows.
The music started rising again and Malique couldn’t hear me. My throat was clammed up and the slinky waves of panic jiggled harder inside me. I started shivering.
Sign number three.
I had to figure out what to do. I didn’t want to stay in the club. Not anymore. Only the hardcore druggies would be left—they’d have the club all to themselves and keep going for another 24 hours. I’d heard stories of orgies and heroin and overdosing. The club stank of stale air. I stank too.
Once We Were There Page 4
