by Tash Aw
Nightfall.
Sometimes the rain clouds that gathered in the afternoon refused to break and the skies stayed dark and cobalt colored, and the day turned into a long, purple dusk that hastened the arrival of darkness. Later, much later, once night had taken hold, the rain would at last fall and make the streets of the city slick and sometimes a little muddy, and the buildings would be quiet and empty, and out in the new suburbs the stretches of fields and scrubland that separated the clustered lights of the houses would be blank with darkness, and you could imagine that they were filled not with heaps of rubbish and broken bicycles but with trees and ponds. Sometimes you could imagine the sea. And this was when he felt happiest, for the night seemed longer and deeper and more silent.
They ran across the playing field, splashing through puddles of water. They stumbled and Farah laughed, a sharp, childlike cry that made Johan think that she had hurt herself, but when he turned to look at her he knew she was smiling. Even in the near-dark he could see that she was happy. There were goalposts at one end of the field, three wooden poles nailed together to make a spindly frame whose two feet stood in pools of water. Farah jumped and touched the top bar with her hand as she ran underneath it. Look, Johan, she cried.
They reached the shelter at the far end of the field that housed a wooden table and some benches. They tugged at the edges of their shirts and tried to wring the water from them, but it was useless, so they just sat on the table with their feet on a bench, out of breath from their dash through the rain, laughing.
I have mud in my shoes, Farah said, but she did not sound unhappy.
Me too. I suppose we just have to wait until the rain stops.
It was not a fierce storm but the rain was still heavy, drumming loudly on the flimsy roof overhead and falling in thin, steady streams where the grooves in the zinc sheeting sloped toward the ground. They stared out at the darkness but could not make out any shapes. The goalposts and the seesaw and swings in the children’s playground had disappeared and they could see very little except the pale haze of the rain. Now and then the sky would be lit by a distant flash of lightning and suddenly they would see everything again, the young acacia saplings bending in the wind, the rows of thorny bushes, the merry-go-round. Everything would burst into life for a few seconds and then disappear into the darkness again, and there would only be the soothing rumble of thunder.
Daddy says you’re going to military college.
Johan did not say anything for a while. He leaned forward and water ran from his hair onto his brow and began to tickle his eyes. He blinked. Yes, I suppose I am.
Farah imitated him and rested her elbows on her knees, cupping her chin with her hands. Are you upset?
He shook his head. He was thankful it was dark because he knew she could not see his face clearly.
Anyway, she said, Sungai Besi’s not so far away. Daddy says you can come home from time to time.
Sure.
Don’t be sad.
Who says I’m sad?
Me. Because I’m sad.
You mustn’t be. Johan looked at her, but she was not facing him and there was not enough light to make out her face. He was glad he couldn’t see.
Johan. He felt her hand search for his, her fingers stubbing clumsily into his thigh before finding his forearm, then his wrist. She let her hand rest gently on his. It felt very light. She said, Johan, please share with me. Your life, I mean.
We grew up together. You know my life.
No, I mean before that. Somehow I feel, oh, I don’t know. I think sometimes that was your real life and when you came to us you stopped living, you just gave up. You shut us out. Even Mummy. Even me.
I’m still alive and kicking, aren’t I? Johan laughed. And with his free hand he reached out and squeezed hers.
Johan, she said. She paused. Did something happen to you when you were small? At the orphanage, I mean. It’s just, there’s something I remember when I was very young, maybe eight. You must have been ten, a couple of years after you came to us. I had a nightmare one night and I went to Mummy and Daddy’s room. I don’t know why. I wanted a hug, I guess. They were arguing; not loudly, you know, just softly, keeping their voices down, and Mummy was talking in a really fierce voice, attacking Daddy the way she doesn’t anymore. You remember how she used to be when she was younger. I couldn’t hear the exact words, I just remember the tone. And then there was a silence, and Daddy said, So what if I know where the other one is, what do you want me to do, go back and get him? You made the decision, so don’t feel guilty now.
Above the harsh clatter of the rain on the roof Johan could hear a gentler note, a hushing sound made by the rain falling on the soft earth, on the shallow pools of water that covered the land in front of them. It was a sound of trees disturbed by the wind, their leaves and branches flailing in the night storm. If Johan closed his eyes he could pretend he was by the sea, and the noise was that of rain falling on sand. He tried to concentrate on this noise, but it was difficult because of the rattling of the tin sheets overhead.
For a long time I thought I must have dreamed it, that it was late at night and I didn’t know what was going on, Farah continued. She was talking very softly and it was not easy to hear her voice. You know what kind of imagination a kid has. Sometimes they dream things up and those things are so much more convincing than real life. That thing I heard Mummy and Daddy say, well, it was so real I thought I must have dreamed it. And anyway, even if it was true, so what? It doesn’t mean anything, because we all know you had a brother, right?
You’re right, it doesn’t mean anything.
But … but if that’s the case, why do I feel so guilty every time I think about it? Why do I feel so bad? Why did they sound so full of anguish? Especially Mummy. And even Daddy. It made me feel, I don’t know, as though there was something I should have known about you but didn’t. I felt as if you were all alone, you were all alone and suffering and I wasn’t doing anything to help you.
Johan did not speak. The wind was blowing the rain into curious shapes, broad swirls or straight shafts that arrowed toward the ground. He remembered a picture he had seen a few years back, a kind of drawing or watercolor, he wasn’t sure which. It was in an old book that had become wet sometime in its history and all its pages were brittle and stained. The picture was of a person so pitiful that Johan could not really even tell if it was a man or woman or boy or girl. And in the picture this person was doing nothing except gazing into the landscape with an expression so forlorn and lonely that it made Johan feel sick, for this pathetic person was all alone in the world, in a desolate place that looked like everywhere Johan had ever lived. He copied down the title of this picture, Un Fou Dans Un Morne Paysage, and when he looked up the meaning of this in a dictionary at school, he learned that the person was a madman. Johan had not thought of the poor creature as a madman. He was just someone who was alone in a barren place. But maybe that was what it meant to be a madman. Perhaps being really, truly alone in a desolate world meant that you were mad because you could not understand this world that belonged to others. Johan thought that maybe he himself was mad. And it was a relief of sorts to think that.
You’re not crazy, Farah. Sometimes, he said, sometimes I have the same feeling. I think I must have imagined it all.
Imagined what?
Everything. The orphanage, my brother, coming to live with you. I wish I had imagined it all, but I know I didn’t. You know how people say that things fade with time, that your memory becomes weaker? It doesn’t. Everything becomes clearer. And you see it all the time. All the time. You try and run away from it, but it just follows you every second of the day and night and you can’t escape it.
What can you remember? Her fingers closed around his hand, pressing gently.
I can remember Mummy and Daddy coming to the orphanage. Mummy was wearing a dress made from batik, not really a kebaya but almost. She had a scarf over her head, not a tudung but something that hid her hair and neck.
I remember thinking, What a beautiful woman. They were both wearing sunglasses, and they spoke in an accent that I couldn’t really understand. We were brought into the Room. We called it the Room because it was the only proper room in the orphanage, you know, not a dorm or a partitioned space. A room. That was where, where …
Where what?
Where you were punished. If you were naughty, they took you there and closed the door, and they punished you. The Brothers, that is. They beat you with a rotan. On your bare skin where it hurt.
Johan.
This was where they brought us when Mummy and Daddy came. Both of us. Me and my brother. We stood up and the Brothers told Mummy and Daddy about us, and said all nice things, that we were good boys, always well behaved and quiet, never made noise, and Mummy said, They’re not mute, are they? And the nurse said, No, no, of course not, and Mummy laughed. She made everyone laugh. Daddy kept looking at his watch, tracing its outline with his fingers. The same watch he has now, the Rolex. It must have been new. And the Brothers said, Don’t worry, even though we are a Christian charity these are good Muslim boys, their mother was Muslim, from Sumatra, we think, we’re not sure. I was so happy. I was happy because I knew Mummy wanted us. I knew we were leaving. I was holding my brother’s hand and suddenly I could feel him trembling. He was looking out the window and not saying anything but I knew something was wrong. One of the Brothers came and put his hand on my brother’s shoulder and his eyes went cloudy and he started to make a noise. Not sobbing, but a weird sighing, and he fell down on the floor as if his legs had no strength in them, and I tried to pick him up but his eyes had gone blank, black and blank, and it frightened me. And I called his name over and over again, but he wouldn’t stop, and the more the other people tried to touch him, the worse he became. I put my arms around him and then he began to calm down. I thought he was dying. His breaths were quick, so quick, and hot. The Brothers were saying, So sorry, he’s like this sometimes, it’s not serious. Please, it’s not serious. Later, we were in the dormitory, sitting on his bed, and he was okay, completely normal, playing with this thing, a globe with fake snow in it. He just sat there turning it upside down and then back again. Mummy and Daddy stood at the windows watching us, and I heard Daddy say, We can’t stay long, we have a long drive, and then there’s the ferry. You have to decide by tomorrow morning, but I have to say I don’t like the small, sick one—oh, never mind. And Mummy said, But the poor thing, he is so weak. It was your stupid idea in the first place, Daddy said. I didn’t know what this meant but I didn’t care, it didn’t seem important. After a long long while Mummy came to me and I could smell her perfume, like roses, so sweet, and she took off her sunglasses and said, Tomorrow we are taking you to our home, all right? And you can’t imagine how happy I was. I felt as if my chest would burst because I knew we were escaping. They left us alone for a few minutes and I said to my brother, You don’t have to worry anymore, we’re leaving. There’s nothing to fear, we’re going away from this place, that lovely woman is going to take us away and we are going to live with her. He looked at me and smiled. He was happy, truly happy. I could not ever remember him looking happy. When the lights went out that night my brother came to my bed and said, Johan, are we really going away? And I said, Yes we are, but as I said it something changed in my head, and I felt scared, felt scared because suddenly I thought maybe only one of us would go. Please god please god let them take my brother, I said over and over in my head, and after a while I thought, yes, they were going to take my brother because he was smaller than me and often he was sick and they could see that he needed help. He would be lonely without me at first but he would have a nice house to live in and nice parents to look after him and soon he would forget me, and that would be nice. But then I thought, What if they take me instead? He would not survive without me. He slept so soundly that night and hardly moved at all, and his breaths were long and deep and when I looked at him he seemed so peaceful I could have sworn he was smiling. I didn’t want him to be on his own. We had talked so much about doing things together, climbing a mountain, swimming in the sea. You know, the sea was very close to where we were but we had never seen it, never. And suddenly I knew we would never do those things, I knew that Mummy and Daddy would take me and not Adam, so I thought maybe if I, if I …
If you what? Farah touched his arm lightly.
If I went away and did not tell anyone, it would be okay, they would have no choice, they would have to take Adam. I remember going to the window and listening for the sounds of the sea. It wasn’t far away but we could never hear it, never. So I, I …
Breathe slowly, Johan, slow down. Farah stroked his hand. Please.
Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I waited for dawn, and when it came I began to feel better, and I thought maybe there was nothing to worry about, I was being crazy, getting worked up over nothing. When Mummy and Daddy came I felt good again because they were the nicest people I’d ever seen. It was early in the morning, and my brother was still asleep. Everyone was still asleep. Mummy came and took me by the hand and said, I want to talk to you, we’re just going to have a quick word, okay? I said, We’re both going, aren’t we? She nodded, I swear she nodded, and I was happy again. She had her sunglasses on again and she said, Come along, hurry. Hurry. She walked very quickly. I thought she was going to show me something in the car, but when we got into the car and the doors closed I knew what was happening. The Brothers and the nurse were waving to us, and the car started to move away. A kind of sickness welled up inside me, a terror. I couldn’t move. I wanted to scream and shout for my brother and say, stop, stop, but my body would not move, and I could make no sound. I just knelt on the seat watching the orphanage recede into the distance. There was a cloud of dust that made everything seem yellow, the whole landscape, the trees, everything. And then …
Shh, Johan, oh Johan, please calm down. Farah touched his face, his wet skin.
And then I saw, I saw my brother. He was running after the car. He was a long way away, but through the dust I saw his plump little legs stumbling in the dirt, until finally he gave up and slowed to a walk, and I heard Daddy say, Don’t look, don’t look. He said it in a quiet voice. I didn’t know if he was talking to Mummy or me. I hear this sometimes in my dreams, when I am all alone. Don’t look. And that’s when I wish I hadn’t looked. It’s when I wish I had dreamed it all.
You’re shaking, Johan. You’re hot.
The storm was not abating, but they both wished it would not end, that it would carry on through the night. He lowered his head and rested it on her collarbone, in that safe place between her chin and her shoulder where he could shelter and listen to the storm. Johan said, Sometimes when it comes back to me I get so angry because I think to myself, I should have run away that night. Mummy would have taken Adam instead of me and he would have this life, my life. But I didn’t, Farah, I didn’t have the courage.
She stroked his wet hair and felt his breaths, quick and hot against the chill of her skin.
You’ve never told me your brother’s name until today, she said at last.
Adam. His name was Adam.
Adam and Johan. That’s nice.
It’s been so long since I heard anyone say his name. Johan laughed, and Farah felt his breath on her neck again. She was not so cold now.
I wish you weren’t going away, she said. I don’t want you to go away.
I have to go away. There’s nothing else to do. I’m sorry. He shook his head, and she did not know what this meant.
Lightning. The water dripping from the roof turned into a trail of crystals, just for a moment, before becoming invisible once more in the darkness. And in the brief, pale violet light Johan could see Farah’s face, and he could see that her eyes were red and glassy with tears, but he could also see that she was smiling.
We should go now, Johan, I’m sleepy.
Now? But it’s still raining.
We’re already wet, aren’t we?
He sighed and stood up. Mayb
e you’re the one who’s really crazy.
· 25 ·
Adam lifts his head and blinks. This is what he sees: light, falling in thin shafts onto the floor. There is a rug. The rug is red. The light makes funny shapes on the red rug, like spots of bright blood on a darkened floor. Why is the rest of the floor so dark? The room is gloomy. This is because the shutters have been drawn half-shut. Adam can see that now. There are people in the room, people he has never seen before. A man and a woman. The man has a big, shiny watch. Adam can hear it ticking, even though the people from the orphanage are talking; they are talking about Adam.
Yes, they are at the orphanage. Adam knows this place.
