House of Trembling Leaves, The (3 page)

A moment later the Anglican Church began to shake. Slate tiles fell from its roof, lashing the water like mortar shells. She saw her Second-aunty Doris hobble in her direction, she was shouting at her, telling her to run for it. The church organ twisted and crumpled as the torrent swept it away. And then the entire structure collapsed.

‘‘
Aiyoo
, you know she's gone completely cuckoo-clocks, don't you?'' Sum Sum said to a passing bird as it landed quietly on the boat's gunwale. ‘‘Ever since she tripped over on lawn and struck her head on a stone she spending hours writing letters to herself, growing out her armpit hairs and speaking fancy-fancy English to imaginary sausage rolls. And now she's running away from home to marry Big Ben.''

‘‘I can hear you,'' said Lu See wrinkling her nose.

‘‘Oh good,'' Sum Sum replied. ‘‘I thought you fallen asleep standing up, lah.''

‘‘Will you please be quiet? I want to enjoy the sunset.''

Emerging from deep shadow, the low-slung
tongkang
followed a flock of bulbuls as they took to the air. On its teak deck, Lu See sipped water from a coconut husk and gazed into the tropical forest, at the filigrees of late afternoon sunlight filtering through the mist. The tongue of land wrinkled and folded before her eyes as the river mist rolled in, damp and thick. Lu See bounced the coconut husk in her hand a few times and then flipped it overboard; her eyes followed the bulbuls.

‘‘My God, I've done it,'' she said to herself quietly. For days a heavy thread of anxiety had sewn itself into her chest, ravelled and intertwined like the Iban sleeping mats of Sarawak. But now, slowly, the stitches were coming undone. As they drifted further and further away from her family's rural retreat in Juru, Lu See felt the unease subside and in its place a sense of hope and excitement emerged. She was still frightened, terrified even, that her father or Uncle Big Jowl would snatch her away, but now she had made the first step she felt her spirits leap. Her future was now in the hands of the Gods.

 

Earlier in the day, just before dawn, Lu See and Sum Sum snuck away from Tamarind Hill via the servants' quarters. Using a wheelbarrow to transport Lu See's trunk, they carefully and quietly made their way across the back lawn. At first Lu See could not see the garden from the trees as it was so black, but when her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she half turned her head and made out the row of massive tamarinds lining the drive.
That way
she whispered, finding it hard to breathe, sensing her nerves getting the better of her.

Sum Sum shuffled up beside her and they exchanged uneasy glances. Together they pushed the wheelbarrow along the dirt road. When the moon appeared from behind some clouds, they knew they would be visible against the surrounding forest so they increased their pace. Gradually, Lu See lost track of time; her world was restricted to the audible crunch of the wheelbarrow against the road, the ache in her hands and arms against the handlebars, the suffocating fear of being caught. She was so absorbed that when they reached the river's edge she did not hear Sum Sum speaking to her. ‘‘We take small row boat now and catch
tongkang
later on. Maybe one mile away. I arrange everything already.'' She watched her maidservant squat low to plunge a hand into the Juru's current and pull at a thick rope. Lu See was aware of the silence all about her – it was as if the night animals had stopped what they were doing to watch them.

The moonlight shone on the smooth black water. Sum Sum climbed aboard the small rowing boat and, by touch, shipped the oars. Lu See loaded the trunk into the stern and then stepped into the little vessel, trying to hold the craft steady with one hand. The boat was light and shallow-bottomed; it wobbled side-to-side under her weight so she sat down quickly.

‘‘You ready, meh?'' asked Sum Sum.

Lu See nodded. She looked behind her, wondering if they'd left muddied footprints in the ground.

Sum Sum untied the rope from its moorings and pushed them away from the earthen bank. Lu See felt droplets of water on her forearms as the little craft, unstable now it was laden, bobbed downriver. In the distance, up on the hill, she made out her home at the top of the drive – granules of light sparked on, indicating that the other servants were now awake. A rooster began to crow as they melted into the darkness. It would only be a matter of time before the household sent out a search party.

 

The trauma caused by the dam burst scarred the entire village. For weeks sobs of despair filled the night like fireflies released from a jar and one could not walk into the village square without embers from holy paper fanned by the temple monks catching in your hair.

Half a year had passed since the disaster. It had taken months to repair the damage and almost as long to recover the dead; for weeks decaying bodies, all bloated and white, were fished out of the river miles downstream, most of them unidentifiable. The official death toll was put at 32, but Lu See was sure that the number was more like twice that. And of course the feuding between the two clans intensified – each blaming the other for sabotaging the dam. She also remembered Sum Sum talking about seeing a man with a gun on the day of the tragedy. Who was this man? Why did he point the weapon at her? Nobody seemed to know.

Lu See and her family attended every funeral – Muslim, Christian and Taoist. Some affected Lu See more than others. The dead baby, tightly swaddled in a white shawl, haunted her, as did the sight of Mr See, the grandfather who owned the pith wood store, with his wispy Chinese beard, so long it had to be tucked into his waistband. And at each one the grief was visible wherever she looked. Women clasped and unclasped their hands, swaying their bodies and shaking their heads. Men slouched over and stared at the floor, round-mouthed with despair.

But it was her cousin Tak Ming's burial that cut her up the most. Tak Ming was Second-aunty Doris' only son. He was twenty. Lu See's brothers, James and Peter, had been particularly close to him.

When they lowered his coffin, Lu See let out a whimper like a strangled animal. Even Lu See's father, who had taken off his hat and placed it over his heart, was bawling.

Only Uncle Big Jowl stood without tears in his eyes.

Later, she found her father, Ah Ba, in their garden. He was kneeling, resting his head on the root of a fig tree and when he saw Lu See he hugged her so hard it hurt her ribs. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He opened it to reveal a photograph of a five-year-old Lu See and her two brothers sitting at the steps of the gazebo, a bowl of lychees beside them. Lu See wiped her hand on her skirt before taking the photograph, realizing without having to be told how important it was to him. ‘‘I look at this picture every morning after I wake up,'' he said. She studied the small movements of his face. ‘‘I cannot imagine what I would do if anything happened to you. If it was my daughter I had to put in the ground rather than Tak Ming.''

It was then that she'd decided to build a new pipe organ in her cousin's memory.

She tried not to think about this now.

She also tried not to think about what they'd be saying about her back home, but the thoughts came nonetheless. Like a bullhorn blast, she heard her mother's blaming tones –
how can such a girl, so pretty with such shapely-shapely mouth and bright complexion do such a thing! So much going for her, you know. Clever student, good with numbers. Cha! And athletic, aiyoo, so athletic, played field hockey for the English-stream Bing Hua Upper Sixth, to boots.

Enough, Lu See said to herself. She shook off her mother's voice with a twitch of the head. I'm free now. I'm Teoh Lu See, I'm nineteen and I'm off to start a new life. I may be suffering from a god-awful head cold, but I'm feeling great! Oh God, I'm really doing this, aren't I … I'm actually eloping.

She took a deep breath. She had never slept outside her parents' house.

Eloping. To Lu See it was a deliciously secret word, rich in taboo and mystery and adventure. The idea of running away both thrilled and terrified her, as did the thought of the huge passenger liner she was going to board in Penang and the trip across the oceans. But at least on ship, nobody would pass judgement, nobody would chastise. There would be no marriage to the One-eyed Giant, no more tongue-lashings about seeing that ‘dreaded Woo boy'. On ship she would be free.

Eloping. Elope. From the Middle Dutch
ontlopen
, to scurry away. From the Anglo-Norman French
aloper
: to run off with one's lover; possibly related to the word to leap. She had looked it up in her father's dictionary. In her mind, however, she wasn't simply eloping – she was pursuing a dream; inspired by Adrian she was going to apply for a place at Cambridge. Truth was she was more excited by the prospect of studying at Girton College than marrying Adrian Woo.

Lu See closed her eyes and felt the last dabs of evening sunshine warm her face.

A few steps behind her stood Sum Sum, her best friend, confidante and maidservant of seven years. Her black cloth shoes shuffled beside a shining eel skin trunk. Sum Sum was Darjeeling tea in colour with a moon face and stringy hair that she wore tied into a bun. Whilst Lu See was willowy legged, Sum Sum was pleasantly round. She had a compact hour-glass figure and held her back imperiously straight, clutching a small red onion which she held, arm extended, towards Lu See.

‘‘For your cold,'' she said.

Lu See shot Sum Sum a hurried look. ‘‘Are you serious? You expect me to chew on a raw onion?'' As she spoke she could feel something trickle from a nostril. She blew hard into a handkerchief.

‘‘For sure, lah. My mother was tip-top Tibetan medicine woman, lah. She gave me onion all the time.''

The
tongkang
drifted on towards Butterworth. The flag of the Malay Federation billowed in the wind – horizontal stripes of white, red, yellow and black with a prancing tiger at its centre. One of the crew, a Malaccan in a short sarong, with arms bitten black from the sun, moved cautiously to the poop, kneeling. He unfurled a thick rope with a slab of rotting mutton attached to a fist-sized hook. With one end secured to a capstan, he tossed the rope astern. The crewmen were trawling for crocodiles, hoping to sell their flesh for medicinal broths and their skins for leather. Palm fronds flowed past. A breath of wind shifted a fringe of scrub by the riverbed, exposing the nostrils and shimmering, wet marble eyes of a partially submerged beast.

‘‘An onion?'' Lu See repeated belligerently.

‘‘
Ayo Sami
, don't argue, lah, I'm older than you.''

‘‘By eleven bloody days!''

Sum Sum held the onion at arm's length. ‘‘Well? You going to eat or not? Come, before I get damn powerful angry.''

Lu See made a face, as if something sharp and vinegary had crawled into her mouth. She took a bite and almost at once her eyes began to tear. She felt the spasm of a sneeze building, jellyfish tentacles tickling her sinuses, and held her breath for several moments to allow the sensation to pass.

‘‘See?'' said Sum Sum, stifling a laugh. ‘‘Just like biting into a sour guava, no? Now, when you're ready, rub some of this lemongrass oil on your skin, lah, before the mosquitoes find you.''

When Lu See's vision cleared, she stared into the hushed gloom within the rainforest. Bats pinged in and out of the darkness. Downriver she could make out a cloistered village perched on the banks of the Juru – row after row of cane longhouses held up by stilts on the water's edge, rising eight to ten feet above the jungle floor. Their broad-leaved thatch roofs looked frayed from the recent great storms. Each home had a raised verandah in front where children sat on mats eating rice from banana leafs. Feet dangling, they all waved at the approaching vessel. Lu See and Sum Sum waved back.

A little while later, with nearly all of the sun seeping out from the sky and the fireflies beginning to show, there came a squawking high-pitched cry from one of the crew. The thick rope was straining at the capstan. And that's when she saw it, both hook and mutton in its maw. The long snout slicing through the water, the pale cresting underbelly, the sinuous tail; interlocking teeth snatched and twisted, churning the spinach-green water into a milky froth. The crocodile's thick globular eyes seemed to stare at her for an instant, following her, and then, with the boat listing precariously, it was lifted off the surface of the water and hauled aboard.

She watched the men, all dark faces and hard seafaring hands, gather quickly around in a huddle, each carrying a club or a sharpened
parang
. The seven-foot crocodile hissed. Someone lit a lantern and held it up on the end of a pole as the men swung their weapons. The huge muscular tail thrashed and thumped the deck and soon the blood sludge was being smeared across the deck by bare human feet. With a fierce thrust one of the machetes pierced the crinkled flesh between the animal's eyes. Black blood spewed. Then, like a piece of heavy driftwood, the crocodile went still.

The crewmen hacked away, whooping and shouting, separating reptilian head from body. Their sarongs became streaked with red. Lu See, white-faced, felt compelled to watch. The commotion shook the bulbuls from the trees and set off a cacophony of squabbling, until all of a sudden there was another shout, more panicked than the ones before. And the men stopped. One or two of them dropped their tools.

‘‘What's happening?'' said Lu See. ‘‘What have they seen?''

Sum Sum crept along the starboard railing and listened to the salvo of chatter and stop-start quarrelling. She saw the front feet of the reptile, black and murky and pointed with no webbing between the toes. She snatched a look at its hind leg – webbed and amphibious like the horror hands in the wax museums. ‘‘They're saying that the thing was missing a limb. They are saying that to catch a river dragon with only three legs is a curse. The fourth leg will appear in your dreams and snatch away your firstborn child.''