If I Could Tell You (10 page)

Okay, he said, I think we should start now.

He lit a small bunch of joss sticks and gave some to me. Then he knelt, not an easy task for him, and I heard his half-swallowed words, something about help and promise and gifts. I followed suit, stole those words and said them in my head. After I was done with that, all I could think was sorry, sorry, sorry to be disturbing you like this when you went so horribly. Such an ugly death. I thought that even while I stuck the joss sticks into the ash and bowed three times. When we both got up, Ah Meng took out a few slips of paper from his pocket and pressed them into my hand, saying, these are the numbers. His unit number, his birth cert number, his birthday, and the time and day he died.

I thought about asking how he got all of them but I wanted more to get away from there.

You know, he said, if we win, we have to remember to come back and send him more offerings. I heard
hor
, this man, went to a spirit to pray for numbers. Then he really got them, in his dream that night. In his dream the spirit told him he had to go back with hell bank money and a whole roast pig when he won. And the man did. He won first prize and became rich, but then he completely forgot about the spirit.

There, Ah Meng stopped talking and simply crooked his finger to mean that the man died.

So,
huh
, better not forget, he said.

I brushed off my hands and trousers and told him I had to leave, feeling the bitter taste of what I’d done in my mouth. I had to swallow several times, and I thought about going back home to take another shower but my feet led me to the taxi.

As soon as the shops opened at nine, I went to the betting outlet, holding tight that scrap of paper, my hands busying themselves making halves and quarters of it while I paced outside, trying to decide whether to place the bet and then, when I had decided, how much money to put on the numbers. In the end, I used all of the money I had earned in the three hours before, plus what I had in my wallet, all of it adding up to just over a hundred dollars. Afterward, I tucked the betting slips away again, telling myself not to bring it up in front of anybody. Unless I won, of course, then it would all be justified, the money spent and using Ah Tee’s death for gambling luck.

That day, I drove with the windows rolled down whenever I was alone. Breathed in the smoke and dust from rush hour, wanting to forget the smell of incense — a smell like that of old flowers long wilted. If I forgot about the morning, I thought, I wouldn’t need to hold my tongue later at home. Not wait for my wife to nag me when I told her of this foolishness. Why all this superstition, she would say, and then, you are an educated man. Just what she said when I told her I had lost my job, my job at the company. I’m an educated man, I said to her then, but borne from the same muddy waters, with my rough farmer’s hands, like my father and his father, killing our chickens before the Lunar New Year, just for that rare bit of meat. Scraps, I said, and waved at her the envelope containing the pittance they’d given towards my retrenchment. Scraps for beggars and nothing more.

WHEN I saw him on Sunday at the end of my shift, my back was aching and I wanted to tell him I was going home straightaway, too tired even for that one cigarette. But then he was shouting, we won, we won, we won. He couldn’t stop and I had to ask him before he replied, third place! Then he was telling me to get into the passenger seat, he was going to buy me a beer, he said. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again, it was dark out. There were neon lights, flashing red and yellow, and stalls stretched out into the sidewalks, just an arm’s length away from passing cars. I could see women, girls, walking the streets. When I looked at Ah Meng, he simply smiled and said, you helped me. This is my treat. Then he walked me into a hotel with even more girls lining the walls of the lobby, perching on the sagging sofa, chatting quietly. I turned to him and he put a key in my hand with a tag which read 103. Dinner afterwards, Ah Meng said as he walked away, into a room at the end of the corridor. I looked for 103, knocked, and opened the door. There was a girl sitting at the edge of the bed. Her hair was a deep black, so dark that it held a glossy blue in it. She seemed to have been waiting for me, so I went in. Let the door close behind me.

IT TOOK A FEW DAYS FOR THINGS TO GO BACK TO normal. During those days everyone tiptoed about, whispered when they met each other in the corridors and lifts. The
Bangla
workers stopped gathering to sit on the patch of grass below and drink and make noise. The good-for-nothing neighbours, even they turned down the volume of their TV in the evening and managed not to quarrel or yell at their children. It was the accident. That and the police and their blue and white tapes. There were blue and white police tapes around the area where Ah Tee fell and in front of the door to his flat. While they were there, it felt as if everyone’s mouths were bound with those tapes. Now that they were gone, things could go back to normal. The building could breathe again.

I was going home with the day’s collection, it was after six and a few old men were sitting around the stone benches near the building, talking about the fall. Pretending to joke about buying the numbers on the door of Ah Tee’s flat, or any number they could find that had anything to do with him. His birthday (does anybody know?). The day and time it happened. They hushed when I got nearer and pretended to talk about something else. Someone put on their portable radio and a song came on — a familiar one I don’t know the name of. I can’t remember the words but it is one my mother used to sing when it was too hot and the six of us had to sleep pressed into each other so we could fit on the rattan mat. She would sing, her voice so thin it splintered, scattered over our heads but it still sent us to sleep. A soft breeze in our faces. I don’t remember the words so I hum it low while I put away the bowl and cup by the sink, go to bed and lay myself down. Slow and careful. The way I put him down on the grass that evening. It was dark and it was the right time. The shame of it goes away at night, just a little. Even now, after so many years, it seems I breathe easier in the dark so I don’t switch on the lights in the evening unless I have to sew. Every day, I draw the curtains when the sun shines in mid-morning and towards dusk. I am a thing of the dark. One of those creatures that go scattering when you pull up old floorboards or rustle through leaf litter.

I wrap myself in the dark the way I wrapped him up years and years ago, swaddled him in rags from the cell, then put him in the ground. That day, when I picked him up to leave, he looked half-blind, his right eye only open a crack. I was blind too, but from the sunlight, walking out into it for the first time in months, years. I scrambled backwards when the
riben-guizi
, the Devil, came around to unlock our cells, shouting at us in Japanese and pointing towards the main door. He motioned for us to get out but it took me a while to realise what was going on. Only when I saw everyone leaving, all the other girls, did I lift him, his nothing body, wrapped him up in the one rag I could find. It was the only thing I had. Then I walked out, expecting any moment to be pulled back, to be shot. But I walked and then I was outside, deafened by the whine of crickets playing their long scratchy tune, their evening call.

The others were standing around, waiting. Some exhausted just from walking out of there, I could hear the hiss of their dry throats, see the rise and fall of their chests, almost choking on the fresh air. Two of them, the ones who came in last, the only ones still able, went right off, torn wisps of their dresses rippling behind them. I envied their strength and imagined how fast I could run if I still had meat on my legs, then I looked down and took in my feet, blackened, sharp with yellowed nails and bones. They ran, not looking back, and I followed them until the little needles of pain in my chest grew unignorable. Then I followed them walking, focused on planting my feet firmly in the ground. Walked towards the sound of the crickets, away from the road. I told myself afterward that I had no idea what I was going to do while I was walking. All I wanted was to get away. Far as possible from the barracks. From the possibility of the
riben-guizi
coming back. It’s been so many years since that I can almost believe it if I don’t linger upon it too much, if I busy my hands, working and picking up things and cooking and washing.

I knew enough though, even then. I had to leave him. I knew the moment I walked out of the cell.

It was right by a tree. A tall, old
angsana
. I stopped and looked around, but there was no one. I lay him down, stayed squatting and watched him for a while, for so long I thought I saw his lips move just a little. For a moment I thought he might cry, claim me with his sound and smell and I wouldn’t be able to leave him then. He might cry after days of keeping silent and still. Like he had given up, realised I had nothing for him to eat. There was nothing of me he could have. I thought about putting my ear to his mouth or heart but I stopped myself. What good did it do to know? Dead or dying, it didn’t matter, I could never bring him home. So I stood up and stepped back.

Hey.

I turned around, almost tripping, and put out a hand to steady myself against the rough trunk of the tree. Then I saw someone standing some distance away. A ghost, I thought. But then it moved and I saw that it was another girl from the barracks, clutching at the front of her torn blouse to keep it closed, so thin her trousers were almost falling off her hips. She looked about my age, was seventeen at most.

Hey, she said again, walking in my direction. Wait for me! Do you know the way? she said.

I said nothing, just watched her get closer, close enough to peer around me, to see what was in the bundle on the ground. There were bruises on her cheekbones and a cut that was mending on her lip. She looked at me as if she knew exactly what had happened and understood that I couldn’t go back like this — not with the child.

You should bury it, she said, it’s only proper.

I raised my hands to look at them. Or rather, I felt them moving on their own. They could be paper. Paper, or air, I thought, looking at them.

I’ll help you, she said and she crouched down.

Soon we were digging, both of us, with our fingers. Scraping away the rich, dark soil so soft I imagined I could put it in my mouth, chew, and it would taste of the lunches they used to give us in school. Rice and fried egg and even minced meat, sometimes. I would chew and swallow and be full.

That was what I was thinking while I dug out the hole in the ground for my child.

After five minutes or so, the girl stopped. I think that’s deep enough, she said.

I was glad because I was tired and my arms were aching. I was so tired, I could fall asleep right there but I picked the bundle up from the ground, rearranged the rag so that it covered all of him, his face down to his tiny doll feet, and put him in.

AS soon as the war was over, my mother wanted me married off. She didn’t say it but I knew she wanted me out of the house so they wouldn’t have to look at me. Even after a year, the neighbours still talked, whispering among themselves while they hung out their washing in the courtyard right below our window. It wasn’t as bad as before, when people would turn away from us at the market, call me
wei-an fu
, comfort woman, as we were walking away. My mother’s face would burn and she would fan herself vigorously with her palm-leaf fan, as if doing that would chase the shame away. At night I heard her ask my father who to give me to. When to do it. Soon as possible, was her suggestion. My father never said much, only grunted his assent. I heard this all through the thin veil of the curtain dividing the room. My six-year-old brother, the only one of my siblings left, would sleep through, legs twitching to the dream-feel of his afternoon games of football or
sepak takraw
.

It wasn’t long before the matchmaker came by our place. Instead of just talking to my mother, Auntie Tin made me sit with her, patted my hand kindly while she talked, a corner of her pink handkerchief peeking out of her sleeve.

I found someone for you, she said, a nice Hokkien man; a bit older but he’s a good man. Even has his own shop. She stopped there, then lowered her voice. His wife, his first wife died in the war. But better not talk about that. Bad luck.

For a minute, she just sat, sipping from the cup of tea in her hands.

He’s a good man, she said, looking straight at me, a good match for you.

Auntie Tin arranged everything, told him how useful I was around the house, how prudent I was, gave him a picture of me taken just for that purpose, lips and cheeks rouged with red paper. It was the first time I had seen a camera; and they had to keep telling me to smile but it seemed that I had forgotten how. Years later, the Old One showed me the picture he had been given. In it, I looked stiff and humourless and I wondered again why he had chosen me.

There were many times in the later years when I felt I had to tell him. Talk about why I couldn’t give him children, about what happened during the war. I had always wondered if he knew. He must have known. I wondered why he married me then, if he knew. I almost asked him, once, at the hospital during his last few weeks, watching him as he slept, falling in and out of a fit of dreams. I sat next to him and listened to him murmur, talking a little and I thought I might be able to tell him and he would wake up and nod at me and tell me it was alright. I needed to apologise, for what I didn’t know. A nothing word, sorry. There was nothing to mend, to be sorry for unless I wished to rip up the quiet, soothe myself by talking about something that wouldn’t help him, not now. So I touched his hand, careful not to go near the tube running into it and let him sleep. The same as when the doctor came in and told me to be ready, it was time for him. I told him, it’s okay, Old One, you go rest now. And I kept watch until the rise and fall of his chest was no more.