Rising Abruptly (7 page)

The cousins crawl into thicker darkness in a far corner of the room.

I'll pee in my pants, Rach.

And I'll throw up. I can't breathe. Listen.

I hear nothing.

It was just the wind.

If you say so, Rach.

As they relax, a popping sound louder than the previous ones makes them jump out of their skin. Then several pop-pop-pops in a row.

Rachel speculates: Same sounds as our pipes at home when they're farting inside the walls.

The noise stops only to resume a few seconds later.

Jeanne mutters: Sure. Must be the lodge trying to take off in the storm. Tomorrow, we'll wake up in those mountains. So very far away.

Exhausted, the girls lie down on the hard floor. Wrapped in their coats and getting used to the unexplained noises, they soon fall into a deep sleep. Toward dawn and through the morning, the cousins, without waking, huddle closer and closer together, as the cold takes over the lodge.

At midday, Jeanne and Rachel are startled out of their cold-induced sleep by blinding sunshine and the racket of a snow blower making its way toward the lodge. And what an aftermath! Pearl, carrying blankets and flasks of hot chocolate, is escorted by a policeman and a policewoman. The policewoman checks Rachel's wound, declaring that a trip to the hospital is mandatory. After something like an inquiry into the state of the place, and no blame laid on the girls, but praise from the policeman for their surviving the night, the cousins return home in the mighty snow-eater. Pearl promises a new shiny toboggan and the heater in the cab turns the girls into melting marshmallows.

Thanks to their photos in the newspapers, to the bandage and sutures on Rachel's forehead, the cousins become instant heroines at school, even though the ordinary pageant is presented instead of Jeanne's version of the winter tale.

That their story isn't staged doesn't deter Rachel from indulging in a nightly dissection of her grand adventure with her crazy cousin who had promised she would end up loving the game. And, of course, Rachel does. For a while, in the schoolyard, at the corner store, at the skating rink, kids watch them from afar, with admiration and with envy.

A few days later, used to stars living among them, the kids turn their attention to more pressing matters. After all, Christmas is getting closer and closer, and nothing can outshine that glitter. Even for Jeanne and Rachel. Except, of course, the eternal snow shining bright and deadly in the highest mountains in the world.

Kinabalu Realm of the Cold

AT MIDNIGHT, on cue, the bungalow generator shuts down, jolting my brain out of sleep, and, before the blades of the overhead fan halt, I'm sweating like a sow in a smelting furnace.

In search of a breeze, I carry my sodden sheet to one of the veranda chairs, fully cognizant that the outside has no more air current than the inside. The only movement comes from the river flowing like molasses a few metres off. Although
flowing
is too energetic a word; the brown water seems as static as if frozen. That's what I was dreaming. Ice along the shore, and me, immersed in glacial water. A dream of the Great White North of home. People do die of heat exhaustion. And I have been
living
(too perky a word) in a state of heat prostration for three dangerous days.

Three days ago, the young woman who cooks and cleans told me the doctor was away collecting. Collecting? How long does collecting take? The young woman was so sorry, but the doctor had not informed her that the doctor's gentleman friend was coming. Not informed her? Well, not
not
informed her, but there was great excitement, what with Kadazan man who was extinct and wild goose chase in ravine and rebirth of old plant… The young woman would do her best to make my wait a pleasant one. And once or twice, when I attempted to make sense of what she was trying to tell me, gently coaxing her to give me more details, she went on rambling about an urgency, what with babi and open wound and rush back to village and and… So, I let her be.

Still, none of it explains… A forest sound like a rusty hinge on a rubbish bin lid derails my thoughts. A night bird? Something fierce with claws? In the jungle cacophony, this call is new to me. Your dearest friend calls to invite you to her Borneo paradise, then goes
collecting
? Leaving you by yourself to fend off this green inferno? Not like Sab, that, to forget, to ignore, to dismiss, to neglect. I crumple into my chair and my predicament.

Another animal's cry mimics water dripping into a puddle. This I've been hearing for three nights; quite mesmerizing. Then come more familiar sounds. Dogs barking and fighting, followed by drunken men slamming car doors, slurring and giggling. In their nightly pantomime, the men get into a dugout and paddle across the molasses river toward their village. Soon after, the generator on the opposite bank stops, switching off the few light bulbs. Darkness falls thick as coffee grounds. Around the compound, free-roaming roosters flap their wings and crow in ear-splitting canon, cueing the dogs to bark and snarl anew. I sweat misery. Cramps in the belly. Body temperature rising. The beginning of a headache. I must rehydrate. Fresh lime juice is an excellent quencher to offset the effect of my overactive sweat glands. I would get up to drink, but I'm too impaired to stand on my swollen feet.

The racket of a freight train. The first night, it jerked me upright in the chair. Later, I learned that there is no train, or as they say locally, no tren, in this region. The nightly barge propels its way downriver, its high beam bleaching the jungle, its motor roaring louder as it approaches, decreasing as the boat slides into the distance. Monkeys scream. More barking and more crowing. In darkness restored, I feel the feather touch of
Anopheles
on my arm, hear their high-pitched buzzing as they land on my face. I dive under the sheet. Can't breathe. Heart rate increasing. This heat attacks as physically as any claw or poisonous bite. I must go in search of a cure for the shock of heat, otherwise I'll croak before the cock crows. I mean at dawn as it's supposed to be. Despite Sab's absence puzzling and worrying me, I must deal with my situation. For now, shivering is the only pursuit. Cold, the only cure.

At first light, I wake up the village teksi driver, requesting that he drive me to Kota Kinabalu, paying the extra fee for the optional air conditioning. I throw my pack in the boot and sprawl out on the back seat. En route, I am carried, body and soul, in the cool chariot of felicity. Heat is akin to pain. No matter how excruciating it was, once gone, it becomes an abstraction. K.K., located on the northwest coast of Borneo on the South China Sea, is no abstraction. On the coast, my chances of catching a breeze, albeit a sizzling one, may increase; in any case, the city will guarantee more miserable heat. Fortunately, being the capital of the state of Sabah, K.K. will be appointed with air-conditioned hotels. From one of those havens, I'll phone the bungalow daily. Until the housekeeper announces that the doctor has returned from collecting. Until Sab grabs the phone from her and hoots in my ear to get my ass over there pronto. Leaning my head against the backrest, I relax. Salvation is close at hand.

Two men flag down the teksi, a mode of transportation people share in this part of the world. The men belong to the Orang Ulu tribe. Handing me the tuak, one of them tells me in good English that his longhouse is nearby, stopping short of inviting me over, although passing me the bottle.

Early morning sweet rice wine, in my state of dehydration after a string of sleepless, sweaty nights, could only bring on a debilitating headache. But drink I do, for refusing may offend. Good-natured, the men declare they don't sweat. As if to prove the point, after veering off the highway into a rutted lane, they leave the air-conditioned car when we reach a tin-roofed shack. The sun-bleached sign reads Titman Yee Hoe Chicks & Dry Goods. I would have elected to wait in the cool car, but the teksi driver joins in with his passengers, turning off the motor. I am enthusiastically invited to this tribal grocery shopping expedition. To refuse may offend. So, off I go into the dreaded heat.

We enter Titman Yee's shop the way pies enter the oven. Dough-white, I'll be baked to a golden hue upon exit. The trio nods at the shopkeeper slouched behind the counter piled high with dry goods. I have yet to see or hear chicks. The Orang Ulu men use the driver and me as shopping carts. Our arms become heavy with sos cili, babi loin and karbau ribs, soursops, mangosteens, green coconuts, many fragrant leafy vegetables our northern supermarkets never stock. Last but not least, a twelve-pack of pahit, the soft drink looking conspicuously like tonic water. Which it is, according to the Orang Ulu man with good English. He educates me.

You see, “pahit” means bitter in Malay. Tonic water used to contain a fair bit of quinine. To ward off malaria. That's what the colonials believed. Quinine is bitter-tasting, hence the word “pahit,” as in their gin pahit, which they drank in large quantities.

And recalling the Somerset Maugham stories set in these parts, I ask if the quinine did ward off malaria.

The Orang Ulu man grins and the
Anopheles
of the last three nights come back to haunt me. And Sab out there, collecting her plants to study their professed medicinal properties, could she provide a better prophylactic than my prescription of chloroquine? And to help me understand the process, she would draw the chemical structure on a napkin or in the sand. A wave of hotter air hits me, making me dizzy. To keep me from harbouring pahit-ness toward Sabourin for her vanishing act (which I realize in my dizzy spell is annoying me more than I want to admit) and for putting me in the position of developing malaria on her veranda and in a futile attempt to forget that the confinement of Titman Yee's shop is baking me fiercely, I pursue my education of market Malay words. Learning that “babi” is pig and “karbau” water buffalo and that “ketjap manis,” as in ketchup, is, logically, sweet soy sauce, and assuming that “sos cili” is chili sauce. Discovering that many Malay words very much play on the ear a game of corruption of the English language. A playfulness that pleases me. Pleasantry aside, I'm still sweating like a babi. And I sense a new source of irritation in the groin.

I glance at the display of poskads, but must avert my eyes, as each beautiful view of Borneo emphasizes linguistic torment, bringing to mind such words as sultry and scorching, steamy and scalding, blazing, broiling or plain hot that make me reel. Do the Malays have as many words for heat as our Inuit have for snow?

The second Orang Ulu man orders four plastic cups of vanilla ais krim. Ais krim! What must I do to convince Titman Yee to allow me to curl up in his freezer, how many ringgits would that request set me back? I'm not seeking a full night stay, a quickie ten-minute reprieve would do nicely. What must I do?

Oh, to feel again the froidure of the Columbia Icefield of my northern country. Right now, I watch the ice of my dessert lose its hardness in the heat, collapse under its garnish of sweet red bean paste and condensed milk the shopkeeper slathers in silence into the cups. I am suddenly aware that the silence in ovens and churches has the same quality. Churchgoers collapsing in a heap, not as the result of religious ecstasy, but from heatstroke.

Back on the road, and in the felicity of the cooling car, eating my sickly sweet treat, I note that the Orang Ulu men's clothes and skin are bone-dry, but that the teksi driver wipes his forehead with a kerchief. Aha, not a tribal man. And neither am I. When I manage to connect with Sab, I must ask her how a northern gal can bear it in this country. And this irritation in the groin is intensifying. For relief, I sit on the edge of the seat, legs wide apart, careful not to graze the knee of the Orang Ulu man with good English, sitting in the back seat with me.

Artificial coolness on my face and arms, I pretend that Sab is the one sitting beside me in this icebox on wheels. And together, we enjoy the poskad views of her paradise. Daredevil dogs, or since no vehicle slows down for them, suicidal canines ambling across the road. Safer on the shoulder, horses and goats feeding on grasses. Against weather-beaten houses, the impossibly white clothes of Malaysia drying on clotheslines. In a field, cows glistening with sweat, chewing their cud under the savage sun. Entering Kota Kinabalu. Bidding au revoir to my travel companions and settling the fare with the driver, I jump from cool Mazda to cool Mangosteen Inn.

Checking in. Clean and air-conditioned. Kinda seedy in the grand manner of the tropics. From my room, I phone the bungalow to let the housekeeper know where I am. Must make a trunk call.

Good afternoon, I wanted to know if Sab was back?

Sarawak?

What?

Yes, Sarawak State south of here.

No, no, I mean the doctor. Is Doctor Sabourin back yet?

Doctor still away collecting.

Yes, but the doctor knew her friend from Canada was coming, yes?

But there was urgent…

Ah… The rebirth of the old plant?

Yes, very rare. Doctor had to go.

Now that the young woman seems calmer, I'm starting to understand why Sab stood me up. And I can piece together the puzzle of the last three days, minus the housekeeper waving her arms toward the deep jungle and uttering a confusion of Malay words. So, I surmise a Kadazan man came to the bungalow to report to Sab that a rare plant, believed to be extinct, was spotted growing in a ravine in the jungle. Sab had to go check this out, mindful that it might be a wild goose chase. But there may be more to this reasonable sequence of events, and I must know. One of the words the young woman kept repeating was “babi” and now that I know what it means, I'm wondering.

On the phone, I articulate clearly: Are there wild babi in the jungle?

Yes, babi, very dangerous. The housekeeper is sputtering again, she had to rush back to her village to tend to…

I cut her off to shout in the mouthpiece: Sab has been injured by a babi? Had to be carried from the bungalow to where? A village hospital?