The Ghost Bride (16 page)

“And if I can’t?”

He shrugged. “Then we must try another tactic. But I shall remember your service to me, regardless.” I opened my mouth to ask him another question, but he forestalled me. “If you manage to go to the Plains of the Dead, don’t trust anyone. And don’t eat anything. You still have a living body, which is a great advantage for it strengthens you beyond what the dead are capable of.”

“If I don’t eat spirit food, won’t I wither away?”

“But if you wish to return to the living, it is better not to dilute your spirit with the food of the dead.”

“That’s what Old Wong said.”

“Who is that?”

“Our cook.”

He waved his sleeve in disdain. “Yes, well. Just remember what I said. But I must go now. I have tarried too long and there are other urgent matters at hand.”

A dozen more questions sprang to my lips, but at that moment there was a great rushing sound. A strong wind buffeted me, stirring up the leaves and branches in a whirling maelstrom. I closed my eyes against this onslaught and when I opened them again, Er Lang was gone. Far off in the night sky I saw a streak of light undulating like an eel in the ocean, but it passed so swiftly that I wondered whether I had imagined it.

Chapter
19

I
spent the
night on the hillside, not feeling up to the task of going into the town and
trying to spend my limited hell money on some kind of conveyance. There was an
enormous tree with buttress roots rising like low walls, and I huddled against
it like a timid
pelandok
, or mouse deer. We have
many local stories of the mouse deer, so tiny that a man could pick one up and
stuff it into a bag with ease. It is no bigger than a cat with delicate,
twig-like legs. They are reputedly among the easiest game to hunt, for all you
have to do is drum upon some dry leaves with a pair of sticks. Eventually a male
pelandok
will appear, thinking it is some rival,
and will respond by rapidly drumming its own legs. The hunter then shoots the
deer with a blow dart and carries it home for supper. I always felt it was a
most unfair way to trap an animal and not at all in keeping with the mouse
deer’s fabled reputation for cunning.
*

As I hugged my knees, I thought that in the grand
scheme of things, I was no more effective than a mouse deer, hiding my
defenseless self here and there, called out by the drumming of information in
dribs and drabs. Was Er Lang to be trusted? While he was with me I hadn’t
considered it, but now doubt and weariness clouded my mind. In the end I decided
that I would trust him, for now. After all, it wasn’t as though I had much else
to fall back on.

T
he
noise of birds woke me. It was cold and a pale mist lay heavily upon the grass.
From the broken and swaying branches above, a troupe of monkeys had passed
overhead. At some point, Amah had changed my pajamas again. Hurriedly, I felt my
garments, fearful that the scale that Er Lang had given me might have vanished,
but it was still tucked in my pocket. Last night it had shone like mother of
pearl, but in the morning light its gloss was even brighter. The creature that
had shed it must have been a marvelous sight, and I speculated anew whether Er
Lang hid the pouting face of a fish beneath his hat, or more frighteningly, the
head of a great serpent. Putting these thoughts aside, I started toward the town
below. The huge trees gave way to waist-high undergrowth, dense enough to make
passing through it a struggle for me.

The sun was high in the sky, but I was still far
from my destination. I groaned inwardly as I gazed at the way before me. Malaya
is a land of perpetual green. Under the hot sun and torrential rains, any
dwelling that is abandoned is quickly covered with vines; any path untraveled
reverts to the jungle. All around me rose the monotonous chirring of cicadas. It
was so loud that I didn’t hear the clink of a harness until it was almost upon
me. Bewildered, I looked around but there was nothing to be seen. At last, I
said timidly, “Is there someone here?”

There was no reply, just a soft whicker.

I tried again, feeling even more foolish. “Is there
a horse here?”

When I pronounced the word
horse
, I suddenly saw it. It was a small blocky horse the color of
sandalwood. Bright dark eyes, like custard apple seeds, peered from under a
thick mane that was plaited into bunches. The horse was gaily caparisoned with a
blanket and saddle and it was these that I recognized, for it looked exactly the
same as the wooden carving Tian Bai had held in his hand. I knew then that Tian
Bai had burned it for me. The horses in Lim Tian Ching’s grand stables had been
static and lifeless, for they were only made of paper. But this horse, carved
from a block of wood, moved like a real animal. There were no words for my
delight.

“I shall call you Chendana,” I decided. It is the
Malay word for sandalwood, for the original carving had been done in that
fine-grained, fragrant wood. Riding her was easy. Far easier than a real horse,
for she stood docilely while I clambered up, and her broad back was as stable as
a rocking horse. Chendana didn’t tire and she neither ate nor drank. We passed
swiftly through the undergrowth; the grass didn’t even quiver. It was by these
signs that I knew that she was more of the spirit world than I was.

It was afternoon when we entered Malacca. Now that
I had found my transport, there was no reason not to find Fan and ask her to
show me the way to the Plains of the Dead. Feeling cheerful for the first time
in a great while, I found my way to Fan’s shop house just as the pigeons were
fluttering to their nests. At the front door, I paused, wondering whether to
wait until darkness. The family was sitting down to an early dinner and I
smelled the tempting aroma of salted fish.

“Fan!” I called.

There was no reply. I squeezed myself through the
wooden door with some difficulty. The corridor was lit by the last rays of the
afternoon sun and didn’t seem as frightening as it had the other night when I
had been led blindly through the house by Fan. I walked up and down, calling her
name despite the family who was eating dinner. They of course had no idea I was
there, though once when I passed close by I thought I saw the old man blink. In
the end, having found no trace of her, I made my way back to the front door.
While I was contemplating the uncomfortable task of trying to pass through it
once again, I heard a faint voice.

“What are you doing here?”

Peering around I found Fan at last. She had been
hiding in a shadowy corner, pressed into the door of a cupboard. It was very
hard to see her in the last glittering motes of sunset.

“I came back. You said you would take me to the
Plains of the Dead.”

“Oh, I can’t possibly go now,” she said weakly.

“Why not?”

“It’s not convenient.”

“Couldn’t you at least point out the way to
me?”

She said something unintelligible, then finally,
realizing that I could not hear her, she shouted faintly, “ . . .
 after dark . . .  ”

Not entirely sure of what she had proposed, I
nodded and said, “I’ll wait for you outside until nightfall.”

To my relief, Chendana was still where I had left
her. I was afraid that someone might steal her, so precious had she become to me
in a relatively short period of time, but I remembered Fan’s words about spirit
items needing to be freely given. Otherwise, I supposed, there was nothing to
stop hordes of hungry ghosts from pillaging. As it was, I leaned against her
side, inhaling the sweet scent of sandalwood, that precious wood from which
incense is made. We waited for a long time. The sharp sickle moon rose and still
Fan did not appear. I had begun to wonder whether I had mistaken her meaning
when she finally materialized through the front door. From her sullen
expression, I suspected she had been hiding on the other side. As soon as she
saw Chendana, however, her eyes lit up. “You have a steed!”

I couldn’t help a tinge of smugness. “Yes. I’m
ready to go to the Plains of the Dead.”

“But how is it—?” Fan walked around the horse,
staring closely. Then she glanced sharply at me. “This is good quality. Very
good, indeed. Did you get one for me?”

“I’m afraid that heavenly dispensation only
provided transport for me.”

“But I’m to be your companion! You should have
asked them to provide for me as well.”

I hesitated. “I’ll pay you when we arrive there. I
didn’t think you wanted the authorities notified about you.”

“Oh.” She looked crestfallen. “I suppose you’re
right.”

“And didn’t you say you already had transport?”

“I do. But my servants are very shoddy in
comparison.” She sighed enviously. “Well, when my lover joins me, I’m sure I
shall have a grand palanquin at my disposal.”

I stifled the urge to roll my eyes, wishing I liked
her better. It was difficult to think of enduring a long journey in her company.
“Are you ready to leave?” I asked. “If you’re not willing, I’ll find another
guide.” Though even as I said this, I wondered how I could possibly manage.

“Whoever said that? Of course I’ll go. I have some
business there of my own anyway. Still, I need to make preparations.” She hemmed
and hawed, went back and forth into the house several times but emerged without
looking any different. At last, when I was seriously considering riding off on
my own, she came out. “Let’s go.”

I noticed then that her fingers were pinched as
though she was clutching something invisible, and guessed that she had gone to
retrieve the thread that bound her to the old man. Glancing at me she said
almost apologetically, “I dare not go out without it. I would get lost.”

Immediately, I felt guilty for harboring such
unkind thoughts toward her. She was, after all, a ghost and it was true that she
made her way forward with difficulty. She advanced in a mincing manner, subject
to sudden gusts of wind and stray shadows. I followed, leading Chendana by the
reins. It was not entirely dark yet. The sky was still a deep blue, but already
I could see the soft glow of spirit lights. I felt like hurrying Fan along, but
she grew increasingly dithery the farther we went from her shop house. At one
point she turned round and round as though unable to break out of her
perambulation.

“I told you I don’t like to go out much,” she said
petulantly. “It’s so much trouble. And it gets worse as the years go by. I’m
losing substance, I know I am.”

I didn’t remind her that it was her own choice to
overstay her time in this plane of existence. We crept along at a snail’s pace,
keeping always to the shadows and avoiding any spirit lights. Fan was terrified
of running into border guards and her nervousness was infectious.

“How far away is an entrance to the Plains of the
Dead?” I asked.

“I could have sworn there was one right around
here,” she said. “At least, that was the one I used. Don’t tell me that they
moved it!”

“The entrances shift?”

“There are many ways to go there,” she said
irritably. “Sometimes they move for no good reason.”

In silence we fumbled around, peering down one dark
alleyway after another. I had no idea what Fan was looking for, but when I laid
my hand on Chendana’s neck, I felt calmer. If I ever returned to my body, I
thought, I would ask Father to buy me a horse. Thinking about my father and his
troubles, however, made me feel gloomy again. My hand crept toward the pocket in
which I had stowed the scale that Er Lang had given me. Its hard edge imbued me
with a little more resolve. At that moment, Fan stopped.

“It is here.”

I couldn’t make out anything except an old doorway
in the wall, gaping like a hungry mouth. There was nothing different about it
other than the quality of its darkness, which seemed, if possible, even blacker
than the gloom around it. Fan passed her hand around the lintel and a faint red
light kindled within, as though the door led to some subterranean passage that
was fathoms deep. I didn’t like it at all, and neither did Chendana. The little
mare backed away, prancing hesitantly.

“How do you know?” I asked Fan in a whisper.

“It calls to me,” she said, turning to look at me
over her shoulder. The crimson light cast a faint glow on her face, accentuating
the shriveled, mummified aspect of it. “Can’t you feel it?”

“No,” I said, not mentioning that it actively
repelled me. Well, Er Lang had mentioned something about that. Perhaps I
wouldn’t be able to pass, and for an instant I hoped that I need not go after
all. But Fan was already ducking into the doorway.

“Come!” she hissed. “This is the way to the Plains
of the Dead.”

Part Three

The Plains of the Dead

Chapter 20

F
an ducked her head and slipped through the door, even as I hesitated. There was no time to say another word. Far down in the depths of the doorway I could see the glow of a crimson light, but there was no sign of Fan. I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on Chendana’s reins. As we passed through the doorway, the faint night noises of the street vanished and all that remained was a silence so profound that it felt as though my ears were ringing. It was like entering a tomb.

Holding on to Chendana’s mane, I groped my way forward. The ground beneath was smooth and flat, the darkness so thick that it clung like velvet, making it impossible to make out my feet. Far ahead, the red light glowed though it seemed to shed no illumination on anything else. Turning to see if I could find the way back, I was overwhelmed by the sensation of blindness. I was about to panic when I heard Fan’s voice close at hand.

“Well?” she said impatiently. “Shall we go?”

“Where are you?” Fan’s spirit light, which had announced her presence to me in the shop house, was indiscernible.

“Can’t you see me? I can see you quite clearly.”

“What does it look like to you?” I asked.

“It’s a tunnel. A passageway to the Plains of the Dead.”

“Is it lighted?”

“Certainly! There are lanterns hanging from the walls. Do you mean to say that you can’t see them at all?”

“No, only a faint red light in the distance.”

“How odd,” said Fan. “Perhaps it’s because you’re not a ghost. I suppose few from the heavenly realm come here.”

“We’re not accustomed to these conditions,” I said with some embarrassment at keeping up this pretense.

“Well, at least you can see the end of the passage,” she replied. “That light is the entry down to the plains.”

To me, the darkness seemed cold and dead, the light less like a welcoming beacon than a warning, a dull red eye staring unwinkingly from some far cavern. I hoped that the rest of our journey wouldn’t suffer from this strange dichotomy or I should make a very poor spy for Er Lang.

“Come along, then,” said Fan, sounding pleased with her advantage. “Can you follow me?”

By following the sound of Fan’s chatter and aligning myself with the faint light, it was easier to advance. I asked her to describe what she saw. “It’s very grand,” she said. “There are tiles underfoot and the lanterns are of colored silk.”

Despite Fan’s lyrical description, the ground felt as though it was made of hard-packed dirt and the air was still and breathless. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that we were descending into a mausoleum. Only by lacing my hand in Chendana’s mane could I force myself onward. She didn’t balk again after that first refusal at the doorway but walked quietly by my side. In this manner too, she was unlike a real horse, but I was grateful for her company.

“How do you find your way back?” I asked Fan after a while.

“Oh, from the Plains of the Dead the passage is quite clear. You can’t miss it. You just have to remember which door you came in by.”

“Did you ever try to go out through the other doors?”

“Once or twice. I know there are a couple of exits in Malacca. One goes to the merchant quarter. I don’t know where the others go, though,” she said carelessly.

The merchant quarter was where my own home lay. I squirreled this information away with a sinking feeling, as I hadn’t realized that getting out would be so difficult. Now it sounded as though I would need Fan’s help more than ever, for Er Lang had said he could not come to this place.

W
e’re almost there.”

I peered ahead at Fan’s words. The light spread like a burning haze to my eyes, which had become accustomed to the dark, and I began to see that the walls of the passage were rough-hewn rock as was the floor, as though some giant creature had wriggled its corkscrew way through the rock. It was nothing like the genteel corridor that Fan described to me. As we walked around the final curving bend of the passage, the light became a blaze that momentarily blinded me. And at last, I saw where the tunnel opened out.

As far as the eye could see was a barren plain. It was so dry that the grass had shriveled into white stalks of dead vegetation, barely covering the crumbling earth, like a thin coarse pelt. Above it rose a burning sky. Accustomed as I was to the lush jungle of Malaya, I stared in wonder and horror at this wasteland.

“You see what I meant by needing transportation?” asked Fan.

Turning, I saw that she now appeared more substantial. Her skin was no longer shriveled and even the details of her dress had taken on the appearance and weight of cloth. She looked out at the grassland with an incongruous expression of pleasure.

“The first time I saw all these flowers, I thought it was paradise,” she said. Clearly, things appeared differently to her. I kept my own observations to myself. Next to me, Chendana snorted and stamped a hoof. She didn’t seem at all daunted by the endless stretch in front of us.

“We should wait here for my servants to arrive,” said Fan. “Whenever I get to this point, they eventually show up to escort me.”

“I suppose you could walk,” I said.

“Walk? There are settlements across the Plains of the Dead, but they’re very far apart.”

“And what do they look like?”

“Towns, villages. They roughly correspond to the places above. There is a kind of Malacca, where you find those ghosts who used to live in there, and then there are the outlying villages. But the dwellings come and go as the ghosts move on to the Courts of Judgment. It’s always shifting.”

“And are there other towns too?”

She shrugged dismissively. “I heard there was a ghostly Penang, and a Singapore too. But I don’t know where they are.”

We gazed at the endless prairie in silence. Fan scanned the horizon from time to time and frowned. I had expected to find caverns, stalactites, and dungeons; the accoutrements of an underworld such as I had seen illustrated in painted scrolls. Nothing had prepared me for this. Despite the merciless glare, I couldn’t see the sun. The sky was evenly lit, which gave it an artificial air. Yet the overall effect was overpowering. With no landmarks, I had no way of knowing how many miles the grassland stretched out for, but it seemed like a great distance. After a time, I became aware of two dark shapes that drew steadily closer. Soon, a pair of coolies emerged from the long grass, carrying between them a shoulder pole with a basket slung under it.

“There they are,” said Fan. “My goodness, they look even worse than before.”

As they drew nearer I saw what she meant. They reminded me of the servants in Lim Tian Ching’s funeral mansions. But unlike Lim Tian Ching’s servants, their eyes and noses were roughly shaped, the mouths mere gashes in their lumpy faces. Their general appearance was much faded and worn and the contrivance they carried looked decidedly rickety. When they reached us, they bowed stiffly and dropped the basket to the ground. Fan climbed into it with some reluctance.

“It’s such an uncomfortable mode of transportation,” she said. “If only my father hadn’t been so stingy with me.” I refrained from pointing out that she was much luckier than the hungry ghosts, who had nothing at all. “Well, shall we be off, then?” she asked. Her porters picked up the carrying pole and hefted it briskly onto their shoulders. Then without a backward glance, they set off into the burning grassland.

Swinging myself onto Chendana, I followed after. My horse was faster so I held her back, which also relieved me from Fan’s constant conversation. Glancing at her swinging awkwardly in the basket, however, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. It seemed like a most uncomfortable mode of transportation to be tossed to and fro like a load of vegetables. From time to time I caught a glimpse of her white hand as she smoothed her hair, petting it as though it were a live animal.

Turning back, I noted that the passageway we had come from emerged from a range of hills. They were rocky and bare of vegetation, colored a deep oxblood red. It was an awe-inspiring yet dispiriting sight. There was not an insect or a bird that I spied along the way, and no flowers bloomed in the withered grass. It seemed impossible that rain ever fell on this desolate land. If I had been made of flesh and blood, I would surely have been burned in that ferocious light. Still, I wished I had a hat, and I had to improvise by pulling part of my pajama jacket over my head. As I did so, I felt the scale in my pocket that Er Lang had given to me. I was tempted to examine it again, but I didn’t wish to draw Fan’s attention to it. From time to time she glanced back, and her eyes were hard and bright.

W
e traveled for what seemed like hours. The glare began to fade from the sky until it was suffused with a curiously beautiful violet color. Urging Chendana forward to draw level with Fan, I asked, “What happens at night?”

“Oh, we just keep going,” she said. “I usually try to get this part of the journey over as soon as possible.”

It was easier for her, I realized, for despite the jolting motion of the basket, all she had to do was allow her porters to bear her tirelessly along. No doubt my little horse could walk all night, but I was afraid that I might fall off if I fell asleep, and I said as much to Fan. She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose we can stop and rest if you like.”

We made a makeshift camp in the grass. I had experienced neither thirst nor hunger since we had entered the Plains of the Dead, but despite that, I felt weary with a sense of being stretched ever thinner. Alighting stiffly, I walked around, stretching my arms until I noticed that my feet crunched on the coarse dry earth, and the grasses parted their bleached heads for me. For the first time in a long while, I had a physical impact on the world around me. Instead of relief, however, this discovery filled me with dread. I didn’t want to belong to this world. I wanted to go back to Malacca, my living, breathing Malacca, with its humid air and torpid days. Fan watched as I paced up and down. She had climbed out of her basketlike contraption and was now rearranging her hair, which, like the rest of her, seemed to have become more substantial than before.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

I made a noncommittal noise and she fell silent. After a time, however, she said in a low voice, “I know you see differently than I do. What is it really like?”

In the growing darkness, her face was a pale blur. “Why do you want to know?” I asked.

Her voice faltered. “Sometimes I have a feeling that things aren’t what they seem. And I’m frightened of what comes next. If my lover doesn’t die with money, or if he doesn’t share it with me, then I must pass on to the Courts of Hell.”

She seemed so downcast that I couldn’t help feeling sympathy for her. “But after the courts is rebirth,” I said. “You might find happiness again.”

“Oh, rebirth isn’t the problem,” she said peevishly. “It’s what comes before. I’m afraid of the punishment for sins incurred in this life.”

“You were young when you died. Surely they won’t judge you too harshly.”

Fan looked away. “I’ve overstayed my time in the afterlife. That’s why I told you I seldom come to the Plains of the Dead anymore, even though I ought to. I’m not like you.” She cast an envious glance at me. “In the shop house I only receive those offerings to the hungry ghosts that my lover puts out. But he burns no clothes, nor shoes. I have to come back here to get what I can.”

“Why didn’t you ask him to burn funeral goods for you in his dreams?”

“When we’re together I don’t want to remind him that I’m dead. That would spoil everything.”

A pang struck me, for hadn’t I made exactly the same decision about Tian Bai? After all, the thought of embracing a corpse was hardly conducive to romance.

“And besides, he might exorcise me.” She made an impatient noise. “All these years I’ve been careful to make him think he’s only dreaming when he’s with me. I didn’t want him to find out that I was really haunting him. How do you think he would react? He’s so concerned with his health. A monk would have told him that I was sucking his life force out.”

“And were you?”

“Of course not!” she said. “Well, maybe a little here and there to supplement myself. He looks quite good for fifty-seven, don’t you think?”

Fifty-seven! I had thought the old man was in his eighties at least. No wonder Fan was in such terror of the authorities. I had thought it a simple case of overstaying, but clearly she had been involved in other trespasses. She turned a guileless face to me.

“That’s why I decided to come with you. If you’re from the heavenly realm, you should be able to help me with the authorities.”

Uneasily, I wondered what else Fan had concealed from me. Just then she gave a cry and flattened herself against the ground. Looking up, I saw swift dark shapes passing overhead. “What is it?”

“Down! Down!” she hissed. I threw myself on the coarse earth beside her. Whatever it was swooped over us, dipping and wheeling with a mewling wail. It was a sound like nothing I had ever heard, piercing and forlorn, yet dreadful in its intensity. Stifling the urge to bury my face in my hands, I glanced up furtively but the creatures were too fast. All I could see was that they flew strangely, as though they sheared the fabric of the air with sharp, triangular wings. They passed ominously low. Squeezing my eyes shut, I flinched as the wind from their passage flattened the grass around us. An instant later, they had lifted off and were gone, flying rapidly into the inky veil of night. After a time, I sat up but Fan remained facedown on the ground, trembling and shaking.

“What were those creatures?” I asked Fan.

She was silent for a while, but at last she said, “Most ghosts ignore them, but I heard that they may be spies for the Courts of Hell.”

“I thought this was a place for human ghosts.”

“It is, though the border officials sometimes cross into here. But nobody really knows whether these flying creatures belong to them or not.”

“The border officials can come here?” Horrified, I’d been under the impression that nonhumans could not.

“Yes, but they seldom do.” Fan spoke in a low voice. “There are many things here that I don’t understand. That’s why I asked you earlier what you saw. Because surely your view of this place is different from mine.” Even as Fan pressed me to tell her how things appeared to me, some instinct warned me against it. She was not so easily put off, however. “Why won’t you tell me?” she asked, returning to her old petulance. It was as though that moment of vulnerability between us had never been.