House of Trembling Leaves, The (32 page)

Lu See opened a tin of Eagle Brand condensed milk and almost straight away flies started to buzz all around her. A new song by P. Ramlee was playing on the gramophone. She had just whisked an egg into her mixture of flour, sugar and butter when Dungeonboy slid a crooked finger into the blending bowl.

Lu See immediately slapped his hand away with her long wooden spoon. ‘‘Don't eat anything that contains raw eggs. How many times must I tell you!''

‘‘Yes, yes, I know, lah. Udderwhy I catch Sam and Ella.''

‘‘Nincompoop!''

‘‘Cannot help, lah. It sweet like ice cream.'' He sucked the sugar from the frighteningly long nail on his fifth finger – usually reserved for ear scraping and nose drilling.

‘‘Do that again and I'll chop your pinkie off, understand?''

‘‘Okay, lah.'' Dungeonboy chuckled. He was a short, quick-witted Malayan Chinese of about twenty with a chubby, shiny face eternally folded in smiles.

Lu See poured the mixture into a baking pan and shoved it into the Florence oven. Afterwards, spanking flour from her batik apron, she emerged from the tiny kitchen into the restaurant proper. Set in a two-storey building, with bright orange shutter windows and narrow verandahs called five-foot ways that shielded pedestrians from the sun, Il Porco was a small eatery set on the corner of Macao Street and Hokkien Street, close to the Old Market Square. From Market Street to Il Porco you passed mainly Muslim-owned establishments and certainly no other restaurant that served pig meat.

The first time Lu See told anyone she was opening an eatery that specialized in roast and stewed pork they thought she was mad. ‘‘Pig restaurant?'' Uncle Big Jowl cried, cocking his head. ‘‘What about the Muslims next door, aahh?''

‘‘I admit, it's a bit provocative,'' she replied matter-of-factly. ‘‘But I spoke to the neighbourhood Imam and he gave me his blessing. I'm not doing anything illegal. The building was going cheap.''

Once he'd sampled her rosemary roast pork, Uncle Big Jowl almost collapsed. ‘‘Crackling so crunchy it fills your head with noise!'' He patted his tummy with delight and agreed to be her silent partner, taking a 10 percent stake.

Six months later, despite the occasional sour looks thrown her way by her Islamic neighbours, business was thriving. KL's culinary hotchpotch of diners had never experienced cuisine quite like it. The Chinese and Indians came in droves and on Saturday lunch, the busiest time of the week, Lu See often had to squeeze twelve people together at a table designed for eight.

Where its exterior was colonial, the compact interior of Il Porco was classical
Nyonya
: blackwood chairs, round marble-topped tables, wooden screens, washed-out portraits of Lu See's Grand-aunty Ying scattered along the walls and a huge lacquer panel in Chinese that read
Tung Jao Gung Jai
meaning ‘We are all in the same boat'.

After shelving away a few plates, Lu See paused and slowly twisted her lower back first this way, then that. Her movements were stiff. She was going to be forty-one years old, her legs remained willowy and her body was still angular, but today her stomach was killing her. She stood motionless for a long moment with her arms crossed over her tummy and her head turned heavenward.

‘‘Is that a new yoga position? You look like an Egyptian mummy,'' said Stan Farrell. Since their initial meeting on the MS
Jutlandia
, his hair, like Lu See's, had grown a little salt-and-pepper grey over the years. It hadn't taken him long to find her on his return from the war. He took a quick sip of
teh tarik
and then replaced the cup on the table between his truncheon and peaked cap. Dressed in khaki shorts and shirt, knee-high socks, Webley revolver and Federation of Malaya Police badge, Stan looked every inch the policeman. Apart from the hockey boots, that is.

Lu See bent forwards a fraction, keeping her arms folded. ‘‘It's the only position which doesn't hurt. Why the ridiculous shoes?''

‘‘For protection.'' He grinned, parting his lips to reveal his infamous gravestone teeth, which could signal ships off the coast. ‘‘They extend past the ankle, you see?'' He lifted a leg. ‘‘You ever see a leech?''

‘‘Only in
The African Queen
.''

‘‘Keeps the leeches off when I'm out in the swamps chasing guerrillas.''

Guerrillas like Mabel, she wanted to say. Instead, frowning and with a sudden craving to break wind, she said, ‘‘All set for the handover?''

‘‘Duke of Gloucester's flying in tomorrow for Abdul Rahman's swearing in ceremony.'' He popped a gumdrop into his mouth, opened the
Straits Times
and turned to the funnies page.

Several Chinese patrons were slurping thick rosemary-infused
baan meen
pork noodles; several bottles of Tiger beer sweated by their elbows; transistor radios screeched. A tangy smell of pork belly stewed with shallots flavoured the air. Fans whirred overhead.

‘‘And you're definitely staying on?'' she asked, reaching for a swig of milk of magnesia and returning to her mummy pose.

‘‘Hell yes, I'm staying on. In fact, I think I'm the only
gweilo
copper who's not leaving. Everyone else is being sent home. Besides, I've got Mum to look after. She likes living in this country,'' he said, watching her sip from the cobalt-blue bottle. ‘‘Anyway, why would I leave? I was born here. I'm entitled to stay, unlike the rest of 'em.'' He took another suck of tea as he read the comics. ‘‘What happened? To your tummy, I mean. Something you ate?''

‘‘I'm not sure. It might be muscular. It started when I threw a heavy bucket of water over Dungeonboy.''

‘‘Sounds interesting. Was he drunk?''

Lu See straightened up and rubbed her abdomen rhythmically. ‘‘No. During last night's blackout, he set his hair on fire lighting the candles.''

On hearing this, Stan swallowed the wrong way and choked, forcing a jet of warm tea to shoot up his nose. Both she and Stan burst out laughing as he wiped his face with a handkerchief. ‘‘Poor chap. He's only been here a week. Why on earth d'you call him Dungeonboy?''

Still laughing, she said, ‘‘Because he lives in the basement under the stairs. There are no windows down there. He calls it his dungeon. His real name's Ah Fung.''

‘‘Any references? Know much about him?''

‘‘Not much except that he thinks he's Doris Day. He worked as a dishwasher at the Coliseum Club for three years.''

Stan stood up. ‘‘I'll have to check him out. D'you mind if I look at his IC?''

Lu See shrugged and called him over.

Stan studied Dungeonboy's identity card as he stood beaming and chuckling in his starched white house coat. There was a small patch of burned hair to the left of his fringe. ‘‘Wah! You thing me Communist, boss? Of course not, lah! Hey, you likey Doris Day?''

‘‘That's a mighty dangerous looking fingernail you've got there.''

‘‘Good for picking locks. Me number one expert lock-picker, boss!'' He laughed, winking theatrically at Lu See. ‘‘Only joking-joking!''

Stan returned the identity card and looked at Lu See. ‘‘Bit of a fruit cake if you ask me.'' They smiled at each other and allowed their eyes to linger. Not for the first time, she subconsciously wanted to go to bed with him. She wondered if that was a semi-erection in his trousers.

‘‘Well, best be off.'' He left his tea money on the table and held his baton in his hand as if it was a flower. ‘‘Oh, I almost forgot,'' he said, reaching into his back pocket to pull out a folded piece of thick, white cold-pressed paper. ‘‘What d'you think? It's the front of the restaurant. I did it over the weekend.''

Lu See's eyes gleamed as she smoothed out the creases of the watercolour. It was a work unique to Stan – a creamy violet shopfront, light pink skies and dark ochre-green shadows. There were two hawkers in the foreground, their faces were salmon red, and bang in the centre of the composition, made with rapid strokes, was ‘Il Porco' in cool ultramarine.

Lu See gave a contented sigh. ‘‘It's lovely.''

‘‘How're your own pictures coming along?'' he asked.

‘‘Haven't done much. I used to do a portrait of Mabel once a year, or at least I did until, well, you know.''

‘‘Still no news?''

‘‘No.'' She stretched again, wincing at the pain in her stomach.

‘‘Well, you know what I always say – no news is good news, unless you're a journalist.''

‘‘All I know is that she's somewhere deep in the jungles of Johor.'' As she stretched, her back made popping noises that sounded like an old man cracking his knees.

‘‘How can it be,'' said Stan, ‘‘that Mabel spends two years training to be a nurse then leaves three months before her final exams to live like a monkey in the jungle?''

Mother, eavesdropping from the other side of the restaurant, tapped her cup with a spoon in protest. ‘‘
Cha!
As soon as she started her monthly and hair sprouted between her legs she was with that Bong fellow.''

Stan raised an eyebrow. ‘‘The Malayan Communist Party member?''

Lu See nodded. She was about to tell him that she'd known Bong since he was a child but something stopped her. There was a part of her that admired Bong; something about him – his recklessness and passion – reminded her of Adrian.

Adrian and Bong. The scholar and the soldier. Apart from their shared devotion to radical socialism there was little to link the two men. One dreamed about a communist state, the other fought for it. Whereas Adrian's intellectual approach was all youthful enthusiasm and theory, Bong relied on discipline, stealth and sabotage.

‘‘You were such a good mother. It's not fair,'' said Stan.

‘‘Fair?'' Lu See sighed deeply and shook her head at Stan because it sounded like such a ridiculous thing to say – this implication that life had to be
fair
.

Turning her gaze towards the cash register she scooped up the coins on the table. Eventually she said, ‘‘Mabel was always iron willed.''

‘‘Stubborn girl …'' said Stan. ‘‘Did you … did you ever meet any of her friends? Ever come across someone nicknamed ‘the mule'?

‘‘Mabel rarely introduced me to her friends,'' she sighed. ‘‘She kept them all close to her chest.'' Thinking she had to look strong in front of Stan, she lifted her head with purpose and added, ‘‘Can't go on moping about it. And I don't need any finger-wagging I-told-you-sos either, Mother.''

Mother gave a
harrumph
from the other side of the room and turned her face away as if to imply she was bored with it all.

‘‘You must miss her,'' said Stan.

‘‘Every minute. And every minute of not knowing where she is makes it worse.'' The ache in her stomach intensified.

Stan nodded. There wasn't much more he could say. ‘‘Well, as I said, best be off. See you next Friday.'' He cocked his head to one side. ‘‘Started, farted, stumbled fell …?''

‘‘Yes, see you Friday, Stan Farrell. Good luck tomorrow night.'' They shook hands a little awkwardly and moments later he vanished through the battered swing doors into the bright tangerine sunshine.

Kaching!
Lu See dropped the coins into the tray of the cash register. She checked that nobody was looking before pulling a red $10 bill from the note stash. Hurriedly she snuck it into an envelope labeled ‘Juru'.

Then she turned to watch Stan go. Often, when she saw Stan walk away like this, she thought of the final scene in
Casablanca
, where Rick stands in the fog watching the plane carrying Ingrid Bergman fly off to neutral Lisbon. Stan often reminded Lu See of Humphrey Bogart – more Rick Blaine than Sam Spade. There was something so calm and appealing about Stan; a quietness, like the reassuring comfort of a mid-afternoon nap.

‘‘He give you picture-drawing,'' said Dungeonboy, taking up his broom. ‘‘Maybe you make good
rabak rabak
boyfenn-girlfenn?''

Lu See did not react to this. It was true, she mused, they would make ‘good boyfenn-girlfenn' and it was not the first time the idea had been suggested.

Once in a while she caught herself standing motionless over a pork knuckle stew, staring straight ahead, thinking of the way Stan laughed by tossing his head back, and how his infectious laughter made her feel. She had realised that over the last few months she'd been wondering about him more and more, but having an affair with Stan was not an option. Of course the idea had crossed her mind many times, but she knew she would never be able to go through with it. He was a friend first and foremost.
Yes, he's single, yes, he's kind, but why would he want to get involved with a forty-year-old widow?

It didn't stop her from fantasizing, however. And whenever she thought of him she felt happy rather than forlorn, so where was the harm in that? What was wrong with a little romantic escapism? Nothing, she decided. Was he off home to feed his cat this minute, she asked herself? Did he hover by the stove with a frying pan in hand on Sunday mornings to cook himself and his mum eggs on toast? Did he go out dancing at the Roxy after dark, or did he spend all his social hours drinking with his police pals at the Spotted Dog? She didn't know for sure, but she did know that she was growing increasingly curious about Stan's private life and in her secret daydreams she wished she could be a part of it.

Sometimes she would join Stan for dinner and a game of rummy at the Colony Club. And now and then he would share a coffee alone with her at a
kopitiam
and look deep into her eyes. But each time she reached into her emotional self she was frightened of finding a black void; scared that her passion had long been extinguished; snuffed out within the pale green walls of a Cambridge hospital.