Shadow Theatre (11 page)

So I asked Winifred, "What have you heard?"

That was how I managed to get her to give me the details,
without her realizing that I didn't know anything. Otherwise,
Winifred would have gone gossiping all over the neighborhood,
about how Helena Sim's daughter didn't talk to her own mother and the two of them living in the same house, blah blah blah.
I had to be very careful with her.

So, quietly, I let her talk, and of course, Winifred being herself, she was quite eager to do that. Luckily, I could control my
facial expression while I was listening, so I managed to hide all
the telltale signs of my true feelings, which were, first and foremost, relief that nothing had happened to Rose, and second, of
course, I was confused like everybody else-lah, about who
would want to kidnap the poor sister. She was mental, okay?
Plus, she and Auntie Coco didn't seem to be rich. What I mean
is this. They didn't look as though their family had money, ya?
We always thought they were living off life insurance, something like that. Of course, everyone just assumed this. Auntie
Coco was quite a hermit, so she never shared anything with us
about her life, but we thought, probably she was married
before, and then her husband must have died-lah.

What Winifred told me was this.

Babi! Babi! That was what everyone heard around eight
o'clock the previous night, Auntie Coco's voice shouting for her
sister outside on the road. Must have sounded a bit funny-lah. You know what babi means in Malay. Pork! Pork! As if Auntie
Coco was a hawker trying to get some business. Who knows
how her sister had ended up with a nickname like that. Ya-lah,
it must be short for Barbara but when you translated it, it still
meant pork, okay?

So anyway, according to Winifred, Auntie Coco spoke only
to Rose, Shakilah, and that boy Ivan when he went over to join
them outside Valerie's gate (Rose was having dinner over there).
Valerie herself hadn't stepped out, which wasn't surprising-lah.
Poor thing, ya, losing face like that after she had spent all that
money on her daughter's education. You know how expensive
an overseas education can be, in America, especially. Ya-lah,
Shakilah had become successful in her career, I'm not denying
that, but her success wasn't enough to save the family's name,
okay? If she had been a son, then of course, but she wasn't a son.
Given people's mindset here, there's nothing more shameful
than to have your daughter come home with a dumpling in the
oven and no husband. Whether right or wrong, that was the situation, and it still is.

You know Winifred's friends with Teresa Albuquerque.
(Birds of a feather-lah, those two, always boasting to each other
about their sons, as if no one could tell that they were secretly
competing over whether Adrian or Simon was getting more As
in each subject. At least I never did that to my Rose. I only told
her, "Do your best," even though her results were never as good
as Shakilah's. She's always been hardworking, you know, my
Rose, but she never had Shakilah's brains, and luckily-lah. If she
had wanted to go overseas for further studies, I don't know how
I would have sent her.)

So anyway, Simon happened to be at Ivan's house at
the time for extra maths tuition, so he knew it was Ivan who
called the police. Must be because Auntie Coco herself was so
distraught, poor thing.

"So, Hel, what did Rose tell them? They ask her the same questions or not?" Winifred was asking me again, after she had
finished spilling her news.

I pretended some more. "More or less the same." (They
sounded like routine questions to me. When was the last time
people had seen the sister, what was she wearing, that sort of
thing, and also whether anyone had noticed any strangers lurking about recently.)

"More or less? What you mean, more or less?" See how gila
she could be, that Winifred. Crazy woman.

"Wait-lah," I said, hoping for the best. "Let Rose tell you in
her own words." I thought surely she would understand that, she
who always wanted to be the first to tell people things herself.

She kept on trying. "Aiya, you can't tell me first?"

"No-lah, better not. You know my memory nowadays. I don't
want to get the facts mixed up. Better you let Rose tell you."

"Aiya, okay-lah, okay-lah."

I was surprised. For Winifred, that was giving up a bit fast,
okay? Then I noticed she was looking past me at Ying Ying
Coleman, who was at that moment coming into the market,
walking as usual two feet behind her husband as if this was
China. If I didn't leave right away, Winifred was going to start
jabbering about those two, and to be honest, any other day I
wouldn't have minded chitchatting a bit. But I needed some
time to absorb the news about Auntie Coco's sister. Plus, I was
wondering what Rose herself knew, and also what Ivan had said
to her, and what his manner had been-lah.

Not that I was harboring any false hope, okay? (Rose used
to have such a crush on him, poor thing. She wouldn't admit it,
but when she was a teenager, it was so clear she was pining for
an impossible dream. Calling him Ivanhoe, of all things. You
could see from an early age, that boy was going to grow up into
a casanova. Look at him now, already thirty-plus and still swinging from girl to girl. That Serena should know better. Ah, and
his poor parents, ya? They were in that TWA crash-lah, killed without the hope of any grandchildren. You see the problem
when you're given a son who's too handsome for his own good.)

Anyway, it took some will power, but I told Winifred I better
get on with my shopping. Alamak, you can't imagine how delicious the noodles smelled as I walked away. Garlic, sweet soya
sauce, that aroma of fried cockles melting into the heat.

Supposedly that was when the old fellow had come through
the gate after Ying Ying and her husband, and then followed
them from stall to stall. Whether they themselves were aware of
him or not, I don't know. And whether that old man had anything
to do with what happened later, I don't know. As I was saying, I
was too preoccupied with Winifred's news, because as you know,
Singapore's so small, okay? People don't just disappear here.

That was where my mind was as I left the market (without
finishing my shopping), and that's the truth. I don't know anything about the old fellow. (As for the girl, only now I'm hearing
about that.)

W I I A I I R E M E M B E R most clearly after that begins with the
light. So bright the air became suddenly, blinding as frozen
lightning, and it wasn't just my imagination, okay? The road
shone like water as I was walking home, and people's fences and
the leaves in the trees all seemed to be full of mirrors. And I
mean all along River Road and up our slope. Definitely, that
light was what gave me the headache. By the time I reached my
own gate, I thought surely I was going to faint, so I quickly put
out my hand for balance. That was when I felt something move
in front of me, as if someone was stepping away. So, startled, I
looked around at once. Don't know what I thought, but, eh,
what was that? I asked myself. You see how I wasn't so superstitious as to jump to conclusions right away. I even wondered if
maybe because of the headache, I was hallucinating-lah.
Because of course, there seemed to be nothing there. Only the light and my headache, both getting worse.

There was no one in front of the gate-I remember staring
at the gate design. You know our gate design. Every house still
has the same one, with the four watchful dragons. My Hock
Siew used to say that the architect or the contractor or whoever designed this neighborhood must have been very Chinese,
that's why all the gates have dragons. But, you know, seems to
me there could be another reason also. Remember how, according
to Malay folklore, dragons guarded the Pauh Janggi during the
days of Creation? Of course, that's Malay folklore, but so what?
That's the tree-lah, supposed to be buried somewhere in the
Indian Ocean, not far off the coast of Sumatra. Rumor has it, the
Bataks used to gather the fruits when they broke loose and floated to the surface. To sell, of course. Supposedly, the fruits
looked just like coconuts and had powerful medicinal properties. I don't see any contradiction with the Bible, so who can say
the story's not true?

But my Hock Siew didn't like looking at the dragons. That's
why he had our gate repainted black. See how in the daytime,
only when you stare at it a while, then you can see the dragons?
Otherwise, the gate looks like repeated pattern and that's all.
Black also helps with the dust, you know.

So, as I was saying, I could see there was no one in front of
the gate. Nor was there anyone on the road, no one anywhere.
Not even Gopal Dharma, who was living next door, was outside
watering his precious fruit trees. According to the time, which
was around half-past nine, I think, he at least should have been
in the garden, watering his beloved trees. But that morning, you
know, he wasn't.

So then, I reached through the gate to unlatch it, and again
something moved past my face, like a whitish, transparent figure or shadow crossing in front of me. Then I knew.

Quickly, I made the sign of the cross. I began to pray, Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name-as I opened the gate. I didn't stop praying until I was inside the house. Then
I locked both the front and back doors, and I hurried upstairs.
Don't ask why I thought locking the doors could keep out the
ghost, but that's what I did.

He didn't follow me in.

Luckily I always kept my rosary on top of my bureau so that
morning there it was, waiting for me. I grabbed it and went to lie
down. For some reason, I began with the Sorrowful Mysteries.
Normally I would have started with the Joyful Mysteries,
because of course, that's the way Our Lord's life started, with the
Angel Gabriel appearing to the Blessed Virgin while she was
praying, and then St. John the Baptist leaping in his mother
Elizabeth's womb when he felt his mother's sister coming up the
road, and so on. But as I was saying, I was led to pray the
Sorrowful Mysteries, instead. Of course, the Holy Spirit was
using me as a vessel, but I didn't realize it at the time. I was quite
frightened, you know. Already Auntie Coco's sister had vanished
without a trace. Now with that ghost waiting for me outside the
gate-for all I knew, it could be a spirit from the Abyss.

What if that same ghost had been waiting outside Auntie
Coco's gate? The sister, with her lopsided brain, she wouldn't have
known not to follow him. Those were my thoughts while I was
praying. See-lah how weak my faith was, exactly one-mustardseed size.

ER FIRST MORNING. the angsana tree was full of rain
outside the window, the gray sky bursting with lightning.
Eleven chickens drowned that morning, in the water lily pond.
No one knew where they had come from, how they could have
been smuggled into the hospital garden without anyone noticing. We didn't know if this was an ill omen or a lucky sign. Some
of Ben's aunts thought it was lucky. It meant Shakilah would
have an extraordinary life, they said. But I wasn't so sure. It was
the first important fact of Shakilah's life, and it was out of our
hands. Imagine knowing this as a mother. Imagine if you had
given birth to your daughter on such a day, how closely you would have watched her, your eyes hiding in her shadow day
after day, until your soul becomes like an onion, layered with
the years of your daughter's life. She grows up, moves on, shedding her old skins, leaving them with you. Understand how it
was. Think what it took for me to send her away. I didn't know
if I would have the strength a second time.

Those details, as I was saying. Maybe it was wrong for me to
go through her things, but truly I felt I had no choice. She wasn't
telling me the truth, as if I wouldn't know, as if I couldn't hear the
doors snapping shut in her mind as she spoke. The way she had
hesitated before telling me the fathers name was Marlowe, I knew
what she was thinking-that if she gave me a ridiculous name like
that, I would believe her. She had forgotten whom she was talking to. Now that she herself was carrying, she should have
known. I was the one who had carried her. I knew before she said,
"His name is Marlowe," it was a lie. I could hear how she was
swallowing her feelings, the same way as when she was a child.
All her feelings, her true feelings. Everyone was fooled, except
me. The rest didn't know. Wab, you so blessed, Ben's relatives used to
say. Such a happy girl you have. She never gets angry-ah? So good-natured.