Shadow Theatre (25 page)

OKAY.. o I was the one who had volunteered the four of us to
make the wayang puppets. (That was why we were at Holy
Family that afternoon, in the parish house dining room where
the huge teak table was.) And no, I wasn't trying to gain favor
with Father Pereira, as some of the other ladies wanted to think.
don't mean Dorothy or Siew Chin or Bernadette. I mean the
other church ladies-that Juniper Ang, for instance, who had
been jealous of my pineapple tarts for years. I suppose she fancied herself quite the pastry chef-lah, must be. And Teresa
Albuquerque. She also was jealous, but not over the pineapple
tarts. She had been wanting to join our clique, just so she could
boast to us at close range about her children, and how well they
were doing. Compared to my Rose-lah, that was what she
meant each time she managed to catch me off guard. Who was
she kidding? As if I was a dummy and didn't know how to read
between the lines. So now she was getting her revenge, helping
to spread rumors about how I wanted to be another Megan
Thornbird. None of it was true. She and the other ladies were
the ones with crushes on Father Pereira, but you see how they
were. Too lazy to volunteer for the puppets, and then complaining about it.

Father Pereira himself had approached us, not the other way
around. You should have seen Dorothy's and Siew Chin's faces
when I said okay. Bernadette, she was going along with anything
I decided now, which should have made Dorothy and Siew Chin
sit up and take notice, but it didn't, for some funny reason.

Of course the teenagers had gone to Father Pereira instead
of Father O'Hara, not only because he was the chief parish
priest. They knew Father O'Hara, ya? Definitely, the old chap
would have put his foot down, but once they got Father Pereira
to say yes, what could Father O'Hara do? Especially given his
announcement a few years ago that he was going to step back and let Father Pereira take charge, as if Father Pereira wasn't
already in charge. It was just that Father O'Hara had been
around longer-Iah, so Father Pereira would often let him have
his way. Actually, they didn't get along, you know. Father
O'Hara had been quite disappointed when Father Pereira had
first joined us, because Father Pereira turned out to be so different from his predecessor, Father D'Souza, who, if you can
believe this, got sent to Africa after being with us for thirteen
years. Imagine. That's what the Vatican does-lah, to make sure
priests don't get attached to places, since they're to be in the
world but not of it. Only Father O'Hara, for some reason, ended
up staying with us for practically his whole life. Why he was
never made chief parish priest, I don't know. Could be due to a
lack of education, since Father D'Souza and Father Pereira had
both attended universities (in Rome, no less), and had all kinds
of degrees, although in my opinion, it isn't necessary for a priest
to have an advanced degree. But you know the Vatican. No use
trying to argue with the Pope or the bishops.

Ah, so anyway, we got Father Pereira and right from the
start, the teenagers loved him. No wonder, bukan? Let me tell
you what Belinda Wong found in his car when she borrowed it
one day to visit the hospitals. One whole bunch of rock-androll cassettes, they were strewn all over the passenger seat. Elvis
Presley-lah, B. B. King-lah, Chuck Berry, the Temptations, the
Supremes, et cetera. You name it, Father Pereira has it, Belinda said.

It's obvious-lah, what he must have thought when the
teenagers asked him if they could put up a wayang kulit. Wab,
he must have thought, it's good that they want to do something with cultural value. Of course Father O'Hara would have objected on the
grounds of paganism, but if you ask me, he could be a bit too
conservative-lah. Must live and let live, bukan?

But luckily, both of them were out that afternoon. You
know how priests tend to disapprove of rumors. If I remember
correctly, Father Pereira was doing some house blessings in the neighborhood, and Father O'Hara as usual was giving
Communion at the old folks' home. Sister Sylvia was not
around, either. She always went over to the convent on
Sundays, to do what, I don't know, but actually, it wouldn't have
mattered even if she had been around. That nun's so pekak. As
deaf as a doornail. (That was another reason our poker games
always lasted so long. Everything you said to her, you had to say
at least three, four times.)

So anyway, there we were. We were at the embroidering
stage-only after all the puppets' clothes were embroidered,
then we were going to sew the parts of the bodies together.
You should always sew the parts together last, ya? To make sure
everything fits. Of course our puppets were not as elaborate as
the traditional kind-lah, since ours were made out of cardboard. This was for charity, what, so never mind-lah. That was
what Father Pereira had assured us, and I was quite relieved, to
tell you the truth. Who knows how many mistakes we would
have made if we had tried to use wood or leather. Sometimes
perfectionism can be a downfall. So ya-lah, luckily, Father
Pereira must have considered the fact that none of us were
experts.

You know the dining room at Holy Family, full of crucifixes
on the walls. Bernadette also was glad to have an excuse to spend
her afternoons there, okay? That was why-lah she had kept her
mouth shut when I had volunteered us. (You see how when she
didn't want to be a coconut-head, she didn't have to be.)

You understand what I'm saying? Remember, Shakilah hadn't
given birth, yet. Don't forget what I've said about Pontianak and
the Langsuir.

So anyway, Siew Chin and [Dorothy were still going on
about that Ying Ying.

"How did she talk about it?" Dorothy wanted to know. "Did
her voice show any emotion or not?"

"Ya-lah, but a hit only," Siew Chin said.

"Some women, it turns them on, you know." That was
Bernadette, deciding to join in after she had been buat-
bodohing long enough.

"Turns them on?" Siew Chin shook her head, with great
indignation, I might add. "You mean, you think women can get
aroused by that sort of treatment? You gila?"

"Different strokes for different folks," Bernadette told her.
"What, don't tell me you've never heard the saying."

"Please-lah, don't test my patience."

You see how I wasn't the only one who ever got irritated by
Bernadette and her way of talking. Didn't I tell you? But
Dorothy as always, trust her to save the day.

"Poor thing," she said. "Coming all this way to marry a man
like that."

Ya-lah, she was right. Who would want to be in that boat,
after all? Imagine your own husband calling you Bitch, Bastard,
Bitch, Bastard, just as you're on the verge of bliss. How to enjoy
making love like that? Plus, what about the son, ya? Imagine
having to listen to your father behave that way. No wonder the
boy doesn't come home nowadays, even with the father gone.
Too many bad memories in the house, must be. If I were that
Ying Ying, I would move to another house. There's no reason
for her to stay.

But can't tell-lah what goes through people's heads sometimes, especially one China-born-and-bred like her. Sometimes,
it's all a mystery. And sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.

1'A. Y.A. ON the one hand, it may have been a coincidence. On
the other hand, maybe not. As I've said, it was Father Pereira who
had asked us if we would make the puppets. I didn't volunteer out
of the blue, okay? Could be, the four of us were meant to be there
that afternoon. Right or not? Otherwise, there wouldn't have
been anyone to corroborate Alice Wang's daughter's story about the old lady calling to her to go behind the parish house. Even
I wouldn't have known whether or not to believe a teenager. Ya,
that girl Susanna (the one already fated to die in a boating accident when she was only seventeen, poor thing). You remember
her mother Alice Wang, that pretty young widow who used to
live up the road, next door to Regina Lim. Their two girls were
best friends, okay, when they were growing up. Susanna was the
quiet one-lah. She and Regina's daughter would remind me of
Rose and Shakilah. Must be, when two friends end up being
that close, one must always turn out quieter. Otherwise, how to
tell them apart?

Of course, I've never had the experience-lah. You see who I
had for a childhood friend. Bernadette. (Why is there the saying, birds of a feather flock together? See-lah, how conventional wisdom isn't always true.)

Ah, so anyway, as I was saying, Bernadette was already scared
stiff from what had happened to the two of us. Ya-lah, she was
covering it up quite well, but mark my words. She wasn't ready
for yet one more thing, okay? Dorothy and Siew Chin also, they
would rather wipe that afternoon out of their minds completely.

Here's what happened.

It was just after Dorothy noticed there was a finger missing
from the puppet's hand. No-lah, I can't remember which puppet
it was, but it didn't matter-lah.

"Alamak, you," I heard her say, so I looked up.

Here's how we were sitting-Dorothy was across from me,
Siew Chin was to her right, and Bernadette was at the head of
the table and closest to the window. I was on Bernadette's right,
facing the hallway, with the window over my left shoulder and
Father O'Hara's antique clock ticking on the wall behind my
head. (You know which one I mean, with the rosewood body, still
there hanging between the ivory crucifix and the Sacred Heart
portrait of Our Lord. One of the parishioners had brought it back
from abroad and given it to Father O'Hara, no one really knows why-lah. But must be, the parishioner had confessed something
quite terrible and Father O'Hara had given him a lighter penance
to do than he had deserved. That's my guess.)

So anyway, Siew Chin was the one who had cut out the
puppets' limbs. We had put Bernadette in charge of the torsos,
and Dorothy and I were doing the heads. So Dorothy was holding the arm in one hand and the puppet's sleeve in the other, as
she looked at Siew Chin. (She must have been fitting the sleeve
on top of the arm-lah, when she had noticed the missing finger.)

Siew Chin didn't notice anything at first, because she was
looking at Dorothy's face, not at her hands. "What?" she asked.

"You see-lah your handiwork," Dorothy told her, but of
course, her tone was affectionate. The two of them had been
childhood friends, ya? Whether best friends or not, that, I never
asked-lah. (No-lah, I didn't know them before we became neighbors. Before, they used to live in the Serangoon area. Quite lucky
for them that they kept ending up living so close to each other.
Of course, you see how everyone's luck evens out in the end.
Now that Siew Chin's moved to Germany, I don't think they've
continued to talk on the phone more than a few times a year.)

Siew Chin sighed when she saw the hand. "Aiya, you think
they'll mind?" she asked.

Right at that moment, we heard the scream. It was soft and
brief, not ear-piercing at all, but definitely it contained fear.

You remember I've said, I was facing the hallway. First of all,
anyone entering the parish house, we would have heard, and the
only way to reach the back was to walk down the hallway past
us, okay? Nowadays, it's different because the garden fence is
gone. (It was removed when the angsana tree got chopped
down, to create an illusion of having more space, or something
like that-lah.) But that Sunday, it was still there, enclosing Father
O'Hara's rose bushes to protect them from vandalism, since this
area was more rural back then, and various Toms, Dicks and
Harrys were always passing by the church compound.

Ya, ya, believe it or not, there used to be rose bushes in the
garden. Gorgeous blossoms, huge and red. Everyone wondered
how they could survive the heat, but Father O'Hara had quite a
green thumb-lah, must be. Some of the ladies tried to get the
secret from him, but you've heard how he was. Always promising he would tell when he was on his deathbed, as if he could
foresee the hour that would happen, which of course, he couldn't.
So that's why now, those rose bushes have long been dug up.
Ya-lah, they started dying the very next day after Father O'Hara
passed away from a sudden heart attack.

So anyway, the old lady was squatting near one of the bushes, near the papaya tree (the one still there). And Susanna, poor
girl, she was standing at the fence, not in the garden but on the
other side, and you could see how she was shivering. Her face
so puchat, we knew at once something was wrong. Of course,
all of us had rushed out to the hack to see who had screamed,
and as soon as I saw the lady, I wondered how she had managed
to walk past the dining room without my noticing, but at the
time, I thought it was possible I had been looking away-lah.
Maybe when she had walked past, I was concentrating on my
embroidery. That was what I thought at first. As I've said, I don't
jump to conclusions by force of habit, ya?

What else was strange was that Susanna was over at the
fence by herself. Regina's daughter, that Jo, she was nowhere
around, and as I've already pointed out, those two were always
together, hukan? But I didn't think about this until later-lah, and
neither did the others. Dorothy and Siew Chin, they were staring at the old lady as if trying to see if they could recognize her,
as if one of the parishioners would he squatting in the garden
like that. Betul-betul they also acted like coconut-heads sometimes. Bernadette, you can imagine-lah the panic building up in
her, and to be honest, I wasn't feeling so calm myself.

At first, we couldn't see her face, the old lady. Her body was
turned a bit to the right, in Susanna's direction, and she had a twig in her left hand which she was using to write or draw something on the ground. You know those patches of sand around the
papaya tree where there's no grass. That's what the old lady was
doing when we got to the back door. (That's where we had
stopped short, after catching sight of Susanna and seeing the
way she looked at us. Fear was written clearly in the poor girl's
eyes, like a warning to us-lah, not to approach the lady.)