Spirit Tiger (12 page)

‘I'm going to get Pak Lah. This has gone on long enough.'

‘Wait! She sounds a little better,' Mamat said optimistically.

Rubiah snorted at him. ‘I know when she's lying. She's going to agree with us so we'll all leave her alone, but really, she'll keep on about this tiger thing in her head, and by the time we all figure it out, it will be too late, and she'll already be too far gone for us to help her. We've got to act now.' With a stern look at her cousin, she marched off the porch in search of Pak Lah.

Maryam didn't dare to look Mamat in the eye, not wanting to see his reaction to her attempted recovery. He looked dejected, while Malek looked irritated.

‘Yam,' her brother said slowly, ‘I don't know what you're thinking. Maybe Pak Lah can help. I hope so, because I don't know what to do.' Mamat perked up. ‘I'm sure …'

‘I'm alright,' Maryam assured him. ‘I know the tiger didn't –'

She was interrupted by the arrival of a bemused Pak Lah, trailed by an adamant Rubiah. He greeted everyone cordially, then asked Maryam if she would follow him into the front room where they could talk. She rose and entered the house, while everyone watched her.

‘What's this I hear?' Pak Lah asked easily, lighting both their cigarettes. ‘The tiger came to you in a dream?' Maryam nodded dumbly. ‘Your family is afraid you're going mad.'

She nodded again, then burst out, ‘I am not, Pak Lah! The tiger came to me in a dream just as you said he might. And he told me …'

‘He talked to you?'

‘But not with our voices. I just heard him and he heard me. I can't explain. But he told me he'd protect me, but that other people wished me harm. And then he said some things to lead me to the murderer. He said, “They are weak, yet they are strong. They throw riches away, yet they collect them. They are despised, yet they are feared.” I remember exactly what he said, so clearly.'

She looked at him beseechingly, willing him not to think her crazy and dismiss her. Pak Lah looked out onto the porch and pursed his lips in thought.

‘
Cik
Rubiah!' he called, and she walked in, looking grim. ‘I want you to hear this,' he said softly, and turned again to Maryam, encouragingly. ‘Tell her,
adik
, what you just told me.' Maryam complied, and Rubiah answered immediately. ‘Din.'

‘Din?'

‘Din. It's too bad your tiger didn't add “stupid”, because then it would be without doubt,' she said acidly. ‘Listen to me: he's weak because he gambles and can't control himself, but strong because he's physically strong. He gambles, so he throws riches away, but I can't think of anything for him collecting them. He's got nothing.

‘But never mind. Despised, of course, and feared, of course: he's so big and strong and could kill you so easily. If your tiger was really telling you anything,' she continued confidently, ‘it's Din.'

Maryam felt her mind moving faster than it had in a long time. ‘But it could also be Suleiman. Weak, yes. Strong, I can't think of anything …

‘No wait, not Suleiman.' She thought again. ‘Ah Pak! Yes! He fits all of it.'

‘Despised?' Rubiah asked doubtfully. ‘I don't think anyone despises him.'

‘Well, maybe it means Chinese in general. You know, lots of people don't like them.' She blushed slightly to have said this so baldly.

‘You aren't convinced,' Rubiah admonished her. ‘It should come to you immediately when you hear that riddle, not going through your list of suspects and choosing one. However,' Rubiah allowed, ‘It does kind of fit Ah Pak.'

Maryam shook her head. ‘I can't believe Ah Pak would do something like this.'

‘Why not?'Rubiah pursued. ‘The man was threatening his son! Of course, he would protect him.' She took a drag on her cigarette and then examined it between her fingers. ‘Anyone would.'

‘But murder,' Maryam breathed. ‘And then, why would the tiger warn me?' Rubiah rolled her eyes at Pak Lah, but Maryam saw it.

‘Stop it. I'm not crazy, no matter what Malek thinks. Or you,' she added with asperity.

‘Ah Pak isn't going to hurt me.'

‘Are you sure?' Pak Lah asked. ‘I know he's a nice man and all that, but might he try?'

‘Did the tiger kill Ruslan also?'

Maryam was nonplussed. ‘I … I don't know. Why would he?'

Rubiah sighed with exaggerated patience. ‘Maryam, either the tiger is watching you and advising you about this case …' Her tone made it clear she did not believe this for a moment. ‘Or you aren't talking to tigers at all, which is the better answer.'

Maryam sat silent. If Rubiah, her closest friend, relative and ally doubted her sanity, then perhaps she was mad after all. She rubbed her eyes to clear them.

‘Maybe an exorcism. Another
main puteri
…' Pak Lah murmured.

‘No!' Maryam surprised them with the vehemence of her denial. ‘I won't have
main puteri
done for me every year. I don't need one.'

‘Perhaps not,' Pak Lah soothed. ‘A
jampi
, perhaps, and a talisman that you can wear. The tiger needs to leave you,
Adik
. You can't follow him to become a tiger yourself,' he said sadly, as though he knew how very tempting that sounded to Maryam at the moment. ‘I know what you're thinking now: ‘
kukur apa kepada kukur? Nyiur juga yang binasa':
What does the rasp care about rasping? It's the coconut which suffers.

‘I know you think it's easy for us to tell you what to do, and to ignore the tiger, but we haven't seen it, have we? We don't know how it feels to see it, and yet we tell you to turn your face away from it.'

He looked at her kindly. ‘I've known you a long time, and I can tell you, this tiger will make you mad. A person – I mean a person who is not a
hala
– can't talk to tigers. It will take you with it, Maryam, you will have no choice but to follow it. You can't live in both worlds, and the
hala
world looks very good to you now. But it means you will leave everything of your human life behind.'

Maryam began to be frightened: if it were true, how could she leave her family and everything she knew to follow a tiger? It was insane.

Pak Lah looked deeply into her eyes. ‘
Seperti kapas dimakan api:
like cotton eaten by fire, you will be completely destroyed. Believe me, Maryam. You're playing with your very life here.'

With a long look at her, Pak Lah rose and walked slowly out to the porch. Rubiah would not leave, but said nothing, merely looking hard at Maryam as though memorizing her features before they were lost. Maryam burst into hysterical tears, afraid to lose her life, but also afraid to lose her tiger.

Chapter XVIII

Azrina trotted happily behind Maryam and Rubiah as they sauntered to Noriah's house to see how business was doing. The widow had clearly been busy. Workmen were swarming over the old house, enlarging the parlour, adding electricity and running water, and a real stove in the kitchen. It was going to be a first-class institution when Noriah was finished, and they found her standing in front of it, keeping a keen eye on the job.

They greeted each other warmly, and though Maryam and Rubiah could not approve of the use to which the building would be put, as businesswomen they were impressed with the work being done and Noriah's will to improve.

‘I'm going to charge them to come inside,' she informed Maryam, gesturing with her cigarette. ‘No more deadbeats. I'm making something really nice here, people can come from all over and play, eat, whatever.' Maryam picked up her ears at ‘whatever', remembering what Khatijah had told them. Still Noriah chattered on, proud of her project.

‘You know, all those people who owed money to Yusuf, I'm not letting them in here. This is for people who can pay their debts. I'm not collecting.' She thought for a moment.

‘So much trouble with that, and then,
Kakak
, I'd have to pay someone to get it from them.' (
Beat it out of them, more like
, Maryam thought.) ‘So this is for people who have the money to gamble, not the ones who should never have started in the first place.'

This seemed to describe most of Yusuf's clientele, but perhaps Noriah knew other, well-heeled gamblers whose custom she was targeting.

‘Will Khatijah be working here?' Maryam asked casually.

Noriah shook her head. ‘I think it's time Khatijah and I had some time apart,' she said cryptically.

Azrina edged closer to the group, anxious not to miss a word if that were possible. ‘Who's that?' Noriah asked shortly.

Maryam introduced them. ‘Ah, this is
Cik
Azrina. Police Chief Osman's wife. She's come from Perak.'

Noriah grunted, not even bothering to feign interest when Azrina smiled eagerly. ‘So nice to meet you,' Azrina said.

Noriah looked briefly at her, then looked away. ‘Perak?' she said witheringly.

‘Yes,' Azrina answered politely.

The corners of Noriah's mouth turned down before she corrected them, and she looked back at the work. ‘Two weeks,' she informed Maryam and Rubiah, ignoring Azrina. ‘Then it's done.'

‘How about the debts
Che
Yusuf was collecting?' Rubiah added. ‘Are you forgiving those?'

Noriah snorted. ‘Forgiving? No. They'll have to pay me. Everything's going to be settled up before I open this new place.'

‘How will you do it?' Maryam asked.

Noriah looked at her, surprised at such an aggressive question. ‘I'll just …' She let the rest of her answer fade away as she sought to ignore the question altogether.

‘As part of our investigation,' Rubiah reminded her. ‘That's why we're asking. Have you hired someone?'

‘I'm not doing it myself,' she said, clearly annoyed. ‘I'm supervising this,' she said, as though otherwise she'd be stopping by the houses of her debtors and physically threatening them. Maryam doubted it was really a job for a woman, unless it was a really frightening harridan. Noriah turned away from the worksite and began walking over to the village coffee stall. ‘Let's have something to drink,' she called to them.

The men came from Thailand, from Patani, and they were Thai, not Malay, and therefore difficult to talk to. Their Malay was basic at best, and for all Noriah knew, so was their Thai; they did not appear much given to, or perhaps even capable of, having a sustained conversation in any language. They were an unsavoury crew, perfectly happy to hurt someone to get what they wanted, not easily swayed by other people's problems. They were difficult to control, understanding, as they did, only force, and if fear wasn't in the mix of their emotions, its place was filled by contempt.

Just before he died, Yusuf had mentioned bringing them to Kota Bharu for a few days, to ‘clean up' the outstanding debts owed to him. He knew them from his whiskey-buying trips, and though it would be greatly overstating the case to say they were friends, you could call them operators with parallel interests: Yusuf's in procuring cheap whiskey, and theirs in making money without much effort. They meshed perfectly, and since their spheres of influence never overlapped, they never had cause to argue.

Noriah's mistake had been inviting them to Kelantan to undertake the clean-up Yusuf had left undone, and she knew it was her decision alone that landed her in her current straits. Her contact in Patani, a Malay ‘entrepreneur', had advised her not to do it. ‘Once they're in,' he told her, ‘you won't get rid of them so easily, and you won't be able to control them.'

When she didn't take his advice, he shrugged, unwilling to really get involved. After all, what had he to gain by it? Any fool could see this would end badly, and if Noriah chose not to recognize it, what could he do? He did as she requested, pocketed his finder's fee, and promptly forgot all about it. And three men, whose very names Noriah could neither pronounce nor remember, came to Kota Bharu to help her.

Bingong tengkat, cerdik begar:
when stupid, quarrelsome; when clever, difficult. They
were
impossible to control, though they had only just arrived. Noriah could see her initial orientation talk to them was completely ignored and they treated her with little respect. She was now reluctant to give them any information on her debtors, lest they prove both overzealous in intimidating them and extremely lax in turning the funds over to her.

She had realized early on she would have a difficult time collecting, but now felt her solution was worse than her problem. The men would do as they pleased, and possibly walk away with her ill-gotten money, and her only recourse would be to set out a group of other ruffians to keep these in line. The money she would have to disburse to do this, lowlife after lowlife, would bankrupt her, and she wished Yusuf had never mentioned these people. In the end, she decided it was his fault for even starting her down this road and, in fact, he was the one who ‘bore responsibility for the sin'

In the face of Maryam's questions, however, Noriah reverted to her first instinct: deny and hope it would all finally work out as she had planned. Although she had wanted them to find Yusuf's killer – or if unable to do that, at least identify someone who could be blamed for it and therefore provide closure – she emphatically did not want them digging into her private business to do so. She had respected Maryam, perhaps even liked her in a disinterested sort of way, as she regarded everyone not directly involved in her business or her family. But now she was angry about Maryam's questions, and began to feel crowded by her. Before Yusuf's death, she would not have taken any action based on this. Perhaps she would mention it to him, and then remain happily ignorant of anything that might happen. Those days, lamentably, were over, and now Noriah had to take care of herself.