The Black Isle (14 page)

This time, she relented. “Zana say she see pontianak yesterday, miss, coming from jungle.”

So that’s what it was. My little prank had caused a mass hysteria.

“But the pontianak didn’t harm Zana, did she?” I asked.

Rani shook her head reluctantly, as if there was more she wanted me to force out of her. I twisted her wrist till she yelped.

“So?”

“Miss, you know that girl who have the baby?”

“Mina, you mean?”

Rani nodded fearfully. “She die last night.”

I groaned. Her father would surely be looking for someone to blame.

“She have many, many pain, miss. So much blood come out. Now everyone scared she become pontianak.”

“What about her baby?”

“Baby die also.”

“But I heard the drums. I thought the baby was fine.”

“They say Mina father make baby die. Then pontianak cannot eat baby.”

“
They say, they say
. What about what
you
think, Rani? Where’s the baby’s father?”

“Miss…” She glanced around nervously. “Mina father is
bomoh
. He use magic to do bad thing. Miss…Mina father and baby father is same-same.”

Her words echoed my worst fears. I felt myself sinking in a wave of nausea.

Tears pooled in Rani’s eyes. Remembering Dora Conceição, I released her wrist.

“Miss, please don’t say I say this…please…” She backed away, ready to run.

“Will there be a funeral?” I pressed.

“Her father don’ wan’ bury her. He make her wear dress red in color. You know what red dress mean, miss?”

Vengeance. The old man wanted Mina to come back and wreak havoc.

“Tonight is full moon. That’s why everyone so scared.”

I told my Milkmaids to take the rest of the day off. We couldn’t afford the stoppage but I had no choice. I had to confer with Li about what to do next.

When I cycled to his lobe, I saw that even more of his Milkmaids were missing. Li himself was nowhere to be found. Was he off with that hussy again?

I rushed to the milk factory—deserted. A tap dripped water into a rusty basin. Vats of sap sat idle, skin hardening across their surface. The men had fled, leaving their rattan soccer ball on the foreman’s stool.

I pedaled home. Perhaps Li would be there. Naturally, Father wouldn’t be. This was Friday, the day he made his weekly pilgrimage to Ulu Pandan, the nearest village ten miles away, via hired taxi. He made the trip ostensibly to stock up on groceries but somehow always found an excuse to stay past midnight.

Only Robin Melmoth was in the house. He was sprawled on the settee, still in his nightshirt, sipping a glass of some brownish spirit and flipping through
Malay for Mems
with a nostalgic twinkle.

“Air the clothes—
jemur pakaian
. Air the mattress—
jemur tilam
. This is dirty—
ini kotur
.”

He reeked like a saloon; the soles of his feet were jet black.

“Well, hello, young mistress,” he said when he finally noticed me, his face red from drink and from the crush of seat cushions against his cheek. “You know, your room smells of frangipani. Funny smell.”

“Have you seen my brother?”

“Always looking for him, aren’t you? It’s not natural, you know. But I suppose life can get lonely here in the country.” His eyes stayed on me as he sipped his drink. “As a matter of fact, your brother was just here. And then he wasn’t. Funny chap.”

“One of the tappers, this girl…she died last night.”

“Memento mori.”
He turned back to the booklet, as if he hadn’t registered my words. “Polish the golf clubs—
gosok kilat kayu-main golf
. Rub hard—
gosok kuat
.” He grabbed my wrist. “Sit down, will you? You’re giving me a frightful headache.”

“What should we do?” I shook his paw off. It disgusted me to have to seek a buffoon’s advice, but he’d once lived here. There was a chance he’d know.

“What should we do?” he repeated. “That’s the eternal question. To be…or not to be.”

I now saw that he was hopelessly drunk; the reading had been a charade.

“Come, sit. Let’s ponder this a moment, shall we, funny girl?”

A half-empty bottle of port was stuffed in a crease between two cushions, and I reached for it. With no warning at all, he lunged at me.

I leapt back and his mouth struck my shoulder, leaving a slimy trail of spittle on my blouse. He looked confused, even hurt.

“That was most uncalled for!” he said, nursing his reddened chin.

“You’re not going to Oxford, are you?”

My words worked like a splash of cold water. He cackled mockingly. “Lookee here! Clever Chink girl like you, wasting away in the jungle. Why aren’t you in the city, with all the other clever Chinks? Full marks to you! I’m not going anywhere.” He challenged me with narrowed eyes. “My dear papa gave me up to the army, said it would do me good. I disagreed. I suppose this makes me a deserter, a coward. But tell me, why should I sit in a trench and freeze my toes off for the bloody king? He’s got no loyalty to me. I’m just one of the bastard children of the empire, no better than a blackie bent over tea leaves in Assam, no better than
you
.”

He reached for the port, but I slapped the glass out of his hand.

“A girl’s dead, you monster!” I screamed.

“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time…” He worked his face into a serious expression. “Here’s what I propose…” His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he collapsed into the cushions, snoring.

I closed and latched all the windows and waited for Li’s return. He never came.

I sat in the muggy house with the sleeping whale, more than willing to offer him up to the natives in exchange for my brother.

Hours into my vigil, the smell of brush fire began to permeate the house. Opening the front door a crack, I saw orange flames rising on Blood Hill, framed by the purple sunset. The banana trees twisted like women being burned alive.

Bloody idiots! I freed the bottle of port from under Robin’s arm, shook the liquor out, and shattered it on the front step by holding its neck. Clutching this saber-toothed bouquet, I bicycled through the rapidly diminishing twilight.

Amidst thick plumes of smoke, a person appeared on Blood Hill, fanning the flames with two large fronds.

“Stop that!” I ran up the steepest side, brandishing my weapon.

“It’s me! It’s just me!” The figure was Li, trying hopelessly, foolishly, to blow out the fire. “My trees…” He was crying, crumbling. “Mina’s father made them burn down all my trees! But my trees didn’t do anything! My trees are innocent!”

I couldn’t remember the last time I saw Li cry. My poor brother, blinded by his devotion. His fanning only made the flames leap higher.

“Go home,” I said. “Guard our house in case they try to burn it down.”

“That Robby chap’s there! Let
him
guard it.”

“Him?” I was too exhausted to explain. “I’m going to look for Mina’s father. Go home, please! Just go, and wait for me there!”

He studied me, the pious solemnity of last night returning to his face. “All right.”

We raced down the hill together, night wrapping tight around us. At the base, he embraced me swiftly:

“Kill him,” he whispered.

Over Li’s shoulder, I saw columns of shadowy figures marching through the plantation grids. Their pace was strangely placid, as if this parade had been ordained by some bullying high priest: Mina’s father. There wasn’t enough light for me to tell if they were living or dead, but I had my suspicions. Ghosts did not take strolls in packs.

“Bring your bicycle inside,” I told Li. “And hide Robin’s car key. Don’t give them anything.”

I watched to make sure Li left Blood Hill before I started pedaling north.

Rain clouds were clustering, like tighter and tighter gray fists. I passed more of our workers, most carrying cloth bundles. They averted their eyes and I didn’t slow down to question them. Where did they hope to go in the dark? The nearest village was ten miles away, the nearest main road two or three miles beyond that, and in between were pythons, kraits, and cobras that could rise up taller than any man.

After what seemed like forever, I reached the dormitories, the hives. All three barracks appeared to be vacant—their doors left gaping wide. Every lamp had been extinguished, even those hanging outdoors. The whole area was silent. No crickets chirped—even they knew better than to linger here.

I stared at the open doors, each an invitation into a black hole. I stepped through the middle doorway—Mina’s hive.

“I am looking for Mina’s father!” My voice echoed in the abyss.

I waved the shard flower. Its jagged teeth caught the moonglow and threw dots of light into the darkness. I needed more light. I found a box of matches by the door and lit up a battered old kerosene lamp.

The dormitories had no sitting rooms, only a small common area with one long table and bare benches. Attached to one end of this dining area was an outdoor kitchen consisting of three brick braziers and a tap over an open drain. The place smelled of coffee and toddy, the twin engines of the plantation worker: one to rev him up, the other to bring him down. At the other end, the common area filtered into a corridor that led to two long sleeping rooms: one for men, the other for women and children.

The men’s room reeked of the armpits and crotches of the poor laborers now trudging through the jungle. Hard, narrow bunks were stacked three high, as on a battleship sailing off to war. There were eighteen bunks in all.

The women’s room threw off a stench far worse. A few feet from its closed door, I felt like gagging. Even holding my breath, I could taste the sour bitterness of rotting meat. The last thing I’d smelled this foul was a four-legged carcass lying by the Ulu Pandan river, so hollowed out by maggots that I couldn’t tell if it’d been cow, mule, or horse.

The door opened into a dark chamber, its windows covered with canvas panels nailed into the sash. Small candles burned on the floor in one long line, their red wax oozing to form pools that looked like caked blood. I propped open the door with a brick and entered. More filthy, endless bunks and the crosshatches of their shadows.

Immediately, my skin began to itch. Flies. They buzzed and grazed my arms, my face, by the score. I brushed them away but they kept returning.

Reaching the farthest mast of beds, I knew I had come to Mina’s body. The coppery, putrid odor of old blood emanated from her—a ghastly note distinct from the rot. I held the lamp over her. Her face and upper torso were covered with a bloodstained blanket. Below her long red smock extended a pair of gray, calloused feet, their toes permanently curled down and crawling with maggots.

Her stillness unnerved me. I’d never seen a dead person who wasn’t in motion. I realized with a shudder that I had never really seen a corpse.

“Mina, are you here?” I enunciated clearly, over the rumbles of thunder. “Mina, I want to help you.”

I spun around. The candles burned steadily. Nothing moved in the shadows.

But she had to be here. If I were her, I would return. I would want to bare my rage, voice my outrage against my father, against the world that allowed him to use me.

“Mina? Mina…” Each time I spoke her name through the empty hive, I felt her isolation, her fury.

Here I was, just a young girl myself, my body covered in sores, standing all alone in an abandoned plantation. Why had I been left to defend it? Where was my worthless father, my cowardly brother? I wanted to hurl my glass weapon into the darkness and flee into the night, along with all my workers.

Truly, I wanted nothing more than to go far away, back to the city.

But the instant I ran out of the hive, the storm smacked down on me. The heavens had unlatched their floodgates, and rain was descending in denser and denser sheets. There’d be better days for running away. Pelted by the deluge, I dropped to my knees, suddenly and vividly aware of my own mortality.

In the end I would die alone, just as Mina was all alone.

Thunder shook the ground beneath me. This was no time for self-pity. I pulled myself up and sprinted toward home. All around me, the rain clacked against the ground like a million pairs of chattering teeth.

Death may be mankind’s great leveler, but water is surely land’s. In the night, it conspired to make all terrains appear as one. High, low, sharp, blunt, near, far. Everything looked the same. Water seeped into my pores, flowed into my eyes. I couldn’t tell if the rain was falling sideways or if I was charging at right angles. All landmarks vanished. Where was the factory? The black hut? Blood Hill?

Stumbling over a root, I slammed into the sodden trunk of a tree. It gave briefly and then snapped back upright to strike my face again. Strange tree, it stank of death. I spat its bitter taste out of my mouth and rinsed my face with rainwater. Then I saw: This was no tree. It was a man dangling from the branch of a tembusu. The body was brown, naked, hanging by its neck, twirling slowly on its rope.

The face was slack but unmistakable: Mina’s father. I screamed until I was hoarse.

Though I had dreamed of punishing him, this was something else altogether: He was sliced open, chin to groin, like a fish. His entrails had become one long gray hose, spilling to the ground.

My body sprang into action without me. I felt my feet rising and falling, rising and falling, and my hands tearing at my face, rubbing, cleaning. My mind, meanwhile, remained frozen: that taint, that man. I had to get away from that taint, that man.

When the silhouette of Blood Hill appeared, with its smoldering, hissing tree line, both my mind and my body knew I was almost home. Only the dirt path to go.

I reached the front door, ready to collapse with relief on the bungalow step, but the door and all the windows were sealed shut. I was locked out of my own house.

“It’s me!” I pounded on the door. “Let me in, dammit!”

My voice was weak, no match for the angry claps of rain. If Li and Robin were hiding in the back of the house, they wouldn’t hear a thing. I picked up a rock and smashed it through a window.

The door eventually opened, slowly. As I pushed my way in, the sharp prongs of the amok fork jabbed at me but missed.