The Catherine Lim Collection (32 page)

As for cars, he clearly had no intention of
owning any or allowing his three sons who were helping him in his business to
own any. He was sole proprietor of a fleet of buses which brought him a very
good income, and he gave his relatives, who numbered hundreds, free bus passes.

The patriarch was by no means niggardly; in
matters concerning male progeny he could be astonishingly extravagant, His
three sons produced no male children; every year saw a new granddaughter or two
and the old man was heard to snort in disgust each time he received news of yet
one more granddaughter. He had given his wife thousands of dollars to spend on
prayers, good deeds, ceremonial offerings and so on, recommended by temple
priests and mediums for the begetting of a grandson. But the money had been
futilely spent, and in the end, the old man resigned himself to the prospect of
a very long wait for a grandson.

His remark that the biggest share of the
property would go to the first grandson was construed as a warning by the three
sons and had immediately set in motion an almost frenzied contest among the
three daughters-in-law to see who would be the first to produce the male heir.
At any one time, one of the three would be pregnant, but the fecundity was all
in the direction of female offspring. There was much hidden animosity among the
three women, though they shared the work harmoniously enough in the huge smoky
kitchen.

Two servants were employed to help take care
of the younger grandchildren. One of them was a friendly, big-hearted woman who
dropped in at our house quite frequently for a chat. She always came with a
child on her hips, and sometimes a bowl of the child’s porridge. And while
feeding the child, she would chat amiably with the womenfolk, who were always
eager for tidbits of gossip from the Great House.

This servant, whose name was Ah Chan, had
two sons and must have been the envy of the three daughters-in-law. She was now
pregnant a third time, and so was the First Daughter-in-law who, after three
daughters, felt sure her fourth would be a boy. Her mother had gone to consult
a fortune-teller who had told her that this time it would be a son.

Both Ah Chan and First Daughter-in-law gave
birth to sons. While Ah Chan grieved that she still had to wait for a daughter,
everyone in the Great House was full of excitement at the birth of the
long-awaited first grandson. The old man was jubilant and his wife equally so.
The two other daughters-in-law, chagrined that the prize was now lost to them,
had to content themselves firstly with the wish that they, too, in the
appointed time, would have male children, and secondly, with the observation
made only to each other, that the new-born baby was a sickly, puny little
thing, quite unlike Ah Chan’s healthy baby son.

The new grandchild, whose name was
deliberated on by at least three fortune-tellers, gave cause for much anxiety
for he cried often, drank poorly and did not seem to put on any weight. His
mother cried in her anxiety and fretted that she did not produce enough milk
for the infant.

To her, it was the height of injustice that
her baby, heir to the rubber and coconut plantations, should be sickly and
underfed, while Ah Chan’s baby, one of the hundreds born in her kampong every
year and who would probably grow up to be a mean labourer, was robust from his
mother’s brimming good health.

The new grandson, eventually given the name
‘Golden Dragon’, pulled through the first month. There was great, rejoicing.
Every family in the neighbourhood received the celebratory yellow rice,
red-stained hard-boiled eggs and red-stained bean-cakes.

The baby boy was brought downstairs for the
first time that day, a frail thing decked out in pink clothes, pink woollen cap
and pink bootees. The baby’s thin fingers and ankles glistened with gold
ornaments, presents from numerous relatives.

Ah Chan’s son, who had been affectionately
nicknamed ‘Piglet’ by her family, had cleared his first month a few days
before, but there was no expensive celebration. By the fourth month, Piglet was
almost twice the size of Golden Dragon, a fact that the other two
sisters-in-law were heard to observe more than once, and twice as rapid in his
development, for he could turn over on his side, recognize his parents and smile
and gurgle in response to his brothers.

Golden Dragon continued to be sickly, and in
his fifth month was suddenly taken ill. It seemed to be a bad time for infants;
Piglet was unwell too, and Ah Chan, who had grown very attached to this third
son although she had badly wanted a daughter, rushed home from the Great House
every evening to look after him.

Golden Dragon’s condition worsened visibly;
his parents and grandparents flew into a panic and immediately went to consult
a temple medium. On the first visit, they secured an amulet which they placed
against the baby’s chest. The baby’s condition did not improve. On the second
visit, they were told by the temple medium who had gone into a trance that the
“Dark Deity of Hell” wanted a boy attendant, had searched for one and had taken
a fancy to Golden Dragon. Golden Dragon would die soon.

A flurry of consultations with temple
mediums ensued; thousands of dollars were spent in gifts of propitiation and
entreaty to the Dark Deity of Hell, but still he would, according to the temple
mediums, have Golden Dragon. However, said one of the temple mediums from his
deep trance, the Dark Deity was also considering one other male child, who was
born at about the same time and who was also now lying ill. If one of the baby
boys died, the other would be spared.

Here was hope yet, and the grandmother and
mother began to fill the baby’s room with all manner of charms and amulets to
ward off evil influence and deflect it elsewhere. Ah Chan came to know of the
message from the temple medium but by that time, it had been distorted into an
accusation. The Dark Deity of Hell had chosen Piglet to be his boy attendant
but Piglet deflected the curse which then fell on Golden Dragon.

Ah Chan, in her simplicity, went tremblingly
to her employers in the Great House to beg for forgiveness. The grandmother and
the mother of Golden Dragon received her coldly. They were now convinced of the
treachery of Piglet, for his mother was now frankly admitting it and
asking for forgiveness on his behalf. The act of reparation was simple,
according to the temple mediums. Ah Chan’s milk would help restore the infant
to health.

Ah Chan was only too grateful for this
opportunity to make amends; she came early in the morning, leaving only late at
night when she returned to feed her own son. During the day, a relative
sometimes brought him to the Great House to be fed by his mother. But the
illness had had a toll on him, and he was no longer the chubby, rosy baby he
once was.

Seeing that their baby was improving,
although slightly, the grandmother and relative paid another visit to the
temple medium to seek his advice about how to expedite his recovery. The temple
medium said that the infant’s ‘milk mother’ had to remain with him day and
night.

Ah Chan was thereafter enjoined to stay in
the Great House and not to go home. “But what about my baby?” she faltered, for
her baby was indeed fretting for her.

Her baby was brought in during the day; at
night, it was no longer possible to do the same, and while Golden Dragon drew
nourishment from Ah Chan’s robust body, Piglet declined for the want of it.

“Please let me go back to my baby,” she
pleaded, but Golden Dragon’s mother promised to send someone to bring him, and
his grandmother pressed a gift of money into her hands.

There was the suggestion that Piglet be
brought to stay in the Great House with his mother, but the grandmother would
not hear of it because the temple medium had said the two babies must not live
under the same roof. One would be the means of harm befalling the other. This
meant that Piglet could not be brought to the Great House during the day.

By then, the harassed Ah Chan had entrusted
a relative with the care of Piglet, to make sure that he was given his powdered
milk regularly throughout the day, but this relative was a dull-witted woman
who moved about clumsily and slothfully.

One night, at about midnight, she went to
the Great House, knocked on the door and shouted for Ah Chan. Her baby was very
ill. Ah Chan rushed back, but it was already too late.

The cause of death was later found to be
this: the senseless woman had been using an unwashed spoon to stir Piglet’s
milk, the same spoon that she had been using to take her medicine for a throat
infection. The baby had caught the infection, fretted for two days without
anybody suspecting anything, and finally succumbed.

Ah Chan could not be comforted; she wept for
many days, and moaned the sad fate of an infant identified by the implacable
Dark Deity of Hell.

The grandmother hastened over when she heard
of the death of Piglet, and pressed yet more money into Ah Chan’s hands.

Back in the Great House, Golden Dragon’s
mother looked at her baby peacefully asleep in its cradle, its cheeks beginning
to round up with flesh, and rejoiced that she need fear the Dark Deity no more.

The places
that were assigned us
were supposed to be the ideal
setting for our work of producing innovative materials for schoolchildren – old
quaint colonial-type houses in a sprawling campus setting of lush greenery,
including very old and rare trees. There were thefriendly, stiff-tailed
squirrels in the trees which sometimes ran along the sides of the windows or
across our paths; the birds that built nests in the bushes near the outhouses
at the back of each building, the occasional vivid-green chameleons that darted
across the road and into the roadside bushes before you could draw attention to
them.

The ideal bucolic setting for the writer, in
need of constant inspiration to bring out his creativity; away from the austere
formality of the Ministry Headquarters! Only we, ingrates that we were,
persisted in seeing the peeling paint of the walls, the creaking wooden floors
of the upstairs rooms, the encrustations of dirt in the bathroom that no amount
of scrubbing could hope to remove.

A short time, however, was sufficient to
grumble away these annoyances, and then we found ourselves beginning to look
around and quite ready to be worked upon by the charming rusticity of our
new-environment.

There was an additional charm: the place had
been used by Japanese soldiers during the Occupation, and was said to be full
of underground tunnels, all linked together to form a remarkable subterranean
backdrop for adventure. Would these tunnels, if we could find them and venture
into them, yield skulls and bones? Or hoards of treasure hidden by the Japanese
who never managed to secrete them out of the country?

The intoxication was brief; we soon became
too preoccupied with work to give much thought to the tunnels, and except for a
story about children discovering a trunk of gold bars in a secret crypt, they
were soon forgotten.

Somebody had said that the houses were
haunted; every house, apparently, had been the scene of a suicide, every old
tree outside had had a ghost hanging from it. It became a favourite diversion
of the more waggish among us to make frightening noises, rap on doors and
windows, especially in the gathering dusk, for there were always a few who
never went home before seven, when darkness had already settled and wrapped
everything in gloom.

For a time, I joined the small intrepid band
whose preference was to stay back and work till dinner than not meet a
deadline. It was an unusually dark day. As was my habit, I sat at the
typewriter and waited patiently when the lights went off, as they did a few
times a day, usually coming on again after a few minutes.

In the darkness I thought I heard somebody
cough; it sounded very near and I gave a start, but when the lights came on
again and I saw no one, I concluded it must have been one of the security
guards outside making his usual rounds.

The footsteps of one of the guards on the
gravel outside the window were actually reassuring. I continued with my typing,
and once again, to my great annoyance, the lights failed. Making a mental note
to complain about this to the Administration the next morning, I leaned back in
my chair and decided, when the lights came on again, to pack up and go home.

The lights did not come on for a full five
minutes. I sat very still in my chair. I distinctly heard heavy breathing near
me; indeed, so near, I could feel it on my shoulder.

I got up quickly, gathered up my handbag and
umbrella, and strode quickly to the door. Remembering that I had not turned off
the light switches and that I could not risk having the lights on for the whole
night, I turned back quickly.

As I groped to turn off the switch, I felt
something lightly brushing my face. It felt like or it could have been fingers,
or a large butterfly, but at this point I could not hold back my terror any
more. I tore down the stairs, my heels making such a tremendous clatter on the
wooden stairs that one of the security guards out on the road must have heard
me. He came quickly, torch in hand, to ask what was the matter. I merely shook
my head, not wanting to stop to talk to anyone, and fled.