The White Amah (13 page)

Refreshed, Mei Li paddled strongly and easily along the river for hour after hour, thinking how surprised her mother was going to be to see her. But will she want me? she wondered. Will she let me stay? Mei Li knew her mother hadn’t wanted her when she was a baby so why would she want her now? Dedan said she was stuck up and didn’t want her rich friends in the city to know she was a native from a longhouse in the jungle. Well, if that was how she felt about them, Mei Li didn’t want anything to do with her either. She would seek her out because she had promised her grandmother, but she wouldn’t beg. She would rather starve to death than ask her mother for anything.

I’m not going to cry, she told herself, and blinked back her tears. Why should she get upset over someone she had never met? She would think of something else. At least she didn’t have to marry Langkup. She knew he was old but she’d never thought he’d be
that
old. She shuddered at the thought of the wizened, drunken old man putting his bony arms around her, his dry, cracked lips pressed against hers, his fetid breath in her mouth. Grandmother was right. She had to run away. There was no way she could bring herself to sleep with Langkup, not even for her grandfather’s sake.

When she recollected her surroundings, she had no idea of how far she had come or for how long she had been travelling. Staring at sky and river, she couldn’t fathom up from down, so clear were the images in the reflective river mirror. Disorientated, she felt as if she’d fallen into unbounded space and she had no idea of herself in relation to the natural world. It seemed surreal and she felt peculiar, as if she were alone in the universe.

Mei Li’s life hitherto had been confined and structured. Like a wasps’ nest, the village was an interdependent community. At home in any room of the longhouse, she was a child of the tribe as well as of her grandparents. But now her world had been thrown into chaos. Distraught, she realised she’d put herself outside her tribe forever. She winced, imagining her grandfather’s embarrassment at having to admit to Langkup that his bride had fled from the marriage he’d arranged and celebrated so publicly with all the families from their longhouse. Entri would have lost face in front of the whole village. He was a proud man brought low by the loss of his leg and his livelihood, and she knew her defection would be a devastating blow to his pride. How can I be so selfish, she thought, after everything he’s done for me ever since I was a little girl?

Ashamed, she was tempted to turn back, beg his forgiveness and agree to marry Langkup. But she remembered how her grandmother had cried when she told her what had happened to Bata and what she’d risked to help Mei Li escape. So she kept on paddling. The world righted itself and the fugitive journeyed further down the stream.

She rounded a bend and to her dismay saw there were two channels. One flowed all the way to Miri and the other was the headwater of the Pangup, which rose in a hidden valley deep in the jungle. The Pangup was a branch of one of the many small tributaries that flowed into the main river basin. With no way of knowing which was which, she gambled on the wider of the two and set off resolutely down the left-hand fork.

Neither Mei Li nor her grandmother had anticipated that Langkup would take off after his runaway bride. But then they’d only
met him for the first time when he came to claim boat and bride, unlike Entri, who’d known him for years. The two old fishermen had been working the waters off Sabah and Sarawak since they were boys, but it was just a casual acquaintanceship and Entri had no concept of the type of man to whom he’d pledged his granddaughter’s hand. Back in his own village, Langkup had a bad reputation and was known as a man it was wise not to cross. Right now Lankup was seething, picturing his enemies spreading the story and making him the laughing stock of the South China Sea.

But Langkup had been crafty enough to conceal his rage from Entri and persuaded him to ask the chief if he could borrow the tribe’s fastboat. ‘I just want the chance to talk to her,’ he’d said to Entri. ‘If she still doesn’t want me, at least I’ll know I tried and there’ll be no hard feelings, old friend.’

The fastboat reached the point where the river divided barely fifteen minutes after Mei Li. Langkup was better informed because he travelled the river often, so he knew the narrower stream on the right led to Miri. Half an hour later, when there was still no sight of his quarry ahead, he realised she must have taken the wrong branch. He moored the boat under an overhanging tree and settled down to wait for Mei Li to discover her error and backtrack.

Two hours later Mei Li’s canoe rounded the bend and she saw the boat by the riverbank. Apart from watching the children playing in the river that morning, she hadn’t met another soul and her spirits rose at the prospect of company. At least she’d be able to find out if she was going the right way. She headed over without any thought of danger, expecting to be invited back to
the stranger’s longhouse in accordance with traditional Dayak courtesy to travellers.

Langkup heard the splash of the paddle and crouched down on the floor of his boat.

‘Anyone there?’ Mei Li called. When no one answered she beached the canoe and clambered over the side. Instantly she saw Lankup hiding in the stern and turned to flee, but he was too quick for her and threw her roughly to the ground.

‘So you think you’re too good to marry with Langkup. You’d rather be a burden to your family than marry a weak old man, eh. Well, we’ll soon see if I’m so weak,’ he said with a fearsome smile, exposing betel-blackened teeth filed to savage razor-sharp points, an outdated custom still practised by the fierce interior tribes.

Tribesmen wore necklaces made of antique beads and pierced the lobes of their ears; the ornament worn in their ears denoted their standing as a warrior. Langkup was wearing ear- ornaments made from the beak of the helmeted hornbill that were carved like the canine tooth of the tiger-cat. Mei Li knew that only a man who has taken a head with his own hands had the right to wear them. In horror, she looked down at his hands and what she saw made her blood run cold. On both hands his fingers were covered with the dreaded
tegulan,
each tattoo corresponding with the taking of a human head. She began to tremble, thinking he’d kill her too and hang her head from the rafters of his longhouse.

Langkup would have been amused at her fears. Women were too hard to come by to sacrifice. His wife had died some ten years back, and although he was a successful fisherman with his own boat, all the women he courted had refused him. He thought it was because his wife had told tales about him, but she hadn’t
needed to; her bruises and broken bones spoke for her. As he grew older, the need for a wife had become less urgent. An old widow – a dried-up, worn-out stick of woman – used to cook for him. She’d lie with him too if he paid her extra. But since that one time when he’d got a bit rough with her she’d stayed away. She wouldn’t even cook for him now. He knew she’d told all the women he couldn’t get it up any more by the way they stopped talking and then started giggling when he passed by.

Langkup couldn’t believe his good fortune when Entri had offered him his white-skinned granddaughter as an incentive to buy his boat. All the locals on both sides of the border had heard about her. Everyone knew she’d been fathered by an
orang puti.
Langkup had seen her often on the deck of her grandfather’s boat. He would never have guessed she was half Dayak. It’d be like screwing a white woman, or as near as. Improbably, the impotent old man felt himself harden, never dreaming he’d ever get the chance to realise his fantasy. And then when he’d boasted to friend and foe about his prize she’d ridiculed him in front of the whole village. Soon all the tribes along the shore would learn of his humiliation at the hands of this bastard half-caste girl.

Well, she was going to pay. She was going to pay dearly, he promised himself. He’d sell her to a brothel belonging to a relative, but it was a long way to Miri and Langkup was in no hurry. She wouldn’t be able to stand up when he was through with her. His gnarled hands trembled in anticipation as his arthritic fingers pulled impatiently at her knotted sarong. Then his hungry hand clutched her immature breast, twisting and squeezing the rosebud nipple painfully.

She whimpered, too scared to push him away, and he
released her, but only to undo his heavy belt and the drawstring of his hemp trousers. Then he rolled on top of her, wriggling and squirming, breathing heavily through his mouth and emitting an unpleasant stench redolent of stale wine, tobacco and dried sweat. He shifted, buried his face in her breasts, grasped his penis and frenziedly rubbed the limp, flaccid flesh while his other hand explored roughly: fingers poking; horny, ragged nails drawing blood; groaning and panting feverishly, trying to force life into his inert penis. Frustrated, he lashed out, punching her viciously, before staggering to the back of the boat where he occupied himself securing the canoe to the longboat, head down, fingers fumbling unaccountably with the routine knots.

Shamed, Me Li closed her eyes and tried not to think of the horror of her first sexual encounter. But it was hard not to as she compared Langkup frantically thrashing about on top of her with her girlish, romantic dreams. Her friends knew she was still a virgin and they’d teased her, boasting in low whispers so their elders couldn’t hear while they wove baskets or threaded beads, about the joy a woman finds with a man: how good it was to feel skin on skin, the tingle when you embrace, the urge when he kisses you passionately, to have him deep inside you thrusting wildly, out of control …

What if he tried again? She stood up, determined to make a run for it, but Langkup seemed to read her mind.

‘A four-metre croc was spotted round here just a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t have a nest in those reeds. A man-eater too! I should leave you to him, that’s all you’re good for. I would too, but I’ve got other plans for you, my girl.’

Mei Li sat back down. Langkup had taken her canoe. She
knew she’d have no chance alone and unarmed in the jungle. The motor puttered into life and she waited for him to turn the fastboat around. Instead they motored on in hostile silence toward Miri.

T
HE FIERCE, TATTOOED TRIBESMAN
wearing the traditional rattan headdress decorated with black and white hornbill feathers, bark cloth vest and beaded necklace woven out of human hair, and the tall, slender, barefoot girl in the simple
batik
sarong stood out like sore thumbs, despite the eclectic mix of Western and ethnic dress worn by the Malay, Chinese, Dayak and ex-pat population that lived in Miri.

Mei Li walked behind Langkup along the noisy, crowded pavements amid a steady stream of pedestrians who stared openly at the primitive Dayaks from the backcountry. In return, Mei Li stared in amazement at the Malay men and their sons dressed for Friday prayer in long white satin jackets and trousers, cloths wrapped around their waists that reached down to their knees and black oval hats perched atop their heads. Their wives were dressed like exotic parrots in brightly patterned, colourful skirts that reached past their ankles, long-sleeved tops and bright headscarves.

She stopped to stare enviously at teenage girls, employed by the council as cleaners, in their smart, sky-blue tunics and black trousers dreamily sweeping the pavement with their flimsy straw brooms. But Langkup didn’t allow her time to marvel at the wonders around her. He hurried her past the open-air markets where the tribal communities sold their wild fruits, vegetables, rattan mats and hand-woven baskets. A friendly vendor shouted
out a greeting but Langkup hissed at Mei Li to ignore him. He figured it was too risky allowing her to come into close contact with her own people, and he set off across the busy intersection toward the bus terminal, looking back over his shoulder to make sure she was following.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the bus that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Petrified, he stood stock-still and he would surely have been hit if Mei Li hadn’t let out a shriek, run forward and shoved him aside. The bus driver swerved, slammed on his brakes and collided with a parked motorcycle belonging to one of the stallholders. Passersby hurried to help the dazed old man to his feet. Cursing, the bus driver climbed out of the cab and was soon involved in an angry altercation with the owner of the motorcycle. Both of them started yelling at the bewildered old Dayak and no one noticed as his companion crept away.

Mei Li didn’t stop running for several blocks. Finally she slowed down. In front of her was the most magnificent building she had ever seen. Huge turquoise and lilac dragons were mounted on the emerald-green shingle roof of a Chinese temple while an elaborate gilt dragon was intricately coiled around a red pillar near the entrance. An old Chinese man with a yellow leathery face was watering an ornamental tree. He had a kindly expression and so, after watching him for a while as he tended the plants and swept the courtyard, she worked up the courage to ask him if he knew where the drycleaners was located.

Most of the population of Miri was multi-lingual and Mr Yeh, the elderly custodian, had no trouble understanding her. ‘You’re not from Miri, are you? This is a big place and there are many drycleaners in town.’

‘Oh no,’ she said, close to tears.

‘Are you alone?’ he asked, wondering why a girl from one of the rural tribal communities was on her own in the city.

‘Yes,’ she said, her heart beating with fear in case the old head-hunter should catch up with her before she found her mother.