Footsteps (13 page)

“Yes.”

“Encik Teacher Ang is sick.” He held out a letter.

“How did you know I was waiting for her?”

“Wearing European clothes, she said, perhaps with a bike. A Native boy, brown hat, called Minke.”

“Clever boy,” I said, and pinched his cheek.

I read her letter. It was true, she was ill. I went with the boy to where she was staying. When we got close, the boy asked to be let off the bike. He pointed out to me where to go.

The people at the house didn’t like a Native coming inside. They were suspicious. Did I care? I wasn’t there to see them.

“Yes, Ang San Mei does live here. But she’s ill.”

“I need to see her.”

They seemed to object to an alien entering their house. But when they saw I wasn’t going to leave, a woman carrying a baby was forced, frowning, to take me to Mei. I heard her growl. Who cares? They weren’t going to lose anything by having me here.

Mei was stretched out on the bed. She was asleep. And the woman began to hesitate again.

“She was my friend at school in Shanghai,” I said.

The woman began to relax a little. Perhaps she had never been home to the country of her ancestors and felt inferior before one who had. She took me inside Mei’s room.

On the table beside her bed was a vase of drooping flowers and a glass of water. I noticed the absence of the little Chinese messenger boy with his tennis ball. I think he didn’t want anyone to know what he had done for Mei. Even though he wasn’t about, it was obvious he was the son of the woman at this house.

I went straight to Mei. She had a temperature. My heart went out to her. There were no signs in the room that she had any medicine. Why was she so alone among her own people like this? Did she carry some contagious disease, or did they regard her as a troublemaker?

I sat on the bed, and took her hand. Her temperature was quite high. Her lips were more than just pale. They were bloodless, and open a little, and her beautiful pearllike teeth shone through.

She opened her eyes, and stared at me. Then without speaking and without smiling she put her hand on mine.

“Sorry I’m sick. I hoped you’d come, though it’s more than I have the right to hope. It’s a pity you’re not a doctor yet.”

“What did the doctor say about your illness?”

“There’s no doctor and no medicines.”

“You’ve got such a fever. Is there a bitter taste in your mouth?”

She nodded.

“I’ll be back soon. I’ll buy some medicines.”

When I arrived back from the shops with medicine and food I found the same woman in Mei’s room. Her eyes were full of suspicion again. I tried to be respectful, but she didn’t seem to realize it. Well, all right. I didn’t have any business with her anyway….

Mei was sitting up in bed massaging her head. I gave her two red quinine capsules with a glass of water.

“All right. Enough. Take this woman away from here,” the woman said in Malay.

“But she’s still ill. Let her stay another week,” I said. “I’ll fetch her in another week. Isn’t that so, Mei?”

She nodded. It seemed she was beginning to understand some Malay. Then I suddenly thought: How will I pay to look after her? Where will I take her? And I didn’t understand either why she nodded in agreement. Why, all of a sudden, did I have the courage to come forward as her protector? She wasn’t allowed to stay in any other but those
kampung
set aside for Chinese by the government.

“I’ll stay with her today,” I said to the woman. “Don’t be angry. Why do you want to get rid of her so quickly?”

She frowned and went away.

Mei happened to be in a room outside the main house, in the kitchen building, because she was working there as a cook. And it happened too that I had the rest of my money from Surabaya with me. It wasn’t that I wanted to appear generous or anything. When I read her letter I imagined that she might be in some desperate trouble like her friend had been in Surabaya, surrounded by a hostile community. And indeed, there were no signs of food in her room anywhere.

“You’re so good,” she whispered weakly.

“Go back to sleep, Mei,” I said and laid her back down on the bed. “Where’s your blanket?”

She pretended not to hear and closed her eyes.

“Where are your clothes?” and before she answered I had picked up the leather bag on her pillow.

When she heard her bag being taken, her hand moved out weakly to stop me. I took no notice. Inside were some underclothes and the white dress she had worn the first time we met. I took them all out and spread them over her.

“You don’t have a blanket, Mei?” She didn’t answer. “You’ll be warmer like this. You must have a terrible headache. But you must eat, Mei.”

“I don’t want to eat.”

“Malaria always takes away the appetite, but you still must have something to eat,” I encouraged her. “I brought you something, a snack. You mustn’t let yourself waste away like this.”

“Were you this good to him, too?” she asked, her eyes shut.

I put the food in her mouth, as if I were feeding a baby.

“If you can’t chew just swallow.”

She shook her head, refusing to take the food. But I made her eat until the food was all finished.

“Just rest for a while. I’m going out but I’ll be back soon.”

I rode off on my bike like a knight on his horse off to rescue a maiden in distress, ready to fight any doer of evil. And I felt proud, that today I might be bankrupted helping somebody in need, unable to help herself. It would be a poverty that brought satisfaction. I strode into a shop and bought some plain biscuits, syrup, dried foods, canned meat and fish and a can opener, a towel and a blanket. I calculated that there was enough dried food for a week. I added a can of milk as well. And some fresh food for today. And some medicines to help get her strength back.

Yet I was still far from bankrupt.

She wasn’t asleep when I arrived back. I put her clothes back in the bag and covered her with the thick blanket.

“Why are you crying, Mei?”

“Were you this good to him as well?” she repeated.

“What, Mei?” I asked, pretending I didn’t hear.

She covered her face, and I heard her sobbing. She was remembering her loved one who had now passed away. And I had to respect her feelings.

“Enough, Mei, no need to keep thinking about the past,” I whispered in her ear. “He did what he had to do. He never betrayed his promise or his work. He indeed was a diamond of a youth. He faced everything with courage.”

She was quiet.

“You must get well. You must get strong.”

The woman with the baby came back. She must have seen me carrying all the things for Mei: “If Tuan is going to take her away in a week’s time, you must pay the rent for the room in the meantime.”

“Of course. How much per day?” I asked.

“Twenty-five cents.”

“Fantastic. Like at an inn. And that would be for full board.”

“Well, only if that’s what Tuan wants. I’d rather have the room empty.”

“All right. Here’s seven times twenty-five cents.”

“Plus three times more, because she’s been sick three days already.”

I took back the coins and gave her a shiny silver
ringgit.

“I’ll get the change,” she said.

“No need, take it all.”

“But you have to get a
talen
back, Tuan.” She went away but soon returned with twenty-five cents change. Then she left the room without another word.

Mei lay there silent for a long time. I kept quiet so she could get some sleep. I took out pencil and paper and began to write. I had been meaning to write to Mother for quite a long time. In a few more days, the holidays would arrive. And with Mei sick, I didn’t want to travel home.

“Minke,” Mei called me.

I went over to her. “You must sleep, Mei.”

“Have you sent that letter to the girl in Jepara?”

“Yes.”

“How did she reply?”

“There hasn’t been any reply. It looks as if there might not be any reply.”

“How old do you think she is?”

“A year older than me.”

“Is she married yet?”

“I don’t know. Maybe yes. Maybe no.” And I couldn’t help smiling to myself. Ang San Mei will be better soon. Perhaps she is even jealous.

She had no more questions so I went on with my letter. I could hear the woman cooking next door in the kitchen and the smell of frying pork wafted into the room. I had never eaten pork. The smell was so strong it gave me a headache. My thoughts wandered to my mother, to what she had told me the first time I went to Surabaya. “You are going to a big city, where you will mix with all races. You have your own people. Show them that you are a good and well-behaved Javanese. Your ancestors were Islam, so too your mother and father. Never ever must you eat pork. It is one of the least burdensome prohibitions, Child. You mustn’t break this rule. It’s not hard to do.” And I have never gone against that prohibition.

Ang San Mei had fallen asleep. The shudders from her fever had disappeared. Sweat started to form on her forehead.

I finally finished my long letter to Mother. I wrote about my situation, my studies, my friends at school, my teachers. There was not one sentence that touched on the differences between mother and child. I presented myself as a good and obedient son, just as she had always been a good mother to me. The differences between us were differences of education, methods, and goals. It was a matter of the end of an era, of changes in the times. There was nothing left that my mother could defend. Java was being continuously defeated by Europe, by its people, its earth, its ideas. Java’s only triumph was in its ignorance about the world. And Java truly did shut itself off from the world.

Mei awoke again in the afternoon. I went across to her.

“I feel a bit better now,” she said calmly in English. “You should be a doctor, Minke. You’ll be a good one.”

“Of course.”

“You shouldn’t have any doubts about being a doctor,” she said again. “You mustn’t be lazy in your studies. There must be so many of your people who are sick like I am now.”

“I will cure you and all of them too, Mei.”

She smiled such a sweet smile, and I smiled too, perhaps even more sweetly.

“And if they’re all looked after like this, they will all be cured too.”

“Naturally. And you know what I would have done if you hadn’t eaten when I asked you to a while ago? I would have chewed the food for you and dropped it straight into your mouth from mine, like a mother bird.”

“That’s going too far,” she said, eyes shining. “How will you find a place for me? I can’t go out looking while I’m sick like this.”

“Don’t worry about it.” And in my mind’s eye I saw Ibu Baldrun. “Nah, it’s almost four o’clock, Mei. I’ll go home now, yes? Make sure you eat well, and don’t forget to take your medicine. If you don’t want to eat for yourself, eat for me, as much as you can manage. Will you do what I have asked, Mei?”

“Happily, Minke. You’ve been so good to me.”

Before I left, I kissed her on the cheek. And no protest came from her lips. At the door I turned around. I saw her cover her face with her two hands and her shoulders seemed to be convulsing.

I kept going.

I cycled straight back to Ibu Baldrun’s in Kwitang.

“She’ll want to eat different food from us,” Ibu Baldrun objected.

“Just the same as us, Ibu,” I answered.

“They have different customs from us.”

“She is very polite and helpful,” I said.

“She’ll do that revolting spitting.”

“No. She is the same as me, no spitting.”

“The neighbors won’t like it.”

“I’ll talk to the neighbors.”

“A sinken,” Ibu Baldrun still objected. “She’ll speak in some strange language.”

“She is an educated person, Ibu; she is trying very hard to learn Malay. It’s true she can’t speak it yet, but she is working very hard at it.”

“She’ll turn out to be a bad girl, Child?”

“Don’t worry, Bu, I’ll be her guarantor. I will kick her out myself if she turns out to be no good.”

“But she’s not yet your wife, Denmas.”

“It’s not a matter of being my wife, Bu; she’s my friend.”

“Why doesn’t she live with her own people? It must be because of something she’s done that they don’t like her.”

“She is an orphan, Bu. That’s the only reason, Bu.”

“Will Denmas take her as your wife?”

“Who knows, Bu? God’s will cannot be foretold.”

“She will be on display here every day?”

“That’ll all stop after a week, Bu.”

“What if the hamlet chief finds out. She should be in a Chinese hamlet.”

I pretended not to hear.

For the next six days I didn’t leave the school complex once. During rest times, I hid away in the library. I didn’t care what I read. I went to the dormitory only to sleep or after bathing to change clothes. I knew that, because of my strong feelings for her, I had taken on a big responsibility, namely, to help a lonely girl in distress. I had made a promise to her, and I would keep it.

By Saturday night another question was haunting me. Why hadn’t Mei received any help from her school, from the Council of Teachers, from the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan? She had signed a five-year contract, hadn’t she?

She was definitely my late friend’s fiancée. He had used a false name. There were those who said that the name he used was a southern Chinese name. But he himself was from the north. It was pretty definite that Ang San Mei was a false name too. What was her real name? Was it too a southern name? Ah, why bother so much about a name? I’ve been called by my nickname now for years and years. No one has ever objected. I know her as Ang San Mei. Why worry about her real name?

The next Sunday it was four in the morning before I fell asleep. Then I awoke again fifteen minutes later. I was restless. Rather than be at the beck and call of all these vexing thoughts, I decided to write. And so I began to write about this girl from across the seas.