Linnear 03 - White Ninja (23 page)

Slowly, the boys crawled out from the shelter of the foliage, snaking their way along the sand on then: bellies. When they came upon a tortoise, Zhao Hsia touched its horny carapace. So-Peng, fascinated, watched in the dim starlight as its head and legs withdrew into its shell, rendering the fiercely protective creatures harmless. Then they turned the tortoise over and took its eggs.

Back within the cluttering shadows of the ferns and

fronds, they carefully cracked open the eggs, drank the viscous insides. They smacked their lips, making contented noises as they gorged themselves on this forbidden delicacy.

When So-Peng was almost eleven he and his family had moved to Singapore. Afterwards, he often wondered what had happened to Zhao Hsia, and whether the two of them would ever lie again in the unquiet darkness of Rantau Abang, waiting for the forbidden to come their way.

In Singapore's wide-open atmosphere, it was perhaps surprising that So-Peng had never been involved in anything illegal. What was even more surprising, however, was that it took the murders to bring So-Peng to his true vocation.

Two shipping merchants were murdered within ten days of each other. It was during the height of the summer, the hottest in recent memory, when the sun, white and bloated, made even the normally cooler Singapore quayside simmer. The ocean lay flat and listless; not a breath of air stirred on its own, and the breezes created indoors by the ceiling fans moved like sludge against a pier piling.

The murders horrified a community normally inured to death. The British authorities said it was the work of smugglers, involved in their internecine warfare. Because the murders occurred on the fourth and the fourteenth of the month, and four was the number of death, the Chinese were certain that the murders were some form of retribution by relatives for the victims' past sins. Revenge was the motive given by the Malays as well, who pointed out that a pig's foot was found in the mouths of both Muslim victims - pork is strictly haram to Muslims. But they were just as certain that the murderers were Western because it was their opinion that no Muslim and certainly no Buddhist would so profane the strictures of religion.

Liang, So-Peng's mother, had another theory entirely. She had seen the curious eight-pointed metal stars that the police had extracted from the throats of the two corpses and, one night at the evening meal, she put a name to their murderer: tanjian.

Tanjian, she said, had no god, followed no religion and, thus, had no compunction about behaving blasphemously. Tanjian, she said, created their own laws, adhered to their own peculiar dictates which deviated radically from those of society. They were, she said, kingdoms unto their own selves, harnessers of the night and of every evil thing that made their home in the darkness.

All this talk was meant, of course, to frighten So-Peng's brothers and sisters. Liang possessed the very yang - that is, male - quality of using fear as a way to discipline her children. She was more involved in her children than she was in anything else which was, So-Peng supposed, a direct result of having married a man such as his father. He had no interest in his children save that they were the inevitable result of the sex act, in which he appeared to have a great deal of interest.

When So-Peng was alone with his mother, she said to him, 'Now nothing will keep them from their studies.'

'You mean all that about the tanjian was a lie?' So-Peng asked.

'It was not a lie,' she said. 'Neither was it the truth.'

So-Peng thought a moment. 'Is this a puzzle?'

She smiled at him, an expression filled with pride. 'You are so grown up,' she said.

She left him to go to her own chambers. Alone in the kitchen, So-Peng considered what she had said and, as he restlessly wandered the house, he considered the nature of the puzzle she had left for him. Their house was large, in a wealthy area of the city, for his father, at Liang's urging, had two years ago invested in a new firm that had begun to import rattan, black pepper and

giant nutmeg from Borneo. The venture had so far proven highly successful.

After a time the silence in the house proved oppressive. Outside, he heard young voices raised in anger and, passing through the garden, he went out into the street.

He saw two of his younger brothers and several of their friends facing off against one another like two armies on a field of battle. Between them, a small yellow dog stood, yelping, its bony hind quarters quivering, its tail tucked between its legs.

One of So-Peng's brothers had a firm grip on the ruff of the dog's neck, unmindful of its obvious terrpr. He kept pulling the unfortunate animal towards his side of the street while one or another of the other boys tried to drag the dog to their side.

"This is our dog!' So-Peng's brother said defiantly.

'No it's ours!' the most aggressive of the other boys cried. He had a flat face that reflected his anger like a mirror.

'We found him first,' another of So-Peng's brothers said hotly. 'He belongs to us.'

'You found him near our house!' the flat-faced boy shouted, growing ever more angry. "That makes him ours. And it makes you thieves!'

'You're the criminals!' So-Peng's brother said, heaving on the panting dog. He pointed to dark scars upon the creature's flanks where the fur had failed to grow back. 'Look how you have mistreated him! You are hateful!'

'We hate you more!' the other boys shouted.

Watching the intensifying fight, So-Peng felt himself grow unutterably sad. To others, perhaps, the incident might appear trivial, quickly forgotten. But So-Peng saw in this childhood acrimony the seeds of something far larger. He recognized the universal, inevitable conflict of man, the image of the eventual usurpation of the world by those not content with what they had, or those too poor

to have anything of their own. Hie need for conquest had risen full-blown out of innocence like a Hydra in a glade of dancing poppies. The long march into die night of the spirit had already begun.

So-Peng advanced upon the opposing would-be armies just as fists began to shake, stones were picked up from the gutter. In a moment the former friends would surely come to blows.

Reaching in between the boys, he seized the cringing, whimpering dog, the only truly innocent party in this dispute. He picked it up, cradling it as he stroked its quivering flanks. In a moment, its head turned and it began to lick his hand.

'This animal belongs to neither of you,' he said.

'But, brother -'

So-Peng's fierce stare cut off his brother's protest.

'We want him!' cried the flat-faced boy. 'He's ours!'

'And what would you do with him,' So-Peng said, turning on the lad, 'beat him some more?'

'I never beat him!' the boy said in that defiant way children have that makes it clear they are lying.

'But you kicked him,' So-Peng said, reaching briefly out to touch the boy with his spirit. 'You punished him just as your parents punish you. Is that not the truth?' He watched as, tongue-tied, the lad merely hung his head.

'You see?' So-Peng's brother said triumphantly. 'We were right!'

'And what would you do with the animal?' So-Peng asked his younger brother.

The boy shrugged. 'Keep him. Let him go. I don't know. What's the difference?'

So-Peng said, 'Did you think of how you would care for him?'

'Care for him?' So-Peng's brother wrinkled his nose in confusion. 'He's just a dog.'

'Look at him. He's frightened and in pain, just as

sometimes you are. How can I expect you to understand? You are all too selfish, thinking of yourselves and nothing else. None of you deserve his friendship or his love.' The contempt in So-Peng's voice was so evident it penetrated their childish shells.

'What will happen to him?' the flat-faced boy asked.

'I will take him away,' So-Peng said.

'But we're used to having him around,' the flat-faced boy said.

So-Peng said nothing, continued to stroke the dog's flanks. The animal put its head on his arm, sighed contentedly, closed its eyes.

'I don't want him to go,' the flat-faced boy said suddenly. 'I think - Hey, we can take care of him.'

'Yeah,' So-Peng's brother chimed in. 'We'd all take care of him, wouldn't we?'

'Yeah!' they all cried.

'Maybe we could train him or something,' another boy said.

'Like a watchdog!' another of So-Peng's brothers continued.

The boys were together now, milling in the street, excitedly discussing their plans for the dog. So-Peng put the animal down. It sat, staring at him, its tail wagging.

Suddenly, the boys turned to So-Peng. 'What do you think?' the flat-faced boy asked him.

'It isn't up to me,' So-Peng said. 'He isn't my dog.'

'Well, he isn't ours either,' So-Peng's brother said.

'Do you have to take him away?' the flat-faced boy said. With the anger dissolved, his face reflected only his tremendous need for love and attention.

So-Peng smiled. He patted the dog's head. 'Maybe I could leave him here, just for a while, to see how you do with him.'

The boys clustered around the dog, stroking its head and flanks. Its tail wagged faster and faster.

The flat-faced boy came up to So-Peng. 'We don't really hate each other, Elder Brother,' he said, using the Chinese honorific. 'That was just talk.'

So-Peng took the boy's fist, opened it up. The stone he had picked up when the threat of violence was in the air rolled into the street.

'Words,' So-Peng said, 'are often only the beginning.'

'I would not have thrown the stone, Elder Brother.'

So-Peng knelt down next to the flat-faced boy. 'I know that you would not have wanted to.'

After a time, the flat-faced boy said, 'I think I understand.'

So-Peng looked at the flat-faced boy. He did not need his power in order to know what the boy needed. It was so basic. 'When I was your age,' he said, 'I longed for an older brother to talk to. Alas, I had none.'

'Oh, I know what you mean!' the flat-faced boy cried. Then, as he was about to go on, he lapsed into silence.

So-Peng rose. 'Next week I'll need some help on a job I'm working on weekends. Think you'd be interested?'

The flat-faced boy nodded eagerly. Once more he was too overcome to speak.

'I'll come for you in the morning - early.'

'There'll be no need, Elder Brother,' the flat-faced boy said. Til be here at sunrise.'

So-Peng laughed. 'An hour after will suffice.'

So-Peng went back through the gate. The garden was empty and still. Wondering where his mother was, So-Peng reached out with his mind. When he found her, So-Peng gasped. He felt waves of what he could only suppose was panic emanating from her.

He went immediately into the house, to the bedroom she shared with her husband. She was packing her bags.

'Where are you going, Mother?'

She whirled around. There was colour in her cheeks,

and she brushed several stray strands of hair off her face. She was an extraordinarily handsome woman, powerful of visage, rather than merely beautiful. Her long, narrow head was faced with high cheekbones and oddly deep-set eyes. Her ears were small, and were a source of some pride to her, as were her feet and hands, which were delicate and tiny and very capable.

'A tortoiseshell was cracked in a fire, the pieces read by a fengshui man. It was foretold that you would come to me here,' she said, looking at him gravely. 'If you did not come, I would know that the fengshui man lied, that you were not the chosen.'

So-Peng looked at her quizzically. 'What do you mean?'

She gave him a sudden, dazzling smile. 'Let us go elsewhere to discuss this,' she said.

She led him outside to the garden which she knew would be deserted at this time of the evening. They entered Singapore's soft amethyst twilight. The rank scent of the mangrove swamps to the north mingled with the cloying attar of the flowers, hung in the heavy, breathless air. In the distance, dogs barked at the encroaching shadows. One by one, the streetlights were being lit by a dark-skinned Malay boy on a ladder, whose glossy head So-Peng could just see over the brick wall.

Liang and So-Peng sat across from one another on lacquered rattan chairs.

'When you were still inside me,' she said, 'I could feel you reaching out to me, not with your hands, but with your mind. I saw colours - your colours, the shadows of your still forming mind. After you were born, I experienced this phenomenon more strongly, and I knew that you had inherited my gift. Thereafter, I encouraged this gift inside you, exercising it, you might say, allowing it to grow as you grew.'

'I remember,' So-Peng said. 'It was a link between us that no one else could share. I could speak to you without

opening my mouth, and hear your response without using my ears.'

Liang sat in a very yang manner, in a way that So-Peng's father should have sat, and didn't. It was as if she owned the house and everything in it. So-Peng, observing this, realized that he would not be surprised to find that this was, indeed, the case.