Shadow Theatre (16 page)

Siew Chin may have been the one to mention the other
possibility, or it could have been Bernadette. That part of my
memory is a bit blurry, but that's the only part. (Don't ask Rose
about this. Of course she'll tell you something different. From
her point of view, even believing in miracles is superstitious. She
didn't use to be like that, okay? I don't know what's happening
with her nowadays.)

Anyway, Benjamin Nair's death was in 1980, during the
third-year anniversary of my own Hock Siew's passing. Ah, so
the experience of losing a husband was still fresh for me, bukan?
I knew how Valerie was feeling. That was why I tried to get her
involved in activities right away. But she didn't want-lah. Some
women, you know how they are. Once the heart gets broken, it
stays broken. Not that I'm saying this was what happened with
Valerie. Who can say what happened? She didn't confide in us.
(just like that Madeleine Bhanu, when her Richard finally ran off
with his secretary. Everyone knew it would happen, okay?
Women with husbands like that should be more prepared, but they never are.) So anyway, she was quite a loner, Valerie. So the
rumors were bound to gather, right? That's why I never shut
myself away. If you don't want people to talk, you better do the
talking yourself. (For Evelina Thumboo it was different-lah. She
was so young when her husband was taken, the two having been
married a few days only. Poor thing, ya? That one. Her husband
was killed by a tourist, you know, driving drunk on the wrong
side of the road. Up in Cameron Highlands-lah, during their
honeymoon, imagine. So it was easier for her to gain sympathy.)

Let me tell you, from the very beginning, I tried not to get
involved. (Rose doesn't believe this. I don't know why she thinks
I'm always the ringleader. Just because I'm the type to voice my
thoughts, which partly used to be for her benefit only. I wanted
to set her an example-lah. And yet, see now. How is it possible
for your own daughter to turn out so different? If I think about
this for the rest of my life, I still won't know.) So anyway, I
can't remember who first mentioned it to me, but as I was saying,
it was either Siew Chin or Bernadette. Dorothy, her feelings
were more like mine. Poor Valerie, the fellow just died, bukan?
Not even cold in the grave. No matter whether your marriage
was perfect or not, you're still going to miss your husband. "How
can someone be sick so long, and all our doctors can't find out
why?" That's what everyone was wondering, even though, of
course, no one told Valerie this to her face. But she must have
sensed something-lah. True, I wondered about it myself, and to
be honest, the only thing that stopped me from believing it
totally was this. Okay, say maybe someone, not necessarily
Valerie, but someone was doing black magic on Benjamin Nair.
With all those nuns around him, how could the magic still keep
working? Look how it's written in the Gospel, whenever two or
three are gathered in my name, there I will be among them. And
definitely more than two or three were gathered in Mount
Alvernia, the whole time Benjamin Nair lay there dying.

It had to be his fate-lah. Right or not?

ANYWAY. I IIAI BI:RNAI>F. i i i . One minute she was saying
everything was just my imagination, next minute, she herself
was inventing stories. She was the one to ask, "Why you think
the daughter didn't come home for the funeral?" just before we
reached Valerie's house.

As if off-hand I would know what funeral she was talking
about. Of course I knew, but what I mean is, listen to how she
talked, that Bernadette. Obviously the fellow had been on her
mind a while. Still waters run deep, ya?

"We know it wasn't the money," she said.

"Why not?" I said. "Could he it was the money. You know
how expensive it is to fly? Especially if only for just a few days."

"Ya, but she can come home now, she couldn't come home
then? And what's more important than your own father's funeral?"

"Alamak, please. That girl was over there one whole year
already, you expect her to think like that?" Not that I was condoning Shakilah's behavior, okay? But I couldn't resist giving
Bernadette a hard time. Every now and then, for some reason,
she would rub me the wrong way, but our clashes were not
serious-lah, as I've said.

"One year can't compare to your whole childhood, okay?"
she said. 'That wasn't the reason. It was something else."

Actually, I agreed. One year couldn't have been enough to
undo eighteen years of upbringing, but that depends on what kind
of upbringing you've had. That Valerie, with her modern ideas. I
always knew she was giving her daughter too much freedom. That
girl used to come and go as she pleased. Even on weeknights, I
don't think Valerie ever gave her a curfew. No wonder the family
doesn't come first with her. It's all in the upbringing.

So I said this to Bernadette, but of course, she with her onetrack mind, she still insisted on another reason. So I decided,
give her a chance to speak-lah.

"Okay, you so smart, what other reason can you think of?" I
asked.

'That's what I mean," she said. No one knows."

All I could do was shake my head at her. "No one knows,
so?" I went on asking. What kind of answer was that to give? No
one knows. As if she had to tell me that.

"Someone must know, right?" she said.

But I couldn't see her point. And for the time being, I couldn't
get her to explain what she meant because now, we had arrived outside Valerie's house. (To be honest, I did understand a little bit,
where she was heading. You've heard that story about a diamond
woman, right? Ah, that one, I won't repeat-lah, is so common
already. Not that Bernadette and I ever talked about it anymore, and
nor did Dorothy or Siew Chin, and till today, I still think it could be
that music teacher from St. Agnes. You know who I mean. But anyway, most people wondered if it was Valerie. Bernadette also. And
Bernadette wasn't stupid, you know. In fact, she could have gone far,
if not for her health. Or then again, maybe not. I don't think she was
ever that ambitious-lah, even though her exam marks used to be
quite high, especially in science. Ask anyone about the rabbit she
dissected in biology lab. She did it so perfectly and all by herself
because her partner was absent that day. Who would have thought
her capable? See how you can never tell about people.)

Ah, so anyway, Valerie must have been looking out of her
window at the same time that we were reaching the house. Or
maybe she was sitting there the whole time, watching the road.
Could be, who knows. In that case, could be she saw something
we hadn't seen, when the light changed. That was what I was
thinking when her front door opened. Bernadette, she had her
hand raised and she was just about to press the bell-button, and
she said, "Eh?" as if so surprised. What's so surprising? Live by
yourself, what else is there to do except sit by the window and
watch the world go by? That's not my choice, but Valerie, as I
was saying, she preferred to be left alone.

"Hello," she said, nodding her head as if welcoming us.
You could tell she wasn't sure what we were doing there, okay?
The doubtfulness was there in her eyes. She was afraid we were
being busybodies, coming to kachau only. Ya-lah, I was aware
of our reputation-lah. But what to do about that? You can't stop
people from thinking what they want to think-lah. Okay, yes,
you can, but to a certain limit only.

Ah, so ya-lah, I was going to start off slow, ask questions
like, "How are you?" and "How's your daughter's visit coming
along?" But that coconut-head friend of mine, betul-betul a
coconut-head. Before I could say one word, she was already
blurting out, "Eh, did you see anything just now? You saw, right?
The blackout? You saw or not?"

Now Valerie was totally on guard. Of course she knew
what Bernadette was talking about. How could she not know?
The whole world disappearing like that, in the middle of the
afternoon. Okay-lah, not to exaggerate, so it wasn't the whole
world. But anyone home at the time would have noticed
the air suddenly going black, whether or not there was a suitable explanation for it. (Some people think maybe because
there was a dang-ki performing in the market that afternoon,
and given the rumors about how after he had gone into a
trance, people could hear voices in the air, I suppose there
could have been a link. Some say the voices were not speaking clearly but as if in tongues, although a few people heard
the voices speaking Malay, but not modern Malay. Some oldfashioned kind-lah that no one could interpret. Ah, and those
two girls were there, Jo and Susanna, Alice Wang and Regina
Lim's daughters, with a hunch of their St. Agnes friends. Of
course they weren't supposed to go to things like that, but
being teenagers, what. No one at the market remembers the
air turning dark, by the way, and nowadays some want to say
maybe they imagined the voices, even. But I tell you, I'm not
making anything up.)

Of course it didn't surprise me when Valerie said, "Oh, was
there a blackout?" as if really, she didn't know.

"Alamak, you didn't see anything? How come?" That
Bernadette. It would take her a while to believe that people
were not going to willingly open their mouths about this. This
wasn't the usual gossip, right? Bernadette wasn't stupid, but as
I've pointed out, she wasn't that observant of human nature-lah.

Valerie just shook her head. "It must have been during my
nap," she said, quite calmly. "This heat, you know. It wears me
out. I must have slept through the whole thing."

You hear how she was talking? Obviously she knew what
Bernadette meant. Just from the way she said, "I must have slept
through the whole thing," you could tell. Ah, so anyway, I saw
right through her words, but definitely, I wasn't going to share
this with Bernadette.

"Ya-lah, this heat," I said, trying to play along. Also, I wanted to change the subject so that, hopefully, Valerie would relax
a bit. "The weather keeps getting worse. How are you keeping
up, with your daughter's visit? Must be nice to have her home?
We just stopped by to chat a bit."

"Oh, I'm fine. And yes, it's nice to have her home." Valerie
smiled at us as if none of us were hiding anything. But you notice,
still, Bernadette and I were not being invited into the house.

"Is she home for good?" Bernadette asked, finally catching
on to what I was trying to do.

No, no, she's here on holiday." Valerie kept on smiling-lah,
as if that way, her heartbreak wouldn't show or something. Of
course her heart was broken. Any mother can understand this.
Never mind what goes on between you and your daughter,
whatever disagreements, whatever quarrels, how to bear the
two of you living in different countries? Not just different countries. Separate continents. In this way I've been lucky that my
Rose was never that adventurous. True, I used to try to encourage her, but it's a good thing I didn't succeed.

"Eh, you must be excited-lah, you're going to have a grandchild,"
Bernadette went on. See, why she must put her foot in her mouth?
We all knew Shakilah didn't have a wedding ring on her finger.

"A child is always a blessing," I said quickly.

Valerie looked at me as if she was trying to decide whether
or not I was serious. Needless to say, she wasn't smiling anymore,
okay? Actually, even I couldn't read her facial expression now.

"Yes, always," I went on. I was nodding my head and so was
Bernadette. She must have realized her mistake-lah, because the
next second, I heard her say, "Yes, every child, no matter what.
Every child is a blessing."

"Yes," Valerie said, finally. "I think so, too." Definitely, she
was not going to invite us in, thanks to Bernadette.

So that's why-lah that afternoon, despite my good intentions, I ended up not getting a chance to remind Valerie about
Pontianak. The mood was ruined-lah. Besides, there was still a
bit of time, I thought. We all knew the baby wasn't due for a few
months. At least three months, but probably four, depending on
whether it was a small baby or not. Better postpone the conversation to another day, I decided. And better not involve
Bernadette the next time. That part was my mistake.

We didn't stay long after that. No point, bukan?

So ANYWAY, B E R N A I) .. I i i and I parted ways around five o'clock,
give or take a few minutes. Supposedly that's when the old man
was spotted again, I know. But you've heard the rumors, so you
should understand. Not all the stories coincide, ya? For instance,
according to one story, the chap was dressed like a World War
II Japanese soldier, except he didn't have a bayonet. That's why
some people started saying he could be a spirit left here to do
penance-lah, for sins committed during the Occupation.

"Maybe he was the one who tied a seven-year-old girl to a rambutan
tree. You remember that story?"

"You mean Mrs. Kathigasu's daughter? That was Yamashita who gave
the orders-lab."