Shadow Theatre (8 page)

As on other nights, the British neighbor's house remained
quiet, except for the occasional peal of the telephone, which if
it rang would stop after two rings and then the answering
machine would click on (or so Malika assumed, since that was
what had happened once when Madam had had to call the gentleman because the postman had delivered to her by mistake a
letter addressed to him). Malika couldn't tell as she opened her
book (a French novel in English translation, about a love affair
between a French teenage girl and a Chinese man in the time
that Vietnam and Cambodia were known as Indochina) whether
the gentleman was home or not, as his house was hidden from
view by the brick wall. (It was a one-story bungalow, built in
sprawling pavilion style like Madam's, whereas the other houses on the road were two-story and semi-detached, built on a
smaller acreage each.)

The page on which Malika had stopped reading on the previous night (when she had read in bed as Madam had been
home) was marked by a vermilion leather bookmark, fringed at
one end and bearing a gilt sketch of a domed building (a souvenir from Vatican City, sent to Malika while Francesca was on
one of her business trips in Rome). Malika was removing the
bookmark when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the sugar
cane quiver, over there to her right, four feet or so from the
edge of the car porch. She was about to turn her head when she
caught herself. No need to scare the poor thing away, Malika
told herself, as she placed the bookmark back on the page. She
didn't close the book. She let her hand rest on the page, caressing
the fringe on the bookmark with the tips of her fingers.

The sugar cane grew still. Malika waited for a message, for
the girl to speak to her. (If the girl wanted prayer, she thought,
she would do as Madam had done after her husband's passing
and each time one of the children was getting married. She
would write a petition on a slip of paper, fold it neatly, and leave
it in the wooden box with a slot in the Church of St. Francis of
Assisi, which wasn't far down the road, within walking distance.
The box hung on a wall in the enclave in which dozens of
votive candles burned daily on a tiered iron rack in front of the
statue of the Blessed Virgin. Miracles were said to have happened for petitioners who had left their requests there, although
of course not for every one of them. Malika couldn't think of a
better solution, if what the girl's soul needed was prayer. Asking
Madam if she could attend the Sunset Mass with her (as Malika
had been invited to, several times in the past) was out of the
question. As far as Malika knew, the lascivious Father Johnson
was still there, since Madam would have mentioned it if Father
Johnson had retired or been transferred to another parish,
although not because Madam was aware the Father's hands had
once slithered (seemingly by accident) over Malika's buttocks.
Malika was sure Madam didn't know, not even when Francesca
started attending Mass at the Novena Church instead, with
Caroline and later Michelle tagging along.)

When no message seemed to be coming forth, Malika
looked up and saw there was no longer anyone hiding in the
sugar cane. But someone had been there. Malika would not be
able to explain to Sali and me how she could be so sure it had
been the same girl as on Wednesday but she was, even though
one could hardly make anything out in the murky shadows at
the garden's edge.

A light came on in an upstairs window above the hibiscus
hedge, and someone moved behind the curtains. Next door to
her left, Malika heard footsteps coming along the slate path in
the British neighbor's garden. She listened as his gate opened, then closed, with a quick drop of the iron latch. The footsteps
continued down the road. She tried to discern if they were a
man's or a woman's, but all she could tell was that they weren't
the British gentleman's. (She would have recognized his, having
heard them on numerous occasions over the years.)

She leaned towards the doorway behind her and checked
the clock on the living-room wall. It was five minutes past eight.
Madam wasn't late in returning from her drive, not yet, so
Malika couldn't explain the tingling in the pit of her stomach,
her spidery sense of foreboding, unless it had somehow been
brought on by the girl. But she wasn't afraid of the girl. Ghosts
didn't frighten Malika simply by being ghosts. She was more
afraid of wolves dressed up in the clothing of lambs.

She wondered what the girl might want from her if not
prayer and, closing her book, sat back to wait.

LPHONSUS WONG WASN'T Charlotte's first (and if he
thought he was, he was a fool, as he and Charlotte weren't
even going steady because Charlotte thought going steady
would cramp her, make her feel claustrophobic, as she'd put it,
but saying it to us, not to him). She was probably with him
while Phillipa and Fay came looking for us, their shadows
stretching past the yam and pandan leaves as they stepped in and
out of the shade of the cemetery trees. (Phillipa had been the
tallest and fastest girl in our class before Fay arrived, but they
were on the track team together now, often running neck and
neck at practice.) We didn't hear them approach Mr. Dharma's gate, but when Jo turned around to work on a straggly clump
behind her, suddenly there they were.

As on other weekday afternoons, Mr. Uharma wasn't home
because he was teaching in the afternoon session that year. (He
used to teach history and geography at St. Peter's, which as you
may know is still one of St. Agnes' brother schools.) All you had
to do to let yourself into any of our neighbors' gardens was slip
your arm through a dragon's mouth and slide the bolt back, since
it wouldn't be until some years after Auntie Coco's sister's disappearance that people would start using padlocks. Jo and I had
been working since two o'clock as usual, and when Phillipa and
Fay found us, it was nearly half-past three. Some rain clouds
were moving in from the beach and the air in Mr. I)harma's garden sagged with humidity, with diffused light and the fragrances
of his rambutans and papayas, with the ochreous tincture of
freshly dug earth, and of seaweed, but you could still feel the
sun on your head as Jo was calling out, "Hey," to Phillipa and
Fay, as Phillipa reached in with her right hand and lifted the
latch and slid the bolt hack.

They had come to ask us if we wanted to participate in
Charlotte's deal with her cousin Leonard, who was a St. Peter's
boy (as was Alphonsus Wong but for obvious reasons, Charlotte
was leaving him out of the picture).

"We're proposing fifty-five cents for a nipple, but if a boy
wants to see both nipples, we'll give him a discount. He can get
two nipples for a dollar. Taking off our panties is more expensive.
Three dollars or five dollars, depending on whether he wants us
to squat for him." Phillipa paused so Jo and I could assess how we
felt about the terms of the deal as she had stated them. Then she
went on, very matter-of-factly, "If you want to charge more, better give Charlotte a call, okay? They're meeting to sign the
agreement after the dang-ki's performance tomorrow."

"What dang-ki?" I asked.

"You don't know there's one going to be at the market tomorrow?" Phillipa glanced sideways at Fay, and Fay nodded,
her short hair bobbing in the sun, spiky as grass. (Fay wore her
hair shorter than most boys did, but her haircut looked so surprisingly feminine with her elfin face, the nuns were leaving her
alone about it.)

"I knew," said Jo, and she added when I looked at her, "I was
going to tell you."

'They've already marked out the area," Phillipa went on.
"He's going to be in front of the noodle stalls. There's a square
drawn in red chalk on the cement."

"How big?" asked Jo.

"About ten feet by ten feet?" Phillipa looked again at Fay,
who nodded again. "Ya, about that big."

Jo turned to me. "So if we can get a place right along the
border of the square, we'll be able to see quite a lot. We should
be there by three o'clock, at least half an hour early. Okay?"

There was no question that we were going, and no need for
Jo to ask me if I wanted to go because she knew my heart, knew
the rise and fall and twists of its passions as if they belonged to
her own heart's churning. There was also no question that we
would have to lie about going to watch a dang-ki, so if you were
to ask our mothers, they would tell you Jo and I were at the cinema that Saturday, and I ask that you not let on to them what
you know, or what else you may find out.

"Okay," I said to Jo, with all the boldness and naivete of girls
our age then.

She whipped out her old, sly smile, wheels turning in her
head, and I saw instantly what she was thinking, but I wasn't
about to bring it up in front of Phillipa and Fay.

"So what about Charlotte's deal with Leonard? Are you guys
in or not?" asked Phillipa, returning to the topic because
Charlotte needed our answer no later than that evening, in case
Jo and I weren't interested and she and Phillipa had to round up
some other girls.

I shrugged, and Jo replied that we would have to discuss it
first. She didn't look at me as she was telling Phillipa this, but I
knew she had caught the hesitation in my shrugging, and so had
Fay, who was staring at Jo and me as if she hadn't noticed before
how well we could read each other's body language.

Phillipa already knew how Jo and I were, so all she said was,
"Okay, if you don't call Charlotte by seven o'clock tonight, we'll
assume you're in, and that you agree with the fees I gave you.
Right? Okay?"

"Right," said Jo, and I nodded, but then Jo added, "If we're
in, we'll go over to Charlotte's house instead of phoning. I want
to see what the agreement says before it gets signed." She shot
me a quick glance. I said nothing.

"It says exactly what I've told you, but okay-lah, if you must
see for yourself, go ahead. I'll let Charlotte know." Phillipa tossed
her hair back as she turned to look at Mr. 1)harma's front door.
She had gorgeous wavy hair, and she watched the door as if she
expected it to open, and Mr. Dharma to stand there and warn us
in the manner of our teachers not to fall prey to the Devil, to the
unchaste and morally improper thoughts the Devil was known
to take great pleasure in sowing in teenagers. (Like Charlotte
and several others, Phillipa had a bit of a crush on Mr. Dharma,
who was quite a dreamboat back then. Fay seemed unaffected,
however, as were Jo and I. He wasn't our type, if you must know.)

"So have you heard of anyone else seeing them?" Fay asked
suddenly, her voice barely an echo, a wisp of thrumming over
our heads.

Phillipa continued to watch Mr. Dharma's door, although
she was listening. You could feel her listening.

I looked at Jo, who returned my look as she told Fay, "Not yet."

"Do you think other people will see them?" Fay went on.

"Sooner or later," said Jo, sounding so sure, I didn't doubt
that she was right.

"But so far, you haven't heard anyone talking about it, right?"

We knew Fay liked living in Singapore, liked being an only
child in her uncle's house, liked having a whole room and a bed
to herself. (Phillipa had found out about Fay's eight younger siblings over in Jakarta, whom Fay always had to give way to so she
could set them a good example. It had been Fay's uncle's idea for
her to come and stay with him in Singapore, so she could concentrate on her studies. And so if Fay's parents were to hear of
how he couldn't keep her out of trouble, she would most likely
be hauled back at once. She wouldn't have been in the cemetery
with us if Phillipa hadn't somehow talked her into it, and you
could feel her starting to grow apprehensive towards their
friendship.) Jo assured her none of our neighbors were talking
about what we had seen, which meant the odds were in our
favor that no one had seen us.

"You're sure, right?"

Phillipa turned to Fay then, and said, "Look, if someone
knows we were there, we would be hearing about it by now,
okay? Didn't I already tell you?"