The Hills of Singapore (18 page)

Her mind, very briefly, strayed to opium. She had been an addict for a time, cured now. It was old history. Still, the thoughts of the pleasures of opium were like the pleasures of love: they lingered in the mind, never far away.

Today, however, she dispelled them quickly. Her attention turned to the news of the day. The procession, she learned, had been contained. The troops had arrived in number and the mob was prevented from entering the town, corralled away from Hill Street to turn down Coleman Street and cross the bridge at South Bridge Road. From there the going was straight to the Chinese burial ground, every crossroad sealed off.

“It is not over yet. Stay close to home, Kitt. I have discovered there is a trouble between two rival
kongsi
. I had thought there was but one, but it is not so. The Teochew and Hokkien
kongsi
are rivals. The Straits merchants here in Singapore are trying to break the Teochew monopoly of the gambier agriculture both in Rhio and here in Singapore.”

Robert put his hand to his head. His voice was vibrant, excited. He could see everything clearly. Charlotte knew this was the first stage of the effect of opium. All pain dulled, but the mind as clear as a bell. “I have been a dupe and this wound serves me right,” he said. “Chew Tock, my voluntary interpreter, turns out to be no other than the head of this Hokkien
kongsi
. When the other side saw him at my side, they imagined the worst and I have also discovered that there were many of his men in the crowd itching for a fight. Tan Tock Seng has told the Resident Councillor that bitter and hostile feelings exist between these two parties. I fear things will get much worse in the coming weeks. There is a battle going on which we barely begin to understand.”

Robert sighed and suddenly seemed to wilt. “For the love of the Lord, Teresa, take away this tea and bring me a whisky.”

Teresa started to speak but Robert put up his hand. “Please,” he said and smiled wanly. Teresa left the room.

“Kitt, I have to speak to you.”

Charlotte frowned slightly. Robert's tone was anxious, but she detected the opium underneath, loosening his tongue. This usually preceded the last stage, the dulling of the senses entirely.

“Yes Robbie, of course. What is it?”

“I have … done something.” His voice was becoming very low and slow. He was very tired, she could see. The opium was taking effect. He needed to sleep.

Charlotte rose and went to him, taking his hand. “What, Robbie? What is it?”

“I have … Shilah.”

Robert's head began to loll. The opium was taking him to the land of pleasant dreams. Charlotte frowned. “What, Robert? What about Shilah?”

He raised his head and smiled a dreamy smile. She recognised it. Dangerous dreams. “Shilah … I … Shilah.” His head fell back onto the cushion of the chair, and she knew he was far away.

20

Zhen looked at the women in the kitchen. The family was gathered at the mansion on River Valley Road. Noan's mother, aunts and cousins and her father's third concubine were making glutinous rice dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival in two days.

Noan was pregnant and happy at her family's pleasure. She could see that her father and mother were refreshed at the thought of this birth. But it was tempered by anxiety. So much trouble with Lilin. Her continued absences from the family home, her stubborn nature, these were causes of anxiety for everyone. Noan's third sister had been married away, to the son of the Kapitan at Batavia. They would not meet again until Chinese New Year. Her fourth sister was married to a wealthy merchant in the rice trade in Cochin China. He was, she had heard, not a young man. Two sisters gone and one so lost. She felt a terrible, love for Lilin, who seemed so very far away.

Noan hoped this child would be a son. Zhen had spoken of his wish for a son, and she desperately wanted to give him this gift. Things had improved between them. His anger had died away at the announcement of the pregnancy. He came more often to the house at Market Street. She had been quite sick with this pregnancy. A boy, all her aunts told her. Sickness means it will be a boy.

The rashes had gone. Zhen had brought a salve, and his presence at the family home and in her bed reassured her. The problem with Lilin would not go away, however. She knew Zhen had talked with her father, but he did not want to deal with Lilin. Her father had been unwell recently. He had passed much of the business to Zhen and Ah Teo. He went every day to the godown or the sago factories, but he seemed happy to pass the decisions to his sons-in-law.

Noan prayed often for her father. Her mother was very healthy and enjoyed her social round of cards and lunches, chewing the
sireh
, gossiping. The third concubine waited on her hand and foot. Sometimes Noan felt sorry for this girl. She was still only eighteen. She had been married to Noan's father at thirteen, had three children, three boys, in quick succession and now, as her father had grown unwell, she was abandoned to servitude. Despite the sons, she occupied a low place in the household, especially as her father paid less attention to her.

Lilin's presence at the family gathering was obligatory but she did not join the other women. Ah Teo, Zhen, her father, her uncles and cousins, all the men, were sitting on the verandah watching the maids with the children in the garden and chatting. Lilin watched them from the living room. Ah Teo had taken to smoking cigarettes, and she smiled. Gaston gave her cigarettes, and she smoked from time to time. She had entirely given up chewing the betel. Gaston disliked it. Actually all the Western men disliked it. It was a custom of her aged relatives, and she had come to hate it, too, almost as much as she disliked wearing this shapeless
baju
and sarong. She looked down. Her figure was entirely concealed.

Noan came out onto the verandah with the maid, bringing tea to the men. Her belly was big and the men said something to Zhen and they all laughed. Noan blushed slightly and served the tea. Zhen smiled too, but tenderly, Lilin could see, at his wife. She felt a coldness and a desperate wish for them all to be dead. Especially Ah Teo. He had taken up with the whorehouse keeper in Amoy Street. She had found out through one of the girls who worked there. This woman, Min, was disfigured and low, but Ah Teo had rented a house for her in Hong Kong Street. A whore for god's sake! Zhen knew of it, she was sure, for this Min was a crony of his and the loathsome Qian. What filth they all were. She turned away.

The men ate lunch together in the formal dining room, the women separately from them in the room off the kitchen. After lunch the men napped or talked. Her old aunts and uncles went home. Her mother and father too, were napping. Lilin was sitting in the garden in the deep shade of a mango tree. Noan went up to her and sat down. Lilin did not look at her. She looks pale, Noan thought.

“Lilin, we see you so little. The children miss you. Lian particularly.”

Noan stopped. She had no idea what Lilin did all day and most of the nights. There had been a time when Lilin was kept in the house. She had had a guard, was not permitted to go out. It was horrible. Lilin was crazed, screamed and ranted all day, upset the children. She had been sent briefly to her aunt and uncle in Malacca, but within weeks they had sent her back. Ah Teo was told off, told to deal with his wife, but he could do nothing. Nobody could. So they had let her be. Zhen and Ah Teo had spoken to her. No scandal, and she could come and go as she wished. And an allowance, she had said to Ah Teo, smiling. He had agreed. Now Zhen said nothing, Ah Teo said nothing, her father had given up.

Noan took a deep breath and said boldly, “Lilin, what do you do every day? What do you do at night when you do not come home?”

Lilin looked at her sister. “Are you sure you want to know?”

Noan hesitated. She was a little afraid of what Lilin might say, but she nodded nevertheless.

“I fuck a white man. I drink wine and smoke cigarettes. I am free.”

Noan's hand went to her mouth. Her sister had spoken like a man, in the language of a man. Her voice was empty, hollow.

“Shocked, big sister? Ah Teo has his whore and I have mine. No one knows. I am very careful. The aunties and uncles, the cousins, they know nothing. They live in Malacca, in any case.” Having said as much as she seemed to want to reveal in this place, Lilin looked at her hands, took up her bag, rose and beckoned to her sister. “Come, walk with me to the big pond.”

Noan fell into a slow step with her sister. When the house disappeared from view, Lilin took out a pouch of tobacco and paper and deftly rolled a cigarette and lit it with a lucifer, inhaling deeply. Noan was fascinated. She had seen Ah Teo smoke. How did it not burn the mouth? she wondered, but she did not ask.

Lilin looked at Noan and the bulge at her waist. “You know, if you do not obey, they can do nothing. It has taken me a long time to learn it. Maybe in China they can send you somewhere, but here in Singapore, if you do not obey, they can do nothing. We live in our father's house, we are given possessions. When I married Ah Teo I received jewellery and furniture. It is mine. I have sold some, you know, but now they give me money to shut me up.”

Noan was silent. She had never heard such scandalous talk but somehow it made a kind of sense. “Does my husband know?” she asked quietly.

Lilin laughed. “Know? Of course he knows. Well, not exactly what I do, but about the money.” She stopped and turned to her sister. “He expects obedience from you but he has a woman, you know it. I've told you. A white woman.”

Noan turned away. She wanted to hear no more. She began to walk back to the house. Lilin stood, smoking, watching her sister retreat. Noan could not face the truth, she thought, but perhaps it was better that way. She had a child to bear; what did the truth matter?

Lilin wandered towards the pond. The wind had risen suddenly and was moving quietly around the trees. She dropped her cigarette underfoot. Then, on the breeze she heard voices and turned. There was a pavilion by the pond, a Chinese pavilion with a green tiled roof and upturned eaves: her father's conceit, a touch of old China in his garden, a China he had never even seen, a country he knew nothing about, with a language he could not speak. How despicable they all were with their ridiculous pretensions!

She moved slowly between the trees and listened carefully. It was Zhen and Qian. Lilin was surprised. Qian here? She had not seen him come. That was not surprising, though. It was possible easily to come to the gate at the garden.

She moved very close. The back of the pavilion was screened with lattice against the rain and anyone could approach without being seen, for the view was of the pond. They were speaking, she realised very quickly, in English. In Hokkien she would have understood nothing, but in English she did.

“ … see her.” Zhen was speaking. Lilin crept forward. She was intrigued. Why were they talking in English when both were Hokkien?

“Are you sure?” This was Qian. “To start again, Zhen Ah.”

“It is too hard to be without her.”

Lilin stayed very still.

“I love her.” Zhen hung his head.

Zhen was hurt. He was talking about the white woman, she realised. Lilin's eyes narrowed. She hated her, this woman with power over Zhen, the man she wanted more than anything.

“I must meet her. Qian, will she agree?”

Qian looked at his friend and put his hand on his arm. Years before he had helped Zhen to meet Xia Lou, had taken her to the orchard of nutmeg trees behind Bukit Larangan, where they had their first kiss. Their love had truly begun from that moment, and that it was enduring was no longer in doubt. When she had left Singapore, Zhen had mourned her like a dead wife. Qian had helped Zhen write to her in Batavia. She had never answered but Zhen never stopped writing. Zhen knew now that she had not received his letters, but that was not what mattered. For all the years before they met again, he had never stopped writing.

“Yes, Zhen Ah, she will agree. I will ask her. She will remember.”

Zhen looked at Qian gratefully. Yes, if Qian asked, she would agree. This memory, the moment in the orchard, with the leaves falling slowly around them as they had tried to speak to her; this they all shared. It seemed strange now that he could speak English so well, strange that he had not been able to talk to her. He remembered that first kiss as if it were a moment ago: the feel of her in his arms, like a soaring ascent to heaven, the rush of his blood as he put his lips to hers; lifting her tight against him, her arms entwining his neck, their bodies locked together, the world blotted out.

Zhen smiled at Qian, patted his friend's shoulder and they both rose and left the pavilion. Lilin watched them go, her heart filled with bile. Zhen would never be hers. The realisation came like a lightning bolt. She had been waiting; she understood it now. The English merchants, Gaston—they had been ways to spend her time until Zhen saw her, wanted her. She had convinced herself it was only a matter of time. Her beauty would capture him. Suddenly he would see her, notice her and everything would be instantly wonderful.

But she understood it now, with a hideous clarity: he would never want her. Years of absence from this English woman had done nothing to dim Zhen's feelings. He wanted her more now than he ever had. Lilin sank to the ground and tears of frustration and anger poured out silently, staining the leaves. Anger at this longing she had nurtured for so long, anger at him for loving another, anger at her blind stupidity. When she could cry no more, she crawled to a tree and sat against it.

She opened her bag, took out the pouch and slowly made a cigarette. Gaston had showed her how to do it, supplied her with tobacco. She had smoked opium, but she did not like the deep drowsiness it caused. Tobacco was different, relaxing without the stupefaction. She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. It calmed her and she contemplated the information she had just acquired. The time for stupidity was over. She knew, in her deepest part, that she would never stop wanting Zhen, but she would no longer long for him, build dreams around him. Now different objectives began to surface in her mind and the most satisfying was revenge. Revenge on Zhen and revenge on the white whore.