Written in Black, page 16
“You big baby … Come on!” I made it clear that Michael was winning no sympathy from me. If he couldn’t be brave out here, then how could he act so inside, in front of Pa?
Our little exchange did serve to attract the attention of our uncle, who dropped his conversation with the guests and rushed over. He waved his arms in the air madly as he jogged towards us, and his cries were just as frantic. “Michael! You’re here!”
“Hi, Ah Peh …” Michael greeted him, gulping down hard.
Ah Peh stopped in front of us, out of breath and staring dumbly at our faces. Frida and Kevin noticed us as well and they stared too, but they stayed where they were.
“I-I-I’ve … I’ll get your father,” our uncle finally stammered, bursting off and then stopping halfway and shuffling back to us as if he had changed his mind. “No, wait, you’d better come inside! Follow me. You have to change, Michael. And meet your father. Come in.”
Ah Peh yanked Michael from his spot and into the house, brusquely brushing past his own children who were perched near the main door. And that was that. It looked like I had got away with it after all.
I walked over to my cousins to see what they were up to.
“Hi guys … Did you see that? Looks like nobody found out,” I said with a relieved smile.
Kevin glanced towards the front door. “So you brought him back? Did you get to speak to your Mum?”
“Wait, you went out?” Frida blurted. “You left the house?”
“No, I didn’t. I think I was too late,” I sighed, ignoring Frida. “Did my father say anything? Did anyone suspect I was gone?”
“I don’t know. I pretty much stayed out of his way since you left,” continued Kevin. “Jonathan, I don’t think you know but …”
“Hellloooo, can someone answer me?” Frida interrupted us again. “Did you actually escape, Jonathan? So you’ve been gone all this while?”
“Yeah, I did leave the house, Frida. And what don’t I know, Kevin?”
“How did you leave?” She just wouldn’t let it go.
“Um … Around lunch time earlier,” Kevin began hesitantly, “your mother … She called the house.”
I waited for the calmness inside me to die a sudden death, to be scorched away by an explosive outburst of pent-up anguish. I winced in preparation and … Nothing happened. I simply took this in; it was just another missed call, another missed opportunity. I could stand it. At least I had tried, hadn’t I? And I didn’t think I’d ever get too distraught by anything else as terrible I’d ever experience in life, not with today’s events as the benchmark.
It suddenly came to me that after six months of my mother’s absence, and after doing nothing but simply sitting on a forlorn hope to see her and talk to her, this had been my first attempt at doing something about it. Even though I didn’t get to speak to her, and although I knew that anything I might have tried to persuade her to come back home would never have worked anyway, I still felt quite content with the outcome of my adventure. I’d brought Michael home after all. If nothing else, that was something both Mum and Ah Kong would have been happy to see.
“Nobody’s allowed to leave once the ceremony starts with the wake. You broke the rules, Jonathan …” Frida continued, but I wasn’t listening. I walked on, towards the front door of the house. I noticed some activity going on inside; did I dare go in to see how Michael’s reunion with my father was faring? The image in my head was a cringeworthy one, and yet I couldn’t help but want to see for myself, so through the door I went.
Where the altar and the platform had been placed before, there was only empty space now. And in the middle of that space stood Michael and my father. Ah Koh was by the door to the hallway, ignoring the few guests who were still inside the house, and observing intently the confrontation between my father and brother, which must have been a great replacement for all the Japanese soap operas she was missing that day on account of the ceremony. Ah Peh and Ah Em floated around Pa and Michael, half-coaxing them and half-twittering to each other about how amazing it was that my brother had come back just in time for Ah Kong’s funeral.
An anticipatory tension filled the room; everyone was waiting for either Pa or Michael to make the first move. I knew it was going to take a while though. Pa had his arms folded tightly in front of him, and had his face tilted back so he could face his much taller son. This was his no-surrender pose, and not once in their very rocky history had he ever been the one to relent. Pa gave permission and granted things; he didn’t ask for favours nor did he make offers. My elder brother, on the other hand, was looking down at his feet glumly, and fidgeting away with his hands in his pockets; he didn’t look like he was going to speak anytime soon either.
Ah Peh and Ah Em eventually gave up and hushed themselves to a complete silence, and joined the rest of us in an exercise of mental nail-biting. The only sign of movement from Pa was his heavy raspy breathing as his chest rose and fell beneath his rigidly folded forearms. It seemed like he hadn’t even blinked from the moment I entered.
“I … I came back, Pa,” Michael mumbled, still looking at the ground. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, save for my father, who continued with his hard, unyielding stare.
“I … I’m sorry. Ah Kong …” Michael’s voice broke, and he shifted around as if an insect had crawled up his trouser leg.
Oh, Michael, please don’t break down now. Not in front of all these people.
“Michael.” Pa finally said through gritted teeth. “How did you know to come about your Ah Kong?”
“Jonathan. He … He messaged me, and I saw it late last night. I’m sorry I didn’t answer the phone.”
The oppressive, uneasy climate that had descended upon the room only thickened now. Pa tensed and leaned backwards even more, then took in a sharp breath of air. I decided to step in and do something quickly to diffuse the situation, but I was beaten to it by Pa himself, for he sighed and shook his head, finally relaxing his arms and letting them go limp by his side.
“Go upstairs and get changed,” he said to Michael, and then turned to me. “Jonathan, go and find some funeral clothes for him.”
I nodded and started moving across the room. As I passed my father, he leaned in towards me and whispered ominously, “You stay upstairs. I want to talk to you.” Then, he motioned for Michael and me to hurry on up. A very familiar shadow of impending doom hovered over me as I headed upstairs.
My brother and I spent the next five minutes ransacking Kevin’s room in the hope of finding something that would fit Michael as well as my father’s requirements for proper funeral clothes. We settled on a pair of navy blue tracksuit bottoms, but on Michael, they came off more like a pair of three-quarter shorts. Deeming that as acceptable enough, we moved on to the shirt, which turned out to be much more difficult to obtain in his size. Although I knew full well that I would be in a great amount of trouble if I were to get caught, I excused myself and went to Ah Kong’s room to rummage some more. There, I managed to fish out an old tobacco-stained blue shirt from the cupboard we’d missed last night. I gave it to Michael, but lied that it was from Ah Peh’s room. The funeral ensemble piled up in his hands, my brother left the room and headed to the bathroom to get dressed.
A few minutes after he had left, Pa arrived in the room to have his little chat with me, storming in as he often did and shutting the door firmly behind him. Just the two of us then, with no-one else to witness the massacre.
“Jonathan, where were you the whole day?” he drew his question out slowly, each word heavy and deliberate.
“What do you mean, Pa? I was around …” Now it was my turn to shift and fidget while staring at the floor.
“Look at me!” he snapped, and I flinched before automatically looking up to face my father. “Where have you been all day?”
“I was helping out here …”
“Don’t lie to me!” he interrupted. “Your brother was trying to cover for you, but I know you left the house.”
I had nothing to say in return.
“Now, I want to hear it from you. The whole truth.”
There was no hiding it from him anymore. Why even try?
“Yes, Pa, I did.”
To my surprise, the infuriated screaming I expected from him did not materialise. Pa was keeping steady. And I could see that his face was softening slowly.
“It was for your Mum, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know that she called earlier today?”
“Yes.”
“Did you manage to speak to her over there?”
I shook my head. I bit into my lip to keep myself under control. This control over what I could feel … I couldn’t let it slip away. I wasn’t going to let my father of all people see me break down.
“Well, then,” he looked away and sighed, giving me just enough time to compose myself. “There’s nothing more to do, is there?” He then turned back to me and moved closer, hitching down so that his own face was almost to the level of mine.
“But this is the only time you’ll ever do something like this, understand?” he said with a finger stuck out and pointed at the tip of my nose. “That was dangerous, and stupid. And if you hide things like that from people …” He broke off and got up, his eyes, as ever, staring authoritatively down his nose at me.
“I won’t do it again,” I said.
He nodded curtly, and then he gave me a look he had never given me before. The look definitely wasn’t friendly, but neither was it hostile. It was like … like the look he usually had on his face whenever he conversed with other adults.
“I am sorry, and I won’t do it again, Pa,” I repeated. “I messed it up for myself. But, at least Michael’s back.”
He grunted. “Yes, and Ah Kong would have wanted that …” He walked past me to open the door for himself. “Oh, one more thing, Jonathan.” He halted with one foot out of the room. “Your mother asked for you. You really disappointed her by not being here when she called.”
I didn’t know what to feel – jubilation for finally being asked for by my mother, or sullying guilt for having let her down. Maybe both, and much more too, all at the same time.
“I asked her if she could call again, for you …” he continued. “And she said she will. Once she’s reached Dubai, probably tomorrow evening. Our time.” With that, Pa swiftly left the room and headed back downstairs, leaving me dumbstruck by the reversal of my fortune. And to have such good fortune come to me from him of all people … Could I afford myself a smile? Should I go ahead and give myself a hi-five to celebrate?
No, it would be best to wait to do that, until I was actually speaking to her. I didn’t want to jinx it already.
Michael peeked around the door just then. “Is he gone?”
“Yeah.”
“Shoot,” he said, emerging out of his hidey hole. “I heard all that.”
“Okay …”
“It’s funny that Mum called the house, huh?” he slapped my back and guffawed. “All that work, when you could’ve just stayed here and spoken to her. You should’ve spent more time thinking about it.”
“You’d better not go there,” I warned him. “If not for me, you wouldn’t be here so you owe me big time.” That served to shut him right up. “And you should talk. Why don’t you spend your time thinking of something useful, huh?” I continued. “Like thinking of an excuse to give Pa about the cigarettes you stole and the money you need to pay back to Mohidin.”
While my brother stared at me uneasily and struggled to come up with a retort, I made my exit, walking out of the room and back to the funeral.
Chapter Fourteen
The events of the day had left me worn out, but there were plenty of chores to do, and I wasn’t spared from having to pitch in.
I headed over to the porch where Michael and Kevin were seated, tending to the circle of fire. They were unsupervised, which was a rather unwise move on the adults’ part. In spite of this, the circular trail of ever-burning paper was still going strong, the mound of ash upon which it sat heaping up dangerously close to the brim of the container.
“What’s this supposed to mean?” I asked as I joined them. “Is it supposed to be sending up money to Ah Kong?”
“It’s the circle of life, idiot,” Michael answered, scoffing. “Don’t you know anything?”
“We’re lighting up the way to heaven for Ah Kong,” Kevin explained more patiently. “We need to keep doing this until the burial.”
“What if it goes out?”
“We can’t let that happen.”
“But what if it does? Will Ah Kong get trapped in limbo? And then he won’t get to heaven?”
“That’s crap, man. That doesn’t make sense.” Michael leaned forwards to feed another couple of pieces into the burning trail. “You kids are so dumb.”
“See if I burn anything for your funeral …” Kevin mumbled.
“Hey, man, when I die, I want none of this shit done for me. Just put me in a hole with my axe, and I’ll rest happily for eternity.”
“This is tradition,” I tried to argue. “We’re showing our respect to Ah Kong.”
My brother rolled his eyes at me, and then glared at Kevin. “And fat boy, don’t be so sure about being around for my funeral. I don’t think your heart can keep supporting all that weight for much longer.”
“Oh, yeah?” Kevin was disconcerted, but tried to maintain an air of nonchalance. “Well, you’re probably going to catch AIDS in jail before I drop dead.”
“That’s it!” Michael bolted upright, his legs kicking out and almost upsetting the circle of fire. “I am done here!”
Kevin reared back with fear in anticipation of a beating, but my brother simply turned tail and walked away, probably to help himself to some smokes.
The two of us kept the burning going in relative silence. I got the sense that Kevin was finally in an appropriate mood for the occasion, more solemn compared to this morning or yesterday. He wasn’t even curious to know about my excursion, although I was itching to fill him in on all the dramatic details of my adventure.
Over at the tent, Ah Em and Ah Koh were busy making miniature ingots out of red and yellow paper, with blessings written on them for burning at the burial tomorrow, while also maintaining the vigil over Ah Kong. Jen was by their side, folding away under the direction of her aunts.
“Where’re the others?” I asked Kevin.
“Inside. I think Frida and Aaron are resting.”
I could’ve done with a nap myself, but felt obliged to soldier on without rest or refreshment, largely out of guilt that I had bailed on the morning’s duties. After an hour of watching the fire with Kevin, I swapped places with my sister. I picked up the ingot-making with ease, quickly managing to outpace my aunts, who were busy chattering away about their yoga classes and gossiping about our various guests from the morning. Their conversation nearly sent me off to sleep; nothing genuinely interesting seemed to have occurred in the house that day, from what I could gather
When Aaron came back out to help us, he was the chirpy, upbeat Aaron I had known all my life. Evidently, he’d had a good chat with Mum and whatever she’d told him must have lifted his spirits. Trust Michael to try and make it seem like the world was ending; I was going to take only Mum’s word for what she had planned for the future. All I had to do now was wait until after the funeral for that long-awaited phone call with her.
By the time dinner was ready, the adults had gained enough trust in Aaron and me to leave the two of us alone with Ah Kong’s body while they grabbed a quick bite to eat. Kevin also went in, leaving a refreshed Frida (who was usually on a diet anyway) to take over his job of guarding the circle of fire.
Of course, the first thing my younger brother wanted to know, for it was now safe for us to talk, was all about my grand day out. I began narrating my tale to him, including my horrific encounters with the dogs and the poklans.
“Wow, you met real poklans? Could you speak their language? What were they like?”
“Nuts.” That was the most succinct way I could put it across to him. “They drive around in stupid cars all day, looking for glue to smell and schools to spray-paint.”
“Wow, that’s so dangerous!”
“I never want to see another poklan again as long as I live.”
Aaron mm-hmm’d in agreement, but didn’t seem too convinced that the poklans were indeed truly terrible.
“So … was Mum about to leave when she called?” I asked before I could move on to the next part of my tale. “You know I left to call her, but I couldn’t get through …”
“Yes, she was probably in the airport already then. Hey, Kevin’s coming out!”
My brother pointed to our cousin, who was emerging from the front door, a plate of food in hand. He looked a bit shaken, and gloomier than before, as he stumbled to the edge of the porch and flopped down to take his meal. I watched as my cousin sat there, not eating, and I knew something was wrong. Frida carried on with her duty and acted as though nothing was amiss, but I sensed that she could tell something was up with Kevin too. The sight of him poking and picking at his food rather than finishing it all in quick mouthfuls was a sight I never thought I’d live to see.
“Look at that! He’s not eating! For once in his life, food is actually second to something else!” Aaron squealed, pulling an exaggerated look of bewilderment. “I don’t believe it …”
Neither could I. “Hey, stay with Ah Kong, Aaron,” I said. “I’ll go see what’s wrong with Kevin.”
I expected Kevin to be evasive or uncooperative, but speaking to him turned out to be an utterly useless pursuit. All he said was that the adults were not speaking at all, neither amongst themselves nor to him, and that there was a very uncomfortable silence in the dining room, which had forced him to seek a better spot to have his dinner. On my pressing further, Frida answered for him instead and asked that I drop the matter. Naturally, the adults were being awkward, she said, because they were still dealing with Ah Kong’s death, and Kevin was merely being a big, fussy baby about not getting any attention from them. I went back to join Aaron under the tent.
