The Storm We Made, page 6
Her family tried to make the small space comfortable. Jasmin’s father moved a little table in there, and a chair with a cushion on it. Sometimes when she was bored, Jasmin traced the batik patterns on the cushion cover from memory, little yellow circles on an affronting red-pink fabric, but because it was so dark in the basement, the red looked brown like rust, like blood. Because they didn’t want any light to seep through the floorboards, Jasmin often sat in the dark, watching the shadows move on top of her as her family walked around the house. Sometimes she imagined a different family living above her—one with superpowers, a brother with the strength to lift a tree or throw a million soldiers over his shoulder, a sister who could run as fast as light, and herself, with the power of invisibility so she could observe people.
Jujube brought Jasmin as many books as she could get her hands on, some from her new Japanese teacher friend at the teahouse, but it was often too dim to read, and it made Jasmin’s eyes hurt to squint. Sometimes her father would poke his nose through the floorboards and make loud sniffing noises like a dog, which made her laugh, then made her sad when he would inevitably cough. Jasmin knew they were trying—she loved her family so much it hurt her chest sometimes. Her mother brought food down at intervals, and they would eat together quietly. Since Abel had disappeared, her mother, who used to chatter and grumble incessantly about everything—the weather, the laziness of her children, the difficulty of raising a family during a war, the neighbor who annoyed her by allowing his mangy dog to roam around, and so on—had ceased to talk. When Jasmin looked at her mother, she felt a sadness so deep it radiated from her, little pinpricks that shot through anyone her mother encountered. And once a week, Jasmin’s mother would lock her jaw and take a pair of scissors to Jasmin’s hair. Jasmin still cried every time.
But the worst thing was that Jasmin worried she was forgetting Abel. When she first started wearing his clothes, she would feel like she was cloaked in his scent, like she could never get away from him. But the clothes had started to smell more like her, and when she tried to conjure up memories of Abel, she felt like his face was fading. She would squeeze her eyes shut to remember something, a joke he made over breakfast or how he used to take off only one sock when he came home from school, running around with one smelly sock and one smelly bare foot, but even if she could remember his veiny foot, the edges of his face, the contours that made his cheeks rise when he spoke, the little hole on his chin—a “dimple,” her mother called it—the memories all seemed blurrier, harder to recall.
And no matter how much her family cleaned the basement, it was always dusty, the air heavy with a dampness she couldn’t escape—like it was crawling with something, creeping into her throat every time she inhaled. She had taken to breathing as shallowly as she could, her body trying its best to refuse the air. It was difficult trying to stifle her cough; she knew that a single sound at the wrong time could mean she would be sent away.
She had asked Jujube once, what the recruiters wanted.
“You heard them, Jas, they want young girls.”
“But, sis, what for?” she’d pressed.
Jujube’s face went dark, her brown eyes clouded black. “Bad things. They’ll hurt you”—Jujube pointed to Jasmin’s private area—“there.”
The following afternoon when she was alone in the basement, Jasmin slipped her cotton panties off and felt around the lips of her vagina in the dark. “What could they want?” she wondered, bringing her fingers to her nose. “It just smells like piss.”
* * *
“Come on! Come play!” the Japanese girl had whined that first night.
“No.” Jasmin shook her head. “My sister will hear me.”
The girl held her hand up to the window. “I have marbles.” She held three small shiny balls in her palm. They shone against the moonlight, colorful slivers of light, pink, blue, white, green, yellow, bouncing and mixing in the glass spheres, the palette mesmerizing Jasmin. It was Abel who had taught her how to play marbles, how to hold the cool glass on the tip of her hand between her thumb and index finger, and how to flip the marble off with a tiny thumb raise, just enough pressure to scatter the other marbles but not so much as to send her own marble bouncing. He’d lost his temper with her only once, when she’d been practicing with his favorite marble, a black one with yellow stripes, his guli harimau, he called it. She’d flipped the marble too hard onto the grass, and it had rolled into the drain outside their house; they’d heard a tiny splash as the marble sank into the shallow water, settling into the silty, brown-stained drain.
“Abe, I’m sorry,” she began. He’d pushed her aside and stormed off.
Over the next few days, she saw him climb into the drain and balance precariously on the ledge, flinching as he plunged his hand into the stinking water, feeling around for the marble. She’d offered to help, but he would wave her away wordlessly with his free hand, nose screwed up against the wafting smell of dog shit, sodden refuse, and rotting vegetables that coated the drain’s edges.
The day before Abel’s birthday, it had rained torrentially in the evening, the kind of storm their mother always said portended an angry god. “God is crying, my babies, because someone upset him,” she would murmur as they flinched from the loud thunder. Abel had watched mournfully as the drain water roared ferociously in the storm, the current pushing its way along the ledge, dragging everything with it, trash, animal feces, rot, and probably the marble, to the river.
“I’m so sorry,” Jasmin had cried, hugging her brother at the waist, her small arms barely reaching around even though Abel was thin.
“It was just a stupid marble anyway,” he said quietly to her, the first words he’d spoken to her in days. They stood by the window watching the raindrops splash.
When he didn’t come home the next day, Jasmin had hoped he was out looking for his marble. Perhaps he’d just followed the drain current out to the river and was rooting around the riverbank, nose scrunched up against the smell.
Now it had been months. Jujube’s eyes had turned hard, her father barely spoke, and her mother had stopped talking altogether.
* * *
Jasmin and Yuki developed a routine. They would curl up opposite each other on the grass patch on the side of the family house, just out of sight of both Jujube’s window and the road where soldiers occasionally patrolled. Jasmin would pull out the congkak board she had hidden behind the bougainvillea bush and set it down between them, a carved wooden boat-shaped board with seven holes on each side, and two larger empty divots that operated as “home caves” at the ends of the board.
Congkak was a game of mathematics in which two players moved marbles across the holes in the oblong board and accumulated as many of these brightly colored spectrums of light and beauty into one’s home cave as possible. But instead of viewing it as winning or losing, Jasmin liked to think about congkak as a game of saving, like she was guiding each marble back to its home.
One night Jasmin played a game of pretend with herself, wondering, if she had seven seats on a boat to herself, whom she should allot them to. There were five people in her family, so that left just two spare seats in the imaginary boat. Whom would they go to? Perhaps Peik Lum, the plump girl at the chemist? That would make Abel so happy, and Jasmin figured they could always get medicine. Or what about the old Japanese owl-man whom Jujube talked about, the one she seemed fond of from the teahouse? For a while they would get food coupons from him, and he sent presents, including this very congkak board. It would be nice to have a kind man with presents around. And how about Yuki? Yuki with her bright eyes and bumpy face who looked the same age Jasmin was but somehow felt much older, Yuki who tried to hide the cuts between her fingers and who limped sometimes as though she had been punched between the legs, Yuki who always started little stories about her day, her life, the people who lived with her, but never finished them. Then Jasmin remembered that she actually had three extra seats, not two, because Abel had disappeared, and their family was now four. Abel did not need a seat on the boat. Remembering that made her stomach hurt.
* * *
She and Yuki set up their game as always, the board between them, the grass scratching the backs of their knees. Jasmin adjusted her nightie so it shielded her from the blades of grass that sometimes left itchy welts on her thighs. Yuki seemed distracted, pulling at the grass and scattering it on her dress.
“Yuki, you’re bleeding.” Jasmin pointed down the inside of Yuki’s leg.
Yuki tugged at her dress. “It’s not painful anymore.”
“Yuki, what’s wrong with you? Don’t you want to play?” Jasmin was used to seeing Yuki with cuts here and there, but the blood down her leg seemed fresher and the shine in Yuki’s eyes a bit dimmer.
“There was an uncle today. He was rough.”
“What do you mean, an uncle?”
Yuki shook her head and picked up a handful of marbles. “I’ll start the game,” she said.
A few days earlier, when Jasmin had asked Yuki where she lived, she’d stared at the congkak board and said, “In a different place, smelly.”
“My basement’s smelly too sometimes,” Jasmin had said. “Jujube says it’s rat poop.”
She’d thought the grossness would make Yuki giggle, since most everything else did. But Yuki had just looked away. It was always like this. Jasmin knew that Yuki lived in a house with a bunch of other girls and an older woman called Aunty Woon. Sometimes she would complain about the other girls—how they stole her things or were mean to her. One time she told Jasmin she had thrown one of the girls’ hair combs into the dustbin, then thrown hot oil on it just to make sure the other girl could never use it. Jasmin was appalled; her family would never be this nasty to one another. Jasmin thought Yuki should be more appreciative. Jasmin loved curling up with her sister in their little corner at night. In the moonlight she felt like she could see the Jujube she used to know—the one who read stories, who wanted to be someone big, like a doctor or the principal of a school. To Jasmin, it seemed that having many more sisters like Jujube would be wonderful.
After clacking her marbles into the divots on the board, Yuki said, “Do you know the feeling when something goes in there?” She pointed at Jasmin’s vagina.
Jasmin thought of when she’d pressed her fingers into the folds and it had smelled like piss. She didn’t want to tell Yuki that. “No. Why? Is it itchy?” Sometimes if she didn’t wipe properly, or if the family ran out of toilet-paper rations, Jasmin got hot red marks down there. Jujube would help her rub ice on it to make it feel better.
“It feels like vomiting the wrong way,” Yuki said. “Like someone punching you all the way inside till it comes out your mouth.”
Jasmin felt the bile rise in her own throat and tears prick the back of her eyes. She had never heard Yuki’s voice shake this way. Jasmin thought of her sister, serious, strong, always knowing what to do. Even if their mother was yelling, all Jasmin needed to do was feel Jujube’s fingers on her palm to know she would be safe.
“Yuki, do you want to talk to my sister? She won’t tell.”
“She’ll be angry you sneaked out,” Yuki said. “Anyway, I don’t want to play anymore.” Yuki tipped the congkak board and watched all the marbles roll onto the grass. Jasmin was shocked. She opened her mouth to protest, but Yuki spoke first. “This game is boring. Come, I’ll show you something.” Yuki jumped to her feet, rubbed the blood from her leg. It left a brown streak on her yellow nightie that Jasmin couldn’t look away from.
“Come on! Let’s go!” Yuki pulled Jasmin to her feet and slipped her rough, fair hand in Jasmin’s brown one.
As she ran alongside Yuki, the moon spilled at their feet. Their nightdresses swished together, yellow and white, almost one, a tiny bouncing apparition. Jasmin felt like her head was spinning, like there were many things that had happened in their talk and she was missing pieces, even though she knew she’d understood the few words they’d said to each other.
“Where are we going?” Jasmin panted, struggling to keep up with Yuki. Being confined in the basement had made her breathing shorter, and it was hard to run as quickly as she used to. Her legs felt like rubber, not moving as steadily.
“I want to show you my favorite place in the whole world.” The moon had ducked behind a cloud, and Yuki was darkened by shadow except for the glitter in her eyes. “It’s a secret place. They can’t find me there.”
The grass was wet and soaked through Jasmin’s thin slippers. Yuki always did this, speaking in riddles. Where was this place? So that who can’t find her?
“Yuki, I’m tired. Are we there yet?” Jasmin panted through her teeth, sweat pooling down a thin line on her back. They had run up a hillock, past the river, and the smell of mud swirled in her nose with the scent of her and Yuki’s sweat, making her dizzy and irritable. She was starting to get worried. What if Jujube woke up and could not find her?
“Almost. You run so slow; you’re lucky you don’t live with Aunty Woon, or you wouldn’t be able to run away from her cane!” Yuki said.
Jasmin felt her throat catch. “Stop making fun of me!” The exertion of yelling and panting making her choke.
Yuki’s face fell, and her lip trembled on the side of her face that was patchy and rough. Lit by the moonlight creeping through parted clouds, the crevices on Yuki’s face looked especially deep. Jasmin felt immediately sorry. She had learned to be attuned to moods. If a voice was raised, if someone’s eyes filled with tears, if a room felt thick and hot with tension, she always knew that if she smiled, made her eyes bigger, and crawled into someone’s lap, the feeling would change.
Jasmin opened her mouth wide and crossed her eyes. A little saliva dribbled out of her mouth down her chin, and she made an exaggerated show of flopping onto the ground. “I’m deaddddd,” she moaned theatrically.
Yuki burst into a fit of giggles, the peals of her laughter echoing through the quiet night like wind chimes. Jasmin felt her body relax. They resumed their trek.
After a few minutes, Yuki stopped. “We’re here! Be quiet!”
A sign on the corner said: WELCOME. A few feet in front of them stood a row of identical wooden shacks with thatched roofs covered in nipah leaves, each shack with one window and a narrow wooden doorway. Some of the doors were open, but most were closed. Jasmin raised her right index finger and counted fourteen doors. The ground on the road leading to the shacks was muddy and marked with many deep boot imprints, their ridged lines crisscrossing, lit by the moon. There was a smell in the air like sweaty bodies, blood, and a staleness Jasmin wasn’t familiar with. Yuki put a finger to her lips and beckoned to Jasmin. As they ran along a path next to the shacks, Jasmin tried to peek into the ones with open doors. It was dark, but in one shack, she saw a girl, perhaps twelve years old, lying on her side. A man in military fatigues was standing over her, his back to the doorway. As Jasmin and Yuki scurried past, the man pulled the door shut, but not before Jasmin locked eyes with the girl on the floor, the girl’s eyes empty, black.
“Yuki, I’m scared.” Jasmin huddled closer to her friend, smelling the sweat in her armpits, sour.
“Why are you such a scaredy-cat!” Yuki pulled Jasmin over to a curve in the path. “Come with me; I’ll show you my hiding spot.”
Jasmin whimpered. “I want to go back. Jujube might wake up.”
“But we’re here, Mini! Just climb in there!” Yuki gestured at a stationary wheelbarrow, bright blue, standing upright, tucked in the corner of a tiny patch of grass. They were barely ten steps away from the shacks, but because of the curved path, it was on its own, completely out of sight of the main pathway. The wheelbarrow itself was surprisingly clean, even new.
“The wheel is loose,” Yuki said, pointing at the front of the wheelbarrow. “No one uses it.”
“What do you do with it?” Jasmin asked.
Yuki pulled her yellow nightie up and hoisted herself into the wheelbarrow. She held out a hand to Jasmin. “Come on! This is where we play. This is my castle. It’s far away from everything, and no one can find us here.”
“This is a wheelbarrow, Yuki. My pa has one.”
“It’s where we can be safe,” Yuki said. “Grown-ups can’t see it because it’s magic.”
Yuki was smiling that bright, toothy smile that reminded Jasmin of looking at the sun. Jasmin hoisted herself into the wheelbarrow and sat across from Yuki, cross-legged, their knees touching. Yuki then pulled what looked like a bedsheet from under her knee and flapped it open so it covered them both inside the wheelbarrow, leaving only slivers of moonlight seeping in through the thinner parts of the sheet. Jasmin couldn’t see much of Yuki except her eyes, and when she caught Yuki’s glance, they both burst into a fit of giggles.
“Shhhh!” said Yuki, trying to swallow her laughter. “I don’t want anybody to hear us!”
Jasmin didn’t know why they were giggling, or why she was overcome with a burst of joy, but here in Yuki’s castle, this small blue wheelbarrow, crouched together under the warm sheet, she felt like they had built a world for just the two of them, and no one could get to them; no one could take it away.
CHAPTER SIX
CECILY
Bintang, Kuala Lumpur
1935
Ten years earlier, British-occupied Malaya
Espionage suited Cecily. She had a knack for invisibility, combined with what Fujiwara called an “instinct for the important.” This in concert with Gordon’s rise to third in command at the public works department meant Cecily had graduated from combing the garbage for notes and letters to delivering intel overheard at important meetings, and to stealing information, not just from Gordon but from his superiors.
Cecily often wondered whether Fujiwara had weaponized her feelings and her. It humiliated her, the idea that he could feel her want, and that sometimes it felt like when he said her name, the pores in her body began to leak—with sweat, desire, hunger, everything base, the whole of her simply ooze. Yet it seemed as though her yearning made her a stronger spy, the need to press past the roiling panic inside her causing all neurons to fire on all cylinders, finely tuning the brain to work exactly as it should.
