The Harmony Silk Factory (12 page)

“I’m selling Tupperware,” I said. “It’s from America. It’s very useful.”

She remained silent. I felt my nerve begin to weaken. I had to make a final attempt. “May I come in and show you?” I smiled.

She held my gaze for several seconds. I held my breath to hide my nervousness and tried not to blink.

“OK,” she said, and she let me in.

I stood in the middle of the large sitting room and looked around me. The room led out to a verandah which ran along the entire length of the back of the house. Through the half-open shutters I could see that the land fell away to the jungle, which appeared as a soft green carpet. The walls of the room were decorated with long scrolls bearing Chinese calligraphy. They were executed in a flowing and flamboyant hand, the characters swirling and greatly exaggerated. One scroll caught my eye. It was the famous Tang poem by Li Po:

 

 

“What are you looking at?” the woman said. She had a slim face and clear skin. She too looked nothing like me.

“I was just admiring your calligraphy,” I said. “It’s very beautiful. Did you do it?”

“No,” she said, suppressing a smile. Her shoulders dropped and her voice became softer. “No, that was done by my great-uncle.”

“Really?” I said. “He must be a famous artist.”

She giggled. “No, he wasn’t. He’s dead now. He died during the war. My family saved all his paintings from the Japanese, and we put them back on the walls just like they were when Great-uncle T.K. was alive.”

“That’s interesting. He died during the Occupation, did he? What was his name? Maybe I’ve heard of him.”

“T. K. Soong,” she said. “Say, you’re asking a lot of questions, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I apologise. It’s not every day a poor salesman like me sees calligraphy of this standard, you see.”

She smiled again.

“And like I said, I may have known him.” I looked at the scrolls once more, keeping my back to her so she could not see my eyes. Though my head remained tilted upwards, my gaze scanned the sideboards and cupboards for signs of photographs or mementoes—anything.

“I don’t think you could have known him,” she said. “How old are you, exactly?”

“Look who’s asking questions now.” I laughed. “How old do you think?”

“Let me see . . .” she said. I turned around and presented my face to her, smiling. “I’m usually good at guessing people’s ages, but you’re difficult.”

Behind her I caught sight of myself in an old mirror. The glass was scratched and blurred and dusty, silver strips peeling away behind it.

“Why are you touching your cheek?” she said. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “So how old am I?”

“I’d say in your forties. Late forties maybe.”

I opened my eyes in mock horror. “Not too far wrong.”

“Then you definitely wouldn’t have known Great-uncle T.K. Or if you did you must have been a tiny baby. He died in 1943.”

“How did he die?”

“Well . . .” she said, looking at her fingers, “you know . . .”

“I’m sorry I asked. I’m just a stranger after all.”

“It’s OK, really. I’ll tell you—the Japanese. That’s what everyone says. I don’t know the details.”

“Did he have any children?”

“Just one. My mother’s cousin. No, second cousin—I’m not sure.”

“Did she live here too? Your great-uncle’s daughter, I mean.”

“Of course. Don’t all children live with their parents? In fact she lived here even after she was married.”

“That’s nice.”

“She was married to Johnny Lim, you know—the notorious Johnny Lim.”

“Oh yes, I think I’ve heard of him—I’m not from around here, you see.”

“Oh. Where are you from, then, Mr. Tall Man?”

“KL.”

“Wow, long drive.”

“It’s not bad. I stay in Ipoh for a week at a time.”

“Sounds like you miss home.”

“Not really. So your mother’s cousin who was married to Johnny . . .”

“Lim.”

“Johnny Lim, yes. I guess that must have been her room,” I said, pointing to a door which seemed to open into a larger room.

“No, that was my great-uncle and great-aunt’s room. That one was Johnny and Snow’s,” she said, pointing to a closed door. She paused and looked me in the eye, as if remembering something. “Hey,” she said, taking a step towards me, “how did you know my great-uncle’s child was a girl? I didn’t tell you it was a girl.”

“Supernatural powers.” I tried to laugh but my face suddenly felt hot.

Just then an old man’s voice called out from behind the closed door. “Who is it, Yun?”

“No one, Grandfather. Go back to your nap.”

The door opened and a bald, bent-over man emerged. He had sparkling clear eyes which widened when they saw me.

“Good afternoon,” I said, trying to sound cheery. “I’m selling Tupperware.” It sounded like a lie.

I did not recognise him. I was certain I had never seen him before, and what’s more, I was sure that he had never seen me. And yet the way he looked at me made me nervous.

“I know you,” he said.

“Oh, really?” The girl giggled. “You know this guy, Grandpa?”

“Your face,” he said. “I know your face.”

“Who is he, Grandpa? Tell me,” the girl said. “I’m dying to know.”

“Excuse me,” I said suddenly, “excuse me for interrupting your afternoon.” I walked towards the door, opening it in one swift motion, and when I reached the top of the stairs I began to run, leaping three steps at a time.

“Hey, Mr. Tall Man, what about the Tupperware?” the girl shouted as she came after me.

I didn’t look back as I drove away on the dry, dusty road that wound its way through the plantation. The car jolted over rocks and potholes but I didn’t ease off until I reached the main road. My face was hot with embarrassment and anger. I had still not seen the room my mother had slept in.

By the time I reached home I had resolved to go back to the Soong house as soon as I could.

ND SO A FEW MONTHS AGO I went there again. I had left a gap of about six months—plenty of time for me to regain my composure and for the people at the house to forget the strange travelling salesman who had fled before selling anything. I drove through the swampland with the sea-salty air swirling through the open windows. I left the car and walked the final mile to the plantation, my stride measured and calm. It was a night of perfect clarity, you must believe me. The moon was bulbous in a velvet sky and made my clothes shine. I stopped and looked at my hands and saw that my skin, too, had become pale and phosphorescent.

The house was dark. It looked exactly like the house from my childhood nightmares. It was waiting, ready to take me. I walked up the steps and tried the front door. I put my ear to it and listened for movement. Nothing. I walked along the verandah to the shuttered teak doors and put my hand on the rain-washed panels, pushing gently. They fell open at once, making no noise. The room burned with moonlight. Where the light fell on the floors the boards turned white before me, casting light on the entire room. I saw my reflection in the mirror. When I reached out to touch it, it shattered into a thousand pieces. In the broken pieces I could see parts of my face and they were hot to the touch. I stepped over the shards of glass and walked towards Snow’s room and stopped at the threshold before entering. I came into a small windowless anteroom. I could make out two chairs and a coffee table. At the far end of the room I noticed another door and made my way towards it. I know this door, I thought, I know this place. I have been here a thousand times before. I have carried it inside me since I was born and I know all that it held within it. A bed. An old man asleep on it. Next to him, a beautiful woman: Snow. The walls are hung with waterfalls of hot red silks. Snow opens her eyes and rises to sit up. Her hair is sleep-tangled but I can see her eyes have not shut. They have not rested for many years now. She turns to me and smiles. Come she says and I walk slowly to her. She holds her arms wide open and I kneel before her slowly slowly lowering my head into her breast. Her arms close around me, her hands stroke my hair. Don’t cry she says don’t cry my child my son. Her fingers smooth my face my cheek my brow my dry cracked lips. With her long white fingers she pulls her white blouse aside and gives her white breast to my mouth. Drink my child my son she says and I drink. When I finish I can smell my breath and it is sweet and soft. Are you happy my son she says and I nod. I feel something cold and hard on my cheek and when I turn my face I see it is a pistol, Johnny’s pistol. She turns her body and lets me see the old man on the bed. I do not see his face but I know it is Johnny, I know it is. She puts the pistol in my hand and her lips to my ear. Her breath is cool and powdery and flutters like a moth. Shoot him she says shoot him for all the things he has done. Once more I bury my face in her breast but she is laughing pushing the pistol into my hand. Shoot him. Her skin is wet with my tears. Mother I say. The gun is cold and hard, her skin is soft and wet. Don’t cry my son she says don’t cry. I cling to her with all my life and she kisses me on my forehead.

IN 1957, ON THE DAY THE COUNTRY achieved independence after four hundred fifty years of foreign rule, my father was shot by an unknown gunman. The assassin fired twice from close range but did not succeed in killing him. This was not the first attempt on Father’s life—he had survived one previous attempt during the war, in 1944—but it had a marked effect on his appearance. Whereas the first attack had merely left him with a scar (a pale puckered star on his left calf), this one shattered the bones and muscles in his right shoulder. Even the best doctors in the Valley were not able to prevent that shoulder from hanging awkwardly at a downwards-sloping angle for the rest of his life.

The shooting happened as the nation gathered around television sets to watch the Independence parade in KL. Those scenes, which have become fixed and stale in our memories, were fresh and startling then, newborn images in our newborn world. The stadium was a boiling sea of banners and bodies. We had never seen people dancing in public before. Not like this. Men with men, women with women, men with women even. They did the
joget,
swaying and step-stepping in little circles, lifting and dropping their shoulders to a strange, shared rhythm. They held their new flag above their heads, letting it catch the wind: thirteen stripes, a sickle moon, and a star. There, too, was the tunku, the Father of the Nation, raising his hand and repeating the word “Merdeka” three times, the people on the padang echoing back, the chant coming through the television sets as clear and sharp in our ears as breaking glass. Independence. Freedom. New Life. That is what the word meant to us. And although the innocent dreams we had for our country have died in the years since then, suffocated by our own poisoned ambition, nothing will ever diminish what we felt. Nothing will rob us of those stuttering sepia-washed images of Merdeka Day.

It was at this moment, after the third cry of “Merdeka,” that Father’s would-be killer struck. We had driven into Ipoh for the afternoon. Father attended to some business at C. Y. Foo’s and left me to wander the streets on my own. I sat, as I always did, on the steps of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. I enjoyed doing this because from here I could see all the streets spreading out before me. Everywhere was silent, deserted. I sat still and looked for movement; I saw only a stray dog trotting aimlessly round the block. It kept appearing in different places, halfheartedly sniffing the ground, before wandering out of view again. I could not work out what it was searching for. Occasionally someone would emerge from a doorway, break into a run, and then vanish into another building. The whole town had, it seemed, shut itself away for that day, never venturing far from their television sets.

Father and I arranged to meet in our usual place, the nameless Hainanese coffee shop on Sweetenham Street. Frankie, the old man who ran it, used to embrace Father whenever we walked into the shop. Father would raise his arms stiffly, bringing them round to touch Frankie’s back. After all these years, I remember Frankie because he was the only person I ever saw Father embrace.

On the way to Frankie’s place I heard the crackle of wireless sets and caught a glimpse of the odd television screen. The parade had started; I realised I was late and quickened my stride. By the time I got there I could see, over the heads of the many people gathered there, that the great celebrations were drawing to a climax. The tunku was just leaving his seat and approaching the microphone; the Union Jack had already been lowered. The cheers rang out from the television, each louder than the previous one. A few of the men in the room raised their fists in unison with the people on the television. I looked for Father and found him peering intently at the screen. He was leaning forward, his chin resting on his upturned palms. From the back of the room I could see that many of those present were mouthing “Merdeka” slowly, as if unsure how to pronounce this unfamiliar new word.

It was all part of this scene for me, part of these new and unreal images. A man stood up in the middle of the room with his arm outstretched. No one else looked at him; only I saw the gun in his hand. He stood there poised like a temple statue, calm and utterly still. As the third shout rang out from the TV, the man cocked the pistol and Father suddenly turned round. Perhaps it was to search for me, to make sure that I too was witnessing this occasion, or perhaps it was his instinct for survival, so deeply and mysteriously a part of him, which alerted him to the quiver of danger.

The gunman fired at virtually point-blank range, but father had already begun to drop his body, pushing, diving, scrambling headfirst into the mass of bodies around him. The bullet ripped off his epaulette before smashing into the TV set, exploding it in a colourful shower of blue lights and silver sparks. As he fell, Father pulled at the legs of a table next to him, obscuring the assassin’s view for a split second. All around me, men began to run for cover. I watched them but I could not hear their screams. I watched in silence as the gunman cocked the pistol again. This time I saw it clearly: a matte-black .38, old and well worn. I also saw the man. He was Chinese, aged anywhere from eighteen to forty, dressed in khaki trousers and a white cotton shirt. His hair was cut short back-and-sides and combed with a centre parting. He was dressed like every other man in the room: I would not be able to recognise him if I saw him again.