Ode to Broken Things (7 page)

Enough of my memories – you are here again.

Go. Go away now. I wish I could tell my granddaughter to keep away from you, but she thinks I only need water. Maybe I do; it burns my marrow to see you put your hand on the small of her back, fitting into her, just so. She is not stupid, my Agni, but she has led a life too filled with wide-eyed wonder, for I have shaded her so. We say Gacher thekhe phol mishti – Sweeter than the tree you plant is the fruit it bears – and my grandchild is precious indeed.

Colonel S dialled the hotel for the sixth time. He listened impatiently as the phone rang again and again before connecting to the front desk.

“Professor Ghosh
MUST
be in his room. Send someone up. I need to speak to him
URGENTLY
.”

The receptionist sounded unflappable. “Sir, I tell you already, Professor Ghosh checked in, but went out… an hour ago.”

“Rubbish. I
NEED
to talk to him.”

He heard the patronising sigh as she began to tell him that she would be happy to take a message, and it was against company policy to disturb their guests by checking hotel rooms. That was when Colonel S lost his temper and pulled rank, barking orders to make sure that the receptionist and her supervisor understood who he was. He insisted that they go check Jay’s room and wake the man if he was merely jet-lagged and asleep.

He vaguely heard the receptionist’s nervous stutter about Jay asking for a taxi and leaving, before the realisation hit with a force that made him disconnect the call. What a fool he was! Of course Jay had come back to Malaysia for Shanti! Colonel S had, in the long intervening years, forgotten all about
that
, but Jay never, ever, could. After a thirty-year absence, after everything that happened, would he still want to see those people with such immediacy?

Colonel S had saved Jay’s life, no doubt about it; even Jay acknowledged a blood debt, for if someone saved your life, it was no longer your own. But the life he had saved was of a castrated beast, still flailing about to make sense of the past.

Perhaps he should have left the child Jay had been to die in the stampede. He had not seen it then, but that rescue in the amusement park would spark the chain of events that taught Colonel S to kill women, something over which his religion and his conscience still stumbled. The killing of the Tibetan woman two months ago haunted his dreams, but she wasn’t the first woman he executed.

That evening, so long ago. A confused child in the melee, red ice rivulets running like blood down his arm while he traced the circles of the Ferris wheel in the air in front of him with the tip of his right finger in a crazed frenzy.

He wondered whether Jay had finally outgrown that nervous habit of agitated finger circles.

That evening seemed to belong to another time. Those were the days when people danced through lives that seemed uncomplicated and easy. The lights had been psychedelic in the late evening, and the music loud; the noise from the giggling and flirting on the
joget
dance floor mixed pleasantly with the klink-klunk of the Ferris wheel that held shrieking children. Those days there was a lot of dancing in Malaya, and Colonel S had happily watched the dancers. Plenty of Malay girls, the air festive with colourful
kains
, extending to their ankles but fluttering open with their movements. Every now and then a girl would flash a shapely ankle in a pointed red slipper, extended like a provocative tongue. Diaphanous blouses glowed ruby and turquoise and amethyst and jade, and the long filmy scarves, loosely flung over heads and shoulders, floated briefly over their partner like an imagined caress.

There were so many butterfly women in the park with gossamer
selendangs
floating on slim shoulders, that it became a garden of dancing butterflies.

Of course, there was no physical contact between the dancers; that is what made it so delicious! The man would lead, doing his best to ensure that his partner followed his movements while the woman tried to distract him. He would try to edge her into a corner where she would have to follow his movements, and she, with mincing steps and an arched look over a shoulder, would dance away; no special steps at all, but the air sizzled with grace and promise and the excitement of a man meeting a woman. The music would be melodic, gentle, Malay.

He loved the slow rhythmic music of the
ronggeng
, when everyone on the dance floor seemed to glide, approach, then hesitate, only to turn a few steps later and come back again in a swaying movement. A teasing flirtatious dance, full of looks and gestures.

And Zainal, how the teenaged Colonel S had always worshipped him! Zainal was the centre of attention on the dance floor. He was taller than most of the men, and his black wiry hair matched his taut body, giving him a rakish look. His open smile lit up his face from within, and there was no dearth of pretty women catching his eye and making him break into a handsome grin.

Colonel S did not remember a time when he had not loved Zainal. Always, he had loved him more than anyone else on earth, more than his own father, or any brother. Zainal had taken him in as a child; Zainal was his King, his Father and, in the hierarchy of treason,
derhaka
towards such a man would have been the most absolute, the crowning pinnacle of betrayal. Colonel S remained loyal to Zainal, no matter what it had cost him. But Zainal had been betrayed by his own friends, the Indians who had come into this country to take all they could, without giving anything back.

But Jay was not like that. Jay had come back because he owed a debt in blood and that would guarantee his loyalty.

That evening, as the music was again changing to the faster
joget
tune, one of the open hawker stalls caught fire. There was a loud
phissshhhh
as the oil from an enormous wok flamed onto the awning circling the park, then the fire spread in the balmy evening breeze. There was panic everywhere: the gamblers and the dancers, the fortunetellers and the hawkers, the magicians and the children, all jostling and elbowing their way to the exits. Children were scooped up and carried, caps and sandals trampled in the frenzy.

Colonel S noticed the bright red ice
potong
melting in the child’s hands before anything else. Then he realised that no one was picking up this wild-eyed child, so he acted quickly, lifting up the child who started to shriek with high pitched wails as soon as he was trapped in a stranger’s arms. Then Colonel S ran, even as he felt the chill of the ice on his shoulders and face as the child struck out with furious fists, his wails shrieks of pure terror.

Zainal was outside, ashen-faced and scanning the crowd. He held his wife Siti tightly in his arms; his daughter was in Siti’s arms. Relief uncreased his brow as Colonel S appeared.

Then Jay was held up on Zainal’s tall shoulders, kicking and flailing, while the adults scanned the crowds for anyone with Indian features, who would claim this child. Finally Jay’s parents, Mahesh and Ila, had appeared with their friends Shapna and Nikhil. Colonel S remembered how distraught Jay’s mother had been, how she continued to sob.

Jay’s father had kissed the Colonel’s hands in gratitude. “I will never be able to repay your debt.”

Colonel S had looked embarrassed. “No, no. Really… I did nothing. I am glad the boy is safe.”

Thus began the long friendship between Zainal and Siti and the Indians. Shapna and Siti were as close as sisters – watching shadow-plays until late in the night, eating at open-air hawker stalls. They became Shanti’s co-mothers.

He, Colonel S, had been responsible for that first introduction. It was because of him that Siti had sobbed into his arms
aku dianiaya kawan yang aku anggap darah daging sendiri,
that a friend, whom she had treated as her own flesh and blood, had betrayed her. Then she and Zainal disappeared into the night forever.

Colonel S knew the history of that friendship so well that he felt that this act of
pengkhianat
, the ultimate betrayal, had also happened to him.

Foreigners were like this, never to be completely trusted. They had allegiances overseas and foreign gods… and treachery in their hearts.

Colonel S switched off the TV, irritated by the same theme of civil unrest on all the local channels, the presenters couching the problem under phrases like religious tolerance and political adjustment. The euphemisms grated on him.

The last time the streets had felt this troubled was before the riots of 1969. Then too, the Chinese and Indians were arrogant with a win at the ballot box and drunk with hate, trampling the streets, particularly loud through the Malay districts and suburbs:

Balek Kampung, lah! Go back to your villages!

Aborigines! Go back to the jungle.

Why should the Malays rule our country?

We’ll thrash you now, we have the power.

Kuala Lumpur belongs to the Chinese!

Mob violence was so easy to incite. Young men crazed by the tight swivel of a
dangdut
singer’s hips only needed a crowd to make hoarded passions murderous. Taunts from a passing bus-load of Chinese and Indians set the Malays running wild and, by late evening, the first Chinese blood was stretching its viscous fingers across the road. Then the Chinese began slaughtering Malays in movie halls – the Rex, Federal, Capitol.

Colonel S squeezed his eyes until small pinpoints danced inside, flecked with red. The riots had come at the most intense period of his young life and taught him a valuable lesson; in a time of crisis, you can only trust your own kind.

Colonel S knew how to use people like Jay, but their relationship was based on work and nothing else. The difference between the two men was otherwise unbreachable. Jay disappearing to see Shanti’s family as soon as he was on Malaysian soil was not a good sign.

He turned to the telephone again and punched the redial button. He listened to the phone ringing in an empty room.

He felt Agni’s breath on his neck and turned around.

“That’s the picture of you with my mother? You both look so young! You left Malaysia when you were still in your teens, yes?”

“Sixteen.”

“Do you remember anyone here?”

“No. I never looked back.”

Her voice softened. “Then it’s time you returned.”

He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t want her to know that, more than anything else, Shanti had garlanded him with demon’s teeth.

“Well, you should meet some of the old Bengalis soon. You’ve come at the right time… Deepavali is in a few days, and we still go to Port Dickson, you probably remember that? I can introduce you to the people who must have known your parents.” Agni smiled expansively, “Everyone’s family here; it is a small community.”

A small community that minded everybody else’s business; he remembered that well. “Thank you. But I think the only ones who may remember me would be Ranjan and Mridula. They were married at the same time as my parents.”

Agni’s face lit up. “Abhik’s grandparents! Abhik’s grandfather’s been very unwell, and his family, they are everywhere now, but Abhik’s a lawyer and he is here in Kuala Lumpur.” She stopped and burst out laughing. “Sorry, I’m rambling! I grew up with Abhik, but you wouldn’t know him. He was born much after you left.”

He heard the exuberance in her voice and filed it away.
Amorous Abhik
? “I would love to meet Abhik’s family. Thank you.”

“Do you remember Port Dickson at all? You had quite an experience there… a fire, wasn’t it?”

He felt an agitated finger tracing invisible loops and crammed his hand into his pocket. “Yes, a fire. At an amusement park. Someone rescued me. You know so much about me I’m feeling stalked!”

Agni turned, distracted by the slight figure hovering near the door. “Yah Zu, bring in the tea!” she commanded in Malay. She looked at her watch. “I can’t stay much longer.” Then, as her cellphone trilled, “Abhik,” she explained, and hurriedly left the room.

The Indonesian maid walked in with tea and Marie biscuits. Jay’s eyes rested on the prayer alcove in one corner, filled with the pictures of dead ancestors and relatives. The footprints on the white cloth may have been red once, but age had deepened them to a maroon verging on brown. Dusty beige paper flowers smothered the pictures of two old men. Central to the display was a sepia-tinted picture of a swaddled infant, the sex indeterminate, an enormous black spot obscuring the tiny forehead.

He remembered this altar to the dead clearly. This was the baby Shanti had replaced – he peered closer – nothing could be more ridiculous. There was no picture of Shanti among the dead.

Heavy teak furniture loomed over the alcove. Then the rosewood dressing table, elaborately carved with dragons and phoenixes that seemed to dart around the enormous wall. He recognised this, from another room, a long time ago. Shanti’s dowry.

“Beautiful,” Jay’s mother had traced a dragon’s fiery breath with an envious finger.

“Part of her dowry,” Shapna explained. Then, as Shanti walked in, she added, “I hope my burnt-face monkey appreciates it some day.”

Shanti ignored her mother as she glared at Jay. “Why are you sitting inside with the women today?”

But Shapna silenced Shanti with a sharp, “Go comb your hair
junglee
… oh, it’s impossible to train this girl!” She shoved Shanti lightly on the shoulder, “Go, go now!”

Now Jay was back, sitting in front of the same furniture, sipping a similar hot and milky concoction in silence. Now the hand that raised the cup to his lips was lined with age, and the imperiousness of the woman in front was silenced by a stroke of luck.

Agni returned to the room and drained her cup in a scalding gulp. With the suddenness he was starting to associate with her, she leapt up and brought the cup crashing down on the fragile plate. “I have to go now,” she announced. “I feel like a terrible host! You must come back and have a meal with us soon.”

Jay rose quickly. “Thank you,” he said, then looking at Shapna, “I would love to come back.”