Shadow Play (18 page)

She held Aisha's chin in her hand and looked deeply into her eyes. They were opened, but unseeing: the pupils were large, covering almost all of the brown. She put her head down again gently, and patted her hair.

“
Kak
Azizah,” she asked as she left the house, “who's been feeding Aisha?”

“Feeding her?” Azizah thought about the question. “Well, I do, of course.”

“Anyone else?”

“Not usually. Sometimes Ali will help out. You know, he and Aisha are very close. He's so worried, he can hardly sleep. I'm trying
to keep the kids from noticing it, but I don't know how much longer I'll be able to do it.”

Maryam nodded. “Is Ali here?”

“No, he's working.”

“Do you think he might be able to come see me?”

Azizah shrugged. “Why?” She cocked her head at Maryam. “What would Ali know?”

“Maybe nothing,” Maryam comforted her. “Maybe nothing at all. But if you don't mind, I'd like to talk to him.”

She nodded, but gave Maryam a sharp look. Maryam took her leave, suddenly anxious to return to Kampong Penambang.

Arriving with relief at her own
kampong
, she walked right past her house, giving instructions to Aliza to begin dinner, and sought out
Pak
Awang, the
bomoh
she'd last seen placing protective spells around her house. She found him on the porch of his house, drinking coffee and enjoying the first hint of coolness in the late afternoon.

“
Cik Yam
!” he called out to her. “How nice to see you. I hope everything is alright?” He seemed concerned.

“Oh, fine, fine,” she assured him. “No problem with our
jampi, Pak Cik
.”

He smiled, proud of his work. “Good, I'm glad.”

She sat on one of the lower steps. “I've just been thinking … well, you know, could you give anything to someone to make them quiet?”

“Quiet?”

“Like they were asleep, but not.”

He looked at her sternly. “That's a very serious thing,
Cik Yam.
Are you thinking of anything like that?”

“Not me, no. But I've just seen someone, and I have a feeling it
isn't right.”

“I'm not sure what you mean.” She sighed. “It's difficult to say.”

“Well, you've got to tell me something. How can I answer otherwise?”

She nodded. “I know, I'll try. It's like this. There's a girl, and her husband dies. He's murdered really. And I saw her very soon after, one or two days, and she was fine. Well, sad, of course, but normal; you know.” She lit a cigarette, one of her own home rolled, and offered one to
Pak Cik
Awang. He took it silently, listening carefully. “Then I saw her a few days later, and she was strange. Walking around the house with no direction, not really paying attention when people talked to her, not making much sense when she was talking. In her own world, I'd say.

“I was just there today,
Pak Cik
, and came straight over here from there. Now she's lying on the floor in her house, curled up on a mat, staring at the wall. She doesn't speak when spoken to, she doesn't focus. I picked up her head, and looked into her eyes, but she didn't react at all.

“I did notice something, though. The black of her eyes are wide: you can hardly see any brown, and her eyes are opened very wide.”
Pak Cik
Awang nodded. “Now
Pak Cik,”
Maryam continued, “is she mad? Or, could it be she's drugged? What would cause something like that?”

Pak Cik
Awang thought for a long while. “Is she eating?” he finally asked.

Maryam nodded. “I think so anyway. Her mother says she is. I asked her mother, ‘Who feeds her?' Her mother said she did, and
sometimes her brother helps.”

“Would either of them want to harm her?”

Maryam shook her head. “I don't think so, that's why I'm so puzzled. She and her brother are really close. Her mother – well, of course her mother loves her. She's terribly concerned. And this girl's children are now there, too. Her family couldn't have any reason to harm her. I think they want to care for her.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

“It's strange.” He thought for a while more. “Of course, it's possible.”

“What is?”

He held up his hand, directing her to desist. “Someone could be giving her small amounts of a poison to keep her silent. Even something like opium, if they could find it. I don't know there's much around here. I haven't seen it. There are others though.” He stroked his cheek. “Yes, I believe with a small dose she could be put in a state like this. Maybe
kecubong.
They could get it from a jungle area, or buy it, I suppose.”

“Would it kill her?”

“It depends how much she was given. If it were a small enough dose, probably not.”

“Would she be able to recover if she wasn't fed it any longer?”

He shrugged. “She could, if nothing's been harmed. It's a dangerous game to play, especially if you're planning to have her recover rather than die. You know, even if they didn't intend to kill her, they still could by mistake. Once you start giving someone poison, all kinds of things can happen. Would her family do that?”

“That's just it,
Pak Cik.
I don't think so: I can't see why they
would. But it doesn't make sense to me that she was normal right after her husband's death and only later began to sink into this faint. If she were going mad from grief, as her mother says, shouldn't it have started right away?”

‘I would think so,” he answered slowly, still thinking. “I really do think so.” He was silent for a minute or two. “Could anyone else have given her anything?” he asked. “I'm thinking now, maybe someone bringing something for her. Could that be possible? If not, then the only people who could poison her would be those feeding her every day.”

“Could it be something else,
Pak Cik?
Aside from poison, something natural?”

Pak Cik
Awang thought. “I suppose anything's possible. An evil
jampi:
it could be that. It's hard to tell.”

“Would you look at her for me,
Pak Cik?”
Maryam begged him. “Could you come with me to Tawang?”

“You said they'd brought in a b
omoh
already.”

She nodded. “I'm sure that's one of the first things her mother did.”

“Well, of course,” the
bomoh
agreed. “I can't just take over from another, you know. It wouldn't be right.”

“Could you look together?”

He considered it. “I suppose I could,
Cik Yam
, if you spoke to the mother about it. Why don't you do that,” he urged her, “and if she agrees, we can do it right away. That poor child.”

Maryam needed no more encouragement, and raced back to Kampong Tawang immediately, even though showing up at
Mahgrib
, the twilight prayer, was definitely not done. After all, it was not only
prayer time, but dinner time as well, and an unannounced visitor arriving just then was assumed to be
bawah perut kerumah orang:
bringing her stomach to someone else's house, asking to be fed. Maryam knew it was rude, and feared it might be misinterpreted. But she wasn't hungry, so she would decline any invitations to eat and was sure that her mission would trump missing prayer. There was no time to lose.

She took her taxi almost to the bottom of the steps, and called loudly to Azizah. She came to the door, wiping her hands on a towel, clearly mystified to see Maryam standing there.

She frowned worriedly. “
Kak
, is something the matter?”

“I'm afraid for Aisha.”

“So am I,” her mother answered, still unsure why Maryam was standing at her steps, wringing her hands.

“May I come up?”

“Of course, of course, excuse me,” Azizah stood aside on the porch.

“Let me tell you what I've been thinking.” Maryam explained what she feared, and her conversation with
Pak Cik
Awang. Azizah nodded, saying nothing. “I know you feel the same,” Maryam concluded.

Aisha's mother looked devastated. “What are you saying?”

“Mak Cik,” Maryam said urgently, “Have you thought Aisha may have been poisoned? That's why she's so…quiet. I don't mean just
jampi:
maybe
kecubong
, or even opium! Something to make sure she doesn't talk. Someone who thinks she knows something or she's seen something. Tell me,” she put her hand on Azizah's shoulder, “has anyone been over, bringing any presents for Aisha? Any fruits or candy, just for her? Please
Mak Cik
, this could save her life.”

Her mother started crying, burying her head in her hands and rocking back and forth. “My little girl!” She cried. “I can't lose my little girl.”

“We've got to act,” Maryam was impatient, nearly shaking the weeping woman. “Come now,
Kak
, tell me!”

Azizah tried to calm herself and think clearly. “
Abang
Dollah, of course. He knows Aisha well, and he brought some cakes for her. Her favourite, that his wife baked.”

“When was that?”

“The day she moved in here. He's been by a few times to cheer her up.”

The women looked at each other. “Anyone else?” Maryam asked.

She thought. “Well, of course, her friends here. The other boys who play in the orchestra and their wives. Fruits and stuff like that”

“I'd like to bring my
bomoh
here: he might be able to tell what's wrong with her. If she's been poisoned.”

Azizah began weeping afresh. “Yes, yes! Let him come. I just want to save my child!”

Maryam once again rushed into the taxi, and raced back to Kampong Penambang. She feared to lose any time and felt Aisha might be sinking quickly. It was night by now, but she didn't allow politeness to deflect her.

“
Pak Cik
Awang!” she called, even before she had reached his steps. “Pak Cik! Please!”

He came out of his house and padded quickly down the stairs. “Well?”

“Her mother asks you come and see her,” Maryam was panting now, both from running and anxiety. “Can you come now? Please? I'm
very frightened for her.”

Pak Cik
Awang grabbed his bag, and clattered back down the steps. “Let's go!” he ordered. Once again, Maryam was in the taxi hurtling toward Tawang, slowing down to avoid the ruts, which made Maryam grit her teeth in impatience. She fairly bounced on the back seat, willing the driver to go faster. Aisha's parents were waiting for her on the main road, to more quickly take her to the house. The father was silent, his jaw set and clenched, while her mother sobbed openly as she pulled Maryam by the hand to the house. They nearly pushed the old
bomoh
up the stairs and into the living room, while the family gathered silently to watch him with hopeful eyes.

Pak Cik
Awang knelt next to Aisha, who hadn't moved since Maryam saw her last. He pulled her into a sitting position, waving her mother to sit behind her, supporting her. He tipped back her chin, stared into her eyes and tried desperately to have her focus on him: calling her name, even tugging gently on her hair. He looked inside her mouth and at the tips of her fingers.

He sat back on his haunches and regarded her for a long moment, while Aisha lay limp against her distraught mother. He shook his head and looked up at her father. “She needs to go to the hospital – or to a doctor,” he said. “I can do a few things to keep her safe, but I don't have the medicines the doctors will have. She should be taken right away.”

Aisha's mother fainted behind her, falling back against the wall. Her brother picked up Aisha's limp body, and slid into the taxi with Maryam and
Pak Cik
Awang. “To the General Hospital,” Maryam ordered. “Hurry!” She watched the
kampong
roads streak by in a blur. This time there was no slowing for potholes, and the car seemed to take
flight over the larger ones and land with a bone-crushing thud.

They stopped abruptly in front of Kota Bharu's sprawling General Hospital. It had more of an atmosphere of a county fair: the road leading to the entrance was packed with hawkers selling food and snacks, soap, shampoo and towels. As Ali carried his sister behind
Pak Cik
Awang, the assembled crowd murmured their concern, whispering their own diagnoses and shaking their heads that such a young girl should come to this.

“Go tell them,”
Pak Cik
Awang gave Ali a push toward the admitting nurse. Nothing in the Emergency Room seemed to count as an emergency: prospective patients had set up camp in the room and resigned themselves to never getting closer to an actual doctor than they were now. Whole families sat on the floor around their sick relatives, plying them with tea and Panadol while they ate their dinner.

Ali leaned over the nurse's desk in a way that Aisha was almost laid out full length upon it. “My sister!” he cried. “She's been poisoned!

Help me!”

The nurse looked up at him as though he were an apparition come to haunt her. “There are forms,” she lifted a languid wrist towards a table at the other end of the room. She regarded Aisha with distaste. “You can wait…”

Maryam barged in around Ali. “This girl is dying,” she boomed, leaning in toward the nurse. “Do you want to let her die here? How can you be so heartless?” The other encampments quieted down to hear the discussion. The nurse suddenly appeared uncomfortable. “Now
Mak Cik
,” she said, nervously turning her head. “We have rules.”

“Rules! She's dying, don't you understand?” Maryam saw a pair of doctors walking behind the nurse. “Doctor,” she shrieked, surprising
herself with the pitch and volume of her scream. “Help me!”

The doctors turned to her. Patients did not shriek in the hospital waiting room. Patients and their families remained patient, gave themselves up to fate and waited their turn. They did not look as though they might jump the nurse and hold the doctors hostage.