Shadow Theatre (14 page)

"Can't be-lah," she said suddenly.

"Can't be what?" I asked. "What can't be?"

That poor girl kena kidnapped-lah. Poor thing. What I
don't understand is, how come Auntie Coco just left her alone
outside the house?"

From the look on Bernadette's face I knew what she was
referring to, and also because one way or another, she was always
bringing up the topic. So I said, "You and your slave ships."

And see, was I right on target or not? Immediately Bernadette
said, 'That's not just a rumor, okay? You don't remember the
newspapers, is it?"

See-lah how she was. That rumor was over long ago, okay?
Back in 1976, or was it 1977? Somewhere around that time,
when young girls kept disappearing and nobody could find
them, people were saying they had been kidnapped and taken
to Thailand, to be sold as sex slaves-lah. How that story ever
made it into the newspapers, I don't know. As far as I knew then
and as far as I know now, it was just gossip, what. Ya, ya, there
are different levels of gossip, it's true, depending on how much
proof you have. And say, okay-lah, giving Bernadette her due,
say, I admit it was possible. Indonesia's comprised of so many
islands, anything could happen there, in the outer islands especially. Ya, I'm sure there are girls who have disappeared whom
we don't know about, but as for the exact nature of their misfortune? Let's put it this way, there was more than one possibility, okay? All those aboriginal tribes still living in the jungle?
Even today, you can find headhunters there. And with young
people, every generation's the same. Most of them are so careless. Carefree and careless. Now they even go hiking in the jungle, in all that heat and with the mosquitoes and all those fires
burning. Maybe those who disappeared in the past were also
trying to go hiking, or were lured out there by their boyfriends.
Who's to know? So imagine one young girl if she bodoh-bodoh
wasn't watching where she stepped and crossed into their territory, ah, habis. Finished-lah. Even if she wasn't alone, it can happen so fast, you know. One second she's there, next second she's
gone. In the blink of an eye, as they say. (That's why I used to
tell Rose, if she wanted to travel, go ahead. Save up her money
and see the world, but stay out of Indonesia. Nothing to see
there, anyway. But she didn't have the travelling bug, always
wanting to stay home only.)

"You don't listen to legends, you listen to rumors?" I said to
Bernadette.

"Please-lah, Helena, I'm fifty-eight years old. How I'm going
to believe in Pontianak?"

Alamak, when she said that, I wanted to roll my eyes just
like Rose sometimes used to roll her eyes at me. Honestly, I
almost did it, you know. "So, you're fifty-eight years old," I said.
As if I was just a spring chicken-lah. "So what?"

"So this is what." And that Bernadette, she leaned forward
towards me as if she was about to drop all kinds of pearls of wisdom on my dining table. That was the look that was on her face
now. "I myself have never seen Pontianak," she said. "And I
myself don't know anyone who has seen her. You?"

I just sighed, at that point.

"Well, Helena?" So profound she thought she was being, you
see? But now that my patience was being tested to its limits, desperate or not, I had to give her some of her own medicine.

"Have you ever seen the Holy Spirit?" I said. Ah, I thought
that would shut her up, but no, she was going strong, that
Bernadette.

'That's not the same thing," she said. "You are a Catholic,
not a Muslim."

"So what do you mean?" I said.

"When you're a Catholic, that means you know in your
heart the Holy Spirit exists. Did Jesus ever say anything about
Pontianak?"

"He talked about demons, okay?"

"Ya, so? Those were Satan's cohorts, of course."

"Oh, and I suppose Pontianak couldn't have been one of
them. You've asked Jesus this yourself, right?"

See that Bernadette. Always she would rattle my nerves
eventually. Enough was enough, I was thinking. But then, luckily, I remembered she had been home the previous night, which
Bernadette had told me as soon as I called, so I stopped my
tongue from going on. As much as I didn't want to admit it, she
had a bit of knowledge that I needed, okay? I couldn't rely on
Winifred Teo's story only. So now I was forced to act like a hypocrite. Quickly better offer her some pineapple tarts, I thought to myself. Luckily, I had been baking just the previous afternoon, so my tarts were still quite fresh. Plus, anyone would tell
you, Helena Sim's pineapple tarts are A-number one. That's the
truth. I'm not boasting, okay? (Ask Rose, who never praises me
if she can help it, I don't know why she has to be so modest, but
you know you can believe her.)

Don't get the wrong idea. Bernadette and I never went overboard, okay, with our disagreements. People our age can't afford
to lose the friends they have. Any of our hearts could stop at
any time.

So, she was still there when it happened. This must have
been around four o'clock or a hit after. I was getting up from
the table to go into the kitchen because I was going to boil
more water for tea, and Bernadette was reaching for her third
pineapple tart. You know that bottomless stomach of hers,
especially when it comes to my delicious tarts. She was eating
like a teenager that afternoon. So, the whole time we were in
the dining room, which meant, of course, we could see the road.
See how in most of our houses, the dining room is off to the side
of the living room? Ask Bernadette to confirm this-lah, if you
want. Ask her to tell you how without rhyme or reason, the
weather outside changed. This time I wasn't the only eyewitness, okay?

I T D O ONLY N for a minute-lah. That's why it's so hard to
confirm. It's easy to say those of us who saw were hallucinating,
easy to blame the heat also. But here's the truth. All that brightness outside, suddenly the sun was gone. In a flash, as they say.
One minute it was the middle of the afternoon, hot as usual, next
minute, the air became so dark, it could have been midnight,
okay? Like an eclipse-lah. Suddenly I thought, now I know what
an eclipse means. The whole world around us vanishing. Ah, like
that. The road, the graveyard, Gopal Dharma's fruit trees next door, all gone. Bernadette, I remember, she called out right away,
"Eh, Alamak, apa 'tu?" Every time that Bernadette panics, she forgets her English, ya? Ah, so anyway, if not for her voice, I also
would have panicked. Instead, I said, "Didn't I tell you? This is
what you get for not believing me." And of course, that
Bernadette, now what could she say? Serves her right for being
so stubborn in her thinking. Coconut-head. Those were my
thoughts. See how calm I was. The Holy Spirit must have been
with me, because of the rosary I was praying earlier. See how
important it is to have even a bit of faith.

So, the darkness lasted for a minute, and then everything
went back to normal.

Bernadette, she was completely in shock. Like a statue she
was, sitting in her chair. She couldn't move, just stared at me,
and her face so puchat. As if she had seen the Devil, that's how
pale she was, white as flour. I almost pitied her, you know.
Myself, maybe the morning's experience had prepared me a bit.
That must have been it. I could feel my heart beating quite fast,
but I wasn't tongue-tied, as Rose would say. I wasn't paralyzed.
I just put one foot in front of the other and when I was in the
kitchen, I picked up the kettle, filled it with water, and put it on
the stove, just as if everything was normal. I remember looking
at the clock as I was turning on the burner. It was exactly ten
minutes past four. Then while the water was heating up, I went
back out to the dining area.

Bernadette was breathing again, slowly but surely, but she
still couldn't talk, and I knew from the way she looked at me,
she was wondering how come I was being so calm. Of course,
that's how she was interpreting my behavior. Anyone else who
had known me that long would have known that was my way of
gathering my thoughts. But you know her. She was never that
observant of other people-lah.

"Didn't I tell you?" I said to her. I couldn't resist it. "You still
want to say it's all coincidence?"

Imagine how shocked she was, that Bernadette, she couldn't
respond to my teasing even. Of course I was trying to provoke
her, to bring her hack to normal. But all she could do was stare
at me, sit and stare, sit and stare. That's all. Completely useless.

So I left her alone, for a while. When the water boiled, I
went to make tea, and then I came hack to the table with two
cups and we just sat there, Bernadette and I, drinking our tea
silently until she was ready to talk. Now and then I would look
outside, just in case something else was going to happen,
although my instincts told me that was it for the day. And of
course I was right. Nothing else happened, except once I saw
Adelaide's grandson, Nathan, walking past. That must have
been around half-past four, and he was carrying a cake. Looked
like a butter cake or a pound cake, and ah, just like that, the
whole cake on a plate in the open air. You see how those Eurasians are. Dust everywhere, they don't care. I'm sure Adelaide
could have found a Tupperware container or something, or borrowed one. But her intentions were good-lah. The cake must
have been for Auntie Coco. (Must sound a bit funny, all of us
calling Auntie Coco that way-she must have been my age,
maybe younger even, but a habit's a habit-lah.) So anyway,
nothing else happened. The weather stayed warm and sunny,
back to humid, and then there was a small breeze. I could hear
it in Gopal Dharma's fruit trees. It made the air a bit soothing,
his leaves nestling in the breeze.

Otherwise, I was looking at Bernadette. To be honest, I was
a hit worried for her. She was never as tough as the rest of us,
you know. She must have inherited her mother's health-lah. You
know her mother died quite young, I think at forty-plus years
old. Weak heart, we all heard. Bernadette, she was always the
same way. Even in our younger days, she never ran about or
played rough games. Even though obviously she had outlived
her mother's age, these things, who can say. So I watched her
carefully. She better not keel over in my house, I thought. After everything, I didn't need that kind of luck, to have someone die
in my house, even a friend. This isn't superstition, okay? Ya, ya,
it must sound like a contradiction. If I knew Bernadette's health
history, why I always argued with her? But that's how old friends
are, ya? Also, given Bernadette's personality, how to treat her
like gold? She didn't inspire that kind of treatment, you know.
(Nowadays, I've learned patience, but see how long it takes to
learn patience.)

"Okay-lah," she said, finally, her voice tired.

"Okay?" I said. "Okay what?" See how mean I could be, I
don't know why.

'Tell me one more time-lah," she said.

Still, I didn't say anything, even though of course I knew
what she meant. I'm not slow, okay?

"What happened this morning, Helena," she said. 'Tell me
again-lah. I don't think I was listening very well before."

Ah, now she had given in completely, now I was satisfied.
So childish of me, ya? But that's how I was-lah, in those days.
That's how I used to be.

ANYWAY. MY FEELING about the slave ships was that if, really,
Indonesians were selling our girls to the Thais, the government
would have found out already. You know how money-minded
our government is. There's no way any kind of trading could
have gone on without their knowing about it eventually, okay?
(The same goes-lah for the pirate ships, if you ever hear that
rumor being revived, about how in the outer islands, there may
still be tribes of pirates. That for sure I don't know, but somehow I doubt it. Headhunters and Pontianak herself, those are
different matters entirely.)

So I went through my story another time for Bernadette, and
she just listened, and at the end of it, I asked her did she want to
go with me to warn Valerie Nair. She said okay. Ah, just like that. Okay. To he honest, I didn't expect her to agree so fast. But never
look a gift horse in the mouth, ya? So off we went-lah, and
on the way, I asked her to tell me her version of what had happened the previous night. And here's the strange part. Everything was the same as in Winifred Teo's story, except Bernadette
couldn't remember whether or not Adelaide's grandson was with
her when she came outside. And yet Winifred had said specifically that Nathan had been one of the witnesses, because she was
surprised at how tall he had grown. Standing next to Adelaide,
he was almost one whole head taller already, Winifred had said
to me, as if I hadn't noticed for myself how tall the boy was. You
see how children grow.

But anyway, Bernadette couldn't remember seeing him. "I
don't think he was there, Helena," she said to me, as we were
walking on the road. "Funny, why I don't remember?"

Between Bernadette and Winifred, how was I going to
choose whom to believe? So I decided to wait for Rose. It didn't
seem important-lah, at the time, and I was already starting to
lean more towards Winifred, because as I've pointed out,
Bernadette couldn't always be trusted to notice things, okay?