Shadow Theatre (24 page)

WHAT MALIKA DIDN'T know about Miss Shakilah wasn't important or relevant to the turn her life was about to take (and remains
hearsay in our story, which is to say, one wouldn't hear about this
in the daily, chatty conversations of the Madams in Miss Shakilah's neighborhood, but only in the most private of conversations muttered among the servants, and this is simply that in
reality, Miss Shakilah wasn't the paragon of virtue Madam and
Malika had believed her to be in school, for while it was true Miss
Shakilah had been a straight As pupil, in the months before her
departure for America in 1979 she was rumored to have been the
more ardent pursuer of a forbidden affair between her and one of
her neighbors, one of Miss Shakilah's female neighbors, a certain
lovely and reclusive Madam Thumboo, a widow, who was not
only a woman but also old enough to have given birth to Miss
Shakilah herself, who was, indeed, exactly the same age as Miss
Shakilah's mother, and Miss Shakilah herself being only eighteen
at the time of the affair ... where did she find the nerve? a few of
us had wanted to know and it's this that lingers on our minds).

It was just as well Malika didn't know (and fortuitous that
Madam lived in Bukit Timah, a great distance away from us), as
Malika might not have agreed so easily to the proposal about to
be put forth by Madam Thumboo in a few months when Miss
Shakilah went into labor (and if Malika hadn't said yes to
Madam Thumboo, there's no telling what would have been
done about the baby).

Of course the hint of what would come to pass was in the
air when Miss Shakilah arrived for lunch on the Sunday following Madam Coco's sister's vanishing, but it was the merest hint.

Malika was removing Madam's set of bamboo placemats
from the top drawer of the rosewood sideboard in the dining
room when she heard Madam greeting Miss Shakilah in the
front of the house ...

"Hello, darling, how are you feeling today?"

Malika heard Miss Shakilah's soft laugh and a low murmur
as Miss Shakilah was taking off her sandals on the patio. (When
she brought Miss Shakilah a glass of soya bean milk, she saw the
sandals positioned neatly to the side of the doormat, clumsylooking brown Birkenstocks that reminded Malika of a water
buffalo's hoofs. Malika had seen such footwear on the feet of the
European tourists, too, and sometimes on the feet of local
teenagers loitering about on Orchard Road, where Malika used
to accompany Madam so that she could run errands for Madam
while Madam was at the beauty salon-this happened infrequently now as Madam liked running her own errands, liked the
feel of competence and self-sufficiency that came in the small
act of taking care of oneself.)

Nothing seemed awry, as Malika would tell us months later,
after Madam Thumboo had been to see her and when we heard
of Madam's seemingly sudden decision to put the house up for
sale. (Needless to say, Sali and I were dismayed at the news, but
we're not the point of this story. We've been only eavesdroppers
here, peering over Malika's shoulder while she rummages through
her years with Madam, her fingers turning over leaves of glances
and speechless moments for the lost unspoken, the missed unsaid but understood thread of their conversations that could
have foretold their story's end.)

It was around noon or a little past it that Madam and Miss
Shakilah sat down to lunch (in the dining room rather than in
the kitchen, where Malika had laid the table with a white lace
tablecloth crocheted by Madam's mother, utensils made of
English silver, and Madam's expensive white chinaware and
crystal stemware-Madam herself had arranged the tall cattleya
orchids Miss Shakilah had brought in a crystal vase and set
them in the center of the table, varying hues of pink and brilliant amber opening off the bifoliate bulbs and imparting to the
table an elegantly festive touch).

The sliding doors to the garden were open and a mynah
bird was skipping along the top of the British neighbor's wall.
Malika drew the sheer gauze curtains together, to keep out the
sun's glare as the afternoon wore on. She thought she sensed
Miss Shakilah's gaze following her around the table as she
walked towards the standing fan in the corner by the piano, but
Malika could have been mistaken about it as when she turned
around (after switching on the fan and setting it to rotate at
medium speed), Miss Shakilah was shaking her head and smiling at Madam (who was giving Miss Shakilah an account of her
dinner date with Nigel), and looking at Madam with such
muted adoration and affection, Malika wondered how she could
have forgotten that expression of Miss Shakilah's from when
Miss Shakilah had been a pupil of Madam's, for now the picture
came flashing back of a sad-faced schoolgirl with plaited hair,
sitting among her classmates on the patio floor and singing her
bruised heart to ashes.

(It was this memory of Miss Shakilah at twelve that would
prompt Malika to say yes to Madam Thumboo's proposal, but
the event had yet to happen and as Malika was leaving the dining room, she felt merely grateful that life had never shown her
such an expression on Michelle's face, or Caroline's or
Francesca's.)

"And then, when we were sitting in his living room, he kept
putting his hand on my lap, you know?" Madam was saying as
Malika stepped into the corridor.

She paused to listen through the wall.

"You were surprised?" asked Miss Shakilah, with a smile in
her voice.

Of course I was surprised. Alamak, you, as bad as my daughters-lah, you. You know what Caroline said when I told her?
Mum, ask him if he has a slow touch. Can you believe it? I told
her see-lah, here I was feeling sorry for the poor man because his
wife just died, and I look down and there's his hand on my lap. I didn't know what to do with his hand, I told her. Ask him if he
has a slow touch. That's what she said, my Caroline."

In the back of the house, a sudden gust shook the banyan
trees, and Malika could hear the quiet moan of the bending
leaves as Madam and Miss Shakilah went on talking. She closed
her eyes (because there seemed to be whispers lapping about
the corridor on this afternoon and as Malika would put it later,
somewhere in the recesses of her mind she could feel a flickering, a hearkening of sorts towards a forgotten life, the one not
lived, as Madam's and Miss Shakilah's voices receded momentarily). She was on the verge of hearing something else (Malika
was sure of this) when one of Madam's bedroom windows came
unhinged and started banging against the sill.

Malika opened her eyes. As she made her way towards the
bedroom, Madam was asking Miss Shakilah what Miss Shakilah
had decided to do about her book, if Miss Shakilah had
received enlightenment yet.

She heard Miss Shakilah laugh as another gust swept across
Madam's garden, and the window in the bedroom banged again
on the sill.

HELENA S I M

o W E WERE at the parish house on Sunday afternoon, two
weeks after the Friday that Auntie Coco's sister went missing.
Ya-lah, this time, Dorothy, Siew Chin, Bernadette and I were all
present, but they're useless-lah, the others. No use asking them to
tell about that Sunday. Probably, they'll say they can't remember.
So frightened they were when they saw the old lady, and Dorothy
and Siew Chin didn't even know about the other incidents.
Imagine if they did. (I'm sure Dorothy would have found out from
her Lulu if the girl had been home that Saturday, although now as
I'm thinking about it, Lulu could have heard about it from other
people's servants also. No-lah, I don't know who's friends with whom in those circles, but I think Lulu used to be friends with
Teresa Albuquerque's girl. Anyway, it was quite a shock to
Dorothy, you know, when her Lulu won that writing contest. Yalah, I also was surprised, but it's just as well, bukan? Why pay
money for a servant who only wants to read books? Right or not?
But anyway, we ourselves had ended up not telling Dorothy or
Siew Chin about that Saturday, Bernadette because she was
already scared stiff, in spite of her usual skepticism, and I was trying to sort things out without anyone's interference, for a change.)

Ya-lah, there's someone else you could ask, but she's living
overseas now, and I don't think she's ever coming back.

In my opinion, the day had already started out strangely,
because first of all, what was Ying Ying Coleman doing by herself in the market that morning? And why, of all people, did she
choose Siew Chin to talk to? Especially about such personal
matters. Right or not? Ya, ya, I know what Siew Chin thought,
that it was because Willy Coleman was sick and someone had
to do the shopping. But they could have sent the son, Matthew.
He was old enough by now. My point is this. That Willy Coleman would never have let his precious wife out of his sight just
like that. Three hundred dollars, that's how much I hear he paid
for her, plus airfare of course. She had advertised her face in a
Hong Kong brochure-lah, and somehow or other, the brochure
had fallen into Willy's lap. Men with money can get whatever
they want, bukan? See how hard it is to find true love.

"Not just like that," Siew Chin insisted when I pointed out
how Willy had never before, not even once, allowed Ying Ying
out of the house without him by her side, or rather, in front of
her. "He's sick-lah, I told you."

As if the fellow had never been sick before. Come hell or
high water, Ying Ying had never disobeyed her husband, okay?
And no wonder-lah, if what Ying Ying had told Siew Chin was
the truth. Wah, the names he shouts at her when they're making love. Bastard-lab. Bloody bitch-lab. And then, according to Siew Chin,
Ying Ying had asked whether Jeremy called her the same names
or different names when they were making love. Imagine. How
unlucky some women can be, ya? That Ying Ying had no idea
what marriage was all about. To have and to hold, to love and
to cherish. That's what marriage is supposed to be. Thank heavens my Hock Siew and I always had true love between us, even
if we weren't rich. You see how money isn't everything.

Of course, Dorothy was backing Siew Chin up, and
Bernadette wasn't saying anything, sitting there buat-bodoh-
lah, pretending only, as if she wasn't interested. She tried to
look as if she wasn't even listening, as if she was just enjoying
the breeze from the window, and hearing only the rustling of
the angsana leaves. (By now, the tree's been chopped down, but
in those days, it was there outside the window, one lovely old
angsana. Such a stupid thing, to chop it down.)

"He's probably never been this sick," Dorothy said. "Must
be pneumonia or something like that. He probably can't even
get out of bed."

"Ah, ya, that's what Ying Ying said." Siew Chin nodded her
head, as if she had just remembered this part. "He's been bedridden for a few days already."

"Has he seen a doctor?" I asked, because if it was that serious, a doctor would have been called to the house, right? And
someone would have noticed, even if not one of us.

Siew Chin shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know-lah, I didn't
want to pry. But he must have, ya?" She looked at Dorothy. "I
think you're right. Must be pneumonia. One of Jeremy's friends
at the office also has it."

Listen to her, as if an epidemic was just around the corner.
She and Dorothy were never that good at weeding out the truth.
Always jumping too easily to conclusions, the two of them.

Everything's connected-lah. It must be, bukan?