The Night Tiger(113)

I turned back, but Robert had something over me now; if my stepfather found out where I’d been working, who knew what might happen? “I think it’s best if we don’t see each other,” I said as politely as I could. “Thanks for your concern, but I can take care of myself.”

“But I want to,” he said, following closely. “You need help.”

I walked faster, itching to get away. With despair, I realized that he saw himself as my savior. Someone who’d rescue me from my unfortunate choices, my violent brother. It would have been funny if it weren’t so awful. Robert seized my elbow. I froze. We were standing in the street and there were bicycles and people passing. Surely he wouldn’t try anything here. I must have looked alarmed, because he dropped his hand uncomfortably.

“I only have your best interests in mind,” he said.

Finally, after delivering yet another stumbling lecture about the danger of poor choices and how I ought to be more careful as a young woman, he left. But my troubles weren’t over.



* * *



When I got back, I heard raised voices coming from the family room on the second floor. Anxious, I raced upstairs as my stepfather came down. He didn’t look at me, just brushed past furiously. My mother was sitting in a rattan armchair in the family room, her eyes closed. Hands pressed against her temples.

“What happened?” I studied her worriedly for visible injuries but couldn’t see anything amiss. “Was it something I did?”

“No, no.” She gave me a weak smile. Then dropping her voice, “But really, where did you go last night, Ji Lin?”

For a brief moment, I considered coming clean about Shin and how we felt about each other, but something warned me not to. “I told you, I stayed with my friend Hui,” I said. “Don’t you remember, the fashionable one?”

I’d mentioned Hui to my mother before, thinking she’d be interested in her clothes and style, but my mother didn’t take the bait. She simply nodded, eyes wary. If only Robert hadn’t alerted them! The fact that I’d returned from some unknown destination dressed in this frivolous, clinging yellow dress had made everything even more suspicious. But this was the dress that Shin had kissed me in. That he’d said he liked. For that reason alone, it would be my favorite dress forever, although I couldn’t look at it without guilt. I always felt guilty around my mother; it was her very meekness and soft reproach that undid me.

“Are you and Robert all right?”

“We won’t be seeing much of each other anymore.” The sooner I set that expectation, the better.

“Why? He’s such a nice boy.”

“We’re not suited.” Looking at her distressed face, I added, “Please don’t say any more.”

“Is it because of Shin?”

I froze. “What does he have to do with it?”

“It’s just that Shin doesn’t like Robert for some reason.”

“Shin doesn’t like anyone,” I said lightly.

“No, he likes Ming. And you. I’m glad that you have a brother now, even if the two of you argue. Family is really important. You’ll find out when you get older.”

She fell silent, and I wondered if she was recalling her miscarriages, those children who had never come into being. And I shuddered, thinking of Yi. Was he still patiently sitting at that railway station in the land of the dead, waiting for his twin to die?

“Mother,” I said slowly, wondering if I was making a terrible mistake, “I have something to tell you.”





45

Batu Gajah

Monday, June 29th




Disaster blows through the wards like an ill wind, bringing news of yet another freak accident. Death is no stranger in this hospital; it walks the halls every day, picking off the old and infirm. But coming so hard on the heels of Pei Ling’s death, it lends a nasty chill to the whispers of the staff.

There’s a vengeful ghost in the hospital, they say. Pei Ling fell down the stairs because she saw it. And that orderly, Y. K. Wong, was killed by a falling tile this very morning, because he saw the ghost walking on the roof of the hospital.

“Why on the roof?” asks Ren. He’ll be discharged today. It’s amazing how quickly he’s recovered, says the local doctor who examines him. Absolutely astonishing, the change from one day to the next, but that’s the way of children.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” Dr. Chin, the same man who informed Ren so awkwardly about the loss of his finger, frowns at a white patch of skin on Ren’s elbow. It’s exactly where the pale nurse, Pei Ling, grasped his elbow in that burning, dreamlike world. When Ren puts the fingers of his right hand in the same spot, it tingles. His cat sense grows stronger, as though he’s opened a door to a twilit road. And outside, there are many chill white creatures. Ren thinks of the pontianak and other tales of angry lost women who come in the night, shrouded with their long black hair. You mustn’t let them in, not ever, even if they scratch at the door with their long nails and call to you with sweet plaintive voices, promising knowledge and secrets. Though what if you went outside, just for a little bit, to talk to them?

The doctor palpates the elbow, but Ren feels no pain, just numbness. The mark looks uncannily like the grasp of a ghostly hand. “I could have sworn this wasn’t here before,” he mutters. Ren is silent. He understands that this is the price he must pay for abandoning Pei Ling on that train.