The Night Tiger(17)

The bus arrived with a rattling roar. It had the body of a lorry, the sides circled with a wooden railing, and was always a bit difficult to climb up into when wearing a dress, particularly a pencil-slim cheongsam. I boarded last to avoid showing too much leg to anyone standing behind me. Still, I struggled, silently cursing the modest side slits that didn’t allow me to take large steps. To my horror, someone lent me a hand from behind. A man’s hand, from the feel of it, that slid over-familiarly down the small of my back and shoved me up into the bus. I swung round and slapped him.

It was Shin.

“What did you do that for?” He looked annoyed.

“Nobody asked you to help. What are you doing here?”

The bus driver honked his horn, and I sat down hastily on the wooden bench. Shin swung himself up and squeezed in next to me. With a jerk, the bus roared off.

I glared at him. “What about lunch with Ming?”

Ignoring the question, Shin looked pointedly at the rattan basket that I hugged on my lap. “Is it in there?”

I knew he was talking about the finger, but didn’t reply. What cheek, after being so unfriendly earlier!

“That was quite a slap you gave me.”

“How was I to know it was you?”

I’d reacted unthinkingly, a lesson learned from dancing with strangers. Feeling rather sorry, I peeked at his face to see if I’d left a mark.

“So are you going to tell me about this finger?”

There was no point holding out as Shin was clearly planning to follow me, so I gave him an edited version of events. How the salesman had come by my (unnamed) place of work and dropped the bottle with the finger, and how the next day he had died.

“And that’s all,” I said. “Now will you please go home? It’s rude of you to ditch Ming.”

“I didn’t leave him alone. Or are you worried that Ah Kum will make a move on him?”

“He’s engaged!” I snapped. “And besides, Ah Kum is only interested in you, not Ming.”

He turned his head to look out of the window. I felt rather guilty. Shin was, in his own way, looking out for me.

“Friends?” I said, holding out my hand after a while. Shin could stay quiet for days but I could never hold a grudge against him. There wouldn’t be anyone to talk to in that house if we didn’t make up. He didn’t look at me, but stuck out his right hand, and we shook, a little too heartily, to show that everything really was all right between us.

The bus deposited us on the main road in Papan and roared off in a cloud of dust. I coughed violently. Never mind the face powder I’d applied—I was now covered with white dust. Shin’s lips twitched, but mercifully, he didn’t laugh. We had to ask around for the address, as Papan had quite a few streets with small houses on them.

“That’s the Chan house,” an old lady said. She studied my grey cheongsam and bouquet of white flowers. “Did you mean to come for the funeral?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re too late. It was yesterday.” Seeing my crestfallen face, she said, “The newspaper misprinted the date, but they told all the family ahead of time. Didn’t you know?”

“We’d still like to pay our respects.” Shin smiled at the old lady, and she succumbed, giving us detailed instructions. Deflecting her questions, we hurried off.

The house was a small, single-story wooden building with a guava tree in the front yard and a skinny yellow dog tied to it. There were still signs of the funeral that had taken place, though the two large white paper lanterns with the name of the deceased written on them no longer hung on the sides of the door. Ash and scraps of partly burned colored paper blew around the compound—the remains of paper funeral goods burned for the deceased. I wondered whether they had burned plenty of dancing girls and garlicky chicken rice for the salesman in the Afterlife, then felt remorse for such irreverent thoughts.

At our approach, the dog hurled itself at us, barking madly. The guava tree shook, and I nervously eyed the rope that held the animal back.

“Excuse me!” I called out.

An older woman came out, shushing the dog. She looked enquiringly at us. “Oh dear, I told Ah Yoke that the date was wrong in the newspaper! Are you here to see her?”

I had no idea who Ah Yoke was, but I nodded. We took off our shoes as the woman showed us into the front room of the little house, dominated by a family altar wreathed with joss sticks and offerings. I placed the bouquet of white chrysanthemums on the altar. Bowing, we paid our respects to the deceased, the same portrait used in the newspaper obituary. The salesman stared out of the picture, stiff and formal. Chan Yew Cheung had been twenty-eight years old, to which had been added, as was customary, three more years to increase his life span. One year from the earth, one from heaven, and one from man. Soberly, I thought that even with the borrowed years, his time here hadn’t been very long.

Setting down two cups of tea, the woman said, “I’m his aunt. Were you friends of Yew Cheung? It was such a shock. He was always so strong—I never thought I’d outlive him.” Her face creased, and I was afraid she was going to start crying. I felt more and more uncomfortable.

“What happened to him?” asked Shin.

“He went to see a friend in Batu Gajah, but it got late and he still hadn’t come home. Ah Yoke was upset. You know how she can be. The next morning a passerby found him. He must have slipped and fallen into a storm drain. They said he broke his neck.”