The Night Tiger(23)

William takes a final look himself and stiffens. On the left breast, the greyish skin is still intact and there, unmistakably, is a raised keloid scar in the shape of a butterfly. He knows this mark intimately, has paid money to run his fingers over it, and not even the handkerchief pressed desperately against his face can save him now.

William lurches out of the undergrowth and vomits by the side of a tree.





10

Ipoh

Sunday, June 7th




I returned to the dressmaker’s shop with a scratched face and the beginnings of a black eye. I’d hoped to let myself quietly in, but Mrs. Tham opened the door at the rattle of my key.

“Your face! Ji Lin, what happened to you? Did you get into a fight? Have you seen a doctor?”

I told her that I’d slipped and fallen. It wasn’t a very good story, and I waited, holding my breath, for the questioning to start again, but surprisingly she stopped. Studying me, she said. “You went home to Falim, did you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see your stepfather?”

A look of pity crossed her face, and I understood that she, too, had heard the rumors about my stepfather’s temper. I felt like giggling hysterically. Of all the things that had happened this weekend, he was the least to blame for once. And the truth was, he’d never laid a hand on me. He didn’t need to.

From the very beginning, I’d discovered that it was beneath my stepfather to discipline a girl. That was my mother’s job, and at the slightest sign of his displeasure, he’d merely glance at my mother for her to bite her lips and softly reprove me. At first, I hadn’t understood the cost. Singing loudly or whistling were offenses. So was talking back to him. They resulted in my mother emerging from discussions with him, white-faced and holding her wrist gingerly. Bruises on her upper arms where hard fingers had dug in. These were never as spectacular as the punishments meted out to Shin, and my mother never referred to them. But both of us learned to dread the vertical line that appeared on his forehead, in the exact middle of his brow, and the whitening of his nostrils.

I suppose you could say he thought what he was doing was right and just, and boys needed to be whipped into shape, and wives should learn their place. I didn’t know and, frankly, I never cared to understand my stepfather. I only knew I hated him.



* * *



Peering into my small mirror, I was dismayed. My left cheekbone was swollen, and there were several long scratches across my face. And as promised, I was developing a nice shiner. Glumly, I ran the numbers through my head again. At five cents a dance ticket, which meant three cents to me, I was still short seventy-five cents this month for my mother’s debt. But there was no way I could work like this, despite the knot of anxiety in my stomach. Rather than going in and facing stares, it would be better to ask Hui to tell the Mama that I couldn’t make it on Wednesday, so the next day after work, I went to visit her.

Hui sometimes worked evenings at another place, but I was fairly certain I’d find her at home. She didn’t live too far, which was how we’d become friends in the first place. Hui had brought a dress to Mrs. Tham’s shop, and I’d been given the task of altering it. It was a pretty frock—light frothy turquoise that looked like sea foam. I’d asked her what she wore it to.

“Tea dances. Have you ever been to one?” she said.

I hadn’t, although I’d taken dance lessons before.

“You look like you’d be good at it,” she’d said, and between this and our idle chatter, I’d made the mistake of taking the hem up a little too high for Mrs. Tham’s conservative guidelines. Laughing, Hui said it didn’t matter and that shorter was better. Later, I found out why, but by then we were already good friends.

Hui lived on Panglima Lane, the narrowest street in Ipoh. Cramped houses pressed against each other and strings of laundry hung overhead like gaily waving flags. Thirty years ago, it was notorious for its brothels, gambling, and opium dens, but now it was mostly private homes. In Cantonese, it was called Second Concubine Lane. I’d often thought it would be a terrible place for a rendezvous because the houses were so close to each other. You could practically see across from the upper floors.

“Hui!” I called out as I arrived.

“Upstairs.” Her landlord, an old man who chewed betel nuts and looked like a vampire because of his crimson-stained mouth, gestured towards the front room. I found Hui lying on her stomach in bed, leafing through a newspaper. She was wearing a thin cotton slip, her bare face shiny with face cream.

Her eyes opened wide when she saw my face. “Whom did you fight with?”

“How did you know?” I set two portions of nasi lemak, coconut rice wrapped in a banana-leaf packet with curried chicken and sambal chili, on the table. Hui’s room was larger than mine at Mrs. Tham’s, and littered with pots of rouge, face powder, and magazines.

“Those scratches—I’ve seen girls fight. What happened?”

I explained yesterday’s events as we started to eat.

“So it was the widow who did it,” she said, opening her packet of nasi lemak appreciatively.

I sighed. “Well, I can’t blame her—she was so upset.”

“I told you not to go! I hope you weren’t alone.”

“My brother went with me.”