The Night Tiger(35)
“Yes to what?”
“To cleaning out the pathology storeroom this weekend.”
I opened my eyes. “As long as I get paid, too. But what makes you think we’ll find anything?”
“That finger definitely came from the hospital,” said Shin, “If you unscrew the bottle cap, it has the same mark as the other specimens in the hospital pathology lab. We should look through the records and see if there’s anything about amputated fingers.”
“Where’s the finger?”
In answer, he patted his pocket. The gesture reminded me of the salesman, and my spirits sank. That shadow again, staining the bright day. Why was Shin so enthusiastic about tracking down its owner, anyway? Perhaps we could just quietly replace the finger in the hospital. It occurred to me that I should also do some research for myself—tour the hospital, talk to the staff. I didn’t want to admit it to Shin, but if I couldn’t go to medical school, maybe I could become a nurse or a clerk. Anything was better than my current dismal prospects.
“You’re plotting something, aren’t you?” Shin said with a snort. “I can tell—you’re so predictable.”
“Nobody else says that,” I said crossly, thinking of the starry-eyed schoolboys and old men who lined up to dance with me. Nirman Singh had claimed that I was “shrouded in fateful mystery,” though I was fairly certain he was talking about the real Louise Brooks and not me—and also that he was all of fifteen years old and shouldn’t be spending his pocket money at a dance hall.
“Whom have you been keeping company with?”
I’d forgotten how sharp Shin was; it was the flip side of being on good terms with him again.
“No one.”
Shin was watching me with a thoughtful expression. “Do you like boarding at Mrs. Tham’s?”
“Well, you’ve seen what she’s like,” I said. “But it’s not that bad.”
“How much does she pay you?”
“She doesn’t pay me anything—I have to pay her. For my apprenticeship, you know.”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “That’s ridiculous. You’re working there for free.”
“Actually she’s supposed to pay me a little for helping out, but there’s also my room and board and the teaching fees, so it’s all a wash.”
“And you’re happy with it?”
I debated telling him that of course I wasn’t happy. Two years ago I’d have said so with no reservations, but now the thought rolled around the tip of my tongue, like a glass marble that would fall out and shatter on the ground. Why ruin the first nice day we’d had in a long time? So I said nothing.
* * *
The railway station at Batu Gajah was modest: a simple rectangle with a thatched attap roof and a few wooden benches that faced the tracks on both sides. I gazed at it with uneasy déjà vu. Surely, I’d been sitting on one of these benches just last night in my dream. There was no river in sight, though according to the elderly Malay gentleman across the aisle, the railway line actually did cross the Kinta River.
“But you won’t see it until you pass this station.” He himself was going south to Lumut.
“We’re getting off here,” I said regretfully.
“Goodbye,” said the old man. And then to Shin, “Your wife is beautiful. Very modern and stylish.”
“We’re siblings!” I said hastily.
Shin was quiet as we got off the train. It was the second time that someone had mistaken us, and I was afraid he’d found it irritating.
“Of course I’m annoyed,” he said. “Who wants to be related to you?”
Relieved, I burst out laughing. Shin rolled his eyes. “You’re supposed to get offended, like other girls. Not snort like that.”
I fell silent. One of the reasons I was popular at the May Flower was because I wasn’t afraid of joking around with the customers, but was that how decent young women behaved? Ming’s fiancée had been so soft-spoken, so genteel—the sort of girl who wouldn’t be caught making stupid jokes by the roadside.
The walk to the Batu Gajah District Hospital was uphill to the European quarter of Changkat. Oleander shrubs with their pink and white fluffy blooms and pointed oval leaves were everywhere, as were fragrant frangipani trees, the graveyard flower of the Malays. The English were mad about gardening—we all knew that from our history books—and had carried their passion to every corner of the Empire.
By the time we arrived at the hospital, it was almost eleven o’clock in the morning and quite hot. The hospital was a series of tropical white and black Tudor-style wooden buildings connected by shady verandas and clipped grass lawns. Glancing up, I noticed that the terra-cotta tiles on the roofed walkways had come all the way from France and were stamped underneath with the name of their maker: SACCOMAN FRèRES, ST. HENRI MARSEILLE.
Shin led me past the administrative offices to the back of one of the outbuildings. Taking out a key, he unlocked a door. “Here we go. We’ll have to get this into some sort of order.”
It was a large room, airy and high-ceilinged. Tall windows let in the light from behind stacks of boxes and filing cabinets. Specimen jars were jammed next to cartons overflowing with papers, while five-gallon glass carboys stood on the floor amid a litter of old medical journals. Staring at this mountain, I was no longer surprised that Dr. Rawlings, whoever he was, had suggested that Shin commandeer some extra help.