The Night Tiger(49)

In the doorway, she turned back, her mouth a thin line. “The guestrooms are really only for family members, not ‘friends.’”

“But we are family,” I said. “By marriage, that is.” I’d meant to say by our parents’ marriage, but my tongue was thick and dry, as though it was too large for my mouth.

She looked relieved. “Oh, so you’re getting married, then? Did you register already?” Lots of young couples registered early at the courthouse so they could apply for housing together. Not having the energy to disabuse her, I smiled feebly.

“So how long have you known each other?” she asked.

“Since we were ten years old.”

“Childhood sweethearts, then!” The housekeeper looked pleased. “And such a pretty, well-dressed girl like you.”

Here was my cue to advertise Mrs. Tham’s dressmaking shop but I felt so ill that I could barely speak. After she’d left, I washed up. I’d have loved to ask the nurses about what it was like to work here, but instead I swallowed two aspirin tablets and lay down. My last thought before I fell asleep was to wonder whether or not we’d locked the pathology storeroom door.



* * *



I was floating. Weightless in water. Above me was a circle of light. With a few lazy kicks, I swam towards it. My head broke through, and gasping, I found myself gazing at a familiar scene. The same sunlit riverbank, overgrown with thickets of bamboo and lalang, the same clear river.

In real life, I couldn’t swim this well but now I delightedly did a few flips. Peering down through the crystalline water, I saw the bleached sand of the riverbed, shadowed with ripples, then the shallow bottom dropping off into blackness. What was it, this nothingness on the bottom of the river? Uneasy, I paddled away from it. The shadow was still there, half a body’s length behind, as though the bottom of the river had fallen away or been eaten by darkness. And it was moving.

The faster I swam, the faster it closed on me. Lungs burning, my thrashing arms and legs propelled me desperately forward. Ahead on the riverbank, a figure burst into view. It was the little boy from the train station.

“Over here!” he shouted.

In a burst of terror, I exploded out of the water and flung myself on the riverbank, wheezing. The little boy bent urgently over me.

“What was that?” I gasped. “That shadow under the water?”

He blinked. “I’m not really sure myself. I can’t go in the water, you see.” Yet his averted gaze made me think that he was lying, or at least, avoiding the topic. “You shouldn’t go in, either. Come on!”

He turned and started walking fast, his head barely higher than the tall grass. I knew where we were heading already: the railway station. I could see its peaked attap roof. Besides, there was nowhere else to go. All around us was green, half-cultivated wilderness, the remains of abandoned farms with tapioca plants and papaya trees. Farther back, the thick blue ridge of hills and jungle pressed in.

When we reached the platform, the little boy turned with a sigh of relief. “I was frightened when I saw you in the water.”

“Has that shadow always been there?”

He nodded. “It’s to keep people on this side from going back over. The last time you came in the water, it didn’t notice you. But this time it did. That’s a bad sign.”

“Why’s that?”

He studied my pajamas carefully. To my surprise, they were dry and clean as though I hadn’t just swum a river and dragged myself through muddy undergrowth. “You don’t belong here.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He looked unhappy again. I’d become accustomed to that look; it meant that he didn’t want to lie but was unwilling to tell me for some reason. It struck me then: this quiet land, the empty station with a train that was always idle, could only be a waiting room.

“Are you one of my mother’s children?” I asked. Was this why he had called me older sister? “One of the Confucian Virtues?”

He looked astonished. “You’re very clever,” he said admiringly. “Because that’s your name, isn’t it? Wisdom.”

“Are you Ren, Yi, or Li?”

The troubled look again. “I’m not your mother’s child, though I’m part of the set. But I don’t understand why you’re the one who keeps coming here when I’m trying to reach my brother.”

“Do you mean Shin? He’s my brother, too.”

“No.” He hesitated, chewing his lip. “I’m worried that my brother is going the wrong way. Following the wrong master.”

“Do I know him?”

“No, but you’ll recognize him.” The little boy’s eyes were shadowed with unease.

Although the coal-black locomotive with its empty carriages stood idle at the station, its position had changed. The first time it had been close to where the tracks rose from beneath the river. The second time it had been half out of the station, as though pulling away. Today it was lined up exactly with the platform. Staring at the train tracks, I had the disconcerting realization that there was only one line. No double tracks for a returning train, no platform on the other side, either.

The little boy followed my glance. “Don’t worry. You’ve never arrived by train, so you can go back on your own. At least, this time.”