The Night Tiger(70)

I stared at the two lists. There was a pattern that I could almost see. Next to the name “J. MacFarlane” was a question mark and the words Taiping/Kamunting. I remembered that name, written-up in the pathology storeroom ledger as a specimen donated by W. Acton. I’d met William Acton myself when I was cleaning the room out. And surely L. Rawlings must be the same Dr. Rawlings who ran the pathology department. So the second list was British doctors associated with the Batu Gajah District Hospital.

The back of the paper contained numbers: running totals of what looked like initialed payments. Taking a fresh sheet of paper, I carefully copied the lists and wrapped the package back up, wondering if Shin had mentioned any of this to Dr. Rawlings.

It was past midnight. The roads were deserted at this hour and Shin had only the dim halo of the kerosene bicycle lamp. When I thought about him riding for miles in the dark, past silent mining dredges and lonely plantations, I felt a surge of anxiety. I could imagine, all too clearly, Shin getting run over by a lorry or dragged off by a tiger. A water buffalo had been killed recently, its half-eaten carcass recovered in a nearby plantation. Something was hunting, out there in the shadows. Hadn’t Chan Yew Cheung died on such a night, coming home late?

I checked my sleeping mother. Brushing the hair gently from her thin face, I was thankful she was all right, though a treacherous part of me thought that if she died, there’d be nothing holding me hostage to this house.



* * *



My mother recovered slowly, more so than from her miscarriages in the past. My stepfather said no more than usual, but he spent a surprising amount of time sitting with her. I wondered if, for the first time, he’d realized just how frail she’d become. She was very pale and her lips had no color, which alarmed me.

“Has the bleeding stopped?” Auntie Wong asked when she stopped by.

“Mostly,” my mother said.

Auntie Wong looked at me. “If she has a fever, you must take her to hospital. It could be an infection.”

I wanted to take her to the hospital right away, but it would have been exhausting for her to move. Astonishingly, my stepfather voiced the same concerns. He sat next to her and took her hand. “Let me know if you don’t feel well.”

I’d never heard him speak so intimately to her before, but she didn’t seem surprised, and I wondered whether this was the way he occasionally treated her in the privacy of their bedroom, when the doors were closed. Maybe that was enough to keep her foolishly hopeful. But I still hated him, I decided. Nothing would change my mind about that.

Later, Ah Kum came and sat in the kitchen as I boiled pork bone soup, to which I’d added dried red dates to build up my mother’s yang energy.

Ah Kum said, “Your father’s really worried about her. That’s so sweet.”

I nodded. Ah Kum had only moved to Falim this past year and was perhaps unaware that we weren’t related at all.

“Did your brother go back already?”

“Yes, last night.”

Ah Kum sighed and I remembered how she’d been all over Shin last time he was home. At the time I hadn’t cared much: strange how only ten days had made such a difference.

“Does he have a girlfriend?” she asked.

Shin hadn’t announced anything to our parents but that wasn’t surprising, either. “I think so,” I said, recalling Koh Beng’s well-meaning warning to me in the hospital. “Down in Singapore.”

“Oh, Singapore is far away! Perhaps he’ll change his mind and pick me.”

“Perhaps.” I admired her single-minded determination.

“We’ll have six children,” Ah Kum said jokingly. “And they’ll all be beautiful.”

I forced myself to smile. “What makes you think so?”

“Just look at you and your brother—such a handsome family!”

Embarrassed, I hung my head. There’d be trouble if anyone knew how my feelings had changed towards Shin. I could imagine my stepfather’s rage, my mother’s shame. The whispers from the neighbors that there must have been something improper going on in our house.

“You’ll cheer me on with your brother, won’t you?” said Ah Kum. “Especially since you’ve got a rich boyfriend. I heard he sent you home last night in a big car.”

I’d completely forgotten about Robert, but I ought to thank him. Write him a note, though I wasn’t sure how to get in touch with him. My problem was solved, however, when Robert stopped by that afternoon, and then again the next morning. The first time he brought dried Chinese herbs. The second time, he brought chicken soup in a blue-and-white porcelain tureen. It had been made, he explained, by his family cook, using the silky-feathered, black-skinned chicken that was especially good for invalids.

It was all very thoughtful of him, and I felt guilty, especially after seeing how the soup had sloshed onto the soft leather of his car seat. Robert’s atrocious driving must have contributed to it, but I didn’t mention that as I rushed to blot the stain. He spent some time chatting with my stepfather. I’d no idea what they talked about, but my mother, who had recovered enough to sit up in the family room and greet him, was pleased.

“Such a nice young man!” she said as I reheated the chicken soup for her. I kept quiet. I hadn’t been able to remove the soup stains from Robert’s car seat. It gave me an uneasy feeling. One more thing that I owed him.