The Night Tiger(98)

With a gasp, I was out of my chair, stumbling past the other girls with their cries of surprise. Y. K. Wong grabbed my wrist. “I’ve been looking for you.”

I stared past him at Robert’s shocked face. I couldn’t bear to look at Shin. Robert’s eyes were wide, showing the whites around them. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “Ji Lin—are you working here?”

I dropped my head wretchedly.

“You’re really working here? Like a prostitute?”

His voice was incredulous. Too loud, like a slap in the face. Time slowed to a nightmarish crawl. I saw Shin’s jaw tighten, the telltale shift of his shoulders. I knew the danger signs when my stepfather snapped. Could see the future unravel in a gritty, jumping newsreel: Shin would hit Robert in the mouth, break his teeth and nose, and go to prison all because of my stupid, stupid choices.

I flung myself in front of Robert. There was a glancing blow to the side of my head, hard enough that my ears rang, though Shin must have held back at the last instant. I fell over, a tangle of limbs with Robert. Screams, a mad scramble. Discordant trumpet notes as the musicians wavered, then manfully started playing again. Shin was holding my face in his hands. “You idiot,” he said.

Hui was shrieking like a harpy, “What are you doing?”

“It’s all right.” Gasping, I struggled up. “He’s my brother.”

I tugged at him. Desperation numbed my stinging ear. The bouncers were heading over purposefully. In the corner, the Mama’s face was like thunder.

“Ji Lin!” Robert called, but I was running, slipping through the crowd that parted, surprised faces, mouths gaping in ohs and ahs. Dragging Shin with me, his hand in mine. Behind us, Kiong barreled his way through the dancing couples, colliding and apologizing. Through the side door, down the mint-green corridor marked private. The dressing-room door banged open. I grabbed my bag—the finger!

Kiong’s shout echoed as he burst into the corridor. Then we were out, through the back door into the dirt road behind the dance hall where we ran and ran as though the devil himself was chasing us.





38

Ipoh/Taiping

Saturday, June 27th




It was the end of everything, I thought. I don’t know what possessed us, but we ran like children, Shin and I. As though we were ten years old and had been caught stealing mangoes from the neighbor’s tree. We raced down street after street until I didn’t recognize where we were anymore and doubled over, gasping, against a wall.

“You know, there’s nobody chasing us,” said Shin.

Kiong had done no more than stick his head out of the back door and yell, “Louise! What’s wrong?” And likely nothing would have happened if I’d stopped and talked to him. Kiong was quite reasonable; arguments between customers happened all the time, and the only person who’d been injured was myself.

“Does it hurt?” Shin examined me, looking for bruises. “I didn’t mean to hit you.”

“I’m fine,” I said, shrugging off his hand.

“I’m sure you are,” he said drily. “Anyone who can run half a mile is probably in good health. Why were you running anyway?”

Shame burned my cheeks. “I couldn’t bear it. The look on Robert’s face. And all of you showing up together.” The words, like a prostitute, still rang in my ears.

Shin sank down against the roughly plastered wall. My mother had drummed it into us that only beggars, drunkards, and opium fiends sat in the street in broad daylight, but there was no one around right now, so I sat down, too.

“Why’d you jump in front of him like that?”

“Because you were going to hit him.”

“He deserved it. Bastard.”

I grimaced. “Are you angry with me, too?”

“What do you think?” He gave me a long look.

I stared hard at a crack in the pavement. It looked like a map of the Kinta River. “There weren’t many options. Not ones that paid well. But I’m not a prostitute.” It was a terrible conversation to be having with my stepbrother, whom I might be in love with, I thought. I ought to keep a diary of all the worst moments in my life. It might be amusing in fifty years’ time, but not now. Definitely not now.

“I didn’t think so. Places like that are pretty careful with their girls.”

“How do you know?” I watched him from under my lashes, frowning.

“I’ve been to dance halls before. There are lots of them in Singapore.”

Suddenly, I was so annoyed with Shin that I could barely look him in the eye. “I suppose I shouldn’t have worried about telling you, then.”

He tilted my face up. “You were worried about me?”

Too close, I thought. He was much too close, and that casual touch disarmed me. With a jerk, I pulled away. “Not just you,” I said. “My mother, Mrs. Tham. And Robert, of course. From his point of view, I’m ruined.”

Shin’s voice was icy. “He’s an ass if he can’t tell you’re obviously a virgin.”

I was so humiliated that I didn’t know where to look. Ears scorching, my face blazing. I supposed I ought to be pleased that Shin had never doubted my chastity, since chastity was so prized in a woman, but the way he was doing things was so high-handed, I wanted to slap him. “It’s none of your business,” I snapped, jumping up.