The Weight of Our Sky(37)

“Were . . . were there people who didn’t make it back?” I ask, then immediately regret it. Of course there were people who didn’t make it back.

Mak Siti shrugs, and I wonder how she can be so calm. Then I remember that she lived through the Japanese occupation too, her skin tough and hardened out of sheer necessity. “That’s what happens,” she says. “At least they took out more than a few of those terrible Chinese people. Now, would you like something to drink? Some tea?”

Before I can answer, a deep voice cuts through our chatter.

“Where is Safiyah?”

Through the trees strides Pakcik Adnan, Saf’s father, as rigidly erect in posture and precise in step as he is when he makes his rounds at school. In fact, he looks much the same as always, except that his trousers, which usually sport creases so sharp they look like they could slice your fingertips off, are crumpled and unironed. If you’ve known him for most of your life, as I have, this is a sign of great inner turmoil.

“Where is Safiyah?” he asks me again, his glance never wavering from my face. His voice, clear and strong, seems to ring through the village, and pulls gazes toward us. A small crowd begins to gather.

I can feel a bead of sweat meander slowly down the side of my face. Tell him, tell him, tell him, the Djinn crows. Tell him about your failure. Tell him how you let her die. “We . . . we were at the movies, sir,” I begin. Pakcik Adnan’s eyes narrow. I feel an urge to tap so great that I almost keel over. Not now, not now. I forge on.

“We went to see the new Paul Newman movie. She was really excited about it. She wanted to watch it again as soon as it was over, because she said you wouldn’t be home until late. . . .” My voice trails off as I wonder if I should be betraying Saf like this. But her father is staring at me, and I can’t stop now, though I’d give anything to do just that.

“The lights went out in the theater. . . .” I swallow hard, finding it difficult to breathe. “These men came. Chinese men.” A ripple goes through the watching crowd. “They forced Malays on one side and everyone else on the other. They let the non-Malays go.”

“And the Malays?” Pakcik Adnan asks urgently. “What happened to the Malays? What happened to Safiyah?”

I can’t bring myself to answer. I can’t even bring myself to look at him. I stare at the ground, scratching patterns in the dirt with the tip of my shoe, tracing the number three over and over again, my face wet with tears I hadn’t realized had begun to fall down my cheeks. “The men, the gangsters . . . they had weapons,” I say quietly. “Pipes, sticks, knives.” Please understand what I’m trying to tell you, I think. Please don’t make me go on.

The silence that greets this pronouncement is so prolonged and so deafening that I can only stand it for so long before I look up.

Saf’s father still stands before me, still holding himself straight and tall. But tears are streaming down his face, falling onto his pristine shirtfront, soaking the white cloth through. I have never seen him like this, and I can’t bear to think my words are what caused it. I take a step toward him, wanting to offer some kind of comfort. “I miss her all the time. Every minute. I wish we were still together like always.” It’s only after I say the words aloud that I realize how true this is. I’ve been so preoccupied with keeping my mother safe that I’ve barely been able to mourn my best friend, and now I stagger slightly beneath the weight of my own grief.

Something changes then—something shifts inside him; I see it in his eyes, like a shutter has just been pulled down. He stares at me.

“How did you make it out?” His voice is a little ragged with grief, but he stands as tall and dignified as ever.

I feel it again, then, that small shift rifling through the crowd surrounding us, like leaves on a breeze.

“Someone saved me,” I say.

“And that someone couldn’t save Safiyah, too?”

I think back to Auntie Bee and what she did for me. “No,” I say simply. “Not that way.”

“So you left her to die.” The words hit me like bullets, tearing through my conscience. The Djinn throws back his head and cackles.

“I . . . I . . . no, that’s not . . . I had no choice!”

“You left her. That was a choice.” Didn’t you? the Djinn whispers. Guilt begins to ooze freely out of the wounds. I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest; all the wind has left me, and I fight to catch my breath. Did I have a choice? Had I been supposed to protect Saf the whole time? But all those visions . . . Mama is the one who will die if I don’t obey. Right? You’ll never know now, will you? Because Saf is dead. You had the power to save her, and now she’s dead. For a moment, I can hear nothing but his cackles ringing in my ears.

“I never wanted this to happen,” I choke out, tears already beginning to trickle down my cheeks.

“But it did,” Pakcik Adnan says evenly. “And then for you to dare to come here, the place where you grew up, where so many suffer now because of the actions of those bloody hooligans, with one of them.” He spits in Vince’s direction, and Vince takes a step back, his face impassive, his arms crossed over his chest.

Pakcik Adnan turns his attention back to me, and I feel myself cowering in the face of his overpowering anger and sorrow. “You are a disgrace, Melati Ahmad,” he says, his voice ringing in the deep silence. “You betray us with your associations, gallivanting about with Chinese pigs while your friends and family bleed at their feet. I wish my daughter never knew you.” Then he spits again, this time at my feet, before turning his back and walking, with perfectly precise, measured steps, through the onlookers and back toward his home, where his wife stands waiting for him at the door.