"Did you see the mak cik?" said Hasnah.
Esther was fiddling with the projector: it wouldn't project. It took a minute for Hasnah's words to filter past her worry.
"Mak cik?" She remembered a very old, very small woman in a dazzling baju kurung, wandering along the corridor outside the conference room. "The one with the pink tudung, is it?"
"She's here for the forum!" said Hasnah triumphantly.
"Kidding? I thought she was a guest at the hotel."
"She's the founder of some women's NGO here," said Hasnah. "The Amnesty guy invited her."
"Thank God for the Amnesty guy," said Esther.
The program timetable meant that they'd only had a week and a half to prepare for the Pahang forum. It had been a nightmarish 1.5 weeks for Esther, whose job was to make sure they had enough delegates at the forum, while avoiding the steely gaze of the mainstream media.
One night last week she'd woken herself up trying to invite delegates in her dreams. She'd lain dazed in her bed and heard a voice talking, and did not at first know it was herself: "... calling from API. API. The Asian Political Institute. No, not Bicycle, Political — yes, we're an NGO. We are organizing a forum on the position of minorities in Malaysia. Would your organization be interested in sending a representative?"
Thank God for the Amnesty guy. Esther had found his contact details in an obscure corner of the Amnesty International website. She hadn't even known the guy before she phoned him up, but he'd dug up everyone with a modicum of civic sensibility in Kuantan.
The result seemed to be a huge number of uncles in batik shirts, but Esther wasn't complaining.
"We were chatting when she registered," said Hasnah. "She told me she's eighty-six years old."
"So old already still want to talk about human rights," said Intan. Intan was a long, bony piece of irony, with uncovered short hair and bored eyes. She directed the local branch of a major international non-profit.
"Eh, don't so ageist," said Hasnah. "Old people also should exercise their right to participate in civil society."
"When I am old I won't care about this kind of thing anymore," said Intan. "Minority rights ke, religious freedom ke — all that, forget about it. I will be totally burn out. I'll go live in a fishing village in Terengganu and watch the penyu come out of the sea, and I'll never read the news."
"If by then this country is not fixed then really no hope," said Hasnah somberly.
Hasnah was technically Esther's boss, but sometimes she made Esther feel old.
Intan pursed her mouth.
"Still got time," was all she said. "I'm not old yet."
"Ah!" said Esther. They all looked up at the screen.
The first Powerpoint slide said:
First National Forum on the Position of Minorities in Malaysia.
It was in English and Malay. Well, sort of Malay.
"'Forum pertama tentang posisi minoriti di Malaysia'?" said Intan, outraged. "What idiot did that translation?"
Of course Ming Jun came up just at that moment. Fortunately he was frowning at his BlackBerry and didn't hear her. Intan hit him on the arm.
"Eh, you. What is that, hah? You call that Bahasa Melayu?"
Ming Jun flicked his eyes up, still typing. He had the grace to look embarrassed when his eyes slid over the title.
"I couldn't find my Kamus Dewan that week," he said. "And after that, we already use it for the first few forums, so have to be consistent."
"Next time," said Intan, "go to bookshop and buy the damn dictionary."
At two o'clock the delegates started filtering into the conference room, greased into contentment by the free buffet lunch. Kuantan wasn't as fun as Melaka had been, with the delights of Jonker Street just down the road, but at least the food at this hotel was decent.
There were forty people today and five facilitators, which meant eight delegates per group — a good number for a roundtable discussion.
"I only have three Malay guys at my table," confided Murni. Esther nodded. She'd only met Murni that morning, when she introduced herself as the press officer of a Muslim feminist group.
"The Muslims don't like us and the feminists also don't like us," she'd told Esther.
"How many feminists?" Esther said now.
Murni laughed.
"Haven't find out yet," she said. "There's one lady from the Women's Society of Kuantan, wearing this sexy baju kebaya. Very tight! I have high hopes for her. Are you rapporteuring for me today?"
Esther shook her head. "I'm with Ming Jun. You know how fast he talks. I'm the fastest typist, so I'm the one who has to have hand pain."
Ming Jun's voice drifted over to them. He was talking to a grumpy-looking Chinese uncle in a green batik shirt. Ming Jun spoke fluent textbook Malay, but he'd studied eight years at the University of Minnesota before coming home, and it showed in his accent. Combined with his ultra-formal diction, the effect was outlandish.
"Sounds like RTM kan," said Murni. "Like the newscaster on the TV."
"Radio Televisyen Minneapolis?" whispered Esther. They both giggled.
"OK, tuan-tuan dan puan-puan," said Hasnah. "Thanks for coming. Just to confirm, yes, we are awarding certificates for attendance ...."
Something funny was happening at Esther's table. She couldn't work out what it was.
It had taken a while for the discussion to get off the ground, because the mak cik was at their table. Ming Jun had scarcely finished asking the first question on the list ("How would you define 'minority' in the Malaysian context?") when the old lady's hand shot up.
"Tuan Pengerusi," she said. "Mr. Chairman."
Esther smothered a shout of laughter under a coughing fit. Ming Jun blinked.
"Uh, yes, Datin Zainab?" he said.
"Assalamualaikum and good afternoon," she said to the table. She spoke the beautiful precise Malay of the school teacher: her cadences were a wonderful thing. "Thank you for inviting me to speak today. The chairman has asked a question. I would also like to ask a question. My question is, what is the meaning of 'context'?"
"Told you 'konteks' wasn't Malay," hissed Esther.
But apparently the question was rhetorical.
"When I was an MP near Raub in 1965, what was my context?" said the Datin. "My constituents were simple villagers. We had only one small primary school, no secondary school. The closest secondary school was miles away. I used to wake up at 5 am and my driver and I would pick up the bright, ambitious children, and drive them to the secondary school in town. After that I went straight to work and I worked until 6 pm. Then I went home and cooked dinner for my family and helped my children with their homework. At 10 pm I went to bed, but then I would be woken up again. One of the villagers would come: 'Datin, my wife is ill, please can you send her to the doctor.' What was there to do? Who else had a car? I could only get the car out, wake up the driver and go out again. And the next morning, up again at 5 am.
"That was my context. To me, it was nothing hard. I didn't think I was suffering. It was my job. Now the politicians say they are very busy, oh, so many important things to do. But if they say they are too busy to help their constituents? I don't believe. It's whether you want to or not. That is what I believe."
Ming Jun's face was a sight to delight the heart of the wicked, but the seven other faces around the table were solemn and attentive. Polite murmurs rose in response.
"That's right."
"True, very true."
Ming Jun cleared his throat.
"Uh, thank you, Datin," he said. "That's a valuable contribution, thank you. But maybe we can focus on the issue of minorities, the definition of what is a minority."
Datin Zainab seemed pleased that he'd brought this up. She said,
"Mr. Chairman, do you know what women are?"
"Um—"
"They are a majority! How many people in this world have a mother?" she said. "How many have a grandmother? All these mothers and grandmothers are women. Yet how are women treated? In my organization, we support women who need help. The ones who are too poor to buy their children milk. The ones whose husbands beat them. Women are treated like this. They are not a minority, but they are treated so badly. But women have an advantage that true minorities don't have. Women have the advantage of numbers. I believe if that we use our advantage and help each other, women can overcome the way society treats them. That is why I set up my organization."
"Nowadays seems to me women are treated better. Men are the ones who are bullied," muttered a man from St. John's Ambulance.
Datin Zainab put on a pair of spectacles that made her eyes enormous. She peered across the table. "What did encik say?"
The St. John's Ambulance man fell quiet.
It was the patience that impressed Esther. They'd had forums with Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus sat around the same table. They'd had representatives from every political party going, including ones Esther had never heard of before. They'd had opinionated old judges, belligerent doctors, self-important businessmen, and earnest students bearing downy new mustaches and sociology textbooks.
Consequently they'd had noisy forums. At nearly every one, people had started talking over each other after the first five minutes had passed and they'd forgotten their manners.
But this table was dead quiet while Datin Zainab went on — and how she did go on. As the delegates listened in respectful silence, she told them about the work her organization did, just stopping short of sketching out their timetable and listing their daily meals. She recounted tales of the joys and tribulations of the women they helped. She discussed what it had been like to be a female MP in the '60s.
"R u getting everything?" Ming Jun texted Esther. "Gr8 stuff! Social history!"
Esther tapped the dictaphone and nodded. Fortunately Datin Zainab spoke slowly, in passionate separate syllables, like a debater. Unlike normal people, she did not speak in fragments, but in whole considered sentences, exquisitely formed.
But when the Datin started to talk about the year she had been lost in the forest and her family had given her up for dead, Ming Jun's conscience seemed to trouble him. He turned to the man sitting next to him, a lawyer with an outspoken blog.
"What is encik's opinion? What do you think the government could do to protect minorities' rights?"
The lawyer had skin the color of sandalwood, a high-bridged nose, and deep-set eyes hooded by heavy eyelids. He opened his mouth and said in a strong Chinese accent,
"Protect minorities' rights? First thing is to identify who is the minorities. In this country so many people complaining: I am the one who is bullied, no, I am the one who is suffering. Actually you know who is suffering? It's the invisible minority!"
Esther checked the delegate list. The man was named Abner Ignatius.
The rest of the table also seemed taken aback. But Ming Jun perked up. Sexuality rights hadn't come up in previous forums. People had been too busy arguing about race.
"Correct, correct. That's a very pertinent point," he said. "The minorities people cannot see. They are forgotten."
"The invisible minority also needs support," said a representative from Islamic Scholars of Pahang. "Just because our needs are not obvious, it does not mean the government should so easily ignore us."
He also spoke with a Chinese accent. In fact, his voice was exactly the same as Abner Ignatius's.
"Farid?" said the other representative of the Islamic Scholars of Pahang, staring. Farid ignored him.
"Where I live, the electricity supply is terrible," said Farid. "So unreliable! Like everybody else, we also like to listen to the radio. In the forest, the connection is so bad, only one channel is available! Hitz FM. This channel is for the younger people. If you don't like Rihanna, what are you going to do in the evening? Can the government tell me that?"
"And another thing," said Annabella Lim. Annabella ran a breast cancer support group, and spoke in a growly baritone. "The Internet is impossible! Cannot even watch one YouTube video before it dies out. Then you must wait half an hour before it comes back on. Today we are living in a knowledge economy! How is my community going to participate in the economy without Internet access?"
Ming Jun and Esther's fascinated eyes moved along the table to Datin Zainab. Her pink-scarved head was drooping. She had fallen asleep.
"But most important," said the secretary of the Pahang Consumer Association next to her. He was an elderly man, with fluffy white hair and skin so dark it was almost blue. His voice was the same as everyone else's at the table: a middle-aged Chinese man's voice.
"More important than anything else," he said. "My community does not have any schools. Puan Zainab talks about the school in her village. But we do not even have a primary school. We parents have to educate the children ourselves. The government should consider setting up special schools for our children. SJK (B)."
Datin Zainab stirred.
Esther had gone to a SJK (T), though attending a Tamil-medium primary school for six years hadn't helped her much — her Tamil was still terrible. She knew Chinese schools were SJK (C).
"What does the B stand for?" said Ming Jun.
The Datin had woken up and was looking around wildly.
"Chor Seng?" she said. She blinked, rubbed her eyes and woke up all the way. "Who called me Puan Zainab?"
Ming Jun looked worried. It would never do to offend an ex-MP.
"It's Datin Zainab, not Puan Zainab," he told the consumer association rep.
"Beg your pardon?" said the rep in a pleasant tenor. He didn't sound in the least Chinese.
"It doesn't matter," said Datin Zainab. She was looking — not at the consumer association rep, but at the empty space between him and Ming Jun. Her gaze was focused, almost as if there were a person there.
"That's what he called me when we first met," she said. To the air, she said, "Chor Seng, I'm a datin now."
The Chinese man's voice said:
"Bunian."
The voice came from no one's mouth. It came out of the air.
"What?" said Ming Jun.
"He said, the B stands for bunian," said the Datin. "You know orang bunian? They are a magical people. They live in the forest but you cannot see them, can hear them only. That is why they are called bunian. From bunyi — means sound."
"Ah, that makes sense," said Annabella Lim. Her voice was a normal throaty auntie's voice, more English educated than Chinese school. "I was wondering why everybody has the same voice."
Murmurs of agreement from the table. Everyone was looking relieved to have the mystery solved. Ming Jun looked bewildered.
"But orang bunian aren't real!" he said.
"Can tell you are a city boy," said Farid. "If you live near the jungle, you will realize that what is real and what is not real is not always clear. In the forest there is not a big gap between the two."
"Of course, it's all heathenish superstition," said the other Islamic Scholar.
"Khairul is right," said Farid. "It is all heathenish superstition. People who truly understand religion will not believe in this kind of thing."
"But you seem to believe orang bunian exist," said Ming Jun.
"Ah, it is very hard to have a true understanding of religion," said Farid reflectively.
"We are still working on it," Khairul agreed.
"This is ridiculous," said Ming Jun.
The air snorted. The Chinese man's voice said,
"Oh ya, young man? Then my voice is coming from where, please tell me?"
Ming Jun glared at the delegates as if he thought one of them might be a ventriloquist. Of course, that was more likely than the idea that an orang bunian had actually turned up at their forum.
But the hotel did abut a jungle. Everybody knew what the jungle was like. It was not safe. There were mosquitoes and leeches, which were bad enough; there might be tigers, which were even worse; but worst of all — jungles were full of spirits.
"Why? I am not allowed to attend this forum, is it?" said the bodiless voice. "Aren't orang bunian also a minority? Don't we deserve the chance to fight for our rights? Nobody ever did a survey of our opinions. Nobody wants to know what we think. We are being marginalized!"
"But why are you a Chinese?" said the St. John's Ambulance man.
"What's that? First I'm not allowed to stand up for my community's rights. Suddenly I'm not allowed to be Chinese also?"
"No, my learned friend has raised a very good point," said Farid. "Orang bunian is a Malay folktale."
"We live in the same Malaysia as the rest of you," said the invisible man. "You look around you. Does everybody look the same race to you?"
"I am Chinese also. But I always heard that orang bunian are supposed to be devout Muslims," said Annabella Lim.
"This is what is wrong with our country!" Datin Zainab burst out. "You younger generation do not know how to accept. You don't know how to live together. In my day, whether somebody was Chinese, Malay, Indian, Orang Asal, Sikh, Kristang, anything — we didn't care. When we went to school together and played on the playground, do you think we chose our friends based on race? No. Muthu sat with Ah Ming, Ali played with Jaspreet. There was no division.
"Now people have grown intolerant. They only want to see their own race. The state of the country has become bad, very bad. I remember when I was a child, I used to play in the village with my friend Miriam, she was a Christian, and I would eat my lunch in her home. Yes! My parents didn't worry that they would serve me food that was not halal. We trusted her family and they trusted us. That was what it was like in the old days."
"That's right," said the lawyer. "Things were better then."
A haze of nostalgia settled over the table.
"I remember when I was young," said the consumer association rep. His eyes went dreamy behind the thick lens of his spectacles. "Us estate kids used to play by the road after school, and the Malay boys would come up from the village on the bullock cart. They used to buy bags of kacang putih from the roadside stall and give them to us to eat."
"You young people don't know what it was like," said the lawyer to Ming Jun and Esther. "You see what we have come to—parading cow heads and attacking churches. In the '70s, our country was so beautiful."
"No, no," said the consumer association rep. "In the '50s, it was more beautiful."
"Looks like you all made a mess of it, then," said Ming Jun distinctly.
This was the American influence in him coming to the surface. Esther winced. Shocked silence reigned over the table.
"How are you humans bringing up your children?" said the orang bunian's voice. "My child would never talk to his elders like that."
Datin Zainab sat back and put her hand over her eyes.
"You have children?" said Khairul.
"How do you think orang bunian reproduce?" said the voice, with asperity. "I must say, Zainab, humans have become stupider since our time."
"It's the education system," said the Datin. Her eyes were still hidden. "The standards are falling."
This would be like a red flag to a bull. Esther knew she had to speak quickly before anyone got started on the inadequacies of the education system if she wanted an answer to the question that had been bothering her.
"Datin," she said. "How do you and the orang bunian know each other?"
"Eh, I have a name, please," said the irritable spirit. "Tan Chor Seng. But you young ciku must call me uncle lah."
Datin Zainab took her hand away from her face. Esther saw with horror that her eyes were wet.
"We met," she said, "a long, long time ago."
"It was not so long for me, Zainab," said the orang bunian.
"I have changed, I know," said the Datin.
"Not so much," said the voice. For once it was not so grumpy. "Voice is still the same."
"Ah, but when it comes to appearance!" said Datin Zainab. "I am a grandmother now. Hair no longer black. Wrinkles, hunched back ...."
"My eyesight was never very good," said the orang bunian. "My hearing only. First time I met you I thought, this woman has the most melodious voice I have ever heard. It is like the stars singing. Now I hear you again, that's still true."
Ming Jun was frowning down at his BlackBerry, his fingers flying. Esther was not surprised when her phone buzzed with a text message:
"R they flirting?!"
As the youngest people at the table, Ming Jun and Esther had to keep their speculation electronic. The delegates were older and did not feel the need to be quite so discreet.
"When you say you met," said the consumer association rep to the Datin, "met means dating or what?"
"None of your business," snapped the orang bunian's voice.
"Don't cry, mak cik," said Annabella Lim. She took a pack of tissues out of her handbag and passed them to the Datin. "What is wrong?"
Datin Zainab wiped her eyes.
"I have never told anybody," she said. "I was a young girl then. Thirty-five, thirty-six years old only. I liked to go hiking. My husband didn't like these strenuous activities. He liked staying home and watching TV. But he was always very supportive of my hobbies. We lived near the jungle and I used to go on walks by myself."
"Singing," said Chor Seng's voice. "She used to sing as she walked."
"I wanted to scare off any animals in case they wanted to bother me," the Datin explained.
"All of us orang bunian used to stop to listen when she sang," said Chor Seng. "I was also young in those days. I was impulsive. I heard her singing, but I wanted to know what her speaking voice sounded like. So one day when she was walking past my house I said hello to her."
"That is how it started," said the Datin. She looked down at her hands with their exquisitely manicured nails. "We were very young and foolish. When the child came ... how could I explain that to my family? Chor Seng's family took me in. A whole year I was gone. I told my family I got lost in the forest but I didn't remember anything else. They took me to a bomoh and he told them a spirit enchanted me when I was out walking. He said the year had felt like only a few hours to me.
"Never waste your money on bomoh," Datin Zainab told Esther. "After this, I realized most of them are cheats. He didn't know anything about what happened to me. Guessing only."
"But you were married," said Khairul.
Datin Zainab glared at him.
"And you have never done anything wrong in your life?" she said. "It is for God to judge, not you. I regretted. You think I didn't regret? But I suffered enough for my mistake. After that incident my husband did not let me go walking alone in the forest anymore. We moved when he got a new job, and I never heard my child again."
"You abandoned the baby?" said Farid.
"Encik," said the Datin with exaggerated patience. "If you know how I could have brought up an invisible child, please can you tell me. I am only a weak woman and I thought it might be difficult when it came to sending him to school. When he raised his hand, the teachers would not be able to see."
"Boon Yi takes after me more," Chor Seng's voice agreed. "His mother not so much."
Datin Zainab folded her hands.
"How is Boon Yi?" she said quietly.
"Doing well," said the orang bunian. "Studies hard. Good at writing but very lazy to do mathematics. I am raising him to be Muslim, like you asked. He goes to my neighbor's house twice a week to mengaji Quran."
"That is good," said Khairul, mollified.
"Nobody asked you, busybody," said the orang bunian's voice. "Boon Yi is very big now, very clever. Can understand a lot of things. He asks about you every day, Zainab. He wants to hear all the stories about you. He wishes he could know his mother."
"I left him my photo," said Datin Zainab. Annabella Lim pressed another tissue into her limp hand.
"Boon Yi is like me. His eyesight is not so good," said the orang bunian. "You know to us sound is more important. He has never heard your voice. That is why I came. His birthday is coming up soon—"
"February 22," said Datin Zainab. "I always buy a birthday cake on that day. When my family asks, I tell them it is to celebrate the fact that even mistakes can have good consequences."
"I want to give him something meaningful for his birthday," said Chor Seng. "I want to give him the sound of your voice. That is why I came. Will you come with me to talk to him?"
"From here?" said Datin Zainab. She laughed a little. "Chor Seng, where you live is so deep in the jungle. How would I get there?"
"Walk," said Chor Seng, as if this was obvious. The table scoffed as one person.
"At her age!" said Annabella. "In this hot sun! Old lady like that, how to walk so far?"
"You are not being practical," said Farid. "You should have planned ahead."
"Orang bunian age more slowly than us," said Datin Zainab. "It is not his fault. But they are right, Chor Seng. My body cannot take it anymore."
There was a silence.
"I forgot that humans work differently," said Chor Seng. "I'm sorry. It is good that I did not tell Boon Yi. He won't be disappointed."
"Ne more of this n Im going 2 cry," texted Ming Jun to Esther.
Esther put her phone down on the table, feeling as depressed as everybody else looked.
Her eyes fell on the dictaphone.
"There is no need to disappoint Boon Yi, uncle," said Esther. "We have a dictaphone here. If Datin records a message inside, Uncle can take it back to play for your son to hear. Come with me and we will do it outside in the corridor. In here it is too noisy. And while we are outside maybe Ming Jun can get on with the discussion. There's only fifteen minutes left, and we only covered five of the questions."
"Shit!"
"We'll record over that part," said Esther.
Outside in the corridor Esther tried to make herself scarce while Datin Zainab recorded her message, but she had to go over to help them find the "stop" button.
While she fiddled with the dictaphone, a thought occurred to her. Esther said:
"Uncle, if you came to get Datin's voice, why did you say all that about minority rights?"
"Our rights are also at stake what," said the orang bunian. "Cannot do two things at the same time meh? Let me tell you, girl. Life and politics is equally important. Cannot separate the two. Both also you must take seriously. What I said, you must remember to tell the government, OK?"
"OK," said Esther dubiously. She was going to warn him that going by previous record it didn't seem likely that the government would be interested in invisible minorities' rights, but Datin Zainab started speaking.
"Tell Boon Yi to study hard," said the Datin. "And tell him he must make sure to respect women and treat them with consideration. That is the best way to show respect to his mother. Tell him I always save one piece of the cake for him. Just in case. Tell him—"
"Why don't you come with me and tell him yourself?" said Chor Seng gently. "We are old already, Zainab. We don't have so many obligations anymore. Can't we please ourselves? You used to love the forest, remember? You could come back."
Datin Zainab paused.
"I have grandchildren," she said. "And I have my work with my women. I cannot simply go where I want. And I am old, Chor Seng. My bones like to have soft cushions to lie on. They like to be driven around in a Mercedes. If I'd stayed with you, back then ... but I am too used to my lifestyle now. The jungle, romance — these things are for young people."
"Wrong," said Chor Seng. "Nobody can be too old for romance."
"It is rude to contradict a woman," said Datin Zainab.
"I'm just going to go to the toilet," said Esther "The exit is over there — Uncle knows, right?"
But they were still there when Esther came back. Datin Zainab was standing by the doors at the end of the passage, talking softly. The blinding sunlight outside made a black silhouette of her body. Her arm was stretched out, the hand wrapped around air.
After a while her hand dropped to her side. The murmurs died down. She stood in the doorway for a long time, listening for the goodbye.