The tiled murals of the padi planters, construction workers and ship builders along the walls of the railway station stared down at the mass of people milling below. The yellow light of the old-fashioned electric lamps hanging from the high vaulted ceiling cast an unearthly glow on their faces. In the midst of this multi-coloured ensemble a knot of white stood out. These were the sisters of the convent who had come to send off their novitiates to Bukit Nanas in preparation for their vows.
Marie, glowing with tear-filled eyes, kissed her father and mother, hugged her two sisters and brother.
“Keep well and write often,” she told them. They nodded, a little awed by the solemnity of the occasion. Their elder sister was giving her life to Christ. Her father remained silent. He had hoped she would become a lawyer but she had failed to obtain that scholarship and now, to crown it all, she had joined the convent. He did not wish to say anything more, preferring, as he claimed, not to influence his favourite daughter and letting her make up her own mind. When it was Paul’s turn to say good-bye, he smiled and hugged her briefly. “Good-bye,” he said without looking at her and then abruptly walked away, rejecting the proffered goodwill and sympathy of the onlookers.
Marie, then, turned to her group. The boys lined up and hugged her gallantly while all the girls kissed her. Yean and Ser Mei each gave her a rose. They looked as if they would like to cling to her a little longer but no, there were others awaiting their turns. The boys helped Yin Peng forward where she leaned on her crutches as Marie hugged her.
“Be brave,” she whispered, and Yin Peng smiled through her tears.
“C’mon, you guys, she’ll only be away for three years, not a lifetime!”
“Three cheers for Sis!”
“Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray!” the assembled students responded with gusto. And for a fitting finale, they broke into song.
“It’s a long road to freedom ...”
Paul’s lean face darkened with irritation as he watched from a distance. This was a farewell fit for a princess. She looked so radiant, so pure, so white! Damn it! How could she have talked about their break-up and yet look so radiant? Didn’t he matter any more? Was he pushed aside so effectively that she could forget his anguished face? She had just walked out of his life and yet she had been so calm and open about the whole thing. It was something which had to be done for the sake of a higher good. And in the serene voice of one who had removed herself from pain, promised to pray for him to have the strength to overcome this separation. Marie, you cut like a knife. Slice by slice you separate and arrange in order of priority. Could life be lived in this way all the time? And she had sat there, silent, her eyes pleading for understanding and acceptance. And he had most probably been the one who taught her how to “prioritise” her life as the Americans would say.
Heaving a sigh, he got into his brand new car, a BMW, and drove home. Time would tell which of them had the truer vision.
The train sped into the night, chugging between banks of lallang under a starlit sky. Marie settled into her seat but was too excited to sleep. She needed some quiet time to sort out her feelings. The other novices probably felt the same for none of them was talking. They seemed quite ghastly in this yellow light, and she hoped she didn’t look like them, concentrating instead on the radiant figure that was herself a moment ago waving to the throng as the train pulled out.
Again she saw their tears of joy and sadness at her departure and felt again the sensation of pleasant surprise at the large crowd which had turned up to bid her farewell.
How could it be? Was she so well liked? What had she done to deserve this? She was conscious of having some kind of charisma, often been aware of the impact she had on others. People liked her and would often do what she asked. But she hadn’t the faintest idea why. To fully acknowledge this power would have seemed like arrogance in one joining a religious community. She believed in showing the way as the apostles had done and if she were a superior being, then, somehow it must be due to the superiority of her faith. She leaned further back into her seat and gazed into the night outside the chugging train. Man’s world was chaotic and as brutal as the jungle outside.
She had always felt the need to do something which would change her society,
uproot its mix of bourgeois complacency and urban jungle mentality;
of having a vague sense of being burnt by lofty ideals
for which she would willingly lay down her life.
To her, life without dreams and visions and hopes
was like a bird with a broken wing.
She must need fly.
It was in her to soar above the crowd,
to look down from the blue above
and point to the way ahead for those earth-bound below.
Life must be one wide expanse, with room for change,
Others were drawn toward her as moths to a light.
As their light she was responsible to them and for them
but she must live according to her own conceptions,
with no illusions.
Vision, not illusion, was her business.
She would go about her Father’s business
conveying the truth as she saw it.
At twenty-three she understood a lot about the Truth,
about what was evil in the world.
It was wrong to treat people
as digits,
commodities,
and units.
The alienation of man from man was evil.
Faith was the bridge.
Truth another bridge.
Visions were bridges linking the community of man.
How she would love changing these abstractions
into visions of the possible!
As a bridge builder,
a bringer of Good News,
a bearer of the Sword of Truth.
In a community of disbelievers,
she would be unafraid of pain.
Her life would always be one dedicated to Love and Truth.
She smiled; pleased with the way she had such facility in arranging things in her mind. Such pleasures were often hers these days ever since she walked through the gates of the convent to say “Yes” to Him who called. In her surrender and in her Yea, My Lord, was her humility and commitment. His Words had thrived in the rich garden of her mind whose bower-like quality had already proved very attractive to others as yet unsure of themselves. For them, she was a suggestion, a possibility, an alternative, and this was the success of her Father’s work as well as her own. She must exploit this for the good of others and for the development of their awareness of the misery of the world. But why did she have to be away for so long? Already, she knew what she must do. A long novitiate was only for the indecisive. But she curbed her impatience. After all, Christ took thirty years to prepare for three years’ work. She bowed her head, and without quite knowing why, murmured, “Please, God, forgive me.”
She opened her eyes and looked round the carriage. The other novices had fallen asleep, rocking to the rhythm of the night train moving up Malaysia. Bending down, she opened her bag and took out Ser Mei’s letter, the last one given to her just as she left. She smiled. Mei, dear Mei, who loved her so and who had resisted the hardest. That just proved that she, Marie, was capable of overcoming such barriers between people. She read Ser Mei’s letter again and one statement stood out, “…this is bad; I need you. I hate to admit it but I’m afraid of losing you.” She was touched, and folding the letter carefully she slipped it back into her bag, a little awed by her own ability to touch people so deeply and yet remain so detached herself. She could move in and out like a freelance gardener invited into many private gardens to listen to the murmurings of the leaves, to admire the rare blooms or to cure sick plants. Though honoured and grateful she never did want to stay long in any garden. She must move on for the other gardens needed her care too. She knew she must have disappointed many people but they must accept this transience, this impermanence. It was part of life. It was also part of the condition of loving Marie.