“Cannot! We Cantonese of Sum Hor have our own customs. The wake must be in the house of the eldest son. Thank my brother for me, but I cannot accept his generous offer.” After Boon Leong’s servant had left, he turned to Choon Neo. “In my own house I can do what I like, in his I’ve got to defer to him. Right or not?”
She kept a pained silence. She resented the invasion of her home by a horde who spoke a dialect she could hardly understand. Her head reeled under the unfamiliar faces who had taken over her sitting-room, her dining-room, her hallways and passageways, her bedrooms and the entire kitchen! Worse, that other woman had brought her sons and daughters!
“He’s moved them into my room,” she complained.
“What? They’re sleeping on your bed?” Her sister-in-law, Kim Neo, was shocked.
“I was smart. I quickly got my two girls into bed first. Her children are sleeping on the floor. I’ll scratch her eyes out if she dares to insist on the bed.”
“Did she serve you tea? Greet you properly?”
“She can’t even speak Hokkien. Just a nod if we happen to meet.”
“Oh, Choon, you must be feeling terrible. How can Brother-in-law be so callous?” Kim Neo’s usually soft voice deserted her.
“It’s only a small thing to him. Tuck Heng is too busy with arrangements for the funeral.”
Tears burned her eyes as she said it. She brushed them off, annoyed that such a small thing could affect her so.
“All the aunts and uncles have been talking about nothing else but the grand show your husband is putting up. Boon Leong says he wants to show how important he is in the Chinese community.”
By the second night of the wake, her house was so crowded she had to step over several sleeping bodies to get to her bedroom where her daughters slept huddled under the mosquito net. At the foot of the bed lay the children from Ipoh. Choon Neo took a good look at the two sleeping boys. She did not doubt that her husband had fathered other sons elsewhere. He was that kind of Chinaman, she thought bitterly. If only her own father had been rich enough to match her with Boon Leong. Her cousin’s elegance and forbearance had made her husband seem all the more vulgar in her eyes.
With an angry shove, she pushed open the shutters. The heat was killing. Her clothes were soaked. She went out to look for Kok Seng, but her son seemed to have disappeared into the company of the gamblers under the tent erected in the garden. Guests and mourners alike were taking the opportunity to play mahjong and card games till the wee hours of the morning, all in the name of keeping the dead company.
And the deceased, lying in her grand coffin of teakwood, was never in want of company. Relays of grey-robed priests chanted prayers every night. During these rituals, the Cantonese women from Ipoh were loud and domineering. They took over everything from the keening for the dead to the cooking for the living. When they were not wailing, they were sitting around the coffin, folding incense paper and trading stories about Wong-ma. By the third night of the wake, they had shaped a story that took the town by storm and fired the imagination of all who heard it. Within a day or so, even the rickshaw riders who ferried visitors to the wake were retelling the story in the marketplaces.
According to the story, Tuck Heng was the heroic filial son who’d brought his downtrodden mother back to Penang to reclaim what she had lost to a highborn Nonya. Every downtrodden China-born wife who had arrived in Malaya only to discover that her husband had already married a local woman could identify with Wong-ma’s story and sang praises of the filial son who was reinstating her. The women had stories of their own to tell too and in their retelling of Wong-ma’s story, they added their experiences. Before long, Wong-ma’s story reached epic proportions in the marketplaces, coffee shops and teahouses where the town’s gossips congregated. Friends and relatives of Siok Ching, Boon Leong and his brothers hit out against the storytellers and added their side to the tale. Not to be outdone, Tuck Heng’s supporters in the White Crane added the story of how this humble son of a poet, beheaded for his dissident views against the Manchus in China, had escaped death, had come to Malaya and risen steadily from poor coolie to impoverished clerk in a shop of the wealthy Wees, to become at last the Kapitan China of Ipoh.
“Wah! Good! Good!”
It was the stuff of every immigrant’s dream. The whiff of success in the opium dens and the hope which drove the rickshaw coolie to ply his fare day and night, in rain or shine.
Crowds started to converge upon Choon Neo’s bungalow daily to catch a glimpse of Tuck Heng. They gawped at the rows of wreaths and banners lining both sides of the road from end to end. These were lavishly embroidered with Chinese characters in praise of the deceased and offering condolences to her famous son.
Such expressions of support from the clans and societies were not lost on Boon Leong who came to the wake every night with his brothers and their families. Braving the stares and whispers of the Cantonese crowd, they took their places beside the coffin for the ritual keening. On the first night, Boon Leong and his brothers apologised for their mother’s absence. Siok Ching had taken ill and had to stay in bed on doctor’s orders.
“How very convenient,” the gossips hissed.
Choon Neo glanced at Boon Leong and wondered if he noticed the knowing sneers, but he appeared oblivious. Even Tuck Heng’s triumphant smirk seemed to have gone unnoticed.
She was glad that Boon Leong held his head high. He knelt when Tuck Heng knelt and kowtowed when Tuck Heng kowtowed. He and his brothers did everything filial sons would do during the rituals except hold joss sticks.
“They’re Christians,” she told Tuck Heng, but he wasn’t impressed.
Her uncles and aunts and relatives of the Wees and Ongs also came to the wake out of courtesy to Boon Leong and his brothers. But they were appalled by the loudness and pushiness of the rich Chinamen and their wives.
“So loud and so blunt, most uncalled for!” Uncle Wee Thiam muttered under his breath. “And they cut you off before you’ve finished talking.”
“Just a while ago, I was trying to help two of them decide how we’re going to arrange ourselves for the funeral procession tomorrow. But then this ... this Big Dog fellow was so loud. Good gracious! He shouted into my face! So I quickly got out of there,” her aunt complained to Choon Neo.
She patted her aunt’s hand and made sympathetic clucking noises. She was grateful for their presence. It helped to ease her sense of isolation among the Cantonese women. At least there was someone to talk to in between the prayers and rituals. Otherwise she would have nothing to do for the Cantonese women had taken over everything. They were doing things according to the Sum Hor customs she knew nothing about. She was an outsider.
“There’s no order in their ways. Everything so slapdash! Just look at their food,” she whispered to her aunt.
She shuddered at the sight of their steamed pork buns, far too big for one to bite into without making a mess! And the platters of fried noodles had huge pieces of pork and chicken floating in thick brown gravy. The vegetables they served were not sliced but broken off so that the rough edges of the stalks were still there. How they could’ve served visitors such rough and ready fare was beyond her comprehension. We Nonyas, she thought, would have sliced the pork into thin slivers, shredded the chicken and served the fried noodles garnished with finely chopped spring onions, thinly sliced chillies, a sprinkling of fried onions and a dash of pepper. If a woman’s cooking reflected her degree of refinement, these Cantonese women had none at all.
The day of the funeral began as a sweltering morning with a clear cloudless sky. By noon the mourners were soaked and their clothes clung to their bodies. The coolies tied white towels round their heads to prevent beads of sweat from getting into their eyes. The family mourners took their places behind the hearse, thickly clothed in sackcloth that made the heat all the more unbearable. So it was a great relief to all when the sky suddenly darkened and the tropical storm, which had been building up all morning, broke over their heads. The squall, short and sudden, drenched everything.
“Not a very good sign,” a banner bearer muttered under the weight of his soaked banner.
The first hint of trouble came when news reached the family that Siok Ching had tripped and fallen down the stairs. She had hit her head and was unconscious. Boon Pin and Boon Haw left the procession at once to attend to their mother. Their action was loudly condemned by the Cantonese women although Boon Leong was staying on for the funeral procession through the town.
Then, while the mourners were still talking about the shocking news of Siok Ching’s fall, a fight broke out among the Chinese bands. They had been arguing over who should lead the procession.
When it looked as if the fight might get out of control, Boon Leong sent a messenger to the chief of police. He was taking no chances. Not with hundreds of coolies, rickshaw pullers and members of tongs, secret societies, taking part in the funeral procession.
“I don’t want a riot in town. I’ve a duty to protect you, the children and all our relatives,” Boon Leong explained.
A riot squad of Malay policemen arrived, armed with rattan shields and truncheons. Several band members were hauled away. That quietened the bands, but the onlookers were shocked. So were the clan and kongsi elders. They felt Tuck Heng had lost face. Doubts had been cast on his ability to control his clan members.
“What bad luck! Very unfortunate,” people started whispering.
The presence of the riot squad at the funeral had befouled the air. The British authorities had never disrupted a Chinese funeral before.
“Betrayer! Running dog!” Tuck Heng spat.
Choon Neo said nothing. The next day, news came that Siok Ching had passed away. Boon Leong and his brothers immediately took off their mourning clothes to don fresh ones for their own mother. Tuck Heng, his wives and their children were forbidden by Sum Hor custom to take off theirs, and because they were already in mourning, they couldn’t attend Siok Ching’s funeral. It was just as well because Boon Leong announced that his mother had died a Christian, having been baptised by an Anglican priest just before she died. Instead of being buried in the Chinese cemetery next to Tai-kor Wong and Wong-ma, Siok Ching was buried in the Christian cemetery of the Anglican Church.
“Very clever, her sons! Like this, their mother won’t lose face!” Lee-soh sniffed.
“It goes to show that our Wong-ma has won. She’s finally with Tai-kor Wong in death,” Aunt Loh said.
But one week later, when they were having breakfast, the amah came running into the dining-room.
“Towkay! Many policemen at the door.”
“Find out what they want. We’re eating.”
Minutes later the servant returned, looking very worried.
“Towkay, they want to search the house.”
“What?” Tuck Heng stood up. “Do they know who I am?” he yelled. “I’ll go and see what these running dogs want!”
The police party was headed by an English inspector. A young Chinese interpreter asked in Hokkien, “Are you or are you not Mr Wong Tuck Heng?”
He was seething with rage and refused to answer the running dog who was a Straits-born Baba. He looked the young man up and down, disdain burning in his eyes. Seeing this, the English inspector asked, “Are you Mr Wong Tuck Heng?”
He gave a sullen nod. The inspector took a letter out of his pocket. The young man stepped forward and translated into Hokkien what the inspector read out.
“The authorities are in possession of information which allege that you, Wong Tuck Heng, are involved in the illegal trafficking of opium and women and in the operation of opium dens and brothels. It is also alleged that as the head of a secret society, you have harassed the Malay natives and you are illegally involved in the buying and selling of native land. We are duly authorised to conduct a search of your premises and to remove any evidence found therein.”
“Let lightning strike dead that running dog! He’s still mourning for his mother and yet he’s doing this to me! May the Thunder God strike him dead!”
“Tuck Heng Kor, how do you know it’s Boon Leong? Do you have proof? Maybe it’s ...!”
“Bitch!” He slapped her across the face before she could finish.
“Don’t think I’m blind! Half your heart’s given to him.”
That night he left Penang, taking Lai Fong and her children with him.