“Hold the lamp higher, lah!” Omar whispered.
A branch snapped underfoot. Kok Seng froze. Mr Chelvalingam almost fell against him.
“Sorry, sir!”
“It’s all right, old chap, just carry on.”
Outside the pool of light from the hurricane lamp, everything was dark and still. Omar was leading them to a place where the wild rambutan trees, ripe with fruit, were said to be attracting flying foxes. Bound to be plenty of them, he had promised Mr Chelvalingam.
“Nearly there, sir. Higher, lah, Seng.”
Kok Seng held the lamp higher.
“Now look out for clusters of red eyes,” Mr Chelvalingam whispered into his ear. “Up there in the trees. Can you see them?”
“Er, yes, yes, I can see them now.”
He hung his lamp on a high branch. More red eyes among the trees. Those fruit bats were everywhere!
“Shoot when I give the word.”
He had no great love for shooting, unlike Omar who had won several awards in school for marksmanship. But a gentleman ought to know something about shooting and hunting, Uncle Boon Leong had advised him. On the wall of his uncle’s study were several trophies, the largest of which was a wild buffalo’s head his uncle had shot during a hunt with the lieutenant governor of Penang.
“Seng? Ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
They raised their double-barrelled guns and took aim at the myriads of tiny red eyes gleaming among the masses of shadows. The blast shattered the jungle which broke into frightened twitterings. Dark things scuttled underfoot. Shadows shook the branches above them. The red eyes scattered and reassembled to their left. They took aim and fired again. The red eyes flew to their right and they shot again!
“Right, fellas, I’m sure we’ve enough meat for the curry Mrs Chelvalingam promised to cook for us.”
They lit two more lamps and searched the undergrowth for their fallen prey. A family of gibbons in the treetops called out to one another in piercing melancholic cries as they retreated from the light of the lamps.
They each had a sackful when they emerged from the jungle into a clearing of lallang that reached up to their shoulders. Bathed in bright moonlight, nothing seemed more beautiful and serene than this lake of wild grass as a night breeze sent ripples through it. The three of them plunged in, forcing their way through swathes of sharp blades that cut the skin where it was unprotected. Two hours later, they were back in town.
“Hello! Hello! Back from the hunt and laden with meat!”
Mr George Nambiar came out to meet them. He was the Chelvalingams’ other house guest. A highly respected lawyer from Madras who had read law in Oxford, he was in Taiping for a few days to address the Indian Association.
“Mary, you’ll have to cook us flying fox curry tomorrow!” Mr Chelvalingam called out to his wife.
“I’ve never eaten flying fox curry before.”
“But Seng, you Chinese cook it as a soup and drink it as an aphrodisiac.”
“The curry is delicious and just as efficacious! Is that the right word, sir?”
“That’s the right word. Always learning new English words, that’s our Omar. You’ll make a fine magistrate some day.”
“Thank you, sir. But right now, I’m just a humble junior clerk.”
“So you’re in the Malayan Civil Service?”
“No, no, Mr Nambiar. We Malays join the Malay Administrative Service.”
“Just like in India, one service for the white men, another for the natives. And the more highly educated we natives are, the more insecure the white men become.” Mr Nambiar cocked his head and, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial low, he added, “They want to keep us down at the lower rungs. They believe, and they’re right, of course, that educated Indians are discontented Indians! But what they’re really afraid of are thinking Indians.”
“Oh, George, do let the poor boys sit down for a cup of coffee and some supper before you start lecturing them about Indian politics!”
Kok Seng was relieved. He was famished. Mary Chelvalingam bustled in with plates of roti prata, curry and a large pot of steaming coffee. Dressed in a long skirt and long-sleeved cotton blouse, her ample girth and cheerful voice exuded warmth and good humour. Kok Seng liked her. She was a Sunday schoolteacher and the choir mistress of Taiping’s Tamil Methodist Church. Like her husband, she’d been educated in English mission schools in Ceylon where her grandfather and father were barristers. When she was eighteen, she had married John Chelvalingam and settled in Penang where he taught history and geography till his retirement. They had six children, two boys and four girls.
“All married and settled in various parts of Malaya,” she said. “John’s a lawyer in Kuala Lumpur and Paul’s a pastor in Kulim. Our third daughter, Sarah, has married the pastor of the Anglican Church in Singapore.”
“See, boys, where education can lead you? To the church.”
“Oh George, do be serious!”
“I’m serious, Mary.” George laughed. “Ignorance is always a barrier to advancement. Schools in the great British Empire train us to carry out orders, not question them. Did they teach you that in Penang Free School?” George Nambiar turned to him and Omar.
“Now George, my young friends have had a long day. They’re ready to retire.” Mr Chelvalingam laughed and gave them a wink.
“Don’t worry, John. I’m just sharing some views with my new friends here. What’re you doing, boys?”
“Omar is working and I’m waiting to go to Oxford.”
“There you are! Omar is already a government clerk and Seng will be a lawyer like me! What harm will it do them to know the underside of colonial rule? Sooner or later they’ll find out anyway.”
“Oh no, sir! I’ve got to study first.”
“And so you will. But first, you’ve got to know certain things, views that John wasn’t allowed to utter in your history class when he was your teacher. In English schools, the Empire comes first, not the truth.” George Nambiar chuckled.
Kok Seng was wide awake now and had little desire to retire.
“What’s this truth, sir?” he asked.
“Like the truth about what the British did to your people in China.” George Nambiar looked at him, expecting him to say something. “Young man, the British forced the Chinese emperor to admit opium into your country! And China was only allowed to impose a two per cent tax or some such trumpery! A crying shame and a disgrace if you ask me! Don’t you agree?”
He nodded as undoubtedly this was the only response expected of him, for George Nambiar was speaking as if he was in the pulpit. His moustache quivered and his dark eyes rolled upwards as he denounced Britain as a nation of wicked men.
“When a nation forces such an evil drug upon another nation, it is a blot upon its name and history. A great blot upon the English name, I say!”
Kok Seng glanced at Omar and was comforted that his friend appeared just as astonished as himself. In all their school years, they’d never heard anyone make such a scathing attack on the English. Their years in Penang Free School had taught them to admire the English for their sense of honour, gentlemanly conduct and sportsmanship. That Britain could have behaved so dishonourably towards another nation was something that had never occurred to him, and glancing at Omar, he didn’t think Omar could’ve thought about it any differently.
“Don’t be surprised by what he says.” Mr Chelvalingam chuckled. “George is a member of the Indian National Congress.”
The name meant nothing to him. Mr Nambiar told them that as early as the nineteenth century, English-educated Indians were already questioning the presence of the British on Indian soil. Omar’s eyes lit up and he asked many questions about the Indian National Congress.
“George made quite a stir in Penang when he spoke against Mr Roberts last year,” Mr Chelvalingam told them.
“Mr Peter Roberts, our headmaster?”
“Yes, the very same Peter Roberts who wrote in the Penang Chronicle that there was no unity among Indians in India. His conclusion was obviously based on his two years of teaching in Madras. I couldn’t contain myself after reading his letter. I wrote to the Editor to let the English public know that all Indians supported the Bengalis against the lieutenant governor who forbade them to sing their national anthem, Bande Mataram, or ‘Hail Mother Country’. The lieutenant governor’s action is contrary to all established principles of British law and equity. The Penang Chronicle printed my letter in full the next day. You should’ve printed it in your newsletter, John.”
“Sorry, George. I really don’t want our church to be caught up with politics in the Indian subcontinent. Our members are all in government service. And believe me,” Mr Chelvalingam lowered his voice, “the government does monitor our actions. There’s such a thing as the Malayan Political Intelligence Bureau here.”
It was the first time he was hearing such talk, and the more he listened, the more confused he became. He listened quietly as Omar asked George many questions.
“India belongs to Indians, China to Chinese. So Malaya belongs to Malays,” Omar muttered.
“But things have changed, Omar. This country is under the British. We’re all British subjects now,” Mr Chelvalingam corrected him. “Seng, are you a British subject?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not a Chinese subject?” Mr Nambiar was surprised.
“No, I’m born under the British flag in this country. I’m a Straits-born Chinese. Not China-born but Malayan-born!” he rattled off the words and phrases that seemed to have come from somewhere inside his head, somewhere he’d never known existed.
“Malayan-born Chinese? A new hybrid! Born of China’s poverty and Malayan tropical fecundity! Let’s drink to that!” the effusive Mr Nambiar proposed and everyone including Omar raised their coffee cups and toasted the new hybrids, Malayan-Chinese and Malayan-Indian.
“Who knows, eh? One day these names will be accepted in this country! Right, Omar?” Mr Nambiar pressed him.
But Omar’s smile gave nothing away.
The next day, they left Taiping and took the train to Bandong and Ipoh. He shielded his eyes from the sunlight streaming in through the train’s open window. The noise, the heat and the swaying of the carriage had lulled him and Omar into a lethargic silence. He felt uneasy. Perhaps he was being overly sensitive, but it seemed to him that the nearer to Bandong the train chugged, the less inclined for talk he and Omar became. They were friends, he and Omar. Had been so since they were a pair of gangly fifteen-year-olds. What held them together in school was hockey, especially during the year before the Senior Cambridge Examinations when they’d captained the hockey team to great success under the guidance of “Chelvie”, their affectionate nickname for Mr Chelvalingam. Life was less worrisome then. School was where no one talked about politics and no one was worried about how he fitted into society. The nearest thing to a political act he remembered doing was cutting off his queue when he was in St Xavier’s, a year before Uncle Boon Leong had him transferred to Penang Free School. He’d wanted to be known as a Baba boy and not a Cheena geh, a China-born bumpkin with a pigtail. He looked round the carriage. He was the only Chinese without a queue.
Omar was dozing beside him. Their third-class carriage was hot and crowded. The women, talking at the top of their voices, had plonked themselves in the middle of the aisle with their baskets and crawling babies. He regretted his decision to travel third class. But Omar could not afford a first-class train ticket. No Malay could unless he was a member of royalty. Even wealthy Chinese would hesitate to travel first class on trains. Only the English-speaking Babas were at ease in a train carriage full of Englishmen. Besides, the English had once considered barring Asians from travelling first-class on the trains. But a strong protest from the Straits-born Chinese had stopped it. Boon Leong, president of the Chinese British Association, had sent a sternly worded letter to the governor about justice, equality and the King’s Chinese.
The train stopped at a small station. More passengers swarmed into the carriage like a flock of quarrelsome mynahs. Those who couldn’t get in were thrusting bags and baskets through the windows into the arms and faces of the people inside. Others shoved and pushed their luggage between the seats to stake out a space on the floor where they made themselves comfortable as soon as the train pulled out of the station. Once settled in the aisle, they refused to move and blocked everybody’s way. They took out boxes of food and began to eat. Then they chewed sireh and splattered the space under the seats with red betel juice.
“Omar, wake up! We’re nearly there!”
“I’m awake! I’m awake!” Omar opened his eyes.
“How can you sleep like this?”
“I wasn’t asleep. Just don’t want to see the mess, lah.”
“Look over there. Can you see the green roof of the pagoda?”
“Ya.”
“That’s my father’s new temple.”
“I know, lah! Your father owns the land by the river. It belonged to a Malay family before your father bought it.”
“Lots of Chinese buy land from Malays, what!”
He regretted it the moment he’d said it. He hoped Omar wouldn’t take his words as a boast. He didn’t mean them that way. He thought of saying something more to try and explain himself. But he changed his mind. The less said, the better.
Omar was looking out the window at the passing hills and jungle beyond the River Bandong.
“I grew up here. When I was a boy, this was all jungle. Now ... look.” He pointed to the orange-tiled roofs of the Chinese shop houses coming into view. “You Chinese work very hard to buy and own land. Then you sell. It’s like what you own, you also disown. We Malays are different. We’re part of the land. We can’t disown it and it can’t disown us. Just like the forest cannot disown the trees.”
Their train crossed the Bandong Bridge and more rooftops of Chinese townhouses and shops came into view. Passengers were taking down their bags from the luggage racks above the seats and getting ready to disembark. Omar, who was getting off at Bandong Town, tapped him on the shoulder.
“Good luck in your law studies, Seng.”
“I haven’t told my father about my plans yet.”
“He’ll surely agree. Not easy to get into Oxford. You’re lucky your uncle has connections.”
“I hope you’ll get that government scholarship and join me next year.”
“I hope so too, Insya Allah.”
The train pulled into the station. Omar reached down for his bag under the seat.
“Good luck in your new job. Write to me?”
“Sure, lah! Old friends must keep in touch. And you don’t forget it, Cap!” Omar gave him a sudden jab in the ribs.
“Adoi, you monkey!” He returned the jab, just like in the old days in school after their hockey matches.
“Don’t forget to write.”