He slipped out of the house for a breath of fresh air. The moon had risen and the garden with its ornamental carp pond was bathed in a cool silvery light. Fragrance of jasmine wafted by, awakening childhood memories of pontianaks—Malay ghosts which announced their presence with sweet floral fragrances, beautiful sirens which haunted the cemetery and other dark lonely places at night.
A sudden plaintive cry rose from the bush. He waited for an answer from the shadows beyond, but the night remained silent after that lone birdcall. A warm breeze brought the fragrance of jasmine which seemed to grow stronger the longer he lingered in the garden. Cautious, and perhaps superstitious about this midnight fragrance and the spirits associated with it, he retraced his steps back to the house.
From the window of his study, Tuck Heng watched this stranger of his flesh cut across the moonlit path and enter the house by a side door. He made no attempt to call after him although he would’ve liked to speak with his half-foreign son about tonight’s dinner. He moved away from the window.
A gulf, wide as the Kinta River, yawned before him each time he felt the impulse to talk to this son. He listened to Kok Seng’s footsteps fade down the hallway.
The traitor had Seng in his clutches now. The blackguard who branded him troublemaker and undesirable. How could he make Kok Seng see what Boon Leong had done? How could he teach him love of nation and homeland? He’d left Seng’s education to his mother. A very grave mistake. The boy had grown into a man who upheld the English flag and English law. Not Chinese.
“Father, forgive me! Kiong is your only grandson who loves China the way you did.”
This was plain to him now. Sooner or later, Seng would follow his uncle’s footsteps—go to England, study English law and English ways and become a running dog lawyer. He slumped into his armchair.
What a burden a man’s son is to him! Kok Seng means “Nation’s Success”. But China will never be Seng’s nation. He sighed and thanked the gods for Kok Kiong—Nation’s Strength. In him, China had gained a son. He lit a cigar, savouring the spicy fragrance of the Javanese cheroot.
Too restless to sleep, he smoked deep into the night. When your horse dies, get down and walk. Great Master Mencius once wrote, “When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a man, it first tests his resolution, wears out his bones and sinews and frustrates his efforts in order to stimulate his mind and toughen his will. For only when a man falls can he rise anew.” Hadn’t he risen anew?
Was he not one of the richest men in Ipoh? Hadn’t he opened more tin mines in the Kinta Valley than any Englishman and planted more acres of rubber, coconut and sugarcane than any other elder in the White Crane? Then why was he so full of fears? Fear that these would slip from his grasp. Fear that the English authorities would take his land and give it back to the Malays.
He snuffed out his cigar irritably. Would the English with one sweep of their pen take away what he’d worked so hard to gain?