“Ah Mei! How’s your old man?”
“Still the same. No better.”
“Ah Loy-soh, where’s she?”
“Don’t know.”
“She has gone out to her vegetable patch. To bring back a pumpkin for you to boil with the herbs.”
“Where’s Big Mole this morning?”
“Gone to the vegetable patch with Ah Loy-soh. Said her yams are ready for harvesting.”
“Harvesting? Listen, my toes are laughing. Her yams are the size of my fingers.”
The air was filled with the laughter of the Hakka women making their way to the river.
The heroes of the White Crane slithered like shadows in the undergrowth of the jungle. Only their dark eyes peered above the cloth that covered their faces. They were dressed like Malay peasants, in loose black tunics and long black cotton pants, with sarongs slung across their shoulders. Some had strips of cloth tied round their heads, while others wore kerchiefs to hide their long queues. Crouched in the thicket of bush and lallang, they were animal-like, alert and malevolent, waiting to pounce upon their prey. They had come upstream under the cover of darkness and had left their boats some distance away to avoid detection. Then they had made their way inland before doubling back in the early hours of the morning when the Hakka men had left for the mines.
All through the night, Tuck Heng had kept close on the heels of these White Cranes who seemed to know their way in the mysterious darkness of the jungle. He alone could not see beyond the dark. It was as if a thick blanket of shadows had engulfed him. He felt lost and afraid. Shapes were indistinguishable. He could not make out whether a shadow before him was a rock or a man. And so he had stumbled, guided only by the hisses and whispers of those in front of him. His ears picked up their sibilant noises, and his feet trod gingerly over unfamiliar ground. It was a relief when he finally found himself crouched among the rest of them, behind some bushes not far from the riverbank. His head, covered by a kerchief, was damp with dew and sweat. He felt extremely uncomfortable in his Malay attire. The sarong, slung across his shoulders, was a strange garment to him. A piece of cloth with the two ends joined together. He wondered how a man could wear that and be comfortable enough to move about.
As a vague greyness descended upon the river, he saw that Lee Peng Yam was crouched not far from him. The man had ordered them not to speak, not to kill, but they could do what they wanted with the Hakka women.
The sun was rising behind the trees, its light touching the tips of the coconut palms. The air was cool and still. All round him, the predators were taut with waiting. He could hear his own heart pounding as the sounds of the women’s chatter and laughter drifted towards them. He felt the sudden rush of blood into his head when they came within sight. The masked warriors around him tensed, their bodies taut upon the approach of their prey. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. All of a sudden, Peng Yam’s whistle pierced the air.
His heroes rushed out of the bushes in one body and pounced upon their helpless prey. Rough hands dragged them into the bushes, gripped the women’s throats and stifled their screams. A rush of feathers took to the air. Jungle fowl screeched as the sun and earth spun in turmoil. The world was boiling over in wicked passion. Bushes shook and swayed. Lallang was slashed, their sharp green blades flaying the bodies of their victims. Their clothes were ripped off. One victim let out a shriek, but she was swiftly silenced. Then as the woman slumped to the ground, the hero dropped his pants and took her as she lay there. Tuck Heng turned away. All round him, grass and bush shook and trembled as the White Crane heroes executed their orders, two or three men taking their turn with one woman.
He grabbed a handful of mud and leaves and stuffed them into the mouth gaping beneath him. His own eyes, frantic with fear, looked to the trees, the sky, and then directly at the sun which mercifully blinded him with its light. He fought his impulse to run. Clenching his teeth, he held down the writhing, thrashing body under him. His eyes shut tight, but he couldn’t shut out the grunts of hogs on heat. He couldn’t do it! Ma! His heart wailed for his mother. Like a lost and bewildered waif, he stumbled through the lallang, heading for the safety of the shadows. Still the grunts pursued him. He dived and buried his head under a mound of leaves, panting, his body shaking like an addict deprived of his opium.
He woke up to a throbbing headache the next morning. A feeling of utter desolation swept through him. He wished he were dead. He could not bear to think of what he had become. Not man enough to do it. Not man enough to deny it. And to prove that he was a man, he had turned to drink. Bowl after bowl of the samsu he quaffed like the rest of the miners. Never had he drunk such heady stuff before. Egged on by the men, who were drunk with the hollow victory of their despicable mission, he had consumed far more of the rice wine than was good for his belly. Not because he had liked it, but because he was a coward. With each roar of “yam seng!” he had downed a bowl of rice wine to still the fear that someone might unmask him. He had failed Lee Peng Yam’s test.
He groaned and felt himself at sea again, floundering and rolling with the motion of the waves. His head ached. He lay still, not daring to move in case he threw up. Keeping his eyes closed, he stretched out his leg. The cool hardness of his father’s metal box steadied him and gave him comfort. It was still beneath his blanket where he had left it. If someone had asked him for it last night, he would have gladly handed it over if that could have saved him from shame.
He could remember little else of the night before. The wine must have knocked him out cold. How he got into bed and who helped him, he had not the slightest idea. To be dead to the world in drunken stupor was not something he liked. Two years of evading the Manchu dogs should have taught him that that was the way to death. With a feeling close to despair, he realised that this was yet another failure since his arrival in the new land.
His future appeared bleak. He, a poet’s son, had descended to the level of vermin. He lived with vermin, ate with vermin and slept with vermin—a hundred of them cramped into a cowshed built to house only forty. Powerful vermin had bunks along the walls of the sheds, where cracks in the wooden partitions let in fresh air. Powerless vermin slept in the middle of the windowless shed, the warmest part of the room with the greatest number of bunks pushed close to one another. On every side, vermin bodies pressed against him. He could not stretch out his limb without touching another’s. Most of the time, he slept huddled on his side, legs drawn together against his chest. Like an opium smoker, he thought.
He had to rise above this vermin level of existence. O gods of my father and mother, help me, he prayed. He lay still and thought for a long while. Before he could leave them, he had to live like them, be one of them. And in this strange new world, if he was not with the White Cranes, where could he be? How might it profit him to leave these vermin? He was vermin like them. He groaned.
Feelings rather than thoughts assailed his sickened heart. He was lonely and anxious. His need to be accepted by his fellow clansmen was far stronger than anything he had learned at his mother’s knee. “Be honest. Be upright. Be filial,” his mother had taught him. “An uncut jade will not a jewel make; an unethical act will not a righteous man create,” his father had drilled into him. But where are his father and mother now?
Tears rolled down his cheeks. He lay with his eyes closed, waiting for his head to stop throbbing. When he opened them, there was a blankness in his gaze. A grey light was creeping into the shed. All round him, men slept, curled like prawns pressed together. He dared not move lest he should wake his neighbours. Below his bunk, others were stirring. He shivered a little in the chill air of a wet grey dawn. The coolie next to him stirred, yawned and scratched his armpits. Soon lusty yawns, loud as the bellows of an elephant, filled the shed as coolies in the top and bottom bunks woke up.
He got up too and coiled his queue round his head. Then he slid to the edge of his bunk.
“Pig head! Watch where you put your stinking feet!”
He peered down. It was the wiry man in his work gang. He had taken over the bunk below him, vacated by a miner who had died from opium poisoning the day before.
“So sorry, Uncle. Good morning, Uncle.”
“He thinks he can get away with things just because he addresses me as Uncle. Bah! That’s what all newcomers do. Scrape and kiss your butt. Then before you know it, he’s standing on your head,” the wiry man ranted to the empty air.
Tuck Heng tied a towel round his head to stop the throbbing at his temples.
“Very sorry, Uncle. If I have offended you, I didn’t mean it. I’ve never drunk samsu before.”
“Don’t ever touch that evil drink again! Your uncle here had to lug your dead body back and put you to bed!”
“So you’re the kind soul! Thank you, Uncle!”
He jumped down from his bunk and bowed.
“Are you trying to kill me with good manners? Call me Old Stick. Ready for the fire! Of no use to anyone!”
“Shut up, loud mouth!” a miner on the top bunk yelled.
“Ugh!” Old Stick coughed and wheezed like a tubercular patient and spat out a thick gob, which he promptly stamped on and rubbed into the floor of bare earth. All the coolies believed that phlegm accumulated in the lungs during the night would endanger their health and block their vital breath. They coughed and cleared their lungs lustily each morning with a vehemence close to religious fanaticism, in the mistaken notion that such a daily performance would lessen their aches and pains.
“Uncle Old Stick, you need a ginger drink to heat up your lungs.”
“You’re the son of Sum Hor’s doctor. Pasted his poem on the village wall, didn’t he? That cost him his head. The Manchus were crazy. What’s a few words? So you know what’s heaty and what’s cooling, eh?”
Old Stick’s mood seemed to have changed for the better after his coughing fit. He followed Tuck Heng out of the shed, and they went down a muddy path to the outhouses and wash area.
“Not much, Uncle. But enough to stop my headache.”
“So the Hakka hens gave you a headache! How many of them did you take?”
Tuck Heng felt the hot rush of blood into his face and made no reply.
“Must be your first time!” Old Stick cackled. “A young cock!”
Several coolies, washing their faces at the water jars, guffawed and hooted.
“We had our fill, scholar boy! Did you?”
Tuck Heng made no reply.
“Quawk! Quawk! Quawk! What a shy young cock!” a miner with a foxlike face and sly eyes remarked in a loud voice to his companions.
“Quawk! Quawk! Quawk! Shy young cock!” they echoed.
Encouraged, the fox-faced miner continued to taunt Tuck Heng about his sexual ignorance, lack of prowess and even the size of his manhood. Words and phrases he had never heard before made his ears burn with shame. The ribaldry of the men unnerved him. The eyes of the young coolies mocked him. Through their eyes, he saw that he was a foppish, priggish rich man’s son who had come down in the world. He was crawling like the rest of the vermin, except that he was stupidly denying it, even to himself. Their derision rang in his ears. Hot tears rushed into his eyes and brought on more hoots and howls. But they were nothing compared to the whoops of that sharp-faced fox.
The fox was doing a song and dance around him, and before he knew it, his fist had shot out and the fox was yelping in pain, hand cupped over a bleeding nose. Then a hard kick in his belly sent him flying across the yard. He hit his head against a water jar. But he picked himself up immediately and fell upon his attacker. The two of them wrestled to the ground. The fox’s friends joined in the scuffle, and several blows rained on him before he broke free and let out a kick which left one of his attackers sprawled on the muddy ground.
“Good, ah! Good, ah!” the other miners shouted.
By now the wash area was full of coolies waiting to use the latrines. The fight was a great entertainment for them. Several others joined in the fray. Old Stick tried to stop the fight, and when he could not, he hauled up a bucket of water from the well and flung its icy contents on the fighting dogs.
“Do you want to die? These are Lee Peng Yam’s men.”
“But I’m his man too! Didn’t I go with him to the Hakka village?” Tuck Heng protested.
“But who’s served him longer? Who’s got more friends? Fool!” Old Stick pulled him away from the wash area. “Move! Don’t look back. And don’t return the stares, or they’ll fight you again.”
“I can take care of myself, Uncle Old Stick.”
“That you can, scholar boy! Didn’t you just give those curs a beating? Best fight I’ve seen in years!”
It was no use trying to explain to Old Stick that he was not a scholar, just a boy who could read and write a little. It was just as useless to try and explain why he did not and could not rape a woman. None of the coolies would understand. They would simply reject him, and Lee Peng Yam would kick him out of the White Crane. He was so sick thinking about this that he did not catch what Old Stick was saying at first.
“What?”
Old Stick hitched up his cotton pants, which had slipped, and retied them round his thin waist with a bit of cord. On his face was a wide grin, and the lights in his eyes were dancing with glee. His teeth, blackened by years of opium and a poor diet, were in a state of rot.
“Now that you’ve proved yourself to the young bulls in the White Cranes, the big man is going to make you a White Crane warrior.”
“Aren’t all of us warriors?”
“All of us are water buffaloes. The warriors are defenders. They get higher rank, better food and a better sleeping place. I was a warrior once.”
He was so relieved by what he had heard that his face must have been an open book to Old Stick, for the latter immediately cautioned him.
“Don’t look so happy yet. They’ll work you hard. Then when they’re finished with you, they’ll cast you aside. In my day, I’ve done enough bad things to be sent to the Eighteenth Level of Hell. Those horse-headed guards will throw me into a cauldron of oil and deep-fry me. The gods know how many times I’ve tried to repent. To pray that I may go home one day to see my son. He’s about your age. Maybe you know him. His name is Kum Loong. He was born in the Year of the Dragon.”
Old Stick’s eyes searched his face eagerly. But he shook his head, and Old Stick, disappointed, continued, “If I live to see my son—he was born after I left Sum Hor so I’ve never seen him—but if I live to see him, I will fall on the ground and kowtow to the gods till my head cracks! And I’ll slaughter ten pigs to thank them.”
Old Stick fell into another fit of coughing and wheezing.
“I’ll make you a herbal brew tonight. It’ll ease your cough, Uncle.”
“You’re full of fire in the belly. Are you a dragon like my son?”
“I was born in the Year of the Goat.”
“They say a goat is smart up here.” Old Stick tapped his head. “One look at your face, I can tell you’ll go far. But don’t rush. Learn all you can about this dunghole.” He waved his hand impatiently at the thatched huts of the settlement.
“We are all from Sum Hor, all relatives. But this village is no different from the world. Big fish will eat small fish. Remember, not everyone you call Uncle is your friend. We see a man’s mouth and a man’s face, but we can’t see into his heart.”
Old Stick sighed and shook his head. They had left the huts behind them and were walking towards the riverbank.
“When I was a young man, I thought, a few years in Nanyang, and then I’ll be home! I’ll be rich, and I’ll repair my hut in Sum Hor and be a farmer again. That dream vanished in opium smoke!”
They had reached the riverbank and were heading towards the jetty. A large riverboat and several small sampans were tied to its posts.
“Whose boat is that?”
“The rich trader from Penang. Since Tai-kor Wong and Ah Fook are not here, our young master, Lee Peng Yam, is trading with them and lining his pockets.”
“Tai-kor Wong has gone downriver to pay his respects to the Malay emperor. They say he goes there three or four times a year.”
“Who told you that?”
“I overheard some people talking.”
“What do they know?” Old Stick scoffed. “Number one, there’s no Malay emperor. Tai-kor Wong has gone to pay respects to the Datuk of Bandong. Number two, he does not pay respects three or four times a year. Only once. With money. The other times he goes to Penang to pay respects to his father-in-law, Baba Wee, the richest towkay on the whole island. Our Tai-kor Wong married Baba Wee’s fifth daughter, and because his second wife is from a rich and powerful family, she is now Tai-kor Wong’s first wife. Wong-soh can’t say a word because she’s childless.”
“She must be very sad.”
“It’s her fate.”
Old Stick coughed again, a deep racking opium smoker’s cough which made him retch. He clung to the jetty’s wooden post for support. Then he straightened up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he spoke again, his eyes had a faraway look.
“Umbrellas have different handles, people have different fates.” He sighed. “Tai-kor Wong was once poor and hungry like me. Now he’s rich, and I’m still poor. Like you, he’s got a honeyed mouth and a fast tongue. After a few years in this dunghole, he learned to speak like the Babas and the foreign devils. And ended up working for Baba Wee. That made his fortune.”
His coughing started again. His whole body shivered as though he was freezing. He retched as each spasm coursed through him. Weak and exhausted, he made a sign that Tuck Heng should leave him.
Tuck Heng pitied the thin figure with his singlet so worn out that it was futile mending it. Through its tears, he could see that Old Stick was just skin and bones. An opium addict’s body, he thought.
He walked to the end of the jetty. His eyes travelled across the brown placid water of the Bandong River to the dense green wall on the opposite bank. There was no sign that a woman had drowned here. No sign that the beastly lords of the river had devoured her. No sign that a mob had raped and killed women on its banks. The river looked the same as when he had sailed on it a thousand years ago. Nothing had changed. Nothing. And yet, for him everything had changed.