“Now’s a good time to learn. Watch me.”
Stengah comes from the Malay word setengah, meaning “half.” Ah Long fetches a block of ice from the cold box in the kitchen, where it’s kept buried in sawdust. Chipping away with an icepick, he fills a tall highball glass.
“Don’t make the ice too small,” he warns. “Otherwise it melts too fast.”
Next, he fills the glass one-third full of a medicinal, tea-colored liquid that he pours out of a square bottle. It has a picture of a man in a tall black hat with white trousers. Johnnie Walker Blended Scotch Whisky reads a label that seems to have been slapped half-heartedly on the bottle.
“Why is the label crooked?” asks Ren.
“It’s not crooked. It’s just like that. Now watch carefully!”
Using the soda siphon, a glass bottle encased in metal wires that Ren has never dared to touch, Ah Long dispenses a stream of sparkling soda water into the frosty glass. The sharp whiff of carbonation makes Ren wrinkle his nose.
“The water and the whisky should be about the same amount.” Ah Long cocks his head, listening. “He’s probably done now. Take it out on the veranda.”
The wide, teak-planked veranda runs the length of the bungalow, shielded from the sun by hanging bamboo chiks. On extremely hot days, Ren wets them with water so that the evaporation will cool the veranda. William sits in a rattan easy chair. He wears a cotton singlet and a sarong, a loose piece of checked cloth sewn into a tube and worn rolled at the waist—Malay clothing that many Europeans have adopted at home, though they’d never dream of appearing like this in public.
Like Ah Long, Ren doesn’t wear shoes in the house and his soft-footed approach is so silent that William doesn’t hear him. He’s sunk in thought, an expression of misery on his face. Ren has never seen his new master display much emotion before and wonders if this is a sign that he’s a truly compassionate doctor. A spark of hope ignites in Ren. Maybe he can ask him about the finger—though Dr. MacFarlane said not to tell anyone.
“Whisky, Tuan,” he says.
William picks it up and drains half of it, making a face.
“May I ask, why do you think it was a tiger-killing?” Ren is so polite, so quiet, that William can’t be irritated with him.
“Leopard is a possibility, but most likely it’s a tiger. We won’t know for certain until the autopsy is performed.”
“Will the tiger come back?”
“Don’t worry.” With an effort, William focuses on the boy. “Man-eaters are rare. Most tigers avoid people—it’s usually old or sick animals that prey on humans.” The ice in his drink clinks as he tilts it.
“Tigers who kill people can be divided into two types: man-killers, who kill once or twice because they’re disturbed or threatened, and man-eaters, who routinely hunt humans as prey. It’s too early to know what kind of animal we’re dealing with here, so we shouldn’t panic.” He speaks deliberately, as though he’s making a case to an invisible audience.
“Will there be a tiger hunt?” Ren asks.
“There are always people who want to go on a tiger hunt. Reynolds and Price at the Club, probably. Idiots who can’t shoot straight to save their lives. The last bounty paid for a tiger around here was seventy-eight dollars.”
Seventy-eight Straits dollars is an enormous sum to Ren, more than he can ever dream of saving. He wonders how William is so knowledgeable and asks him timidly.
“Oh, I was quite mad about tigers when I first got here.” Sinking deeper into his rattan easy chair, William is unusually talkative today. “That’s how I got to know MacFarlane; he had some interesting beliefs.”
Ren decides to be bold. “He believed many things. About spirits and men who could turn into tigers.”
“Ah yes. The famous weretigers of Korinchi.” William gazes through the trees to an invisible destination. “He and I actually went looking for them. Did you know that the Malays are often suspicious of men from Korinchi, because they’re believed to turn into tigers? There was a case in Bentong years ago when a tiger was killing buffaloes. Cage traps were set and baited with stray dogs, but they didn’t catch anything.”
Ren shifts his feet, listening intently. The afternoon shadows are growing long, the green silence broken only by the humming of insects.
“One evening, an old Korinchi peddler was traveling through the jungle when he heard the roar of a tiger behind him. Terrified, he ran until he came across a tiger trap. He crawled in and let the heavy door fall behind him. The tiger prowled round, but unable to open it, went away.
“Early the next morning, a crowd of people heard his shouts for help. The peddler asked them to release him, but they said, ‘The tiger was here last night, and now you are in the tiger trap.’ Paw prints leading towards the cage had been partly obliterated by the crowd. It was impossible to tell whether the beast had gone away, or had entered the trap and turned himself into a man. In desperation, the old man begged them to recognize him as the trader they had known for many years. The villagers, however, were unable to decide whether he was a man, or a monster who, if released, would devour them.”
“So what happened?” asks Ren.
“They put a spear through the side of the trap and killed him.”
William falls silent. Ren, still holding the tray, is filled with questions. “Do you believe that a man can become a tiger?”
William closes his eyes and steeples his fingers. “The conditions for a man to become a tiger seem to contradict each other. He either has to be a saint or an evildoer. In the case of a saint, the tiger is considered keramat and serves as a protective spirit, but evildoers are also reincarnated as tigers as punishment. And let’s not forget the harimau jadian, who aren’t even men, but beasts who wear human skins. They’re all contradictory beliefs, and so I’d classify them as folktales.”
He opens his eyes again. They’re disconcertingly sharp, as though he’s snapped back from wherever it is that he’s gone. “You shouldn’t worry about today’s incident. The last thing we need around here is a superstitious panic. Forget it. God knows,” he adds under his breath, “I wish I could.”
William unpacks himself from the rattan chair and stands up, stumbling slightly. Ren feels profoundly relieved. The tight band of worry around his chest dissipates; he tries not to think that there are only twenty-two days of the soul left. This new doctor is so reasonable, so sane. Everything he says makes sense. Obediently, Ren follows him into the house.
12
Ipoh
Friday, June 12th
Sleep wouldn’t come to me that night. When I thought about the mysterious Y. K. Wong, with his narrow jaw and thin eyes, my head tightened. Who was he, and why had he tried to follow me home? I didn’t buy his story about an ancestral heirloom. That single finger made me uneasy, like a missing piece from a set of five digits. A reminder of unfinished business. On and on my mind ran, like a mouse on a wheel, but the wheel turned into a giant snake that turned to engulf me. And then I was panting, struggling breathlessly as I fell and slipped and slid down the tunnel into the world of dreams.
* * *
Unlike the first dream, I didn’t come floating down the cool river. This time I burst out on the riverbank, thrashing through bushes and sharp-bladed lalang, to find the river running next to me. The sunlit water, clear and shallow at the edge, grew mud-colored towards the middle.
And then I saw it. The same small railway station with deserted benches, the same stalled locomotive, only this time the train had stopped a little farther, as though it was about to pull out of the station. The carriages were empty: there was no one inside, not even the little boy who’d waved at me so happily last time. When I reached the station, however, he was sitting there on a bench. He smiled, a quick flash that showed his missing front tooth.
“Ah Jie,” he said, politely addressing me as “Older Sister.” “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”
“What are you doing?” I sat down next to him.
“Waiting.”
It was cool and peaceful under the station’s thatched roof. “What for?”
He swung his short legs. “For someone I love. Is there anyone that you love, Ah Jie?”
Of course there was. My mother, Ming, and Shin. Even Hui and my school friends, though I’d avoided them recently out of pride—many girls from school had gone on for teacher training, while others had married—and I’d been so bitterly disappointed at my lot that I couldn’t bear to face them.
“Because if there’s someone that you really, really love,” he said seriously, “it’s all right to wait for them.”
Sitting next to him, my anxiety melted away. The breeze from the river was pleasant, the sunlight sparkled off the water like fish scales.
“If you see my brother, please don’t tell him that you’ve met me.”