“What? The nurse who gave it to him?” Knowing Shin, that would be a fairly easy job.
“No, the pathology department. It’s run by a doctor named Rawlings. They’re fixing up that part of the hospital, and there are boxes of records and specimens to move. He asked me to work overtime and finish it this weekend. It’s just donkey work, but I jumped at it. Also, he said to get some help. I said I knew someone who’d do it for cheap.”
“Is that me?” I asked indignantly.
“Don’t you need a part-time job?”
For a heart-sinking moment, I thought he must have found out about everything—my mother’s debts, my dance-hall work—but he was only joking.
It wasn’t as though I didn’t trust him; I knew he had a soft spot for my mother. But I was sure, down to my very bones, that getting Shin involved would be trouble. One of these days, either he or my stepfather would kill the other. It had very nearly happened a couple of years ago.
* * *
That evening, I’d been over at a friend’s place for dinner. On my return, I was surprised to find all the neighbors standing in the street in front of the shophouse. The fading light dyed everything in cold blue shadows. Not a time to be out chitchatting, as I noted in alarm. Someone was saying that they ought to call the police but my mother was begging them not to. It was just a family disagreement, she said, and it wouldn’t happen again.
I rushed over, anxiously scanning her for telltale signs of injury. But she seemed unhurt and in fact, when I slipped into the shophouse, it was my stepfather who was holding a bloody towel to his face. I’d never seen him with any kind of wound and, for a treacherous instant, was pleased to see a mark on him, even if it was just a bloody nose.
The interior of the shophouse was completely silent. That frightened me more than anything. “Where’s Shin?” I said, though it took all my nerve to speak to my stepfather. He said nothing, only glared in silence.
Dropping my schoolbag, I ran through the house. Past the hanging pendulum scales, past the silent piles of raked tin ore. My breath came in short gasps; my side hurt. I wanted to call out to Shin but my mouth was sealed with terror. If he didn’t answer, then he must be severely injured. Or dead. My stepfather’s beatings had tapered off over the years: Shin had learned to watch the mood, to be careful what he said and did. Why, only a few weeks previously my mother had said she was glad that Shin had grown up so well, which was her way of saying he wasn’t getting into trouble with his father, but I’d had my doubts. I never trusted that man.
I ran through the long, long house. It was dark, and no one had lit any lamps. I could barely see into some of the corners; the shadows were so thick that they gathered like soot, soft and blurry. Or perhaps it was the tears in my eyes. There was no sign of Shin. Gasping, I took the stairs two at a time, flinging the bedroom doors open though I didn’t really believe he was upstairs. Not if he was hurt. Or maybe he really was dead. And still in the front room, my stepfather sat like a gargoyle, alone.
I ran to the back again. All the way to the kitchen, searching. We’d had favorite hiding spaces to play in—the cupboard under the stairs, the narrow space between the water jars—but Shin was too big now to fit in most of them. At last I went through the kitchen again into the last courtyard, the one with the high wall that led to the back alley. And there I found him, huddled behind the chicken coop.
I could barely make out his shape in the dim blue twilight, propped up against the back wall. His legs, so much longer than when we were children, stuck out in front as though he were exhausted.
“Shin!” I hadn’t noticed the tears running down my face until they dripped off my chin.
“Go away.” His voice was hoarse.
“Are you hurt?” I tried to help him up, but he shook me off.
“Don’t touch my arm. I think it’s broken.”
“I’ll get a doctor.”
I jumped up but he grabbed my ankle with his good hand. “Don’t!”
There was a crack in his voice, something so sad and despairing that it made me stop. I put my arms around him then, as though he was a child again. His shoulders heaved with harsh gasps as I cradled him. He buried his face in my neck. A shudder ran through him. His hair was matted and sticky, with sweat I hoped and not blood. Please, no blood.
I hadn’t seen Shin cry for years. We clung to each other behind the chicken coop for a long time. It smelled pungent, and there were bits of straw and other nameless soft unpleasant things on the ground, but I couldn’t see them and maybe it didn’t matter in the dark. Twice I heard my mother come looking for us. The second time I called to her softly and said that Shin was all right, just to leave him alone for a bit. When she’d gone, he pulled himself away.
“I’ll kill him,” he said quietly.
“Don’t! You’ll go to prison.”
“Who cares?”
“Well, I do!” Part of me believed Shin was quite capable of killing his father in a fight. He was already taller than him; it was surprising that he seemed to have had the worst of it today. Whatever had made Shin hold back, I was grateful. Because one day, just like today, I’d come home and one of them would be dead. But please, let it not be Shin. Though the alternative was just as bad. Shin would be locked up forever. Or hanged.
“Stop crying,” he said at last. “I won’t, all right?”
“Promise me.”
He sighed. “I promise. Don’t lean on my arm. It hurts.”
I got up. Shin slowly untangled himself from behind the coop and crawled out as well. My eyes had adjusted to the dimness but it was still hard to see. Everything looked strange and wrong, as though the kitchen courtyard was an entirely new country. Shin’s left arm hung at an odd angle.
“Told you. It’s broken.” He sounded so matter-of-fact that I felt like crying again.
“What happened?”
“He took a stick to me. The carrying pole.”
The carrying pole was used for heavy loads. Strong and heavy, and flattened to balance on one shoulder, it was a deadly weapon when rival Chinese clans fought gang wars. If my stepfather had really hit Shin with it, he must have lost his mind. He could have maimed him. I was so furious that I wanted to scream, report him to the police. I wished that all the doors and windows would burst open and the roof fly off, so that the neighbors would see exactly what happened in our house.
“You said not to kill anyone,” said Shin, reading my expression,
“They don’t hang girls,” I said, though I wasn’t really sure. Perhaps they did. Or maybe they drowned them, like witches. I didn’t care. I was so angry that my hands trembled. And yet, I was terrified. I hadn’t dared to raise my voice to my stepfather, even when I was searching the house so desperately.
“What happened? Why did he do it?”
But Shin only shook his head.
* * *
I never did find out what happened that night. The more I asked, the more Shin retreated into silence. My mother was no help, either. She said they’d already been fighting when she came home and it was best forgotten.
Shin stayed home from school for a week to hide the bruises, telling the doctor who splinted his broken arm that he’d fallen down the stairs. My stepfather also had injuries. Besides the bloody nose, he had a twisted elbow and, my mother suspected, a cracked rib though he too said nothing. I think in his own way he was sorry. He probably realized he’d gone too far, but I wouldn’t forgive him. I would never forgive him.
In fact, the thought crossed my mind about actually poisoning him. I even went so far as to check out all the detective novels I could find in our school library. It was no good though. They only let you take two books out at a time, and besides, where on earth was I going to find a trained snake, as in The Adventure of the Speckled Band? Anyway, if my stepfather were poisoned, the most likely suspect would be my mother.
Strangely, after that incident Shin and my stepfather came to some understanding that I wasn’t privy to. They left each other alone. I thought at first my stepfather was feeling guilty about the whole affair and perhaps he was, but I noticed that he gave Shin more leeway. Shin, too, started making a noticeable effort at school. His grades had always been good but now he studied as though he was possessed, surpassing me. He rarely had time for me anymore; it was around then that the two of us began to drift apart.
13
Batu Gajah
Monday, June 8th
They’ve found the head. It’s the biggest news at the Batu Gajah District Hospital on Monday morning, as Leslie, the fresh-faced doctor who’s the closest thing to a peer that William has here, informs him.