15
Batu Gajah
Saturday, June 13th
Ren gets his chance to look for the finger at Saturday lunchtime, when William announces that he’s going into town and will drop by the hospital. Ah Long immediately asks if he will pick up supplies: tinned goods, washing powder, and brown shoe polish.
Glancing at Ren, who’s holding the car door open, William says, “Hop in. You can take a list to the store, can’t you?”
Ren’s eyes widen at this unexpected opportunity. William shouts over his shoulder at Ah Long. “I’m taking the boy. Anything else you need?”
There’s a brief scramble as lists are made. Ah Long presses a cent into Ren’s hand. “Buy something for yourself,” he says gruffly. “Sometimes he drinks at the Club. If it gets late, stay with the car. He’ll come home by morning one way or the other.” His wiry figure, stiffly disapproving, waits on the gravel driveway.
“Selamat jalan,” he says to William. Good travels.
Harun, the Malay driver, is a plump, comfortable-looking man with three children of his own, and he smiles as Ren climbs excitedly into the front passenger seat, clutching a rattan market basket lined with old newspaper in case of spills. William sits in the back. Ren keeps quiet though he’d love to ask Harun about the car. There’s an intimidating array of switches and dials on the Austin’s dashboard, and Ren watches carefully as Harun changes gears.
“Swing by the hospital first,” says William. “I have to drop some paperwork off.”
The hospital. Ren squeezes the basket handle.
As they motor closer to town, the trim lawns and gravel drives of other bungalows come into view. Ren knows a few of the houses now, but they are so far apart, so secluded by the lush jungle, that he never hears the neighbors. Ren can tell which houses have European wives: they’re planted with neat beds of cannas and ginger flowers and surrounded by hibiscus and oleander shrubs. There are oleanders behind William’s house, too, but Ah Long always tells the gardener to cut them back. The soft twigs ooze a milky sap that will blind you, he says darkly, and a decoction of leaves will poison stray dogs.
Rounding a bend, the breeze through the open windows whips a sheet of crumpled newspaper out of Ren’s basket, into the backseat where William catches it deftly in one hand.
“Sorry, Tuan!” Ren glances back, but his master, staring at the paper, lets out a sharp exclamation.
“Is this last week’s paper?”
Guiltily, Ren nods. Are they not allowed to use it? There’s an odd expression on William’s face. The sheet of newspaper that’s transfixed him is the obituary section, with rows of black-and-white photographs. Ren says, “Did someone you know die?”
William bites his lip. “A patient of mine.”
“Was he an old man?”
“No, quite a young one. Poor fellow.”
After a long moment, William passes the crumpled paper back to Ren who stuffs it back in the basket, but not before glancing curiously at the page. The only listing for a young man is a Mr. Chan Yew Cheung, salesman. Twenty-eight years old.
William closes his eyes, fingers loosely knotted in his lap. Long, white fingers capable of stitching up a wound or amputating a limb. He hums lightly. Ren wonders why his master looks relieved, even happy.
As the car turns in at the hospital, Ren feels an electric thrill as though a faint, far-off radio signal is connecting. It shivers through his body the same way that he and Yi used to connect. The finger is here. He’s suddenly sure of it. William picks up a leather briefcase and gets out. Quickly, Ren jumps out, too.
“May I carry your bag, Tuan?”
William stops to look at him. “Do you want to see the hospital?”
There are two sections, explains William. This part is the district hospital for locals, while the European wing exclusively for foreigners lies across the street. William nods at the receptionist. Doors open, people smile. Trailing in William’s wake, Ren wonders whether all Europeans are treated like this or perhaps it’s the combination of being a surgeon as well.
There’s a strict medical hierarchy, Dr. MacFarlane used to joke, with general practitioners like himself at the bottom of the heap. But Dr. MacFarlane was very skilled, Ren thinks. He treated patients that everyone else had given up as hopeless, like the orang asli hunter who came in with an infected arm and the Chinese storekeeper’s baby with convulsions. He doctored them all, often with surprising results.
“I’m going to stop by the wards, since I’m here,” William says. The long corridors, tiled in a checkerboard of brown and cream, smell like disinfectant. “Do you want to see your patient?”
Ren is confused. What patient?
“The woman whose leg you treated. It just so happens that she came in again.”
Of course Ren wants to see her, though he feels suddenly shy. The ward is empty except for an old man asleep with his mouth open, and the young woman who’s sitting up in the next bed. Ren is surprised at her appearance. She looks nothing like she did lying in a wheelbarrow with her leg dripping blood all over the driveway. Now, her honey-colored skin is fresh and her hair neatly braided. She has a dimpled face that’s exactly heart-shaped, and when William asks to see her leg, she colors.
“This is Ren,” he says. “The person who treated you at my house.”
Ren notices that he doesn’t say “my houseboy” or “my servant” and feels obscurely proud.
“So young!” she says. Her name, according to the patient manifest, is Nandani Wijedasa, and she’s eighteen years old, unmarried. Her father is a clerk at the rubber estate near their house, and she was readmitted this morning for fever and pain in the leg.
William gently pulls up the loose hospital-issue pajamas with a reassuring smile. The wound is smaller than Ren remembered, though still a shocking gash on the back of her smooth calf. Sutured with black thread, it looks tender and puffy.
“We’ll need to open it up again and irrigate it, maybe debride the tissue and then reclose it. When you go home, keep a gauze pad soaked in carbolic on it to prevent infection. You must keep the wound clean, otherwise you might get blood poisoning. Do you understand?”
He looks directly at her and a spark jumps between them. Ren’s cat sense hasn’t been this strong since Yi’s death. What’s the meaning of this? But he knows, without even raising his head, that something is happening between William and the young woman Nandani. Some kind of attraction that makes the doctor linger as Nandani bats her long curling eyelashes.
Ren isn’t the only person to think so. A foreign lady has come in, pushing a trolley with novels and back issues of Punch and The Lady for patients to read. Her eyes, an astonishing electric blue, fix on William’s back.
“William—what brings you in today?”
Turning, William says, “Hello, Lydia.”
Sunlight streaming into the ward picks out the gold in her pretty curls, and Ren wonders whether her hair is fluffy all the time or if it has to be steamed and pressed, like a sponge cake.
“One of your patients?” Lydia gives the Sinhalese girl on the bed a quick stare.
“Not mine.” He glances at Ren, who gazes shyly at the crack in the floorboards next to Nandani’s bed.
Drawing William aside, Lydia threads her arm through his. “Leslie said you’re hosting the next get-together for the younger doctors.”
“It’s just a group of bachelors talking shop. Not very interesting, I’m afraid.” He turns up the charm.
Lydia looks both hopeful and plaintive. “Can I come?”
“Only if you don’t mind hearing about tropical diseases.”
“Not at all! I want to help as much as possible—sometimes people don’t know what’s best for them.”
While they talk, Nandani touches Ren’s sleeve. “Thank you.” Her smile is warm and Ren is very glad that she’s alive and not lying dead in a wheelbarrow full of blood. “Are you studying to be a doctor?”
“I’d like to.”
“You will be a good doctor.” Her eyes drift to William. “Is your master kind to you?”
Ren realizes, with a feeling of surprise, that yes, William has been good to him.
“He’s nice,” she says. There it is again, that invisible spark between her and William. It flies out with a tiny sizzle, so that Ren half expects to see it flare in the air.
William turns round to Nandani again. “Where do you live?” he asks.
Shyly, she tells him her address.
He writes it down in the little notebook he carries in his breast pocket. “You’re quite close to my place. If you stop by, I’ll look at your leg again next week. No need to come to the hospital.”