“Are there really such people?” asks Ren.
To his surprise, Ah Long nods. “They can call leopards and wild boar, too. Even monkeys. It depends on how powerful they are.” He rubs his upper lip gruffly. “Well, that’s what they say. Now make sure you lay the breakfast table before he gets up.”
* * *
“TUAN, are you going to church?” asks Ren. While William ate breakfast, he polished his master’s shoes with brown Kiwi shoe polish, purchased yesterday in town, till they were bright. William inspects them and says they remind him of ripe chestnuts, though Ren has no idea what he’s referring to. Some kind of fruit, he thinks, though he can’t imagine a fruit that looks like shoes.
“Yes, I’m going this morning.” He’ll drive himself as Harun has Sunday off.
“Is it true that the tiger has left this area?”
William nods. It’s as if the tiger has vanished utterly, leading to lurid speculation that it’s not a normal beast. Word has already gone round that Ambika was a loose woman and that’s why she was taken. Rumors like this make William noticeably uneasy. Ren can only conclude, as he stands on the gravel drive to see the car off, that William must be a kindhearted and sympathetic person.
When the housework is done, Ren hurries back to his quarters to examine the finger that he took—no, stole—from the hospital yesterday, though it fills him with a nameless dread. The trousers he wore last night are still hanging on their hook. Ren takes out the bottle, setting it on the window ledge. Outside, the thick bamboo hedge is wet and soft with dew. A mynah bird picks its way across the grass, head cocked in a yellow-eyed stare. In the morning sunlight, the finger looks just as sad and grisly as it did yesterday in the pathology storeroom.
Ren stares until he gets dizzy but his cat sense is strangely quiet. Yesterday, his head was filled with its quivering hum, but today there’s only stillness. A hushed expectancy.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Ren wills his cat sense to return. He’s missed it desperately in the three years since Yi died. It was gone when he needed it most: those last few months with Dr. MacFarlane, when he said those strange things that confused and alarmed Ren. The old doctor’s eyes would open wide as he whispered, in a glassy trance. Long, detailed descriptions of killing deer and wild boar, creeping silently from behind them. The sudden rush, choking the throat by biting. Wrenching the head to break the neck.
* * *
The first death occurred during the rainy season, when the monsoon hung like a grey curtain over the wet red earth. Ren can’t forget that time; it plays back like a reel of film that he doesn’t understand, no matter how often he watches it. If he closes his eyes, he can still see the figure of the old doctor, writing in one of his notebooks. He’s been ill, vomiting in the bathroom downstairs though when Ren goes to check on him, there’s nothing to clean.
“I cleaned up myself,” Dr. MacFarlane says. His eyes are bloodshot and when Ren serves him a simple supper of leftover curry, he grimaces. “Take it away. I can’t eat meat.”
Later, Ren finds him staring at the endless rain streaming off the veranda roof. “Ren,” he says without turning around, “what do you think of me?”
No one has ever asked Ren that question before. At least, no grown-up. Auntie Kwan was always busy telling him what to do, not asking for his opinion, and for an instant, he misses her desperately. Tongue-tied, he gazes at Dr. MacFarlane’s nose, a trick that the old man taught him for when he feels too shy to meet someone in the eyes.
“You are a good person,” Ren says at last. He wonders whether Dr. MacFarlane is concerned about the rumors that he’s losing his mind, or if he’s even aware of them.
His master studies him for so long that Ren wants to look away, at his own small bare feet, or out of the window, but that’s impolite. Instead, he forces his gaze higher until he looks Dr. MacFarlane in the eye. And to his surprise, the old man looks sad.
“Let me show you something,” he says, walking with his stiff, familiar gait to the rolltop desk where he keeps all his papers. The keys are kept on a ring in Dr. MacFarlane’s pocket. After his death, the lawyer will go through every drawer but not before asking Ren, suspiciously, if he has touched anything.
Dr. MacFarlane takes out a photograph. There are two Malay men in the picture, bare-chested and squatting against a wall. The expressions on their faces are friendly, yet wary. The one on the right has what looks like a cord or a string tied around his upper arm.
“Which one of them is like me?” says the old man.
Ren wrinkles his brow in concentration. Is his master having another fit? But no, he’s calm and lucid. Then Ren sees it.
“The groove on his upper lip.” He points at the man on the right. “He doesn’t have one and neither do you.”
Dr. MacFarlane looks pleased, as proud as when Ren put the wireless radio back together after taking it apart.
“Yes,” he says. “That’s called a philtrum.” The troubled expression returns to his face.
“Who is this man?” asks Ren.
“I took this photograph five years ago, when I was traveling with a friend. We were in a little hamlet called Ulu Aring, and this chap,” he taps the man on the right, “was the local pawang.” Dr. MacFarlane speaks quickly, fluently in a way that he hasn’t in many days.
“Was that when you lost your finger?” As long as Ren has known Dr. MacFarlane, he’s been missing the last finger on his left hand.
“Yes, the same trip. When he saw me he was very excited.” The old doctor places one finger above his upper lip. “He put his hand right here, and called me abang.”
Older brother.
“Why?”
“He said this missing upper lip groove is the sign of a weretiger.”
Ren is silent, wondering if the old man is joking but there’s no hint of it in his pale eyes. There are stories about tiger-men, who come from the jungle to snatch children and gobble up chickens. He studies the black-and-white picture.
“Did you see him change into a tiger?”
“No, though other people said they had. When the mood struck, he’d say, ‘I’m going to walk,’ and enter the jungle, burning incense and blowing it through his fist until his skin changed and his fur and tail appeared. Then he’d hunt for days until he’d eaten his fill.
“When he was done, he’d squat down and say, ‘I’m going home,’ and turn back into a man. In his man-shape, he’d vomit up the undigested bones, feathers, and hair of everything he had eaten.”
Ren suddenly recalls Dr. MacFarlane’s vomiting fit and the retching, gagging sounds that came from behind the closed door.
“The other sign of a weretiger,” Dr. MacFarlane continues, “is a deformed paw. Whether it’s a front or hind leg, there’s always one that’s defective. When I lost my finger on that trip, the pawang told me to bury it with me so I could be made whole again—a man. I didn’t believe him at the time.” He falls silent.
Ren shifts uneasily, studying the old man’s profile. There’s an expression on his face he hasn’t seen before; a sly flicker, or is it a shadow that passes, like an eel, behind his eyes? “Do I look like a murderer to you?” Dr. MacFarlane asks.
Suddenly, Ren is frightened. He takes a step back, then another. Dr. MacFarlane, still staring out of the window, doesn’t notice when he leaves.
Ren can’t help but hear the words Do I look like a murderer to you? echo in his head over the next few days whenever he looks at Dr. MacFarlane. It’s a bewildering, frightening question. And so, when the foreign ladies in their light, fluttering dresses come trooping up the long gravel driveway a few days later to check on the doctor, Ren is glad of their interruption, though he rushes to tidy up.
When the ladies enter, they’re relieved to find the bungalow neat and clean, and Dr. MacFarlane seated in a rattan armchair, a book on his lap. They’re accomplices, the old man and the boy, though as Ren scurries back and forth, keeping other doors closed so they won’t see the rest of the house, he feels like a traitor. He suspects that it might be better if these women took charge, but how is he to explain that?
One of the ladies, stiff-bosomed like the prow of a ship, announces, “You can’t possibly stay here alone, especially with a man-eater loose.” Her high, sharp voice cuts through the room as Ren enters, balancing a tray with teacups. There are no biscuits; they ran out weeks ago.
Dr MacFarlane’s voice is heartier than he’s heard it in a long time, though the hand that grips the armchair trembles slightly. “Rubbish! I’m not alone anyway.”
“A young woman was taken from a coffee plantation.” The lady glimpses Ren and nods for him to set the tray on the table. She’s waiting for him to leave the room. Exiting, he lingers near the door. He can’t make out much because she’s dropped her voice.