I walked a little behind the two of them, trying to compose myself. The ring on my left hand was too loose—I had to curl my fingers so that it wouldn’t slip off—but that was to be expected since it had been sized for another girl. How would she feel about Shin using her ring to get out of trouble in this manner?
This pretty, slender gold ring had been chosen with great care. I couldn’t imagine that any girl would refuse it, and for a moment, I was overcome by an unexpected tide of desolation. A choking loneliness that made my teeth ache.
21
Batu Gajah
Week of June 15th
Ren is excited about the upcoming dinner party at William’s house. It’s a monthly affair that rotates among a set of younger doctors. Some have wives, but even the married ones often live as bachelors because their families are back in England. So it will be mostly men, says Ah Long. The few wives that stay face the boredom of languid days, stretching into emptiness. With plenty of servants and no housework to do, they volunteer at charities, play tennis, and, if gossip is to be believed, swap husbands.
“Why?” asks Ren. Switching people and houses seems troublesome to him, but Ah Long shakes his head and says that he’s too young to understand.
But Ren does understand. Sort of. It’s to do with not being happy although he thinks that William is a good master and some woman is bound to want him. The lady at the hospital comes to mind, the one with the soft hair like a steamed sponge cake. Lydia, that’s her name. She followed William home on Sunday after church.
From his master’s overly polite face, Ren could tell that he wasn’t pleased. Apparently he’d planned to drop Lydia off first before sending a patient home, but Lydia managed to insist on a visit. Ren only paid attention because the patient was Nandani. His patient, he thinks, with a small welling of pride.
When William and Lydia stand together in the front room of the bungalow, Ren is struck again by how similar they look. Tall and pale, with large high noses and long hands. He can’t tell whether Lydia is attractive or not, but she seems used to attention from the toss of her hair, and the confidence with which she crosses her long legs in their white leather sandals.
“How is the patient? Nandani, I mean?” Ren asks shyly, but William’s face brightens.
“Doing well. Do you want to see her?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll be educational for you to check her progress,” says William. “I’ll bring her over to the house one day.”
Ren glances at Lydia, but she’s studiously examining the bookshelf and gives no indication of hearing their plans. She walks through the house with William, giving suggestions about arranging the furniture for the upcoming party. Some of it, Ren thinks, is actually quite good advice.
“There won’t be many women on Saturday,” says William solicitously. “Are you sure you want to come? It might be awfully boring for you.”
She slips her arm through his. “Oh no, I’d love to. Would you like me to arrange the flowers?”
From the alarmed look in William’s eye, Ren knows that flowers are the last thing on his mind. It’s almost comical, except his master is suffering.
“No need. Ah Long here will manage everything.” And with that, William takes her out to the car to send her home.
* * *
Remembering this, Ren asks Ah Long later whether they should get flowers for the house. Ah Long frowns. “Yes. We’ll need a centerpiece for the table and something near the front.” Despite his air of long suffering, he’s enjoying the party preparations.
On Tuesday, Ah Long decides to bleach and starch the table linen again, though it was put away clean last time, because it has yellowed. On Wednesday, Ren dusts and wipes, turning the spines of the books out and aligning them neatly. Ren recognizes some of the titles, the same as in Dr. MacFarlane’s house. Gray’s Anatomy, issues of The Lancet and Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. The long words had first been pronounced by Dr. MacFarlane and later Ren learned to copy them out, sitting at the kitchen table. He nods at them, old friends, as he mops the floor.
Three plump chickens are in the wooden coop at the back. They’ll be made into chicken cutlets and Inchi Kabin, crispy twice-fried chicken served with sweet-and-spicy sauce. Local beef is tough and lean, and comes from water buffalo, so Ah Long will make beef rendang, slow-cooked dry curry with coconut, to round out the main dishes. In the meantime, on Thursday they move all the furniture in the living room and wax the floor.
“In case they want to dance,” explains Ah Long. “Though there are only two ladies coming.” Still, he hauls out the gramophone while Ren sharpens the needles. There’ll be another Chinese waiter hired for that evening to serve drinks. William takes little interest in this flurry of preparations. When Ren asks about him, Ah Long shrugs. “He’s got a new hobby.”
Now that he’s mentioned it, Ren realizes that his master has taken to disappearing after dinner. “Didn’t he use to go for walks in the mornings?”
“Morning, evening, what does it matter? As long as she’s willing,” Ah Long mutters under his breath.
On Friday morning, the gardener delivers cut flowers to the kitchen door, and Ren carries a heaping armful to the dining room to sort out. If there were a lady in the house, she’d arrange the flowers on the day of the party, but tomorrow will be devoted to cooking. Food spoils quickly in this heat, so everything must be freshly prepared. As Ren trots back to the kitchen for a second load of greenery, he finds the gardener deep in discussion with Ah Long.
“You, boy!” says the gardener. He’s Tamil, his wiry squat body burned dark by the merciless sun. He’s the friendly one who speaks Malay; the other gardener speaks only Tamil. “Mau lihat? Want to see something interesting?”
Excited, Ren follows the gardener into the garden. Ah Long stumps moodily after them as they go around the back, right up to where the manicured lawn peters out into undergrowth. This is the frontline of the gardeners’ endless struggle against the surrounding jungle. Walking around the perimeter of the garden, they approach the patch of uneven ground where Ren buries the household garbage—and where the finger that he stole from the hospital is interred, the glass vial safe within its empty biscuit tin.
Ren’s pulse quickens. His eyes fix on the stone that he placed as a marker. It looks suspicious on a patch of newly turned ground. He didn’t expect anyone to come to the garbage dump. Nobody does, only Ren.
“Sini,” says the gardener. “Here and here. Can you see?”
He points out traces: bent and broken branches and a print pressed into the soft wet earth. It is a tiger’s pugmark.
At least, that’s what the gardener says although Ren can’t really tell from the blurred half impression. But something has definitely passed that way. Something large and heavy. Deeper in, under the trees, the dry leaves form a thick carpet. It’s only where the bare earth is exposed that there’s a print. The men squat near the pugmark, wider than the palm of a man’s hand.
“Left front paw,” the gardener says.
“How do you know?” asks Ren.
The gardener explains that the front paws tend to be larger than the back. There are four toes and a dewclaw, corresponding to a thumb, on the front paws of a tiger. It looks as though the animal was standing under the trees at the edge of the garden. That one foot, the front paw, is the only mark on the edge of the lawn.
“Tigers are cunning,” says the gardener. “It was checking the house.”
Ren’s heart races. What does it mean that the print is right next to the stone that marks the buried finger? He wishes there was some grown-up he could ask for advice, but if he tells William, he’ll have to admit to the theft of the finger. Unconsciously, he squeezes his own small hands, wringing them anxiously. There are nine days left of Dr. MacFarlane’s forty-nine days of the soul. Surely that’s enough time to return the finger?
Ah Long peers at the blurred print. “This tiger is missing a toe,” he says. “The small toe on the left front paw.”
Ren closes his eyes, inhaling. His ears are sharpened; the hairs on his head prickle. He listens hard, but there’s nothing. Not a flicker from his cat sense. Only a silence so profound that it fills the green hollow of clipped lawn that the white bungalow sits in, like a fishbowl in the middle of the jungle.
“Should we put out an offering?” the gardener says diffidently. He’s Hindu and Ah Long is nominally Buddhist; between the two of them lies a tradition of little offerings and sacrifices, but Ah Long scowls.
“What are we going to offer—a chicken? I only have three and they’re needed tomorrow. Besides, we don’t want it to come back.”