Shin didn’t look at me, although I’d jumped up to fetch him a plate of fried noodles. I had a sinking feeling. Perhaps he’d thought over all the nasty accusations I’d made on Tuesday night and decided that he hated me after all.
“You’ll stay for the weekend?” my mother asked. Shin nodded.
Except for the papery skin beneath her eyes and the way she took the stairs more slowly, she was almost back to normal, which made me feel less guilty about leaving her.
“I’m going back to Ipoh after lunch,” I reminded her.
“Can’t Mrs. Tham spare you until Sunday?”
Mrs. Tham had in fact said that there was no need to rush back, but I couldn’t possibly tell my mother that I was getting paid to dance with foreigners at a private party. It was the first and last time I’d do anything like this, I decided, because I was going to ask Robert for a loan. Far better to owe him money than the loan shark my mother had gone to for her mahjong debts. The next installment was due in less than a week. I gritted my teeth. If my stepfather found out, there’d be none of this quiet sitting around the dining table. His rage was sudden and unpredictable; he might be icily practical about it—or not. Glancing at my mother’s lowered head, I only knew it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Sambal,” grunted my stepfather, holding out the dish without looking at me.
As I spooned the aromatic chili paste out, I listened to the three of them talking. Shin asked my mother how she was feeling and discussed tin-ore prices with his father—a normal, polite conversation, though it rankled. Perhaps because they were treating Shin as an equal now. Leastways, more of an equal than me. I sat quietly, eating my noodles. Shin didn’t speak to me at all.
And now my mother was going on about Robert and how often he’d been coming by. I shot a swift glance at Shin, but he merely looked bored.
“It would be nice to have Robert over for dinner. To thank him for everything, you know,” my mother said hopefully.
“Ask him to come next Friday,” said my stepfather. This surprised me. He’d never taken any interest in my friends. “You’ll be home, too, Shin.”
“Of course.” Shin’s face was expressionless.
“Ji Lin and I had a talk the other night,” my stepfather went on. Alarmed, I stared at him. What was going on with my stepfather today?
“About what?” My mother glanced anxiously at me.
“I told her that if she gets married, she can go ahead and do whatever she wants. Whether it’s nursing or becoming a teacher or running away to join the circus.” He put a spoonful of sambal on his plate and squeezed lime juice on it.
I lifted my eyes. “You promised, didn’t you?”
“Yes. When you’re married, you won’t be my responsibility, or your mother’s, either.” To my surprise, my stepfather wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was watching Shin. Very carefully, like a cat observing a lizard.
Shin continued eating with bored indifference. Just last weekend at the hospital, he’d told me angrily to tell him before I got married because I was bound to make a foolish decision, but there was no trace of that concern right now. His eyes were cold, and they never once met mine. Pushing back my chair, I murmured something about packing and went upstairs. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. I knew how little my stepfather thought of me, how useless I was as a girl, and not even his own daughter. But for Shin to freeze me out again was more painful than expected. I wondered, not for the first time, whether I loved him or hated him.
As I folded the thin cotton blanket, my mother came into my room. Glancing timidly at me, she sat on the bed. “Is Robert picking you up?”
“No.”
“You know, I’d be very happy if it worked out with him.”
“He hasn’t proposed to me,” I said tersely.
“But if he does, will you think about it?”
“All right.”
I raised my eyes to see Shin’s head poke in. As usual, he didn’t take a single step into my room. It was an old habit, though what did it matter now since neither of us lived here anymore?
“Father wants to know where the receipts are,” he said to my mother.
“Oh, I’ll get them.” She got up and so did I. I didn’t want to be left alone with Shin. Remembering how I’d lifted my face expectantly in the moonlight, and how he’d paused and released me instead, filled me with hot humiliation.
“Ji Lin,” he said in a low voice as I brushed past in the narrow hallway. Even though it was noon, only a little light filtered into the corridor that ran alongside our two small rooms. It was so gloomy in this shophouse, so long and narrow, like living in the belly of a snake.
“What?”
“I need to talk to you.” Shin bent his dark head towards me.
“Not when you were so rude to me downstairs.”
For an instant, he frowned. Then the corner of his mouth twitched.
“You really are blunt,” he said. “Don’t you know how to act like a girl?”
Indignant, I opened my mouth to inform him that I was in fact the number two girl at the May Flower on Wednesdays and Fridays, but closed it without saying anything.
“But that’s what I like about you.”
A knife twist. Yes, he was fond of me. So fond that he didn’t even see me as female.
Shin said more seriously, “Did my father really promise that he wouldn’t interfere with you if you got married?”
“He said he didn’t care who it was as long as he had a decent job.”
“I see. That’s good, isn’t it?”
Why was Shin so pleased about that?
“Are you all right?” He peered closely at me, and I forced myself to look cheerful.
“I opened the package you got from Pei Ling,” I said, changing the subject.
He raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“I think you should tell Dr. Rawlings about the missing fingers. They’re hospital property after all.”
“I was going to,” said Shin, “Except when I went back to the storeroom to look for the original finger—the one you put away—it had disappeared.”
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
Shin put a hand over my mouth. “Not so loud.”
“I put it on the shelf, behind the two-headed rat,” I said softly, not wanting my mother to overhear us.
“Well, it’s not there anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
He gave me an exasperated look. “If I inform Dr. Rawlings that I managed to locate one of the missing fingers but now it’s disappeared again, he’ll think I’m mad. Or that I stole them myself. Best not to say anything.”
“But if someone checks the catalog, they’ll find that specimens are missing. And the last person who tidied the room was you.”
I never heard his answer because at that moment, a heavy tread on the stairs warned us of my stepfather’s approach. Hastily, we sprang apart. Shin disappeared into his room, and I made my way downstairs, coolly passing my stepfather as though I hadn’t just been standing in the hallway discussing stolen body parts with his son.
* * *
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even as I sat in the hired car that Saturday night, listening to Hui and Rose chatter with only half an ear. And then the car was pulling up a long curving driveway. It was very quiet and dark, just as most of the journey had been, down empty roads fringed with jungle trees and the rustling leaves of rubber and coffee estates.
When the car stopped behind a row of vehicles, there was a moment of silence. Then Rose and Pearl spilled out, adjusting their dresses and smoothing their hair. I’d never been to such a large private bungalow before. Lights blazed from the front windows so that the surrounding trees and long expanse of black lawn pressed in on the house. Faint sounds of laughter and the tinny music of a gramophone wafted out through the open windows. I glanced at Hui, but she was looking at the door. There was a hard expression on her face, and I realized that she was nerving herself up to go in. We were used to locals, but foreigners were a different matter. Frankly, I was terrified.
“Front door or back?” she asked Kiong.
He consulted a piece of paper. It was so dark that he had to hold it up and squint. “Front,” he grunted.
Kiong knocked on the door and handled the introductions. I stood behind Anna, the only girl who was taller than me, and blindly followed the others in. There was a rush of noise. I hardly knew where to look, but it was all right since we were being ushered through to the side.
“Ren, show the ladies into the study.”