“Him? He only collects,” Ah Long mutters. “I wouldn’t touch it myself.”
“Why not?” Ren is uneasily fascinated by the tiger skin. Despite the indignity of being draped across the floor, its fur worn away in patches, the glaring glass eyes warn him away. Tiger eyes are prized for the hard parts in the center, set in gold as rings and thought to be precious charms, as are the teeth, whiskers, and claws. A dried and powdered liver is worth twice its weight in gold as medicine. Even the bones are taken to be boiled down into jelly.
“Aiya! This tiger was a man-eater. It killed two men and a woman down in Seremban before it was shot. See the bullet holes in the side?”
“How did he get the skin?”
“He’s keeping it for a friend who told him it was keramat. Cheh! As if a keramat tiger could ever be shot.”
Ren understands only too well the meaning of these words. A keramat animal is a sacred beast, a creature with the ability to come and go like a phantom, trampling sugarcane or raiding livestock with impunity. It’s always distinguished by some peculiarity, such as a missing tusk or a rare albino color. But the most common indicator is a withered or maimed foot.
When Ren was still at the orphanage, he once saw the tracks of the elephant Gajah Keramat. It was a famous beast, a rogue bull that had ranged from Teluk Intan up to the Thai border. Bullets were magically deflected from Gajah Keramat’s mottled hide, and he had the uncanny ability to sense an ambush. That morning, the sun’s burning rays had dyed the dirt road blood red, spotlighting the men huddled over the tracks leading out of a culvert, across the road, and then into secondary jungle. Ren stopped to goggle at the excitement.
“Tentulah, it is Gajah Keramat.” There was a hiss of agreement.
Wriggling his way to the front of the crowd, Ren saw how the elephant’s shrunken left forefoot had pressed a curious mark in the damp red earth.
Later, when Ren entered Dr. MacFarlane’s household, he’d related the incident to the old doctor. Dr. MacFarlane had been fascinated, even writing it down in one of his notebooks, the words inked across the page in his careful copperplate. Ren hadn’t known then just how deep this interest in keramat animals would run.
A shudder travels up his spine now as he regards the tiger skin on the floor. Is this, then, the link between the old doctor and the new one? And is death now coming on soft feet, or has it roamed ahead, like a shadow set free from its owner? He hopes, desperately, that it’s merely a coincidence.
6
Falim
Saturday, June 6th
One of my mother’s conditions of boarding at Mrs. Tham’s dressmaking shop was that I would return home to Falim often. Each time I did, I brought a treat to make up for the fact that I wasn’t homesick at all. Today it was rambutans, the hairy, red-skinned fruit that snapped open to reveal a sweet white interior. They’d been selling them by the bus stop, and I’d bought a bundle wrapped in old newspaper. As I sat on the bus I rather regretted it, as the rambutans were crawling with ants.
Once, Falim had been full of vegetable gardens, but the outskirts of Ipoh were encroaching every year. Already, the tin tycoon Foo Nyit Tse had built a new housing estate as well as a grand mansion on Lahat Road that was the wonder of the neighborhood. My stepfather’s store stood in a row of narrow-fronted shophouses, their upper stories jutting out to form a shady five-foot walkway or kaki lima. Though only eighteen feet wide, it was surprisingly deep. Shin and I had once paced out its length and found it to be almost a hundred feet.
When I arrived, Ah Kum, the new girl that my stepfather had hired to replace me, was penciling notes into the ledger.
“Back today?” Ah Kum was a year older than me, a cheerful gossip with a mole beneath her right eye, like a teardrop. Some people said that such a mark meant she’d never be lucky in marriage, but Ah Kum didn’t seem bothered. In any case, I was very grateful to her. If she hadn’t started working here, I’d never have been able to leave.
“Want some?” I dumped my bundle of rambutans on the counter.
Ah Kum twisted a fruit open. “Your brother’s back.”
That was news to me. Shin was supposed to return next week. “When did he arrive?”
“Yesterday, but he’s out right now. Why didn’t you tell me he was so good-looking?”
I rolled my eyes. Shin and his female admirers. Obviously they weren’t aware of his true personality, as I’d often explained to him. But Ah Kum had only started working here after Shin left for Singapore—how was she to know, poor girl?
“If you think he’s so wonderful, you can have him!” I said, ducking as she swatted me. Our laughter was cut short by a footfall from the second floor. Suddenly sober, we glanced at each other.
“Is he in?” He could only refer to my stepfather.
She shook her head. “That’s your mother.”
I went deeper into the shophouse, inhaling the familiar dark scent of earth and metal from the stockpiled tin ore. Upstairs, shuttered windows opened over the courtyards, bringing light and air to the family quarters. This large upper room was used as a private sitting room, away from the business of the shop below. Sparsely furnished with rattan armchairs, a square card table for mahjong, and a few large sepia photographs of my stepfather’s parents, it had scarcely changed since my mother and I had moved in ten years ago. A long rosewood sideboard was covered with school trophies and ribbons. The earlier ones were equally divided between Shin and myself, but the last few, after my stepfather decided I’d been educated enough, were all Shin’s.
My mother was sitting by the railing, gazing at the pigeons as they strutted and burbled along the ledge.
“Mother,” I said softly.
Over the years, she’d become very thin. Her bone structure was still lovely though, and I was struck by the delicate outline of the skull beneath her skin.
“I thought you weren’t coming till next week.” She looked happy to see me. I could always count on that from my mother; sometimes I thought I’d do anything to keep her smiling.
“Oh, I just felt like it. I bought rambutans.” I didn’t mention that I’d come home carrying a mummified finger, or that I planned to crash a stranger’s funeral tomorrow.
“Good, good.” She patted my hand briefly.
Glancing around, I passed her an envelope. My mother’s lips trembled as she counted the money. “So much! How did you manage to get so much money?”
“I made a dress for a lady last week.” I wasn’t good at lying, so I always kept my statements short.
“I can’t take it.”
“You must!”
It had been two months since I’d discovered my mother’s debts, though I’d been suspicious for a while, noting her anxiety and the small luxuries she’d given up. She even ate less at mealtimes. And especially, no more mahjong parties with her friends. For it was mahjong that had done this.
Upon questioning, she’d broken down. It had been deeply unsettling to see my mother weeping like a child, pressing her hands against her mouth while the tears ran silently down her face. One of her friends had recommended a lady who lent money privately. She was very discreet and, most importantly, wouldn’t mention it to my stepfather.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” I’d said angrily. “And what kind of interest rate is thirty-five percent?”
My stepfather could have repaid it. He made a good living as a tin-ore dealer—but we both knew what would happen if he found out. And so, bit by bit, we squirreled away money. She was much slower than me. My stepfather scrutinized the household accounts every week, so she had to economize without alerting him. But since I’d started working at the May Flower, I’d been able to pay down some of the principal. My mother always tried to refuse, but in the end, I knew she would—indeed, must—take it.
She hid the money away in the toe of her wedding slippers. My stepfather would never look there, though he liked her to dress well. She’d wanted to sell her jewelry, but he often requested that she wear certain pieces and it would be difficult to explain where they’d gone. His attention to clothes extended even to me, and growing up, I was always well dressed. My friends said I was lucky to have such a generous stepfather, but I knew it was all his own vanity. He was a collector and we were his acquisitions.
I’d never told Shin how I felt about his father. I didn’t have to.
* * *