“Trying to forget you, you idiot.”
His mouth lit a slow, fevered trail between my breasts. To my shame, a moan escaped my lips and I bit them hard. Shin went on kissing me deliberately, taking his time. Touching me expertly, filling me with a yearning, slippery ache. There was a buzzing in my ears; my skin burned. I had that strange feeling again, that twisting mixture of curiosity, fear, and unbearable excitement. I didn’t know this Shin, this stranger with the lean, hard body of a man, not a boy. I didn’t know myself, either. That part of me that wanted to bite him, suck the tips of his fingers, consume him. He groaned softly as I dug my fingers into his back, feeling dizzy with triumph and pleasure. Then I felt his knees nudging my legs apart, that urgent heat pressed against my thigh, and I realized he was serious.
“I said, wait!” With an effort, I shoved him off.
“I told you,” his eyes were hot and soft, “I’d make you mine.”
“There isn’t any ‘mine’ about it!” I sat up and buttoned up the shirt, right up to the neck, although my heart was racing. My head felt foggy. Shin flopped over and put an arm over his face.
“Robert won’t want you if you’re not a virgin.” His voice was muffled.
“Is that what this is all about?” Enraged, I said, “He doesn’t want me anyway. I’m not that popular!”
“Are you blind? You’ve no idea how much trouble I’ve had, getting rid of your admirers over the years.”
“You did what?”
“Ah Hing from the dry-goods store. Seng Huat from my school. Oh, and the math tutor next door.” He counted them off on his fingers.
Furious, I hit him with a pillow. “You mean to say I had a chance with the math tutor?” I’d had a crush on him one summer because he wore glasses and parted his hair the same way that Ming did. “You beast, Shin! You selfish, selfish beast!”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me down on top of him.
“What was I supposed to do? You never looked at me. And anyway, if they didn’t have the guts to stick around they weren’t worth it.”
We were so close, our faces not six inches from each other. My heart was hammering, my breath coming in faint gasps. Despite my best efforts to glare at him, a dizzy happiness was seeping through me.
“Do you hate me?” That half-anxious look again. I’d never seen Shin like this—between the two of us, he was always the cool one—and I flushed. He must have noticed, because he said, “If you don’t hate me, then let me do it,” and started kissing me again.
It would be easy to give in, let this slow ache consume me. My arms slid around him, feeling the muscles of his back flex as he rolled over, so that he was on top of me now. An alarm went off in my head; every warning my mother had given me. What was I doing?
“No!” This time I shoved him so hard that he fell off the bed.
“Are you worried about getting pregnant?” Shin was kneeling, looking up at me. In the rainy half-light that poured in through the shutters, he was impossibly handsome. “Because you needn’t be. I bought something from the pharmacy.”
“So you were planning this right from the start?”
“Of course,” he said. “I told you I was doing some thinking.”
“Is that why you came along with me today?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to hit him. “And all of that helping out with burying the finger, that was a lie?”
“I don’t really care about the finger. I just wanted to be with you.”
“You could have been with me anytime,” I said. “You didn’t have to lie about it.”
“No, I promised my father.” He stopped, as though he’d said too much.
“What did you promise him?” A feeling of dread descended on me. I remembered crooked blue shadows, the darkness of a chicken coop, and the way Shin’s broken arm had dangled grotesquely. “Tell me or I’ll never forgive you! What happened that night?”
In a flat low voice that was suddenly tired, Shin said, “He said he’d seen the way I looked at you; it set him off so we got into a fight. That’s when he broke my arm. I promised I wouldn’t lay a hand on you. Not in that house. In return, he was to leave you alone.” He sighed. “And that’s all.”
I put my hand on his hair, the way I’d always wanted to. “What are we going to do now?” I said softly.
Shin buried his face in my lap, his arms wrapped around my waist. “You can let me sleep with you. Tonight.”
I thought about it. “All right. But just sleeping. Nothing else.”
He lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything, just climbed back into bed and put his arms around me. My chest was filled with a sweet painful turmoil, like a bird beating its wings. Turning over the scenes of our childhood, our many arguments and rivalries. Had I managed to catch up to Shin, or had he, by playing a cool and patient game, ensnared me instead? I lay on my side, listening to the rain and Shin’s breathing, feeling ridiculously happy.
43
Batu Gajah
Sunday, June 28th
The call comes on Sunday evening, interrupting the cool hush of the veranda, where William is sitting in a cotton shirt and a sarong. The air feels heavy and sticky, prelude to a monsoon. He lies in a woven rattan chair, the ice in his glass tinkling as he tilts it. William remembers walking by a frozen lake and hearing the loose chunks of floating ice ringing against the shore. Like bells chiming, Iris had said, her charming face pink with cold. That was right before she accused him of infidelity, of kissing another woman. Of all the things he’s done, he was never untrue to her. It must have been a mistake, he’d told her. “I know what I saw,” she’d said coldly. “At the Piersons’ party.” The only person he’d kissed that night in the darkness of the hallway, no witness save the grave ticking of a grandfather clock, was Iris herself. And ironically, it was because he’d been filled with sudden affection for her after a day spent, enjoyably, with friends. Recalling this injustice, a surge of resentment rises in William. So much for Iris’s neuroses, her uncanny ability to ruin good moments. But it’s a memory from another time, another life, and William presses the icy whisky glass against his forehead, listening as the telephone rings and rings through the empty bungalow.
On the eighth ring, Ah Long picks up the receiver. He’s not as fast as Ren was, scampering to pick up the telephone. Then he’s at the veranda door.
“Lady, Tuan.”
Right on time, William thinks. After all, he didn’t go to church this morning; Lydia would have missed her chance to speak to him then. He takes a deep breath. “Hello?”
Her voice is faint and uncertain, even if you discount the crackling of the telephone line. “William? It’s Lydia. Will you be in early tomorrow morning?”
“How early?” This is both annoying and alarming. “Surely it can wait?”
More crackles on the line. “—talk about Iris.”
A strong wind is blowing, whipping the thin cotton of his sarong around his ankles. The smell of rain.
“What did you say?” he shouts.
“Meet me at seven. At the European wing.”
There’s a crooked flash of lightning and the phone goes dead. William stares at it. Tomorrow morning then. Despite the poor reception, there was a note of triumph in Lydia’s voice that makes the bile rise in his throat. What else has she been up to, sleuthing around in her amateur way? Squeezing his eyes shut, he prays for the dark fortune that has followed him, to favor him again.
* * *
By six on Monday morning, William is up and dressed. The storm that raged all night is gone, leaving only swathes of flooded grass and a steady dripping from the eaves. Ah Long serves a tepid breakfast of toast with tinned baked beans in tomato sauce. No eggs. William can’t stomach them this morning and besides, he misses Ren’s delicate omelets. The whole house misses Ren. In the gloom, it’s empty and full of shadows. Ah Long says gruffly, “When is the boy coming back?”
“I’ll look in on him today.”
Ren’s condition has been so strange, his deterioration so precipitate, that William is filled with sick dread that he’ll arrive at the hospital and find Ren dead. But he mustn’t mention such thoughts to Ah Long, who’s superstitious.
Darkness on the winding road before sunrise. The Austin’s headlamps scatter shadows that melt into the bushes and trees. What does Lydia want from him? He has a bad feeling, one that only intensifies when he gets to the hospital. A milky blush seeps from the horizon, and though the buildings are quiet, there’s the indefinable sensation that people are beginning to stir. It’s 6:45 a.m. He’s early.