I sat in my chair and looked at my hands, turning them over a few times. The backs were much lighter in colour than the palms. I closed my eyes. All of a sudden, I was tired. I lay down and went to sleep, cooled by the table fan.
With each year I distanced myself a little more from the physical work on the farm. On a few occasions early on, when I was supervising a group of workers in the construction of a brick storehouse or a new net-cage, Id get frustrated if I thought they were too slow, or werent carrying out the task correctly I felt the urge to jump into the boat and drag the nets up from the water to untangle them, as Id done throughout my childhood, or to spread the mortar evenly and align the bricks myself. As I stood watching the men at work, my body felt as though it was trying to escape my control. Now, as before, I had to force it, but in a different way this time to remain still, because it was not used to being so. The more my inaction frustrated me, the louder I shouted at the workers.
Still, the body can unlearn the lessons of a lifetime, and soon the idea of taking off my shirt and working in the sun felt so foreign to me that it became distasteful. Why would I do it? I spent my time doing the rounds, making sure the fish were healthy, that the pumps and filters and generators were functioning. I also supervised all the building and repair work. The farm expanded, and after a few years we had a sales manager and a secretary.
I started saving money and having a life outside of work the kind of evenings and weekends that Id always imagined normal people had. I got married and bought a house. We started going out of town an overnight drive to Penang, a five-day tour of Bangkok. Even when I took time off, I drew my salary I got used to the idea of receiving money even though I wasnt working. In August that year, I remember going to the bank and checking my account, and not even feeling any great pleasure in seeing that my pay had been safely deposited 1,900 ringgit. I had no way of knowing that it would be the last time.
When I think back to that day when Hendro came running to tell me there was a phone call for me, I sometimes wonder how things might have been if the line had gone dead, which sometimes happened, because our connection wasnt very reliable. I know its Gods will, and that things turned out the way they did because He intended it. But still. I sometimes imagine Hendro saying, Someone called but said, Forget it, dont worry if Ah Hock is busy right now. Instead, I remember his breathlessness as he walked briskly beside me, peeling off to rejoin the other men in our soon-to-be car park. In the office, the phones receiver was lying face-down on the table, away from its cradle I didnt know if the caller had hung up since Hendro answered it.
Hello?
Wai, little brother! Its me.
Who are you?
Heyyy its Keong.
She sits and stares at me without blinking.
I noticed right at the start, from the very first interview. She never blinks. Not even when I run out of things to say. In moments of silence she holds my gaze and smiles. Its always me who looks away first.
I didnt like her at the beginning, and part of me still doesnt trust her. You can never really believe anything they say, these educated types from the big city theyre too ready with their smile, too interested in you. She looks me in the eye when I talk, as if what Im saying is the most important thing in the world. Every so often she nods, like she truly understands what Im saying. Sometimes she makes a noise, like Um umm, as if to say, Yes, Im with you. She frowns and looks at me as if shes absorbing every single word I say, even when Im just talking about unimportant things the kind of underwear I once bought in Sungai Wang Plaza, what kind of noodles I ate one evening in 2003, that kind of thing. Sometimes I do it on purpose. I want to see if she gets bored and hurries me along to talk about other stuff.
But she never loses her composure, always pretends to be fascinated. Never yawns, never checks her watch. Her Samsung Galaxy is on the table in front of me, recording everything I say, but she rarely looks at it. She just scribbles notes in her notepad from time to time. I feel like Im a politician giving a press conference on live TV.
Im the one who keeps glancing at the phone, just to make sure its still recording.
When I got her first email about two months ago, I thought it was junk, like the rest of the stuff in my inbox. Beautiful China Bride, USA Diploma Online, Viagra Direct. That day I noticed a message headed Request for interview. I ignored it it was as meaningless to me as all the others. About a week later, I noticed another email from the same person, headed: Fw: Please indicate your response. Who actually clicks on this kind of email? Every day I read about people being scammed. You click on a link and your whole computer is infected, a hacker in Russia gets all your bank info. Someone takes your hard-earned cash. They even take your identity.
However, I am the kind of person who clicks on these links. I have no online banking, no credit card, no spouse to discover the stuff I look at on the computer I have nothing to lose. I waited for a week, then two, reading the email a couple of times each day. Finally I thought, Shes confused me with someone else.
But there was no mistake. She had been doing research for her studies in America, and had heard about my case. Now she was returning to Malaysia to spend some time conducting field work. She wanted to interview me, to try to understand the circumstances and events surrounding the case. A fraudster, I thought immediately. Someone pretending to be someone else. Id say yes, and she would come into my house with ten armed men and rob me of what little cash I had left.
I would like to talk to you on an informal basis, to build a portrait of you as a human being. I am interested in your personal history. We could have an initial chat and see how things progress.
I wrote back because I was bored. She replied, with a reference letter from her university as proof. I Googled her and saw her college photo. Tan Su-Min. I asked the pastor at church to ring the number on the letter, just to be sure. New York, ah? he said. He read the letter slowly and said, doctorate in sociology wah, no joke. Its OK, its genuine, no need to call.
The first day, she rang the bell once and opened the metal gates without waiting for me to come to the door. She had crossed the small concrete porch before I could even make it out of the kitchen. I thought, She isnt scared at all. The dog next door started barking lots of people round here have dogs because of the break-ins. You wouldnt think theres anything to steal in a neighbourhood like this, but these days robbers do anything for a TV or a stereo set. The slightest thing that happens a motorbike pulls up in front of a house at night all the dogs start barking. But she wasnt at all bothered by them.
She should have been apprehensive, but instead I was the one who hesitated. I stood watching her through the grille of the front door. Hair cut short, like a boys. Or like Faye Wongs in about 1995. (I told her this a few weeks later, when I felt comfortable enough to make jokes with her.) The same height as me, about five foot seven, wearing shorts so long they looked like army trousers, with big pockets down the side. More cheerful than in her college photo. She took off her sunglasses and put them on the top of her head.
Youre OK with chatting in the house? she said. We could always go out and have our first conversation somewhere else if youre more comfortable that way. Whatever you prefer. Her question felt more like a command to me.
Its OK, we can stay here, I said.
As soon as she stepped in, she started to look around. She turned to me and tried to be polite by making small talk Thank you for agreeing to meet, I hope it isnt too inconvenient, isnt it hot, theres been no rain recently but her eyes didnt focus on me, she kept gazing at things around the room, so often that I turned to see what she was checking out. But there was nothing there, just the same room Id known all these years, the old rattan furniture that people from church donated. A Korean drama was playing on the TV. Id forgotten to turn it off when she arrived, and the actors voices filled the room. Oppa, myo haeyo. On the table across the room, a pile of newspapers. Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Jit Poh. A bible. A small cookie tin that I use to put my Magnum 4D and Big Sweep tickets in. I couldnt figure out what she was looking at.
I offered her a drink, as I do when people from church call round a carton of Yeos chrysanthemum tea. Good for hot weather, I said.
She laughed and took the carton in her hand. She looked at it as if shed never seen one before. She took a photo of it with her phone and studied it for a while before peeling away the little straw glued to the pack. Very high sugar content, she said.
Her first few questions were simple and dull. How long had I lived here, what was I planning to have for dinner that evening, was she interrupting my daily schedule that sort of thing. Id been nervous beforehand, wondering if she was going to ask me uncomfortable questions that I wouldnt be able to answer. Maybe I wouldnt even understand them. But all at once I felt I had nothing to fear.
Yes, youre interrupting Legend of the Blue, I said, pointing at the TV set. She turned to look at the screen. A man and a woman sat astride horses, looking at the sky. She laughed, as if what I had said was really funny.
So you like Korean shows? she asked. I do too.
I wasnt expecting that from someone like her foreign-educated, clever. A rich girl with fancy leather sandals. I wouldnt have thought shed watch Korean TV. I started talking about the things I watch to fill my days, about Scarlet Heart and Descendants of the Sun, and also my favourite series from previous years, like Secret Garden and Moon Embracing the Sun. I told her about the time a couple of years back when I had spent a whole evening drinking beer and eating fried chicken wings while watching My Love From the Star just to feel in tune with Jun Ji-Hyuns character in the show, and that Id loved my chimek-and-TV night so much that I had another the next day, with more beer and wings and Korean romance, right up until the street lamps went off and the skies began to lighten. When the church group called round that morning they were shocked to find me surrounded by beer bottles and looking a bit sick. They thought I was slipping back into bad ways, so they made me go to church with them to see the pastor, who talked to me about how the devil can get inside me without my even knowing it. If I wasnt vigilant at all times, and didnt pray for Gods protection, I would be vulnerable, and though I felt sorry and knew what he said was true, I also knew that I wouldnt stop watching Korean shows. I would just stop the beer it was too expensive anyway.
All that time she was nodding in agreement, occasionally laughing a soft giggle that encouraged me to talk even more. She scribbled some words on a notepad now and then, and set her phone down on the table, recording.
But Im just talking rubbish, I said.
No, no its really interesting. Please, go on.
As I spoke I couldnt stop wondering why she was so interested in me. But I couldnt stop talking. Whats more, to a total stranger. The way she nodded and silently wrote her notes made me feel both important and uneasy. Sometimes she would say something simple like Those situations must have been difficult for you, and those few words were like a match to a trail of gasoline, lighting up a path ahead, making me talk even more. I tried to resist the impulse to speak, but failed. What revelations would I make, and regret later? I liked her for letting me talk. I hated her for making me talk.
She spoke Mandarin in a way that made it obvious that it was a second language to her sometimes clear as a textbook, other times halting, mixed in with a bunch of English words. Everything about her seemed alien to me that first time, even though she came from only thirty miles away. Her foreignness made it easier for me to speak as freely as I did. I could tell her anything I wanted, and she would have to believe me. That first day, even though I tried to be formal in the way I spoke, I felt myself lapsing into dialects, my country Hokkien surging out of me from time to time, or else the odd Cantonese swear word popping up before I even realised Id said it.
Suddenly I would be aware of my speech, the difference between the crudeness of my voice and the polish of hers, always under control, never too loud or too soft. Sometimes I would say something inappropriate and Id think, Now she is going to realise she has made a huge mistake. Now she will start making excuses to leave. But her expression never changed always balanced between interest and amusement. She stayed for four hours.
Weve seen each other once or twice a week, sometimes three times, for the last two months. Every time, without fail, she comes to my house and sits patiently while I talk. We drink Chinese tea or chrysanthemum tea from a carton, and I might snack on some biscuits. She never eats anything, not even a dried melon seed. If a stranger walked into the room they would see a couple of acquaintances, or perhaps relatives a young woman dutifully listening to her older cousin. But they are not as intimate as it appears. They are separated not just by ten or fifteen years, but by something else that neither can properly identify.
For example, how do you explain this incident? One day, not long after we first meet, maybe four or five sessions in, Im talking about random, unconnected incidents from my childhood from the time we were living with my uncle, after my father had left us and we had nowhere to call our own. I was only ten, but I hated that house. I spent all day outdoors, walking along the streams and inlets that ran into the river and eventually fed into the sea. I knew all the ricefields and the forests, I knew how to set traps for fish and shoot birds with my catapult. Sometimes the birds I shot wouldnt be killed, they would just fall to the ground and flap around weakly with broken wings. Sometimes I felt pity for them, and regretted hurting them, but even as I felt that sorrow I knew I would do it again. The only way I could stop their suffering was to kill them, usually by dropping a big rock on them, or by twisting their necks just like this, I show her with my hands.
She nods and continues to take notes, but I notice something a tiny change in her expression, something like a grimace that breaks through her half-smile, just for a moment, before she composes herself. So I continue. I describe how I would hear a soft crunch under the rock as I dropped it on the bird. How their bones were weaker than twigs in my hands. She nods, as if she understands, but I know she has no idea what it means to put an end to a life.