Joss and Gold

One

One LiAn wa, ,",hing to get to he, ,"cond cI",,, on time. A new tutor, she was timid with her students, arts freshies just arrived at the university in June. The big dark Ceylonese student , Gomez, had looked at her during the first meeting as if to say he didn't believe she understood Keats's "Ode on Melancholy" as well as he did. His superior stare had made her doubt her decision to begin the year with the poem, considering there were easier passages in the practical criticism collection every first-year student had to read. She had selected the "Ode on Melancholy" on impulse, although she had presented it to the class with an air that suggested she had carefully planned to teach it. That was her first mistake, and being late now was her second. Henry had taken the car early. He was always up early and in his biology lab by 7 A.M. She had insisted on keeping her motorbike after they married. The 125 cc Honda couldn't keep up with the Norton and Suzuki motorbikes and speeding taxis on the Federal Highway, but it carried her fast enough, with lots of wind in her face. Six students were waiting for her in the tiny seminar room-four girls, Gomez, and a pale Chinese boy who had made the wrong selection in courses. Wong, inarticulate, giggled nervously when he didn't understand something, but when she spoke to him about changing to a different subject, he refused. He had heard the geography lecturers were notori- JOSS and GOLD ous for failing their students, and he hoped she would be easier on him. It wasn't more than a few minutes after the hour, but the students looked at her reproachfully, as if she had stolen something from them. This morning she had prepared a prose passage from D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, and she read it aloud, relishing the overflow of sibilants like spiced chickpeas in her mouth. When the students ventured no comments , she spoke with increasing recklessness, ignoring the, giggles from the corner and Gomez's glare: "You see, Lawrence' suggests that physical attraction, sex, is a powerful force." The Chinese girls lowered their eyelids. Pretty Eurasian Sally listened intently, and Mina, the Malay student whose father, worked in the Ministry of Agriculture, who said she wanted to be an actress, and who Li An knew admired her, remained silent, seemingly unconvinced. When the hour was over, Li An sat in the empty room, unable to move. Was this struggle of English words against unyielding minds what she wanted? Only last year she had been cramming for the exams and couldn't have enough of English literature. The library was crowded with students-a hundred seemed to be waiting on line at the reserved books counter-and so cold with air-conditioning that everyone wore sweaters and cardigans. She sat upstairs, reading old copies of Scrutiny and copying fine phrases by F. R. Leavis, occasionally tearing off her sweater and running outside in the blazing sun to the back of the faculty lounge, where she bought sizzling flaky curry puffs and smoked two cigarettes in a row. All the English lecturers seemed glamorous and witty, even portly ones like Mr. Mason, and Jane Austen's novels dazzled her with social comedy that unfailingly ended in civilized marriage. Henry was very kind to her that year. One afternoon in the library she fainted from lack of sleep and food and too much reading, and he offered her a ride back to the residential hall in his car. That evening he visited her with jars of Brand's Essence of Chicken in their distinctive green boxes and a bottle of eau de cologne. He was a chemistry graduate student 4 CROSSING whose father owned rubber estates, a brick factory in Segamat, a lorry transport company, and blocks of housing estates in various towns, including a few in Petaling Jaya. Henry, the eldest son, was living with his father's second wife in Kuala Lumpur while he was studying at the university. "You can't be serious!" Gina said, when Li An began seeing Henry. "He's such a China-type! What can see in him, lah?" "Plenty of money, man," Ellen mocked. "Now no more hawker food, only air-con coffee shops." "Henry, oh Henry, buy me diamond ring, big...