Joss and Gold

Eleven

Eleven 5 he was still asleep when Abdullah knocked and pushed the door open. Above the whirring of the standing fan and her own gummy drowsiness she heard him say, "Eh, Li An! You must go now. Get up quick! The curfew lift for only one hour so people can get home. Quick, lah!" Nervously, she sat up. The checked sarong was still knotted around her. She had fallen asleep without tidying Chester's bed and the stack of paperbacks strewn beside the pillow. Her face had lain on one and its spine had left a painful crease on her cheek. Abdullah stood by the door. "You get change quick. I take you home." Her clothes didn't seem to fit that morning. She felt hollowed out and overflowing with a sweet energy. She wished she could take a bath before dressing, but Abdullah was tapping at the door again. "Better I drive you," he said. Chester was nowhere in sight. She remembered he had walked her upstairs, his arm around her waist, and had kissed her at the door. She had heard him falling into Abdullah's bed before the strongest lassitude swept over her, and then Abdullah had knocked. The front door was open and the garden gate as well. Abdullah must have just come home, she saw. Her Honda was still outside the gate. "We bring your Honda another day. Safer you go in my car." JOSS and GOLD The cool quiet morning air woke her finally. Every gate was shut, every door unopened. They were the only people out on the road. She looked shyly at Abdullah as he drove through the empty roads. His face, brown with square-cut cheeks and chin, was set and determined. Through puffy eyes he stared at the road ahead. She noticed his white shirt was rumpled as if he had slept in it. "What happened?" "A riot in Kuala Lumpur." "What happened?" she asked again. "I told you the Chinese cannot push us too far. This is our country. If they ask for trouble, they get it." She had known, and she hadn't known. Abdullah, she knew now, was telling her his truth. We/Our country. They/No country. His truth was wrong; she was sure it was wrong. You cannot be born and live in a place all your life without that place belonging to you. How could you not grow roots, invisible filaments of attachment that tied you down to a ground, a source of water? If a tree were pushed off the earth it stood on, deprived of its water, it would die. But this was not the time to argue with Abdullah. Perhaps after today she and Abdullah would never be able to argue again. Letchmi was unlocking the gate before Abdullah could honk. She must have been waiting by the window all morning. Henry was on the phone, and Abdullah drove off immediately, without saying good-bye. Henry put down the receiver as soon as she came in, with Letchmi hurriedly locking the gate and door behind them. "I can't get through to Ah Pah! No one's picking up the phone!" He rubbed her shoulder distractedly. All she could think of was her shower. She needed to wash Chester's touch off her body; she was afraid Henry would be able to feel where she had felt Chester. Her face, her breasts, her thighs, her fingers, she was sure, must smell of Chester's mouth and sweat. And Letchmi with her woman's sense would surely know she had been with another man. 82 CROSSING "I have a nervous stomach," she said, hurrying to the bathroom, where she stripped and stayed under the hot stinging shower for long minutes. Carefully she powdered her whole body, shaking the talc generously as if to cover over the fingerprints. Henry was still trying the phone when she came downstairs, clean in fresh shirt and pants. "All Ah Pah's businesses are closed because of the curfew. I don't want to call Mark in Singapore. They may become frightened." He was obviously alarmed. He kept picking up the receiver and dialing the number and counting the beeps before putting down the receiver. By afternoon Henry was positive something had happened to Ah Pah. Li An had never seen him in this state. He withdrew to the armchair by the phone and in...