Gemas, 1:30AM, December 1965

It was more than an hour since the train chugged its way from Kluang Station.  Although it was in the middle of night, there was a sense of excitement as it approached the interchange at Gemas, Negri Sembilan.  Unlike Kluang and other minor stations, Gemas had tracks that led to the East Coast.  Passengers heading for Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan would disembark and board another set of coaches.  The stop was longer than at other stations, so most people would disembark to stretch their legs, sip some coffee or go to the washroom.  The dining coach was at the end of winding coaches and the train washrooms usually stank, so passengers would dine in or ease themselves only as a last resort.  For those who chose to stay put on their seats, there would be vendors who boarded the coaches to sell samosas, curry puffs, some other Malay kuihs and bottled drinks. 

Mak took out a thin Good Morning face towel, dampened it in the sink at the kopitiam and wiped the layer of oil and grime from my face.  She fed me with a warm steamed red bean pau and hot Ovaltine.  I felt stuffy in my new brown, plaid cotton dress with its high, round collar and short, tight sleeves but I kept quiet since all our loose pyjamas were in the big baggage on the top rack above our heads.  Being the youngest child, I was the apple of her eyes. 

Mak doted on me to the chagrin of Kak Aida, who loved to scare me with stories about me being adopted and that Mak kept a toyol (a cherubic devil that steals at the owner’s behest) that she would pass on to the youngest offspring upon her demise.  She must have been upset with the presence of three younger siblings after seven years of blissful childhood in Bukit Tinggi, Sumatra, where she was born at the end of World War II, and Ipoh, where Bapak had a printing press which was confiscated for printing anti-colonial publications.  Those were times of plenty for my parents and the two older children.  Bapak and his partners were said to roll 50 ringgit notes as cigarettes whenever they painted the town red.  There were cabarets in Ipoh where they could listen to musical quartets and pay for the dancing girls.  Photos of them in Bukit Tinggi and Ipoh had Bapak well turned out in dark pantaloon, light long-sleeve shirt, a broad tie, a white smart jacket, dark sunglasses and dark hair thickly gelled with Brylcreem.  Mak looked demure in her Javanese batik sarong from Pekalongan, embroidered kebaya of ‘kasa rubiah’ and a transparent shawl over her Indonesian-style bun.  Abang Hatta was usually in neatly-pressed short-sleeve shirt and short Oxford trousers while Kak Aida looked pretty in floral print dresses, patent leather shoes and attractive hair accessories. 

It was painful then to compare those photos with the ones at Kebun Ubi, where they and the infant Jamal looked forlornly into the camera dressed in drab attire and set against a ramshackle outhouse.  When Ra’ayat Trading folded, the family moved back to Singapore where they lived with Ustaz Jalal’s family in Geylang Serai, a haphazard traditional settlement unlike the more organised Kampong Melayu Kaki Bukit.  By the time Yat and I were born, we had moved to different rented units until Ustaz Jalal, Siddi’s former student and Bapak’s adopted father, was kind and generous enough to allow us to live in his house at 38 Jalan Damai.               

My thoughts flew to the veranda and the broad stone stairway, where we would put on our shoes before we leave for school in the early or late mornings, depending on the session we were in.  My school uniform was a saffron orange, knee-length starched linen skirt with broad pleats that accentuated my rounded belly and exposed my blemished legs for everyone’s scrutiny.  The transparent short-sleeved shirt made me feel so conscious of my budding top that I always had plain or ribbed chemise on underneath.  On Mondays, I had to put on an ugly orange tie for the weekly assemblies that made me feel more like a tomboy since Mak had my hair cropped short to prevent me from contracting lice from scruffy class mates.  My name must have been registered late for me to be admitted to the last class – 1F - and some of my class mates from the squatter areas were generally unkempt.  But I made good grades and was promoted to 2C and 3A.  It didn’t help though that Yat was tall, slim, fair, with soft wavy hair that complemented her dimpled cheeks.  I felt like a Gollywog next to Shirley Temple, especially when my siblings and relatives started calling me ‘Budak Muka Lipas’ (Cockroach Face Kid), 'Kaki Tiang Jamban' (Toilet Post Legs) or teased me with taunts of:

Betty, Betty bom-bom,

Malam-malam curi jagong,

Mata-mata tangkap,

Masuk rumah pasong”

(Betty, Betty bom-bom,

She stole corns at night,

The cops caught her,

Put her in the lock-up)

Yat attended the primary school at Jalan Eunos, which was closer to our home than Telok Kurau, and her school uniform was more flattering too – a dark green pleated pinafore with a belt which created a slimmer silhouette.  To make matters worse, Mak would buy bulky boys’ laced-up shoes for me and dainty, streamline girls’ shoes for her.   

Since her school was closer to home, she got to ride on an orange van driven by a prune-faced Javanese man.  I had to wait for Mak, Abang Hatta or Jamal to take me to school either by trishaw, bicycle or by bus.  Since I never attended kindergarten, Mak waited at the canteen with other protective parents to accompany me and other timid pupils during recess.  It took me many months to wean off Mak’s warm bosom and adjust to regimented school life.  Luckily I had gentle and kind teachers in the shapes of Miss Suppiah and Miss Tan, who were very patient and understanding.  Mrs O’Hara, the principal, was just the opposite - strict and merciless.  She would shoo off the parents waiting at the canteen to go home:

“Balik, balik!  Apa tunggu lagi di sini?”  (Go home!  What are you all waiting for here?)

In my second year, Abang Hatta would give me a ride on the bar of his Raleigh bicycle taking the short cut through the bumpy, back road crossing the shanty homes and pig farms in Chai Chee.  In my third year, I had to take the bus either with Jamal or on my own and walked the extra mile from the junction of Jalan Eunos and Geylang Road to reach my school.  I was often late and Jamal had to accompany me to explain to my class teacher and walk back to his school near Still Road.  We never figured out why Bapak enrolled him in a Malay school when all four of us attended English schools.  Never mind that Abang Hatta had to sit three times for his Senior Cambridge or that Kak Aida dropped out from school when she ran away from her grandparents’ house in Klang. 

Although Kamal was protective of me as his little sister, his relationship with Yat was competitive.  Yat had always been resourceful, looking for coins that fell in through the cracks between the planks in the living room to rest on the supporting planks outside.  When she had gathered enough to buy Wall’s or Magnolia’s stick ice cream - not the cheap ‘ais krim potong’ (wafer ice cream bar) from Sun Sun - she would show off and allowed us just one lick.  One hot afternoon, when Jamal tried to get a bite off her tangy orange ice cream, she pulled it away and, before we knew it, fell into the small drain that ran around the house and hit her shoulder blade on the jagged outer rim.  Jamal turned pale and ran off to hide while I alerted Mak, who got Abang Hatta to call the ambulance.  Yat was warded for a few days and when she was discharged, she had to wear a sling until her fractured shoulder blade mend completely.                 

Tanjong Pagar, 8PM, December 1965

Finally, it was time to board the Senandong Malam to Kuala Lumpur.  The station master had blown the whistle for the third time and flagged down the red triangle cloth as a signal of departure.  I stood behind Mak, Kak Aida, Jamal and Yat on the narrow aisle between the bare seats in the third class coach.  Abang Hatta, my eldest brother, stayed behind.  He was  22 and working in the police force.  I could see Mak’s tears streaking down her face as she said her last words of advice:

“Jagalah diri baik-baik.  Rajin-rajin tulis surat.  Kalau sunyi carilah Aim or Razak” (Take good care of your self.  Write often.  If you’re lonely, look for Aim or Razak). 

Razak and Rahim were cousins that were his best buddies.  Leaving him alone in Singapore was one of the hardest decisions in Mak’s life, one that she regretted until her dying day.  But events that unfolded forced her to leave the island republic where she was born and had spent the first 40 years of her life.          

There were the race riots during the Prophet’s Birthday procession in July last year, and in December, there was the family crisis that had smeared ‘charcoal on her face’.  The women and children had huddled and shuddered in their living area for many nights while the men prepared for armed combat amidst the not-too-distant sounds of war drums being beaten in the neighbouring village of Chai Chee.  I heard that men from as far as Batu Pahat, Johore, had provided reinforcement for the vigilantes in Singapore.  Even after the tensions had subsided and the curfew hours reduced, there was still a general feeling of unease.  And a family calamity that occurred late in the year hastened my mother's decision to listen to my Siddi's (paternal grandfather) suggestion to move and start a new life in Kuala Lumpur, about 40 kilometres from Klang, where he lived and worked.

My vision was blurred as I pressed my nose against the train shutter and waved good bye to all my mother’s brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces - Wak Som, Wak Enah, Wak Yok, Wak Aman, Mak Munah, Wak Aeng, Pak Cik Pom, Abang Aim, Abang Razak, Abang Omar, Abang Amzah, Kak Pet, Kak Imah, Tutut, Tenah - and our neighbours – Mak Cik Mani, Enchah and Yon - who had sent us off.

As the dusty brown and yellow coaches snaked its way out of the station and headed north, I bade farewell to nine years of my childhood, the last three years spent at 38 Jalan Damai, Kampung Melayu Kaki Bukit (Malay Kampung at the Foothills), the traditional Malay kampong house which faced the padang (field) at the back of the hill.  I closed my eyes and pictured the air pancor (water spout) halfway up the hill, where the neighbors’ children and I scooped its gushing water to wash our sweaty faces on hot afternoons.  The dirt ditch that separated our house from the orange dirt road that ran parallel to the padang, where Benggali bread vendors, Chinese ice cream sellers, Sikh cow herders and Malay movie stars passed by.  That old dirt drain, whose waters had swelled one monsoon season and whose currents had swept and almost drowned me had Jamal had not dived in and rescued me, was recently reinforced with uniform V-shaped, concrete ducts.

The dirt bridge that led to our compound with its rough hedges of tea bushes that hugged the big dirt drain in front and the little one on the left that marked the boundary of our plot and that of our affable neighbor’s – Pak Seman ‘Benjol’ (a permanent bump on his right forehead earned him that nick name) and his wife Mak Limah who supplemented her husband’s income by selling ‘cakar ayam’ (small, rounded, caramelised sweet potato hash browns) from home.  Mak had heeded Pak Seman’s advice to feed Jamal two boiled eggs in the mornings after his circumcision but that proved disastrous, when the pus on his wound got worse.  When Mak told him:

“Wak, nananya makin teruk bila saya kasi makan telor” 

(Uncle, the pus got worse when I fed him eggs)

“Siapa suruh kau kasi dia makan telor?”  

(Who asked you to feed him eggs?)     

There was no drain separating our land and our neighbours’ on the right – Mak Cik Mani (short for Mahani, the stern-faced yet kind breadwinner of her family), Pak Cik Man (her reserved husband, who spent hours looking out the front window with a rosary in his right hand since he recovered from a stroke), Nek (her crinkled-face, betel chewing, story-teller, octogenarian mother), Pipit (her 16 year old daughter, nicknamed ‘sparrow’ for her love of ‘chirping’), Mamat (Mohamed, a year younger than Pipit, who filled every waking hour with youthful pursuits like gasing spinning and kite slicing with such fierce intensity), Enchah (Habsah, her studious, sensible daughter who was my best pal) and Yon (Haron, her youngest son, whom Jamal loved to tease as my suitor) – only scattered, waist-high hedges of hibiscus plants and a tall jambu batu (guava) tree, which shaded the ‘amben’ (low, wide bench) where Enchah and I spent many lazy afternoons listening to Pipit’s tales of romantic escapades.  The guava tree had also provided the shade for my mother’s makeshift ‘warong’ (foodstall), where Mak occasionally sold her ‘nasi sambal goreng’ (rice served with spicy offals and mixed beans), ‘nasi rawon’ (rice with beef in black sauce made from buah keluak) and ‘lontong’ (rice cubes with creamy mixed vegetables soup and sambal, serunding and bergedil).  Mak Cik Mani was more steadfast in purveying her white and yellow steamed ‘putu piring’ with ‘gula melaka’ fillings.  I had earned my pocket money from selling those hot piping flour cakes wrapped in banana leaves by going around the village with Enchah after school.  With the 15 sen ‘duit jajan’ (sales commission), I had splurged on ‘tikam-tikam’ (a mini wheel of fortune) which got me a pink ‘cincin buah kana’ (a ring with a fake stone in the shape of an olive), pink cotton candies, ‘gula tarik’ (hard, white treacle) and ‘ais krim potong’ (blocks of wafer ice cream bars).  Enchah and I were very close although we attended different schools and different levels – I was a standard three pupil at Telok Kurau West Integrated Primary School, an English medium school, while Enchah was a Secondary One student at Sekolah Menengah Still Road, a Malay medium secondary school.  I remembered we were not on talking terms only once, when Mak Cik Mani had accidentally given a toxic fragrance, which upset Mak so that she hurled her red and green coconut candies to the ground just outside the kitchen for Mak Cik Mani to see.

Our kitchen, like most Malay kampong ones, was a half-concrete half-wooden part of the house which was built on the ground at the back of the oil varnished brownish black wooden house on posts.  Welcoming the guests in front was the red-painted, concrete stairway and a small veranda with its smoothly finished wooden bench.  The kitchen was rather large, with ample space for a small cemented area to wash fish, meat and vegetables, a small aluminium-plated charcoal stove, a steel and formica dining table and chairs, a plan beige mengkuang mat and kapok mattress to lie on for afternoon siestas, an indoor bathroom with a ‘tempayan’ (porcelain water vessel) and ‘kolah’ (concrete pool to retain water from the tap), and the creepy ‘bawah kolong’ or space under the stairs.  I recalled one night a few years ago when I was thirsty and Mak went down to get a glass of water while I waited at the top of the stairs that led to the main house with its larger and smaller bedrooms on the right and left.  I thought I saw my second brother Jamal dash out from the dark cell and called out, “Mal!” but the figure just vanished into thin air.  Since that incident, I dared not venture down to the kitchen at night. 

The kitchen held both pleasant and unpleasant memories.  Jamal, Yat and I could not wait to lap up Mak’s hot coconut pancakes, omelettes, eggs in soya sauce, fish in soya sauce, fish ‘tauco’ (fermented soya), fish ball soup, fish cooked in ‘asam pedas’ (hot and sour gravy), ‘sambal goring’ (spicy offal with mixed vegetables) or the golden, honey-combed ‘baulu suri’ (traditional Malay sponge cake) on those rare, rare occasions or just plain watery vegetable soup, porridge or gruel with margarine and sugar, unsalted cream crackers and Cheddar cheese (donated either by the USAID or the American Peace Corps) on the unexpected lean days.  Once in a blue moon, when Mak returned from wedding invitations, we would get to taste ghee rice or briyani, beef or chicken bamia and hard-boiled eggs that the hosts packed for us.  Special treats like murtabak (Middle-Eastern bread with mince meat fillings) from Islamic Restaurant in Arab Street were few and far between, like when Wak Enah, Mak’s eldest sister, appeared through the kitchen door (which most womenfolk and children did then) like a Fairy Godmother bearing pricy imported fruits and delicious desserts – red and green globes of juicy grapes, shiny crunchy apples and tangy oranges, moist marble cakes and wobbly green and red clear jellies - that Mak could not afford to buy or prepare.  Whenever Mak craved for the Mi Rebus (noodles in thick mutton gravy) and Satay (skewered meat drowned in peanut sauce) in Joo Chiat Road, she would take one of us and a more expensive batik sarong of hers to hock at the pawn shop in front before tucking in at the back lane. When Abang Hatta started work as a police constable, he would buy remnants of sponge cakes from the bakery on his way home which we devoured in a jiffy. 

And then there were the days and nights that we dreaded, whenever Bapak took his place at the head of the table.  Not only we were not supposed to help ourselves before him, but we had to be extremely careful not to ruffle his feathers.  Mealtimes with Bapak were tense and sombre affairs.  One evening, when we were all salivating at the dining table to tuck into Mak’s steaming hot fish ball soup Mak said to Bapak,

“Please use the ladle, not your own spoon, to scoop the soup to your plate”  

Bapak suddenly flew into a rage, got up and thumped the table.  

“I’m the head of the family! Why do I have to use the ladle? Why can’t I use my own spoon?  Are you afraid that I’ll spread my germs?” 

Whack! Mak raised her palm to cool her burning cheek.  We just hung our heads and squirmed and prayed silently for the storm to subside.  Bapak’s fury was unpredictable.  It can be triggered by any slight from any one of us.  One day, when a hot water flask that he flung at Kak Aida missed her, some of the scalding water spilled on my thighs.  And I just winced when he bent three copper coins with a pair of pliers and twisted Jamal’s arms for failing to buy him Players cigarettes with those three cents.  Whenever I heard Bapak’s footsteps on the wooden planks of the main house, my heart sank and I escaped to play outside.