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| Proposed mock-up cover |
Updated, January 6th 2016
December
2 1976
It’s exactly 11 years
today since Mak and I moved to KL. A lot of water have flowed into the Muddy
Confluence since then. We’re now Permanent Residents, though not full citizens
yet. We acquired our Red ICs, those clear plastic identity cards with hideous black
and white photos of us, more than two years ago. With that, I was entitled to 45
ringgit scholarship while I was a Sixth Former at Samad, short for Sultan Abdul
Samad Secondary School.
Although I was among
the top 10 students (number six, actually) in the mid-year examinations, somehow
I blew it for the actual HSC, Higher School Certificate, exams in November ’75.
It confounded me no end how that could have happened. Had it been that excruciating
toothache just the day before? Or Kak Hana’s kids screaming and knocking down
my door when I tried to concentrate? Did I spot the wrong questions? Or was
there a mix-up with another candidate’s results?
My English literature teacher
said that I could request for a query. That would cost me a 100 ringgit. And I didn't have the money for that. I was shattered that my name wasn’t on the list
pinned on the school’s bulletin board. My old classmates --- Zee, Nah, Non,
Lorraine, Yap … they were all laughing and crying and hugging each other as I
walked all the way to Kak Hana’s house in SEA Park. I was afraid to
break the news to Mak. She had had high hopes. And I had crushed them.
Kak Hana let me sit
on her patio for hours until I gathered the strength to face Mak. It was odd
that she didn’t sit and talk to me. I thought I saw a glint in her eyes
when she said she had to pick Rara up from school. But I told myself that that could
have been my imagination.
To be honest, I
didn’t really want to go to Sixth Form. All I wanted was to get out of my mother’s
flat like Sherry did in February ’72. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I picked
up my MCE results in March ’73 --- it was a Grade II! I filled out and sent the
application forms for Diploma Programs in Banking and Business Studies at ITM (Institut
Teknologi MARA) in Shah Alam. I stacked the jeans and smocks that Sherry gave
me to wear for lectures. I looked forward to be free of my 6’ by 10’ cell and
share a hostel room with college mates.
But Mak and Mat had
to talk me into attending another two years of penitentiary in school uniform
and school shoes at that notorious boys’ school up the hill.
Mak sat me down and
told me at the dinner table, “I want you to go to university and study law like
Moon.”
Moon is the youngest
daughter of her eldest sister. She’s seriously smart --- with schoolmarm
glasses and perfect English. But there’s a lighter side to her too --- she can
play a mean guitar and belt out Helen Shapiro’s and Jose Feliciano’s numbers.
Walking Out to Happiness and Listen to the Falling Rain.
And Mat said to me at
the front balcony later that evening, “You should reach for the stars. So, even
if you fall, you’ll land on the clouds.”
Yeah, yeah. That was
easy for him to say. He copped out after he failed in his first attempt at SPM (Sijil
Pelajaran Malaysia) in ‘69. He didn’t even bother to re-sit for it the
following year like his elder brother, Abang Tar, who sat three times for his
Senior Cambridge exams before he finally gave up.
That confounded me
too. That Mat failed in his SPM. Not just failed, but failed badly. Everybody expected
him to get at least a Grade III so he could apply for vocational courses at IKM
(Institut Kemahiran MARA). But an STP? Sijil Tamat Pengajian? A Certificate of
Completion was an insult to a star student like him. He had been the top
student of his whole school in JB when he was in Standard Six.
Naturally, he was
sore at his results. He blamed the imported Indonesian science teachers with
their nasal accents for using foreign terms that students like him had problems
comprehending. He blamed the Sri Jaya bus for re-routing and caused him to be hours
late for school. He blamed the Riots in May for making him miss precious weeks
of classes.
When he was done
fuming and seething, he packed his clothes and left for his hometown and worked
at the dockyard in JB for two years until Abang Tar’s death in March ’72. When
he came back to our flat, he had gotten the blues, played with a pop band and started
to smoke weed.
That was more than four
years ago. He moved on to stronger and stronger stuff. When I was studying for
my MCE in ‘73, he was sniffing gum. At the end of my Sixth Form in ‘75, he was Chasing
the Dragon. He and his kutu friends from
Flat Melayu had been rounded up by the patrol police countless times. All kinds
of police officers from the PJ State Balai
had raced up the stairs and waited for Mak at our front balcony. And she, in
her state of panic, had waved her false hair piece and fake doughnut at their
faces while she fixed her bun. At the police station, Mak had acted her role of
the Long-Suffering Mother and begged the Dato’
in Blue to release Mat. After Abang Shid heard this sob story for the umpteenth
time, he got fed-up and told Mak to let the police detain Mat once and for all and
send him to Pudu or Kajang or Pulau Jerjak.
“But then, he’ll have
a prison record!”
“Let it be. Let him
learn his lesson!”
“What if hard-core
criminals beat him up?”
“He’ll just have to
toughen up and fend for himself then!”
I must confess that I
was both terrified and relieved when he overdosed on heroin. One late
afternoon, about eight months ago, when my best friend Hani and I were all
dressed up in our suede Midi skirts, vinyl high kicking boots, Lulu wigs and
spiky false eye lashes to watch the movies at Sentosa, we heard Mak shriek. We
rushed from the front balcony with our boots on and saw blobs of clotted blood
on the kitchen floor and back balcony. Mat had ran into the bathroom and left
the aluminum door slightly opened. Hani and I stared at the trail of dark red
spots the size of fifty cent coins.
“Mat, are you
alright?” I yelled from the other side of the bathroom door. Then I felt stupid.
Of course, he wasn’t. Or he won’t be shitting blood. I heard him wretch. My
stomach clenched.
“Mat, let’s go to the
hospital! Hani, go hail a cab from the main road! I’ll help Mat down the
stairs!”
Hani scuttled out of
the flat.
“It’s okay. It’s
okay. I’ll just lie down ‘til I feel better,” he said as he pushed the bathroom
door open. He bent his body slightly to clutch at the pain in his abdomen. His
face was pale and his eyes glazed over.
“No, Mat, we’ve got
to go now. While Hani is here to help me. Let’s go!”
I almost screamed as
I propped him up on my shoulder to stop him from hitting the floor. I dragged
him through the kitchen and the sitting room to the front balcony. I screeched
at Mak,
“Pass me his
slippers! I’ll put them on for him when we’re in the taxi!”
“Iya lah! Iya lah! Take off your boots and slip on your sandals!”
“I can’t! I can’t! He’ll
fall if I let him go!”
I grabbed Mat’s
slippers with my free hand and shouted at Mak, who was breathing hard into my
face,
“Mak, hurry up, move
aside!”
Thud, thud, thud. The sound of my black boots
against the stairs as we made our way three floors down. Mat held on to the railings
and paused at every landing. I stared at the steps below, looked at his frail
body and prayed that he wouldn’t collapse on me.
We made it to the
Emergency Ward at University Hospital. Mat and me and Hani. The taxi driver,
the people at the emergency counter, the nurses and doctors … they all looked
at us like we were aliens from Outer Space.
“I’m … I’m his
sister. His adopted sister. This, here, is my childhood friend,” I blurted,
hoping to wipe off the amused looks from their faces.
What were they
thinking? Just what were they thinking?
That Mat was some
kind of local Jimi Hendrix? And Hani and I were some perasan Janis Joplins?
Can’t they do just do
their work without looking at us as if we were thrash?
After hours of
holding him down --- covering him with our woolen ponchos when he shivered,
wiping his runny nose and dripping saliva with Kleenex, fanning him with our
Jackie magazines when he sweated --- I was glad that Mat was finally confined to
a hospital bed, not a prison cell. Mak didn’t need to air her false hair in
front of some long-suffering police constable no more. Abang Shid didn’t need
to threaten to send Mat to jail ever again.
But I knew the
doctors couldn’t keep him at the ward forever. Once he was discharged, he would
beg, borrow or steal Mak’s money and go out to meet his friends and they would
be rounded up and it would be another Roller Coaster ride for me and Mak all
over again.
A month later, in May,
I met this editor from Mingguan Perdana while waiting on tables at Restoren
Bertam near the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka roundabout. It was a dinner function
celebrating the winners of ’76 National Literary Award. Z. Hari was one of the Pemenang Hadiah Sastera Nasional with
his novel, A Red Moon over the Muddy Confluence.
I stood around the
main refreshment table with the other waitresses to make sure that there were
enough food and drinks. The person who gave the speech hailed the Big Names in
Malay Literature. A. Samad Ismail, Kris Mas, Usman Awang, Arenawati, Ashraf. I
remembered Mak mentioning Ashraf’s name many times before. He was a distant
relative, bau bau bacang … faint
scent of a mango. His wife, Timah Ashraf, was a journalist with Majalah
Bintang, an entertainment magazine published by P. Ramlee at the height of his
fame in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.
Pak Samad --- A.
Samad Ismail --- and Abang Man --- Usman Awang --- lived up the hill on Jalan
Sudin when we were in Kaki Bukit. Mak said we were distant relatives of Pak
Samad. And our neighbor’s wife, Kak Ha, was Abang Man’s sister-in-law.
That night, I wore my
kain wiron – center-slit, pleated
sarong - and kebaya to work to match
the restaurant’s theme of Malay kampong cuisine. I pulled my thick, wavy hair
into a French chignon with wisps falling down the sides of my face to slim down
my cheeks and hide my square jaws. Sherry had shown me how to look
sophisticated without resorting to ‘ugly’ Lulu wigs. I hung my thick glasses on
my cleavage, just above the top button of my kebaya bodice and peered at the guests like a short-sighted Mr
McGoo.
A medium height, dark,
skinny guy with curly hair and blemished skin walked towards the buffet table
and chatted me up. He must have thought that I was making eyes at him. He asked
me if I was interested in working as a reporter for Mingguan Perdana. I said, “Why,
yes, of course.” Like, sure, any other job is better than waiting on tables at
Bertam!
A moment later, I
told Z. Hari that I had actually applied for a job with Berita Harian, called
for written tests and interviews and was waiting for them to mail the
appointment letter. He asked me to come to his office on Monday anyway and that
was how we started to date. He asked me about my family. I told him that I
lived with my mother. My adopted brother had just overdosed on heroin last
month. My best friend and I took him to the Emergency Ward at the University
Hospital, where he was treated with methadone. Z said he knew the Minister in
charge of Drug Rehab and he could help to secure a place for Mat at the Centre.
I told Mak and Mat
the good news. The four of us – Mat, Mak, Z and me – jumped on the train to the
small town where the center was. And that was one of the reasons why I felt indebted
to Z. Not counting the dinners and movie treats and fabrics from the Thai
border and presents from countries he was sent for overseas assignments.
Today is my twentieth
birthday. It marks seven months of me ‘going steady’ with Z. I have never dated
anyone that long. All my previous dates were short-lived. Mak had nipped them
all in the bud. I didn’t know how I could have gone out with someone so
different for so many months. He’s not my type at all. Not that I know what my
‘type’ was. Perhaps someone like Hak, the student activist who rented our room,
during his second and third year when I was in Form Four and Form Five. Someone
with a noble cause. Someone who was willing to go to prison to fight for the
rights of the oppressed – the poor peasants, the landless, the rubber
smallholders, the fishermen who lived from hand to mouth … kais pagi, makan pagi, kais petang, makan petang.
In early ’74, while I
was waiting for my MCE results, the newspapers’ headlines were full of reports
about student activists being arrested for illegal demonstrations. When Hak
didn’t return from Baling, where he joined the others in a sit-in protest
against famine, his room-mate told Mak that he was one of those hauled in along
with student leader, Anwar Ibrahim.
Hak would have been
proud of me if he knew that I enrolled at Samad for my Sixth Form a few months
after his arrest. Though we lived in the same unit, we kept to our rooms when
his room-mate or Mak wasn’t around. If Mak was around, he’d accept her
invitation to sit and talk at the dinner table and I’d join in. Otherwise, he’d
just say ‘Hello, how are you?” if he saw me standing at the front balcony on
his way out or on his way in to his room.
He was always rushing
to tutorials (he skipped most of his lectures), meetings at Restoren Amjal at
Pantai Baru and protest demonstrations all over --- KL, JB, Baling. Unlike the
Kakak-kakak Stylo with their micro-minis and thick make-up, who rented our room
before and took me and Sherry to Saturday Night Balls and Screaming Contests at
the DTC, Hak inspired me to want to be part of a worthy cause, a conscientious
movement for ‘equality and justice’. I looked up to him as one of my heroes,
along with Che Guevara, Malcolm X and Kassim Ahmad.
But that was almost
three years ago. I wasn’t even sure if he was interested in me as a girlfriend.
Even if he did, I wouldn’t know where to look for him.
If Sherry had been
around, she would’ve urged me to ditch Z. She would’ve said that he was ‘too kental’ – too square – for a groovy
chick like me. But she had flown off to Paris last summer, to be with Pierre.
And this December, she will experience her first winter and touch her first
snow flake. In her aerograms to me, she marks her calendar according to the
seasons in Europe and sends me photos of herself in tartan skirts, thick
sweaters, woolen caps and knitted gloves.
And here I am …
stranded in this tropical heat and dust with a brown-skinned Caliban by my side.
Not that I’m angry and bitter at her and Kak Hana for avoiding Abang Tar when
he was jobless and Mat when he was stoned. That’s just the way they are. Just
like their Ummi. They can’t face problems in their lives. Not like me and Mak …
we confront them and find ways to solve them. They’ll flee, sweep things under
the carpet and pretend that everything is hunky dory.
Well, I shouldn’t lump
Sherry along with her mother and sister. I’m pretty sure she would have helped
put Mat in Rehab if she hadn’t had to avoid Kak Hana and Abang Shid. Whatever
it is, I’m glad that she finally found someone to protect and provide for her.
Never mind if he’s a White Man from a former Imperialist Power. Pierre is a
good, responsible person. I could see it in his clear, blue eyes and tall, strong
built. Plus, Sherry had made up for her absence by paying my registration fee
so I could sit for my HSC exams for the second time.
“You really don’t
have to, Sherry. I’ll get a job and pay for it myself,” I told her when she
visited Mat at University Hospital.
“It’s alright. You’ll
miss the closing date if you wait too long!”
That’s just like her.
Prompt, efficient, firm.
Unlike Mak who flips
flops all the time. One day, she’s thankful that Z got Mat into Rehab. The next
day, she calls him Si Kudut, nitpicks
on his Rambut Gondrong, Berokry skin tone and facial features. I
can’t exactly argue with her on those scores. Z is skinny. His hair is coarse
and wiry. His skin is dark like an estate boy. And he does look like the
Ambonese singer, Broery Marantika.
Just what do you see
in him? Mak badgers me about my poor choice. He’s nine years older. He just
finished Form Two. He’s from some Ulu
place that we’ve never heard of. And he tells lies! He said he attended an
English school but he couldn’t even speak a proper word of English!
Sure, he’s just the
opposite of the Townies – the JB and PJ boys - that Sherry took me on double
dates with. Forget the scruffy Jay Be Blues band boys. But Mak had also disapproved
of those squeaky-clean Eurasian boys who had picked us up in their sports car. She
said I was too young then. And they were Kafirs.
That was true too. I was only fifteen. And different faiths could cause
problems later.
Since Sherry moved out
in ’72, I had buried my nose in books and burnt the midnight oil for exams
after exams. Mak hardly let me go out. She even had Abang Tar beat me up after
I went to watch the Taman Petaling Netball Team play the Assunta Girls at the Samad
school field.
“You’ve to control
your only daughter. You wouldn’t want her to be like Hana and Sherry!” Abang
Tar’s eyes were fierce as he looked at Mak and twisted my arm behind my back.
I was mad. I was
really, really mad at Abang Tar for hurting me. I wriggled my way out of his
clutches, slammed the door of my bedroom, which was actually a storeroom, and
locked it. I stood behind the door and I shouted at both of them at the top of
my lungs.
“I didn’t do
anything! I just went for a netball match! Why didn’t you hit Kak Hana and
Sherry? You just beat me up because they’re not here!”
I flung my body onto
the steel bed and stared at the slats of light through the small window up the
wall. I turned and saw a pair of scissors I used to cut hand-me-down pants from
Sherry. I grabbed and felt like plunging it into my chest. But I couldn’t pain,
the sight of blood and the thought of burning in Hell.
Later, much later,
when all the tears had dried up, and when Mak shouted to me that Abang Tar had
left for JB, I dashed to Anne’s place and complained to Sherry. Sherry was
appalled at her older brother’s behavior.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so
sorry that he took his anger at me and Kak Hana on you. And all that those
years of job-hopping must have turned him into Rasputin!”
I laughed when she
said that. Abang Tar, the Mad Monk! Sherry could be really funny, if she wanted
to. A few weeks later, though, when he drowned in the water tank, we felt
terrible that we had called him that.
****************
I thought that, in
Mak’s eyes, Z’s induction into the Malay Literary Hall of Fame had outweighed
his shortcomings. If she had admired famous writers who had dropped out of
school, why can’t she accept Z’s lack of formal education? Surely, she didn’t
expect me to date a square like Abang Shid? I would be bored to tears if I were
to go out with a Stiff from an Upper Class family like him. And, after what he
did to Sherry, I had lost all respect for him!
I made a mental list
of Z’s redeeming qualities. He’s disciplined and diligent. He subs during the
day and writes his novels at night. He told me not to slack in between news
assignments and gives me pointers on how to cover and report news stories when I
got the job as a cadet reporter a month after we met. The newspaper office in
Bangsar was only twenty minutes away by bus from Section 17.
I didn’t bother to
follow-up on his job offer at Mingguan Perdana. It would have been awkward to
work in the same office. I would have felt smothered. Plus, the pay at the Daily
News was 150 ringgit monthly, with transport allowance, overtime and double pay
on public holidays … three months bonus plus ex-gratia. Mingguan Perdana never could
have offered that much. Thank God, finally, I was earning a decent sum. I was able
to give Mak half my pay. The other half I spend on transport, lunch, clothes
and shoes.
Mak is wrong to say that
my Love is Blind. Or that Z has put a hex on me. I do notice other boys, and
men as well. Like, there was this hunk of a reporter at the newsroom. He was
just a few years older than me. English educated. A Townie. Khai would have
been my type. He loved to wear stylish leather jackets and hang around my
cubicle when he had turned in his news reports. Whenever he talked to me, I wished
I hadn’t dated Z before I met him. When he walked me to the canteen or the
hawker’s stalls, I wished I could be cold-hearted like Sherry and dump Z in a
jiffy. But I’m cursed with this foolish sense of gratitude that strangles like
a choker around my neck.
Somehow, Z sensed
that I was losing interest. He started to call in sick at the office and left
messages with the operator when I missed his calls. When I went over to his
flat in Sungei Besi, he looked gaunt and unshaven. I felt guilty for
entertaining thoughts of leaving him. When he asked me about Mat, I felt like
an ingrate for forgetting his Big Favor. Then he told me that he’ll take me to
the Immigration Office for my Blue Card. I wondered then if Khai would be
faithful. Would he lose interest when he sees a new rookie in the newsroom?
Wouldn’t it be awkward to bump into him after we break up? I thought of my old
school friend, Idah, who lived at the Railway Quarters on Jalan Travers. The
next day, I suggested to Khai that I’ll introduce him to her. He went along
like a good sport. He knew, and I knew, that deep down inside, I was a Scared
Cat, clinging on to a Safe Bet.Preamble to Into the Valley
I was a wet-behind-the-ears nineteen year old when I was called for interview as a cadet reporter for Berita Harian in mid '76. Pak Samad was the Managing Editor at that time. He lived up the hills at Jalan Sudin when we were at Kaki Bukit. And he lived across the road from our PKNS flats in the posh neighbourhood of Section 16. But Mak never asked me to see him before my written tests and interviews. So, I never did.
When I was hired, he had just been awarded the National Laureate. And not long after, I was watching his televised confession in the newsroom.
I felt that I was witnessing the end of the golden age of journalism and the ushering in of the era of mediocrity. And true enough, editor Samani encouraged me to aspire to be a popular entertainment columnist like BAM. I wasn't sure whether that was a compliment or an insult. I had hoped to be given opportunities to cover hard news ... you know, crime, court and so forth. But I was assigned to soft news or fluff ... society, women, culture. And my excitement over my first by-line was snuffed by an error over my last name.
After three months of probation, I was transferred to be part of an editorial team under the subsidiary company, Berita Publishing. I learned to write features, profiles and interview pieces for a variety of magazines - women, entertainment, business, sports.
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