LONTAR issue #1 Read online

  Feisal was nominally the company's graphic designer, but he also wrote copy in the national language and in English, produced fervent testimonials from happy customers, managed the advertising budget, organised marketing events, and kept the key to the kitchen cupboards. He felt embarrassed about talking so much about himself, and asked Xinya why she had chosen to be a biologist.

  "I liked studying Bio at school," said Xinya. "The university offered me a place to study medicine. But I didn't want to be a doctor."

  Feisal had never heard of anyone who'd been good enough to get a place on the ferociously competitive medical course and yet rejected it. "Why not?"

  "I like cells better than people," said Xinya. This was not strictly affable but she made it sound as if it was, her voice was so full of suppressed laughter.

  It was only after Feisal fell in love with this hidden laughter that he noticed Xinya's dimples, the soft velvety down on her cheeks, the way her eyes got lost in sweet curves when she smiled. It was only after he was in love that he saw Xinya was beautiful. By then it was too late.

  *

  Feisal decided to confide in his sister. Muna was no more a bangsawan than he was, having failed the state examinations and gone contentedly on to make a living as a hairdresser. Her profession gave her the opportunity to converse and deepen affability with a wide range of people, so she had a better understanding of the world than he did.

  "Kak, how ah, if—" Feisal hesitated. "If you want to approach terms of intimacy with somebody?"

  Muna was delighted. She showed it by saying in a lecturing tone, "Oh, finally you listen to me? You've met somebody? Why never tell your family?"

  She'd always bemoaned the fact that Feisal showed no interest in the state-organised affability events where most people found their intimate partners: "You're missing out. At least love is available to everybody, high station or low. It's the one thing you can get without having to sit exam."

  Feisal hadn't wanted intimacy as an abstract concept, but since he'd met Xinya he was starting to see its appeal.

  "There was nothing to tell," he said now. "We've talked a few times only. But she's the kind who's affable to everybody. I thought maybe if we meet in a bit more personal setting, we could, you know, bonding more. Then can find out if—if maybe—" He blushed.

  "If intimacy is suitable," finished Muna. "That's right. Why don't you message her on the network?"

  This struck Feisal as a good idea. If he could talk to Xinya via text instead of in person perhaps he'd have a better chance of impressing her with his intelligence and charm. In their conversations so far they had played strict roles: she was amazing, and he was an idiot.

  "Just find her in the event forum, lah," said Muna. "They always set up a forum with all the attendees. If you search by date and time you'll find it." She sat down at the computer. "When did you go?"

  "We didn't meet through the affability events," said Feisal innocently. "I met her at work."

  Muna took her hands off the keyboard slowly, as if she thought any sudden movements might trigger an explosion.

  "You want to approach your colleague on terms of intimacy?" she said. "Adik! Did you even check if she's our station or not?"

  It hadn't occurred to Feisal to wonder. "I don't know," he said. "She's our biologist."

  "Then must be she's a graduate," said Muna. "That means bangsawan. How come that also you don't know? How can you live for twenty-three years and still be so ignorant?"

  Feisal set his teeth and called up Xinya's network profile on the computer. Muna was right—she had a degree from Universiti Kebangsaan Tanah Mas. In the picture she was still wearing the gold pin with the national symbol of twin tigers that each graduate received the day they were welcomed into the elect.

  "You still want to message her?" Muna's voice rose, wobbling; she always shouted when she was about to cry. "You'll look so stupid, you know or not?"

  "Never mind," muttered Feisal. He felt unutterably pointless. "Forget about it. I just didn't think."

  Muna softened. She patted Feisal on the shoulder, wiping her eyes with her palm. "We all sheltered you too much. We should have forced you to pay more attention to the outside world, not just spend so much time drawing pictures." On the screen Xinya's face smiled up from her profile, a distractingly sweet dimple indenting her left cheek. "She's pretty," Muna conceded. "If not for the station thing . . ."

  "She was offered medicine but she chose biology instead."

  Muna snorted. "A doctor! Imagine you approaching a doctor." She shook her head. "Don't think I'm scolding you. It's good you're thinking about entering into this kind of relationship now. At your age it's very natural. Why don't you go for an affability event for our station punya people? You'll see what I mean. It's more comfortable. You might meet some nice girls there. If not, at least make friends, lah."

  "Maybe," said Feisal. Disappointment lay sour on his tongue.

  *

  The affability event was on a boat on the Klang River. It had become a terrifically desirable area following the post-Crisis cleaning programmes; most of the river was now blocked off for exclusive use by the elect.

  "So lucky!" squealed Muna. "You know how many people apply to get on the perahu events? Must be they gave it to you because you're a first-timer."

  First-timers got special perks—with an aging population and a falling birth-rate on its hands, the state was anxious to encourage young people to get together and do what came natural. Feisal's dinner was free, and he was almost certain to get into the next affability event he applied for.

  On the perahu, Muna-handled into the stiff cloth of his best suit, Feisal felt like an alien anthropologist. He'd always been a bit of an outcast at school. He wasn't like all the other kids, who had friends and signed up for more extracurriculars than they had to—he found affability hard work. It was easier to live in affability when you didn't actually hang out with other people.

  But he'd promised his sister he'd take it seriously. He worked up the nerve to talk to, in succession, a former secretary who had set up her own garden utensil business which she ran from home, an inventor who was trying to get an administration contract to sell his patented bottle caps ("They won't even look at you if you're not married, though," he said, shaking his head), and a woman in construction who gave violin lessons on the side.

  "How come you're not higher station then?" said Feisal.

  "I only got up to Grade Two," said the woman, a gentle note of apology in her voice. "I can play when it's just playing, but when it's exams, forget about it. I only teach small children. I'm not, to say, very good."

  "Then why do you keep on doing it?" said Feisal without thinking.

  "Because I enjoy it," said the woman.

  Maybe Muna was right, Feisal thought. He had never met so many people who cared about something other than excelling. The former secretary cared about spades and flowers. The inventor did not care about bottle caps, but he clearly enjoyed the idea of himself as an inventor, and it didn't seem to bother him much that he was not a particularly successful one. It was relaxing to speak to such people.

  But he'd noticed Xinya because she cared about something other than excelling. He remembered that intensely amused wobble in her voice, and no longer felt like drinking his mocktail and making small talk. He went out onto the deck and watched the stars until it was time to return to land.

  *

  Something unprecedented happened to Feisal, in a time of unprecedented things. He began to think.

  It seemed to him that while the affability events were an eminently sensible thing, and it was right and appropriate that people of a similar station should be joined together, the system did not take sufficient account of the waywardness of the human heart.

  "But that's what the system's for," Muna said when he put the thought to her. "People are very stupid when they fall in love. They don't make the right choice for the future. They don't consider the correct things—the education, the
mentality must be the same. They only think of all the wrong things."

  "But if their preference is not related to—" Feisal went pink. He wasn't used to discussing such things with his family. "If it's not partiality, shouldn't that be allowed?"

  "Don't kid yourself. Humans are always partial," said Muna. "That's why we had the Crisis, what. Enthusiasm, communalism, all this. At least now we all know we're doing good for the society. Society benefits if the best join together and have children who can lead, and everybody else focuses on their own role. 'Acknowledge difference to avoid conflict.' They taught us at school also, what."

  "I didn't listen," said Feisal. "I was too busy drawing pictures. Anyway, we don't acknowledge difference. When was the last time you heard someone admit to being Izzahite or something like that?"

  "So what, you think it's better if we go back to the old days?" said Muna. "Everything also based on you know what. Even somebody kena accident also must ask: eh, orang Melayu ke Cina ke?"

  She was very angry: she would never have used the taboo language of communalism otherwise. "At least now we know what is the important differences." Feisal said no more to Muna, but it seemed to him there was something missing in the stories he'd been told about the world.

  "I know we need the elect," he said to Xinya at work. "We need leaders to run the country and teach schools and develop technology all that. But would it be so bad if some people want to be less than all they can be? Do we always have to maximise?"

  Even as he said it, he knew it sounded stupid. "Never mind—" he said, but:

  "I know what you mean," said Xinya. "But bangsawan don't think that way."

  "But you're a bangsawan."

  "A second class Bachelor's in plant biology from UKTM hardly makes me one of the elect," Xinya said, smiling.

  Feisal had come to realise that Xinya's smile was as much a deflection tactic as it was an expression of friendliness or an indication of her mood. Xinya never smiled with only one meaning.

  She said, "But it's not very affable of us to be talking while our colleagues are so busy. You want to continue the conversation after work? Or are you busy this evening?"

  "No," said Feisal. "No, no, I'm free."

  "I'll come by your desk when I'm about to leave," said Xinya. "I've got a meeting at six, though. Don't worry about waiting if you want to go home."

  "I'm going to be working late today anyway," lied Feisal.

  Xinya reached out and brushed his knuckles with the tips of her fingers. "I've been thinking I'd like to get to know you better."

  Me too, Feisal wanted to say, but she was walking away—having been, Feisal was almost certain, delightfully, inappropriately anything but affable.

  *

  Xinya only glanced at him as she was leaving, but Feisal was ready. He'd been unable to work for the past half-hour, loose-limbed and distracted with the conviction that something life-changing was about to happen.

  The area immediately outside their office building was pedestrianised, like the rest of central KL. In the evenings it filled up with crowded humanity: office workers surging homewards, teenagers and yuppies strolling between the malls, people handing out flyers for the newest tuition centre promising to teach foolproof exam techniques. Above their heads the electronic display flashed with a brief reminder that it was Maghrib—at home Feisal's grandfather would be praying, a practice he persisted in despite the family's embarrassment.

  Xinya waited till had turned off the main road before speaking.

  "Sorry I didn't stop at your desk," she said. "Didn't want everybody to gossip. You know how people are. If you want to meet outside the usual venues, they think you're going to go find a bush so you can roll around behind it."

  "Ridiculous," Feisal agreed.

  "I know, right? I'd want to have dinner first," said Xinya. She watched him blush, then she bought them both dinner at a hawker centre.

  It turned out Xinya liked cells better than people because she was skeptical of affability. This took Feisal aback. He couldn't help imagining Muna's expression: Of course this is the kind of girl you'll find if you go with people who don't mind stepping out of their station.

  "You don't think people should be affable?" he said.

  "Being affable is one thing. Affability imposed from above is different," said Xinya. "I can't be affable with people I don't like, or people I don't even know. Why should I? This fake neighbourliness all the time. It's like drowning in gula melaka."

  Feisal felt uneasy. "But we need affability. If not—"

  "I know, I know. If not, what's to stop the Crisis from happening again?" Xinya picked at her noodles, looking morose. "It's just all this—smiling lah, talking to people like they're my best friend. You cannot even show if you have bad mood in the mornings. Just because I don't want to make small talk before I have coffee doesn't mean I'm going to start race-rioting."

  Feisal was trying his best to be cool, but he couldn't help flinching. He'd grown up in a decent household; nobody had ever said the word race. Xinya looked at him and put down her chopsticks.

  "Now you're uncomfortable," she said penitently. "Don't bother about me. I'm like this, one. If I was living pre-Crisis, I'd be scolding people for not being affable enough."

  "No," said Feisal. I like how you are, he wanted to say, but that was too far past the bounds of affability. He said: "It's good to be honest."

  Dinner came to an all-too-early conclusion. Feisal felt as he used to as a child when the closing jingle of a favourite TV show began to play. He blurted, "You want to go and walk by the lake?"

  It was late, ten-thirty. Hardly anyone was about. Reflected in dark waters, the glowing buildings of the city were imbued with a new mystery. The twin monuments of the former government were a darker patch of shadow on the skyline.

  Feisal could remember the days when the monument was still lit up at night, and you could see the towers, rearing up above the other buildings, wherever you were in the city. But that was now proscribed: a state-sponsored study had concluded that it encouraged positive associations with the old government and so increased the likelihood of a recurrence of the Crisis.

  "I used to think I can escape," murmured Xinya. "When I was small, I thought: I won't live like other people. I'll go overseas and meet different kinds of people and never worry about excelling.

  "But I did well in my first screening. Gone case. Stupid lah, I should have fail it—but I didn't know. I was only five. Later only I learnt they don't let you go overseas if you're on the uni track."

  The first sorting by ability level happened in the first year of school, with exams that tested intellectual, artistic and athletic capabilities. Children who scored well were funnelled straight into the university track. Children who did not excel had another chance to prove their worth at the second screening, at age seven, but if you failed that, you would never be accepted into the elect.

  "You should go overseas," said Xinya. "You can."

  Only on this upside-down day would this have seemed an ordinary thing to say. Feisal had always accepted that the New Federation was the best country to live in. You could leave your wallet on the table in a restaurant and come back from the bathroom to find it still there. Your education was paid for, provided you were good enough to benefit from it. Free universal healthcare, low unemployment, practically no crime, diversity without conflict—what more could you ask for? No one could accuse the country of the various ills that had hag-ridden the old Malaysia. They had made use of the painful lessons taught by the Crisis.

  He said only, "I have a lot to stay for." He hadn't meant to be looking at Xinya when he said this, but he found himself doing it anyway.

  Feisal was the one who leaned in—the first thing he'd ever done in his life that took courage.

  A sharp voice said, "Excuse me, sir!"

  In a minute, the voice would ask for their marriage certificate. Xinya stayed where she was, her face upturned and the lashes lying dark on her cheeks, but Feis
al stepped back. Already his instinct for self-sacrifice had begun to emerge.

  *

  The officials didn't waste much time on Feisal once they'd established that he was neither married to Xinya nor a bangsawan. They took Xinya aside for an hour and Feisal sat in the waiting room, twisting his hands. At the reception desk an official ignored him with the stony inhumanity of the law.

  He wished they'd let him attend the interview. He might have been able to ameliorate the worst, persuade Xinya to hide the flame of rebellion that burned under her scarf. She'd been furious when the officials had asked them to come with them: "You don't have any other work to do, ah? The burglars taking holiday, is it?"

  She might mention that she was an Izzahite. That wasn't proscribed, but who knew what affronted authority might choose to take offence at. She might explain about choosing biology over medicine. Such signs of heterodoxy were best saved for the ears of friends.

  Feisal was less naïve than Muna knew. He understood more than even he had known himself, and this unacknowledged understanding of the world he lived in made that hour a terrible one for him. When Xinya came out, nothing was to be gleaned from her expression. The officials were courteous enough. She might have been saying goodbye to her hairdresser.

  The officials told Feisal he was free to go. They would let him off this once because it was a first offence, and it would be a shame to tarnish an unblemished record.

  "Remember, you are your mother's only son," said the official who had caught them. He patted Feisal on the shoulder awkwardly, as if he was sorry to have to make these coded threats.

  "I'll take a bus to go back," said Feisal, having already decided that whatever bus he took, it would be different from Xinya's bus.

  But Xinya was taking a cab. "They're free," she said, avoiding his eyes.

  Of course. For the elect.

  When Feisal was at a door, she said: "See you at work," not looking up. In this way she passed from his life.

  *

  "Exciting times," said Joshua the next day. He leaned over the walls of Feisal's cubicle and picked up a stick of his keropok lekor. Joshua was one of many obstacles on the long hard path to achieving affability.