The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © Selina Siak Chin Yoke 2016

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Material pertaining to Ipoh’s founding has been used with the permission of Dr. Ho Tak Ming, author of Ipoh: When Tin was King.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503939349

  ISBN-10: 1503939340

  Cover design by David Drummond

  Dedicated to the memory of my Nyonya great-grandmother Chua Paik Choo

  CONTENTS

  NOTES ON LANGUAGE

  PROLOGUE 1938

  PART I: MY EARLY YEARS 1878–1898

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  PART II: THE HAND OF FATE 1899–1910

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  PART III: STRUGGLE 1910–AUGUST 1921

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  PART IV: UNCHARTED TERRITORY SEPTEMBER 1921–1930

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  PART V: THE TWILIGHT YEARS 1931–8 DECEMBER 1941

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  GLOSSARY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  NOTES ON LANGUAGE

  Languages and Dialects

  The main characters speak a mix of the most common Chinese dialects in Malaysia (Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese), which they intersperse with English or Malay.

  Dialogue

  Dialogue is used in this novel as an instrument to heighten the sense of place. Characters who have not gone to school speak in the way Malaysians normally speak (even in English); there is thus a reordering of words. A sentence such as ‘I’ll give it to you if you find me something I want’ will become ‘You find something I want, I give you’. However, as soon as a character attends school, his or her dialogue evolves into standard English.

  Traditional Forms of Address

  Family Relationships

  In the novel, younger characters address older characters in traditional fashion, using titles which indicate the older person’s rank and familial relationship. For example, you would address your father’s second brother as ‘Second Paternal Uncle’, or your mother’s youngest sister as ‘Smallest Maternal Aunt’. Older characters, however, address younger characters by name.

  Aunt and Uncle

  The titles ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’ denote respect. Even today, they are commonly used in Malaysia to politely address people who are not blood aunts or uncles.

  Chinese Names

  In Chinese names, the family names or surnames come before the name. Thus the protagonist’s husband is called Wong Peng Choon, where Wong is his surname and Peng Choon his name.

  Old Malay Spelling

  Where Malay words occur, their spelling follows that which would have been used during the colonial era.

  Malaysian Exclamations

  In addition to the ubiquitous suffix ‘lah’, which all Malaysians sprinkle liberally in their sentences, characters in this novel use the exclamation ‘ai-yahh’ as a form of catharsis or to denote relief or surprise, as well as exclamations of Chinese origin when asking questions (‘ah’, ‘mah’ and ‘moh’).

  Miscellaneous

  In keeping with the spirit of the era in which they lived, characters occasionally use language which today would be considered politically incorrect.

  PROLOGUE 1938

  ‘In the days when genies roamed this valley of tin and tears, a warrior arose from among our people. His name was Hang Tuah, and he carried a magic sword.’

  When I told my granddaughter the story of this fearsome warrior, it was a sultry Malayan afternoon, so hot that even the neighbourhood dogs would not settle. Through the open window came a baying chorus, eerie like sounds of the jungle, instead of the calming breezes I so loved, sublime breath of the gods that usually blew in from the limestone hills beyond.

  The heat made me drowsy, though I could not sleep. I sat at the teak dressing table Mother had given me, now darkened by the years, counting what I had accumulated from a lifetime of toil: the silver and bronze coins with their raised heads of a white man, and the wads of bills, which I enjoyed tying and retying into thick bundles. By the time my granddaughter appeared, the tips of my fingers smelt of well-thumbed metal and greasy paper.

  The heat had little effect on Lai Hin, who came in search of her afternoon tales with customary vigour. When she heard about Hang Tuah, she jumped down from her chair, placed both hands on her hips the way she had seen adults do and demanded, ‘Ah Ma, he where get that sword?’ (Paternal Grandma, from where did he get this sword?)

  I had to smile. Lai Hin, then only three years old, was already displaying the verve for which I was famous. She unnerved the world with her intense almond-shaped eyes the way I had once done. My fire and fearless tongue were known throughout Ipoh, the Malayan mining town where I had lived most of my life.

  This reputation had nearly been my downfall. Temper in a woman is only tolerated, never celebrated. Neighbours had hissed about the potent mix of blood in my veins, lethal for any girl. How would I ever find a husband?

  Yet my spirit had served me well. In moments of despair I imagined myself a warrior with a golden sarong around my waist and metal glinting in my hands. Like the warrior Hang Tuah, I too was given a sword, but I had not recognised its powers until much later.

  I told my son’s daughter that Hang Tuah lived many moons ago. He had served the Sultan of Malacca, a town south of ours, which was once rich. Because of Hang Tuah’s courage, the Sultan had sent him to visit a kingdom in Indonesia. There, Hang Tuah was challenged to a duel by a local warrior. The local man always carried the same sword – a magic sword, some said – and had never lost a fight.

  Hang Tuah faced his opponent unafraid; he did not know what he was fighting. Only as the hours wore on did he realise he had an unusual adversary. The men were evenly matched. Neither would give in, and the hours turned into days. When seven days passed, the people knew they were witnessing the battle of their generation.

  Weak with thirst, Hang Tuah fell to the ground. Before him was the Indonesian warrior, holding the curved blade which had killed so many. In those moments Hang Tuah thought of his home and the Sultan who had sent him. He remembered his family, his friends and the people who had kept faith. He could not die defeat
ed in a foreign land.

  Heaving himself off the ground, Hang Tuah leapt into the air so high that he stunned the local warrior. With desperate effort, Hang Tuah kicked the magic sword from his opponent’s hand. No one had ever before relieved the Indonesian warrior of his sword, and the blade came alive, making a swooshing noise as it twirled as if flung, swirling, whipping the air, cutting through wind, then swinging around like an echo and coming straight back for its owner’s heart.

  The people, astonished, murmured Hang Tuah’s name with reverence. The kingdom’s ruler went down on his knees as he handed Hang Tuah the victim’s magic sword. ‘You have proven yourself worthy. This sword will now follow your command.’

  My granddaughter’s eyes were wide open by then. ‘Ah Ma, this sword look like what?’

  I told her the magic sword was a keris, a dagger carved in the Malay style, its blade curved into thirteen waves to better kill a man. Like others, this keris had been hammered, ground on stone, smoothed with beeswax, beaten with boiled rice, soaked in coconut water and rubbed with lime juice. But the keris had also been anointed in a secret substance that gave it magical powers.

  ‘Ah Ma,’ my granddaughter cried, her mouth agape, ‘I also want a magic sword!’

  I looked at Lai Hin’s thick eyebrows, knotted in a frown, at those dark brown eyes drinking in my stories. Her ancestors would fight for her spirit, but so too would the white devils who had come to rule. They had taken first our land and then our souls. The battles my granddaughter faced would be fierce, and I had little faith our ancestors would win. Many of us did not even know what we were fighting.

  It was my best friend, Siew Lan, who first put the idea into my head. ‘One day maybe . . . no more Nyonya,’ she had whispered, referring to our heritage. Siew Lan’s face, etched with deep lines, looked even sadder then, as if by saying the words she would hasten the end. She sipped tea as she said this, cradling in both her palms the Nyonya cup with pink borders and green dragons she loved. I only half listened, never imagining that our age-old practices would ever be forgotten.

  Yet as I savoured the smells from our kitchen that afternoon, of ginger being sliced and coconut milk being steamed, as I listened to the scraping, pounding and grinding and saw in my mind’s eye the vivid blue of butterfly pea flowers smashed against black stone, I knew that what my friend had said was coming to pass. My eldest son, Weng Yu, Lai Hin’s father, had become lost. His dreams took him away. My hopes rested less with my son than with his daughter and the other little ones, who still clamoured to hear our stories.

  ‘Lai Hin,’ I said, ‘you must listen to Ah Ma. Then like Ah Ma you one day also will find your sword. This you must never lose.’

  Stroking my grandchild’s hair, thick like mine, I resolved to pass on to her the wisdom of our ancestors. At this late hour the time had come for me to open up, to tell my stories to a scribe and speak my heart.

  PART I:

  MY EARLY YEARS 1878–1898

  1

  I was always in trouble. I never went out of my way to look for trouble; it found me.

  The first time Mother took me to the village temple with Elder Sister, when I was given a lit joss-stick I wondered how hard I could shake my stick. Not hard at all, it turned out, as the stick flew straight out of my hands and on to Kuan Yin’s marble forehead. On striking the Goddess of Mercy, its burning embers left traces of ash dribbling down her flawless white nose. Kuan Yin was smudged grey, while Mother’s face turned the shade of her curries. Amidst disapproving stares, she hurried towards the village priest and breathed furiously into his ears. Afterwards Mother grabbed my right hand and dragged me away. Once we were home, she smacked both my hands and kept me inside the house for what seemed a long time. Elder Sister told me later it was just a week, but it felt like a whole year.

  ‘Your daughter is small Tiger – what you expect?’ the other women said to Mother. They spoke in soft voices, but their glances were furtive. Mother’s friends called me wild and ill-tempered, traits they attributed to the time of my birth: the 4,575th year of the lunar cycle – the year of the Earth Tiger. Girl Tigers were said to bring bad luck and trouble, a reputation to which I lived up.

  As soon as I had served my punishment, I rushed outside to see my friends. We village children spent our time terrorising little creatures, chasing whatever we could see, even butterflies. Like typhoon winds, we would tear along the fields with a discarded net a fisherman’s wife had given us. Its wire mesh was fractured on one side. The butterflies would flit in panic, and we had to pounce like mad dogs to make sure our beautiful targets didn’t squirm away.

  Once, we managed to catch the stray village cat. Father had told me that cats could swim, but I had never seen a cat swim. I thought that if we threw the stray into the pond near our field, we would know whether Father had told the truth. To our amazement the cat stayed afloat. When it crawled out of the water, its blue eyes were frozen and its black head had turned white from the bath. The cat’s pale yellow fur clung to its stiff body, as if it had been singed. Fortunately Mother never found out about the cat.

  But when I fought with my brother Chong Jin, who was a year younger, Mother learnt everything. Chong Jin was the only boy in our family and Mother’s favourite. For him she saved rice and choice pieces of meat. He received new clothes before any of us, even before Elder Sister, though she was three years older. Mother always worried about my brother. ‘Chong Jin, you must eat more,’ she would say, or ‘Chong Jin, you today so pale. Go out, take fresh air,’ as if he were a sickly child who needed special attention. Elder Sister accepted this state of affairs, but I chafed at the bedroom my brother was given as his own and the chicken drumsticks Mother piled on his banana leaf. ‘Don’t take what not yours!’ Mother yelled when she caught me trying to steal a juicy lump from Chong Jin’s leaf. I looked up at Father, but his handsome face was staring out of the window. Father remained studiously silent, his large Adam’s apple unmoving. The house was Mother’s domain; she ran it as she wished, and Father would never have interfered in something so trivial. It took far more for him to step in.

  An opportunity came the day I discovered that my favourite butterfly, a rare species it had taken us months to catch, was missing. The butterfly had khaki-brown wings dotted with a beautiful turquoise. It was my most treasured possession, sheltered inside its own box, unlike the other game chips that were stuffed roughly into the wooden box Mother had given me. Each game we played had a winner, who was entitled to a chip. None of us had much, so we collected colour and life: sweet wrappers and cigarette packets with bright pictures, as well as little creatures, including butterflies. Those were my favourites because of their delicate wings.

  Among us children I was known for my skill at picking up game chips. I did not always win them, but I had an eye for finding new things no one else had thought of, which I would then trade for what the others had won in our games. It was I who introduced butterflies. It was also I who led my friends towards the sea and its treasures. I have always had an uncanny feel for what others would like. This knack for spotting opportunity came naturally, which is just as well considering the twists and turns my life has taken.

  To get my hands on that rare butterfly, I had traded in a set of seashells from the beach near Songkhla, my parents’ village. The shells were shiny and smooth against my skin, and I had had to walk barefoot for many afternoons, pressing my soles into sand as hot as a steam iron, to find them. I loved rubbing my shells, but I coveted the rare butterfly even more. My brother, Chong Jin, did too. He always asked to stroke it, but when I saw how roughly he handled its wings, I stopped letting him hold it. My brother demanded that I give him the butterfly. ‘You find something I want, I give you,’ I retorted. I thought the transaction unlikely. Chong Jin simply didn’t have the patience for finding treasure, nor did he like work.

  When the butterfly went missing from its box, I thought immediately of Chong Jin. I ran into his room and grabbed him by the shoulders.<
br />
  ‘You put where?’ I shrieked.

  My brother’s eyeballs darted shiftily. ‘I not know you talk what,’ he replied, as if he didn’t care.

  ‘Tell me! Tell me!’ I cried, pummelling Chong Jin’s chest with both fists. His screams brought Mother into the room just in time to see me pull my brother’s hair.

  She smacked my hands. ‘Stop it!’

  Because I thought Mother would understand, I told her the whole story, even showing her what I had hoarded in the wooden box that had been her gift. There was a hushed silence, the first time I saw Mother speechless. Instead of the hairpins and combs she had expected, Mother found stringy spiders, lizards with tails still intact and shrivelled butterflies. When her fingers dug deeper, they clutched the cards and smooth-edged pebbles I had been hoping to trade for another butterfly.

  ‘You win this all from the other children?’ Mother asked with a questioning stare.

  I nodded. ‘Also exchange some,’ I said, my voice suddenly feeble.

  ‘You not take things that not yours?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘When I speak to you, you answer properly!’ Mother shouted. Her thin lips pursed dangerously close together and a flame rose up – the one that would become a large fire if untamed. Mother’s nostrils were flaring.

  ‘No, Mother, all mine,’ I replied hurriedly.

  Satisfied, Mother turned to Chong Jin. ‘You, you take Second Sister’s butterfly or not?’ she asked in a tone that brooked no lies.

  Hanging his head, my brother murmured ‘Yes’ as softly as a cat pawing. From beneath his mattress he brought out my butterfly, its beautiful wings badly creased on one side and split on the other. Crying, I snatched my turquoise treasure from him.

  ‘Ai-yahh, Chye Hoon, don’t cry. Only a butterfly,’ Mother said, folding me into her sarong. ‘You, Chong Jin,’ Mother spat, her face dark. ‘What kind of son I bring up? Tell me, what kind? A thief? Father get home that time you wait.’

  ‘Yes, thief!’ I repeated. But Mother was quick to swivel round.