Dada 67

The hospital is in the village. I walked. I didn’t want to see Dada right away. .There are things you should not think about. Even when I was little I heard the ma and da talking about how the Dada had brought disgrace to us all. We were the disgrace of our kampong. I can remember my face around the door. My father told me that Dada was a bad man and that I was not to talk of him. I nodded.

Poor old Dada had gone back ‘home’. My father once told me that he had a ‘Chinese character with a Dayak soul and that is not good for Malaysia’.

‘Why can’t we talk about him’ I asked my ma.

My da must have heard. She might have told him. She swore she didn’t. My old man instructed me to go upstairs and lay on my bed. He followed me. He took off his rattan belt and that is where another episode in my life began.

The care nurse informed  me I had to meet the doctor first. He was busy. I had to wait a while. The nurse talked the whole time. She was Indonesian. Then I saw the director.

He showed me into his office. He had the Chinese doctor with him. He was a short elderly man, who wore the legion of Independence pinned to his jacket. The director looked at me closely with his pale blue eyes, I thought he looked at me a little strangely. Then he shook my hand. He held onto it for so long that I didn’t quite know how to pull it away. He looked at some papers, and then said: “Your Grandfather came to us some time ago. You were the only one who would support him financially then.”

I thought he was reproaching me for something and I started to explain about my Ma and Da. But he stopped me.