Dada 91

We would be drenched but it would break the gathered heat. At one point, we walked over a section of road that had just been resurfaced. The sun had burned and blistered the tar. Our feet sank down into it, exposing its shimmering soft mass. What had been exposed to the sun was then just as quickly opened to the rain as it began to fill it with puddles. This is our life here; driven mad by what is both given and denied us.

The priest began to sing. He suddenly produced yellow robes the colour of saffron. Just visible above the hearse, the driver`s hardened leather hat looked as if it had been moulded from the same black material as the bitumen.Rain drops fell down from the brim onto his shoulders. I felt a bit lost standing between the early sun and now the leaden sky and the relentless darkness of these other colours in the yellow light: the sticky black of the water, the sodden road , the dull blue of the mourning clothes, the shine of the hearse, the red flowers that robbed me of my bearings.

The sun, the rain, the smell of leather and wet grass clung to the wheels of the carriage. A smell of sandalwood and incense assaulted my nostrils. The exhaustion from not having slept all night stung my eyes and blurred my thoughts. I turned around again: the doctor looked very far away, fading into a cloudy haze of steaming heat until he appeared as blurred as a mirage before my eyes. When the rain came it washed away  the vision of the Dada. He no longer appeared through the folds of the earth.

Dada 90

I nodded at the floor. The man stopped. I was grateful. I was proud and stubborn and this is why I had to be beaten. I wanted to go back to the city. My home was from the sea pirates who had originally built the trading post; full of communists and anarchists although they didn’t know those names then. They were put down. Of course they were. They had to be.  

 “I’m too mixed”  Dada would  say before he came here .He said all seamen were the same by skin or creed and none of them knew different who sailed upon the water. My Ma, his daughter kept quiet at first but later she grew as strident as my Da. After she attended University she was worse. She shared my father’s dream.

 ‘He could have us caused this family a lot of trouble’ she said.

‘Did you ever love him’ I asked her once. I knew the secret.

She said, ‘ you should ask your Nana that.’ She was about to say something else but stopped. Her mother was long dead so there wasn’t much point. Things went cool with me afterwards. My first taste of the rattan cane saw to that.

 I held my hat out in front of me. I tried to walk quickly in my own shade. It flapped as I hurried. I  looked across at the doctor. He walked with great dignity, every gesture measured and purposeful.  The clouds gathered although the heat was still intense.  A few beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead, but he didn’t wipe them away.  It seemed as if the procession was moving more quickly now. All around me the landscape was still glaring. Suddenly it flooded in shadow. For a second the brightness was unbearable and then came the first welcome drops. 

Dada 89

I also became conscious that for a long time the heat countryside and all its sound and smells seemed to be beating against my face. Since I had only my cap, I fanned myself with my piece of funeral cloth and a handkerchief. Then the man from the funeral home said something to me that I couldn’t hear. He wiped his head with a handkerchief he was holding in his left hand, and pushed up the brim of his hat with the other.

“What did you say?” I asked. “It`s terribly hot”, he repeated and angled his elbow at the sun.

“Yes”, I replied. A moment later, he asked: “Where is the rain? Is that your Grandfather in the coffin?” I said “Yes” again and wondered why the two should come together.

“Was he old?” he said. I replied “Very” because I didn’t know exactly how old he was, but he looked old, especially towards the last days he was with me.  Then he stopped talking.

I turned around and thought I saw my Dada walking though the shimmering countryside, his image appearing then disappearing like Kim Song’s in the ridges of the little hills.

A mixture of white men, sea Dayaks and Chinese, pirates and slavers together walked with him and were overseen   by  the Chinese compradors one of whom was carrying a whip.

‘They told him he was the son of a Chinese and Malay communist s who died in the jungle and this was his uncle.’

‘Patriotic to the last’ the man said. ’He married a Malay girl and yet this  own daughter said his own sad history went before them and betrayed them all.

‘How do you know this ‘ I asked, though with the heat and everything  I was beyond caring. Maybe everyone knew each other’s stories out here.

 ‘Your father was even fiercer in his denunciation of your grandad. He wanted to get on in the machinery of government. The suburbs were his dream. He was born in the jungle you know.’

Dada 88

I remember Dada’s stories of Liverpool and being attacked and how they had to duck and weave. Through his fine white hair you could see he had odd, misshapen ears that drooped down and whose lobes were blood-red and fat which is a sign of good luck and a fertile life in southern China. The light struck against his lined face. The funeral director told us where to stand. The priest was at the front, followed by his helpers and the hearse, and around it, the four panel-bearers. Behind them came the doctor and myself ; completing the funeral procession was the nurse and Kim Song,  Dada’s old sparring partner.

The sky was already bathed in sunlight. It was beginning to weigh down heavily on the earth and the heat intensified with every passing minute. I don’t know why we waited so long before setting off. I felt hot in my black suit and cap, with a piece of Dada’s cloth on my shoulder. I was glad my Ma and Da did not attend. I could not stand their disdain. I wondered what they would think about the old man not only having a formal Chinese funeral but a Catholic one as well. Maybe they would have laughed. It would only confirm his betrayal and how they both had to work doubly hard to be Malay for his sins to be forgiven. The thought made me want to laugh as well; me in my Malayan skin and pirate soul of a sea Dayak.

 The old man had put his hat back on but now took it off again. I turned slightly towards Kim Song while the Doctor told me about him. He said that my Dada and he often used to walk to the village together in the evening, accompanied by a nurse. Sometimes they took a glass of beer or wine. I looked at the countryside all around me. When I saw the rows of blue leaved Cyprus trees leading into the hills high against the sky, and the green and reddish land, the houses dotted here and there, I understood how Dada must have felt.

Out above the river in the country, evening must have offered a moment of peace but today the unbroken sun blazing down upon the shimmering landscape made it depressing. We started walking. That was when I noticed that Kim Song was limping slightly. Gradually, the hearse picked up speed, and the old man started lagging behind. The hearse also passed one of the men who had been alongside it and he was now walking beside me. I was surprised at how quickly the sun had risen in the sky. 

Dada 87

Someone had told me that black and a touch of blue was the right thing to do in Sarawak. You couldn’t go wrong that way. I heard the director tell me that the hearse was waiting out on the road and at the same time the holy man immediately started to pray.  After that, everything happened very quickly. The men walked over to the coffin carrying a large cloth to cover it. He followed behind. The director and I went outside.

     There was a women I didn’t know standing by the door. “This is Rama Abdulla” said the director. I didn’t catch the woman`s name, but I realized who it was again. Faces sometimes pass me by. She was the nurse from Kalimantan who worked at the home. Her scarf was black today. She nodded. There was no smile on her long, bony face, and then we all stepped aside to let the body pass. She was there to keep an eye on Kim Song and to make sure he came to no harm, the director said. We followed the pall-bearers out of the home. The hearse was waiting in the front of the door. Polished, shiny and oblong, it seemed too small to carry a man. Beside it stood the chief undertaker and funeral director, a short man in a ridiculous outfit, and the old man who looked a little self-conscious.

     I confirmed within myself that this was Dada’s special friend. He had on a light cap with a round top and a big brim, like you see them wearing at baseball games in America. He took it off as the coffin came through the door. He wore  a suit with trousers that hung down over his shoes and a blue bowtie that looked too small for the large collar of his white shirt. This was all I remember. His lips were trembling beneath a nose that looked as if it had been constructed within a concertina of wrinkled flesh. He might have been a boxer in his youth. 

Dada 86

Then he told me he would not be coming to the funeral. He sat down behind his desk, and crossed his legs. He explained that the Doctor and I would be alone with the nurse on duty. Again his eyes briefly swept my face like a wind from across the peninsula.

In principle, the residents weren’t permitted to go to funerals. He only allowed them to attend the wake.

 “It`s easier for them that way” he said.

But there was certain strength in the vessels of his throat as he cleared it. He had given permission for an elderly friend of Dada’s to walk behind the cortege: “Kim Song”, then the director smiled. “You see: he told me, it`s rather childish, but he and your Dada were hardly ever apart. Here at home, they were teased about it; people would say to Kim: “Is he your special friend.” Then your Dada would laugh and say

‘You have to know about Saturday nights at sea to know that.’ Then they would  both laugh.

 It made them happy. They had been ship mates together and it`s true that Dada’s death has upset him a great deal. I didn’t see how I could refuse him permission. He attended the wake last night.’

 I remember it must have been him staring at me like an eagle when I awoke. As if he knew my whole story. We sat in silence for a long time. The doctor stood up and looked out of his office window. At one point, he remarked: “Here comes the holy man from the district. He`s early.”   

He explained to me that it would take at least three quarters of an hour to walk to the graveyard beyond the centre of the village. We went downstairs. The priest and the two assistants who followed him were standing in front of the building. One of them was holding some robes and the little priest bent down to adjust its silver folds. When he arrived, he called me “my son” and said a few words to me. He went inside; I followed him. I noticed right away that the screws on the coffin had been tightened and that there were four men in the room dressed also in blue. I was glad I had worn something black. 

Dada 85

I breathed in the scent of the cool earth and didn’t feel sleepy any more. I thought about my colleagues at work. They`d be getting up to go to the market about now. This was always the most difficult time of the day (for me) with the boats arriving full of fish that had waited the night in the river. Iskra would be waiting as well but that would be somewhere else. I thought about Mo a little more, but then I was distracted by the sound of a bell ringing from somewhere inside the home just like you could hear on the quayside before the market was to open. You could hear the early hustle and bustle behind the windows and then everything quietened down.

I looked up. I suppose that’s when I started looking at the sky – face down on the bed. Neck craned  as if I could see the colours through the window and not feel the lash imprinting itself through my shirt. The beatings were not the worst. The footsteps on the stairs came later, always after the dark,  when the air of eternity would close around me and the light sucked into a kind of simple silence before the door would open gently and my father’s act of contrition begin again.

 The caretaker crossed the courtyard and told me that the director wanted to see me.

I went to his office. He had me sign several documents. I noticed the Chinese doctor was dressed in blue even down to his striped trousers which seemed lighter. The Director picked up the phone and called out to me:

“The undertakers have just arrived.  I will ask them to close the coffin. Do you want to see you Dada one last time before they do?”

I said no. He spoke quietly into the phone and gave the order: I heard him say,

 “Tell the men they can go ahead.”

Dada 84

The caretaker served everyone coffee. I don’t know what happened next. The night passed. I remember that I opened my eyes at one point and saw that some of the old people were asleep, huddled up against each other, except for one man who had his chin resting on his hands his elbows tucked into the side of his stomach just below his ribs. He had no need of a walking stick but looked frail. He was staring at me as if he were waiting for me to wake up. He looked Chinese. His glare was like an eagle’s. I went back to sleep. I woke up because my back was hurting more and the pain creeping up towards my shoulders. Dada used to say I should meditate more but no amount of freeing my mind that night could rid me of bad thoughts.

Grey crept gradually in through the glass roof as dawn came. A little while afterwards, one of the old people woke up and coughed a lot. He spat into a large chequered handkerchief and each time it sounded as if his cough was being wrenched from his body, like from behind a watertight door of a ship below the bow where the Thai landers keep the immigrant women. He woke the others and the caretaker said it was time for them to go. Everyone stood up. The night had turned all our faces ashen.

To my great astonishment, they each shook hands with me as they filed out – as if this time had sealed a bond of intimacy between us, even though we hadn’t exchanged a single word.

I was tired. The caretaker took me to his room and said I could freshen up a bit. I had another coffee; this time with milk. It was very good. By the time I went outside, day had fully dawned. Reddish streaks filled the sky high over the hills that separate Sarawak from Sabah. From the sea, the wind was blowing from that direction carried with it the scent of salty air. It was going to be a beautiful day before the rain. It had been a long time since I`d gone to the countryside and I thought how nice it would be to go for a long walk, if it hadn’t been for Dada. I stood waiting in the courtyard, beneath a tree. 

Dada 83

Soon afterwards, one of the women started to cry. She was sitting in the second row, hidden by one of her friends, and I couldn’t really see her. She cried softly, continually; I felt she would never stop. The others didn’t seem to hear her. They were huddled in their chairs, sad and silent. They looked at the coffin or at their canes or some other object in the room. They seemed to see nothing else as if their thoughts were already contained in jars.

The woman kept on crying. I was very surprised because I didn’t know who she was. I wanted her to stop. But I didn’t dare tell her. The caretaker leaned over and spoke to her but she just shook her head, mumbled something and carried on crying with the same regular rhythm. My Ma told me that many people had once cried for Dada, especially women. But she said it with such disgust through pursed lips as if she had eaten something sour.

‘They cried for him all their lives.’  She said.

Then the caretaker came over and sat down beside me. After a long time and without looking at me, he explained: “She was very close to your Dada. She says that he was her only friend here and that now she has no one.” We sat like this for a long time. The woman`s sighs and sobs grew fainter and fainter. She sniffed a lot.

Finally, she fell silent. I wasn’t sleepy any more but I was tired and my back ached. At that moment, it was the silence of all those people that was hard to bear. Every now and then, I heard a strange sound, but I couldn’t make out what it was. In the end, I worked it out: some of the old people were sucking in their cheeks, making odd clicking noises. They were so engrossed in their thoughts that they didn’t realise they were doing it. I even had the impression that this dead man stretched out in front of them meant nothing to them only that they were rehearsing their own wake but I could have been wrong about that. 

Dada 82

Out above the river in the country, evening must have offered a moment of peace but today the unbroken sun blazing down upon the shimmering landscape made it depressing. We started walking. That was when I noticed that Kim Song was limping slightly. Gradually, the hearse picked up speed, and the old man started lagging behind. The hearse also passed one of the men who had been alongside it and he was now walking beside me. I was surprised at how quickly the sun had risen in the sky.

I also became conscious that for a long time the heat countryside and all its sound and smells seemed to be beating against my face. Since I had only my cap, I fanned myself with my piece of funeral cloth and a handkerchief. Then the man from the funeral home said something to me that I couldn’t hear. He wiped his head with a handkerchief he was holding in his left hand, and pushed up the brim of his hat with the other.

“What did you say?” I asked. “It`s terribly hot”, he repeated and angled his elbow at the sun.

“Yes”, I replied. A moment later, he asked: “Where is the rain? Is that your Grandfather in the coffin?” I said “Yes” again and wondered why the two should come together.

“Was he old?” he said. I replied “Very” because I didn’t know exactly how old he was, but he looked old, especially towards the last days he was with me.  Then he stopped talking.

I turned around and thought I saw my Dada walking though the shimmering countryside, his image appearing then disappearing like Kim Song’s in the ridges of the little hills.

Dada 81

I remember Dada’s stories of Liverpool and being attacked and how they had to duck and weave. Through his fine white hair you could see he had odd, misshapen ears that drooped down and whose lobes were blood-red and fat which is a sign of good luck and a fertile life in southern China. The light struck against his lined face. The funeral director told us where to stand. The priest was at the front, followed by his helpers and the hearse, and around it, the four panel-bearers. Behind them came the doctor and myself ; completing the funeral procession was the nurse and Kim Song,  Dada’s old sparring partner.

The sky was already bathed in sunlight. It was beginning to weigh down heavily on the earth and the heat intensified with every passing minute. I don’t know why we waited so long before setting off. I felt hot in my black suit and cap, with a piece of Dada’s cloth on my shoulder. I was glad my Ma and Da did not attend. I could not stand their disdain. I wondered what they would think about the old man not only having a formal Chinese funeral but a Catholic one as well. Maybe they would have laughed. It would only confirm his betrayal and how they both had to work doubly hard to be Malay for his sins to be forgiven. The thought made me want to laugh as well; me in my Malayan skin and pirate soul of a sea Dayak.

 The old man had put his hat back on but now took it off again. I turned slightly towards Kim Song while the Doctor told me about him. He said that my Dada and he often used to walk to the village together in the evening, accompanied by a nurse. Sometimes they took a glass of beer or wine. I looked at the countryside all around me. When I saw the rows of blue leaved Cyprus trees leading into the hills high against the sky, and the green and reddish land, the houses dotted here and there, I understood how Dada must have felt. 

Dada 80

Someone had told me that black and a touch of blue was the right thing to do in Sarawak. You couldn’t go wrong that way. I heard the director tell me that the hearse was waiting out on the road and at the same time the holy man immediately started to pray.  After that, everything happened very quickly. The men walked over to the coffin carrying a large cloth to cover it. He followed behind. The director and I went outside.

There was a women I didn’t know standing by the door. “This is Rama Abdulla” said the director. I didn’t catch the woman`s name, but I realized who it was again. Faces sometimes pass me by. She was the nurse from Kalimantan who worked at the home. Her scarf was black today. She nodded. There was no smile on her long, bony face, and then we all stepped aside to let the body pass. She was there to keep an eye on Kim Song and to make sure he came to no harm, the director said. We followed the pall-bearers out of the home. The hearse was waiting in the front of the door. Polished, shiny and oblong, it seemed too small to carry a man. Beside it stood the chief undertaker and funeral director, a short man in a ridiculous outfit, and the old man who looked a little self-conscious.

I confirmed within myself that this was Dada’s special friend. He had on a light cap with a round top and a big brim, like you see them wearing at baseball games in America. He took it off as the coffin came through the door. He wore  a suit with trousers that hung down over his shoes and a blue bowtie that looked too small for the large collar of his white shirt. This was all I remember. His lips were trembling beneath a nose that looked as if it had been constructed within a concertina of wrinkled flesh. He might have been a boxer in his youth.