Dada 105

Just as the policeman seemed to sink in the silence, up his voice would rise again like a noisy bird and the beads would whir like a flock of gulls across a rice field. He simply could not understand why I had paused with the knife not once but twice. It was useless to repeat to him again, that I was wound up, then out of breath, then affronted that the second boy was getting away, then breathless, then momentarily furious at the slap that linked my history like a coral necklace that circles these islands. The slap reached out to me like a wave lands to the shore. They say a wave never returns to its same source but this one landed smack in my history with all its good, evil and immeasurable consequence.

I told him that it was wrong to keep on going on about this, that it was the same with me in terms of my feelings it simply wasn’t important. He had the story, he knew the facts. It was just what happened. He stopped me then and drew himself up to his full height. He demanded that I believe and if I believed, I would be saved.

‘These are two different things’ I said.

‘Do you believe?’ he asked. I nodded to keep him quiet. The hammer and chisel might come out next and I did not want that. The Malaysian police can only retained their humour for so long

‘Even those who turn away still believe’ he said. This was within the core of his being he said. It was his firm belief and if he fired his anger at anyone it was to help and release them. If anyone said different they would be lost and his own life would have no meaning. It would have no meaning because he would not have tried sufficiently to understand them.

‘Do you want my life to have no meaning’ he shouted.