Dada 119

I became such an expert at this that by the end of a few weeks I became a specialist  in every part of the house of my Dada. I could spend hours simply listing everything in my bedroom and putting them in category of order. The more things I thought about, the more they came back to me and not only the things themselves but the thoughts and feeling attached to them. When Mo first came over and we lay on the rug, listening with the night, I wasn’t thinking about his body now but how the rug fitted the manifest of my room, what thoughts I’d had on the bed when I had to leave my Ma’s and Do’s place and my Dada took me in, it was the beginning that became part of the inventory.

Stuff  I hadn’t noticed before or had forgotten now became part of a wider pattern. I realised then that a man could live for a hundred years in prison and still not get past the front door of his own house if he put his mind to it.. If he was an older man, he could spend a thousand years. He would have enough memories to keep from getting bored and how the days stacked together in what the Japanese call Wabu Sabi or joy of everyday life. In one respect this was an advantage. I could think clearer now about why I left my studies and those other silent whispers in that crazed household and those other matters of which I don’t like to speak.

Why does everyone have to speak two languages here? We are not allowed to choose, we have to learn the language of our ethnic group and this is determined by your father but that’s not something I like to talk about either. In my case it was useless.  We are so integrated with the Malays we have forgotten our Chinese and the sea Dayaks are dirt with their feckless ways and Christian culture but this is not how my mother and father viewed the picture. They needed me near.

‘Forty years at sea can absolve you of anything,’ the DaDa said.

 Chinese, Malay or Dayak, nobody was going to teach him to sing. It brought him pain but it was also what made the Kalimantan’s laugh and call him ‘Uncle Sam’