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There were some titters in court as a handkerchief fell out of his sleeve onto his desk but then the prosecutor sprang to his feet. He was amazed he said at the ingenuousness of his learned friend. Could he not see that there hung between these two elements of the case a vital link a that hung together between the funeral, the pimps letter and the prisoner’s final action.’ ‘In short’ he concluded and speaking with great vehemence said, ‘I accuse the prisoner in his behaviour at all the above events that he showed he was already by his very nature, by his conversations and by his preferences to be, a murderer at heart.’ He drew himself as high as Kim Song had done and concluded ‘ a murderer of the ideals of these great islands and peninsulas.’ ‘What is more’ his voice came as little more than a whisper now. ‘ I shall demonstrate before you in the habitus of a common clerk all that is wrong in this court room today and all that is wrong with this man and all that was wrong with stain left on his poor family who only by the actions of their senior members, prevented more acute harm being done to the strong federal structure that we enjoy in Malaysia today. He continued with this narrative of betrayal and subterfuge since my Dada a communist sympathiser had led out the seaman of nearly fifty years ago and my familial links with him. This , far more important than the accusatory knife that lay before him on the table became entwined with my father’s rattan lash to encourage my acts of contrition. Blood was at the heart of it. ‘Exhibit A’ he gestured and held out the knife in its plastic folder before him, ‘is the murder weapon and ‘he pointed to me.’ There stands before you, the murderer. ’ ‘A baby taken away’

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He was about to finish but muttered something of ‘bad blood’ as if passing a covert message around the court room. ‘We cannot be too careful’ he said. Iskra began to splutter and I could see his hairy arms bunch tight. My lawyer also expostulated. They were told that the prosecutor must be allowed to finish his remarks. ‘I have nearly done’ the prosecutor said in a tone of mock weariness. He then turned again to Iskra. ‘Was the prisoner your friend?’ ‘Certainly, we were the best of pals as they say. ‘ The prosecutor then put the same question to me. I looked hard at Iskra and he did not turn away but looked me direct in the eye. ‘Yes’ I said. The prosecutor turned with a glance to the bench but with his full face to the jury. ‘Not only did the man before you in the dock indulge in the most shameful of acts , of which we shall hear later, but on the days following his grandfather’s funeral, he killed two men in a furious cold blooded act. This no doubt, in pursuance of some sad vendetta that he had built in his head concerning the history of this island and his unhappy family in the formation of this land we now call the nation. His voice rose. ‘He conducted these acts in the underworld hell of iniquity of drugs and clubs and pimps and prostitutes. A life that is foreign to 99% of Malaysians. That my learned friend is the type of man that this court is set to try before you today.’ ‘ That, gentle people of the jury is the type of man who stands before you today. You shall know him by the category of his friends.’ No sooner had he sat down than my lawyer out of all patience and frustrated, raised his arms so high that the sleeves of his gown fell back to reveal the full length of his shirt cuffs and gold cufflinks. ‘Is my client on trial for having buried his grandfather or for killing two men’

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He was then asked how did he come to know why the dead boys were murdered and what were his relations with the perpetrator? Iskra took this opportunity of explaining it was he, not I, that had asked the European men to first sit down and be quiet in the club. ‘This was not what I meant’ The prosecutor’s eyes narrowed again ‘So what of this letter that led to this train of events?’ He waved some papers over his head. ‘That was nothing’ Iskra said. Some Indonesians had a grudge for me because I beat up the guy’s sister.’ ‘How is it then that this letter led directly to the tragedy and was the work of the accused’ The prosecutor asked. ‘By pure chance,’ Iskra said. ‘He did me a favour. I took him and his friend to the beach. There was a bit of a scuffle and I got stabbed. We only took the drugs as a diversion because it had been a fidgety, troublesome sort of day, the rains came after the sun and we all came back to the city by car. The music was good. We were good. It was only by chance that we ended up at that part of the city and then at the club and then at the waterfront bar. We meant to stay at the beach. We didn’t know where we would be or who we would argue with. T hose who shouted and slapped us took us away from our party. It was only a chance thing.’ He shrugged his wide shoulders. The prosecuting Barrister said ‘ Chance or mere coincidence plays an awfully remarkable large part in this farrago of lies .Was it by chance that the prisoner had not intervened when Iskra assaulted the girl who was his mistress. Did this convenient term ‘chance’ account for the prisoner’s actions at the police station when he was summoned? Did chance make statements extravagantly favourable to him and now we find that ‘chance’ again led to the night club and to the knife and the killing of these two poor white boys..’ ‘What do you do for a living ‘ the prosecutor asked. On describing himself as a warehouseman who was temporarily out of work, the prosecutor informed the jury that it was common knowledge that the witness lived off the immoral earnings of young illegal Indonesian girls and that he supplied drugs around the district which he procured from the Thai fishing boats, eighty per cent of which were equally illegal. ‘The accused prisoner’ he said as if throwing a card down on the table. ’ Was this man’s close friend and confidant. In fact the whole background to this crime was of the most squalid form of disreputable association, demeaned illegal women bought and sold for sex, drugs, liquor, parties and finally the extinguishing of two bright European lives who came from the land of the Queen; lives which had soared like stars and were cruelly terminated by a fish dock worker with a knife used by a pimp.’ He wiped a bead of sweat away from his clammy forehead and continued. ‘ What has made this crime more malicious and odious was the personality of the prisoner, an inhuman monster in that small frame, who exists solely without any sense of morals. What chance was there for repentance in that’.

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Shabela turned and gazed at me. There were tears in his eyes. He really did care about me even if we had met just the once. His lips trembled as he looked as if to say, well I gave it a try my friend, I’ve done my best and if it hasn’t helped much I’m truly sorry. I didn’t say anything or make any movement but apart from Mo, I wanted to step down and kiss him in front of all the court. The judge repeated his order to stand down and Shabela returned to his place among the crowd like an actor going to sit amongst the audience in a cinema. He was only half fixed upon himself, the witness box, the dock or the bench where the judges always sat. During the rest of the hearing he remained there, leaning forward, eyes turned down, elbows on knees and his cap twisted in his hands across his huge girth. Hardly anyone seemed to listen to Rana, the next witness, he stated that I was reasonable and younger than him and even when we were together on a night out I was responsible and a good man to have together with you. Then even less to old Srino who said I’d always looked after him at the fish dock and had been very good to him at the house about his missing bird and the time when he was sick. When he told them about my kindness, or when in answer to a question about me and Dada, he said that I was Dada’s real son and that he treated me like one and that his own daughter and son in law were the real criminals and punished him for what he was, by never going to see him. ‘You’ve got to understand’ he said. ‘You’ve got to understand.’ He repeated himself again. What is the crime before the crime ?.’ The prosecutor nodded as if he was thinking about his dinner or something else that was demanding his attention. They told Srino to stand down. Iskra was the next witness. He gave me a little wave of his hand and led off by saying I was completely innocent .The judge rebuked him ‘You are here to give evidence, not your views on the case.’ ‘You must confine yourself to answering questions to those put to you,’ the judge said.

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The prosecutor who had been making dabs of pencil marks on his file like he was joining the dots of a drawing, suddenly looked up. He made no comment but his eyes narrowed like a peregrine falcon’s and he seemed to nod to himself at this traitorous turn of events. There was a short break of five minutes during which my lawyer said that the case was going very well. Then Shabela was called. He was introduced as a witness for the defence. Now and then he threw me a glance. He kept squeezing his cap in his big hands. He was in his best suit, the one he sometimes wore on Sundays at the beach house he said. His stomach popped through his shirt buttons. I became fascinated by this when he breathed. I could remember the last time, I saw him walking into the sea. Asked if I was one of his friends, he said, ‘Yes, a good friend.’ Asked to state what he thought of me, he said I was ‘okay’ and when asked to explain what he meant by this, he replied that everyone knew what ‘ok’ meant. Was I a secretive sort of man he was asked, ‘no he answered I wouldn’t call him that and he told them what I’d said when I saw the Thai fishing boat coming into the river. He thought me patriotic. The prosecutor asked him if I always paid my bills on time. Shabela laughed and said, No. ‘But you’d have to ask Jalima that, she is the one that runs the restaurant. With me he said, he always paid on the nail all right’. The prosecutor, slightly flustered, then asked him what he thought of the alleged crime that had been committed by the defendant. Shabela placed his hands on the bar and I could tell he had speech already to go with. ‘To my mind it was just an accident or a stroke of bad luck, or if you think about places and times. A thing like that can throw you off your guard if you are in the wrong place.’ He was about to continue but the judge cut him short, ‘That’s all thank you’ he said from the bench. The head’s of all the jury swung around towards him. Shabela seemed flummoxed. H drew himself up to his full height and said he hadn’t finished what he had come here to say. The Judge told him to continue but to make it brief. He could only repeat that it had been an accident and that I was a good buddy’ ‘That is as maybe,’ the judge observed, ‘but we are here to try such accidents according to law, which in Malaysia runs like a silver thread throughout our history.’

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At this some people in the court let out a little laugh and my lawyer, pushing back one sleeve of his gown, said sternly, ‘this is typical of the way this case is being conducted. No attempts are being made to elicit the true facts here.’ Kim Song raised his head to make himself look taller. He appeared to shout although in truth his voice came out as a loud, hoarse, whisper that filled the room. ‘He used to talk with his Dada about what a shit heap this place is, ‘ He suddenly laughed and showed his gums, ‘About how we’re all fucked up here because of all the Kalimantan, and Chinese and all those Thai fishing boats and the Burmese slaves and the way the Malays run the place after the White Rajahs used it to wipe their arse on them for over a hundred years and how we’re all messed with because everyone sits on everyone else here and even the government has to decide who is up their bum or down the plughole.’ The court room gasped at these profanities but Kim Song only grinned. ‘I was just reporting what they said’ he said.

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The caretaker went back to his seat. When Dada’s old friend was called, a court officer had to help him to the box. Kim Song stated that although he had been a great friend of my Dada, he had met me only once on the day of his funeral. He was asked how I behaved on that day. ‘Well I was more upset, I can tell you that’ he said,’ far too upset to notice everything and I was tired by the heat. My grief sort of blinded me. I think it had been a great shock, my good friend’s death.In fact I fainted, so I hardly noticed the young fellow’ The prosecutor asked him to tell the court if he’d seen me weep. When Kim Song answered that his Dada only wept when he lost money, a murmur went up through the court. ‘It is probably the same with him.’ He looked at me, ‘ but ‘No’ he added emphatically, ‘I trust the jury will take note of this reply’ the prosecutor said. My lawyer rose a once and asked Mr Song in a tone that seemed overly aggressive, ‘Now think well old man, Could you not see the defendant was trying his best to keep calm because of all the other things in his life – including the death of his grandfather.’ He alluded to my new and close relationship. I saw the prosecutor make a quick mark with his pen onto paper. ‘ Can you swear he did not share a tear.’ Kim song answered again ‘No’

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They got the caretaker to repeat what he had said about coffee and the amount of cigarettes I smoked. The prosecutor turned to me again with a gloating look in his eyes. He smoothed down his robe like a surgeon about to operate. My counsel then asked the caretaker if he had not enjoyed a cigarette with me but the prosecutor drew himself high with indignation. His face twisted in a sneer, ‘I’d like to know who is on trial in this court. Or does my friend think that by some form of propinquity a witness for the prosecution might be coerced into speaking for the defence, that he will shake the evidence, the abundant and cogent evidence that is against his client ?’ None the less the judge told him to answer the question. The old feller fidgeted a bit then said, ‘Well I know I oughtn't to have done it’ he mumbled, but I did take a ciggie off him just to share a moment of companionship like’ The judge asked me to comment, ‘ Yes your honour’ I said, ‘ I did offer a cigarette, it seemed right to share at that time.’ The caretaker looked at me with a sort of gratitude, than after humming and hawing for a bit suggested that it was he and his wife who had offered me a coffee. My lawyer was exultant, ‘The jury will appreciate, he said’ the importance of this admission’ The prosecutor was on his feet again, ‘Quite so ‘he boomed, ‘but why didn’t the accused keep his cigarettes in his pockets and refuse a café’ out of his own sense of decency for the dead. Any person of common decency should have refused it. This prisoner ,as I will demonstrate, does not respect the decencies of life nor the laws of this nation.’ I thought he looked ridiculous.

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His tone and his look of triumph as he glanced at me were so marked that I felt what I had not felt in ages. It was the same when my father had not shouted at me but took me quietly upstairs and beat me. My mother passed the room and caught my eye and said ‘there you are’ though she remained silent downstairs. I did not like to think about these things. I felt a foolish desire to burst into tears. For the first time I realised how these people loathed me as much as they did. After asking the jury and my lawyer if they had any questions, the judge heard the caretaker’s evidence from the home. On stepping into the witness box, the man threw a glance at me, and then looked away. Replying to the prosecutor’s questions he said that I’d declined to get them to open the coffin or see Dada’s body and that I had smoked and slept and drank black coffee and water. ‘He looked like he was out of it’ the caretaker said, ‘as if he had been to a party and come up here without any sleep.’ I felt a sort of wave of indignation spreading through the court room and for the first time I realised the fact that I might be guilty. ‘Am I to die because of the progeny of this island, ‘my dada used to say?

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That didn’t mean much, all older people have grievances and anyway, the Dada probably meant my father, his wretched son in law. Was anyone going to ask him that ? The judge asked him to be more specific. Did he reproach me with sending him to a home up the country, an old man and far from his district and city of Kuching. The Director nodded his head and said ‘ yes’ and this time no one asked him to qualify his answer. To another question, he said he was surprised by my calmness on the day of the funeral and asked what he meant by my calmness, the director lowered his eyes and stared at his shoes. I remembered him looking at me as if unsure of my identity. Then he said that I did not want to see my Dada’s body but instead sat around drinking coffee and left immediately after the funeral in the village. ‘All his tears had been shed, that’s what he told me,’ the director said. Another matter had perplexed him. One of the undertakers had told him that I did not even know Dada’s age. There was a short silence and the judge asked him if he was referring to the prisoner in the dock. The director seemed puzzled by this and the judge explained, it is a formal question and I am bound to ask it. Why you don’t ask him about all those ships of the Blue Funnell line, I thought. The prosecutor was then asked if he had any questions to put and he answered loudly, ‘Certainly not, I have all I need here’

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I couldn’t quite follow what came next. After some more long and boring discussion between the lawyers and the bench, the prosecutor, and my counsel, the presiding judge now said the court would rise. There was an adjournment until the afternoon when further evidence would be taken. Almost before I knew what was happening. I was rushed out to the prison van which drove me back and I was given my midday meal. After a short time just enough to realise how tired I was , they came back for me again . I was back in the same room, confronting the same faces and the whole dance and fandango started again. Even with the sky overcast and waiting for the rain the heat of the day had increased and with the air conditioning on its last legs, some further fans had been procured and people were waving their faces towards them like fronds from a coral reef. They writhed like translucent leaves like those from beneath the sea, orange, yellow and blue, the colour of the women’s scarves. The jury, my lawyer and even my friends all seemed a long way away. I was getting an idea of what the prison guard meant. The young man and an older woman were still staring intently at me. I wiped away the sweat from my face but I was barely conscious of where or who they were, when they brought the Director from the home where Dada died to the witness box. When he was asked if Dada had often moaned about me, the chief answered ‘yes’.