A Flash of Water Read online

  “Try for me, for Li Ling at least,” Ah Lan begged.

  In the bed at the far side of the room, Li Ling held her breath.

  “All right, all right,” she heard her father say with gritted teeth. “In any case, it might not be a bad idea. I could see if we could borrow some money from your brother. He might know of this nun; I’ll ask him.

  Chapter 2

  A SHAFT OF LIGHT seeped through the window slats turning the dormitory walls a buttery gold.

  Mary sat by the bed with both hands clasped in front of her. Her head was bowed low and her knees were pressed close together beneath her rough woven skirt. She moved her lips silently in prayer. She felt a movement in the bed; just a slight rustling of starched sheets. It was sufficient to alert her that her aunt was awake.

  Mary reached out and took her aunt’s hand. It was limp and the skin dry and paper-thin. Dark blue veins like gnarled knots covered it. She saw a slight flutter of movement beneath the patient’s closed eyelids and a tiny tremble at the corner of the parched lips.

  “Shao Peng? You are still here?” Heong Yook’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Yes,” Mary answered still holding on to her aunt’s hand, which lay light as a sparrow’s wing in her own.

  “Then, tell me again all about Malaya. How is your father? Is he still angry with me? Does he still blame me for your mother’s death?”

  “He is not angry with you. The past is the past. There is nothing to tell. I have told you all that I can about father.” She leaned closer for her aunt’s voice had grown even weaker and her breath laboured.

  “Then tell me about you. Why have you not married? Why do you call yourself Mary? Why have you taken a foreign name?”

  “It is a name given to me by...” Even while she spoke her aunt had drifted off. She tucked the bedclothes around her aunt’s slight body. Then slowly she got up and went to the window.

  It was quiet, so quiet, she could hear sparrows chirping in the courtyard. The building was previously a Chinese temple and the four core buildings of the Buddhist temple together with its central courtyard were still intact. It had been taken over by English missionaries. Dr Elizabeth Morrison headed the mission. Only four women, aided by a handful of village girls, manned the hospital she had set up for local Chinese women. So they were glad to welcome her, especially when she spoke English and Chinese to boot. That she came from a different Christian order did not seem to matter.

  Shao Peng reached into the deep pockets of her pinafore and felt for her rosary. She needed it to remind her of what she was now. At times like this, she was torn. She leaned against the window pane. It felt cool against her forehead. Why had she not married? Wasn’t that what she had wished and yearned for? She thought of him. Those deep blue eyes that had both startled and mesmerised her; the straight nose, the lock of hair that fell forward rebelliously even when he brushed it away, his lean, hard body.

  Mary blushed. She was not a nun, not as yet. They call her Sister only to give her a title, which when translated into Chinese would just mean a female sibling. It was a title loosely used to give reverence to her position. She shook her head with impatience. Her thoughts of him had no right to intrude; they should be relegated to the past. She bowed her head in prayer, but to no avail. His image would not leave her. She remembered his touch. He had held her face close to him, willing her to change her mind, to defy her father and marry him. She could feel his touch even now; his scent and the hardness of his body when he held her. In desperation, she turned and walked quickly out of the dormitory towards the chapel. I must pray for forgiveness. I must not think of him, she chided herself. Then she remembered her promise to stay with her aunt. Abruptly she wheeled round and retraced her footsteps back to the bed. She couldn’t leave her aunt alone. How could she be distracted by her own thoughts? She must be there for her in her last moments. Dr Elizabeth had said that there was little hope and that she must be prepared.

  She hurried back to her aunt and drew the chair closer to the bed. Holding her aunt’s hands in hers, she whispered, “Father is not angry with you. He does not blame you or uncle for my mother’s death. He loves you; he wants you to know that he is grateful to you for bringing me up and sending me back to him. He is happy now with his new family. My brother Siew Loong is a fine young man, tall, good-looking, and everything father hoped for. Rohani, my stepmother has been wonderful to me. All this is due to you. I love you aunt. Don’t worry about me. I am not married because I chose not to be.”

  Her voice faltered. She felt a slight pressure of her aunt’s hands and then the clasp of her fingers interlacing with her own.

  “I chose not to marry because I do not wish to hurt father. The man I loved was an Englishman and I could not agree to the marriage father arranged for me. I ran to the Convent and they took me in.”

  She got up and leaned over her aunt. Her aunt’s hands were ice cold and she was so still, that Mary feared she had passed away. She placed her cheek near her aunt’s face and felt a slight breath. “He is called Jack, Jack Webster,” she whispered in her aunt’s ear.

  Suddenly her aunt’s fingers tightened with surprising strength. Her eyes fluttered open. She raised her head with difficulty and still holding on to Shao Peng’s hands said, “Don’t give up on yourself. Give yourself a chance for happiness. Shao Peng, you are not Sister Mary. It will not be fair for your Order, to the nuns that helped you. Be true to yourself. Promise me you will think again about taking vows; it is a life commitment and not just a means to escape.”

  She fell back on to her pillow. The effort had exhausted her. A tremor crossed her face and then she closed her eyes. Her body went limp; the flicker of life extinguished.

  Shao Peng held on to her aunt’s hands. Tears ran down her face. Unashamedly she wept.

  Chapter 3

  THE TWO-STOREY TEAHOUSE was situated in a cobbled narrow street leading to the market square. It was a place popular with merchants and the gentry. A narrow wooden stairway led to the upper level. Kang knew that his brother- in-law would be upstairs having dim sum. His mouth watered at the thought of the little steamed dumplings in bamboo caskets. He could imagine their succulence and aroma. He had never eaten in the teahouse. How could he afford it? Dumplings such as those served in the teahouse were not for people like him. He had breakfasted that morning on a boiled sweet potato and drank tea made from the acrid black remains of discarded tea shoots. To drink the green tea favoured by his brother-in-law would cost the same as several bowls of rice. He gulped again; his stomach rumbled with hunger.

  He hesitated at the bottom of the stairway. Someone was strumming a harp in the room above. The music rippled down the stairs and he felt encompassed by it. It was beautiful in its simplicity. He knew the song. It told of the folklore in this part of the world, tales that his grandmother related, tales about the wistful aspirations and loves of beautiful court ladies. He went up the stairs and stood for a moment to locate his brother-inlaw. He found him at a table overlooking the courtyard below. His brother-in-law did not notice his arrival. He was observing a small group of gentlemen with birdcages in their hands, engaged in a poetry session.

  He hurried to the table. Huang looked up. A flash of annoyance appeared on his face. “You again. Can’t it wait?” he asked with his chopsticks held aloft, poised to place a dumpling in his mouth. He deposited the morsel deftly and waved Kang to the seat before him.

  “Brother Huang, we need your advice urgently. I would not take up your time if I could help it.”

  “All right, all right. Sit down. Tell me.” A loud sigh of exasperation accompanied his invitation. Huang knew that his wife despised his poor relatives. Seeing Kang in the eatery would be better than having him in the house. He was fond of his sister Ah Lan, but he had married into wealth and his wife’s wishes were important, more important than those of his sister. He sat back, folded his arms and listened while Kang recounted the threats of his landlord and Ah Lan’s story about a Chinese Chr
istian nun.

  “First of all,” Huang said with emphasis, rolling his tongue over the words, “I can’t help you with money. You know how hard it is for me.” He lowered his voice and looked round him to see if anyone was within earshot. He was embarrassed to have to explain his own situation. “I have to account for everything. I can’t just siphon out money. My wife will know. I have loaned you money earlier this year to help you buy seeds; last year I helped with your rent. I can’t do it again.”

  “Big brother, I know, I know. We are grateful. We have nothing to defend ourselves against natural calamity. The crop failed last year because of drought. Please, we have no one to turn to.”

  “Why not take their suggestion and let them have Li Ling?”

  “No! No! Ah Lan will not agree to it. Do you know this nun she spoke about, the one they call Sister Mary?”

  “I have heard of her. She is a bold woman by all accounts. In my view, a woman who travels alone, who forsakes her own Chinese name and adopts a foreign one is an unworthy chattel. She has defied the teachings of Confucius. Can you trust such a person who has given her soul and her name to the foreign devils?”

  Kang’s mouth dropped. He had not thought of it this way and now felt the full impact of his brother-in-law’s words. There had been increasing resentment against foreigners ever since the Opium Wars. He needed only to look across the street to know why. He looked out of the window to the building on the opposite side of the road. He had passed it many times and observed the people coming out of the den. Their eyes were inevitably glazed and their skin had an unhealthy glassy shine. He wondered how one could be lured into the depravity of opium smoking. Yet he had no doubt that there were many such people. Even in this tucked-away village in Guangdong, hundreds had fallen into the trap. His brother-in-law had told him that almost half the young men in China were imbibing opium. Foreigners brought the opiate freely into the country and the Emperor could not do anything having lost the war against it. He had been forced to accede to their demands to bring opium to China under the Treaty of Tientsin.

  “This woman is not the only one who has gone over to the foreign devils.” Huang sat back and folded his arms before continuing.

  “These gwei loh are buying people’s souls by giving them food and shelter. Yet they do not care enough to learn their names, forcing them to take on foreign ones! Huh! Why do they call her Mary when she has a perfectly respectable name? Do you consider that kindness? Why does she allow them to defile her name? Far better to let Li Ling marry the warlord than recruit such a woman’s help.”

  Kang got up. He knew that there was little use in pursuing the subject; his brother-in-law’s attention was already elsewhere. He was once more gazing with rapt attention at the group of men and their songbirds. “I’ll take my leave and talk this over with Ah Lan,” Kang said, getting up. Huang did not hear him.

  ***

  With a heavy heart, Kang made his way to the market square. It was crowded. To one side of the square were a couple of stalls that sold food. In one, steamed white buns stuffed with meat were stacked shoulder high on the stall. In the other, a man was dishing out scalding hot stew into rough china bowls. Kang sniffed, his mouth salivated. He recognised the aroma, pork ribs and intestines stewed in soya sauce with a hint of aniseed, cinnamon and cloves. His eyes followed a man holding a bowl. He was tucking into the dish with relish. He was seated on a rough wooden stool and, with a pair of chopsticks, was dunking batons of crispy fried youtiao, bread sticks, into the dark rich sauce. Kang felt his stomach rumble with hunger. He turned away and walked to the far end of the square to join a group of men. They too were staring at the two food stalls with eyes filled with longing.

  “Maybe they will give us some if they can’t sell all the food,” said one in jest.

  “Huh! Are you dreaming? Of course they won’t,” said another.

  “Look, not many people are buying. Who can afford it? So there will be leftovers.”

  “If you want to eat, and don’t care about who gives it to you, then you stand a better chance if you go to the old temple,” said another. “Ever since the foreign women took over the building, they have been doling out food once a day around this time. Just thin gruel! Still, something to fill the stomach.”

  “My family would turn in their graves if I were to do that. My ancestral tablets were kept in the temple in the past. I do not know where they are now. How is it right that our place of worship has to be given up to foreigners?”

  “Keep your voice down. These foreign devils have special powers. Under the treaties they extracted from the Imperial Government, the Missionary compound has special rights. Even the Imperial force cannot venture in to exert their control.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that. The Imperial force might be bound to the treaties, but our brothers are not similarly constrained. They have fled to the mountains to train and prepare for the day we can expel foreigners from our land. Did you hear what happened to the foreign missionaries in the village to the north of us?” He paused for effect and looked around him. Then with a deliberate swift motion, he drew his index finger across his neck.

  A hush fell over the crowd.

  “Do you know who was responsible?” asked a man standing at the edge of the crowd. His question was received with stony silence. Everyone stared ahead. They pretended they had not heard. That is all except for a burly fellow. With a quick glance around, he held out his fist and punched the air. “That’s who,” he whispered in reply, leaning in to the ear of the questioner.

  “Why do we need their food?” countered another, seemingly oblivious to the exchange. “Do you not remember that in this very village we had a similar system? Old Master Tao always gave food to the poor until he was bankrupted. He lost his family and business because of the wars waged on us by the foreigners. Are we to be grateful to the foreigners because now they feed us? Remember the previous missionary, the guy with the big nose—I mean the one that presided before the present lady doctor at the Mission? He helped the foreigners who invaded the village during the opium war.”

  Kang, squeezed in from all sides, looked from one angry face to the other. In a voice that was barely a whisper, he asked. “Has anyone heard of Sister Mary, a Chinese nun?”

  His question was immediately greeted with derisive laughter.

  “That turncoat! The one that brought her aunt from Beiliu to the Missionary?”

  “No! No, that is not true. She is a good woman, at least she has been good to my family,” protested one of the men. He had kept silent until then. Now all eyes were on him for his bold intervention. “My sister-in-law was able to join my brother in Singapore because of her,” he explained. “The foreign missionaries are not bad people. They are doctors, here to help us.” His eyes darted from one angry face to another. His voice wobbled and trailed off, drowned by the angry muttering that followed. Everyone, it seemed, had a view on Chinese women who take up the foreign religion.

  Kang held his breath. So what his wife said was true. The Chinese nun was helping people leave China. He edged closer to the man who had just spoken and whispered in his ear. “Can you tell me how to reach Sister Mary?

  Chapter 4

  “DO YOU WISH your aunt to be buried in the Mission’s grounds? She is not of our faith and her family might object,” said Dr Elizabeth Morrison. They were seated in Elizabeth’s office, a little cubicle previously used as a store room.

  Shao Peng pondered the question. It was one that had been troubling her. “I am all she has in China, “ she replied after a while. “You are right. I don’t think my aunt would wish to be buried in Christian ground. When I was a child in her care, she spoke to me of filial piety. She said it was important to give respect and reverence to our ancestors. She would wish this for herself. She has no immediate family in China to do that for her. Her husband and son have passed away. If she is cremated, I can then take her ashes along with those kept of my uncle back to Malaya. They can be placed in the an
cestral hall. Although I am a Christian, I can still give her respect in death.”

  “Are you not staying on in China?” Until then, Elizabeth had refrained from asking too many questions of Shao Peng. She suspected that the young woman needed space. Nonetheless, she was intrigued. Not many Chinese women, in fact no one she knew, would take on such an arduous and dangerous task as travelling to and from China.

  Shao Peng looked out of the window. The sun had almost disappeared behind the rooftop; just one errant ray struck the far corner of the inner courtyard to light up one of the pillars supporting the eastern building into a blaze of gold. She thought of her aunt’s words and was overwhelmed by an unbearable sadness. She fought hard not to show it. “I’ll leave after the funeral. I will finish what I have to do for the women that I am helping,” she said quietly.

  “Perhaps that is wise. It is not safe for you here. Feelings are running high against missionaries. I know that. What we do here is not sufficient to compensate for the harm done to your people.” Elizabeth gestured to the beds that lined one side of the small room across the hallway. They were filled with women: some ill with fever or dysentery, common diseases that ravaged the countryside, others, however, were just bodies wasted from the smoking of opium.

  “We are trying,” she said with a wan smile, “and the London Missionary Society is doing its best. Our resources are limited. There are not many women doctors they can send. As you know, Chinese women only allow women doctors to attend them. Our male colleagues are not able to help. Moreover, it takes time to build up trust. Many do not trust us enough to bring their sick.”