The Weight of Our Sky Page 10

  • • •

  As we drive on, we pass shiny red trucks laden with men in blue-and-red uniforms bearing stout truncheons—“FRU,” Jay explains to me. “Federal Reserve Unit, the riot police”—and roadblocks staffed by armed guards who demand our credentials. Each time, Vince shows them the curfew pass, and we’re waved on. Once, we are asked to submit to a search of the vehicle, so we stand by patiently and I count off the seconds in my head as an overzealous army officer pokes among our bags of rice, medical supplies, and other provisions, hoping, I suppose, to unearth secret weapons.

  “Do you have to do that? We’re just taking food to people who need it,” says Vince. “Can’t be too careful,” the young man says, flashing us a grin. “We need to make sure you aren’t a danger. We are here to protect the people.” And he sticks his bayonet right into a bag, piercing it through so that rice spills from the jagged tear, all over the floor of Jay’s car.

  On my right, a sharp intake of breath from Jay, though he doesn’t say a word; on my left, Vince narrows his eyes and I can tell how furious he is. It’s difficult not to be. Times are scarce, and one bag of rice could get a family or two through many a long hard week.

  Finally, after sixty-seven sets of three and at least two scenarios where my mother has died excruciating deaths, we’re told to load our things back up and move on. “All clear,” the man says, with another grin and a thumbs-up.

  “Thank you,” Vince says.

  The man looks at him. “Thank you, sir,” he says.

  Vincent takes in a sharp breath, and I bite my bottom lip so hard I taste blood.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  • • •

  When we finally reach Klang, we have no problem finding the abandoned lorry exactly where the owner says he left it. By some miracle, not a single egg inside it is smashed. “Everyone we meet is going to be so egg-static to see these,” Jay says, and even Vince cracks a smile. He hasn’t spoken a word since we left the roadblock.

  We split up then, the better to get supplies to more people. We divide the spoils, Jay taking the lorry, Vince taking over driving duties in the car, and me sliding into the front seat to keep him company. Our next stop, he tells me, is a row of houses near Sentul.

  When we arrive at the first home, we’re greeted with glad cries by the occupants: a young Indian woman who says her name is Mala, and her white-haired mother, wrapped in a shabby green sari. “I’m so glad you are here,” Mala says, clapping her hands at the sight of the rice and the eggs we bring to her door. “We need your help. Please come inside.”

  Vince and I trade glances. “Of course, ma’am,” he says politely. As we follow behind her, he leans in. “Be careful, and stay close to me.”

  Inside, a man lays sprawled on a mat on the floor, the back of his head sporting a large bandage. He sits up when he sees us, eyes wild and poised to flee, or attack—I can’t tell which. “It’s all right, Roslan,” Mala says gently, and he calms at the sound of her voice.

  “He was running away,” she explains to us. “He tripped right in front of our house and banged his head against a rock. I was peeping out the window and saw him. So I quickly pulled him inside before anyone could see him.”

  I smile. “You are very kind.”

  She dips her head gracefully, too shy to acknowledge the compliment. “The thing is, he doesn’t want to stay here. He wants to go home.”

  “Please,” the man says, his voice hoarse. “Please. I’d like to go home to my family.”

  “All right,” Vince says slowly. “So what’s the problem?”

  Mala clears her throat. “The problem is that Roslan lives in Segambut. He’s worried that he’ll be hurt on the way from here to there.” She catches my eye. “There are a lot of . . . unfriendly . . . areas for him to pass by.”

  Vince catches on faster than I do. “Chinese areas?” he says.

  “Areas that may not be . . . as friendly toward a big Malay man walking on his own.”

  There is a silence as we all take this in. Roslan trembles, and Mala’s mother totters to the kitchen, returning with a cup of hot tea. She sits beside him on the floor, stroking his back softly while he sips at it. The green and gold threads of her sari shimmer as she moves.

  And that’s when it hits me.

  “A sari,” I say aloud. “We need a sari.”

  “What?” Vince looks at me like I’ve sprouted horns.

  “We could dress him in a sari. I mean, look at him.” Everyone turns to look, and Roslan shrinks a little from the weight of our gazes. “He’s dark—tall, but not impossibly tall for a woman. He can drape the shawl over his head so nobody sees his bandage. And if he rides in the back with them”—I gesture at the two women—“it’ll look like we’re just driving a group of Indian ladies somewhere. No Malays in sight.”

  Another silence as everyone considers this plan. On the floor, Roslan’s eyes blaze with hope.

  “It could work,” Mala says eventually. “It really could.”

  Vince shrugs. “What do we have to lose?”

  And Mala’s mother grins a gap-toothed grin as she scurries off to find the perfect sari.

  • • •

  Half an hour later, Roslan stands in the middle of the room, his arms outstretched, as Mala and her mother put the finishing touches to his outfit. He’s draped in a bright blue sari, shot with threads of gold that gleam against his dark skin.

  “It works,” Vince says, standing back to take in the full effect.

  “Good,” Roslan says, sighing with relief. “Now let’s go.” He starts for the door, then freezes when we all yell, “Stop!”

  “What?” he says, wide-eyed.

  Vince shakes his head. “You won’t get more than five steps before someone figures out you aren’t a woman,” he says. “Your walk is a dead giveaway.”

  “What’s wrong with the way I walk?”

  “Nothing,” I say soothingly. “It’s very manly. But that’s the problem.”

  “You need to be a little more . . . fluid,” Mala says. “Roll your hips a little bit. Like this.” She walks across the room gracefully, a stark contrast to Roslan’s wide strides.

  He clicks his tongue impatiently. “Must I really do this?”

  “Look, do you want to make it home or not?” I ask him.

  He sighs, but eventually submits to a fifteen-minute walking lesson, trying so hard to move the right way that by the time we finish, sweat is streaming down his face.

  “All right,” Mala says, “I think that’s the best we can do.”

  A shadow of doubt falls across Roslan’s face. “Do you really think this will work?” he says, tugging absently at the soft material that swirls down to his ankles. Mala’s mother reaches out a wizened hand to pat his. “You will be okay,” she says softly.

  Roslan takes a deep breath. “All right,” he says. “I’m ready.”

  • • •

  The car is silent on the drive from Sentul to Segambut. “It should take us about fifteen minutes to get there,” Vince tells us, but it feels like every inch the car moves forward ages us all by about ten years. “Hurry, hurry,” Mala mutters under her breath. Roslan says nothing at all; he just sits sandwiched between the two women, one hand holding tight to Mala’s mother’s, the other clutching at the shawl on his head.

  “We’re almost there,” Vince announces, and I’m about to let out a joyous whoop when I see something that makes my heart stop.

  A roadblock.

  From the back seat, I hear a sharp intake of breath from Mala.

  “What do we do?” she whispers.

  I feel a churning in my stomach; slowly, the Djinn begins to stir.

  “Just act natural,” Vince says calmly. “Let me do the talking.”

  The car rolls to a stop next to the young Malay soldier manning the barricade, who nods at Vince. “Pass, please,” he says, and Vince hands over his curfew pass for inspection. The young man frowns slightly as he looks over the paper, and the Dji
nn squeezes my heart in response. You’re all in trouble now, he whispers.

  “Where are you headed?” the soldier asks.

  “Just getting these ladies back to their home in Segambut,” Vince replies easily. I steal a glance over my shoulder at the trio behind me; in Mala’s eyes, I see a mirror for my own mute panic. The only movement in the back seat is the trembling of Roslan’s hands.

  Still holding Vince’s pass, the soldier peers into the car, taking a long look first at me, then at the others in the back. I can’t tell from his gaze what he’s thinking, and my uncertainty is fodder for the Djinn, who cackles softly and parades a dozen images of our deaths through my head in quick succession.

  Finally, finally, the soldier hands the pass back through the window. “All right, go ahead,” he tells Vince. “Mind you get home quickly; it does no good to be wandering about too late right now.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Vince eases the car back onto the road to Segambut.

  Five seconds later, we all burst out into hysterical, wild laughter.

  • • •

  The bright afternoon sun gives way to a mellower golden glow, and after sending Mala and her mother back to their house, Vince decides it’s time for us to head home. “We’ll tell Ma we couldn’t make it to Sungai Buloh,” he says. “We’ll have to try again tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I say agreeably. I’m breathless, euphoric: From somewhere in the depths of my chaotic, broken brain, I had produced a good idea. A good idea. Me! And we’d actually pulled it off, and gotten a man back to his home, and it was because of ME. As someone who has spent so much time in the past weeks and months feeling like I need saving, I am almost dizzy with the realization that I can also be someone who saves other people.

  Can you? The Djinn’s voice is like smoke, snaking through my brain. Can you really? What did you do but provide one idea? Who actually had to carry it out? And then, crushingly: If you think you’re so capable of saving people, then why didn’t you? In my head, Saf and Mama bleed rivers of bright red through fresh gunshot wounds, the edges ragged from where bullet holes tore through their flesh. I inhale sharply and close my eyes, trying to ignore him, trying to hold on to that feeling of triumph, trying to stop my twitching fingers from flying to do his bidding. And I almost succeed.

  Until Vince leans forward to squint at the road ahead. “What’s that?”

  I sit up to take a better look. “What?”

  “That thing there, in the middle of the road.”

  We’re getting closer and closer, and it’s clear that whatever it is, we’re not going to be able to get past. He eases the car to a stop. “Wait here,” he tells me, opening the door. “I’m going to see what that is. It’s madness to have something blocking the road at a time like this.”

  I perch on the edge of my seat, watching him. The Djinn flutters his fingers lightly against the walls of my stomach, but I tamp him down. I am the one who saves, I tell him firmly, not the one who needs saving.

  Vince walks a little way down the road from the car, peering at the offending blockade, then looks back at me. “It’s just a tree trunk! I’m going to . . .”

  “Going to what?” I yell back. Then I realize he’s gone perfectly still, and that his eyes are wide and staring at something right behind me. My stomach immediately clenches in fear. Before I can look around, he’s sprinted back to the car and leaped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him. In what feels like no time at all, he’s swerved the car back around so fast that the tires screech in protest, then slams on the accelerator like we’re being chased by hellhounds. I can’t help the frightened yelp that escapes me, or keep myself from gripping the door handle so hard I leave permanent nail marks in the worn leather. “What is going on?!” I yell over the rumbling of the engine, which is working harder than it probably has in its whole life. Vince doesn’t answer; he just keeps driving like a maniac, shooting periodic glances at his rearview mirror.

  Finally, after a full fifteen minutes of heart-pounding racing in which all I do is count and tap in small clusters of three, he slows to something resembling normal speed, and I take a minute to catch my breath. “What was that all about?” I shout at him.

  He takes a deep breath. His face, I realize, is deathly pale. “That thing in the middle of the road,” he says. “It was part of a tree trunk—a banana tree, I think.”

  “That was it? It must have just fallen over or something.” He’s still, quiet. “You’re not worried about Pontianaks, are you?” I tease him, hoping for a smile, a laugh, anything to break him out of this strange mood. My mother used to tell me stories from her own grandmother, about the bloodsucking Pontianaks, demon women who lived in banana trees and came back from the dead to snatch innocent babies from unsuspecting new mothers. “And if you’re naughty, I’ll tell her to come and take you, too!” she’d say, smacking me lightly on my bottom while I giggled, immersing myself in the delicious terror of it all.

  “It didn’t just fall over,” he says finally. “No jagged edges like you get on a broken trunk. Someone cut it down and put it there.”

  I frown. “Who would do something like that?”

  “People up to no good,” he says, smiling wanly. “The people I saw coming up behind the car, for example.”

  “What?!”

  He nods. “That’s what I saw when I looked back. That’s what made me panic. They were creeping out from behind those clusters of trees and bushes by the side of the road. They had weapons. . . . It was a trap.”

  My hands are shaking, and I clench them into fists to try and get them to stop. “But . . . but . . . Who were they even trying to catch in that trap? Us? It doesn’t make sense.” My breath is coming hard and fast now, and I can hear my voice rising, tinged with hysteria. “We were only there to help!”

  “I don’t think they cared, Melati,” says Vince, his voice gentle. “I think that people are angry and frustrated, and they just want to lash out and hurt someone. It doesn’t really matter who.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “It’s just the truth. They don’t see us as people, and they don’t want to. They just know that we’re not them. That’s enough.”

  My breathing is so ragged and uneven I’m starting to see black spots in front of my eyes. I shut them tight, and immediately see Mama being bashed over the head with an iron pipe. Not one of us, says the faceless man standing over her body as he shrugs, blood dripping down his wrist and landing on the ground before him. Without even thinking, I start to count, my fingers tapping convulsively—one, two, three, one, two, three—but the image won’t go away. Why won’t it go away? I can’t breathe, I swear, I can’t breathe. Again and again, Mama dies right in front of my eyes, and there’s nothing, nothing, nothing that I can do about it. Count, Melati, damn you, count or she’ll die. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three . . . Vincent, the tree trunk, the men and their weapons, Mama covered in her own blood—the whole world fades away until there’s nothing left but me and the numbers.

  • • •

  “Why do you do that?”

  My eyes fly open and I see Vincent looking at me. “Do what?” I say, my heart beating so hard I swear you can see it bouncing out of my chest, like some kind of cartoon character. How long have I been sitting here like this? How long has he been watching me? A dark shame begins to blossom from the pit of my stomach.

  “Your fingers—they never stop. And I can hear you counting sometimes, under your breath. What are you counting?”

  My face burns icy hot; my toes curl in agony. I let him see me. How could I let him see me? For one wild moment I consider lying, thinking up some story, anything to put him off the scent. But I’m tired of lying, of hiding all the time, of pretending everything is fine. The numbers are wearing me down. I’m sick of it. The Djinn courses wildly through my body, screeching as he senses my impending betrayal.

  How do I even begin?

  Okay, Melati. Deep breath.


  “So . . . imagine your mind is a house. You fill it with things and people and ideas and thoughts that are important to you and worth keeping, right?” He nods, not wanting to interrupt. “Well, in my house, the back door sometimes opens all by itself, and uninvited people just let themselves in and get comfortable. They talk really loudly, they do whatever they want, and they never seem to want to leave.”

  So far, so good. I keep going.

  “Those strangers in my house . . . they aren’t really me. But because they act like they own the place, sometimes it’s hard to tell if what I’m thinking is really . . . what I’m thinking, if that makes sense.”

  “Okay . . .”

  I can hear the hesitation in his voice, and it almost makes me falter. In my head, the Djinn replays the memory of my mother’s recoil when I told her my truth, over and over and over again.

  “When I get stressed, when I get worried, when I find myself thinking about something that I don’t want in my head, I sort of . . . count things. To help me calm down.” I glance over at him to see how he’s taking this.

  “Does it work?” he asks.

  “Sure. Well. Most of the time.” Stop, the Djinn whispers. Stop. He’ll hate you for saying any more. I ignore him and forge on. “I can’t just count any which way. I have to count in threes.”

  “Threes?”

  I nod. “Yeah. That’s the magic number. So everything I count has to be in threes, or the total has to be a number that can be divided by three. Or if there’s a bunch of things, I can only count every third thing. Sometimes I count words in books, or things people say, or the steps that I take. Sometimes I have to touch things when I count them, or sometimes I have to tap out my count—like with my fingers, or my feet. . . .” My voice trails off. This is too weird. Even saying it, I know it sounds too weird. He’s about to call me crazy, call a doctor, call a bomoh.

  Instead, he just asks: “Why three?”

  I shoot him a look. He actually seems interested. “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think maybe it’s because the last time I was happy, the last time my mind was quiet, it was when we were the three of us. You know. A proper family.”