The Weight of Our Sky Read online

Soon, we’re making our way back to the van, Ethan leaning against Mama and Miss Low while I bring up the rear with an armful of blankets and sheets to try and make the van’s hard seats as comfortable as I can. I know he must be in pain, but the boy tries his best not to moan or flinch, and I almost want to cry as I watch him struggle valiantly along, his shirt soaked with sweat.

  We settle him as best we can across the back seat, and I tuck a blanket around him so he’s nice and snug. “Thank you,” he whispers, his voice cracking. “You’re welcome,” I whisper back, patting his hand and smiling at him.

  Mama turns the key and the van’s engine rumbles to life, sending vibrations rippling through the seats. Ethan winces slightly. “Are you all right?” I say, then feel stupid for asking; he’s so obviously in pain. But he tries his best to smile sweetly up at me. “I’m okay, kakak,” he says, echoing May. Not for long, whispers the Djinn.

  I give him three quick pats—as much to reassure myself as to comfort him—and slide into the passenger seat, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. “Ready?” Mama asks me, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, her hands gripping the wheel so tightly I can see her knuckles turn white.

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  I can see the sweat beading on her upper leap, and her lips moving as she recites a prayer under her breath. She switches gears carefully, then slowly begins easing the big van down the road.

  BANG BANG BANG.

  The noise is sudden and deafening, and I can’t help the scream that escapes me, my heart pounding with fear. Mama slams on the brakes, and the wheels shriek in protest. Ethan lets out a deep groan as the van jerks to a stop. “What is going on?” Mama yells. “I don’t know, but please, Mama, please don’t open the door.” I know I’m begging, I know I sound crazy, but my heart is pounding so hard I swear I’m about to have a heart attack, and the Djinn won’t leave me alone.

  “I have to see what’s happening,” Mama insists.

  “No, Mama, please, let’s just go, please, Mama. . . .” I’m sobbing now, hysterical, hanging on to her arm so she can’t go anywhere. In my head, a parade of wild imaginings troops past: a shooter appears, blasting Mama’s head off with a rifle; looters set fire to the van with all of us still in it; thugs snatch us all out of the van to torture and maim us as they please.

  “Calm down, sayang.” My mother’s voice is low and soothing, yet it’s like someone’s banged a gong, and suddenly the chaos is gone. Everything is quiet again. “Calm down, sweetheart. It’s all right. Just breathe.” I follow along obediently, inhaling and exhaling until everything seems right again. “I have to take a look and see what’s going on,” she says quietly. “I’ll be right back.”

  I can only nod and watch mutely as she swings her door open. I’m too exhausted to do anything else. Instead, I count down the seconds until she returns, leaning my forehead against the cool window beside me, watching my breath create trails of mist that blossom and then disappear again within seconds.

  Fifty-two counts later, the door opens, and Mama appears. “Look who I found,” she says, smiling wryly. May peeks out from behind her, wearing a shy smile. “Hi, kakak.”

  “Hi, May,” I say, trying my best to hide my frustration. The last thing we need is another kid to worry about. “What are you doing here? It’s much safer for you to be inside, with the other children.”

  She shakes her head firmly. “No, thank you,” she says, like I’ve just offered her a cup of tea. “I’d rather stay with you.” And she hops up into the van and climbs quickly into the back, perching in the seat next to Ethan. “I can help take care of him,” she says virtuously, making a great show of tucking the loose corners of the blanket back tightly around the boy. “See? That’s better.” And she pats him gently on the head for good measure.

  I turn to Mama. “Do we really have to take her?”

  “We don’t have time for arguments,” Mama says, climbing in and shutting the door behind her. “We’ve got to get to the hospital, and quickly. Just be sure to mind us and do what we say, okay?” She directs the last part over her shoulder, and May nods vigorously, looking pleased at not being chased away.

  I sigh. “Okay, then. Let’s go.” The Djinn plays cold notes of fear up and down my spine; in my pocket, my fingers don’t stop, the rhythmic tapping muffled by their fabric cocoon.

  • • •

  The first few minutes of the drive are painful. The van grinds and shudders down streets and alleys, but other than a few groans from Ethan, we go on in silence, May and I all too conscious of my mother’s gritted teeth, white knuckles, and frayed temper. I keep myself busy counting and tapping and blinking—incantations so that the Djinn will ensure safe passage for all of us.

  Eventually, Mama gets the hang of it, and we glide smoothly along the near-empty roads. Behind me, I can hear May humming a little tune, and I feel my own body start to unclench itself. Even the Djinn is silent.

  Mama glances over at me and smiles. “Looks like we’ll make it,” she says, and I smile back because I’m finally starting to believe it.

  Until it happens.

  There is a strange, uncomfortable clanking from the engine, then another. Mama’s face is frozen in a rictus of confusion and panic, and I can feel my own rearranging itself to mirror it. What’s going on? What’s happening? The Djinn immediately rears its ugly head, a smile spreading slowly across his face. Who said you could stop counting? Who said it was safe? You were careless, and now you’ll just have to pay for it.

  “What’s happening, Mama?” I cry, but she can’t answer; she’s intent and focused, gripping the wheel as though her life depends on it—which, of course, it does. As all of our lives do.

  If we could keep the van going by sheer willpower, we would have been at the hospital ten minutes ago. As it is, the old green clunker rolls along gamely for a while before slowing, then stopping altogether.

  Inside, there is nothing but dead silence. Even Ethan doesn’t move a muscle, and for a second I wonder distractedly if he’s okay. But only for a second. I’m too busy trying to deal with the Djinn, who has decided to climb onto my back and wrap his arms around my neck; I’m weighed down by dread and fear, and all the air is being choked out of me, painfully and slowly. You’re all going to die here if you don’t keep counting, he whispers in my ear, caressing my hair with long, tender strokes. Never stop counting again. Never.

  From the seats behind me come the sounds of low, insistent sobbing. Ethan is shaking, tears pouring down his face, sweat soaking through even the blanket that covers him. My mother gets up swiftly to take a look at him, her face grave. “Don’t worry, sweethearts,” she says gently, addressing us all. “We’ll make it there somehow. Not far away now.” But I can tell from her expression that she’s more worried than she lets on. In my head, the numbers march on in never-ending sequences and ever-mutating patterns, and buried deep in my pockets, my fingers tap so fast you could practically see sparks fly from their tips, if you could see them at all.

  “Kakak.”

  I make no move to answer; the din in my head drowns out May’s timid whisper, and it’s taking all my strength to maintain control. I have no energy to spare for chatter, and frankly, I’m irritated at being interrupted when I’m trying so hard to focus.

  “Kakak,” she says again, more insistently this time. “Kakak. Look.” And she tugs at my sleeve, pointing out of the window ahead of us, her eyes wide.

  “What? What is it?” I snap.

  Then I look.

  And freeze.

  The van has stalled at the bottom of a low, sloping hill. And coming straight toward us, over the horizon, is a group of Malay men, waving an assortment of homemade weapons, their heads wrapped in red sashes.

  There is a roar from behind us, and we whip our heads around. From the back window, we see them: the Chinese men, their own weapons in hand, hurling insults to the Malays. As we watch, one man waves a large broom. “Sweep them ou
t!” he yells, pointing it tauntingly at the group on the hill. “Sweep the useless ones out of here and back to the forest like the animals they are!” The Djinn tightens his grip on my lungs, and I gasp in shock.

  It’s Frankie. Frankie, waving a broom in one hand and a thick stick sharpened to a three-point spear in the other. Frankie, yelling about getting rid of Malays. Getting rid of me.

  I swallow hard and taste bile.

  Mama whirls around and our eyes meet. “We’re stuck,” I say, somehow finding my voice amid the panic rising in my throat. The Djinn begins to pound an insistent beat on my heart, the echoes reverberating through my entire body. “What are we going to do? How are we going to get out of here?” My voice is tinged with hysteria. Mama puts a reassuring hand out to touch my shoulder, but she doesn’t say anything. Her face is blank. She has no idea what to do, and I’m almost irrationally angry at her for it. How can she not know what to do? She’s an adult! A mother! Mothers are always supposed to know what to do.

  “Come on, Mama,” I say. “Help me get Ethan down.” Between us, we settle Ethan on the floor of the van, a little more hidden from sight, then crouch down with him. Beside me, May presses her little body close to mine, pale and trembling. “It’s okay,” I whisper to her. “Just stay close to me, and stay quiet.” She nods, her eyes wide with fear.

  Outside, the two gangs are getting closer—to each other, and to us. The air is thick with tension and shouted slurs, each one uglier and more vicious than the last.

  “Stupid Malays!”

  “Chinese pigs!”

  “Death to the Malays!”

  “Go back to China, ungrateful dogs!”

  Beside me, May covers her mouth with her hands to stop the sobs from escaping, tears running down her cheeks. Mama is breathing hard, her hand splayed protectively across Ethan’s chest. I shut my eyes tight. I have to do something, I think wildly. I have to save them.

  Too late, the Djinn crows. You’ve led them all to their deaths. Nothing good ever comes from caring about you, Melati Ahmad. The images flash quickly on the backs of my closed eyelids: three dead bodies in the twisted wreckage of a burned-out van.

  I double over, feeling like I’ve been punched in the stomach, doing my best to suck in air.

  “What are you doing, Melati?”

  I open my eyes. My mother is staring at my hands, where my fingers have been tapping nonstop; they still are, and I can’t make them stop. May is staring at me too. “What are you counting, kakak?” she asks me. I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing it out loud.

  The world seems to shimmer around me, and I grip the seat in front of me tightly to stop from losing my balance. Mama’s face slowly crumples. “It’s back?” she asks me, and her tone is almost accusing. “The . . . visions? The numbers?”

  I can’t bear to say yes, can’t bear to be the one breaking her heart, but the Djinn is so loud I can’t even think straight, and I can’t break the number chain in my head. All I can do is nod.

  I watch my mother grasp for something to cling to, something to hang her hope on, the way a drowning woman flails as the waves engulf her, willing to believe in miracles. Then, slowly, it dawns on her how hopeless an endeavor this is, and right before my eyes, she shrinks and shrivels until there is nothing left in her place but a shell. I see it in her eyes: My mother has lost hope. She has accepted her fate. She is ready to drown.

  And suddenly, the Djinn looms before me, dark as smoke and enormous enough to fill the entire world and cruelly beautiful, the edges of his body flickering with blue flame. His raucous laughter echoes through my head. Look what you did! He surveys the four of us with satisfaction, breathing in our auras of fear and misery and hopelessness like fine perfumes. That’s that poisoned touch of yours at work again. Your mother is about to die, and she’ll die disappointed and ashamed of her only daughter.

  I crumple beneath the weight of his words. Time seems to stop. The barbs come thick and fast, and sharp enough to spill blood. And it’s all your fault, Melati. All of this is your fault. She’d never have been here at all if it weren’t for you. She’d never have left the hospital. She’d never have put her life on the line for her useless, good-for-nothing child.

  I can’t listen to this. I can’t. My stomach is churning, my blouse damp with sweat, and all around me the world is spinning too fast for me to focus. I try to tap, to count, but he just keeps going and I can’t seem to block him out. She’s going to die, and it’s your fault. She’s going to die, and it’s your fault. She’s going to die, and it’s your fault. She’s going to die, and it’s your fault.

  Your. Fault.

  There’s nothing more I can do. The mob is right outside our door, and no numbers in the world will save us now.

  Let death come. I don’t care anymore.

  I curl up into myself and squeeze my eyes shut as the relentless waves of anxiety and fear come crashing down on me, pounding me over and over again, dragging me out into a cold and unforgiving sea and leaving me to drown.

  Except there is a voice calling me, out there at sea, a voice that sometimes sounds like Saf, and sometimes sounds like Vince, and sometimes sounds like Paul McCartney, and sometimes sounds like . . . God?

  Remember how far you’ve come, the voice whispers. Remember what you’ve accomplished. Remember who you are. Pictures flash through my mind, but this time they aren’t images of death. They’re images of me: me with Saf, laughing and happy; me with Mama and Abah, our heads bowed in prayer; me helping Auntie Bee hand out food to the neighbors; me with Jay and Vince, ferrying provisions to grateful families; me wrapping Roslan in a sari, our joyous laughter when we realized what we’d pulled off; me approaching armed guards, a determined look on my face, Jee and her baby etched in my mind; me holding May close, protecting her from the mob raging around us.

  Me. Just me.

  There is a laugh, then, a sound like silver bells tinkling through the air. You are more than your Djinn, the voice whispers. You always have been.

  And then I open them again.

  He’s gone.

  Miraculously, I feel the waves receding, leaving me alone on the shore. The Djinn is silent. In fact—I probe the corners of my mind cautiously, testing all the usual sore spots—he doesn’t seem to be there at all.

  In his place, a new feeling begins to grow. It’s been so long since I’ve felt other emotions that it takes me a while to recognize what it is, but eventually it dawns on me that it’s anger. Bright, blazing anger that is slowly spreading until I am fairly burning with rage at the injustice of our situation. It isn’t fair that all we can do is wait for death to claim us. It isn’t fair that children like May and Ethan won’t have the opportunity to grow up and see the world in all its terrible, wondrous beauty. And it isn’t fair that I’ll never get to experience a life where the Djinn isn’t in charge, where Mama and I can be happy.

  And suddenly, before I know what I’m doing, I throw the door of the van open and slide out, slamming the door behind me, shutting out Mama’s cries of protest. I take a deep breath, then turn.

  I’m right in the middle of two angry mobs with weapons raised, poised to strike, all looking at me as if I’m crazy.

  Luckily, I’m used to that.

  “Melati?” Frankie is staring at me, disbelief written all over his face. “What are you doing here?”

  “You know this girl?” The question comes from the man standing beside him, muscles rippling ominously beneath his plain white T-shirt as he hefts a large wooden club from one hand to the other and back again.

  Frankie sniffs. “You could say that.”

  “You making friends with Malay scum now, Frankie boy?” The man in white leers at him, and Frankie scowls.

  “We aren’t friends,” he says stonily.

  “Then how do you know her?” a voice calls out from the other side, and a young Malay man pushes his way through the crowd, brandishing a parang. “Did you try to hurt her, you filthy dog?” An angry murmur rustles t
hrough the crowd. “You keep your nasty hands away from our women!”

  “Stop it!” I yell, and miraculously, they do. All eyes are on me.

  Deep breaths, Melati.

  “I know him because his family helped me when all the killing and the violence started. They are Chinese and I’m Malay, and they helped me anyway. Because none of that actually matters!”

  I look up at the brilliant blue afternoon sky, trying to marshal my thoughts. “Di mana bumi dipijak, di situ langit dijunjung. Have you heard this before? It means where we plant our feet is where we must hold up the sky. We live and die by the rules of the land we live in. But this country belongs to all of us! We make our own sky, and we can hold it up—together.”

  I look around at the sea of faces, and my heart sinks. Because I can see that I’m not really getting anywhere. I think of Mama, and May and Ethan, and Vince and his parents, and my eyes sting with tears. I turn to Frankie.

  “Your ma is the one who taught me that, Frankie,” I say, my voice breaking at the memory of Auntie Bee, her warm hugs, her generous smile. “Your mother is one of the kindest, bravest people I’ve ever met. I never got the chance to say that. You tell her thank you for me, okay?”

  Around me, men look at each other questioningly, wondering what to do next. I close my eyes. I don’t really care anymore; I’ve said my piece, and the anger that was driving me has been extinguished. All I want now is some peace and quiet.

  “Let’s go,” a low voice says gruffly in my ear, and I open my eyes with a start, my heart pounding. Frankie is crouched down beside me, grabbing me by the arm and helping me to my feet. “Wh-what?” “Who else is with you?” I gesture to the van, and in a second he’s yanked open the door and helping May and my mother, staggering slightly under the weight of Ethan, out. “Come on,” he says urgently. “Come on quickly, before they figure out how to react.”

  The crowd parts slightly for us, still unsure of what to do, and we almost make it out when we hear it. “FRANKIE!” the man in white bellows, an angry vein pulsing in his forehead, his eyes bulging from their sockets. “Frankie, you traitor to your people, get back here!” Frankie ignores them, pushing forward, brandishing his club to ward off any would-be attackers.