Although schoolbooks taught them that these were the axe-heads and chisels of the stone-age man, they had grown up with a fear of the Thunder Demon. The demon’s teeth were especially powerful when casting spells, for age made them potent. Yet, when they had brought Shanti limp and dripping from the water, and she still had the demon’s teeth pendant around her neck, he had ripped it from her lifeless body and sworn never to believe again. Then he had devoted his life to science, his work disproving the notion of any power higher than human genius.
Jay softly rubbed his fingers over that familiar bulge at his chest. He still wore the demon’s teeth torn from the body of a dead girl, so very long ago. It was an albatross he could not shake off.
Maybe he had not tried hard enough, despite his twenties and thirties being filled with shrinks and happy pills. Maybe now was the time to lay this ghost to rest.
Shanti had a daughter before she died. The daughter, Agni, he calculated quickly, must be in her late twenties now. He imagined a face like Shanti’s, but older, the familiar curve of a cheek at the tips of his fingers… he flexed his fingers into a closed fist.
No, this time, he would return because Colonel S had called. It was a challenge to work with Colonel S, and the last phone conversation had made that clear.
“Come for a month, Jay, that’s all
lah
, the only thing this old man is asking from you.”
“I have projects in summer, I need to try and reschedule things… I don’t think I can, not for a month.”
“Ah, come on! You have tenure already, it can’t be so hard.”
He had tired at incessant wheedling. “This is not Universiti Malaya.”
A shocked intake of breath. Jay had not thought himself capable of such insolence and regretted it instantly. It was a relief to hear Colonel S speak again.
“As you wish, Jay. I just wanted to see you again. Think about this, please, I am an old man. I still feel like a godfather to you, and you, a child squirming in my arms…”
Jay felt his fingers looping circles in the air and knew he could not let Colonel S talk about the fire. “Three weeks. I can do three weeks. Maybe.”
“Excellent! I look forward to your arrival. Somebody will send a ticket…”
“I’ll call you back. Don’t send anything yet.”
“As you wish. Inshallah, it will be a pleasant three-week holiday for you, even if nothing else develops. But we are working on some biomaterials you will only have read about and I guarantee you’ll be intrigued.”
Three weeks. He would have time to see Shanti’s daughter – he felt a warming of his blood – even time to see Shanti’s mother again. Three quick weeks, and he would to be back in Boston… how bad could it get in such a short time?
He smiled as he remembered Colonel S on his knees in that lab in Seattle. For such a great scientist the man was a sucker for his God. He remembered shouting,
Get up, Prof! We did this, you and I, not some random god!
Colonel S had taught him everything, besides saving his life. He couldn’t have asked for a better advisor for his doctoral research. Their relationship was about work and if Colonel S was now offering him an open door back into Malaysia, he should grab the opportunity without a second thought for the dangerous research that Colonel S had engaged with in Seattle. Any research in Malaysia was immaterial to his American life; it was not his problem, and he would be back in three weeks. The people of that country, that babbling bunch who believed in magic and miracles, deserved god-men like Colonel S. If the meek were cowed, it was only Darwinism at work.
Now that destiny was calling him back, it was time to settle past dues, especially with Shanti’s mother. It would be different now that he was no longer a boy. Living with Shanti’s ghost all his adult life had been crippling, and he had had enough.
Jay yanked the curtains shut, enclosing himself in darkness as the phone blinked crimson in a stuttering burst of light. Someone had left him a message, but he would deal with that later.
It was probably Manju anyway… and he didn’t want to talk any more. Or be persuaded
not
to go to Malaysia.
Jay headed to his computer, swivelling his chair so savagely that he dislodged two textbooks and a sheaf of papers dog-eared at the edges. He picked up the textbooks, forcing them between
The Business of Biomaterials
and
Ceramics and the Anatomy
, and then typed
flight time Boston Kuala Lumpur
into Google.
With the multiple stops on a last-minute booking, it could take him thirty-two hours to get to Kuala Lumpur. Even if travelling first class, did he really want to do this? He buried his head in his hands and thought of Manju.
Bitch!
He needed closure with her, and space between them, so that even if she wanted to come back, he wouldn’t be here.
Childhood memories crowded into his mind: soft evenings like crow wings melting into the night; the call to the faithful ringing out over the noise of the traffic in a roundabout; the cadences of the language rising and falling like a happy song; his nostrils hit by the sharp smell of burning red chillies, followed by the sizzle of wet vegetables.
Jay’s eyes watered involuntarily. He was getting old. He would be fifty soon.
He really wanted to go back to Malaysia.
The first thing he had done after Colonel S called was to search for Agni on Facebook. There was only one Agnibina listed, and he studied the profile picture, a cartoonish sexy Betty Boop, for clues. There were none. He had decided to send her a long message, introducing himself, and begun:
Your mother was my dear childhood friend and I still miss her. I have some work in Malaysia and will be returning after a few decades. I would be delighted if you would meet me. You must have your own memories of your mother
… and more meaningless shit.
This daughter would have no memories of Shanti, but it couldn’t hurt to pretend. He read over the email, then hit
send
before he could change his mind.
Miraculously, Shanti’s Agni had written back, a day later. And Jay had realised that life could get very interesting indeed.
Jay looked up at the oak-panelled walls. He could not think of a single person in Boston who wouldn’t be glad to see him go. Picking up the phone, he dialled the Colonel’s number.
When Agni strode into the hall again against the lines of the red, white, and blue plane blurring into the distance picking up speed, the old man had disappeared. She scanned the rows of seats, but he was nowhere to be seen.
She bit a nail absentmindedly. The irregular security clearances were definitely a problem. The employee identification system had been breached, and an armed intrusion into the most sacrosanct of public spaces, the airport tarmac, was possible. If this had been another stunt by the media to prove how incompetent her department was, she hoped the public relations people would be able to contain this in time.
Whoever had planned the intrusion had timed it well. The group of senior ministers returning from the asean summit was due to hold an important press conference at the airport next week. Not even a full week left any more. She peered at the date on her watch. Time was running out.
Today’s security breach hadn’t led to a severe problem, and no aeroplanes were being directed to the Secondary Isolated Aircraft Parking Position, but the migraine sharpened into a pinpoint in her head as the phone rang again.
It was Rohani. “They talked to the old man.”
The silence grew. “And?”
“It’s Colonel S. You know, the princeling’s right-hand man? He came to pick up a disabled nephew, some fellow in a wheel-chair. Everything checked out.”
“So why didn’t he use the vip route? And for the past two weeks… why has he been lurking around in some stupid disguise?”
“Go home, Agni, it’s way past midnight.” Rohani sounded tired. “Worry about the security coding and leave the people to the airport police,
lah…
This fellow’s got clearance higher than you and me both, okay? If he wants to sit around the airport shaking legs every day also he can.”
“Okay, okay. I know.”
Rohani sighed softly. “It will be a long day tomorrow – meeting at nine, remember?”
On her way back home on the desolate Sepang-Damansara Highway, Agni rolled down the window to let the cool air whip her hair. Distant hills, an inky blue in the clouds, changed to lush leafiness as she came closer, chameleon-like beauty. She scanned the midget trees in the oil palm estates hedging the highway. In all this, in her childhood, she had never encountered danger in the darkness. Now, without being aware of it, she had started to see the bushes as camouflage, waiting for something to happen, the growing sense of
us
against
them
:
if you are not with us you are against us
, and she felt tired, sickened by it all.
Yet, there were few places better than this on earth. She knew, for she had wanderdust on her feet. She had travelled to the far corners of the globe with Greg before spending two years in Texas, but any other climate after this was too frigid, too calm, and the memory of Malaysia pounded hot through her blood and called her back every time.
The door to Abhik’s apartment opened with a blast of arctic air. Clearly, Abhik had also just reached home, for the sound of splashing water was loud as Agni pushed open the bedroom door.
It was one-thirty in the morning.
She crossed the tiny living room, walking over the bars of moonlight piercing the floor of the darkened kitchen. Reaching for a can of Tiger from the fridge, she drank in great gulps until the beer ran down the sides of her mouth. It had been a long day. Tomorrow was likely to be even worse.
“Thought you’d be asleep,” she said through the bathroom door. There was only the sound of splashing water in reply. She felt like rushing into the bathroom and enveloping him in a wet hug, but sank to the ground in exhaustion instead, waiting for Abhik to come out.
She took another gulp of beer. Conversation was going to be impossible for a while, so she took out a travel-sized bottle of nail polish from her purse. She was sitting on the floor painting her toenails a silvery blue, smoothing on the topcoat that glistened like her moist lips when Abhik came out, a towel draped low over his hips.
His hair was tousled and his skin glistening, damp. He towered over her anyway with his height well over six feet, and now, contorted on the floor with toes cradled in her palm, Agni had to crane her neck to meet his surprised eyes.
“Hey you,” he whispered. The tiny dimple on the left side of his mouth creased as he bent to kiss her gently. He held her for a while, breaking apart only to brush her hair away from her face. “Tough day?”
She held up the bottle of nail polish. “Colour therapy.”
He smiled at her. “You have the most beautiful feet, B.”
She smiled mischievously and pulled on his foot, still wet from the shower and sprinkled with damp hair.
“Let’s see,” she said, cradling the foot in one hand and dipping into the bottle with the other. Before he could react, Agni had slashes of bright blue on two of his toenails. “Now you have pretty feet too!”
Abhik recoiled and growled, “What are you doing, woman?” He pinned her arms behind her back, and the nail polish swirled into a mess of colour as they kissed and rolled into each other.
“Talk to me about your day,” she said later, sleepily.
Abhik burrowed his face into her neck. “As shitty as always, and getting worse. Let’s just keep my work away tonight. It’s getting ugly… to keep sane I’ve been thinking about
this
the whole day.” Nuzzling her closer, he said, “You tell me… how’s this new American professor you’ve been writing to?”
“Jay Ghosh?”
“Mmm?”
“Jealous?”
“Maybe.”
She shoved him lightly, “Shut up! He’s a friend of my mother’s. So he is practically an Uncle, yah? He’s coming to KL and I’ll let you know when he shows up.”
Abhik yawned, resting the back of his hand on his lips. “No time to socialise, B. Some of the Hindsight 2020 ringleaders are at the Detention Camp already… The princeling personally signed the detention order. They could be locked up forever without a trial, so I’m getting involved, in that legal case. Too much bullshit going on,” he kissed her mouth. “Let’s talk about something else. I want to know more about this uncle professor of yours.”
Listening to her murmuring in the dark, he did feel jealous. Jealous that Jay had known Agni’s mother, and her father, and that he might be able to put together pieces of the puzzle without which Agni felt so hollow. And he, Abhik, would never be able to do that for her, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he loved her. Abhik let her talk, without telling her that.
Agni sat up abruptly, looking at her wrist. “Oh shit! I bet my grandmother’s going nuts, and staying awake for me again.” She swiftly hopped into one leg of her jeans. “Sorry, but you know how it is. My grandmother goes totally crazy.”
Abhik caught her wrists. “Sit,” he commanded. “When do we tell everyone? About us?”
He hadn’t wanted to be the first to ask again, but it was ridiculous, her turning into a pumpkin every night at their age.
“Uhm…”
“I hate this! My family already knows, and they are delighted, so what
is
your problem?”
Agni put a placatory hand on his thick hair, brushing it down. “I need to be sure that – this will last. She’ll get excited and… it’s awkward.”
“So what do you want us to do? Sneak around like bloody teenagers?”
“No! It’s just that us, you and me, it’s what everyone really wants… It’s not like the others…” The implication hung in the air while Agni fell silent, thinking. “I tell you what – I’ll talk to her, but after Deepavali?” She thought quickly, “Maybe we should go to Redang or Tioman first, some beach somewhere, and just relax for a couple of days to be sure about what
we
want?”
Abhik walked over to his desk and took out a folder from the drawer. “This was supposed to be a surprise.”
The envelope landed near her knee. Inside were two roundtrip tickets from Kuala Lumpur to Bali.