The Minorities Read online

  The first thing we truly took in were his eyes. His left eye was a rich, deep brown, and his right was milky with cataracts. And yet he peered at us with both eyes, each one as penetrating as the other. The second thing we registered about Pakcik Dollah was his intensely deep tan. His skin was dark caramel and hinted at a long, long life toiling under the sun.

  “I’m the one who called. It is good to meet you, Pakcik Dollah,” I said, offering my hand. He tapped my open palm twice with two of his fingers. He peered into my face, smiling, studying, observing.

  I told him my name, and his feeble voice was suddenly injected with verve. “Really? I thought I’d heard everything in my life, but you people somehow find ways to surprise me.

  “How is your father? You know, Abdullah and your mother used to come by my house with baskets of fruits. One Eid, he even helped to paint my house. Then, one day, he stopped.”

  It took me several seconds to find my voice. “He has passed away, Pakcik Dollah. In October of last year.”

  Pakcik Dollah bowed his head. “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “No matter. Pakcik Dollah, these are my friends and housemates.”

  He snapped his head back up and said, “Ah yes, how rude of me.”

  “This is Cantona,” I said, putting a hand on Cantona’s shoulder.

  “Hello, Mr Dollah—”

  “It’s Pakcik Dollah,” snapped the old man, insisting particularly on the veneration.

  Cantona quickly added, “I mean Pakcik Dollah. My apologies, sir.”

  “You’re forgiven, Cantona,” returned the old man. He cocked a wrinkled head towards Cantona. “You’re very far from Bangladesh.”

  We all froze. My heart had leapt to my throat. I stammered, “How did you know?” All sorts of possibilities ran through my head, including the panic-inducing trepidation of Pakcik Dollah being in cahoots—yes, cahoots!— with the immigration authority.

  “His features are very Bangladeshi,” Pakcik Dollah said simply.

  “So…you’re a bomoh?” Shanti asked.

  “Bomoh is the closest approximation in the Malay language to what I am. In English, I guess the best term for me would be ‘supernatural logician’.”

  “Do you mean logistician?” Cantona asked.

  “Did I, in any way, say ‘logistician’?”

  “No.”

  “Then what, in the name of God’s sweet, green Terengganu, made you think that I meant logistician?”

  Cantona looked as sheepish as the Titanic, in that the Titanic was not a sheep, and Cantona appeared offended.

  “We have a…thing in our home,” Shanti said. “It floats, has sharp claws for fingernails. It looks like a woman, and it has been haunting all our dreams.”

  “So…it’s a Kardashian?” Pakcik Dollah laughed, an ancient wheezing laugh, as he slapped his thighs.

  Tights, too, laughed hard, and laughed loud.

  “Ah, he gets it!” whooped Pakcik Dollah. “What’s your name, young one?”

  “Tights,” came the proud reply. “Tights Chang.”

  “It is good to meet you, Tights,” Pakcik Dollah said, shaking his hand vigorously.

  “I’m sorry, Pakcik Dollah, but this is serious,” said Shanti, frowning. “The thing did that to his face.” She pointed at the gauze on Tights’ face.

  “Ah, my dear,” he said, his eyes twinkling from laughing too hard, “you must forgive an old man the simple pleasure of a good laugh. It has been a while.”

  While I did enjoy this effervescent old man, Shanti was right. “Pakcik Dollah, this is Shanti,” I said, finalising our introductions to remind my friends that we had an agenda.

  “The serious one,” Pakcik Dollah said, shaking her hand. “Every group needs one. The Goonies had Brandon. The Avengers had Captain America. The Men in Tights had Little John.”

  Tights was looking at the old man with an euphoric reverence bordering on worship.

  But Pakcik Dollah was still talking, and he did so while looking at Shanti in the eyes, “The serious one holds it all together, especially when the others cannot.” He then motioned us to follow him, and we obliged. He led us into his backroom, down a rickety wooden staircase and into a candlelit, smoky basement about half the size of his bookstore. The room smelled of jasmine, sandalwood, hashish and marijuana.

  In the middle of the room was an ornate table riddled with carvings of runes and indecipherable passages in Aramaic. He invited us to take a seat on the plush ottomans surrounding the table. Pakcik Dollah took his at the head of the table.

  “Would you like to partake in the spiritual fumes?” he asked us.

  I wanted to say yes, and I think Shanti knew, for she shot me a look that could very well be weaponised.

  “No, Pakcik Dollah.”

  “Straight to business, then.” He took in a deep breath—in the candlelight, the wrinkles and liver spots on his skin disappeared into the shadows, and he looked absolutely ghastly. He beckoned for Tights to come nearer.

  Tights got off his ottoman and knelt next to Pakcik Dollah. The old man peeled off the gauze on Tights’ face and studied the scratches underneath.

  “This will heal in time,” Pakcik Dollah said with a smile that danced with the shadows. He then turned to all of us. “From what you’ve told me, you’re being haunted by a pontianak.”

  “What’s a poon-tee-ya-narc?” Cantona asked.

  “It’s the ghost of a woman who died during childbirth,” I replied.

  Pakcik Dollah nodded solemnly. “When the pontianak’s covenant was written, it was a much simpler time. Women weren’t thought to possess personal motivation beyond reproduction and procreation. At about the same time, hantu teteks were called into being as well.”

  “What’s a hantu take-take?” Cantona, again, asked.

  “Hantu tetek,” Pakcik Dollah clarified. “It translates to ‘breast ghost’. What it is, essentially, is a floating pair of enormous boobs that would go around and suffocate young men who stray at night.”

  Cantona chuckled. “Then, I want to stray at night.” We laughed. Shanti did not. When Cantona saw this, he, too, stopped laughing, and looked absolutely horrified at his own joke.

  “Let’s save your fantasies for another time,” Shanti said testily. “What we need to know is how dangerous it is, and how we can stop it.”

  “Does it eat flesh?” I asked, a dozen vampire movies playing in my head. “Or drink blood?”

  “Most pontianaks do eat human flesh, but you have some who nourish themselves with animal blood and meat. This one, obviously, prefers animals.”

  “How do you know that?” Shanti asked.

  “Simple,” replied Pakcik Dollah. “None of you have chunks of flesh missing. If this one liked the taste of human flesh, you would be here much sooner, possibly with fewer limbs. It is, nevertheless, a sinister entity haunting you. It might not have a taste for flesh, but that does not make it any less dangerous than other pontianaks.”

  “How do we stop it?” Cantona asked.

  “You just have to forcefully tell it to leave,” said Pakcik Dollah wisely.

  “Just that?” I asked. “There are no spells or magic-imbued daggers or rituals that we need to perform? We just forcefully tell it to leave?”

  “Yes, forcefully. If you waver, it will take advantage of your weakness. Pontianaks aren’t just there to scare you. They gain power from your fear. But words have power as well. And the right words said in the right manner can drive the pontianak away.” The older man got up. “Remember, dengan semangat. Forcefully.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Are you questioning me, boy?” asked Pakcik Dollah, irritation seeping into his voice.

  I looked into his good eye. “Yes, I am.”

  Shanti quickly interjected, “No, he’s not questioning you.” I turned to face her, and, with the slightest furrow of her brows, she shut me up. “We’re just making sure, Pakcik Dollah. This pontianak has given us quite a few problems.”
/>   “And she will continue to do so. That is what pontianaks do.” Pakcik Dollah peered directly at me with his good eye. “There’s a reason she’s haunting you. Pontianaks are discerning about where and why they haunt. Can you think of any?”

  Shanti replied, “That’s what I wanted to find out too! We have given her no reason to haunt our place.”

  Something clicked in my head—something that spoke in the voice of Suleiman the gardener-custodian. I looked at Tights.

  “Would bothering her place of rest be enough of a reason for her to haunt us?” I asked.

  “Yes, but it depends on how you ‘bothered’ her place of rest.”

  Tights bowed his head and spoke softly. “I let out bad at her house. So, she haunt our house.”

  There was a heavy pause. Shanti glared daggers at me, seeing that Tights’ confession did not surprise me. Cantona shook his head, his heavy breathing suggesting a suppressed anger towards Tights.

  Pakcik Dollah was the first to speak. “What does he mean by ‘let out bad’?”

  Cantona replied in an uneven voice, “He fucking took a shit in public—he does this all the time! Where did you do it this time, Tights?”

  “In the garden next to our block,” I said. “Calm down, Cantona.”

  “There can be no bad juju in the hashish room!” cried Pakcik Dollah.

  Cantona did not say anything further. Tights, seated opposite Cantona, looked abjectly forlorn, and I knew he had assumed that his issues with Cantona, while not fully resolved, had at the very least improved.

  “Sorry,” Tights said softly.

  Pakcik Dollah said, “It doesn’t matter what Tights did. What matters now is that you show the pontianak that the four of you are masters of your own home. Tell it to stop.” He added in Malay, “Dengan semangat.”

  “Forcefully,” I translated for my friends.

  “Will you come with us, Pakcik Dollah?” Shanti asked. “We need all the help we can get.”

  “I would love to, dear Shanti,” he said, “but I have a school to run.”

  I looked around the room, looking for signs that betrayed his job as a teacher, school administrator or principal. There were none. I then wondered if the effects of stale marijuana fumes work faster on an old man. I wanted to ask him to clarify, but I felt it would trouble him.

  “Is there anything else we need to know?” I asked him.

  “Pontianaks can assume human form, too,” said Pakcik Dollah. “So don’t be fooled if you’re visited upon by an attractive young lady in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh no, I definitely wouldn’t,” I said to him, contemplating the fact that I hadn’t had a girlfriend in years.

  We left the bookstore feeling like we had learned absolutely nothing from Pakcik Dollah.

  “We have to try it anyway,” Shanti was saying as we made our way back to the carpark.

  “What, shouting forcefully at a supernatural entity?” I asked sardonically.

  “Yes!”

  “What if not work?” Tights asked.

  “Well, it hasn’t killed us yet. It had plenty of opportunities to,” Cantona pointed out. “If it doesn’t work, then, well, we go back to the old man.”

  I sighed. “No harm trying, I guess.”

  I corrected myself silently. There was harm in trying. I had tried to bring two whores back home to lure my father from the realm of the dead to haunt his old flat, but he never appeared. I had visited two investment companies with the hopes of bringing enough money to continue harbouring my friends, but both had rejected me emphatically. When one tried and failed as I did, there was harm in trying.

  Upon reaching the carpark, I pulled Shanti aside. “Listen,” I said to her, “can you take the rest home? There’s someone else I need to see.” I took her hand and placed my mother’s car keys in her palm.

  She opened her mouth to ask, but I quickly added, “Don’t ask.”

  The taxi dropped me, took my fare and sped away. Flanking the road where I now stood alone were rows upon rows of tombstones. It was a familiar view, but one that I had not beheld for a few months. There was pain in the tombstones, monolithic, eternal reminders that so-and-so whose name was etched forever in stone could no longer affect the clockwork progression of the world.

  I walked past names I’ve read many times before, past the decaying acacia tree with the singular termite-infested branch that pointed the way for me. I walked on, and the tombstones became fresher, cleaner. They had yet to know the full might of the elements, and they stood proud. “I am a new member among the ranks of the dead,” they seemed to shout, “and you will know my name for it!”

  And then I reached it—the marble plot I had only ever seen once before.

  The name, Abdullah bin Sujakon, was engraved in gold under an intricate carving of the Al-Fatihah in Arabic calligraphy.

  I spoke, and my words echoed loud and deep into the depths of that marble plot. “Fuck you,” I intoned. “Fuck you. You said you would come back if I brought home whores, you lying fuck. I did. I brought home two! Two! Two prostitutes, just prancing around in the flat you love so much. You know what? Stay the fuck down there. Stay there, where it’s dark and dirty and you can’t make promises you can’t fucking keep.”

  The marble replied with the stoic, stony silence of marble.

  “Why do you always do this to me? Why do you always treat me like I’m some abnormal thing? Is it because when I was eighteen I brought that girl with the tattoos home? Is it because when I was fourteen I drove your car into a ditch? Is it because when I was eleven I refused to do my homework because it asked stupid questions? Is it because when I was eight I drew you and Ma kissing, and that offended your fragile fucking sensibilities? Is it because I was born to a Jewish woman? Is it because I was even fucking born?”

  I wiped at the wetness building in my eyes and down my cheek.

  “I’ve seen how good you were to Uncle Jun and Pakcik Dollah. Why not me?” I was screaming now. “Why not me? I am your son! Your own fucking son! Why not me? Why have you never loved me?”

  “Ahem,” came a voice behind me.

  I turned, and my rage spiralled rapidly into embarrassment. The man before me was wearing an immaculately-pressed white shirt, its sleeves neatly folded to above his elbow, and well-fitted black slacks. His hands were clasped, and tucked under his arms were a clipboard and a manila folder. A leather nametag holder hung from his neck, and I could make out the monogram of the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority embroidered on it. I did not know how much of my bitter monologue he had heard.

  I, too, cleared my throat and stuck out my hand towards the officer. “Hello, officer.”

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said in a deep, authoritative voice. He was a taller man, such that it felt like he was reaching down when we shook hands. His grasp was firm, unwavering despite the exertion. “I’m Superintendent Jared Lee.” He turned his nametag with his other hand to reveal his ICA ID. His credentials checked out.

  When I got my hand back, it was regaining colour.

  “There has been a breakout,” he continued, “from a construction firm called Chang and Sons. Some of the foreign workers who worked there have escaped and were spotted in the jungles around this graveyard.” I noticed now that he had a few colleagues patrolling the place. Some were being pulled by leashed police dogs. Three squad cars and a sleek black Audi were parked along the road, farther down from where my taxi had dropped me. Superintendent Jared Lee seemed to be the kind of officer who would drive that black Audi.

  “Isn’t the term ‘breakout’ reserved for prisons?” I asked him. My right hand had begun to quiver at the mention of Chang and Sons. “Or pimples?”

  He made no sign of having heard what I had said. Instead, he pulled out several photos from the manila folder. “Have you seen any of these men, on your way here or on a previous visit?”

  “What makes you think I’ve been here recently enough to have seen any of these men?”

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sp; He pointed at the tombstone behind me. “That man—I’m assuming he’s your father—died not too long ago.” He kept showing me more faces—the count for workers who have escaped Chang and Sons numbered six now. “All of these undesirables,” he explained, still going through profile after profile, “have escaped over the span of six months.”

  Photo No. 17 forced me to put my right hand into my pocket. It showed Cantona, his large eyes appearing to bulge out of the picture, his abundant lips parting in a stiff smile, his wild, jet-black hair hiding under a construction hardhat.

  I forced a chuckle. “You know, officer, maybe you should investigate Chang and Sons for forcing so many of their workers to run instead of chasing immigrants who are just trying to find better living and working conditions outside the company.”

  Jared tucked the photos under his armpits and looked at me square in the eye. “Chang and Sons,” he said severely, “have been in business for twenty years. They are run by good, tax-paying Singaporean sons. They are not filthy immigrants who were given the opportunity to work here—only to bite the hand that feeds them. They come to our country out of the goodwill presented to them by the likes of Chang and Sons, and this is how they show their appreciation.”

  I said nothing.

  Jared showed me seven more photos, after which I told him, “I do not recognise any of these people, sir.”

  “Well, if you do, please give me a call.” Sure enough, he passed me a name card. It was my long-held theory that at least 20 per cent of police training came from cop show clichés.

  Shanti, Cantona and Tights were sitting in the living room when I got home, their expressions solemn. When I told them about my encounter with Superintendent Lee, they buried their solemnity. Their expressions were now grave.

  “Well, one problem at a time,” I said. “Let’s try to get rid of this pontianak.”

  “Do we just wait for it to appear?” asked Cantona. “Or do we just start shouting?”

  I recommended the most logical—as much as logic can preside in a situation like this—approach, which was to try shouting while we waited for the thing to appear.